I think I just got a taste of the New Speed of Life and holy crap, it's fast. Got to work at 8 am and went off to a Librarian type conference which man - is it nerdy to like, love, the keynote speaker and their talk about metadata? If so, guilty as charged, sir. I even asked a question in the panel and dude, I never ask questions in public. Took bus back to town and "networked" with a librarian the whole way. Rushed from the conference to "mentor" an incoming Library school student which involved beer and much talk of professors to avoid. All the while I gloomily eyed the tour bus outside of the C@t's Cradle where "She and Him" were unloading - and me who didn't get a ticket to the sold out show. Dang. Then on the bus home and I was going to walk from downtown but a frantic call from AH (who had picked our poor daughter up) and a crisis he had to resolve at work so we met on the street, swapped car and baby and he went back to work and I went home to feed her, bathe her and put her to bed. And do the laundry, cook dinner, try to rid my home of fruit flies due to an influx of ripening tomatoes, melons and peaches on my windowsill. I also bought some clabber peas at the farmers market this weekend and have yet to puzzle out a use for them. All this is a very boring way of saying "Holy crap, life has just gotten pretty crazy." Luckily, I like crazy better than slow as molasses.

Perhaps it feels breakneck also because we spent the weekend touring around asking strangers to tell their very intimate stories into our microphones. It was pretty intense for me - to be granted access to their lives. I'm working on a bigger project about memorial objects and right now it's about trees - and one couple shared the story of their stillborn daughter and the spontaneous garden that was built around/for them by friends and family as we sat in that very garden. We all cried. The other was an awesome lesbian couple and their daughter and their incredible funky hippie home and loving overall vibe and the tree and placenta that they planted. I felt kinda scraped and bruised and raw after the weekend - unable to listen to the tape, almost embarrassed that I dare come into their homes and ask them questions. For what? My own silly project? I struggle with this feeling over and over. I don't want to hear my own voice most of all. Then on the bus home tonight, reading from the book "Late Nights on Air", I dog-eared this page:

"She read the script he provided, and when he played her voice back, her body contorted in embarrassment. Abe would have none of that. It's a discipline, he told her, holding her gaze with bloodshot eyes, working his hand through his beard. No horror allowed. No self-revulsion. It has nothing to do with you per se, and everything to do with what you're trying to achieve. If you're going to be a professional, he told her, then you have to listen to yourself in a detached way and work to correct what's wrong."

It was like a little gift. So I'm off to listen to myself and try to mute the horror.