{"id":2952,"date":"2009-05-10T15:53:22","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T19:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/?p=2952"},"modified":"2009-05-10T16:21:43","modified_gmt":"2009-05-10T20:21:43","slug":"weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2009\/05\/weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Mother’s Day – or Matronalia<\/a> if you prefer – and I’m wishing all the Mommies a fun day!<\/p>\n

Thursday night was interesting. I had just dyed my hair a bit darker than usual (I feel silly now with light blonde hair), and it was almost dry but full of that super-rich conditioner that you put on afterward. I went outside to enjoy the moonlight and the cool breezes. I lit some charcoal, and threw a couple of rosehips and bit of lemongrass on it to saturate the night. I lit a couple of candles, and as I bent down to light the third, my hair dropped into one that was already lit. Phewmp! I was on fire! Just that fast. I clapped it out right away, but now I have some bangs underneath on one side. Oh, it smelled horrible! It made me remember something I had forgotten, though. When I was a kid, I had very long hair, and I remember that I used to pluck strands of it out, and light them on fire off of the gas stove. I was in 4th or 5th grade. The smell reminded me. I wonder if my mom knew.<\/p>\n

Readers of the blog… and my neighbors… will know that I sometimes like to sing. I crank up my iPod and go through all kinds of songs. Lots of times I’m just mimicking the singer, which can get a bit amusing sometimes. Anyway, I was doing that – singing pretty loud, but directing my voice into the deepest part of the woods out back. I really got into it, and walked out to the little picnic table. So picture this: I’m standing on top of the table, facing away from the house, eyes closed, singing at the top of my projection power – and to anyone listening, that’s a capella<\/em>. <\/p>\n

I finished the song, and heard applause! When I opened my eyes, two strangers were standing about ten feet away from me, in my yard, wildly clapping their hands. I don’t think I’ve moved so fast since an alligator chased me around my car. I jumped down – I think I must have turned about five shades of red.<\/p>\n

It turns out that they live a few houses away, around the block. They said they’ve been listening to me sing for months, and they love hearing me sing. Or – at least they say they do. Anyway, they decided to walk over and meet me and express appreciation (and find out who I am). Their son sometimes joins me with his trumpet – or plays on his own. He seems like a sweet kid, but I only met him in person once, at the neighborhood yard sale. Now I’ve met the family. It was cool in a way – nice to think they like it. I view my singing as something that I have to do – but I don’t really expect anyone to like it.<\/p>\n

Wasn’t Barack Obama fun last night? I thought he was a lot more amusing than Wanda Sykes. That line about John Boehner (video<\/a>) was the best putdown I’ve heard in a long time; it works on so many levels. <\/p>\n

In the next hundred days our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner will consider becoming a Democrat. After all we have a lot in common. He is a person of color–although not a color that appears in the natural world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He poked fun at all the hype around himself, too:<\/p>\n

During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days. … My next 100 days will be so successful, I will complete them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I also liked the way he spoke back to the cynicism of the crowd. Catch his last few minutes on journalism and the media if you can.<\/p>\n

Work takes up a lot of my energy these days. I enjoy it, but it’s tiring. I haven’t done anything creative lately. There are a number of things I’m supposed to be doing, and writing, and thinking about – but I am not in the right space to do that.<\/p>\n

I’ve been waking up really early in the morning for the last couple of weeks, and it feels really good just to take it slow. It’s been a nice relaxing weekend so far. I’ve been puttering around the house, starting to reorganize a little. John dragged a bunch of stuff down to the curb. The place has gotten out of control. I’d like to get things into more streamlined shape before it gets too hot. I’m not a natural homebody, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to concentrate on those sorts of things until my surroundings are a bit less cluttered and disorganized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Mother’s Day – or Matronalia if you prefer – and I’m wishing all the Mommies a fun day! Thursday night was interesting. I had just dyed my hair a bit darker than usual (I feel silly now with light blonde hair), and it was almost dry but full of that super-rich conditioner that you put on afterward. I went outside to enjoy the moonlight and the cool breezes. I lit some charcoal, and threw a couple of rosehips and…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,268,6,3],"tags":[3730,3228,1073,6170,3143,2309,3670,5388],"class_list":["post-2952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-humor","category-music","category-personal","category-politics","tag-barack-obama","tag-fire","tag-hair","tag-humor","tag-john-boehner","tag-journalism","tag-mothers-day","tag-sing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2959,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions\/2959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}