Saw something horrible on the way to work today. On the part of Rte. 10 between E'ton and N'ton where it goes 50 mph, in the middle of my lane, someone had hit a deer. A full-grown doe. She was lying on her side with her head up, still very much alive, but her body was broken, some guts spilling out. She wasn't struggling, just looking around, stunned. The car that hit her had stopped and there was a police car there, and everyone was just standing around. I wanted the cop to shoot the deer to put it out of its misery. What were they waiting for? Animal Control, or something. Anyway. A horrible way to begin the week.

I had a good weekend. I did some art, watched a couple of Sopranos, went out to a bar and ate peanuts. On Sunday I went to the Western Mass Sacred Harp convention - part of two days of shape note singing. It was very casual, people were invited to drop in, and it was free, so I went. (Months ago, over at Dan Richardson's house, I had heard a recording of the local Sacred Harp group. It was loud and powerful - almost shouting, but tunefully - and had elaborate harmonies. It was beautiful and sad and uplifting all at once.) The crowd was lively and had a wide range of ages. There were plenty of middle-aged ladies in long skirts and men in sweater vests, but there were also a bunch of people my age, including some who were all artsy-looking in black jeans and purple hair. Encouraging. I sat in the alto side of in the huge open square and tried to figure out how to sing along with my borrowed songbook. The notes are divided into four shapes. Songs are referred to by page number only. Someone would get up, shout a number, and start the first note and the rhythm. Then the group would go through the entire song just using the names of the notes: fa, sol, la, mi, and each of the four parts were, of course, singing different notes, so it sounds kind of ridiculous and cacaphonous - about 200 adults singing at the tops of their lungs "la la la meeee so so sol mi la so la" overlapping each other. Then once the tune is gone through, the song is sung with words. The run-through was extremely helpful; I'm good at picking up melodies quickly, so I was able to follow and sing along to most of the songs, though I definitely hit some off-notes. Anyway. I might try going to the local weekly "sing" on Tuesday. I think it would be good for me on many levels.