Who would you change seats for?

I boarded a plane this morning, headed from home to Nashville for the
Americana Music Conference this week. As I put my guitar in the
overhead bin, I dropped my phone on the shoulder of the woman who
would be seated in front of me. She was comfortably settled in, and I
felt so awkward and sorry for bonking her with this brick.

I got settled in too. Then Patty Griffin walked by. Cool, right?

Well, then the funniest thing happened. The woman I bonked did the
most violent double take, stared at Patty walking away down the aisle,
grabbed her bags, and hurriedly changed seats to sit by her. Really.

So here's the question. If you were comfortably settled in, who would
have to walk by on your flight to cause you to grab your stuff and
move?

Airport life lessons

I aimed the phone to protect the innocent... But yes, this family had
eight kids. Well-behaved kiddos but still eight kids. With a hot mom
who looked about five years older and the same size as her teenage
daughter.

And here's life lesson #1: even if you're young and energetic and your
kids are good kids, it's still a freaking lot of kids. And they're
loud, even if each one is using his or her "inside voice." And they
cost a ton of money. Poor dad had to take the kids in three trips to
the vending machines just to keep it manageable, and he probably spent
thirty bucks on fritos and skittles.

Lesson #2: people are gonna stare and try to figure out the
mathematics of what is essentially none of their business. I certainly
did. This goes beyond the kids. Anything unusual? Gonna stare. Or keep
looking back. Kinda like when I was in Wisconsin in a small town and
people spoke really slowly to me.

Lesson #3: don't trust the "house specialties" in an airport
restaurant. Be prepared to be as disappointed as ever. It's still
airport food. I was telling this to a friend of mine, and he said
"that's why people eat at McDonalds - all they sell is consistency. Oh
well, that's not true, their fries are delicious."

Arizona

I love this place. I'm spoiled by the scenery.

Wide open spaces

Charlie Faye and I are trekking in my little orange car to make our
way to Salt Lake City by Saturday. It's a lot of miles. But the
conversation is stimulating, and the view is gorgeous, as you can see!

This is a photo Charlie captured after I forced her to take a picture.
Am I a mean, bossy driver? Maybe. I just wanted to share New Mexico
with y'all...

roach motel. seriously.

I am trying to be a big girl about this. But I am definitely sleeping in my car. When I reached behind my pillow, um, I felt something. Then in a Maria-like Sound of Music inspired move, I jumped out of bed and threw back the covers...

and a roach ran out. Yes, really. There were other creepy crawlies in there too. :-(

I wanted to cry a little bit. But I did not. I closed my suitcase, made sure my toothbrush was zipped away, brought my personal pillow out to the car, folded the seats appropriately, and made myself a little bed. Yes, I did.

Sorry if I'm having a bit of a pity party. I'm okay. But I'm tired. And I keep feeling phantom bugs crawling on me. Tomorrow will be a better day. At least my guitar is in air conditioning.

15 songs. I just said I wasn't gonna do this.

I just got off the phone this morning and said I wasn't going to do any of these danged Facebook survey things because I don't have the time for them. Not only that, I said I wasn't going to do THIS one specifically. And then I got tagged on it a couple of times, and I got curious what would come up for me...and I did it.

Dang it. I'm such a SUCKER. Ah well...so here goes. It's called "Get in the Mix."

I'm not going to tell you to do it and tag me or tag "x" number of people or anything. But here's what the instructions were, and I followed them. If you want to do it too, feel free. There's a part of me that doesn't believe people are really interested in what I'm listening to, but oh well... it's lunch break time anyway.

So you'll notice, I put way more than the first 15 songs on here. Like maybe double that. Because I was so curious...ugh. I know, I know, I just became one of those annoying people who not only sends on the forward survey, I can't even stick to the rules. Blech. I annoy myself.

Whatev.

(1) Turn on your MP3 player/iTunes/etc.
(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
(3) Write down the first 15 songs that come up--song title and artist --NO editing/cheating, please.
(4) Choose some people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you.

If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about your musical tastes, or at least a random sampling thereof. (To do this, go to "NOTES" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, enter your 15 Shuffle Songs, Click 'Preview' below to tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click Publish, the little blue box at the bottom of your screen).

So here are mine...

Song Title / Artist

1. Broken Things / Julie Miller
2. Agua De Beber / Antonio Carlos Jobim
3. That's Life / Frank Sinatra
4. Cocaine Blues / Woody Guthrie
5. Si Si No No / Machito & His Afro Cuban Orchestra
6. Blanket / Gurf Morlix
7. Solsbury Hill / Peter Gabriel
8. Record Lady / Lyle Lovett
9. Hide the Bone / Prince
10. Shine on You Crazy Diamond / Pink Floyd
11. If You Don't Take the Medicine / Randy Weeks
12. Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30 E Maj. Op. 109, 3rd Mvmt / Maurizio Pollini
13. Here in the Real World / Alan Jackson
14. Just Another Lover / BettySoo (oh my gosh, weird. Why am I in the playlist??)
15. Stravinsky Rite of Spring, Scene III / London Philharmonic w/ Bernard Haitink
16. Nuevas Senoritas / The Indigo Girls
17. Ain't No More Cane / Lyle Lovett
18. Anybody Seen my Baby? / The Rolling Stones
19. Can't Lose Them All / Kim Richey
20. Kamera / Wilco
21. Skinny Legs / Lyle Lovett
22. Shattered / The Rolling Stones
23. Lonesome Whistle / BettySoo (weird. I'm on here again.)
24. Not What I Had in Mind / Kelly Willis
25. Pot of Gold / Robby Hecht
26. If it be Your Will / Leonard Cohen
27. I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby / Alison Krauss
28. These Blues / Jimmy LaFave
29. More of a Man / Andy Gullahorn
30. 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues / The White Stripes

lalalalalaaaaa... lots of fun music. Why don't I listen to more of this more often? Oh yeah, I'm WORKING.

Priorities

I'm working in my dining room. If I look peaceful in this picture, don't be fooled. My stuff is in haphazard piles and tumbling occasionally to the floor. I am here because my office has become too chaotic for work. I am slowly transforming my house into what looks like a FEMA disaster area. And there are too many specific tasks associated with every slip of paper and every scrap of what looks like trash to be able to ask anyone to help. What I need is more hours to get things done in a day...and for an insomniac with more than a tad bit of workaholism, that's a tall order.

I'm realizing these things about myself lately - the workaholism, my lifelong inability to stay organized, the need for control over the details in my career and life in general, my craving to hit the road and play show after show, and my desire to enjoy the innumerable hobbies I've been neglecting...and how those things are not compatible.

Probably 11 or 12 years ago, my college pastor gave me an article to read: "The Tyranny of the Urgent" by Charles Hummel. It mentions how a cotton mill manager once told him that he was allowing the urgent tasks in his life crowd out time for the things which were actually important. I've thought about this countless times in the years since, and while I know this still happens, it's less the problem. Nowadays, my life and time are crowded by things which are actually important, but I'm not always wise in determining with long-range focus which are the MOST important RIGHT NOW.

Priorities. My good friend Amy was telling me the other day that in your twenties you're figuring out what is important to you, and you spend your thirties learning to prioritize them. She is one of the wisest and most compassionate friends I know. And I think I see she's right (per usual). Now, at 30, I realize that I have recently grasped what I want to spend my time on, but I haven't figured out in what order. I guess I've got about 9 years to learn.