Saturday, August 30, 2008

Photos from the Debauch, Much to share

The trip has been outlandishly lavish. I'll share more and photos with it when I get a chance. For now, I have to get ready for more lavish outlandishness. My God, I love these women named Christina and Jane, if you didn't know. They simply rock.

They have kept me guessing. Today, they had me at the Slow Food Rocks, the musical component to the Slow Food Nation Festival. Awesome fun was had and pictures (evidence) will be posted.

There was a Marcie moment... I'll share later. Night for now,

F.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Here in San Francisco...

Well, my journey to San Francisco is complete. I checked into my hotel at 11:00 PM after a great little trip to the Slow Food Preview with Jane and Christina. I tried to get pictures, we'll see how they turned out...

I will take some pictures of the grand debauch as it unfolds. I keep wondering what Marcie and I would be doing if she were with me, but then I catch myself and I am back in the moment where I belong.

I guess that seeing her (now my) friends is going to have me slipping back into those memories and that nostalgia again. But I am not complaining. It's a comfy place and an influence I prosper from.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Big Job, Big Memories, Big Pain

I have been slowly storing all of Marcie's I-tunes and MP3s on my laptop. Previously, I had somewhat avoided this because the music is so full of her personality. It's like she's in the next room, playing some music.

Which reminds me of something that happened the other day. Marcie loved Concrete Blonde and had a few of their CDs. I had just gotten home and fed Seamus. As I began to stretch before my run, I heard "Lullabye" strain out from the room.

I cautiously asked, croaking, "Marcie?" as I looked around the corner.

No. Seamus sat with his back against the boom box, cleaning himself in his post-dinner frenzy.

That aside, much music is now way too loaded for me. Even the music which came before us is tainted with it, because so much of why we connected was in our love of music and similarity of tastes.

I suppose I will reach back to the music when she has been gone and my memory fades. But for now, I find eery song from our time together just pounding me with memories and then joy, then, a slow sadness as the songs end.

For now, I am just trying to back everything up and make sure her library, so illustrative of her moods as the songs were ordered, map her progression and feelings very clearly.

Even if some of it is painful to comprehend her feelings with, it is at least a window into her that was not lost. It's kind of a journal in music I can read when I am strong enough.

The best part? Looking at her beautiful handwriting on the covers of her backup CDs. I can see so much of her in her loops and lines.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Not being good at waiting

I was never the kind to sit and wait,
I was never one to bide time.
But you were always patient,
and with a touch or a word I was calm.

The worst waiting ever for me
was the same as the worst for you.
I charged and demanded action
and you let me, and it was ours.

It did not matter in the end
no rush was in time, no haste.
When I finally knew the time approached
I watched and learned to wait again.

And I may have been patient,
I may have let you bide your time.
A single touch calmed you,
and a word comforted.

I learned to hate waiting anew
not for the time it took,
but for the time it didn't,
and for the time it should have,
because nothing ever hurt more
than when the waiting was over.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

RiverMannonite pt. 3

I heard the spite and hatred in RiverMannonite's voice and perused him as he arched at the neck to glare, his teeth exposed, snaggled, broken and multi-hued in his curled-lip sneer. He began to struggle, his odd clothes now very obviously (if filthily) revelatory.

He seemed Amish, or perhaps Old Order in many ways. Certainly he was even if Otto wasn't.

He was not old and not young, but he was certainly not stoic or restrained, and one could only guess what he had left his community for, considering his tastes. Any of them would likely bring a shunning. Perhaps he had simply never ended his rumspringa.

Of course, there were other possibilities.

The security guards picked the man up and dusted him off, mostly just smearing the oily dirt on his dark vest. He looked away from me as one of them asked, "Do you want to press charges?"

Tori and the officers spoke and I wandered back to the store to report, knowing that, despite all of the "hubbub," Marcie would want the scoop. She looked up and shook her head.

"He's Amish!" I said in an exclamatory whisper. "HE called me 'English!' Isn't that crazy?

Her eyes were wide and she bit her lower lip. She nodded, "I knew it, I totally knew it. Didn't I say he was like Amish or a Quaker or something? I totally knew."

I listened as her mood turned and her smile grew. "He looked like someone from Witness or something when I first saw him," she said, leaning in close. "He has this really weird accent, too."

I nodded. "Yes, he does."

For weeks, I gathered information and shared it with Marcie, reading her bits and pieces of Amish trivia and tales when she came home. She was fascinated by Rumspringa and meidung.

Of course, fascination and imagination went hand in hand for Marcie, especially where odd people were involved. RiverMannonite was about to acquire a backstory.

And if the facts were not odd enough, the possibilities Marcie dreamed up were, certainly.