Note of the Living Deb

Saturday we drove to a large suburb north of Dallas to visit a childhood friend of Robin's and her family. We stopped in West, Texas for kolaches, and the pickings were slim because this weekend was WestFest.

I learned that if you are having trouble remembering that your son is learning to play the bassoon, as opposed to, say, the oboe, just remember that it looks like a bazooka. (Bazooka and Bassoon sound similar.) Bassoons come apart into four pieces for putting away in their cases: the piece by the mouth, the piece at the other end, and the two side-by-side pieces in the middle. Yes, the bassoon is double-barreled. And it is totally dangerous looking, and this is why you, too, can barely resist wanting to own one.

I learned that the Target stores closest to this family were much bigger and better than our Target and they don't even have a name like SuperTarget or SuperDuperTarget or HolyMotherOfGodFantasyLandTarget, just Target. For example, my sister had been wishing that she could try out a sofa/footrest combo, but they didn't have any on display at our Target. Both their Targets had one on display. (These sofa/footrest combos are moderately comfortable, not fabulously comfortable.)

I also decided that if anyone is trying to figure out the best possible gift card to give me for a present, the answer is a Target gift card. This place is full of things that are cool but that I normally resist but that I wouldn't mind not resisting if I had a gift card, and those are the kinds of things that make perfect gifts, right?

There are such things as SuperTargets, but I think that just means they have food. So if Target P R people had named waiters, they would be called SuperMen (men with food). Caterers might be SuperTruckDrivers. I think Walmart uses this prefix the same way. So, during birthday parties at work, we can call our break room SuperBreakRoom. And we can refer to meetings and to SuperMeetings.

Am I off topic? No! Because I don't have a topic! Ha!

I am done, though, because that's about all I can remember from Saturday. There were also some construction, some dogs, some kids, and a Chinese buffet with fabulous "butter shrimp" (which I didn't try because shrimp are yucky). There was no wireless internet, and no time for writing anyway.

Robin arrived with only a two-hour delay. When I arrived an hour early, the big board explained that his flight was "on time." Since the flight was three hours long, something must have happened midair. But no. They had just sat on the ground a long time before taking off while some red tape involving using the backup gas system was unraveled.

We drove directly to the Smuggler's Notch Inn. This involved driving through Smuggler's Notch. Smuggler's Notch is a way to get through a mountain range that doesn't work in the winter even in the 21st century because snow plows won't work. It's steep. It's wiggly. It's narrow.

Actually, I think the problem is all the large boulders going right up to the edge of the road. The visibility is terrible, but at least there was virtually no traffic.

Eventually we got to a fork in the road where we had no clue which way to go. Robin stopped in a general store to ask for directions and they just pointed to the inn through the window. Oh, that was a nice relief.

I read in my one of my tour books that in this part of the country an inn is like a bed and breakfast, but it is full service, meaning that you can also get lunch and dinner there.

The Smuggler's Notch Inn is large, with a tavern, a bakery, a restaurant, a large porch with hot tub (being repaired), a very comfortable living room, and lots of rooms.

Our room had nice blue walls, two windows with blinds and flowery valences, a large bed and a twin bed with soft sheets and lots of pillows, creaky wooden floors, thick baseboards, and a general downward slope to the bathroom. It was prettier and much more interesting than the sort of hotel rooms I am used to, and it had much softer and prettier towels.

However, it didn't have some things that I have become used to in cheapo but frequently remodeled hotel rooms. For example, it didn't have light-blocking curtains. Or grounded outlets. Or little bottles of shampoo. There was a wireless internet connection available, but it was probably from a neighbor; I didn't use it. The windows opened easily, though, which was nice.

We walked around the place and went to bed early.

The next day we had a lovely breakfast and then drove to St. Albans. (This is pronounced ALL-buns, not AL-buns.) This involved going away from Smuggler's Notch, which was a much easier and quicker drive than coming up the other side. We decided to use this route when we went back to the airport on Monday.

We found the restaurant where Michael Hurley was to play, the Chow Bella, and parked. We tried again to get reservations and were told to just come back early, like 5:30 or 6:00. We decided to try for 5:10. Meanwhile, we checked out the rest of the downtown drag. Robin got to talking to a worker at a book and game store and bought two more books since he had gone through most of the other one he had brought during the delay of his flight.

We also found a natural food grocery store where we got, um, sodas.

We walked around a park where there was a palate-decorating contest which reminded me of the bench art we saw when we were visiting Zurich. Most were painted, some had fabric. Am I unpatriotic for not liking the one with the crocheted American flag on it, in hideous acrylic yarn? No, because the red was too orangy, which is un-American.

The best part was watching the kids playing in the fountain.

So we did make it back to the restaurant at 5:10. Then suddenly they had a reservation list they could add us to. And we got seats at the best table and found people to talk to and ordered supper before things got too crazy at the totally sold-out show.

The opening act was basically Michael Hurley's back-up band. His drummer was playing guitar and singing, and there was also a base-player whose back-up singing I greatly enjoyed, a violin player I enjoyed, and a banjo player who was also fine. The music was interesting, but sad.

For example, one song would have each verse mention something nice, like a good friend, and then end with the lament that he doesn't know where all the good friends go.

Michael Hurley's songs were mostly about food and sex. But I respected him more after watching him perform than I used to. He has really been practicing with his voice and guitar over the past few decades since he made the CDs Robin has, and is better at controlling voice cracks. His voice has a huge range and he's not afraid to use it. More importantly, he can make the most interesting, fun, lovely sounds with his vocal chords and electric guitar. He doesn't need a band at all.

Robin got piles of souvenirs including CDs, t-shirts, prints of some of Hurley's paintings, and copies of all of Hurley's graphic novels. I don't like Hurley's visual art products or writing. For me, all the charm is lost and only the crudeness remains.

Today was the recital I wrote about previously.

Since you are reading my journal, I'll assume you want to hear about me first.

I've learned that I get so nervous and red when I'm in front of people that I get very hot and sweaty, so I took off my coat and jacket that I'd been wearing. Seriously. Bright red.

First I did do the twangy, loud stalker song with some falsetto that I talked about. This is "Little Darlin'" by Buddy and Julie Miller. Favorite line: "Love can taste as sweet as muscat wine, but then go down more like turpentine." I did the first word or two badly, and then restarted. My voice cooperated, and the room was completely quiet. Later I got several compliments on this song, and people said that they didn't know I had such good white trash roots.

Second I played the guitar and sang "Our Town" by Iris DeMent. This is a beautiful but sad song about someone who loves her town, but it's turning into a ghost town. By the end of the song, she's leaving town, even though she doesn't want to, and she has stopped calling it "our town" and started calling it "my town." It's chilling.

Now if I had been given the choice of having my singing go better than expected at the expense of my guitar playing or vice versa, I would have chosen the good singing. And this is what I got. But I would not have realized just how badly the guitar playing would have to get in order for my singing to go that well. Specifically, my right hand, which I use for the strumming, was shaking almost uncontrollably. So, it was playing nearly random strings, and bouncing around on them.

I also messed up a few chords, but that was no worse than expected. Fortunately, I was just clamping down on chords with my left hand, so any random string strumming would have led to some kind of note that went okay with the song. Also fortunately, the guitar playing was much softer than the singing, and the lyrics are interesting, so I think people were paying more attention to that.

Then I played a third song, "Lord, I Have Made You a Place in My Heart" by Cry, Cry, Cry. It's a beautiful song so sad that it's funny. People actually laughed at these parts, so that means I was intelligible. For example:

Oh Lord, why does the fall get colder each year?
Lord, why can't I learn to love?
Lord, if you made me, it's easy to see
That you all make mistakes up above.

This is not the kind of party where people come up to you and say, "Your playing really stank. I hope you never play at one of these things again." Even if they're thinking it. So my impressions based on people talking to me afterwards might be biased. But I got a lot of amazing gushing comments. Seriously. One guy wanted hints from me on how to play guitar--hello? Were you paying attention at all? However, I also got extremely positive feedback from people I know who, admittedly are very nice, but whose opinions I also respect.

So, I'm glad I came and that I did all three songs, though earlier today I had decided not to do the first one.

And now for the other people. There were lots of people. There were thirty songs overall. And an amazingly huge number of them were just wonderful. Most people did not perform flawlessly, but they were a great pleasure to listen to. There was some more folk music, a violin duet, a viola/piano duet, an oboe (I think), some singing duets with piano accompaniment. Someone played a song she had written herself, which stunned everyone (in a good way). Several people were intimidated and decided not to do anything today, but all the ones I talked to were planning to practice something to do for the next one.

There were some things I didn't enjoy, or that I didn't enjoy much, and those can all be summarized by the phrase "audience participation." But overall, it was shockingly good, and I hope the host's recording of it went well, because there are some things I'd greatly enjoy listening to repeatedly. During these things it's so easy to remember that I really like music.

If you weren't invited to this recital, I highly recommend hosting one, especially if you have a piano.

Meanwhile, I still have some recovering to do. Performing those songs completely drained me. I am not used to having so much adrenaline (or whatever this is) running around in my system.

I'm listening to the song "Sixty Thousand Naked Hoosiers" by the Righteous Mothers, a band based in Washington State. "Sixty thousand naked Hoosiers in the Hoosier Dome/Doing things to one another they would never do at home./Sixty thousand adults, consenting, of clothing free,/Indiana never saw such Dionysian glee." I wonder if that was based on some actual event.

I'm wearing flannel-lined jeans. It was actually near freezing in the suburbs this morning; fortunately I live in town where it was 45 degrees. I even wore a scarf to work. I do not suffer hundred-degree heat for a month (or two!) to have freezing weather a month later! Fortunately it warmed up in the afternoon.

I am looking at a dirty plate. It's reminding me that I have lovely pumpkin pie in the fridge that I made this weekend. I love to have pumpkin pie and milk for breakfast. I know, it sounds decadent, unhealthy. But it has three of the four food groups in it! There is enough pumpkin to give me more than enough Vitamin A for the whole day. The pie crust is made with whole wheat pastry flour (and oil and milk), so that's a hint of grain, anyway. And there's enough milk in the glass and in the pie to cover me for half the day. And the milk is all fat-free. Yes, I know, still too much sugar. Also, the whipped cream on top is not fat-free. Hush.

I can hear Robin playing Psychonauts, the kind of video game he refers to as a "twitch" game. I'd give you a quote, but I can't hear quite that well.

I'm remembering that I need to research the propositions for Amendments to the Texas Constitution in time to vote. For those of you who don't know, Texas has a ridiculously long constitution created to make sure that no yankees could easily wrestle power away from Texans after the Civil War. All kinds of things require Constitutional Amendments, and Texas governors are some of the weakest in the country.

So an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about is Proposition 9, "the constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for a six-year term for a board member of a regional mobility authority." Because the current law for six-year terms contradicts the current constitutional limit of two years. So anti-toll-road people in central Texas got the law overturned, so this is in response to that. This is the kind of thing where even if I get to find out why it's on the ballot, it's still not obvious to me how I want to vote, so I may abstain on this one.

I'm definitely voting though, if only to vote against Proposition 2, and this is the most sure I've ever felt about voting. Proposition 2 is "The constitutional amendment providing that marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage." Sickening in so many ways. Opposers find hope in the fact that there are no people running in this election, so voter turnout will be low, so if all the weirdos against this proposition go out and vote, it might not pass. It won't pass in Austin, but Texas is sometimes, shall we say, a might backwards. I mean we have a state holiday, "Juneteenth," celebrating the date that slaves found out they had been freed, which was much later than the date they were freed. Texas was the last state in the union to free its slaves.

I understand the slave owners not wanting to pass on that piece of news. But this whole thing is harder. What happened to people to make them so afraid of gay couples? And what is the actual wording of the Amendment? How will they check for gender? Are the terms "man" and "woman" to be defined in the constitution?

Okay, enough along those lines; I don't have all night. Texans--November 8th. I'm checking out the Austin Chronicle Endorsements, the Daily Texan endorsements and the League of Women Voters Voters Guide (PDF). Let me know of any better resources you know of.