billie jean was not his lover

I'm home for lunch, so I've switched on the Michael Jackson memorial service.

It's been interesting over the past several days to see the overwhelming worldwide reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. I was never a major fan (to me, the Jackson 5 marked the unfortunate end of the great Motown sound of the 60s), although I had my moments -- I thought "Billie Jean" was a great song (and video), and I thought that Michael was the best part of the movie version of The Wiz. But the story of Michael Jackson, with all its musical milestones and bizarre behind-the-scenes personal behavior, perhaps made him not a real person -- more like a product or an institution. Maybe that's why people are so affected by his death.

And the stories will continue, as long as his supporting characters live on -- the strange family members (Joe Jackson? LaToya?), the ex-wives, his children, the doctors who wrecked his face and those who medicated him to death. And his fans, as long as they live and remember the music they once loved, never can say goodbye.

(wow, Mariah Carey looks awful)

(but Queen Latifah is cool).

Cheers, Michael the person: a bit screwed-up but kind, which is a whole lot better than screwed-up and unkind, and there's plenty of that out there.

meanwhile, back at the coffeeshop (again)

It's another 4th of July at the coffeeshop. The Bolshevik-looking guy is at the table by the window with the professor-looking guy, both talking nonstop while the professor's teenage daughter looks on. The cops are sitting behind me having their coffee and muffins, and other familiar faces are scattered around me. Jerry is sitting across from me reading one of the local weekly papers.

A year ago right now, I was sitting in this exact spot ruminating about whether the British were really all that bad. Compared to george w. bush, Queen Elizabeth was looking pretty good. But things change (thanks, Barack!), and it's been a whole year that quickly flew by, and Independence Day is on a Saturday and everybody seems confused about which day to celebrate. Some people were off work yesterday, some on Monday, and for some reason the grocery stores are open today, so some people didn't get off at all.

The week was wild, but the merger of my business happened painlessly on Wednesday and, on the home front, we think we have found an apartment downtown (20th floor) to live in as we house-search over the next several months. I've slept better the past couple nights. A Tylenol-PM helped.

untitled, part two

As I'm looking around this house, I'm thinking, Should I start packing? Where the heck do I start?.. Should I think about selling some of this stuff on Craig's List? How does a person even sell stuff on Craig's List?.. Does anybody know? Do I really want people calling to ask if they can come look at the junk I have to sell? And how much downsizing can I, a sentimental person, handle?

Or, instead of writing to you good folks, should I be on the web trying to find us a place to live as of a month from tomorrow?

It's funny, though, people have ideas for us. "I have a friend who has a friend who is looking for renters", that sort of thing. We could end up living with a State Senator for a couple months (Really). And we have friends who have offered to have us move in with them for a while. Probably not a good idea?

And what we will do is probably live in a short-term situation (month-to-month furnished rental?) for a while, with our furniture and our boxes and, gulp!, the Steinway in storage somewhere, so that we can take our time and find exactly the right house for us.

But it was a long day and I'm tired, so these decisions are just going to have to wait. Is there some room on the checklist for some chilling-out??

untitled, part one

And you thought maybe I hadn't blogged lately because I had nothing to say?.. Ha!

You knew I had a merger of my business coming up July 1st, which is taking scads of my time with details and catch-up and stress. It's been a while since I've gotten a whole night's sleep. I wake up way too early magnifying some minor business tidbit in my head and can't get back to sleep. You can understand that, right?

And you also knew that Jerry and I own two townhouses, one that we live in and one that we used to live in, and that we had both of them on the market for quite a while with the intention of eventually living in the one that didn't sell, letting fate decide our future. Then fairly recently we took the house that we currently live in off the market and decided to stick it out right where we are.

Well, the house where we used to live sold a couple weeks ago, with a closing the middle of August. Good news. We didn't get as much for it as we wanted, but, hey, it's a down market. So we were happy with that.

But then, this past week, people who had looked at our current home while it was on the market came back and made us a pretty good offer, and, for some ungodly reason, we accepted it. For this, a house that we love (but which has a mortgage balance that is more than we would like to have). They want to close the deal on July 30.

So what am I saying? I'm saying that we have sold both our homes and that we suddenly have a month to find somewhere to live. A month that happens to be the first month of my new business venture, which already had me stressed.

And we are telling ourselves, as best we can, that this is a good thing, that we will be able to re-group, to maybe downsize, to make our lives somewhat simpler and less financially precarious. But these days, it is hard to wake up early and realize we have to move on to what right now is a great big unknown.

sometimes the ending is the best part

I hate those weeks when I'm either too busy to blog or wearing a head filled with garbage unsuitable for my blog-reading public... This was one of those weeks, juggling between a merger that I need to make happen by the first of July and the normal real work.

But it's a beautiful Saturday here in Minneapolis, and I spent most of the morning on the deck reading a book and drinking coffee and un-cluttering my brain. This afternoon I went to the gym and worked off some of my week's frustrations and then, what do you know?, ran into my sister Joan downtown as we were both waiting for busses home.. (Is the plural of bus buses or busses?) And here I am, sitting on our front patio writing to you all. The week ended nicely.

Say, did you watch the Tony Awards last Sunday night?.. Of course, you didn't, and I bet you can't name one new Broadway show from this past season, can you?.. But we always watch the show, and this year my niece Ruthie and my grandnephew Corey came over to watch with us since Ruthie never has anybody to watch the Tonys with, and what good is watching an awards show if you have nobody to make sarcastic remarks to? So we had fun with it and shared throwback Pepsi (which of course Ruthie hated) and potato chips, and maybe that was the highlight of the week, sad to say. This week will be better.

and since you, like most of the world, missed the Tonys, here's a clip of the highlight of the show: Neil Patrick Harris, the host, singing the closing number:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-cB2HpNQ2k

tschaikovsky, kushner & plath

Tschaikovsky, Kushner & Plath?.. a local law firm?.. No, it's sort of a summary of what I've been able to squeeze in in-between a busy work schedule the past few days: Two Minnesota Orchestra concerts -- one last week showcasing Tschaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 and the other (tomorrow night) doing his Piano Concerto No. 3 (I didn't even know there was a #3); a series of plays by Tony Kusher (who wrote Angels in America) being done at the Guthrie Theater; and, somewhere in between, I read that novel about depression, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. Good escapism?.. actually, yes!

throwback

It's a beautiful Memorial Day evening back here in Minneapolis. I'm sitting here drinking a "throwback" Pepsi, trying to get myself ready to be "thrown back" into the office routine tomorrow after a great vacation at the Jersey Shore and in Philly.

*****

(Have you tried the throwback Pepsis yet? They are, apparently, a temporary nostalgia gimmick -- made with natural sugar like Pepsi used to be instead of with corn syrup. I admit that I like them a lot, and, let's face it, Pepsi is one of the great pleasures in life. Can't have it too much, but when we do, let's have real sugar!)

*****

We spent the last 24 hours of our trip in center-city Philly, which I hadn't visited in a number of years -- we usually just see the airport area. We stayed in a great little "boutique" hotel at 12th & Spruce Street, the Alexander Inn, which is located in a wonderful area, probably the best and most fun area, of the city. For me, growing up in South Jersey, Philly was always the nearest big city -- fun to have nearby but at the same time intimidating and kinda scary. Walking around the city this time, I realized how eerily at-home I felt. Made me wonder if maybe I should have spent most of my life in Philadelphia.