"i have met the enemy & he is us." - walt kelly

........... strident, ham-fisted, but passionate & pugnacious michael moore called it one wk ahead....... .......... i asked ppl repeatedly for reassurance over past months. they all said, "no way." ppl aren't that stupid or mean, they said. the feeling i had of foreboding, however, was palpable, a bad dream, but real. i knew, i just KNEW. and now it's happened. i've never had much prescience. why'd it have to be now? sh*t & double sh*t.
- many funny memes have appeared in the wake of 11/9; one shows dubya holding up a drink. "congratulations, america," it reads. "and you thought I was an idiot."
- "i survived 8 yrs of ronald reagan," dad philosophized. but reagan was a statesman compared to what now we face.
- the best thing to happen for us was, after two days being heartsick, mournful, & bilious with disgust, we sat down & started howling sad songs & ended up writing a whole lotta music, new stuff, even stuff james said was good enough to add to his new CD. the national bullsh*t turned out to be fertilizer.
- i will miss our handsome, smart, circumspect gentleman of a president & his beautiful family. never has there been a classier commander-in-chief, free of personal scandal, "just a good guy," as james has said, certainly not w/o errors made, but what integrity & resolve barack obama has had. what dignity & friendliness. and what a wonderful smile!
- if i taught high school, day after election i would've worn to school my obama & dr king shirt, a 2008 collectible. however, my job is not to indoctrinate children, tho i guiltily acknowledge some of that's inherent in the uniformity of school structure. my job is to help them gain skills & learn to be kind & to desire to contribute to society... and to insert tiny bits of questioning of authority, cause in my book, that's the decent thing to do. even 6th graders shouldn't be robots!
>>>>>>>>>>>>
we had a mock election in my classroom on election day. they ran a terrific little article about it in our terrific little mountain paper. here are pix of it:

 - i swelled w/pride when i saw the article. we made chicken salad out of chicken sh*t, to quote aunty rita! i'm so grateful i've got that something in me, that family (human) something, that knows what's the right thing to do & actually does it, more & more the older i get.

 - we're vegging today because today is veterans' day & james is the vet, not me, & he wants to veg, so we're doing it. so i woke a little late, made the show poster at top, have done this or that, nothing too worthwhile. our new bed arrived & once he woke up we wrestled the halves out of their pressurized boxes & when the 1st popped open & burst into a full bed, it wasn't nearly as scary as vacuum-sealed biscuit cans. i dread the opening of vacuum-sealed biscuit cans, such a violent moment, tho the result is one of the mannas of earth, so that makes it sort of worthwhile, unless i get a heart attack one of these times while popping open a can...

-another nice thing is, the ancient treadmill we got from mom & dad finally will run for longer than 5 mins. james added grounding mechanisms, so this eve i cautiously jogged for a while, holding the handrails cause i've been so sick (stupid sickening election! stupid weak metabolism! in the old days, i spose i woulda been said to have a "nervous condition").
- as uncle henry would've said, "sometimes peanuts, sometimes shells." time to get off the cyber ride & back onto the terra firma of "reality."
- oh, wait.
- sh*t!

boring

does no drama in life make life boring? the things i now post about are reflections, memories, ponderings, the stuff of which an older person thinks. even three years ago, my brain too often was lit up w/confusions, fear, immaturities, bullsh*t. my husband & i are as mellowed out as we can be. james has creative activities going all over this house. he is playing music, still the greatest frontman i've ever seen. sometimes i go with him, sometimes not. sometimes i even play! it's fun. my job is great. the drive each day is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. i'm a good teacher. the other teachers are hard-working, friendly. i have lovely, sweet, & intelligent friends. my immediate family can match any other on earth for kindness, sense of humor, humanitarian good works, talent. our cat is... very pretty, tho a mercurial & rather dumb feline. and i wouldn't want to live anywhere except here! mountain views on all sides, deep blue sky, so calming, so restorative...
if this life is boring, i want more! f*ck drama!!!!
how bout you? what you tink?

blablabablablablablablablablabla

this morn when i got up & opened the doors, the air was fragrant w/earth & rain, a musky vibrant scent: scintillating! then we had coffee & listened to "welcome to night vale" for a bit & then i got back in bed (because it's saturday & i CAN!!!!) with dumbbell the kitty (2 yrs young last night!) & i started bouncing on the decades. in 1976 i was a heavy, precocious, backwards kid already a misanthrope, just waiting for a drink, i think. in 86 i was one yr out of high school & working & kind of going to jr college & really starting to mess up my life w/male & substances. by 96, i was one yr sober, already w/the fellow who'd become my 1st husband. in 06, i was immersed in self, playing music, gallivanting all over the country, messing around, of some worth to the human race finally, yet still pretty much a moral ass.
this year is best of all decades, even w/the plummets in the roller coaster. i love this life right now!!
all i know is, 10 yrs from now i have no clue where life will be!
hello, bunnies, hello, quail, hello, birds, hello, mountains, hello, camarados!

All seems beautiful to me, 

I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you, 

I will recruit for myself and you as I go, 

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, 

I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, 

Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, 

Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. 

... too much good stuff in that one to just quote one stanza! here you go: song of the open road (whitman)

look at the light in his eyes! no makeup for me... i'm not scared!

in this pic, he looks just like his 2nd grade pic. such an expressive face!

the bangs have never cooperated & never will!

angela marie

today is my sister's birthday. :) there only are two of us, & i'm the elder. she is a good egg, always has been, so talented & hard-working, a helper of humanity. like james, she's always had tons of friends, a trait i admire but don't have.  she always had clusters of kids around her when we were growing up, all the oddball kids, everyone happy, jabbering away like a chicken coop, sprawling all over our house... her daughter's become the same way, except maddy's always The Leader. angie is very religious now & frets too much, i think, & unlike me, she's always been a chameleon. dad even called her "zelig" at one point. she is the only one in our family who doesn't have a cartoonishly large head; she also is, i think, the most well-adjusted. :) when i look at her, i still see the tiny, slight, lovable & kind child i remember. angie is a good soul, funny, interested in so much, a wonderful human being. :)
we will celebrate for her this weekend. i know she won't read this, so i'll tell you what i got her: a beautiful pair of brown frye boots for near-nothing (if they'd fit me, i woulda kept them -- yes, i know that sounds selfish) & pajamas with octopi on them bc for some strange reason (i think it has to do with lovecraft) she loves them varmints. (james says he hate them bc of their tentacles, but i think it's one of his faux-fears, like how he claims so incorrectly to hate midgets!)
phone's ringing, gonna go.
happy bd, seeeesturd!!!

making chicken salad out of chicken sh*t

aunty rita always has said that's not possible, but i just realized she's not right. i just took a sad, crappy situation & a song immediately jumped from it.
certainly that overturns my favorite aunty's dictum.
i realized this week that i love my job, really love it. it's the first time in my life i truly can say that. i hope i can get these kids to read & do math with greater skill. i am doing whatever i can. i am finally being a good teacher. i am finally being more like mama. the feeling is clean; i like feeling clean. :)
this weekend is sister angie's birthday. i hope all will go well. after all, life is an ecstasy, to quote emerson. the next line reads, "life is as sweet as nitrous oxide." since that sounds like emerson mighta been on some of the good stuff, i'll cop that, like narcotics, sometimes life is bliss & sometimes it's hell, but it always is life. oh brother; that didn't make sense. i'm still kinda down...
ok, i think that's it. time to go find a good serial killer documentary. they weirdly make me feel better when i am blue. but nothing cures my blues like having a song spontaneously pop from its depths: then i know there really is a god, even if the song's not a good one.
thank you, universe, for creation. thank you for the clean feeling. thank you for life.
love,
jenny

oh well, let's see what comes out:

(it's been such a nice wkend, after kick-butt fun show at sue's just one mile from home, i think i'll repost this post from last week, which i'd gotten in a crappy mood & deleted. happy sunday to all!)
just had a cool shower (sometimes the hot water is unwilling) after a nice slow hike up to the water tower (golden evening w/its low shadows was far too lullingly beautiful to stay inside) followed by nice bowl of lukewarm spaghetti consumed while reading a moderately-interesting article from NY times mag, which was in the pile of mags mama gave me yesterday... am seized w/desire to write a bit. the crickets are whirring so fast these eves, in these early autumn eves, they sound like an army of south american whistles or a whispering sea of wind-up instruments... they will be dormant soon as nights get colder... it's a nostalgic sound, a latent memory sound, a lovely churring song...
have had an extremely low-key but pleasant day cleaning house, rescuing a beetle, washing up dishes, playing w/fatso the cat, reading, napping, trying to stretch out & strengthen my rotator cuff, which fear i've injured, continuing to edit a book about mama's championship 1965 european choir, watching all kinda top-10-this & 25-most-that videos on youtube on the tv while james snored gently away... it's been 5 yrs this wkend since he first came over here... what a difference a half-decade's made!
ok, i'm interrupted & he is calling me, but what a rush of thoughts, what a jumble, what a chorus! today's been mostly me & my mind, which sometimes magically magnifies in ways quite enjoyable, stirring, frightening, resolving, rewarding. i got fixated for a while on all the loved ones, then all the  millions, billions of humans that have perished on this earth over time & our lot in life, to perish, & was pondering that one for a while til thought of sister angie's prescient wish from years ago (for now they actually do this!): to have one's corpse buried with a sapling so that we all who choose may become trees, but now all the other mental goofing & meandering's gone except this short story i read today by doris lessing, about snails. i enjoyed it.  you should look it up.
tomorrow is school again, & life has been nice, then a chore, then a trial, then a puzzler, but now it's good again, & that's how it seems to go around here, maybe for all us hairless apes, tho to varying degrees.
may you be happy.

sometimes life

doesn't go the way i want
but still
i can hear the quail blooping & peeping & cawing out the window
and ultimately,
all is well

obsessing on obsessions & the obsessed!

- i was an obsessed child. were you? i was obsessed with drawing pictures, comic books, typing stories & musings on my olivetti, mad magazine, &, once i got past the plateau, playing the piano. then i was an obsessed teen, but such a weirdo: i was obsessed with middle-aged actors, first humphrey bogart, then james garner & hal linden, & at my most obsessed, feverish peak, gene hackman. ha! why was i so strange?! i even had a plastic blue file box filled with folders about all of hackman's movies, movie stills, details of dialogue, casts, reviews lovingly typed & assembled.
- i remember the moment i became obsessed, watching bonnie & clyde, when brawny, burly hackman leaped effortlessly, limberly over the bank teller window. then watching him, all 6-foot-plus & 200 lbs, sprint athletically after a street punk, pulling a punch to threaten with meaty pink fist in the french connection. such bulky uber-male demonstrations drove me nuts!
- i know now it was just the flip side of the more usual teenaged-girl safe attraction to the androgynous little slips of boy whose polished smiles still beautify the covers of teen mags. although it's a step toward real relationships, attraction to perfect-pretty boy idols & hulky man-hunks are so far-removed from the real boys at school!
- we were raised in the church til aged 10, then given a choice if we wanted to keep going. my sister & i screamed NO!!! (at least that's what i remember...) my theory is, the less god or sense of the spiritual i have had in my life, the more obsessed i would get.  oh my lord, the obsessions have been many in the many years, even after i got sober & had periods of hugely unspiritual living! now being up here in the beautiful mountains, in a, yes, often-trying but loving, rewarding, emotionally edifying marriage, with fulfilling & immersing work, my obsessions are at bay... tho they still crop up!
- for instance, james & i've gotten obsessed in the past six months with columbo, tho me more than him, of course, cause, well, i think i'm just more neurotic. next weekend we're gonna stay at an old motel toward the mojave desert for one night, & i found out it has served often as a movie-tv locale, & then i kept looking (obsessing) & found out -- sh*t! -- they used it in an episode of columbo!! -- tho unfortunately not in one of the patrick mcgoohan episodes, cause that would've been a trifecta of obsession, to be w/james at a motel where a columbo was filmed starring my current-favorite deceased actor!!!  (mcgoohan, coolly, stoically handsome, did not drink or kiss onscreen because he was married & felt otherwise would disrespect his wife. he turned down the role of 007!)*
- there was a picture of the episode, so i clicked the link & found a site & realized: i am garden-variety obsessed. the person who made this website is full-boat, jenny-at-aged-16, maybe-whackadoodle obsessed! click here and see what i mean. http://columboscreenshots.blogspot.com
- columbo is such a terrific show! peter falk was a genius! so at least the man who assembled the site  has directed his obsession toward something worthy. just imagine if he put his effort & mind toward solving a world problem: he could change the planet, maybe!
(ps, here's a picture of patrick mcgoohan, just so you can see what i was enthusing about above...) :D
(tho of course james is far more handsome!!!)

* (from http://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/2015/04/20/batman-as-007-twelve-actors-who-turned-down-the-role-of-james-bond/:) A little more about Patrick McGoohan who had he accepted the role may have been the best actor to ever play the part. But it was not only the womanizing McGoohan objected to; he truly despised the character, calling Bond “contemptible and simplistic.”... McGoohan, a man of very strong ethics said in a 1960’s interview about the Dr. No script which he turned down, “I thought there was too much emphasis on sex and violence. It has an insidious and powerful influence on children. Would you like your son to grow up like James Bond? Since I hold these views strongly as an individual and parent I didn’t see how I could contribute to the very things to which I objected.”

pages about the pages...

- last week, i stopped by the 50th anniversary soiree for our wee local weekly, the mountain enterprise, to congratulate the publisher & editor for their good work: they put out an award-winning little paper that i enjoy reading each week! patric heglund, editor, asked me to write a  bit about my school involvement. it came out yesterday, and wow! she fixed it so i sounded much more wholesome & circumspect than in the original i'd sent her, where i groused about my former school district. i think this is the first time i've worked w/the press & been much happier after they revised a piece i'd written! the article in her hands turned into a civic piece, a proud little showcase for my school's elective & after school program, the arts, the frazier park library, my boss, & my former boss, kindly & talented marie smith, who unnecessarily has been going thru it at her job bc of a certain person of whom i'll not say much except that he needs to go.
- the pic of james is funny: don't know if you can tell thru the blur, but it reads, "welcome your new neighbor," which, coupled w/these humorously aggressive & eccentric images of him, made me laugh! this was the sue's tavern show he & the whole band missed due to accident on I-5 blocking traffic, the one that was to have been my last w/the blues express.
... but he just asked if i would do the shows up here on the mtn & in bakersfield, so of course i said yes. :) whee! school takes top priority, but music? heck, yeah! tomorrow he plays a fundraiser in so-cal, but i won't be there. should be a kick in the pants. you can look it up at www.mswalkride.org

dang! blablabla, & many exclamation points!!!!

- for my first xmas list item, i request the book "moanin' at midnight," about the howlin' wolf, by james segrest & mark hoffman. STILL reading it!!! every a.m. before school, i drink 18 cups of coffee & eat pb toast & read about 5 pages, if i'm lucky & have the time before heading to work. i love this book more than any i've recently read, not just cause the wolf was an inimitable awesome bada*s & an enormously manly hunk. a few yrs back, the wonderful san diego-based musician billy watson spotted james & enthused, "it's the modern-day howlin' wolf!" and we both were so, so flattered since billy's not just a sprightly, talented musical dynamo,  but a good-natured man of great sincerity, so he wasn't just blowing smoke up our cans.

- reading this book, i realize, yes! more & more, on each page, it DOES sound like james, from  personality, stage style, & treatment of other musicians to the arc of his life, specifically how domesticity calmed & settled him, gave him peace. wild! i give james reports as i read, telling him he needs to read it when i finish, but i've had it a long, long time from the library here, so mebbe i just need my own copy. yes, that'll be it. this book's a definite keeper-for-life!

- the clincher is, in the back, segrest & hoffman have a discography that -- thank you, jeebus! -- lists all the sessions & all the personnel. yay! so when i hear piano i like, i can go look see who it is. hurrah!

- i write "dang" cause the book online's too expensive for me to want to spring for right now. when i get my 1st check, other things'll be priority: getting the 2-story-high east windows washed; getting our chariots fully serviced & maybe new paint for the green hornet; getting the septic tank dumped. yes, there's no real plumbing up here, nor cable, but what a place to live! the smoke's clearing from  the so-cal fires (i say optimistically) & the weather's cooling w/autumn's arrival... so nice! so breezy! so lovely!

- oh, school is kicking my butt, but what a terrific assignment i have! am very much overdoing it having added fine arts & library to my teaching plate, but i can do it! i know i can! just got a piano in my classroom so now have access to three (classroom, art rm, music rm)! three pianos! three old friends! my students are so cute, being 6th graders w/yet no touches of adolescent rebellion. "we have to be nice to this piano," i told them. "we have to take care of it. it's like having a beloved pet, an old elephant or an old dog in the room." & they all nodded in agreement, buying in to the niceness & special situation: having their own old piano. :) 

- james has come through just like he said he would, taking care of the house by day while i work. thank you so much!!! he tells me, "i'm so lucky, i married the hottest woman in the world!" and i say, "oh, me with my gray hair? no way!" and he replies, "no, baby, i had no idea! you're not just [physical compliments] & talented & smart & sweet, you're a powerhouse! i've never gotten to see you fully in action til now [that i'm teaching]!"

- how many people would even notice something like this? i was touched & happy. we've both taken action to get our neurochemicals properly balanced, & he says, "i had no idea; you've been dragging me along! we're both doing great right now, & i want to show you what i can do!" i think his show today, my 1st out of the band (waaaah!), is gonna be a killer. he posted this flyer i made some months back to advertise today's event, & people are spreading it like the cliched wildfire. no other so-cal musician is as iconic as james!

- yes, the buzz is high for this show: i'm sad i won't be there & i will really miss playing w/anthony & steve, but i'm so happy james likely will play to a packed house! tonight he's gonna jump on with pink's "monster show" at harvelle's, too: he likes pink bc the man is a strong frontman, like james, but also eccentric, theatrical, w/odd sense of humor, like james. 

here's the flyer and details for today/tonight's two shows: Come see Whiteboy James 2pm - 6pm  Sat. Sept. 3rd at - All Sports, 7132 Garden Grove Blvd, Westminster, CA 92683; and 2 for 1 Tickets!!! Wild Fun Labor Day Weekend Party! Saturday night blowout at Harvelles lbc Live Rockin Blues & Burlesque with Dennis Jones, Billy Watson, Chris Smith, Kip Dabbs, WhiteBoy James, Mike Arguello **LABOR DAY WEEKEND PROMO CODE: LABORDAY16 to get 2 for 1 tickets for Saturdays Show! tixz www.harvelles.com

- ok, now back to reading for me, then it's time to practice flute, then head to the smoggiest, hottest town around to visit my beautiful family!! may you have a good book & good movement. take that how you will. :)
(oh, crap, i forgot why originally i blogged! having to learn new instruments is daunting, but i found a whole youtube series, masterfully assembled by the us army field band. whether you're a music teacher or musician trying to improve chops & technique, these videos should be vital! what a treasure trove!  enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/user/USArmyFieldBand ) 

don't think the magic's gone

our gig yesterday, my last with the band, got cancelled when a big rig overturned on I-5, blocking the band's admittance to frazier park. i already was here since i've been working on the mountain teaching... the others weren't & all went through hellish, treacherous drives before sue at the tavern decided to call it & they all had to turn back. what a bummer for them & the audience & me, who wanted to play piano one last time with the blues express!!! i've not read if it was a fatality crash, but i know traffic on the 5 was blocked for most of the night. drive safely, everybody!
went kinda nuts yesterday, 10 hrs (off & on) doing schoolwork planning. i want to do a good job, better than i've ever done, now being entrusted to be not just the 6th grade teacher, but the school's fine arts teacher & after-school librarian. yaaaaaaaay! the kids' exposure to the arts, then, is largely dependent on my competency & organization. i am so grateful! all the stuff i've long-done, music, art, writing, bibliophiling, is all coming together!
the day after dear manuel died, no kidding, i was a little startled to so clearly heard his voice in my head singing the refrain of the song below, so today i stopped thumb-twiddling, finished writing the song, then recorded it & made a little video (well, slideshow). i haven't recorded in a long while; the results are rough, but i like the song. i can still hear manuel singing it in my head when i listen. i lifted some of the song structure as well as the solo melody from a few of his songs, as his fans will hear: that's supposed to be guitar, which i don't play, but i might have to learn to, since as fine arts teacher, i'm also instrumental teacher, which necessitates procuring the rudiments of about 10 instruments... yes, i like the song, tho not the recording: the best part is, i know manuel would've like it. :) i can hear him saying, "that's coooo, jenny, that's rock n ROWl..."

welcome back to the u.s., niece maddy. she's been gone 2 months in asia, first teaching english, then being taught korean. what an adventurer! the farthest i went at her age was... well, no place. i was going nowhere at her age except boozeville. in fact, every single young person i know (cousins, stepsons, donna's dear laurel & levon) are doing worlds better than i ever did. may they all live long & be great!

i miss my dear husband. i hope he gets back from the road soon.

ok, now it's time for columbo!!!! and peanut butter!!!! life can't get much better. :) 

this weekend

friday all will say goodbye to manuel gonzales, or "big manny," our friend departed. here are details:
viewing - noon to 2 pm, funeral & burial, 2-3 pm, home of peace memorial park mortuary, 4334 whittier blvd, whittier ca; potluck reception for family & friends, vfw hall post 1944, 4-8 pm,  16157 e. gale, city of industry, ca.
i made this so i will remember always his face & person the way i remember him. there's a beautiful pic of him & james on this blog if you go back to april 2016, but i -- perhaps selfishly -- just put the ones here where i'm posed with him.
saturday will be the following: Come See Whiteboy James - Sat. Aug. 13th
WHERE: Shenanigans Irish Pub & Grille
423 Shoreline Village Drive
Long Beach, CA 90802
USA 8 PM-11:55 PM
COST: Free
CONTACT:
562-437-3734

the following saturday, we'll play here in town at sue's tavern, & after that, james will have me replaced with an electric bass & i'll just play with his band wherever i have the energy (& when he wants me, of course). the kids will be back in class

& i again will be a public school teacher.

my dear sweet friend is gone, & the whole world cries

one of our very dearest, sweetest, most talented friends on earth went to heaven last night. james & manuel became fast friends about three years ago; manuel gave james a sailor's cap that he treasures. i got to meet manuel as a fan of his band 25 yrs ago & in the last many years, was blessed to play music with him here & there where he'd look over & smile, "ah, jenny. play a little-uh that johnny johnson." this kind, gentle giant with his silly sense of humor could play anything on the guitar, chuck berry like no other, & he sang like a bird. the world without him will be a dimmer place. we love you forever, manuel. rest in peace, dear soul. love, jenny & james

more self-respect, more respect for fellow man...

we are kicking booty here at home getting stuff done, & a little fatigued now, i'm taking a break & found this online:

i've long-known about elvis's creed & that it had a logo -- heck, i even have a t-shirt (memphis mafia were given gold rings w/the insignia, expected to wear them at all times), but i didn't realize there was a slogan, too, as well as a pretty crazy-sounding credo written by the King himself. it concludes with the promise of "freedom from constipation" -- i'll just put a link here...  it made me think of long time ago being moved by, of all things, jimmy carter's campaign poster for (i think) governor back at the carter museum in hotlanta and... can't find the damned thing online, but it said something so different than how a politician'd advertise him/herself today, something like "principled, diligent, compassionate." WHAT?!!?!? anyways, i know carter has always been hard-working, & any fellow still building houses for the homeless, still happily married to the same person after all these decades is a-ok in my book... today, too, i saw a fluff online about presidential & presidential-hopeful IQs & i probably don't need to tell you who's near the bottom, but of the past 40 yrs, carter & president obama were way up there & at top was... you guessed it... bubba. he was a rhodes scholar, after all, as was, of all folks, kris kristofferson, whom james met some yrs back, & now i've brought this all back around to us, so that's that, time to get back to work.

(ps, read peter guralnick's book about sam phillips. it will kill you, to paraphrase holden caufield.)

what i remember about becoming a teacher back in the early 90s...

me (standing before some people i can't remember): ok, so what do i do?
them: here, write a check for a 30 thousand bucks.
me: ok. here it is.
them: ok, now you're a teacher.
that can't be right, but through the fog of years, that's how it seems.
when james moved here to the mountain house in 2014, i was a little embarrassed when, while cleaning, we came across a GIGANTIC stack of work from the teaching program i went through, an expensive 9-month baby: the stack was at least 3 phone books thick. i flipped through as memories flooded back: i was the typist for the group bc of my speedy fingers. i was the note-taker bc of my quick writing & summarizing skills. i was... the overachiever, or more likely, the control-freak who ended up doing everything for group projects bc everyone else moved too slowly.
but even having seen all that work, i don't remember it that way! i was drinking back then, so maybe the brain cells associated with all my teaching school hard work are forever gone.
i do recall my 1st year teaching, realizing, nothing can prepare you for this! it's like on-the-job training! then, the 1st day of my 2nd year, it happened: the eyes in the back of my head appeared. supernatural!
++++
nowadays if you wanna become a teacher, it's a different story. got a whiff of that when i went in,  initially to try to sub. used to be if you had a pulse & had taken a little test called CBEST, you could sub. now a person has to pass this test, get on that list, fill out these forms, get those fingerprints, take a TB test & get a physical & get signed off by a doc, cart the forms down to bakersfield, wait for DOJ clearance... what? all this to SUB???
i went straight past sub to "real teacher" after that, thanks to the nice principal at my new school deciding me to be desirable due to my do-gooder work cleaning up that school's library in my then-free time. (had i already been in james's band, i wouldn't've been able to do that at all!) so pleasant to learn that, w/no intention of doing so, just cause i love books & libraries, i'd impressed the principal with the work i'd done. for fun & for free: that's one of the credos of my secret society of drunks, & it worked out in this case.
i count myself super-lucky bc now i'm gonna again be a teacher!
getting that going required a whole bunch more hoop-jumping than being a sub. somebody, the doc or the counselor, used the word "rigor" & the lightbulb went on: i need rigor to make this happen, fortitude, tenacity, stick-to-itness. i couldn't be a flaky part-time library worker, part-time musician & suddenly return to teaching. not nowadays! how much do i want this career again?
the nerd within was activated; here was the opportunity to get organized & responsible again, to prove i can still do it! not to mention to re-enlarge my knowledge base, ghave creative teaching moments, & work w/kids. to try to put this in place meant fill out more forms, complete TWO applications, take everything to bakersfield, get fingerprinted AGAIN, pee in a cup at a drug testing lab (trying not to laugh or ask too many questions & therefore look like a weirdo), send off for three college transcripts (CSUB was easiest, an e-transcript obtained w/snap of fingers; ULV was a little trickier; i opted to send request for NCOC transcripts via certified mail, since the school's no longer even open!), copies of credentials, three letters of recommendation, a 20-page PACKET with all the insurance & liability & rules & warnings & etc stuff, james's & my tax forms proving we're reeeeeellly married, three online classes supposed to be about 6 hours' length that took only 2, but STILL...
i hope tomorrow i will sign my contract. i hope tomorrow i will get to see my classroom.
hope is a thing with feathers, wrote emily dickinson.... here is the whole poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42889https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42889

still don't feel like writing

this might be a new brain-trend. still, yesterday i had an experience that could be useful to recount, so here goes:
yesterday i confronted a family member who has hurt many people. this person returned to society last yr & (of course) was welcomed by mama back into the family, tho with the caveat if she ever had whiff he'd returned to old, horrible, evil behavior, he'd be "dead" to her. i have stayed on high horse & avoided this person til yesterday, when that little voice told me, go talk to him. so i did, much more assertively & directly than i thought possible, tho not inappropriately (sometimes that happens when i get overwhelmed, like i'll start blubbering or lashing out).
the encounter ended up being a sort-of reverse amend: he expressed sorrow for past behavior, confirmed what i'd suspected, that as a child, he'd been victim of the same kind of crime he later perpetrated, said he knows many ppl will never want anything to do w/him, but understands that's a consequence of what he did, & indicated that he now tries every day to be a better person. and i've seen that. actions speak much louder than words, to me; i believed him.
the person's demeanor, once we went back into the gias' house, was much humbler. the wall between us was gone. i found myself afterward feeling flustered, a bit irritated, even guilty, wondering if i'd  done the right thing. i realized what was at the kernel of the discomfort: compassion.
this is no bs: i then sat down on the couch to work a cryptogram, making sure i sat down there in the same room w/this person whom i'd avoided until that morning, & the solved puzzle read this: "if i understood all, i would forgive all." damn!
like kramer said on seinfeld one time, "it's the little man, jerry. the little man always knows!!" (as does my little woman.) i'm grateful i now can hear that little voice here & there, heeding me to do the right thing.

wow.

i am so calm.
many times, i get on here thinking, "i don't know what to write," & suddenly seven different connections will jump into my head! so i start blablablaaing!
right now..... nothing.
this is weird...........

pix from our first time out as a couple

- july 4, 2012 in long beach, photos by dewey
(oh, here i go again, blabbing about my spouse...)
- i remember that day, floating above myself in a haze, being in public with james for the first time. and i indelibly know this pic of him, so much feeling radiating from those sea-blue eyes. he was really physically sick all the time back in these days as well as pretty tortured in his soul; so happy he's getting his health all straightened out now. james still has a lot to tell the world, so much to share... as for me, i shall help children again. and write songs. and play piano. oh yes, and hope to live! not just exist! do you know what i mean?
- last night we listened to howlin' wolf & amazed & enthused over the sinewy atmospheric world of that music, & james told me about hubert sumlin, whom he knew, & i'm forever amazed by james... we were happy to read on the CD liner notes that mr burnett always had the best sidemen cause he bothered to pay them fairly, which james always does & always has done but a lot of front men DON'T, & that burnett, a self-educated high school drop-out (like james) fell in love with his wife lillie tho she was from a proper family & was formerly educated -- you know, like i am. and that they were married for 49 years. happily.
i wish i could tell you a fraction of the stories he tells me about all the musicians & other ppl he's met, stories funny, sad, horrifying, unbelievable, life-affirming. i hope he'll let me ghost-write his book some day: all he'd have to do is sit down & talk; i eagerly would do the typing. it would be quite a read!
not much else up except this a.m. i was so exhilarated to get bloodwork, drug test, AND fingerprinting down all before i came back up the mountain for library work. feels so great to be getting that sense of responsibility & organization back, prepping for the return of the teacher within. then at the library, little tiny terry came up & wrapped his little arms around me & several children are getting to know me & look with such adorable trust to me for direction & we served lunch & corraled kids & introduced an art project & then put away tables & chairs. i still feel pretty great, but who knows? could be that extra-octane coffee i had on the drive home...
oh, that's enough for now.
well,
be well.
be.

happy independence day!

from roadshow revival, pic by kelli

cornball alert: today i've been clean & sober 21 years. i tell you, this is a much better independence day than 21 years ago! it's my life now, & i wouldn't have it any other way. we have so much for which to give thanks, even with life's inevitable lumps & bumps! if you're even teetering about whether to give up a vice or keep it, just remember: that crap will always be out there!! you always can go back to it if the path of abstention doesn't float your boat... assuming it doesn't maim or kill you, as it does & has too, too many!! -- so grateful my life story's been afforded more chapters bc of having been forced to make the decision to drop that damned evil, heavy rock of active addiction. if you gotta problem with the stuff & you vaguely sense or are massively aware of it, sobriety is worth a try, it really is!! love to all, jenny page (& sleeping james)

blablablablaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

- here are a few pix from last night's show in bakersfield... man, it was scorching hot up til late at night when we rolled anthony into the truck & took his happily inebriated rear end to his hotel room. we had a super-rockin butt-kicking show!! kaykay, with whom we've not spoken really for some months, was really nice, & like most all folks we've met lately, says she likes this line-up of the band better than ever. i especially value compliments from ppl whom i know won't blow smoke up my rear: it feels more truthfully earned. best of all was meeting the fellow last night who, after the show, was shocked to realize there was no bass player & in fact i am the bass player (on the electric piano). "see, jenny?" said laughing anthony, "that's how good you are!" it was a really fun night, i tell ya, & we were thankful for it.
- james befriended caleb, the young man in pic with him. caleb is trying to uphold the rockabilly torch in backwardsfield & james liked him right off. my friend tammy, the gal with the cool red & white do, told me about her involvement lately in "pinups for patriots," raising funds to help vets with ptsd issues, which we of course lauded her heartily for doing... "jinny [that's how she always says my name], you oughta git involved," she told me, & i had to laugh bc when i was younger, ppl approached me here & there asking me to pose for pix, but i just could never do it on a public level. unless i'm in front of a class presenting larnin' material or i have a piano between me & the crowd, it feels too, too weird to pose & posture! i'm the dorky fat kid, not a pinup, & it'll always be that way.
- want to record here for my memory that during this time in my life at all shows i wear the pictured ugly doc marten 12-holes. they were the best thing to come of our too-short recent trip to the city by the bay, from my favorite thrift store in the mission. i've never worn docs, preferring leg-slimming platforms & wedges, but playing in the blues express has forced me to pick practicality over monster fashion. to play to my best, i gotta have shoes that are always the same height & are always comfy, so these have to do for now. i forget how short i am, but school hasn't started yet, so i don't have to be tall for another month...
- mom & dad are off to europe tomorrow. we've been here 5 days now to squeeze out every possible visiting minute. so proud my folks worked so damned hard for so long & now can afford to do such nice things. they'll be attending the welsh eistedfodd [sic], the festival mama's choir won 50 yrs ago (the 1st americans to do so!), taking pix & recording memories for an upcoming documentary on their feat, then spending 5 days or so in london. i doubt they'll sleep much tonight, so excited are they to go! on another note, niece madeline's all the way in korea teaching english, having the time of her life. the girl hardly ever got off the couch or her phone, it seemed to me when she was here, tho she's managed to obtain a BA &'ll be entering an MA program in fall, only 22 yrs old! yet she hopped the plane, went to asia, & posts on facebook daily of her korean escapades, transformed into an active & successful TEACHER!!
- hahahahhaha! it's the genetics: she can't avoid it!
- our other future teacher is mister james junior page, & we got the sweetest, nicest, out-of-the-blue email from him last night. he's usually a more taciturn guy of mordant wit, so to get such an open expression of affection had us both near-blubbering. life dishes up surprise after surprise, but some of the nicest ones are seeing how resilient these youngsters are, how big-hearted & wise & beautiful they are turning out to be. we couldn't be prouder or more grateful.
- oh, & tomorrow i celebrate 21 years without booze or illegal narcotics. wow!