17. Do you feel like a member of a community? 

It’s been some time since I felt like part of a definable community. In times past I belonged to organizations and groups but right now I’m not a member of anything.  I’m interested in and engaged with various causes, but it’s always from the outskirts.

Tumblr used to feel a little more like a community to me than it currently does.  I’ve been here long enough to see it blossom, peak, and decline and that seems to be an underlying theme with me. Groups I get involved in tend to fade out.

People I used to think of as peers dropped out of the picture for a couple of reasons. There was a time when I was looking after my mom in the more difficult stages of her illness and I just did not have the energy to be a part of anything, and nobody really knew what to say. Dementia freaks people out and they retreat..  The other thing was parenthood. When acquaintances started having kids a genuine wall descended, and obviously it’s not something that’s planned but people with kids are part of a readymade club that precludes the childless in a lot of ways. 

September Blog A Day

16. Sunday Funday. When do you have the most fun in your life?

-Oh, that’s a hard one.  Is a creative career fun? Sometimes. Mostly it’s just work.  The truth is, I have fun doing things I can’t afford with people I never see.  I get a big kick out of traveling, but I can really only do that about once every two or three years.

You know what’s fun?  Discussing the movie you’ve just watched -waiting until you get to the car before saying anything so you can dissect it. Drinking coffee at night. Trivia games. Singing songs in harmony.

There are times when I’m amused, but there’s very little actual “fun” in my life.

September Blog A Day 15.

First concert:  My dad took me to see Paul McCartney. It was the first time I’d seen fireworks indoors.

Best concert:  Robert Barto playing baroque lute sonatas by Sylvius Leopold Weiss.  Lute concerts demand more from the listener than anything else I’ve experienced. It’s not a loud instrument and the people who come to these things understand that so the room gets more quiet than you would believe possible. There’s no rustling, scratching, shifting or swallowing loudly.  Barto is a conduit to something beyond space and time.

Worst concert:  The one that got away.  The time Tom Waits played Toronto. It was back in the days when you had to get yourself to a record store to purchase tickets and by the time I got off work and made it to Ticketmaster they were gone. All gone.  He’s never returned.

September Blog A Day

12. How would you like to be remembered when you die?

-I won’t be remembered as a person.  Not in any meaningful sense.   I might exist for a time in used book stores as a name and date scrawled in pen on the title page of some hardcovers, or inside some old guitars and ukuleles on the wall in a curiosity shop.

September Blog A Day

11. 9/11

I’d visited the WTC during a school trip when I was 17.  (It was bright and early and I had a hangover…)  To be honest, I was much more impressed by the Empire State building but it was nice to see things from on high.

In 2001 I was working for a cabinet shop and had to deliver a kitchen for installation that morning. I was just about to leave when the news came over the radio. We had this crumbly old delivery truck with a radio that never worked in the two years I’d been there. I pounded on it and up popped the Howard Stern show, giving a giving a panicked blow-by-blow direct from New York.

When I got back to the shop some guys were looking at news feed photos. I’ll always remember what my boss said then.. He was the biggest prick. Worst employer I ever had.  “But…but…do you know what this will do to the ECONOMY?” 

September Blog A Day

9. Sunday 7

-Life is precarious.

-I had a serious high bloodsugar incident over the last few days. Super fun. I recommend it if you like blinding headaches.

-I was thinking about the state of the world. I’m rooting for the insects. It’s been a while since they were on top and I think they’ve got a strong team this year.

-I’m good at guessing the trajectory of movie or tv storylines.  C. finds it amusing and makes me hold in the spoilers. I attribute this to chess thinking.

-It must have been Wear Your Filthy Pajamas To the Supermarket Day. 

-I try not to be an old guy, but the new music is bad.

-It took me forever to think of these 7 things. I enjoy making lists, but this one was a struggle.