Saturday

Vivid memories of our home in Italy - plenty-large rooms, all with sliding glass doors, marble floors, persianas, a lemon tree outside my bedroom, splendid views to Mediterranean sunsets every evening. Tried to find a picture on the internet of our view, with no luck, although I wasn't surprised.

Finding body's energy reserves, even after week full of neck pain, and doctor visits, and teaching a class in Lburg this morning. I run errands, bra-less. To gather my courage to do this, you see, I just pretended that I'm a hippy. No one is the wiser, especially in this town, and especially when your errands involve a stop by the music store and Whole Foods!

Mums for the porch and the friend who saved me when I couldn't move on Wednesday. Hers to be delivered tomorrow before our run, or walk, or whatever we can muster.

Two large-venue shows this week (Lucinda, and Bob Dylan with Elvis Costello) re-convinces me that my favorite venue in town is my favorite because it's the size of my living room. Looking forward to hearing new music there tomorrow night.

Little Kitty helps me write my blog tonight.

Falling Slowly

Feeling relatively well now, despite 6 a.m. cold sweats and 8 a.m. debilitating neck pain. Thank goodness for parents and friends who answer the phone at ungodly hours. Lucky me, sincerely. And, healing thoughts to Ma and Pa and Sisters who could use some healing thoughts, too. Wonder if Brother does too...

The internet is so cool: looking for song tabs? You can find 'em. Wanna know what causes cold sweats? You can find out about that too. Want inspiration? Education? Entertainment? To communicate with friends in far away lands? It's all there at your calloused fingertips!

Storing the memory of the warmth

Warm fall day in Charlottesville, perfect for porch sitting, and wine sipping. After dark phone calls with old friends outside with the citronella candle burning. Reading all day and grappling with constructions of 'global models' and 'health' and how discourse creates categories which control practice. Alternating reading with housework. A perfect day, really. Come on over for dinner, won't you? We're having homemade lentil soup.

Busy week coming up, with a very full entertainment plate: Lucinda Williams at the Pavillion, Elvis Costello opening for Bob Dylan at JPJ, and ending the weekend at my favorite venue, Gravity Lounge, with Vic Chesnutt.

Saturday

An a.m. Riverwalk run, followed by an impromptu bagel tasting contest. It's a clear winner: sorry City Market place, even your awesome pear & walnut schmear can't stand up to a Bodo's Everything bagel. Also, finally bought local art from (and of) the City Market, which was promptly placed on the wall in the kitchen to begin the collection.

Secret confession: remember earlier in the week when I mentioned that I'd decided it was OK to "not like someone"? Well, akshually... I'd decided it was OK to "hate" someone. I just think that's such a strong word, that I didn't want to tell the whole truth about my decision. But, I had even looked up the word on Merriam-Webster.com and decided that for a few special someones the word seemed to apply, and I promised myself that I would allow myself to use it, if only sparingly. Well, here's the story:

About .2 seconds after hopping on the Interstate today - pop, whizz - a rock hit my windshield and cracked it! My first thought was, damn, if I'd left my house just 2 seconds later, that rock wouldnta hit my windshield (who knew I am such a fatalist!?). The next thing that happened, though, was that I heard these lyrics coming out of my stereo: "Always love. Hate will get you every time. Always love..." Thank you, Nada Surf. In some small way, I think I deserved that crack in the windshield.

Other thoughts of the day:

If money weren't an object I'd: own a VW Westfalia and spend 9 weeks every year tooling around in it; get a massage every week.

5 hours of road trip music included: Nada Surf, Songs from Candyapolis, Jesse Winchester, Elvis Costello, and Uncle Earl (pictured above at Gravity Lounge in Charlottesville, this past Monday on the last stop on their fall tour).

Crocs, crocs and more crocs

Photo over the phone this morning with Little Miss Kallie wearing nothing but a diaper and her bright orange crocs--take my word for it, she's a cutie! (Bright orange crocs not pictured -- this is a picture of Kallie's fushia crocs, which she will grow into soonly, and Aunt Cat's purple crocs, which she wears around the house.)

I wake up every morning to the news on NPR. This morning there was a report on a new PBS documentary series about WWII called The War. Stories of long ago, one about a mother who walked her 17 year old son to the recruiting office to give her consent for him to join the navy, meanwhile a telegram was being delivered to her home, in her absence, to inform her that her oldest son had just died in the war. I lay there listening to the radio every morning for 10 or 15 minutes before I get out of bed. Some mornings, I’m frustrated about the war (you know, the one we're in now), the economy, the administration; but today, I felt a little sadness to think what it must have been like to be that mother.

Work was bearable, and somewhat productive, maybe because it was Friday. Although it doesn't feel like Friday. Plans for the weekend include: a run, please help me God; the farmer's market; an old friend's wedding; studying; a pre-planned phone call date with a friend; and more Six Feet Under.

60 and Fair

Cool fall mornings - I should be running in them more often. Looking forward to starting up the 10 Miler training because I need to structure my endorphin rushes more carefully. Worried that adding one more thing will be too much.

Yesterday's work was ridiculously boring and therefore excruciating. Hoping for productivity to make the time fly today.

Supper Club last night extends into the midnight hour. Sharing. Admiration. Funny stories. Good foods. Comfortable space in my living room. Talk of making the most of short lives. And, deciding that it's OK to not like some people.

Sleepy morning. Wishing for a picture of bright orange Crocs and the Charleston feet they are attached to.

Ice Cream Social

Feeling sluggish in the a.m. turns around to being energized by running into friends at the Curry ice cream social, walking around Grounds to run academic errands with C., and talking about who's talking in the classroom.

Running into Little Miss Hess in a Mini-dress.

Preparations for Supper Club: lawn mowing, orzo with zucchini, phone call to J. to ask if she eats goat cheese in her Vegetarian diet, laundry.

Email to J. about travels, and to the Roomie about J.'s shocking email mention!

Phone call with P. about structures of power and how they are maintained, and sharing D.'s brilliant, but unexplored, comment that education is the key to maintaining the structure. Foucault at his best, right here!

Second bout of poison ivy of the season leaves me feeling itchy (still!) and somewhat deformed. Six Feet Under and then bedtime.

Letter to the Old Roomie

Thanks for your letter - such beautiful writing for a short Saturday night note. Glad to hear things are going well in Family-land.

Things are settling in here, yes. Of course, not having unlimited time or money means that his house will never feel quiet perfect (I could use some more shelves in the kitchen and bathroom, and need to get the guest bed set up, and wish for new carpet, or a baring of the hidden hardwood floors, in the living room). But, this being a rental, and not having the means to buy my own place any time soon in Expensive 'Ville, I guess I just need to get used to that. Mrs. Landlord called to say that the exterminator needs to come check to see if we have bats in the attic (like another of her properties on the other street does) and I just realised that I can't actually figure out how to turn the heat on in this house. Don't need to know right now, but will soon, and how ridiculous is that, that I can't figure it out!? You would think something so basic would be self-evident, especially after 3 decades of living on this planet.

Anyway, the weather has cooled significantly, as you probably know, still being just a few hours drive from here. It musta gotten down into the 50s last night, and I was hunkered down in my bed with my still-Summer-sheet-and-blanket pairing, kept waking up wondering whether I should grab another blanket and then wondering, if yes, where do I have said blanket stored, anyway? Needless to say, I never got up to get a second blanket.

School work has been coming along fine. This week, I've been alternating between reading a nicely written ethnography of healing practices in a Turkish Black Sea village and practicing guitar work. I'm using that Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1 that you left with the Yamaha - teaching myself all of the notes on the first three frets for each string, reading music and learning a few 3-string chords, so far. Focusing on this basic stuff suits me well for now - my background in music, as you know, is very formal classroom training type stuff, although not at a high level, per se, and since I already know how to read sheet music with about 85% accuracy (perfection in this area was not my thing (grin), the new part for me is translating the notes on the sheet music to the finger positioning on the guitar strings. Playing all kind of fun melodies like Worried Man Blues and Amazing Grace - and not using a pick, just thumbing along, which will suit me well later, I hope. I was flying through the lessons until I got to the notes on the Fifth String, and suddenly couldn't retain it all, so I'm practicing in 10 minute blocks, and just doing it steadily. Last night, at about 3 a.m. when the cold woke me up, I found myself worrying about what I'm going to do when a string breaks or I need to replace the strings - who can I ask for help? There are plenty of options, but, you know, then I'll have to admit that I'm learning to play and I was hoping that it could be my little secret for now.

Went out to dinner with L/C/I/A/T last night. Once again, broke the news that you had left. "I" asked about you (oh, and I'm just now remembering that he said he thought you were only in your late 30s/early 40s!) and L wished you good luck and we all talked about the people, like you, that we've met in our lives who have figured out how to work their asses off for the summer so that they can spend the rest of their year traveling. It seems like such a nice lifestyle, ideal really, in some ways, and then in other ways, not so ideal. But, you know that part better than I do, I guess.

Off for a run, a stop at Whole Foods, and to run an errand to get ready for hosting Supper Club here at the house this week. I want to buy a few Mums for the front porch and add a few homey touches before my dear friends all come over to see the place for the first time.

Much care,
C

Greetings

Choosing a name for a blog is harder than you might think it would be. Or at least for me it was. I started blogging because a website that I was already using provided an easy publishing medium. But, here I am about a year and 100 posts into the making of my blog, for what it’s worth, and I really want to start publishing it in a place that is a little bit less…advertiz-y, and perhaps a little more accessible. The way it is now, because they don’t have access to the website I use, I’ve been spamming my family about three days a week when, whether they want to receive it or not, I email my thoughts for the day to my mom, my dad, both sisters, two nieces and a nephew. At times, I’d thought it would have been nice to share my thoughts with cousins, aunts, uncles and friends, but I never really thought it right to email the day’s blog post to them without warning, explanation or solicitation. So, the aim here is to put my blog in a place where people can look at it when they want to, without it being invasive or inconvenient or even presumptuous on my part, I hope.

So, back to the name. Google has this blog service, here it is, you’re seeing it now with your own eyes. In order to set it up, you have to choose a blog title, and along with it, you pick a url. You know, like http://thisismyblog.blogger.com. I wanted to pick a title that was easy to remember, but without being too bland or boring or cliche. I wanted it to be personal while being somewhat vague as to my identity, meaningful without being too specific, and maybe at the same time convey part of the purpose of writing the blog in the first place. For me, blogging is a way of connecting myself to my family. My parents are busy working their way through retirement, my siblings and I are all getting older, melting into our jobs, our kids and our grandkids. And, I… well, I live a thousand miles away from all of them. By choice. And, I must say that I couldn’t imagine having chosen life any other way. Right here, right now, in this city, in this house, in this kitchen, in Central Virginia, I couldn’t imagine being as contented, as comfortable, or as forward-thinking in my goals by living anywhere else. For the moment, at least…

Living far away doesn’t mean that I don’t love my family or want to be part of their lives, or care about what’s eating at them today, or want to see the boogers in my baby niece’s nose. All of those things are true. In some ways, the price I pay for making this choice of living so far away is that I miss all of those things. And, also, other people miss me and the boogers in my nose. I worry, too, that they don’t really know me. That they don’t know what the streets that I walk on look like, or how the sky looks on a Labor Day Monday in my town, or what makes my heart beat, or why I’m OK waking up in my own skin every morning. So, I blog mostly because I want my family to reciprocate - to hear (and see through pictures) what’s going on in their lives, but also so that they’ll understand me a little better. I want assorted relatives to stop asking me “When are you coming home?” because they finally get that I already am home. Right here. Right now. In this house. In this kitchen. In Central Virginia.

Haha. So, back to the name, again. My sister wrote to me a week or so ago and said, oh how I love your blogs, please keep ‘em coming. To which, I wrote back to say that blogging is “how I try to keep the strings tight between us.” And, I thought that summed it up pretty well. So, I started thinking… heartstrings.blogger.com? No. Too cheesy. What about tightstrings.blogger.com? No, doesn’t give the right image. Then, I thought, heck, I’d better google my ideas, just to make sure that there aren’t any crude connotations that I hadn’t thought of yet. So, I googled “heart strings,” “tight strings,” and a few others. And, in my searching a website popped up that was teaching kids about musical instruments, and on this site, a page that encouraged kids to “Meet the String Family of Instruments.” How cute. The first line on that page said:

The vibrating objects that are the source of sound in this family are strings.

What a cool line, I thought. Unusual grammar, perhaps, but cool, especially when taken slightly out of context. And apropos to my earlier email comment to my sister about wanting to keep the strings tight between us. Reading that line, I imagine all of us – my parents, my brother and sisters, their kids, the whole darn family – just sitting around like cartooned String characters with cheesy cartooned grins, vibrating away, creating sounds, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes going out of key, some of us bass notes, some of us tenors, some of us sopranos, sometimes playing with harmonics, sometimes strumming along with each other, sometimes being finger-picked individually, and always always vibrating together, making music that is beautiful and unique to our family. Our ever-growing, eternally connected family.

So, here it is http://sourceofsound.blogspot.com