The Way My Day Began...

...was by driving to work listening to my absolutely beautiful, new Grateful Dead CD, Steppin' out in England which is a totally awesome 4 disc set of many, many lovely songs in one easy package. Gorgeous. Mellow. Dark and slow. Incredible background music for driving all over southern Bergen county, to and from home, work, client's apartments, delis, ATM's and so on. Makes me feel like I could do visiting nurse work for the rest of my days as long as I have such good tunes in my car to listen to from 9 to 5.

The song Black Peter has been a personal favorite of mine since, like, forever. First of all, this song made itself known to the world on Workingman's Dead which came out in 1970, so it's older than me. My parents have owned that album since before I was born and have been playing it for about that long. Anyway, it's an old, old song for me and I must've heard it about a million or so times. Still, I hadn't listened to it for a really long time too and hearing it again struck up old feelings with a new twist for these times I'm in.

This song is so heavy when you hear it; much more cumbersome on the soul than just reading the lyrics. It absolutely struck me that maybe this was a little bit what my husband felt like when he was laying in his hospital bed during the first couple of days after his open heart surgery when he was on just about a million different drugs, medicinally paralyzed, kidneys barely doing their job, no food or drink, just saline, dopamine, amiodorone, and whatever else keeping his body going, tubes in every opening, lights on constantly, not even being able to scratch his own nose when it itched.

Amazing to me that such an old, old song could have a current application to my life.

If you've never heard the song, please try. I promise it's not bad. Yeah, yeah, it's the Dead, they suck, blah, blah, blah. C'mon. How can they possibly suck if they've drawn such an amazingly loyal crowd over the past 40 years? It's folk music for God's sake! The will go down in history with Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and other similar American folk artists.

So give it a try. It's not all peace, love, and inebriation (which isn't always a bad thing anyway). It's about playing cards, pretty girls, shootin' guns, murder, riding trains, having fun, mourning occasional losses, and strange twists of fate.

More to come on the Dead in the future. Of that you can be sure.

Something Beautiful

Alfonse Mucha is my favorite artist. He made a zillion gorgeous lithographs, paintings, prints and so on. He was something of a national hero in the Czech Republic during the early 20th century, having the honor of designing currency and stamps as well as advertisements, posters, and other works of art. A nice thing about his story is that he was celebrated during his lifetime. To my knowledge he had a pretty nice life. I had the good fortune to visit his museum in Prague in 1999.

One thing I love the most about Mucha is how much he has influenced other artists whose work I appreciate too. A good example is Bob Masse, designer of countless concert posters dating from the 60's to the present. From the Grateful Dead, to Hendrix, to Cream, that familiar visual thread runs through his work.



And much to my surprise, a Masse-made Tori Amos concert poster. This is only one among a few he's done for her.
I enjoyed browsing this site. You might even find something you like. It's refreshing to see someone who does something creative keep at it for so long and do it so well all the while.

http://www.bmasse.com/

The Internet

Sometimes I think a lot about how the Internet has changed my life.

I relied on the Internet quite a bit to get through school.

I met my husband on the Internet.

I have become a more independent traveller by being able to view and print maps, pointing me to exactly where I need to go.

***

Husband, Rob, just said to me "I love football. Don't make me hate football." We are watching some college football news on ESPN. For some reason, in my life, I cannot escape football. It is not my favorite, but at this point I'm getting used to it, almost starting to understand it. From Sunday at 1:00 pm to Monday evening the TV is on, and it's on football. The laptop is keeping a running tally of fantasty football scores.

Rob's team this year is called Oblivion, named after the beloved game he has just finished. He is the commissioner of the league, Creeping Death, which he named after a Metallica song that he is quite fond of. As the commissioner's wife, you'd think I was maybe responsible for some fancy hostessing or something, but alas, it doesn't require much effort on my part.

***

Everyone in our house has been taking turns being sick for the past 2 weeks. The baby seems like she might be getting another ear infection so she'll be going to the doctor tomorrow. Rob will be taking her since he has a cold and won't be going in to work. I stayed home two days last week.