I received some insight into myself yesterday via a staff discussion. Due to a lack of specific information I had severely misread and mis-assessed a fellow worker.  I can see that my interpretation of this person’s behavior was largely colored in a negative way by being too quick to ascribe motives to others. Oy. What a basic mistake.

At the same time I was discouraged to observe that my expectations of people’s education levels and sophistication is woefully naive. Another Oy.

I find myself being drawn deeper into my old vocation of church musician. I have mentioned to a couple of people that I feel like Jonah in the bible story.

But I can’t decide if I’m at the point he is in the ship revealing to the sailors that he is running from God (and consequently thrown overboard). Or if I’m in the belly of the whale stubbornly refusing to listen to the voice of reason (God). Or if having succumbed to the notion that he is called to warn the people of Ninevah, subsequently freed from the prison of the stomach of the sea creature and wandering the streets of Ninevah prophecying doom and being nicely ignored. Heh.

Anyway, after my conference and taking my Mom to the shrink and going out to lunch with her, I found myself working intently on more organ music for upcoming services. Specifically this Sunday I am preparing a hoary old Anglican organ postlude bySir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. Sheesh.

After I decided to use this piece this Sunday, I thought it might be nice to point out to the congregation that I chose this postlude because Parry was also the author of the closing hymn tune. And before you know it I had written up a little article for the bulletin, something I have been trying to avoid doing because I think it might be a bit of good natured over functioning on my part as an under paid part time employee.

But there you are.

A high point for me yesterday was actually finding a check in my box for the funeral the day before. Although this may have been due to the graciousness and alertness of this particular family, I am still glad not to have to do the all too usual groveling and begging after I play music to get paid.

After a pleasant meal with my wife at her place of employment I came home and purchased an MP3 album of the Isley brothers greatest hits. I was thinking of them due to the recent death of their bass player, Marvin Isley. I do like the funk. I also listened to Public Enemy’s youtube version of their hit Fight the Power. All of this cheered me considerably.

After purchasing this album, Amazon decided to email me a coupon for $4 towards their on demand video service.

I was just eyeing a 1957 movie, “Lucky Jim,” based on the novel by Kingsley Amis that I recently read and starring Ian Carmichael an actor I admire.

So I broke pattern and sat down and watched it online by myself, something I rarely rarely do.

I enjoyed it thoroughly. I don’t necessarily recommend it unless you like goofy b&w adaptations from UK 50s bestsellers. Apparently I do.

I have an appointment in just an hour with my former doctor to try to get onto stronger high blood pressure meds. My present internist is gone until July and I don’t want to wait until she is back to change meds. It’s a bit awkward because I intentionally switched doctors and now I am returning to the guy I left.  But it should work out fine.

Yesterday my day was filled with the funeral I played and getting my Mom out of the apartment.

I kind of was confused about the music at the funeral. When the rector asked for pre-service music and then a prelude, I thought she was indicating that the family would be seated for the prelude (something she began doing a few funerals ago).

So when I arrived a half hour before I noticed that friends and family were already being seated. I usually test the waters a bit at funerals. The atmosphere was a bit tense yesterday at the beginning, so I sat down and played some Mozart starting with slow movements from the piano sonatas.

I think this music can be quite consoling in a very positive way.

At about ten to, I couldn’t find my rector to double check with. She of course was busy doing rector stuff. I figured I had about 8 minutes of the Bach Schubler chorales ready to go and about 3 minutes of a Bach chorale prelude for the prelude thereafter.

I sat down and played the Schubler chorales.

They actually didn’t go too bad. At least I thought they didn’t. I had a couple of shaky moments. The place was packed as I sort of expected. There seem to be a lot of local intelligentsia that stays a bit under the radar. I was glad I had played the Schubler chorales and was looking forward to finishing with the lovely Bach chorale prelude I had ready (“Wenn wir in hochsten Noten sein” from the Orgelbuchlein).

I noticed my boss and mentioned to her that I was done (I meant with the pre-service music). She  nodded and disappeared. I waited for the family to enter. Then I noticed that it looked like we were beginning the service. That is, skipping the prelude.

I grabbed and told her I had made a mistake and hadn’t finished the music yet. We quickly agreed it was inconsequential (the family hadn’t specifically requested this procedure or piece) and just went on.

Dang.

I hate screwing up like that. Oh well.

I kept eyeing the gathered assembly wondering how they would sing the victorian hymn chosen by the family for the first hymn of the service (sung just before the gospel reading). The hymn was “Come, Labor On.” The tune was by the American early 20th century organist, T. Tertius Noble. I had his varied hymn accompaniment handy in case the group started singing lustily.

Which they instantly did. Suddenly I was trying to lead a packed house with my itty bitty pipe organ. Fortunately my old teacher, Ray Ferguson, had taught me what to do in such a case. This involves switching the music up an octave and getting clever with adding 16 foot stops. This worked nicely and I finished with the varied hymn accompaniment. I thought it was a well done moment in the service.

Funerals are always hard. This man, Jack Wilson, was someone I and my father exercised with at the  local Parkinson’s exercise group (which my father eventually refused to attend). He was an art historian and taught at Hope(less) College. I knew him before his Parkinson’s hit him as a gentle bright sardonic man.

He outlived my dad by 13 months.

I thought we gave him a pretty good send-off  yesterday.

I went over earlier to keep rehearsing the organ music.

Afterwards I immediately went over to my Mom’s apartment and she agreed to go for a little ride.

By the time I was seated resting in my home it was after 5 PM. I was exhausted emotionally and physically. Mondays are usually a day I try to lay low.

Fortunately my lovely daughter, Elizabeth, called and cheered me quite a bit.

I think it’s pretty cool that she reaches out to me and Eileen regularly. My brother, Mark, also observed with wonder that she calls him on occasion. I like it that she connnects. I guess I’m a bit of a connector myself when I am at my best. Heh.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

The assistant pastor was musing in his sermon yesterday about why people left church communities cutting themselves off from others.  Did they think that they didn’t have real relationships with the people there? The left for (odd) reasons like they didn’t like the sermon….. pause…. or the hymns…. like that opening hymn (today)…. (general laughter)

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

I love this guy. He is retired and is now my boss’s assistant. He doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body. So his comment was not mean spirited by any means.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

When he saw the crowd reaction he looked back at our mutual boss a bit uncertainly and smiled apologetically.  Apparently she gets blamed for my decisions, heh.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

I actually like this hymn. Especially the part about “feeble sense” and “behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.”

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

The melody this is set to in the hymnal (LONDON NEW) does wander a bit and is not that easy to sing at first. One might even say it “moves in a mysterious way.” Heh.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

I mentioned to the priest after church that it comes to us via the English/Canadian branch of the church. I didn’t point out that I played a postlude based on it by the Canadian composer, Healey Willan.

I also didn’t point out that Benjamin Britten used it in his cantata, Saint Nicholas.

The author of the words, William Cowper, is someone I have thought of as a mad poet ever since I began associating his name with the weird text of my childhood church experience: “There is a fountain filled with blood.”  When I was a young man working his way through college by conducting a Methodist choir in Ohio I had my choir learn this simple four part hymn and sing it as an anthem. This I did out of a perverse fascination with its imagery and also that I knew it was part of the heritage. A quick check of the current United Methodist Hymnal published late last century reveals it is still in the their hymnal.

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

I still find the imagery almost Dantesque. While this hymn doesn’t appear in the Hymnal 1982 of the Episcopal church I do find it in the Episcopalian African-American Hymnal: Lift Every Voice and Sing II.

Several parishioners came up to me to tell me they liked the hymn. I mentioned with a smiled that we weren’t exactly holding a referendum. The former organist was quite kind. She told me she liked all of the music that day (this doesn’t always happen), especially the prelude.

This is interesting because the setting I played of BEACH SPRING by Wayne W. Wold (I can’t help but wonder if his friends tease him about Wayne’s World) was a bit innovative in its treatment of this American Sacred Harp tune. I used snippets of it later in the service to introduce it and improv while the priest returned from the center of the church where he read the gospel to the front of the church where he preaches.

I went back over in the afternoon yesterday to rehearse and prepare for today’s funeral. I am planning to play three pieces by Bach that need a little attention. Planning one more rehearsal this morning. Funeral this afternoon.

If you’ve read this far, I sheepishly acknowledge and almost but not quite apologize for all of this silly church music stuff.  But as Thom Yorke sings:

This is what you get
This is what you get
This is what you get when you mess with us

Karma Police

Another fascinating post from jupe…. ahem…..

So my blood pressure is creeping higher and higher. This morning’s read was another all time high of 152/105. Bah. If this continues next week, I will call my doctor and ask for stronger meds.

Of course the past week has been pretty stressful. Nevertheless, I feel like I am staving off the inevitable switch to higher meds as I age.

I was reading about the song, “Because,” on the Beatles Abbey Road yesterday. The story is told that John Lennon was listening to Yoko Ono play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano. He asked if she could play the chords backwards. When she did, he said, we’ve got a tune and wrote “Because.”

I immediately pulled out my scores to both pieces.  I was unable to find a much backwards Beethoven chord progressions in “Because.”

But.

It would be safe to say there is some obvious inspiration going on. Even a bit of derivation.

They share the key of C # minor. They both begin with the same arpeggio figure. Beethoven uses triplets, but the Beatles use duple statement of the same three notes in the electric harpsichord beginning. Both pieces use their keyboard figurations throughout.  The choral melody sounds a bit like the Beethoven melody.

The back-up vocals do some obvious classical choral  riffs which could be a reference to making a song that is inspired by a classical hit (Moonlight Sonata). They sound more like Swingle Singers Bach to me than any kind of Beethoven choral stuff. Makes me wonder if the Beatles heard them. I kind of suspect they did.

I mention this primarily as more evidence of our derivative the art and music is in our lives. It is frustrating and naive to me when artists are unaware of their debt to their art for providing them the materials and context of their own work. It is a tricky issue to be sure. However, over and over I see that a good portion of the music I love is clearly referring to and even actually using material from other sources.

I like music that does this. And I like being aware of how it is doing it.

I was reading the Abbey Road wiki article and ran across a couple of other steals. “Something” by George Harrison takes its first line from the James Taylor song which preceded it and was even recorded at Apple Studios. It looks like a conscious steal. The first line of “Come Together “Here come old flat-top,” was not only taken from the Chuck Berry song, “You Can’t Catch Me,” it was even the subject of litigation.

I put on Abbey Road to treadmill to yesterday. I noticed that the tracks were not in the original album order. This frustrated me so much I got off the treadmill and renamed the files and put them in the old order.

Then I read (somewhere) that this entire album was influenced by a more self-conscious “classical” approach to the album structure. And indeed there are recurring riffs and use of “You never give me your money” that are more satisfying to me as a listener when the tracks are played in the original order. Hmmm. Interesting.

Speaking of derivative music, I played through the entire Bach Schübler Chorales for organ yesterday.

I have a request to play Bach Cantatas for the prelude for a funeral tomorrow. Cantatas are larger works for a bunch of players and singers. To do them as a solo is a challenge.

However Bach himself derived five of the six Schübler chorale preludes from identifiable Cantatas.  They are doubly derivative because of course each one is based on a pre-existing hymn or choral melody.

I would dearly love to play one or two tomorrow. Not the famous “Wachet Auf.”

But maybe the “Ach bleib bei uns” or the “Wer nur den leiben.” I know the English words to the last one as “If thou but suffer God to guide thee.”  The links are to the James Kibbie pages where you can download or listen to an mp3 or AAC file (whatever that is). Bless Kibbie for having all of Bach’s organ music online. I won’t play the “Ach bleib” as fast as he does. I actually hear it a bit slower and of course I’m less likely to screw it up at a slower tempo.

Eileen and I bit the bullet yesterday and signed up for Comcasts “Triple Play” special: Cable, High Speed Internet and Phone for around $90.00 a month.

Right now we are paying that amount for a slow internet connection and phone (TDS Metrocom and AT&T). So we will be able to raise the quality of life and pay the same amount. Interestingly the cable internet does not automatically come with a wireless modem. But after installation I can order a free kit to allow me to install my present modem. We’ll see how this all comes out.

Finally, I pulled out my banjo (actually my quasi-son-in-law’s banjo…. mine needs adjustment) and did some writing yesterday.

Never sure if these little spurts of composition will amount to much. If so, watch this space for further developments and actual recordings. Especially if it stays on the banjo. I can record my voice and my banjo pretty well with my little Shure mic.

I had another connection with a musician I knew in high school via Facebook. I know that Facebook is evil, but what isn’t evil these days? I do like connecting with people from the past. Especially if they have any vestige of the passion they had when I knew them.

Speaking of passion, I had  a great rehearsal with Jordan the sax guy yesterday. We worked on the Bach sonata we are learning (BWV 1020). I am having a jolly old time talking Baroque interp and editing with Jordan. We also ran through the second movement of the Decruk sonata.

I also picked out a couple of organ ornamented choral preludes which I think would be cool on the sax with piano accompaniment. I am pointing Jordan at these because I think I learned a lot of the logic of baroque interp and diminution (the practice of stylistically adding notes in the manner of the baroque musician) from playing these kinds of pieces.

My brother Mark left yesterday. But not before we had some nice chats and one last check in with Mom. She is putting up a heroic struggle with depression. I am very proud of her. I cannot imagine the effort it takes to keep getting up, getting dressed and moving when one’s motivation is so oppressed.

I continue reading in Mao: the unknown story by Chang and Halliday and The Robert Shaw Reader edited by Robert Blocker.

I am reading or re-reading Anthony Burgess’s opus. I finished A Vision of Battlements by him. I am trying to read his novels in roughly chronological order. I have owned most of them over the years but was forced to order a cheap copy of The Doctor is Sick yesterday.

I received Stieg Larrson’s second volume in his Millenium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire in the mail yesterday. It should be good escape reading.

I also have been reading Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Non-conformity by Joshua Gamson and Ada by Nabakov on my ebook. The first is the June free e-book from U of Chicago. They are giving away an e-book a month. I like reading my netbook while treadmilling. It props up easily on the music stand I put in front of the treadmill and is easy to see.

I find the Freaks Talk Back very interesting.

Gamson has pointed out that much of the criticisms talk shows receive are actually directed at the people who come on the shows. This fascinates me because it never occurred to me to be repulsed by the outsiders on the tube. I am repelled by the people who moderate and profit by them. Of course, Gamson also talks about the damage critics insist such entertainment is doing to its audience and our society.

I have listened to the quick analysis of just what is causing many of the problems of violence and diminishing literacy and you name it. Usually I am struck by the reductionist aspect and lack of insight of such shrill comments, even as I lament the striking and sad behavior in our society of the angry and illiterate.

But Gamson is fun to read. And it’s free on the web. Cool.

So I guess I only missed posting on one day. It has been a very full few days. I have been pre-occupied with my concern about my Mom and my brother’s visit. Mom is struggling with increasingly severe clinical depression.

My brother arrived in time Wed to accompany us to the psychiatrist’s office visit Mom had scheduled. Somehow Mom had the impression we were taking preliminary steps to hospitalize her that day. I became aware of this when she made the comment, “Hope this fellow lets me come back here to live.”

I immediately assured her that was not what we were doing. I was happy my brother could meet my Mom’s psychiatrist. Always nice to have a face and an impression when talking about care-givers of your loved ones.

I also have been stressed about work.

Before my brother arrived on Wednesday, I lived through a luncheon and staff meeting. My boss and I have had many extensive analytic and strategic conversations around the issues facing our church community. I would say that most of the staff (besides my boss) finds me confusing and enervating to work with. Finding a constructive way to relate to them is exhausting.

For example, in the group exercise devised by my boss for the day, the second questions she asked us to answer to the group was “What would you have done differently last year?”

I of course went first and replied that was an easy one for me. I leveled my eyes at the children’s choir director and said that I would have not “yelled at Jennifer on Palm Sunday this year.” Brutal but true. Of course a group of uptight religious people had no idea what to do with this and in retrospect I’m not sure how constructive it was.

Religious workers who do not see themselves as professional have a tendency to be pretty fakey about everything. Our group has a lot of this. Needless to say no one else had such a revealing and intentionally vulnerable answer to that question.

I found myself practically “team teaching” with my boss as she led us toward a more clear vision of where she would like us to go. I checked with her afterwards and she assured me that my behavior in the meeting violated no boundaries. One of the things I am supporting in is an attempt to raise the bar of professionalism of the staff.

I came out of this meeting drained and exhausted. Waited for my brother to arrive for his visit. Then proceeded to take my Mom to her shrink appointment.

That was Wednesday. My Mom joined Eileen, Mark and me for a nice dinner at the pub. I say “nice” but it ended up being so hard for Mom that at one point she said to no one in particular, “I shouldn’t have come.” Moms. You gotta love em.

Yesterday’s trio rehearsal was a bit of disaster for me. I was a bit hung over from drinking my brother’s scotch (ahem). But even more hung over emotionally from the previous day.

It was therapeutic for about twenty minutes (the length of the Mendelssohn movement we began rehearsal with). But after that I continued to lose concentration, to come in and out of being distracted. My fellow players were predictably understanding and supportive. Oy.

Before rehearsal, Mark and I stopped by to see my Mom. She was being visited by her psych nurse who apparently had made her get up and get dressed. She was the worst I have seen her since her full fledged break down. She spoke in short sentences and had little affect. She claimed to have intentionally held back info from the shrink the previous day and kept asking all of us to leave so she could crawl into bed. Needless to say that didn’t happen quite that way.

Mark and I chatted with the psych nurse, Rachel, both of us meeting her for the first time. Hilariously I got confused in some of my comments to attempt to fill her in on what’s been going on with Mom. Couldn’t remember what happened which day. I remarked that I was failing my “cognition test.” (“Mr. Jenkins? Mr. Jenkins? Do you know what day this is? what month?”)

Finally when Mom was asking us all to leave, I suggested that Mark and I leave Rachel to it. After making sure that Mark wasn’t leaving town right away, she agreed instantly to remaining and working a bit more with Mom.

Mark and I had a late lunch together. I do enjoy his company but worry a bit about being too intense for him. I think it was excellent he was here for many reasons. First of all I do enjoy having him around. But also I think it helped when later we went back to see Mom again and he talked to her about his experience of clinical depression. Good stuff.

When we returned (expecting Mom to have continued to withdraw) she was sitting up dressed and reading a book. Although it was obvious she was still struggling with will to function issues, she actually suggested that she come to my house and have some “potato soup.”

Excellent!

So she did come over yesterday and spend some time here. Mark showed her the video the church that hired him prepared for the hiring process. This video is worth a blog post all by itself. It featured many parishioners and was revealing in interesting and amusing ways. Mark has got a good gig fer sure….. I can’t resisting mentioning that the church he is going to pastor sent a seminarian to the south during the Civil Rights struggle and took a bullet for another person and was martyred…. Wow!

Synchronicity keeps happening to me around composers using folk tunes and other material.

Yesterday I showed Jordan that the second movement of the Decruck sonata we are studying is based on a French Carol.

This was news to him, I think. It was fun to watch him verify my suspicion. When we played through this movement I heard it in a very new way relating Decruck’s lovely music to the material of the tune.

I got my Mom in to see her internist yesterday. She went over her very thoroughly and pronounced her well on the path to healing and could not find a reason for Mom’s complaining about some burning at this point. She prescribed some drugs to alleviate the system. Today Mom has an appointment with Dr. Nykamp her psychiatrist. I’m hoping that he will have some insight into how she can continue to heal.

My boss and my friend Jordan were gracious enough to move around appoinments to allow me to take Mom to the doctor and still meet with each of them yesterday.

My boss and I sat down for a much delayed meeting of the minds.  As usual it was very fruitful. Today she has scheduled a luncheon and staff meeting. She is interested  in taking us closer to professional ministry. She approved of my ideas about how to constructively connect with the children’s choir director. It is such a privilege to (finally) work for someone as conscious and calm as she is.

Afterwards I met with Jordan. We chatted about historical performance practice especially in the Baroque. We are learning a cool transcription of a Bach flute sonata. We didn’t get to it yesterday  but are scheduled to meet again Friday of this week.  We did rehearse the two movements of the Decruck we are learning. Also we sat and did some minor editing of my transposed transcription of the original viola part for the first movement.

My copy of “The Flight of Peter Fromm” by Martin Gardner came in the mail yesterday.

It was a welcome distraction between my many tasks. At first it felt a bit klunky in its writing style. It is Gardner’s ficitonalization of an evangelistic Christian who attends the liberal University of Chicago and finds his faith completely changed from fundamental to radical.

I was surprised that it kept drawing me in to the ideas about Christianity that I know so well. By that I mean the radical post-post-death of God stuff. The fictionalized professor who radicalizes the Peter Fromm character of the title is a professed atheist who is an active pastor.  His approach to Christianity is one that not only is easy for me to condone but also reminds me of my father’s faith at its most lucid stage. So I continue to be drawn in to this goofy book.

Also my boss gave me a copy of jesus freak: feeding—healing—raising the dead, the book, that she has asked the worship commission to read this summer.

It is the sequel to the book she had us read a couple of years ago, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. I found that book kind of fun, especially the descriptions of the author’s experiences in South America as a journalist and in NYC as a cook.

I read a few pages of jesus freak last night and see that it is a bit of a polemic for radical Christianity, which is the direction of my boss, which I strongly approve of.

Neither Gardner or Miles seem to be drawing me in other than awakening mild interest and application to my church gig.

My brother arrives to visit this morning. He is soon to move away to New Hampshire for an exciting new phase of his life, so he  feels a need to connect with Mom (and presumably Eileen and me) while he is still within easy driving distance.

Sunday, the chair of the church vestry approached me at the coffee hour and took my professional temperature. By the time we were done, he had dropped me off at my house and borrowed two books by my dead guru, Ed Friedmann (Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue & Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix)

I emailed my boss so she knew I had this conversation.

I spent Sunday afternoon struggling with writing a tool to conduct constructive collaboration meetings at church with the priest and the children’s choir director.

I bogged down pretty quickly. After a few hours I gave up and grilled shrimp and scallops for Eileen and me. Checked on my Mom who is struggling with a bad Urinary Tract Infection. She seemed a bit better.

Yesterday I got up and went back to work on the proposed collaborative tool. I managed to come up with enough for the first meeting to email my boss. It includes three concepts for the first meeting with one pertinent quote each and a couple of discussion questions.

It was like pulling teeth coming up with it. Not sure if my boss will buy it, but what the heck. She has good judgement. She and I are having lunch together today. Our first meeting since Pentecost.

I have also been spending a ton of time putting the first two movements of Fernande Decruck’s lovely saxophone sonata into Finale (the music notation software).

The piano accompaniment has the published solo viola version which differs from the alto sax part. Apparently Decruck adapted her sax piece for viola ostensibly to make it more accessible to more players.  Then the sax piece seems to have been a further revision which included some conciliatory simplifications due to the lack of technique of sax players at the time.

So I have put the viola part to mov 1 & part of mov 2 into the software. Once the original is entered this allows manipulation to other keys and octaves. My sax playing friend, Jordan VanHemert, who introduced me to this piece has been advising and monitoring my work. He and I meet this afternoon for more playing and chatting and probably editing the new sax part.

Eileen has told me I seem a bit obsessed with the church and sax thing.

In the meantime, Mom’s car broke down at the gas station on Sunday. I managed to jump start it and get it home. I need to get it to a garage this morning.

Plus I have been over to see Mom every day for the last couple of weeks.  Yesterday she was in such pain, I wavered about dragging her in to the local ER.  I consulted with the caregiver at Maplewood who called the nurse. We decided she would be okay for the evening and I could contact the doctor if needed this morning. The antibiotics don’t seem to be helping.

Eileen helped her take a shower yesterday and we bought some topical ointment to help relieve some of the burning on her skin. I hope she is better this morning. If not, I will be calling her doctor’s office to try and get her in.

Finished reading Smiley’s People by John Le Carree yesterday.

This is the last of my beloved George Smiley novels by Le Carree. I do enjoy these. I also have begun re-reading Pablo Casal’s ghost written autobio: “Joys and Sorrows.”

In addition, I found a very interesting web site this weekend: http://www.truly-free.org/. The Burgomeister’s Books maintains a free online “lending”  library. The web master says that since he has purchased every book on the site, he feels the right to lend out copies via e-books. Users are limited to 5 books at a time and are asked to delete the books after they read them. I downloaded Ada by Nabakov.

I totally approve of what this guy is doing but fear he will get seriously sued at some point by copyright holders (“thieving publishers” as he calls them).

My daughter Elizabeth joined those who have left Facebook due to privacy concerns. This is discouraging because it will make connecting with her a bit harder, but everyone has to do what they think is right.

I seem to be a bit stressed these days.

It might be the price of consciousness or it might be mental illness. Who knows? Heh.

Last night as we were resting in bed, Eileen asked me what I was going to do today.

I replied: “Get up. Live.”