catsuit. fruit.

"see something you liiiiiiiike?"  brian tristan purrrred to me from the merchandise table.  i fought the urge to squeal "i love you kid congo powers!".... i'm cool.

the word that keeps coming to mind when i reflect on this show is seamless.  it was difficult to distinguish sound check from set.   absolute bliss.  

"check one.  check one."

"catsuit.  fruit"  

and off he drove through the best hour and a half of music i've experienced in some time.  imagine a beat poet backed up by psychedelic surfer music...moaning guitars, pounding bass.  

the timeless alternative style of his ramshackle, attitude-ridden tracks felt eternally vital, from the wailing guitar and battering drums of Black Santa to the gear-grinding surf instrumental i'm cramped, a tribute to the late cramps founder lux interior.

Phenomenal Woman

This weekend I read "Letters To My Daughter" by the incomparable Maya Angelou, which led me to revisit an old favorite...


Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

what's in store for me in the direction i don't take (j.k.)

it was bound to happen sooner or later, the teenager is graduating from high school.  this right of passage, symbolizing adulthood...

my graduation from high school was quite different...pregnant with the now teenager that i referred to above.  my path was set.  i looked for the college education that would provide the shortest route to make a viable income.  gone were dreams of music, art, advocacy...those dreams were frivolous, not afforded to a pregnant teenager from rural southern illinois.

as i look at my daughter, i see the hundreds of paths surrounding her.  which one(s) will she choose?  she's always been the child standing to the left of all the others her age.  quite shy in her earliest years,  it didn't take long for it to become evident that she did not necessarily desire to lead, but would not follow.

i am filled with hope...and much pride.

anxiously awaiting the next chapter in her book.

you been runnin' all over town now, i guess i have to put your flat feet on the ground

four score...and several years ago... after declaring my independence from the patriarchy,  i bought myself a gift.  the gift of a new to me silver mustang convertible.  i know what you're thinking...how cliche...how passe...  wrong.  it was sassy, within my budget and easily financed.  oh fine. it was cliche.  but how i fell in love with that car.

now here i am, all these years later, same car.  

she's moved to boston and back.  survived teenagers learning to drive.  hauled furniture, lawnmowers, christmas trees and bushels of recycling. the headlamps are so dim, that i leave them on bright.  her roof leaks and she's starting to rust.  at times it's nearly impossible to get the hood up.  the cassette player still works.  

with a daily commute of nearly two hours and beyond high mileage, i occasionally consider buying another car.  i probably need to buy another car.  but i can't bring myself to do it.  is it the drag of having a car payment, problem with commitment, loyalty?  maybe.  or maybe i identify with my car.

and she's never left me stranded.  

four days of nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere

the little company that employs me is being eaten by a big fish, effective today.  my boss encouraged a four day sabbatical, which seemed like a good idea, until she actually enforced the sabbatical, discouraging me from working from home as well.  here i am, day four, sanity intact.  i could have used this time to complete some 'round the house tasks, but...nah.  i have used these four days to read, listen to music, enjoy the weather, play with my seedling plants, nap and watch movies.  yep...that about covers it.  the beau and i enjoyed a sushi and cocktail happy hour, did a little junk browsing, attended the record collector's show and took a walk around gorgeous tower grove park.  i cooked a few meals...a rare, but treasured happening.  we burned up netflix, knocking out several seasons of the twilight zone as well as multiple documentaries - i like killing flies, following sean, the atheism tapes, when you're strange and an encore viewing of marwencol.  it all wraps up with garbage television tonight.  tomorrow morning i'm off to the first of two days in big fish training.

here lie the records that she scratched

today i had some errands to run on my way to work, which were not at all in close proximity to the record store, but naturally, that's where i ended up.  record stores rank right up there with used book stores for me.  all that history, emotion.  holding an album that undoubtedly molded someone's personality and ultimately, their life, in some way.  i rarely know what i'm looking for, i just pilfer the shelves and rows until i find something that i cannot live without.  today was different.  with the upcoming elvis costello show, i was in need of a fix.  i enjoy a great deal of music on my daily commute, so something in cd format was in order.   i settled on a "best of".  but i was unable to resist grabbing a vinyl while in the neighborhood, so i ended up with a used copy of spike.  probably not a great idea, since i had to suffer through the rest of my workday before racing home to give it a spin.  ah...veronica.  sigh...tramp the dirt down.  let him dangle.  and so on...and so on.

on books

i enjoy reading nonfiction.  autobiographical, biographical.  political, sociological.  satire, comedy.  volumes of assorted essays.  memoirs.

is reading still escapism when what you're reading is true?

i adore library books, but don't like to give them back.  whenever i can find a library binding it's a win.   i only buy used.  something about the history of the book.  finding notes in the margins, old bookmarks.  it's like treasure.
ordinarily i keep them hidden in my room, closet.  under the bed.  on the nightstand.  next to the nightstand.  today i decided i would move them out to the built in bookshelves in the living room...as someone must have intended.  i stood back after i straightened them, surveying my work.  i wonder what someone's book collection says about them.  if you can analyse a personality through handwriting, surely you can get a good glimpse by what they read...and hang on to.

it was at this point i noted the amount of self improvement books that i own.

maybe they don't all belong in the living room.  surely some are better suited to the closet, night stand, under the bed.