June « 2009 « Okay City

World Tour

30 June 2009

Daily, Travels, Writer | Comments (3)

Internet, I’m having one or two minor problems with anxiety in advance of my deeply imminent travels abroad. It’s crazy – I mean, remember that one time when I LIVED IN EUROPE FOR SIX MONTHS? Why am I freaked out about going back?

Part of it is that Brian isn’t here; he left on Sunday morning, early, to jet out to Washington, D.C. for business. I’m leaving in about 48 hours from now to join him. In the meantime I have to do a whole sh**load of laundry, get my house nice and clean so that my buddy Casey, who is house-and-dogsitting for us, doesn’t have to live in a pig sty.

Last night I stayed up packing – most of my clothes are already crammed tightly into my freshly-Febreezed duffel bag – I REFUSE TO CHECK LUGGAGE. To aid myself while I packed I watched all six episodes of the first series of the BBC black comedy Sensitive Skin, starring the lovely Joanna Lumley (Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous). I only meant to watch one episode. I SWEAR I did but that sh**’s addicting. Careful, though; it’s about the most British thing you’re likely to have seen in awhile.

I’ve got a ton of stuff to do before I leave, including a freelancing deadline for an article I pitched BECAUSE I AM TOTALLY NUTS. In other news, I am the cover author of the local alternative newsweekly – for the second time in a year, holla – so be sure to pick that up if you’re in town.

Maybe it’s the lingering worry of having a largely-uncompleted to-do list hanging over my head, or maybe it’s that I’m always weird when Brian is away, but the past two days my stomach has been fluttering wildly, wobbling so much that I can see it through my shirt. It feels the way that I would imagine a kicking baby does. Also, I’ve become entirely obsessed with my passport, with knowing where it is at all times, to the degree that the first thing I do when I rise and the last thing I do before I go to bed is to check and make sure it’s still in the same place it was. I pick it up, I flip through it a few times, and I set it back down EXACTLY where it was before, but then come the next morning, there I am, rushing to it to make sure it hasn’t been moved, or ran away.

One can only sustain this level of mental illness but for so long; in 48 hours I’ll be in the air and headed east, and when I set down in Washington, D.C. to begin this next adventure I’m sure everything will have come together just as it’s meant to.

Not Roadkill

Daily | Comments (1)

I saw this little dude laying under a car on the corner of my street on the way back from work yesterday. At first I really thought some unfeeling or spaced-out motorist had backed over a cat in his own driveway. So, I slowed down to inspect a little more closely and realized that nope, this little dude was just blissfully, stupidly asleep underneath the car in the afternoon heat. I slowed down to take a photo, but honestly I sorta considered – just for a second – crawling under there with him.

The Garden Show

29 June 2009

Music | Comments (0)

When Brian and I first looked at our house in August of 2005, we knew we wanted to live in it when we came out the back door and saw the sunroom and gorgeously landscaped backyard. What I didn’t imagine is that fewer than four years later, the always-amazing K.C. Clifford would be doing a show in said backyard. Brian and I were honored that she’d do this for us, because we really support what K.C. and David do (and so should you. So should really you.)

What was fun about this show is that we not only got to set up a sound system and hear some excellent music just outside our sunroom on a somewhat-temperate summer night, but that we got to invite our friends, family and neighbors to come hear said music. Most of these people had not heard K.C. and David play before, and were righteously blown away. In fact, all I’ve heard from anyone who was there ever since was how much they enjoyed it.

We left the gate open, and neighbors came and went, and the music went on until almost 10 p.m. I had strung up our shortest tree with lights, and we had the lanterns on in the sun room. We had about 30 people there – maybe more.

The thing about the house concert is that anyone can do it, really. I think you should do it. I do – I think you should mow your grass, plant some great flowers, string up some lights and invite some fantastic musicians to come and play. Or, let’s say you don’t have a backyard. You clear some furniture out of your living room and set up some chairs and invite the artist to come and play there. There’s a great website to tell you how to do it all – ConcertsInYourHome.com. Really, I can’t recommend it highly enough. You get to support some musicians in your area who love to play to people and who could probably use the work and the income. You get to make super nice with your neighbors and friends, and have a really excellent time with it all. Bringing music into people’s homes is what the house concert movement is all about, really, reaching new listeners and fans one by one.

ABOUT		CATEGORIES
WRITING		READING
LINKS		LISTS