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Good post!

About the waste of resources fighting federalization:

I wish that half the energy and breath wasted railing against federal takeover were directed towards efforts that would make federalization look like an even bigger waste of time and resources or at least unnecessary.

If half the energy had been used to address the problems of labor abuses and sex trafficking, we probably would have cleaned up our problems a decade ago and would still be operating under CNMI immigration, rather than having U.S. immigration take effect (in a year).

That whole spiel that they don't know about us is poor drivel. I've worked in journalism and on campaigns and those people are political junkies. Everyone knows Abramoff, and Ambramoff fits with the CNMI like hand to glove.

Ah, yes-we're still paying lobbyists. Now Fleischman-Hillard Inc. (and forgive me if I've spelled that wrong). $25,000 for 6 months. That's just $1000/week-why would anyone complain about that!

We're bleeding here.

That is a bit scary. I used to have similar dreams. I'd wake up in a sweat panicked I forgot to take a final for a college class.

Good luck with your barre chords!

HWM: These dreams seem to be pretty common. Is there a cure? I suppose they're not as disturbing as the ones where my teeth turn soft and start falling out. Ewwww.

Very cool F chord - had I had that at 16, I might have kept playing.

I generally do not take the LSB to birthday parties - only once in a great while for a very special child. If I don't mention it, any talk of invitations at school falls out of her head pretty fast. I have decided she will get family parties until Kindergarten and, well, this policy makes that a lot easier. They just keep going once you start..year after year after year....so anyway Lucia is lucky you care(:

Alkelda: I've been meaning to say, I greatly admire you for learning an instrument as an adult. I've played guitar since I was 11, but I reached that "high school plateau" where I have not made any improvement whatsoever over my 16-year-old self. In fact my 16-year-old self was much better than my 36-year-old self because she practiced.

I am also hampered by that scourge or wannabee guitarists everywhere: tiny fingers. Barre chords are pretty much a no-go area, and F is really the only one I could ever hit. If I ever ran across a song with B flats in it, I'd just get out the capo and transpose.

Goddess: Normally, I'd transpose, too, but those darn-tootin' Beatles are tricky, and some of my favorite songs have B and B flat chords that cannot be transposed except into trickier keys. If you want to take up guitar again, by the way, I will be supportive of you.:) Thanks for the note of encouragement, by the way. I do appreciate it.

LSM: I think you have a sensible policy. Thus far, we haven't gone to a great many birthday parties, and those parties are usually relatively low key. I've placed the kaibosh on pizza-video-amusement ride parties because of the overstimulation-- we are a family of three introverts, after all.

Oh, I am reminded of the one pizza-game parlour party I went to in 5th grade, I think. It was at a place called "Shakey's," and on the way out, there was a light-up fortunetelling slot machine. We each got a turn, and my "fortune" was that I was "passionate." I asked a grownup what "passionate" meant, and she said, "Um, uh, it means intelligent."

Crikey! She could have said, "It means you really love what you do." However, I suspect she was thrown off by the 11 year old birthday girl getting the "Sexy" fortune. Egad.

Your former college roommate and her sister once got a fierce case of the giggles during the singing of "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" in chapel. I don't know quite what it was about the hymn, but your roommate told me that the imagery was just so horrible that she couldn't believe it was set to such a lovely tune.

I'm really glad Paul Simon wrote new words. Plus, that little bridge part where he sings, "And I dreamed I was dying..." is just lovely.

One day, you will find yourself effortlessly playing a full barre chord and you will stop and exclaim: "When did that get easy?!". They sneak up on you I reckon.

In the meantime, a good way to practice the shapes is to play open chords as if somebody had cut off the index finger of your fretting hand (place it just behind the nut). This lets you focus on getting your fingers in the right place without having the agony of throttling the guitar to get the notes ringing out.

Nick: I really hope so! Sometimes I look at you guys with your long fingers effortlessly spanning 4 and 5 frets, and think, "Uh, yeah, I wish I could do that." I'm starting up with the barred B minor chord, and I tell you, it sounds as if a teeny-tiny cow is mourning its last gasps of air. I've been practicing most of my open chords sans index-finger for awhile, now, with the idea of getting ready to barre. Now, I need a little miracle! You've got one? Oh well, back to practicing...

Thanks for the music history lesson! I love that song so. And now I know why it sounds so...so...so much the way it does. It makes sense that it was a hymn first.

That's wowza song history. Cool!

I gave up trying to learn to play guitar after two years of lessons as a teen because I never could play an F chord. I actually first met our mutual childhood friend at a guitar lesson.