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In my first post, I forgot to say why I named this “The Sound Hole”. The sound hole is the round hole on the front of a guitar that allows sound from the strings to be directed out into the air. I have one on the front of my face, too, and well, you get the point.

I forgot to say in the other post that music is an enormous part of my existence. My skill level is comfortably situated at dangerously mediocre. I have been playing acoustic guitar since i was in junior high, and that’s my favorite instrument to play (mainly because it’s very social, but also because i really like the sound). i also play the piano a little, and that’s the first thing i learned to play. The second thing I learned was the traditional flute; the piccolo came much later, as nearly afterthought. I’ve also dabbled with the mountain dulcimer and the mandolin, and the 5-string banjo. i’m barely competent on those, but i can make a joyful noise. I’m much more at home with the acoustic guitar, and lately i’ve gotten back to playing nearly every day, just for enjoyment. I must qualify that a bit to add that I’m most competent on the acoustic 6-string that I’ve had for a while – a Takamine small-body Santa Fe model, cutaway, that I enjoy. It has a good electronic pickup, which Takamine is noted for. I bought a Taylor low-end 12-string a couple of years ago, and naively believed it would be pretty simple to become comfortable on it. Nope. I’m still kind of struggling with it, although as with the dulcimer, mandolin, and banjo I can make a joyful noise. I enjoy the sound, though, so I’ll keep dabbling. I really love the sound of double-stringed instruments for some reason, so even if I’m not terribly fancy, the sound does me good. Oh, and I can play a 5-hole or 6-hole wooden flute, the Native American styled. I have a couple of those, but have not played them for a bit…screwed up really badly at a memorial service for a dear friend a couple of years ago, and have not touched it since. Ugh.

There’s a part of me that feels as though I should have pursued music lessons when i was much younger. I may have been able to develop well beyond the mediocre stage. I remember when i was about 8 or 10, I thought I wanted to play the flute in the symphony. It seemed as though it would be fun and exciting to travel all over the world playing, and see other cities and other people. (I dreamed big in those days.) One of my great aunts chuckled at that, and said that I wouldn’t be able to see much of any of those places I talked about, because I would be locked up in rooms practicing for the concerts; i would be hard at work. I can still hear the thud of that dream crashing to the floor. Oh, well.

Regardless of skill level, I love music. All kinds of music. I would say country is my least favorite genre, but I can get into some Montgomery Gentry or even Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash even. Johnny Cash is a fascinating character. He could cover anything. I actually have an MP3 of him covering “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. Amazing. Anyhow, my iPod has that followed by James Taylor, followed by NWA and Eminem. I still enjoy the Indigo Girls, more the older stuff but really find their acoustic stuff of all eras sets off a resonance in me. Still listen to Janis Joplin and Patti Smith, who were my first female rock star she-roes. Joan Armatrading, Joan Jett, Joan Baez – full Joan power. I[m pretty partial to female voices, even in hip-hop (Lady of Rage and Heather B I can bounce with), but enjoy Michael McDonald’s voice, and old Motown Sound stuff, like The Temptations, and Stylistics, Tower of Power, all that. B.B. King was my guitar-playing tutor, even though he never knew that. I could go on and on and on about the many artists that I cannot live without, but…another time.

I also like classical music…orchestral, mostly. Opera, not so much but I can appreciate it. Musicals can be pretty cool…I am very partial to “Gypsy” since I can remember hanging around a college production of it when i was a kid and my mother was in graduate school. Miss Mazeppa was my big-time hero. Godspell was also a favorite of mine – i liked the music, and it was pretty creative and contemporary. These days, I’ve revived some of my affinity for musicals with “Hamilton”. I listen to that incessantly, and sing it (poorly) frequently.

I’ve never been much of a singer, and while i can carry simple tunes without dropping them, i have absolutely no vibrato to my voice. I am convinced that’s because i do have a lot of vibrato when i play the flute; the vocal chords are handled differently, i think. Regardless, i consider myself more of an instrumentalist than a singer, but some days i feel like making noise. Just for the hell of it. (See how that works, with the blog title and all that?)

I love dogs. More than people most days. I believe myself to be a dog in spirit, a canine who walks upright on two legs, has a driver’s license, and a credit card. Loyal to the extreme, subject to immediate and maximum emotional output, simple but complicated, hard to read, and often annoyingly loving. Needy. Prone to slobber and slobbiness. Sensitive and does not recover easily from hurt. Did i mention loyal to the max?

The current beast is called Nola (New Orleans LouisianA). She is a cuckoo Chihuahua mix. Whatever she is mixed with is as nuts a breed as the Chihuahua, because she is a total wacko character. She is about 15 pounds, very Chihuahua-faced and Chihuahua-colored, but with a curly tail. She is also a bit taller than the average Chihuahua, and she really doesn’t know quite what to do with her hind legs when she is lying down, but she manages. She barks. A lot. A whole lot. it’s a high-pitched bark, like she got the vocal chords of a smaller dog. She is willful and feisty, pees and poops in the apartment just after she comes in from the outdoors sometimes. Something didn’t go quite right with her initial upbringing, i think. That wasn’t my fault – I got her when she was almost a year old. She was a stray in Greensboro when she was an itty bitty puppy, although I’m not sure i believe that. She had some really bad habits already when i got her, so i think her foster family got her from somewhere else and found they couldn’t handle her. She is quite a handful, maybe two or three handfuls. And she has settled down quite a lot since i got her nearly five years (or more) ago.

If i could have reproduced, it would have been this lunatic. She has all of my personality attributes – oppositionally defiant, lot of mouth, talks big and bad but petrified if someone calls her bluff, sweet as pie to all strangers. People generally love her, even though she has bad manners and sometimes pees at their feet. As they say in these parts…bless her heart. But she is really a sweet little thing. We have quality time in the mornings, after she has rudely interrupted my sleep. When i was working, and needed to be awakened early, she was still under the covers and grumbled when i stirred. Now that i don’t need to be up early, she makes sure i see every sunrise. She will bark me awake if she has to.

Nola’s biggest flaw is that she is not house trained, and my attempts to remediate that have failed miserably. i think i have given up. We are both slobs, so no harm, no foul. I should really get the carpet replaced at this point, though, since it is the original from 20 years ago. Whatever. Maybe this summer or something. She’ll have more deposits to make on the carpet account before then.

This is the third dog I’ve had in this apartment. Ariel, the dog I brought with me from New Orleans, is still the best dog I’ve ever had. She was brilliant – i could let her go down the stairs form the third floor, and she would do all of her ‘business’ and then run back up the stairs to me. When she died, a big piece of me went with her. I still miss that dog. She was beautiful, a Sheltie mix, with that beautiful Lassie-like coat. She was playful and loved other dogs, and we socialized with other people and their dogs. I hope I treated her well, because i was not all in here the entire time i had her. She was a stray in New Orleans, and when i adopted her i told her that i would never give her up or give her away, and when it was time she would die with me. And she did. I make that promise to any dog I take on, even the current lunatic. The moron who led the training class Nola and I attended (and failed) told me that i should re-home her. I said i would think about it, but i had no intention of doing that, and i won’t. You don’t give up your kid because they’re a handful, or your parents because they get old. That woman was a crazy bitch, and she can just go clean up dog pee somewhere for all i care.

Anyhow, after Ariel died, i thought i would never get another pet. Never. It hurt too bad to lose her. It hurt almost that bad when i lost the one before her, and still I got another one. It took me nearly three years to even consider getting another dog after Ariel left, but one day it was just time, and then came Mia. Mia was about three when i adopted her, and she was also quite the little character. She was funny, and had no manners, either. She was about the same size as Nola, just different body type…not so tall, not so long. She was more terrier-type, furry, cute face and hair between her toes. She was house trained, and would pee on puppy pads. She also peed as soon as she got outside and onto grass, which was really nice in the rain. Nola…not so much. Mia got stomach cancer. She is the only dog i have had to actually put down. I promised her that i would not let her suffer, so when it became apparent that she was in pain, i refused to let it go on another second. Any extra time would not have benefited her, only me, so it was time to end it. It almost killed me to do that, but i did it. That lesson came in handy when my mother died, but that’s another story entirely.

So, on i go with Nola, who is who she is. Right now, she is trying to hint that she wants to go o-u-t-s-i-d-e. It’s very subtle. She just stood on the bottom part of my stomach and pressed her paws into that space between my belly button and my pubic bone, which hurts like a @%^!. very smooth, little dog. she is quite the little bully at times. i pushed her off, so now she is giving me the stink-eye from a couple of feet away.