Windfall and Limestone

Now and then it keeps you running
It never seems to die
The trail's spent with fear
Not enough living on the outside
Never seem to get far enough
Staying in between the lines
Hold on to what you can
Waiting for the end
Not knowing when


Trying to make it far enough, to the next time zone
Few and far between past the midnight hour
Never feel alone, you're really not alone...
Switching it over to AM
Searching for a truer sound
Can't recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down
Catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven

May the wind take your troubles away
May the wind take your troubles away
Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel,
May the wind take your troubles away

Lilly and the elmo couch

OK, I know I am her mom and all, but my daughter is the cutest, most outgoing and sweetest little person I have ever met. If this be love, I know now what it must feel like. My Lilly is amazing.

Also, more music I picked up yesterday (mostly older stuff):

Gillian Welch: Soul Journey 2003
Beck: Guero 2005 and Mellow Gold (1994)
Luna: Bewitched 1994
Son Volt: Trace 1995

I saw Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and loved it. I don't care what any critic says, I thought it was well done--the spectacle was brilliant. Johnny Depp (who hails from Kentucky) had quite a task and he performed beautifully. Go see it.

Also, I just finished Watership Down
and up next, Jean de Florette.

I ate at a fairly new restaurant in town--Turkish--called Anatolia and got to spend some time with perhaps the owner--a fine specimen of a man. Unfortunately, I didn't get his name. Can this be true? All the more reason to return to his delightful restaurant. Ahh....

And I will have the answer to this idea/rhetorical question come Friday: "Men fall in love with an actual woman. Women fall in love with their idea of a man." As if you had to ask this question...
If you know anything about women or men you know the answer as well. But it seems the world needs studies and proof to back their answer--and so I will find the truth and will share my findings.

Touche. Good night.

Tides of the Moon

TO WHOM I CAN BELONG MORE THAN ONCE

I can tell you how it rains on a summer day
and make you feel it fall on your window pane--
I--your woman, a poet--have such powers.

I can make you unbolt your door, wait for me
when I say I have finished my day’s work, I need rest--
I -- your woman, a poet -- a thousand miles apart.

I can give you heaven on an average day, even
when I talk to you about the life that doesn’t love us--
I -- your woman, a poet -- calm you in your nights.

I can write for you alone, on a wordless universe
and make you feel my god, to whom I can belong more than once--
I -- your woman, a poet -- can make you immortal with a song.

Lekshmy Sujathan Kerala, India 2003

that one's for you, Blue.

Finally, a break in the rain, if only briefly. I woke early to bright blinds and faint sunshine, refreshed and smiling. The lull of summer has taken root and I am contented with unstructured activities. Still, something in me longs for productivity. I slip back into evil thought patterns of guilt and self deprication when I consider a day, or a long stretch of days, doing absolutely nothing.

I spent quite a bit of time thinking about my show for this week, and although most of the listening audience had no idea, I was happy with the songs--not so much the delivery on my end. Only a few technical glitches and dead air, but good music.
I sometimes fantasize that someone will call in and start a dialogue similar to Minnie Driver and John Cusack in Grosse Point Blank. Wishful Thinking.

The summer has been full of music and movies for me, but little else. I have tabled the idea of meeting someone to spend time, at least for awhile. I'm still trying to repair an old wound--it just seems to split open just when I think I am healed. It will be easier come the first of August, I hope.

It's funny what you fail to recognize about yourself. It's important to have others to point out the positives, especially if you tend to dismiss good qualities as quirky or insignificant.
Two examples:
After visiting a fossil store with my sister, upon leaving my sister said to me,

"That guy was totally checking you out!" She blurted, pushing me out the door.

"What guy?"

"The one you were talking to about the petrified wood. Didn't you notice? You had a conversation with him. He was watching you the entire time we were in the store."

"..Um...was there a guy in the store?"

"Oh my God, Catharine, you are hopeless."

Hopeless? Maybe. Oblivious, yes.

Example 2:

I recently got back in touch with a fellow teacher from Alabama that I met on the Japan trip last summer. I was missing the country and its kind people--since we were over there on July 4th I was reminded again how much I felt at home there.

John's words were soothing and smart, thoughtful, articulate and kind, just as I remebered them to be a year prior. Again, he reminded me of things about myself that I tend to gloss over. A short excerpt from his recent email read:
You remain one of the most genuine, spontaneous, and honest people I have met in a long life spent in a lot of places, and you are one of the select few who instantly
spring to my mind as the epitome of the spirit of the trip.

I recently read (I am embarassed to tell the source--but let's just say it was YMCA material..) that the best present you can give to a woman is your undivided attention. I don't know many men in my past that were willing or able to do that. But John's emails to me were more attentive than any man I have encountered in the past four years--easily. So thanks John.

New Music that is pretty good (a real mix of stuff here...):
Daniel Lanois-Belledonna
Erin McGeown--We've become like birds
STARS- set yourself on fire
Feist -let it die
Moaners- dark snack
Odawas-Aether Eater
String Cheese Incident- One Step Closer
Bruce Springstein- Dogs and Devils
The Hold Steady (don't know the album title)
Willie Nelson: Countrymen
and a new album that I cannot rememer the artist but the album is called
Iron Flowers.

Movies I have recently seen:

Chopin: love and passion
The Station Agent
Flaming Lips: Fearless Freaks
Being Julia
Zelig (woody allen)
Alice (woody allen)
The Life Aquatic

Hoping to see:
ENRON: the smartest guys in the room
Willie Nelson at the Vogue


That's all for now. Ciao.

in a manner of speaking

In a manner of speaking I just want to say
That I could never forget the way
You told me everything
By saying nothing
In a manner of speaking I don’t understand
How love in silence becomes reprimand
But the way I feel about you is beyond words
Oh give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me nothing
Oh give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me everything

In a manner of speaking Semantics won't do
In this life that we live we only make do
And the way that we feel might have to be sacrificed

So in a manner of speaking
I just want to say
That like you I should find a way
To tell you everything
By saying nothing
Oh give me the words
Give me the words
That tell me nothing
Oh give me the words

(this part of the post was added after a glass of wine at one of my favorite restaurants in town..so I am feeling a little better.)

ON Sundays Bombay is closed, so I meander over to Shanti, where the servers greet me kindly and know what I want before I sit down. The smell on the street reminds me of the place I would visit when in London, just down the street from my flat. I hope everyone there is okay but Bayswater was not one of the tubes hit...still, King's Crossing was a big one for me...


"Where is your little one?" someone usually asks, since Lilly is now to the point where sitting quietly with me is rare..

I drove home (I was crying) and entered my complex to see two sets of rainbows and a hot air balloon's silouette north of here. It made all my furrowed brow stuff disappear.

Besides, I have The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisso to keep me company.
Also, just saw The Station Agent, and was reminded of an old friend(but he would not call me his friend) who not only looks-- but acts like Finbar. It was a good movie.

Ok, back to the angst-ridden blog of earlier..



"So, what dujewdo this weekend," he asked, trying to be all cool and swanky. It wasn't working for me. I held my daughter's hand. I looked at him, head cocked to one side, as if he didn't know my reply.

"Give me a single latte to go, please," avoiding the question. Avoiding him all together. He knew better than to ask. I stopped looking in his eyes. I usually wear my sunglasses upon entering. I never linger more than a second. I rarely smile. I hate going in there now. (soma see and be seen..)


People seem to move so quickly and I am standing holding the door, wiping the dust from my eyes, picking up their trash, apologizing to the parents, patiently waiting my turn, calmly explaining the noise to the neighbors, giving all of myself, sharing with someone I thought was different than the rest, trusting, being vulnerable, being nice...blah blah blah, inside asking myself why I was such a sucker, hating everyone--every woman for being female, every man for being male. You would think someone would learn after years and years of the same old treatment and heartbreak. (me below..)

While cleaning up her coffee-making mess he was complimenting a young twenty-something girl on her looks only after 4 hours of sleep, I dragged my girl out of there to my car.
I wonder how I looked after 4 hours of sleep--different circumstances--not at all comparible. He will never understand that. Too bad--too bad all of you.

candids, and the blog of fire

Nice, huh? I think so. Stupid stuff from the dump-truck-and-police-force-brigade- parade here in Bloomington. Rumor has it Linton's was better--I mean, at least they had a band play. Sheesh. I wanted to take Lilly to see how she would respond.
My favorite comment came from a man in one of the colour photos. At one point (there were several) in the parade, people would emerge from their police cars, wagons, trucks, etc. and pass out hard candy to the crowd. The Republicans came through and this guy said to his grandkids, "Don't accept candy from Republicans--you don't know where it's been."
Classic.

This was my first holiday in the states since my daughter's birth. Usually I am out of country. Last summer Japan, two years ago it was the U.K., Prior to that, Germany and central Europe.

Lilly and I were home before 8p.m. after the Contra gathering and the best organically grown food in Bloomington, I closed the windows and doors so tightly that not even a firecracker could break the sound barrier. It was just another quiet night for us.

So if you ask me what I did for 4th of July? I'll say, " Was it the 4th? I must have missed it again." Or, "Sorry I am not practicing holidays of any kind this year. Too emotional." That usually shuts people up good and quick. Stupid thoughtless mid-western fuckers.

***

It always feels good to clean house on occasion. I did so tonight with my contact list. I like purging. It feels a lot like what I assume salvation must be. Joy and pain.

Someone put out their cigarette butt in my door knocker the other night. I am not sure what to think about that, but every morning I check the car for fresh key marks. I wonder how you can become someone's enemy without ever knowing them. Must be how the Iraq's feel about us...whose to say?

Going to bed uneasy. Tomorrow I find a new coffee shop to hang out....I can't deal with 22 yr old drama queens any more.
Funny what a young girl in a tightly fitted dress and her long brown tresses up in a messy bun can do to a man. (And this is the part where you remind me that all men are the same, but if I had on a tight dress 'he' would respond exactly the same way...well, perhaps if I were ten years younger and wearing a long, brunette wig...)

granola and soy milk: a list of misc.

The perfect combination, although a little on the sweet side.

I have been wrestling with what it means to be a friend and how a friend treats someone. I am sad that I cannot seem to find, keep or be a friend to anyone.

I saw Malcolm Daglish perform Friday night at Third Street. The smell of bug repellent was everywhere.

When passing a group of Kid city campers, I marvelled at the penertating odor of sunscreen and unwashed hair. You can smell it for miles. I smile everytime I pass them.

Finally got to see Fearless Freaks: The Flaming Lips last night. Brought back memories. I was impressed by the honesty that went into the documentary--especially with Steven's drug addiction. Wow.

I had my second radio show last Wednesday. I was ok. My music was good--but I sounded hollow. Next one is July 13.

I am bored with my music and am waiting for STARS: set yourself on fire and also Daniel Lanois Belladonna to arrive.

After watching our third movie in a row on my laptop, I turned to my friend Charles and said, "You know, you are the first person that has actually hung out with me in this apartment. Thanks."
He was sitting on my daughter's Little Tykes plastic chair. I was on her mini Elmo couch. It doesn't get any better than that.

Had eggs and toast with Crazy Jim Sunday. His conversation is like trying to figure out a riddle--this one was about Sandra Day O'Connor, the banking system, Thomas Jefferson vs. Hamilton and Burr, family and church-going, and a murderer who posed as a boy scout leader, dog catcher, criminal justice major and Christian. He was a Pisces. Somehow all of these things were related or connected in some way.

Motorcycle Steve was sharpening knives outside of Soma the other day. I found the activity strange but he seemed to be enjoying it. At one point he asked me to watch his stuff so he could put his clothes in the dryer. I sat, holding the bread knife in my hand while people walked by. I am sure it was a sight to behold.


I am skipping out on the traditional holiday picnic at the Springer's this year. It's the only time I get to eat mom's potato salad and play cards with the family.
Both sisters and their husbands will be there. When I declined mom's offer, she said," Well, we'll see you sometime." Sure thing.


Happy Birthday America.

I, BEING BORN A WOMAN


I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity, -- let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

For you, Blue

Strange and Great Things:

1. While riding my bike on a residential street, I saw someone had written
B-U- swastika-H

2. Daniel Lanois has a new album coming out July 12 and I have already heard it.

3. Concerts in the summertime.

4. Avacado, black olive, and peanut butter sandwiches.

5. Men with real jet black hair (not dyed).

6. early morning dew smell

7. Talking movies with tall steve and mike price at Cinemat

8. My first experience with contra-dancing (tonight).

9. Chilled dry white wines

10. radio radio!

from page 302

Just two lonely people who spent some time together for awhile.

Couldn't sleep tonight. So got up from the futon and decided to find the quote that had been tormenting me for the last week. I opened right to the page.
Funny, it seemed much more profound when I read it in context. I guess everything in life is.

I just pulled out the evil Kettle Chips. Sometimes, after eating a bowl of them, I have the same guilty feeling the next morning that I do when I have had a few too many drinks. Generally I never eat when I am worried about something, so hopefully this is a passing fancy.

Yes, lots on my mind as of late. I can see the end to discomfort and unhappiness just brimming above the horizon. I have savored the sweet taste of it. (I just emailed a friend and told him how my luck was similar to the Titanic.) Well I thought it was funny.

I hate waiting...

One for the night
One for the dark
Taste each other
For a moment, then goodbye
Hold her eyes
Share the same air
Oh lay it down
Oh lay it bare

"Merge, A Vessel, A Harbour"

mirror image

"Hey gorgeous, "he said in my general direction as I pushed my two year old past The Bakehouse.
"Don't talk to my child that way," was my playful reply, not expecting such a comment.
"Oh, she's cute too."
Thanks for making my Saturday, Steve.

Just a few thoughts, as I am beyond exhausted from keeping my girl for a week without relief.

1. I am looking for a quote from a recent book about how when two lonely people come together, they are simply filling a temporary void. I am trying to dismiss the 1,000,000,000,000 (yes, I am exaggerating) odd people in this summer town who actually meet and maintain a meaningful relationship-- after my brief, serendipitous meeting.

2. People who tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself after you bare your soul to them. The only saving grace this time, is that she is my sister.

3. The Great Lake Swimmers was a wonderful set. The Moaners were great too. I would have taken Great Lake home with me, but he had a swanky girlfriend.

4. I should never post after 10 pm.

5. Everyone I know and love is traveling (some statewide) overseas right now. What would I give to be with them right now.

6. I have on clean underwear--that has to count for something.

my little jester (and sister becca)

So much happening in my world. Bon Voyage to Josh in Japan, Ann in Africa, Ben in Israel and Becky in DC. I just got a new camera (this photo is still the disposible camera.) Better shots to come....

ok, some new shots with the Nikon. What a difference!



raintree



hot summer howlin' with my babe abe




sweet protector



a grave man

"Flee Immorality" --2 posts in 2 days!

That was today's warning from the Church of Christ on Second Street.

I have been spending a lot of time talking to strangers or partial aquaintances over coffee. Men mostly. The age of these folks range from mid-30's to 50's. Fascinating. What people know. What people are willing to discuss on the street with a non-threating looking person like me. Sometimes they are embarrased about having to smoke. Sometimes they think they know more than me. Most times I could care less what they think, other times I am riveted-- always I am interested in how they present themselves.

I marvel at how one man is looking for perfection in a woman.. "a saint, with model beauty and a scientist's brain." And yet he fails to recognize his own shortcomings. And why would she pick up with you? I would love to ask, but I nod and smile, sip my latte and remind him to look in the mirror.

At this upscale bar I frequent I am often greeted by a caustic Marine. "Married twice-- none of 'em took," is how he puts it. He is an opinionated pig. He drinks Guiness. I love to banter with him, our voices occasionally raising too loud in heated discussion the barkeep looks at me as to say, "don't push his buttons--we don't need a scene." Ok Victor, we'll wrap it up for now.

Today was this guy I call "The Suit". Hails from Houston. Three cups of black coffee in less than an hour. Socially inept or just extremely uncomfortable in his skin. He doesn't get out much. Maybe I made him nervous. I am sure there's a story behind that one.

I am not interested in any of these men. I do enjoy sitting beside them as a pretty young lady breezes past to witness their animal reaction. I like to drink with them, to laugh with them, to fight with them, but would never go home with them.
Besides,
Michael Caine is more my speed (only 40 years younger, please.)
Seeking a modern day Michael Caine..smart, funny, hard-working, well-read, gentleman, insightful, musical, sensitive, passionate, earthy...does he exist in my world? I'll try Brown County today...

Bad Moon Arising

My sister being a faithful Wicca reminded me yesterday of the summer solstice today. "We are trying to get pregnant so meditate on that tonight."
She is approaching 40 this Thanksgiving. Another child would be a blessing (and first child) for her and relief for me, the black sheep with the most fertile loins, apparently.
I cringe every time there is a national (or Halmark) holiday because that means I am expected to attend family gatherings at the Springer home and endure the slow torture that comes from German-Lutheran guilt. It takes years away from my already fading life force, let me tell you.

So, all my blessings to you dear sis and beloved brother in law, may this pregnant cancer of a moon spew its solstice splendor your way. At least someone is getting some action, an how.

I am struggling. Yeah, really this time. Just can't beat it. Finished a book Friday. Started a new one Saturday--went to bed at 5:30 after watching Lost In Translation (again) trying to revisit my journey last year. Also a William H. Macy sleeper called The Wool Cap. I needed something to push off the boredom.

The radio has been good for me--but also reminding me of all the shows coming to town (The Moaners tomorrow, Great Lake Swimmers Wednesday) but this requires cash and a will to go-with no friends--lots of energy for me these days. It's that evil paradox--going crazy alone at home--going crazy alone out in public. Today I sat in a dusty booth for over an hour eyes glazed over, until the waitress asked with honest concern in her lilting voice, "Can I get you something, ma'am? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, how about a revolver?" ha ha. ( have also learned that if you don't put that ridiculous ;) face after a comment like that, people FREAK OUT. They think you are serious--like I would say that out LOUD-- It stupifies, honestly.)

I hate air-conditioning. But living by the highway I can't sleep with the sound of cars and ambulances and motorcycles and low riders and woofers and subwoofers booming all night. So 9:03p.m....
And then there is trying to decide whether Indiana should go with Chicago or the east coast?? Oh My God.

I gotta get out of here before it kills me.