F**ck you very much.

John Cusack, you have a lot to answer for. I know everyone born between 1968 and 1978 has already taken you to task for this, but I just have to say it, too. Rob Gordon? Lane Meyer? Lloyd FUCKING Dobler? Do you realize how utterly you've ruined the women of my generation? Of course you do, because people keep telling you. People like Chuck Klosterman, whose book I opened mere hours after obsessively watching the special features for High Fidelity for the gazillionth time. People like my girlfriends, and all the men who regretfully shake their heads when picking up my girlfriends, saying, "I could NEVER imagine being able to live up to your image of Lloyd Dobler!" No one can live up to your particular brand of romantically flawed self-awareness. NOBODY WANTS TO TRY. So, thanks. Thanks a whole parking lot.

And you. Yeah, Klosterman, I'm talking to you. Did you have to go and out us? Because we are the sort of cynical girls who would rather keep that stuff on the d.l. We know. We get that you are intimidated by our understandable attraction to the sensitive slacker that is Mr. Cusack. Would you rather be intimidated by our mystifying attraction to, say, the androgynous King of the Goblins, as played by David Bowie? Isn't that a little lowering? He wears incomprehensible make-up! He wears very, very tight leather jodhpurs! HE'S A GOBLIN KING. There, now you've made me shout for the second time in a single blog post. Happy?

While we're on the subject - Elvis Costello. Umm, Alison? Veronica? You were the only fucking rock and roll star who ever made me want to change my name. You made it acceptable for mildly attractive and completely nerdy guys to go for girls who are patently out of their league. You know the type - you and Mr. Cusack up there conspired to create them, practically- the dangerously smart, stylish girls with careful, messy hair and giant shoulder bags instead of purses, full of Maybelline Great Lash in blackest black and mix tapes featuring Tokyo Storm Warning and You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Yes, you're sneaky enough to pass on your own music and that of Bob Dylan). Girls who sport quirky teeshirts and India cotton skirts and 21 hole Doc Martins. Girls who quote the Simpsons and Kant in equal measure. My point being, us mildly attractive and completely nerdy girls who were once in those guys' league are suddenly beneath them, and it's because of you. And John Cusack. And the guy who invented the tape recorder.


THIS, my friends, is why I only listen to rockabilly anymore.

Adding a new thing to my list

This is no mere "Let me tell you why California Girls is a great freakin' rock and roll song" kind of love. This is true love, deep-seated, soul-mate Harlequin romance love. It's the way I want to kiss certain boys, even if they're the wrong ones. The new love of my life is:


Sea salt caramels. It's as if some crafty and magnanimous chocolatier attempted to create something that would cause me to marry him immediately (if only this would happen!). Hmm, the chocolatier says to himself. She loves caramel, and bittersweet chocolate, but that is by far too prosaic. What would lift this into the realm of the sublime, thereby securing her heart? Large grains of gray sea salt! Little did my candyman know it would make me want to marry the candy, and not the maker.

And also, who decided that a maraca was a good shape for a tea infuser? I just bought this one, and it is a case of unnecessary improvement. I have for years used a wire mesh tea strainer with a chain. It is nearly indestructible, holds a respectable amount of tea, and is easy to open and close. When I was using my birthday gift card today, saw the tea maraca, and thought to myself, why the heck not? It's pleasantly shaped. I sort of want to shake it! The thing is, though, that the polycarbonate makes it buoyant in a way my mesh one never is, it's kind of hard to open, and you have to grip the drippy part to empty it. Not to mention, if you shake it like you want to , you run the risk of boiling hot water everywhere. Even at $10, it is three times as expensive as replacing my mesh one, which I have only in my life replaced twice, once because my 10-year-old, who was a baby, broke the hinge. I'll drop it in the drawer, and I'll probably bring it out every once and a bit, if I can't find my other one, or if I'm feeling a little masochistic, but eh. I love this CONSIDERABLY less than my most perfect of confections, the sea salt caramel.

Just a list

Here is a partial list of things I'm not ashamed to love. Please note, these are not things which carry no inherent shame. These are the things that other people look askance at you to ask,"You love that? I mean, I understand enjoying it, but love? Strong words, mate." I love them. You have to live with it.

Tuna fish sandwiches
The Beach Boys, even all the not-Pet Sounds stuff
Disney movies
Showtunes
Costumes
Renaissance Faires
Socks with goofy pictures on them
Pangolins
board games, especially Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit
Soda in glass bottles
Fresh boxes of crayons
Short stories
National Geographic Magazine
Zoos
Aquariums
Natural History Museums
Not-scary carnival rides
Squished pennies
Flavored lipgloss
Hedgehogs (okay, who doesn't love a hedgehog?)
Vintage taffeta slips with zippers

Add your own in the comments. It's fun!

A few thoughts on celebrity

So my current favorite thing to do in the whole world right now is this: Find an awesome song (the Buddy Holly version of Ready Teddy tonight; the Dusty 45's Bumblebee is running a close second. The new live version), strap on my purple acoustic bass, and jump around pretending I'm actually playing along instead of barely hanging onto the root chords. I like to shake really hard while I'm doing it, although in real life this makes it impossible to play. If I can manage to hang onto the harmony at the same time, so much the better. It wasn't until about an hour ago that I realized that this is not a common behavior. I mean, not the bass-playing even, so much, but the sheer abandon. I am a talker-to-myself, a singer-along, a take-a-bow-after-a-shower air guitarist type. I do it all the time, and I just figured that everybody was that way. HUH-UH. Nope. As a matter of fact, the part where I use music as my own personal pharmacy to bring me up or calm me down, or make me feel sexy or put me to sleep - did you know there are people who don't do that? It baffles me.

Which brings me to my real point. I am in a conundrum concerning the band. I want more all the time. More stage time, more space, more adulation, more applause. I want more eyes on me. Being on stage is the biggest high I know right now. And I take for granted that everybody feels that way. But the thing is, I had a talk the other day with a near and dear and she mentioned that when we were on the stage, the light seemed blindingly bright, that it was almost disorienting. I was stunned; she hated it!I live to find my light. How do I split the difference between what I want - gigging out every weekend or at least once a month, a bigger store of knowledge concerning this whole inclusive thing, the equipment and the history and the heart behind it - and what everyone else wants? How do I keep being a performer in a sea of musicians?

Anyhow, peeps, more cheering and raving. I adore it.



And for good luck, a gratuitous picture of my kids, who while one day sing my back-up.

Come and gone...

Once again the Stardust Ball has come and gone. The Rockabilly Circus was what one might term a success, if one were possessed of the habit of rating every experience meticulously. I would be lying if I said I was not one of those people. The truth is, I am cursed with the desire to relive and debrief every moment endlessly, much to the exhaustion of my friends. In any case, while I feel we could have amped the energy just a notch, we did respectably, and I got some heartwarming praise from a few people whose opinions I treasure. So there you are.

As everyone knows, it was also my birthday, and that made for an interesting evening. I got cake and kisses, as well as some marvelous presents. Princess Japonski went out of her way to make this a birthday worth something, and she outdid herself. First and foremost, flying cross country for three nights of debauched tomfoolery with her favorite rockstars, and some imported rockstars, was above and beyond the call of duty. Then she provided champagne and cake, style advice and many soothing words of encouragement, and a Johnny Cash DVD. Clearly, they broke the mold when they made her.

I have thanks to offer everyone who worked so hard to make these few days so astounding, including my mom and my ex (may he never get another mention in these pages) who made sure Miss Thing and Cap'n Jack were fed and clothed and kept out of traffic. Also every fan who turned up after the relentless barrage of promotion I subjected you all to. And the person who donated the coach for the stage, complete with skelly driver. And to my friends, who always know just what I want and how to bring it. And to the Dusty 45's, for being talented and handsome and accommodating, even if I may not let Billy stand on my bass again. And of course to my band, without whom the magic just could not happen.



Now I get to do it all again, without the bourbon, because it's Bea's birthday. There will be more pink things, if only marginally, and fewer people in costume, f only marginally, but I expect it will have the same general flavor of mayhem, because, after all, she is my very own.

Another post about my hair.

I have been meaning to do this to my hair since July, when I was in New York. But I'm a wimp. I've had the bleach since August, and the color for about three weeks now. I just managed it last night. And it's sort of anticlimactic, which frankly is the story of my life. It's a little pinker than it appears in these pics, but not by much. I was too scared to bleach it the way it needed. Next time.

I am further along on the costumes than I thought I was going to be. Miss Thing's is in fact nearly complete, but I don't have pictures because I have come to hate my mother's digital camera and have done nothing to replace it with one of my own. My own costume is perhaps 65% wearable, and 48% complete (it needs tons of embellishment). I really should stop messing about on the net and go do that right now...

By the way, I'm on the phone with Princess Japonski in these pictures.

Happy Birthday!

Okay, so Princess Japonski actually had her birthday several days ago. Two and a half weeks ago, to be precise, which puts us squarely in the no-man's land in between her natal celebration and my own. I have been waiting a long time (more than two weeks) to write this post, because for some reason, the USPS decided to take its own sweet time delivering the present I slaved over for her. Finally, she got it, and finally, she opened it, and so FINALLY I can show you all what she has that the rest of you (well, except for one) do not. I am happy to introduce to you, that unmistakable icon of Christ's love for man personified through the Catholic Church, The Sacred Heart of our Savior, Jesus:



And the beaded representation of His blood, and the thorns that show the weary pain of mortal existence (as represented by some metallic embroidery thread):



I jest, perhaps securing my bunk in the Dormitory of Eternal Torment, but it was really meant in respect. And because, truthfully, who hasn't want to make the Son more approachable and human by cuddlifying His iconography?

I did make her something else, but I'll let her relate that story. You can pursue the rest of this story over at Letters to Bea.