Going on four days since the power went out. The power company information services still won’t commit to an estimated service restore date. Damn it all. I understand the concept of traige and such, and know that my neighborhood isn’t on the same piece of grid as anything important like a school, hospital, or major shopping center. I just wish we got better public statments from the power company; I wish they’d offer more comment than “uh, we’re fixing it…trust us!” Explain the methodology a bit, how essential services have to be addressed first for the common good. Even if it’s inconvenient to them personally, most people will respond to that: humanity is a social animal; in this sort of situation, our tendency, even for the most Galtian and bootstrappy among us, is to fall back on our herd/pack instincts – at least I hope so. As far as I can tell, no one’s killed anyone over the last bag of ice at Kroger yet.

I’m on the road again this week, in a part of the state that’s mostly got itself sorted out by now (and I feel guilty when I take a hot shower in the morning). The spouse and offspring, unfortunately, are still getting by in the dark with a couple of battery operated lanterns, some candles, and a propane camping stove. That sucks. They’re holding together, but it sucks that they have to.

Luckily, our neighbor has access to a BIG generator, which is keeping a few of our neighborhood fridges running so our food won’t spoil. It’s only costing us a couple of gas cans. I am amazingly grateful for our little neighborhood, and the way we manage to pull together and keep each other afloat in a crisis.

I’m also kind of annoyed with the fact that we’ve had so many opportunities to practice our coping skills over the years.

I’m going home tomorrow. Here’s to hoping that things will look a little less like a Mad Max film by the time I get there. As I said, I understand the priorities inovlved in restoring services after a major weather event. However, from a purely personal perspective, I could honestly use a break after all that’s gone down the last couple of weeks.

I recently visited a place that used to be really special to me. A place that I associate with many fine and treasured memories. It was a good feeling to go back. The sounds and smells were largely the same. Many of the old landmarks, both the “official” ones as well as those that are important only to me and a few others, were still there. It was nice to see them again, and reconnect, however briefly, with the good times I had there that I’ll always remember.

But the place wasn’t mine anymore.

True, if I squinted just right, I could see the place I knew, the topography I traversed so long ago. It was still recognizable, but just as I had, it grew and changed in the years I’d been away. I’m not the person I was when I spent time there, and the place wasn’t the same as it was either. The sillouettes, even the paths I walked had changed; too many other people’s memories had piled on top of mine, and they’d added their particular touches, just as I had, to the evolving canvas that all places really are.

And that’s the way it should be.

I’ve seen several varieties of this sort of thing get passed around via email, but mercuryblue‘s recent essay at slacktiverse does a really good job of covering how political considerations are inextricably woven into every personal decision we make. Every choice we make (or don’t make) has an effect on the larger world, no matter how seemingly insigificant.

It’s pretty overwhelming, which is why so many people simply don’t think about it. Sometimes I wish I could get into the mindset of that sort of person – I imagine that kind of life would be a lot less stressful. As it is, those of us who try to think about those things and try to generally do right by the universe end up making compromises constantly because doing the right thing is often beyond our limited means. Other times, we give into the ease of cultural retail convenience, because it’s easier, then we feel guilty about it.

Still, we do what we can, and focus on that little bit of good we just did, and try not to think about how all the other things we did this morning offset it. That’s how we get through the day.

Maybe today we’ll break even on the cosmic scale. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for.

Almost fifteen years ago, we brought a tiny, sickly little brown kitten home. She had some issues early on. We had to make special meals for her; plain white rice and finely ground beef, because she couldn’t quite digest the stuff from the store. She carried on conversations, waiting for the appropriate pauses; she seemed to have language figured out. She became best friends with a pet rat. As other cats, dogs, kids, and rodents came into our lives, she lorded over them all with benevolence. She was always there to sit with you and make you feel better after you had a bad day. She had that figured out too.

But most importantly, she was mine. The first (and probably only) pet I ever had that was really, truly mine; because really, she picked me.

Last week, her old age caught up with her. She started slowing down. Wouldn’t eat. The vet said it was an infection, but she was fighting it. By the time I got home on Friday afternoon, she wasn’t doing well. I sat with her all night, kept her comfortable, and wept. She left us on Saturday morning after a long drive through the beginnings of the hurricane. She needed a little help, but I was there with her in the end. She waited for me so I could be.

I’m going to miss her. I already do.

Power’s out, stress is high, but we’re here and okay, waiting for the rest of the Horsemen. I hope Death really does speak in all caps.

I’ll let you know if the locusts show or the James runs red with blood.

I wrote this one in fits and starts during the last couple of weeks. Little bits at a time, mostly, because I’ve been under a lot of pressure and stress, and I worked in a couple of audiobooks for the really long drives. Still, I hit on some good selections, including a cross-section of the 80s Minneapolis scene, a bit of a let down, and a record whose influence I’ve referenced many times, but hadn’t yet had it’s turn in the spotlight of this series.

♦Sheryl Crow: Tuesday Night Music Club: As I said, I’ve referenced this disc as a point of comparison numerous times in this series; and rightfully so. This one, and arguably Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill really did set the tone for a large segment of “female artists” for most of the nineties and at least the early part of the aughts. The record itself, nearly 20(!) years later holds up really well, and doesn’t feel particularly dated; though I suspect this is partly due to the the continued presence of hit singles from it on certain radio formats (especially those you’re likely to hear playing in your average convenience store or doctor’s office waiting room). It opens strong with the resonating “Run Baby Run,” and fills out with nice story-songs like “All I Wanna Do” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” which work just as much (if not more) because of the lyrical images they create than the catchy melodies. The whole record projects a comfortingly DIY image, with slightly dirty, lo-fi production; as if it was recorded in snatches over a long period (which it actually was). There’s some really well-crafted pop song here – “Strong Enough” and “No One Said It Would Be Easy” are favorites, but it also goes beyond being a simple pop record, with more experimental stuff like the jazzy “We Do What We Can” with it’s 12/8 time signature, and the sparse and haunting “I Shall Believe.” This record sold enough that you quite likely have a copy lying around somewhere. If you haven’t given it a spin in a while, go ahead and do so;I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

♦Richie Sambora: Undiscovered Soul: This was Sambora’s second solo outing from 1998, which places it well into Bon Jovi’s easy listening era. There are a few uptempo tunes, the lot of them blues-influenced, like “Hard Times Come Easy,” which according to my research, barely broke the mainstream rock top 40. It’s not bad, nor is “Made In America,” the lead track that spends a lot of effort aping latter day Springsteen and Mellencamp. Most of the record was written with Richie Supa, a songwriter/guitarist who is mostly known as a 70s Aerosmith collaborator. Nothing on this record rocks anywhere nearly as hard as 70s Aerosmith. This probably has much to do with producer Don Was, whose guidance here is a lot like the work he did with Bonnie Raitt in the same time period; highly polished and expertly mixed, but lacking much of an edge. What I remember most about this record when I first listened to it upon release was the sheer volume of sappy piano and string drenched love ballads, all transparently about Sambora’s then-wife Heather Locklear. Re-listening, those are still there, and they remain anti-highlights for the listening experience, though they’re overshadowed by “Who I Am,” which is still kind of indulgent at over 7 minutes long, but works for me in a way that it probably didn’t when I first heard it, and has the best guitar solo on the record.

♦Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain: I was looking for something else totally unrelated on my hard drive the other week and found a digitized copy of this in a directory full of music a former co-worker gave me a few years back (thanks, Chris!). I didn’t even know I had it; the folder was mostly electronica and ambient stuff. I was a little young for this when it came out, but know many of the tunes from radio airplay, as part of the public pool soundtrack (along with “Body Talk” by Kix and “Lucky Star” by Madonna – I think the jukebox only had three selections) and MTV, and have seen the whole movie over several years in disjointed, out-of-order chunks. However, until tonight, I never listened to the record front-to-back. I shall call my recommendation “suitably impressed,” which is probably an understatement. This is a damned good record, clearly meticulously planned, but comes off as though it was just tossed off over a long weekend. It’s pretty nearly perfect. What’s most impressive is how these tunes hang together as a collection which is greater than the sum of it’s parts. For example, “When Doves Cry” is a pretty great song on it’s own, but in series with “Computer Blue,” “Darling Nikki” and “I Would Die 4 U”, it’s almost like a movement in a mini symphony. “Symphonic” is probably a good word to describe the experience; my mind kept leaping to comparisons to Frank Zappa, who did similar things with instrumentation and complex, classically-inspired song structure. And like Zappa, Prince is an amazing guitar player who doesn’t really get credit for it; the little dude can shred. This comparison brings up an interesting irony related to the whole unfortunate PMRC business in the 80s. Tipper Gore, on her crusade to stamp out obscenity in music, cited “Nikki” as a primary example of overt sexuality in popular music; her husband, then Senator Al Gore, while holding hearings on the subject, spent one September afternoon in 1985 gushing over how big a fan he was of that work’s clear antecedent, Frank Zappa, when FZ was called before the committee (and gave this eloquent statement on the issue) to testify on behalf of artists.

♦The Replacements: Let It Be: Despite not even knowing about them while they were active, I’ve become a big fan of the Mats over the last few years. This record is the last indie release before they got picked up by Sire in the mid-80s. It’s kind of an evolutionary record; the early releases were energetic post-punk, very raw, and not particularly well played; still, they’re a lot of fun. On “Let It Be,” they start to branch out a little with tempo, rhythm, and more varied instrumentation; and a bit of Westerberg’s singer-songwriter tendencies start to come out a bit for the first time, and would later come to dominate the band’s sound as they closed out the 80s before hanging it up in ’91. It’s not particularly polished; but it’s that edge that really makes it work; and actually kind of a sonic signature; with vocals buried under tons of reverb and the guitars jangly and over-chorused. There’s lots of really affective, if not exactly virtuoso playing here – the whole of “I Will Dare” and the tempo shift in the breakdown section leading out of “We’re Comin’ Out” are great rock moments, and Westerberg is at his most plaintive and heartbreaking as his voice breaks on “Unsatisfied” and “Answering Machine,” which is built around an excellent solo guitar riff that doesn’t need any help from other instruments holding up a heartbreaking set of lyrics.

One day, I may decide to recount the whole story of these last two weeks, but it’s not going to happen right now, because I spent almost 14 hours at work today and I’m still not quite done with everything that needs attention.

And, after my necessarily compressed workout, I wanted to spend a few minutes in the hotel hot tub to loosen up, but unfortunately, it’s filled with fat, drunk tourists.

There have been a few nice moments, but mostly, the whole period is one I’d rather put behind me.

Little bit of shaking in Richmond, otherwise, no worries.

Time really does move faster as you get older, doesn’t it? I went back and checked what I wrote to mark this occasion last year, and after glancing around adjacent posts a bit, what I remembered of them didn’t feel like a whole trip around the sun ago.

Oh well. As I’m sure I commented on before at some point, this time ’round is significant, as I finally get to make a certain joking reference that, to be honest, I’ve been anxious to do for years. So, we might as well get to it:

I think we all know someone like this, don’t we?

So, yeah.