I sat down at my desk last Wednesday morning, tired, sore, and frazzled from sleeping through my alarm and having to rush out the door. The familiar sounds of my daily life made their way back into my brain and I became kind of sad. I was glad to be home, as I always am, [...]]]>

I sat down at my desk last Wednesday morning, tired, sore, and frazzled from sleeping through my alarm and having to rush out the door. The familiar sounds of my daily life made their way back into my brain and I became kind of sad. I was glad to be home, as I always am, particularly because my back could not sustain another night in our discount motel room bed. But having spent so many days in a row with some of my favorite people on the planet made settling back into the normal groove of things difficult.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend for the music festival and its related events that we attend every year.

Probably only the folks who have at least a passing interest in the music featured will care about my evaluation, but those of you who don’t might appreciate a glimpse into the subculture where I spend part of my time.

To sum it up: Nothing gold can stay. I don’t think anyone really believes that the accidental beauty of the first few years of the festival could ever last and I don’t think anyone is opposed to change, but there’s a difference between changing and blatantly going down the quickest path to the most possible money, all while spewing empty platitudes about “internationalism.” If the only way to have a festival every year is to churn out such nonsense, then it’s best to let it die gracefully before it’s too late.

People like me and my husband and many of our friends got into dance music in various ways. At the time that we all met, the best way to hear dance music in all of its genres was at raves, which at the time (the late 90s) were already past their prime. Occasionally, there was an all-ages night at a club, but those were never that great. Whatever half-hearted interest that I had in the culture of raving was pretty much gone after about a year and a half of going to them. I liked staying out all night, I liked dancing, I liked hanging out with my friends. I didn’t care for the pseudo-infantile behavior that began to dominate the culture. But, and I still maintain this viewpoint today, just because I think something is dumb, it’s not hurting anyone, so you go ahead and cuddle your teddy bear and suck on lollipops, even though I’m pretty sure I just saw a grey hair on your head.

Music and culture changes and out of the quintessentially 90s and neon versions of house and techno and the like, a new version emerged. One that was more grown-up, deeper. Baby-making music, if you will. Or perhaps just a mature and refined iteration of what came before it. There was no particular culture attached to it. Adults who still preferred to dress like Rainbow Brite were welcome to attend clubs where this kind of music was played, though the spectacle of, “Look at me! I’m shiny and glittery and dancing with glow sticks! LOOK AT ME!” had definitely been replaced by a feeling of letting only the music be the focal point, allowing listeners to truly lose themselves in it and dance and be free. Letting go of the ego and letting the id rule for a bit, if I may draw on my Psychology 101 class from 1999 (gulp).

Going to the festival for the first time was a revelation. Here we were, outside, in the daylight, surrounded not only by people from all over the country and the world who had emerged from rave culture into the same general moment in dance music, but by families and “regular joes” from Detroit, by raver kids whose devotion to moments of a technicolor existence was almost endearing, by musicians of various levels of fame and infamy. Through the awkward adolescence of raves, we had grown up and were comfortable listening to the weird, the deep, the soulful, the rambunctious, the political, the luscious beats of a generation of people, no matter what their age, who were finally comfortable in declaring, “This is the music that I like. This is the music that helps me to define who I am. This is the music that I hear at my most joyful and my most desperate. This is the music that will be played at my wedding, at the births of my children, at my funeral. This is the music that will be played in my next life.”

I had a transformative moment in 2005 when some of the Underground Resistance guys closed the festival on the main stage. They played “Transition,” while images of people like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Albert Einstein flashed behind them. The crowd of thousands around me melted away and I was alone when I heard the lyrics, “Point yourself in the direction of your dreams…and make your transition.” From that day on, I did, freed from the notion that I needed to worry about the uninformed and frightened opinions of people who would dismiss this music as silly and scoff at my inspiration.

Transition or not, my annual trek back has changed a bit each year. The cost of admission goes up, a necessary evil that we’re told is the only thing keeping the festival going year after year. A cost we’ve been happy to pay to support the work of the people from that city who have helped so many people figure out their lives through music. Something else changed, too, though. Artists from Detroit are bumped from better time slots and given lesser areas to play in favor of their more European counterparts, those who make and play the same music that got old 15 years ago, the music that is almost rhetorically composed for the Rainbow Brite crew who fork over $60 for the opportunity to feel like they’re getting away with something. They parade in front of each other, eager for reactions, armed with an arsenal of camera-ready poses, dying for that first moment when someone points and finally, finally notices them. In the background, the music could be Carl Craig or it could be Linda Ronstadt. They would scarcely notice the difference. They pay good money and lots of it for admission and shirts and blinky, shiny things that vendors sell because they know an opportunity when they see it.

This year, nearly all of the Detroit artists were shuffled unceremoniously to an underground stage that, despite the organizer’s best efforts, still sounded like listening to an off-balanced washing machine while nursing an earache. The glittering kids danced outside, in the sunlight, to tracks that they couldn’t name to save their lives, that could very well all be the same record or mp3 for all they know. They formed dance circles, breaking up whatever collective energy had been present on the dancefloor, so that they could stand and watch one person dance. If that isn’t the saddest goddamned thing ever, I don’t know what is.

Again, they are welcome to. I am happy to share that experience with anyone. But I didn’t feel like I was in a position of sharing this year. I felt like I was stuffed in a basement while the higher bidders enjoyed what used to be our moment in the sun.

I don’t want to focus entirely on the negative. We did hear some good music at the festival and even more at the after parties that we attended. The husband has a good round-up of the music that we saw/heard/got down to while we were there. Not surprisingly, his criticism of the unprofessional and/or just plain shitty aspects of the festival management are drawing ire. The organizers had previously agreed to sit down with him for an interview, but later recanted. I, however, as a professional writer, offer up my tape recorder for any statements that they want to make. If people like us, a numerical minority, who are genuinely passionate about the music and the experience of it, are no longer important, dropped in favor of the wealthy and serotonically tweaked, then just say so and we’ll stop bugging you with all of our demands for care and quality and respect.

Sigh.

Aside from the fact that, last Wednesday morning, I pried my eyes open and stared, confused, at the numbers on my alarm clock which read “7:55″ aka The Time at Which We Should Be at the School Bus Stop Holy Crap You’re Late as Hell O’Clock, getting back into all of the aspects of life seems to be increasingly difficult every year. Only this past Monday did I cook a meal and pack my lunch. Over the weekend, I got most of the laundry done (but not all of it). There are still several bags of random travel things gathering dust in our entryway. And I still poke around my office, unsure of what I normally do during the hours of 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. I’ll figure it out eventually.

He doesn’t have asthma, but his lungs seem to be especially prone to congestion and nastiness whenever he gets a cold.

Saturday he seemed to be sniffling more than usual (we’re all kind of [...]]]> My poor kiddo was sick over the weekend. Indeed, his ailments on Mother’s Day got a little worse before they got better.

He doesn’t have asthma, but his lungs seem to be especially prone to congestion and nastiness whenever he gets a cold.

Saturday he seemed to be sniffling more than usual (we’re all kind of drippy this time of year) and that night he was wheezy and miserable. We sent him to bed and in the morning he didn’t seem to have improved much. He slept most of the day while I pushed fluids and Tylenol, which didn’t seem to help.

We made him eat some dinner and get a long, hot shower before putting him to bed.

Aside: a few weeks ago, he had a stomach virus that thankfully didn’t last too long. We picked him up from school and on the drive home instructed him to let us know if things were starting to go downhill. Close to our house, he suddenly announced, “Things are going downhill!” and then successfully barfed out of the window as we sped home. It was hilarious and cute and kind of pathetic all at the same time.

Anyway, Sunday night, things started going downhill again. From downstairs, I could hear him saying something like, “Mum!” I went up and asked him if he was okay and…well…he began speaking in tongues.

“Mum. Mum. Muuuuummmm. Murrrrmmmm. Maaaaa. Maaaaaaa.”

“I’m here, buddy. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Yeeeehhhh. Yeaaaahhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhh. Yeeeeeee,” he replied, in a growl.

“Buddy, wake up. What’s wrong?”

“Caaaaaa. Caaaaaa. Caaaaaa. Cuurrrrrrppp.”

Well, shit. That’s never a good sign, is it? I could tell that he was not fully awake but it still freaked me out, so I called for the husband, trying to figure out the best way to inform someone that their son is possessed.

The husband came upstairs, still chatting on his cell phone to a friend, but abruptly ended his conversation when he got to hear some of the baby’s demonic freestyling. “Uh, my son is…ill. I’ll talk to you later.”

We got him out of bed and he started to seem slightly more…of this realm, especially when he informed us that he had wet the bed. We peppered him with questions and he still seemed mostly out of it, saying stuff like, “I don’t like life,” and his breathing was still not great. I declared that we needed to go to the hospital, worried that perhaps he was having serious trouble breathing while laying down, which could have caused the Regan performance.

The husband wanted to cool him down first in the shower, since he seemed to be running a fever. I scurried off to get dressed. However, once the baby was in the shower, the cool water snapped him out of whatever half-sleep he had been in and he started making way more sense.

The husband told me that the baby seemed okay at that point, just a victim of fever-induced nightmares, and that we should just sit up with him for a little bit and then decide if we should continue on to the hospital. I stood in the baby’s room wearing nothing but a bra and some pajama pants and, in that get-up, had the audacity to peer at him cautiously and make decisions about his sanity and well-being.

We let him watch Treme with us and I pulled him into my lap so that I could pat his back. The husband watched us and laughed at the sight of our 8-year-old curled up on my shoulder. “He’s too big, Kel!” he chuckled. Never!

Despite making a dramatic improvement overnight, we took him to the doctor yesterday anyway. The doc commended me on my detailed chronology of his illness. I did not get a sticker. Harsh. However, I didn’t think my account was all that stellar. What must other people do? Plop their kid on the butcher paper, point, and say, “It’s broken?”

The baby politely asked the nurse, “Will there be shots involved?” He was relieved that there weren’t but became slightly alarmed when the doctor prescribed him a steroid for his condition, especially since we had just been talking about Barry Bonds a few nights prior.

“Steroids?” he asked, perhaps worried that he might get kicked out of Little League for juicing. And, besides, heads run big in our family. His small frame can’t support domes of the Bonds or McGwire variety

“Yes, but not the kind that make you…” the doc paused, and curled his arms to flex his muscles.

We were sent home with our prescriptions, which included breathing treatments. We had been through the nebulizer routine once before, a few years ago, when he had persistent congestion. We used to jokingly refer to it as huffing gas. “Okay, kiddo, time to huff gas!” I bet his teachers love all of the colorful phrases that he adds to the elementary school lexicon.

This morning he returned to school and I reported to the husband, “I gave him his steroids and he huffed gas. He’s all set for the day.”

So what’s been going on with me? Eh, a lot and not much, know what I mean? I’ve been really busy at work, aside from being doubled over and groaning. The baby had his first [...]]]> That’s me at my desk. I’ve been in this position most of the day because I have this really annoying stomachache.

So what’s been going on with me? Eh, a lot and not much, know what I mean? I’ve been really busy at work, aside from being doubled over and groaning. The baby had his first Little League game last Saturday, which followed their annual parade down our main street to the ball field.

We went to Art All Night on Saturday because the baby had submitted a painting.

There he is with his masterpiece, an untitled work inspired by Nintendo.

Art All Night was at the old Iron City Brewery, which was a very cool space. On our way out, I spotted this door with a partially ripped Iron City Beer sign and wanted to take a picture of it. However, I was carrying my purse, a couple Vitamin Waters, and a serving of tiramisu, so the first few pictures look like this:

But eventually I got it.

If this was a good picture, I would muse about just how utterly post-industrial it is, what with another Pittsburgh industry having to vacate the city, leaving behind scraps of their brand and loyalty.

Instead it’s like, “Hey, look at this glaring flash that I took with my left hand on my point-and-shoot! Beer!”

We saw about 500 people that we know there

Couch to 5K has been going really well. I did my first 20 minute run the other day, which was a little over a mile and a half in distance.

The sister-in-law and her boyfriend were in town last week while she had her wisdom teeth removed. After her chewing abilities were back up to par, we went to Green Forest Cafe which was utterly ridiculous and delicious. Although I wonder if this stomachache is a delayed reaction to all that meat that I ate.

The husband is working on two big events this weekend: an all-night house party tonight and Rick Wade on Saturday. I don’t know if I’m going tonight because the baby has a baseball game at noon on Saturday and my staying-up-all-night allowance is running dangerously low since our whirlwind trip to D.C. a few weeks ago. But if you’re looking for some fun stuff to do in Pittsburgh this weekend, consider checking those out.

I don’t know if I’m actually in one of those periods right now, or if the reality of the situation is just [...]]]> I seem to go through really sensitive or empathic periods when stuff that other people are experiencing really hits me in the gut and I feel as though I’m right in it with them.

I don’t know if I’m actually in one of those periods right now, or if the reality of the situation is just too sad not to feel, but califmom’s husband died yesterday and it’s been affecting me a lot.

Leah and Bob’s struggle with Bob’s cancer is pretty well documented on her site. Over the past few weeks, it became clear that Bob’s chances of surviving much longer were growing slimmer and slimmer. Leah not only had to brace herself and her children for her husband’s death but had to think about how to live life without him after being with him for 21 years. In a recent entry, Leah wondered how she would do everything without him:

“And now, I have to figure out how to do this without him –without the other part of me.

Without my We.”

Yesterday, Leah quietly posted the words, “He’s gone,” to Twitter. I expressed my condolences, as adequately as one can do over such a silly medium, and immediately went upstairs and snuggled back in bed with my husband, who was still sleeping.

The husband is my companion through and through. For nearly 10 years, he’s been my buddy, my confidant, my lover, the father of my child. There are very few things in the world that I want to experience without him and every night, when I get to be next to him, and fall asleep, I get to feel safe and secure and like everything will be alright…at least for the next few hours while I’m dreaming beside him.

Later, I went up to him and said, “I know you’re going to look at me funny, but the husband of a woman whose blog I read just died of cancer today.” I hugged him and added, “I just want you to know how grateful I am that you’re here.”

I know that it’s something that we’ll have to deal with someday. I just hope that we have a little bit longer than Leah and Bob did. Eleven more years with him isn’t nearly enough.

With me trying desperately to get out of the emotional k-hole that I had been in, the [...]]]> I don’t know what I think about fate and powers greater than us and whatnot. I know that the universe is not something that I can comprehend but that sometimes it seems to work for a minute or two.

With me trying desperately to get out of the emotional k-hole that I had been in, the husband suggested last week that we take a quick trip down to D.C. There were a number of things that made it the perfect time to go: I had already planned to take a day off on Friday, two DJs that we like were playing there on Friday and Saturday, and the sister-in-law’s birthday was on Sunday. Unable to come up with a decent excuse not to (and believe me, I tried, because it’s too hard to wallow in unfamiliar environments), we set off on Friday afternoon after a stop at the baby’s school for a quick good-bye and supplies for his weekend with various grandmas.

We were there for less than 48 hours, but I haven’t had that good of a weekend in awhile. All we did was stay up all night, eat amazing food, and take naps.

Friday night, not long after finally arriving at my sister-in-law’s apartment, we headed to the Warehouse Loft to see Ron Trent. The space was really cool: dark, low-key, open, and an amazing view of the city. I had had to employ the tried-and-true vodka and Red Bull elixir since I had been up since 6:30 and the event was supposed to go until 4 a.m. I was a little rowdy, but mostly just danced and goofed off and tweeted things like

and

At the bar, the SIL and I met a guy named Ezra who hadn’t purchased enough drinks to close out his tab and offered to buy us some. I immediately invited him to come to Detroit with us in May. (Note: I am easy.) This round of drinks…if I were somehow in the position of instructing a blindfolded person how to pour it, I would probably tell them, “Okay, VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODKA redbull.” The sister-in-law provided much needed commentary on my reaction to this concoction.

Classy. However, we both agreed that this was still a better performance on our part than the time we went to some art thing downtown and I exited the bathroom proudly holding a drink that I had found on the sink, which we then shared while looking at a Blackberry that the SIL had found on a chair and intended to keep.

The husband and I were somewhat dismayed to realize that D.C. isn’t really a late-night kind of town. 24-hour eateries and ATMs were kind of scarce, but we did end up at Georgetown Cafe, where we had really REALLY good food, including the best chicken shawarma on the planet.

I spent part of the next day recovering but we headed out to Ray’s Hell-Burger in Arlington upon the insistence of the sister-in-law and her boyfriend. I’ve been thinking about the burger that I had there ever since and both the husband I resolved to never eat another burger ever again unless it’s at Ray’s. Or Five Guys. This is a good resolution, I think. We don’t eat burgers often, but this should keep us down to a strict allowance.

We had a really ridiculous encounter with one of DC’s notorious motorists. Some jackhole in an SUV attempted to merge/cut us off by just basically driving into the side of our car. We yelled and when the jackhole had an opportunity later to pull up beside us, he started screaming at us and then called us white trash because we had a donut on our wheel. We were actually on our way to the AAA to get our flat tire repaired. But, that guy was probably right. That nail found its way into our tire because we’re white trash. Nice attempt at insulting us without stopping to see if it would even be offensive. The husband sometimes seems to exist in between episodes of road rage, so the situation escalated and soon other motorists were cheering us on. I begged the husband to stop, noting that we were in DC and chances were good that the dude was a gun or finance lobbyist or something and could very well shoot us and/or manufacture some kind of foreclosure on our house.

Anyway, we went out to see Theo Parrish that night at…some place…that was like an ethnic club or something? It was near a lot of Dominican hair salons. It was fun and the space was also very cool. The crowd was weird. They seemed somewhat taken aback by the stuff Theo was playing, then a bunch of people left around 4:30 a.m., leaving the grimy devotees.

Sunday we went to Lebanese Taverna. My god. Also so amazingly good.

We managed to avoid any chaos that might have been present in the city because of the looming health care reform vote. It was weird to think of us just chilling on the sidelines while this big fucking deal went down (tip o’ the hat: Biden). Health care is a sensitive issue for me. I was on Medicaid when I had the baby because that was my only option. If we hadn’t had that…I can’t even begin to think how utterly ruined we would have been. I know that it’s complicated and it goes far beyond my anecdotes. Just…let’s try not to be assholes about something that people NEED, alright?

Anyway, the trip made me feel better. And spring is helping, too. Anytime that the husband and I get a chance to be on our own, I always feel super re-connected to the dude. I’m lucky. I know.

Me and the husband, who may or may not be from Pittsburgh. I can’t tell.

“Listen – that soft, tinkling sound – like tiny, crispy shards of glass shattering on the snow.”

“You know what it is?”

“What?”

“That sound…It’s the STATIC being discharged by each snowflake because the air is so dry.”

– Blankets

One night, a few weeks ago, when the snow was still above my knees, I walked to [...]]]> It began to snow.

– Blankets

One night, a few weeks ago, when the snow was still above my knees, I walked to the corner store to get something to drink.

On the short walk home, I became so sad that when I got to my house, I had to stop at our front steps. Something was gnawing at me.

I walked around to our backyard and stared, marveling at how alien the landscape looked, white and soft but dead. I spooked the neighbor’s dog who was out for his constitutional in his yard and he began to bark frantically. His mistress popped open the screen door and squinted at me.

“I think I startled him. I’m sorry. I was just taking a look out here.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said, apparently mostly sure that I was who she thought I was. I walked back to the front of the house since I figured continuing to just stand in the back yard late at night might concern her.

It was so quiet. The only sound was the whir of a dryer vent somewhere near by, shooting Bounce-scented fumes into the night.

I turned around and looked down toward the main street and decided to lie down. The snow was high enough that I could easily sit without having to go very far. I plopped down and back and spread my arms out.

The sky was too cloudy to see the snowflakes falling from it. Instead, they appeared to materialize out of nothing a few inches above my face, narrowly dodging the steam from my nose.

I closed my eyes and listened and could hear the tinkling of the flakes crashing into one another as they landed, discharging static.

After a few minutes, I got up and went inside, back to my boys.

Perhaps I had felt it coming that night. A few days later, we got the news that the husband’s job, the one that was so perfect, the one that was going to allow us to march forward in life, had fallen through.

This little corner of mine has been quiet because I’ve been so sad. And my sadness has a way of rotting and becoming so ugly. I’ve been so nasty and doing what I can to make anyone who has the audacity to come in contact with me feel at least a little bit as bad as I do.

I know it’s not the end of the world and I know that things will get better someday. But we were right there and we were so cautious to get excited about it until we were sure that it was going to happen. And then when we were sure, or so we thought, we started making plans and getting ideas. Now we’re back where we’ve been. Static. And there’s a lot of sighing going on.