May was not much of a month for me writing here, for a number of reasons. Some disconcerting-but-not-necessarily-bad news, which sucked a fair amount of my attention away; two visits to the IRS office to try to resolve things (now just old New York State stuff, and things should be good); visits to the Center for Sex Positive Culture, resulting in mixed feelings about the community; plans for another round of Botox for Soren's leg, thanks to a friend, which wound up being scheduled for the morning of my return from Minneapolis; a week in the Midwest, Minneapolis with Elise, Wiscon with various and sundry, and back to Minneapolis; Zach's confirmation the evening after I returned; emails of various levels of helpfulness....

...and, because it was a goofy idea, I have submitted a video of myself singing "I Miss the Mountains" to Chorus Idol, which is a contest being run by the Seattle Men's Chorus. On the off chance that I win, I would be singing a solo in the SMC's concert later this month. The odds are very low that I will even make it into the semi-finals, but, as I observed earlier, if I didn't enter the contest, the odds would be even lower.

Jane has posted about Skippy missing me; I should note that he's been deliberately snubbing me for the past two days: I put fresh food out for him, and he walks away from it. (He does eat it when I'm not in the kitchen, though.) If we have salmon for dinner tonight, I'll see if I can win his affections back with some.

admissable state: pensive

As part of my unwinding after the IRS yesterday, I stayed up to go to Changes for karaoke. My first song was a new one for me, "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones, and I think I'll keep that one in rotation, because it's pretty, comfortable for me, and a reasonable tempo. After I sang that one, I found out that the optional theme for the night was "1970s," so I rummaged through the book, came up with about eight songs, and gave the slips to Ryan, and let him pick my songs for the night... and so:

"Magic Man" (not bad, but I think I slide into psuedo-operatic head voice, rather than rocker);

"Tell Me Something Good" (another one oddly in my range, and fun);

"Takin' It to the Streets' (meh -- people enjoyed it, but I think it's not ideal for me): and, my choice to close out the night and make people think twice about the theme next time:

"You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (delighting Seth, the bartender, and causing several people to fall over in hysterical giggles -- at least I think they were giggling -- and one man to admit to liking "Thunder In My Heart")

I wonder what next week's theme will be....

Tags: sung jan-jun 12

I have spent two days downtown at the IRS office, trying to get my taxes straightened out. While the people who work there are quite nice and actively interested in getting things to work out without anyone having hysterics, screaming rages, or the like, it was still not my idea of the best way to spend sunny spring days. (Aside: everyone, including IRS people, likes my big straw hat; I may need to get a second one, in another color.)

Apart from that, the household has been dealing with health issues of varying levels of indignity and discomfort, but seems to be back on the path to health; the irises are very tall; the cherry tomatoes don't look as if they plan to do anything, and the second amaryllis plant gave us two blossoms. I don't think either of the other amaryllises plan to do anything this year. (Hmph!)

Oh, and I went to the zoo with Mama Weber and Joe yesterday. Visayan warty pigs are cuter than warthogs, by a considerable margin, and, despite all reasons, the ducks have returned to the lion enclosure. Apparently, every year one or two ducks decides that that's the perfect place to raise ducklings. the lions like duck appetizers... so I guess it works out.

(More later: i got up at the ass-crack of dawn to get to the IRS office today, as they suggested, and am feeling a bit frayed around the edges.)

I just realized that the reason a complete drunken stranger hugged me and told me to take deep breaths and everything would feel better -- while I was at karaoke tonight -- is because she thinks I'm dealing with cancer, because of my shaved head.

Gack.

University District Farmer's Market; Uwajimaya (where they have several brands of haw flakes -- huzzah!); cooking; puttering; cleaning; morning pages and brewing coffee; paperwork... Some karaoke as well, including trying new songs ("Good Morning Baltimore" is not a song for me: something about where it sits in my voice is not good; by contrast, I do a really convincing version of "Adelaide's Lament" -- my mother would be proud of me), and jaunts to the library and grocery shopping. Today started off grey and windy, and while the sun came out, the wind continued gusting. It looked like a pink snowfall across the street, with all the petals falling from the trees and swirling between the cars. The first amaryllis has finished blooming (eight flowers! impressive!), and a second one has started; we think the blossoms will be a darker red this time. The tulips are out, and there are tall irises beside the front stairs, and lilac and apple blossoms in the back yard. (Jane cut lilacs and put them out for people in the neighborhood to take a few days ago, and our neighbor across the street gave us a dozen fresh eggs in return. Fresh eggs come in various sizes -- something it's easy to forget from store-bought ones -- and colors: different shades of brown, and a pale pale greenish-blue, as well as white. Delicious, too.) I'm reading a lot of posts scattered through Fetlife and links today. People ... are.

lawnrrd, katestine, elisem -- you all have sung with Jim; I can't remember who else has hung out with me on one of his nights. If you've not seen his recent news on Facebook, it's not good:

Some things went horribly wrong on Friday. Among them, one supporting rod shattered one of the vertebrae that was being fused. I am mostly paralyzed neck to toe on right side. My right hand has a bit of independent movement . 50/50 on regaining right side. More than ever, I wish I was @ Marie's giving all I can give to those who don't care about anything else but getting high -- on SHOWTUNES! I hope to be allowed to play a night again there -- body willing -- sometime in the next 23 years. Right now I hope I make it through the week. Thanks for all your sincere thoughts & prayers.

Damn, damn, damn.

Tags: marie's crisis, piano bars
admissable state: worried

Up early, morning pages, first round of exercise done. Soren got up early today, which is cheering, and we talked a bit. He now has over 70,000 pieces of music on his computer, which makes his penchant for random selections truly random; I think he's playing an album now, but I'm not sure -- the way the first floor is shaped, I can't hear clearly from where I sit by the front window.

I've not been writing here much for the past week or so, but it's been a good busy time. I've been down to Burien for the piano bar there once (and will not go again on Sunday, as the piano player was cheerfully rude and dismissive of my musical choices in a way that was stunningly disrespectful and ignorant), wandered in and out of karaoke bars, found a bottle of vinho verde to bring home, and bought a big summer hat. Having seen what the Seattle sun did to a friend who played softball, I have also opted for a new moisturizer, one with SPF 15 in it. (Said friend is a ginger, and played two weeks ago without sunblock. This resulted in him being a shade of red-bordering-on-burgundy that no human being should be.. I donated all the tubes of SPF 70 and 100 that I can't use to his softball team, in the hopes that I will never see him that color again. [A week later, he's red and peeling, but closer to human-colored.])

(Music is random, because it's Gogol Bordello now. Whee)

Yesterday, I went down to the Center for Sex Positive Culture, to actually make use of their library. I wanted to reread Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns, because I'm looking at old journal entries, and people I knew are in it (some parodied, so real), but I remember not being thrilled enough by it, even when it first came out, to buy a copy. Nevertheless, I dithered, and checked prices online, and then thought, "The Center library might just have it..." Sure enough, they did, and as a member, I can borrow three books/DVDs/etc. at a time, so I did, and then stayed for the social afterwards, which resembled nothing quite so much as a con suite, perhaps during the Dead Dog party: people relaxing on couches and at tables, making jewelry, knitting chainmail, knitting yarn, crocheting; a little group of people singing in a corner; someone giving people backrubs in another corner... and a game of Munchkins starting up just before I was leaving. I'll go back soon, I think; it was comfortable and friendly.

I wound up in Queen Anne on Friday, picking up some of Soren's prescriptions, and found a pleasant bar in lower Queen Anne, called Solo, which has vinho verde on the wine list. They also have deviled eggs and home made pickles, and large windows that face southeast, letting in lots of late afternoon light. A very pleasant place to while away an hour or two and write.

That makes three new places I've been in the past week, which is probably the maximum I'm willing to do. (Interestingly, I don't think of new restaurants while at conventions as separate new experiences: the whole thing -- travel to the con, the hotel, hotel restaurant/bar, other restaurants -- counts as one experience in my head. Hmmmm.)

Taxes are much easier done with family, and fresh bread.

Originally posted by rozk at Stop the Arizona birth control Bill

admissable state: tired

I am out at the local hangout for karaoke. In reality, I have been out for five days/nights running, two of them to new places (I am contemplating working on some songs that I could sing in front of a jazz trio, at a bimonthly vocal jam -- scary!), and I think I am temporarily peopled out. Writing, and reading, and glowering in the direction of the Fountain Pen Hospital (if I order Sheaffer ink cartridges, sending me Pelikan and Montegrappa cartridges does not make me happy; on the other hand, the bottled inks were correct); Jane and Soren have made a meatloaf, and we will eat shortly.

The amaryllis is not fully trumpeting from the first stem and buds, and the second stem has actually grown about a half inch during the last six hours. At Holly's suggestion, Jane drew a little line on the stem at its base earlier today; it's really a half inch or more higher than it was. I almost think that I can hear it growing.

I went to karaoke at Dante's, over in the University District last night, and sang four times: "Unexpected Song" (I did not go for the high note at the end, though), "Linger," "Schadenfreude," and "The Real Me." Tomorrow, they will have "Angsty Wednesday," full of 80s songs, apparently. I am somewhat tempted to pull out a goth dress and the dark grey eyeshadow, and show up. (Could I pull off "Spellbound," do you think?)

However, after a jaunt to the library today, I have shaved Soren, and I think we may go over to The Dubliner in Fremont for karaoke there, as I've not hung with that crowd in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I can see small girls doing cartwheels on the patio of one of the houses across the street, and tulips in our front yard that are almost incandescently magenta, even with the sun setting behind clouds.

(Once again, I am reminded that when we are both shaved, we are more cheerful. It's weird, but it works.)

...but with a fairly happy ending.

I have had three cravings lately. One is for scallops, in some form (possibly sauteed in white wine, butter, and garlic, possibly in a fancier form); the second is for vinho verde, a slightly effervescent young white wine from Portugal; and the third has been for a wine bar/happy hour where I could sit and write and have one, if not both, of the other two. So, yesterday, I continued my googling for such things, and found Ventana, a restaurant in Belltown that actually had both on its menu. And from there, if I wanted to, I could take two buses down to Columbia City, to the karaoke night that takes place in The Bourbon Bar.

And so, a plan!
( blighting and happy endings to follow )

But I just want to observe that the hill on Sixth Avenue South from Yesler to Jackson is very steep, and walking it in 2.5-inch heels is quite the exercise. Ouch.

The amaryllis is now at the blooming state where every time I look up at it, it's open a bit more; it's going to be a huge red flower. (The second bud is getting taller, but more slowly. And none of the other amaryllis plants seem to be doing anything right now. hmph.)

Back to morning pages, taking care of bills and such. Coffee bitter and milky on my tongue, sunlight pouring in past the clouds, a tiny bit of Soren's music wafting over from the bedroom. I may do a bit of shopping in the neighborhood, or hop a bus to somewhere/anywhere -- I'm not sure. The thought of pickled burdock is teasing the back of my mind, and I wonder if a jaunt to Uwajimaya is in order for the weekend. Salad makings, family, the possibility of an Easter hat (when was the last time I wore an Easter hat? probably forty years ago)...

One of my computers is in the living room, so that I can be on the main floor of the house part of the time. It's good, because I get bright sunlight (sometimes near blinding) in the mornings. I've been good: I made coffee, fed Skippy, spent some time in front of the light box (it was cloudy earlier, but now there are fast moving clouds, all white and puffy, sailing past the sun in the southeastern sky; every so often, I get a warm sunbeam on my hands), ate a nutritious breakfast (lamb, rice, peas), and started my new journal...

...the volume title is "mind the noose and fare the well," for reasons my subconscious may see fit to tell me later; the book doesn't have a title yet. The most odd thing about it right now -- it's a green A5-sized spiral with 7mm ruling, much wider than my last one -- is that I pasted a copy of an old photo of my mother, from when she was in her twenties, into the front, simply because it felt right. It might be because I was listening to Passing Stranger last week, and Something Deeper Than These Changes yesterday, when I was setting the new book up. (Thus the title/epigram for the current sequence; I wonder if the book is going to be "love like that.")

At any rate, while I've been in front of the light box the past few days, I've been working my way through Somewhere Beneath Those Waves, with occasional dips back into The Bone Key. I really enjoy Sarah Monette's short stories: the lucidity and detail in them draws me happily into her worlds, and Booth is one of my favorite recurring characters. (I did not finish Melusine when I tried it about three years ago, but my mind was all over the place then, and I couldn't read new books; I should go back to it.)

Yesterday, Soren and I went to Hale's Pub, to have dinner with Eric Schwartz before he did his show as part of the Moisture Festival there. I've known Eric for about seventeen years; we met hanging out in Washington Square Park, and he's awesome, exasperating, and just a dear friend to both of us. We caught up on life, and are considering the possibilities of doing a road trip with him and Jane up to Vancouver this summer. Then he went off to perform, and Soren and I came home and watched a DVD of The Go-Betweens (a band Soren introduced me to, and one that I'm sorry I never saw live).

The amaryllis Jane's been cultivating is going to produce at least one, and probably two, blooms shortly; the magenta hyacinths are opening up in the front yard, surrounding the indigo one, and we have both bright and pale yellow daffodils, as well as blue, white, and pale pink hyacinths in the front yard as well. I plan to go to Changes for karaoke tonight, and am dithering about a jaunt up to Lake City, to investigate the new Elliot Bay brewpub with some fans. Or I might stay home and write and read in the sunlight. Lovely choices, all.

When last we left our heroine, she had just made it through Monday's jaunt to Costco. Afterwards, I went to the No Safewords writers group, down at the Center. An interesting group, and I will probably go back at the end of the month. (I will allow myself one snark, though, regarding one of the members: if your MFA is really not important, then you shouldn't need to mention it more than once during the evening, and definitely not eight times in two hours.) I got home, and watched Groundhog Day with Soren and Jane; I'd never seen it before, and it was a pleasant, funny story.

Tuesday was a quiet puttery day in the neighborhood: library, picking up some of Soren's meds, walking around and admiring the hyacinths, which are emerging like whoa around this neighborhood. I roasted the lamb, and we had it with potatoes, mushrooms sauteed with scallions in sherry and butter, and peas; then we had a discussion about household finances and plans.

Wednesday, I ate about a pound and a half (maybe two pounds?) of leftover potatoes during the course of the day...

...Potatoes seem to be one of my weaknesses. I can go for weeks, even a month or two, without eating them at all, and then I want to EAT ALL OF THE POTATOES ON THE PLANET, preferably baked or boiled with sour cream and butter and fresh ground pepper. French fries don't have that effect on me, nor scalloped potatoes -- but once I've had one good potato with its skin still on, it's down the slippery slope to potatoes for every meal. (And I bought a ten pound bag of them, and they're in the kitchen, calling to me....)

Oh, right -- Wednesday. I went down to The White Rabbit in Fremont to explore their karaoke. A minor glitch with one cable causes the sound to be odd for a while, and the club was pretty empty, which meant that I got to sing eight songs in three hours and change, including "Unexpected Song" (which, to my surprise, few karaoke places out here seem to have).

Thursday...ah, Thursday I got to meet who_is_she for the first time. She's just as mindful and wise in person, with a soft voice, a steady gaze, and awesome hair. (I really want to see her hair in sunlight, to get a good sense of all the shades of copper and gold in it.) After talking for not nearly long enough, she went off to work, and I went to the library again, then home to work on various projects, before going off to Changes for karaoke, and meeting a young man who works on cruise ships -- and who might be a link to piano-bar-type activities out here.

(who_is_she has asked some of her local friends in another online community about piano bars and their ilk, and I've gotten some tips from them. I may start with jazz vocal jams over in Ballard, and see what happens.)

Yesterday was another traveling day: first to Artist & Craftman, to buy a cutting mat (and a few other items), then up and down University Avenue, in search of a wine bar -- I really had a craving to sit with my journal sipping a vinho verde somewhere -- to no avail. (All the beer I could have wanted, but nothing that looked like a wine bar.) So I hopped a bus down to Lower Queen Anne, and went to Toulouse Petit...

...the last/first time I was there, I had their chicken and duck liver pate, a Vieux Carre, and Hanne Blank's book Inappropriate Crush, and it was the perfect combination of rich food, carefully constructed drink, and rich, carefully constructed prose. This time, I was writing myself, so the prose was not as good, but the wine was excellent, and I even tried the fried okra with remoulade, and discovered that in the hands of the right cook, okra is indeed edible, actually tasty.

I moseyed home, and we watched a couple of episodes of News Radio, which Jane has never watched, but which is one of my favorite ensemble sitcoms. Afterwards, Soren retreated to the bedroom, and I watched Ken Russell's Tommy for the first time in years.

Ooooof.

Excess, awkwardness, continuity errors, and general... well, it's a period piece. Hysterical, in several senses of the word, I think, would describe it. Fortunately, none of it appeared in my dreams last night.

This evening, Soren and I are going to have dinner with my old friend Eric, who is in town this week, playing at the Moisture Festival. It will be good to sit and catch up with him for a while: his life has been full and complex lately, in very different ways from ours, but the love and friendship is still there and still strong.

Before that, though, I shall start building the next journal book, and mulling over time. It's been almost a year since we got on the train to come out here. Wow.

I have gone to Costco, and acquired many useful things for the household, including fifty pounds of flour, sugar, paper goods, a boneless leg of lamb, and many red potatoes. Between that and rearranging the bedroom yesterday, I feel bold, muscular, and somewhat bruised.

(Wonder what working in Costco would be like. i would enjoy hauling boxes and crates around, and shelving things, particularly after so many years at desks. Must ask my local source of information....)

admissable state: mighty!

Another bright sunny morning. Today, I am lazy: the thermos is half full of coffee from last night, and I am drinking that, rather than making a fresh pot. I will make a fresh pot around one, though, most likely: I like the ritual, and Jane will drink it during the day. Soren is still asleep, but I will wake him up, also around one, so that I can vacuum the bedroom, and we can move the bookcases around. This has been a lackadaisical project this week for the three of us; one of the advantages/disadvantages of L*I*V*I*N*G I*N A H*O*U*S*E is that there's space to leave a half-finished project around, and thus the urgency to get things back into their proper places is lessened. At least, if you're like us.

At any rate, the bedroom will be neater, with places for laundry, and books easily accessible to Soren, whose computer is in there. We talked yesterday about whether to just put some books in alphabetical order on those shelves, or whether it made more sense to select the ones Soren is most likely to want easy access to, and decided that we would select the ones for the bedroom; that will be another, ongoing project.

I, meanwhile, have been trying to get out a bit more this week. I did a jaunt over/down to the International District, specifically in pursuit of Maruman Boston Note spiral notebooks (unsuccessfully, though I did find another pleasant type of spiral). Since 2008, I have been using custom-made journal books, lovely paper, narrow-ruled to my delight: the current book is the eighteenth one of the twenty I've had made. But I think it's time for a change: my writing in them has become increasingly more precise and delicate, except for when I force myself to write loose and sloppily (or when I'm on a bus or train), and the words...

...I feel as though I am writing in my journals as if someone else were going to read them, and as if I wanted this Imaginary Reader to have the best possible impression of me. And, somehow, the books themselves have felt too fancy to just haul out and scribble in (whether it be because someone might see me and think I'm ever so precious to be using a fountain pen and a perfect bound book covered with hand-marbled paper, or whether the book itself is too delicate to risk breaking the spine, I'm not sure.) As a result, less and less of what I actually perceive and feel is going into those pages. Tiny, precise writing, tiny, precise language, tiny, precise thoughts -- but that's not me.

So, a change. The last two bespoke books will wait a while; instead, I'll use spirals, that I will probably fill within a month, and that I will feel less reluctance to scribble, and spill beer or coffee on them. I always want a compromise between beautiful books that I'm afraid to write in and any old piece of paper: the Japanese spiral notebooks usually work nicely, with A5 being a comfortable size to carry in my bags, and to pull out into my lap, or on a table in a cafe, or on a bar.

I'm also going to read a few of Julia Cameron's books. In the past, I've often been irritated at aspects of her tone (a little too "higher-powery" for my tastes), but she's good at naming/verbalizing elements of creativity and barriers to creativity. (Reading the section on crazymakers in The Artist's Way was mind-blowing to me fifteen years or so ago -- there's a name for this! I'm not imagining it! other people have dealt with it, too! -- and did, in fact, change aspects of my life for the better.)

(I also have to gird up and send at least three pens to Richard Binder for repairs. Woe! Withdrawal! Argh!)


Tonight, Mike, one of the guys who runs the karaoke nights at Changes is hosting for the last time; he's moving to New York (I shall see if I can get him to show up at Marie's or The Duplex). I splurged and got a karaoke CDG of Wicked, and am plotting with Ryan to get the bar to sing "Defying Gravity" with me tonight, and perhaps get two of the hosts to sing "For Good" before Mike leaves. A girl can hope.

Last night, the three of us went to see a show billed alternately as "Stew and Heidi Perform Songs from Passing Strange and Making It" and "Stew and The Negro Problem Perform Songs from Passing Strange and Making It". Either way, they did not perform anything from Passing Strange, nothing older than "Kingdom of Drink," in fact, but they did songs from Making It, "Black Men Ski," one song completed this past week, and "Gary Come Home" from Spongebob Squarepants. Afterwards, I got my Passing Strange sheet music autographed, and Soren and I chatted very briefly with Stew and Heidi, who both remembered us, in that, "I know you, but you're out of context" way that happens when one is in a strange city.

The Neptune Theatre (where Soren used to be in the floor show for The Rocky Horror Picture Show some thirty years ago) is a nice concert space, though it was incredibly cold, colder than we'd expected an indoor venue to be. If it had been ten degrees warmer, we'd have had an unmitigatedly grand time; as it was, the show was great, and The Horn Problem was fun to listen to (tuba solos in Stew songs are way cool).

I've been using the lightbox for the past three days, and feel much more cheerful. Yes, spring is on the way, but the box seems to be helping. Right now, Jane and Soren are napping; I'm dithering about going out to karaoke later, or just staying home and reading. I'm on an M.F.K. Fisher/Stephen King spree, rereading bits of both, as well as Fisher biographies and the like. I finished From a Buick 8, Different Seasons (reread), and The Green Mile (let's hear it for the Ultimate Magic Negro!) (also a reread), and am working my way through the uncut version of The Stand (is it a reread if it's the first time I'm reading the uncut version?) (and another Magic Negro! whee!).

(I went to get some of Soren's prescriptions, for his medications that needed new hard copy ones on Friday, and decided not to read The Stand on the bus. From past experience, books about superflus, ebola, and the like are just not ideal for reading while riding mass transit: every time someone coughs near you, you flinch.)

Life continues pretty good around these parts.

Seventy minutes of power out in our neck of the woods. Eastlake, Fremont, Ravenna, University District, Wallingford. Jane checked with Vonda, to make sure it wasn't just our house, then went over to the QFC to stock up on cat food. The QFC wouldn't sell milk, because they had closed the dairy cases to keep the products cold. As they came back, it started sleeting and snowing; it's now a half-hour or so later, and it's sunny, with a bright clear sky to the south.

Not boring. Definitely not boring.

Grey clouds scudding across the top of the sky, with white ones streaming east below, and the occasional patch of blue. Suddenly there's a burst of white sunlight from the south. The daytime skies out here are constantly in motion; at night, they tend to calm down, and either be overcast, or still and full of bright bright stars and planets.

Sunday, I got up, reset the clocks that needed resetting, saw Soren off to his niece's volleyball game (her team got creamed, I gather), and then took two buses down to Burien. A different bus from downtown this time, as an experiment, so a different route: I now know where several bars and stores I've read about are... well, at least one bus that passes them.

The Who's Tommy was better than I expected. The plot is still somewhat thin and full of holes (though fewer than the movie), but the company (Burien Little Theatre) was quite competent, and did really well with minimal props. One effect I particularly liked in the first act was having three doors in frames on wheels: when Tommy was being examined by doctors, they would push him through a door, then close it in his parents' faces, and spin the doors around them. For anyone who's dealt with a loved one in hospitals in that sort of way, it's really evocative.

One minor quibble: the young man playing the adult Tommy had a weird physical affectation, one that I've seen before in actors: not quite jazz hands, but very evocative of them. How to describe? Upper arms never more than four inches away from waist, so all motion conveyed with forearms and hands splayed. (Think of the white gloves in "Magic to Do," but with a body attached.) Why do directors do/allow that?

After the show, I wandered over to CC's Lounge, where I stood at the piano and sang with the player at times, and danced with several women; from there, I headed back north to Changes, where I did karaoke until I started falling asleep.

Yesterday was more or less recovery for Soren and me, while Jane went out. Writing, job-hunting, puttering, and contemplating the inability of most Lord of the Rings fanfic writers to get the tone right. Today threatens to be a bad weather day (though right now it's light), so domesticity might be in order.

I'm up; I've made coffee, buffed my nails, and started prepping for the day. "Prepping for the day," right now, means: resetting the clock on the stove and the one in the living room; checking to see that everything I may need is in my bag; charging my phone and MP3 player; triple-checking that I have cough drops (three types), an energy bar, and such (I should pick up a small reusable water bottle to carry -- any recommendations?); and dithering.

I do carry at least an extra pound or two of "stuff" whenever I'm leaving the house for for than a short local jaunt. Of course, there are the typical daily items -- eye liner, lip color, travel toothbrush, extra pens, some of Soren's meds, adhesive bandages -- but when I'm going into (relatively) unfamiliar territory, the items add up. Will I need my Leatherman? Probably not. Will I feel like a complete dork if I do need it, and don't have it? Yes. How many pens do I need? Emergency sewing kit? Superglue? What about a shawl? And, hey, Jane just gave me one of those space emergency blankets -- it's only three ounces, so I should stick that in my bag, too.

(Various companies used to make cheap miniature office supply kits, that came in plastic cases: tape, scissors, tiny stapler, paper clips, pen, etc. I wish I could find one of those again. Right now I'm carrying the equivalent in small pieces in a pencil case, but there was something about the cuteness of the sets ... even though my individual pieces are higher quality, I liked the sets.)

And they can add up in weight and bulk. Oooh, how about an extra Sharpie, with a thicker nib? Maybe two: red and black? I have the Leatherman, so I don't need the little box cutter, do I... but it's not that heavy. Spare earbuds? And on and on, until my bag weighs ten pounds with all the items i have just in case.

Need to pare down to a basic set, that's what I should do.

Yeah, right.

And what's in your bag?

It's been a weird week: Soren's had problems with his leg and other parts, Jane's dealing with kidney stones again, and Skippy's got an ingrown claw. I'm physically fine, emotionally a bit more labile than I would like, but making plans and following through.

Yesterday, we were all up in the morning, having coffee and breakfast, then I got industrious and made a batch of chili. It would be better if I'd gotten some fresh jalapenos or serranos, and perhaps even one habanero (I like their bright flavor more than jalapenos), but it was good, and will be even better once it's melded more. (Standard improvised recipe, though with medium hot chili powder from Penzey's, unsweetened baking chocolate, and four times as many kidney and garbanzo beans as black beans -- I like black beans, but they tend to overwhelm other flavors -- plus ground and diced beef, tomatoes, onions, garlic. Nothing special. I should look for recipes with tomatillos and pork.)

(Wonder if a dash of apple cider vinegar would brighten the taste.)

At any rate, Soren was a bit too tired to stay up and watch movies, but we had dinner together (salad made by Jane, rice, and cornbread, as well), talked, had tiny glasses of the fortified blueberry and black currant wines we like, and then wandered off to our respective spaces. A good quiet day.

We've been making happy discoveries together lately. The local branch of the library is not great for serendipitous book discoveries (it's very small), but does have an interesting CD selection: we found three Spearhead albums Soren doesn't have, and a Robyn Hitchcock album we'd not heard. And we passed eleven dogs (all of different breeds, I should note, though not the Tibetan Mastiffs) on the way home from the library -- we must have gone out at peak dog-walking time. Daffodils are coming up, the miniature ones first, and now the larger ones, and there are two different types of trees with pink-to-fuchsia blossoms (dense, multi-petaled, like roses) fiercely defiant of the cold.

I give little snippets of what I/we see and do, and sometimes wonder if I sound excessively perky and repetitive -- but it's good. The three of us fit well together, and I really do enjoy living out here. This weekend, Soren's going to a volleyball game for one of his nieces, then to hang with an old friend, while I head down to Burien to see The Who's Tommy; we're planning a Costco expedition with his parents, and Jane is going to plant some cherry tomato plants for me. We are a quietly happy household.

So, today's socializing plans (hanging out with Victor) have been shifted, as both Victor and Soren are somewhat under the weather, in "we would prefer to be non-ambulatory" states. I shall review job listings, then go out into the bright sunlight, and walk around the neighborhood a bit, drop some books off at the library, maybe take a bus ride somewhere.

I am withdrawing in an odd sort of way, and need to think about how to get out of it. Karaoke, yes, but that's, for the most part, light acquaintances, social community friendships. I've made contact with a few people from LJ out here, but not followed up on initial overtures, and I suspect that I need to make the effort.

One part, of course, is that home is easy and comfortable. I have a mixture of time to myself, social time with Soren and Jane, household maintenance both alone and together, and Adoration of the Cat -- and it's sometimes too easy to stay with that. I have the membership at the CSPC, but I've not been going to social activities there, because I've been wavering about my intentions and motivations (those are for a separate post, I think).

Dither.

There is a production of The Who's Tommy playing the next three weekends, down in Burien. I think I shall go to a Sunday matinee, and then perhaps pop into CC's Lounge for the piano bar/dancing afterwards. My pumps are repaired, as are my brown granny boots, so I feel ready to go out.

admissable state: rambling and shy

There are perhaps thirty crows (at least twenty--I stepped out onto the porch and started counting) having some sort of convocation on the wires just south of the house: every so often, some of them get up and fly to another wire a little farther down the block. I wonder what they're planning.

February was a busy month, but without much time focused on writing. I hope to get more words out in March. I enjoyed various aspects of it, including Potlatch, and look forward to spring. There are two trees full of red multi-petalled blossoms, defying the sudden cold days, and more flowers popping up on every block. We're waiting to see whether the squirrels ate all the hyacinth bulbs in the yard, and whether the seedlings will survive.

Blue sky, crisp wind, bright sunlight... definitely season turning.

Yesterday, Jane and I cleaned and rearranged the living room a bit. We had ham and corn for dinner, then watched Phantom of the Paradise together, as neither of us had ever seen it. Soren watched part, then left.

Man, that's a bad movie.

On the other hand, the telling moment for me was, amidst all the murders, I found myself yelling, "NO! Don't kill the lighting guy!"

Save the techies!

It's a pale grey day out here. I have one thing I've committed to do, and two things I'm thinking about doing, and mercifully none of them conflict with each other. Today's low-level irritation is that something is irritating my scalp just enough to make the prospect of shaving a bad idea; I shall switch to a different soap, and see if that helps.

Tomorrow, Soren and I go to the physiologist, and will discuss scheduling another round of Botox for his leg, and possibly for his toes; Tuesday, Jane and I have a date to do some serious cleaning of the living room; Wednesday, I think I shall go back to the dueling pianos night at the gay bar up in Capitol Hill....

I realize that I have, in fact, experienced what's called the "Seattle Freeze," but that in some cases, I've managed to move through it, simply by not realizing it existed; in others, I've decided it wasn't worth the effort, and in at least two cases, I've made it past the freeze by showing up unexpectedly in other places (Purr, for example), proving that I'm not just a one-place sort of person. It's interesting.

(Wonder if I can get anyone to go with me to Burien to see The Wbo's Tommy in early March? Soren is exceedingly unthrilled with the idea, as he's not a fan of The Who to begin with, much less Tommy.)

Letter-writing continues apace, though I am two days behind. On the other hand, I've just gotten some lovely photo cards from a local photographer (who also sings karaoke at Changes), including some of snow geese. And I am, as ever, thinking about what are my stories, and what are Someone Else's Story, and what are Stories from the Land of Not My Problem. Those last are sometimes wistful-making, as I care about the people in them, but I suspect that any actions I take will have little to no positive effect. So it goes.

Another bright sunny day. To the east, I can see blue sky with long white clouds; to the south, the sky is full of white clouds with only a little blue peeping through, and the sun is a huge white-with-a-hint-of-yellow mass behind the clouds. There are still more shades of green visible than I have names for, and Jane's cactus has little magenta flowers at the tips of a few branches.

Milky coffee on my tongue, the knowledge that Soren had a good night of sleep, and woke up cheerfully a little while ago (he's back in bed), and sunlight. The odd abrupt coughs that plagued me yesterday seem to have gone, or at least minimized themselves; I skipped Vanguard because of them (when you really don't know whether you're going to cough at any moment, socializing seems like a risky thing to do)... well, and because there are things I probably should do and say before socializing with certain people.

's odd: I went to the reading on Wednesday night, and looked at the authors/editors/fans/readers, and felt as if they both were and were not "my people," which makes me wonder if my home subculture has changed... which reminds me, I finally figured out what my current journal book's title is, and it's a little bit startling. (It's worlds away from who I was. At least it's not I miss the mountains, which is what I thought it would be.)

Soren's been in more pain than usual lately, specifically in his right leg and calf. This morning, he realized that it's been just about three months since he got the Botox shots in his leg. Guess how long the effects of Botox injections usually last?

Oh.

Duh.

We're seeing his physiologist on the 13th, and will talk about renewing the injections then.

admissable state: vaguely dorky

I went to The Dubliner for my usual Tuesday karaoke last night, and sang "There's a Fine, Fine Line" and "Time After Time" (the latter with Gonzo on harmony). This morning, I woke up an hour before I'd set the alarm, did morning pages, wrote and mailed the first letter of the month, did situps, arm reps with the weights, and wrote in my journal. In a little while, I shall go out in the neighborhood, then, if all goes according to plan, go to the SFWA Northwest Reading Series over in Kirkland ("Kirklnd," as Soren tells me it's pronounced): I might even get there in time to wander around the neighborhood there for a bit before trying to meet up with people for dinner.

Not all the way out of depression, but seeing daylight.

Speaking of which, one of the many fascinating things about the sky out here is watching the intricate layers of clouds and wind. This morning, just after sunrise, there were blue-grey clouds low to the south, obscuring the mountains; a few minutes later, there were little white fluffballs of clouds whooshing by below the grey. (Anyone walking with me will have to get used to the fact that every so often, I will stop in my tracks and get lost in the sky. Soren does it, too.)