In Good Company

In Good Company

Normal: ordinary, regular, typical, standard, conventional, run-of-the-mill, average, commonplace, routine…

I’m searching through this list of adjectives for one that describes me, but I am having no luck. After all, what is “normal,” besides a setting on a washing machine? What defines normal? Are actions performed when there is no one else in the arena, evaluated the same as when you do something in front of others?

Take dancing, for one. I see the posts on social media that go like this, “Dance as though there is no one watching,” or “Dance like toddlers; they don’t even need music.” It would seem that others share my affinity for kicking up the old heels, and letting it all hang out, as we used to say…a long time ago.

I do go through life these days plugged in. I listen to contemporary pop, I listen to reggae, I listen to just about anything that has a quick pace and a lively beat. I need everything going my way if I am to have the best shot at getting any work done.

As I made my way through two solid months of soil-prep back in March and April, that is working with a pitchfork, the music was fuel for my soul. It’s hard to dance while turning soil, but it’s not hard to get yourself motivated to make steady progress.

Ear cushions long gone, electrical tape in abundance...do I care?

What seems like an endless task is made more palatable if there is endless music, especially if one has a good sound system. I invested my life’s savings back in 2011, prior to going to Ireland, to buy a set of quality headphones, and have gotten my two hundred dollars’ worth, ten times over.

The ear cushions are long gone and I have had to use electrical tape to keep the exposed wire covered up, but the quality is stellar.

So the question is, when I walk Dozer early in the morning, and I am listening to the song “Karate” by the band, Kennedy, and I am gyrating to the beat of the music, is that normal? Others obviously “do it.”

Does it become abnormal, if there is someone to observe my actions? Is it a case of, “Oh, don’t worry. He’s harmless-just likes to get involved in his music…?” I guess there are worse classifications than “harmless.”

Is it normal that I arise every morning-after no more than four hours of sleep-and ponder the universe from my own personal tilt-a-whirl? I drink one cup of coffee, wait a couple of hours, and then have another. I limit my intake of the “black death” to three cups, or maybe four on a particularly tumultuous day.

I listen to my music, I write letters, I pour over my photography, I write about the Giants, I post on my blog and I visit face/book and connect with some my many social media friends. No one else is around and Annie says she never hears a sound that I may make.

I took a pic of the sky...and found this.

When “Kelly” by Van She came on a little while ago, I drifted outside onto the front deck, reveling in the cool seventies-plus temperature that will soar into the nineties later on. Once the front door was closed, I turned up the volume on my headphones to almost the maximum, for just the one song.

Interestingly enough, with this particular song, there are several versions, none of which has a whole lot of personal interest, until we get to the “cut copy, remix” version, and then I go into a quasi-trance…when I am alone. There is something about the term, "cut copy remix" that intrigues me. Maybe that's what I need: a remix!

I press the two speakers against my ears and allow the music to cascade over me like white water on the Colorado River. It’s free, it’s cathartic and it’s harmless. 

But is it normal?

My father used to have an expression that seems to apply. He’d say, “Do whatever blows air up your skirt.”

The Divine Bette Midler had an even better one, “Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

The Divine Miss M on my left and me own father on the right? I’m in good company, even if I am by myself.