Acoustic planetariums.

Create for us a savage creature. A spectre, a stalwart caveat. I can't command anything like this terror, this seizure. Bliss bliss and sunshine all over your skin. I'd claw your peace out of you. Five times the monstrosity of a frenzied demon. Take good care. Lie in release, sanctioned. How do we grow and change in several years? What do we forget in six months? How strong are our youngest and how wise our oldest? I can't believe we can all exist at once. You are a trumpet and a mistake-keeper. Watch me instead of blasting me with words. No titles no labels no ceremony. Please keep your hands off me, her, and anything else you care to deride. I want to be the eldest daughter and most insubordinate. I am lying in the cut, in wait, restless and worth worrying about.

I have had a good day. Learned some lessons about the value of quiet, of taking information in. There are some things that do need to change. Spring is a great time for this kind of renewal and reassessment. I have been playing a lot of shows with my Bikini Kill tribute band, Rah! Rah! Replica. Last night we played one that was a benefit for the Girls Rock Camp in DC. There is a book about the camp that just came out, with a truly compelling forward by Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. In it, she talks about how rare it is to see something totally new, totally brave, that knocks you off your feet. That is how you feel when you see young women perform music in front of a crowd of hundreds, particularly if they only just started playing an instrument that week. It is awe-inspiring.

I was also reminded yesterday that I possess the skills to navigate stressful situations and encounters. As soon as grad school is done, I want to focus more on playing my drums on a regular basis. Diane and I are going on a Trophy Wife tour in the fall (more information about that at trophywifetheband.blogspot.com - as well as a song). Shows have been good. It is a very connected feeling, playing music with her. I tried to write about it in my most recent column for Give Me Back.

Part of spring will involve cleaning out our house. A lot of possessions of past housemates take up space there, and I think that kind of energy is not always the best to be around. I had a great talk with Kevin last night about reorientation towards the world in a lot of ways. He is quite simply one of my wisest and most valued friends.

On Monday, I turn in the first draft of my Masters thesis. It is on Girls Rock Camps, and how they serve as a healthy youth development strategy for young women. I am drawing the connection between the camps and the impact that sports instruction has on the lives of young women, in terms of feeling able to inhabit one's body and also to collaborate and take up space with other young women. I am looking forward to wrapping this up.

i just got back from south by southwest, my first time going. i have lots of things to say about that...truly incredible experience, great parts, stupid parts, the works.

however right now i just want to rant about something.

it is not ok to ask people what they thought of your band unless you truly believe your friendship is close enough to invite the truth. what a goddamn awkward question. it is also obnoxious to consistently ask people if they are going to your show. a simple flier or invitation is fine. there is no need to beat a dead horse. if you work hard enough at making something beautiful and compelling, others will be hungry for it.

you can't create hunger. you also can't really be a hunger midwife.
one of the members of a band on my label that i love was talking last night about how ego-driven making art is, and how the assertion that you are doing it for others is even MORE ego driven. i can't parse out making art from being part of a community, perhaps because i want different, richer, more intriguing, more enraging kinds of interactions. i want things to pick apart and examine with the people around me. perhaps i am sort of like my mother in that when i start to feel a social dynamic or even art or music event is getting mundane, i wander off and around and probably look semi-crazy to the outsider for trying to find things that intrigue me - whether it is the girlfriend that got dragged to a boring show of white boys screaming by her boyfriend, or the bartender that plays ukelele hours a day on the side of a crap job, or the drugdealer in the street outside (this is of course where things become problematic - fascinating and intriguing people and things are often not necessarily the world's greatest ideas).

i giggle when i think of blunt, overt conversations my friend berdan and i have had in bars, saying things that people usually opt out of saying and seeing people in proximity look both drawn to and horrified by. therein lies the paradox. i think it breaks my heart more than anything when a person i considered paradoxical to their core does something absolutely predictable and by the book. what i crave are the kinds of people who you can know ten years and one day look at them with utter rage at their perspective and ferocious awe the next day.

maybe this is the danger in being a person who gets bored easily. however, i take my parents' words to heart that only boring people STAY bored...i have even used that over the years when questioned by them about any host of misadventures. "well, you both taught me never to STAY bored!" i remember being ten and my mom and dad both saying "katy, boring people are ones that get bored. don't get bored. figure out how to get away from boredom."

i think my parents were amazing. i kind of can't believe they exist sometimes.

their entire relationship is a paradox and my sister and i resulted. funny thing, procreation.

There are moments that really shock you, like polar bear ice water jumping. Refreshing and heartstopping all at once. And after the initial burn and bliss and thrill, you are left freezing, once again having to fend for yourself. So much of the mythology we are or were sold when we were young is just that. Careening towards/away from a white picket fence. When those who touted the value of a life of risk and penchant for insecurity scramble for the formulaic. You are in the tundra. Glance backward, make a snide remark. Does it help you or them? Self sufficient princess rescue. Time honored traditions.

In such hurtful people and in such dangerous comrades, you can feel such light. Radiance of what they might hope for. Sadly it is incongruous to know your own deep, rich capacity. Hunger fervor. With music, there is the single most complete reciprocity. There is intimacy and it is in blinding sound. Starving voice. I never thought life would involve this much struggle and bravery. I am so thankful for those who have the guts to keep pushing and to not settle, when we live in a culture that begs us to settle every day - begs our apology for existence. Begs our acquiescence.

There is no reward. It is like Coehlo writes in the Alchemist. We make choices out of their own integrity and if we are to settle too early we have no regard for the riches that lie a few miles ahead.

"Soul mates" look a thousand different ways. The ones of us never immune terrify the myth of security.

Sanctify me. Grant me the grace to breathe fire and rescue everyone I love who has no choice other than to drown.

Every flap of their fins is innately gorgeous to me.

My new boss attended this. Exciting times!!!! Keep moving. Walking solves it.

The Chicago Sun Times DC Blog
March 12, 2009
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/03/obama_signed_order_creating_co.html

a post of lyrics from a song "shields" by the uncanny big business.
thrones for the worthy, graves for the rest, as my friend moe once said. there are so many things i want to say in this that i just can't. words are failing at this point. maybe they know i have exhausted them. so, i will borrow words from loud riled up wild dudes in a band i love.


What could go wrong I can't count the number of ways You could be mauled or burned for starters You could still drown in knee deep waters That's enough to hold up and hide in this cave What could go wrong I can't count the number of ways You could be struck by lightning walking Look at the cross and your soul starts talking Nothing prepares you for the freeze that's coming I won't dare, I won't dare I think I feel a wicked breeze blowing I won't dare, I won't dare Nothing prepares you for the freeze that's coming I won't dare, I won't dare I think I feel a wicked breeze blowing I won't dare, I won't dare Nothing prepares you for the freeze that's coming Lights out and draw the curtains I got the means Wait patiently I won't dare, I won't dare Wait patiently Nothing prepares you for the breeze that's coming I won't care I won't care I think I feel a wicked breeze blowing I won't dare I won't dare Lie down and drown your good dreams I've got the means I won't dare I won't dare That's enough to hold up and hide in the shade Lie down and drown your good dreams Wait patiently--