Superstar

Don’t you remember you told me you loved me baby?

Ah, the Carpenters. I loved them so when I was younger and Karen was still alive and recording. That voice…simply amazing. One of the stranger Youtube wormholes I’ve gone down recently are young people who’ve never heard the Carpenters before reacting to their music–and without the contexts of the time when the Carpenters were recording, they can simply appreciate the music as beautifully produced and the timeless beauty of Karen Carpenter’s voice (the Carpenters weren’t considered “cool” at the time they were recording their hits and becoming one of the biggest musical acts in the country; they were clean cut, all-American goody two-shoes types that even Richard Nixon praised as “the right kind of young Americans”–and of course, the Nixon stamp of approval guaranteed they would never be considered cool).

Then again, ABBA wasn’t considered cool, either. I’ve always thought you could tell a lot about a person as to whether they liked and appreciated ABBA and the Carpenters or not.

I was again tired when I got home from the office yesterday. I did some laundry and a load of dishes while Scooter howled constantly at me to go sit down so he could sleep in my lap. Usually he’ll sleep there for about five minutes then get bored and go somewhere else; this time he stayed in my lap for hours. I couldn’t focus on reading anything new–I tried, but my brain was too tired–and so I went down a Youtube wormhole for a while watching history videos. I didn’t work on my story at all yesterday, but I did get some other things–more of a mindless nature–worked on as well. Slowly but surely I am making progress down my to-do list, and I am not feeling quite so overwhelmed today as I was feeling yesterday morning. I still have ridiculous amounts of work to do and get done, but it’s not so seemingly impossible this morning as it looked yesterday morning. It may have something to do with the terrific night’s sleep I enjoyed last night–one never can be sure, after all–but I do feel very well rested this morning and maybe not quite “I can conquer the world” good, but more awake and aware and alive than I felt yesterday morning.

I’m also starting to get excited about next week’s trip to New York. I am still dreading having to get up on-stage and speak–fortunately I don’t have to be up there for long–which is still long enough for me to spend the entire day stressed and worried and unable to relax. But New York will be marvelous, and I hope to see friends while I am up there in and around and at the Edgar banquet. I’ve not been to the banquet is a good long time–we also haven’t had one for two years, but even before that it had been a hot minute, maybe four or five years since the last time I went? So I am looking forward to the trip and looking forward to seeing people, but there’s also an underlying sense and feeling of dread.

I still haven’t decided what my next book to read will be; there’s so many good ones in my TBR pile that it is very difficult to decide sometimes. I got some more book mail yesterday, every last one of them looking really interesting and fun to read, and so on top of the pile they went. Heavy heaving sigh. But I will have airport time and flights to get some reading done next week; so it’s just a matter of deciding what I want to read on the trip. Which reminds me, there’s yet another trip for this summer I need to plan, provided the world doesn’t shut down again. Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader and I will check in with you again tomorrow.