LOVER

1. Nervous 2. Balmy 3. Eager 4. Triumphant

mail!

Rangoon, Burma; Steve McCurry
Thank you RJG for this gigantic image that's setting the tenor for my evening. What else is setting the tenor is all this light & white jangly boy-band guitar music! Pinback! Roman Candles! Oranges Band!
A gigantic white crane landed in the mass of lush green trees just outside our window at work. We watched as he flew away, gigantic wing-span. I'm going somewhere there's a snake on the table. I am definately going up.

We are The Leonard Studio.

I can't stop dreaming this morning. Maybe I never will ...

On Tap Tonight!

I thought my transducer was broken but it's not. It still sounds kindof ragged and rough. I kindof like it that way. Here's a mic if you feel inspired.
- Do we need an agenda?
- Red Hook India Pale Ale (12 - in bottles)
- Tequila/limes
- Beats
- Just me & Andy
- Blank paper & pen
- Tell me something
- Horticulture
- "He might be there with someone else but if he's not a fool he'll leave with you." A.D.

Loretta Lynn/Gram Parsons/George Jones

A morning of cutting down thick grass, drippy face sweat, laundry, cold coffee, a heavy teasing sky that never rains. I wish it would rain. It's so quiet it's squeezing my chest, my ribs, is my heart in there? It doesn't seem to matter anymore - when I feel a wave of sorrow drift and shadow across my heart. There's some clouds that pass that never get seen. I just let them go.
Could it be that I am missing Arun? How can you still miss someone who has been gone for so long, whose life and death you have shared, witnessed, honored, grieved, let go of? When things change they really do change. Or at least they're supposed to.
Right this instant I miss the Atlantic Ocean. I miss my mom. I was walking last night and it hit me so hard all fresh again: I can't tell her anything. And I never wanted to be saved, I don't want that now. I suspect the world would prefer me as a bird with a broken wing but I don't know how to pretend to be broken. That said, do you have to be broken to be loved, to receive tender administrations, to be checked in on? I would like to check in on everyone right now. I would like the phone to ring right now.
And I can tell you this: I have moved into a new era. It's that liminal space between being able to fool myself and being able to be surprised. I don't know what I think anymore about love or death or life, about what I want and what I will not repeat. I just know that I read this this morning and it moved me:

"My mother used to say that grief is a debt and you could pay it now or you could pay it later but you would pay . . . Last week I ran into an old friend . . . we went to get a cup of coffee, and he asked my how I was doing with my grief. It's not the kind of question anyone asks me anymore, especially not after a year, but his wife had divorced him eight years before and he knew how it was. I told him that I now know that life has three parts for me: the one in which Lucy and I were alive together; the one in which I am alive and she's dead; and the last one, in which we'll both be dead.
And then I have to say I surprised myself, I looked for my grief and didn't find it. "I feel very close to Lucy," I told him. "I think about her life and our friendship and I feel-" I cut myself off because the word seemed impossible. "Joy," I said. "I think of her and I feel joy."
Anne Patchett

these things happen?

On my way to work, a lil late, pulling onto Claiborne at Napolean. Yellow Mercedes sedan, 1970's model, pulls behind me. I notice because I love the Mercedes'. This sedan proceeds to drive the same route I am, which is strange because it's so convoluted and specific, but whatever. Then this sedan proceeds to follow me to Herman's, which is not "whatever" cuz it's way out in Lakeview on a dead-end street, a very specific route. I pull up and park, guy pulls up behind me, diesel motor rattling. Cuts his car off. A man, maybe a little younger than me, dead-ringer for Mark Ruffalo but not, a little ... wilder looking. Leaning out his window, button-down shirt sleeves rolled up, 70's style sunglasses. I walk up to his car, is this dangerous? This guy seems benign somehow.
"Do I seem crazy? I had to follow you. I love your hair."
"I can't speak to your sanity. I'm having a bad hair day." I've got my purse slung high on my shoulder, arms crossed. The cats come out of the high grass to rub on my legs.
"I can't tell. Do you live here?"
"Asking that seems crazy - I'm not going to tell you," my sunglasses are on too so he can't tell I'm looking at the field across the street. I don't know what to say next so I say, "I need a trim."
"My name's Michael. I need a trim too. What's your name?" He's not talking with any real intensity, just calm like this is an ordinary meeting in an ordinary context.
"I should tell you my name? My name is Elizabeth."
"Good, thanks. I guess I should go now but I'll see you again. Ok? Elizabeth? Would that be ok?" or something to that effect, at this point I slip into a funny dream zone and words get really fluid. But I manage:
"Can I answer that if it happens?"
He smiles. And looks. He pulls his glasses down and just looks, not stares, just looks. I lower myself to his eye-level and ask, "Surely you're not gonna deny me my right to withhold judgement?"
He laughs. Nods yes, then no. Starts his car while still looking. "I'm going to see you again soon Elizabeth, and we'll see about your judgement," he says my name without exclamation at all and wheels his car around. I'm a bit ... I feel a bit ... fictional. This stuff happens? This is just ...
Herman's coming out to head to the gym and he stops to say good morning. I pick up his New York Times at the end of the sidewalk. Michael waves as he turns the corner and leaves. Herman goes off, I go in, the cats come in behind me.

Lights In Eyes

- Write on Post-It notes and stick them up around your town.
- During conversations, stand closer than usual.
- Sing into the intercoms of apartment buildings.
- Attach chalk to several strings and let them hang from your bike marking your route.
- Take a shower with all your clothes on.

Yes initiating some of these pranks may suggest that you are also a person who should pay attention to the "Signs of Alcoholism" listed below. The merry prankster/fool is often perceived as a drunk. There's something to be said for being a clown - it can put you right at the heart of everything people both revere and despise. The trick is to know you're doing it when you're doing it - to not be tricked by your own foolishness.

There was this mime once ... well I shouldn't even broach that topic here. Some things are meant for whispered conversations in the water-room (isn't that old slang for bath room?). Lord, I just had a flash of Gexto Spain! Talk about pranks! Those gangs of boys scurrying the length of the town in their pyjamas shooting off fireworks drinking wine out of bottles - their fiesta for their insomniac patron Saint! A nest of spiders spreading out starting fires! How could I sleep? I roamed those treachorous cliffy streets and drank to their randy singing, the moon, the sea ...

DOCUMENTIA

free speech

"Of offering more than what I can deliver I have a bad habit, it is true. But I have to offer more than I deliver to be able to deliver what I do." Ken Kesey

Anyone up for some good old-fashioned guerrila resistance this weekend? I know I am.

After riding across some treachorous landscape, me & my horse lay down. At that point I realized I could show you his trick. I put a blindfold on him and he stood up, I mounted him and without any lead in at all he took the gigantic ravine. A golden chestnut shiny horse, the view from below of his perfect form, hooves and forelegs poised in jumping position, the sun hard on the jagged ravine, me up top perfectly balanced. He kept going and going and we landed without a hitch. I smiled and waved at you as we galloped away.

I am listening to Charles Brown with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers. I don't know what to listen to next. I have to get my poor ass to the record store for something new. I need a new drug - I get so bored with habits. Today I'm going to drink coffee without pause, tomorrow I'll deprive myself of coffee just to feel that. Later I'll mow the grass and flip out on the ragged punchy grass smells. Tonight I'm gonna sing till my throat opens up and swallows itself whole. Last night I played the guitar till my fingers bled. I bought new soap - delicious and creamy, linden. I love transistor radios. I love homemade anything. I love mail. I love everybody. Forget that I suffer panic attacks and am guilty of a strange equilibrium that can be so intense. This is a woman living on her own two feet. I couldn't love this more. And oh! New York City for Independence Day! Hip hip hooray.

Brand New Day

Vince di Persio has been in town with his crew for a week, filming a documentary on my boss Herman Leonard (his whole life, not just "jazz"). Last night I drove with Herman and Vince to visit Ivy Billiot at his house deep in Houma. Vince picked up his mermaid, Herman shot photos. On my way home to my little cottage set back in its wild garden, I heard Van Morrison coming out of a fellow's car. Ivy is making me a crow.
Today I am taking Herman to see Sallie Ann Glassman, Jewish vodou mamou, deep in the Bywater of New Orleans Louisiana. We'll meet Vince for lunch and then I'll be working on Henry Butler's photographs for a feature the Fox network is doing on him. And the Detroit Pistons won. What more can I say? It's my life; it's a strange surprise.