then i really would have to move to canada

We cannot, I repeat, CANNOT allow Mike Huckabee to become President. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, thereby proving that we must build a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico?

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Just when you thought the potential for insanity in the U.S. Presidency had been fully realized...

another way

I imagine that, for personal and professional reasons, I care more about what happens in Ecuador than do most of you. But if you like to hear about alternatives to the corporate, profit-driven, Global North-controlled story of "development" - or if you just like to hear stories about someone telling George Bush to stick it - you'll like this.

hopes and plans

Holiday greetings, dear friends. I hope that you were able to realize whatever you find most enjoyable about Christmas. Even (grudgingly) if what you enjoy most is fighting the crowds in the malls to exchange unwanted gifts today. To each their own.

I can honestly say that Christmas is my favorite holiday. Everything is closed and quiet, it's easy to believe that most people are cozy at home with their loved ones, candles shine in windows, and absolutely nothing is expected of me (aforementioned petsitting notwithstanding).

All that said, I think I will be glad for the new year. There is something unsettled within me now, a small, dark, echo-y place waiting for something to fill and brighten and warm it. This dark time of year feels a bit too encouraging to the hermit inside me, she who would have me stay home and read books and secretly hope for snowstorms to fall in the way of gatherings. These past few weeks have been full of excitement and uncertainty (job, music, coming visitors... hell, even the weather, with our every-other-day-blizzards). I've stayed up too late and consumed too much sugar. Routines have fallen by the wayside. It all combines to make me feel like hiding out and being rather passive toward life. Friends feel a bit too far away, exercise is a distant memory, and the spiritual ground beneath me seems as uneven and slippery as the frozen-slush-covered sidewalk outside my front door.

Of course we should not need such contrived starting lines as the beginning of a new year to motivate us toward that which we want or need to accomplish anyway. But simply because of scheduling, only the new year will bring the opportunities around which I am now trying to stretch my resolve, so it's as good a starting point as any. In the meantime, I look forward to the next few days of reflection on that which has been in this year and that which I hope will be in the next. More importantly, on who I have been and who I hope to be.

In the Jewish High Holy Days service we say: "on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed..." and though it feels kind of sacreligious to say this (as if it wasn't enough to call Christmas my favorite holiday), it is really now that I feel a certain sacredness in the days and a need for reflection, much more than I did in October. In these days of darkness between the solstice and the new year it feels appropriate to take a good look in the mirror and make some decisions. My life is too full of goodness to take one bit of it for granted. I will be more intentional. I will follow through. I will listen more and better. I will trust in (hopefully benevolent) fate for many things, but I will not be passive about who I am in the world.

I wonder if any of this makes sense to anyone but me. Maybe it sounds like I'm trying too hard to be poetic... it's hard to distill things that feel both really personal and really huge into plain old words. But for some reason it feels important to write these things here. It feels honest, and that's the only real place to start.

Happy Holidays.

and in full recognition of my heritage, i might even go out for chinese food tonight

There's something about the pragmatism and self-reliance of New Zealanders that we Americans just don't have. I can say for sure that precious few parents of my study abroad students would possibly have this reaction to this situation. (The fact that there was a shark attack in the Galapagos is also, um, interesting, but I can only hope that our study abroad parents don't have the same Google News alerts that I do.)

On an entirely different note, I must say that I am currently experiencing a level of popularity previously unimagined. Have I discovered the meaning of life, you ask? Or the secret to getting the Town of Brattleboro to removing snow from around one's house in a non-assanine way?* No no, it is not special knowledge that I possess; nor is this sudden popularity about any particular talent. I am popular simply because of who I am.

But before that starts sounding really pompous and egotistical, let me explain what makes me so special: I am young, single, and Jewish.

That is, I am not busy on Christmas.

That is, everyone and their uncle who is celebrating Christmas, and doing so at the homes of relatives or friends who live in other towns, wants me to dog/cat/chicken/house-sit.

And I really don't mind, except a little bit last night when the long, steep driveway where I'm staying was completely coated in ice, forcing me to consider the relative attractiveness of missing my board meeting and a later holiday party versus imminent death (or at least involuntary hibernation in a snow bank until the spring thaw). A night reading on their couch by the stove was OK too. And I certainly don't mind cuddling with my friends' yellow lab or my neighbor's sweet cat.

But I will admit to having a new appreciation for my obscurity of the rest of the year.

*Sorry to get your hopes us; I actually don't think this is possible. Their snow removal "system" is just incredibly assanine. I'm resigning myself to this, and considering its implications for my decisions regarding renting/buying a home in this town in future years. Notes to self: never live on a main road, always have a yard, and make friends with someone who owns a snowblower.

things i learned last night

1. The Vermont Department of Corrections has some really model programs, and some really big problems, and some really wonderful people working for it (and, undoubtedly, some not wonderful people working for it).

2. 80% of incarcerated males in Vermont have not completed a high school education. I dare you to try and convince me crime isn't a class issue.

3. Active listening and asking open-ended questions is really hard. I knew this one already, but I was reminded.

4. There are no substance abuse treatment programs other than Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous offered in the Vermont prison system (and other states' systems? I'm curious...) because if there were mandated programs, SO many more people would have to be sent to prison, because SO many crimes are drug-related. Fascinating.

5. It's particularly tough to be a female prisoner in Vermont (and probably most states) because most women are sentenced to less than a year in prison, which sounds like a good deal but actually sets them up really well for failure. See, men are generally sentenced to a minimum of two years in jail, and therefore have time to integrate into an AA or NA group, to get some education or vocational training, etc. Plus, the last year or eight months of his sentence he's probably working with a caseworker on a re-entry (into the community) plan, finding a job and a place to live, all that stuff. If a woman isn't even in prison for a year total, she doesn't have a chance at any of that. So she gets out and has few options but to fall back into old patterns, because the system has not offered her any ways to work on changing those patterns. Female recidivism rates are much higher than males. Again: fascinating.

6. Life after prison is a paradox - the chicken has to come before the egg has to come before the chicken. This is the thing that just kills me: for most people coming out of the prison system, there is simply nowhere to start and nowhere to go. They might be really ready to turn their life around, but most of society actively thwarts their efforts. Few people will give them jobs, though often they have to have a job as a condition of parole (or they go back to prison). No one will rent them an apartment if they don't have recent rental history, but there's no way to get recent rental history if no one will rent you an apartment. Halfway houses are closing left and right because of lack of funding, and many shelters are already overcrowded and turning people away, and won't take people coming out of prison. What are they supposed to do?

Explanation of why I was learning all this: I'm volunteering for a program with the Brattleboro Community Justice Center called Circles Of Support and Accountability (COSA). We had two nights of training over the last week in order to begin to understand some of the issues facing recently incarcerated folks in this area, and how COSAs and other restorative justice programs try to help break down the barriers. We met two people who have come out of prison and gone through the COSA program, and frankly, hearing their stories made me feel ashamed of myself for anything I've ever complained about or found challenging in my life. I think being part of a COSA is going to be awkward and frustrating and challenging. I can't wait.

impressive

This was a "secret" until now??

I'm sorry, but no wonder the apocalypse is coming. We're just plain stupid sometimes.

actually, this deserves your full attention

I linked to this in my previous post, but after watching the whole thing I believe it is urgently important to share this with as many people as possible. Click on the banner above and go watch the video. Share it with your friends and anyone else who might benefit from a really easy-to-understand explanation of why the way we live is terrible for ourselves and our planet, and how we can do so much better.

This isn't a finger-wagging diatribe, don't worry. It is, instead, 20 minutes of interesting, fun-to-watch, easy-to-digest motivation that the wealthy human beings in this world (and that includes me, you, and just about everyone we know) have a whole lot of power to make much better choices, and that doing so isn't about depriving ourselves, but about changing the system so that it we stop allowing it to take advantage of us.

Note: I wonder about some of the statistics in this video and I'm sure there are more than a few people out there who will call it leftist whining and surely some who will offer opposing statistics. But overall it makes a lot of sense to me and offers a new way to look at the issues of sustainability and responsibility. And that's at least a place to start.

inside day

Happy Snowy Sunday!

(I realize it's not so happy for those who may be greatly inconvenienced by this weather, or worse yet, harmed by flight problems, driving conditions, electricity issues, etc. I hope your situation improves very soon.)

This is weather for staying home and drinking hot tea and reading, or staying home and drinking hot tea and watching the Patriots game, if only I had TV.

And while I really mean reading books (have I mentioned that I finished Harry Potter last weekend? I mean, the series? And I'll say, I've never really had an addictive personality - or at least never given myself the opportunity for addiction to substances and the like - but reading HP#7 was as addicted as I've ever been. WOW), here's something for your internet-reading pleasure.

While I was writing this, my friend Ben sent this, which is actually what you should drop everything else for and watch RIGHT NOW. It's 20 minutes, but very worthwhile use of your 20 minutes, and besides, you're probably snowed in right now like me. What else were you going to do?

if the problem doesn't drive me insane, the problem-solver will

Toshiba Customer Screw-over Man: What is the problem you are having with your computer, ma'am?

Monkeyhippy: The CD drive won't stay closed, and when the computer is on it makes a horrible loud continuous clicking noise. Perhaps you can hear it right now.

Toshiba Man: Well, since this is a hardware issue, what you must do is take your computer to the nearest Toshiba service center. I am seeing that the nearest Toshiba service center to your zip code is in Waltham.

Monkeyhippy: Waltham, Massachusetts???

Toshiba Man: Yes, ma'am. That is the nearest Toshiba service center in your area.

Monkeyhippy: That's two and a half hours away. I can't take my computer to Waltham, Massachusetts.

Toshiba Man: OK well then ma'am, that is the nearest Toshiba service center.

Monkeyhippy: [more firmly and loudly] That is very far away, I cannot take my computer there. Are there closer options?

Toshiba Man: OK well then ma'am, are there other zip codes near you?

Monkeyhippy: [incredulous pause] Yes, my zip code is, in fact, surrounded by other zip codes.

Toshiba Man: OK well then ma'am, perhaps you could give me another zip code near you and I will see what the nearest Toshiba service center is?

Monkeyhippy: [another incredulous pause] Um... if you look up service centers nearest to zip codes near my zip code, that doesn't change the fact that I still live in my zip code and will be traveling from my zip code.

Toshiba Man: [long pause] OK well yes ma'am. If you do not wish to tell me other zip codes near you then I cannot help you find the nearest Toshiba service center to zip codes near your zip code.

Monkeyhippy: That's... true. Goodbye.

surprise!

And then, almost by accident, I got a promotion/new job (at the same organization).

Over the course of the next month or so, I'll stop being a Study Abroad Coordinator (acronym: SAC) and become the Student Affairs Coordinator (acronym: StAC). This is exciting and nerve-wracking and flattering and sad (the latter because I really do like being a SAC and there are things about it - namely working closely with the Academic Directors and students in a particular set of programs - that I'll really miss). Exciting because it's a new position that I'll essentially get to work closely with my supervisor, who is awesome, to create, and it's lots of safety/security and visa stuff, which is right up my various alleys.

The phone message my brother left for me this afternoon sums it up: "Congratulations... I think. Because it sounds like you're excited... you think."

Exactly.

philosophy for these challenging times

"'Any time you put a yarmulke on poultry, it's inherently funny,' explains Jarrod Tanny of the history department at the University of California, Berkeley."

There's just nothing more to say.

but it's so much more fun to preach to the choir

Whenever I get into political conversations these day, which is often because I actually love talking about politics, except for when it makes me feel like hitting my head against a wall and moving to Canada, I often find myself saying to the person with whom I'm speaking "you HAVE to check out this blog called Revolution In Jesusland."

And as they finish choking on their disbelief or looking at me as if I just said "you have to try sticking your finger in this socket," I explain...

I haven't read nearly as much of it as I want, because usually I'm looking at a blog here and there to give my brain a quick break from the endless stream of emails and phone calls and visa applications and troubleshooting that make up my workday (oh come on, you do it too... unless you are my mother or my friend Barb, who are both just far more focused than we mere mortals) and that's not nearly enough time to read and actually process this particular blog. But I want to, and you should too, because the writers say things like this:

"My point is NOT that we should change our views for Christians’ sake. Not at all. They don’t care what we think. My point is that they are something like half the country — and as long as we carry this false and negative understanding of their culture, then we are cutting ourselves off from having a productive social and political relationship with HALF THE COUNTRY. We may as well quit politics.

Please understand what I am NOT saying: I am not saying that we should try to find common ground with a group that stands against everything we believe in. I’m saying: “Surprise! This huge group stands for almost everything that we stand for—and they’re on the move, organizing tens of millions of Americans around our own very same values: people over profit, the environment over mindless growth, meaning over consumerism, means of making a living and health care for all, care for the needy, peace and more.” But we are divided from them by stereotypes and misconceptions."

And I'll be damned if that's not the most radical, and radically important, thing that I've ever heard anyone on "The Left" say. If we listened, which I'm a little too cynical to think many people will actually do, I honestly think it could change the world.

the beginning of my modeling career

Does this count toward my fifteen minutes of fame?

(Thanks for the photo, Renaissance Man. And special thanks for the disclaimer. Indeed, my sunglasses are not for sale, no matter how good the offer.)

Speaking of Turtle Dove:

Concert! Next Saturday (12/15), 7:30pm, Nelson (NH) Town Hall

Workshops! Sign up! They will change your life. I am serious.

as if we needed further confirmation

The President is completely crazy.

And our judicial system is right there with him.

At what point did we, as a country, lose our minds and become vengeful retributive five-year-olds who stick our fingers in our ears and yell LA LA LA in the face of any argument that disproves our predetermined truths? No matter what we want to think about the corruption of the system (and I'm certainly not arguing that point), we're all responsible for this. Cynicism about the democratic process is pretty much the best way to assure its demise.

Sometimes I'm amazed that I'm generally able to sleep well. Maybe it's because the nightmares are here in broad daylight.

better news

But an evening of quiet and YouTube can work wonders, especially when it leads to wonderful discoveries. This NPR guy searches around for the best and most interesting music he can find, and plays it on this show, and then you can download entire concerts from those people (if you have iTunes). Free.

I love NPR.

evidence

Dinner tonight:

- a pupusa from the freezer
- some bread and yummy Irish cheese (yay for the Brattleboro Food Coop!)
- half a pint of Ben & Jerry's (Phish Food, if you really want specifics)
- whiskey on the rocks (only a little bit, don't worry)

Can you tell I had a rough day?

casting stones

Hypocrisy is so annoying. Especially when it's used to ruin people's lives.

talk about karma

I know half the world has heard about this by now (I got a Google news hit from China), but I just think it's funny. Besides, most people probably heard about it on TV, and I move in largely TV-less circles, so maybe a lot of the people who read my blog actually haven't heard about it. The logical conclusion being that our lack of TV makes us ignorant. Albeit blissfully (except for missing ESPN and the Daily Show... but I'm pretty sure that's just me).

boiling frogs*

Here is a really interesting antidote (I wouldn't say "solution" because that sounds too... optimistic) to our out-of-control energy usage and subsequent pollution problems. It's really a fascinating idea. And the article is a good discussion of why, between the highly protected energy industry and our desire to save the world only through sexy product purchases instead of real lifestyle changes, this technology may well not make it into the mainstream. But it should.

*It is said that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water, s/he would jump right back out, but if you put a frog into a pot of cool water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling, they never quite register the danger (until it's too late). No, I have not and would not test the thruth of this anecdote, but to me it's a striking metaphor for what we humans are currently doing to ourselves.

highlights of thanksgiving in washington d.c., as noted through the tryptophan haze

- My brother's coworker (who happens, because it's a very small world sometimes, to also be the mother of a friend of mine from college) and her teenage son camped out at Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving. Why? Because they were curious to see exactly who it is that camps out at Best Buy the night after Thanksgiving. And I thought, what if that was everyone's reason for camping out at stores before Black Friday? And the stores opened at 5:00am or whatever disgustingly ungodly hour, and all the people just turned around and went home? What if some really good missionaries for the anti-consumerist cause went and infiltrated the crowds and engaged people in critical self-reflection? Or if some guerilla contra dancers went and organized the crowd into a spontaneous dance? The possibilities are beautifully endless.

- Background: My mother came up with a great children's story some years ago when she was head of the local recycling center and doing a lot of environmental education programs. We've been telling her ever since that she should really make it into a children's book for publication. Well, the back story came out this weekend, the part where she came up with the story in the first place because a local artist had agreed to go with her for some environmentally-themed storytelling at an area elementary school, only the artist apparently had a bit of a love affair with the bottle, and when she went to his house to pick him up he was sleeping off a bender. So, faced with the daunting prospect of 40 small children expecting storytime, she came up with this tale on her own as she drove to meet them. Proving yet again that my mother is the coolest person ever.

- Missouri beat Kansas. (My brother is a proud Mizzou alumnus. Go Tigers!) (Confused? Clue: it was a football game.)

- I, a closet gadget geek, got a new cell phone that I'm only slightly obsessed with. It can flip open in two different directions. I'm tellin' ya. Next thing you know they'll be putting a man on the moon. (Yes, I admit it, I went shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I really wasn't going to, but the Totally Reasonable Excuse is that there's no Verizon store within 50 miles of where I live but there's a big one near my aunt and uncle's house, and the service there was really quick, and my old cell phone was half past dead, and yes I hate talking on the phone but when it's unavoidable I do like the battery in my phone to allow more than one 3-minute phone call per day before it konks out. I'm needy like that.)

- I saw some good friends and met several fascinating new people at the excellent Friday night dance at Glen Echo Park, one of my favorite places to dance anywhere. New people include a guy who dated my good friend Froggoddess for a while and who I recognized and introduced myself to because I'd seent a photo of him on her fridge in Massachusetts, as well as a fabulous dancer whose claim to being a writer (which, let's face it, is a claim often based on having a blog and/or a stack of rejection letters from obscure poetry journals) I later found to be impressively true.

- My Crazy Uncle and I went on a great hike on Saturday morning. I'm still sore, and I love it.

- My brother gave me a funny little knick-knack frog playing a violin (I have a thing for frogs). I wrapped it inside some cloths at the bottom of my carry-on suitcase so that it wouldn't get damaged going home. This caused great consternation to the airport security personnel manning the bag x-ray machine. I heard the one TSA guy call over another TSA guy, and I heard one of them say "frog?" and knew I was in for it. They opened the bag and dug out the knick-knack to confirm that "oh, that's a violin. We guessed at the frog, but it also kinda looked like a hunter holding a knife." Yeah, people make that mistake when they see me holding my violin, too. Happens all the time.*

All in all, for these and many other reasons, a Great Turkey Weekend. I hope yours was anywhere near as good. So much to be thankful for... the thoroughly confused cab driver who (barely) took me from the airport to the lot where my car was parked notwithstanding.

*Seriously, though, hats off to Hartford and BWI airports. Couldn't have been smoother or quicker, even regardless of it being Thanksgiving weekend.

i'm so glad someone thought of this...

...so now I can blow lots of time on something other than YouTube.

I haven't even watched any of the videos yet, and I already think this is awesome.

Thanks goes to The Geologist for the heads-up.

definitely a question i've never been asked before

A couple years ago I led a group of Yeshiva University students on an AJWS Alternative Breaks trip to Honduras. I am now, amusingly, on the email list for the YU Commentator student newspaper. A couple days agod I got an email that asked:

"Are you 'rabbi' enough for Young Israel?"

I can only hope this is the lead-in to the next hit reality TV show on some Orthodox cable channel in New York.

But yeah... I'm pretty sure the answer is a resounding "no." Sorry to disappoint you, YU. I'm sure we'll both get over it.

slippery slope

There's a story in today's New York Times about the regular practice at NY Jets football games in which crowds of men gather by a certain stadium gate and create a ruckus demanding that women in the area take their shirts off and show their breasts to the crowd. Women who don't happen to comply with this "request" often get things thrown at the them, such as beer bottles. They're also sworn and spit at.

According to the story, one woman who recently did comply was taken aside by security officers and warned about indecent exposure laws.

In other words, she was threatened with arrest for flashing hundreds of jeering, threatening men who were demanding that she do precisely that.

In Saudi Arabia last week, a woman was sentenced to prison and 200 lashes for being gang-raped by seven men.

Different, yes. But actually? I'm not sure how different. I am not saying these are the same countries or the same crimes (though yes, unlike the New Jersey authorities I would consider this sexual harassment a crime). But the difference seems largely to be one of scale, not values.

Scary, huh?

looking forward

And lest there be any doubt about winter being upon us, Tomato Hands and I went hiking yesterday on Bald Mountain, in Townshend State Park about half an hour north of here,* and saw a veritable blanket of snow on the ground. I was emotionally unprepared for this.**

Off the subject of impending doom winter, though, I want to say how deeply happy I am that Tomato Hands and I finally spent some time together outside of a contra dance or potluck or other people-intensive context. She is lovely and fun and we have much in common, and I have much to learn from her. And she's moving to Brattleboro, which just further demonstrates her wisdom and good sense.

Funny how friendships happen or don't, and how some that don't can lead to others that do, making the former unexpectedly worthwhile.

*a wonderful place to hike. If you live here, go there.

**see, the thing is that I love snow, but once it really snows here, my parking situation starts to suck because we can't park overnight on the street anymore. I will have to park downtown in the garage, a 10-minute walk (which is further when it sounds when it's freezing outside), and be sure that it goes in after 6pm and comes out before 9am (if I don't want to pay, which I don't). Spiritually, I love snow. Practically, I'd be fine without it as long as I live in my current house.

and so it begins

Lest I attend any of the half dozen contra dances taking place within two hours of my home, I hitched a ride to Providence, RI last night with the Tall Bass to check out the dance at Brown University, which he was calling.

We stopped for a caffeine boost at the start of the drive and were walking out of the coffee shop, so unsuspectingly, when we stopped short and realized that those little white flakes flying around were not fuzz nor styrofoam nor stardust (falling stardust being very common around here).

It lasted barely a few minutes. But it's official: Winter is upon us.

beware: history lesson and small rant

Tonight I went to a presentation by the Brattleboro Community Justice Center (because this little town of 12,000 people has a community justice center, because a) there are issues in our, and every, community demanding attention and justice, and b) this town is awesome) of the documentary "Greensboro: Closer to the Truth" and a talk afterward by one of the survivors of the Greensboro Massacre.

"What is the Greensboro Massacre?" you say? I didn't really know either. I looked it up when I saw the flier for this event, in fact. And I found out about something horrifying and not surprising and, at the same time, very surprising in our nation's history. Here's a summary of what I learned tonight, because I think it's really important that you hear about it:

In 1979 (November 3, to be exact), a group of labor organizers and activists centered around the Communist Workers Party movement in Greensboro, NC held a rally at a local community center. Members of the Ku Klux Klan and local Nazi party caravaned by, and the two sides quickly became violent toward each other. Then the Klansmen and Nazis pulled out guns and started shooting and killed five people. The Greensboro police, who had known about the Klan and Nazi plans to disrupt the rally with violence, not only did nothing to prevent these events but also did nothing to stop it. In fact, they weren't nearby (despite having intense and antagonistic police presence at just about every other CWP events). In two separate trials, the killers were tried and acquitted. This despite the fact that the events were actually caught on tape.

(I'll say that again: there is a clear video record of people committing murder, and the murderers were acquitted of the crime. Twice.)

On Nov. 4, one day after the massacre, Islamic students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and began the Iran hostage crisis, and not very many people remembered to care about five unarmed activists had been killed by racist groups operating with police support.

But then a couple years ago the survivors decided to pursue the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modeled on that of South Africa after apartheid. And it worked, and a lot of information came to light. The City of Greensboro didn't just decide to ignore the commission, it actually voted (along clear racial lines) to reject its existence. And maybe some things changed, and certainly a lot of things didn't. One positive change is that many cities in the U.S. have now begun to discuss the creation of their own Truth Commissions modeled on Greensboro's (the first in the United States), including post-Katrina New Orleans. Another is that during the period in which the commission was active, the police chief of Greensboro was forced to resign because of the exposure of his methodical racial profiling of city residents and police officers, which apparently many people think wouldn't have happened without the commission's message of community justice.

And Marty Nathan, whose husband was killed that day, and who now lives near here in Northampton, MA and practices medicine in a community clinic, said some pretty amazing things. One is that she quit medicine and went into labor organizing in the North Carolina textile mills because after practicing rural medicine for a short time she'd become convinced (and remains so to this day) that most of the illnesses she was seeing were ultimately caused by poverty, and that there wasn't much she could do about that as a doctor. She also said that while truth came to light, there wasn't reconciliation. In other words, there is truth now, but no justice. And without justice, nothing changes.

I'm not sure how you find reconciliation in such situations - doesn't reconciliation imply that at some time there was harmony to begin with? But that's obviously never been the case in Greensboro or most places in this world where those with money and the right skin color/gender/religion/tribe/etc. retain far, far more than their fair share of power and resources. So justice means some radical change in lifestyle and philosophy for all of us. It means all of us having to want to find peace, not just in name but in equal access to clean water, food, shelter, fair pay, healthcare, etc. For ALL of us. And, more importantly, all of "Them" too.

Are you ready to make those changes? I'm not sure I am, but I'd like to be, and I will try. Tonight was yet another reminder that there are people who have long been trying to show us the way.

proud of my friends

You know you're doing something right when you piss off conservatives enough to get posted about on reactionary blogs. Go Jeff!

p.s.

No, that last post was actually not a veiled admission of romantic attraction. How fascinating that it seems to have been understood that way, at least by some people.

On some TV screen somewhere in the world right now Harry and Sally are arguing about whether [heterosexual] men and women can truly be friends or if sexual desire will always get in the way.* This is a fairly (in)famous and long-running debate. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder why those two things are generally posited as mutually exclusive.

Among the random things I enjoy mulling over is the concept of attraction, and the very narrow meaning we generally assign the term as opposed to what it actually describes. Am I attracted to the Space Cowboy? Absolutely. Am I attracted to other friends of mine, dancers I pass in a contra line, new people on a daily basis? Yes, indeed. I'm attracted to some people to whom I'm related (and I'm not particularly attracted to some others). I'm attracted to musicians and writers I know only through their work. Hell, I'm attracted to plenty of musicians and writers who have been dead for a while.

What is attraction? Have you ever really thought about this? Ultimately isn't it just that pull, the mysterious combination of interaction + instinct + pheromones/aura/whatever that sparks your interest in knowing someone and spending time with them? It certainly doesn't have to refer to romance and/or sex, though of course it could. Or (in my weird little dancing subculture) it could be the Dance Floor Crush, which generally involves a strong desire to interact with someone on the dance floor as much as possible, and sometimes even involves the desire to interact with them off the dance floor, or even outside the dance hall altogether. Or it could be meeting a kindred spirit who you just know you want to become friends with.

I guess the fairy tale is feeling all of those kinds of attraction at the same time toward one person, and finding it mutual. And in an extra-super-perfect world, the timing (and *ahem* geography) would be right too. (How many decades did it take Harry and Sally?)

But that's just one kind of relationship, and there are too many others that I need and want in my life for me to devote time to pining or looking for just that one. I'd rather spend time creating and exploring the other kinds. Like the kind where a favorite dance partner turns out to be someone with whom you also enjoy sitting by a woodstove and talking about life, without insinuation or innuendo.

(Apparently those only come in later, when people read about it on your blog.)

*Wow, that's the second movie reference I've made here. Recently. If you have ever made a movie reference in my presence and watched it sail far over my head, you understand how impressive this is.

a new old friend

And then I took the Space Cowboy out for a beer as promised, and we had dinner along with it, and sat by a cozy woodstove, and listened to some of New England's finest musicians, some of whom we're lucky enough to call our friends, sit at the next table and play Irish music. And we talked about life and pain and love, and glimpsing the face of the fairy tale just to watch it turn its back and walk away, and learning from that and learning from everything. And we discovered that we were, and would be, even better friends than we already thought.

And that was a lovely way to spend an evening.

live near boston?

Then here's what you should do tomorrow (Friday) night:

http://www.worldmusic.org/

(Crooked Still and the Carolina Chocolate Drops) (together) (it's going to be ridiculously good)

oh, the joy

Friends, I have made a most wonderful discovery:

Pupusas. Nearby.

Pupusas are to El Salvador what I suppose the McDonalds hamburger is to the U.S. Except that, unlike the hamburger, they're delicious, they are not notably contributing to the destruction of the planet, and I could happily eat them every day.

Unbeknownst to me, there has always been Salvadoran food available within reasonable driving distance of me. I've driven right past it, in fact, in sad sad ignorance. All that changed last weekend when I was browsing in a used bookstore in Greenfield, MA (see? browsing in bookstores is good for you) and overheard (oversmelled?) the owner and a friend of his enjoying the Salvadoran tamales they were eating for dinner.

They were discussing how good the tamales tasted, and it was obvious how good they smelled, so I immediately asked where they'd been procured, though assuming it must have been something out of the freezer or from a trip down the interstate to those towns that actually have things like ethnic diversity and yummy food.

But no! They were from just up the street. There's a pizza place in Greenfield that has Salvadoran tamales! Of course I went there for dinner (verdict: YUM) and asked if they ever have pupusas, a food that I'm not too embarrassed to admit I sometimes fantasize about. It's one of those things that you find when you're traveling that make you think really hard about trying to sneak a local grandmother home in your luggage, because no matter what you do you'll never be able to make them taste as good at home yourself. I come down very much on the liberal end of the immigration debate for many reasons entirely unrelated to the availability of authentic foreign foods, but there's no reason to ignore the fact that a peripheral added bonus to pulling our heads out of our asses might be better eating.

Of course, no matter how open our borders, it's probably too much to hope that my very very White town (which I love for so many reasons, but NOT that one) would get any less so. Which brings us back to my thrilled surprise at being told that the place in Greenfield has a sister restaurant in Montague (just across the Connecticut River from Greenfield) that has pupusas for sale just about every day.

So last night, at the earlist possible opportunity to justify the half-hour drive to Montague (because I had to go to Greenfield for the evening anyway), I had pupusas for the first time since I was in El Salvador last December. I ordered a few to eat right then (verdict: YUMMMMM) and six to take home for a Freezing Experiment in which we determine whether they'll freeze well enough that I can go back to Montague and order them by the case.

It's not going to be a very scientific experiment, partly because I can't imagine I'll let them sit in the freezer very long. So the real experiment may be: how many reasons can I invent for going to the Montague/Greenfield area around dinnertime?

neither vermont*

It's funny how days can seem longer than they are in both good ways and bad ways, depending on the day. Some days feel several days long in that oh-my-God-it's-really-only-noon?? way, while some days feel longer in a Steve-Martin's-monologue-in-The Jerk way (if you don't know what I'm talking about, all I can say is that it's a good way, it's a classic movie, and for some reason I find that monologue just about the funniest thing I've ever heard in a movie) (thank you to my friend the Tall Bass for introducing me to that movie when we were in Ireland last summer).

Today was long in a Steve Martin way. I feel so productive and happy-tired now. It reinforces what I realized one freakishly early morning in college, when for some reason I was out and about by 7:00am and noticed that, huh, all these people are acting as if it's normal to be awake at this hour. As if staying up until 4am and waking up at noon not the most efficient way to accomplish things. How... troubling.

From then on I just couldn't enjoy sleeping through the morning anymore (though I will admit to a few very necessary exceptions, most of which, to be totally honest, probably involved the consumption of alcohol the night before). I became the freak whose alarm went off at 7:00am, throughly peeving her dorm neighbors through the paper-thin walls. And while I do love weekends now for the magic of waking up whenever my body feels it needs to, rather than setting an alarm, I generally don't sleep past 8:00, no matter how late I'm up the night before.

Today I did set an alarm, partly to remind myself of the clock falling back, and partly to make sure I'd get an early start on my many tasks. I was up and at my office to do some work-work and some personal-work by 8:30, and then down in Massachusetts for a volunteer committee breakfast at 10:30. By the time that was over, I felt like I'd already done a day's worth of work. Luckily, the real work of the day was finished and I was free to enjoy the gorgeous, crisp autumn day.

I knew I wanted to hike, and there's a great "go-to" hiking area that I love right near Brattleboro, but I have also been wanting to find the other hidden gems around here. There are so many state parks, recreation areas, preserves, etc. that I could probably hike somewhere different every day for years without driving more than an hour in any direction from my house. So I drove a random direction and followed the signs that jumped out at me, and ended up in the Erving State Forest. After an hour or so of hiking there (and I think I was the only one in the whole forest, it was so empty and peaceful) up to a great view of Mt. Monadnock (speaking of hiking goals), I left and drove down the back roads until I found a road that took me into New Hampshire.

I was undecided about whether to go home at that point, because I was tired but also felt like I hadn't quite thoroughly scratched the hiking itch. So I decided to stop thinking about it and see where the road took me, which turned out to be Pisgah State Forest, a pretty big park in southeastern New Hampshire. I've been trying this lately - when I'm thinking too much about something, which happens most of the time, I try not to think about anything at all, and my subconscious or the universe or whatever you want to think it is usually pushes me in a good direction. Pisgah was definitely a good direction. I didn't know it before, but not only are there copious hiking trails there but also a number of historical markers and descriptions on the building sites of a settlement located there in the early-to-mid 1800s. I got to exercise my body and my mind: icing on the hike.

And now I'm cozy on my friend OfHouse's couch (back in Massachusetts, no less), watching the Patriots-Colts game (for better or for worse) (Update: somehow the Patriots pulled it out; it was amazing!), coming to terms with how early it got dark outside, and appreciating a great autumn weekend. This day definitely feels like three. Hopefully tomorrow, with the adventures (sigh)that work is sure to bring, will just feel like a day. Unless good things happen, and it feels like two days.

(I could go on, but if you've seen The Jerk you already get the reference, and if you haven't you won't start to think this is funny anytime soon.)

*i.e. I hiked in two states today, neither Vermont. How cool is that (if you grew up in the Midwest, hours from the nearest state line, and still haven't gotten over the novelty of living in southeastern VT)?!

warmth

When I fell through the looking glass about two years ago and found a home in the magical community loosely arranged around the contra dance scene in western Massachusetts/southern Vermont, one of the things that delighted me most was seeing the ways in which community members really take care of each other in ways both practical and creative. There are many people here with various skills who actually truly enjoy sharing them with friends and neighbors, often spontaneously, sometimes even secretively.

Part of me wants to start down a long winding philosophical road here that would take us through a comparison of the contra dance community and church/religious communities, which would necessitate mentioning the theory I came up with at my potluck Sunday evening that religion, sports, and (to a certain extent) dancing are similar in the way that they bond partners and create strong relationships. But I won't go there (at least not now).

Instead, I'll mention my potluck to point out that, though it wasn't incredibly well-attended, I really enjoyed it once I reminded myself that greater quantity (of people) does not equal greater quality (of interaction) and started seeing it as the unique opportunity it was to sit around a table with a group of people that would otherwise never all be eating dinner together, even though we all see each other just about every weekend on the dance floor. For example, for about the first hour and a half, my guests were:

- a slightly older gentleman who owns a stringed instruments shop in Amherst, MA
- a 23-year-old friend whose major interests include dancing, cars, and the gorgeous art he creates
- a 40(ish?)-year-old carpenter who is my favorite waltz partner north of the Mason-Dixon line (beautifully nicknamed by the fabulous Froggoddess as "the Space Cowboy").

It was odd, and it was lovely. Because of the unique, highly-social-but-not-necessarily-conversational nature of contra dancing (particularly between people of the same gender roles, since you mostly have the chance to talk with your partner, who is usually of the opposite gender) (but doesn't have to be!), I don't know how often, if ever, those three men have actually had a conversation together. I think they learned a lot about each other.

And because every single person in this community (and, you know what? everywhere) has such knowledge and gifts to share, within the first hour of the get-together I'd learned from them about 1) the inner workings of both the old upright piano and the pellet stove that live in our house, and how we could get both to work (though it occurs to me that if we don't get either to work, we could always burn the piano for some desperately-needed warmth in the house), 2) how to repair a broken clutch on a stick-shift car, and 3) that it's the fault of a crooked hinge that my front door sticks shut so badly that you have to body-slam it to open it.

And then when I came home from work yesterday and turned the door knob, preparing for the right-hip-jab that's given me a permanent bruise, the door just swung right open. It was like magic. Or like a magical carpenter had alighted at my door and fixed the hinge.

So now I'm going to buy the Space Cowboy a beer one of these days, and throw another potluck sometime soon to see what else my community is willing to teach me, and hope that I'm successully reciprocating in some small way. I love living here.

shining

What do you know, I walked out to my car today and the whole thing was covered in frost. The fields I drove past on my way to work were shining in the early sun. Almost as if it's autumn or something.

It just occurred to me to make some connection between the Red Sox winning the World Series last night (WOOHOO!) and things (ahem) freezing over... but how could anyone paying attention to the last seven baseball games think The Curse is anything but long gone?

Besides the lack of sleep I got last night (though that wasn't bad either, as it was due to a late-lasting potluck and staying up with friends long past my bedtime), this is a good way to start the week.

so late it's early

Seeing as how it's 4:00am, it's totally against my better judgment that I'm online right now at all, much less that I'm about to blather about the most exciting thing in my life right now, not to mention the danger of this post going very stream-of-consciousness and really just ceasing to make any sense.

I mentioned it in my last post, so here you go, officially: I'm in a newly-created vocal trio, in which I basically get to hang out and sing with two of the most talented musicians and wonderful guys I know. Now and then I feel like they're going to wake up one morning and realize that there are a million more talented people out there that they could choose to sing with, but I'm certainly not going to point it out. Until then, we are having a lot of fun finding and arranging tunes we want to sing - mostly traditional and modern folk, with what I'd like to call a "funky twist," and being silly and creative every Tuesday night. We have a name and all, but I kind of want us to have a website we can unveil before I go posting it, so haha I'm not telling you what it is.

Tonight we recorded a demo album to send to concert and festival organizers so that they'll want to hire us to sing in front of crowds of people. Our 9pm-1am recording session ran overtime, as recording sessions are apparently wont to do, and I just got home around 3:45. Now I am trying to decide if I want to try to catch about 4 hours of sleep, probably in the jeans and t-shirt I'm wearing now, before getting up and going to work, or if I want to just keep distracting myself into wakefulness until it's light out, convince myself that I'm awake, and go ahead with the day. Either way, tomorrow (oops, that's actually today) will be interesting.

But the last six hours have been some of the most educational (and FUN) I've ever had. Recording in a studio is a whole other thing from... well, anything I've ever done. I'm so grateful to have had this first recording experience with two good friends who have been there before and actually know what they're doing, as opposed to stumbling along for the ride. The detail in which one can get caught up, the skills and tricks the sound engineer (and ours was awesome) applies when mixing a track, the time and concentration it takes to record just three songs... and, more than anything, the insight recording gives you into the way your voices sound and blend and carry... it's incredible.

I know I use those words a lot: incredible, amazing, awesome... The thing is, they apply to so many things in my life. I don't know how I got this lucky, and I don't know when my shit's gonna come due, but I sure am having fun these days.

That didn't go too terribly off-topic, did it? I could go back and read it, but that seems like too much work right now. I'd rather figure out why this lovely new demo CD doesn't want to play on my computer, and then... well, wander to bed, or just around the house for a while until daylight.

forget disneyworld

On Thursday night last week (almost a week ago? already!?) I jumped out of work at the earliest possible moment (4:00pm) to hit the road and meet my friends in western Mass. so that we could begin our semi-annual drive-dance-camp-swim-dance-sing-revel-dance-camp-dance-drive marathon, also known as the Lake Eden Arts Festival, also known as LEAF.



Thank goodness this festival is twice a year, because frankly if I had to wait another twelve months - instead of seven - for the next one, I would start sniffling and need a very big hug RIGHT NOW.

LEAF is my happiest place. Honestly? If I believed in a heaven, that's what it would look like. A sweet camp around a lake tucked into the southern Appalachians, where the music of the world is played and celebrated by some of the most talented musicians there are, and song circles and jams just spontaneously start up in the sunshine, and amazing artists and craftspeople display their talents, and there's dancing all day and late into the night. I would be perfectly happy spending eternity there, though I doubt I'm a good enough person to deserve it, seeing as how getting to be there for a few days twice a year feels almost too lucky. Really.

It's a wonderfully family-oriented festival, both in the traditional sense that it's great for families with kids (who are there in droves, swimming and flying down the zipline and trying out the trapeze and being creative and silly) and it's also a place that reunites and creates families. I usually drive with the same three people (who are leaving me after this year, the devils! AS IF college graduation and marriage and grad school are enough reasons to move down South, jeez) and I always see The Cousin at LEAF. We camp with our LEAF family, which is generally made up of The Cousin and me and two couples who are The Cousin's best friends from her Atlanta days and are now close friends of mine as well. We set up our tents within a few feet of one another and share our snacks and gossip and catch up on life since last LEAF. This one was the first since Spring LEAF '06 that we've all been there, and even though we all kept too busy to see each other much, it felt homey just knowing they were around.

I danced less and saw fewer performances this year than in the past, mostly because I spent more time trying to catch up with my ever-expanding group of LEAF friends and relaxing in the sunshine.

It was also because I spent a great deal of time perusing the CDs for sale, which seems like a dumb trade-off for live music and dancing except that the man who runs the CD booth is amazing and ridiculously knowledgable about music, and I find things there that I've never imagined existed. This time I was really looking for some new material that I could bring home to my group, which I don't think I've mentioned here and won't go in to right now except to say I'm in a band! We're good! I am so incredibly thrilled and excited about this! so I totally justified spending two straight hours going through every CD they had. Plus it probably scored me a volunteer position in the CD booth at future festivals, which is not a bad thing. And last but not least, I ended up buying five new CDs of which I love every minute, including a collection of Cajun and Creole drinking songs, because who doesn't need a collection of Cajun and Creole drinking songs?

But I did see Michael Franti, who is so beautiful and inspiring. I saw David Holt and the Pine Leaf Boys (Cajun music! Cajun dancing! I'm in love) and, most incredibly, Doc Watson. The Doc Watson. There's nothing quite like seeing a living legend (who - let's face it - may not be living so much longer) right there in person. [Edit: And I saw the Boulder Acoustic Society, who totally rock (thanks for the reminder, Dan)] And I danced with some of my favorite dance partners, who proved to me once again that people just know how to have more fun (at least on the dance floor) south of the Mason-Dixon line. No offense, Pioneer Valley. But come to LEAF and you'll see.

I also met a boy. A sweet and snuggly boy who is an outdoor educator and group facilitator and world traveler. Who lives, of course, in North Carolina, because God forbid I hit it off with anyone single and available within 800 miles of where I live.

The morals of this long, long story are: I love LEAF, I love my LEAF road trip buddies and my LEAF camping family, I can't wait for spring, and you should come too. Because for those five or six days a year, the world is happiness and love and music. Seriously, what were you planning on doing that's better than that?

proving that anything is possible

Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are related.

No, really.

i love baseball because...

...the who are going to the what?!?

How in the world did that happen?

There are several interesting perspectives floating around out there, but at the end of the day the consensus is still: How in the world did that happen?

And that's why we love baseball.

listen up

My brother has something really important to tell you.

It could save the life and wellbeing of someone you love. Please go read it.

ask for the stories, lest they go untold

I was going to tell you about the magic that is my little Vermont town as manifested this evening in the monthly "Gallery Walk" which highlights the amazing wealth and diversity of art and artists and general community-ness around here.

I was going to tell you about it being my first Gallery Walk since I moved here six months ago, how I've been meaning to go every month but something has always come up, until I finally made it out on this beautiful, freakishly warm evening and walked all over downtown with my friend Wendy and we fought the incredible masses of people - really, it was like everyone in town was out tonight - who were out and about enjoying downtown and the evening and the clowns in the square and the battle of the teenage bands in the River Garden (really).

And how we stopped into the antique store for a while to watch the "fashion show" being hosted by Alfred, our local flamboyant transvestite (though it's somewhat more noteworthy in these parts that he's Black than that he's a transvestite), and then spent a while in one of the local brewpubs running into a thousand people we (well, Wendy) knew and watching the beginning of the Sox game, and then wandered down the street to watch Wendy's boyfriend play the spoons in accompaniment to an excellent (and, might I add, very cute) banjo player and a guy on a washtub bass. (Update: and the guy who came over and - I kid you not - breakdanced in front of them for a few minutes, ending with a scary/awesome backflip.) This is a town where people regularly busk on the sidewalks, and during Gallery Walk you can't go 20 feet without seeing another musician. And where drivers tend to wave apologetically as they slowly make their way through the people spilling off the sidewalk around the musicians, as if to say "oh silly me, driving my car here in the street where you wanted to be standing, sorry about that."

But then I made my way back out here to the woods, where I'm retreating (read: housesitting) for the next week, and I went out to shut the chicken coop door and looked up into a thousand stars and listened to the brook running alongside the house and saw a couple of meteors, because this place is just regularly magical. And I came back in and checked my email, where my mom had responded to my recent email about my new attraction to fiddling with the memory that "Grandpa (my Dad) use to come out on our screened in front porch when I was a kid and it was time for the neighborhood kids to stop playing hide and seek, and he would "fiddle" for us so that the other parents, hearing the music, would let us stay out a little after dark. He'd play things like variations of Pop goes the Weasel and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

And suddenly the many excitements of this evening faded a little, and the real highlight of my day became that story, and seeing in my mind's eye my mother as a little kid running around her neighborhood in Memphis, TN just like my brother and I used to do in Normal, IL on warm evenings a lot like this evening. And remembering my grandpa, whose life overlapped with mine only just long enough that I vaguely remember him, but whose violin-playing is, along with his reading me Berenstein Bears books, what I remember best.

And knowing that I could pick up my violin tonight (which is not his violin - that's in my brother's possession - but is actually my grandmother's from the other side of the family) and go sit on the porch and play to the twinkling stars. This "neighborhood" has more chickens and raccoons and deer than children playing hide and seek, and I already gave myself permission to stay out after dark, but I'll play for the beautiful evening and for the pause between running-around and safe-in-bed. I'll play to remember that this music is about something greater than myself. Because I remember enough about my grandpa to believe that would make him really happy.

Thanks, Mom.

comforting thoughts from our nation's security professionals

It's so nice to know that our government has everything under control.

a contest with a really awesome prize that i'm not revealing because i don't yet know what it is. but it will be really awesome.

Imagine, just hypothetically, a singing trio - two men and one woman. They sing traditional folky stuff, some old-time songs, some gospel, some sad ballads and some cheery tunes. A little guitar here, a bit o' fiddle there, a touch of foot percussion now and then.

Now, what would be the perfect band name for this group?

Just hypothetically speaking, of course.

random notes on food and sustainability

1) The Monterey (CA) Aquarium has a really great area of their website full of information about oceans and conservation, including this handy downloadable pocket guide to seafood. Ever stand at a restaurant or grocery store wishing you could remeber which kinds of seafood are safe and sustainable? Now you can.

2) I've been eating carrots from my CSA farm all summer, and this afternoon I ate a baby carrot offered from a big bag a coworker bought at the supermarket. I don't think I can ever eat
supermarket/factory farm carrots again. If they're organic... maybe. I seriously can't even describe the taste difference. All I can think of is that it's like eating a slice of fresh, home-baked whole wheat bread and then eating sawdust.

3) For the record, I've never actually eaten sawdust.

oh, and with apologies to red sox fans

Know what I did last night?

Hint:

Sadly, there's no photo of me in my classic Twins t-shirt (I can't find a link to the old logo, but it's great - Minneapolis Man and St. Paul Man shaking hands across the Mississippi River) and baseball cap, alone among a sea of Red Sox paraphenalia.

Except I actually wasn't alone - there were at least five Twins fans in my row... but did they cheer on their team? Did they dare to clap when Joe Nathan came on in the 8th and miraculously got us out of a very tight spot? Not so much.

Obviously they've never been an opposing-team fan in Yankee Stadium. After (living through) that, I was fairly confident I wouldn't get killed at Fenway.

Oh what a game. Too bad for the Sox, who certainly needed it much more than we did. Yes, I hate the Yankees as much as any self-respecting American Leaguer outside New York City, and I'd rather - big-picture-wise - that the Red Sox had beaten us last night. But ultimately I'm a Twins fan and my team won a nail-biter in the rain at Fenway Park on a balmy September evening.

Doesn't get much better than that.

of course

Who doesn't want a supersonic toilet?

my brother is a loser!

In the best possible way. Look for the Report From Week 728 - he's on page 2: "Dogastrophe".

The best part is that he didn't even know until he got his prize in the mail, because it was printed Saturday, and he and most of his friends were doing something else on Saturday.

If you don't know what the Washington Post Style Invitational is... well, it's hard to explain. Every week they put out a call for entries on that week's topic, generally something requiring both creativity and silliness. They're usually hilarious to read. People whose entries are picked receive some sort of dubious prize, not to mention the official title of "loser." I believe that's a (joking) character judgment based on the fact that said people apparently have nothing better to do than think up interesting entries to the Style Invitational.

Go Dan!

DS

I studied classical violin from sixth grade until around the middle of college. I messed around with it now and then for another couple years, and then just sort of put it away one day and didn't take it out again.

When I started coming to New England and got into the contra dance community here, I learned that actually, some people don't quit playing the instruments they learned as kids just because jobs and families and other things come up to distract them. Or they do quit playing those instruments, but they pick them back up again or pick up something else that looks fun and exciting. I like that spirit, the spirit of doing what we can to make music, and especially to make it together, at jams and potlucks and dances and wherever else we can. And I started to think that fiddling looks pretty damn fun. (And then there's the upright bass, which I have a crush on and am going to start lessons on as soon as I can rent one affordably, but that's a whole other story.*)

After all, I own (or rather, have been entrusted with the long-term safekeeping of) a gorgeous violin that's been in my family for several generations. It's a beautiful instrument, and I have indeed felt rather shamefully disrespectful to leave it sitting in its case for the last few years. I've carefully moved it from apartment to apartment, and city to city. But I haven't played it. And that's just silly.

So, about a year ago (though I can't believe it's been that long) (I had a lot of adventures starting around this time last year, and I'm not talking adventures related - except really vaguely - to the violin) (and no, I'm not telling you more than that), I decided to pony up the $$$ to get the necessary work done on my violin, get the bow rehaired, and get it ready to play again. I was cheap enough to figure I'd just change the strings myself, which I did, but of course it took me about six more months to get around to that. In the spring I bought a lovely tunebook, written by a friend of mine, to get myself going on this fiddling thing. And a month ago I bought a new battery for my tuner.

Last night, finally, I played.

Today my fingers are sore and my chin is a little tender, but more importantly, I played for over an hour before I even realized time had passed. I'm out of practice, I'm out of tune, and I feel like a sixth-grade beginner again.

And it feels wonderful.

*The story is basically this: Have you ever seen a woman play an upright bass? It's hot. I want to be one of those women.

such fun, indeed

Have I mentioned that the quirky old New England house I live in has a profusion of woodstoves? Not that we're allowed to use them - it's not covered by the homeowner's insurance policy, and the insurance company office is literally right across the street. Doh.

There's even a funky little stove right in my bedroom, which I really wish I could use because I live in the Coldest House On Earth (whatever the temperature is outside, it's about 10 degrees colder inside. I'm not kidding). It would be so cozy to curl up in bed next to a crackling fire in the stove. Even though I'd probably feel warmer from the sound of the fire than the heat; I'm sure the heat would somehow instantaneously evaporate just like every source of heat does in this house.

But, much as the weather keeps pretending to turn to autumn, it's not quite time yet for fires in woodstoves. So something else has been getting cozy in my stove in the meantime. More specifically, the stovepipe. Night before last I woke up probably three times AN HOUR (again, not kidding) to the sound of something small yet quite industrious dragging who-knows-what into the stovepipe through the roof vent and scratching around. ALL NIGHT.

Mouse? Bat? Pack of rabid killer squirrels? Luckily whatever it is never ventured further down the pipe and out into my bedroom, but that didn't do much to cheer me up at 2:30a.m. At that point I probably would have happily throttled it with my bare hands (but I wouldn't have, no no! Hi, friends-who-recently-had-to-get-rabies-shots-after-catching-a-bat!).

Work yesterday wasn't as tough as I'd feared, fatigue-wise, mostly because I had a really fun crisis to take over my life all day. But today has been a little rough. The little bugger didn't come back last night, but I kind of wish it had because I was all prepared to smoke it out with a small fire in the stove. Yes, I've considered the dangers involved - the nest could catch fire, etc., etc. I talked it over with my landlord, and she agreed it was worth a try (with the emphasis on smoke rather than flame).

Have I mentioned how awesome my landlord is? Truly, truly awesome. If there were any doubt, it would be eradicated by this second part of her advice:

"a tip - if they die in there, you'll want to get the bodies out post haste... such fun!"

I guess that's fun I don't get to have for now, but isn't it nice to have things to look forward to?