"But freedom is an idea. It always comes down to Earth in the form of some simple thing we love. Like being able to play the song we want to hear."--Austin Dacey
I promised shorter, more frequent posts. But I haven't blogged because I haven't had anything all that interesting to blog about. Oh, I've left comments, but nothing worth committing to my own blog. I don't have anything really new to say about current events, either. Others speak about Future Justice (?) Sotomayor and secret CIA plans with more knowledge and eloquence than I do. I've thought that maybe I should take some of my friends up on their insistence that I try Twitter, so I could just dash off the random thoughts I have, with the built-in editor of a strict word limit. As those of you who've been to the Front Porch before know, I have a bad habit of running off at the keyboard when I do commit myself to blogging.
Instead of blogging, I've been at my terrace garden, picking tomatoes and peppers and snipping herbs. It is beginning to pay for itself. My brother also has a terrace garden, and we dared each other to try corn, just a few stalks. The experiment worked out much better for him than for me, but since he's in Florida and I'm in NYC, that's not such a surprise, really. I have a *lot* of squash of all descriptions from the farmers' cooperative to sneak into everything. L'Ailee's getting a little tired of it.
I've been on the phone with friends and family. As much as I love to e-mail and text and play around online, the phone is still where the real stuff happens for me. Some things, you just have to open your mouth and *say*. I taught one of my Swim Girls what country music is really brilliant for when I sang Joey + Rory's "Cheater, Cheater" for her in the locker room. (How can you not love that oh-so-direct "Where'd you meet that no-good white-trash ho?" Seriously?) She asked me to help her load some more "good country songs for me" onto her iPod. "Cheater, Cheater" made it, and so did Reba McEntire's "Strange"--I'm guessing it's pretty obvious what she's going through now. Sometimes I wish I could offer the world more than a sympathetic ear and a perfect playlist.
I guess I'll just offer up a collection of odds and ends that I've been thinking about instead:
This is the article I quoted above my post. I wrote in my last blog entry that I think of love and sex as human rights. I think of music and other forms of expression the same way. Among other rights, young Iranian adults are fighting for the right to make and listen to the music they want.
Why the vampire craze is bad for women. I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I found this worth linking anyway.
It might not be so bad, I don't think, if people didn't lose their shit over teaching teens how to own their sexuality.
What am I doing being a Witch for free when I can get paid (with a live-in position!) for it?! And, you know, L'Ailee loves England...
SpongeBob SquarePants turns 10! There's a documentary about it tonight.
My brother is 27 and dying to finally launch his own farm. (We think it will happen next year.) He is apparently one of, if not many, quite a few. USA Today ran this about young organic farmers.
Finally, Danica Patrick's scary fan encounter makes me grateful I never went into NASCAR.
9 comments:
I really miss country music. As an example, I don't even know a song by Reba named "Strange". Frack it, I'm missing out!
I remember standing in line so my wife could get Ed Bruce's autograph when some 16 or 17 year old girl did that to him and how embarrassed he was...
You've never gone on too long for me; I'd love a seat on your porch!
alan
So glad I stopped in. Had some time while waiting on some photos to upload.
Summer's so hard to keep up.
Made me smile, thinking of you with a garden in NYC. Way to be. I'd send you some Indiana corn if I could figure out how to do it. Great year for squash. Great year for gardens, period, I think. Mine's being eaten by rabbits as I type this, but there are worse things in life.
Like not being allowed to listen to the music you want to listen to.
@ Snooker: It's pretty new. My link leads to a YouTube video of Reba performing "Strange" at an awards show. I'm not huge into Reba, but this one's good--it's about a woman who's not as distraught over her man leaving her as she might have expected. In NYC, country music is also a bit hard to come by. This is one of the ways I bond with my work husband.
@ Alan: Yes, but this was a teenage *boy* doing that to Danica! (At least I think that's what you're referencing.) I guess it's good that he didn't ask her to autograph any other part available to him, though. I can see where it would be extremely disconcerting for a man to have a teenage girl whip out her tits like that.
You are a sweet, sweet man, especially since you told me I'm not old enough to be cougary last night. If you still think I'm not when I tell you I've followed a 21-year-old's ass instead of the puck and cheered along with a gay male friend and a bi male friend when a 22-year-old got pulled out of his jersey and pads during a fight ("Oh my Gods, niiiiice." "Get that undershirt off him, too!") well, I love you forever.
@ Ange: Glad you stopped in, too! Don't get too excited--we're in Brooklyn, and I basically filled our balcony with containers. Quite a few people we know in Brooklyn have container gardens, at least, and we've seen people who grow grapevines on the sides of their brownstones or raise a couple of chickens. One of my few good souvenirs from Ex-Boy was learning his way with plants. (Kind of.) My brother and I compare notes a lot. He lives in a suburban apartment complex and filled up his balcony with containers, too; he also got the complex to agree to a community garden. He's the real greenie. I have actual pots; he cut off the tops of plastic 2-liter bottles and poked holes in the bottom for drainage! He does better than me, too. He's always sending me pictures of how well his plants are growing, like the showoff he is. :-)
I always love your posts, even the long ones are interesting! We live in a weird world, I like your brother's desire to be a farmer, you don't see that much these days.
@ Barbara: Check out the USA Today article. I particularly love the bit about "crop mobs." I can so picture my brother and SIL doing that! He wanted to be a farmer when he was little, but kind of pushed that thought aside, thinking it was impractical and he was supposed to do something else. I'm happy for him that he has his dream back.
That doesn't make you a cougar either, my friend, that makes you alive! If we can't admire the beauty of this world there's not much point in being here! There are times I'm very glad I can't whistle, not that that's not considered politcally incorrect nowdays!
Actually, the look on poor Ed's face made me wonder if he feared being arrested...this is "the Bible belt" and she might have been 16 or 17 but definitely not much more!
alan
I can't believe Sponge Bob is ten!
Enjoying all your links - always interesting. Hope your brothers dream comes true.
Post a Comment