I am jealous of Thomas Boutell ​​​​​​'s fancy bullets he used in an earlier post. I don't know if my bullets here will be as pretty and diamondy as his. Let us try in a listo!

• Last night (Thursday May 25th) was a bittersweet night... about 73 million musicians and singers and players* played over 6 hours of music in a huge, free concert on both stages as we said goodbye and thank you to World Cafe Live at the Queen in Wilmington. World Cafe Live pulled out of The Queen because it was bleeding money despite all their efforts to keep it in the black, and last night was officially the venue's last night, so all of the bands that were known to be Queen favorites were on the bill and we threw a Thank You and Goodbye show to give the venue we love a royal sendoff.

1. With that many bands and players/singers, there was no way to give everyone their own time slot; so we created these giant "supergroups." For example, Matt and I told everyone they could use our saxophone-playing skills -- so two bands (Shytown and Vinyl Shockley) took us up on that as we bulked up their horn section -- we played one song with each of those two bands -- easy peasy.  And then The Joe Trainor Trio became JTTwelve (!) because Joe added a sweeeeeeet five-member horn section, he added a guitarist, and three women on backing vocals, so Matt played sax for that, and I sang backing vocals. 
2. We were sent the charts for the two songs ahead of time, so Matt and I had time to rehearse them at home. But last night once we arrived and met the two other horn players for Shytown and Vinyl Shockley, they handed us a stack of music for a bunch of other songs and said, "Just watch us for cues," and away we went! Sight-read it on stage, no time to play through anything before we went on. I LOVE THAT.  And to sweeten the deal, these guys would even throw in the occasional "horn section moves" which were a blast... nothing too nuts... but every once in a while we'd do an intuitive choreographed "pop" and it looked cool as shit.  It felt SO GOOD to just jump in, feel trusted by strangers, trust them as well, connect into their neural network and be a horn section.  God, I love being a musician.

It was a magical, bittersweet night... and I'm so happy to be part of the World Cafe Live community.  

(And I'm also very happy to hear that we now have an "in" with LiveNation... but that's a topic for a different day.)

[Edited to add on Saturday: The muscles/tendons in my left forearm that control my left pinky (The G# key, as well as all the sub-C notes on a sax) is nice and sore, as are my hands and the muscles in my neck. I friggin' LOVE playing Moose (my tenor sax) but lorrrrdy these hands hurt afterwards. Totally worth it, though!]

---------

* There is an important difference between a singer, a player, and a musician.  Just because you can carry a tune or play an instrument does NOT mean you are a musician. Can you arrange a song? Can you tell me what a diminished chord is? Can you tell me the difference between dorian and mixolydian modes? Could you music direct a show? Could you write the parts out for all of these other instruments?  No? Then you're not a musician.  Words have power.  Please do not appropriate the title of what so many of us have trained so hard daily for DECADES to achieve.  

(x-posted to xtingu.dreamwidth.org)

It's inevitable, when you skate, that at some point you will fall and hit yourself, your body on the pavement.

I am grateful for my father who taught me to fall.  

I've been stalled in skating... a few days ago on Twitter I said, "Why not rennovate the house during a press tour?" and that's really been quite the issue. Inches thick dust, a confrontation with possessions that usually reside, possibly retired, in closets, all in the open and questioning their own extistential existance. 

Yesterday was long, in good and bad ways.  I took my son to judo, and as he was done, I slipped into the adult class, to my shock making it simply through the warm ups and into the grips and holds.  My son studies judo, my father teaches it.  I myself am a brown belt, but I have not practiced regularily in years.  Sill muscle memory and sheer animal intelligence prevail.  

That night, as I was driving back, my sitter texted me.  Like a drug dealer knowing when her client needs another hit.  "Hey, need any help tonight?"

And just like that, it was on.  It didn't matter that I'd worked ten hours, that I'd just done a two hour workout and was drenched with sweat, that that was my second work out for the day, I was ready to go.  I managed to get home, hastily eat an apple, and dig out my skates.  I did not have my indoor wheels on my Lolly skates, so I pulled out my Hello Kitty Skates, a limited edition skate by Moxi that I'd found by sheer chance on ebay.

I met with my skate buddy and we drove off towards northern lights, swapping stories of our days (we could not be more different professionally) and swearing at the traffic.  The whole communte north is a festering of frustration, raw nerve ends that irritate.  We made it with just an hour to skate, but better than nothing and as I glided out on the floor I promptly stuck one skate pretty  much inside the other and flew forward.  My skate partner is quite a bit bigger than me and well seasoned in derby so I didn't actually manage to knock us both down, he served as a sort of solid human wall.  But I found that I was still warm and alive from judo and quite unafraid of falling.

Even though the skates were stiff, and new, and the wheels aren't my favourite type, by a few laps I felt an ease skating that I haven't ever felt.  Dance moves I'd stumbled over weeks before were fluid.  I wasn't avoiding the floor, or the inevitable crash, I was prepared for it.  The saying in judo is, "Maximium efficiency for mutual benefit," and that applies to how you fall as well.  It was the best hour of my day, my week, it was unsurpassed, actually, and it was, quite simply, what I needed.  

Freedom comes in many forms and many tenors.  For me it's less about the pressures from the outside than the darkness on the inside, of self regard, of a a relentless drive for professional success that can be quite pensive and difficult to carry at times.  I find freedom in a shifting perspectives.  There's not a part of my life I don't carry with me and know the shape of, and regard as part of the mosaic.  Skating is no different.

And it's a simple answer to the next morning's process, when writing comes as it does so often lately, with little difficulty.  The organizational social geometric structures I compose for work, my own pages of words for pleasure and my own projects. I am certainly tired, and a bit sore, but there's nothing in me that scares away from that kind of difficult.

It's fairly easy to carry the falling metaphor to a conclusion and so I'll allow you to walk it there, as docile as it is.  It doesn't make it any less true.  I feel often I can do the most difficult things because I have the knowledge of how to fail, break, fall down hard, repair, solve and rebuild.  I think of this too, in the shockwaves that follow Manchester.  I think of it because yes, it is all connected.  All of it, everything.

From the ground upwards,

QRC

What was your last name before you were married?

Lynch. No, Gray. No. I don't remember. 

So... when you were a child, in school, what last name did you use? 

I'm not sure. 

I need this application for this document expedited it's an emergency I'm going to Jamaica on the 12th

(really? Because you need a liver transplant and the only place you can get it is at the world-renowned Montego Bay Hospital, under the care of Dr. Hurricane McRum? That IS an emergency!) 

we can have it for you in five business days, on June 5th.

no that's not soon enough I'm going to Jamaica on the 12th it was a super cheap package I just had to have it

the 5th is before the 12th

they told me you had same-day service here

we have same-day service in Scranton

why does Scranton have same day service and you don't? 

The population of Scranton is 75,281. The population of Philadelphia is 1.56 million. We get 200 applications a day.

but I can get same day service in Scranton 

ok, here's your application. 

*tsh* I can't go to Scranton

I guess  you're not going to Jamaica either.

Quite a few places on my body continue to ache from the 7 minute workout challenge thing. We've been doing it for three weeks now, I think? Since the end of the burpees.

So it's 7 minute workout. You do 12 different exercises, specific ones in a designated order, each for 30 seconds, with a 10 second rest. You're supposed to go all-out -- produce maximum effort -- during the 30 seconds. It just requires a floor and a sturdy chair/bench/table/box.

• Jumping jacks
• Wall sit
• Push ups
• Ab crunch
• Box step-up
• Squats
• Triceps dip
• Plank
• High knees running in place
• Lunges
• Push-up with rotation
• Side plank

My problem at this point is breathing during the planks since there are four aerobic exercises before, and two minutes of max aerobic effort leaves me bloody breathless. Since the plank tightens up the abdominals, I can't take full deep breaths.

Anyway, it seems to be a good fit for my attitude, though it would probably be smart to add another 7-10 minute activity during the day. Maybe 50 burpees! Maybe not (gag).

If you're interested, there are a lot of apps that will coach you. A free one for the iPhone is the "7M Workout" which is by consumer products company J&J as a branding effort (It doesn't seem to actually solicit anything, though it might be scraping some personal info. I haven't given it any permissions). I'm sure there are ones for Android too.

Once you know the exercise forms, an app is overkill: all you really need is a 7 minute audio track with timer beeps and prompts.

Deep in a comment thread from one of my prior posts I mentioned that the New York Times curates an almost-daily list of well-considered articles from both the center, right and the left. Reading these articles lets you see how the other side(s) may be thinking, without having to wade through all the crap that's online. Folks seemed interested in it, so I figured I'd point y'all to it. 

It may be hidden behind a paywall, but I reckon if you click this link from an incognito browser you should be OK. I pay for the Times and don't feel too guilty for sharing this.  

Here ya go!

Writers From the Right and Left React to Trump’s Riyadh Speech, and More https://nyti.ms/2qPF6IY

Introversion and Extroversion might be looked at through the lens of a need to perform. If we have to be "on stage" -- acting in certain ways in order to conform to expectations or needs -- that is probably a social energy sink. Conversely if there are people around whom we do not need to perform in any particular way, that is, be at rest or just "being ourselves", that time would probably be energy recharging.

One can be on-stage and still be alone or with just one or two people reading a book or being quiet. If being alone and quiet isn't your natural state you have to perform it at some level of consciousness.

I know this isn't particularly original. However, I came at this thought by the angle of thinking about how there are people with whom I need to perform "Sean": people I need to pay attention to; and people with whom I don't: I don't have to be conscious of their presense -- with whom I can be comfortable just being present in my own skin.

But then it gets all muddled up with habit and performative ruts and "who the hell am I, and who the hell do I want to be?" and my belief that the sense of self isn't much more than the story we keep retelling to ourself (consciously and subconsciously) about how we react to the things around us.

Deep thoughts for a Tuesday. I really should reserve a car and go buy hardboard panels.

So a long time ago I was talking to a friend about doing the art for a webcomic that a he wanted to develop. When we first started out, I did some concept work while he worked on world building. All of this makes sense to a certain degree.

The problem was that this went on for a very long time. Many months, in fact, passed without our having written / illustrated a single comic panel.

We discussed it, and he wanted to keep going as we were. I wanted to get cracking on a product that people could enjoy.

We agreed to a compromise: I said "Why don't we try a 'minimum viable product'? Write up a five page comic, I'll illustrate it, and we'll put it online. That way we can see if anyone other than us gives a shit."

When it took many months more for those five pages worth of text to come my way, I bowed out.

Now that I'm working on my little project, I'm writing a lot in a lexicon of sorts. Worldbuilding. Not nearly on the level that he did, but I find myself wondering if I'm distracting myself a bit too much with unnecessary things. I find myself doing searches on late 70's and early 80's fashion. Digging up news clippings from 1979 Detroit. At best, these would be 'stage dressing'. None of it will be strictly speaking necessary for the book.

So I guess my question is this: Do you have some rule that you keep yourselves to in order to keep from spending too much time on extraneous elements of your storytelling? To keep yourselves from doing too much homework and not enough actual writing?

ETA:

First, a text from my (second) ex-husband at 7:30AM "Happy Mother's Day!" 

Then our kid wakes up and first thing out of her mouth is "Happy Mother's Day!" And she gave me 2 awesome touching mother's day cards. And a handprint keepsake.

At noon, my current flirtation texts "Happy mother's day to you"

At 3PM, my cousin texts "Happy mother's day!"

At 4PM, my neighbor stops by with strawberries and a "Happy Mother's Day!" wish

At 5PM, a friend from DC texts "Happy Mother's Day"

At 6PM, my brother calls and leaves a "Happy Mothers Day!" message

At 8:30PM my boyfriend from 2007-2010 texts "Happy mothers day :-)"

I love my wonderful life and the wonderful people in it. I feel wrapped in good wishes and oh so blessed. 

PS: and the next day, I got flowers :-)

Here are the seedings Madeline gave me. 

I transplanted 3 into larger pots, broke open the compost bin, and mixed that nasty stanky liquid in, gave them a soak. Vince had offered me cocktail hour before I went outside to re-pot them, and for some reason, Maslow's Need Hierarchy made me say, "in a minute, I have to play in the dirt first." 

Clearly, I need more pots. And dirt. And plants.

Today I communicated with a deaf person and a person from Mali (who spoke French; not at the same time) via a translation line. I'm living in the FUTURE.

It's so much of it, isn't it? The press of the day and hours against what comes next, neither wishing to dismiss it but also, not quite claiming it the way it ought, because the savoured hour waits.

And what a day it is.  The air is cool, rushing, the light changes from gold to white to blue on a whim.  All of outside feels like the ocean.  I stepped out this morning, on to the front step, the damp from the rains the night before soaking into my socks, and I spread my arms to it.  Soon, too soon, the hot summers will come, heavy breathed and and in some element, relentlesss.  But these flickering seasons, fall and spring, which seem to be growing briefer and briefer here in my small corner of the world as the the big blue marble warms, are precious to me.  Fall always makes me restless, makes me long to run long distances, to move, to migrate. Spring drives me out, into the fresh, into the air, filled with ideas and moments.  I throw open the doors to the cool moodiness of it just as I put on a sweater to guard against the intermittent chill.

Tonight, I want to lose myself in music and motion.  I don't want to drag my expectations and run into those curdled, half formed feelings of frustration.  What is that anyway?  It's not an expectation anyone has crowned me with, it's the thing I do for me.  And yet inside me is that part that will always drive harder, want the extremes, want to do well, do well, and it's never enough.  It's why I think I will never be a winter or summer person, but always a fall and spring, enamoured of the changes, fascinated by the most ardent, difficult parts of process.

*********************************************************************

I haven't had the sensation of falling in love in a long time.  Too long. But this return to something I care about has all the hallmarks.  I am at the sixteen week mark and I find the milkman is coming up the stairs, waking me.  I find the coffee cooling in the cup, I find that progress is more difficult now that base skills have been regained.  I will have to work harder, attend to the growth part of things.  I'm old enough but not so old I don't remember the pain of growing quickly as a teenager, the way the bones stretched and the muscles screamed to catch up.  There's a bit of that now. But pretty masochist that I am, certain kinds of pain are not a deterrent.  I hate being conqueored but I long for a leadership that is stronger than mine.

So I fight against what I don't know, what I can't master.  I don't feel fear or self consciousness, as the fight is so genuinely with myself and always has been.

*********************************************************************

For all of this, you'd think I was good at this already.  Had some mastery.  I am not, like many things I'm forgettable as a sound once it's ended.  I don't stand out in any way in my skating, nor do I expect to.  However, there are private things I wear and do just for me and this is in many  ways, part of that small garden of things I keep that give me joy, regardless of skill.

I'm evangelical about this feeling.  I want you all to have it too.  I want to urge you to find the way life feels like this but it's a tidal wave, it's always too much - I am so frequently too much- that I come here and leave it on the page.

*********************************************************************

My life is rioting around me as I write this.  It is time to go, time to slip into that liquid sunlight, time to tend to the children, time to attend to the very big project.

But each night, the door opens and I go through a forest of gold, of silver, of diamonds. I dance all night and I am sleepy in the morning and it may be that my slippers through but I have no desire to wake or be saved.  

Don't save me from the dreams that give me the fire to do my other work so well.  I would never have wanted the Beast to change into a man.  I'm the mother who hunts the wolf that ate her mother and scared her child. 

I'm the woodcutter who heard the call and answered, with his axe.

I need these things to feel alive.

I suspect you do, as well.

yours, verbatim,

Queen