A funny thing happened on my way to writing this post

<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've been taking a break from my blog, stepping back and trying to figure out what is wrong with me.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As I do with most things in my life, I was over-analyzing my binging problem. To the point where I was becoming obsessed by it.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I was posting the same thing every day. I binged, I didn't binge, I wanted to binge, I need to stop binging, I don't know how to stop binging, what is wrong with me?! Over and over I repeated the same words. If I didn't actually post them, they were running through my head.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then I'd talk a good talk: "I can do this!" "I'm going to do this!" "This will work!"</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When truthfully, I'd fallen and couldn't get up. None of my grand schemes worked on me. The more I worried about it, the worse it became. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I had all sorts of theories about the reasons for my binging: my husband doesn't love me enough, my father died when I was 12, I was spoiled by my mother to make up for not having a father, I was use to getting what I wanted, my job is stressful. Or my personal favorite, I have some sort of mental disease, and I'm addicted to food.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I've been mucking about for the last few days, trying to figure out my problem, when this post by a very courageous lady named Velda popped up:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://theclimbandsometimesthefall.blogspot.com/" target="blank"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Climb and Sometimes the Fall, My story of lung cancer that's gone to my head.</span></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I read Velda's post, along with the last few posts that I'd missed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then I thought to myself, what the hell am I complaining about? Honest to God, I don't know anymore. </span>

A funny thing happened on my way to writing this post

I've been taking a break from my blog, stepping back and trying to figure out what is wrong with me. As I do with most things in my life...

Read more »

Zydeco Snow

Before my first National Cowboy Poets’ Gathering, I assumed it would be nothing but white guys emulating Baxter Black – which is not bad. But the folks in Elko who put this event together are intentionally cosmopolitan. The first event I ever attended was a concert of Mexican corridos performed by artists from our neighbor to the south. My next event was a concert by the Cowboy Poets of Kyrgystan. Amazing Asian folk traditions expanded my horizons.<br /><br />This year’s guests were from the Southeastern United States. That made sense. The Southeast has produced cowboy legends like the immortal Florida wrangler Bone Mizell. So my mind was open to the two Florida cowboy poets who opened tonight’s show, Swamp Tunes. The mediocrity of their verse was punctuated by base insulting rudeness and on one occasion an “inartful” racial slur. The dignity of Elko was saved only by my having failed to bring fruit to the event.<br /><br />However, they were only the openers. The main act was a 5-man Black zydeco band from South Louisiana. Washboard and drum rhythms drove the accordion melody. The artists were more than talented. They were inspired and inspiring. Cajun music, kin to country, has its own charm, but this was zydeco -- a celebratory cousin to blues. The music was so aesthetically compelling I was lost in it. A truly spiritual experience. Someday we must have a zydeco mass.<br /><br />When I stepped outside the Folklife Center, the music still pulsing in my body, snow was falling from a sky my poet friend Lyn Lifshin would call “onyx.” Life is good despite Florida poets.

Zydeco Snow

Before my first National Cowboy Poets’ Gathering, I assumed it would be nothing but white guys emulating Baxter Black – which is not bad. Bu...

Read more »