Lost is on the Way

I have arrived in Ucross, Wyoming where I'll be spending twelve days in seclusion at the Ucross artist residency with eight other artists. I have been so overcome by the bounty of beauty and creative space on offer that I have few words left in me to describe it. So I'll let my pictures--and my new songs--do the talking.

Pictures in order of appearance:
1. The composer's studio from afar, assigned to me as my studio for my time here.
2. Close up of the composer's studio.
3. Left side of my studio
4. Right side of my studio
5. View out the window above my writing desk
6 - 9. Views from the composer's cabin, including a close encounter with a deer.










Amazing, huh. As you can tell from the pictures, there's not much to complain about here. And the pictures barely capture the reality. For the full experience, you'll need to imagine the humidity-free, 70 degree air with a gentle breeze. The warmth of the sunlight. The scent of grasses. The sound of birds.

I feel blessed and inspired here. After waking up at the residency house, I bike or walk the half mile to my studio. Then I spend most of every day sitting at my incredible studio and writing, messing around on my piano, keyboard and guitar, staring out the window, sitting on my porch staring at the mountains, or wandering with a notebook out the front of my cabin to sit by the water's edge. Occasionally I take a catnap on the couch. And sometimes I have close encounters with wild life. Today I saw a deer (pictured), a beaver in the creek outside my cabin, a great blue heron coming in for a landing, a bunny rabbit, and--best of all--a den of five baby foxes who were playfully checking us out as we checked them out. And lest you think I have nothing to show for this superabundance of riches, I have finished four songs in the last three days and have started three others. The time and space here is exactly what I needed after the adventures I had in Minnesota.

For those of you who like rough demo tracks of new songs, today I spent some time recording some new demos. If you want to listen and are willing to forgive the incredibly low fidelity recordings and informal performances (including some on piano--which I don't actually know how to play!), you are welcome to listen online. Here are the songs I recorded today, all written over the last few weeks in Minnesota and Wyoming.

Color Me In (a romantic ballad)
Oh Yes (a talking blues love song)
Quarter on the Rails (an Americana train song)
Take Me Slowly (a dark indie rock ballad)
Lucky for Me (an Americana blues song / unfinished)

I hope you enjoy them. If there are any you particularly enjoy--or if you know any music publishers, filmmakers, television people, or celebrities who might be interested in any of these songs--let me know. I'm always open to good offers. ;-)

I spent this afternoon sitting barefoot with a guitar on Little Pine Lake near Perham, Minnesota. It was a glorious day with a turquoise sky, and puffy white clouds marching across the plains. Even the occasional lawnmower noise didn't diminish my pleasure at being near the water with an instrument and a notebook. Oh, and did I mention the swing? I felt like a kid come home again.

You can take my almost ten days of silence as a sign that I've been too busy too write. I'm going to try to put down everything that's happened in the last week, and I'm sure I'll miss something. But, that's the joy of blogs. You can keep adding to them. Here we go...

Last Thursday, I spent an evening with a group of real-life hobos at "Hobo Central," a small house located about a hundred feet from a railyard in Staples, MN. It was one of the most unexpected and rewarding experiences I've ever had. It started when Colleen, a member of my audience at Ma's Barn, told me she was going to visit her friends the hobos. I was surprised that hobos still existed and that she knew some, so I asked to learn more. Well, Colleen did me one better, and invited me out to their place for a visit. Mickey (AKA Dante Fuqwah), Frog, and Dogman Tony--well known hobos who have since retired from the rails--were lovely hosts. And they had a few of their hobo friends come by while I was there. I ended up doing an impromptu house concert on the couches on their front lawn, and got to know their half-wolf dog Tramp. I played those of my songs that seemed most appropriate to the hobo life, and realized in so doing just how much I felt in common with these wanderers. I played "Lost is on the Way" (a newer song that needs to be recorded), "Road Trance," and "Gypsy Cab," and I felt like Mickey, Frog, Tony, and their friends listened and took in my songs on a level I've never experienced before. It was a performing experience like no other. Below you can see Colleen center, Tony walking behind her, and Frog sitting in his wheelchair.

And here's a picture of me playing, with Mickey dancing in front of me and Frog sitting back to the center. You can also see Tony's tent--he hasn't slept inside in fifty years, the rails behind us between the trees and some box container cars waiting for containers.

Here's a definition of a Hobo that Frog showed me--it was sent to him by his friend Little Hobo:

"A Hobo is a man on the open road that breaks with the hiway of stress. He rather be a bm on freedoms road, than a slave to the bonds of success. Rather leave welth to the pushers with pull, and go when the commers have come and leave the false gold, in the laps of the fools, and stay in the world of the bum."

I know a song will be coming out of this experience. But it's going to take a little while for it to filter through.

The hobo experience was so awesome, that I haven't even mentioned that Colleen also took me to a building she owns in Staples, which includes the oldest intact opera house in the country, circa the 1900's. It's a Vaudeville stage, and it's incredible. I hope to play there someday.

Okay. Now we're up to Friday. The day started at the New York Mills elementary school where I did a special performance for the entire 6th grade. It was a blast. I ended up only playing three songs, as the third song was "Andy the Lightbulb Eater," and it lasted thirty minutes with all the student's suggestions for what characters or styles we could perform the chorus with. My favorites included George Bush, Paris Hilton, old Grandpa, Ahnold Schwartzenegger, and Barbie. I think we did about fifty different versions of the chorus. And the only reason we didn't do more is because the class period ended. The kids were great, and I invited them to my show at the Creamery the next day and promised to do the Lightbulb Eater song for them there.

In the evening, I was invited to a good old fish fry. Jerome, my friend from the antique store, and his wife Lina, former executive director of my host organization the New York Mills Cultural Center, invited me and some other lovely locals to their decadent Victorian home in Perham where we ate fried sunfish, potatoes, and fresh bread. Their house is almost my dream house, only missing a stream and a weeping willow. Good thing too, or I'd be really coveting it!

Saturday was the final performance of my residency, held at the Creamery, my favorite coffeehouse around here for songwriting. It went famously, and since I had a few 6th graders show up at different points in the set, we ended up doing the Lightbulb Eater song twice that night. After the show, I went over to Pam and Gary Robinson's house, where they were having a small town party, complete with steak, potatoes, rhubarb pie, and the largest bonfire I've ever seen. Pam Robinson is a local artist, who makes colorful sculpture out of various found objects--her husband Gary, the town doctor, calls her technique "ass-in-the-air art," because she spends a lot of time bent over picking over what she might find on the ground. Pam and Gary came on my canoe trip a few weeks back, and Pam made me two beautiful necklaces out of some of the stones she found on that trip. I love her art, and was touched to receive her gifts. I staggered home exhausted at 11pm, as I needed to get enough sleep to prepare for my backpacking trip the next day.

I spent Sunday and Monday backpacking through Itasca State Park, which is the location of the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Chris Klein (pictured)--Board member of NY Mills Cultural Center--and I loaded our packs with camping equipment and two day's worth of goodies, and set off. Okay, full disclosure: Chris carried the vast majority of equipment and food. Hey, he's a triathlete. I figured he could handle it better than I could. But, hell, that was one fun trip. We camped at the DeSoto lake, which had the clearest water I've ever seen. Chris brought his fishing rod, and caught a large-mouthed bass. He wouldn't let me cook it up though, because it wasn't bass season yet. Instead, we made bratillas--bratwurst in tortillas with cheddar cheese. Heart-attack heaven. Then we tried to have chocolate chip cookies, but they burnt to a crisp, so we ate the dough raw. Which, actually, works really well as a camping food. We got loads of wood-ticks, as did Bodhi, our canine Goldendoodle companion that Chris was taking care of for the weekend. I had never been bitten by a tick, and I pulled off five of them by the end of the weekend. Got back to NY Mills later that night satisfied and exhausted, and had one of my best sleeps in years.

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent trying to catch up on the writing and playing that had gone by the wayside as I found all these other adventures to occupy my time.

Last night I returned to Rich Paper's home, where I'd had the most incredible dinner a couple weeks ago, and he cooked me a authentic Sri Lankan meal of the most delicious lentil curry, fresh home-made millet pasta, onion and coconut relish (from fresh coconuts), and palm-sugar custard. As appropriate for this meal, we ate it with our hands, which was a treat. I love to eat with my hands--it makes the eating experience even better. I was fortunate that there were leftovers, so I had the meal again for my picnic lunch at the park today.

That brings us back to today. Two more days till I drive to Wyoming. Tomorrow, I intend to go boating on Big Pine Lake on a pontoon, from which we shall do some swimming, fishing, and playing.

More next time. May your roads be empty and wide.


(Me--on the Straight River. An excellent trout stream.)

"Have you found that time seems to stop around here?" asked Trish over hot dogs at a local park on Little Pine Lake this evening. Time has become so still that I haven't noticed it go by--but, sadly, it does go by and too quickly. The last week has been full. In fact, in an unlikely twist, my social life here in rural north central Minnesota is perhaps fuller than it is in New York City. I'm loving my time here, and sorely regretting that I've passed the halfway mark. So, here's the update on the last week.

Last Thursday was my first experience of a New York Mills institution: the weekly ladies' cardgame held every Thursday night at "The Lick," the liquor store which is located inside City Hall. This is a raucous gathering of many of the ladies associated with the New York Mills Cultural Center who play a cardgame called "31," sort of a variant of the game 21 where, as you might expect, you're trying to make your cards add up to 31. Each player has three stakes representing 25 cents each, and the losers pay the winner 75 cents at the end of each game. The highlight of the game, of course, has little to do with the cards. The cardgame is really the weekly meeting where the ladies can catch up on the week's stories and gossip, from which no one is immune--especially not the visiting artist! I lost badly, at cards that is, and then bowed out at the relatively early hour of 10pm, as the remaining ladies were starting on their third gin and tonics, drunk with olives in individual plastic packaging, as there were no limes that night.

Friday night was the second gig of my four-gig series here in Otter Tail County. It was held at the Village Emporium, a unique nonprofit general store that represents a coalition of numerous local retailers. A large portion of the proceeds go to local nonprofit organizations, and some of the proceeds go to fund an effort to bring computers to Ghana and other developing countries--an effort dear to my heart as I was affiliated with similar activities in a past (pre-music) life. The show was a joy to perform, despite a rather lackluster day of trying to do work and not getting much accomplished. After my show, my friend Chris and I rigged up his LCD projector, laptop, and screen in his living room, and managed to see "Good Night and Good Luck" in one of the more comfortable and satisfying movie-watching experiences I've had in a long time. There may only be three official movie screens within thirty miles of this town, but technology is everywhere.

On Saturday, I had two surprises: a new merch case and a visitor. First I was introduced to a new merch case prepared for me by Jerome, of Jerome's antiques in Perham, MN. I had gone to see Jerome's incredible shop the first week I was in town, when I was looking for old suitcases that could serve as carrying and display cases for my merchandise for those shows where I wanted to bring more than the CDs and postcards that fit in my lovely antique lunchboxes. We couldn't find any that day, but a few days later, Jerome came across the perfect case for the perfect price ($5!). He put my initials on it, and hand-selected a number of antique postcards from New York City to paste on the outside. By the time I returned to the shop, the suitcase was perfectly customized for me. I'll be proud to show it off at my upcoming shows.

Surprise #2 was a visit by the up-and-coming Americana artist Dave Golden, who joined me for two New York Mills shows on Sunday. Dave has been compared to a lot of the greats including Bruce Springsteen, Jeff Tweedy, and Neil Diamond, among others. He is a musical virtuoso, and one of the most clear sighted music-makers I've encountered in this business. I was honored to share the stage with him again. And it didn't hurt that his guitar and harmonica made my songs sound wonderful. Dave's playing a show this Friday in NYC, and will probably play in your neighborhood sometime in the next year, so take a gander at his website and sign up onto his mailing list for a treat.

Dave and I managed to check out Fargo, North Dakota and some of the cool places around New York Mills. The Coen brothers movie put Fargo on the map for me, and I guess it loomed larger in my imagination than it does in real life. It's more like a large town than a city. One of the highlights for me was Zandbro's--a combination of a 1950's style soda-fountain, an artsy bookstore, and a general store full of gourmet odds and ends like handmade jewellery, hipster toys, high fashion bags, and luxury candles. It felt almost like it had been airlifted from Williamsburg, Brooklyn--albeit a fictional Williamsburg that has low rents and so much warehouse space that stores can be loft-sized. Another cool place is the refurbished art deco Hotel Dakota. And, if you're looking for a good meal in Fargo, definitely check out Monte's. Monte himself mans the door, and on the night we were there, he was dressed to kill in a far-too-fashionable-for-the-midwest gray patterned suit, shirt, and tie. At the end of our meal we had the opportunity to get to know Monte, and we learned that Monte lived in NYC for twenty-five years--which explains his outrageously awesome sense of fashion--and had only recently returned to, what he repeatedly called "the glorious American heartland." America's heartland or no, the prime rib of pork ("the Kobe beef of pork" as described by our waiter) was one of the best dishes I have ever had anywhere. Period.

Another treat over the last few days was a visit to Maplewood State Park on the Otter Tail Scenic Byway, an under-publicized gem of a park that is full of lakes and hills and forests of maple and nary a soul. After a two hour hike in this glorious place, I felt like all my stress had slid off my shoulders and was soaked up by the forgiving trees.

Yesterday, I had the rare pleasure of dining with another fascinating local, Rich Paper. Rich is affiliated both with the Cultural Center and the Ottertail County Historical Society, but once upon a time, Rich spent ten years as a monk in a Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka. At his invitation, I went to Rich's house where Rich cooked me a decadent Caribbean meal complete with jerk chicken, vegetable "run-down," and lavender creme brulee. (I got to brulee the creme with Rich's handheld mini-blowtorch!). While he was cooking, and I was doing very little to help, Rich introduced me to his garden where we smelled the lilacs from his lilac tree, the apple blossoms from his apple tree, and the mint and sage from his herb garden. I also tasted the freshest baby arugula, asparagus, and dragon carrot I've ever had--picked literally milliseconds before I put them in my mouth. It was also a particular pleasure for me to talk with Rich about buddhism. I had spent three years as part of a Buddhist meditation community, and I didn't realize how much I missed the Buddhist perspective in my life. I have managed to secure an invitation for dinner with Rich again next week, and he has promised to cook some Sri Lankan food. My mouth is already watering.

Today I finally buckled down to work again after a few days that were so packed with other things that music practice and writing were relegated to the back burner. Well, not completely to the back burner, as I managed to complete a song I started a few days ago called "Quarter on the Rails." It's my first train song. I've been meaning to write a train song since a fan at one of my shows three years ago requested one. Last week, I had my second request for a train song, and figured it was time I wrote one. Considering that the artist bungalow I'm staying at is two blocks from a railroad track where a railroad passes every twenty minutes, this is the right place to write a train song. I haven't yet had a chance to record a demo, but as soon as I do, I'll post it.

This evening, I joined my new friends Steve and Tish at the park to roast hot dogs. It was windy, but gorgeous out with the sun streaming through the trees at the lake. We talked about all sorts of things, and I learned all about Steve's fascinating life, including his two-and-a-half year stint as Susan Tedeschi's tour manager. People out here are constantly surprising me with the breadth of their experiences. Steve and Tish then took me to the Pioneer Grounds, where the town of Perham, MN has been collecting old log buildings, including a wooden dance hall from the 1920's a miniature church, a stable, a jail, a log cabin, and a stage, in a beautiful field. We wandered around the rustic buildings as the sun set.

Then, I stopped at a service station, bought about five diffferent brands of horribly pre-packaged chocolate goodies, and made my way home to write. It's been good to write you this evening. See you on the road...

There is so much to tell about the last five days that I am sorely regretting that I have not blogged since the 5th. But, the reason I have not been able to blog is because I've been so busy living it up in the gorgeous north country. On Friday, when I last left you, I was about to head out on a canoe trip for three days along the Crow Wing River. It was a blast. My host and guide was Chris Klein--board member of the NY Mills Cultural Center, my host organization, and pillar of Otter Tail County. Though I was hesitant about planning a three-day wilderness trip with a person I barely knew, Chris and I ended up getting along surprisingly well, and spent much of our time singing and trading views on the world--that is, when we weren't trying to collect wood and cook stews over an open fire. I've become an old hand at the Dutch oven cooking method. Chris also helped me catch up on my Minnesotan, and I'm now getting pretty fluent with my "Ya, wouldn't you know"s and my "You betcha"s.

The Crow Wing River was beautiful: slow-flowing, lined with trees just coming into bud. We couldn't have asked for better weather--65 degrees, sunny, and calm every day. There was great wildlife viewing--I saw a couple of bald eagles, wood ducks, mallards, a musk rat, two beavers, a thousand turtles sunning themselves on logs, and--the piece de resistance--a fisher (a marten/mink like creature with dark brown fur) slinking up a hill.

We finished our stretch of the river midday on Sunday, and decided to extend our adventure with some fly-fishing. Now, I had never fly-fished before, so it was totally new to me. We started with a casting lesson wading in the lake in Glendalough State Park. It was so cool to put on waders and wander out into the lake water. Of course, it was less cool when we learned that my waders leaked, and even less cool when I discovered that a nest of ladybugs had been lodged in the left heel of the waders, and had mostly gotten crushed by my feet. Fishing was so fun that even that carnage didn't discourage me, and part 2 of the fishing lesson included going to the Toad River and fishing for Croppies. Didn't catch anything, but I loved the opportunity to sit in glorious nature with a rod and line dipped in the water, and the occasional cast.

I returned and immediately wrote a song called "Sometimes You Just Gotta Play" (click to listen to my rough demo) and rewrote the chorus of the new song "You found me."

Tuesday night was my first gig in Otter Tail County. I played at Ma's Little Red Barn in Perham, which is perhaps the most darling coffeehouse west of the Mississippi. Ma and her husband Pa--yes, the whole town calls them that--built this flower shop/cafe by reworking an early 20th century building. The audience was lovely, and the third set of my show ended up being an intimate acoustic conversation and song-sharing event, which involved about ten locals who stuck around. I was invited to the local weekly Mexican meal, cooked by Tish originally from Phoenix, and out to a number of other events that make up the local social life. I learned all about how living in this area of Minnesota is like living in a bygone time. And I am amazed to be able to be here and be welcomed into this warm-hearted community.

Today, I'm recovering from the hoopla of the night, and seeing what comes out of today's fatigue. Maybe I'll do some recording. Till next time...

Yesterday I went on a long scenic drive on the Ottertail County Scenic Byway. I saw a lot of beautiful Minnesota scenery. Flat farmland, rolling hills, and hundreds upon hundreds of lakes. Ottertail County, where I'm staying for the month of May, has the largest number of lakes of any county in Minnesota, which itself is the state of 10,000 lakes. Ottertail County-ites claim there's a thousand lakes here. My Moon Handbook claims there's just 784, but in any case, that's a whole lot of lakes for one county. They are most beautiful, to my mind, when they are nestled in the gently rolling glacial hills.

Yesterday I also learned firsthand what small-town living really means. After my scenic drive, I stopped by the New York Mills Creamery, the main coffee shop and one of only three eateries in town. They're only open during country hours--9 to 5:30, so I tried to make it there to do some writing before evening. I said hi to Jack, one of the two proprietors, and he laughed at me for my city pickiness: I asked to have the envelopes Big Train Chai specially prepared with steamed milk rather than the good old Oregon chai they had prepared behind the counter. While I was writing, Dan the mechanic from next door stopped in to see me. He did some work on Serendipity (my beat-up silver Honda Civic) two days ago because I'd had an unexpected meeting with a speeding steel plate on the road between Iowa City and Minneapolis. He was looking for me because he thought he may have left a bolt loose, and wanted to double check. So, seeing my car parked at the Creamery, he stopped in personally to find me, borrowed my keys, drove my car to his shop, confirmed that the bolt had been tightened, drove the car back to me, and handed me back the keys. Now that's personal service.

Then, Jack told me that he knew all about my canoeing plans for the weekend. And later three separate town locals sought me out to let me know that the Thursday night ladies' card game I had been invited to would not be held this week. I'm a little amazed at the whole small town experience here. I've been in cities for all my adult life, and spent my teenage years in a large suburb. So it's unfamiliar, and still quite charming, though I hear it can get old pretty quick if you live here for long.

Thanks to a comment of Jack's during my conversation with him, the rural scenery in Minnesota, my first ever purchase of a fishing license, and a few other influences rolling around my unconscious, I wrote a song yesterday called "You found me." And, thanks to the joys of Audacity open source recording software, I did my first demo recording ever on my computer. If you're interested, you can listen here: You found me (right click and select "save as" to download onto your computer).

Today, I am off on another adventure: a three-day canoe trip on the Crow Wing River. I expect that I'll have a lot to write about when I return. Till then, be well.

Perhaps the best street name I've ever encountered is just off Route 10 between Brainerd and New York Mills, Minnesota: Oink Point Road. I wonder who named that particular road, and what mood they were in on that particular day. I can only assume that pigs had something to do with it. As I learned the other day in Iowa City, pigs outnumber people in Iowa. Perhaps they do out here in rural Minnesota as well.

My performance last night in Minneapolis was at the Acadia Cafe with Brianna Lane and Alicia Wiley. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed listening to Brianna and Alicia as much or more than I enjoyed performing, and I love to perform. Definitely check these fine musicians out. Acadia's back performance space is a great listening room, with tiered seating and candles. I received one of the most complimentary descriptions of my music from one of the people who came out last night. Travis Lund is a music fan, Minneapolis native, percussionist, drummer and guitarist. His description of my songs from my CD Favorite was: "Lock Ani Difranco in a room for a year with nothing but Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch records, then make her write an album, and this is what you'll get." Thank you, Travis. That one goes in the press kit.

Minnesota is the state with the second largest amount of funding for the arts, second only to New York. Which perhaps explains why a state-of-the-art cultural center exists in the middle of this picture-imperfect farm town. This place is a real town, almost ugly in its utilitarianism. Buildings were built as they were needed, not to impress some potential tourist base coming from the big city (or as they refer to Minnesota's main metro area, "the Cities"). The town lies in the midst of miles and acres of farmland. There's one main street that's about two blocks long and has one hardware store, one coffee shop, one diner, and the one mechanic in town. Its the kind of town I have seen in the movies, but never really encountered. This city girl is a long way from home.

I arrived in New York Mills early this morning. I awoke too early (again) at the Motel 6 in Minneapolis, and though I had intentions of wandering around Minneapolis to see the sights, it was raining hard, and I figured I'd be better off getting a jump start on the 3.5 hour drive out to New York Mills. (The locals call this town "Mills," which I think I'll start doing. The "New York" gets rather cumbersome, especially considering how different it is from the New York I'm most familiar with.)

In any case, at the Cultural Center Director's instructions, I drove over the railroad tracks and two blocks down Main Avenue to find a tiny bungalow painted bright gold with a red door. It's perfectly proportioned for one artist--and about twice the size of my apartment in Brooklyn. The keys to the front door have been lost over the years, so the visitor enters through the rear, passing the picturesquely dilapidated garage shack. The back door leads into a bright kitchen painted white with brown and white parquet floors and a pale yellow table and chair. It's about three times the size of my Brooklyn kitchen. Off the kitchen is a small office area, where I'm writing now. The office is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves that hold the cast-off treasures and detritus of the 80+ artists who have been residents here. Highlights include a small flat window-pane like sculpture made from six colored popsicle sticks that reads: "Non-Functioning Xyloexplosive Device #1 by Tim Fort (King of the Kinetic World) 8-2-05 - 9-2-05," a wire sculture in the shape of an abstract mole, issues of Vogue dating back to 2001, and various art supplies that have collected item by mismatched item.

Through the kitchen is a bright white living-room-type space which I've turned into my music room. It's got a large window, an armchair, stereo, and a large white drafting desk that holds pride of place in the center of the room under the window. Note that there is no TV. I'm about to lose my main medium of procrastination. I'm curious to see what happens to me without television to resort to. Perhaps I'll actually write. I've moved the quill and ink that I found in the office to the music room just in case it's the right writing implement for the occasional historical song, and I've set up all my guitar and music stands. Notebooks and pens are lined up at write angles on the desk, and my guitars wait in their cases till I unveil them later today. It feels like once I get the guitars out, then there's no more procrastination allowed. So, now I sit here writing in this blog, and not writing in my notebook. At some point, I'll press "publish post" and then I'll have no more excuses. For now, let's continue our tour.

To the left of the music room is a small and delightfully welcoming bedroom with a queen-sized bedand an armchair. The small bathroom is off the bedroom. Straight ahead and through the living room is a small indoor porch-like room that is painted deep sun yellow and has a large abstract tree sculpture made from blue wood tube like pieces connected into branches, an easel, a folding screen that barely fits in the small space, and a couple of pillows on one of which a bumble bee seemed to be on its sleepy way towards dying this afternoon. The walls are covered with glyphics, figures, and images contributed by various visitors including an upside-down human figure in violet blue and southwestern-styled paintings of snakes lining the door frame. On one wall a collection of small square ziploc bags are nailed in perfect columns, each bag containing a small object or colection of objects, a plastic skull, wooden beads, dried herb, a feather...

This afternoon I went to the supermarket to stock my kitchen and had my first real encounter with the cultural differences between New York City and New York Mills. This pretty much captures it: there was no brown rice. Okay, I admit that they did carry Uncle Ben's bastardized version of what they claim was once rice, and it was brown-colored. [Sidenote: I refuse to buy Uncle Ben's, and I try not to eat it if I can help it. It seems like the corporate Uncle purposefully took all the flavor and nutrients out of their rice in order to sell it. Lord knows how that's helped them sell it.] But, if the shelves of this rather large supermarket say anything, it's that overpackaged, under-nutriented food is all the rage here. Lots of national brands, cardboard and plastic packaging are the theme at this supermarket. A lot of meat. A lot of butter-substitutes. Not nearly as much produce. No whole grains. All the yoghurts are chock-a-block full of corn syrup. The produce aisle took up only one half of one side of one aisle. No wonder this country has health problems. How I crave Trader Joe's right now. For those of you who have not experienced the bliss of a grocery shopping experience that is Trader Joe's, I can't recommend it highly enough. In any case, I still managed to rack up quite a food-shopping bill here in rural Minnesota, as I suffer from the perennial food-shopping curse of my eyes being bigger than my stomach.

And since my tiny fridge is now full, and my blog has been updated and then some, it is time to go write. No more excuses. The music awaits.