LaurieWrites

The End of the Summer

"And the colors are much brighter now,
It's like they really want to tell the truth,
We give our testimony to the end of summer,
It's the end of summer, you can spin the light to gold." Dar Williams

This weekend was so soul-satisfying on some fundamental levels. That was nice, because I'd been all existentially weird and had some hurt feelings to deal with, so that had been sucking pretty hard.

I taught nature photography at a woman's retreat, the concept of which is enough to really give me hives most of the time, but it was good. My classes went well, and the ladies were fun, and they seemed to get a lot out of it. I showed some of my work from the past year, and it was well-received. I knew things were working out when I turned around to see a lady from my afternoon group  on her back in the grass under some trees, taking pictures from what I call "creative angles." And she really wanted me to see what she'd envisioned in the shot, and was having such a good time - which is really what's it's all about to me anyway. I really liked seeing them all getting into it. I just wish it had been a month from now because the trees will be insanely beautiful at that point and I'm in love with fall photos. As it happened we focused on quality of light and composition stuff, and that was fine anyway.

 

That leaf was just suspended in midair...freaky.

The highlights otherwise were as follows:

*Spending some time with my friend who went and roomed with me, who is one of the greatest ladies on this planet, no joke.  We can just talk and talk...and considering I can talk and talk on my own, it's nice to find someone who can not only keep up, but can interject frequently so I have something interesting to respond to.

*Running the last-minute roommate - the North Face girl - out of the room because I snore. I totally warned them, and would have felt worse if she was at all nice.

*Best of all, I went kayaking for the first time. I loved it. It was outstanding. It was the most beautiful experience I've had in nature, and it was awesome because I am so...not an athlete, or a...boater? But I trusted Helen when she offered me a spot on the paddling trip, and I am so glad. I told some students today that the benefit of getting older when you're like me is that you really don't care much what people think anymore. The fear of "looking stupid" is no longer the golden ticket out of anything, really. Actually, it's kind of a motivator these days. "Hey, dress me up in a clown suit!" "Throw a rainbow boa around my neck and make me sing my least-favorite Supremes song on a stage underneath unflattering bright lights when I'm at maximum density!" "Stick me on a porch with James the Brewmaster and laugh at me and take my picture!" "Make me pose like a groundhog at Jazzfest!" Bring. it. on. baby. cakes.

No, really, I was so proud because I didn't fall out of the damned kayak. I got in it all by myself, and sat down in the appropriate position (the "diamond position", naturally). At first I didn't understand how the oars worked, because, as I said, I am not a seafarer in any way, shape or form, unless fruity drinks or perhaps a good beer and a sea shanty are involved. So I kind of dorked around in the shallow water because the boat kind of drifted off of its own accord. I started to go downstream, away from my fellow paddlers, and I couldn't get the damned thing to turn around! I squeaked, "Hello, I'm drifting away," but no one was paying attention. I tried not to freak out and flailed around with the big ass oar and poked at the rocks on the bank and dug the oar into the silt, until I accidentally figured out how to move in a circle and got myself back in the right direction. And the very buff kayak girl (who also sea kayaks and, I shit you not, ICE kayaks. The concept of doing that outside of a rescue mission is quite alien to me, but then again I just learned how to turn a kayak around in tepid shallows, so maybe that's why) was very calm about the whole thing, and was, in effect, probably the most badass extremely perky person I've ever met. (Please note the extremely complimentary nature of that comment, coming from me.)

When I finally drifted back down half-accidentally, and feeling very grateful but a little bit proud too ("HELLO! I DID NOT FLOAT ALL THE WAY DOWN THE CANAL IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION! HELLO! LOOK AT HOW COOL I AM. I AM STILL ALIVE, BY THE WAY.") she just said, "Oh, good, you made it back," in a way that told me that she'd been looking at me bumping into rocks and poking through branches, and that was kind of funny.

So I paddled the thing about a half mile down the C&O Canal, and took some pictures of ducks and pretty rock formations and was able to balance the camera AND my oar, which is pretty good for a non-seafarer such as myself who is at times very directionally challenged. And occasionally I made like Bill Murray in "What About Bob" and said to myself, "Ahoy! I sail now! I'm sailing!" because that's what my sister and I would have been saying to each other had she been there. Otherwise I worked very hard at paddling in the right direction so as to not run into huge rocks, and I enjoyed the beautiful (perfect, really) day, and felt a new feeling, which was awesome. It's so good to experience new things, especially things that are far outside your realm of experience. It might not seem like a big deal, but I guess to me it is. Today I was sore as hell from the rowing, but I didn't really feel it too much because the experience was so worth it.

When I got home I was beat. I mean, I was incredibly tired. I passed out for a couple of hours, and considered bagging the Dar Williams show last night, but I couldn't. I went with a very wonderful person, and we had a great time, although I was afraid she'd be a bit mellow for his tastes. It was Dar solo, acoustic (electric acoustic, but still...no band) and she was really fantastic. Sometimes her music makes me miss certain feelings so much that it's almost too painful to listen to, but that wasn't the case this time and I was glad. She was chill and funny. Her guitar work was good, and her voice sounded so, so good. My friend looked at me when it was over and said, "That was lovely," and I don't think this was anything like anything I'd ever heard him say before. It was just that kind of a weekend.

I hooked up a new dvd player last night and watched The Family Stone, which wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen but it made me cry - like, really cry...you know, cry when you're alone kind of crying? - several times. I wasn't entirely pleased with that, mostly because I wasn't so much in the mood to get that kind of worked up, but what can you do in those situations?

There are some things in my life that I'm having a great time getting used to becoming and experiencing, and some things I'm letting go of that aren't going gentle. Change might be the only constant, but it's still a challenge, especially when it involves reconfiguring your head and heart. Some of the ways that I've chosen to go about this probably haven't been easy, either, but I'm not one to coast through, unfortunately.  And recently I've been thinking too much about what motivates people...why they're so insensitive, and how they can see things so narrowly through the lens of their own life experience, without taking the time to consider other people. I got kind of pissed off last week and that was good, because it was nice to feel that I still had it in me, although it also felt sad to feel it, too. It's also good to know that when I feel that way now I don't have to let it own me. I can still go about my business, and smile and have a good time, whereas I couldn't do that a year ago...not without lying, anyway. And I think that's because the functional relationships and connections I have in my life trump the dysfunctional ones at this point. I'm running out of patience with bullshit.

Since I've been in school in one way or another for most of the past thirty years, the turn of the academic year is an important milestone in my life, in my mind, and in my sensory experiences. The light is changing such that I know it's almost fall - the slanting and the shadows are unmistakable, although it's still pretty warm here. The change in light has a strange effect on me - and mostly it just makes me experience the change of seasons viscerally, along with the sudden mental and physical crush of students (only one in a bathrobe so far, but that's not bad) and a slightly less tolerable commute. One particularly nutty and randomly blue day last week when I was driving home from work, I thought about how many really cool experiences I'd had in the past twelve months, in spite of what felt like a limited capacity for much of it to deal with, well...much - and I felt much better. Actually, I felt ungrateful for a minute, and then I moved past that into better. It's easy when we're given a lot - which I have been - to focus on the stuff that sucks, and I try not to do that, but it catches up sometimes. So some scenes from the past year crossed my mind, and it was quite amazing. I've done some cool things, all things considered, like hang out in the French Quarter, and spend a week at the beach with my family that I wouldn't have envisioned last year. I spent another week in California and saw some places and some things that I have a point of reference for now that I didn't before. I saw a new ocean, for God's sake - and a coastline vastly different from that which I'm used to as an East Coast baby - and I met some wonderful people who I really hope will always be my friends. I did the ChaCha Slide at a friend's wedding in the Bahamas, and sat by the Caribbean and ate conch salad and drank Kalik and felt really grateful to spend that time with my sister. I worked my ass off on some photo shoots, with really substandard results, and saw that I could still work at something even if it didn't come to me so easily right away. Same thing with piano - hello, humiliation, thy name is spelled "Joy to the World."

I bit my tongue on some really crucial occasions, mostly when I knew for sure that there was nothing more to say. This meant not sharing what felt like good feelings for people and about things sometimes, because I knew it wouldn't make any difference to them, and also not sharing my negative opinions, for the same reason.

I've also learned a lot too, and taken some chances I might not have taken otherwise. I don't know - it's always funny and quite stupid actually to speculate about what may have happened had another corner been turned, because it's just impossible to tell. Everytime I'm talking to someone about something I wish had happened differently in my past, I know that if that had happened, I might also have been thrown off such that I walked into the path of that garbage truck or lightning strike that just missed me. Ridiculous things happen to people every day, and as much as I might - in my infinite wisdom, right? - think that things might have been better if I'd not failed out of journalism school or found a different place to work or live instead of that which led me to so much perceived pain...eh. Who knows? It just would have been different pain, or aggravation - with different faces and in different rooms - and let's hope just different joy, too, but that's the unknown variable. The joy and pain we know - the stuff we can identify, the voices we know like memorized times tables and faces that make us breathe so much easier when we see them again, whether we know it or not - we know that stuff so well. I'd trade some stuff away for a shot at better stuff, but then I'd have to trade some better stuff for things that might not be so great. And who wants to do that? I really don't.

My spiritual self needs some work, I think.

One of the lines that made me cry in that stupid movie was "You don't have to try so hard," because I related to it and I know so many other people who it could apply to as well. Generally no one stops you and tells you that. They say, "Try harder. You can do it," but rarely "Why are you doing this?" or "What's in it for you?" or "Is this important enough to you to make you look that way?" I called out someone's misery like a wacked out gypsy fortune teller today in a meeting, and nobody ever does that in those rooms. They stare at people who are burned out, strung out and exhausted and ask them to provide the talking points or strategize the next move. I couldn't do that, in good conscience, because this person looks like I did around this time last year, and I couldn't help it. Besides I'm kind of known in my circles for speaking uncomfortable truths, usually with enough compassion that I don't completely piss everyone off. I had to, because the truth is, most of us don't have the sense or consciousness most of the time to know our own misery or to know we have the capacity to change it.

This may or may not be making sense.

I spoke tonight about empowerment in a gathering I'm attending this weekend. We were to think about ways we use our HANDS to work out our stress - do we knit? Paint? Write? Garden? And all I could think of was, of course, that even though I use my hands to type and take pictures, which are two of my greatest releases, it was my mouth that provides the greatest stress relief: specifically, the word "No." And I can point to a day last year when I used it to great effect. I refused to do something for someone who asked me to do it - something that I thought was completely out of line. I was so tired and overwhelmed with grief at the time - and managing a schedule that I'd constructed specifically to keep me so busy that there would be no time or space for grief - that I had finally reached bottom. And standing on that bottom, with this person staring at me, waiting for me to fix it, I said "No. I will not do that for you." It severed what I thought was a friendship, and allowed me to see that it wasn't one at all in the process. And it reminded me that setting our limits is important. Refusing to give in to that which we know or believe is wrong is important. It helped me to grow a little more into myself.

This is still hard, and as I go over the slope into the valley of another calendar year, I'm a little bothered by how difficult many things seem that I'd thought I'd have a handle on by now. I'm bothered by my lack of mental locus of control over the things I miss, and by the things that I haven't accomplished yet. But then again, I always have expected a lot.

Midweek Random

Edit to Fall Music, (post below): Rosanne Cash. Black Cadillac: The Concert. October 13th. This is going to be so fabulous. I'm spending too much on concerts and I don't care. 

This is the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. I'm totally serious. I love him, and am restraining myself from flying to Argentina to sit by his pool. And in the interest of competely embarrassing myself, please note that I have visited this page a few times, and per the comments on the last photo on the page, have shouted "GRITEMOS!" back to my monitor each time, and I still have no idea what that means.

Little Miss Sunshine was almost funnier the second time. I was glad to find out that Paul Dano is 23 because that made it slightly more tolerable that I thought he was so...compelling, for someone playing a (ha! liars!) 15 year old. On the other hand, David Foster Wallace's book The Girl With the Curious Hair is depressing me. Therefore I have stopped reading it for now.

Family Guy reruns gave me fits on Sunday. I need this shirt but it looks...faded. Please indulge me a few of these, because they're much funnier spoken aloud. Really.

Tom Tucker: Well Diane, I have an exclusive story. And I... can't figure out how to check my e-mail from home.
Ollie the Weatherman: [off-screen] Did you check your TCP/IP settings?
Tom Tucker: Yes I did, Ollie.
Ollie the Weatherman: [off-screen] Enable cookies?
Tom Tucker: Yes, Ollie.
Ollie the Weatherman: [off-screen] You want this dog?
Tom Tucker: No thank you, Ollie.

(Ollie's voice is necessary to this one...and the more I explain it the less funny it will be, but I've been walking around saying "Enable COOK-ies? You want this DAWG?" to myself for a couple of days now so...there that is. Why do these things crawl into my head?)

Stewie Griffin: Look, I really don't want to go to hell, but I can't stop my nature. I'm just a hateful person
Brian Griffin: You're not hateful, you just need to control your anger. Like I do.
Stewie Griffin: oh, you mean by being sauced all day! Wait a minute! Of course! That's it! If I'm drunk I'll be calm, and if I'm calm I'll be nice, and if I'm nice then I won't go to hell. Fix me a highball, I'm going to get good and tight!

Okay, that's all of that.

Re: a personal ad I randomly saw on a vegetarian recipe site (totally true. I'm not making it up. Not like I ASKED to see this.) When I see "Burner, Trancer, Raver, Spiritualist...", I would not want to answer your ad, even if you promised me yummy mushroom stirfry.

I'm going to Austin next week. To see my GIRLS. I'm excited. I intend to do a two-step with a cowboy while I'm there. Or at least in the same room with a cowboy cause, you know, I'm shy like that...

Suri Holmes Mapother Cruise Mission Impossible is a beautiful baby. It's just...true. And I still don't like Katie Couric, whereas I'm still oddly pulling for Rosie O'Donnell, because I always loved Rosie before she went quite so nuts. I can't help it. Her kids look pretty happy, so that's probably the important thing.

I cannot decide whether to go to Vegas or New Orleans in October. This is a silly quandary, especially noting that all things considered, I'd rather be in Indianapolis. ; )

I'm also a geek, because I wrote to my iLife professor and asked him if he could send me the syllabus early so I could, like, look at it, and think about it, and visualize ALL THE COOL STUFF I CAN DO WITH EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT THAT DOES NOT BELONG TO ME. And he wrote back, "Here it is, if you simply can't WAIT until next week. ; )" That was funny (not sure if it's funny ha-ha) a little bit, that he added the smiley face to indicate just what an overzealous geek I am. And he did include the link to his own mac homepage with the "syllabus" on it, which was the most nontraditional one I've ever seen. So now I'm going to be the queen of digital media in my own mind. I'm going to make my own podcast, and no one will listen to it probably, and I don't care...because I'll know how to do it, by God. And also how to do other things, although I don't exactly know what they are yet. And thus, you have my autobiography.

Speaking of iLife sorts of things, Lauren got a Macbook and I'm totally jealous. When I see her in Austin I may get to actually touch it. ; )

I think I'm missing the Kix reunion show this weekend because I'm teaching photography at this woman's retreat all weekend. I'm not so bothered because I'm afraid Steve Whiteman will be all weird and old and I'd just get depressed. That said, Alice in Chains is sold out on October 24th and I can't even deal with that. It's not Alice in Chains. One does not misrepresent Alice in Chains, for fear of awakening the gods of grunge. What. Ev. Er.

And all THAT said, I'll end with what I'll humbly say is the absolute coolest baby gift ever. I bought it for my senior prom date and his wife, whose little boy is due in October. Dudes, seriously:

A Metallica onesie! Plus I'm going to pick up a copy of the Metallica version of Rockabye Baby for them...This new daddy-to-be and I went to the Monsters of Rock show together in hackcough1988I'mwaytooyoungtobethisold some year together, and saw Metallica and the Scorpions and Van Hagar and Kingdom Come and MF'ING DOKKEN SUCKAS and did I mention Metallica was there? Right.

And yes, I will buy them something else in addition to this heavy metal goodness, although what else a baby could need besides a diaper and these Metallica accoutrements is beyond me. But it'll be something of SUBSTANCE, like, OFF THEIR TARGET LULLABYE CLUB REGISTRY and everything! Like, a sage green "first seat" or an aquarium something or other, or something, because I'm cool like that. And while I'm purchasing it, I will not cry silently at all that I haven't produced a child from this rocking dna yet who will maybe someday totally rock out to the extra copy of the Metallica lullabye cd (but not the onesie, cause I'm not totally crazy, just halfway) that I've socked away. Because I won't. So shut up if you think I will.

Fall Stories, Part I

If I were French, I would say, "Je suis heureux comme une petite fille aujourd'hui ", but because I am not, and also because I'm a dork, I will say, "I am happy like a little girl today." Why?

Pumpkin spice latte, kids...and thank the baby Jesus that it's here, because the first day of school was off the HOOK.

9.3.06

Some special people are on my mind today.

This is about my friend Cindy. She died thirteen years ago today. I thought about her on the way home tonight, and remembered what day it was again, and thought I'd post it for her. I was at my good friend's birthday dinner - who was also close to Cindy and at lunch wtih both of us the day before she died - in July. My friend and I started talking about her and telling her story then, and everyone there was struck by its sadness, but also by her tenacity and spirit. It's good to bring her to mind in a positive way when we can.

It's also my grandfather's birthday today. He'd have been 88. I went to visit my grandmother yesterday and my mom told her it was going to be his birthday, and she kind of shook her head and sighed and said, "Poor old guy," in a way that can only be funny to you if you know my grandmother and knew them as a couple. Needless to say, it was funny to me.

Love to them both.

But can you steal their flair?

This post is standing between me and brunch, but I care enough to bring you, via Tracey, Disaffected!

If you've worked in a retail establishment anytime in the past ten years, in particular, you may want to check this out. The time I've done in a couple big-box bookstores (that start with "B", coincidentally...) has given me a certain level of compassion for the slack-jawed service I've grown accustomed to in recent years...because I've read the training manual, as it were, and it is not compelling. (Let's not even discuss the videos. I'd rather be stuck in front of the acid trip that is Boobah for 48 hours with Yanni in the background than watch one more single Borders training video. Fuckers.) I've also been subject to the bag checks upon leaving the store, and the soul-deadening "team meetings", wherein you are threatened with demerits if you don't ask people for their email addresses, and none of this, by the way, impacts your seven bucks an hour at all.

But all that's behind me now, thank God. Now I can drink my coffee anywhere in the store I damned well please, and also read for free in the cafe when I feel like it, and don't think I don't. They owe me a lifetime Oprah subscription, at least. But I still straighten books compulsively, while repressing my need to alphabetize, and correct crooked sales stickers. It's been a long road, that's for sure - but it's a much better view from this side of the counter, I have to admit.

(And just go to her links, people - they're always awesome, and just like what I'd try to share with you if I wasn't so damned lazy lately!)

Fall Music

There are so many good shows coming up. Amongst the things I could easily quit my job and do right now, going to shows is up there for the fall.

First of all, I have really high hopes for the Virgin Festival (and that sounds REALLY weird, no? I'm trying to ignore it. Virgin Store, Virgin Festival...weird.) I hear we're going on a rented schoolbus, which adds to the hilarity. "Yes, I'm going to the Virgin Festival in a schoolbus." Freaaaaaaaakkkkkkk. Anyway, Anthony Kiedis and the Killers. Scissor Sisters. The New Pornographers. Thievery Corporation. And oh right...The Who. Haha! Some really fun people are going, too, and I'm looking forward to it. Could be mayhem, could be chill, I don't know - but I'll take it, either way.

Second, check the Girlyman schedule and see if they'll be showing up near you. If you like great songs, a fun show and some talented people on guitar, banjo and a bigass drum, you should drop by. Their homepage is here, but the first link I gave was their myspace profile, where the songs are streamed so you can hear the excellent music that Willis is talkin' 'bout.

Dar Williams is back on tour, too, and I'm actually going to see her this time. I'm not sure what's new musically with her, to tell the truth, but I've been back listening to "The Beauty of the Rain" again and have "My Better Self" in my regular rotation at work. She's - this sounds weird but I'll type it anyway because I seem to be all about PAINFUL SELF DISCLOSURE lately; someone please shut me the hell up, thanks - a seasonal person for me. I seem to want to listen to her when I'm ready for it to be fall, which I so am. She's a New England/NYC AUTUMNAL sort of person, okay? Anyway, I'm happy to see her and I love the Ram's Head, ...so that'll be nice.

Last Train Home is still on the road, too, and they have a ton of fall dates (heavier than usual in the motherland of the DC area, if you're around here.) I love these guys, because they're so talented, plus so nice, and their live show is always a party. Same deal - if country (with a little bit of alt-? Is that still the right prefix?) with an edge is okay with you, you'll like them. (And if you listen to the stream of "Hendersonville" on their page, don't blame me if you cry. Not that it's a guarantee, but it might happen, so know that going in. It's about Johnny and June, and the song kills me every time.)

Citizen Cope. Hot. I keep missing him! And I think I'm going to again! Damn! Don't you do that to yourself! I love this man. He's got a new record out, almost. Check it.

Shelby Lynne's coming to the Birchmere, and I'm signed up for that, too. I've never seen her live but I love her records. I'm excited about the club's second location opening up in Silver Spring soon. Sometimes when I'm so over living here, I remember that I do have access to some great things and I should shut up. Bloom where I'm planted, as it were.

Hem's on tour, and they're an overwhelming group of talented people. They don't have any dates coming up here, but they'll be lots of other places. If I could marry a voice, it'd be Sally Ellyson's - and if shapeshifting is real for a second, add Dan Messe's body and certainly his brain.  (Check this article out for a good description) I just downloaded "Funnel Cloud" and you should probably do that too. "Not California" (with "Betting on Trains" a close runner-up) is the latest in a line of their songs that I cannot get out of my head for days, and whereas "Stupid Mouth Shut" remains my ultimate song of theirs (beat "The sidewalk bends/where your house ends/ like a neighborhood is on its knees" for a lyric, will you? I dare you.) I totally have their version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in my rotation right now. Heavily.

There's a shot at seeing The Red Piano, too, but I'm not getting too worked up about that until it's definite. We'll see.

My dog can't go to shows with me, but I'm getting him in the spirit. He's a rockstar, you see.

Better shots later...He's trying to go incognito, I think.

Overheard in the hallway

"Oh, yeah. Can you show me? I'm totally a short bus kid."

Open Your Mouth

Today I was hurt, although I felt beyond it. And today I learned something - again. Please wish for me that the clarity I'm feeling - the absolute "you've fucked with me for the last time and I don't even like you anymore" clarity - sticks. Thank God Natalie stopped by tonight. Otherwise I'd still be feeling like even more of a lameass schmuck.

"Well I fought with a stranger and I met myself/I opened my mouth and I heard myself/It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself/Guess I could have made it easier on myself/But I/I could never follow/No I/I could never follow"

I used to be such an idealist, and I want to maintain that sense of wonder, but it's so much harder these days. It scares me to say these words, but I think I've given up a bit on dreams. Either that or I don't trust mine anymore because they always end up hurting in the long run. I want to approach people with the same openness and even a tiny bit of trust, but it's hard. I want to be able to always tell the truth, but I'm afraid. I can't reach through the strangeness. It's like bright lights through fog - it only reflects and blinds. The empty spaces are the hardest - and clearly the first cut was not the deepest.