I told my best friend a few weeks ago that I felt “very strongly” her husband should see a cardiologist. (I’d had a dream where I saw him having a heart attack.) She told him, but he laughed it off — he’s as healthy as the proverbial horse.
Until last week, when he collapsed and woke up to his cousin performing CPR. “Dude, I thought you were dead,” he told him. “You weren’t breathing.”
Pure coincidence, of course! Because otherwise, it wouldn’t be logical.
I have a small glass stuck deep in my garbage disposal. Is it safe to turn it on to break it up, I wonder?
Boy, I’ve been sneezing up a storm the past few days. What am I allergic to now? Next month is leaf mold, that’s usually the worst time for me.
I went to Will Bunch’s book signing at the Rittenhouse Square Barnes & Noble last night, and then my friend and I went over to Drinking Liberally at Jose Pistola’s (I hadn’t even seen the new place).
On the way there, we saw a sad little episode: A sharp-looking elderly woman, dining al fresco with her husband, who had some kind of accident falling off her chair. She couldn’t move, and all I could think about was how vulnerable they are at that age — that one minute, they’re independent and happy, and the next they have a fracture that’s the beginning of a downward spiral. (Let’s just say I felt great empathy for her.) Poor thing.
The CD’s finally out of my computer, and the speakers are hooked up again. All’s right with the world!
Or almost all. You could read this piece by Astrobarry if you’re feeling squeezed lately and you’re interested in the long-term astrological weather.
Fucking Mercury retrograde. I knew I wouldn’t get through unscathed.
Last night I was trying to rip a CD (The Swimmers, on Maddragonrecords, a professional national label run locally by Drexel University), a pretty good CD.
It got stuck. It overshot the CD tray. I’ve now spent about two hours total trying to lure the thing out of there — tantalizingly close, but no cigar. I even clamped onto it with a pair of pliers, but it wouldn’t budge.
And now I can’t find the cable that reconnects my speakers. Grrr.
You are what you consume. Is that true? It sort of feels right. I no longer watch “important” movies if they’re hopelessly violent or nihilistic (although I will note here that I think “Fight Club” is neither of those things), and I rarely watch horror movies anymore. I don’t want to flood my system with adrenaline; I’m trying to balance it.
As a singer, I often listen to songs I’d like to sing. Unfortunately, for women vocalists, that far too often falls into the category of “boo hoo”, crying-in-my-beer songs that are, frankly, more than a little depressing. So am I listening to these songs because I’m depressed, or am I depressed from listening to these songs? I think because I’m a writer, and so susceptible to word imagery, that I can wring out every last drop of resonance out of those depressing songs. Is that good for me? Probably not.
Because when I make a conscious effort to listen to more positive, upbeat music, I seem to feel a lot better.
What’s your experience? How does it affects you?
It rained for the first three days, so mostly I read and watched a lot of DVDs (including a pretty bad Robert Downey Jr. one called “Restoration,” which you may safely leave off your list of movies to see before you die.) My last night there, watched “On The Waterfront.” There’s a reason Marlon Brando is a legend. And I finally got through the first season of “American Dreams,” which I got last Christmas, I think.
My friend Michael drive up from D.C. to visit. He called before he left and asked me what I forgot to bring. (He knows me so well.) I told him I forgot to bring my laptop — although there’s no internet connection, I had my tunes on there — and that I would kill for a shower cap.
Turns out he went to three different stores to try to find a shower cap — now, that’s a good friend. He also brought along a portable speaker for my iPhone, which solved the music problem.
We finally had a couple of good beach days at the end of the week, so I got to go swimming.
Mostly, I discovered that it’s still possible for me to do one thing at a time. And that my arms hurt just as bad as if I’d never gone away at all. Oh well!
P.S. Michael brought his iPad and got me addicted to Angry Birds.
I’m home! Still unpacking….
Ben Folds with Regina Spektor:
After all these years, one of the things that still surprises me is that readers think they know who I am. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you know a lot about me (in some cases, far too much), but you really don’t know me the way you think you do.
It only stands to reason, of course. There are, after all, long-married couples who suddenly one day look at each other and say in horror, “Who are you? I really don’t know you at all!”
That sort of shock always comes from strategic omissions. I leave out a lot, you’d be surprised. I don’t really talk about my personal life anymore (that is, the important people in it), except in passing. It’s too weird, and it’s not fair to them. It was a lot easier to dump it all when I only had 150 readers, and none of them were people I actually knew.
And besides, the appearance of full disclosure is, in itself, a red herring. A writer’s device, as it were.
Now, some people who actually know me read my blog instead of calling me or seeing me. When they do finally get around to calling me, I fill them in on my life and they yawn. “Oh yeah, I already knew that, I read it on your blog.”
So that annoys me, and just for spite, I also make sure I never write about the juicy stuff. If you want it, you have to call. (See? You probably didn’t know I could be that spiteful AND thoughtful at the same time!)
Anyway, anything you read here is only an approximation of reality. I can’t help it, I’m a writer. You can’t trust us. The most you’ll ever get from us is our version.
