Hang Time With Hillary
March 23, 2005
short sleeved shirt. We looked, and felt, much more like ourselves!
The invite did say “business attire”. So we got witty comments like, “Oh, you dressed up for the event!” all night. (You know, being an artist means being artistic. That’s the best part! You get to set your own fashion for the occassion and no one is surprised…) And Hillary’s executive director wanted my pants! So, once again, the clear message: be me. (You be you, too.)
Alright, alright. You don’t want to hear about my clothes! You want to hear about WHAT SHE’S LIKE. Is she real? Is she sassy? What kind of pants was SHE wearing?
Well, here’s how it all went down.
Drove to beautiful homes in the windy (and windy) hills of Austin. This event was held at the home of Roy and Mary Spence. Their home is all white, inside and out, like a big vanilla ice cream. The best part is that there are many, many windows and they do not have a lot of furniture. It is all sparse and open and well appointed with interesting, colorful, swirly art to accent every room. Because of the windows, it has an outdoor feeling. Lots of light everywhere. To enter the house, you walk down a half moon drive and walk through french iron gates into a green, bush filled garden. The path to the front door splits into a circle around a spiraled bush garden, well manicured twisted shapes, which is a nice centerpiece surrounded by bright, happy Gerber Daisies in hot pink, yellow and orange.
Up steps to the front doors which mirror the feel of the gates, strong and steely in black laquer, but with glass windows symetrically placed for viewing in and out. We were behind three gentlemen in suits as we walked in, where Roy was greeting folks at the door. After he placed who we were in his mind, he gave us big hugs and welcomed us warmly.
Lance and I were some of the first ones there, so Roy sent us out to the back. And the back is really beautiful. Like walking into a glimpse down into Eden.
Imagine walking down marble steps into an open area of sky, high above your head, high over the city of Austin. And as far as you could see, to your left, to your right, until you just can’s see any farther, green treetops spread out below you. The tree line eventually kisses the skyline of downtown.
The sun was reflecting gold off of all the buildings, and there was a tinge of pink mixed with the periwinkle blue of twilight…not a cloud in sight. I commented that it looked like we’d found El Dorado.
While walking down more steps and being in awe of the vast, swallowing sky, there is a kidney bean shaped crystal clear swimming pool, still as still can be, and the wide, open space of a white, mult-level stone patio.
Oh, it’s a really great place to mingle!
There were candles on red table clothed tables, and a long serving table with sugar glazed carrots, roasted miniature squash, spinach dip and toasted bread squares, and grilled asparagus.
Servers were walking around with wine and sparkling water. I had to ask what was in the tumblers; I thought they were gin and tonics! The server I stopped said, “That’s Pelligrino…” and I immediately thought , “Oh, Pelligrino… an alcoholic drink,” and then before I could say so, I was giggling, realizing it was water. I let her in on the joke and she smiled like I was a nutjob! Can’t blame her a bit, really.
I’ll have to write more later…I want to go get the girls’ lunches ready for school. Bye!
THIRTY MINUTES LATER…
Ok, io is still asleep and Lily is off to school. Lance has left for work. The house is so quiet except for the gentle humming of the computer brain-thing down by my feet.
So, back to my story. We started talking with all kinds of interesting people. Lance ran into a friend he hadn’t seen in ten years, and the chancellor of UT told us about his push button Corvette. Then we chatted with other parents about nursing and schools and such, and talking with some cool chicks about the Olivia project. This entire time of chatting and laughing and kissing on Lance, I’m sipping on a glass of white wine, which is just ludicrous since I haven’t had a bite to eat yet.
So, in other words, I’m getting LOOPY!
But, I was having so much fun, I didn’t mind being a little loopy. As it was, I had just found Liz, the sweetest person you could ever hope to call friend, and we were chatting with some of her friends, when all of a sudden, there was an air of change. We were standing at the top of the patio, near the house, when the back door sort of exploded with a flow of people, and there she was, Mrs. Clinton.
Talking to someone next to me, and I realized I was next in an unintentional line to meet her.
I was saying to myself, “Ok, you are not tipsy. You are going to focus…FOCUS!” I clicked my heels together and told Liz…”Let’s get our picture together with her…I want to be with you in the picture…”
And then, viola! There she was! Standing in front of me.
Roy was next to her, making kind introductions, and he says to Hillary,
“Hillary, this is the greatest musician in the universe!” (to which I was staring at him like HE was tipsy!)
And she did one of those “Ohhh…” looks and then our eyes locked and WHOOSH! We were THERE.
Do you know what I mean? Do you know when you look in certain people’s eyes and they are NOT FOOLING AROUND because they are HIGHLY INTELLIGENT and they’ve SEEN IT ALL and so looking into eyes gives them the immediate INFORMATION they need about YOU.
Except sometimes you meet those kinds of people and they also have COMPASSION mixed in those eyes, a softness, a readiness and curiousity…”WHO ARE YOU?” their eyes seem to say.
That’s what that was like. I’m not kidding. Of course, this all happens in the blink of an eye (ha ha..had to throw that in there!)
And she says to me, “Terrific!”
And I say, “Do you like to sing?”
She says, “Yes.”
I say, “I bet you’re an…alto…”
And she says, “No. I used to sing in the church choir, but the director said to me, “Hillary, it’s best if you just mouth the words”.
(Group laughter here.)
Then I look, and lock, into her eyes again, and I say, seriously,
“Mrs. Clinton, I have a lot of questions for you, but I can see that you have many people waiting to meet you.”
And she responds, “I want to hear your questions. Don’t worry. We’re going to get to all the questions.”
And I think there was a photo taken, maybe several, with me and Liz. Then she was swept up and off to the next smiling faces. (I do talk with her again…hang on.)
Then it was more mingling time. Lance and I had gotten seperated, so I went back to him, and we decided to walk over to the most intriguing man at the party. (Every party we go to, Lance and I decide who the most intriguing person is in our eyes, male and female, then we go hang out with them.)
Across on the other side of the pool, seated, was a dapper looking fellow in a soft yellowish/greenish
spring suit. He was completely bald, and had on big round glasses. Perhaps 50ish. He was our man. He stood out immediately and Lance and I hardly had to say a word. Off we went.
Of course, when we meet the most intriguing people at a party, we tell them so. And he was very pleased to know this. He stood up and introduced himself (Mr. Green) and we chatted quite comfortably, and then I asked him if I could run my hand over his head. It was so inviting! As he stood, I realized he had a cane, and he told us he had been in chemo. He said it so casually, as if we all had been taking chemo. We talked about Lance’s dad having lost his leg last year, and we met this man’s son (also very nice) and I rubbed his shiny head. He had a nice shape to his head, and it had a wee bit of stubble all over it, so it felt good. I think he was enjoying this, we all were happy, and then he introduced us to his beautiful wife, Jan Bullock, who used to be married to Bob Bullock!!! (If you’re not from Texas, this may not mean much, He is a legendary man of politics here). She had just heard me sing at the luncheon for legislator’s wives, so it was a nice connection and she was very pleased that we had given her husband the monikor of most intriguing man at the party. We liked them very much.
INTERMISSION
Got to take io to school and get ready to go on KUT today. I’ll try to finish later this afternoon.
posted by Sara Hickman at 05:47 am
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Meeting Hillary Clinton
March 22, 2005
We just got home from a SUPERB evening. My brain is HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY…it was great dialogue, great people, an incredible view of the Austin skyline at sunset…I felt respect for Hillary upon taking her hand in mine and seeing how present she is…and her eyes…! I can only say that she has a lot of passion in those eyes!
I will find time to write about meeting HIllary… sometime tomorrow…and I’ll write about Lance asking a great question…about my sweet, smart and humble friend, Liz; about the caterer who said she wished she could have my butt (!!!) and rubbing David Green’s head. And Garry Mauro saying, “Hello, Mr. President!” and talking to Bill Clinton on the phone.
This is all for now.
posted by Sara Hickman at 09:15 pm
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And now: A play with my brain, Roger
March 21, 2005
Same with steamed spinach. What awesome stuff! Fresh steamed spinach…I don’t know why I am not eating it three times a day.
I had a dream last night that I was holding a tiny, white cardboard box that contained individual loose jewels…my mom’s diamond from her engagement ring, for one. And I kept getting bumped into, or my hands would start shaking, and the box would drop, and all these little shiny jewels would scatter on the floor and I would PANIC. I was scrambling, trying to find them all, especially my mom’s. That one in particular was very precious to me. I think I was trying to get to someone or somewhere with these jewels, but I just kept dropping them.
Then I found myself awake, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I was trying to get my brain to STOP. My brain was just churning and croaking and blah-blahing, like it had this entire room full of conventioneers attending inside my skull and it was driving me coo-coo.
I would turn to this side or move my pillow or sigh or stretch or pray or get mad at my brain and nothing was working. Then I was thirsty. But I didn’t want to get up. You know what I mean?
I’m just laughing. I am! I am sitting here at this computer, laughing out loud. What can possibly make a brain talk to itself?! What strange part of the brain says,
“Ok, fellas, let’s GO!”
And then ideas just start zooming around, paper airplanes trying to get my attention. But my brain already has my attention…it’s in my HEAD. What more does my brain want from me? Is my brain
needing some extra alone time with me? Does it need me to take it on a vacation and stroke it and say, “There, there, my good brain…just relax…”
I think my brain has gone on without me. I’m looking in, watching and hearing it work, but it has decided,
“This body is TOO SLOW for me. I’m outta here!” Poor brain. It doesn’t understand we are tethered together until death do us part. Maybe I should name my brain.
Maybe I will name it “Cassandra.” No, that’s not right….This sounds NUTS, but I think my brain is a BOY.
No, not a boy. A man. Well, wait. Maybe it is kinda like a boy-woman brain. Yea. A boy-woman.
So, let me think of a good boy-woman name.
(Thinking….)
Well… ROGER comes to mind. I realize no woman has ever been named ROGER, however, Nancy Drew has a best friend named GEORGE and my friend Brad has a girlfried named CHARLIE, so why not “Roger”?
Roger. Hmm. I like it. Ok, tonight when my brain decides to have a party, I’m going to have a little chat with Roger. We’re going to have to have some boundaries set, like so:
Me: “Roger, during the day, it is perfectly fine for you to run and play. You may feel free to create and talk amongst yourself, but at night…”
My brain: “At night…what? What at night?”
Me: “Roger…look. Don’t act dumb. You don’t even need for me to have this conversation. You know what I am going to say before I say it because you are the one making me say it so let’s just stop this game, shall we?”
My brain: “You are no fun whatsoever.”
Me: “You are wearing me out.”
My brain: “No, you are not wearing me out enough. I want a hat.”
Me: “What?!”
My brain: “You heard me. I want a hat. With a big, pink, fluffy feather on the side.”
Me: “No hats. I don’t want a hat and this has nothing to do with hats.”
My brain: “You will do what I say.”
Me: “Uh…I don’t think so, ROGER.” (accent on my brain’s name)
My brain: “Yes, you will. Or I will never let you sleep again.”
Me: “Oh, like that’s a threat! Ha. You already never let me sleep. In fact, now you have me writing about it on my blog. Do you think you’re clever? Do you think I care? Cuz let me tell you, we are sleeping tonight and that is final.”
My brain: “You can’t make me do anything. I make you do everything.”
Me: “Silly brain. Just listen to me, not you. You see, if you don’t STOP IT RIGHT NOW, it won’t matter.
If you don’t hush up and rest, you will start losing it. You’ll start getting bored with yourself because you’ll just be making up gibberish from lack of sleep. You are a powerful brain. A good brain. A brain with a lot to give. Don’t throw that all away! Don’t turn me into a ninety year old raisin before my time. Let me sleep. Let US sleep. Slow down. What’s your rush? Can’t you see the pain you are causing the rest of us, your breathren, your body? Come on. Shut up and let us have some peace for a change.”
My brain: “I am not speaking to you. If you are going to speak to me like that, don’t expect me to help you on Lucas Miller recording today.”
Me: “Oh, come on.”
My brain: “I’m serious. You’re bossy.”
Me: (Rolling my eyes.)
My brain: “I know about that.”
Me: (Rolling my eyes again.)
My brain: “Stop it!”
Me: (Rolling my eyes and going to take a shower.)
My brain: “Get back here and have more ideas now!!!”
Me: (Logging off.)
posted by Sara Hickman at 06:39 am
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Bumper Sticker
March 20, 2005
It becomes apparent when you become a parent.
This bumper sticker is brought to you by the Super Pal Universe of Sara Hickman’s mind.
Wheels in motion on the heels of emotion.
Ok, I’ll stop now!
posted by Sara Hickman at 03:34 pm
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To the park to see the show! Wheeeeee!
Woke up at 6 a.m.
Starting moving stuff out on the driveway for our garage sale
Started finishing moving tiny toys into this box, big fluffy toys in that box, doll clothes in another box, and bagged different groups of plastic foods
Girls set up a limeade/cookie stand
Lance goes to get cash
Signs are up around the hood…bright neon green and pink. Festive!
The first man arrives. He walks directly up my drive way and says to me, “Is this….” and reels off my home address.
“Yes,,”I say. “This is it!”
He then proceeds to tell me I am Sara Hickman and he wishes he had brought a camera to take a picture. He talked about all the shows he came to last summer. He talked about his daughter.
He wanted to buy a cd, so I went in the house and brought one out. He picked out some wonderful books, and I noted we had terrific puzzles, too, so he left with a bag of goodies for his daughter.
I was wondering how he knew it was me because I had my hair in a ratty old twist and I was in
pjs. That was odd!
Made breakfast for the crew, sat outside and ate it on various pieces of furniture. Lance sat in the comfy funky 1960’s chair. The kind of chair with carved legs that look like lion’s feet on the bottom. And the upholstry is some odd foam green with ripe purple grapes ready for harvest. I like that chair.
I can’t remember if we sold it.
We made $185, minus the $19 for the newspaper ad and $7 for parking for my symphony rehearsal today.
While the sale was going on, I grabbed my guitar and went on down to the Performing Arts Center
and met up with Robert Skiles, who, I must say, is INCREDIBLY nice. He did all the arrangements for
my pieces to be performed with the symphony. Lovely, lovely. Robert is a humble genius. He always has a shy smile, and big wide eyes full of wonder. The kind of guy if you walk up to him and mess up his hair, he’d be ok with that. I like being in his presence cuz he is so relaxed.
After practicing for a bit in the greenroom with Robert and the piano, I go out for soundcheck. The stage is deep and large. I don’t feel swallowed up, but I feel like I am on the tippy-top of a meadow, and all the instrumentalists behind me are in seats, watching me climb.
Peter Bay shows up looking very GQ. He is wearing these cream colored pants and a grey cotton shirt, and just looks good. He has an amazing ability to converse like a man, with the strength and clarity and conviction of a man who is comfortable with himself, and still maintains this boyish wit and charm.
Rather rare! He also seems to put everyone at ease, which is what you want in a conductor!
Kelly Willis runs through her tunes. My favorite was one about a momma bird and a baby bird.
The orchestra really brought some emotion to that tune. The whole time I’m thinking, “Gosh! These folks hadn’t seen the music til they walked in and opened their charts, and then they just start playing as this huge unit…and all the different instruments have something to say, but it is seamless in how it weaves together and makes a uniform sound, lush and twinkling and soft and loud…”
Next, I was up. The symphony show will NOT be like a typical Sara show because:
I will not be talking.
Yes, you heard it hear first. I will have to let the music speak by itself. Which is funny since I wrote the songs and now they are speaking for me! Let’s see what they have to say when I don’t talk about them beforehand. It will be hard, you know. Not chatting. Not being funny. Not interacting with the audience (what?! how can this be!?) I’ll figure something out, don’t worry…
The rehearsal went well…I got lost on RADIATION MAN because of the number of bars in the instrumental section, but I’ll be working on that all week. Weenie Man went off without a hitch.
Cantaloupe will be very funnny. I wish you well will make me weepy if I “listen” to the orchestra while we are performing.
Then I talked with Peter for a while, got to my car, threw my guitar in the backseat, came home.
It rained incredibly hard today, but the sun was out the entire time. The girls wanted to sit on the front porch, wrapped in their favorite blankets, and we watched the double rainbow appear over the Mazacs house and end at our other neighbor’s home, the Rices.
iolana said: “God is very, very happy right now.”
Then we worked on iolana and Lily’s rooms…they are moving into their own rooms, and both very excited about using these exact words:
“I’ll get it…it’s in MY ROOM.” They emphasize this bit themselves…every time.
We went to Furr’s for dinner. We all love Furrs. The interior looks like long ago, like when I was a kid. And all the employees are so kind. The foods ok, but the girls just love to go. If you go, get the sweet potatos. Oy, vey! I had two helpings. That stuff is beyond the yum! Speaking of yum, the woman at the checkout is a pixie and her name is YUMMY. She’s a hoot to talk to, so make sure you start up a conversation about her hair net or her name or the weather…she’s happy to talk with you about it all.
Well, I’m going to snuggle up with my husband and try to get some sleep. My insomnia is worsening, my friends. If I seem dizzy or blurry around you, please have pity on me. Hold me up for a second and I’ll be fine. Middle of the day is when the fatique hits worst. But I will never give up believing that someday I’ll sleep like the majority of the world…until then, I just have to have an understanding of my sleep
and lack, there of.
Here you are. Here I go. Let’s go together, shall we?
posted by Sara Hickman at 01:18 am
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The World Is Insane
March 18, 2005
I have all these questions running through my mind about what I want to ask her. Mostly, though, I want to ask her why things are such a huge friggin’ mess and are there any politicians who truly care about people, the economy, the environment, children?
The Texas government just voted to give themselves a 30% raise!!! Meanwhile, they say there is no money for teachers or social services or schools. But they up taxes to give themselves a raise from average $92,000 to $130,000. AAAAAAAGH.
Today I saw a woman in a huge SUV. She had a license plate with the letters “RN”. She was dressed like a RN, talking on a cell phone, totally ignoring her three year old in the front seat with NO SEAT BELT ON. NO CAR SEAT. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. But this woman had HER SEAT BELT ON. I could not believe it. In the back seat, I could see an older man and another child, possibly eight or nine years old.
Well, I pulled up right next to her at the light and started honking my horn. She just kept yakking on the phone and her daughter was bouncing around, front to back, back to the front seat. I started waving my arms, lowered my passenger window, tooting my horn, yelling, “Helloooooo!” Finally, she looked my way, lowered her cell phone away from her mouth, rolled down her window with a look of disgust. I said, “Excuse me, but your daughter needs a car seat. That is really, really dangerous!”
Ha. Do you know what she says? She says, “Yes, I know.” She turns to her daughter and says, “Put on a seat belt…” and rolls up her window, goes right back into her phone conversation, and ignores me.
Her child just kept running around. Nothing happened. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t. The man in the back didn’t do anything. The lady on the phone didn’t do anything. The little girl didn’t do anything. And off they drove. A nurse driving a child to her death. That makes absolutely NO SENSE whatsoever.
AAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!
I guess it’s good that woman was wearing HER seatbelt so she’ll be able to visit her daughter in ICU and personally deliver her apologies. It would be more prudent for her never to have to speak those words in the first place.
I’m sorry to sound pissed off. I am.
io was in the back seat, safely buckled in, during this encounter. I wonder what she thinks when I do stuff like this.
We were on our way to Chuck E. Cheese where we like to pretend we are firewomen and snuff out fires with these giant hoses on a video game. We have to save the mayor. He always catches on fire, but we always save him.
The good news is that there are people excited about my making more music. People who don’t want me to quit on this world.
I’d like to thank those people right now.
And I’d also like to say that I wrote a new song called “Living in Quiet Desperation.” It’s about a mother who just wakes up to not really understanding who she is, where she is, what she’s doing. Yes, it’s about me because there are days where it (the world) just seems like a huge tsunami. And I am just standing in it’s way, arms outstretched, swimming as fast as I can.
Wait. I take that back. It’s not the world. “IT” is more of my involvement in the world. My involvement with people in the world… it’s listening to kids call me “dude”. It’s hearing about how people treat each other in general. It’s about money and news and fame and lack of time and people in a hurry and the beach being closed and water being tainted and here I go again: listing all these things that are in my brain!
I have to say we never watch the news. Never. Last night, Lance and I decided to watch it. It was preposterous! Really, seriously. The woman reading it was a perky blonde, obviously smart, who was SMILING the whole time she is reading about these horrid stories. And the whole time she is reading, there is this little stream of words a long the bottom…every single item below her face was talking about celebrities. That was it! I pointed it out to Lance, and he read it for a minute and couldn’t believe it either.
It was bizarre!
Doesn’t it seem scary to whoever is reading this that the gap between the normal citizen and politicians/sports figures/celebrities is this HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE growing monetary gap?
PARADE magazine does a yearly “How much do they make?” cover story. They just ran it again.
I was stunned at how ordinary they make it seem that every entertainer they mentioned (famous) was making $10 million or more. Then they list all these “everyday” people who are making $13,850 or $27,000 or $52,000. As if they are being generous by writing this article. What is the purpose of this article? What? Tell me, what is it? Cuz I find it mean spirited and rude and competitive at heart.
It really boggles my mind, as if this blanket has been thrown over our brains and we’re all just, like, “uh… ok!” with it all.
DId anyone read my blog entry a while back about Nicole Kidman…or Gweneth Paltrow or whoever it was…donating all her movie money into a pool to help children…? It’s not real. But why not?
WHAT IS GOING ON?!
And for those of you that stop me in the hall at school and tell me you read my blog, thank you.
It’s good to know I am connecting with other people who feel like me. It’s good to know the BORG hasn’t completely taken over. Yet.
posted by Sara Hickman at 03:02 pm
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48 Hours
March 03, 2005
And the doorbell rang and more flowers came and thank you.
Bruce’s funeral was yesterday. That was the most moving, and joy filled, funeral service I have ever attended. I left and went back into the world renewed to continue hugging complete strangers.
Before the funeral, I was at a luncheon at the top of the Bank One building downtown Austin. I was the entertainment for legislator’s wives, a club that meets every year and a half. Wives of past legislators and current legislators.
Last night, I was on a panel with Kinky Friedman, David Garza, Jerry Jeff Walker, Marcia Ball (could she be any more lovely and kind? I think not…and let’s not forget TALENTED out the wazoo. What a voice..what a piano player!), Carolyn Wonderland (love her…what a sweetheart…again, what a voice! what a guitarist! what a passion!), Tony Scalzo (my new favorite…gosh! is he talented! like the songs of Elton John of old)…Harold McMillan and Gavin Lance and three UT professors…It was called Instruments of Freedom and I am so exhausted I can not talk about it right now.
Today I have a press conference for Medal in the Arts…and then tonight I play for two hours
at Shoreline Grill for Wachovia. Plus, I will be done with the Girl Scout Cookie Co-ordinator paper work.
THANK GOD! Let me tell you, if you are thinking of being a cookie coordinator, well, make sure you don’t mind losing your mind for five weeks. Or at least put it in a drawer until cookie sales are over.
posted by Sara Hickman at 06:02 am
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