I'm multitasking.

There's a DVD on of Jeff Beck Live in Tokyo.  It features a new backing band.  I was a fan of the last configuration, but this one is fabulous.  I can't fault Beck's ability to keep evolving.  He's a great recognizer and encourager of talent.  I admire that about him.

I'm typing this, obviously, making something like a "real" post--something I haven't been doing much for awhile.  I do want to get back to blogging.  My sister's death took me out of the game for awhile.

I'm making dinner--a chicken chili.

OK.  So I am hopping up and down a lot, putting things on pause, adjusting temperatures, draining things, setting timers, slicing stuff, playing air guitar and etc.  That's how I roll.

As I roll toward the end of the first draft of Appearances I'm feeling frustrated.  There have been so many interruptions in the course of its making that I keep having to start over again.   I've been working on it for three years, the longest I've ever worked on a writing project, so I'm anxious for it to eventually resolve into something of some use.

I've been keeping up with guitar practice but progressing slower than I'd like.  Part of the problem is that my fingers still aren't strong enough to do what I want to do.  Part of the problem is that I'm very slow to understand musical concepts--it takes me awhile to hear patterns, changes, etc. Part of the problem is that I can't make it the totality of things, the entire focus.  In the end, I'm a poetry person.  But music,damn it,  I want at least a tiny piece of it.

Thanks for listening.  Stop by and say hello now and then.

gravytoss

Go here to read my responses to three questions concerning Dipstick (Diptych).  

When I was in the Atlanta airport I picked up Carlos Santana's new autobiography, The Universal Tone.  I'm relishing it.  As I type this I'm listening to Santana Live at the Fillmore, an astonishingly beautiful album of live jams recorded in late 1968.

In late '68 I was 15 years old and listening to other things. I caught up eventually, but then I'm still playing catch-up in many ways.

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Ketchup. Catsup.

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Freak flagon.

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Still feeling punched in the gut by my sister's death.  Tears are set off by the smallest things--a news story, a stray thought--whatever.  I'm grieving.

Amy cheated death so many times over the last 25 years, It's hard to believe she's gone.  She was a strong, brave girl.

I'm struggling to return to routines.  Have been doing a lot of housework and yardwork.  Hoping I can find a way back to thinking/writing soon.

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This is what I read at Amy's memorial:

Life is messy, knotty.  Each of us is made up of braided strands of good and evil, compassion and indifference.

I believe that laughter can help sort our messes, help loosen our knots.

Amy and I didn’t, as adults, get to spend as much time together as we would have liked; but when we did get together, we laughed!

Often at family gatherings when our Mom would start to laugh, Amy and I would catch one another’s eye, nod and—sometimes in unison, sometimes in a raggedy asthmatic harmony—begin to draw deep raspy breaths.  Something like this… uhhhh!!!

This would cause Mom to laugh uncontrollably.  She’d laugh until she cried, she’d laugh until it hurt.  Amy and I were co-conspirators in our Mother’s laughter.  It was a beautiful, cathartic thing and one of my favorite family memories.

I’ve cried a lot over the last several weeks.  I’m probably not done crying, but I’m not done laughing either. 

I hope all of you—family and friends—will find it in your hearts to remember Amy with a smile & perhaps a rollicking belly laugh as you reflect on a special moment you had with her.

I want to conclude by saying: uhhhh!

Emotionally and physically spent after returning from my sister's memorial in Colorado.  A day of travel, another day with family and Amy's friends, then another day of travel.  I'm glad I did it, but it was exhausting.

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My song for Amy is up at the issue of Truck which La Bella Anny Ballardini is currently assembling.

The first issue of Jean Vengua's new journal, Local Nomad, is up!!    And I'm happy to have a little something in it.