Clump #77:  Order Christmas present.

In a recent post, I sent out an email plea to family members for gift ideas.  As of this minute, I’ve received three replies, with one very specific idea.  Instead of putting it off until, say, the item is sold out during the Christmas crush, I did something very different for me: I ordered it.  So there.  Done.  Take that!  I feel like a cowgirl, blowing off the smoke from her pistols and twirling them back into their holsters.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing and hearing so many tributes to the musician Lou Reed since his recent death.  It’s as if everyone wants to prove a connection to him to up their cool factor.  I’m no different, as I remember when Take a Walk on the Wild Side was playing on the radio, just singing with the song made me feel a little less geeky.  And I needed that badly!

I read that he said of the song, “I always thought it would be fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn’t met before, or hadn’t wanted to meet.”

I was really moved by the letter his wife, performance artist, Laurie Anderson, made public, below.

“To our neighbors:

What a beautiful fall! Everything shimmering and golden and all that incredible soft light. Water surrounding us.

Lou and I have spent a lot of time here in the past few years, and even though we’re city people this is our spiritual home.

Last week I promised Lou to get him out of the hospital and come home to Springs. And we made it!

Lou was a tai chi master and spent his last days here being happy and dazzled by the beauty and power and softness of nature. He died on Sunday morning looking at the trees and doing the famous 21 form of tai chi with just his musician hands moving through the air.

Lou was a prince and a fighter and I know his songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life. Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.

— Laurie Anderson
his loving wife and eternal friend”