"Tombigbee..."

I listened to it at some point on the trip.
I'm reading Blue Highways again.
Tombigbee...

What played on the radio at midnight

When I came into LA!
Midnight Radio.

Do girls really faint that much at concerts?

I have never been able to get through watching a video of an entire song sung by Justin Bieber (to be fair, tonight was the first time I tried) but supposedly girls faint over him. I want to know something--do girls really faint that much at concerts or does the media just like to write stories about girls fainting? I can't think of a single girl I've ever met who has fainted at one. Now, getting trampled in the mosh pit is another story.
~~~~~~
It makes me wish they would make other artists, like Invincible, a sensation, but a) she's probably too threatening to them to make it worth their while or b) she wouldn't sell out enough to them or c) she may have no desire for the kind of lifestyle that would entail.

Happy trails to you...

I believe that's what I'm hearing...But tonight, G. Keillor's show dedicated to summer reading is perfect to listen to while I'm organizing (the precursor to more packing.) Esp. the re-do of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
And I do indeed know how photographs of oneself are sometimes insipid.
I may have to listen to it again while I'm packing tomorrow. ;-D

Something to watch, something else too...

if you want to unexpectedly feel tears rolling down your cheeks in spite of yourself...
Stacy Westfall's championship ride.
For me, anyway.
~~~~~
Oh and another thing.
Operation Happy Note.

Old stuff

I went through some files. I got a few treats. Like a couple of "good reviews" of my work from grad school, by fellow grad students. Awesome! I will save. I will try that creative writing thing again.
I also found this lovely thing (twice):
"This is the attendence sheet for those already enrolled in Section 2 / Section 6. Please note: if you are not enrolled on BUSI then you are NOT in my section. Unfortunately, there is not enough space to accomodate everyone & making excuses, expressing your disappointment in a rude fashion, or pretending you are enrolled when you're not, will NOT help your case. If all sections are closed, sign up next semester."
Boy, was I in a good mood that day or what?
Those notes were torn at the top. I probably ripped them off the attendence sheets. I may have expressed similar sentiments verbally though.
Somehow it looks less abrasive when I read it typed then it did handwritten.
~~~~~
Upon watching TV and all the men on TV, and reading articles written by men, I have a real moment of feeling my life is quite wholly shaped by my being female. I am sure not all women feel that way. But many probably do. I do.

Eating cherries and almonds

Eating Rainer cherries and almonds standing up in the kitchen, it comes to me to be thinking of Irene going out to the garden at night to love and sniff at a kind of flower. A night where she will meet someone else in the garden. Imperfections, moments of energy. 19th century, other century. Other bodies, other decisions, other mistakes. A body, a financial situation, a set of circumstances. "I was thinking, maybe if you seem to remember things about other people, it has something you do with your ancestry. If you were B.F., then I was your dog and you kicked me around." There was a message on the refrigerator. A quote from a book others are reading called The Art of Racing in the Rain. "That which you manifest is before you."

Out of Time

Introducing...a book.
Began it in the van of a Wegman's parking lot while beagle-sitting during a heat wave. Read most of it today, after a busy morning, and after attempting to sort through boxes, when the ground shifted like the deck of a ship under my feet. I decided it was time to take a break.
It was great to read on the tail end of my trip to upstate New York.
Out of Time by Paula Martinac.
~~~~~
I revisited Our Home Library in Johnson City. I combed the Young Adult section for a book I can't quite remember the title of. Me the moon my ass....something. It was about a girl who has a weight problem and her brother does something bad when he goes to college and their parents overindulge/excuse him but she doesn't. Well, I didn't find it. But there was an intense reader there. A young woman, probably a teenager. She looked Mexican to me, but maybe that's just because I'm going to be heading closer to Mexican/Californian culture. She was soooo intense about the book scrutiny and I think later maybe she was poring through some CDs or DVDs. I admired the intensity.

By the way.

If you have to go without health insurance for six months (and put yourself at risk for catastrophe for six months) in order to qualify, of if I have, to or if my family member has to do that, that is simply not good enough.

Ah, quirkiness

So, there are beliefs in this world. Beliefs, religious in origin, about sleeping arrangements and matrimonial bonds and whatnot. My bellisimo friend has a large family which has donated furniture and many household items towards an apartment we will both be living in, and he also has grandparents who periodically have taken in kin and also accepted the significant others of their kin, (even if they are not joined in matrimony) actually living and sleeping under their roof.
It will be very quirkily charming when he realizes that, even if we can pack the air mattress and transport it to the unfurnished work-abode of my male parent, we will indeed be welcomed in a very friendly manner, but nevertheless, sharing the air mattress and the same room, is, if I am understanding correctly, going to be a no-go. So it's the floor and shelves of religious books. Monks! We can pretend we are monks! I am so into it. I hope I still feel that way after hours of driving!
Ah, wide world of different beliefs and codes of behavior.
Little Earthquakes...God....

Sigh!

Happiness sigh! I got to go on my trip! It was wonderful. It wasn't perfect, and the heat wave sucked, but I got to go on a trip! I miss that part of the country. But I got to visit and I know I will visit it again. Me and some places have an agreement on that. Upstate NY. Well, who knows, I even remember once in Massachusetts I was rambling to a complete stranger about how great and wonderful a place it was. I think I was outside of a gas station. I may have been in a line to a port-a-potty. The stranger said "it is great." He was a working class guy, in my memory. I actually don't know what he did for a living. Maybe I was high off of seeing the literary sites I'd seen, but I think it was also the place, the land.
I know some very creative things have happened in some places I have lived in.
I don't know much...I don't know...I don't know much...but I know....
In spite of the heat, my mom and the beagle and I visited six carousels and rode on three of them. She purchased a vibrant and unique painting of a fox and soap from Sea Hag soaps in Brackney, Pennsylvania. If we had more time I would've tried to get us to go to wineries and Watkins Glen! Ah well...next time.
On the way back, I ate many locally grown peaches from a stand in Pennsylvania. I may have set a record.

SO good

Three Hits by The Indigo Girls.
For a road trip! For solo singing in a small apartment...
Off to upstate NY tomorrow.
Gosh I just realized something. Years ago, when I heard a Sherman Alexie story on public radio, I was probably driving by the Onondaga nation, and never realized it, or else I didn't remember it.
Unique is the feeling of wishing to reconnect with a part of oneself that belongs to another place.

Tonight

I looked at old bookmarks. I weeded them. I watched Becky Stark again.
I filled out more paperwork.
Can I FINALLY get my stolen paychecks please?
If you are what you eat, I turned into vegetarian pizza.
~~~~~
Maybe I can convince my mom to go to upstate NY on a trip to escape 102 degree heat this week. We will see.

Songs...

Lately I am so, so attached to the live LP versions on the second CD of To Venus and Back. Especially Little Earthquakes live, (which is not that version, though.) But how funny to get so attached when I didn't listen to it for a long time. I always have to listen to that CD in the car and it's been that way for weeks.
My former music teacher mother sometimes points out key changes because I asked her about them. I am told my voice is untrained but I have good pitch. Which means I can hear well enough to hit notes where they should be hit, mostly. I was an alto (actually, Alto II) in the choir and my voice is not as strong on really high notes, but I like (or love) to sing along when I listen to music in the car and I think it's important to at least try to hit the notes. It can be quite jarring to hear someone singing really out-of-key. Since that's my only musical outlet, sometimes I can almost get annoyed if I have to talk to someone instead of singing in the car, but I try to not get that way about it!
Off and on we had a piano in the house when I was growing up but I never really took to it. Too bad. I think I like singing best. It might've been nice to take voice/piano lessons. Also would've been a luxury, though. Circumstances just got in the way. No, I didn't get lots of free lessons from my single parent working mom. Time as well as money can be an issue. I was not a kid who did lots of extracurricular activities but I was in band for a little while. I wanted to play flute but they had too many and the band instructor and my mother made me take clarinet. I have an appreciation for it, and also played bass clarinet, which has completely different music a lot of the time. I am glad, but I might've stuck with it more if they let me play flute. Hell yeah I would have. Damn. Still, since I did develop an appreciation for clarinet and bass clarinet parts, I can't exactly be sorry!
Much of the time I was alone, or with my sister and cats, reading. Maybe I will take some lessons as an adult. Would love to study more about music, dance, painting, drawing, languages...

Impressions

Something interesting churning. That article I found it hard to get through but haven't thrown away since grad school for some reason, with references to "the wasp credited with the honeycomb," is actually a modern introduction to a book I haven't read, called Impressions of Theophrastus Such. (putting the damage on...my best impression...)

Today I was also reading about my friend's horrible experience. And some comments on it...

A quote before returning

And a demonstration of the equal sign, from River-horse, page 153.

"The cook stepped from the kitchen to see who the hell had wandered in. 'Off the river?' she said. We sat at the counter in front of a large refrigerator with a hand-lettered sign punctuated with equal signs as if the phrases were equations:
NO = VULGAR = LANGUAGE
WATCH = YOUR = MOUTH
Pilotis warned a look at me although I hadn't said a word. We thought ourselves and the cook the only ones about, but then from a side room we heard a rough, threatening Appalachian voice: 'Weasel's gonna eat up your liver,' and a child began to whimper. The cook saw our expressions, and she said, 'That's her mom = The kid ordered chicken livers = Weasel's her dog.'"

Nuttier

Sigh. I really felt awful and had multiple symptoms. So I went to the Urgent Care. I waited for hours, was finally examined, and everything I had was, basically, not serious. Of course, I got a prescription or two out of it anyway, but essentially, I didn't need to go. $$$igh!
Oh well. Maybe I just needed official reassurance of my health. Either that or I'm too interesting of a case and need specialists.
At least I got through more of River-horse.

Good and

This is good. It gets in my head.
Upside Down.
And....
It is different from what my favorite experiences are.
My favorite experiences are kind of like
listening to Datura
and either driving (whoosh)
or maybe staring at a picture of a Goddess, like Lakshmi.

Stuff and such

Before I leave the East Coast, I think I'm going to visit the place I used to live. Just a short trip. Exciting! Although I failed to make much of an impression at school or start a great career there, I nevertheless learned much. For example, I admired the work of Susann Cokal, who graduated from their program, but for some reason the English department, who celebrated other graduates, didn't even seem to know she'd published interesting fiction. I wonder if that has changed? Oh well. Oh well about a lot of other things, too; thinking about them just makes me feel tired. But the best is when you find a part of the country that you can love, and that gave you lasting friendships. At least that happened. I love upstate NY.