Ch- ch- ch- changes are my favorite

So I've been living in the same metro area for over five years! It's insane. The only plausible explanation would be that I did it for a boy, and that would be basically true. And of course it's worth it.

I have also now been working at my same job for two years, which is easily a record. I sort of tried to leave earlier this year but then I got one of those offers you can't refuse.

Interestingly, one of my biggest fears is stagnation. (Okay I'll confess "interestingly" is an inside joke between me and a co-worker that does not read this blog, based on an email that was sent to us that included a bunch of work for us to do. "Interestingly" was the first word in the email and it had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the contents, which were the opposite of interesting. Just a common case of adverb overuse, I guess.)

So, yes, staganation. I used to fight stagnation by going to some random location (like a national park) that I'd never been to work for the summer. Now I have to live vicariously through others doing really exciting stuff and take on random projects like say teaching a class, taking a class, doing some pro-bono freelancing, planning a wedding, writing a novel, what-have-you. This way I can ingore when my job gets REALLY boring so that I can continue to collect a paycheck and sock it away for an eventual world takeover (or to buy a house, gosh darnit, silly willy little short sale madness arrgh, me matey!!!).

Also, I occasionally get massive haircuts. Like the one I'm getting today. Two fun bonus things about really massive haircuts: a) you can congratulate yourself for doing good by donating your hair to make wigs for kids and b) you can get someone at a decent salon to cut your hair for free. I would say that these two items are of equal importance to me, but the thing I like most is the big change in appearance. There is some fear involved, certainly (like I hope I don't get really terrible looking too-short boy hair), but that makes it all the more exciting.

Before and After photos to come as events unfold . . .

OK. So no real "normal" before pictures. We were in a hurry, but there was some documentation, via camera phone, as follows:


My luxurious locks. If you look closely, you may see the photographer.

The stylist is cutting into my defenseless little braid!

The look immediately after first chop

The final product, from the back.

Still working on the exact stylin' but I think I like it. Perhaps I'll get a better photo soon, also.

In the meantime I am going on vacation with El Esposo and will be sans internets. "Catch you on the flipside."

Thursday Thing One and Thing Two (letters)

Yes it's Friday, but these happened on Thursday:

1) I finally wrote a letter (well email) to my high school English teacher, thanking him for being so awesome. He was by far my best teacher in high school and his influence lasted for long after that. Not only did his enthusiasm and sheer coolness (he was the teacher that wore jeans, talked about music, and some of the girls had crushes on - yep, I was included) turn me onto literature like never before, but really it was the respect for his students that made the biggest difference. He led us in these great philosophical discussions, but he was much more the facilitator than the taskmaster. He expected us to have good ideas and to help him arrive at a better understanding of the meaning of literature, just like he helped us. I was already a pretty independent person, but he helped me trust and challenge my own brain as a teenager when we got plenty of messages that we were not good enough and the bane of everyone's existence. I have also tried to emulate his style in teaching when I have taught, which is above all else to expect your students to be up to the challenge, to respect them and their ideas, and to treat them as near-equals (hey, you still have to give them a grade).

He replied to my email soon after I sent it, sincerely and sweetly telling how much it had meant to him. I could also tell he is still the intelligent, sensitive, and hip person I remember. I thought to myself how easy it is sometimes to make another person feel good. That was cool.

2)I got a letter from my sponsored child Raul Esteban who lives in Chile. I've been sponsoring him for over two years now and I have been mostly lazy about my sponsorship: the money gets extracted every month and I hardly notice it. Recently for his birthday, I actually sent him a real letter and birthday greeting. He returned my letter with a very enthusiastic and authentic-sounding letter of his own. I had a great time trying to translate it and then checking with the version the Children International people had put underneath it. It was such a sweet and grateful reply. I had told him about getting married and he congratulated me and "sent" me a big hug and a kiss (for El Esposo too). He said he hoped El esposo would be a good husband. It was so nice. And, by the way, yes I do have a very good husband.

It's a whole bunch of little things that make up our lives, and sometimes the little things don't seem to amount to much. But then again, sometimes they do, and then I'm like, Oh yeah, duh. That's what it's supposed to be like.

Book Club

At work we started a book club. Actually, I didn't start it but I was invited to join. It's not a book reading club. It's a book writing club. I've got to say it adds an extra sense of purpose to my work day on Friday. We meet during lunch on Fridays and one person is kind of the star of the show and talks about their book and we offer feedback. Some of these people in the club are people I work with closely and I was a bit worried as the "team" structure of my office is not really that team-y. One of them is someone that tells me what to do some of the time and one of them is someone I tell what to do some of the time. So I thought it might be awkward. But it's not. Anyway, if you want to spice up your office and put a new spin on traditional reporting structures, I offer this book writing club as a good idea.

Today's Couplet

It's not exactly a couplet, but it feels like one.


I know someone who’s wasting her life
And that someone is me
All my new devices
Quickly becoming vices


I wrote it yesterday after work when I was surfing this world wide web thing instead of working on two projects I knew I needed to work on.

Round Two

I figured out how to convert the errant file format. Turns out it was really easy. Anyway, these are the answers to the challenge question: 4 songs whose lyrics start with the words "I lost."

Cardboard on the Dance Floor

Napkin

Fifty Bucks (or Someone Else's Wife)

(In Which I Fight the Devil in the Guise of Trenton Ashburn)


Feel free to vote your favorite. If you pick mine I will appreciate your loyalty, but may question your taste (I am working on a new version with completely different less annoying music). Nevertheless, the buzzer went off. And yes, I suppose I am giving myself the luxury of a caveat because it is my blog. Discuss amongst yourselves the fairness of that. Thank you all participants! Winner chooses the next challenge!

NEWSFLASH: Presidential Candidates Have Big Egos and other items

I know, I know, I need to post the songs. A certain someone needs to send me theirs in the right format, also.

Anyway, this post is not going to be about the headline so much, it just kind of bugs me when people talk about how they could never vote for the "other" candidate because he/she has way too much self love, as though their candidate is the model, the paragon, the quintessence, the tumescence of humility. Their candidate who is running for President. Of the United States.

Now then, I watched the Obama acceptance speech last night and I liked it. There were a few honestly inspirational moments. Like when he talked about taking action on consensus:

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

Or when he basically quoted me about inidividual responsibility and mutual responsibility--that we can't let government solve all of our problems for us; we need to take repsonsibility for our own actions as well. (Once upon a time, when we were feeling fed up with political parties, Ms. Tom and I were going to create a political party founded on the values of reponsibility: personal, mutual, corporate, etc. We decided not to reinvent the wheel after all.)

Anyway, I support the general message of Barack Obama's speech, the idea that our country can do better 1) to give its citizens access to the resources they need, 2)to regain the bit of respect we used to have in the world, 3) to work together, despite our differences.

Then, there were a few things that gave me that not-so-gung-ho feeling.

One in particular that I have heard politicians, most often democrats, give lip service to a lot in the past several years, is the idea that we can somehow stop jobs from going overseas--often manufacturing jobs or even jobs that are on their way to being technologically obsolete, and of course there are always the call centers and help desks. No doubt it sucks to work in a factory for 25 years and suddenly the plant closes down and you have no job. But, we are never going to be able to give businesses the number of tax credits they would need to make it financially smart to keep these jobs here. I just don't see how it is a viable solution in our global economy. Can we do something to promote job growth? Sure, we can encourage new technologies. Can we do something to help train people that lost their jobs to do something else? Yes, why not? I just don't think we can keep these jobs from going away. Maybe I'm missing something.

And yes, like most of the country I doubt that we can afford to do everything Obama has in his plan.

Also, anytime the supporters started chanting something, I will admit I got creeped out.

Nevertheless, I do feel he expresses the needs and hopes of the country, particularly the disenfranchised, better than most, and I feel that the direction he talks about is the right one.

Just some thoughts and my reactions. I was also very interested to see McCain's VP pick. I know nothing about her, but I am kind of stoked that either way we are starting to break away from the two white guys mold.

The Quest for Joint Expression

Or QJE.

El Esposo and I spent a couple hours last night trying to write music together. Here's the rub: El Esposo is leaps and bounds ahead of me in skill on the gui-tar. He'll be like "What do you think of this?" and play some multi-layered complexity, "And then we could go into something like this for the chorus," and the multi-layered complexity continues, but with different underlying chords. And then inevitably I'll say something like "OK, so what was that first chord again?" We'll do this sort of thing for a while and in the meantime I'll be searching for some gnarly new chord to START a song with and all you'll hear out of my guitar is an occasional plink.

The problem with a songwriting team, if it truly is going to be a team:

. . . is that you are limited by the ability of the lowest skilled contributor.

So, for a while, when little brother and I lived in the same town, and we were roughly at the same skill level (I was probably slightly better but he was catching up to me fast), this was not much of a handicap for us and we wrote some fun songs. They might not have been utterly brilliant (I still think "Climb Trees, Please" was pretty close at its apex--can't remember how to play it anymore, unfortunately), but they held together nicely and were easy to sing along to.

So then El Esposo says, "How did you write songs with your brother?" And I tell him one person has to play four chords or so over and over and over and over while the other person tries out what to play along with it. So we do this, and it starts to work. Of course El Esposo keeps wanting to break out into something more challenging, but he is pretty patient with me. Then we get to the lyrics and realize here is another barrier. Because we think differently. So what do we do? We make a rough recording of what we have so far and we take a break.

And so, bit by bit, we are closing in on joint expression and a more unified marriage.

******************************************************************************
The current status of the songwriting challenge is that three songs have been written that I know of. I still need to write and record mine by this Saturday. Rumor has it the competition is fierce this time. Have fun.

Songwriting Challenge # 2: Loss or whatever

It is time to open up the songwriting challenge to all my fellow songwriters. For any first-timers, the rules are simple:

a) Write a song based on the prompt (you are encouraged to put your own spin on it)
b) Practice it a little
c) Record the song in the simplest fashion available to you: one-track-one-take is the general rule, but if you really screw up it's ok to do another take
d) Send it to me by the deadline via rocktastica at gmail dot com
e) I will post links to them for all to hear and vote upon

Note: It's more of a challenge than a contest per se, but if you want to believe there's a lot of competition involved, feel free to indulge yourself. I think of it as just a little exercise to stretch the muscles.

The challenge this time is very simple:

Write a song starting with the lyric "I lost . . ."

The deadline is Saturday, August 23rd.

For Challenge #1 entries, scroll down a bit. The results of the voting for Challenge #1 were not unlike a soccer game for toddlers: a big fat tie. Everyone's a winner.

Hush, hush, keep it down now . . .

So it's been a while since I've caught any live music, and it's been even longer since I blogged about live music. But here's the thing: Aimee Mann is so darn unassuming that when we saw her Saturday, she actually played her big hit "Voices Carry," from the 80's, when she had a band called Til Tuesday and a rat tail:



She said she did this in order to balance out all the new songs she had played. Many indie musicians get all uppity about playing their one mega radio hit, perhaps because of the intense cuteness and lack of irony involved, but she was so cool.

Another thing about that show: electric guitar-free. It was so interesting to see and hear all of her tunes played with keyboards, organs and the like (plus her acoustic guitar). She had two guys playing the keys and they were excellent. I think there were a total of maybe eight different kinds of keyboards on stage. It was very fascinating/fun.

Break Even Day!

As of today's paycheck, I am finally in the black for the first time since grad school. The amount of money I owe the US government (they are my only creditor) is slightly less than the amount of money I have in liquid assets. Who knew that some day I would be a contributing member of society? It only took thirty years.

I have to revel in it while I can, since as soon as we buy a house this is all gone. I know a house is an asset, but it sure is a liability too.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness sans health insurance

As I am home sick today with some kind of stomach virus, the time is ripe for this post . . .

Between the time I finished grad school in May 2003 until I "sold out to the man" and "got a real job" in January 2005, I had no health insurance and I lived on cheap foods that were not particularly nutritious. It was pretty dumb of me to not get my own insurance, but I was only twenty-four and as luck would have it I did not once really need medical attention during that time. I know plenty of horror stories of people that opted not to have health insurance for a brief period and then ended up needing serious surgery after they broke their leg in a rock climbing or skateboarding or car accident and then were in debt for pretty much forever after that. Woman of danger that I was, I liked to think I had some idea of what it felt to be without health insurance. But, I didn't.

The last few days I have been trying to research what a person with a chronic disease can do without health insurance. I am researching this on behalf of an actual person I know with a chronic disease and multiple complications, all of which are currently untreated. I am looking into medicaid, social security administered disability, and what to do if you can't qualify for either. I have learned a lot.

For instance, from the official CMS website: "Medicaid does not provide medical assistance for all poor persons. Even under the broadest provisions of the Federal statute (except for emergency services for certain persons), the Medicaid program does not provide health care services, even for very poor persons, unless they are in one of the designated eligibility groups." So what do you do if you are very poor and so sick that you can't work, but don't technically qualify for medicaid? In my current experience, it is clear that some people do nothing but wait for deliverance. Perhaps because they don't have access to the internet to do their research or because they are uneducated or even because they were taught not to ask for help for themselves, but to put others first.

I am now researching low-cost or free healthcare clinics that exist as a safety net to keep those on the margins from being lost. Many are managed completely by volunteers, which is so admirable to me. However, because they are run and staffed by volunteers they have limited hours and services. Still, this may be the best solution.

I wonder if it should be this hard, though. I expect that when the US constitution was created, health care was completely different. It was common for the sick to just die and for women not to survive childbirth with much greater frequency than today. But with the advances in medicine today there are still people that die in their homes because they either can not afford the medical care they need or because they are unaware of how to get it. So these pursue happiness and are guaranteed life and liberty in the space between the bathroom and the bedroom only until their bodies succomb to otherwise treatable conditions.

I know there are many people that know a lot more than I do about this topic, and this is just my paltry couple of cents based on only a few days of searching in between my work and life activities. Do with it what you will.

Finding "the One"

It's all about timing. I know I've said this before, but it's true. Whoever said you have to kiss a lot of frogs, that's true too. And it's also probably true that there's not really just one for anybody. Nonetheless, it feels kind of magical when your paths intersect at just the right time and in just the right way and soon (or not soon) you realize you can actually make this work. You have to be ready for the effort it will take, though. And it may take you a series of heartbreaks to get ready. But this is okay. This is part of the joy you will feel.

At least that is what I'm hoping. You see, we have already "fallen" twice in this house hunting process so far. We fell into this sort of blissful imagining of the future we would have in a particular house, but it was not to be. Mio Marito (I'm learning Italian, sort of) does not believe the adage that we should not get emotionally involved in our house hunting. I think what he means, which is true, is that you can not separate your emotions from the process, because if you do you may end up buying a place that is an awesome value for the neighborhood and that will re-sell very well, but that you just plain old don't dig the idea of living in and that is lame.

Other things that apply to both dating and house hunting:

When something just feels wrong, go with your gut and get out of there. One of the places we saw Wednesday had an immediate bad feeling about it. The step up to the house from the porch was huge--it just seemed off. And it was only down from there: burn marks in the middle of the living room floor, broken glass from the chandelier all over the dining room, and then we went upstairs where the place was riddled with offensive messages written or carved into doors and walls. One of the rooms had several holes in the walls as well. Sometimes you can go into a house and see beyond these cosmetic things, but here I could not. Bad things had happened here. Also, we didn't really love the layout. It was small and crampedish.

You will get your heart broken and learn that you have a heart, which is a good thing. The last place we saw Wednesday, we were already excited about before we got there. We'd driven through the neighborhood before and knew it was a good location and that the townhomes were nice and built in the eighties so they had better layouts (the seventies townhomes tend to be pretty dark and dank). The place was so spacious and bursting with potential like an absess with fluid. It had the largest kitchen area we had yet seen in our price range. The basement was huge with a high ceiling and very sunny. The master bedroom had three windows and a killer walk-in closet. Yes, we were enamored. It needed new flooring throughout, as someone had pulled some seriously doofus manuevers with the flooring, but we were ready to deal with that. The surrounding area was also nice and the place was begging for a real nice deck. What happened? Oh, it was under contract by the time we got home that night. I felt dumped, I really did. But maybe it was just a crush anyway. It might be true that I should avoid completely throwing myself into something in the future, but I should also remain open to possibility of loving again.

That's enough similarities for now. In other news, I've been trying to revive that freelance writing idea and am now moving forward and working on the portfolio. Il Marito and I are learning a little Italian for our trip that is still a good nine months away. I'm trying herbal remedies for annoyances that have plagued me and I am somewhat hopeful. Also, I have become a library-goer again. I gave it up for many years, but figured with the name change they probably wouldn't be tracking my previous activities.

Last but not least, some of my coworkers were taking me out to lunch this week in honor of my birthday (oh yeah, I turned the big 3-0 last Saturday), and one of my coworkers that had seen a picture of El Esposo/Il Marito described him as looking like a "Young Hugh Hefner." I found a picture and it is proudly displayed at the top of this entry. Don't get any ideas, mi amore.

I Ain't Afraid to Love You

Without further ado, the results of the first songwriting challenge...

MJ's Version

Little Brother's Version

El Esposo's Version


And remember your vote really counts since there's only two of you!

More bedazzlement to come

Are you dazzled by the new look on Rocktastica? Well, let me tell you about it. See, in preparation for the awesome new feature "Songwriting Challenge," I decided "we" needed a new look. Five points to anyone that can identify the rocker behind those crazy inverted colors courtesy of everyone's favorite graphic manipulating tool, Paint. What are the five points redeemable for? The nice smug feeling of victory.

So far, little brother has contributed his one-take garage band recording of "I Ain't Afraid to Love You." After I get past my personal technical recording difficulties, I will be able to present to my two readers the fruits of the first songwriting challenge. Stay tuned!

And hey, if you're a songwriter you can join the fun. Either wait until the next challenge is issued or write your own song with the title "I Ain't Afraid to Love You," record it in one-track-one-take fashion, and send it to me or rocktastica@gmail.com. You have until I have uploaded mine and el esposo's versions to do so (which means at least through the weekend as we have a weekend trip scheduled). I will save them all on my googlepages, present the links for everyone's enjoyment and the two readers can vote for the winner! But don't think of it as a contest so much as a golden opportunity to rise to the challenge. More challenges forthcoming . . .

Rocktastica is . . . born?

My little brother has issued a challenge. We are each to write a song entitled "I Ain't Afraid to Love You" (el esposo might get to play, too) by the time we meet for a family vaycay July 2. Then we play our songs. I don't know if it's a competition exactly, but if you wuss out (as we used to say circa 1990), you are a lo-ser.

I'm thinking about upping the ante and saying we have to upload a lo-fi version of our songs, which, incidentally, is starting to sound like a really cool use for a blog.

Hmm.

Possibly a blog called Rocktastica.

Anybody have a good idea for the logistics of such a blog--like where/how to post the audio files?

I knew that I would

I feel good today. I'm at work, I've got things to do ranging from utterly boring to somewhat interesting and I'm feeling good. Why? Because I got enough sleep. In the past I've conducted a study on myself to determine how much sleep I need. Studies show* the sleep required varies per person. For me it is very much an exact science: 7.5 hours. Actually, more than that would probably be okay, but that is a rarely studied happening, so there is room for further study. 7 hours 15 minutes does not cut it. Without fail, I will fall asleep on the bus and then at work my eyes will get heavy as I stare at the computer screen and inevitably they will start to close. Last night I got my 7.5 hours (barely) and I feel like a million bucks. Sleep means everything.

*I know I read this somewhere sometime. Maybe it was pop reporting, but it doesn't matter as I know for myself and that's plenty of data for me.

What Recycling is Not

Yesterday my co-worker was telling me that people that make a big deal out of saving the environment and then go have children are total hypocrites. I tend to think people can just be multi-faceted. However, the whole discussion reminded me of other things that masquerade as saving the planet but really aren't.

My nice brother and sister-in-law got us a subscription to ReadyMade magazine as a wedding present. It's a fun little magazine with some cute craft projects, most of which are beyond our abilities and/or level of patience, but which nevertheless seem nice and like something we might try . . . someday. (Several years ago, a friend and I stole the idea of the pillowcase skirt from ReadyMade, so you never know.) But there is a trend that ReadyMade influences that just kind of bugs me: calling something recycling that is not recycling. It may be hip to make something artistic involving some old household objects AND other materials, but it's not exactly recycling. Creative? Sure. Re-use? Maybe. Less of a waste of resources than buying something? It depends. But not recycling. Definition number 1 for Recycle: to treat or process (used or waste materials) so as to make suitable for reuse. And, okay, I understand that an argument can be made that turning something into art is processing it for re-use, but I just think it can be taken to extremes. For example:

El Esposo and I were recently trying to find out how to recycle a broken television we have. We found this little gem of an idea from "Marie" at some website called world.org under the "how to recycle a television" section:

Gut a dead television and place an aquarium inside. Fill with fish.

Odd? Yes. Interesting? Possibly. Post-modern? I think that fits the bill. But, to me, recycling is when you decrease the total amount of waste, not increase it by--say--buying an aquarium.

I'm not saying creating a lamp from an old radio (like we saw at Artomatic last week) is not cool, I just prefer not to bastardize the term recycling to the point that we forget that junk is still junk. Like, um, what am I doing with the rest of the television that I just gutted? And how will I eventually dispose of the aquarium?

Vinyl, baby

When I was in elementary school, 4th or 5th grade, I did an "independent study" on the music recording business for the nerdy/gifted class I was in. (Sidenote: this class basically saved my life as I was criminally shy and always felt uneasy in regular classes.) I studied how to make records. I remember going down to this big warehouse that was mostly devoted to manufacturing records and also had a recording studio, for this small-time recording company in Houston. I walked away with this big hunk of vinyl with a hole in the middle. It was like a record in embryo. So cool.

Yesterday, el esposo's co-worker GAVE us her old record player. So cool. She also gave us a pretty substantial record collection, which may be the oddest record collection ever. It's like nothing but B-sides, maybe C-sides, even. Basically, it's a lot of musak - translation: more boring versions of popular recordings as performed by more boring artists. However, there are some bizarre gems. El Esposo was particularly fond of this one:


Songs with the word "kiss" in the title as played on the electric harmonica. Oh yeah. How jealous are you?

Don't Look So Happy

That's what the security guard said to me this morning as I walked into the building. But, being the astute observer of vocal tone that I am, I could tell he was being sarcastic. We're not friends or anything, though I do recognize him as one of five security guards I am likely to meet upon entering the building. So a virtual stranger was basically telling what sort of facial expression I ought to have.

Here's the thing: I was in no way grumpy or in a foul mood at all. From what I remember, I was just thinking over some logic problem in my head--something I often do (while vaguely preparing to give some sort of courteous nod)--and he startled me out of my thoughts. The best I could say was "Oh. Sorry."

I have never figured out the right response in this scenario, which happens with relative frequency and has for pretty much my whole life. Since I was a kid, I have had a big tendency to both a) daydream and b) be totally unaware of my facial expressions.

So what should I say when someone points out an expression I am giving which I am totally oblivious to? (side-note: my husband does not completely buy my claim that I am oblivious, but just because he studied psychology doesn't mean he knows everything.) And is it cool for a complete stranger to be telling me what to do anyway?

I'm thinking if I had a prepared response to this situation, it would be a very handy piece of equipment for my life--nothing too snarky as I'm interested in simplifying and defusing the situation so I can move on. Do any of the 3 or 4 people that read this blog have an idea?

Literary Nerd Moment: Allusions in Bob Marley

So I'm not a Bob Marley scholar or anything, but the other day we went to this picnic to celebrate a friend's graduation. She's a writer, and as I well know, graduate school writers tend to either BE hippies or at least BEfriend hippies, so of course there were several Bob Marley fans at the picnic and before you know it El Esposo is playing Bob Marley tunes on a borrowed guitar and everyone is singing along. Could it have been otherwise? I don't know.

Fast Forward to this morning when I am reading the Old Testament in Genesis and I'm basically finishing up the Joseph in Egypt story, which--just as a reader, I must say--is the first truly compelling story in the Old Testament. And it is a redemption story. Anyway, I read this blessing from Jacob/Israel to his son Joseph (after he was sold into slavery by his brothers, spent many years in prison, eventually was promoted to be Pharaoh's CEO so that he became quite rich and powerful, and was able to provide for and forgive his long-lost family during a famine) in Genesis 49--note the bold text:

"22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)"

And what did I hear playing in my head?

"Oh Pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty.
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly.
Wont you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;
Redemption songs."
--"Redemption Song," Bob Marley


The song is clearly talking about African Slavery at this point, but this is also a clear biblical allusion. It made me start thinking about Rastafarianism and its relationship to Judaism. I'm working on it.

boating fun

El esposo and I have not been doing anything that exciting lately. Partially because I've been stressed out and busy: job interviews, paperwork, lesson plans, grading, educating myself on home buying. There hasn't been that much time for fun. Which is dumb, actually. Fun is underrated I think. But last weekend we took some time to go camping. One of the highlights was rowboating. Watch as the pictures plus a few brief captions tell the story . . .


LCD rowing happily as we leave the shore


Me relaxing while LCD rows happily. Later my skin would take on a hue similar to my shirt. We forgot the sunscreen. Also, though my expression is slightly odd in this picture, it would later take on my patented look of frustration which you will simply have to imagine. That is because the rowing got really hard. It was especially really stinking hard in the shallow areas. Both of us had a hard time turning the boat around when on the edge of the lake. And I've been working out and everything! Well . . . once a week for the arms, but that's much better than usual.

Later we discover why rowboating was so much harder than we thought it would be:


LCD flashes his look of irony and defeat as he reveals the concrete slab of an anchor that had been in the water the whole time. Curses!

And thus, we turn the corner to Easy Street (job search over, one class to go), having survived five months of marriage. I think FUN is about to pick up.

meet the new job: same as the old job

i was raised on classic rock.

anyway . . . hooray! i just got hired! to do my same job!!! yup, it's true. but now i'm going to work for the main contractor instead of the subcontractor. those of you that know i have been looking for a new job, the path was circuitous, both winding and eventually a circle, and i found it! it was here all along . . .

it makes more sense than you think.

really.

also i have a funny rowboating story but it works best with pictures and el esposo has all the pictures so i will have to hunt him down.

Plans

Lately I have been in planning frenzy mode. Not that I really have time for that. Well lesson plans, of course. I have no choice there (five classes left!). I also have a stack of papers to grade that my students are not getting back this week. In the midst of this and job stuff and what are we doing this weekend and what am I going to do with my tax return and when are we taking vacation this year and when will we finally have a weekend to go camping and when will I have time to start freelancing on the side (the side of what???) blah blah ad nauseum I am also looking at how to buy a house(!) and also if it is even a possibility.

Though sweetiepieface and I have been saving all our nickles and dimes for two whole years (give or take), we do live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country and neither of us is a high-powered anything. So we placed the whole idea of buying a house on the backburner of our minds. Recently, though, we looked around and realized the prices they are a droppin'--not into the range my relocated middle-american family is dealing with right now (actually their prices didn't even drop as they hadn't been inflated in the first place)--but still it's significant. And if you're going to buy anything, you might as well buy at the bottom, right? So I've been perking up and looking at real estate online, and then very recently I started learning about all this stuff that had just been random terminology before: like mortgages and credit scores. I started getting into the details: mortgage insurance, fixed-rate vs. adjustable rate, real estate taxes, "points" (which is part of your insurance paid up-front to decrease your overall interest rate), credit scores, and more.

The more I learn, the less I realize we can afford. Odd blue townhouse that I thought was in our price range:

is--alas--not quite.

However, each time we revise down our estimate and I look at property in our price range I realize that we may still be able to find something that is at least a little nicer (well, bigger anyway) than the place we are currently renting, and that will serve our main purpose and build some equity. Something like--say--this:

Of course, the real telling thing will be when we actually go to look at some of these places. For example, here's a question: are the kind of people that can not afford to pay for their mortgage such that their house gets foreclosed (is that a verb?) the type to have been very vigilant about the upkeep of that same house?

I've also learned that what we need in terms of financing might not exist, since we are planning to be making significantly LESS money in a couple or three (i think some relative of mine says that) years than we are making now, when I plan to go freelance part-time/mommy part-time. So much stuff to think about and then think some more about. I'm thinking maybe if I do this one step at a time it won't seem like such an impossible adult math problem. Our next step, I think, is to check credit scores and get ourselves ready for the big loan meeting. Also, a camping trip is pretty much in order.

Are you guys bored yet? Have any great tips?

A blog is not a journal

You can't write about any of the most interesting experiences. I was thinking to myself how recent experiences need to be recorded somewhere. Either for posterity or just for myself so I can keep from re-making mistakes. AND so I can even remember how I did it when I happened to do something so exactly right. EVEN just to put something that happened into a larger context so it can make some actual sense instead of just fester in my brain and keep making noise noise noise and no meaning. Then I remembered the Journal concept. Journals: Turning brain noise into usable life lessons. That's my slogan for the journal lobby. Takers? You owe me a dollar. Or maybe just a citation.

How my husband became my husband (Part 3 of infinity)

READ PARTS ONE AND TWO BELOW.

In this part, we actually start dating, I promise. But how did that happen, exactly?

Timing.

I had just read War and Peace. This probably seems unrelated, but it’s not. Let’s just ignore what War and Peace is actually about and talk about the character of Natasha. Pre-epilogue Natasha, as the epilogue to this great book nearly made me barf. Of course Natasha is beautiful and elegant and feisty, but the genius of Natasha, the thing that really seems to attract EVERYONE to her, is her unabashed love of life and determination to enjoy it as much as possible. Everything is a great adventure and everyone is assumed to be having as good of a time as she is and she never ever doubts herself. To be fair: she is a bit childish, and this becomes a problem for her later, but the key point for this story is that her power comes from her total embracing of the beauty of life and also the charming nature of herself. No one could possibly convince her that she is not charming. Nor would anyone try.

At this point in my life, I was pretty comfortable with myself and I was just feeling quite Natasha. I was in the groove. I think everyone has these moments and it is best to take advantage of them. My roommate at the time, who is so awesome, planned a relatively chill party and I took it upon myself to make sure everyone I had flirted with of late was invited. I was in the mood to be Natasha. For good measure, I threw LCD into the invite pool. He had seemed a little extra excited to see me of late at social gatherings, so why not?

At the party, I made sure to be very friendly to everyone, but particularly the ones I had added to the invite list. Weirdly, nothing seemed awkward. I was just enjoying life and being charming. I could even introduce these people on my mental list of possible suitors to each other and feel no awkwardness. I divided my time between several people, but somehow it seemed, every time I turned a corner there was LCD again. And then we would start talking and it would suddenly seem intimate. Remembering what my brother had said, I asked him at one point, “How come we never hang out anymore?” It was supposed to be kind of a joke, because hanging out had always been rare between us. But, LCD immediately pulled out his pocket planner (which he is never without) and set up an “appointment” for us.

I know LCD particularly enjoys hanging around to a party’s end, but this one seemed different than normal. (psst. It’s because the magic fairy dust of love was descending.) He helped us do the dishes and then he proceeded to borrow my guitar and we sat down while everyone was in the other room. He taught me blues scales which I had known before but forgot. And it was like everything started to change color. Like my hiking trip in the White Mountains when the afternoon light opened a whole new view of the fall colors that was so vivid I could only think of those over-colorized old black and white movies. He touched my fingers to show me where to put them and it felt so different than anything had ever felt been between us.

So about halfway through our hanging out "appointment" the next week, I realized that it was in fact a date. He paid for me, flirted, and seemed nervous. And by the way we talked with smiles on our faces, and by the way we knew--without really saying it--that he would come in when he dropped me off (so we could keep talking--no funny business), I coudl also tell I would see him again soon.

As wonderful as that was, and as big of a crush as I had two and a half years previous, I was not immediately smitten. In fact, one of my other “prospects,” if you will, was also starting to “bite,” if you will, but he kept asking me out when I had already made plans with LCD. I didn’t know if this guy was serious or he just liked to play the game of asking me out, but I can say that he was a very cool guy and I kept hearing this Clem Snide song play in my head “because I love the unknown, I love the unknown . . .” As I had built up loads of respect for LCD over the past couple years, I did want to give it a serious shot, if warranted, but I also had to get to know the unknown or I would not stop thinking about it. So I gave him a time that I knew I would be free and we went out. It turned out this guy really was really cool. No doubt about it. And it was even a little easier to talk to him than LCD.

My first thought when the mystery guy dropped me off was, I want to call LCD. The unknown was no longer unknown and guess what? He didn’t do much for my heart. That simple. I must have had the inkling even early on of what I would become with LCD, of the fact that he would let me be sweet—I’d never gotten to be sweet with a guy before; it had always seemed so silly. Any earlier time in my life I would have attempted to date the other guy. Turns out I was never the girl for him anyway, but it was an important moment in helping me realize that my heart can actually trump my brain. And it can be wonderful.

Dating LCD was so easy for me for the first four months. This is partly because he was doing a lot of the work. I did give him a little reassurance from time to time, but he did a lot of the asking, sharing, even declaring of feelings. I told him I was just rollin' with it. Of course I liked him a lot and I was having a great time and I daydreamed about our future sometimes, but I was pretty determined to NOT overthink anything. That whole Natasha feeling had not worn off and, like hers early on, my actions were mostly effortless. LCD was more affectionate than anyone I had ever dated and after having a talk with myself and realizing that this was okay, I began to follow his lead in the affection department and I really started to like it. Eventually, somewhere around four months, I stopped just rollin' with it.

I began to ask myself whether I was in love--like really in love--and I actually didn't know at first. I liked him a lot and we seemed so compatible in so many ways. He actually got my writing, for one thing. One way we are the same is that we hate being flaky. We hate to say we're going to do something and not follow through--so we generally don't do that. Also, we're both musicians and we love it and we talk about being rock stars, but we could actually never REALLY live that lifestyle (even though LCD is probably good enough). I think now that love is simpler than I thought it was then. It's neither a checklist nor a complex of squishy passionate feelings. The day I realized I was in love with LCD, I was just driving around and thinking about how people say they belong together and how I normally resist that idea, because--you know--I'm like (brace yourselves--nerdy reference) Eowyn in LOTR and I fear a cage. But somehow the idea of me belonging with LCD seemed very natural and non-scary and I realized that was because I love him. It does not mean that we blend completely into one person, but it does mean that we are willing to have permeable membranes and we are ready to surrender our pride. After this realization, something interesting happened: things got a lot harder.

The story after this is actually even more important, but it doesn’t tell as well. It’s about work and love and how they are the same thing. There are a million beautiful memories. Like when my sweetheart first said he was falling in love with me and asked me to please do the same. Or like the time when I was about ready to give up on our relationship . . . because it was so much work and I couldn’t see the end . . . and then I went for a run during which I both cried and prayed . . . and when I got home, quite suddenly, I got a clear picture in my head of our future family—mine and his . . . as a gift, I think, to keep me going. Or months and months of us recording music in his basement room, me being continuously frustrated with how hard it seemed for me in comparison to him, and then listening to what we made together. Or when he tricked me into thinking the reason he was sweaty and stinky was due to a bad reaction to the food we had eaten while camping on the beach, when really it was because he had been carving out the words “Marry Me” in the sand. Or when we sat next to each other waiting to be called into the room where we would be married and everything we had worried about washed away and we beamed with our joy as we held each other's hands and shed a few small tears together. Or how about two days ago when I came home from grocery shopping (which I utterly loathe) for two and a half hours and when I asked my husband to help me unload the car he told me to start putting away the cold items in the fridge first and I very crankily and reluctantly agreed only to find he had bought me flowers for our quarter-anniversary (as in 1/4) . . .

This is the story that continues forever.

interlude

Installment Three is coming--as soon as I have enough time to write it. Right now I am listening to Okerrvil River and doing the dishes, which is actually a welcome change from grading papers and dealing with technological breakdowns on my way to writing a halfway decent lesson plan. In honor of my whole family, almost, who moved to Kansas City in recent times...

How my husband became my husband (Part Deux)

READ THE POST BELOW THIS FIRST

So I failed to mention the inauspicious circumstances of our official meeting, which included someone introducing us at a party and saying to me, basically, "this is the guy we've been telling you about," and then us having a three minute conversation.

To continue the story . . .

So I got over my crush, moved on with my life, tried to make a living (a whole other story but the synopsis is I had a really hard time paying the bills for my first year and a half in DC), and started to regenerate my sense of self. One thing I did was go on a super-rejuvenating backpack trip to the Presidential Range of the White Mountains in NH. It was one of the more beautiful things I have ever seen--we timed it perfectly to catch the fall colors. Another thing I did was start volunteering at the Food Assistance Center. At the time I was only a paycheck removed from the people that came there. It made me really humble, but really grateful at the same time. I also made an effort to focus on my personal spiritual development (aka: get right with God). Even though I was barely scraping by I started to feel more like myself than I had in a long time.

Next, the roommate that was dating LCD moved out and I also moved somewhere else, which was a welcome change from the dank basement life I had been enjoying.

Next, I met a really intersting and cool guy who I am still a big fan of, and he asked me on some dates. Our relationship was one of those amorphous things. It was hard to tell on a given day if we were actually dating, but it was always obvious that we really liked each other. Anyway, he kept me very entertained for the next five or six months. I even flirted with the idea that he might be the one, but guess what? He wasn't. Still it was really fun sometimes to pretend and to live in this bizarro world where everything is ironic and weirdness is the goal and being standoffish is a kind of affection. One thing that I learned from this was that standoffishness is not REALLY a kind of affection. Anyway, later he called me his ex-girlfriend, so I guess that's what I was. I was pretty disappointed that it didn't work out, but I think the reason I took it hard was because the timing of our dating conincided so nicely with the time I started feeling good about myself and so I wanted it to mean something. It was a version of love but not the real kind. He's an awesome guy and still one of the most intersting people I know, we just weren't an awesome couple.

Fast forward to me getting a real job, putting money in the bank, having lots of fun, and eventually forming a super-fun band with my little brother. Writing songs with my little bro is one of the choice experiences of my life. As he lives in AZ now, I mourn those days sometimes. In the meantime, LCD was always in the background. He stopped dating my former roommate but ended up dating other people. I had wiped nearly every trace of romantic leanings re: him from my mind. I would always see him at little music open mic things we both played at or other parties. Every once in a while when my house had a party I would make sure his name was on the list and he would always come. What's more he would always bring something. I developed a strong opinion of him--that he was a trustworthy and dependable person. He was high on my list of people most of the time, but sometimes he was scarce and we were not really intimate in any way. We did not hang out.

Sometimes I asked LCD for favors. Like when my little band wanted to play a little show I asked him to do the sound. He was always willing. Slowly I was realizing that he was not some hipster rockstar, but he was just a truly decent human being--and even kind of nerdy. Case in point: I invited him to come play board games over at my house one time and he showed up. My roommate had doubted it because he seemed too cool, but I guaranteed her he would come.

Sometimes people would ask me if I had ever thought of dating him and I would say yes I thought about it before, but I didn't think it would work out.

Then one day, oh about 2 1/2 years after we met, I was talking to my little brother and he asked me, "Why don't we ever hang out with LCD? I feel I should be good friends with him but we never hang out." I told him I wasn't sure that LCD was actually into the stuff we were into--going to shows, wilderness hiking, etc. But my brother had planted a seed.

END PART TWO

How my husband became my husband (Part One)

So, I stole this idea from a certain blogger, whose hilarious blogging I have admired for these past couple of years. I suppose this is going to be pretty confessional or something, but the thing is it's a really great story, better than most other stories I could think of to tell.

I actually remember when I first saw my husband from a distance. End of this May or early June will be five years since that moment. I had just moved to the DC area for a summer internship (not at all related to politics) from grad school and Colorado. This was right after giving most of my heart and soul to a master's thesis for the previous many months. I had also recently fell in with a group of hippies in the months before I left Colorado and had accidentally had a number of really weird experiences such that I was very very unsettled in my life. Anyway, I had hoped the escape to the nation's capital would provide for some normalcy and eventually it did--but it took a while. I moved into an apartment for the summer and the first time I saw LCD was in the lobby of that apartment building on my way to the store for some groceries. He was leading a group of some kind and standing on a chair to give them instructions. It was for a singles church activity that I had heard about but not planned on attending because I had a list of things to do. There he was, wearing a hipsterish straw cowboy-style hat and grinning with those pretty snaggly choppers. The sight of him made me smile and I watched for a few extra seconds before going on my way. I thought he was pretty cute.

In the meantime I was hearing about him from everyone that stopped by our apartment and saw my guitar. Everyone asked me if I had met this guy yet who also played the guitar. They said he was really good. Since I didn't really know these people I wasn't sure whether to trust their opinions and I did not realize they were talking about the same guy I had seen standing in the lobby of my apartment building, so I was only mildly interested.

When we met I found him to be one of the most amiable people you can have a first conversation with. He was and I'm sure will always be really easy to like. So I liked him, but I only really started to be interested in him when I saw him play. I have many times in my life heard people talk about how great some musician they know is only to hear them and think "yeah he/she's okay" . . . As it turns out, the rumors were true. Not only that but he played Jeff Buckley, which was almost too overwhelming for me. I had specifically taught guys I knew to play Jeff Buckley in Colorado, and this guy did a better Jeff Buckley than any of them by far.

Honestly, it freaked me out. I knew I had been through too much weird stuff recently and I was pretty depressed at the time so a big part of me did not want to develop a big crush on some guy that had all the outward appearance of being someone I would be really into. The timing sucked too much. I remember telling my friend from Colorado on the phone that I met this really seemingly awesome guy and it was a hopeless situation but I did not know if I would be able to keep myself from being really into him.

So I decided we would just be friends. I even went so far as to send him an email asking if he would be my friend. Yes it's true. Not very tactful, but true. I figured I would set it up from the beginning as us being just friends and that would a) make me happy to have such a nice hip guy as my friend when everyone around me seemed so frustratingly type A and b) keep my little wounded heart safe.

We became friends which was great, and my crush got a little more serious which seemed unfortunate but I figured it wasn't really hurting anybody. Then...oops...it started to hurt. You see my hip, new friend started dating my hip, new roommate. That's when I realized that the crush had really gotten away with me because it hurt like the dickens.

Later I was so grateful for this because it allowed me to get over my crush fast and decide he wasn't the guy for me. I decided I had been looking for the wrong thing--an image, an idea--when really I just needed a nice guy. This in turn gave us both the time we needed to develop a little more self confidence and become...well...happier. Because guess what? A relationship is a lot more likely to succeed if you are already happy.

End Part One

Vote EARLY, vote often, but mostly EARLY

I learned a little lesson yesterday. The specific lesson was if you want your vote to be counted, vote in the morning. The generic lesson might have been the early bird gets the worm, but I don't think so.

My husband woke up early yesterday and put on a dapper suit. He looked very good. It was his birthday and he had to be in court as a potential witness (the potential was small). He ran across the street, voted in the VA primary, and was back by the time I was ready to leave for work. I shrugged. I would be voting in the evening and would make sure I got out of work early enough to make it before they closed at 7:00.

I left work around 4:30, took the metro as usual, got on the bus as usual, and sat in the parking lot for a good long while. Odd, I thought. Annoying, of course. But I had plenty of time. I graded a few papers, and then, when I looked up from my papers I realized I was still staring at Pentagon City. I looked at my watch and realized I had been sitting next to Pentagon City for the last half hour. Around 6:20, I started to get really worried and started calling people to see if they had voted yet. Everyone had. Long story short, I went on a four hour long bus ride to go six miles. It was easily the most ridiculous commute of my life. To add insult to injury, at 9:00 when I finally stepped off the bus I immediately fell down on my hands and knees. I was on a sheet of ice that stretched across the sidewalk, up all the steps through my complex and across the driveway, etc.

I did not get to vote. The good news was that the guy I was going to vote for won anyway, but I felt like a little slug. To be fair, I don't know how slugs feel, but knowing you can be destroyed by something as simple as table salt can not be an exhilirating feeling. The thing is, I really like voting. Anyway, I have resolved to always vote in the morning from now on. And also to look for a new job the location of which is not so susceptible to rush hour traffic and weather.

An apology to those who s-tumbled upon this blog OR Will the true Rocktastica Blogmaster please stand up?

So this blog is called Rocktastica. What it ought to be is some genre-specific zealously-full-of-info-and-rumours rock music blog. Probably it should be for women punk rockers. OR it should be a tongue-in-cheek quiet and sedate indie slow-core site. But it's not. It's the site of one more total slacker blogger who forgets to post when the most interesting things happen and thus it is full of leftovers from one more person's existence. Now realize I really like my existence and I would never put it down. I have a kick awesome husband and a nice collection of musical instruments in my living room. I could elaborate, but already it sounds pretty excellent, right? But life being great does not make for the most exciting posts, especially when you are a slacker, and I realize that. So here's what I'm going to do: If you stumble upon this blog and you have the wherewithal and the stamina to make something really wonderful out of it--it's yours. I bequeath it thee. Rocktastica. The Rock Angels sing its name. Just leave a comment explaining your vision right here on this ol' post.

But, until you come along, person with a beautiful vision and a willpower to see it through, I will babysit your blog. And sometimes I will talk about stuff.

But Levin did not shoot himself or hang himself and went on living.

As most extradordinary classic literature, Anna Karenina is a study in light and dark. It doesn't seem as starkly good vs. evil as some novels do; more like the good vs. the hateful. And faith vs. fear. And purposeful vs. purposeless. I finally finished reading it today as I was eating my sandwich in the Subway(TM). I basically started crying so I would say that yes it is a good book.

Fruitless Toil

Gah. This image is destroying my brain. Is it the blue cog or the yellow cog? In the meantime, and if you're in the mood for a physics lesson, the source of this image is pretty interesting.

I was so set for today as my first day of teaching this night English Comp class. This morning, the force was with me. The bus and metro linked up perfectly to get me to the vicinity of my workplace nearly twenty minutes before I had to be there. Thus, I was able to stop by Kinkos and make copies of my syllabus, a literary terms list, and this passage from Anna Karenina that we were going to talk about tonight. Now, my opening night that I've been planning for the last two weeks, boring my adorable husband to tears, is nevah gonna happen. I was vaguely planning some over-the-top enthusiastic impassioned speech about literature and writing, so it might be that I deserve it.

It's a snow day. Some co-workers and I had this discussion today: Remember when snow days were a cause for rejoicing? Now there's always some kind of lame inconvenience or worse that comes with it. How I miss the days of delirious happiness over the simple fact that I got to sleep in. Back in the day before the MAN said, "well you're definitely not getting paid for this." So anyway . . . my intense preparation. Maybe fruitless toil is good for me. I'm in such a Russian mood. Maybe fruitless toil will save my philosophical soul (I'm not that philosophical--I was just channeling Roskolnikov).

baby steps (no i'm not pregnant yet)

i have a goal. well i have many many goals this year. lcd put all our goals in an excel spreadsheet. his job teaches him all this accountability stuff and so (hey why not) we are going to be tracking our progress. but the goal i'm talking about is the one where i depart from the corporate/contractor world within the next two years, quite possibly never to return. i ordered this book from amazon:



i ordered another one too. the thing about this goal is it is not allowed to fail. i really will need a way to make an income on a flexible schedule. in the meantime, i am teaching my first class for the semester next Thursday night, so another goal is to a) be a good teacher and b) not go insane. i'm also trying to think about politics a little. but not a lot. i do not have the space in my brain for a lot.

married life

is pretty cool.

The drugs don't work; they just make you worse.

First of all, I am not working today and I am sooo excited. I think I've taken a total of maybe four days off all year just for long weekends and stuff but now starts my seven days in a row vacation. Of course by vacation, I do mean frantic preparations for my wedding for the next couple days. I should've been blogging about this whole wedding planning process but I've been too busy. It is a pain in the butt. I am a bargain shopper but it is nearly impossible to get a bargain when you are planning for a wedding. Also I have been disillusioned sooo many times. In my mind I had an idea of how much everything should cost. The only thing I was right about was the honeymoon to Florida which is actually a good deal. Everything else is about three times as expensive (for the low end) as I thought it was. I'll just give you an example: the going rate for good bakery wedding cakes with absolutely no frills is $4 a person in this area. If you are planning on over two-hundred guests, it starts to add up. Anyway, after some soul searching I have come to terms with most of that and learned much gratitude for my parents who are paying for A LOT of stuff.

In the meantime I noticed my vertigo has been coming back mostly at night as I toss and turn in bed with a little bit of left over in the morning and eventually disappearing through the day. Then I looked at my prescription bottle for the antihistamine drug I take only at night (so I don't fall asleep at work and stuff). The last side effect says "May Cause Dizziness." That's right. An anti-dizziness medication that might actually cause dizziness. The pharmacist said that doesn't make sense (only 2%, she said, experience this symptom). The nurse also said that doesn't make sense because it's supposed to cure dizziness. Um yeah; don't I know it. Anyway, there's still the possibility that there's no connection so the only thing I can do is not take the drug tonight and see what happens. I wanted to tell the nurse but I'm getting married! The reception is Friday! I don't want to try a little experiment; I just want to know!

In other evening-out-the-universe news, my car got towed last night. From the parking lot where I live (technically only Chris lives there now, but I did sign the lease and I do have a parking pass). My parking pass is a "guest" pass but all the guest spots were full and we were only going in for a little while so I parked in the regular lot which ALWAYS has open spaces. The little mercenaries charged me $150 and most of my dignity. (The "but I'm getting married!" phrase came to mind, but I know towing companies have no soul so I didn't even bother.) In the end, better me than one of our guests. Now we know--do NOT park in our lot when you come to visit us!!!

vertigo

uggh. i really can not look at this picture right now. i woke up in the middle of the night last night and this is truly how everything looked. one of my co-workers called it psychosomatic because i'm freaked out about the wedding. but actually this is the least freaked out i've been. i feel really pretty good about the wedding. except for some little details, all the crappity-crap that is not my forte is taken care of (as long as everyone and thing shows up that needs to). and i am really in love. i do, though, for reals have some vertigo. i was worried enough about falling over as i walked down the street to my office that i decided to work from home. i like to say it with an accent on the 'i' though. like the game stratego. ver-TI-go...

Human Amusements at Hourly Rates

Yesterday i was really bored at work and i typed ireallydontcare.com into my browser. It was amusing. In the meantime the wedding planning has turned a corner and it's not so awfully stressful now. Also, my future husband is moving into our new place today--right now, actually. I think I might run by after work to stock the place with essentials like two-ply toilet paper. There are some things you just have to splurge on.

Becoming a Mrs.

Yes I am getting married. My one-man-band days are over, as Belle and Sebastian say. I don't want to get too personal in this forum, but I will say the man I am marrying is more wonderful than I ever expected and I am happy to take this step and start our life together.


On the lighter side of things I have been thinking about becoming a "Mrs."--just the title. I am so completely comfortable with the title "Ms." It feels as right as the skin I wear. "Miss" has been uncomfortable for years. I still have the knee-jerk reaction that I must be in trouble. Unless it is in front of my first name. Then I just know I'm in the South. But "Ms." means I might actually mean business. I can be anybody I want if I'm a "Ms." In fact I thank Gloria Steinem et al for coming up with it. I'm not a hardcore feminist but I appreciate the simple utility.

"Mrs." though, just makes me think of baking cookies. Not that there's anything wrong with that--in fact I like baking cookies. And I'm fine with changing my last name though I may use both for a while to help people (like me) transition. But I've thought about what it's going to be like when I teach a night class next semester at the community college and I've been married for a month. Should I tell them to call me Mrs.? Does that immediately make me this mother figure in an apron instead of their Composition intructor? And does it turn them into little children? I think I might give a lot of blank stares while I'm getting used to these people that have never met me calling me by the only name they know for me. I'm sure I will eventually feel at home and maybe even powerful as a Mrs. but for starters I think I'll just feel happy for the reason I am a Mrs.--because I sure do want to marry him.

Rock * News

So I have almost a copy of my ep--sans drum tracks. It is being "shopped around" to drummers, which means I am trying to find someone I know who will record my drum tracks for free. Someone with really excellent rhythm. I've discovered recently that not everyone that plays the drums has really excellent rhythm and i need really excellent rhythm since . . . well . . . MY rhythm is not always excellent. There, I admitted it.

All the other parts are on there: rhythm guitar, vocals, backing vocals, lead guitar, sometimes more filler guitar, keyboards, bells, harmonica, etc. They just need to be mixed a little better. Another thing I have noticed for you novice recording engineers: The same song can sound completely different on a different stereo. So, though most of my songs seem pretty well-mixed on the "studio" speakers that is not the case elsewhere.

In fact, it is crazy all the stuff you have to do to make a recording sound good. Every one of the following makes a huge difference: the type of equipment, how/where it is miked, how well everything is tuned (duh), how much the level varies during the performance (less is more, I've learned), the settings for "tone," reverb, effects, etc. on the instrument and/or primary equipment like amps, the effects on the recording device including compression (this is to keep the volume or level from varying so much) and a whole myriad of other things that mess with the EQ, then the mixing of the tracks after they are recorded including overall volume, overall bass and treble and mid-range, and effects like echo or reverb or what-ever, then the mastering which is like the detail work of bringing sounds into the foreground and background and I don't even know what else.

I myself am such a novice at this but I feel like I am becoming less stupid, slowly but surely. I will be sooo excited when I am done and proud of the finished product.

Jareth

Last night I saw the movie Labyrinth on the "big screen." It was thrilling, for sure, though I don't have quite as much love for the show as most of the people who were in the theater. I feel like it's important to support your boyfriend in his obsessions. It had been a long time since I had seen the film and I was quite a bit younger then such that it had never registered to me just how tight david bowie's tights are in that movie. It's like his pants are a character unto themselves. But let's not dwell on that and instead talk about the acting chops of Mr. Bowie. Though this is clearly his definitive role, he also played some other memorable characters in recent memory. My favorite may be his portrayal of Andy Warhol in the film Basquiat.
He also played a key role in the recent movie "The Prestige." What is your favorite role of David Bowie's?

a paragraph

For someone that walks like a turtle, Mavis is pretty agile when you throw a sweaty sock at her. I did it once, just to wake her up. Mavis is truly a force, though, when she holds a bb-gun. I half expect her to be carrying one when she comes to the door. “Hey Mavis,” I’m shouting as I pound on her door. "Mavis, come open the door. I brought you clean socks."

I finally hear the icy roll of her wheels and the low bump-shuffle as she moves across the wood floor with her walker, cursing me under her breath for making her get up. I can picture the little rose circles she paints on her face to pass as a skin tone and her big pink glasses to match, but then i remember she hasn't had her hair done for months, and when her hair isn't done she can't be bothered with anything more taxing than flipping the channels from "The Price is Right" to "Highway to Heaven" re-runs to any other number of shows that are really viewed best while snoring and half one eye open.

google maps

What's the deal with UPS not being able to find my house? Like i don't have four other roommates that have ordered stuff plenty of times. Like we didn't affix nice bright new numbers to the mailbox. Like any doofus with a computer couldn't view a satellite picture of my house. Those little mischevious fates: discount footwear I ordered does not save me the trip to pick it up after all.

Meanwhile it's lovely when a little annoyance is the only thing standing in your way. I revel in the calm after the storm at work. The calm before the storm is heavy with dread. The calm after the storm is like happy-friday-everything's-gonna-be-alll-riiight time. It reminds me of a song some former cult member friends of mine used to sing:

This whole world is screwed up
And we got no place to go
But I know
It's gonna be all right

Cuz I got my blessed brothers
And I got my beautiful sisters
And everything's
Gonna be all right . . .

Is that even right? Maybe my old friend Buddy is stalking me on the internet and can let me know. That would be kind of delightful in a way.

Arizona, continued

Opportunities abound:

Including the opportunity to see my little brother grow a full moustache and then keep it thoughout the wedding so it would be pictured for the sake of posterity. And of course the chance to see him find a good girl and make a commitment. My sis-in-law is a pretty down-to-earth hip girl. Also, she agrees that an amusing photo opportunity serves as justification for many things. A good match.


These are my nieces, again, as photographed by my older brother, their uncle. They are growing up and will have a little sister in a couple months. It is a cool thing to see my middle brother's family grow and increase. It is also cool to see the photographer of this photo enjoy being an uncle.

We had the chance to view some completely different natural scenes to what we are used to seeing every day in the eastern US. LCD is a big fan of the desert so he was excellent at humoring me when I was trying to identify plants and learn new ones. This photo is from a hike in Sedona among the red rocks. It seems to me that living in Sedona must be like living in a post card. Or a vortex (see post below). It was beautiful indeed.

This may be the real winner as far as natural wonders go. This was from us hiking a mile or so down into the Grand Canyon. It is in-de-scrib-able and it can not be captured in 2-D. But I tried anyway. I thought the foreground rock wall contrasted with the background canyon might give some perspective. If you click on the photo to see the big version you can see the people coming down the switchback, which are my people: My parents, my brother and sweetiepieface raising both arms in exultation. Exultation was called for on this expedition.

Vortex et al

This is my little brother with his new wife as they experience the female energy of a vortex in the spiritual power center that is Sedona, Arizona. As we learned by eavesdropping on the guy giving a tour to one or two people, the female energy in this vortex makes it a place of healing (male vortexes are for strength). I'm not sure whether you can sense anything from just seeing the photo, but according to the guy, your experience in the vortex is determined by how open your heart and mind are.

My batteries were dead on the actual wedding day. My recent trip also afforded all other kinds of great opportunities:

Like this time when my youngest niece began foaming at the mouth after an overfed rabid grand canyon squirrel had been gnawing on her leg.

more to come . . .

the fire

i pretty much don't have a blog.

anyway, i went to a rock show last friday. some of my friends and i had gotten tickets the day they went on sale like pre-teens for sanjaya or something. (i seriously do NOT know my teen pop stars. just last night i was talking about a song by christina aguilera that lcd told me was actually beyonce.) the show sold out in maybe like an hour. this was back in march. flash forward to may 4 and lcd and myself are strolling into dar constitution hall for the ar-cade fi-re. this was my third experience with the arcade fire and it was grand. it's the sort of band you would really like to be in if you're going to be in a band. you get to shout stuff and bang on things and play every instrument. speaking of which i have a girl crush on regine. she can play EVERYTHING. and her harmony vocals are out of this world sometimes. she makes me want to be a soprano.

anyway i recently got eager about recording again. lcd and i wrote bass and keyboard parts for "picture" and "rosa" and we tried out a few different bass parts for "david brown" and just couldn't get satisfied. i'd like to finish "rosa" in time to give a completed copy to my brother when we go out for his wedding. i need a stellar volunteer drummer. i can dream. and i can live the dream. just you wait.

Hope, Joy and Peace on the web

I thought you might like to know the results of my internet search on the .com versions of Hope, Joy and Peace.

Hope: Lame, lame search engine where all non-crude junk mail goes to die
Joy: Mining machinery
Peace: Interactive computer systems for utilities (like gas, electric) consumers

I was bewildered, but it's my own fault since I used .com

In other news I am wearing a bright orange sweater today, of which my Grandmother would be proud. I am forcing spring.