Wave-particle Duality

The landlord painted the backyard sewer cap and all of the stray cats are rolling on the fresh white coat and getting high. I'm trying to get the drunky ladies out for end-of-the-work-week Friday cocktails and they sound like the temperance league. My nephew is fevered, my dad is tubed and my son is steadfastly working his way into the 1%. I'm getting unspecific orders via text, PJ Harvey is coming through me and I'm skimming the quantum theory of mechanics on the internet for shiggles.

Seasonal shifts bring out the strange.

Photo by Ted Nelson

"If I Only Had a Brain."

In April, an infection was planted in the memory storage space of my brain and by June it exploded into seizures and I forgot how to laugh or cry or even engage in small talk. Now my strength is gathering again and the people who love me seem relieved to recognize me, myself back in town.

On the other side, I can't remember many "professional" terms and phrases we use at the hospital although I am still mostly able to successfully do my work again. I just require a proof reader.

The gift that I have been given by the hijack attack of memory and the loss of professional buzz words is that dozens of smothered scenes from 38 years have burst onto an imaginary cinema screen inside of my skull.

At eighteen, I was enrolled at a commuter art college near Lake Michigan. My major was theater and our department chair was also one of the leaders at Second City Theater and directed many SCTV episodes. I was taking an improv class taught by Marty DeMatt , who literally grew up at Second City because his mother was one of the pioneering founders and directors. Marty was a sharing and saavy teacher and a compassionate, talented artist. Once, Marty stayed home sick and sent an improviser over to cover class for him.

I can't remember the guy's name. I do remember that he told us he had a degree in photography and even though he wasn't a professional photographer, he approached living his life with perspective, lighting and focus so whatever we did -- whatever we learned along the way in school and in life would form our viewpoints and approaches.

Then he split us up into groups and told us to take a few minutes to plan the bases of our improvs to perform for the class. I was leaning against the back wall with my friends Tom & Jerry (really) and he assigned us together. We spent about thirty seconds planning to be three scarecrows in a field and then talked about going to the nickel draft special at the bar across the street after class. We were the last group called up to do our improv for the class.

And I don't know how or why it happened but art possessed us and we suddenly became puppets of enchantment. We were three scarecrows who discovered how to free ourselves from the polls and we happily flopped and danced and learned to walk and Tom's scarecrow pointed to the highway and wanted to hitch a ride but Jerry's scarecrow and mine wanted to stay on the farm. And Tom's said he couldn't leave without us and he helped us back up on our polls because he was the tallest and just then a truck was coming and we said, "goodbye, we love you" and he ran toward the road with his thumb up and we said goodbye again and then the substitute teacher said "scene" and followed up with:

"Sometimes you get a few minutes of harmony and beauty and you can't predict when or how but you were lucky to feel it and we were lucky to witness it. Now goodbye, everybody. Thanks for letting me teach you today."

And the three of us stated briefly and once only over the nickel beers how fortunate we were to have those few minutes together.

I was eighteen years old that day. The same age my son is now.

Caverns

I think I've fallen into a cavern. It's very pretty; lots of stalagtites and stalgmites but it's twisty and complicated so it's taking all of my energy and concentration to navigate the terrain. Here are some bits & pieces.

I spent the better part of a week in New York so my son could visit colleges. This was our first visit to NYC. It was very cool and it wasn't the least bit intimidating coming from Chicago -- just a little more cramped but very energetic, so it all balances out. Looks like the kid is going to Brooklyn College to study film production, so I'll be visiting there quite a bit. But I'm not moving there because 5 straight days of me and the kid and nobody else has convinced both of us that him moving far away for awhile really is a very, very good idea. (Is "awhile" a real word?)

Meanwhile, I'm still in graduate school which is intensifying. By the time he leaves town, I'll be able to work about 15 hours a day on all of the research projects around here (including my thesis) plus I just ordered a bunch of Tony Horton DVDs, so I'm intending to counteract empty nest syndrome by co-publishing scientific journal articles and recreating the ass I had before I was a mom. (The ass part probably won't happen exactly like that but it is important to have goals in this world.)

While we were in New York, we went to a taping of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". His show isn't very funny yet but he seems gracious and his house band is the Roots (I think I've previously mentioned my intense respect and attraction to Questlove) so really, the music was the best part of the show. There was a musical guest the night we attended called Liquid Liquid.

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Liquid Liquid was a New York No Wave art band form the late 70s that "never quite caught on completely". (That's what lifelong friend of percussionist Dennis Young told me. I was sitting next to him and Dennis's wife and I'm nosy so I started asking questions after eavesdropping.) Of note, Liquid Liquid created the famous bass line sampled by Grandmaster and the Sugar Hill Houseband in that old 80s hip hop standard "White Lines".

*

That bass line comes from the song "Cavern", which Liquid Liquid played (splendidly) with the Roots on the episode the kid and I attended and that was one of the more spectacular 30 minutes of live music I have ever witnessed. And I have witnessed many hours of live music. So here is a link to the version of the song that aired on the show that night. This is very good but it isn't quite the same as being in a 100 person TV studio with all of that sound wrapping you up in its fingers and stroking you home. But go watch it.

Video: Liquid Liquid Plays “Cavern” on Jimmy Fallon with Help from The Roots

(Not aired was a first taping of "Cavern" and another recording of their song "Optimo".)

(Also, I think there should be a learning curve allowance for late night talk shows. It's a whole different thing than stand up, writing and performing in sketch comedy, etc. And let it be said now that Mr. Fallon has excellent taste in music.)

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Tightly Clichéd

I haven't been reporting because I don't feel like being anything but me and lately I don't make for very good copy. Here are some infinitive forms which currently describe my life: to work, to mother, to granddaughter, to daughter, to sister, to aunt, to behave, to economize, to dodge bill collectors, to heal, to be healed, to sleep, to dream, to plan, to laugh, to master, to rest, to renew, to recalim, to befriend, to enjoy the occasional solitude, to not take things very seriously.

As I said, it doesn't make for interesting reading but it makes for good living.

The biggest news is that I'm trying very, very hard (and not so very perfectly) to kick that devil nicotine once and for all. Please, no comments about how the only way to quit smoking is cold turkey. It isn't and all cold turkey does is make me a homicidal maniac. Nobody wants to see that. Nations will declare jihad on the US because of the large, foul cloud of bad vibes and violence emanating from my aura. It would be very, very bad -- as in hell on earth, armageddon, etc.

The other biggest news is that I'm working on an application for a Master's in Science program offered at the university/hospital where I work.

And in other news...

My son now drives and we just spent the holiday at my mom's eating cold turkey and watching a brazillion bootleg movies.

Also, I wish Blog Ho would post because he's practically my last enjoyable vice in this life since I cut back on the booze and the loose men. Practically, not totally or definitely, so please, still no comments about cold turkey. I don't want to hear it.

Have you noticed that many "loose" men aren't "loose" at all, but rather uptight when you get down to it? So the term "loose" is not a very good one when applied to men of leisure and easy pleasure. Let's change it to "tight" since "tight" is the second syllable in "uptight" and "tight" can also slangily mean drunk and/or a really good mesh of skilled and talented musicians during an improv jam session or (mistakenly used in reference to) a recorded song which sounds very good only after about 10,000 takes.

I have some new girlfriends and some blast-from-the-past girlfriends popping out of the woodwork and I've been having lots of fun hanging out with the girls and doing cool things at cool places and not really caring if you think I'm cute while doing it.

Mostly, I hang out with cool chicks, but I do still know some "tight" guys, in case you were concerned about my ability to be heterosocial. In fact, it was a couple of "tight" guys who helped me relocate my super powers a couple of weeks ago at an improv show during which 2 troupes performed; one female troupe of improvisers called Children of a Lesser God and one male troop of improvisers called Uncle's Brother. The male troop contained some famousish people. The female troop was "tight".

Yeah, during the show the one "tight" guy friend started asking me for a bunch stuff because he is not a boy scout, but rather a journalist. Meanwhile the other tight guy friend was suffering from the adverse effects of a reiki sneak attack coupled with acupuncture, allergy season and a musty rug at the IO, which may cause runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, ague and overall fatigue. Yet somehow all of the symptoms, wacky energy, extemporanea and general hilarity were strangely regenerative, kind of like an eclipse on Heroes or possibly more like the way the destruction of Alderaan and the death of Obi-Wan brought the gang closer together and led to the eventual triumph of rebel forces against the Empire.

So once again, I have the magical ability to pull any necessary item out of my purse at any given time, for which my superheroic alter ego, Single Mom, is rightfully renowned, and if you ever run into me while drowning in a river I promise to dig you out a straw or a self-help manual on survival or somesuch -- or maybe I'll just dig you out of the current so you don't die.

Not on my watch, pal.

The Strange Luck of Captain Burrito

In other weird weekend news, the kid won a burrito-eating contest (it was a fund-raiser for a local college). Yup! My baby scarfed his burrito down quicker than any of the other contestants and won himself 52 burritos. I'm so proud.

Strange luck runs with us.

He's Twisted

Sometimes I come home to fire up the computer and find some brand spanking new wallpaper, courtesy of the kid. Here are some recent examples.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on in this picture, but that's the kid on the right. Nice dramatic interpretation of posing profoundly with man in a spangled sombrero and Fonzie wannabe.

Bershon

Recently, my sister introduced me to the term bershon, which is that very special disgusted face adolescents make when they are annoyed by their family.

To the left, we have my wonderful son, Donovan. He is so bershon because he just woke up and we're making him hold his cousin Dex and pose for this picture.

Next, we have me at his age. I was absolutely bershon because my mother dared to take my picture in public. I am probably thinking something like, pictures are so bourgeois. (I was reading Marx at the time and bourgeois was my favorite epithet.)

I'm pretty sure I win the bershon contest. Oh, my poor mother.

(For some reason, I'm posting alot of family pictures today.)

"But They're Cousins!"

I think my nephew Dex (above) looks like my son Donovan (below).However, Donovan now looks more like this.

Belated Mother's Day Tidings

Belated Mother's Day Tidings to all of the women who have nurtured me in my life, like my lovely aunties, my fabulous grandma .. and of course, my very special mom, who still looks out for me now......although not as much as then. And a Happy Mother's Day to my sisters who are raising some of the coolest kids in the world ...
I can't believe how old my son is ...
...but he'll always be my baby.

The Strange Luck of Lady Jameson

The whiskey gods smiled warmly upon me and on Saturday and I got to help dye the Chicago River green. I was provided with 2 hotel rooms on Friday night on the 30th floor of the Sheraton. Colleen and I shared one room and Donovan and cousins Michael and Peter shared the other.

Clockwise from center: Dex, me, Peter, Donovan, Michael, Tom

At 8 am Tommy joined us for breakfast with tons of other people in the hotel bar. The sweet, young bartenders poured freehand shots of Jameson Irish Whiskey into your coffee. Here we go! The Emerald Society (police bagpipe band) showed up about the same time as my mom, Meander, Dex and my grandma. Dex was happy that the band had such a loud rhythm section and proceeded to get his groove on.

Next, Jason Thomas from WXRT presented me with a plaque commemorating the day I got lucky and dyed green. (See my look of shock re: all the ribald talk in front of my grandmother. Actually, I'm being warned that if I spill the dye it will never come off and if I break Tracy from Jameson's mother's Waterford biscuit jar -- follow that? --I will sleep with the fishes.)

Next we paraded from the hotel bar to the river bank at Cityfront Plaza. Hooray!(I think the reason the fates decreed I should win this silly contest was because I spent 10 years training in the rarely useful art of walking without spilling in my years as a bartender/ coctail waitress.)

Here we are descending the stairs with bulky, breaky things and the momentum of 75 people behind us. The blonde in the green track jacket at center is Tracy from Jameson. She was lots of fun and did an excellent job putting the whole thing together.

Here is another picture of the Emerald Society. If you look in the background, you will see hundreds lined up along the railings. That's probably only about half of the spectators.


My hand in dyeing the river was symbolic. The real work was done by the gentleman from the Plumbers' Union. About 42 years ago, a plumber walked into the Union Rep's office covered in green. The Rep asked him about it and he explained he had been using the dye to suss out the source of a sewage leak into the river, in order to correct it. The Union Rep mentioned it to Mayor Daley (I) and the plumbers were given permission to dye the river.

Pictured here are Ma, me, Colleen and Grandma. My Ma took all of the pictures posted here. Oh -- and a big happy birthday to Colleen today!

Next, I dumped a Waterford jar full of orange-turning-green-dye into the river...

...as the plumbers dyed it from the boat.

And here's a picture of the green Chicago River from our hotel room. Notice how the dye seems to stop exactly at that bridge at mid- frame...

Slainté!

Glockenspiel

From ages eight to twelve, I was sent to an Orff music camp for one week each summer. The camp was run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph at their motherhouse -- about an hour outside of the city. At camp, we spent about half the day swimming and the other half under the tutelage of Sister Victoria, who taught music and dance. At night we would have hikes, campfires and sing-alongs. For me, Orff camp was a seven day preview of heaven.

What's that??? Nuns, swimming and music classes -- you thought that was heaven! Well, yes. To this day, I still believe swimming is the best way to spend a hot summer day. Making music and dancing is the best way to spend ANY night or day. Also, I liked nuns. Generally speaking, they tended to be passionate about whichever subject they spent their lives teaching and studying. And the Sisters at camp seemed to be truly following a vocation and quite happy. They also gave us a degree of autonomy not experienced at home. It was bliss!

Except that I was pretty sure Sister Victoria didn't think much of my abilities. She always told me I wasn't singing loud enough, she always made me play the glockenspiel instead of the xylophone AND for dancing she always paired me up with the boy everyone else picked on.

I wanted to play the xylophone so badly. The xylophonists played the melody of each song. Everyone played the xylophone except for a few kids who couldn't learn notes and had to play the tamborine and Kevin, who took music lessons year round and got to play drums. Oh, and me -- I always had to play the glockenspiel. The worst part was she would tease me ... I would pick an alto xylophone and she would leave me there for a couple of days. Then she would make me switch with whichever kid got stuck with it. She would spend a couple of minutes teaching me the notes to the harmony lines of each song and there I was once again ... the Great Glockenspiel Girl.

But I recently had a strange epiphany about Sister Victoria's treatment of me. She didn't put me on the glockenspiel because she thought I was incapable of playing the notes on the xylophone -- she put me there because I could play the harmony without being distracted by the melody while singing the song, loudly. She made me dance with the awkward boy every year because I never picked on him. She knew she could depend on me -- but being a good nun she never complimented me for doing what I was supposed to be doing.

And to this day, although I still enjoy a jazz combo with a xylophonist -- it doesn't compare with the sudden glee I experience upon hearing the chime of the glockenspiel. Donovan recently played Arcade Fire for me. The use the glock in several of their songs, which inspired this post. Jimi Hendrix used it in "Little Wing". If you listen carefully you can hear those clear chimes every now and then.

They are both beautiful and surprising.

Yeti!!!

I dreamed that the survival of humanity depended on us collaborating with the Yeti. While at somebody's lake cottage in Michigan, I was given this assignment along with my friend Michael (who has previously displayed supernatural abilities in the dreamscape such as changing tires with his bare hands), my son Donovan, and two other children unrelated to me, but essential to this mission as they were 13th cousins to the Yeti or somesuch.

Anyway, we walked about a mile from the lake and cottages -- this had to be done at dawn and in stealth. If we were seen, the corporations would level the forest in order to sell the lumber.

This forest also held magical secrets, which could help heal humanity AND it was home of the Yetis -- where would they live if it were destroyed? Certainly, they wouldn't form an alliance with us if their forest were destroyed -- and that alliance was our only hope in surviving the horrible battles that were coming to pass.

The trees were so old, mossy and gnarled. There were spider webs as thick as alpaca blankets along the perimeter. We stepped into the lovely, damp magical woods. We looked behind us and at each other. No one had trailed us. We could hear the Yeti gathering up ahead in a clearing and we walked toward them. Just then, a music box started tinkling -- it had fallen open in the little girls jacket pocket. We could hear the Yeti fleeing and the little girl's face crumpled with tears.

The sound of the music box was actually my alarm clock.

Damned mandatory awakening!

The apartment has become unbearable -- it's gone from flotsam and jetsam to the city's largest landfill.

In a suprising move, the kid suddenly got motivated to start sorting through all of the stuff. So not only is the place getting cleaned up, but he has been amusing me with The Bizarre Odds 'N Ends Fashion Show. So far this has included The Hip Rocker (his dark jeans, a ribbed sleeveless tee, topped with a black and brown pinstriped vest), Eighties Suburban Guy (a Girbaud tee, and really light/tight/high-waisted jeans), and my personal favorite -- Tried For 1970s Roger Daltry, Ended Up 1990s Mountain Lesbian (a plaid sleeveless button down shirt and the aforementioned light/tight jeans).

I better get back to work, since I'm the Mom and all.

Meet Dex and Others I Love

Meet Dexter! He is the baby formerly known as Thelonious. (Can you tell that his dad -- pictured here -- is a jazz saxophonist and pianist?) Dex has Joel's coloring, ears and much of his facial structure -- although I think he has Nora's nose and chin.

Nora is doing well. Dex is in a special care nursery, but that seems to be mostly precautionary. Hopefully, they will all be going home tomorrow.

I got to be one of the few priveleged folks to hold him yesterday. He has good lungs and a musical little gurgle that he vocalizes when you say his name. He also has very long, graceful fingers. He likes to wiggle them around until he gets them into his mouth.


In this self-portrait that Donovan left for me on my camara, you can see why my cousin nicknamed him GQ. Although, I think he must have just showered here. Ususally he doesn't walk around with a Pete Doherty hairstyle.

I'm the luckiest mom in the world. The kid is funny, sweet, smart and a hard worker.






Look at my nephew Iain. He's such a good big brother. Iain has enough imagination and smarts for about a half dozen kids. If you need any zoological or botanical facts, you might want to read a field guide -- or save yourself time and ask Iain.

And then there is Rory. She is a bundle of sunshiny love and thunderstorms. She is a party girl who loves to be goofy (as seen here) and lately she's been making up knock-knock jokes.
The jokes are awful, but the delivery is impeccable.

Luckiest Mom Ever

My son has a gift for send-ups and satire, for which he has earned the nickname General Sarcasmo. Although he has been practicing the art through all of his childhood, lately he has surpassed himself, as his humor has been seasoned by that special kind of cynical idealism that adolescents are known for.

For example, last night he spoke in a Minnie Mouse style falsetto while imitating me: “14,000 people have died in car accidents since George Bush has been President. Coincidence? I think not.” (Please note that I speak in a tobacco-tinged alto. I point this out to him with every imitation, and although he concedes, he always makes me sound like Minnie.)

He tells me blogging is for socially retarded nerds.

I do manage to embarrass him on the regular, although we’ve worked out some compromises. He won’t complain about me listening to hip-hop – as long as his friends aren’t in the car. And he enjoys discussing the evolution and compositional motifs of classic rock , so we have long debates about topics such as what was Brian Wilson’s best song. His absolute favorite band is the Who, so not only does he own just about everything they’ve ever recorded, but he naturally reads bios and liner note and blogs. (Why is a blog suddenly cooler when Pete Townsend is writing it? Nevermind, stupid question.)

This is how he discovered one of my most trite and useless things (because it isn’t even a skill). I can usually identify a song in about 3 bars. So although I’m not permitted to sing along with the radio, I am encouraged to shout out the title of each and every song during its intro.

(Excuse me. Say the title – must not shout it. It seems that years of working in nightclubs have damaged my hearing and now everything I say is just so loud.)

I enjoy this game , however, because this is about the only thing I do that he doesn’t find dorky/ nerdy or just plain wrong.

Unless he does something really clumsy such as slicing his hand open on a can of cat food and suddenly he needs me to clean up the blood with bactrine, bandages and love.

So I am still necessary.

And the poor kid is going to be soooo embarrassed when he reads this.