notes from the kelp

…click to listen:

…about the music

Unsafe driving.

From fishy, to squishy. This beautiful Pacific banana slug would have become part of my gravel driveway had I not happened to 1. need to open the passenger door to place something on the seat and 2. looked down as I approached the car. Lucky fella. In my continuing role as Relocator to the Hapless, I escorted all six inches of this creature off of my tire and onto safer territory, far from my questionable skills when in reverse. Or, for that matter, when behind the wheel at all.

I am in a rare moment of a relaxed, nearly giddy state: I finished and delivered another rather involved piece late last night, and am experiencing the happy illusion result of having a few minutes to catch up on everything and everyone I have been irresponsibly ignoring for the past couple of weeks while my muses and I held a 24/7 rave/séance. After I hit the “publish” button on this little post, I will do something my ever-tolerant friends know is nearly unheard of: pick up the damn phone and return a few calls.

Unsocial and hermetic as I can be sometimes (think, UnaComposer, complete with pajamas and peanut butter jar but minus the explosives), the larger reason for my lack of telephonic connectivity is not only because I enjoy email nearly as much as I enjoy vacuuming (yes, it’s true, I love to vacuum*, and you just can’t vacuum when you’re on the phone; for some reason, people consider that to be rude and annoying), but because I keep hours that make it impossible to call anyone in the United States at the time when I am most willing, able and interested. To wit: roughly between the hours of midnight and 4am, when I am taking a break from my nocturnal composing jags, or finishing up altogether for the evening. My colleagues and friends in Europe and Asia, however, are always amazed to receive responses to their emails from me in real time. Vampirism has its upside.

One state-side friend commented that it had been so long since he’d heard my voice, he’d taken to watching the videos of me on my website, just for a refresher course. So I am about to attack a too-long list of people I really adore and let my fingers do the dialing instead of the typing. Wish me luck: I might need a refresher course in how to use that technology. I think that you press some buttons and then hold the object up to one ear, and then amazingly, you can hear a voice coming out of the object. Gotta check this out!

*when I am stuck on a passage in a new piece, I am making no progress. Where there should be something, there is nothing. Frustrating. When I vacuum, I can see my progress: where there was something, now there is nothing. Rewarding. I think this could be the basis for my new religious belief: Retrograde Inversion Zen.

Safe driving.