When good things happen...

Whenever I have a really good day, like this one, I wonder why. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but is it just random, or do I have good karma, or am I going to pay for it later when the other shoe drops?

I had a pretty shitty week. It's felt like there have been 'oppositional forces' pushing on me since the week began, and then today - nothing! Like when you've been walking in a strong wind, braced against it, and then the wind stops and it's such a relief. It's so pleasant! And you can enjoy everything.

If today wasn't just a random assortment of happy and interesting events, then thank you, whoever or whatever is responsible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Blue Monday at the Buckhorn

Oh man. I guess you just had to be there.

Ward Stout at the Stage Door Grill

All week people have been introducing me to this visiting fiddle player from Nashville. He played tonight at the Stage Door Grill, just backing up local musicians , a real angel of a guy. Here he is on MySpace.

Listen to Train Song, it's just beautiful. Buy his music.

Mean Woman Blues

At the Trinidaddio Blues Festival last weekend I bought a small print of this painting called "Mean Woman Blues". The artist is George Hunt. I just love this print, and I can't stop looking at it.

If I could, I'd commission George Hunt to paint a picture of me, the way I feel right now. It would be called Tired Woman Blues. A google search doesn't turn up any song called Tired Woman Blues, so I might have to write it.

Maybe it would have to be called Mundane Woman Blues. Yeah, I'm tired - tired from working all week at a good job with a steady paycheck, tired from driving a gas-efficient foreign car to music festivals just about every weekend, tired from staying up too late every night reading books that I bought new at Borders (that favorite haunt of latte drinking, independent film loving, organic food buying, New York Times reading, sushi eating white liberals like me.)

Okay, maybe it would have to be called "Got No Right to Have the Blues". But, oh wait a minute, over at Amazon.com I find that someone else already wrote that song. Some white girl like me with an insipid voice whose cover of Joni Mitchell's Circle Game could send you into a diabetic coma. (See? I'm mean! I'm a Mean Woman!)

So maybe no portrait, no song. Maybe just a glass of wine and a good night's sleep.

Milestones

There are about 37 different emotions precipitating in my brain, most of them to do with the fact that my oldest daughter turned 18, and starts college next week. I've been doing everything I can to be peaceful about this, but today I'm giving in to the tears.

I wish I could turn back time and make it go slower.

Check out Elizabeth's Calm-a-Sutra of Tea Scholarship Entry

Please watch - and pass it on!

NM in the News

Spaceport in Sierra County - which is the county just to the south of Socorro County. Check it out:

Life is a roller coaster

All kinds of good news today, but the thing that's on my mind is that I have been really stupid in my dealings with one person who I really like and who's good opinion is important to me, and it was through total ineptness...so, blah. Must fix.

The good news come in all descriptions. Had a great time with a friend last night, made new friends today, ordered harmonicas.

New friends are from PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Gays And Lesbians) who are going to help start a PFLAG Socorro chapter. I'm slightly daunted by the basic requirements - have to form a non-profit corporation, have to have officers for said non-profit, no doubt have to have bank account for said non-profit. But we'll have help with all that, from Katherine and Sheila, who are awesome.

I met them at the Manzanares Coffeehouse's 1st Annual Pride Celebration. The Manzanares - also, awesome. I'm hoping we can have our first meeting there on July 19. which is the third Sunday.

So, yay!

good news and good news

We're just back from the Albuquerque Gay Pride festivities - that was a blast! The parade was great fun. And also educational. I have to say, I was momentarily disconcerted by the Albuquerque Leather float, but my kids, who've had a somewhat sheltered life, took the sight of a scantily leather clad man chained to the float and being urged on by a man cracking a long whip and also being poked in the behind with a flag pole completely in stride...good for them, I say! Also the Self Serve Toys float didn't appear to faze them in the least. The enormous replica of a self-servicing device on that float..well, the mind boggles.

We were camped out on the median of Central Avenue not far from a place where I once saw Taj Mahal. And later in the day, we went to Barnes & Nobles and I picked up an awesome Taj Mahal CD, with some choice harmonica playing on it.

I keep my harmonica in a special room in my house, a room I visit several times a day. Instead of reading comics in there, I now pick up the harmonica and blow a few notes. It seems to be a good strategy - the acoustics are good, and I think I'm improving. At this rate, when it comes time for the 2nd Ever Socorro Fest Harmonica Contest in October, I will totally blow!

But that's part of the good news - at this year's Socorro Fest, there will indeed be another harmonica contest. And this year, the prize money may make it worth the drive for out-of-towners.

I feel like I'm ready for something more than a cheap Hohner in the key of C, which is what I've got...but I wish there was some middle ground between the Hohner Piedmont Blues 7 Harmonica Pack with Case at $20 and the Hering USA Kit Master Blues 6 harp set at $130. Then again, when you consider what you could pay for a Hohner Bob Dylan Hand-Signed 7-Piece Harmonica Set ($25,000) it seems that $130 is not so expensive after all. Wonder which key is missing in the Hering Set? B, in case you wanted to know. And if you're in the key of B, you can use your F harmonica anyway, so who needs it? What do harp players do when someone hits them with a song in A#? Is it all about bending the notes at that point?

Well, long day.

Six months go by so quickly

Wow. Almost halfway through this year with no reportage. That's because there's so much to do in Socorro. Seriously. I've never been so busy in my life.

But I feel a bout of self-improvement coming on, which I do better when I chronicle my efforts. The problem with self-improvement is that you rarely want to improve just one thing about yourself. No, you want a sweeping overhaul. If I started making a list, I'd be sobbing over my keyboard somewhere around item twenty-nine. It's the kind of thing you almost don't want to share with anyone.

So I'm going to pick one thing at random from my list and tackle that. I want to play the harmonica. Harmonica Central seems like a good place to start. Free lesson number one - Red River Valley. Nothing is explained. Hmmm. I'll get back to you on this. But in the meantime, this youtube video of Jon Gindick playing Safe Sex with 10 Holes in 12th position (with 3rd position foreplay) is totally worth watching.