Life is Cheap...

It seems we all like little single-engine boats being tossed around on a big angry sea of incalculable stupidity.

It's been a long week, and I'm tired, and I have too much to do, but at least I can stop and take a breath and write a word or two.

Unlike a lot of Americans, I'll sleep ok tonight. Tonight after I got home I worked out, spent about two hours tidying my modest home and pushing a fair amount of laundry I'm lucky to have, got rid of a fair amount of paper, and am now winding down with a glass of wine and the blog. I'll get up early tomorrow, attend to a few obligations, spend a truly fun day with my kids' Auntie D looking at wedding dresses and other fun weddingy things for her nuptials, later do a little work I brought home, enjoy the outdoors and wind down again in relative contentment. I'm not in any real danger of losing my home, not this year, anyway, although I have my small share of debt to service on top of some home and car repairs I'm about to take on to the tune of around $5,000 altogether over the next several months. But I'll manage it. It's what folks do.

At the same time, tourists were interviewed on NPR this week as they watched and took pictures of Lehman Brothers employees leaving the New York office with their belongings after being sacked. We are learning things about the Republican Vice Presidential candidate that have convinced me that Canada is not far enough; I'll have to head to the UK to get away from "Sambo-Beat-The-Bitch!" Palin. We're watching a good swath of coastal Texas recover from one of the worst storms in its history, a storm from which thousands of residents refused to flee. It's now suspected that most of these men, women, and children have been washed out to sea, never to be heard from again. And in rare form, the US government has made us all homeowners by taking on the largest bailout in history and more than likely sticking us with the bill.

But nonetheless I booked my now overpriced flight to Nashville for my escape two weeks from now. I really cannot wait. For starters, I'll get a good chunk of badly-needed time before and after IBMA with my sis and her family, test the new deck and check on Mr. Bill and Mrs. Peck (it's a long Pondfest story). If time allows I'll take my niece for ice cream at the Ben & Jerry's where my sister and her husband got married. Two weeks from this moment I'll be sitting in the Nashville Convention Center ballroom about two-thirds of the way through the evening's lineup, followed by a night of late showcase sessions and jamming. Somehow I managed to book a room at the conference hotel (on a nonjamming floor of course), which means that I can chuck my stuff, kick off my shoes, and sit on the floor in the hall playing or singing with other pickers until I can't take any more (what does IBMA stand for, now?). Then I can crawl back to my room to rest up for Saturday.

I am so very fortunate that I will be able to do this. Who knows how much longer those of us with normal, boring lives and responsible routines will be able to hold on to these tiny expressions of belonging and meaning. Right now, we pay our mortgages and our taxes, make sure the lights and heat stay on, buy or replace things we need, and sometimes take little trips or get on with home repairs. We slide a dollar or two into our kids college savings, hoping they'll keep getting good grades, and put another dollar aside for ourselves, hoping we can still work when we're 70. In short, we're pretty much propping up the economy at our own expense. My boat's getting full and I'd bail myself out except for the fact that my bucket has a hole in it called the United States Treasury.

So much for wishes comin' true. Life is cheap, but it ain't free.

And as Darrell Scott sings, when it's coming down, it call comes down to you.

Life is Cheap. Check it out. It's my new tune.

(And watch this space for the Kent Stage Folk Fest lineup which features Scott along with folks like Tony Rice and Pete Rowan and a bunch of other bluegrass masters.)