In the Hot August Sun

I have been seriously lacking in my posts this month. It's too bad because it’s been a really great month. That’s part of the problem, though. I didn’t get around to writing about a couple of awesome things and then the fact that I was behind in posting overwhelmed me, so I just stayed away all together.
Some things I have mentioned. We got rid of our old living room furniture and bought some new stuff and it’s all so much better and amazing in there and I just want to hang out there all the time.

We saw The National twice at the beginning of the month and they blew me away each time.

As for the rest, how about a quick, bulleted list of everything else that has happened. Starting with:

*I finished my album!!!! It’s done! And I love it! I’m more proud of it than I ever could imagine myself being. I think it turned out really well. I have 11 tracks and only one which I would even consider being “filler”. Next up: Packaging. My friend is working on the design for me, then I have to get it printed and then the big CD release party on October 2nd. That is the goal date. Then? Who knows? Do I send it to radio stations, record labels, music critics? What do I want to accomplish with this? I need to decide. But I feel like I can’t put so much of myself, my time, and my money into something just to have it sit there. I should do something with it.

*My husband and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. We had a delicious dinner at the 112 Eatery (if you go there, get the scallops) and followed that with night 2 of The National. He also bought me a really cool pottery bowl.

*I turned 31 on the 21st. It’s amazing how old I don’t feel. Really? I’m 31? How did that happen? I’m pretty sure I’m still 28. Yep. 28. The city of Minneapolis had 3 musical festivals on my birthday, so we hit those up. We also had an amazing dinner at the Signature Café, one of my favorite places to eat.

*The MN State Fair started last week. I’ve worked 2 shifts at the MPR booth and spent Saturday night wandering the grounds post shift. We’re going back this weekend to really do it up right. I love the fair.

*I had another show at The Coffee Grounds last Friday. It was a nice turn out. I played with Leonard James of Birds of Virginia, a great alt-country band. It was fun. But, after making the album and hearing a lot of these songs with drums and bass, they just feel empty to me playing them alone. I need to find myself a band. But that goes back into the whole what do I want to do with this thing. Starting a band is a big commitment.

*And, finally, today I cancelled our cable. As of Wednesday, we will no longer have cable television. I’m strangely scared.

And that was August. I know other things happened. I wish I would have documented the recording process better. Maybe I’ll sum that up in another post.

Onto September!

St. Paul

I work in downtown St. Paul. It's a very strange place. St. Paul is the place where everything is just a little off. It has all the same restaurants/stores as everywhere else, but it's just a little off. Subway, Macy's, Fujiya...it's all just a little different here in St. Paul.

St. Paul also has a strange population of people. The only people who actually live here are the elderly, the handicapped, the homeless, and the gangsters and they all come out during the day and congregate outside of our workplace lunchroom. It makes for a very entertaining lunch.

My co-worker made this video explaning all of the wonderful things you can find in downtown St. Paul. It's probably only funny to those people who experience downtown St. Paul every day and know the sites. So, to me, it's hilarious.

If You're Going to Ride the Bus, Lay Off the Perfume

My morning bus ride is usually quite enjoyable. I get on early enough where I have my choice of seats. The bus never gets all that full, and if it does, it’s usually toward the end of the ride.

I don’t know what has happened, but that has changed.

For the last week, my bus has become swamped. This morning when I got on, there were no empty window seats left. This just never happens. Even in the fall when the college kids ride, there are always seats available. So, I had to sit next to someone on the aisle. I chose a woman reading her book. She seemed normal enough. What I didn’t realize at the time was that she was doused in perfume. It took a couple more stops for it to hit me, but when it did, I thought I was going to be sick. Since the bus was so packed, I couldn’t move. I was stuck, sucking in all of her floral stink.

To make matters worse, I’m still recovering from my cold. The last part of me still wallowing in sickness is my sinuses. Smelling her rotting flower perfume for 45 minutes did not help my situation. My nose and eyes are burning and it gave me a headache on top of everything else.

I don’t know why my bus is suddenly so crowded. It’s not like a bunch of people who used to take the bus are taking it again. I’ve been riding that bus for 3 years. These are all new people. Where do they come from? Why are they riding my bus now? I swear it seems like the world has doubled in population since Saturday. Yesterday, I had to drive into downtown St. Paul to do some work in the office and traffic was crazy. 9:45am on a Sunday and traffic was a mess. What’s going on? Where did all these people come from?

I know I’m very complainy right now. I’m just frustrated because I am trying to finish my album and I have 4 songs that need vocals and that is all that is left to do and I can’t sing with my nose all stuffed and that is the on thing on me that is still sick and all I want to do is finish the album and I have another scheduled recording session for Wednesday and it’s really hard to believe that my nose will be clear by then. I don’t want to cancel again.

It’s also my birthday week. So, being sick sucks.

Another 25 Songs

I’ve been sick this week. But last night, I was feeling better. I went to bed happy with the thought that I might be fully recovered by Saturday.

And then it stormed.

Around 1:45am, the first rumble of thunder happened and then it never stopped. Thunder rumbled for the next 4 and a half hours. Constantly. There were no breaks. Lightening flashed non-stop. I’ve never witnessed a storm stay so constant for so long.

Of course, this upset the dog. So, I got up around 2am to sleep in the den (he calms down when the TV is on). I crammed myself onto the tiny Ikea couch and tried to sleep, but could not get comfortable. I moved to the floor. But the hard wood was no better. I tossed and turned until sometime after 4am when I thought the storm had passed and I decided to crawl back into bed. As soon as I did, it started up again. This time it was louder and there was a lot of rain. So I got up again and squeezed back onto the couch, determined to sleep. Eventually I did fall asleep. When I woke up, my ear was in terrible pain. I had been holding the pillow over my head so tight, that I was basically punching myself in the ear all night.

The alarm went off at 6:30 and the storm miraculously quit. How does it know to do that? How can it last all through the sleeping hours and quit as soon as the alarm goes off? It’s crazy.

So now I am super tired and not feeling very well again. I just want to go home and sleep. But since I am at work, here’s another installment of 25 Songs That Play on My iPod While I Am Sick At Work. It’s been a while.

“Postcard” – Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles
“Potion” – Morphine
“All the Wine” – The National
“Badlands” – Bruce Springsteen
“Lifeboat” – Ani Difranco (new - unreleased song)
“To Ramona” – Bob Dylan’
“Trickle Down” – Brenda Weiler
“Face Down in the Right Town” – Earlimart
“Open” – The Cure
“Brandy Alexander” – Feist
“Lit Up” – The National
“Love and Communication” – Cat Power
“Daisies” – Jentri Collelo
“6/8 Ballad” – Grickle Grass
“Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You” – Rilo Kiley
“Both Hands” – Ani Difranco
“Vitamin C” – Big Audio Dynamite
“A Certain Pleasure” – Erin McKeown
“Juicebox” – The Strokes
“Tonight, Tonight” – Smashing Pumpkins
“Desire” – Ryan Adams
“Field Below” – Regina Spektor
“For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti” – Sufjan Stevens
“Miss Independent” – Kelly Clarkson
“Float On” – Modest Mouse

Rosy-Minded Fuzz

For the past 6 months or so, I have avoided getting sick by taking a combination of Zicam and Echinacea tea everytime I even begin to feel slightly under the weather. But, I knew I couldn't keep it away forever. It has found me.

So, here I am. Sick. Near voiceless and stuffed up. Achey. Itchy eyes. And in 3 days I'm supposed to finish the vocals on my album. I'm hoping I feel better by then. I don't want to reschedule. I'm behind as it is. Not that I have a set deadline that has to be met. But I have my own personal deadline and I would like to meet it.

But enough about being sick. There have been too many other awesome things happening lately to let this get me down. For starters:

1. I saw The National two nights in a row on Thursday and Friday. Favorite band status complete. They are so amazing. Run run run and buy their albums. All of them. Then go see them live. I promise you that you will not be disappointed.

2. Our mission to redo our living room is starting to really take shape. As mentioned in a previous post, we sold our old furniture. This past Saturday, we bought some new furniture. We don't have everything we need yet, but just seeing the transformation happening is very exciting. It looks so awesome out there. So much more us.

3. The work on my album is moving along. It's been going slower than anticipated, but it's still coming together and getting done and I'm super excited about it. I mean, I'm making an album! Yay!

4. My birthday is in just under 2 weeks. I'll be 31. Or, thirty - wonderful, as some friends of mine have said in the past. I think now that the 30 has happened, I'm excited about my birthday again. No solid plans as of yet, but I think I want to keep it kind of mellow anyway. Not like last year.

So, yeah, good things.

Y Kant Tori Amos Pronounce Words Correctly Anymore?

Last night the song “Winter” by Tori Amos shuffled into my listening ears while I was playing another exciting game of Spider Solitaire via the AARP website . Great game. Anyway, I was struck by how amazing her vocals are. She is an amazing singer. Or, was an amazing singer. What happened?

It’s not that she’s lost her range, but she’s taken on this very strange accent when she sings. It’s like she’s forgotten how to say vowels. ‘O’ turns into ‘E’. ‘A turns into U’. It’s very very weird and ruins all new material from her. Unfortunately, it also ruins all live recordings of older songs, too.

I heard a live radio broadcast of “Silent All These Years” recently. It hurt my ears so much to hear her pronounce the chorus: “Sueeelent ooooll these yeeeers”. Who talks like that? It is irritating.

Then there is the recording I have of “1000 Oceans” – oh, wait, that’s now “1000 Eeeeesheeuns”. What the hell is an “eeeesheeun” and how do you get 1000 of them?

I don’t know why she’s chosen to speak/sing this way. I’ve heard a couple of her official boots where she is talking in some sort of strange British accent. I know she lives in London and is married to a Brit and maybe it’s the whole Madonna disease happening. Fine. I tend to pick up accents pretty easily when I’m around people with accents. But that still doesn’t explain the singing. She’s totally doing it on purpose and it is ruining her music. Do her fans really enjoy it? I know she has some serious fanaticals out there. Do you think they all run around talking like this now? Maybe it’s their own Tori Amos version of Klingon. I guess, for me, I’ll stick to the classic, album versions of her older songs.

Like, “Winter”. Which last night, totally hit me and I think is so beautiful and heartbreaking. I never gave the lyrics much thought before. It’s a gorgeous song. Give it a listen.

Attachments

My husband and I are in the process of revamping our living room. We’ve had the same living room furniture since our last house and it just never felt right in this house. So now, 5 years later, we’ve decided to do something about it.

The first thing we’ve done is sell the old couch and armchair. We put it up on Craigslist for a really good price. Someone was interested right away. They came to look at it last night. They were two college-aged boys. They barely even looked at it before giving my husband the money and packing it onto their trailer.

As I watched it leave, I got very sad. These were the first pieces of furniture we bought when we bought our first house. They’ve been in our lives for so long. They weren’t used all that often. Our dog used to sleep in the chair, but that stage had passed. Occasionally, I might lay on the couch to read, but I usually save books for the bus. Mostly they just hung out in the living room, there in case a guest came by when we would then congregate in the living room, but even still, we usually ended up in the kitchen.

But now they are gone. Probably off to live in some frat house somewhere. They will be used with much greater frequency, I assume. Beer will be spilt on them. Pot smoke will seep into the fabric. Heavy petting sessions will occur on their cushions. They will be the seats for crappy movie nights. I imagine mad dashes towards the big, crazy comfortable armchair.

I’m happy they will be used. If they weren't bought, they would have ended up on the curb for free taking. That would have made me feel terrible. What a way to strip them of their dignity. But I guess I am a bit sad that in their retirement years, they will be forced to endure long nights of partying and college boy stink. I know they are just couches and don’t really have retirement years, but they were my couches and I want what is best for them. I want them to be treated well.

I hope these boys take care of them.