Swirling birds

Walking between class and work, head full of my own thoughts, my eyes suddenly drawn to the grey skies by the swirling and calling of birds. It's the gulls crying, but there is a flock of Great Blue Herons circling.  I counted, but then immediately forgot, still full of my own thoughts, I want to say it was around ten. I'm not sure that I've seen so many herons circling around together.  They do nest here, but slightly further south. Perhaps something disturbed the nests, and the gulls decided to add to the chaos of it all.

Ended up at the ACT Theatre last night and saw These Streets a rock 'n roll story.  Initially, I'd been planning on attending a lecture on the UW campus, but knew a friend had a gig related to this play up on the Hill from 6-7pm, so on a whim decided to go check it out  It was at The Project Room, whose new theme is "How will we be remembered," or something to that effect, and as a side note, I think about that a lot, have I done anything with my life that makes a difference to anyone or anything?  Made me think of an art project...anyway, after the gig, I was talking to my friend and she asked if I was going to the play and mentioned it was a "pay what you can" night, so I decided to go.  The walls of the Project Room had been covered with show posters from the 90's and a timeline of music/scene-related events had been penciled onto another wall. It was a strange feeling.  This was my "youth" era, so to speak, it's hard to believe it's been almost 20 years since I was going to all those shows and even if I wasn't part of a band, everyone here knew someone in a band, and that was my life then.  You can change so gradually that when you look back you realize you've forgotten part of who you once were.

The play itself is about women in the Seattle music scene during the early 90's, it mostly covered 1990-94, and then flashed forward to today. Four women then and now, two men then, one now and a band on stage singing songs from women musicians of the era.  I recognized these women, composits from oral histories of musicians.  And I was especially happy when one of the characters addressed the whole Riot Grrl scene and pointed out that it started out as a political thing in Olympia. I enjoyed the show, the singing was excellent, especially liked Sarah Rudinoff, who along with Gretta Harley produced the show (and they also wrote it, with Elizabeth Kenny-who also was in the show.)-As I was writing this, KEXP played Nirvana's Sliver, which reminds me of college.

A quote from the Director, Amy Poisson, " I invite you to let yourselves be transported back in time to your youth, to your pain and joy, to success and failure, and to your future.  It's all still there waiting for you to pick up where you left off." I was.