Friday, April 20, 2012

Having a Ball in Austin!

Dear Madonna,

I'm here in Austin to attend the inaugural Austin Swing Dance Championships ("Keeping Austin Weird and Swinging") but came in a couple of days early to hang out with my good friend Mike and his husband, Timo. They treated me to an amazing tour on my arrival: lunch at the Oasis, then a walk up Bonnell Mountain, a visit to an amazing costume store, a stop for a treat at Amy's Ice Cream, a dance at the famous Continental Club, and we were just going to grab a beer somewhere and happenend upon a live performance by Marcia Ball!

It was my brother, Mike, who introduced me to her music years ago, and it was one of my first visit's to New York that my friend, Kathy took me to Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Centre where - again by chance - she was playing. I remember some jerk asking me to dance and I found him impossible to follow. When the song ended he asked in a disgusted tone "Don't you West Coast?". At the time, I didn't - and I pretty much decided then and there that I didn't want to have anything to do with a dance that attracted such rude and igorant people.

My how times have changed!  Marcia was awesome, as always, and Mike and I got up to dance (me in my flip flops) - West Coast Swing :)








Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Night To Remember

Dear Madonna.

It was sad when the great ship went down, and this "Titanic Week" has been full of stories and insights into the tragedy, and its ongoing place in our culture and imagination.

I remember watching the movie "A Night To Remember" on our way to Prince Edward Island. It was a summer vaction/family road trip, and we had stopped overnight at a motel in Bangor, Maine. We had adjoinging rooms: my parents in one, and my brothers and our baby-sitter, Margie, in the other. While the boys slept, Margie let me stay up to watch the movie with her.

There was a long line-up to catch the ferry to P.E.I. (this was long before the bridge was built), so by the time we boarded and got underway it was night-time. I remember the eerie feeling of walking on the deck, the images of a sinking ship so fresh in my mind.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Mom's Eggs

Dear Madonna,

It's Easter weekend and I can't stop thinking about eggs.  Not the chocolate kind - though they're everywhere - but the ones sitting a small bowl that NJ made.  They were Mom's, and they remind me so much of her: their colours, and how she would pick one up and enjoy the shape of it in her hand.

It was her birthday last Sunday.

When I got the news that I was going to have to get my appendix out - I cried, but I didn't tell the surgeon that my mother had had a stroke during a bypass operation, and had never woken up.

Thinking of Mom, and thinking of eggs and their potent symbolism of ressurection and new life.