Saturday, October 27, 2007

Variations on the Theme of Bitterness



Some people I love and confide in have fucked up things happening in their lives right now and so do I. Leslie commented that the adage that God never gives you more than you can handle is bullshit. I am heavy with my own burdens but also with the burdens of stalwart and courageous friends who swaddle me in comfort and in love. We reach out to each other in grief and terror and unspeakable fear about our selves and our families. To my sweet friends who tap to me in the dark, I send this Sabbath day an extra blast of pure and healing love.
I sent Bob a happy birthday note rhapsodizing about my discovery of The Hold Steady and received a note back almost immediately that he thought of me when he heard the band. I will often hear a few notes of music or a beat and think of Bob, whose ear I think yearns for what mine does, except for a certain "Bobness" which I can identify but not describe in mere words. I had lamented suffering through Bright Eyes and hearing a certain callowness when I attempted to revisit Jackson Browne, who did craft some gorgeous songs, but perhaps a greater number of cringe inducing ones. I have been listening to Kanye West with Leo and Spuds and I totally get it but I continued to be perplexed by lack of an equally compelling voice within my own musical pigeonhole. Craig Finn, of the Hold Steady, has written the most erudite lyrics about recreational drugs since Lou Reed. The band will be compared to Springsteen and while this is apt, it might trivialize this razor sharp yet infinitely listenable voice. I hope they fare better than fellow Minnapolisites, The Replacements.
Fellow rock’n’roll chick and vigilante, Mimi Pond, picked me up for lunch in her very groovy vegetable oil eating Mercedes wagon. Mimi revealed to me a Google function that alerts you if anyone mentions you in a blog. This seems to have infinite diabolical potential for sucking people in. I wonder who knows about this? I wonder who uses it? I don’t think I’m gonna use it. I suspect that whatever anyone writes about me I will either find out about it or I don’t want to know.
My incriminating photos of the week would have been wallowing in the gnat filled muddy chill of Griffith Park doing calisthenics, which except for no napalm, must resemble the Viet Nam paratrooper experience. I’m sure I also cut a dashing figure doing yoga. I asked my teacher if there were some sort of beginning class I might attend while he was away and he said, "no." Spuds and Himself are veritable pretzels but I continue to slog away. Last night Himself was boondoggled by me into a Partner Yoga tape, rendering us all twisted together and stretching and breathing. He still walks ahead of me and we haven’t solved the cell phone stand-off but he really is an awfully good sport my husband.
Our personal chef Spuds had a rough week with his steak stolen by Fido and I suspect he is getting bored with the limitations of the microwave oven and the Foreman grill. Brother Leo is out celebrating his 15th birthday with mostly the same pals he’s had since nursery school. I guess all teenagers are supposed to be shitheads to their parents most of the time and Leo is certainly fulfilling this contract in that respect but when I see how sweet he is with his friends or hear him on the phone comforting his Grandma Aliki, I know that he’ll be o.k.
When I get really low Leslie makes me do this "worst case scenario" exercise which is excruciating and I will spare you and cut to the chase. It is unlikely that I ever have dirty hair and push a shopping cart filled with trash bags through downtown Glendale. There are many fucked up things in my life and other lives that intersect with mine. God will inevitably give us more than we can handle in a world of tender mercies. Shabbat Shalom.



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