Sunday kinda love

I'm so in love with my city right now that sometimes, when something strikes me as a future memory, I can't take in more than a shallow breath. It's like the space around my heart expands to take up so much room that my lungs can't work properly. When I walk the dog around Midtown, I see such a variety of people, plants, houses, all representative of a range of lifestyles and values and income levels. When people talk about a flavor that makes Memphis feel so comfortable and welcoming to outsiders, I think of this. Any good BBQ sauce has a variety of ingredients, hot and sweet and tart and spicy things, all mixed in to make it as good as it can possibly be. A trite comparison maybe, given our BBQ claim to fame, but I'm hungry & it's Memorial Day weekend. I still love livin' in Memphis---it's like no other place I know.

I'm sure it will fade considerably by the peak heat of August, when the grass is dead and the air is settled in stillness around me. I won't be walking the dog and admiring folks' flowers on a Saturday afternoon in a couple of months, at least without struggling to breathe without drowning in the humidity. In the dead of summer, I will probably have forgotten everything except how many more weeks I have to peel my clothes off my body to let in some air.

blank

This weekend is a big, fat blank. No parties, no trips, no long-lost friends visiting Memphis. I'm completely loving it! What I am doing is:

1. Loading more music to my laptop: stuff that should have been on there long ago. Off the list of "things I'll get around to some day." Now that I have to make some cd's for friends who are leaving town, it's become more urgent.
2. Cleaning house a bit: this includes some laundry, dog-washing, and the ever-popular Changing of the Sheets ceremony that happens on Sundays at my house.
3. Mowing the yard: seriously and dangerously overdue, this one. My dad admired the oats I had growing in back (for anyone who's ever seen his lawn, you will take this as the insult it actually was).
4. Sleeping: this should probably be at the top of the list, since it's how the preponderance of my weekend hours are being spent.

I'm seriously in need of this weekend to keep up my energy... May has been an absolute drain, between moving offices on a week's notice (oh, hi, can you move next week? uh, where? we're not really sure yet, but start packing up!) and having my Dad visit (not that he's exhausting, but I get worn out being around people alla the time). Next weekend is hopefully yet another one of fun-filled festivities, so I'll make sure to get my rest now.

What happened to you?

I was asked recently (okay, sometime in the past month-ish) what happened to my blog. I don't have a good explanation, and I didn't make a conscious decision to cease blogging, but somewhere along the way it seems to have dried up like a diverted stream. I think that imagery actually describes it pretty well, in fact---I've simply diverted my attention to other things in my life: travel, dancing, non-profit boards and business startups (well, okay, just one business). Plus my job is a great outlet for things I'm thinking lately.

It seems that everything in my life involves communication these days. Work is writing---dance is a conversation---socializing is about connections. It all takes a lot out of me, which means I don't really need an outlet like a blog. I'm creating so much outside of the rock & roll planet that life is like its own solar system for me. I am never happier than when I'm near exhaustion and fulfilled, but blogging requires too much introspection to be done at that hour. Like, for example, tonite. So hopefully I'll be back around before it's July 4.

Oh, and tomorrow is going to be the greatest day: Wilco's new album. Ya-hoo!