cowboys ain't easy to love

it's kind of nice to know we still play tag in my community. the rules have changed slightly, which might be a good thing, considering i'm not as quite as agile as i used to be. this game of tag is known as 'meme-tag'. it begins with my good friend and neighbor ally who tagged me for this lovely list which requires me to write 10 interesting things you don't know about me. as i started to think of the unknown random facts of b, it occurred to me that few are interesting and most things no one knows, i don't want them to know! helloooooo freaker! that said, here goes my best attempt not to scare off my audience of ummm....five readers.

1) when i was little i loved to put on a 'show' for my parents...i know you've all done this or are now experiencing it from the other side. after a few trial runs, i'd get out my little cassette player, announce my performance and *entertain* my parents while they drank their evening glass of wine before dinner. i'd dance and sing (prelude to karaoke) my heart out. once done, my slightly shocked, humored and polite parents would clap a little and say, "thanks b, that was....nice." my favorite artist to perform...waylon jennings (one of my dad's favorites)...and to this day, if i'm on a long road trip, i throw in waylon and sing every word to every song. oh i should add, my first karaoke effort -- waylon jennings, and like old times, my parents were there.

2) seasons in the sun, terry jacks, i'd play it over and over and over on my mickey mouse record player and cry. it was my favorite song, until the day my brother stepped on it. not a good scene. my dad claims i was always emotional when it came to music. i loved sad songs. i would play them again and again and cry. the lyrics especially, i always loved the story of a song. any time my family and i were in the car i would sing along to any song coming out of that eight-track....i was known as our family juke-box. still am a lyric girl.

the best is finding some of my first records as a kid and sharing them with my little dude. something so pleasing about listening to the past in the present.

3) i was a deadhead....still am i suppose considering they are my absolute favorite band, my dog, my son (born with the gd playing in the background), his fish and favorite train are all named after dead tunes, and on any given day i'll usually play a little dead. by some random twist of fate, i lived next door to bill kreutzmann (gd drummer) in a small community within marin county. i followed them for 5+ years, it was a fantastic time in my life. when jerry died, my boss at the time, gave me the day off. my family saved every gd article for me. my friends and i escaped to the mountains of triumph idaho (an old mining town), and dug for crystals high in the rockry craigs. i still have those crystals


to this day i feel a certain kinship to any fellow head i meet.
and yes, i can still spin.

4) i believe in signs. i believe in elemental forces, that notion of 'sensing' things. i listen to signs, they fall all around me, constantly.

5) i grew up playing the piano, something i'm grateful for now, but when i was 12, practicing the piano for hours was not high on my list. i'd often tell my mom, "oh i already practiced, when you were at the store"....my mom was not convinced. so i got clever, one day i recorded myself playing the piano, then later while i was *practicing* i would play it back as my mom made dinner in the other room. meanwhile i would sit at the piano, flipping through a book enjoying my free-time.

6) i collect rocks, and have for several years. they are becoming a physical time line of places i've been and people i know. i can pretty much tell you where most of them came from. my favorite finds in the collection, my heart-shaped rocks.

7) i am a costume fanatic - i love costumes. attending burning man appeals to me on many levels, but especially the idea of wearing a different costume every day. so of course i absolutely love halloween. a typical halloween for me involves throwing a party (an annual tradition now for nearly 10 years) and whenever possible wearing multiple costumes, one year i had 4 costumes. some of the best include the 4 seasons (where 3 of my gal pals and i each went as a season and one dear-full bellied friend was old man winter) cher, dragonfly, tinkerhell, dead-barbie (interesting idea, not a pretty site).

8) i was a ski-bum. when i was little my mom took me skiing, i should clarify, she took me to the mountain to ski, and instead i sat, this was usually coupled with crying. after about a season or two of that i was somehow convinced (promised a new ski outfit) to at least give it a try. i never looked back. i spent every weekend skiing and eventually racing since i was in elementary school. i went to summer ski camps. in college i worked at a sporting good store. shortly after college graduation, i bought a jeep and drove east. i spent 4+ years living in a ski town spending every day on the hill. in the summers i was a tour director in alaska and the canadian rockies, each winter i'd return to ketchum with money for a seasons pass and rent. such good times. there is nothing like waking up to see the lift running. starting each day at 6000 feet above sea level. c'mon. the best. in the winters i skied, boarded, skate-skied and snow-shoed. between tours in the summer, i'd be on the river or the rocks, floating, climbing and camping. i look forward to bringing more of that back into my life.

the little dude has camped and loves it. this winter he was on skis. like his mama, he didn't like it. like my mama, i will (patiently)continue to bring him.

9) i'm a roosevelt. my biological mom is one of FDR's grandkids.

10) the little dude and i wish on a star every night before bed .... i believe it works.