december 2004
someone just told me that lefties suffer some kind of synapse break in
the cerebellum so they write left. that sounds about right. about
time someone explained to me the lean i've lived with for decades. i
taught myself to write right once and use it from time to time at
dinner parties, impressing wined-up newcomers with my backward
mirror-writing. it's about the most impressive trick i have... so.
now as you see, this whole thing is in a new fancy format, after being
the hipchick it was since 1998. it's been reworked by a sweet,
frazzled jen cranston. frazzled by my constant changes and inability to
answer phone calls or emails within any temporal convenience. the site
is quite swell elegant, yet i personally haven't changed much. i still
swear too often (although have learned to censor in certain arenas);
still write angry love songs and tunes of awed dismay; still live here
and not elsewhere; still engaged in action, though not as pine-y.
pining's whimpy. i am pleased with this turnout. i am thinking about
kicking up the jobbing band a few notches. i ordered the stands. that
means serious. i have a book, players, fancy stands with my name
engraved (well, stickered, really) and the thing one needs to be a
working band: gigs. so now what? do i set up shop in winnetka and paint
the walls "wedding pink?" i'm considering it. it's just more beans to
give away to needy folks. or to stash. whatever. don't go calling me
a capitalist, now, but it's a good living and rather fun. i resisted
this stuff for years, you know: getting a job, being employed, making a
living, blah blah blah... now it's got it's charms. this is strange,
but it's about midnight around here on this bleak wintery night and i
am hearing all kinds of crazy noises up there. crackles, pops. i have
practically lived in this basement since yesterday and have no real
clue as to what has occurred upstairs these past 48. it can't be good.
what have i accomplished down here, say you? well, there's those cheesy
music stands, for one...
November 4th, 2005
At the risk of suffering "obtuse remark" criticisms by my friend, Mr.
Earvolino, who stands on some indeterminable plank of rightness
(loves Gore Vidal and America, finds neo-cons far-fetched, yet conservatives
"not right")), I join Jim and Jeff - after having returned from the
lovely west, where compassion is visible and war is not cool - in the
fight to make California the new mecca. Sure, gays want to get
married. What does the far right have to lose from this? What can we
non-gays benefit from stopping them? Are we going to start
regulating heterosexual marriages by deciding who deserves health benefits? If a hetero male husband of one year dies, his wife receives benefits; however if a homosexual male partner of thirty years dies, his partner receives no legal benefit, no lawful recognition of his monogamy. Do we really deride the sanctity of marriage by granting
it?
Many heterosexual unions are questionable and should be thwarted but
that would be unconstitutional, eh? Hey, I don't want the whole country engaged in some Bacchanalian Summer of '69, preached to by the procurers of pop culture while upholding Britney Spears' marital morality as a protoype for relationships (although I admittedly did used to watch VH1 with some regularity). However, nor do I want us
to mess in the business of other nations (let's solve things here) and give tax cuts to those who don't need them (use that 4% of your outrageous incomes to better someone else's life, rather than buying more commercialized crap for your kids!). I don't want the feds to tell me where to place my ducats; I want it to serve a need of my own
choosing, but indeed in service. I know we didn't get here by the most high-minded of means. I know we have raped, enslaved and desecrated in the name of "freedom" and that other countries hate our guts; but I also know that I am damn proud to live here. And damn lucky. And I believe in giving the poor a lift up, because God only knows I did nothing to deserve the wealth nor the whiteness with which I came.
Love, The Assuredly Sole Left Freak in My House
today is the end of june.
i can't believe it's the end of june. last week i was in a conference every day, all day and tomorrow i'm learning reiki, only because audrey teaches it. i figure it's appropriate to add it onto my skill-set-of -useless-but-interesting-items on the resume. my resume is disjointed. it's got photography, teaching, waiting tables, temping, acting, teaching tennis, singing, a couple colleges, some tarragon, and a dash of lemon... i actually don't have a real resume. oh, i've made due and fashioned one or another for a particular purpose, but mainly i have a hodgepodge of goofy jobs and whacked out career choices. i've had a lot of office jobs. i've worked for two different photographers and i've been in countless bands. i've also done some event planning and child care. i once got paid to spray heinously gross perfume all over people. i've both gotten fired and etsablished benefits. sometimes i wish i were normal but then i wouldn't be here talking about it. there are lots of others like me. it's probably more normal than we realize anyway, you know, to have, like, a million sources of employ. now i work less hours than ever yet make the same money i made in my best year of doing commercials. in fact, i make on one jobbing gig the same weekly pay i received at act one actors' studio, where i was an office manager. but anyway! so, i'm doing a slew of new songs this year at navy pier. some bold choices: my old school by steely dan; killer queen by queen; some jonatha brooke, indigo girls...but also lots of originals. the first pier gig was, well, interesting. until the end, then it got wild. the crowd was all crazy when i invited four guest "vocalists" up there to jam. people love it when you include a little audience participation. but these guys could really sing! they just didn't know when to stop! it's called subtlety, guys! i hope they do come back for round two. good reads: crossing california by adam langer; the eight-year journey book about a waldorf teacher; anything on how to raise a nearly-four-year-old.
it's nearing cinquo de mayo here in balmy chicago...just listened to joni mitchell's "hissing of summer lawns", which gets easier and easier to appreciate. subject matter, chord changes et al. i finished "the time traveler's wife" by an unknown chicagoan and it's a bit jarring. makes me think about going back to fifth grade and telling certain obnoxii to follow their private collection gunne sack dresses headfirst into lake michigan. there has not been one day i haven't referenced or thought about that book since finishing it four weeks ago. now i'm onto "under the tuscan sun," which is an escapist read and not as page-turny. i've been in the first twenty for many days. i also spend time on the bizarre writings of scientist rudolph steiner. still planning to write some of my own, but i'm not so inspired these days and time is pretty dense. i'm like an overscheduled grade schooler, getting picked up and shuffled thither and yon. karate, yoga, tennis lessons...and this summer will be no different, unfortunately. gigs have picked up and there is a lot of travel. (mexico should be fun this weekend with my old grade school buddies.) i hope this doesn't transfer onto wee child's lifestyle. it wouldn't be fair. we'll spend a month on the beach and that should slow the pace a bit. but the reality of my world is really not so slow, no matter who comes along for the ride.
march something or other
i have been feebly involved in this website, i'm sorry to report. been kind of busy but more just re-focused. well, there were two weeks in florida... the weather is bleak; not many gigs until april; catching up on friends and home things; making imovies (sooo easy!). also, i'm looking forward to hearing the cd that we did for lori carson's workshop. i haven't had a piano lesson in a over a month and poor jason is wondering if i've taken up the sitar instead. it's quiet here today, but only for awhile. i am going to mexico with the girls and back to florida; then it's a late spring of weddings (both for work and for pleasure). by the fall, we hope to know where we'll be for the next couple years.
January 2004
Hello 2004. It's been a great Winter so far, though Chicago's cold front makes it a challenge. I'm hoping this year brings good health to my entire family and that I can get to Nashville to record some. I am working on piano lessons with young Jason, who proceeds to overwhelm me weekly at a 45-minute stretch. I think I overwhelm him too - he often looks as if to say, "you didn't know that?" I am amazed how far I've gotten on such little information. Must be a survival instinct. This year I pledge to use all caps and eat healthfully. And to stop swearing whenever I can help it. Looks like our recordings for the Lori Carson workshop are coming out in a single cd entitled, "Songs at The Point." Janis was there and she happens to be a designer, so she's doing the artwork. Ayako happens to be a photgrapher so she did the photos, which don't include me but that's ok. I probably would have looked disheveled. Now the viewer can imagine me dashingly handsome. Speaking of gender reversals, my mom and dad went to a party dressed as Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, dad as MM.
