projects

My son, Ryder, turned 15 yesterday. Baby Bo gave him a song for his birthday, his brother, Wyatt, gave him advice (“Stay away from gophers”) and Billy and I drew various pictures of presents we’d planned on getting him. I don’t know when our family began to subscribe to the hippie-ish Make It Or Find It ethic, but Ry seems cool with his invisible gifts. Billy’s chocolate inside-out cake was real, anyway. Real caffeinated, too — we were all up past midnight watching Father Ted in the kids’ room, laughing hysterically. Only Bo could sleep.

I doubt it was the caffeine, though, that kept us up. I think it was the just plain weirdness of a baby you know turning into a man you know and not wanting the day to end before we figured out how to feel about it. It’s been said before, by other wimpy-ass parents, that children grow up and it’s confusing, but people usually claim it happens quickly. If you asked me how many years Ryder’d been alive and I wasn’t allowed to say “forever”, I would’ve guessed about 50. But I also would have to admit that I think he’s a 50 year old toddler.

I met a toddler named Ryder in the airport last night, of all things. Then I came home to a six foot man named Ryder that I call my son. Crazy how the past keeps walking out the door and not even saying goodbye. It colors our present images to an extent that allows us to believe it’s real, but it isn’t. It’s gone. Pioneertown is burning. Today is the anniversary of my stepfather, Wayne’s, death. How can Baby Ry, Pioneertown and Wayne be nowhere?

But 50FootWave had another stupefyingly fun show this weekend in beautiful Seattle; Bernie and Rob are still my heart’s brothers (they left a hole in our household when they drove back to LA); Ryder may be “Man Ry”, but he still has his father’s unholy green eyes; my mother lost the love of her life, but she’s happy to see the rosehips appear by the ocean every spring; Billy’s still in the kitchen making chocolate inside-out cake whenever a boy has a birthday.

And I still have a baby in my arms. A different baby, one with blue eyes and an affinity for motorcycles and sugar. And while I dread missing this person I know better than anyone else, I can’t wait to see him throw away the past and jump into the now, whether he’s 15 or 50. They’re just so good at it, those babies– they’re always shoving that goofy old past out the door and not looking back.

Some things never change.

Love,
Kristin

We came home a few weeks ago to a house full of ants. Ants were eating our food, drinking our beer, wearing our clothes. Ants do this. They invite themselves over and refuse to leave. They make pests of themselves. Also? They bite. They bite me, anyway. Billy says that’s because I’m not patient. His theory is that ants only pester impatient people as a little reminder to them to be patient.

I guess. But the only thing I’m really impatient about right now is getting these ants out of my house. They bit Wyatt, too, our 9 year old, and he’s pretty goddamn patient. He’s our Charles Wallace. He can catch any animal (“Can I keep him, Mom? I already named him–I call him Angry ’cause that’s what he is!”) and grow any plant. Right now, we have no real yard to speak of, yet he’s growing lentils, sunflowers, blackberries, dill, roses, a cactus, beets, cantaloupes, irises, basil, blueberries, aloe and a Venus fly trap.

But ants can get to anyone. They’re really annoying. When the ant bit Wyatt, he yelled, “If Nature was a guy, he’d be crazy!”. This from the kid who said, “Instinct is biological education”. I tried telling him that the ant bit him instinctively and he answered, “Yeah, I know. I hate him.”

Well, I have to say, I hate him too and I hate all his friends. I’ve gotten very good with my squirtgun full of Trader Zen (a Trader Joe’s cleaning product that contains grain alcohol or something else I might drink, so it kills them instantly). And still they send wave after wave of little soldiers onto the battlefield of the kitchen counter — why? Hardly anybody ever returns from these missions. Idiots.

Ryder, our 14 year old, says they must think it’s some sort of insect Valhalla. That no one ever bothers to come back because it’s so great there. Maybe. Idiots. At least Vikings understood that you had to die first.

And don’t tell me not to hate ants. Whenever I say I hate ants, somebody tells me not to. They usually quote T.V. — “I saw a nature special on ants once; they’re very advanced. They have war…and…slavery…”

Idiots.

By the way, I heard the completed solo album for the first time last night. Nine months in the making, like a big, fat, angry baby. Joe’s finished mastering it (again!) and it is brutal–in a good way. I gotta call everyone who worked on it and thank them. It’s a real gift to be completely happy with a record; it almost never happens. I owe them all “five bucks and a candy bar”, as Martin says.

Love,
Kristin

What a beautiful southwestern mini tour. The Mojave desert is a golden place — truly gold — and the Sonoran desert is violet. Nothing like a hot wind in the middle of the night to free up the senses.

We’ve been missing our old desert life terribly lately and were worried that going back would hurt our feelings, but our motel in Palm Springs was upliftingly cheap and such a happy place. They play Hawaiian luau music around the clock (an addictive soundtrack — we’re still playing it in our house) and we got to hang with all the other “winners” who summer in Palm Springs (107 degrees!). Fun fact: the owners of the motel are presently doing time for murder.

We had no CD’s to sell for gas money on this tour, so Billy went to a pinata store and filled party bags with little plastic doo dads, bubble gum and paper money and I signed “Hello, My Name Is …” blank name tags. We threw all this and a KH sticker into each gift bag and sold them for $5. It was funny AND sad, but also very sweet. People really rose to the pathetic occasion, waving their pity dollars at Billy: “One ‘bag of crap’, please!”, “I’ll take two ‘gas bags’ for a ten!”.

At one point after the LA show, Billy was on stage wrestling a tall, beautiful, blond woman who was trying to shove money into his shirt (I know her, so I was cool with it). This woman did a comprehensive photo shoot for us, free of charge, then she had to buy a ticket to the show because we forgot to put her on the guest list, THEN she tried to give us money! She wouldn’t even take a bag of crap for it. I think she won the wrestling match, too, because her money sat crumpled up on the stage as she walked out the front door of the club. Now that’s a classy broad.

Bernie and Rob were at the LA show, as well (Bernie brought his future mother-in-law, of all things). I miss them so much. We had an impromptu 50Foot meeting about the next recording. There was some whispered encouragement all around and as much as I hate to say it, I’m pretty sure there was a group hug. We’re all three of us, a little needy these days.

Time to make dinner…

X’s and O’s

Love,
Kristin

Whenever I type my name in an email, the Robot God inside the computer (Billy: “Some people call it a spell checker”) tells me I’m a cretin. And I don’t argue. Like if somebody yells, “Hey, idiot!”, you look up because you know it’s true and you’re only bummed because somebody else realized it.

The Robot God, of course, knows all. I think I mentioned to you that the new record was mixed, right? Wrong. (cretin!)

Last week, I made Trina climb up into her attic studio in Tennessee and stay up half the night to “bring the narrative back to life” in a chorus vocal — I had split the vocal into 3 parts: lead, double and harmony, which made it sound clumsy to me and like I had friends (clearly such was not the case).

I had to send her an MP3 of a demo from way back whenever so she’d know what I was talking about. Then we whispered through wee-hour cell phone calls and listened on headphones while our babies slept. Needless to say, Trina pulled it off and made it perfect.

Off the record went to LA, to be mastered by Joe Gastwirt, the master masterer. Done, done and done! Except…something wasn’t sitting right (cretin!) The end of a really nice, buzz guitar line was being swamped under a string swell in two different sections of the first song. Not a big deal to anyone in the whole entire world, I guess, except for me and possibly Billy. But we had it so close to perfect…

So now Trina goes back into the attic to make the song buzzier and then Joe’ll have to do it again. They probably don’t even like me any more (cretin!). But they’ll have to like this record, ’cause it’s gonna be perfect!

Also? I’m another aunt!!!

Two days ago, Hazel Parker Hersh joined the family fold, all 8 lbs., 5 oz. of her. Born here in Portland to my brother, Dave, and his lovely wife, April. Welcome, baby!

And special thanks to Strange Angel Erin McCown for turning me on to the magical Tuin, of Rose City Reptiles — now I’m back in the snake medicine saddle. Tuin has these wildly cool Miami corn snakes that filled a gap Forest Park couldn’t. Two hours of cuddling these beauties while Tuin filled my sons’ hands with all kinds of frogs, lizards and spiders was all it took.

Now if I could just find some snails and puppy dog tails…

Love,
Kristin

We moved to Portland, Oregon a couple days ago, having found a landlady who didn’t object to children or dogs (don’t landlords know that cats shit inside the house?) and so far this place seems very cool. You’d think I’d know it a little better after playing about a bazillion shows here over the years, but all I’d ever seen here were rock clubs, the Bijou (my favorite ever breakfast place) and friends’ apartments.

My amazing brother, David, lives here, though, and he put us up for a few days, showing us the good parks, the good pizza and the best place to buy blueberries in the middle of the night. Coffee is a non-issue; like most people in the Pacific Northwest, Portlanders are coffee nazis and have made sure that the espresso here Does Not Suck, anywhere you go.

That settled, we raced out to the ocean. If I can find water and snakes in a place, I know it’s a Good Place, and I found water: big, nice, green water with salt in it and waves what hurt you when they want to. Really beautiful.

Snakes are another story. I have been hiking through woods for days now, looking for anything…a western garter would be fine (I’ve only ever held the eastern kind) but I haven’t seen anything. And if I don’t find a snake soon, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay here. I’ll keep looking, though, ’cause I like it here. Maybe they’re sleeping.

In the meantime, a familiar melancholy has settled over the household. It’s the opposite of nostalgia: the loneliness you feel when you have no memories in or attachment to a place. It blows — but it fades.

This time it’s particularly difficult, though, because my oldest son, Dylan, is now 19 — as old as I was when I had him — and living in Providence, Rhode Island, the city where he was born. As many of you know, I lost him as a toddler; his father took him away from me when I left him for Billy. I guess he was trying to kill me by taking away my reason for living. It almost worked. I left Rhode Island, heartbroken, and spent the next fifteen years moving restlessly back and forth across the country.

I always knew this would have a happy ending. It was so awful, so wrong, so dangerous for laws to work in favor of someone trying to separate a child from his mother, it had to have a happy ending; I would go home, I would get the baby back. Anything else would be a tragedy.

One of the saddest things Billy ever said was, “Not in this lifetime”, referring to an unfulfilled dream. And listening to my new record recently, I realized that the songs that aren’t about the furiously passionate & passionately furious (yet strangely comforting) Billy O’Connell — are about going home and getting the baby back.

But the baby grew up. I missed it. Now I know firsthand that there are tragedies. Tragedies that are not sweetly sad and facing heavenward, but ugly, hellish messes that should never have been. I don’t go home, I don’t get the baby back.

Not in this lifetime.

Love,
Kristin