& thus we see

what i wore to my reading last friday night.

i love fall, so julie inspired me to throw together an impromptu rosh hashanah dinner last night, in honor of another new year.  we talked about how fall is so much more appropriate for celebrating new year's than january.  i made anna's brisket, 

if i had a jewish grandmother, would she approve of my fancy sterling silver?

and quickly tried to learn about the 100 shofar blasts. turns out it's not a quick learn.  i'm still thinking about this:

tekiah, moan-ululation, tekiah
tekiah, moan-ululation, tekiah
tekiah, moan-ululation, tekiah

tekiah, moan, tekiah
tekiah, moan, tekiah
tekiah, moan, tekiah

tekiah, ululation, tekiah
tekiah, ululation, tekiah
tekiah, ululation, tekiah

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apples & honey=sweet new year

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i'm in a fight with myself, or my body, or mind, or sickness or a big black dog.  the good thing now is that i know we'll make up and be at peace again someday, because i've been through this so many times before.  

thanks to julie's coaching, i've managed to stay fairly productive, and keep reading and writing every day, working on projects, and keeping up with teaching, kids, etc.  

i'm still reading susan howe's the birthmark and for fun, a book of essays by nora ephron, i remember nothing.

re-reading adrienne rich's blood, bread, and poetry.

working on mormon lady times essay and moby dick poems, mostly, and it's time to start on the third installment of the moby dick puppet opera libretto.

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i'm excited for the weekend.  we're going to see brecht's galileo tomorrow night, then leaving for l.a. on saturday to hear anthony braxton play.  

it's good to have things to look forward to.

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here's a little ditty from the moby dick project.  it's silly, and entirely lifted from moby.  i have a lot of other new poems, but they're still in process.  i don't know if this is anything, but i thought i'd try a concrete poem of sorts.  it's from the chapter on the measurement of the whale's skeleton.  ishmael talks about how unlike the whale its skeleton is.  he looks at the spine tapering into marble sized bones, and says that the priest's children stole the smallest pieces to play marbles with.  i wanted the poem to look like it's subject. so i tapered it.  

just a silly bit of fluff.

dead attenuated skeleton stretched in the peaceful wood
(chapter 103 “measurement of the whale’s skeleton”)

even the largest

of living things

tapers off

at last to

child’s

play

laid out flat

last pool party of the season

i had such big plans and high hopes for last weekend.  c. was traveling and so i made a packed agenda to keep us all occupied and happy in his absence. and things went pretty well until i got dog-piled, mowed down, flat laid out,  by the evil streptococcus A bacteria.

we made it to our last picnic of the season in southfork canyon.  we made it to the last pool party at a friend's amazing space that she has sadly just sold, we made it to h&m, a family sleepover at eva and anna's apartment, music and the spoken word (so very cheesy, and yet i cry a little any time i hear the glorious sound that choir can make in that amazing acoustical space--can somebody please do something about the repertoire?), we made it to breakfast, and then the part i was most excited about-- anna's brisket for a rosh hashanah dinner--that was the part i missed when i started shaking like an aspen tree.  when i felt like i was actually dying.  when i knew i had strep throat.

i found this on my bed when i woke up.

that was sunday morning, and it is only tonight that i feel well enough to blog and to think i might actually some day recover.  this morning i was wondering who was going to take care of everything while i was in the hospital on i.v. antibiotics.  this morning i diagnosed myself with a peritonsillar abscess, and i was right!  (i love it when my diagnoses are correct.)

so grateful for moses and for medicine.

i got into urgent care, got on a new antibiotic, got some lydacaine and codeine for the pain, and things are looking way, way up.

can i tell you how much i love modern medicine?  i frequently obsess about what i would do without access to painkillers.

but that's probably TMI.  so forget i said that.

for the first time in three days, though, i can honestly say:  it's good to be alive.

Music, Left and Right

For the next several weeks, there will be music in the little community garden by my house every Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm.

Today we saw Lara's old Seattle friend, Andrew Drury, unexpectedly play drums with a large group of other musicians.    I love that seeing Andrew and family out of the blue made the world seem very, very small.

All day I prepared for Rosh Hashanah, running home between the garden performances to prep food.

At the service, the Shul band played.

We all sang songs I never grew up with, but that I have been learning for the past decade.

Here's something Rabbi talked about:  destiny v fate, and that we live according to destinations--the endings that we choose.

(I only get to blog these days when the day is running out--and now my kids--who don't have school for the next to days, due to the Jewish New Year--want me to read to them.)

Yesterday, I went to the Mormon Stories conference, where Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling--the acclaimed Joseph Smith bio--said that he, Bushman, never thought in black in white terms.  That one can hear from God and still do things that are wrong.

Lots to think about from the weekend. Here are some musicians from the Shul Band we saw and sang with tonight, covering some Zeppelin, klezmerish style: