Ok, it's not really a post...

...'cause technically I am not the one really writing the bulk of this. I want to share with you some of the incredible lyrics of songs I love. And who are you? Well, I don't know, even if I am the only one to read this regularly, it will still make me smile to see them, so it's ok.

This first one is "Blue" by Yoko Kanno. I swear, if you don't know Cowboy Bebop, please please please check it out. It's brilliant, funny, full of pop culture and space noir and is one of those magical mystical convergents of music, art, story and pixie dust (courtesy of Ed!)

Never seen a bluer sky
Yeah I can feel it reaching out
And moving closer
There's something about blue
Asked myself what it's all for
You know the funny thing about it
I couldn't answer
No I couldn't answer

Things have turned a deeper shade of blue
And images that might be real
May be illusion
Keep flashing off and on
Free
Wanna be free
Gonna be free
And move among the stars
You know they really aren't so far
Feels so free
Gotta know free
Please
Don't wake me from the dream
It's really everything it seemed
I'm so free
No black and white in the blue

Everything is clearer now
Life is just a dream you know
That's never ending
I'm ascending

Why lalagma?

I once made a really rash decision to think I was madly in love with someone and run off to another country to pursue it. A lot of really good things came of that, but there were darker results as well (including hurting my then boyfriend, now husband). One of the upsides was meeting my friend Christopher, unabashedly British, thoroughly charming, and I don't think he would mind my saying this - plays for the other team. When the relationship imploded (if you could really call it that), Chris and I were fast friends for life. At any rate, he once commented that he liked my then e-mail name, which was assigned by the University as a first name, first initial, as many letters of your last name as space would allow = lalagma. I am sure I still have the letter somewhere, but I imagine it went something like this:

lalagma. what a wonderful name. It sounds exotic and delicious.
Like a lalagma cocktail, or perhaps a lalagma torte.

So, while kodamakitty is my current attempt at a life outside of my public persona as staid academic advisor, lalagma is a salute to the impetuous younger me.

Goodbye, Lola

Well, this past Wednesday marked the end of an era. My maternal grandmother, known primarily to us grandkids as simply, "lola," was buried. It was a very long twelve days for me, and I wasn't nearly as close to her as some of my cousins. I don't tend to cry at funerals, don't ask me why, it probably seems fairly cold and callous for me to not be at least weepy when everyone else around me is wailing, red-nosed and sobbing. Even when my dad passed away, 14 years ago, I didn't really break down until at least two weeks later.

It's not so much that the person is gone, really. I think when I do cry, it's out of a sense of selfish loss. Funerals mark the ends of things - times, places, feelings of security/insecurity. I rarely miss the person in question. Most likely I have yet to lose someone I will truly miss in my life.

Maybe it's because I can be such a sentimental person on a day to day basis that when the time is up, whether because the person dies or because I decide to break off a relationship, I'm mostly ok. I have found lately that the only relationships I get nostalgic for are the ones where we didn't get to say goodbye, or the parting didn't have the sanity and perspective that time and distance affords.

Anyway, I did the best I could to try to help keep my family together and to contibute to Lola's funeral services. She was a beautiful person, and I regret not having talked with her more.