Category: Daily Life

Ugh, remind me never to drink an iced cappuccino at 6:30 p.m. again.  I can’t remember when I’ve had a worse sleep.

The good news is that I drank it while meeting with a guitarist who is interested in starting an original hard rock band.  We chatted about band goals, music and uncommitted band members.  His last band had the opportunity to play at a big festival but had to turn it down because one of the players decided at the last minute that he couldn’t take a day off work.

I listened to eight songs he’d brought and liked them a lot.  He liked my vocals from the two songs on my old band’s website, which he listened to later that evening after we parted ways because I forgot to bring a CD – oops.

Before the weekend is out, my plan is to write lyrics for at least one of his songs and record vocals over it in our home studio.  After that, assuming all goes well, we’ll find a bass player, probably start recording and practicing at my house, and have my husband as our drummer until we find someone permanent.

That means it’s time for me to get my equipment back from the old drummer’s house – the sooner the better.  I’m going to shoot for this Saturday afternoon.  I have no idea where I’m going to put a huge PA at our house right now.  I suppose it’s time to go forward with our plan to convert the guest room into a band practice room.

After almost a year of apathetic band members, it’ll be a real treat to work with someone who’s enthusiastic about writing songs and recording.  All my weekly vocal lessons will actually pay off now!

Well, off to listen to the songs over and over until one of them starts to suggest lyrics to me.  Wish me luck!

Once again, I find myself in mid-May with nothing pretty planted in front of my house.  Well, except for the peony bush that comes up no matter what I do.  Right now, there are so many gigantic weeds surrounding the peonies that it’s a little tough to see them.

I find that I move through several mindsets to get to this point:

1. The Seed Stage – This happens in the early spring when it’s just started getting warm.  I look at the bare, empty flower beds and think, "If I tilled the soil now, I could plant $5.00 worth of seeds and have the best flower garden ever!"
2. Potted Plant Stage I – When it’s clearly too late to plant seeds in time to get any kind of flower bed going, I come to the realization that I’m going to need to buy flowering plants.  This usually happens when I don’t have any money, so it gives me lots of time to think about what I might want.  Marigolds?  Pansies?  Impatiens?  Some kind of perennial so I don’t have keep going through this every single year?
3. Potted Plant Stage II – Eventually, I’ll go to the nursery and buy many flats of plants (never enough, though).  I always time it so that I can’t plant them right then, but I make plans to plant them the next day…or week…or fortnight.  I’m usually pretty good about keeping them watered until they’re planted, but sometimes a few of the plants die before I can get them in the ground.
4. The Planting Stage – Finally, I’ll have a weekend day free, nothing much recorded on the TiVo from the previous week and a wild hare to get the flowers into the ground.  I’ll pull up the weeds, run the rototiller, haul filthy bags of soil supplements and mulch home from the garden store in my car, and finally get some nice flower beds planted.

Right now I’m in Potted Plant Stage I, but I’ve decided on marigolds.  That’s progress, isn’t it?

On Saturday morning, I participated in a 5k run/walk (mostly walking).  I was a last-minute substitution for another co-worker, and I’d warmed up somewhat with a 1-mile walk the previous evening.  I’m not sure what made me agree to do it, but I figured it wouldn’t kill me.

Mostly I just walked fast with little bursts of jogging now and then.  When I was getting close to the end, I started to break into one last jog and my right calf muscle said, "Whoa there!  That’s enough of that!"

I felt a little sproing that was enough to remind me that one trip to the gym every month does not constitute training.  I walked the rest of the way.  The good news is that I still managed to make the 3.1 miles in 46 minutes.  They’d allotted a whole hour!

The next morning, I woke up stiff from my ribcage to my calves.  I immediately unrolled my yoga mat in the living room and did sun salutations until my Tin Woodman-like gait subsided.  I’ll be doing another round today before I leave for work.

I hope this experience will spur me to establish a more consistent exercise routine.  It would certainly be nice if I could slim down a bit before summer kicks in.  I’ve already permanently banished shorts from my wardrobe, but I’d hate to have to let the skirts and capris go, too.  It gets hot here!

Yesterday I told my hair stylist that the problem with my hair boiled down to people saying, "Wow, I’d never have guessed that!" when I told them I’m in a hard rock band.  Obviously, some of that might be attributable to my age and lack of a heroin-thin physique, but still…

So she ended up adding some caramel-hued highlights to my dark brown color.  The cut stayed more or less the same, but it always looks better when it’s fresh.  I figured I could have her cover the highlights next time if I didn’t like them, but so far I think it’s a good look.  Thus, I’m not crying about my hair after all.  (Really, I don’t think I’ve cried over my hair since the horrible perm I got in junior high school.)

I’m running a little late this morning, but I’ll finish out by sharing some links I like:

• The Saddest Thing I Own – A blog collection of reader-submitted stories and photos.  It reminds me a little of PostSecret.
• Here’s one I found quite a while ago, but still revisit from time to time:  Lost Films.  This guy develops old film from secondhand cameras and posts the results online.  There’s something rather haunting about looking at old snapshots that the photographers and subjects never got to see.
• And just to ease the melancholy of the previous link suggestions, here’s The Daily Kitten.  As the name suggests, they add a new photo of a kitten each day…at 3:07 p.m. GMT, to be precise.

Enjoy your Wednesday!

I got a lot of early grey hair genes from my dad’s side of the family.  I remember visiting my 30-something cousins when I was a kid and discovering that they all had grey hair.

Thus, I’m not surprised that I am getting more and more grey hair myself, but I have to say that I’m not exactly enjoying it.  For one thing, it’s bad timing that I’m really enjoying a dark hair color right now.  That means I have to keep up with the color touch-ups lest I end up with a skunk stripe down my part.  Okay, it’s not that bad yet, but there’s definitely silver hair shining through.

The other thing that’s been weird is how different the texture of my hair has become.  I’ve always had fairly straight hair, but all the hidden grey is making my hair a lot more wavy and voluminous (and frizzy).  I’m fairly indifferent about hair styling, but now I have to make at least a little effort to keep my hair under control.  I often fall back on the old pony tail – that is, when I can find a pony tail holder that the cats haven’t stolen.

Tonight I have a long-overdue appointment for a cut and color.  I procrastinated on making the appointment until I already had grey peeking through, then discovered that my hair stylist was booked up and/or on vacation until now. 

I’m getting a little tired of my hairstyle, but I’m not sure what can be done about it.  I like my hair long and bangs are a non-negotiable must, but the rest of the style seems awfully…conservative.  Maybe I can throw myself on my stylist’s mercy and see if she can think of anything more interesting to do.  If I sound as though I’m crying in tomorrow’s post, you’ll know why.

Saturday was a busy day.  I started out making a dessert for a potluck my husband would be attending later in the day, going to breakfast with him, then moving on to an early band practice. 

Things are going downhill with the band fairly rapidly, so practice was brief and there’s a chance that it’ll be our last one.  We did finally have the "where are things going" talk and it seems that I’m the only band member who has a goal in mind (a decent demo CD and occasional gigs).  Everybody else is so lukewarm about the whole thing, it’s hard to believe that they’re the ones who formed the band in the first place.  Sigh.

So anyway, once I got home, I planned to laze around a bit before heading to a friend’s engagement party.  However, I discovered that my husband was still home, even though he should have been at his party, dessert in hand, more than an hour earlier.  It turned out that the bandmate he was planning to go with had flaked out and he didn’t want to go by himself.  "But I made you a dessert!" I said.

To get him to go to his event, I offered to go along as long as we didn’t stay too long.  We made an appearance, met lots of strangers, got rave reviews for the dessert, and left after a couple of hours.

My next stop was the engagement party.  It had a left brain/right brain theme in honor of the two "mixed brain" couples, which was a fun idea.  I mainly expressed my right brainedness by decorating my plastic drinking cup with foam letters and designs.

The hosts had a "no shoes" policy, but managed to soften it somewhat by having baskets of novelty slippers available for guests to wear.  I eventually chose bunny slippers after walking around in my stocking feet long enough to get chilly.

I’m never quite sure how to feel about being asked to remove my shoes at someone’s house.  It’s one thing if there’s a cultural basis for the practice, but somehow it seems a little presumptuous to part guests from their footwear just because you’ve chosen to install white carpeting.  I don’t know – it just seems several notches less welcoming to make a personal demand of your guests the minute they walk in the door.

So that was my busiest weekend day.  My husband and I had lots of ideas for what we might want to do on Sunday, but we ended up just hanging out together all day at home, catching up on the TiVo’s offerings from last week and watching movies on HBO until late in the evening.  It wasn’t exciting, but at least it was cheap!

How was your weekend?

Today I met my sister at a restaurant for lunch.  She arrived a bit early, so by the time I got there at 11:30, there was a lady making fresh guacamole at our table.  In case you think we foolishly chose a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo, let me point out this this particular establishment has more of a "Baja, California" menu and vibe.

Anyway, I ordered some iced tea and selected a menu item.  It took kind of a long while to get the tea and have the opportunity to place our order, but I was happily eating chips and guac, so I didn’t think too much about it.  The restaurant was fairly busy, but not crazy-busy.

As my sister and I chatted, we noticed that people around us who’d come in after us were getting their food and we were not.  We asked the waiter when we could expect our meal, and he disappeared for another lengthy spell and then came back with some song and dance about "lots of orders hitting the kitchen at the same time…extra busy today…yadda yadda yadda."  In other words:  he forgot to put in our order.

That would have been all well and good, but time was ticking away and we both had places to be at 12:30.  By the time we’d reached the 45-minute mark, we realized we weren’t going to have time to eat together, so I flagged down the waiter and asked him to box up our food so we could take it with us.

The waiter disappeared again and we decided it was time we spoke to a manager.  We were very upbeat with the manager, "We understand that these things happen, etc." and didn’t ask for anything other than our food so we could leave, already. 

He said, "So you still don’t have your food?" 

No, we did not have our food, even though we’d been there almost an hour.  Needless to say, we were not charged for the meal.

Finally, the waiter emerged from the kitchen with our food in to-go containers.  I looked through the clear lid of mine and saw only an enchilada.  I said to my sister, "Do you see a taco in there?"

We looked at each other for a moment.  "Aw fuck it, it’s free," I said.

When I got back to the office, I sent the food on a brief trip through the microwave and had a late lunch at my desk.  It wasn’t at all what I’d had in mind for my midday meal, but what can you do?

I worked more than 12 hours yesterday, if you count the two hours I spent at my dad’s office after I left my regular job.  I woke up today so tired that I feel a little shaky, even after a shower.  Somehow I think all the caffeine in the world isn’t going to help me today.

I love, love, love to sleep.  That’s why I’ll take a nap any chance I get.  My worst fear is that my sleep patterns will change and I’ll someday end up like my dad:  unable to sleep through the night, rattling around the house at 4:00 a.m. looking for something to watch on TV until I get sleepy again.

My internal alarm clock works really well.  That’s why I was up at 5:30 this morning.  Even though I put in a looong day yesterday, I have a lot to do today and it’ll really help to get an early start.

That is, assuming I can stay awake…

I’ve been singing with my current band since last June.  Lately, it’s started to feel like the musical equivalent of a booty call:  we get together, play a bit, then move on without ever really talking. 

So far, we’ve played one party (mine) and one public jam.  I know it’s time I initiated the "where is this relationship going" talk with the band.  I can see that nobody else is going to do so.

In the meantime, I’ve been casting an eye toward the "Musicians Wanted" classifieds online.  Last week I saw an ad, "Lead Singer and Drummer Wanted."  My husband (a drummer) and I have been talking lately about playing together again and we agreed it would be worth checking out.

I e-mailed the guy (a guitarist) and asked when he and the bass player were practicing next.  He e-mailed back, "Tonight at 6:30!  Call me a.s.a.p."

Hmm, kind of short notice, but potentially do-able.  I checked with the hubby and we decided that we could make it if we hurried.  I called the guy and got his wife, who said he’d stepped out.  However, she knew the details of where and when they practiced, so she gave me directions and I followed up with an e-mail to the guy to make sure no signals got crossed.

Practice wasn’t at the guitarist’s place, but we were to meet him at his apartment and follow him to the bass player’s house.  We raced to make it to the meeting place, which was a challenge since it was a good 30+ minutes from our house, at rush hour.  We made it there only a few minutes late and called to get the guy to meet us up the street.  He, uh, wasn’t home.

By then, my husband and I could see the writing on the wall.  We were in a part of town best known for meth labs, and I really regretted never having spoken to the flake who placed the ad, because I was pretty sure that would have saved us the trip.

We got directions to the bass player’s house since we were already all the way out there anyway.  One look at the tiny PA speakers in the non-soundproofed basement room where practice was held pretty much quashed any remaining hopes that we might be dealing with professionals who could, as their ad read, "Play two nights a week in clubs."

The bass player also played "some guitar" so we thrashed most of the way through AC/DC’s "You Shook Me All Night Long" before running out of common musical ground.  The bass player seemed oddly nervous, the guitar player still hadn’t showed up, and my patience was reaching its end.

At 7:30, I said, "Well, I need to get home and do some work…since I had to leave the office early for this and all."

My husband took the hint and started rapidly packing up the snare drum and pedal he’d brought.

The bass player apologized profusely for his friend, and we resisted the urge to advise him to find a new band situation for himself, too.  The moment we set foot outside the door, the phone rang and the bass player said, "It’s Flaky McFlakerson* – he’s on his way over right now."

"Uh, yeah, that ship has sailed," I said.  You might think I’m making that up, but that’s actually exactly what I said.  I’d had enough.

We got in my car, found our way back to the highway, stopped off at a chain barbecue place in the area that no longer exists in our neighborhood, and made it home before 9.

On the way back, my husband and I swapped bad audition stories and agreed that this wasn’t the worst we’d experienced. 

I told him I really appreciated my band a great deal more now.  At least they’re punctual.  We still need to talk about why we’ve developed a list of almost 30 songs that almost no one else has ever heard us play, but that seems like a minor quibble compared to the prospect of dealing with musicians who can’t be bothered to show up for an audition that they’ve advertised and scheduled.

*Not that I really want to protect the guy’s identity, but I don’t remember what his name was and this is funnier.

Sorry everybody, but I’m too swamped with work to post again today this week.  I’ll try to resume my regular schedule tomorrow next week.

In the meantime, feel free to click around on my blogrolls.  There’s a lot o’ good stuff there!