I'm temping at my old job...at the temp agency. Is that like a double negative? It's nice to be here again, although I'm at their other office today. They don't brew coffee here! What a shock that was. Last night was particularly tormentful, as I was up late feeling sorry for myself because I didn't get some summer school scholarship. (Oh wah, I'm too old for summer school, and it will never make up for the absence of Band Camp from my life anyway, try as it might.) So here I was at the crack of dawn, sans caffeine. I thought it didn't matter that much, and that I'd be fine and perhaps mellow, but I was appallingly foggy. At last, my boss showed up and, seeing the dull luster of my eyes, mentioned that there's tea. Tea! With my whole being wrapped around a strong little cup, I revelled in it's bitterness and imagined myself with fireman's blanket around my shoulders, having just been rescued.

Once in awhile, I get that email warning me about people who might approach me in a parking lot and try to get me to smell some perfume, which will in actuality be ether, at which point I will swoon into the arms of the miscreants, who will relieve me of my worldly goods. I hope that the story is false, and that this hasn't happened to anyone, but isn't there something a bit charming about the method? I mean... ether? Sounds pleasingly old-timey to me. I think it even qualifies as a caper.

Speaking of old-timey things, I went to a bar last night (Vessel, which otherwise resembled a 1980s coke mansion) where they serve a number of drinks from antique recipes, of which I highly approve. Offerings include several 19th-century concoctions such as Pimm's Cup and Morning Glory (avec absinthe!). Modern tastes aside, I think there is something intrinsically valuable about tasting something from the past. But if a stranger creeps up on you and insists that you sniff a little Shalimar or Chanel No. 5, don't do it! Unless, of course, she's a diamond-encrusted dowager.

The Techie and the Artist Should be Friends or Emily's Rodney Dangerfield Corner

A week in the den of rich young engineers. Believe me, only Seattle makes them just so. You may scoff, California, but deprive your nerds of sunlight and jack them up on coffee (fair trade organic, ground individually for each cup) and see how things go. Most of them are really nice, to be fair, but then this one guy had to lurk about me through my break and destroy any happiness I may have gained from getting a twix bar for only 10 cents. He began by prying from me the name of my chosen profession, and then, as do many people, he busted my chops about it. How do I make that work? What gives me the right to exist unless I become a famous opera star? That's not a profession, that's a hobby. The usual snidities inflicted by people in your more button-down lines of work.

I have a great deal of respect for the disciplines of science and engineering, and even for working stiffs who suffer crushing ennui for the sake of security. But it galls me when techies and insurance salesmen get up in my face about being a musician. I wouldn't dream of grilling some stranger about how he pays his bills, but people seem to feel at liberty to ask me really personal questions like that, and then treat me like some dilletante who contributes nothing to society. Do the squares really think that artists are parasites? Do they believe that security tags are more essential to human life than music? For my part, the only things that keep me rooting for Team Homo Sapiens Sapiens are our creative endeavors. I admire our intentional creation of beauty. So that's the thing I want to do in my life, and it's not my fault that I was borne into a world that makes you bleed for it.

I Bend Unto Myself Today

...So misread one of the little old choir gals in church yesterday morning (the real title being: "I Bind Unto Myself Today"). This gave me a smile, since I had been up for some of the night calling the dinosaurs on my big porcelain telephone on account of maybe a bad quail egg in an expensive gala meal. Sorry for the overshare, I just thought that was really funny.

So I have this amazing idea. My friend, Megan, and I are putting a show together for next season, and we want to make it interesting. Wipe that smirk off your face. So the concert will be based on, and titled, Life. In four seasons. The amazing idea is to form a baroque still life onstage as the concert progresses. For the spring part, we'll set flowers, summer will bring fruit, autumn a clock and some oak branches, winter a skull (fake) and a candle (real). And all of those things are memento mori! Reminders of the transient nature of life....

On Ambition and Gardening

How many seeds and starts have mom and I bought? How many did we plant in the ground? How many grew into carrots or came to flower? (When we first started the garden, we were into vegetables, but the flowers have slowly taken over. I think this year we’ll put in some gourdy things to climb the fence, but they will be for decoration.) I planted some seeds this week, and found it a bit too zen to leave them behind. Will I see them as seedlings? Will mom thin them and protect them from the rapacious snails? I think that gardening is a wholesome way of marking time, like a haircut. My mom’s garden is an extraordinary balm for mental health; it puts things in perspective. I can weed for days with great purpose, but after awhile my mind relaxes and I accept the will of the plants. They migrate about in strange ways and are seldom where we left them. They tend to head for the edge of the sidewalk because it’s warm there. I almost want to dig them up and drag them back to center like naughty children, but I don’t. Let them seek their heat and lash the ankles of the mail carrier.

What a hormone-sodden wasteland is this middle time between youthful potential and what I hope will be circumspect old age. Everybody is racing to yoga class with their babies and their disposable coffeecups, believing that it all means something more than it has ever meant to anyone. How long does this silliness last? Must we all be swept in its wake? Is there any humor or grace at this stage?

Here's what I think: kids are the coolest ones among us. Especially the most clueless of the tweens; the late bloomers. The ones who have no desire or capability of dating, but who have the energy to shriek in public, and the focus not to realize that they are doing so. I know that these people are likely to be self-conscious and miserable (I can only speak from my own experience, of course), yet they have untold stores of potential and scads of malleability . They have not yet gained enough experience to believe that they can control their environs. Life just rolls over them and they live out each day like a fencing match. Which brings me to more spite toward my own kind. When you get to be my age, you start to believe that you have control over things and that you can create future happiness for yourself. So you go for it! You run yourself ragged and get to the front of the line! Then you get old anyway and maybe realize that you were an annoying dunderhead who never considered the damn lilies.

Blowsy day in SLC

The time of yellow things that rain from the very trees that will later produce a multitude of whirligigs. I wonder if they're the source of my epic allergies.... I'm breakfasting at the Cocoa Cafe this morning. There is a gaggle of cops at one table and four ladies next to me, talking about Italian vs. Spanish in the context of travel. (The lone barista is the adorable redhead, and she's being run off her lime green flats by us all!) The sky threatens rain, but I don't think it's real serious.

Yesterday I went to the Kearns swimming complex with my buddies. My skin is still feeling pleasantly sterilized and tight, and my hair feels like a trimmed horse's mane. After the swim, we hit up Leatherby's Family Creamery, where they serve delicious, but slightly obscene ice cream confections. This is where people of the LDS persuasion are permitted gross excess. The place was teeming with children (Jon pointed out: they cry, but not for long, because eventually they get ice cream). Our waiter, Nephi, put his shoulder to the wheel and produced a "medium-sized" banana split that nearly put all three of us into a coma.

Ta! Ribaldry!

I did some temping this week, and valiantly used the time to slog through almost an entire volume (1720) of Wit and Mirth: Pills to Purge Melancholy. So if any of you are searching for a late baroque song about farting and/or copulation to round out your perfect recital program, feel free to drop me a line. I did find a few gems amid the muck...and some fairly amusing muck, as well. I am tempted to offer one here, but you'll have to wait and see if I muster the nerve. I will remark on the surprisingly frequent mention of pudding. Lumpy, nasty pudding. Hmmm. Maybe this would be a good moment to confess my natural and long-standing interest in mildly obscene antiques. I guess it started with a book of old limericks that I got ahold of in junior high, which were much more satisfying than the kind of drollery in general circulation. Then I really hit the jackpot while doing some research on Venetian courtesans and, more surprisingly, musical nuns. But to deserve any interest, the printed word has to be clever and it ought to rhyme.

Okay, here's a sweet one. And there is pudding, but I think that in this case it is actual pudding.

The Old Woman's Wish

If I live to be old, which I never shall own,
Let this be my fortune in country or town;
Let me have a warm bit, with two more in store,
And a lusty young fellow to rub me before.
May I give to my passion an absolute sway,
Til by mumping and grunting, my breath's worn away
Without ache or cough by tedious decay.

In a dry chim'ny nook with a rug and warm clothes,
A swinging coal fire still under my nose;
With a large elbow chair to sit at the fire,
And a crutch or a staff to the bed to retire.
May I give to my passion, &c.

With a pudding on Sunday with custard and plums,
When my teeth are all out fore to ease my old gums;
With a dram of the bottle, each day a fresh quart,
Reserved in a corner to cheer up my heart.
May I give to my passion, &c.

With a neighbor or two to tell me a tale,
And to sing Chevy-Case o'r a pot of good ale;
A snuff-box, and short pipe snug under the range,
And a clean flannel shift as oft as I change.
May I give to my passion, &c.

Without palfry or gout, may I die in a chair,
And when dead, may my great, great, great grandchild declare
She's gone who for so long had cheated the devil,
And the world is well rid of a troublesome evil.
That gave to her passion an absolute sway,
Til with mumping and gruntin, her breath wore away,
Without ache or cough by tedious decay.

Aw...I might have to learn that one!