Monday, December 29, 2008
Loose Ends
I really dropped the ball on documenting my LRC experience. It was so wonderful, awesome, and life-changing that I felt like I needed time to write it out and do it justice, but there just wasn't time. As soon as I got back, I was off and running with a semester that had already started and trying to secure my internship for this past fall. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel: no more school, just putting back the pieces of my life. It may be too late to revisit last spring's adventure. Maybe not. But if it is, I still have the friends I've made, the photos, souvenirs (a really cool DVD of all the bands and my LRC guitar picks :), and who knows, I'm thinking about going again in 2009. Maybe I'll do a better job at documenting. Maybe not!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Two weeks and counting...
So much for the vlog idea. I did ramble out a bit about LRC but there's just not been any time to edit it. Summer Semester is in full swing, and I am working hard to gain some slack so that my weekend away does not cause too much hardship.
Anyway, it's two weeks--no, less than two weeks--until Rock Camp is in session. My official letter arrived right on time. Here's the skinny:
1. I got my instrument assignment: bass guitar
2. The public showcase will be held at the Satyricon. I'll be playing the same scrungy stage which once held the likes of Nirvana and countless other grunge, punk, metal bands. I last saw a band called the American Girls there. True, the original Satyricon closed down a few years ago and was reopened to be an all ages venue, but still...it's the same stage! And, yes, I realize that I knew this and posted about it on my first update. It's excitin'!
3. I've got my room reservations. Decided to go for inexpensive and convenient rather than cooler and further away. I'll have wifi, at at least. Taking advantage of the daily shuttle so I don't have to navigate.
4. I've pre-ordered my official LRC t-shirt. I am a geek.
5. After reading this blog post by an LRC 2007 alumnus and discovering both a Flickr pool and some youtube evidence of previous sessions, I am much more excited than I am scared.
Anyway, it's two weeks--no, less than two weeks--until Rock Camp is in session. My official letter arrived right on time. Here's the skinny:
1. I got my instrument assignment: bass guitar
2. The public showcase will be held at the Satyricon. I'll be playing the same scrungy stage which once held the likes of Nirvana and countless other grunge, punk, metal bands. I last saw a band called the American Girls there. True, the original Satyricon closed down a few years ago and was reopened to be an all ages venue, but still...it's the same stage! And, yes, I realize that I knew this and posted about it on my first update. It's excitin'!
3. I've got my room reservations. Decided to go for inexpensive and convenient rather than cooler and further away. I'll have wifi, at at least. Taking advantage of the daily shuttle so I don't have to navigate.
4. I've pre-ordered my official LRC t-shirt. I am a geek.
5. After reading this blog post by an LRC 2007 alumnus and discovering both a Flickr pool and some youtube evidence of previous sessions, I am much more excited than I am scared.
I'm still kind of scared, though.
Oh, and since the big 4-Oh! probably had no small part in this whole adventure, I can officially say that, as of Friday, I am 40 years old. Hard to wrap my mind around that one, but I've decided that I really don't need to try. I mean, really, aside from the physical slide down the other side of the mountain, it doesn't mean all that much in my world.
So, there will probably be a bit more news between now and when I leave on the 29th. I'm hoping that school stuff will fall in place and that a weekend off won't put me too far behind. I still haven't put a whole lot of thought into what I'm going to be wearing for the showcase. I want to dress up, but how dressed up depends on how hot it is going to be. Also, it seems like most women were just in their jeans and black t-shirts...
Still I'm playing with these options:
Boots--either the knee-high lace up caterpillars, or the red LeVoodoo "combat" Docs.
Space-dyed tights, colorway: Moonrock (if it's not 90 degrees out)
Short black skirt and t-shirt ('punk rock saved my life', 'you are here' gears ringer, or something black)
or
Funky short dress (one that I still own but never really wear)
or
Something else even cooler that I have yet to think of.
Bowler?
Basically, the aim is basic, comfortable, a little retro perhaps. I'm going to be nervous enough without trying to look like someone I am not. Just want to let my own "freak flag" fly free.
Until next time--it's back to homework for me.
So, there will probably be a bit more news between now and when I leave on the 29th. I'm hoping that school stuff will fall in place and that a weekend off won't put me too far behind. I still haven't put a whole lot of thought into what I'm going to be wearing for the showcase. I want to dress up, but how dressed up depends on how hot it is going to be. Also, it seems like most women were just in their jeans and black t-shirts...
Still I'm playing with these options:
Boots--either the knee-high lace up caterpillars, or the red LeVoodoo "combat" Docs.
Space-dyed tights, colorway: Moonrock (if it's not 90 degrees out)
Short black skirt and t-shirt ('punk rock saved my life', 'you are here' gears ringer, or something black)
or
Funky short dress (one that I still own but never really wear)
or
Something else even cooler that I have yet to think of.
Bowler?
Basically, the aim is basic, comfortable, a little retro perhaps. I'm going to be nervous enough without trying to look like someone I am not. Just want to let my own "freak flag" fly free.
Until next time--it's back to homework for me.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Ladies Rock Camp: Counting Down, 30 Days
First, Background:
Okay, I'll admit it, if it is not already obvious. I'm an introvert. My self-esteem is often quite fragile. I carry around a LOT of baggage, and it is most burdensome when I find myself in new and uncomfortable situations. That's where the play button gets pushed and the old tapes, recorded between the ages of 7 and 17, begin to play. Which is why, generally, I've tended to stay within my comfort zone. It's easy, of course, in the past few years, to blame it on school. I have no time to do these things that interest me, get involved, that is very true. But I have had this sneaking fear that I'm using that excuse to slip further back into my shell...
...on the other hand, I'm turning 40. Very Soon. I'm not sure how I feel about that, yet. Mostly positive, and the positive comes from a realization of my own internal locus of control and also of finite time. It's this realization that's exerting an opposite pull, to come out of the old shell, ignore what I think people think, how I look...ignore the fear.
Back in January, with both 40 and graduation looming in 2008, I signed up for Ladies Rock Camp, a weekend event to benefit the Rock Camp for Girls. The Girls Rock Camp has operated out of Portland, OR, for several years now. There are now camps sprouting in other cities around the country, as well as a few outside of the States. The week-long camp takes girls between the ages of 10 and 17, teaches them to play an instrument, has them form bands, write an original song, practice, ending with a showcase event at the end of where all the bands perform their songs. From the Girls Rock Camp website:
"We want to eradicate all the limiting myths about music and gender that make girls afraid to speak up, sing out, and make noise. We want to abolish all the obsolete traditions that restrict many girls' and women's free musical expression and obstruct their access to the world of music. We seek to demonstrate—through lessons, mentorship, positive examples, and the shared experiences of the staff and volunteers—that every genre of music from the heaviest to the most delicate, and every technical job and creative endeavor in the music industry, is available to any girl or woman who wants to explore it."
It's more than about music, but it centers on music. When I first heard of this, I thought how awesome! And then I thought, I wish I had something like this when I was kid. Then I read a year or so ago about how they had done a Ladies Rock Camp weekend open to women 19 and over to raise funds for the Girls Camp, and I thought, well, I wish I'd known about that! I'd have signed up for sure!
In January, news about the Girls Rock Camp documentary had me looking around their website. Lo and behold, there was sign-up information about three sessions of the Ladies Rock Camp happening in O8. My excitement exceeded my trepidation (the sessions were months into the future, which helped). It felt sort of like fate, and...I was already shelling out a huge amount of money for spring tuition, what would a few hundred more dollars do, especially if it would go to a worthy cause?
This is where I am today: I'm signed up for camp at the end of May. I think I'm going to be playing either bass or keyboards (because I have no musical experience whatsoever, it was all pretty much a crap shoot, which is why I can't remember the order of my first and second choices. The old tapes did pipe in a bit, because really I think it would be cool to play lead guitar, but honestly? I have doubts about how much the camp can really accomplish in two days--I fully expect to learn something but I also expect to look ridiculous at some point, maybe several points--and I guess I'd rather be slightly less conspicuous about it. Maybe I should have chosen drums? I just don't know..!). I know what the schedule looks like, and I now know that the Showcase will be held at the Satyricon which excites me no end. In days of yore, the Satyricon was a punk institution--I've seen shows there myself. The club was the site, supposedly, of Nirvana's first paying gig.
I should be hearing from them any day now, to get the detailed information in advance of the camp (actually, while this post has been sitting in draft limbo for finals week, the LETTER arrived, but I'm going to make that another post). I'd like to document it all somehow, but I'm not sure, with school and all, how thinly stretched I'll be over the next few weeks. At the very least, though, I'll try to keep up with this blog, try to do a few pictures and perhaps some video to go with. We'll see. For now, the countdown has begun: 30 days.
Okay, I'll admit it, if it is not already obvious. I'm an introvert. My self-esteem is often quite fragile. I carry around a LOT of baggage, and it is most burdensome when I find myself in new and uncomfortable situations. That's where the play button gets pushed and the old tapes, recorded between the ages of 7 and 17, begin to play. Which is why, generally, I've tended to stay within my comfort zone. It's easy, of course, in the past few years, to blame it on school. I have no time to do these things that interest me, get involved, that is very true. But I have had this sneaking fear that I'm using that excuse to slip further back into my shell...
...on the other hand, I'm turning 40. Very Soon. I'm not sure how I feel about that, yet. Mostly positive, and the positive comes from a realization of my own internal locus of control and also of finite time. It's this realization that's exerting an opposite pull, to come out of the old shell, ignore what I think people think, how I look...ignore the fear.
Back in January, with both 40 and graduation looming in 2008, I signed up for Ladies Rock Camp, a weekend event to benefit the Rock Camp for Girls. The Girls Rock Camp has operated out of Portland, OR, for several years now. There are now camps sprouting in other cities around the country, as well as a few outside of the States. The week-long camp takes girls between the ages of 10 and 17, teaches them to play an instrument, has them form bands, write an original song, practice, ending with a showcase event at the end of where all the bands perform their songs. From the Girls Rock Camp website:
"We want to eradicate all the limiting myths about music and gender that make girls afraid to speak up, sing out, and make noise. We want to abolish all the obsolete traditions that restrict many girls' and women's free musical expression and obstruct their access to the world of music. We seek to demonstrate—through lessons, mentorship, positive examples, and the shared experiences of the staff and volunteers—that every genre of music from the heaviest to the most delicate, and every technical job and creative endeavor in the music industry, is available to any girl or woman who wants to explore it."
It's more than about music, but it centers on music. When I first heard of this, I thought how awesome! And then I thought, I wish I had something like this when I was kid. Then I read a year or so ago about how they had done a Ladies Rock Camp weekend open to women 19 and over to raise funds for the Girls Camp, and I thought, well, I wish I'd known about that! I'd have signed up for sure!
In January, news about the Girls Rock Camp documentary had me looking around their website. Lo and behold, there was sign-up information about three sessions of the Ladies Rock Camp happening in O8. My excitement exceeded my trepidation (the sessions were months into the future, which helped). It felt sort of like fate, and...I was already shelling out a huge amount of money for spring tuition, what would a few hundred more dollars do, especially if it would go to a worthy cause?
This is where I am today: I'm signed up for camp at the end of May. I think I'm going to be playing either bass or keyboards (because I have no musical experience whatsoever, it was all pretty much a crap shoot, which is why I can't remember the order of my first and second choices. The old tapes did pipe in a bit, because really I think it would be cool to play lead guitar, but honestly? I have doubts about how much the camp can really accomplish in two days--I fully expect to learn something but I also expect to look ridiculous at some point, maybe several points--and I guess I'd rather be slightly less conspicuous about it. Maybe I should have chosen drums? I just don't know..!). I know what the schedule looks like, and I now know that the Showcase will be held at the Satyricon which excites me no end. In days of yore, the Satyricon was a punk institution--I've seen shows there myself. The club was the site, supposedly, of Nirvana's first paying gig.
I should be hearing from them any day now, to get the detailed information in advance of the camp (actually, while this post has been sitting in draft limbo for finals week, the LETTER arrived, but I'm going to make that another post). I'd like to document it all somehow, but I'm not sure, with school and all, how thinly stretched I'll be over the next few weeks. At the very least, though, I'll try to keep up with this blog, try to do a few pictures and perhaps some video to go with. We'll see. For now, the countdown has begun: 30 days.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Anticipating...what?
New beginnings perhaps. Being so close to the end, I find it difficult to be patient. My mind is chaotic with all these possibilities of what I might do when my time, energy, and finances are no longer tied up with school.
I might...
travel
build things
create
activate
Thinking:
My degree won't change my career. I like the library, like that I am surrounded by books and get to play with technology. The degree will allow me to step up a rung perhaps, but the information I'm gaining...it's for me, really. It's an attempt to gather tools to engage, make a difference if it's possible in those areas that matter to me: poverty & diversity
I'm going to need to rediscover those things that were important to me before I started all this, the interests and hobbies. Cooking real food, tending plants, reading books just for the pleasure of them. Technology: Feeling inspired to build things, mix art and technology. My thinking's been so narrow, that if I can't draw (and in all honesty I can't) I can never really be creative.
I might...
travel
build things
create
activate
Thinking:
My degree won't change my career. I like the library, like that I am surrounded by books and get to play with technology. The degree will allow me to step up a rung perhaps, but the information I'm gaining...it's for me, really. It's an attempt to gather tools to engage, make a difference if it's possible in those areas that matter to me: poverty & diversity
I'm going to need to rediscover those things that were important to me before I started all this, the interests and hobbies. Cooking real food, tending plants, reading books just for the pleasure of them. Technology: Feeling inspired to build things, mix art and technology. My thinking's been so narrow, that if I can't draw (and in all honesty I can't) I can never really be creative.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Hiatus
This blog is currently taking yet another break while its owner determines a reason for its existence.
About three years ago, I made the hare-brained decision to go back to school. Through the years, I've accumulated a large number of credits, in quantity probably enough by now to have earned at least one advanced degree, but not the proper combination. It's a jumble of credits: art, science, technology, even some Japanese. Apparently I am indecisive and wary of commitment.
It makes an odd sort of sense that the twisty path would somehow lead me to a full-time position working for a public library. I'm a library assistant, hired out away from the City's I.T. department for my computer support/web skills. Everything was fine, is fine, and most likely I could do okay without a degree and retire someday as a municipal employee, maybe even bump up a level, but something really bothers me about not having a degree, and I don't know why. I admire those people who have direction, whether they have a formal education or not. Maybe I just need direction, and, lacking that, a degree, an accomplishment, is the next best thing?
Today, along with the library job, I'm enrolled half-time at the land grant university I'd enrolled in full-time just before the library hired me, although this time instead of commuting south, I'm attending at a distance. I think time-wise it works out to about the same. The commute time turns into a lot more reading time, interacting with the instructor and other students. There's no sitting in the back of the class, passively absorbing here: participation is a major part of the curriculum. To be sure, I feel as though the online courses change me just as much if not more than the traditional classroom offerings, although at times I really miss the human face-to-face interaction.
I spend so much of my time outside of work now reading for classes and writing for classes that it really feels like my brain is overflowing. By the end of a semester, I have a hard time forming cohesive sentences. The stuff that falls out is the surface, day to day stuff. The intelligent stuff is buried somewhere, or turned in to be graded. I cannot think beyond what I did, what I'm doing, what's coming next. I'd created this blog with the intent of a theme, but it has yet to come to me. My 5 year old LiveJournal account has become the site of this brain dump. It's not quite to the point where I discuss my breakfast, but it's an airing out of all the cobwebs, pretty formless, pretty random. There is otherwise no room to move around my head, to have a creative notion, feel inspired.
I'll graduate in December 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology/Human Development. I don't believe I will leave the library, but the education is giving me knowledge and skills that I'm hoping will help me make a difference, in issues of diversity, poverty, and human welfare in my community and beyond. While I'm incredibly fascinated by all the knowledge I'm gaining (very few classes have felt even remotely tedious), the all work and little play thing has very much been wearing on me. The human connections, while never massive, have dwindled, and a few very important ones are becoming increasingly strained. I feel like that kid stuck inside learning the violin while all the other kids are outside playing in the sprinkler. I willingly made this choice, and I'll see it through because I truly feel it will be worth it in the end, but god I'm exhausted, and I'm lonely, and it's going to be a long, long winter.
Perhaps, when I come back, all edumacated, with the free time to cook and create and read and travel again, this blog will have some sort of a purpose. 'Til then, I'm trimming back, shunting my resources. I can be found at Flickr (link over there somewhere to the right, I believe), and, if you're up for inane babble, at the LJ link above. Happy 2008!
About three years ago, I made the hare-brained decision to go back to school. Through the years, I've accumulated a large number of credits, in quantity probably enough by now to have earned at least one advanced degree, but not the proper combination. It's a jumble of credits: art, science, technology, even some Japanese. Apparently I am indecisive and wary of commitment.
It makes an odd sort of sense that the twisty path would somehow lead me to a full-time position working for a public library. I'm a library assistant, hired out away from the City's I.T. department for my computer support/web skills. Everything was fine, is fine, and most likely I could do okay without a degree and retire someday as a municipal employee, maybe even bump up a level, but something really bothers me about not having a degree, and I don't know why. I admire those people who have direction, whether they have a formal education or not. Maybe I just need direction, and, lacking that, a degree, an accomplishment, is the next best thing?
Today, along with the library job, I'm enrolled half-time at the land grant university I'd enrolled in full-time just before the library hired me, although this time instead of commuting south, I'm attending at a distance. I think time-wise it works out to about the same. The commute time turns into a lot more reading time, interacting with the instructor and other students. There's no sitting in the back of the class, passively absorbing here: participation is a major part of the curriculum. To be sure, I feel as though the online courses change me just as much if not more than the traditional classroom offerings, although at times I really miss the human face-to-face interaction.
I spend so much of my time outside of work now reading for classes and writing for classes that it really feels like my brain is overflowing. By the end of a semester, I have a hard time forming cohesive sentences. The stuff that falls out is the surface, day to day stuff. The intelligent stuff is buried somewhere, or turned in to be graded. I cannot think beyond what I did, what I'm doing, what's coming next. I'd created this blog with the intent of a theme, but it has yet to come to me. My 5 year old LiveJournal account has become the site of this brain dump. It's not quite to the point where I discuss my breakfast, but it's an airing out of all the cobwebs, pretty formless, pretty random. There is otherwise no room to move around my head, to have a creative notion, feel inspired.
I'll graduate in December 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology/Human Development. I don't believe I will leave the library, but the education is giving me knowledge and skills that I'm hoping will help me make a difference, in issues of diversity, poverty, and human welfare in my community and beyond. While I'm incredibly fascinated by all the knowledge I'm gaining (very few classes have felt even remotely tedious), the all work and little play thing has very much been wearing on me. The human connections, while never massive, have dwindled, and a few very important ones are becoming increasingly strained. I feel like that kid stuck inside learning the violin while all the other kids are outside playing in the sprinkler. I willingly made this choice, and I'll see it through because I truly feel it will be worth it in the end, but god I'm exhausted, and I'm lonely, and it's going to be a long, long winter.
Perhaps, when I come back, all edumacated, with the free time to cook and create and read and travel again, this blog will have some sort of a purpose. 'Til then, I'm trimming back, shunting my resources. I can be found at Flickr (link over there somewhere to the right, I believe), and, if you're up for inane babble, at the LJ link above. Happy 2008!
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Crickets, Spiders, and allergies. Oh, my!
Yes, it's that time of year again. A walk outside gets you a face full of web, the hobo spiders look menacing (because the ARE) in the garage, the crickets twiddle their knees and try to drown out the howl of the freeway, and I'm a prickly pile of sneezes and sniffles. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Truly, fall is a favorite time. I feel recharged...I want to make the most of these last days of sun and warmth. Everything's golden. I just wish I wasn't in school, so that I had time to make use of the physical energy. And that I could breathe.
The season and a video I saw on Running Commentary a few days ago made me think of the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. In this age of high technology, there's something comforting about machinery that I can easily understand. The grist mill is maintained by a non-profit group, kept operational by volunteers and donations. Visit on the weekends, and you'll see the mill in action, grinding wheat and corn into flours, scooped into brown paper bags for visitors to take home. The last Saturday in October, a apple presses are brought out and 4 tons of apples are pressed into cider. Volunteers wanted! I think I might sign up.
It's funny because even though I've been there before, I pictured the mill with the classic wooden water wheel, but at the time the mill was made, the advantages of iron turbines over wooden wheels was well established. So...no water wheel, but still quite impressive, especially as the pulleys and leather belts get going.
Random things seen today:
Hula girl swaying on the dashboard of a convertible Geo Metro.
Young woman with a Holga at a grist mill.
Recent Addictions:
Harbo Gummi Bears*, Twitter, Odwalla Quencher Summertime Lime Limeade!
Must do:
Lop my hair. Call about volunteering for next feral cat clinic. Gather info for research paper topic: relationship of child abuse and animal/pet abuse.
Listening to:
Morphine, Cure for Pain
*Where can one find the gummi bears (Ya?) that were used in Hedwig & the Angry Inch?
The season and a video I saw on Running Commentary a few days ago made me think of the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. In this age of high technology, there's something comforting about machinery that I can easily understand. The grist mill is maintained by a non-profit group, kept operational by volunteers and donations. Visit on the weekends, and you'll see the mill in action, grinding wheat and corn into flours, scooped into brown paper bags for visitors to take home. The last Saturday in October, a apple presses are brought out and 4 tons of apples are pressed into cider. Volunteers wanted! I think I might sign up.
It's funny because even though I've been there before, I pictured the mill with the classic wooden water wheel, but at the time the mill was made, the advantages of iron turbines over wooden wheels was well established. So...no water wheel, but still quite impressive, especially as the pulleys and leather belts get going.
Random things seen today:
Hula girl swaying on the dashboard of a convertible Geo Metro.
Young woman with a Holga at a grist mill.
Recent Addictions:
Harbo Gummi Bears*, Twitter, Odwalla Quencher Summertime Lime Limeade!
Must do:
Lop my hair. Call about volunteering for next feral cat clinic. Gather info for research paper topic: relationship of child abuse and animal/pet abuse.
Listening to:
Morphine, Cure for Pain
*Where can one find the gummi bears (Ya?) that were used in Hedwig & the Angry Inch?
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Enough Said? But then again...
The old cat is terminal. ($48, office visit + antibiotic to stave off infection, delay the inevitable).
I hit some unidentified metal object on the highway which cracked my bumper, pierced the grill, dented and pushed back the A/C condenser ($500 deductible).
Discovered a flat tire leaving work on my late night (Free @ Les Schwab, remove nail, patch tire).
Fall Semester began ($1924, tuition for 6 credits--Child Abuse & Neglect, Methods in Behavioral Research, textbooks purchased/paid for last month).
The gist? It's been ONE expensive, crappy week. I wanna take my marbles and go home.
=====
It's a late August night and the sounds of Hawaiian music are blowing up from the river. This town, out of the blue, decided it was time to acknowledge its Hawaiian roots...Homework is calling my name. So's e-mail that I promised weeks ago. So's a ukulele melody carried on the breeze. The only call I'll answer, likely, is that of sleep.
Stress has left me a little addled. I had the house to myself (sort of) and thought I might actually COOK, for real. I was whipping up some yogurt tahini sauce, a recipe I hadn't tried...thought, hmmm, it's not bad, but kind of ODD. Didn't dawn on me even then that the Plain Yogurt I thought I'd bought--I always buy--was not plain, but Vanilla. I didn't let it crush me...thought about it, yes, but then put my shoes on, went down to the store, the only one in town, the one that calls itself the shopping center. Little town. And half the town seems to be milling in front of the dairy section. My patience did not pay off...they have yogurt, but no plain yogurt. Isn't plain always an option?
My head feels as though it's been packed in fiberglass insulation.
I visited the ORG this evening specifically to pack up my corner of the pond, paddle off for good, I've no time to play, make no time to do anything more than snapshots, write only research papers and essays for class...but recent modifications meant things to see on the welcome page... Somewhere between some kid spewing cinnamon and lukku cairi's Axl Rose I was laughing out loud and I really, really needed that. And then there's other new toys...
Time's wasting away, though, and I must produce something commensurate with that passage.
I hit some unidentified metal object on the highway which cracked my bumper, pierced the grill, dented and pushed back the A/C condenser ($500 deductible).
Discovered a flat tire leaving work on my late night (Free @ Les Schwab, remove nail, patch tire).
Fall Semester began ($1924, tuition for 6 credits--Child Abuse & Neglect, Methods in Behavioral Research, textbooks purchased/paid for last month).
The gist? It's been ONE expensive, crappy week. I wanna take my marbles and go home.
=====
It's a late August night and the sounds of Hawaiian music are blowing up from the river. This town, out of the blue, decided it was time to acknowledge its Hawaiian roots...Homework is calling my name. So's e-mail that I promised weeks ago. So's a ukulele melody carried on the breeze. The only call I'll answer, likely, is that of sleep.
Stress has left me a little addled. I had the house to myself (sort of) and thought I might actually COOK, for real. I was whipping up some yogurt tahini sauce, a recipe I hadn't tried...thought, hmmm, it's not bad, but kind of ODD. Didn't dawn on me even then that the Plain Yogurt I thought I'd bought--I always buy--was not plain, but Vanilla. I didn't let it crush me...thought about it, yes, but then put my shoes on, went down to the store, the only one in town, the one that calls itself the shopping center. Little town. And half the town seems to be milling in front of the dairy section. My patience did not pay off...they have yogurt, but no plain yogurt. Isn't plain always an option?
My head feels as though it's been packed in fiberglass insulation.
I visited the ORG this evening specifically to pack up my corner of the pond, paddle off for good, I've no time to play, make no time to do anything more than snapshots, write only research papers and essays for class...but recent modifications meant things to see on the welcome page... Somewhere between some kid spewing cinnamon and lukku cairi's Axl Rose I was laughing out loud and I really, really needed that. And then there's other new toys...
Time's wasting away, though, and I must produce something commensurate with that passage.
Friday, August 03, 2007
An odd meeting with the past
Last night, doing my between-semesters catch-up in cleaning and organizing, I ran across some handwriting that I recognized as mine. Two pages hidden toward the back of a lab book I'd used for a biology class in 1993. The script was familiar, but the words were not--a disconcerting meeting with myself in the past, my current self embarrassed that I didn't recognize me at first:
C: What do you do to prepare for something like that?
G: Emotionally, physically, what do you do...
"It was like a big piece of wood falling on me. It knocked me flat."
Woman sits on the couch in a hotel room. Death creeps from under the bed.
G: So the best thing to do is pick up the pieces. Do what you have to. Do without. Do with this. Anyway, that's the way it is.
===
G: What time is it?
C: 8:30, Saturday night.
G: Okay. I go home tomorrow. Do I take the morning bus?
C: No, I go with you. I have a car--it will only take a half hour.
G: So that's the way it is.
==
"I hope you take warning from this and be very careful when you can't drive. Be prepared."
C: You drove a lot longer than many people. You were fortunate.
G: I was, but he was brutal.
C: Was he...
G: I drove a little way. "Stop." Through and through. Shed a lot of tears and drove the rest of the way to get home. Turned in my car. And I will never forgive. They don't even say sorry. "You can't drive anymore." Just like that. I was too slow, so careful, too slow answering. And I thought I was so well-prepared, that'd I'd sail right through it. It was just facts. Nothing's ever hit me so hard. I'll never get over it.
G: Anyway, I say, be prepared at some time in your life. No matter how good you are, it can slap you right across the face--wham!
G: What's going to happen to Glenn when he can't drive? He's got Kenny, but he's lost his independence.
G: Where do I go from here? That's the rhetoric. No matter where I am, that's the rhetoric.
Mouth constantly trembles. Minear's (sp) syndrome.
G: Well, I let one tear go, so I'll call it a day.
G: Find my way home. I have no idea how I get home.
C: I take you home. And every step of the way, I tell you where we are.
G: I guess that's how it is.
It took a while but I remember now. A February weekend, in a rented cabin at Kalaloch, on the NW Washington coast, about a half hour drive from Forks, my birthplace, childhood home, where all my dearest relatives lived (but no more). My great grandfather had died that year, 93 years old, and his wife survived him, but her mind was going. My mom had the idea of taking her for the weekend at the beach, and it was me, my mom, stepdad, great grandmother Netty. She was probably nearing 90 herself, though she never divulged her age. We thought she'd fail quickly after her husband died--they were very close, spent nearly all of their 63 years of marriage working, traveling, constant companions. She went on to live another 6 years, although by the end, she was not recognizing anyone anymore. She still worried about her son, Glenn, and she outlived him by a few years (He died in '95, age 71).
My chicken scratch notes recorded a conversation between C (my mother) and G (her grandmother). Netty had lost her driver's license a few years before and it had been a huge blow for someone so independent. At the time of this interview, she had moments of clarity, and she recognized what was happening to her mind. It was heartbreaking to see. I think she took some sort of comfort in remembering and railing over the loss of her independence--it was a break between wondering where she was and how she was going to get home, and watching other memories twist and disappear. The driving test and the indignity of it were still very, very clear.
I don't remember writing this down. I remember her eating yogurt. I remember it was gray and stormy at the beach. I remember bald eagles perched in the wind-sculpted trees on the cliffs...
C: What do you do to prepare for something like that?
G: Emotionally, physically, what do you do...
"It was like a big piece of wood falling on me. It knocked me flat."
Woman sits on the couch in a hotel room. Death creeps from under the bed.
G: So the best thing to do is pick up the pieces. Do what you have to. Do without. Do with this. Anyway, that's the way it is.
===
G: What time is it?
C: 8:30, Saturday night.
G: Okay. I go home tomorrow. Do I take the morning bus?
C: No, I go with you. I have a car--it will only take a half hour.
G: So that's the way it is.
==
"I hope you take warning from this and be very careful when you can't drive. Be prepared."
C: You drove a lot longer than many people. You were fortunate.
G: I was, but he was brutal.
C: Was he...
G: I drove a little way. "Stop." Through and through. Shed a lot of tears and drove the rest of the way to get home. Turned in my car. And I will never forgive. They don't even say sorry. "You can't drive anymore." Just like that. I was too slow, so careful, too slow answering. And I thought I was so well-prepared, that'd I'd sail right through it. It was just facts. Nothing's ever hit me so hard. I'll never get over it.
G: Anyway, I say, be prepared at some time in your life. No matter how good you are, it can slap you right across the face--wham!
G: What's going to happen to Glenn when he can't drive? He's got Kenny, but he's lost his independence.
G: Where do I go from here? That's the rhetoric. No matter where I am, that's the rhetoric.
Mouth constantly trembles. Minear's (sp) syndrome.
G: Well, I let one tear go, so I'll call it a day.
G: Find my way home. I have no idea how I get home.
C: I take you home. And every step of the way, I tell you where we are.
G: I guess that's how it is.
It took a while but I remember now. A February weekend, in a rented cabin at Kalaloch, on the NW Washington coast, about a half hour drive from Forks, my birthplace, childhood home, where all my dearest relatives lived (but no more). My great grandfather had died that year, 93 years old, and his wife survived him, but her mind was going. My mom had the idea of taking her for the weekend at the beach, and it was me, my mom, stepdad, great grandmother Netty. She was probably nearing 90 herself, though she never divulged her age. We thought she'd fail quickly after her husband died--they were very close, spent nearly all of their 63 years of marriage working, traveling, constant companions. She went on to live another 6 years, although by the end, she was not recognizing anyone anymore. She still worried about her son, Glenn, and she outlived him by a few years (He died in '95, age 71).
My chicken scratch notes recorded a conversation between C (my mother) and G (her grandmother). Netty had lost her driver's license a few years before and it had been a huge blow for someone so independent. At the time of this interview, she had moments of clarity, and she recognized what was happening to her mind. It was heartbreaking to see. I think she took some sort of comfort in remembering and railing over the loss of her independence--it was a break between wondering where she was and how she was going to get home, and watching other memories twist and disappear. The driving test and the indignity of it were still very, very clear.
I don't remember writing this down. I remember her eating yogurt. I remember it was gray and stormy at the beach. I remember bald eagles perched in the wind-sculpted trees on the cliffs...
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Kubrick Retrospective
This begins tomorrow night and continues through the month. I'm hoping to work my way down there for at least a couple shows. How cool would it be to see Dr Strangelove on the big screen? Twelve films will be be shown, in no particular order, it appears. My choices would be, aside from Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and, perhaps, The Shining, which has always scared the hell out of me but hit theaters when I was 11 or 12 years old.
Red rum...
Red rum...
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Light fuse and run away.
Happy 4th of July. For the first 32 years of my life, I would be found on this day in a redneck logging town in the middle of the Olympic Peninsula: Old-Fashioned Parade complete with Beaver Jack, an endless string of log trucks (there's a prize for best load, don't you know), all the princesses from the neighboring towns--Hoquiam, Sekiu, Neah Bay; Demo Derby where some really beautiful paint jobs are destroyed; a rather humble fireworks display, sometimes viewed from behind a windshield with wipers going... Fireworks were always bought on the Res, even if we usually didn't buy the illegal ones, and set off in the field behind the house.
La Push or Mora, the Hoh, Bogie burgers, Lake Crescent, the dirt road connecting my family's houses, the pasture and the creek, my childhood, my roots, I guess you could say. I spent whole summers there, and as an adult I'd go up for a week or two, around the 4th, do some camping on the coast or on Lake Quinault, spend the big day in town doing what everyone did.
I lost that connection in 2002 and am never sure what to do with this day. Of course, there are similar activities here, and a fireworks display much more elaborate than a podunk town could ever hope to afford, but outside of the context of my childhood home it's just...I don't know, what is it? Not worth the bother, really. This year, I'm going to celebrate my indepence by staying away from the throng. But never fear, I've got some low-key plans for the evening--some traditions are mobile afterall. Lite fuse, run away.
La Push or Mora, the Hoh, Bogie burgers, Lake Crescent, the dirt road connecting my family's houses, the pasture and the creek, my childhood, my roots, I guess you could say. I spent whole summers there, and as an adult I'd go up for a week or two, around the 4th, do some camping on the coast or on Lake Quinault, spend the big day in town doing what everyone did.
I lost that connection in 2002 and am never sure what to do with this day. Of course, there are similar activities here, and a fireworks display much more elaborate than a podunk town could ever hope to afford, but outside of the context of my childhood home it's just...I don't know, what is it? Not worth the bother, really. This year, I'm going to celebrate my indepence by staying away from the throng. But never fear, I've got some low-key plans for the evening--some traditions are mobile afterall. Lite fuse, run away.
Monday, July 02, 2007
50 dates in 50 states
50 dates in 50 states
Wow! Where have I been? It's July already, only two days away from lift off. The best of luck to Bliss & Leary on their noble venture. I myself can count the number of states I've visited (at least, that I can remember) on one hand. How sad! More states, less dates, although I can see the attraction of balance. I guess I do need to visit a few more states...
Wow! Where have I been? It's July already, only two days away from lift off. The best of luck to Bliss & Leary on their noble venture. I myself can count the number of states I've visited (at least, that I can remember) on one hand. How sad! More states, less dates, although I can see the attraction of balance. I guess I do need to visit a few more states...
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Keeping the dingle-ball fringe at bay
Currently listening to Blonde Redhead's '23', The Shins 'Wincing the Night Away'. Some days I almost wish my commute was longer so that I could have more down time, just to listen to music and keep myself on the road. Almost, I said.
Things feel as though they are loosening up a bit: there is more time for music, more time for writing, more time for wasting, more time for planning. I looked at my course plan and the end is close enough now that I can list with some certainly exactly which classes I will be taking, which semester, and, right now, December 2008 does not feel so very far away. I know this lightness will probably pass and I'll become mired again in the muck, the worry, the deadlines, but this is the first time in a year that I've caught sight of the surface.
Slavic Soul Party! had to leave the car, for a while anyway. I imagined myself driving the little car erratically through narrow streets, and I saw dingle-ball fringe adorning my headliner. Considering my recent lapses in vehicular judgment, I thought it best to adjust my soundtrack to something more sane, if less exciting.
A coworker told me yesterday that having Balkan ancestry was cool. Well, yeah!
Things feel as though they are loosening up a bit: there is more time for music, more time for writing, more time for wasting, more time for planning. I looked at my course plan and the end is close enough now that I can list with some certainly exactly which classes I will be taking, which semester, and, right now, December 2008 does not feel so very far away. I know this lightness will probably pass and I'll become mired again in the muck, the worry, the deadlines, but this is the first time in a year that I've caught sight of the surface.
Slavic Soul Party! had to leave the car, for a while anyway. I imagined myself driving the little car erratically through narrow streets, and I saw dingle-ball fringe adorning my headliner. Considering my recent lapses in vehicular judgment, I thought it best to adjust my soundtrack to something more sane, if less exciting.
A coworker told me yesterday that having Balkan ancestry was cool. Well, yeah!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Slavic Soul Party!
Slavic Soul Party!
This is my current soundtrack. It may not help me write my essays for school, but it certainly lifts my mood. The title track will be my funeral/wedding theme. Someday. Or not. Break out the slivovitz! The bottle I have is about 10 years old now.
Along with SSP! came Ethiopiques, v. 4: ethio jazz & musique instrumentale 1969-1974. This will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. Bill Murray's (Don Johnston's) road music.
Music I can study to--no words, for the most part, and a little less winter-y than Sigur Ros. Soundtrack for Summer Semester.
This is my current soundtrack. It may not help me write my essays for school, but it certainly lifts my mood. The title track will be my funeral/wedding theme. Someday. Or not. Break out the slivovitz! The bottle I have is about 10 years old now.
Along with SSP! came Ethiopiques, v. 4: ethio jazz & musique instrumentale 1969-1974. This will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. Bill Murray's (Don Johnston's) road music.
Music I can study to--no words, for the most part, and a little less winter-y than Sigur Ros. Soundtrack for Summer Semester.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Inertia
I'm experiencing a severe, fatalistic case of procrastination. Library Thing must have sensed this, because it has, yet again, gone down. That should be a sign that I should get to it, write this damn essay so that I can start in on the term paper, a rough draft of which needs to be in on Friday. HELL.
What am I going to do?! Well, I'm going to write the thing, eventually. Probably tonight (better be tonight). I know that all I need to do is to bring NeoOffice back up (actually it's up...in the background, with a paragraph of text...waiting). A mere act of will and responsibility, but can I do it? Yeah, probably...but there's a pile of panic to hurdle over first, or face, or bed down. The latter would be the most sensible thing to do...it's not like it's a monumental task before me. I just don't want to do it. I am not so inclined. There are no words.
It's Father's Day, which is always sort of weird. I should send a note or something to my dad, but I never do. But then I rarely hear from him either, and I fear that acknowledging this holiday would either cause puzzlement or guilt. I purchased a library card for my stepdad, a surprising spark of inspiration on my part, I think. I don't know....the whole day makes me a little uncomfortable.
I think I hear the cave calling. I feel a dull ache coming for my head. I feel inertia setting in. I must try to shake it off.
What am I going to do?! Well, I'm going to write the thing, eventually. Probably tonight (better be tonight). I know that all I need to do is to bring NeoOffice back up (actually it's up...in the background, with a paragraph of text...waiting). A mere act of will and responsibility, but can I do it? Yeah, probably...but there's a pile of panic to hurdle over first, or face, or bed down. The latter would be the most sensible thing to do...it's not like it's a monumental task before me. I just don't want to do it. I am not so inclined. There are no words.
It's Father's Day, which is always sort of weird. I should send a note or something to my dad, but I never do. But then I rarely hear from him either, and I fear that acknowledging this holiday would either cause puzzlement or guilt. I purchased a library card for my stepdad, a surprising spark of inspiration on my part, I think. I don't know....the whole day makes me a little uncomfortable.
I think I hear the cave calling. I feel a dull ache coming for my head. I feel inertia setting in. I must try to shake it off.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
I haven't posted since August, two or three days before I started Fall Semester. That's a measure, I suppose, of how preoccupied I've been with classes, and then, Christmas. I've little more than a week and a half before I head into another round. This term it's Psychology of Women and another child development course, a continuation of a class I took this fall. While I am learning a lot and feel that it's important to finally get my degree, I'm not looking forward to January 9. It really sucks up all my free time, leaving room only for work, homework, and a little "quality time" with my family. Oh well...
This has been a test of the "Blog This" button on my Google Toolbar for Firefox. I know it's supposed to have a website attached, but I really just wanted to make a quick post while I have a free moment at work (oddly enough, free moments at work seem more free than those at home. Or maybe they are just less frequent at home? Or less well-used at work.)
This has been a test of the "Blog This" button on my Google Toolbar for Firefox. I know it's supposed to have a website attached, but I really just wanted to make a quick post while I have a free moment at work (oddly enough, free moments at work seem more free than those at home. Or maybe they are just less frequent at home? Or less well-used at work.)
Thursday, August 18, 2005
I'm now trying out the photo-loading feature. This is was a picture I took last summer in the rustic little fishing town of Westport, Wa. The sun was high, but a light fog hazed it a bit. The overhead diffused light and the colors of mural, sky and hydrant remind me of the sea breeze (cold for July).
Saturday, August 13, 2005
According to my profile, I opened this blog in May 2004: I checked in over a year ago but am just now removing the paper strip from the toilet seat (what is it called; I almost typed "Sanity Strip")? It's hard to leave the old place behind, just as it is difficult to track dirt on the brand new rug. But here it is, and now it's time to set the analogies aside and say goodnight. Perhaps I'll have some idea of where I'm going tomorrow.
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