Yesterday was one of the longest days for me. Got up an hour early to meet my girl JJ for coffee. S came along, and we visited until I had to leave for work. I should not drink coffee; I really should not drink coffee with chocolate, cinnamon, and sugar in it, because it makes me both clumsy and jittery at the same time and that's not pretty.
Work flew by like most Fridays do, and I had requested to leave two hours early so as to spend time with S before he got on that long silver train. I think we each said, "I'll miss you" about ten times. The train was two hours late and by then my head felt like someone had driven a railroad spike into it, I felt both clumsy and jittery at the same time but he said I was pretty.
We've been together seven years and we like eachother's company. He's fun. When he's gone it feels like my left eye has decided to go wandering off; I can get along without him but I don't prefer it. His presence is an essential part of my life. I know he'll have fun, and he'll be back in eight days, and I'm a terrible worry-wort but I won't bore you with the level of stress I feel about him being so far away from home. There's this dull ache between my heart and my throat from having slept without him last night.
Anyway I kissed him and left before the train left the station; couldn't stand there and watch him board the coach because my eyes felt all funny and my voice wouldn't work and I must be hypersensitive because of the moon or something. My head was pounding, too, and I think it must have bordered on migraine because I felt like I was going to yack all over the train platform.
Drove home feeling left behind and ill and there in my backyard were D and CC and CC's big damn wolf; they had hiked and hitch-hiked from the coast carrying all their camping gear and about 100 pounds of food, headed for the Cascades north of the hot springs. I really didn't feel like being a hostess but am comfortable enough with D, who lived in the basement at the coffeehouse & who is now a certifiable gypsy, to not put on a great display of inviting them to dinner. Which they didn't really want, anyway; what they wanted was a ride to the other side of Springtucky because they couldn't carry all their gear easily, and couldn't take the 150 pound-biggest-wolf-dog-I've-ever-seen on the bus. His back comes to just above the point of my hip. If I straddled his back like a horse my feet would not touch the ground. It's a good thing he's so mellow. I felt ill and didn't feel much like driving more but what can you do? They're sweet kids and he helped us a lot with the coffeehouse.
Drove them feeling left behind and ill the half-hour trip through Eugene and Springfield to a grassy patch of land next to Hwy 126 before it heads into the hills, where D assured me they would get a ride from someone going home from work, and if not he knew a fellow just half a mile up the road where they could camp the night. I hugged them all, even stinky wolf, and told them to come see me on their way back to the coast in two weeks.
Drove home again with the setting sun making retina burns and wondered what to eat for dinner, since it was 7:45 by the time I got back home and I had promised JJ just that morning (was it that morning we had coffee? felt like last week) that I would come see her & Tebone & the band play at the coffeehouse/bar that I can't really stand. Called my Mom to tell her S was on his way, jumped in the shower, which greatly relieved my headache, fed dogs and cats and ate a banana, jumped in the car and headed for town.
Friday night beers to consume, friends ready to enjoy the music, the opening act was quite good with guitar and harmonica and tall thin Jon offered to buy me a drink, so I said okay. I sat next to the lovely dark-eyed JJ who had on Nancy Sinatra boots if ever there were. She talked about how bored she was at work the other day, and that she was looking up the word "grasshopper" because that's the name of the band, and on the third page of related links she came across call me sahalie. My immediate reaction was, "How cool," and then "Uh-oh what have I written," but she had already read it all and there's no use crying over spilt milk. We talked about it and I only hope it doesn't change things. In this silly little on-line journal I have going here I enjoy a certain level of anonymity, which lets me vent without censoring myself to the point of saying something I don't really mean to say. I like to shoot, and I really like to hit the target. No ricochets, please.
Yes JJ you have a sweet Texas drawl. Not a twang, which is the glottal wide open and sounds like the letter h falling all over the vowels, but a soft mesmerizing western drawl that, from a linguistical point of view, involves your pattern of speech more than the position of your lips, or your tongue in your mouth. And you do make some vowels softer and longer than those of us from the left coast, who grew up with Dutch moms from Chicago.
But where was I? Ah yes, kitty cat friends.
Grasshopper took the stage & Tebone said he had been told to talk more about the songs being played. He explained how his song "Kitty cat friends" was written about these two cats he was living with, that it's kind of nonsensical but he started playing it at parties and people liked it. And here's how poetry and song lyrics take on a life of their own, because S & I had discussed the difference between "kitty cat friends" and regular friends. "Oh, my, kitty cat friends, I hope it never ends..."
They played their full repertoire, and JJ really loosened up and started belting songs out about halfway through the show. I had taken a seat right in front of her and delighted in her sweet rich voice that washed over me like rain. It felt... cathartic. It made me forget about S on his shiny silver train winding through the Cascades under a waning moon, headed south along the same route as the geese fly. He called me this morning from the station in Martinez and told me he loves me, and he had slept on a bench that are designed so you can't sleep on them in the observation car for maybe three hours. He is probably sleeping now in my old bed at my parents' house.
I pray the rest of his journey is safe and comfortable.
I pray D and CC & the wolf find where they are going.
I pray JJ and Tebone know they are my kitty cat friends, and I hope it never ends. It is real.
Work flew by like most Fridays do, and I had requested to leave two hours early so as to spend time with S before he got on that long silver train. I think we each said, "I'll miss you" about ten times. The train was two hours late and by then my head felt like someone had driven a railroad spike into it, I felt both clumsy and jittery at the same time but he said I was pretty.
We've been together seven years and we like eachother's company. He's fun. When he's gone it feels like my left eye has decided to go wandering off; I can get along without him but I don't prefer it. His presence is an essential part of my life. I know he'll have fun, and he'll be back in eight days, and I'm a terrible worry-wort but I won't bore you with the level of stress I feel about him being so far away from home. There's this dull ache between my heart and my throat from having slept without him last night.
Anyway I kissed him and left before the train left the station; couldn't stand there and watch him board the coach because my eyes felt all funny and my voice wouldn't work and I must be hypersensitive because of the moon or something. My head was pounding, too, and I think it must have bordered on migraine because I felt like I was going to yack all over the train platform.
Drove home feeling left behind and ill and there in my backyard were D and CC and CC's big damn wolf; they had hiked and hitch-hiked from the coast carrying all their camping gear and about 100 pounds of food, headed for the Cascades north of the hot springs. I really didn't feel like being a hostess but am comfortable enough with D, who lived in the basement at the coffeehouse & who is now a certifiable gypsy, to not put on a great display of inviting them to dinner. Which they didn't really want, anyway; what they wanted was a ride to the other side of Springtucky because they couldn't carry all their gear easily, and couldn't take the 150 pound-biggest-wolf-dog-I've-ever-seen on the bus. His back comes to just above the point of my hip. If I straddled his back like a horse my feet would not touch the ground. It's a good thing he's so mellow. I felt ill and didn't feel much like driving more but what can you do? They're sweet kids and he helped us a lot with the coffeehouse.
Drove them feeling left behind and ill the half-hour trip through Eugene and Springfield to a grassy patch of land next to Hwy 126 before it heads into the hills, where D assured me they would get a ride from someone going home from work, and if not he knew a fellow just half a mile up the road where they could camp the night. I hugged them all, even stinky wolf, and told them to come see me on their way back to the coast in two weeks.
Drove home again with the setting sun making retina burns and wondered what to eat for dinner, since it was 7:45 by the time I got back home and I had promised JJ just that morning (was it that morning we had coffee? felt like last week) that I would come see her & Tebone & the band play at the coffeehouse/bar that I can't really stand. Called my Mom to tell her S was on his way, jumped in the shower, which greatly relieved my headache, fed dogs and cats and ate a banana, jumped in the car and headed for town.
Friday night beers to consume, friends ready to enjoy the music, the opening act was quite good with guitar and harmonica and tall thin Jon offered to buy me a drink, so I said okay. I sat next to the lovely dark-eyed JJ who had on Nancy Sinatra boots if ever there were. She talked about how bored she was at work the other day, and that she was looking up the word "grasshopper" because that's the name of the band, and on the third page of related links she came across call me sahalie. My immediate reaction was, "How cool," and then "Uh-oh what have I written," but she had already read it all and there's no use crying over spilt milk. We talked about it and I only hope it doesn't change things. In this silly little on-line journal I have going here I enjoy a certain level of anonymity, which lets me vent without censoring myself to the point of saying something I don't really mean to say. I like to shoot, and I really like to hit the target. No ricochets, please.
Yes JJ you have a sweet Texas drawl. Not a twang, which is the glottal wide open and sounds like the letter h falling all over the vowels, but a soft mesmerizing western drawl that, from a linguistical point of view, involves your pattern of speech more than the position of your lips, or your tongue in your mouth. And you do make some vowels softer and longer than those of us from the left coast, who grew up with Dutch moms from Chicago.
But where was I? Ah yes, kitty cat friends.
Grasshopper took the stage & Tebone said he had been told to talk more about the songs being played. He explained how his song "Kitty cat friends" was written about these two cats he was living with, that it's kind of nonsensical but he started playing it at parties and people liked it. And here's how poetry and song lyrics take on a life of their own, because S & I had discussed the difference between "kitty cat friends" and regular friends. "Oh, my, kitty cat friends, I hope it never ends..."
They played their full repertoire, and JJ really loosened up and started belting songs out about halfway through the show. I had taken a seat right in front of her and delighted in her sweet rich voice that washed over me like rain. It felt... cathartic. It made me forget about S on his shiny silver train winding through the Cascades under a waning moon, headed south along the same route as the geese fly. He called me this morning from the station in Martinez and told me he loves me, and he had slept on a bench that are designed so you can't sleep on them in the observation car for maybe three hours. He is probably sleeping now in my old bed at my parents' house.
I pray the rest of his journey is safe and comfortable.
I pray D and CC & the wolf find where they are going.
I pray JJ and Tebone know they are my kitty cat friends, and I hope it never ends. It is real.
<< Home