you do the math
What do 5 police cars, 2 detective cars, a forensics van and animal control equal? I don't know but they have been parked next door since 5:45 am this morning.
Shawn Mullins
On Friday, I finally had the chance to see Shawn Mullins live. 
It was great to get the chance to see him in person. There is a satisfying moment to hear your favorite songs played live. But one I only get from small concert venues.
A guy named Eddie Elliot opened and I enjoyed him as well.
I spent the early part of this week in Kerrville and Houston. A small trip for work and to take in a small portion of the HOV II Tour ( Susan, Walt, Brandon). The show in Houston was at the Mucky Duck. It's a great venue for live music. It makes the top of my list of great listening places to see music in Texas. I will get pictures up as soon as I am done renovating the website.
While in Houston, I did try for a few hours to locate my brother but that's another story. I also took a trip down memory lane and went by the old house. I always feel the need when I am there...just to make sure the place is still where we left it I guess. The house is currently for sale.
My parents built in 1976 for $17,000. Almost 3000 square feet and what was once almost 2 acres of land. I thought about what it might be like to buy it. If Houston wasn't the armpit of Texas, I might even think about it seriously. It takes days to get the petroleum smell out of my hair and clothes. But the nostalgia of it, to have the house I grew up in again and walk the same hall; flush the same weak toilet; feel the cool brown ceramic tile under my feet; brush my hands over the ridges of spanish stucco and stand under the archways. And, to have the garage apartment with the orange cone wood burning fire place and kitchenette where I used to image I'd live one day when I was older. That apartment is where we lived until the house was finished and where my mother tumbled down the stairs while pregnant with my brother. It has been my running joke for years about what wrong with him. If I weren't cranky I'd feel whimsical.
Tonight I go to a musical...
Home is not really a place at all
I posted only one other time this month so I guess this is somewhat required lest I be lost and forgotten. It's been easy enough to be lost in the crazy amount of work lately or lost in the changes around the house. I've just been to distracted to write anything.
Last weekend, I took a short road trip and went out to Wimberly to hang out. It was great to get away from the house, to spend time out in an open space and to sit by the river. I was thinking then and there about how much I miss being in a place where I am surrounded by trees and water and not streets and neighbors. I am sometimes conflicted about where I live but living for free versus living where I feel the most at peace is by its very nature complicated. I keep close the thought that the choice only gets me closer to the things I really want. One day.
I had to take a trip this week up to Oklahoma. Did some work but also took a little detour back home. Two road trips in less than a week. This time I took hayseed with me so I could show off some of the places from my past that I love. The weather was not so cooperative but I like being there anyway. The rolling terrain, scrub oaks, roaming buffalo and hidden lakes are home. Some parts of home never change, some parts change so much you wonder if your memory is failing you.
Drove by the house. I don't think you can ever get used to the idea of other people walking the hall to your bedroon and sleeping in your room and making food in your kitchen. It's the same people that bought the house. I drove by the first week after they moved in. That was so many years ago. It's the same blue van that parked under the carport. Though now it's full of rust and that same carport sags dangerously. Pisses me off how they've let it get into such disrepair. The deck and addition finished just before grandma Dixie died are now tipping and falling away board by board. The pear and peach tree are now so large it's hard to image the times when I was 10 and able to pull off a fresh fruit every day. It's the same way with how change and memories can fool your perspective. Things once thought so large or so far in distance are just not.
Home is not really a place at all... just a memory.
more rain
Last night, I cried myself to sleep. I haven't done that in awhile. My own words. I wish I didn't have to use them. I am begging to be allowed to not say anything at all. Can't you see me begging and pleading?
Let's talk about other things.
Earlier this morning, I dreamed I went back to work for Tim. He and I were interviewing people for jobs. I dreamed I was trying to talk my current job into letting me do it part time still because it's really part time work. I dreamed of all these people welcoming me back in a parade of faces. Some belonged there, some did not. What is funny is that the office is one that has been in my dreams before. When I dream about CF the office always looks the same. It ended when I was awakened by the phone ringing at 7:00 am.
Davie’s tennis camper calling to see if today’s lessons are still on. Not very likely.
The rain fell from before the sun came up yesterday until after it went down. It rained all night and it is raining still. The house is dark and freezing. Outside it feels like a sauna. Water is choking every corner, every low spot in the uneven ground and everything else left abandoned outside. The rain has been falling every night for at least a week and so much fell in the days and weeks before now. We are soaked and the soaking is to the bone. It’s good but I suspect once it’s gone, it won't be long before there will be a return to complaining about drought like conditions. Afterall, what else does anyone have to talk about except the worst things? We are a deficit focused world. And I am a deficit focused girl...my apologies to Madonna.
I have to try and do some work.
it's all about me today
It's another time when I feel I am floating through my life. I am getting up and getting down and getting up again everyday. I recognize the symptoms finally. I feel like I am just two feet above everything and watching all that is happening without taking part. Sleep now because it's time. Eat now because you are supposed to eat. But, nothing else much registers. I having been doing it for months but did not notice. Until now and I guess that's a start.
Today, our air conditioner's broken. I noticed this right away. Yesterday it was broken. This weekend it was broken. The perfect timing of all air conditioners to break - Memorial Day weekend. It gasped and sputtered out cool air intermittenly all weekend. David called me fonzie as I squeezed a few more hours out of it. Someone will be here some time today to fix it but I am trapped in the house until they do. Thank god it stormed last night and there is cool air blowing a breeze across the wet grass. If only there were a screen door on the back door still.
I haven't exercised in four days and I had a Dr. Pepper last week and a few more since. And, here's a new development. That pre-menstrual symptom of aching joints that I always wondered about is something I now experience. For the last three months about this time, I developed an ache in my elbow and this morning it was also in my hand. I'm a goddamn mess at thirty-four. At least I noticed it today. And here is something else entirely. I haven't done the things I love for what seems like months now either...no music, no Kerrville, no Susan Gibson last weekend and she was here in town. Something’s all askew in my world. If I miss Kerrville, it will be the first time in six years I haven't gone. But I don't feel like even going. I wonder if she even noticed my absence at her show.
This is complaining when I should just do something about it. Something to remind me that I am in fact here and a part of this place. I know this intellectually but mostly, I want to curl up on my couch and finger the channel changer.
technology beget technology
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I finally found the spyware, adware, whateverware that has been corrupting my system. I had to buy some software to go digging through the innards of my system. It found it and eradicated it with quick precision.
I was reading this free magazine, Fortune for Small Business. Thanks to American Express. I usually find at least one tidbit of useful information from a new business practice to software options and even marketing ideas. This issue, I found and article of a company describing the same computer symptoms I was having with my own. The solution was found from a software company now run by a reformed hacker...(yea right) who now fixes such problems with this inexpensive revolutionary software. The article went further to explain the need for weekly updates as these other less service oriented hackers manage to find new ways to corrupt computer systems everyday. My conclusion is that these problems are in fact the way to boon an industry.
I wonder? It's like The Net, (a fine Sandra Bullock movie) but in real life.
Now, I am weighing the thought to tell Davie that porn is off limits on this computer. I know he's still out there. I can easily check the cookies and temp internet files to verify this. However, I feel certain that even sites I visit, like this one, also have ways to attach this spyware, adware, whateverware and possibly even a virus or two for good measure. It could come from anywhere anyway.
and then there was darkness
For the first time in all the years that I have lived here, before and now, this is the first time my room is dark. Total blackness. And only the soft lights of the DVD clock are left to illuminate my room.
Tree limbs shifted and swayed in years of breezes to make a guide wire rub into a hot wire until on day they met in a small explosion, a quick rapid burst of fire and a cable split into two. It lay in the yard for sometime. I watched it to see if there would be fire. I watch it to see if it would suddenly snake to life and begin to crawl toward me to offer some burst of energy to illuminate me personally. But, alas, it was the dead side of the wire lying helpless and cold. He came and picked it up, taped the ends with me watching curiously at his quickness. Black electrical tape kicks duct tape's ass.
He wound it like a rope and then also taped it to the pole. It looks to me like the rope resting on the saddle of a cowboy. He said they'd be back to reconnect the light some time. I said no rush. He said but someone wants it and I said yes but she's long since left this neighborhood. Long since dead and in the ground I thought to myself but kept it there lest he think me cold natured.
So I am off to crawl into my bed in this newly found darkness to hide in and maybe sleep easily with out the blaring light from a twenty foot pole overhead to shine so bright through my bedroom blinds. Maybe.
So ask away...
Anyone who reads this is welcome to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want. Then please go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.
In keeping with form, I'll reply in a comment with my answers.
rainy days
So, I am on vacation and still managed to work most of the day today until the lightening completely knocked out power having hit not one, but two transformers - one right behind the house and the other down the street. It caused a bit of commotion when a number of fire trucks and other assorted city vehicles went screaming through our otherwise quiet neighborhood. It might have been funny to watch me leap from my office chair after the flash and loud pop outside rendered the computer blank and the house dark. I took it as a sign that I shouldn't be working and now have first hand knowledge that I do in fact have survival instincts after all.
Tim (the next door neighbor) and I ventured out as the rain eased to walk down to the end of the street to be proper voyeurs. Turns out the lightening also started a small fire in the backyard of the house a few doors down. Nothing to serious, but it did destroy the bushes up against the back of Mertal's house. She came out wheeling her oxygen tank to tell us she didn't even know it was happening until the fireman were in her backyard knocking on the sliding glass door and god bless John her neighbor for calling them right away.
I was planning to take a trip but the weather has threatened rain for the rest of the week and rain would severely limit my interest in driving anywhere only to have to camp in the rain. I enjoy being in my tent while it rains and having a cooler breeze blow. There is nothing more refreshing to me than being caught outside in a sudden rain storm... but it blows to have to set up and pack camp gear while it is raining or wet. Trust me, I know...
I could go north seems to be drier there or I could go west as I intended. post made me crave even more to head out to El Paso and southerstern New Mexico. Maybe I need to wait for cooler weather anyway. I am desperate for a road trip.
the new place
Well, feat accompli'. I am all moved and tucked away unless you count the garage (but I won't today). I am satisfied at looking around and seeing everything put away. I feel good here so that's good. I left dishes in the sink last night and I don't even care. It's a bit weird being in a city again but then there is the convenience of it all. I guess that's why city people like the city.
Not much else to report. I can open the back door and just let Bailey go outside. That's nice. I'm sure he was getting equally tired of me watching him do his business too. David bought a 53 inch TV screen the other day. That and the 700 plus channels is like being at the movies anytime I want. Movie freak that I am, you won't hear me complaining. I really think it's going to be ok being here. I just keep reminding myself that I am better off financially and have new work opportunities.
and working on the book. It hasn't left me much time to write here. However, I have taken a lot of stories from my journal here and managed to place them in the story. I have more than 100 pages now though I have no idea how that translates. I mean how many words does a novel typically have? What does one hundred, eight and a half by eleven pages, equal out to in publishing terms? The more I write on it the more I think I might want to do something with it. Ha! Today I'll pretend to be a writer and say things like "maybe I should write screen plays and use my dialogue style". Then again, maybe it's not just pretend.