This dilapidated house is haunted. But not as haunted as the one a little farther down Main Street, where a miner came home to find his wife in bed with another miner and shot them both dead.
Her ghost still walks the corridors of that house.
I have been docent shadowing at the Park CIty History Museum for the past few days and these are just a few of the more salacious things I heard about the early days of a town devoted to drink, sex and gambling. No wonder I like this place!
I also learned more about the politics of historic preservation.
I‘ve been learning more about politics in general here. The Planned Parenthood abortion rights rally last Sunday was GREAT! I think 300 or 400 people were there! I am now a member of Utah Democrats, Utah Democratic Women (which is 120 years old--they predate women voting!!), Utah League of Women Voters and the Planned Parenthood SWAT team. They don’t actually call it a SWAT team. That’s my term for it.
Last night and the night before I went solo as a deejay. I also deejayed the two nights before that but I had a babysitter. This is my DJ mentor, Jolene, and me.
We are now excellent buddies!
You know what I really love about deejaying? Well, yeah, the rock ‘n roll of course. But you really have to concentrate. And, boy, my brain needs something that tunes out the kaleidoscope that can whirl around in it.
The big trick is timing (kinda like comedy). I need about 40 seconds at the top of the hour to do the legal ID that the FCC requires, tell listeners the tunes that just played and tease NPR news or the BBC World Service and the weather report. But, of course, the songs don’t always end 40 seconds out, so I had to learn how to do bumper music, lower and raise the volume, etc., so that I don’t have dead air if I have more than 40 seconds. Now I have all of that nailed but the timer that they use to tell you how much time you have left makes no sense to me. So I need a little remedial clock reading lessons.
Once I know how to read it, I’ll be cool. I know how to swap out tunes, how to make sure I‘m playing the right variety, and not too many of the same category (80s, spice, classic rock, after 2000, and a bunch of others that I don’t know what they’re talking about but will learn.)
I was very excited when I was able to answer a telephone request, search the station's song library for the artist the caller wanted to hear, and then put it in the lineup! So glad the guy called at the start of a three-song set. And I did it in less than a minute! Quite exciting.
The upshot of all of this is that I come blasting out of that studio pretty wired at 10:05 pm.
I’m not drinking, mainly because I really don’t want that depression and anxiety to come back and also in solidarity with Gav, who is taking some medication that means she can’t drink. That eliminates having a glass of red wine.
So to unwind I started to watch the six-episode 1995 BBC production of Pride & Prejudice. Starting Sunday night, I’d watch part or all of an episode and go to bed. But last night the pace picked up and I had to watch last half of the fifth episode and all of the sixth and last episode. So it was 1 a.m. by the time I got to bed last night.
Tonight I intend to be in bed by 8! But first, I am watching my favorite scenes all over again! These include, but are not limited to, the piano scene with Elizabeth, Georgiana, Darcy and Bingley and his sisters at Pemberly, Lady Catherine excoriating Elizabet—-what a blast that actress must have had playing her—and of course , when they finally admit to each other that they love each other.
Sigh.