Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

creative jus and structural integrity

My experiences with certain young people and the young couple formerly downstairs have me in the middle of writing a song.  This will be an ‘anti love song’.

Picture 50’s / 60’s doowop.

Young dumb and crazy

Young dumb and crazy

You can’t be serious

Love makes us delirious

We have trouble with bound’ries; we have issues at borders;

Court appointed attorneys; and restraining or-or-ders

I dosed her with chloral; she hit me with crock’ry

Our manners and morals are mostly a mock’ry

I’m smelling trouble; she’s smelling perfume

And on the double, up goes the volume

Young dumb and crazy

Young dumb and crazy

I want to be passionate

My hope – you are dashing it

Other than that, not much to report.  I am in receipt of an email from the Luddite outlining his latest activities, with one disgruntled comment about the weather, which has been dreadful for a cyclist.  Not too much fun for me either, as I have lost my umbrella and not replaced it, because that’s what umbrellas re FOR, to be lost, and there really seems little point to get into this infinite loop again of purchasing umbrellas, being happy with them for the first little while, watching them slowly lose structural integrity and then about the time you want to pitch them you conveniently leave them on the bus.  It’s been 15 years since I left something on a bus, I feel really dumb, but on the other hand, it was just an umbrella, and not a very good one at that. It’s a recursive loopy kinda day!

Grr

After my exalted state yesterday, OF COURSE I don’t get to keep it.  Instead, here it is 6:30 in the morning and raining comme un batard (I think I’m missing a circonflex in there) and I’m feeling ill and sad, because I just accidentally read somebody else’s correspondence on my computer.  I was looking for all the midi files on my Mac so I can fire them over to Mr. Music and he can sort through what he likes…. but smacked into Katie’s IM with Dax at midnight because it was the first thing that came up on the search.  How’s that for a coincidence?  Now that I’ve admitted I’m a jerk, I think I’ll have some more coffee.  I have no witnesses to the fact I did not go looking for this intel; I hope you’ll take my word for it.

Yup – Katie is visiting.  I’m not entirely sure how long she will be here, but I think it’s safe to say she will need a lot of love and support over the next little while.  She’s scheduled to start school at VCC in September; she says she’s looking forward to it and I believe her.  The rest is me being silent, but if you can visualize me squirming in sympathy, that’ll cover it.

I can’t get the Angstones version of the Lonely Goatherd out of my head.  That infernal yodelling!  It’s bouncing off the inside of my skull like a veritable Pachinko of billiard balls.

The CEO of a 17 billion Euro company is coming through the office today.  No, I’m not making that up either.  My response was to go to his corporate website, print out his picture, and stick it up over my desk with a cheerfully deflatory comment; I know that the cubicle police will come through at dawn and take it down, so I’m perfectly safe.  They will never comment.  They know what I’m like.  Hey, he said on his bio on the corporate site that he had a sense of humor (also that he likes white water rafting).  It’s everybody else’s reaction that I’m going for….

Jeff has once again improved the house, this time by putting sound dampening on the toilet lid.  NO, not fur trim.  Blech.  He put it on the toilet tank so that the bathroom no longer rings like a gong when you put the lid up.  We leave it down because the cats like to drink from the john, which we judge to be lacking in aesthetics and hygiene both.

Last night we fed Keith, Katie and Paul something of a feast.  It was very good to see all of them, and we watched a couple of NCIS episodes, which have Ziva in them, trying to gel with her new team…  Mike was supposed to drop over, but it’s like waiting for the bridegroom.  I have to keep the lamp trimmed at all times.  Or maybe he didn’t want to drop into a family gathering; that would not surprise me.

Back to the midi files.  Having revealed the cause of my unhappiness, I feel somewhat better.

Percolatin’

Okay, so me and Mr. Music got together last night and started messing with this ‘thing’ I have in my mind.  I’ve wanted to write a musical since I was in my teens, and his self-appointed job is to fix me with his kindly yet piercing gaze and say, “So nu? you going to write this thing already?”  Last night I laid out what I want to be the linking device between the songs… Gizmo is ‘quacking’ again, lost my train of thought…. oh yeah, and then recited the lyrics to the pirate song.  Because any modern musical must have pirates and ninjas. OH and unicorns, more than one kind of fairy, zombies (I haven’t written the ‘song’ they will sing yet but I know how the chorus will go), squid (as mentioned).

When he showed me a printout of my blogpost from yesterday, wishing to expand on it, I almost burst into tears.  Then, abruptly, I thought I might be standing on the edge of one of those hills in the badlands, the ones made out of solid bentonite clay, during a heavy rainstorm.  I’m about to slide down one of those bastards, and when I get to the bottom, I’ll be filthy, scuffed and exhausted, but it will have been a hell of a ride.

Then we had a LONG discussion about libretto, composition, the role of insanity in creativity (I’ve got some stuff to look up now), ignoring cost and just writing what we want.  Because the most exhilarating aspect of this is that my luck has provided me with the perfect partner for this enterprise;  if I could express in words my longing for such a thing, and how I’ve longed for it over the course of my whole life, then I’d be a GOOD writer.  Musicals are all about longing….. and how to most perfectly delineate it, elaborate on it, and then satisfy it. I don’t want to be part of Rodgers and Hammerstein.  But if I could get a corner torn off the page of Comden and Green and stick it in my scrapbook, my word, I would be happy.  There’s only one way to leave the theatre!  Singing!  Thanks, Mr. Music, I’m in a very up kind of mood today, which is good, because the weather is VILE.

Marcus Aurelius

Chipper sent this link to me under the rather cryptic header “Big Head”.  Marcus Aurelius was a great writer and his contribution to the philosophy of Stoicism should not be forgotten. Here’s a link to the Meditations.

I’m off to see Music Man tonight.  I am starting to think about writing a musical and rather than having a discernable plot, it’s a thirties style attempt to jam about 100 songs with the most minimal amount of plot or discursive linking possible into 2 hours. Like, my parents hate the plot and fast forward to the musical numbers.  Eddie Izzard in an enormous red ball gown as the Master of Ceremonies?  A little girl asking for pirates and ninjas, and she gets the pirates but you never see the ninjas? Of such is the coloured marzipan from which I wish to confect a musical….  A giant squid sings a sad song about the depths of the sea, with its limbs operated by the cast members?  I even have a name for the opus.

OMG. Gizmo, when he’s cleaning his nether regions, makes a noise like the quacking of a really subdued duck.  He just gave about five demonstrations in a row. The quack he emitted on the sofa last night cracked me and Jeff up.

Soon, the mandolin lessons.

Quiet evening

Paul brought some more of that awesome chard, leftover pork roast (yum!) and a very nice cuke from the downstairs neighbour’s garden.  We all had ourselves a little feast and watched some NCIS (he was not previously familiar with it but fortunately the story arc is such that you can watch single episodes without getting lost).  Must tell Paul to stop filling the dishwasher.

Shame about Stargate Atlantis getting cancelled, but it had a good run and there will be movies.

Keith said, “We shoulda talked about story ideas!” but the call of the computer, now that Jeff’s got the big screen set up for multiplayer gaming, was TOO much for him.  I know exactly what he means, I still haven’t finished the laundry although I did do the bog.  Oh, and you can see the floor in my bedroom, how outré is that?  I thought Keith was going to vibrate a filling loose when he asked me where his Alan Moore comic was and I said, “I think it’s in my bed.”  Then I pulled it loose from the bedding and it was in perfect condition.  Okay, I’m sick, I sleep with comic books.

I’ve got about two minutes to get clean and get dressed and get out the door. More later….

Dang! I should never post without checking my email

Uber-cousin Alex has forwarded yet another cute pic of her jet-setting offspring, Darwin. Here he is lounging by a pool in Switzerland them there furrin’ parts. As corrected, France.  Hey, I’m flying to the north end of France in November.  I’ll be doing my own little war re-creation, slogging through the rain.

Catching some rays.....
Catching some rays.....

Lovely visit

ScaryClown showed us around his ‘hood, being Main St., and after a lovely (and on ScaryClown’s part, quite intensely liquid) brunch, we wandered over to Voltage and Solly’s Bagelry and the Organic Grocery store. I picked up a black and red squid Tshirt from Voltage (LMB probably knows the one I mean). I must say, I’ve never watched somebody pack away three lime margaritas before noon….I didn’t even know you could ORDER lime margaritas before noon. Much as I love alcohol, my day would end the instant I got home and kicked my shoes off. There’s only one beer left, but I’ll fix that tomorrow – I should probably lay off today. Anyway, we picked up sesame bagels and smoked salmon cream cheese and these little intensely chocolate swirly things, and Keith and ScaryClown got cinnamon buns. At the organic grocery I picked up a San Pellegrino for Keith – he loves it – and organic coffee, because I’m out, and organic walnuts, because I saw them and decided to go nuts. Yeah, very funny.

ScaryClown wanted to know why he hadn’t been told about Brian’s going away and I said, “But you’re always over at Uncle Jimmy’s, drinking, on Friday nights. You’ve been doing that every Friday since I met you, almost.” And he burst out laughing, because he thought he hadn’t been invited because he and LTGW are semi-feuding (which, by the way, I am not commenting on because I have a garage-sized crush on LTGW and consider ScaryClown to be my sibling, so there’s no way I can win no matter what I say on the subject, although I will say that they are both very smart and very sensitive).

Ah! Paul just phoned. He’s going to bring food over and we’ll have dinner together with Jeff and Keith AND he’s going to stop and get beer. So I’ve got about three hours to do the Tasmanian Devil cleanup (my room is a DUMP) and maybe blast through the bathroom like a pink tornado.

Jeff and I were thinking about opening Crazy Bob’s Discount Funeral Home. Some conditions apply, bagpipes not included. Hm. I guess it was funnier at the time.

Life is pretty good. Yes, my back still hurts, but I’ve learned that complaining about it never helps.

Off to breakfast with ScaryClown et krewe

I’m looking forward to it. ScaryClown calls Locus ‘oh so trendy’ and I just love pulling down the tone on places like that. A slender 20-something MainSt hipster I am so not; although, candidly, Keith and ScaryClown could pass for that if they wanted to.

Continue reading Off to breakfast with ScaryClown et krewe

PARTAY

We saw Brian C off to his new job in fine style – and I used the opportunity to record Buy me a Beer in front of a live audience.  Yes, I got permission from Party Boy and the management of the Golf Course first, so I may be a self-involved putz, but I’m not entirely without a clue. Also, I distributed neck rubs all round, except for the people who said NO, and it’s amazing how many of them I just said, “I know YOU’RE passing” to, and they just looked at me… then the next person would openly mock them and thank their good fortune.  This happened more than once, so the cumulative effect was quite funny.  One of the people I worked on had been shit on by a crow, but I worked on her ANYWAY because the crow was considerate enough to let fly along her spine well below her shoulders.  Also recorded Housewife’s Lament.  There were forty people there at the height of the festivities, largest turnout I’ve seen in 11 years of employment…. Maybe 45.  There was a LOT of people there.  I was going to do a guest list.  LTGW gave me, Jeff, Keith and Patricia rides home, or roughly home- the 25 bus was waiting for us at Brentwood, as if it was meant to be.

Another NCIS blowout day.  I made waffles for breakfast, unbelievably good meatloaf for dinner, wiped off the back deck table, wiped off the kitchen counters, folded some laundry (which Jeff did, and thanks cats! for urinating on Keith’s bedclothes!) and otherwise did squat.  I’m having a lazy day.

Tomorrow Scary Clown and Keith and Jeff and I are going to eat brunch down on Main St.  Then in the afternoon I hope to see daughter Katie, who really is a very nice woman to talk to on the phone.  And I talked to Peggy, and I talked to my mother, and Mike called to tell me that Bounce’s clone, in the form of a 5 month old male kitten, has cruised into his life.  He’s been adopted.  That makes him happy.  Happier making still is that it’s Jerome’s stag tonight.  Mike vaguely quoted the email saying something about how Jerome didn’t want anything too stupid or strange, but uh, anytime I’VE ever gone drinking with those guys, magically delicious, improbably fun things happen, so seeing as how they will be drinking AND the Dalai Jarmo will be there, I suspect a good time will be had by all.

Jeff bought an elcheapo camera to record the antics of the cats in the living room, as time without number one of the cats has done something unutterably cute and we’re blocks from a camera.  It lives in the living room now.

I watched my newly posted video a couple of times, and about halfway through the video (deleted as being pretentious bushwah, with a side of smug).

The air conditioner is running.  A Kenyan took gold in the marathon.  The world is okay.

New Youtube video, Revelation, etc.

No link – it’s not like I’m ashamed of it, I just think it is not exactly… well…. I’m having WAY too much fun singing it, and that is kinda sorta a bad thing. It really should be sung with as close to a straight face as possible, and I just can’t manage that.

Keith and I read my version of Revelation last night and we ended up giggling like idiots. Then it occurred to me… this just plain isn’t respectful to people of faith. In my defence, I’d like to point a couple of things out.

Martin Luther, one of the greatest theologians who ever lived, didn’t like Revelation and wanted it yoinked from the Bible. John Calvin, one of the biggest dickheads who ever lived, and also a good theologian, did a commentary on every book of the New Testament except Revelation and very very rarely referenced it. There was argument among the church fathers right up until the 6th C whether it should even BE in the Bible (so much for Biblical inerrancy…) and the Eastern Orthodox church dislikes it so much that it grudgingly accepted its inclusion in the scripture but refuses to use any of it in its liturgy, an excellent compromise, and exactly the kind of thing a syncretic church should do. After all, that’s exactly what contemporary American Christianity is doing when it ignores the thousand or so references to assisting the poor that occur in both Testaments to focus its mascaraed eyes on the handful of references to queerness. In other words, ignoring what is actively repellent to it, or politically murderous to it, without reference to What God Wants.

So I will continue to Play with Revelation, but I’m only going to be sharing it with those individuals who demonstrate interest.

I note that a Democrat is suing to have Barack Obama’s name stricken from the rolls of Presidential candidates because it turns out he was born in Kenya. Nice. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if they did the same for the lovely and talented John McCain, who was born in the Canal Zone (note to self, aren’t we all, except for the folks delivered by caesarian).