Not Self Promotion...

Folks, for those who can't get to Seattle to see my favorite local band - Lucy Bland - buy the EP or download from iTunes!

They played last night at Nectar after much airplay on KEXP (kexp.org), and they're scheduled to play at Chop Suey on 2/7.

What are they like? Great vocals, a Rhodes, a cello, beats and guitars - and the random accordion and trombone too. Think Zero 7, Iron and Wine, and the soundtrack to Garden State with a great warm swirly sound all around.

Their shows are listed on the Couch Calendar, but e-mail me if you have questions or want me to pick up an EP for you...

DeGama Would Be Proud

I feel like an explorer. You know the kind, you read about them in middle school history class. Coming to the New World in big ships full of stuff, wearing too much armor, groping blindly at everything unfamiliar, trying desperately to map their journey knowing they might not ever go back. At once it's an arrogant exercise - to assume anything needs discovering, because there were plenty of people already here. But I have to imagine that for some at least, it was more than a booty call on behalf of her majesty. To look out over a land so different from the one you left that it changes the person you are - I can't believe that some didn't discover themselves in the process.

And now I stand on this ridge looking over all that is, knowing there's infinite possibility in every direction. I've tried to make this journey before, but I wasn't ready. This time I've shed the armor, left most of the baggage on the pier.

What do you do when you have no map at all?

Somehow quite unexpectedly I found my guide to this land, though he is as unfamiliar in this territory as am I.

How do you tell someone this? That you know enough that you're willing to take the risk in what you don't know? That it won't always be easy, but that you'd rather find out how hard things could be with this person than with any other? And once you know this, what happens next? Do you plot the path or do grope through the bush?

When you've supped at St. Augustine, what do you do next?

Know the direction you want to go, then go.

D'yever...

Ever stop yourself and think, 'wow, am I really here?'

When something just clicks and you realize in that moment that things are undeniably different?

When you look back at your path and wonder how you made it from that last step to the one you're on now, teetering onto the next?

When you think about all your parents taught you, everything anyone tried to impress on you - and you realize that maybe, just maybe everything aligned in a perfect moment and now it's all so clear?

Pinch me. Hmm. Seems I'm already awake.

Take a moment...

It's been raining for 27 days.

You'd think that's not such a big deal in Seattle, but it's actually a little unusual. Normally it's sort of drizzly and overcast, but it's been dark and cloudy for weeks now and the rain's come down hard. Pot holes have appeared, trees fallen over and venues sparse because folks are tired of going out drenched. Today was actually the first day I woke up and it wasn't raining - the sun's shining and the air is crisp. We got up and took the dog to the Magnuson park - off-leash heaven - and celebrated with all of the other cabin-fevered Seattlites by getting out in the mud. The dogs went nuts...mud everywhere with barking and frothing and humping from the biggest mastiff to the teacup chihuahuas. There was so much life in the park this morning, I almost cried at how happy the dog looked to be running at his own pace. And then there was this moment when I watched the dog walking alongside Todd - about 25 yards ahead - I watched them walk and play and the dog looked up at him, he looked back at me...and that was it. My dog, my shadow and my security standing with my guy, my hopes and my dreams. And I laughed at it all, the sweetness and the absurdity of such happiness.

But the sun comes out only briefly.

Just two days ago I was reading a friend's blog when I stumbled on writings about his father. His dad, a young 62 (just a few years older than my dad) was diagnosed with fronto temporal dementia (FTD) in May of 2004 - and is now no longer the person he once was. This is the first Christmas that he thought of it as being without his dad, because he sits in the room but is no more. He is like a shell of the person he once was, and if my friend listens closely he can almost hear the echoes of his voice in the hollow of his chest. His writing was powerful, the descriptions of his mother unforgettable. We talked about his dad for the first time the next day at work, and listening to him reflect on death gave me respect for the struggle his family faces daily. For all that medicine has given us, it rarely treats those most afflicted - the family.

In this state of mind I found myself at lunch with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in nearly 4 years. He too was facing similar struggles - his mother had a stroke 27 months ago and his father's dementia is like a prison sentence from which there is no release. He comes to work each day so he can afford to take care of them, but at about 6 hours he starts to worry that his father might have forgotten to feed his mother, or worse yet, that he's burned down the house. His only solace from this is Moon, the Golden Retriever his brother left him during a relocation to Hawaii - and I have no doubt that this fragile balance wouldn't be possible without that dog. None but he and the dog will escape, and even they too will succumb eventually. But for now he walks for the parents who cared for him as a child, the dog keeping watch on him.

Only two months ago I was wrapped up in living in New York, my sphere concerned with survival. It's been quiet these last weeks safe from the City, hearing things for the first time - the marvelous texture that has become my life, the privilege I have in the friends I keep, their experiences a borrowed perspective that shapes the person I will be.

Purgatory in the West

Something happened the other day that reminded me just how different life's been since I moved back to Seattle.

I got angry.

Really angry, like lights flashing unpredictable angry. I haven't been like that since I left New York - and I don't care to revisit it anytime soon. But it was the same kind of angry I got in New York, like when that woman yelled at me for stealing her bags when I was actually running after her for having left them at an ATM. But this was a whole other level of low, and I'll tell you about it.

I was coming home from work, making a transfer on the bus at the Montlake freeway station. This is a busy intersection marked by an on-ramp to the highway, lots of University of Washington traffic and it was also rush hour and pouring rain. I walked up to the bus stop to see some people huddled under the bus shelter and one man standing far from it, near the curb where the buses stop (this is about 15' away). He was an elderly Japanese gentleman, probably in his 80s with a cane - and each time a bus came it stopped and opened its doors for him. He peered in but either couldn't see or couldn't tell if it was his bus - I'm assuming here, but he looked sort of disoriented. And he was soaking wet, wearing a baseball cap and a coat that was wet all the way through. He wasn't carrying an umbrella.

I walked over to him to ask if he needed help and he didn't seem to understand what I was asking, so I offered him my umbrella and helped him over to the shelter. What happened next was what made me so angry.
The crowd of people in the shelter sort of shuffled aside - staring at their feet and not making eye contact at all. A woman looked me dead in the eye and said exasperatingly, 'well, he was already wet! what did you expect, for me to give him *my* umbrella?!' I hadn't even said anything, I was just angry at nobody having made an effort. But when she said this, when she exposed how grossly insensitive and selfish she was, I lost it. My coldest tone burst forth, 'What the fuck is wrong with you?! He's like 80 and soaking wet and cold! What the fuck is wrong with you??!!' She braced herself and said it again: 'He was already wet!!'

Just for a moment, just a fraction of a second, I nearly reared back and hit her. I could taste the blood in my mouth and I could certainly hear the pounding in my head.

But I looked back at the old man and I knew it would have probably made him uncomfortable to see people fuss over him like that, so I clenched my jaw and walked away. When I got on the bus 5 minutes later he followed me on, returning my umbrella (I reluctantly took it) and sitting next to me. She followed on too, sitting nearby and mumbling the whole time, 'I don't know what she expected, was I supposed to give him my umbrella too? I mean, he was already wet for crying out loud.'

When I got home, I slammed the door and burst into tears. I had a good hard cry and then washed my face and went out to dinner with a friend.

I thought about it all later - what if I had assumed too much? What if the man didn't want to get on the bus? What if he didn't know where he was going? God, what if he was lost and was suffering from dementia? What if the woman's kid had just died or her husband had left or she'd run over her dog? And did the man get where he was going? Wasn't there anyone out there to look out for him?

Man, oh man

As if I needed another reason to sing the joys of my favorite town of Seattle...

Home has taken on new meaning. I have met someone who makes me want to get up every morning, just to see the grin on his face. Unbelievable.

'No-ing' when

I didn't always have a hard time with no. As a kid I was about as compliant as a kid gets - fastidious to a fault, never walking away from the chance to do homework, even working diligently as a child at my grandparents' restaurant. I never said no, and even more rarely was I ever told no - just because I was always so good at dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, it was hard to say no to me.

That didn't last. Or rather, let me say that didn't last into my 30s.

Today I have an excruciatingly hard time with no - even when it's not directed at me. Maybe that's because I spent 30 years saying yes - or saying nothing. There's got to be a clear reason, rational and thought-out, for no to be okay the first time through. You have to out-think me. In fact, anyone who's ever seen me work knows I work with two clear mantras: Unless you ask, the answer is no --and-- Silence is consent. Both are variations on the same thing - if you don't speak for yourself, you may not like what's coming to you, and in the spirit of self-determination, that's a shitty position to be in. (Ignore that dangling participle, won't you?) It goes along with my earlier post about being active in the choices of your life, that you have nothing to regret if you accept the choices that you made with clear conscience and in good faith.

But...no is a boundary I like to test. I don't relish pushing people in ways they can't go, but I like edging them in directions they won't go. I don't wake up every day thinking about pushing people - that would be arrogant and self righteous. But to be with me, to be my friend and to know me is to understand, in some ways, your own limits - and to work to expand them in whatever way you can. And this doesn't stop with you - I like to be pushed, I like running my hands over my armor until I find that weak underbelly, that soft spot - and then I dig in. Or I invite others to dig in. Is there a boundary there? Is there something undiscovered, a place even I don't know? And does discovering something new and fragile scare you more than it does me? Why?

I am not fearless, I know where my weakest armor is. I am a little afraid of my own reaction to protect those spaces, but I love and respect those people brave enough to go there and take me with them. It's never an easy path, but discovered it is a wonder to behold.

Taking on Water

One of the best things about having new people in my life is how I'm suddenly exposed to everything that makes up their tastes. New music, new movies, new art, new perspectives unexamined in my own life. I think sometimes people get too comfortable in their own skin and don't take the chance often enough to bring unfamiliarity into their world.

Even though moving back to Seattle was supposed to be a return to the known, there have been so many changes in the last month that it's become a completely new experience for me. I'm also bringing my New York lens to life here, and everything's colored a little differently now.

I find iTunes filled with new music today - and it will take me days to filter the new from the old, to integrate the new sounds into my fabric. A particular favorite is Iron and Wine, a sound sparse, words simple yet rich. There's lots of bossa nova now, much Caetano Veloso, and countless low- and hi-fi bands. Some of note...CocoRosie, everything from Tropicalia Essentials, Deerhoof, and Domenico + 2.

Sometimes I feel like I can't keep up, like there's a fire hose of new things to remember, to understand and to enjoy. I'm constantly challenged and sometimes I feel my absorption rate is inadequate to the task. But at some point I'll catch up or I'll admit my weaknesses and someone will throw me a lifesaver.

Once, twice, third time's a charm??!!

Do you ever have something happen over and over again? Either an activity you're forced to repeat for no apparent cause? Or a dream you keep having? Or a conversation with different people that covers the same topic each time?

First time's a fluke, you say. Or maybe the message is badly delivered and you get angry or defensive.

Second time's confusing - you thought you covered it the first time, fixed the problem, addressed it, changed behaviour - something. But you thought you'd learned something.

Third time? That's a pattern. Are you inflexible? Is there something happening around you that makes these things come up over and over? Is it you? Is it me? And how do you work on something you can't figure out? It might be so obvious to everyone else, but you just can't see it - for whatever reason? Do you give up? Do you accept it as fate, a character flaw, deja vu?

Out with the old...

Last night after cassoulet and many glasses of wine, I stood on the street with new friends watching fireworks and reflecting on the past year. One New Year's Eve tradition I hadn't seen before was the burning of old, taking in of new. Well, that's what I'm going to call it, for lack of a better term. Everyone gathered strips of paper and wrote things on them that they wanted to rid themselves of - anything from a bad habit to a bad job - and then we burned them, quite ceremoniously, in a recycled whole roasted tomato can. Afterwards, we all raised our glasses and thought about a thing we each wanted to happen for the next year - and then we drank it in, whatever was in our glasses and in our hearts. This is a very different approach to the new year - for me it had always been a pot of black-eyed peas, which signified luck and prosperity for the next year. But that seems to leave good and bad to chance. What I liked about burning and taking in was the fact that whatever was mine to burn and mine to have were mine - and my responsibility to make them happen. Chance is always a player, but less so here. So today I make no black-eyed peas. I'll enjoy the now day-old cassoulet, watching Spike Jonze videos while washing my laundry, thinking about what I need to do for myself to make my frosty-night dreams come true.

That begs the question - how, if at all, do I reflect on the last year? Do I have any regrets? Any missed opportunities? Anything I would change? And what did I burn?

Anyone who knows me knows the answer to this already, but if you don't know it let me say it now. I am the product of every experience I've ever had - good and bad - and I am so very happy with where I am today I can't possibly regret anything I've seen or done. Had I not had the experiences I had, I might not have ever made it to the place I am, either physically or emotionally. Would I do things differently? Next time, perhaps. But would I change anything if I could? No, never. A decision not made or made too late is a decision nonetheless, so whenever I'm faced with choice I know I must participate, otherwise I lose the right to fight. Everything is a choice, life is a choice. Being in it (or being afraid of it) is a choice, and no matter how bad some of the choices have been, I always learn from them. That's my responsibility.

So what does 2006 have in store for me?

Everything. Just wait and see.

But I'm not going to tell you what I burned or what I took in. That's too easy.