Another Smattering, Which is How Things Are Lately

--I keep trying to listen to the new Indigo Girls record, "Despite Our Differences," as a whole, but I'm always skipping the Emily songs to get to the Amy songs. Those of you out there who are Indigo fans will immediately understand what I'm talking about. You're either one or the other, it seems--Amy or Emily. And you appreciate how the IGs as a unit make the songs stronger. Well, sort of. I still think Amy's two solo records are better than anything they've recorded together since "Shaming of the Sun," or maybe even "Swamp Ophelia." The last two Amy Ray-penned songs on the new record are perhaps the most powerful she's written in the last five years: "Dirt Roads and Dead Ends," and "They Won't Have Me." I've heard her talk about her struggles with the South as an entity, as a myth, and, obviously, as a reality. After all, she still lives there, in the backwoods of Georgia. She's talked a lot about the disdain she has--maybe that's a strong word that she wouldn't use, I don't know--for liberals who've left the South. Because if we all leave, like I have, then there's no one left to make the kind of change it's going to take. She sings: "Who's going to do the planting, and who's going to pray for rain?"

--I tried to watch the Halloween Parade on television, looking for Andrea, who was leading the parade as a stilting angel, but I felt so dumb for not being in it that I had to turn it off. I've done it with various socio-political contingents, as well as joined the Bread & Puppet Brigade, and Laura and I went as crying mourners, with thirty other mourners, the year that Matthew Shepard was killed.

--It's getting cold at the market. It's like a game: see how long you can go without breaking out the hot pads, see how long you can keep your fingers working.

--The new novel is back on the tarmac, waiting for clearance from the tower. You can get things done there, however. I'm reworking my notes, which is so important, as Joan Didion has said, "the ability to make a note is the difference between writing and not writing." Or something like that....I don't feel like getting the book down off the shelf to look for the exact quote. It's from The Year of Magical Thinking, if you want to look yourself.

--I have a lovely boyfriend. We watched "Stick It" last night, via Netflix. It was fun. Although it's one of those movies that has a really short arc, but takes a long time to get there.

--I liked "The Prestige" at the movies. Maybe we'll see "Volver" today, or possibly "Borat," but I doubt it. More likely the Almodovar.