Sympathy

I have food poisoning today. I feel awful. I will never, ever, ever eat fish tacos ever again. Boo.

Well, hello again

Hi there,

There are a bunch of reasons I haven't been posting here, which I don't particularly want to get into. Well, OK. There is one specific reason that I'm more than happy to get into. I've spent a lot of time making an 8-part radio series from stories people have told live onstage at my storytelling series, A Guide To Visitors. The whole series will live here when it's done. Right now, I only have one more hour to complete; it'll air next week. Then, nearly a year of work and planning is over. I find myself feeling sad that it's almost over. I have loved going through the nearly 9 years of old stories I had recorded, and listening to each story. I have loved hearing these people's voices on the radio. So many of the people who have told stories for this project over the years have become very special to me. They're not quite friends, because we don't really hang out socially. But they have all agreed to trust me and my co-producers enough to get up in front of a bunch of strangers and tell very personal stories about themselves. I keep thinking about what an honor it is that so many people have agreed to do this with us. How kind of amazing it is that we're still doing this after 9 years - and our audiences have grown, our stable of return storytellers has grown, it's all grown. I just love that I get to do this. I don't really make any money at it. It's not my job. But I love doing it so much. I will miss making this radio series, but it's gotten me fired up to do some other things with these stories. I guess the "other things" will be what I spend my energy on in this coming year. It's good to be exhausted when your energy is being used on things you love.

Ah, and speaking of spending energy on things you love, I spent some time getting my dog into a Yoda costume this past weekend. Worth every second. (I think he would disagree.)

Paul Harvey Starkey 1922-2010

Grandpa died this morning. these are my favorite picks. Among the many great things he did in his life, he taught me my first guitar chords (C/Am/G). i learned much more than that from him of course, but that is what popped in my head this morning. a few pictures...



He grew up in rural Oklahoma and to earn extra money (and it was probably very fun) he would play pie dances. He and some other musicians would set up in someones living room or barn, they'd roll up the carpet, the ladies would bake pies, and people would dance. He could play the fiddle, the guitar or the piano. The violin was his main instrument though.



He was also trained as a fighter pilot and was stationed in the pacific during WWII. I think he spent a lot of time on the beach in hawaii for the most part. he was very lucky.



I like this picture quite a bit. it's fuzzy, it's from the 80's, i look like i'm crazy. but i remember the day very vividly. Grandma was taking the picture. I spent a lot of my childhood hanging out at their house because it was 1. fun 2. they spoiled me and 3. the house was always filled with laughter and jokes and was a very safe and easy place to be. no pressure from them to do anything other than just be. this picture represents one day out of 100's of days just like it. Whenever i needed something (whether i needed or wanted is probably debatable in retrospect...:) he always had a wallet of five dollar bills that would open up for me.

He always told me that i was his favorite grandson. i was of course, his only grandson. :)

Generous and funny and wise.

good man he was.