Help Henry Hear the Music/The Blog - Y/N?

It's Monday and here I am, getting used to living and working in the same place - takes discipline. It's almost noon and I'm just settling down to my computer after talking at length on the phone this morning with a few people I wanted to catch up with. Weekend was good and I hope yours was too. Friday didn't go to Schaller's - got busy at home organizing, Saturday voice lesson, Lucas and Convex came over for homemade chicken matzo ball soup (weird I know to make that in the summer but Lucas has whooping cough which the Chinese call the 100 day cough and chicken soup was her request.) It takes me three days to make my chicken soup - cook the chicken backs for two days, strain it into a chinois, then chill the soup so that I can skim the hardened fat from the top which gets saved to make the most incredible (albeit not healthy) matzo balls. Then the soup itself gets made by chopping and sauteing celery, carrots and onion in some of the chicken fat. The strained broth is added as is dried and fresh dill and freshly grated ginger. There has been actual scientific proof that homemade chicken soup has anti-viral properties - add the ginger which is also a powerful anti-viral, and you've got something very healing.

We sat around and strategized about Liza's life and quandaries - can I say that it's SO much more fun trying to solve someone else's problems than your own. How dumb is that? Why are we so free to think outside the constraints, creatively, ingeniously when we view the facts of someone else's situation. But when it comes to our own lives, each suggestion that comes to us is met with skepticism and doubt. So it was with Liza - I decided no idea was dumb - just threw a lot of "paint" at the wall to see if anything would stick. Her challenges surround a house that is too small for the number of people living there, lots of disorganization, a job she hates, schooling for deaf Henry, and more more more. As she described her life, I kept picturing her up to her neck in quicksand, telling her friends, "Um, guys, got a problem over here. Guys, are you listening?"  Things have reached critical mass for her and I need to help. Soon I may reach out to you for help as well. One nut that needs cracking is raising $7,000 for Henry's cochlear implants - that's the amount the insurance is not going to pay. Talked with friend Carol this morning and she suggested putting up a web site to raise the funds as well as having a social musical event - she's so good at this stuff - must be that degree in Marketing from Kellog! She even came up with a compelling title. "Help Henry Hear the Music."  More on this.

Date with Thomas next Saturday which is exciting. I had all but given up on guys of late - the dating thing is SO frustrating. When Lucas, Convex and I were out on Thursday with Gei (If you're not up to date on previous blogs, my Android phone has a nasty habit of changing words - auto text. It decided that Liza is Lucas and James is Convex. Josh has been dubbed Gei by the device. I'm Swaraj), we decided it would be a good idea for me to give up men completely and become a lesbian even though I'm not attracted to women in that way. They assured me I would get used to it! The appeal to me is having something fun to write about - "Sarah's Adventures on the Island of Lesbos!" Of course, I'm kidding - maybe. Anyway, those plans are scrapped now that there is a man on my radar - one who is really smart, nice and interesting. We'll see!

Last night sang at a new venue - 12 West Elm in the city. 'Twas a great musical night with Bob Salone at the piano. I sang three songs well which was gratifying. Lots of flirting and fun. I'm getting serious about the Burt Bacharach show - everyone I mention it to is jazzed about the idea - his music is not sung often enough, no one has done a show like this that I know of and people really enjoy the bouncy feel of his music. Great singer Trish consented to do the show with me - she's got this voice that's pure and rare and great stage presence - plus we vocalize well together - she sang backup for me last night on "Walk on By" -sounded great - perfect harmony and balance and our voices intertwine, hard to hear where one ends and one begins.  Steve used to call that sibling harmony.

Today I'm thinking about this blog - wondering if it's a good thing. To date I have over 4,000 hits and people from all over the world who read it. Fascinating that people in the UK and Singapore, for example, find my life and comments compelling enough to want to check in each day. It flatters and confuses me - I can understand why my friends would want to read and catch up - but strangers? And what's also interesting is that my closest friends don't read the blog - they don't want a mediated Sarah - don't want to know me electronically. And then there are those who find my blog offputting or objectional. I lost one friend over my blog - she found it unattractively inappropriate and lived in fear I would divulge something about her. We had harsh words about it and that was that. Another friend reads it but "tsk, tsks" about it - free with criticism when he thinks I cross a line (does he have any idea how hard it is to be interesting and intimate without being boundary-less?) Most recently my sister admonished me about offering her advice when I was trying to bring her comfort over a problem she was having. She shut me down and said, "Don't talk to me like the last paragraph in your blog!" Ouch....that got me to thinking that she reads, but hates what she reads, and  finds me pontificating and prescriptive - and who am I with my screwed up life to be offering advice anyway?

Maybe she's right. Title is Living Well. What qualifications do I have to be writing what is often an advice column? I'm not Kaveh who has traveled through fire and come out the other end with wisdom so deep you could drop a stone in it and never hear it hit bottom.  Many days I'm NOT living well at all - just getting by.  I often don't practice what I preach so eloquently and often I write in a jaunty way, designed to inspire and then go play phone Scrabble for the rest of day, almost comatose with sadness. So Sarah=fraud? Maybe.  And yet, when I talked to Gei (Josh) over the weekend and I broke down in tears and confessed that I still cry every day (I told him this because he too is stricken with sadness), I also told him that you can live very well and still be heartbroken and sad. Your life can be the worst of times, the best of times. I pointed out to him our fun at the comedy club on Thursday where we all but soiled the floor peeing, we were laughing so hard. Comedy and tragedy coexisting.

Challenge today is to drop Sarah an e-mail and let me know if you get anything out of this blog. I assume I'll just hear from people who have something positive to say. It's the missing responses that will be telling. If I get an impression that people are reading just because they like to watch train wrecks, then I need to rethink this - take the blog private (journal), change the blog (sanitize the personal focus), or just take the hour I write this every day and work on a book instead. Thoughts?

Peace,
Sarah

sbritton#brittoninfoservices#com  (substitute the "@" sign and "com" for the two pound signs - did this to confuse bots who scour the Internet for e-mail addresses). Picture is Island of Lesbos.