the bells

the doors of the train slid shut, and i waved sadly to myrna. through the glass she blew me a kiss goodbye as the car pulled away. i walked up the ramp and into grand central station, staring at the ceiling, the intricate stonework, the late night crowds rushing through the cavernous room. out on the street, there was a brisk breeze, and i took my usual route back to the hotel – stopping once in a while at a favorite landmark, looking at it silently for a long moment. it was my last night in new york, and i was saying goodbye the same way i’ve done a hundred times before.

i felt the familiar sting of leaving, my stubborn desire to stay. but this time, i felt something else – an intense urgency, the realization that there was someone waiting at home, a reason to go. i’m always torn when i leave new york, but this was new – i was torn over wanting to stay, and pulled by the need to be at your side. walking faster, i tried to take everything in, to soak up the energy of the city. i always do this before i leave, as if i can store all the manic motion, the traffic noise, the garish lights to keep me alive until i return. strange, though, that it suddenly felt hollow, voodoo that no longer had power – and i was ready to be home.

i stopped for tea at the corner deli near my hotel. when i stepped back outside, there was a homeless man on the street, singing in a dark, soulful voice:

there were bells on the hill
but i never heard them ringing
no i never heard them at all
’til there was you…

i stood, frozen in place. and i wondered: has your view of the world changed and shifted now that i am in it, as mine has? do you feel yourself leaning towards me, even when we are hundreds of miles apart? do you wish me home? are you anxious for my return? are the things you always counted on drifting away, leaving just the two of us, washed with the sound of bells?

there were birds in the sky
but i never saw them winging
no i never saw them at all
’til there was you…

i stared down 7th avenue, the bright lights in times square blurring. do you feel this longing as i do? do you feel even one iota of this longing that has suddenly come and spun my calm world off its axis?

everything must change

like the song says:

“everything must change/nothing stays the same/everyone will change/nothing and no one goes unchanged”.

i first heard it, on a judy collins album no less, the year i graduated from high school. i thought it was goofy and simplistic and i couldn’t believe it ever got recorded. four years later, after college, it began to make a lot more sense. it took some growing up to realize you didn’t need a lot of grandiose words and images to convey such a basic and real fact: everything must change.

i’ve had my share of change and loss (they’re really one and the same, of course). i’m better at accepting it than i used to be, more resigned, definately more philosophical. i might even be close to admitting that when change is difficult and bad, it can end up being ‘for the best’ – a phrase that always annoyed me, regardless of the fact its usually true.

five years ago, sarah and i discovered a gem of a place called ‘the lab’. we both love art, artists, the creative process, and this new institution had it all. anything you could possibly consider art – and most likely some things you wouldn’t – it was all fair game. everything was treated irreverently, with humor and an off-kilter approach, and just enough respect to keep the whole thing from toppling over. we started attending every lecture, and each week we seemed to experience some amazing moment of magic, when the subject matter was unexpectedly illuminated by the speaker or an audience member or some random occurrence. many times i sat shaking my head at the wonderful ways we were learning to see the world, with a new perspective.

after the first few visits, sarah and i coaxed our shy selves into joining the creme of the crowd for the post-lecture dinner. as we got to know people, this became an event in itself. wine-filled, joyous, thought-provoking, hilarious – for me, coming during a difficult period of major change, it was water for a parched soul. it became our education, our social life, our hang out, a new circle of friends. i may even have started recognizing the different seasons not by the weather, but by the lab’s programming.

the lab has always been about art and creativity, which is never static. but somehow i thought our routine – the car pools, the cocktail hour, the always amazing lectures, dinner after, would stay the same. but nothing and no one goes unchanged. as the lab morphs to a new location and a new shape, i know there will be more magic. it can’t help but happen at this level of creativity. but i don’t know what can compare to the unexpected surprises of those first evenings at the beginning, watching the crowds and programming grow, the excitement over the opening of the new building and the first real exhibition, and the feeling that we were there to see it happen – glasses of wine in hand and huge grins on our faces, as the world was laid out before us in a brand new way.

had to cry today

i love the way music connects us, instantly and without warning, to moments in the past. last night i jumped into my car and ran a few errands while listening to my new blind faith cd. of course it isn’t really new, since blind faith made only one album, in 1969. family friends gave it to me that christmas, and i played it to death. a couple of weeks ago i found it on cd for $5, and since i hadn’t heard it in years, i bought it. not surprising that it sounded completely familiar, as if i’d just played it the day before. towards the end of the first track, the music sort of melts into a freaked-out stew of sound, all warped and spacey. its a quintessential 60’s moment meant, no doubt, to replicate some kind of psychedelic acid trip. and like an acid trip from long ago, i experienced a flashback, though of a more unexpected kind.

i was a little too young to get caught up in beatlemania, but i was certainly aware of it. a few years later when the monkees appeared, i was entranced. like a lot of kids, i wished i could be a famous rock star, chased by screaming throngs and worshipped by rapt listeners. there was none of that singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror, though – nothing so pedestrian for me. i cajoled my brother and various cousins into forming musical groups. we would clear out our entire basement, hang up my op-art posters as a backdrop, and create a stage where we could mime along with our (my) favorite records. no inanimate object was safe from being put into service as a musical instrument, and we dug out our most rock-star worthy clothes and raided my mothers jewelry box for ‘love beads’. how our very old stereo managed to survive without blown speakers i’ll never know. eventually it all became so fantastic we simply had to put on a show for someone – in this case, our parents. not my first choice, but they were the only available audience. so what if they didn’t appreciate the music like we did? i was bound and determined to turn them into screaming fans and enlighten them to the power and majesty of rock and roll. my cousins would come out from denver and stay for several days, most of which were spent in the basement, plotting and rehearsing our big concert, with me cracking the whip. i took it all deadly seriously, and there were quite a few arguments when they mutinied and insisted we add some ‘funny’ songs that were performed like comedy skits. much to my complete annoyance, these were the numbers our parents laughed at and responded to. why they weren’t equally amazed and impressed by their children miming to a jimi hendrix song, i’ll never know.

i have fond memories of those times, and think of them once in a while. but when i popped in the blind faith cd last night, i had completely forgotten we’d performed that first song in one of our concerts. when the wierd, psychedelic freak-out came along, i vividly pictured us pantomiming through it, and then i looked at my cd player and noticed the song is almost 8 minutes long. in horror and panic, i thought “oh my god, we (i) made our parents sit through this whole thing just because i thought the last 15 seconds were SO cool?” i was mortified. i mean, it was almost 40 years ago and i still felt embarrassed. i briefly considered sending apologetic notes to everyone involved, or maybe hitting the gas and running my car into a tree. i know that all parents have to endure enjoy and foster the creative things their kids come up with, but these concerts went on for an hour or more, all of us earnestly waving around our brooms and decorated 2×4 guitars while our parents pretended to be interested. looking back, i am incredibly touched and grateful that they put up with us. i also hope they’ve completely forgotten about it.

i love the way music connects us, instantly and without warning, to moments in the past. but as a former 14 year old pushy impresario, proud artiste, wanna-be rock star, this was what i’d have to call a bad trip.

the age of aquarius

a few days ago, i was reading one of my favorite blogs by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, amy rigby. she was talking about her very optimistic horoscope, and helpfully provided a link to the website where she’d seen it. i took the bait and looked up what is in the stars for me in january and february, and basically, it raved on and on about what a fantastic 2 month period lies ahead. jupiter is about to enter my something, and then something else is going to affect my this, and that affects my potential for jobs and money-making. mercury will be in retrograde and something, so be careful not to sign any contracts without reading carefully even though they are going to be really, really fantastic anyway and something else, too. and this will probably never happen again because jupiter only shows up in my whatever once or twice in my life. and something else really great will happen and then some other stuff, and….

oh. did i happen to mention i don’t really believe in this? 

in my early teens i came across a detailed explanation of my sign, taurus. i don’t remember specifically what it said, but i remember it talked about taurus ruling the throat, and taureans tend to be sensitive, perceptive, stubborn, spoiled, shopaholics, impatient, crave dessert, have addictive personalities. okay, it only said some of those things, but i was struck – as only you can be when you are a perceptive, sensitive taurean teenager experiencing the world for the first time. after all, i was a budding singer/songwriter, so the throat thing really did ring true, along with most of the other traits it described. over the next few years i was quickly disappointed by day-to-day horoscope predictions, and somewhere along the line i decided that there was enough truth in astrology to make it interesting, but certainly never enough truth to live my life by. my saturn return year? totally. may 2008 when everything was supposed to turn around and become fabulous? not so much.

still, when i read this gushing account of my next 2 months, i have to admit i was hooked. i even found myself waking up the next day with a whole new attitude. at this point in my life, anything that perks me up and makes me optimistic is not to be taken lightly – and i even started thinking “if all this great stuff is in the stars and just waiting to happen, what do i have to do to help it along?”. so in this way, i guess my astrology chart worked, sort of like a cosmic jump-start. its strange what we grab on to, in spite of ourselves, when that thing is inherently hopeful. yet if it leads us someplace we’ve been wanting to go, what in the world is wrong with that? i don’t know about jupiter, but i’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with wishing on a star.

in the bleak midwinter

i’ve been obsessed with the phrase “christmas is the new black”. not because christmas is suddenly the new, popular, hip and fashionable thing – but because this year, more than ever, it feels empty and disappointing and a huge letdown. its not like i just found out there is no santa claus, but maybe in a way i finally did.

like most people, the childlike thrill of christmas ended for me sometime in my early teens. okay, that is a total lie – i was unnaturally excited by it all the way through college. thanks to very generous parents and my own inability to grow up and let go, christmas was very, very good to me until my early twenties. in college, christmas break and the month i got to spend at home was something i lived for from september on. i usually got really great gifts (spoiled) and had wonderful times with my large extended family. i was incredibly lucky, and my memories of those times are precious.

after college, when i finally moved in to my own place and belatedly began adulthood (though that distinction is debatable) i was trying to get my band known around town and covering the bills working in a restaurant. restaurant work is totally unforgiving during holidays, and suddenly all the freedom and free time of college break was gone. i think its called ‘growing up’. after that i supplemented my income in retail – a card store, no less, and december was a blur of intense hard work. then i got fed up with booking my own band and joined an agency that booked me. december was always the busiest month, so weekend nights were spent working corporate events. when i finally opened my own retail store, i continued with the corporate bookings – december weekends were spent at a dead run during the day followed by late nights – sometimes 3 in a row – singing at boring company parties. the first christmas my store was open i went home on christmas eve, had dinner, sat down by the tree to open my gifts and instantly fell dead asleep. i have no memory of christmas day. this went on for years.

needless to say, at some point i began to feel like i was missing something. i watched the shoppers stroll in and out of my store, sipping the hot cider we joyfully provided (except for the year the crock pot cracked and it drained out all over the floor), packages wrapped, laden with bags, carolers strolling by. and there i was in a total frenzy, exhausted and counting the minutes until it was over. where was the joy for me in christmas? sure, the huge leap in income was a great gift – but i was missing all the fun, the festivities, the parties, the lovely glittering world i could see outside the store windows.

this year marks the first time in 25 years that i haven’t been in retail at christmas. the first time i haven’t worked until 4 pm on christmas eve, the first time i haven’t had to get up at 6 am on december 26th to get to work in time to do markdowns before we opened. i looked at the calendar a couple days ago – december 15th. okay, wait. where are the festivities? where are the piles of gorgeously wrapped gifts under my sparkling tree? the party invites? the smartly dressed and laughing friends standing around me with glasses of champagne? dinners in elegant restaurants followed by a stroll through streets lined with twinkling lights and gently falling snow? this is finally my year for these moments to happen, damn it, so where are they?

i’ll admit it. i’m a sucker for marketing, and i’m starting to realize i’ve never fallen harder for anything than i have for the myth of the christmas season. people used to complain to me about it all the time when i was ringing up their purchases, but because i was stuck behind the counter, i figured they just had temporary burn-out or were being incredibly stupid and ungrateful. now i realize they were chasing the same dream of the season that i thought i was missing. now that i have time to enjoy it, and discover that it doesn’t exist, the disappointment is significant. it makes me sad. it seems like everyone should get to have a holiday season that looks like the one in magazines. maybe the layouts are always so appealing because no one can really make it a reality. the reality certainly wouldn’t sell anything.

i’m moving towards christmas day with the hope something will magically kick in and there will be at least one mythical moment. it seems unlikely. if not, there is always new years eve. i’m sure there will be a year when i’m not out singing with the band, and thats the year i’m really going to experience the excitement it has to offer!

this magic moment

one of the questions i dread most is “what is it you love so much about new york?”. i’ve been there so often i now have something of a stock answer: “i just love to wander through all my favorite neighborhoods and stare at everything”. this is usually met with a trying-to-be-excited-but-blank look and a resounding “oh…?”. i know its a totally general and unsatisfying response, but its impossible to put into a few words what a visit to nyc is like for me. there’s the obvious reasons: the intense energy, the iconic sights, the history, the architecture, the culture, the food. but one overarching concept says it all: the sense of possibility. the feeling that around any corner you’ll find a great store, a fantastic restaurant, a gallery, an amazing building or landmark. or you’ll realize you’re standing next to janet jackson in the prada store, or elliot gould on the subway platform. there is always something random and unexpected waiting to happen.

on a beautiful warm and sunny saturday afternoon last may, i walked south from midtown on 10th avenue. the first few blocks were a bit of no-mans land, and then i began to recognize the tree-lined streets of chelsea, with row after row of picturesque brownstones. it felt as calm and serene as it ever gets in new york, and i thought, “okay, this is exactly where i want to live” – a sincere statement i make about 50 times per visit, in every neighborhood in the city. the possibilities.

i walked further south to the twisting puzzle of streets in the meatpacking district and stepped through the crowds into the west village. then down bank street, so european, to bleeker. this is one of my favorite routes, because it is also exactly where i want to live.

on the corner of bleeker and west 11th sits the magnolia bakery, a teeny-tiny shop famous for its amazing cupcakes and a cameo role on ’sex and the city’. in a town full of them, it has become a destination in its own right. there is almost always a line out the door and down the block – even as late as midnight. this is the city that never sleeps, after all, and apparently everyone stays up eating cupcakes. again, the possibilities.

across the street is a small park, and i could see something going on there. 6 girls in fuchsia satin dresses doing a kind of modern dance. slowly i realized they were performing some sort of homage to the magnolia bakery cupcake. i stood dumbstruck for a moment and then grabbed my camera.

there was music from a boombox but i have no memory what it was – i was too bowled over by the complex choreography. this was no unrehearsed, fly-by-night troupe. there was a crowd gathering by now, and everyone clapped and cheered. the dancers raised their cupcakes high, they bowed down to them.

there was a battle scene, as they paired off and fought over their cupcakes.

then, a peaceful resolution…

…followed by a chirpy celebratory dance around the statue in the park.

it was hilarious, and everyone knew it, but the dancers took it very seriously. its the worst cliche in the book, but…only in new york. and only in new york could one dancer be massively pregnant while another rather hefty girl turns out to be a beefy guy, all tarted up in fuchsia dress and the biggest pair of black pumps known to man. or, uhh, woman.

was this a marketing move orchestrated by the bakery? a neighborhood group obsessed with cupcakes? unemployed broadway actors dying to put on a show? a performance project by a student at nyu? so many possibilities, and an answer that doesn’t matter. it was silly, it was art, it was deadly serious – or was it? for me it was a fantastically random moment of magic that needed no reason. warm may afternoon, sunlight thru the bright green leaves, shiny fuchsia dresses, soft pink and yellow cupcakes held up to the cloudless blue sky. the possibility, the unexpected. is there a better reason to love new york city?

my glamorous life

a couple of months ago, the bandleader i’ve been working with called to ask if i’d like to do a charity gig. we would be playing at a ‘make-a-wish foundation’ fundraiser, and most of the people attending would be directors of other country clubs around town – a good way for people to see us play live, and for a good cause. since it was a charity gig we wouldn’t get paid, but the rest of the band was on board so i agreed to it as well. i’ve been enjoying working with them and it seemed like a good deed, too. my friends were impressed i’d been invited to perform at such a prestigious event. a sweet thought, but none of them have been to these functions to see the real, sordid truth.

the evening unfolded at a suburban country club that is so architecturally similar to the grade school i attended i can only think of it as “the little elementary school that could”. granted, it has been glammed up a bit – a lot of bad molding and fake ceiling beams to detract from the popcorn texture, but it really is the worst excuse for ‘ritzy’ in town. when i played there 10 years ago, dinner ended, they turned off the lights in the dining room, and the waitstaff paraded in carrying trays laden with flaming baked alaska. fancy. the fire department was there because they’d had to disable the sprinkler system for fear the dessert would set it off. i remember thinking “wasn’t this an episode of bewitched?”

this time around, the grand ballroom (and i use that term loosely) was lined with long tables, and chefs from every country club in town had set up stations and were offering up an entree. the band was set up in the corner (note: i said ‘corner’, not ’stage’) about 5 feet from one of the buffet lines. right after i arrived, i noticed the room was getting very smoky, and there was a seriously pungent smell in the air. several maintenance people were running around the room carrying large fans, flinging them down in every open doorway hoping to draw the smoke out. the chefs doing the ‘asian stir-fry entree’ must have overheated their griddle or something. that kind of atmosphere is horrible for a singers throat, so i went outside to find some fresh air, and hopefully avoid going home with my clothes reeking of burned cooking oil. i noticed most of the large crowd was doing the same. and i couldn’t help but wonder why there was always something on fire when i was at this club.

much of the big crowd arrived sooner than expected, so the bandleader decided we should start 25 minutes early. most of the musicians had come straight from their day job to the gig, so there was much panic and disorganization as they all hurried to get set up. i think the keyboard player was still plugging in his amp when the first song started. i have to say it was a very odd sensation to spend the entire evening facing a line of chefs busily heating and plating up ‘italian pot roast with mushroom risotto’, though on our first break i had some, and it was delicious. of course, they were from the high-end country club across town. no burning oil there, i bet.

as the evening wore on the smoke cleared, people ate and drank and i enjoyed myself as best as possible. apparently there were many nice compliments about the band, though i would never have guessed it since the crowd mostly acted as though we were invisible, even as they went through the line for their italian pot roast. before i left i heard the event raised $20,000, to be used to send underprivileged kids to culinary school, hence the food theme for the evening. i got in my car and realized i was starving. it was too late to go somewhere decent, so i stopped at 7-11 for food. when i got home i was sorry my well-wishing friends hadn’t been there to see it – the billowing smoke, the (largely sub-par) food, the crowd that didn’t know we were there even as they practically tripped over our cables. and here i was, ending the evening at home with a turkey sandwich, reeking of burned oil and asian seasonings. not really the life of a star, i’m afraid. the sandwich tasted pretty good, though. i hope one of the ‘make-a-wish’ kids learns to make something so delicious.

rock me to sleep

for several years i’ve been having trouble falling asleep. i can be completely exhausted, to the point where i can hardly keep my eyes open, and when my head hits the pillow i am suddenly wide awake with my mind running in a million different directions. maybe this isn’t a recent phenomenon – i remember having the same problem in high school. back then one of my favorite remedies for sleeplessness was to put on my headphones and listen to music, and usually i would drift off as it played. of course, the headphones weighed about 90 pounds and were on a curly cord that stretched tightly across my bed from the stereo on my desk – i couldn’t really move my head or they would fly off. and when side one of the record was finished i had to stumble out of bed in order to turn it over. ahh, the good old days.

thankfully, we now have the ipod. a few years ago i discovered that even if i lay in bed and read until i’m virtually dozing off, i often still need the ‘musical sleeping pill’ that i discovered in my teens. and oddly enough, i’m still listening to the same albums to help me fall asleep. through exhaustive (no pun intended) research, i found that listening to current music, as much as i love it, doesn’t have the same effect, because i find myself perking up and paying close attention to all the minutia in the songs – in a sense, i’m listening too hard to relax. it only works if i take one of my tried and true, life-long favorites that i’ve heard a million times. i guess because i know them inside-out and outside-in, they are both familiar and comforting and take no effort on my part to hear.

usually, i lay in bed, pick the album i want, push play, and close my eyes. and even though i haven’t played these albums on vinyl for who knows how long, i still find myself thinking “side one is almost over and you are still wide awake! relax!”. the first song from side two will start, and the next thing i know, i’m groggily reaching up to figure out what is wrong with my ears. then i realize the music is over, the ear buds are still in place, and i have no recollection of the past 4 or 5 songs. i carefully put my ipod on the table by the bed, and fall back into a deep sleep. amazingly, this happens night after night and never ceases to surprise me.

lately i’ve started wondering: what happens with all those songs that are piped into my head even though i’m dead asleep and have no memory of them later? after a life of listening to side two in my sleep, am i building up some subconcious repository of musical information that will burst forth unexpectedly?  i mean, i already know these songs inside and out. maybe i should get some mp3s of french lessons and learn that instead. would i one day wake up babbling in french? right now it seems like the best i’ll get from my subliminal experience is the ability to spontaneously relate everything i see to a joni mitchell, carole king or laura nyro song. oh wait, i already do that. maybe now i know why.

as time goes by

i save things. i save a lot of things. i save a ridiculous amount of things. or maybe, i save an amount of ridiculous things. some of it for sentimental reasons, like every single letter i’ve ever received from every single friend i’ve ever had. some of it gets saved for information, like all my old notebooks with song ideas scribbled randomly thoughout the pages. some of it gets saved out of habit, or is it compulsion, or an inexplicable attachment? more likely a combo platter of all three.

a few years ago i realized i come by it honestly. my friends have all heard the stories of the house i inherited from my parents, which came with the shocking realization they kept every single thing they’d ever touched. i swear, i never ever noticed before it was all handed down to me. there were stacks of sheets and towels, virtually everything i had slept on or dried off with from college all the way back to grade school. i called it ‘the greatest hits of my life, in bedding’. even scarier, i found a huge box of bedspreads and throw rugs from my grandparents house, unopened since they were packed in 1976. this was next to my old toy box, which contains every toy i ever had. next to that, a box with the horse costume my brother wore for halloween in 5th grade, next to a stack of luggage that may need carbon dating to be properly placed in history. and all this is being edged aside by the growing pile of boxes containing my own ‘magazine collection’. over 30 years of rolling stone. 25 years of interview. 20 years of vanity fair. i like to call this my ‘pop culture reference library’, though as i’m adding to the stack i usually just think of it as ‘an illness’. in the adjacent room are my vinyl lps, which i’ve been collecting since i was in 4th grade. it is my most precious thing, and chances are good you can randomly pull out anything and i can tell you where it came from: albums my grandmother bought me as a treat when we’d shop together (”every picture tells a story”, “deja vu”), albums i sent away and waited by the mailbox for, albums i got for christmas or a birthday or that i found in some wierd used shop for 99 cents. this is one collection that isn’t growing, though once i get a new turntable, all bets are off. and did i mention it weighs about 9 tons?

now, though, there is a ray of sunshine (finding me, no doubt, among a huge stack of boxes). in the early 80’s i started my retail career in a very urban-trendy card and gift store. one of the owners more brilliant moves was to start carrying swatches, long before anyone had heard of them, when they cost less than $50, before you could buy them in a department store. i went crazy, and with my employee discount ended up with 7 different models. do i need to add i still have them all (stored in a woven grass basket, saved since 1978)? yesterday, while reading my newest met home magazine (archive of approximately 20 years in the basement) about a designer who had worked with swatch in the early 90’s, i got curious to see if any of his designs were collectible. i looked at ebay. i looked at vintage swatch sites. i looked completely stunned. my 1980’s swatches now sell for anywhere between $250 and $450. each. one model i own is nowhere to be seen, which i assume means it is even more rare. most importantly, i suddenly feel completely justified for ‘collecting’. i had heard some older issues of the andy warhol magazine were now quite valuable, and i’ve seen many of my prized albums selling for significant amounts of money. but paying my mortgage with a couple of swatches? never imagined it. of course, i’m not going to part with them…yet.

i’ve been so worried about funding my retirement, but it no longer seems implausible. need a new car? sell a stack of architectural digest! feel like a vacation? sell a rare yoko ono album and a couple of frank zappas! time to buy groceries? here, have a pile of cds! suddenly, the world is my oyster. i wonder what i can get for the red plaid pillowcases i slept on in junior high?

the w word

people talk about the F word. they skitter around the N word. they whisper about the C word. but no one ever mentions the W word.

i’m single, and have been for some time. i tend to be fairly quiet, a little clumsy conversing under pressure, and totally incapable of flirting – which means approaching someone interesting to me is next to impossible. ever so rarely, i run into someone i’m incredibly attracted to, and i somehow summon up the power to try to make inroads and an impression. sometimes, the conversation starts to flow, i’m feeling erudite and confident, things are comfortable and moving right along. about the time i think “wow! this is really going great!”, the other person blurts out the W word. “WE made a great dinner last night….WE are taking a vacation next week….” in my mind, everything screeches to a halt.

sigh. sometimes, i hate the W word.