Finding the Positive

Things that feel good this week:

Live music. Starting to garden again for the year. Someone really special to me who wants to improve my mood and yet doesn't get frustrated with me when it doesn't always work.

Two weeks ago, my department was eliminated at work. The economy? No, turns out my department made money that paid for some things that aren't going so well in a mental-health non-profit. Incompetence? No, we've got the most clinically savvy and ethically responsible mental health team in the agency. Personnel problems? Maybe...the administrative team left something to be desired. Government regulations? Also a maybe. Power play by which my agency asserts itself as a major player in influencing child and family mental health in this state? Probably. Anyhow, I'm awesome at what I do, and I'm going to be jobless...in a few weeks? A few months? Maybe I'll find a job? Whatever. I'm too tired to worry about it. Two days after that, I got on a plane to the cold, snowy midwest to pick up a large-ass luxury sedan (leather seats, sunroof, miles to the gallons-and-gallons-and-gallons) I inherited when my mom died of lung cancer at 60. Thank you, Someone Special, for embarking on that kind-of ridiculous errand with me. Five days of airplane, layover, airplane, taxi, visit the relatives, drop the bags at the rented house my dad abandoned last week, discover the heat's out, call for help, get the furnace working again, visit the relatives again, drive through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon, sleep in motels, hope for good weather, try to see buffaloes and museums and Native American villages and state parks and whatever, find out everything's closed in the upper Midwest in the winter, have some fun anyway road trip. If you ever find yourself driving I-94, I recommend the large animal, Viking, and Paul Bunyan sculptures. And Riverfront Park in Spokane. And I recommend doing it in the summer so you can see the National Buffalo Museum and the Indian villages and the Lewis and Clark camps and the Pictograph Caves and the good parts of Yellowstone. Ultimately, there's an unbelievable amount of nothing along I-94 and I-90, and along the trip from I-90 to I-84 through Washington. But it was still kind of fun. And I am now the proud owner of an aging Mitsubishi Diamante Old Lady Car With Heated Leather Seats That Seems To Leak Antifreeze. I figure I combine that with the Even More Aged Honda Civic Hatchback Without Power Anything That Leaks Whenever It Rains and maybe I can trade in for half of a New Small, Efficient Car Without Any Problems Yet.

After I got back, there was an unbelievable amount of music I could go see. I went the jazz route. Saturday, I went to see Blue Cranes at The Cleaners at Ace Hotel. Wow. I've seen these guys a couple of times, and I'm still...oh, Wow. Bowled over. Such classic experimental jazz without misstep or dumbing-down, yet it's perfectly understandable and accessible to an indie-rock-listener crowd too. Every note is perfectly placed, yet there are clear improvisational solos. Dynamic, intelligent, hook-y, charming, powerful-as-all-hell stuff. The next night was Lindsey Stormo/Ben Darwish and Why I Must Be Careful at Rontoms, the closing after-party of the Portland Jazz Fest. Lindsey had this light, untrained showtunes-wannabe voice that warbled birdlike in the high ranges or reached desperately for blues standard sounds in her lower ranges, but consistently sounded weak and tentative in any range. Maybe, with a good voice teacher, she'd be right for the chorus of a light operetta out of the Gilbert and Sullivan catalog. Ben Darwish was simply the hired hand that comped along with her, so I didn't get to learn anything about him as a jazz pianist. Why I Must Be Careful absolutely blew me out of the water, though. Shit. I mean...shit. Pounding, experimental keyboards and drums and...holy shit. This stuff was so overwhelming, I couldn't understand it then and I can't describe it now. All I can say is, you have absolutely got to go see this shit for yourself, because it's beyond amazing. Fists flying, drumsticks everywhere, chaos and disorder to the untrained eye (ear), but yet the two of them clearly never lose each other no matter how many times they lose me, and their musical genius outstrips any band I've ever heard. Holy fucking shit. Shit.

Until I next find the stamina to write...