SOUL

I am white. Very, very, very, very white. I admit this, freely and easily. I have no particular ethic or racial interest to me, and I sound and look like Helga the Oxen Mistress crossed with Swiss Miss and an elf. I dance and sing with no grit or swagger, and I am sexy like a moose in pink panties.

I have no soul. But that is OK. There is a place for everyone, even the soulless white moose.

I got to thinking in this very roundabout way about soul by listening to Underground Garage on Sirius this morning. They often play one of my favorite songs in the world, “Fool For You” by the Impressions, featuring the wonderful Curtis Mayfield, of course. I sing along to this song, and although I can hit all the notes, how I do fail. There is so very nothing I can do to give the feel that Curtis does to the song, something indefinable to me other than to call it soul.

I then think of two other singers I admire, Al Green and Marvin Gaye. They, plus Curtis, make up my Holy Trinity Of Soul for me. They are the cream of the crop, effortlessly talented, endlessly enjoyable to listen to. They take me somewhere else, a deep delicious place that I can almost feel in my chest, not quite, but close enough. I listen, from my distanced moosey glade, and I feel a kind of love for each of them, for what they give, what they can do.

They are distinctly different as singers, my Trinity. Al Green is the most funky of the three, bending and reaching, swooping into notes, unafraid, grounded in rich fertile soil of his religious roots, confident, beaming. Curtis Mayfield’s impossibly-smooth signature falsetto has something of a sadness to it, as well as an intelligence and a fire, smoking and smoldering underneath. Marvin Gaye sits somewhere between those two, able to reach to the sky, then come down again to earth, clean, dirty, smooth, rough, commercial, street, sexual, pure.

All three men, lives either damaged or lost through unimaginable tragedies. Green suffered third-degree burns when a girlfriend scalded him, and she then killed herself. Mayfield had a stage scaffolding collapse on him while playing a concert, paralyzing him from the neck down, and died nine years later. And Gaye, shot to death a day before his 45th birthday, by his own father. What loss. Senseless, stupid loss.

Well, I take it back. Maybe I have just enough soul to recognize what soul is, and to appreciate what Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, and Marvin Gaye left to us, richness beyond and unrelated to million-seller records and critical appreciation. They sang with their hearts wide open, souls shown, lives exposed. Marvelous.

My favorites, by my favorites.

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TEETH

My 14th year was such a depressing mess. There are years, we all have had them, when it just seems shitstorm after shitstorm keeps raining down, and all you can do is try to cope and then clean up the disgusting smelly mess.

That summer was when teenage angst really hit full force. I was pissed and disappointed in everything: music, clothes, my parents, my friends, my school, my stupid town, and most of all, me. I was getting a big reality check: I wasn't as pretty or smart or powerful I as thought I was, and I didn't know what or who I was anymore. I would look at my plain, pale, unformed face in the mirror, knew what I wanted to say but still didn't yet have the elegance or ease or experience to express myself the way I wanted. And I knew there was nothing to solve it but time. Long, dragging teenage-years time.

On top of that, I kept getting sick from yet-to-be diagnosed food allergies, and missed months of school. A ski accident knocked me out cold on a freezing winter night, and the boy I was crazy about had eyes for some sweet extremely-boring black-haired donut-faced girl. I was hopelessly lost in math, never to recover, missed too much. Boston, Styx, Kansas, Supertramp. Fucking hell.

The killer winter passed, and I once again returned to school after another two weeks gone puking and crapping up a storm. It was one of those early spring days where the air smells green and of wet fresh dirt, the sun peeks out to warm you enough to forget about a coat, and you can feel the waking up all around you. I was so happy to see my friends again, so tired of being alone at home all day watching soap operas and game shows under my avocado green pilled blanket.

As usual, I was running around loose at school, probably blowing off a drum lesson or study hall, and I found myself with a few buddies, including my boy crush, fooling around in the choir room. The day was so nice that the double doors had been propped open, and I went through them to the sweetness of the air and sun. I was feeling so giddy and silly. My boy crush seemed to be paying me a lot of attention, seemed happy I was back at school again. On impulse, I walked over to a silver railing at the side of the concrete stairs that led to the sidewalk going around the school. Underneath it was a deep window well, a good 15 feet down or more, that contained the tiny windows to the basement band room, gravel, and a few pieces of broken glass.

All filled with happy, I grabbed the railing and pushed myself straight up, bringing my hips up slightly past the top edge. That was my mistake. Suddenly,with my arms still locked into place, I tipped forward, losing my balance. I had the presence of mind to hang on, but in turning over upside-down, my mouth hit full force on the lower railing -- BAM! I hung there for a second, until I dropped, face-first into the gravel at the bottom of the well. I laid there for a second, stunned. I looked over to the windows, looking at the 7th Grade band stop practice to look at me. Oh, hell.

I went to stand, ignoring the band kids, and looked up. How the hell was I going to get out of here? As I raised my head, I felt a rush of blood go down my throat. I wiped my mouth. Red. I spat out an ugly liquid bloody mess, including what I thought were pebbles, but were in fact most of my two front teeth. I ran my tongue, the bottom sliced and bleeding heavily now all down my pretty pink gauze shirt, over my teeth, jagged and rough.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

I yelled it as loud as I could, and started swearing up the ugliest blue streak the world has ever heard. I was furious. Not this! Not today! NO NO NO NO NO! I just got back!

Appearing like the White Knight above me then, was my boy crush. I felt so horrible and embarrassed, not sure what had even happened to my face, how badly it was wrecked up. He didn't hesitate for a second. He climbed down into the well, upset on his face but also a look of a calmness and determination, something of the man he would be someday. While the band watched, he bent down and had me stand on his back, then told me to balance against the concrete wall as he slowly stood, shaking with effort, until I could reach high enough to grab a railing. My other friends by now came to the top of the well, and pulled me through. I looked back at him, in the pit, covered in my blood. "Go," he said, waving me away. "Get help. I will be fine. Go!"

I went into the choir room, caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, turned around, and slammed a window shut in sheer fury, exploding it into shards of icicle glass.

There's nothing creepier than walking around and seeing people look frightened by you. My friends took me to the office, where the horrified staff had me sit alone in the Vice Principal's office until my mother could pick me up, a white gym towel soaking up the blood. She arrived, and we went straight over to the dentist's, another 10 miles away.

My dentist, I have realized, was a weirdo. He never used novocaine on any of my fillings, didn't think kids needed it. One time he pulled a loose baby tooth of mine out with his bare hands, shocking me utterly. So he looked me over, said the nerves to the front teeth were still good, and told me to stay home from school to let them rest so the teeth would not die. Two weeks. I was despondent.

My dear mom, seeing me so sad, all broken-toothed and swollen, told me she would take me to my favorite record store across the street from the dentist's, so I could buy some music to listen to while I was at home. This perked me up considerably. We were not wealthy, and I always had to really push to get a new record.

Like a kid in a candy store, I started scooping up albums, looking over at my mom to see what my limit was. She stopped me at 10 -- that was fifty dollars! This was unheard of. We had bills less than that we couldn't pay. I took the records to the guy behind the counter, all happy again. He looked up, and his mouth literally almost dropped to the floor in horror. I had forgotten. My shirt and hands and hair were still caked in blood, my two front teeth looked like a broken bottle edge, and my face was swollen and badly bruised. I looked down in shame, had my mother finish paying, then slinked out.

Walking back to the car, clutching the brown paper bag from Mainstream Records, my mom started laughing. "Did you see that guy's face? I thought he was going to pass out cold! Ha ha ha ha ha!" I looked at her, and a smile spread over my face, tight and painful as it was. That was damn funny. I started to laugh with her as we walked down the sidewalk in the late afternoon shadows, laughing harder as people passed me by, double-taking, whispering.

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GIRL

Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry
Still you don't regret a single day.
Ah girl!

I was thinking about the girls who came to stay in my head, those from my childhood, the girls I wanted to be like. I guess I never really thought consciously about being like my mom, although she was nothing but sweet and funny and loving and kind as I was growing up. I guess I was looking more for something of my own time, something youthful and exciting, very similar to how I attached to The Beatles, et al. I was really too young to know what cool was -- I just know what I was pulled towards, like a magnet. And that just happened to be WAY WAY COOL. Hee hee.

How I wanted to be a MOD!! How beautiful those girls were, I thought, with their shiny long long hair, and BIG black rimmed eyes, and pale lips, skinny-limbed and colt-gawky. I wanted a long blonde flip, a Mondrian-print dress, white go-go boots, and fishnet tights. I still do, in my heart, oh I still do. I spent hours with fashion and music magazines, LIFE and LOOK as well, soaking it all in. I was a fabulous teenager in my mind, wearing Mary Quant and Rudy Gernreich and Biba. I couldn't WAIT to be old enough to buy some Yardley white lipstick and giant false eyelashes and pout my way down the street. Of course, by the time I was a teenager, fashion SUCKED SO BAD that it hurt my heart. Everything was long and plaid and ugly as holy hell. I just didn't know when I was little that things changed, until they did.

I think the first girl I thought was just so beautiful was the British model Jean Shrimpton, soon followed by Marianne Faithfull (she had MY name! swoon!), Dusty Springfield, Twiggy, all the go-go girls on Hullaballoo and Shindig and Where The Action Is, Elizabeth Montgomery, Julie Newmar, Jane Asher, Edie Sedgwick, Julie Christie, Tina Louise and Dawn Wells...so many. I wanted so much to be beautiful, like they were. It took a long long long time to get over the fact that that was not going to be the case, so ingrained they were on my mind, how much I thought their beauty was the only beauty worth having.

I think it wasn't until two things happened, that I got OK with me as me: seeing my beautiful icons change into a more realistic kind of lovely over the years, and having someone else think that I was beautiful. Sometimes you can see yourself through someone else's eyes, instead of the relentlessly cruel bathroom mirror. Sometimes, you can see what they see, even if it is just for a second. Who is not made more beautiful through love?

I will leave you with a video of the teenaged Marianne Faithfull, before things changed for her as well.

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FREEBIRD

Listen, you blockhead idiot, no one wants to hear you yell "FREEBIRD!" at concerts ANY MORE. It was funny 30 years ago, now it is as tired and dull as your clacking, grinding synapses.

The only situation I would enjoy hearing "FREEBIRD!" shouted would be at the televised arrest of Osama bin Laden.

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ROCK 2

Ah, this morning I am eventually waking up – not quite there yet – and my hair is askew, my feet ache from hours of standing on a cement floor, and I can literally feel my puffy eyes expanding further. I sit here typing in black pajamas, all rocked out from last night’s Raconteur’s show. For a number of reasons, it was disappointing: a peculiar crowd with too many creepy asswipes, an oppressive security force, and a very short set with too many extended songs from the band. They are a talented bunch of guys, very much so, but I ended up bored, leaving before the end of the show. I also wanted to avoid the dude I kicked. Heh.

Anyway, I woke up thinking about the show and what I had been hoping it had been, and what in particular I liked. Of course, the star of the Raconteurs is Jack White, better known to some of you from The White Stripes. He is a musician I admire greatly, for essentially the same reason I appreciate Beck and Elvis Costello. All three of them are musical historians, and freely integrate all types of influences into their work, in slightly different ways.

Costello, from a different generation than the other two, grew up with a father, Ross MacManus, who was a reasonably well-known British bandleader, big band, standards, pop. I can’t really think of a musical genre Costello has not used – opera, classical, blues, punk, soul, pop, country – to varying success, but explored nonetheless. He’s a smart man, that Elvis, and it is easy to see how he needed to keep expanding his writing and performing to keep his own interest going. The commonality in all his work and through all those styles is his dense lyrical wordplay. Elvis likes words, oh yes he does. At best, which is pretty often, his lyrics are incredibly clever, with multiple meanings and layers that sometimes take repeated listenings to pick up fully. When it doesn’t work, he is alienating and obscure or the words come off punny and throwaway. I have seen Ol’ El in concert more times than I can accurately remember, beginning in 1979, and he almost always delivers a fantastic show. My only real complaint is that sometimes he likes to hear himself emote a little too much. Repeating the line “say you wouldn’t KID ABOUT IT, say you wouldn’t, say you wouldn’t, say you wouldn’t…” 8 MILLION TIMES at the end of the song became a running joke. SAY YOU WOULDN’T! SAAAAAAAY YOUWOULDN’TTTTT! Ha ha, oh Elvis. I love ya.

Beck and Jack White, who have actually done a little work together, seem to be very kindred souls to me, although Beck leans more to urban influences and White to garage/rock. Both of them have a strong fondness for country, blues, folk, and soul as well. Both are humorous and quirky, but also have great depth and range in their lyrics. Beck’s “Sea Change” album is very beautiful, very sad, speaking of loss and endings; White often writes about the realities of love and the painful outcomes of seeing with clarity as in “A Martyr For My Love For You.” Both are passionate performers who obviously love to play, love music completely.

They, along with Costello, cleverly integrate musical and lyrical nods to other performers and genres in a way that makes me smile. These are three guys who have spent hours and hours and hours listening to music, digging into the vaults of musical history, and know how to bring it to us in a way that is unique. Bands like Oasis and Green Day are also musical historians in a sense, but bring nothing novel – they directly rip off the artists they so admire to such a degree that both might as well be cover bands. Why not just write “Lucy In The Pie With Diamonds” and change a couple of chords?

So, despite my disappointment in last night’s show, I am glad to have seen it for the flashes of the Jack White I dig. Dig these vids.

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TIRED

I am.

But this I can tell you.

Today, I:

1. Finished the laundry.
2. Got into a fight at a rock concert and kicked a dude in the nuts.
3. Came home and worked on some photos and drank some bottled water.


WHEEEEEE!

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HOLLYWOOD 4

After a run to the stultifyingly dull post office, I went over to the OOGCP for a refresher latte. Ah! There's the Hollywoods! And Mrs. Hollywood is wearing the tattooed jumpsuit again! AAAHH! This time she has a tan rabbit fur vest over it. Oh my goodness. But for whatever reason, maybe the clouds coming in and the temperature drop, the Hollywoods are very quiet and subdued today. They sit silently at a table, Mrs. Hollywood writing something in a notebook, while Mr. Hollywood stares sadly out the window. They both look older today. Maybe they miss Hollywood. Somehow, I feel a little sad for them. Maybe I have become kind of fond of them.

And here's to you, Mrs. Hollywood,
The Internet loves you more than you will know.
God bless you, please Mrs. Hollywood
Heaven holds a place for those who dress,
Yes, yes, yes
Yes, yes, yes.

We'd like to know a little bit about you for my blog
We'd like to know just how you see yourself.
Look around you, all you see are underdressed hipster kids,
Stroll around the coffee shop until you feel at home.

I couldn't stay, but I did peer just a little into their TOYOTA OF HOLLYWOOD car, which I didn't even notice was parked next to me until I returned to my car. The passenger mirror is still dangling, outrageously. There was a deck of cards spread all over the backseat floor, a bottled water there as well. On the dash was a small stuffed cheetah. That made me think about the lingerie of Mrs. Hollywood, which is surely 90% animal print fabrics. Maybe 95%.

I wonder if someday soon they will return to Hollywood to follow the sun, driving the Toyota down Highway 1, mirror clanking against the side of the car, looking for a good place to get a cup of coffee.

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LIGHT

I notice light. Likely it is the photographer in me that makes that so. I always seem to be judging the quality and characteristics of light, even though I am not taking pictures 99% of the time. Light, or lack of it, has infinite characteristics, and it interests me, pulls me, makes me feel.

I am always a bit surprised to notice how light changes from place to place. One of the first things I can remember about moving here was the absolute blinding intensity and angle of the sun at sunrise and sunset, of course conveniently timed for rush hours. It’s like the sun is aimed straight at your eyes, head on, where sunglasses and the window shade in the car make little to no difference. I forget how far north this is sometimes, until it is summer and there is still decent light at 10PM. And then, now, beginning in the fall, the angle softens and the shadows lengthen, and soon the sun will be gone, replaced by low gray-white clouds that will rarely clear. Sometimes it becomes as dark as evening in the middle of the day, and you find yourself needing to turn the lights on. In the best outcome, it makes you want to put on a sweater, make some cocoa, read a book in front of a warm fireplace. In the not-so-best situation, you realize you have not smiled in days. The darkness brings a somber feeling, a closing-down, hibernation. It is no shock that Seattle is known for coffee, heroin, and suicide. What a lousy place for Kurt Cobain to be from, huh? Poor sod.

Maybe his compensation was stage light. My favorite place to shoot a concert has always been from behind the band, looking out into the audience. Normally, photographing from the front of the stage, a good shoot means you have taken some pictures that make viewers feel like they were in the audience, feeling that sweaty rock n’ roll energy and passion. But shooting from the player’s position, oh man. Seeing what they see through the lens of a camera, yet distanced enough to take the whole view in. You see why people give their lives to being onstage, how it feeds them. It’s a daunting thing, having a big bright white spotlight trained on you, waiting for you to do something wonderful. Of course, some people glow underneath the lights; they come alive, soak it up like a sponge. Some people, you can see a momentary cringe, but then they deal. Others won’t even look up.

I can remember being onstage once, alone and just standing there. I looked into the big white light, squinting, letting it blind me, trying to imagine things. Did you know that when that is shining, you really can’t see any further than the first few rows? So when someone says, “HOW YA DOIN’, CLEVELAND? AWRIGHT?” they are nodding and pointing at pretty much nothing. That amuses me.

I stared into the light for a while longer, and I stepped back, and looked at the steady bright beam catch dust and smoke in the air. I could see more away from it than in it.

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KINKS

How can something like this turn up after 39 years????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5DibWsJW9Y

(I would embed that here for you but I am not allowed, durn it.)

This made my day day day day day. I saw it and went WOWOWOWOWOWOW and it rang around in my heart like a bell. It's hard to explain. I love those guys. Some things never change.

The first time I met Ray Davies, I was 17 years old. I never ever thought anything like that would happen, but I had met someone who knew him, and the opportunity was handed to me, me that lived in Wisconsin in a town of 300 people. It never occurred to me before that I could do that, it seemed so impossible and remote. I went to Chicago -- The Big City! - and waited, as told, for him to appear out of a stage door from behind the Uptown Theater after a soundcheck. And then there, OMG, it's RAY! Of course it was. Ray looked just like Ray, but in 3D now, in a blazer and sunglasses, and short punky hair, cut from the long hair he had the year before. His craggy face slid into his crooked grin, the same one I had seen in so many pictures, and I could see his eyes crinkle up even under the sunglasses. He was ridiculously charming, and not even trying.

I was so flummoxed that after I was introduced to him, and he said, "Marianne, hmm?" and smiled that Cheshire Cat Ray smile again, that I immediately turned right around and walked into a brick wall and stood there, all hot-faced and freaked out, heart beating wildly. I cursed myself silently, bitterly, for doing such an idiot thing. I WALKED AWAY FROM HIM! WHAAAAAA??? HOW COULD I HAVE DONE THAT? I was usually a cool customer, not fumbly or silly at all. But I loved this band, this guy, had literally grown up to his songs, and then THERE HE WAS, smiling RIGHT AT ME, no more than a foot away, shaking my hand, kissing me on my cheek! My brain exploded. I had blown it. How does one, at 17, salvage the embarrassment of such a supreme failure moment?

I waited until I heard him get into his limo, and I turned around. Out of the window he was grinning at me, a big grin, and he waved. I meekly waved back, and smiled some kind of lame smile from my stupid teenage face.

"Bye, Marianne!" he said as the limo pulled away into the late-day sunshine from the theater.

From then on, I didn't have any problem speaking with him. He had given me a pass to be silly and 17 for a minute. He understood.

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WALKER

When I am out, driving about and just looking around as I go on my little predetermined rut routes through town, I like to watch the people who are not in cars. I miss walking around. When I lived in Chicago, I pretty much walked everywhere. I did not have a license to drive yet, and half the time it was faster to walk than wait for a bus. It is such a different feeling. In my car I am insulated, with other insulated little metal bullets surrounding me. On the street, you are more conscious and conscientious because if you are not you will probably step in front of the late bus and die. You smell the smells, feel the energy and the rhythm of your fellow pedestrians, navigate uneven sidewalks, all that. The car is a numbing thing. Walking energizes me.

When I moved to Denver, the West, I attempted to keep walking, but everything was so spread out, with buses that really never came (every 45 minutes? why bother?) and a lack of places I wanted to walk to in the first place. After my first son was born and for a few years after, I would push him in his stroller the few blocks to the little one-block shopping street, or to the Pour Le France to get a coffee and a cookie, sometimes to the tiny branch library, or the ice cream shop, or the park. Two more kids, walking became like herding cats, and I pretty much stopped. I liked walking our dog, but got spooked after she was attacked by a loose dog. I got my license, became A Car Person, insulated.

Today I saw two young boys walking home from school, about 9 or 10 years old, backpacks bouncing on their thin shoulders. Suddenly, they both broke into a run down a steep hill, grinning. A race. One of them jumped up to touch the bottom branch of a tree as he passed it, as boys do. I passed them, silent, faster, coasting down the hill in a long stream of cars. I glanced in my rear view mirror as I turned off; they were still running, happy.

The last time I broke into a run down a hill, it was nighttime, with the tall orange-yellow streetlamps glowing brightly, a light rain coming down. I just felt like running and I smiled and burst down the wet sidewalk, stride lengthening as I picked up speed, my flat Nikes going bap bap bap on the concrete. I wanted to keep going, run faster and faster, but the Car Person in me said slow down now, it is wet and you could slip and hurt yourself.

I bap bap bapped to a stop, and leaned against a tree, catching my breath, looking up through the black silhouettes of the leaves at the rainy mist floating, caught in the glow of the streetlamp, feeling the wet little drops on my face. Conscious. Happy.

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PESSIMIST

Why is it, on a beautiful warm sunny day, when it is utterly perfect and I am sitting on a pier watching the sparkling lake, that all I think about it that it is going to cloud up and rain in a few days? Dammit.

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200

This is the 200th post here.

When I started writing here in late February of this year, I didn't know exactly what I was planning to do, just that I was going to try to write some stuff. It didn't really matter what it was. I figured if I did better than "aslkdfhowienovnpef" it was OK. Maybe my next blog will be "aslkdfhowienovnpef.com." No, maybe not.

Fairly quickly, I thought, OK, if you are going to bother, have the discipline to get something new up every day. It would be too easy to let it lapse and get sucked into doing nothing. Again. I realize that nothing I do here is really valuable other than to me, but hey, go me. So, every day, I do something. And today there are 200 things that didn't exist before, and I LIKE THAT.

My goal is to continue here for a full year, ala my friend Mike Long, he of YouTube dancing fame. If he danced every day for a year, I can write every day for a year. At the very least, I can say I completed a project. There will be some stories written down for my family to keep. And maybe I have made a few people laugh or cry or think or get angry or feel something. I really like that, too. I might continue on after a year, or not, or just move on to something else. We Will See.

This goofy place is a snapshot, a repository, a refuge, and if Diarrhea Island were a real place I would put on my hazmat suit and settle right in, put my feet up, and watch the seagulls crap from the sky while sipping a Venti Iced Latte through a straw.

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ROCK

There are all kinds of stories from the world of rock n' roll.

Many years ago, I went to a suburban Chicago club to see one of my very favorite bands. I had gotten to know them all, and we became good friends. They were all so much fun and nice and talented, and we hung out whenever they were in town, or if I traveled to see them somewhere.

I knew that the leader of the band had recently gotten married. His wife, a former beauty queen, had gotten pregnant, and had recently given birth to their son. She had told him, he told me, that she had been told by doctors she couldn't have children. Hmm. I worried about this situation. My friend was a good man, good-hearted and sweet, but such a bohemian and scattered it was hard to see how he would deal with being a father.

We got to the club about an hour or so before showtime. The club's backstage area was essentially the office area, which wasn't bad because it was large and well-lit, and we all were just delighted to see each other again. I met the Beauty Queen. She was indeed a very good-looking woman, tall with long lean legs, a natural blonde, a fine-featured face with high cheekbones and glinting jade green eyes. But my heart sank. I could see in her, call it intuition or whatever, a coldness, a harshness, that went bone-deep. I didn't even have to ask; the other band members faces told me I was right, in sad-eyed looks and faces turned to the floor. Multiple stints in rehab had not saved her pregnancy from drug and alcohol use.

My friend, bouncing around as always like a giddy, clumsy puppy, brought the baby over to me, and told me his full name while I sat in a chair and held him. The Beauty Queen watched me, as she smoked a cigarette. The baby was no more than a few weeks old. He fell asleep as I held him, and as the band prepared to go onstage, his mother told me I could just put him back down in his portable crib and we could all go watch the show. We?? All?? I asked her who would be taking care of the baby. She pointed to a baby monitor next to his crib and told me if he started crying she'd come back in. I must've looked appalled, because she laughed and said that's what they did and it was fine. The baby would be fine. She clipped the other part of the baby monitor to her jeans, and walked out, lighting another smoke.

I stood there. There was no one else left, just me and the baby in his crib. The band began to play and it was incredibly loud, even in the office. The baby stirred and frowned. I looked to the door leading to the club. I looked at a door, unlocked, leading to the parking lot. The baby began to fuss in a tiny voice, fists flailing. I looked again to the club as he started to cry. Of course she wouldn't be coming back to get him. She would never hear him in there. The monitor was a prop.

I picked him up, awkward and unsure, feeling so helpless and sad. I bent down and with one hand rooted around in his diaper bag until I found a bottle half-filled with formula. I took him back to the chair with me, and he drank and drank until the bottle was gone. I rocked from side-to-side with him, and tried to cover his little ears with his blanket, not really knowing what else to do, not a mother myself, little experience with babies. He fell asleep again, and I thought, I will hold you, someone will hold you this time, if just for tonight. I listened to the show, blaring through the walls, and I looked at the baby's face and wondered what would become of him, and my friend, and the Beauty Queen.

Twenty-two years later, the baby is a tall and handsome young man. My friend still plays music, living most of the year out of the country now. The marriage fell apart pretty quickly, the Beauty Queen struggled greatly with her addictions, and I do not know now where she is or how she is. I know it was a hard struggle for this boy to grow up. I know his dad loves him dearly, grew in his love for him, and did the best he could for him.

I don't worry about the baby anymore.

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911

It's a curious thing.

Everything has changed, and nothing has changed.

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HOME

Later today, I was determined to grab some of the late afternoon sun, and did so. I went out to my backyard around 5PM, sat on a fairly dirty patio chair, put my legs up, and closed my eyes. I thought this: the wonderful feeling of the gentle sun shining on my face, warming me, that is the second-to-last thing I would like to experience at the time of my death. I already know the last thing I experience will be me yelling “HHHHHNNNNGGGHHH!!” so that’s that.

I don’t have anything to do for a few minutes other than relax and listen to the sounds in my suburban neighborhood. I hear a slight rushing sound of cars heading home from work, a few slowly wandering down my street with a whooshy/gravel-y quiet. The birds are twittering and tweeting, occasionally getting all excited about something, then become more random. A garage door goes up, a car hums in, door shuts. I hear speedboats roaring and bouncing on the waves, probably over a wake from another boat: rrrRRRrrrRRRrrrRRR.

I sometimes think it is quite sucky, living so close to the lake, but not on it. The only view I have of it from my house is accessed through the upstairs playroom balcony, where I can see a sliver of blue and part of Seattle. Other than some added humidity and much higher housing costs, I am not sure what I am getting out of my current location. I hear the boats and the seaplanes, all the time, but I don’t see them. I can walk down a steep gravel walkway about a block from my house and there is the lake, but it doesn’t feel like my lake. Close, but not quite. I toss a few stones in anyway.

I have lived in tiny rural towns, and in one of the biggest, greatest cities in the world. I have lived on a semi-arid plain and in an arid wasteland. I have lived amongst millions of people and in places where you could lie down on the road in front of your house and safely take a nap. I have lived in the quiet, family-friendly suburbs, trying to make a bridge between city perks and country safety. I am a Midwestern girl who couldn’t waitwaitwait to go gogo and get to the cities of the world, to finally be me, be free, do all the things I wanted to do at last. The City Girl, lacking money and focus and needing a change again, moved to smaller big city, then to that city’s suburbs, then to another’s, three children in tow, born Westerners.

I have moved so many times and thought about moving so many times.

After I go “HHHNNNNNNGGGHH!!!” and if I were to have a tombstone, it probably should read, “Close, But Not Quite.”

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