Sep. 24, 2001
Rainy Days Feel Like I'm Fallin'

What a cold, rainy day. I’ve got my special lamp a-blazin’, and Heidi came through with a mug of hot tea to warm my insides up, so I’m not minding too much.

I think I’m going to start off this month’s entry with some fan mail. This letter comes from Jill Sewell, formerly Jill Womack of the Elite Atlanta Opera Ticket Office:

Well, Jill, I gotta say, I almost wish Molly Brown were a dog because that’s an absolutely brilliant theory, and you’ve obviously put quite a bit of thought into it. However, Molly is a real person. She was my roommate in college, though she now lives in the mountains outside of Asheville, NC in her trusty delivery truck, Betty. I’ll have to put a picture of her in the photo album sometime. Molly’s a legend in my circle of friends because of this song, though I’m convinced she would be anyway. I've always been tempted to write a book about her. She'd probably never forgive me if I did, though; she’s quite the reluctant celebrity.

So my band and I are indeed going to get to play at the outdoor festival in Canton, just as I’d hoped, and though there’s no word yet on whether there will be funnel cake, Chris assures me that I will not be disappointed in the roast corn. So that’ll be a good time all the way around.

Now I feel like I should say something about the state of events in the world. It’s not like me to be reticent about stating my opinions, but these days I kind of am. I have my thoughts and opinions, plenty of them, but here’s the thing: everyone is talking about it. Every show I’ve been to this week, the bands have said something about the national crisis, as though they’re trying to justify their presence on a stage by having something to say about it. And it just feels weird to me. I know that it happened and that it is happening and that it’s real, but at the same time, it almost doesn't feel real anymore. This whole thing has just turned into eight forwarded e-mails that I keep getting sent over and over again. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Bin Laden is the Grinch. Don’t forget to overpower the terrorists next time you’re on a hijacked plane. Repetition makes it seem ridiculous, like just another e-mail hoax. Like the 30-second montages of people screaming and crying that they kept playing on the radio all week after it happened as though it were a commercial for something. Weird.

Like I said, it’s not as though I have nothing to say on the subject. If you want to hear what a silly cheesefolk chick has to say about it all, e-mail me, and I’ll rant. Oh, I’ll pontificate. We’ll dialogue till the cows come home. But other people have already said it all better, even in the forwarded e-mails which continue to flood my in-box.

I will say this, though, and mean it: y’all take care.

What’s in my stereo at home: