Buy the sky and sell the sky and bleed the sky and tell the sky...

 So I was sobbing uncontrollably in my car the other day thinking about loss. 

In the past couple of years, I have lost so many people I have loved, and my friends and family have lost people they have loved. 

The pandemic has given us the loss of life, jobs, housing, safety, and loss of personal relationships because of differing views.

Loss. Loss. Loss. Loss.

As a card-carrying optimistic I am usually the one to find the silver lining rimmed half-full glass of hope. Boyohboy, some days are harder than others. 

If you are sad to not be with people because of the pandemic or because they are gone from this earth or something else I found words of some poets and even some more religiously type stuff that really helped, but give it up for Bob Mould to help me out the most in my moment's of darkness.

Stay safe out there...

Bob Mould "Siberian Butterfly"

There's no place like home for the holidays

 Except that I have been home for 9 months.

I just assume everyone I come in contact with has COVID-19 and that I might have it. I don't mean for that sentence to sound alarming or anything, it just works for me when going about my day-to-day. 

I don't like wearing a mask. Who does? I will wear one however, until medical professionals tell me otherwise. 

I miss hanging out with my friends and family. I don't like working from home (though it is only part-time, I am on campus working part-time), not going to restaurants, going and seeing live music/performances, and traveling. We see people masked/outside/etc occasionally and even though a few weeks ago dining went indoors (with the surge now, California is almost all purple tier) we are still not eating out. I could write an entire blog post about live music. For now, I will just use this- ☹️ .

It is heartbreaking to see the numbers of people hospitalized and who are dying because, y'know pandemic. There is some hope with the vaccines that will be coming available and though there are worries about long term side effects and the actual effectiveness things are going in the right direction. 

There have been people calling out elected officials and such for breaking COVID restriction rules. I have to say I get it. Pandemic fatigue is a real thing. I would love to go for a run without a mask or hug my mom. So as long as they own it (unlike our current president and co) and promote best practices then let's move on. Also, I think people should be cooler about the comfort level of everyone.  

Some people don't feel comfortable shopping in person, I am fine with it.

Eating at a restaurant outdoors. Nope, not yet.

Taking public transportation. I will do it if I have to and have done it once since March 14th.

You get the picture. 

The surge is among us and I understand that there is a good chance that Gav will shelter us in place again. My worry is that people will be like "nah, bro" and there will be a lot of defiance to the order. I also get it. Being isolated like this for many fucking sucks. Yes, I don't ususally curse in my blog post, but this whole thing fucking sucks. 

In the past I have had a complicated relationship with Christmas and this holiday season marks the one year anniversary of the death of my platonic soulmate. Throw in a pandemic and see how that fruit cake tastes, I guess.

There will be efforts made to enjoy stuff that can still happen, cozy Christmas movie watching with my kid, driving around looking at lights, and tuna snowman (family tradition, not as weird as it sounds). 

Unlike Thanksgiving, or Friendsgiving which went from "the crew" plus ++ whoever has nowhere to go hanging out gorging ourselves with food and (many) drinks to our bubble calling it quits at 7:30pm. Christmas is not as big.

The yuletide for us has less of the wasailing vibe than the November holiday. Since my parents moved closer to us, we go to their place, spend the night, dinner, presents and come back to our place. There are no big X-mas get togethers to cancel this year and I hope that we can manuever just the 5 of us. 

And then there is New Year's. Never cared for the holiday, but it will be nice to have 2020 in the rearview mirror. 

The holidays can be lonely without a pandemic, so remember to reach out, check in with folks. The past couple of years I have curbed my holiday card distro, but this year I will be sending out more cards than I have in the past couple of years. At least I intend to...

I hope everyone remains safe, healthy and sane.

Move out, don't mess around. Move out, you bring me down. Move out, how you get about -don't make a sound just move out...

We have been in lockdown for months and months now. 

Personally, I have gone through all the stages of grief:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression 

Acceptance

I know I am lucky, I have a job, secure housing, and enough money to eat.  

COVID still f#&$ing sucks tho.

My kid HATES online learning. My husband is stuck at work/home (I go to campus a couple of times a week). Halloween is essentially canceled. All the other holidays are right around the corner. I want to see people!

With all that being said, I am in the acceptance part of my COVID grief.

This is the new reality and will do the best I can to remain positive, creative, and hopeful.

Last month I gave up my practice space, currently, I am not playing with anyone and it would be weird to try and get something going with folks I don't know and the space has A LOT of folks in it- and y'know safety. So, I decided to do some art in the house. The husband and I have done some recordings (Garage Band folks, I even sang into the computer without a microphone) and we are going to do some podcasting. We did one run through episode, which I liked and we will put together another one in a few weeks. 

I really miss playing all together with people and even though the husband doesn't love playing music with me, I think he is having a good time.

My kid is an art machine. Currently, she is drawing a portrait of Dwight from The Office. She named my home project Frozen Bones. And she is making me a logo after she is done with the portrait.

Here is the link to the Bandcamp site. My goal is to add something every other week. 

https://frozenbones.bandcamp.com/

I have been listening to a lot of 80s (see the previous post), but the reason I recorded a cover of Mr. Blue by Yaz was that the day of my friend's service I had the song stuck in my head all day.  I did cry a little when I was singing it since I am feeling COVID grief and grief of losing one of my best friends.

Man oh man, 2020 has been quite a year.

I don't want to be a downer. I think part of the acceptance is that I have to acknowledge that I will feel down. 

This is my favorite time a year (October-January) and decorating the house, making art, talking to my pals (maybe even seeing them at a distance), and hugging my husband and kid will be my tools in not repeating the grief stages. 

Acceptance. 

Looking out a dirty old window...

Sirius radio. 

We got a new car this summer and it came with Sirius (and a whole bunch of other stuff- a lot of technology has happened in the last 10 years in cars) radio.

It has been really fun exploring the channels. Something I like about it- the genres. Something I don't like about it- the genres.

Much like regular ol' radio stations, Sirius has rock, alternative, hip-hop, classic R&B, and a bunch of talk radio from Christian to sports and probably a Christian sports channel. I don't care for either kind of channels, so I can only guess. There are channels that play only a particular artist (and adjacent artists sometimes), which is kind of cool. I got sucked into a Beastie Boys channel for a little bit and the Prince one was pretty good too. I guess some of them are not forever channels because I can't find the Prince one anymore and now I hear a lot of commercials trying to convince me to listen to the U2 channel (hard pass). 

I had difficulty finding channels that played classical music. They are with the jazz channels, why? Because there are often no vocals? 

They don't go together. My musicologicalness did not appreciate it. I mean I know meta-genres, genres, and sub-genres are annoying- example- Country/Bluegrass/Reactionary Bluegrass- if you really want to go down a rabbit hole look up music genres. I mean some bigs ones (like Hip Hop, Rock, Classical, Country, Dance, just to name a few) have so many sub-genres and sub-sub genres (dance music probably winning with the most sub-sub genres) that you come back around and just called it one of the big genres. Often the sub or sub-sub genres have so many elements of different genres and sub-genres that it can fit in different genres. I have written the word genre too many times.

There are two channels on the Sirius that have struck a nostalgic chord with me the Grateful Dead channel and First Wave. 

First Wave has a 6 hour show that Richard Blade hosts. I grew up listening to KROQ and watching Richard Blade on MV3, Video One, and Video Beat. MV3 being my favorite. 

Below is a clip when the Psychedelic Furs played on MV3. LOVE IT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoJltgK_Nrg&list=PLCF0096E26CF1B1F3&index=6

Anywho- Listening to First Wave many of these songs/bands hold up. I have rediscovered my love of Echo and the Bunnymen and Depeche Mode. 

Kelley Stoltz did the entire "Crocodiles" record by Echo and the Bunnymen. It is amazing. I love every second of it. 

First Wave plays Kim Wilde, New Order, Duran Duran (sing blue silver!), Aztec Camera, Siouxsie (who I never stopped loving), Heaven 17 (who I was supposed to see in May), Smiths, Soft Cell, Tears for Fears, Devo, INXS, Yaz, Bauhaus, Falco and really I could write a whole gang of other bands. My kid is into it too- just this afternoon she was humming, "This Town," by the Go-Gos. 

The other channel is the Grateful Dead channel. For a spell, I went to Dead shows. I liked the music enough but enjoyed the parking lot culture, the road trips to and from the shows, and the um, uh, accompanying elixirs and remedies that were in abundance. I don't have many of their records because the live shows were always much more interesting. Why I get that nostalgic feeling listening to the channel is they play pieces of live shows. For those who don't know much about the Grateful Dead, there was a huge live show taping subculture within the subculture. On more than one occasion I have heard parts of a show I was actually in attendance. 

Sirius XM has been a distraction for me for sure. With all the gosh darn craziness of pandemic, Zoom calls, police violence against people of color, Handmaid's Tale lady being nominated to the Supreme Court, the election, wildfires, and missing giving people I care about hugs I am glad to have music to lose myself in.

My kid doesn't care for the Grateful Dead Channel she prefers First Wave or the 50s channel. She is into do-wop. 

All my dreams came true last night. All my hopes and fears. All my dreams came true once more. In tears, in tears...

No one is going to help us.

I am mad as hew-haw heck about it.
How did the US become the Florida of the world?

School starts Monday for the kid. No agreement reached with the union and the district. 

Annoyed with the district and the teacher's union. With their distrust of each other, everyone will end up losing. The teachers, district, parents, staff, and most importantly the students. 

I want everyone to feel safe and protected. But really? You start negotiations a week before school is supposed to start. We are all dealing with hardships of some kind during this pandemic and it would be great if all could be on the same team.  

So what to do? 

Outschool courses have an 80% approval rate with my kid. They are not too expensive, so some of those to supplement.

If there are in-person camps, she can go to one of them. The summer camps that were offered I felt safe sending her to and she loved them.

I have a couple of weeks until I go back to work full time, so we can go on adventures to look for birds, go roller skating, and beach trips. Once I go back though, she will have to be on her own with hopefully some kind of school to engage her.

As far as the school I work at- we will have in-person appointments available for students to use our scanner for course reserves, material pick up times, and a bunch of virtual services. Our district has been extremely silent over the past 3 months. Not sure what they are doing besides not communicating with their employees.

Creating this new reality has been difficult and is often met with a lot of resistance. Probably it is fueled by denial, I dunno. Maybe I am the one in denial thinking that society should use this as an opportunity to do good for all peoples. Invest in education for all, show through changes in policy that black lives matter, provide protections for people who live check to check, or who now have no checks, make all efforts in dealing with the pandemic free- testing, medications, hospital stays. Make not wearing a mask in public a hefty fine. 

People aren't going out to bars and spending their money at the movies, so why can't we as a society take a moment in between Zoom calls to be a positive contribution toward this new reality?

Total side note- I think me and the husband are going to do 10-minute mini-casts about music.

Reap the wild wind

So we are at day something-or-other of the pandemic and there is an uptick of California cases.
I have to give credit to ol' Gav for doing his best with trying to control the spread of CV19. California is such a big state, and misinformation combined with general dummy-ness has made it difficult and so the numbers have been going up. What does that mean for me? I am not wearing sandals any time soon.

So what has been going on?

Well, we haven't traveled and I do miss eating in a restaurant, but this whole time hasn't been for not.

Having frank 8-year-old appropriate conversations about racism, going to protests (with CV19 guidelines) with my kid, and confronting my shortcomings in regards to privilege have kept the household busy.

I have been attempting to exercise every day- Zoom yoga classes, long walks, stairs and stair stepper, weights on pilates ball.
Projects- writing and recording music, yard work, sewing, and writing a chapter for an ACRL publication.
My kid is getting pretty good on her roller skates too.

Discovered bird watching. There are a lot of birds that come to our feeders, I am a fan of the purple finches (which are purple) and house sparrows. There is a cool app that I have now and my friend got me some really nice binoculars. I like to drag my family along to bird watch. They are pretty good sports about it.

Been practicing tap steps too. It may seem like I am doing a bunch of things, but I do spend time watching Law and Order episodes.

My kid made this sign for our next protest. It sits in our window.

Big coloring pages are a good way to pass the time.

A Sort of Homecoming

We are in Phase 2. It has been over 2 months since we were sheltered-in-place and I deactivate my Facebook account for a bit. It was good, I needed it.

 I kept Instagram, I like looking at the pictures.

Some thoughts, reflections, whatevers...

I was riding my bike with my kid the other day in ill-fitting workout pants that up until recently had never left the house on my person and a teeshirt (which I had been wearing a couple of days) and I didn't want to look nerdy so I wore my bandana (not my Harry Potter mask) because it looks tougher. Right?
Well, I was riding around the closed streets by our house and a bug fell down my bandana and I almost crashed into a parked car and was screaming with my mouth shut.
Tough.

Besides my toes and eyebrows looking like I belong in the shire, it has been okay.
My family and friends are healthy and I have been super busy with work.

Next week is my birthday and I was planning to have a big ol' party and do some big traveling later in the month.
Though I try to remember that me and my friends and family are healthy and that this is a terrible time, and people are struggling (and dying, going broke, all of it- you read the news you know what I am talking about) and all that stuff------I have to admit I am a little bummed.
I really like my birthday. It is a big one and I wanted to celebrate.
Yeah, it is only a day on the calendar and all that stuff. Also, who cares about birthdays look at the state of the world.  It all makes sense, but it still makes me a little blue.

With all of this, I have been exploring radio stations via the internet bar.
Here are some that I have been into-
The Morning Show with John Richards, KEXP- https://www.kexp.org/listen/
The Cool Quarantine with Henry Rollins- https://www.kcrw.com/categories/the-cool-quarantine
KCBS- Bellevue
https://www.kbcs.fm/listen/
Bagel Radio
https://somafm.com/bagel/

Also below is a partial playlist I was making for my party in no particular order-

Alone Again Or- The Damned version
Eaten by Monster of Love- Sparks
Blue Spark- X
Golden State- John Doe
Such Great Heights - Postal Service
How Much More- The Go-Gos
Beat of Love- Voice of the Beehive
Heart and Soul- T'Pau
Dry River- Dave and Phil Alvin
I Love It- Icona Pop
Easy Lover- Phil Collins and Philip Bailey
Swamp- Talking Heads
Suspect Device- Stiff Little Fingers
Groove is in the Heart- Deelite
Turn it Around- The Men
Humpty Dance- Digital Underground
Built for Speed- Stray Cats
Weather with You- Crowded House
Johnny Go Boom Boom- Imelda May
Jet Fighter- The Three O'Clock
Bedsitter- Soft Cell
Good AM- Tone Dogs
Ill Communication- Beastie Boys
Jesus Built My Hot Rod- Ministry
September- Earth, Wind and Fire
Legal Tender- B52s
Rebel Girl- Bikini Kill
Run Devil Run- Jenny Lewis
Everyday- Sacred Paws
Oh Come On- Julie Ruin

I started this list last month when I was holding out hope I would be able to have a party.  It is a good list so far. I got my daughter and I roller skates, maybe we can have a roller party in the parking lot behind our house.
Stay safe. Stay sane.

There comes a time- When we heed a certain call- When the world must come together as one...

I have two bird feeders now. 

Life in the time of COVID-19.

I have been doing my best to keep me and my family sane. 

It is now spring break and me and the kid have the week off.  Not going down the information superhighway hole has been tough and man, oh man-eating carbs during a crisis tastes sooooo good. 

Some things we have been doing and will do to stay sane.

Take a shower and wear more than one pair of workout pants. Last week I had a bunch of Zoom meetings for work, so I had to at least from the waist up look like I had not just rolled out of bed. This week since I don't plan on seeing anyone except people I pass on the street 6 feet away from me or the folks at the store (and let's be honest, Piedmont Grocery has seen me in these outfits before), I have to make an effort to clean myself.  

We have done some Facetime/Skype(s) with some friends and family and I am going to extend that this week. It helps me to see people. 

I found a bunch of Christmas cards, so I was thinking of sending those to folks as well. We put up some lights on our tree in the front yard and later in the week me and the kid will decorate on of my fake trees with handmade bird ornaments (the bird thing is a little out of control).

Exercise is helping too. The kid and I  and sometimes the husband take walks with me. This morning we did yoga and later we are going to jump rope outside and go for a walk (at least a mile).

I am into crafts so we have some other projects that I hope take a long time to do. Masks, painting, paper dolls, and of course chalk art fun.

The public library offers an online language program and so we are going to learn French during meals. The live cam(s) of zoos have been fun to watch as well. Did I mention I have a bird feeder now? Good free inside fun!

I was also thinking of recording a message to friends and texting it out once a week. 

I will probably send one off today. Lucky that we cleaned the house over the weekend.

Reading stuff on the interwebs about the impact on the economy and the closing of local shops, I want to do something.  So it isn't much, but I have bought comics/graphic novels from the local comic book store (curbside pickup), get take out from restaurants on the ave,  got a hoodie from the punk rock record store and going to our indie grocer. We are lucky enough to have secure(ish) jobs, for the time being, so putting money toward our local economy and not Amazon, I hope helps a little.

I wonder if it would be weird if I put a gift card for our mail carrier in our mailbox. 

As far as staring at screens, our kid has the TV on as background while doing projects. Just like her mother and her grandmother, and her great grandmother.  It runs in the family.

Ahhh! 

Hope everyone stays safe and sane out there.

And you were so beautiful, you were so very special, I wish I was with you now, I wish I could save you somehow.

I am broken.
My friend Ian died. It hurts my fingers to type those words.
For the past month, I have been consumed by his death- I was his emergency contact and connected many of the dots.
None of his family came down, so it fell to me and his friend's to clean out his apartment.
Man oh man, that really sucked but luckily for me, I have a strong chosen family team. I was able to ask them to do tasks: talk to people, order food, pickups from the airport and the like. 
When his mom requested that we put together a service, I knew immediately what I wanted to say, but was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to convey it in words.
How do you sum up a person in 250 words who left suddenly and who had been one of the most important people in your life for 30 years?
You don't...
You listen to others who say amazing things about this person and try to absorb everything.

A friend put a beautiful blog post together of what she said at his service.
https://hulainthesunset.blogspot.com/2020/01/laughing-without-smiling.html?fbclid=IwAR1ItERSv_RGuMxRed_tGCTCFWPZ075b567EHA4Nof_GbqNrfbBWQtHh3L8

And below is what I said-

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Ian was a love of my life- completely platonic and unconditional.

He never did anything wrong to me.

I found his inappropriate comments charming, his super dramatic responses to everyday things hilarious and that fact that he thought it was funny to give really bad advice adorable.  He would insist on paying for everything when I knew he was broke and was relentless in trying to get me to watch horrible tv shows.

I met Ian when he was 17 years old. He had just moved to California; he was wearing a Sid Vicious shirt and we instantly bonded over music. During his stint in Southern California, he was staying with me at my parent’s house and it unnerved my grandmother Nanny that Ian slept with his shoes on.  Ian and I decided around Christmas time to move to San Francisco. We left in February and for the next 11 years lived together.

We often would go grocery shopping together; he would berate me for buying food that was not on sale. He had a pretty strict policy then that he only purchased items that were on sale – his preference actually that it was a buy one and get one free- we came home, and I asked him if he had ever eaten, I Can’t Believe It’s Butter before. Ian grabbed it out of my hand started yelling “I can’t believe it’s not butter,” over and over again and then threw the container against the wall. It was buy one, get one free so not all was lost.

When we moved into the second Haight Street apartment, he lived in the living room. So in the morning, I would have to knock on his doorway to make sure it was okay to go through to the kitchen. In the mornings, he would greet me with “it is a good day for the apocalypse.” When we were really broke, he and I would put our change together and buy Taco Bell or cigarettes. In passing he asked me to attend his college graduation, he was going to be a speaker. Of course, I would attend. He wasn’t a speaker- he was the main speaker. He got an award for his excellence and was the equivalent to the valedictorian of his class. The speech was so good, I was all teary and he just rolled his eyes at me.

When me and my now husband were getting serious, Ian and I made a pack that regardless of our relationship status that we would always be there for each other. It wasn’t until I was married did I change my emergency contact. After Heather died, Ian told me he was changing it back to me.

When I introduced Ian to Heather, it was no set up or anything. Just my new friend, meeting my old friend. It was crazy town to watch them hit it off. Ian was charming and he insisted on showering before going out to do stuff with her. One of the many conversations I had about Ian to Heather, I remember telling her that moving to SF was a good idea, that I had never seen Ian so smitten with anyone before and she should go for it. So them getting married was a no brainer. He called me on the phone and told me -after talking to me for 15 minutes about why I should watch some vampire show- that he and Heather were gonna wrap things up and get married. I was so excited for him and started getting teary on the phone and he got annoyed that I was getting so emotional.

After Heather died, I checked in with Ian once a week and if he didn’t respond, I would be relentless until he got back to me.

His sadness over losing her was something that I couldn’t understand until now.

Since Ian was not remotely religious, I wanted to say to all of you-

The force of Ian will be with you- always.

I will miss you so much.

I wish I was still your emergency contact.