Boot Camp has been cancelled on account of the rain. I am going to a Yoga class instead for the first time in 4 years. This creates a cycle of fear and shame (fear of being able to do the class and shame at being afraid in the first place) and simultaneous elation and hope (elation that I am making a choice that is good for me and hope that I am turning a corner in taking care of my body) - and honestly, this level of emotional cacophony little difficult to manage. Do you think it would be weird to have a cocktail before yoga? I mean, it is after 5:00pm...

Yes, this really is my life : l

Posting, shmosting. It’s overrated. The sun is shining and I imagine the birds might be singing (were I to ever to venture outside of this cubicle fortress and, like, frolic in it all or something) and my body and head are aching with every request and key tapped and errand run. They ache with the build up of lactic acid, yes, but also I ache (metaphorically, natch) for sun soaked leisure and popular fiction and holding hands and all day movie marathons and popcorn and tacos (yes, Sluggo, I said tacos) and maybe a glimpse of the things that make us feel at ease with the world and calmed to the calamity and chaos that confronts us and surrounds us every day, every moment, relentless and without hope.

It would appear my re-emergence into the blogosphere is a little bit of a downer, huh? Yikes : ) Ok, let me try to redeem myself and say something interesting, entertaining and/ or informative (or all three if I am truly one of the ambitious). Me accomplishing these three goals would have to be predicated on you caring about what is going on in my life and also thinking I am wicked funny (just inherently, really). That was my caveat – and awaaaay we go!

I am attending a “boot camp” style work out club (KSett calls it “Celebrity Fit Club”) twice a week and it is the first steady exercise I have committed to in years. The gang is all younger and more fit than me (try to control your shock at that one) but I think I am keeping up – at least in my mind I am totally dominating the scene (i.e. not quitting in the middle, crying or passing out) So go me : )

The jazz group I have been singing with for a few years now recorded our first “demo” a few weekends ago and we are getting the mix this week from our lovely drummer/ sound technician S. We listened to the rough mix last week and I think, all in all (warts and all?) it’s pretty ok. A learning experience to be sure. I am proud of everyone in the band and excited that this might spur us forward in the world of actually (gasp!) playing out and expanding on what we do and what we get out of it. People who have heard it thus far have been pretty supportive – we’ll see : )

My HLP K.’s sister is getting married next month (yay!!) and the Chili Con Carnival is right around the corner as well. J & E’s new puppy Cy is now almost full grown and a welcome reminder that life should be simple and fun, even when it is really not feeling like either.

There is a boy. I shall refer to him as Sluggo (he really loves that nickname, it’s in the book). Sluggo (full name Sluggo Von Beejerstein) and I have been spending a lot of time together over the past few months gardening, dusting and eating tacos and are going to a wedding together in June (how’s that for random?). He is a book guy, a doting father, a great camper, an ardent admirer of bacon, a sea of patience and a lover of the Muppets. Also, when he looks at me weird things happen with my brain chemistry. It's not easy to describe... have you ever seen a cartoon where the animated person/ creature/ alien gets hypnotized and you see the psychedelic spirals turning in their eyes while sparkles pop out of the side and the get kind of a vacant happy look on their face? Anyway, I am a fan : )

Ok, better wrap it up. I would promise to post more often but that would be largely silly and none of you would believe me anyway (empirical evidence, blah blah blah) : )

‘Til we meet again lovey doves : )

NOLA - Voodoo Fest - Shenanigans

Outstanding trip - not a lot of sleep - much great music and such a solid good time with S and D in the French Quarter. D got a spot to perform on the bill a the Voodoo Fest in City Park - E and I made the trip to see him in his festival debut. I felt really lucky to be there. Other close friends really wanted to come and could not and that was sad for everyone - but I'm glad E still wanted to go - I think it meant a lot to D and I know I appreciated having someone to share the sense of awe I was experiencing the whole time we were there.

E and I flew in on Thursday and, after a, um, memorable cab ride to the quarter (check brake light on the whole time, screeching through traffic, the driver chanting some kind of religious rite as she cruised through red lights and stop signs (looking back, we should have just joined in). We made it to the general neighborhood and after some ground kissing and haberdashery admiring met up with D and S and ate meat loaf and cabbage (awesome home cooked cuisine from S all weekend - thank you darling girl!). I was granted the honor of playing photographer for D's gig and the rest of that day at the festival (with mixed results) but I gave it the college try (or something like it). Took over 200 photographs of everything around me - felt special and phony and in the moment all at once. Having the camera made it sort of like I wasn't there as me - gave me permission to talk to people and ask them if I could take their picture (or not ask them as I stole their souls). I experienced the whole festival differently - something I'd definitely like to do again.

The gig was on Saturday at noon - we rose relatively early to make sure D was set up and everything was cool. D didn't seem to nervous (I think I was more nervous for him). S's friend S was the stage manager and another friend J was there with his son to assist with the camera, loan his tri-pod and be generally supportive. I think there are some very cool people in their circle and in their lives - I was glad to meet them and see a little bit what the day to day is like for S and D in the quarter.

Lower Decatur Street was home base, from there we first walked 2 minutes to Frenchman Street (which was what we ended up doing almost every night - awesome mess of bars and clubs and peoples - easy to make friends and get invited to parties and feel welcome and a part of the scene). Being that we were only there for four days, it was a unique and lovely to have people engage with you as if they would see you again next week. Perhaps it was because of the finite nature of our time in NOLA (and not despite it) that everything seemed so easy and lovely. Over the next few days we ventured into the Treme for a house party (invited by my home town buddy S, in town for Halloween - thanks S!) in a burnt out mansion (just past rampart St.) decorated to the hilt for Halloween and filled with goth kids and costumed mysterians, made a surreptitious repossession in broad daylight, ate beignets, ran down the street laughing (more than once), heard lots of interesting and accomplished musicians (sometimes both) and gawked (cool like, of course) at the costumes (however small and creative) and of course, at the endless tourists (however goofy) - us among them of course, but feeling like locals with no right to do so.

Wrote a song, met a boy from Holland (an illusionist's assistant with 4 houses in Antwerp, righhhht), lit my hair on fire, got kissed in public, got a shot from a bartender for free and did my best to take it all in with my mouth closed and my sense of wonder intact. A gallery owner we befriended over a Bill Murray vs. Chevy Chase debate (Murray, btw, of course), T, told me that everyone from NOLA "had a little bit of huckster in them" and although at the time I didn't really know what he meant, I think I do now. It's not a negative comment, at least I don't take it that way. I don't know how to describe it - but it's a different place than I have ever been to and I want to go back and learn about it, be there, be in it. I'm frightened to play out there - but maybe next year I'll have more confidence about myself and the tunes and the band and I'll feel differently. Wow - just writing that made my heart start beating rapidly. Yikes.

I want to go back and hear more Jazz. There was only one club on Frenchman that had a real jazz group (with charts and everything) but it was a zoo and we didn't actually go in. I desperately want to watch more female singers and watch what they do ("how they do") - I need inspiration and I think it might be just the place.

That's all for now lovies.

Katya

Listening to Wicked Little Town and looking into the past. Among the vast and varied group of people I have known in my life, both those who might remember me and those for whom it might take some prodding before a reluctant "ahhh... yes, of course" are: Pulitzer prize winners (2), professional comedians (3), musicians (countless)...

Author's Note: I stumbled onto this unfinished blog entry and decided to publish it anyway, despite the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I was getting at : )

My other blog is, um, a LiveJournal : )

So I don't update this as much as I once promised to. So what? (I hear you cry). Well, I was reminded to do it by 3 independent sources today - must be a sign - alas, here I am.

It has become sort of a running (tired) joke on the news and in the societal mainstream that blogs (apart from journalistic/ instructional/ scientific blogs) are meaningless, solipsistic tools of isolation that enable people to feel as if they are communicating when really they are only further using technology as an excuse to not leave their homes. Also no one reads them. So the backlash? Um... geeks ripping themselves away from slashdot for long enough to IM or email friends and/ or loved ones rather than read a few blog entries and feel caught up without actually making any connection? Um, maybe. Or maybe once the hoopla dies down, the blog will have a renaissance and it's real purpose will be revealed (and no, I swear, it is not selling Viagra through the comment fields. It just can't be.).

The once geeky boardwatch referencing few who logged their experiences in 13375p34k for other green complected alpha males to digest and react to have yielded to forums for blathering on any topic - none are considered too banal, none too racy- all are allowed and few are regarded as, well, at all really I guess. Unless you work somewhere strict and then you can get fired - but I argue that even then, your boss was probably the only one reading your blog.

Now, me? I'm a regular sassy gal about town, so all of this doesn't apply... not really. Although the fact that I just utilized an ellipses - for the second time - should frighten you (at least there were only three dots, consider yourself lucky).

I watched Steal This Movie! last night. Not great - but hard to hate. Underdeveloped and too glossy for a portrait of Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman (who's real day to day life, I imagine, was messier and less gentle than it was portrayed in the film). I loved the acting performances though and you cannot escape the powerful context of that era in our nation's history. It started me off and motivated me to write this whole blog entry (in my head) about activism and how my generation became enamored and then inured to the 60s and the whole notion of activism almost right out of high school. It was almost as if the whole idea of taking part in any kind of revolutionary behavior was considered immature and unrealistic (even in the 80s and 90s). Yet, it is my peer group who finds themselves looking around and saying "Hey! Wait a minute. What happened to our civil liberties? The Patriot Act says what?" etc. Protesters are more or less universally mocked and no one feels like it's powerful to do anything but lobby in congress. I don't know the answers - but it was a great entry. I knew I should have written it down - very introspective, thought provoking.

What's my point? Um, yah, this is a blog?

Right...

Later daters.

Anyone wanna go see some Rockabilly with me Friday night in Cambridge at the Plough?
Call me : )

This week will not end... ever, seriously.

Since Sunday night I have not slept more than 5 hours - my brain feels like it's rattling around in my head, I can't think clearly... Christmas is Monday? What happened to the hours - there's so few remaining. Yikers!

Walked over to Cambridge to shop - I don't think a 30 minute walk in the drizzling December mist was necessarily the *best* idea - but I thought it would clear my head and I guess it did, sort of. Listening to Elliott Smith's "I Didn't Understand" - what a great song. It sounds like a hymn when it starts - these soft voices singing so sweetly about something so sad and cursing liberally, of course. I love that line "I don't know why/ I guess that I just do" - I think it just reminds me of how resigned we can become to what we perceive is our destiny or at least, our pattern to keep repeating throughout our lives. But I really don't believe that we are so stuck in the behaviors that we have cultivated into a state of mind throughout our lives. Well, that being said, Elliott Smith was depressed for most of his life struggled with alcohol and hard drugs. Yah... so anyway,

Ever feel confused and exhausted and yet happy at the same time? K. has been sick - in the hospital for 3 days - was released today and is home. Saw him in the hospital Thursday night - it made me remember visiting my brother in the hospital when he hurt his shoulder playing football and my dad when he had his gallbladder removed... everyone seems so different when they are in a hospital gown and surrounded by sick people. It reminds me of how fragile we all are without all of the trappings of our every day lives - separated and stripped down to your gentle flesh. It makes me glad to have so many friends and close family in my life. It matters so much. I threatened to whip out the Keri lotion and rub his feet and cut his toenails - he was afraid I was serious - I was - and really... he was right to be afraid (I'm a persistent nurse) : )

Miss K is moving - stressing and dealing with so much change and hardness - yet, still managing to offer me compassion, a listening ear and the sage like wisdom that I rely on her to give me when I don't feel like I understand anything anymore.

It's so late - apartment is a wreck - must... wrap... gifts. Sleep is for suckers : )

Until later,
Katy