July 21, 2004

10:26 p.m.

How Did You Sleep, Dahling?

Last night I slept in a house formerly owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor's mother. The tiny original windows, from the 50s, were at some point replaced with huge thermal plate glass affairs that offer endless views of mountains and sky.

Now the house is owned by a retired patron of the arts, a woman in her 70s who spends four months of the year in Hawaii. She confessed that, this last time, she was bored. Her son, who did well in business, retired at 42 to Montana. Now he's 47; he thinks that by next year he'll get another little job. Everybody needs to do something, after all.

My hostess was just coming back from seeing her son last night so I had been brought to the house and had gone to bed before she arrived home. We met this morning over toast and fruit. I enjoyed hearing Jeannie's stories about her travels and her doings with the local, professional symphony, of whose board she is still a member. The only complaint I can lodge is that I had horrible night sweats leading to bone-shivering chills around 3am, and never did dry out or sleep that well afterwards. I finally got up at 6 just to have something else to do, like take a long hot shower. The chills are very strange. I suppose that if I sweat in my sleep, I then get very cooled off, and by the time I wake my body temp is lower than it should be. They strike at once, and all of a sudden it's as though I've been thrown into a pool of ice. The room's not cold. Just me, inside. I dive under all the covers I can find. I'm aware that within a couple of minutes it's really HOT under there, but I'm still shivering and gasping. It's like it takes a while for the heat to get inside. Once I warm back up, it's covers on / covers off over and over again, and my back and neck are soaked and so is the pillow. At home I can change into dry jammies, but I brought nothing extra on this trip.

Sigh. Welcome to perimenopause.

Yesterday's gig in CT was fun, although the sound was a little lame. We played in a park to several hundred people, and sold well. The weather held out and the food provided for us was astounding. Shrimp cocktail galore, roast chicken, fresh bing cherries and melon, massive spinach salad, and what's that yogurt thing called with dill in it, it's a kind of dip, maybe an Indian thing? Anyway this year I avoided the positively superlative rugala and cookies. I remember we took so much rugala home last year we were eating it for weeks. I think Chris and Carol ended up freezing theirs. Being now a wee bit watchful of my mass, I let them go.

Today we performed in the strangest place. We were hired by Trinity Church in NYC, so I assumed we were at the church, although Carol had said we'd be outdoors on the loading dock. It turned out it was nowhere near the church, and I still don't know what the building was that offers their loading dock up for lunchtime concerts in July. It was an uncompromisingly urban environment. They set up folding chairs in the parking lot and behind the audience was the side of a brick building. I sang to "No Parking, 9am-6pm" for an hour. The good part was that the sound guy, although rather officious, was great and he really attended the board. The dock had a tin roof so we got some odd harmonicky feedback at first, but overall it sounded like a stadium, with our amplified voices bouncing off several buildings. The crowd was pretty reasonable, and though we didn't sell much, they paid us a ridiculous load of money for one set.

A friend of Carol's came and brought her totally hyperactive and equally undisciplined young son, who bothered everyone by running and dancing wildly just in front of the loading dock through the entire set. We like people to dance, but he was a real nuisance, putting his leg up on the "stage" and fiddling with our equipment, making barking noises and faces at everyone. I guess Mimi is one of these bizarre mothers who feel that their golden children should be allowed to do just anything, because she never tried to control him. When we were packing up he came up on the stage and was just in the way -- three of us and a couple of sound guys trying to pack up equipment, and this little kid kicking over cups and making himself a pain. I told him he needed to step down where his mom was, because we were too busy up there and I didn't want him to hurt himself. When he totally ignored me and went over to our guitars, I followed him, picked him up from behind, and handed him down to Mimi, saying, "Here, please take your son." All she said to him was, "Wow, she picked you up! She must be strong!" For Christ's sake, what are people like that thinking? Or are they????

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so nice.

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And, I don't feel very nice. We did have a good lunch in the city with a friend of Carol's (not the one with the demon child), at a Japanese place. Carol managed to dump her miso soup across the table in my direction; I was spared but my purse, which was on the ground at my feet, was not. I think I might be able to wash it out. (Chris said to her, "At least you didn't drop the bass!") Then we drove back, I picked up my car at their house, came home and

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counted three weeks now since having any word with Will. I know, I know, I should just leave it alone. But I'm getting a nasty thrill out of seeing the days heap up, longer and longer, feeding my disappointment and my urge to accuse. So far I haven't been mean to anybody yet.

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We have a phone appointment tomorrow morning with our lawyer to strategize over this licensing issue. That'll be interesting. Afterwards I plan to do a boatload of laundry, and take a bike ride if it's not too hot. The sense of accomplishment, I'm sure, will lift my spirits and put life back into its contented, Zenlike perspective.

Sure.