take me home, country road

day three in asheville, though the days have effortlessly breezed by thanks to the wonderful people whom i love. i have done many things worth writing about, eaten too much, and laughed a lot. there have been waterfalls, local brews, dog bribery, homeless men with riddles about rabbits. tonight, i'm seeing ani difranco for the first time in perhaps 6 (but maybe 8) years.

i packed poorly for this trip: too many dresses, not enough layers, everything in shades of either black or purple. yesterday i pulled everything out and stared vacantly at my options, disappointed at the impracticality or limitedness of one small suitcase for 2 weeks. i've borrowed clothes to fill in the gaps (hiking shoes, t-shirts), but am missing my options, my color, better shoes. the star-spangled cowboy boots are where i went wrong.

land of the sky

asheville, and her inhabitants, have treated me impressively well.


working in reverse: just got back from the ani difranco/erin mckeown show. the ani show was an expected roller coaster of nostalgia and frustration, and ani while appeared sometimes joyous, more often she seemed tired and stressed. she made several mistakes and was visibly bristled for several minutes after, regardless of her adoring (unchanging) fans. musically, she was on her game, and her supporting band was perfectly complimentary (just a drummer and an upright bass, but the drummer was capital-f fantastic).

it comes down to this: her new work is shit. i've tried for many years to keep up, but the last money i've spent on the difranco machine was in 2005, after years of mediocre releases. the last live show i saw was years before that. the light has gone out for me, a long time ago, but those songs from that era (beginning in college-onward) are Definitive for me, auto-biographical. there are ani songs and albums that are, and forever will be, soundtracks to parts of my history; those few songs which she played gave me goosebumps. but the new music is lifeless, limp, lacking power. as firthofforth said, "the poetry is gone." it is; i've yet to connect to her newer work, and some lyrics even send me rolling my eyes (e.g. "smiling underneath"). i always hope for something to reconnect me, but nothing has.

after the show we had post-show drinks at the flying frog (house-infused pear vodka, Dear Lord), then a late-night snack at the portlandesque rosetta's cafe. did you know that march is punk month? neither did i.

so much has happened since i've had time to write here. i'm finding it challenging to work in reverse; striving to write less laundry-list journal posts about travels than i tend to do. i want to tell you about the piggery and phillip seymour hoffman, how i am doing in my grand bribery attempt of a certain fuzzy chihuahua, food i have eaten, laughing until i cried at jack in the woods, the firestorm cafe, my relationship with the south, my allergies. but i just realized daylight savings time just changed, though my waking-time remains. and so it is.