proteanme

I have this dreamy play list in constant rotation. It’s a little sad and a lot of longing and I can’t stop listening to it. I don’t even wanna stop. It feels like I’m poking around at all the corners I’ve kept covered up so tightly, prying loose old memories, shaking the dust off things I forgot I ever wanted in the first place.  A bit of re-remembering.  It’s funny I could have forgotten what it is to imagine.

The song that’s breaking my heart right now, is Cat Power’s cover of Joan Baez’es Song for Bobby.

Been listening to lots and lots of music lately and various sets of lyrics are staying with me:

From One with Freaks by Notwist
You’re the pincard,
you’re the lifeguard,
you’re the information guy,
but things look much bigger on the knees, on your knees.
Miss the signal,
miss the signpost,
lose the access to it all.
and all of a sudden you are one with the freaks.
Have you ever, have you ever been all messed up, have you ever?

From Passing Afternoon by Iron and Wine
There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she’ll sit and think of me
But she’ll mend his tattered clothes and they’ll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

Today I was in the middle of a javascript library smackdown, between prototype and scriptaculous (for you non-geeks this means I was between a rock and a hard place), and after only 1 hour and some help from my friend Toby and Google, I implemented a fix. It is so fucking satisfying to figure out out how to fix code bugs.

Lately for lots of reasons I find myself feeling pretty dreamy and pretty hazy and it seems to be a good place to be for processing thoughts and feelings, but not exactly lending itself to a coherent narrative for blogging. Sometimes I feel I’m just holding lots of fragments of things together in my head, and some fragments are the tip of an iceberg, and some are just jetsam maybe.

At best this is gonna be a fragmented. I was waiting to get my haircut last week and listening to these women talking about the NIU shooting. I was particularly tuned in because my one of my dearest and oldest friends teaches there and was on campus that day and in short, she is ok. These women were talking about how they thought the world had become more violent and they blaming it on video games and violence on TV and in movies, etc. They continued that way for a while, in that banal vein, with me holding my tongue, in part because I am fascinated with how people try and make sense of the fucked up shit that happens in their lives. It’s like grasp, grasp , grasp, look for someone or something to blame so we can push away to a safe distance the awful randomness of violence, the real potential that all of us are easy targets in a world that has no particular interest in our personal well beings. Plus, I was thinking more violent than what? than a horrible history of lynching, than a world war only 60 years ago that took 72 million people’s lives, than soldiers coming home these days without legs and arms, than women systematically raped and tortured in Darfur. It’s when violence hits to close to home for the comfortable mass, that everyone throws up their arms in alarm. I feel for my friend and all the faculty, students and staff at NIU and for the shooter and his family. But I’m sorry the world is not more violent.

I saw St. Vincent on Monday. It was a really good show. Kinda dreamy for me, but I was feeling kinda dreamy. Hard to describe her music, poppy, jazzy, rocky, but not hard to describe her. She rocks the mic, she rocks the guitar, and she happens to be knockout. Her single, Marry Me, made it on to my top singles for 2007 and here’s what she had to say about that track: It was a comment on all symbols of stability, which is also a comment on never really questioning commitment, really.

Barak/Hillary breakdown by senate bills. Interesting stuff. I did find most of his comments about First Women to be condescending, and, frankly not necessary for his argument. And it made me think of how ingrained misogyny is, which I can elaborate on in my comments if you wanna dialogue about it.

And what is NYT’s problem with abortion?

Listening to a cover of Neil Young’s Razor Love by the Mobius Band , and without thinking I got a quick and almost lucid (I think that’s word I wanna use here) image in my head of summer sunshine streaming through the window of any little bungalow in Bloomington and walking barefoot across the wood floor to push on the screen door and head out to the porch.

Music can evoke so much imagery and emotion for me, which I’m often grateful for because negotiating my emotional landscape is often like seeing in the dark.

I recommend you download all 6 free Valentine’s day covers. It looks like they are still there for the taking. My favorite track is the cover of Bob Dylan’s I’ll Keep it with Mine.

It is a stunning day for late winter in Portland , all blue sky and sunshine. Sure there’s a little wind, but it’s not cold and mostly not noticeable if you’re not riding into it. It’s like the city is showing us a little thigh, reminding us why we love it so.

It’s funny how disinterested I am in the Hillary/Barak throw down, except I wanna beat McCain. In corresponding with Amos I realized I’m not at all into looking to a presidential candidate for a sense of hope, although I’m moved by how many folks are inspired by Obama. If anything I find more hope in them, than in him. But I’m also aware that with McCain in the race there’s a good chance that Oregon, with it’s fierce libertarian streak, is gonna be in play. So I’m publicly committing myself to working this fall for who ever gets the nod, Clinton or Obama .

I heard Nigella Lawson talking about chocolate the other day and she said something along the lines of food is not meant to impress, it’s meant to bring pleasure. A woman after my own heart.

I had this realization last night riding home from yoga. As much we make might make plans to mark events or celebrate the milestones in our lives, ya know that trip to Europe you’ve always wanted to take or your big 40th birthday bash, much of life is about the getting from here to there, taking things out and putting them away, saying good morning and good evening to your co-workers and students, washing your clothes, wearing them, and then washing then again. And it’s best to find some way to bring meaning and joy to that minutia. The grand stuff is icing on the cake of a life that doesn’t owe us a damn thing.

I think that’s why I like being a bike commuter. It brings some meaning to getting from here to there and back. I notice things, like the way the new glass towers on the waterfront rise up like a sci-fi poster behind the old Victorians that line the streets of my yoga studio. I feel the weather and when it’s raining and everyone’s griping I get to be the badass that shows up in the grocery line, wet and splattered with some grime. And even when it kicks my ass like it did last night, I get grounded in my body, heart beating, lungs breathing, legs pumping as I move myself through space on my elegant, efficient machine.