Pipe down, gramma.

At the post office sending my passport renewal in. I feel like I'm in line for the goddamn early-bird special at a Howard Johnson's. If I ever get old like this, please shoot me.

Supplies!

Long day tomorrow. Trouble getting my head on the pillow. How about a bit of hot surprised kitten action?

Joni and Leonard

Love, love, love.

Oink

Today, I sang like a pig in front of musicians I like and respect and I didn't give a fuck.

No church tomorrow. Going into hiding for a while, I think, surfacing only for required activities, promising snacks, and a bit of blogging.

Hangover

I've been having wild dreams over the past year or so -- not every night, but often enough to be curious about it, and to want to write it down. Today, I'll go out and get myself a dream journal. I hate that my memory sucks in general, but especially because I want to get the dream stuff down in as much detail as possible and I just can't remember things. So if I keep it next to the bed and write as soon as I wake, I might get more down. Also, writing immediately when you wake is kind of wild -- the self-consciousness that takes over when you're in full wakey-wakey mode is completely absent, so you get something that's more authentic, less artificial.

I drank a lot of beer last night, so I don't really remember my dreams. And then, I woke and made a lot of oatmeal. Too much oatmeal. Oatmeal for two. And as I eat all this oatmeal, I get to look through the kitchen window and watch old ladies jazzercise at the JCC across the street.

After a particularly frustrating rehearsal last week where I wasn't singing well and was being shut down a bit by the director, one of my singer colleagues/friends told me that my Give-a-Shit Factor was too high. I have another rehearsal today -- this time, with the orchestra -- and I'll be lucky if I give a shit at all.

There's little that separates the active, discursive mind from the one that's apathetic and stuck.

After a long, long, long day, finally going to bed. Eye makeup still on, red wine coating my insides, flannel pajama pants all fuzzy and warm on my ass. Will sleep tomorrow until I can't. Then, will wake and get this soupy neurosis reduced to a delicious, not-quite-so-bad broth.

Groove

I love the red and white strobes atop the George Washington Bridge, and the swirly-twirly bridge-light-reflecting texture of the Hudson River at night.

This Dickinson poem (an oldie but goodie) has been racing through my brain for the past two weeks:

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

I like that she says it "should" be proportioned to the groove. It should. She was young when she wrote that.

Blowfly

I'm gonna let him speak for himself. I'm mostly surprised I didn't know about him before today.

What have I learned? That sometimes, love isn't enough.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

    Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

    Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag

To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

    But never knew I this;

    Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear

Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay, "God's World", Renascence

The Missing Piece Meets the Big O

I love this. Thanks to my friend Sophie for sharing.