(I probably need to create a tag just for that one idea, since this seems to be where I'm keeping all my notes.)

So last night on the treadmill I was thinking about this idea again. (It's the kind of thing I let myself think about a little bit and then I leave alone so as not to wear it out or derail the story I'm really writing.) I think I've decided that, if I include the spacey kid character as the stallion owner's helper (don't worry, when I add the new tag to all the relevant entries you'll be able to look it up if you need to)--anyway, if I do add him to the mix, he can be the ex-wife's son and the stallion owner's stepson, and as far as their horsey friends are concerned the fact he still lives with his stepfather about half the time is simply further evidence that, while the two exes hate each other, it's more recreational than real. Like, they are one another's arch-nemesis, but everybody they know thinks they're only about half-serious. When Ronnie gets killed off, none of the ex-couple's horsey friends believes Mary Lou did it, because with Ronnie gone who will she fight with?

As I say, I'm sort of hanging on to this one in case I ever decide to really write it. You never know, once I'm finished with Kowalski, this one could be an actual publishable story!

So yesterday I continued my search for classic rock books at the public library by looking for Hammer Of the Gods. I had a moment of "omigawd!" when I found what I thought was the right book in the children's section--I mean, I know kids are less sheltered than we were back in the day, but I have heard the mud shark story...

It turned out, once I calmed down slightly and looked more closely, to be an actual children's book. About Norse mythology. And Thor.

Whew!

As the subject line indicates, one side effect of all this reading I've been doing about the Grateful Dead is... oh boy, am I having earworms. It's not so bad when it's "Friend Of the Devil" or "Casey Jones," but I was just scanning a document for the conference we're working on and it was only when the student at the next computer over looked at me funny that I realized I was sort of humming "Truckin'" under my breath. And I really don't know "Truckin'."

Dammit, get out of my head, you hippies!

...but I make no promises.

So apparently Jerry Garcia used to teach guitar lessons. In his book Searching For the Sound, bassist Phil Lesh relates that years later he encountered one of Jerry's former students (who was at that point teaching Phil's son in grade five.) Anyway, apparently Jerry became so frustrated with this student that halfway through a lesson he excused himself to go to the bathroom...

...and then he climbed out the window and ran away.

"Patience," wrote Lesh, "was not Jerry's strong suit."

Okay, this may not be the last Dead anecdote I come out with, but I'm fairly sure it'll be the last one involving anybody escaping through a window.