The keeping of cool

Keep your cool, I tell myself.
Every day. Every hour. Kila siku.
As though keeping cool is a choice. As though there is cool to keep.
As though cool is tangible, tactile, graspable, keepable.
What I mean is, stay loose.
Touch, don't grab.
Handle--explore--caress--enjoy--and then release.
*
At church last night we had goofy fun with a black light.

FOTB

Check out my friend's blog.
She snaps pictures here and there at recording sessions.
Click around, visit, snoop, check out her work, stay awhile.
More evidence that we continue, we persevere.

Fresh off the blog.

No means I'm alive

A lot of no's in 2011 so far.
At least a dozen cold shoulders from literary journals and magazines.
Dear writer: thanks but no thanks, try us another time.
I don't take it personally.
Which isn't to say I like hearing it.
I hate no.
I have to remember that no means, not this time. Not yet. Keep trying.
*
The other no's--one from a boy I fell for last year, plus a sweet new one who's strictly off limits--those no's smart deeper and longer. Some no's you don't recover from so fast. If at all.

Kitchen jams

Sweet prefunk kitchen freestyling the night of the hott Shabazz Palaces/THEE Satisfaction show -- Seattle's own 3rd Degree (of the Nightcaps), Ms Kelly Castle Scott and thad wenatchee.

Nimefurahi

Miss you Momash

We lost my mother 7 years ago today.
My sis, niece and I made our annual trek to the cemetery. It's pretty remote so we had a little trouble finding it. Then, when we finally arrived, we had trouble finding Mom! We walked up and down the rows, careful not to step on any of the stones. Finally I yelled "Mom! Did you move and not tell us?"
We all cracked up. That would have been classic Mom.
We found her, finally, set down some daisies and chocolate covered graham crackers and told stories, how she gave my niece her first diet soda at 8 months, how the former health-food-nut thrived in later years on a diet of cheeseburgers and brownies.
It's still hard to believe, and harder still to find a way to write or talk about it. I'm just glad we had her, and glad my sisters and I have each other.

BSP Tumblr: January nights in the 206

Keeping up with the BusySmartyPants Media Empire (TM) just got a lot easier.
Look right for feeds from:

• BusySmartyPants Tumblr : pictures, sounds, provocations
• And the all new BusySmartyPants YouTube channel!

I hope you like.

What is the urge

This doodled figure on the bathroom door at Hattie's Hat made me wonder, does everyone have the urge to leave behind some kind of mark on the world?
I feel lucky, in a way, knowing (generally) what I want to do. And getting to do it. Yeah sure, the hard part is doing it, but maybe the harder thing would be not knowing what I wanted, feeling a strong yet unresolved urge to do something, but what?
A tagger was sentenced in Shoreline and the commenters passed judgement.
At (In)finity last night (On the Boards), a suit-and-tie oinker got huffy when us waiting list people took the last few empty spaces. How dare the people desire to witness art? It was a good show by the way--sold out, and now, over. I had the chance to chat with the star and his crew at the bar down the street a couple days back and was taken with their wit, shyness and charm.

Balti-mwah

From my trip a couple weeks back, the cold cushy ride into the city.

Beaver Teeth 4 Ever

In looking at pictures from last year, I was struck how little I smiled.
I'm not much of a smiler in any case, but back in February 2010 life felt tres grim.
No way I'll claim 100% happiness now either, but I am doing the things I want to do, with the people I want to do them with. Damn, that feels good.
Just looking at this picture makes me feel good too: me + a true sweetheart and partner-in-crime, out on the Hill last weekend getting ready to go to church (and rocking Fever Teeth's custom lids).

Sometimes it needs to be said

At left witness my niece's commentary on her mom's cranky mood the other week.
*
Is it me or is there a bad case of vertigo flying around town? At least four people I know have come down with it recently. Ionospheric disturbance, I was told, by someone who might know. Is this true?
*
I've listened to Fresh Espresso's album "Glamour" about a zillion times.
Peep it, please. Buy it. Join me in my beautiful obsession.