Soundtrack in my head:  Kimya Dawson, "Loose Lips"

While I'm not fasting this Baha'i fast due to health reasons and a doctor's recommendation, this has been a time of reflection for me.  It's just that I can't put my reflections into a coherent article as of yet. 

It seems like I've been busier lately.  I serve on two committees for the Madison Community Co-op organization because I'm one of the very few in the house who actually likes meetings. (Relatively speaking.)  That kills every Tuesday night until at least May, but I discovered tonight that I have a reprieve because the students are on vacation and MCC has a lot of students. 

That's a good thing--I'm fighting some kind of bug.  I think i was fighting it starting late last week, but it's been slowly getting worse.  Taking a Greyhound bus to and from Fond du Lac this weekend to visit a friend probably didn't help.  While I was waiting to board the bus at the Madison station, a toddler puked, and I had to move my backpack out of the way as mother and toddler made a mad dash for the ladies room.  I have been somewhat headachey, nauseous, and fatigued, and occasionally chilly, but no fever--at least I don't think so, though I don't always believe my digital thermometer.  I think it made me less social than I would have been on Sunday, but that's the way it goes.

Within the last week and a half I've had two old friends contact me through this site--one I haven't spoken with at length for seven years and another I haven't seen in twenty years.  I've had others occasionally contact me.  I'm trying to get the email function on this thing fixed.  So if you think you know me, say hi.  Even if I do have one tooth that looks like a fang, I don't bite. 

More random thoughts:

• I absolutely love the Juno movie soundtrack.  It's rare that I hear something that sounds so unique that it captures my attention and makes me go "whoa," but I think Kimya Dawson, who has six tracks on the CD, is a genius, and "Loose Lips" is my new favorite song.  
  
• I've rediscovered a late 80's/early 90's group called "Beat Happening." They sound like what the Minutemen would have sounded like if they wrote boy-meets-girl-sweet-innocence songs and had only a guitar, a bongo drum, and one of those cheapo cassette recorders that college students in the 80's occasionally used to record lectures.  Their song "Indian Summer" is weird yet beautiful.
• I'd say now that my favorite radio station is an Internet station called Folk Alley  I could listen to it for hours.  Somehow, they've figured out how to put out a nice mix of different varieties of folk music without sounding dated, generic, or excessively sincere.
• I recently downloaded "The Animal Years" by Josh Ritter.  The lyrics by this folk/country signer hit right between the eyes, particularly with the songs "Girl in the War" and "Thin Blue Flame." 
  
• I'm almost finished with S.M. Stirling's "Dies The Fire."  I've also just started "God Passes By" by Shoghi Effendi which chronicles the first 100 years of the Baha'i Faith.