some of these lists are kept for archival purposes. others are current. i've shared ones that are interesting and not too personal. they're in an odd order because i use two notes apps and shuffled them up a bit.
names
purchases i wanted to make over summer break
four things people have said me about me
she eats apples like some people smoke cigarettes
she's stunningly gorgeous and beautiful and a little owl like
she would be a good cat, or a deer
she's good at frowning
haley heynderickx concerts i've been to
Nova Arts Keene March 2022
Stone Church Brattleboro December 2023
Bombyx Florence March 2024
Nova Arts Keen June 2024
Higher Ground Burlington September 2024
assorted song lyrics
i’m just a huge manatee
life is not that bad when you’re surrounded by people who love you
one day I can be a freight train lady
tattoos i might get
final transition related bureaucracy
hobbies or skills or professions i'd like to try or do more
aikido
swimming
rock climbing
rollerblading
fire fighter
postal worker
emt
ride horses
hiking
archery
guitar
fiddle
harmonica
fencing
glass blowing
sailing
possible halloween costumes
songs that provide instructions for what to do with the singer's body after they die
underground kimya dawson
let the mermaids flirt with me mississippi john hurt
please don’t bury me john prine
don't bury me tanya davis
ideas for patches i'd like to put on a jacket
future renovations for my room at home
future blog posts i'd like to make
jokes about lawyers
the first words i learned in welsh
ci - dog
cawl - soup
coedwig - forest
coed - lumber
coeden - tree
gwenyn - bee
swigod - bubbles
byr - short
online places to shop for clothes
songs we sang when i led my high school in the last all-school sing of senior year
yonder come day
MTA song
o mary don’t you weep
shenandoah
let union be
i’ll fly away
bright morning stars
freedom is coming -> siyahamba -> ipharadisi
five hundred miles
shaggy dog jokes i can tell
languages i'd like to learn
songs to add to the folk music club packet
old writing ideas for my substack
foods i like
i've tried to write a great many lists of foods i like in the hope of making future meal planning easier, and none of them stick. this one is strangely scattershot and specific.
twitter drafts
things to do in burlington
friends who have said they go rock climbing with me
i have yet to go rock climbing with any of the people on this list. text me.
questions i was going to ask myself for my (currently) abandoned album a week project
songs i might play at an open mic or similar event
my beastieball team that i have yet to build
gaming backlog
classes to maybe take in the future
things i was going to do over winter break
questions to ask the head of the GSWS department
animals i identify with
plans i loosely made with people for the spring semester
a list of things i want to spend money on in the near future
my dreams predict the future but i don't know they're the future and i don't remember they're my dreams. i forms shapes and patterns of people, of situations i don't know. i wake up and it's gone and years later it returns in a flash. i recognize it, we sit with each other in the feeling for a moment. i can mention the feeling, and the feeling might hold. i can not mention the feeling, and the feeling might hold. the feeling breaks. on wednesday there were sparkles in my vision. repeat.
my dreams predict the
future but i don't know they're the
future and i
don't remember they're my
dreams. i forms shapes and patterns of people,
of
situations i don't know. i wake up and
it's gone and
years later it
returns in
a flash. i recognize it, we sit with each other in the
feeling for a moment. i can mention the feeling, and the
feeling might
hold. i can not mention the feeling, and the
this is not about my grandfather's clock. i imagine my grandfather(s) have clock(s) but i don't know anything about them.
on friday, i distributed zines.
for much of the day, i wandered around campus and gave a zine about housing to admitted students who were visiting. this was really fun. people were by and large curious or interested. i tried to hand out zines to a tour groups, and the tour guides were occasionally upset by this, but never actually did anything. some of the people i tried to hand zines to said they had already gotten one from someone else, which made me happy.
for a couple hours, i tabled with some friends handing out a larger variety of zines. we tried to do it in the student life center but they kicked us out so we went to the library. the library was lovely and gave us no trouble. one of the staff members even came over and said they had to get back to work but they wanted some and they grabbed one of each.
there were a lot of other wonderful interactions that afternoon. i have so much love for all the shy people who came up, grabbed a zine or two, and didn't say much. i used to be there, and sometimes i still am. i had a lot of fun trying to coax square looking guys to come and grab some, and was successful in a few cases.
a selection of the zines we had
the craziest interaction i had happened maybe half an hour before i packed up. a guy was walking past and i tried to catch his eye, gesturing at the sign we had that said free zines. after a couple attempts, he came over to the table, and i told him about the zines we had. he brushed right past that, and in a very thick english accent proceeded to ask me if i wanted the record he was holding, as he was trying to get rid of it. i asked him what it was, and he said it had some old songs on it including "my grandfather's clock" i told him i didn't know that one, and he broke into song. i don't think i can adequately recreate the experience. i took the record, he didn't take a zine, and he left.
the song, i've later learned, was written in 1876 by henry clay work and is popular among english brass bands and bluegrass musicians. i can't find an online version of the record, but you can listen to johnny cash's version if you'd like. or do your own research and tell me about it :)
the record also has a version of drill ye tarriers drill on it, which is a song i quite like. you can listen to the uvm catamount singer's version below if you'd like, although it's a bit different than the version on the record. it is a good arrangement though. very similar to what i sung in high school, and really makes good use of splitting along bass/tenor and soprano/alto lines.
the record also had some others songs that i liked and hope to get to know better
the whole day was a really pleasant and rewarding experience. it's nice to meet so many new people, if only briefly, and add something positive to their day.
there is exactly one living plant in my room. it's a cactus, and it sits on the windowsill next to my bed. the pot it's in is beautiful, a very smooth shape with a green glaze a little darker than the cactus itself. the glaze has small black speckles, similar to the top of the cactus.
all the other plants in my room are fake. they all belong to my roommate. a lot of flowers in old bottles, vines wrapping things, etc. there's a few lego ones. there's a plant in a taylor swift eras tour popcorn bucket that watches me every time i use the bathroom. we were put through the student conduct process for keeping the flowers in beer and champagne bottles, but that resolved without much issue.
the cactus is the only plant that's ever really been mine. at home, there are a lot of plants that i'll help take care of, but i've never been the one exclusively responsible. this summer i did some house sitting for plants and cats, and i was ok at it.
my cactus has been through it. at least twice last year my roommate knocked it on the floor, and i've also knocked it on the floor a couple times. i'll forget to water it for months at a time. between these two facts, it looks a little sad. there's a massive gash in it, several pieces have fallen off the top, and it's not exactly the healthiest shade of green.
there's a metaphor here around the cactus and myself and fake plants. i don't remember exactly when i got the cactus, but i know i had it when i first came to college and that's when i started hrt. i've become better at taking care of and caring about myself. the cactus has suffered.
the details of the metaphor are left as an exercise for the reader.
i’m really prone to missing people. i would be more self-conscious about vague-posting but not all of them read this and i tell them all anyway so it doesn’t matter. i think it’s a good way to be, even if it hurts.
i’ve been shopping for guitar equipment that i only maybe have the money to buy. some of it really sticks with me though. i think it’s important to buy gear that you are in love with, that you’ll want to get out and look at in addition to play.
my mother wants me to call the insurance company and change my name with them legally. i think i changed my name legally a year ago. i’m not very good at making phone calls. it’s been a year of saying “i’ll do that this week”
i should be sleeping right now. i should not be failing any of my classes. i got all bundled up to go to frisbee and then we got kicked off the field. i don’t drink enough tea.
my friend matilda always tells people to be well. i miss her. there were dragons coming from the smokestacks yesterday.
i wrote the bit of this before the question yesterday, and the rest just now. i changed the tense.
yesterday i was hanging around after my black feminist anthropology class to tell the professor i like it when she starts class with songs, and specifically talk about music ethnography. yesterday's songs were uncle bud and wake up jacob. both recordings are sung by zora neale hurston who, if you didn't know, was an anthropologist in addition to being an author.
while the music is cool, it's not the point. the point is, while i was waiting another student was talking about how they were confused about the mentions of zombies in the reading. i said something about how zombies have been bastardized by pop culture and are really interesting because of their roots in Haitian plantations. the professor agreed with me, and then the other student asked me a question.
"how do you know that?"
i didn't know how i knew it, and i told them that. everyone laughed. i'm not sure why. it doesn't matter much. i didn't feel like they were laughing at me.
a lot of things i know have no source. i picked them up at some point and they've been floating for that long and the serial numbers have been rubbed off with handling or have been covered in residue from lack of use. then i need them, and i find them, and i can't say where i got them.
other facts are memories. they're tied. i couldn't tear them apart if i wanted to.
here i am to document a song research rabbit-hole. this post is going to have a lot of video embeds and a lot of links. i suggest you get your headphones before you read it. you should watch most of the versions i embed, they're almost all good. some of the other songs i link are also worth it.
today i decided to listen to nora brown's album long time to be gone. i quite like the first song, and while it was playing it occurred to me i could try and cover it. i know it's a clawhammer banjo song, but i figured i could probably work something with my guitar.
nora brown's jenny put the kettle on
i went home and looked it up on ultimate guitar and the only option was jean ritchie's version. it had slightly different lyrics, but this is often the case with folk songs so i thought i'd give it a shot. i tried playing it, and it didn't really sound right. rather than doing the sensible thing (going and listing to jean ritchie's version) i decided to look up nora brown playing it on youtube to see if i could find a guitar version. she's not a super well known artist, so there were only a couple live versions of her with her banjo. there weren't many results that weren't her that had guitar, but i clicked on one of the few that did and gave it a watch.
kitty, daisy, and lewis's polly put the kettle on
this is pretty much the same song, but it's a very different take and has a different name. at this point, i decide to search the song on the wider internet, and make my way to the wikipedia page. wikipedia says polly put the kettle on is an english nusery rhyme, but neither version of the song i've encountered (appalachian-style clawhammer, blues) matches this. at this point i make my way over to the video tab, and find a terrrible thing. you probably don't want to listen to this for very long.
appuseries's polly put the kettle on
this hard to watch but it's definitely the same song, albeit simplified. now we have a new character of sukey as well. shit's getting complicated. if you want another, older, troubling in a different way version of the nursery rhyme here you go.
from here, i look further into versions using the name polly and find my way to dom flemons.
dom flemons' polly put the kettle on
this is similar to kitty, daisy, and lewis's version and sort of bridges the gap to nora brown in my mind. it's very clearly from tennesse, and i know nora brown is from new york but learns from appalachian musicians. jean ritchie, who i have been ignoring a little too much up to this point is from kentucky. at the start of this video, the singer mentions sonny boy williamson i and that's where i go next.
sonny boy williamson i's polly put your kettle on
sonny boy williamson i is from tennesse. clear heritage here. that's useful. looking at his wikipedia, i learn that he pioneered the blues harp as a solo instrument. that's cool. i think it's time to finally go back to jean ritchie.
jean ritchie's jenny, put the kettle on
i was very surprised to find the recording was only 23 seconds, and when i listened something clicked. this is the nursery rhyme. there is a connection. but we still have a bluesy version unaccounted for, and i want to know more about how it got from england to the united states.
back to wikipedia! i really was all over the place. wikipedia answers my name questions (sukey is susan, polly is mary, molly isn't to far off, idrc about jenny people love to change names). it also gives me a few leads: a strongly related tune known as jenny's baubie and a loosely related melody known as o du lieber augustin. i look up jenny's baubie and find a few fiddle players, a bagpiper, and a scottish folk dance society. i assume the different spellings are different ways of phoneticising an accented pronunciation of baby.
berkhamsted strathspey and reel club's jenny's bawbee
i give up on this lead and head to the mainstay of anyone doing research on folk music, the beautiful mudcat.org. i want more details. the first thread i find has an interesting allusion to the song being sung in british columbia in 1861, but no further details. i love mudcat, because people will just name random people as sources and i have no clue who they are.
the second thread i find has a lot more information. it gives me another alternate spelling (jinny) and through this a find a loc recording even more firmly linking the song to jenny's bawbie. this thread also mentions o du lieber augustin, and i give a few versions a listen. this vocal performance doesn't sound quite right, but this orchestral one does. mudcat claims that dickens may be responsible for the change from molly to polly via the raven grip in barnaby rudge. they also say jrr tolkein used the tune to make a song arguing for philology in literature. cool random facts.
they go back and forth on if it was scottish first or english first. given that i'm disinclined to trust english nationalists about scotland, i'm gonna go with it being from scotland in 1778. they also correct my notion about babies, and inform me that a bawbee was a scottish coin worth half an english penny. references to the german predecessor continue (apparently the beatles played it), as well as the children's songs the more we are together and did you ever see a lassie which i'm sure you've heard. lastly, it mentions a song called old molly hare. this sounds pretty similar, but definitely has some embellishment.
all the predecessors are in waltz time (3/4) but jenny is in reel time (4/4). no one knows when the change occurred. my last bit of info from mudcat is that leadbelly's song ha ha this a way has a similar tune, but this is really just an excuse for me to listen to leadbelly.
casting out again, i make my way to a page calling it jenny hang the kettle on, that corroborates wikipedia's references. i find a reference to another name, bring me a bottle. the leake county revellers have a version of this, and it pretty much sounds the same as jenny.
that's pretty much it. i know a lot more than i did at the start, but i don't have any answers for the migration of the song to the US or when the melody changed from 3/4 to 4/4. i also don't know how to play it on guitar. my fiddle has a broken string and i couldn't play it if it didn't. guess that's all there is. sometimes folk music is just like that. good song. i'll leave you with a couple more versions.
i lost a glove today. i was running late to work because i spent too long talking to loved ones and i did a bad job of stuffing it into my hat before shoving my hat in my coat pocket. my gloves are an important part of my winter bundling. lately, it's been a jordan beanie i've had for maybe 10 years, my jacket zipped up tight so i can feel my notebook and wallet and cigarettes in the inside pockets, a keffiyeh, sometimes a mask if it's particularly cold or crowded or i don't want to take it off, and my gloves. sometimes i'll wear long underwear. my gloves are smartwool and i've had the same ones for ages in many different iterations. i used to have black ones but the last few pairs have been mottled green. they're not solid or super warm or waterproof but they do their job. they have touchscreen fingers, which allows me to tweet enough while i'm walking that my phone dies before my fingers get cold. the particular one i lost today was the left glove. i don't mind losing it that much because both the gloves of this pair are starting to wear through in the fingers and i have a spare pair in my room for some reason or another.
generally, i really don't like losing things. i've been known to have full breakdowns and cry about losing items fundamental to my routines, but not particularly important. i similarly don't like breaking things, and when things break or degrade i will often attempt to buy an exact replacement. i own a mug which is the same as a mug i acquired in 7th grade, but i've broken 3 of them in the interim. my duvet cover is shredded on the top but i turned it around and sleep with buttons in my face because i can't find another one that's satisfactory and the one i have is so good.
i retraced my steps to try and find my glove after i left class and realized it wasn't in my pocket. i didn't have any luck, but i realized something about campus: i don't like it. i saw the sun hit the medical center facade and realized that campus is an ugly place. i think i've realized this before but i forget it. it's a hard feeling to pin down. i'm not sure ugly is even the right word. there's something about how the prettiest part of campus is always the sky and the sun hitting the tops of buildings. something about how the mountains are gorgeous and far off. something about the way the trees grow and the grass is trimmed and the pathways are filled with slush.
i've been studying songwriting lately. mostly this takes the form of thinking about songs while i listen to them. sometimes while they're stuck in my head.
it's nothing clinical or professional. sometimes i write. false starts, finding what feels right. often, nothing does. often, i write about writing. i'll write about that someday.
some songs are conversational. others are poetic. i look at rhythm and syllables. i find myself starting lines in the same sorts of ways, and i'd like to diversify.
today i was particularly focused on rhyme schemes. there are many classic patterns to be explored. rhymes feel clunky to me, childish. i struggle to write without them. i write a line, and my brain gets stuck on a rhyme (un/intended). some of what i listened to today barely rhymed, but slanted a lot.
sometimes a good melody can substitute for a rhyme scheme. i don't know how to write melodies. a week ago, i worked on it in the shower. i found i went down a lot. i found myself limited by my vocal range and comfort. a piano might help. comfort with a fretboard might help. diversifying is a continuing struggle. vision is another.
i spent a while writing fragments in my notebook in class. i'm not going to transcribe them for you, but you can try and decode my scrawl if you'd like. no promises as to what you find.
i listened to wayward jane while i wrote this. i didn't think about it too much, but i enjoyed it. youtu.be/7yOOPnNt2Co
in early january, i had a birthday party. some of my favorite people couldn't come which was very sad but it was still an awesome party. i made everyone wear a hat. later in january, @gilsthrillz had a bug themed party and i went as a moth. below are photos courtesy of @roseoddments.
i know all three of these photos are very similar but i quite like them all.
the classic family photo
<3 <3 <3
bug bash pics begin, psychedelic style
she's simply a moth
i wasn't great at pong that night, but it was important for my training arc.
i went downtown this morning with some friends and got a delicious bagel with very oily chorizo and got a pack of herbals and went to a thrift store and didn’t buy anything. i left to catch the bus and walked to the bus stop but just as i got there my phone died from the cold. luckily the driver believed my claim of student status. i got on the bus and rode for a while. my phone warmed up enough to turn on and i was trying to start my music again. there were some kids sitting across from me. one of them had a library book and wasn’t reading it but was staring at the cover, which i did a lot as a kid. the other was looking around the bus just like me. i think about kids a fair bit. the world puts so much on them and it hurts me.
then i realized i had no clue where i was.
wrong bus.
i got off the bus and i was somewhere in the south of town. there was a subaru dealership. maybe a 50 min walk home. there was a fountain with angels.
luckily, there was another bus in a few minutes and i waited in the gorgeous sunlight. i almost missed my stop again. the stop i got off was the same one i would get off at as a kid coming home from summer camp. it's weird to live somewhere i lived for a while and have memories of but can't quite say i'm from here and don't quite know it well enough.
ultimately, i got more to listen to more fiona apple. i would've come home and played guitar but i kind of injured my finger. it'll probably be better tomorrow.
