Dear Diary . . . day by day

Wednesday, July 4th, 2001 - Loyalty to the Country, Always; Loyalty to the Government Only When it Deserves it

Last night Tim and I went to see Ani di Franco and it rocked. Oh. My. I want to be her, to date her, to sit down and have long talks with her, to walk on the beach with her, to laugh with her and talk about poetry and art with her. She brings so much energy and vitality to the stage, so much of her own personality. I've seen her once before, as part of the "Not in our name" benefit concert that I went to several years ago in L.A. (which we went to just to see Tom Waits - Ani played after him and earned my respect by mentioning her awe that she wasn't opening for him). That show was much less intimate, but I think I related to the bitter nature of her songs better; last night I found myself trying to dredge up past relationships, old stresses, to think about while I sung along with her angrier pieces. She actually had a few love songs, which fit better in with my life. I snuggled Tim during those (and during some of the others, too) and thought about how my life has turned, how much I have to be thankful for and happy about.
See, I've been a big ol' grouch lately. It took me several days to realize that, hey, I have a lot I'm stressing over with RSI, Worker's Comp, only working 4 hours a day, money, etc. Even when I'm in Santa Cruz, ostensibly on vacation with Tim, those things still linger under the surface and they pop up in nasty, subtle ways. Ick. I'm glad I figured out what was going on, as I was about to blame this on a really bad case of PMS, and I'm tired of doing that.
I have a journal entry that I wrote about last weekend (the beach, A.I. socializing, etc); it's on my computer (i'm writing this on Tim's) and I wrote it with Via Voice, so it's pretty funny and misspelled/interpreted. I'll hopefully get that up soon.
The title of this entry is a bad paraphrase of part of Ani's speech about patriotism and the 4th of July (which Tim tells me is Ani quoting Utah Phillips quoting Mark Twain). All my journalling friends have been dissing fireworks lately, so let me just say this: I love them. I don't like firecrackers of the sort dumb-asses set off in the street, but I love going to a big show and snuggling under a blanket while the sky goes all the pretty colors and streams down at me. Once, when I was little, the fireworks were miscalculated and they rained down on us and caught the end of my hair on fire. Yet, I forgive them. I still love it, still think it's beautiful and amazing. Even if it's supposed to represent war/bombs. I don't usually think about that part of it. As Tim would say, Tra la!

Exercise log:
Swimming in the ocean? Sex?
Writing log:
I'm gonna revise a story in Via Voice today - whee!
I'm currently reading:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
My new PO Box is:
Heather Shaw
P.O. Box 13222
Berkeley, CA 94712-4222

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