Red Butte--John Hiatt

Oh, the Red Butte Concert Series is afoot. As Dr Write pointed out--it's a blissful way to spend the summer evenings here in the land of salt.
Though last night (touched as I was by a bit of the ennui--which I also call Petite Syrah) I found the audience to be a bit disconcerting.
First off--everyone had blond hair. This is not unusual for the Scandinavian rooted stock that is Utah. BUT most of these were older blond heads. People who went to Lagoon to see the Doors and the Beach Boys play.
And then I had a moment of: I am a old blond too. What's the point of having blond hair if you're over 30? I'm becoming agist against myself.
On the other side of the coin was this young girl in front of me. She was, you guessed it, also blond. And the tannest and most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. She was, I think 8 or 9. But she was hot. And she knew it. And the boy who was obviously the son of her parents' best friends knew it too. And he ignored her like she was a napkin. Everything she did--take a drink of soda, stand up, eat a carrot, brush crumbs off her shorts--she turned to look to see if he noticed. And I, who was sitting behind saw that he did. But to her, no. He turned his head to look away every time.
He was about ten. His parents left before hers did. After he left, she relaxed. She danced around like a little girl should. She stood between her mom and dad and felt protected not only by their bodies but in the way they weren't pretending not to look at her as they looked at her.
I just wanted to go up and tell her--keep your clothes on. Next time you see this boy. He's not worth the amount of nakedness you'd have to show him to get him to look like he's actually paying attention. He already is.

TV Free

We're closing in on the move. Much is packed and stuffed into the garage. We're closing on the MI house next week and this house is on the market as of Friday. Many of my friends are leaving for their jobs soon. I'm kind of in a holding pattern--I'm done with the bittersweet: I can't leave this tree, this sidewalk, the cabinet, this blade of grass. Instead, I go outside without my shoes on and sit on the backporch to watch the sun go down. We have packed the TV. I try to read in the waning light.
Monday night, Zo was sick again. Every cold goes straight to her lungs. She sounds almost as bad as when she had RSV--Respiratory Scintilla Virus. I particularly find the Scintilla to be illustrative because she sounds like she inhaled a Chinchilla. And, as we all know, rhyming is true etymology. We went outside and let her wheeze the fresh air and we drank wine. We put her to bed and went back out. It's like when we were first dating. I don't think we came inside more than twice that first summer. Perhaps I love no TV.
This week: I'm reading Steve Almond's, (who I'm intruducing on Thursday at Writers@Work new book "Which Brings Me to You;" I'm revising my novel again (just a little) to send to the agent I met yesterday, I'm driving Writers @ Work folks to the airport, entertaining Erik's aunt, going to a cocktail party going to my mom's family reunion, waiting for the home equity line to go through and figuring out where this new Franck's restaurant is that the Trib gave 4 stars to. Thirty One and I will be there soon.
Speaking of sisters, Thirty-One's twin has started her own blog: Kendall Jackson. Hurrah! And, Thirty-One talked Kendall into coming to visit in July. Another Hurrah! And, she's meeting me in Michigan to help us unpack and get settled. Triple Hurrah!

Titles

I haven't looked completely at App Crit's Titulary Discourse post but I do like to come up with titles. I have a new book of poems that I want to call "King George's Book of Cliches" but I also like "King George's Book of Birds and Cliches" which takes the birds out of their lofty position and elevates the cliche a bit. There are a number of birds and cliches in the book so it's also descriptive!
It's fun to make new books. I have only 48 pages though. I might have to write some poetry filler. What's a good cliche that I haven't used?

Greed

I've been a bad blogger. I want to write more, but as usual, I want more of everything. I was obsessed for a moment with personality quizzes like BlogThings and QuizBox. I like to go back and change my answers to see how the quiz is formulated. I usually know in advance which personality trait, which animal familiar, which IQ, which aura I would like to have and I answer accordingly. However, on one of the quizzes--I believe it was the 7 deadly sins quiz--I thought I was answering that sloth was the one sin I was most guilty of. Turned out, it was greed. I thought that was odd because everything in my life is geared to make me lose money, not make it.
But then I thought of what I actually spend most of my time doing--wanting more publications, wanting more time to write, wanting to eat more, wanting to be thinner, wanting a beautiful space to be in, wanting to spend more time with Zoe, wanting more long conversations with Egg, wanting to live by a lake, in the mountains, with a big great-room for company, wanting more friends so I can have more company, wanting more mail, more blogs to read, more time with my family, more choices, more plans, and, even, in a way, more money (or, less debt).
I'm greedy in all things. It's a kind of lust too--wanting so much stuff. No wonder the quiz had a hard time finding me lazy--so much wanting keeps me very very busy.