File under: "I climbed that."

I didn't go so high as my mountain goat students--I swear, I lagged behind to take pictures for just a few minutes

and this started to happen before I could stop it:

(That's a pretty high rock, by the way, and I took that picture from a perch up on the one across "the avenue" from it, not from ground level, so you can imagine how high up she'd gotten.) It's for the best that I didn't stop her, I think, because if I had, then I wouldn't have ended up climbing the rocks myself. (For the record, the students only had to spot me on one of my descents.)

I have climbed more things this year than in the whole rest of my life put together. In fact, I've probably climbed more things--and more fearlessly--in the past month than in the whole rest of my life put together. I

In the self-portrait shots I took while I was on that tor, I am already, even with 30 and 50 SPF sunblock, so, so freckled in that high May sun.

Wild things, roots down.

I don't have much more to say about Adam Yauch's death on Friday than has already been said. And now I see that Maurice Sendak has also died, today. He was a complete badass, as I suspect you know. But just in case:

Now, my guess is that if you read here, you probably know Sendak's work better than that of the Beastie Boys, and my goal is always to put things in front of people that they might not encounter without me. So this post in memory of two badasses from Brooklyn is going to emphasize the Beastie Boys just in case you're wondering what that sadness has been about. Keep in mind that MCA was their bassist and one of the anchors of their politics:

(That moment at 2:55 has always been one of my favorites in their repertoire.)

I've been so numb about this since I received the news from my brother on Saturday morning in London. I know that no one death is necessarily more tragic or more to be mourned than any other death; we're all humans, and all lives matter. But I also don't know that I could tell you, or anyone else, how much these guys and their sounds are wound up and in and through and around the past quarter-century of my life. They are an enormous part, even the dominant part, of my soundtrack.

Unable to leave well enough alone.

We arrived home on Tuesday evening, after five hours in two trains, and the students were able to see the Queen on Wednesday afternoon. And no sooner do we all catch our breath and say goodbye to the first of those who will now steadily and swiftly depart, but we're off again, this time for one last group excursion to London. Next week, I suspect, I will sleep the sleep of the weary.