My father was a jazz musician and producer. Music runs through the family like a particular gene, or something. We all have it. Hell, my brother's daughter is AD of a major municipal symphony orchestra, and also first chair violin, and her brother is doing a PhD for something called "modern somethingorother piano" at San Diego State. The music in my immediate family is ridiculous; my poor sister Alice, who loves it with a passion, is the model for Penny's musical inabilities in the current series: she knows songs in seven languages and can't hum any of them, or play an instrument.

ita, that was lovely.

Ginger! That brought back some memories; I was the first acid rock lover I knew in my own age group, and it definitely polished the edges of me being One Apart.

ita, will you write for me forever?

I'm drabble-less, but I'm thinking about it. It's sneaking around the back edges of my brain.

Ever quiet, ever gentle on your mind?

You are the coolest person, Robin. I'm glad to have met you (albeit not in person).

That's gorgeous, ita.

I've got a couple of drabbles lurking in corners of my mind, but they'll have to wait until I get my partials ready to go out the door.

a day in the life

It's not music, whatever it is. Noise, cacophony, chaos.

She's new on the drum kit, so it's taking her a while to find the groove. The boys don't really want to practice, they're just messing around on the guitars. And whatever song they're playing from the song bank on those cheap keyboards I've already heard one million times. The bassists are working, but that four-finger exercise doesn't exactly sound like Patitucci.

And then, unexpectedly, he raises those teenage boy eyes to me and says, "I don’t want you to go." My heart breaks as symphonic glories swirl around my head.

I love this line, erika:

I’m taking too long to get started, and you finished too fast.

(When I was in college, the local newspaper editor took the college newspaper's editorial board out to dinner each year at a fancy restaurant. Few of us were used to fancy restaurants and even fewer to ordering drinks, but we all wanted to appear adult and sophisticated. As we fumbled about trying to order, one of the other students ordered Southern Comfort on the rocks. We looked at her, and she said, "If it was good enough for Janis Joplin, it's good enough for me.")

ita's Pied Piper drabble is a thing of wonder.

Deb, insent.

Thanks, ChiKat, I debated not writing that one because I was afraid it would come off like teenaged litmag necrophilia(you know what I'm saying?) But, you know, fuck it.

Another....

In the winter, my mom and I do jigsaw puzzles on the dining room table, listening to her music -- the McGarrigles (That’s the sun, son, shining on the water, it’s not Cairo, New York or Rome), Joan Baez (Jesse, I won’t cut fresh flowers for you/Jesse, I won’t keep the wine cold for you), Bette Midler (And my mother’s eyes are with me, in the darkness that’s been paid for). We laugh, cry, sing along, dance, in the cold dark of winter. I’m too young to understand most of the lyrics, but I always know what they mean.