Music

Lately I have been playing the piano a lot. I was just looking back at the blog and it has been about two years since I gave away my extra piano.

The one I have now is the one my mom bought when I started taking lessons in high school. I had always wanted to learn to play the piano and one year on my birthday we went shopping in Paducah, as we often did, and while we were gone they delivered the piano. I got lessons for my birthday and Christmas. It was a wonderful gift.

I went to college as a music major, quickly learning I did not have the necessary talent or dedication for that. But I have always enjoyed playing and singing.

When I moved to Kansas I bought the old piano at a church sale and had it for many years. When my mom died, I moved this piano back to Kansas and it now has a very nice home in my downstairs sunporch. I go in there and play almost every night.

I can't say I've improved much since college - in fact, I've gotten worse due to lack of practice. Yes, your mother was right - and so was your piano teacher - practice is essential. I always wanted to play so much that it was never a burden to me to practice. It just happened naturally.

But I haven't played much in years. The piano needs a tune badly, but considering it was moved here from Kentucky and then moved around in my house a few times, it's not bad. But it's bad enough there are certain notes I try to avoid. If I hit them they sound like I'm doing something very wrong, and it's hard to distinguish between that and when I am hitting the wrong keys.

I've been really enjoying having the opportunity to play regularly. I am sometimes shocked by how luxurious it is to have such things readily available.

Bush in Kansas Again

Bush is coming to Kansas. Again. He will be in Wichita next week - obstensively to open a Boys and Girls Club - in reality to fundraise for Senator Pat Roberts.

What this says to me is that Republicans are scared. Kansas is a diehard Republican state. Bush has been here three times in the past six years. This will be his second trip in a few weeks. He visited Greensburg last month.

This fundraiser will be in a private home, so we don't know much about it. What I know is that they're trying to build a war chest for Roberts so no one will consider running against him. Roberts has been a Senator forever. You'd think he'd feel somewhat secure in his job. But, I guess not. It's comforting to see republicans in a republican strong hold realize they're going to have to work to keep their seats.

However, I'm not sure casting your lot with a president who's approval rating continues to drop is that good of an idea.

For those of us who are democrats in this republican stronghold, it's quite amusing to watch them scurrying about. I guess the margins in the last election just weren't to their liking.

When I first joined the Democratic Women's Club - maybe four years ago - there were about a dozen of us who came. Now there are sometimes 40 people who show up. Democrats here are starting to speak up. It has been a long time coming.

Old Friends

I was writing at my desk this morning with a cup of tea and looked out to see a beautiful pink sky across the street. I went out to take a picture and discovered the moon was setting between the trees. Sunset tonight looked very promising but wasn't as pretty as I expected.

I’ve been in the mood to make contact with old friends, lately. Just this morning I wrote a card to a very dear friend, Evelyn, who I met when we were 17 and freshmen at Murray State University. We were both there for the music program, which was highly renowned at the time. One of us was incredibly talented, and one of us was about to reach a humbling understanding.

In case you’re unsure which of us is which, Evelyn is a college professor with a doctorate in music and has authored many articles, when she hasn’t been busy presenting at national conferences. Prior to beginning her teaching career, she toured the world performing.




Oddly enough, another person we met that first year - my only year at Murray - recently told me that while getting her master’s in education, some of Evelyn’s writing was required reading in her course. It is, indeed a small world. One of us is in Hutchinson, one in St. Louis and one in New Orleans - all places we had no connection to when we were in college together.

Evelyn and I rarely see each other, but when we talk or email or do see each other we relate on the basis of our current lives. It was Evelyn who noted this when we spent a couple of days together a few years ago - the first time we’d seen each other since college. I was in Florida for a conference and just called her up spur of the moment because she was living there then. She came over and stayed with me and we went to dinner at the Kapok Tree restaurant in Clearwater, a local institution since closed.

Over dinner that night she told me she had been a bit hesitant to drive the two hours to where I was because she was afraid we would only be talking about our college years but that it hadn’t even come up. I had never thought about that until Evelyn mentioned it. But I have remembered that conversation many, many times since, particularly when I'm with people who live almost exclusively in the past - who's conversation centers around "remember when..."

You wouldn’t think that in our 20s Evelyn and I would have had much past. But even that night as we sat across from each other, drinking from those glasses the Kapok Tree was famous for, one of us was grieving the loss of the man we expected to be with forever to a fire, and the other was recovering from a sexual assault that had left us reeling. We had enough history to share those things and enough distance to be honest about them.

Even though our adult lives had barely begun, they were moving fast. So much had happened in the few years since college that it was already little more than a footnote. And high school seemed a lifetime ago. We had both already learned to live in the present and future because that’s where possibilities were. Even the recent past was too distant for us to relive, or to care to.

Periodically I have a need to reconnect with people, like Evelyn, with whom I've shared important things. I was there when Florida native, Evelyn, saw snow for the first time. (Her first shocked response walking out the front doors of White Hall that morning was, “It’s cold!”) She was there when I decided music just wasn’t the life for me. Those moments are all part of what make up a life. And the insight she gave me about the past versus the present was a critical thought for me to grasp.

When I consider pivotal moments in my life, that is one of them - that I am not a person who rehashes the past very much - and that I don't care for the process. I love family stories - always loved to hear my mom talk about her earlier years and enjoy it when my brothers tell me stories of their childhood. I appreciate that history shapes who we are, but life is lived in the now, and the possibilities are in the future. Maybe because I've always journaled, I feel my own life history needs no further discussion.

I have little to say about the past - mine or anyone else's. And I bore very quickly with other's stories of, "remember when..." - even if I'm in those stories. I do not want to live a life where high school shenanigans are still fresh enough and interesting enough to tell nearly thirty years later.

So, I long to connect with people like Evelyn, with whom I have a past but will always have a future. Those kinds of friends are so rare.

Awake When the World Sleeps

I've never been a good sleeper. My mom always told me the first night she brought me home from the hospital I was awake at night and slept during the day. That seems to have set a pattern for life.

For reasons I don't fully comprehend I love to be awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. I'm not sure why. It's not like I'm doing things that require the cover of darkness. At 1:00 this morning I was working on some MHA projects. At 2:30 I was playing the piano. Then I journaled for a bit and then went upstairs to bed. I have napped a bit but never fully went to sleep. At 5 I decided if I couldn't go to sleep in a few minutes I'd get up. At 5:35 I got up again.

So, here I am, before 6 a.m. on a Saturday, up and about. I've hauled more recycling out to the curb, I've gathered more things to go to Salvation Army and I'm headed out to the backyard in a few minutes to spread mulch. Like I said - not exactly things that require a clandestine lifestyle.

What my deal is with sleep, I don't know. Years and years ago, before anyone had heard of such things, I participated in a sleep study at a University. The results were that I had a sleep disorder - it had a name, but I've long since forgotten it. The upshot of it was that I go into REM sleep quickly and that making my body live on a schedule that's unnatural for it is going to spell disaster at some point.

This was never more apparent to me than when I worked in public radio and had to keep really odd hours during fundraisers. I can keep odd hours - that's no problem - I do that quite well - but it takes me MONTHS to then get back into a regular routine. I was pretty much always in trouble after fundraiser for not being back on a normal 8-5 schedule a day or two after working until midnight or 1, and then sometimes being up for another 2-3-4 hours to calm down enough to sleep. I could never understand how people could do it so quickly - I envied that ability. I just could not physically make myself get out of bed - it was as impossible as if I had been tied down - I just could not do it. And I'd lay there, knowing I was going to be in trouble, and only sleeping fitfully, so not even benefiting from it. It was an unpleasant way to live, and let me tell you there is no sympathy for someone who can't keep "normal" hours - even if you have an "official" diagnosis.

These days I'm very cautious about listening to what my body tells me about sleep because a deprivation can bring on an A-fib attack. I realize now I was having them off and on for years - particularly those mornings after fundraiser hours - I just didn't know what they were. But I didn't know that feeling had a name, and now I do. We live and learn.

I may be up all day today, and then I may crawl back in bed at 9 a.m. - I don't know - it will all depend on how I feel. But I know I get a lot more done letting my body dictate when it wants to sleep. I sleep fewer hours than most people, and therefore have more productive hours each day - but they don't all happen between 8 and 5. Fortunately, today is a Saturday and no one is expecting me anywhere at any particular time.

Phones, Friends and Art

This has been a very full day.

I started the day looking at copies of Landline Magazine, featuring Greg's photos on the cover and on the inside. Their art director did a great job with the layout. This was the freelance work we were doing in Greensburg a few weeks ago. My stuff aired on XM right away - although there is one more piece coming up soon - but Greg's photos just came out in print. It is a very cool, very slick, production. I hope he's proud of it because it looks great. Hard to believe that a photo of the President of the United States could end up being little more than a footnote, but I guess that just shows the magnitude of the story.

The first wonderful discovery of the day was that apparently after I came home last night they delivered my new phone, but left it behind the door on the porch and I didn't see it then. But, it was discovered very early this morning so I had a chance to fully charge it before taking it out to the local store so they could program it for me.



One of the first chores was to dump all the info from my old phone into the new one. They hooked up the old phone and lined up the Treo with the infrared panel and voila! everything magically came over to the new phone.

This was a bonus because I have some numbers in the phone I don't have anywhere else. I did start making notes of them - just in case something went wrong, but nothing did.

Amber became the hero of the day because she had used a Treo before. She spent considerable time working with me to get it all functional. I will have to go back out tomorrow because I can't send email - not sure why - it's downloading it but not sending. Probably some little thing that's wrong.

Shortly after getting it I went to run an errand and left it in the car. When I came back it was blinking. Oh no... what does blinking mean? Well, I decided I'd better call Teresa because I was expecting a call from her and it was quicker to just call her and confess I didn't know how to use my phone, than figure out what the blinking was. The blinking was voicemail - in case you're wondering.

I don't think the pix transferred over but that's no big deal. I had pix of a few people that popped up when they called but that's nothing major. There were so many more pressing issues to deal with I sort of forgot about the pix and it's not like a phone ever takes really good pix anyway.

I shoved a lot of MHA stuff out the door today, which is always a good feeling. With the garden tour June 24 I have a lot of things to accomplish for that and got some of them done today.

Cleta came over and picked up more data entry things to do for me, which is such a huge help. Greg went out and put up some flyers for me early this morning, which I'm very thankful for. I got the small ones printed and cut today and delivered to some places. Teresa and I ate dinner at Anchor - they're always so good about handing them out for me - so I was glad to get them there tonight since they're very busy on the weekends.

While Cleta was here the insurance guy came. He looked at things inside but will come back another day to look at the roof itself so see if there is any hail damage. I am hoping not because I do not want to go through the whole roofing thing again. I'm hoping all is well. We'll see. They're supposed to call me about the car in a few days to set up an appointment to look at it. Naturally, it's a different person who does cars than does houses.

While I was out with the insurance guy, the mail lady came and gave Cleta two good things - a cookbook to add to the stack of those to be reviewed. And... the really good news... confirmation that Mia and I were accepted into the Hillsboro Arts and Crafts Fair in September. Hillsboro is a small community about 45 minutes away and on this one day each year they have about 40,000 people come through town to shop this festival. So, it should be a worthwhile way to spend a day. I need to make things!

This means I need to get the studio really functional. When the garden tour is over, I'm going to spend a little time working on my house again. There are some things I need to get done and one of them is my studio needs to function as an art studio again. I miss being able to go upstairs at night and get lost in an art project.

Treo

I'm posting this from my new treo. Why? Just to see if I can. Some things work some don't.

No doubt some of the problems are operator error - that would mean me, of course.

There's a definite learning curve here.

The Day

The high point of my day was lunch with Dorothy - other than that I've just been working at the computer and moving things around in my house. It seems I do a tremendous amount of both of those things. However, neither of them ever seems to be completed. I'm not sure how that can be, but it is.

Moving things around in the home office I have managed to make new, taller piles. Piles of cookbooks to be reviewed. Piles of garden tour stuff to be dealt with. Piles of things to be glued down in bits and pieces books. Piles of paper to be sorted, filed, shredded, etc. Piles, piles and more piles.

Tomorrow is recycling day and as it is every time, the space in front of my house is covered with bags. For one person I seem to generate a huge amount of such things. It seems every other week when it's recycling day I have the typical blue bags but also at least one cardboard box, sometimes more. They'll all be very wet tomorrow because...

It is raining here again. We do not need rain. We need the rain to stop so the flooding will stop. They're saying we might get hail. I'd just as soon it come now before I get things repaired from last week's storm so I can do it all at once.

I swear, all we need now is a good crop of locusts. And, as if on cue, I keep hearing about cicadas making their 17 year appearance this year. However, I think we are a bit out of their area. Pity. It would be the perfect addition.