Another Spain:

I found it through music. On the metro, flamenco piped in that no one seemed to notice. Aboveground in a drizzle, I wandered aimlessly through Barcelonetta. First the flute trilling, discovered tucked into a gothic doorway. Then the classical spanish guitar, down a exhaust-stained alley where a cat followed me to curl up in the case. To the right, a moorish arch I gawked at as the rain picked up.

Then the sound of voices singing in Catalan. I followed them by ear through alleys and passages and many wrong turns to a cathedral's sheltered courtyard. As the thunder crashed, I watched the lightening above the palms and found myself huddled next to a station of prayer candles, in awe and humbled by the steady procession of humanity in black and nature's music.

Days later, I tried to return. I couldn't find it, by foot or by guidebook. I don't need to find it again.

Hrm... I should go back.

Hrm... I should go back.

Yep.

I would like to get into trouble with ita and Jo.

Nice thing is, you get into trouble with Jo, you're likely to end up at the Trump and having dinner at Cipriani's. Or possibly in a lift somewhere with a couple of enormous men who play for the Orlando Magic. Ask AmyLiz.

Anyway. Jo gives good trouble.

Not surprising, considering her superior genes!

Honolulu

For you, it was a working holiday. For me, it was a small taste of what heaven might offer.

You spent most of that week indoors, laying down riffs and runs. The engineers argued with the guitarists, the singer sulked; amused, bored, you ran your hands up the keys, doing your job, earning your pay.

I lay on the beach, the Hawaiian sun burning your name into my heart, into my flesh, waiting for sundown, for you to come back, take me to dinner, tell me about that day's session.

I'd give almost anything to have that week back again.

the Hawaiian sun burning your name into my heart, into my flesh,

V. nice.

V. nice.

Thing is, his name was already there. I never did figure out how to shed it.

The only way to removes something branded in is to cut out the flesh into which is is branded, Deb.

So...you have to live with it. Something you already know, doll. (kiss)

So...you have to live with it. Something you already know, doll

Yep. In fact, I'm just starting the fourth Kinkaid novel, which is all about knowing it.

In fact, I'm-a go make some dinner and get back to prologue. Cleveland Rocks has its first 1400 words and I want to go finish the prologue.

Besides, I love hanging out with JP and Bree.

Write on, babe!

These are really nice.

I'm just so tired, my headspace is somewhere else though, so mine is a downer.

change

I want a vacation from knowing, every night, that this might be the last night of one of my students' lives.

I want a vacation from participating in a culture that allows torture and detainment without due process.

I want a vacation from a world where anal rape is a joke and an accepted part of our punitive system.

I want a vacation from having responsibility for the wanton destruction of the earth that sustains our life.

I want a vacation from believing that there is something I can do to change all that, and that means I must.

Change.