Tag: this music is the glue of the world

Free & Fine

On By BekkiIn Musings & Ramblings1 Comment

I’ve more or less gotten to the point where time zone shifts don’t bother me.  Another week, another city. I tell myself where and when I am and hold to it. Flying to the East Coast and back every few weeks isn’t crazy; it’s what I do.

It didn’t occur to me until after the fact that I might have hit my limit last week.

***

I planned to go to New York the week of the 10th for some much needed face time with my team. Passover was on Monday, though, which meant I’d fly in Tuesday and leave Saturday. Easy.

The day after I bought my ticket, plans changed – I had to be in Dallas on Wednesday the 12th for an all day meeting.  Less easy, but manageable. I changed flights around, flying into Dallas Tuesday and New York Wednesday evening.

Friday of that week, plans changed again – I now had to be in DC for a meeting on Wednesday the 19th. Any other weekend I’d have stayed on the East Coast. Easter and Christmas are the two holidays that firmly belong to my psuedo-sister, though, and while she’d have forgiven me if I missed it, I wouldn’t have. So I changed my Saturday evening flight home to a morning flight (to maximize Z time over the weekend) and booked an in-Tuesday out-Wednesday trip to D.C.

Monday the 17th, our Wednesday meeting got moved to afternoon, late enough that I’d miss the last flight out of both National and Dulles Wednesday evening and would have to fly home Thursday.

***

After a while, pretty much anything acclimates to normal. I expect the last minute travel, the meetings that change times and dates half a dozen times. I never plan on taking the flight home that I booked – I’m almost always catching something earlier or later. So while I was a bit frustrated by the time I got on the plane to D.C., it was mostly because I had very much wanted to come home Wednesday night.

It was when my paralegals emailed me a simple question Thursday afternoon, and I replied that I’d been through four cities and five time zones in the last 10 days and could they PLEASE JUST HANDLE IT WITHOUT ME, that the full force of how insane the prior two weeks had been came crashing down on me.

***

I fell into How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful on the plane ride home from D.C. Headphones on and the album on repeat, wondering how I’d waited so damn long to listen to it. Except that the music always finds me when I need it.  This one wouldn’t have resonated the way it does now if I’d listened to it when it came out two years ago. I’m still breathing it in, letting it play over and through me, waiting to get to the point where it’s inked into my memory.

***

Lately, I’ve been trying to make more time for connections.  Looking at where I am in the world and who’s nearby. Reaching out to one or two people in a city rather than doing the blast email trying to see everyone and failing thing. I’m happier for it, seeing and talking to the people I want to spend time with.

February is Letter Month, and I always mean to do it then never do. Too much time on planes, on hikes with Z, juggling bedtime and dishes and laundry and the jungle-that-is-our-yard. I miss it, though, miss the quiet silence of ink and paper, miss the tangled rush of thoughts into sentences. I miss the summer my best friend and I spent writing to each other, miss the long notes I used to write, the ones that rambled and meandered.

So. If you’d like a letter, let me know in the comments or by text or whatever.

This Music is the Glue of the World*

On By BekkiIn Pinned Posts, This is FeminismLeave a comment

It’s been a rough year on music. Every time I hear of another death I think that it has to be the last one for the year, that the universe or God or the FSM isn’t cruel enough to let it keep going on. And yet. A friend of my optimistically said that perhaps this leaves room for the talent of our generation to shine brighter.  Continue reading “This Music is the Glue of the World*” →

The Monday Review

On By BekkiIn The Weekly Review3 Comments

1. This.

2. 2106 5, A&B 0.  So far, 2016 has pretty much kicked our asses.  A’s mystery bug was finally diagnosed as post-infectious gastritis, which is a fancy way of saying he got food poisoning so bad it seriously messed up his GI tract.  We’ve had the plumber out twice so far, once for a leak that had water cascading into the basement and once because the garbage disposal backed up into the bathtub. The roof needs to be replaced when the rain stops. The garage door broke, and because there’s no other entrance we had to call a repair company to get us in. So if I’m not managing to blog as regularly as usual, it’s probably because we’ve had another crazy week.

3. I’m making the Facebook hiatus semi-permanent. About a month ago, I uninstalled the app from my phone. I’ll admit, it made me a little twitchy at first. I’d gotten used to having those dopamine pings, in the form  of the constantly scrolling news feed. But when it comes down to it, there’s very little of substance in my feed. Back in the days of the 140 character limit, people posted less, and posted more meaningfully.  Now, it’s largely click-bait and life events.  So I log on every couple of days, to catch up on photos and announcements – and thanks to Facebook’s algorithms, they’re almost always at the top – make a few comments, like a few photos, and log off.

4. Austerity month. After seeing the credit card spend for December and January, A and I decided to make February “austerity month.” Our goal is not to go crazy with not spending money, but to hold off on the impulse buys that always end up adding up at the end of the month. Like the Target runs that somehow top $100, or the never-ending Amazon cart. Of course, given the spend on house repair and maintenance this month, it’s looking like we may be trying for an austerity quarter. What I’ve found interesting is that this has made me very aware of all the things I want but don’t really need, like new shades for the ceiling fixture in the office, or a laptop/camera bag, or another pair of sunglasses.

5. This is what Valentine’s Day looks like when you have a toddler. A and I dropped Z with the sister after her nap on Saturday and went to go see Zoolander. In a theatre. With actual other people. Then we came home and promptly fell into bed. Sunday morning we slept in. Until 7 am! We went to IHOP for breakfast, looked at the calorie count next to all the dishes, and split a breakfast sampler. Then we yard-worked for a few hours. The rest of the day was pretty much spent sitting on the couch.

Closing Tabs

An exploration of the rise and fall of waterbeds.

OK Go’s new video takes place in an S7 airplane, in zero-g, and it is every bit as cool as it sounds.

I bookmarked this article on parenting a toddler awhile ago, and recently found it while cleaning out my bookmarks. The advice in here is spot on, at least for my kid, and I’ve found that turning things into games or “contests” has made life easier for both of us.

I’m seriously thinking about going to this writer’s retreat. It’s short, it’s nearby, and it’s fairly affordable.  Bay Area writer friends, any interest?