Category: Daily Life

Because I’ve been rather poky about writing new songs lately, my vocal teacher has taken to having me sing other types of music at the end of my lessons.  A few weeks ago, we worked on "The Star-Spangled Banner."  She argued that any singer might someday be asked to sing it in public.  I think it’s unlikely that "any singer" really encompasses the heavy metal genre, but I suppose you never know.

The main thing I learned about the national anthem is that it’s vitally important that the third note in the song be the absolute bottom of the singer’s comfortable range.  Otherwise, the high notes are impossible except for freaks of nature with multi-octave ranges.

At my lesson yesterday, we continued in the patriotic vein with "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful," neither of which I had sung since elementary school.

It’s amazing how many songs remain neatly filed away in my brain after all these years. I can still think of most of the lyrics and melodies of countless Christmas carols, hymns, nursery songs, folk songs and ’50s hits that were considered "oldies" when I was growing up.

Of my parents, only my mom was music fan, so I grew up listening to her extremely random selection of favorites:  Elvis (of course), the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Julie Andrews (particularly the "Camelot" soundtrack), Julie London and Johnny Mathis. One of my mom’s majors was Spanish, so we also had a rousing selection of mariachi music. The folk songs I know all came from a worn album of Burl Ives 78 rpm records.

It was my grandparents who introduced me to Tom Lehrer. They had all his albums and apparently didn’t find his sometimes twisted humor to be inappropriate for a kid. I think I can still sing any of the songs from "Songs by Tom Lehrer" and "More of Tom Lehrer."

I distinctly remember how exciting it was to finally discover other types of music. My aunt gave me some of her old LPs, including The Beatles’ "Abbey Road," Mahavishnu Orchestra’s "Birds of Fire" and one of Bob Dylan’s early albums.  My sister and I listened to them eagerly, knowing that our parents did not like them.  After that, it wasn’t long before I had a whole stack of albums that made my mom yell, "Turn that crap down!"

I had some minor outpatient surgery on Friday morning, which ended up giving me most of the day to goof around online and watch TV.  Once I woke up from the anesthesia, I felt perfectly fine all day and never even needed to take a nap.

As long as I was taking it easy, I got moving on a few long overdue projects.  The biggie:  starting a new Bloglines account and adding the feeds from my out-of-control blog lists.  Between personal, entertainment and business blogs (and other non-blog sites with RSS), I’m up to 179 feeds.  I can’t believe I waited so long when it’s so convenient to have the updates brought to me as soon as they’re posted.

The next change I have in the works is switching back to Mac from PC.  All of the recent warnings about  imminent PC attacks, combined with that @#$%^ Windows Genuine Advantage notification popup that refuses to accept the legitimacy of my copy of Windows, have finally lured me back from what my husband refers to as "the dark side."  I’ve backed up all my files from the PC and I’ll probably complete the swap tonight.

Speaking of things I’m not willing to put up with, I am SO glad that Blogher took place before the current airport insanity.  I’ve pretty much decided that there’s no destination so appealing right now that it’s worth flying to.  Any travel I undertake in the foreseeable future will have to be a road trip.  It’s lucky I drive a hybrid.

I’m almost ready to start the new blog I thought of while I was at Blogher.  I’m going to plan out the first dozen or so posts, scan the recurring photos, and decide which posts will require new photography.  The biggest thing I need that I can’t do for myself:  template design.  If you or someone you know is a graphic designer who freelances and has time to build me a blog design for Typepad, let me know!  (I’ll hit up all the designers I know in real life, too, but they tend to be booked solid all the time.)

The new blog has an important characteristic that differs from my other blogs:  it reveals my real name.  I’ve been thinking a lot about my online semi-anonymity over the past year or so and it seems less and less important that I truly remain anonymous.  As we’ve seen from the recent AOL debacle, online privacy is an illusion anyway.  My family, friends and co-workers already know that this is my blog; anyone else in my life who might stumble across it is unlikely to be offended or surprised by anything I’ve written. 

That’s not to say I’m going to start regularly blurting out my real name here.  However, I have decided that I’ll announce and link to the new blog when it launches.  When my band is ready, I’ll also announce and link to our songs, probably on my personal MySpace page.

I hope you all enjoy the new era of multifaceted Jane-ness.

The guitarist in my band doesn’t like vegetables. He reminds me of Me’s husband, who will only eat starchy vegetables like potatoes, corn and peas.

We’ve been recording a lot lately, which means I feel obliged to try to fix veggie-optional meals during our breaks.

At first, I grilled stuff.  That seemed like the easiest way to go.  I’d make hamburgers or hot dogs on the propane grill, steam some sweet corn, and perhaps pick up a bag of chips and some mustard potato salad to go with it.

After a while, we all got tired of that, so I tried to think of other options that didn’t involve lots of pre-packaged ingredients.  I failed.  Since the weekend, we’ve had sloppy joes, spaghetti made from Ragu sauce (it’s the organic kind, but still…) and tacos. 

Of those meals, the tacos were probably the least evil.  There’s a large Hispanic population in my area and our local grocery store makes awesome tortillas from scratch every day.  The only pre-packaged parts of the meal were some corn taco shells, Newman’s Own salsa, and pre-mixed taco spice from a jar.  I used my last tomato from the farmer’s market to great effect as a garnish, along with lettuce, sharp cheddar and sour cream.

At this point, I’m running out of ideas again.  I guess there’s always tuna casserole, or maybe pizza from scratch.

Anybody have any suggestions?

This weekend’s minor triumphs:

• Cleaned out the refrigerator.  As I suspected, we have nothing to eat.
• Did two loads of laundry.  Well, three, if you count the one I had to rewash after I let it sit in the washing machine too long.
• Wrote the lyrics to a song.  One down, seven to go.
• Got lots of sleep.

Not yet crossed off the to-do list:

• Recording vocals for two songs that could use another go.
• Writing copy for a friend’s website.
• Organizing content for two sites I need to work on.
• Several phone calls (I HATE talking on the phone.  Why can’t everyone have e-mail?)
• Cleaning off my messy, messy desk.

We’ll see what I can accomplish in the evenings this week.

I’m back from BlogHer, but I haven’t had enough time to digest everything and prepare a post about it yet.  That’ll have to wait until tomorrow.  I had a wonderful time reconnecting with lots of people I met last year, introducing myself to people I was too chicken to talk to last year, and meeting lots of new bloggers whose work I’m anxious to start reading.

Flickr now contains several highly unflattering photos of me, and I haven’t even uploaded my own yet.

Yesterday was a long travel day with frequent delays.  Fortunately, I had a fun travel companion to chat with the whole way.

More on Tuesday!

I have one more day left to get ready for BlogHer and I’ve taken care of the really essential stuff, like sending screen captures to Susan Getgood so I’ll be prepared to speak on the Business Blog Case Studies "unpanel" Saturday afternoon.

There’s still a lot to be done before I’m ready to go.  For example, I need to go to the tiny toiletries aisle at the drug store and decide which little toothpaste and shower gel to buy.  I also need to find a roll of duct tape with which to remove all of the white cat hair that our calico has been diligently applying to my suitcase since I got it out of the closet earlier this week.

I have a great idea for entertaining myself on the plane and getting valuable work done at the same time.  I’m going to put the instrumental versions of the last songs I need to write on my iPod and bring a notebook and a pencil.  While I’m in the air, I can play the songs over and over as needed until I’ve completed the lyrics.  It’ll be hard to keep from humming them to myself, but I think I can suppress the urge.

I think I’m pretty much ready to go.  I found my passport to take in case my expired license/renewal receipt combo doesn’t cut it with airline security.  My passport photo is even more horrifying than my license photo.  When it was taken I had blonde, much shorter hair, was at least 20 pounds heavier, and looked downright matronly.  Maybe it isn’t such a good I.D. option.

Enjoy the rest of your week!  I’ve decided that dragging a laptop through two airports in each direction is way more trouble than it’s worth, so I’m leaving my computer at home.  I’ll post about my San Jose adventures on Monday.

My general absentmindedness has caught up with me in two noticeable ways this week:

1. I finally realized yesterday that my driver’s license expired on my birthday (July 7th).  It’s hard to believe I let it go so long, particularly since I DESPISE the photo I’ve been stuck with for the last six years.

   I went to the license bureau to get a renewal today and stood in line
   for an hour with way more people than I would have expected to see there on a
   Thursday afternoon.  It turns out I won’t get my new license in the mail for up to a month, so I’ll need to dig up my passport to take to the airport when I fly to BlogHer next week.  Grrr.

   The license bureau gave me a weird receipt that I can carry until my license arrives.  It includes a black and white version of the photo I’ll have on my license and I can already predict that I will grow to loathe that photo as much as I did its predecessor.  It’s obvious that I wasted my time going home this afternoon specifically to wash and re-style my hair for my license photo.  (I hope I’m not the only one who does that sort of thing.)

2. When I posted about watching VH1 Rock Honors back in June, I was too lazy to look up the correct spelling of Gilby Clark’s name and thus added an extra "e" to his first name before the "y."  Now my blog is getting a metric buttload of Google traffic from "Rockstar: Supernova" viewers who are equally spelling-challenged. 

   Hi, everyone!  What do you think of the show so far?  Don’t you wish Zayra would get voted off already?  I’d love to see a woman win, but not that disrespectful beyotch.  And what’s Tommy Lee’s problem?  Is he acting out because Pammie is getting married to Kid Rock next week?  Hitting on all the female singers is just sleazy, dude.  And lay off the coke.  Don’t think we can’t tell.

Wow, that was fun.  Thanks for encouraging me to bring the snark, Cagey and Mocha Momma.  I should give it free rein more often.  Have a great weekend, everybody!

Today is Day 4 of the six-day seminar I’m running all over town to help conduct.  This is supposed to be the last day of 100+ degree heat, but that’s not much consolation.  Yesterday the extreme heat was almost too much for my little hybrid, so I’m taking the Jeep today.

Tonight there’s a social event for the seminar attendees that will include karaoke.  Normally I’m anti-karaoke because it takes income away from bands and musicians.  However, I’m relaxing my stance just for today because I’m looking forward to seeing all of my dad’s goofball friends trying to sing.

My dad has been going around telling everyone that I’m going to sing tonight, which is true.  I’m trying to formulate a karaoke strategy for myself, but it isn’t easy since I don’t know what songs will be available.  I’m hoping for a nice, solid AC/DC tune, or maybe some Led Zeppelin. 

My husband is sick this week with a sore throat and cough and I’m trying to resist his germs by sheer force of will.  The last thing I need to finish out the week and head into BlogHer is a week-long illness.  Wish me luck.

The heat, it is ridiculous.  Today’s heat index is supposed to be between 105 and 112 degrees Fahrenheit.  Every time I step outside, it’s like opening an oven door, but with the added bonus of unbreatheable humidity.  I’ve actually spent most of the day inside, but I’m still all sticky.  I’m retaining so much water that my fingers look like sausages and the waistband of my pants is cutting off my circulation.

So how’s your week going?

This is my annual week of non-vacation from work, wherein I help my dad run a six-day seminar.  So far things are going fairly well, but all hell will no doubt break loose tomorrow when we go from everyone in a single class to 150+ people divided into six classes in several different locations.

The main reason I haven’t blogged this week is that I keep forgetting to set my alarm clock in the morning and by the time I wake up on my own, I only have time to put my hair in a pony tail, dab on a tiny bit of makeup, throw on clothes, take a Nexium, and head out the door.

Until the seminar wraps up on Saturday, I’ll be running all over town, probably sweating and cursing.  So far, I’m less crabby that I thought I would be, but give me another couple of days in the heat and we’ll see how I get.

Anyone else pining for a quick visit to the Antarctic right now?

I’ve had seven days off work out of the last nine days.  In that time, I’ve managed to revert to my preferred daily schedule, which involves staying up well past midnight and sleeping until late morning.

Over the last three days, I’ve been to a midnight movie, had dinner at
Denny’s after the bars closed (my husband had a gig – I wasn’t just
randomly bar hopping), and stayed up until 1:00 a.m. catching up on
episodes of "Deadwood."  Breakfast:  noon or later each day.  It’s been lovely.

Years ago, I worked a 3:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. shift at a printing company.  Because my husband was a musician who kept similar hours, we’d stay up most of every night.  It wasn’t unusual to find us grocery shopping at 2:00 a.m. or later. 

The job didn’t involve any face-to-face contact with the public, so I’d often roll out of bed at 2:30 or 3:00 p.m., throw on whatever clothes were handy, and head to the office without even bothering to brush my hair.  Good times.

As I’m yawning my way through this post at 7:00 a.m. (when I should be getting dressed and, yes, fixing my hair), I sure wish I could have stayed in bed until at least nine or ten.  I’d be perfectly okay with another noon-ish breakfast, followed by lunch at around 5:30 or so and dinner at 10.

Unfortunately, I can’t avoid the reality that I’ll be at my desk by 8:00 a.m. all this week, and at my dad’s seminar by 7:30 a.m. every day next week.

I wonder what it would be like to not have to follow any kind of regular schedule.  I suppose I got a taste of it when I was self-employed, but I still ended up working at relatively standard times except when I didn’t have any work to do at all.  Unless I win the lottery (which is highly unlikely, seeing as I never buy lottery tickets), I doubt I’ll ever find out.

What’s your daily schedule?  Do you like it or wish you could have a different routine?