Video blog!

I am so not used to doing these... Good for me to push myself out of my box a bit though I think.

Video blog about getting back from my 3rd annual trip to Rocky Mountain Song School in Lyons Colorado, including my newest song I wrote there!

Lyrics:
WITHOUT A PLAN
Back in Ohio, we plotted out five years
We couldn't make it through that first one
Sold everything that didn't fit inside a rental truck
Friends and family thought that it was crazy
When my wife and cat and I
Left without a plan

CHORUS
Without a plan
Without a clue
Somehow we just knew
That whatever we didn't know we'd come to understand
Living life
Without a plan


Oh Arizona, I was so naive
Thought my savings would last me longer
It was in those first five months I learned how to breath
Checked out books and built our cottage daily
With my own two hands
and without a plan

CHORUS
Without a plan
Without a clue
Somehow we just knew
That whatever we didn't know we'd come to understand
Living life
Without a plan

I still remember how the rain came down that first night
How the nails poked through roof in the loft where we slept
Still remember how hard it was to keep it watertight
but July 4th, 1995, was the best day of my life
It was the day I started living without a plan

CHORUS
Without a plan
Without a clue
Somehow we just knew
That whatever we didn't know we'd come to understand
Living life
Without a plan

That whatever we didn't know we'd come to understand
Living life
Without a plan

Sheesh

Well, we didn't ever get the super crazy snowstorm they had us all worried about, but it HAS been snowing off and on for a couple days now and we've got quite a few inches.

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

I have to admit, I'm just the tiniest bit disappointed it didn't happen! They really had people all freaking out and stocking up. I guess it doesn't hurt to be prepared, and it IS really cold and you DO have to be careful driving.

I managed to stay in all day until about 8:30pm when I decided I better go out for some medicine. My tummy hasn't been right since I got back from Peru - that's a whole week now! and the more natural stuff I've been trying helped a little but hasn't set it right. This stuff I got is supposed to work within two days and if it doesn't it's a bigger problem than I thought. I have a Dr. appt. on Friday for some routine stuff but if this is still going on I may ask them to switch the nature of the appt. argh. Let's just hope the medicine does the job.

I had thought I was going to drive out to Wal-Mart to get it, but as I was passing by Drugtown I saw the trees lined up against the wall and the lights still on. I wrestled with myself for a block and turned around at the next light to go back. I hadn't brought any ropes or anything to hold a tree, but I figured out that G's back seats fold down and if I got a little tree it should fit in. It did! I had to leave the hatch open about an inch but it wasn't far to drive home. The poor tree is all snowy from the past couple days and smashed to one side from leaning on the wall. I hope when we get it set up it will fluff out evenly... It's just leaning on the porch right now, but I feel very good to have it. Last year somehow I missed getting a tree and had to get out the emergency fake one and was all depressed about that, so at least we got one.

Speaking of depressed, I got an email today that the cafe where I've been making Saturday brunch since the spring is going to be closed on Saturdays until they open in their new location. What a huge bummer! It wasn't a lot of hours, but those hours were something I could rely on and they made a difference in my life, especially the tips, meager though they be. Between that and the caramel, that was my fun money - for getting coffee, for going to concerts, etc. I haven't had to go to the ATM for a long time pretty much because of that cash, and I knew that anything I was putting into the account would all go to bills. So now, no gallery, no cafe, no green light projects with our business (one we're taking payment installments for the next couple months, so that will help a tiny bit, and we have a couple waiting for someone to "pull the trigger" or "get funding approved" so who knows when that could be).

So yeah, um, this is like too big of a cosmic joke not to have a punchline, and the second December in a row (3rd if you count AS, but I WAS working for half of the month) where I find myself without work, though last year I was able to get temporary unemployment (that turned into actual unemployment). My friend sent me a couple of job listings, but the corporate business speak language made me nauseous just to read it. Dynamic team, self motivated, attention to detail, blah blah blah. URGH!!!! If I absolutely have to I could go back to a job like that for a little while, but I really can't stand to think of it.

The part time stuff was good, enough of a reliable income that I could squeak by, not so overwhelming as to get me depressed or freaked out about not having enough time. I think they'll pick the cafe back up when they move to the new location, and I did ask (again) if I could be trained on coffee so I'll have more options for hours there, so we'll see what comes of it.

The thing that most bums me out is today is the day that we could reserve our Song School slots, but with over $1000 of just basic debt owed to G from being short the past couple months, a bigass student loan for my music classes that has actually gotten BIGGER since I took it on even though I've been paying towards it for a good 6 months (STUPID INTEREST, TOTAL SCAM! grrrrr), and no foreseeable income in the near future, it just seems wrong to put $100 down on the credit card. I guess I know what I want for Christmas...

Song School starts the day after S's wedding next summer. PERFECT timing. I don't know what my work schedule would be by next August, but in an ideal world, I go out there early to help her, maybe a week, at least a few days, and then wedding Saturday, probably brunch Sunday, and then drive the 20 minutes up to to Lyons and set up camp! PERFECT. So I mean, it has to work out, and if I get the reservation as a Christmas present, then at least I'll have it and I'll have till May I think to come up with the rest of the $.

S showed me pictures of her dress today and it is SO perfect for her. Very much just embodies her. Classic, elegant, just a touch of funky. Awesome. She wants kind of like a bouquet of colors for the bridesmaids, JPC seems to have several possibilities that could work for her colorwise, though I'm not sure I want to buy a dress quite so far in advance in case I change sizes...hrmmm. I got kind of teary excited looking at all the pictures. I am just so happy for her that she's getting to have this and doing it her way. Which is how it should be for any wedding, but it's kind of a bigger deal for her because she was kind of not into the whole marriage thing for quite a while, but she did always want the white dress and the ring, and now she's got 'em!

I wrote a song tonight. Real fast and rough. Can't tell if it's any good, but part of the whole Artist's Way thing is "I take care of the quantity, God takes care of the quality." So just create, create, create. You have to keep working to get better, just do it. So yeah. I wrote a song. I noticed myself at the beginning wanting to say "I think I wrote a song." BS. I DID, I freaking wrote one, with chords and everything. What I mean when I say "I think I wrote a song" is, "I wrote something, but I'm afraid it's crap, so if I present it to you as a draft type of thing, maybe you'll go easy on me." If I get a good take, I might even post the video of it. We'll see.

Back. Or something.

I'm back from my trip to Colorado. Which was amazing. Lots of learning, breakthroughs, connections, heart openings, transformations etc, etc. I'm having a hard time adjusting to being back home though. The contrast from being in a community of like-minded people in full on CREATIVE mode for a week is pretty drastic.

Not to mention the to-dos in a bunch of areas and the disaster of the house is weighing pretty heavy on my mind and shoulders. G helped me clean the kitchen last night. At least ONE room in the house is clean.

I'm still wearing my stupid plastic wristbands from the trip. I kept my Song School one on during Folks Fest to show off a little, I admit. I wasn't the only one though, and it was a nice way to confirm that yes, we'd just been part of the few who had been a part of those few amazing days. I took a picture of them today, maybe I'll end up taking them off for tomorrow when I have to cook... They are a nice little anchor, reminding me of that good time. Conversation starter too, people ask what they're for, if I was at the Fair or Fun City or something and then I get to tell them where I got them.

I know I can't stay on vacations forever. But the contrast between vacation me and most-of-the-time me is so drastic sometimes that I can't help but think I must be doing something wrong most of the time. I remember that ear-to-ear grin stretching across my face for most of the week and compare it to the tightness in my jaw right now and my heart aches.

Do I just need less stuff?? Is it the stuff that weighs me down? When I just have a room or a tent and a few essentials, it sure is a lot less to think about and take care of. I don't think that's all of it, but I bet it wouldn't hurt to get rid of things...

I know also that if I did somehow stay on vacation forever it would cease to be vacation and turn into most-of-the-time and take on it's own problems. So yeah, it's about finding some sort of balance. I need to be a little patient with myself and let me just get back and catch up on things a bit and then worry about how to integrate the new things I learned with my life from before into a new version of my life.

I do know that it's wrong to compartmentalize my life and only let this part that came out to be out for one week in August. Gotta find a balance point.

Because while it was amazing, I also know that if I'd stayed much longer, I probably would have reached a burnout point there too. The dryness of the desert mountains, the so many people, the constant incoming stream of information, spending lots of money on food, etc.

So yeah. Balance. Swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other. Waiting for that mid point...

grah!!

Had another one of those moments, listening to a FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC song and simultaneously having my heart explode with joyous celebration/appreciation while shattering into a sloppy mess of despair and fear that I'll never be able to write a song as good/powerful/moving/amazing as that one.  And I know I'm not supposed to compare myself to others, I'm supposed to just BE myself.  And I know the only way to get better is to DO it, and I can't expect myself to already be there if I haven't put the work in yet.  But that whole "What if I work really hard and never get there?" thing creeps in, and then "There's no way you could work really hard and not at least get better, so it's not a waste of time to try."

And then getting really frustrated because I know I FEEL deeply, and I know a lot of deep/smart/useful/cool things, but the songs I come up with don't feel like they go that deep, and something that M.F. told me at Song School to the effect of, "No offense, but you might want to reveal more about yourself," or maybe something like "go deeper, be more meaningful" or something.  And it was almost just a little offhand comment, especially since it was just a brainstorming exercise, but it really struck in and still gets to me even this many months after, because I recognized it as true.  I can write great observations about other people, but I haven't seemed to go to deep into ME... or at least not that often.  Maybe it just hasn't been time, maybe that's not my voice/style/thing and it never will be time.  

Again, the only way to "find my voice" is to KEEP WRITING, and I was uncovering a lot of interesting and approaching on maybe scary (but good for me) things in my last writing class, but now I've moved on to Melody and it just makes me feel like a big dummy with super weak music theory powers.  Next semester is Harmony, not sure how much better that will be either, unless I pick something up by the end of this course, and with 8 more weeks, how could I not get better?  And with the time I have these days, why can't I focus and use it to improve things, or start some blog or book or business that might have a chance of making money?  It's terrifying being the end of the line, no one taking care of you, directing, leading the way...

Sweetness

(ok, so I'm cheating... See Nov 2 post about NaBloPoMo since I obviously have more to say and I'm good at finding loopholes for myself, I'm going to write a little bit more here and then date it with Nov 1, since I missed yesterday. Speaking of times being messed up, I can already feel the whole Daylight savings thing messing me up. I woke up "early" and it was still dark, and I'm still hungry at yesterdays times. sigh.)

I helped sell CD's for Sharon at the Dharma fundraiser tonight. It was a sweet yet bizzare evening for me as it was mostly musicians who used to write/play for MMY back before and just after I was born. So they are playing these devotional, sweet, sometimes slightly cheezy songs that I have never heard, and here is this room full of people SINGING ALONG! They were obviously transported right back to those first moments when they had heard the songs, and it was really heart nurturing for them. I felt a little bit like an intruder on a family moment, but I was glad I went and got a glimpse of how the feelings of family and camaraderie must have been built back when all these people my parents age were younger than I am now.

It also reenforced my idea that I want to write songs that are uplifting but universal, that could appeal to a wide audience of positive thinkers, not one brand/school of thought. Not that there's anything wrong with writing specifically to a group of people, it obviously creates something really special. But for my own stuff, I want it to play wider. I think Sharon does it well, and so does Ellis.

I'm Back. Whoa.

Cross-post from MySpace

Oh friends. My life has been changed forever methinks. I've just finished an amazing week at the Planet Bluegrass ranch up in Lyons Colorado. It is a magical place with a big grassy field, two beautiful stages, a huge cliff face of red stone and a small but rushing river. And for the past 15 years they've been hosting a Song School where amazing masters in every aspect of songwriting and performance come to share their knowledge and experience of the craft, and everyone who is brave enough to jump up and take a turn is supported, applauded and pushed to a new level of greatness.

There was SO MUCH input, I'm not really sure where to start, or how long it would take to go through it all, or even if I'll get to all of it, but I met A LOT of amazing new people who I hope to introduce you to over the next weeks and months, so keep an eye on lyricalvenus.com for the ladies, and probably here for the guys, (though I'm really tempted to start a new blog and/or radio show to include them, but maybe a guest spot on someone else's show would work... just thinkin off the top of my head here). There were so many awesome people to take classes from, and I think I got a good sprinkling of nearly everyone either through a class or by watching them perform, which will help me choose next year what to do because I definitely have to go back!

A couple really big things I learned that I want to put down here before I forget:

1) I kept getting from a bunch of different teachers the concept that it's more important to make sure the meaning of your song comes across clearly than to "feel" your song while you perform. So conversational tone and delivery are going to help with that. Ron Browning put it something like - "Don't chew my steak for me - just give me the plate with it arranged all pretty. I can cut and chew it myself." As emotional, feeling centered people it's easy for songwriters to want to get the audience to "feel how I felt in that moment" so it's a little counter-intuitive sometimes to pull back from the emotion. But really, writing a song and performing a song are two different skills. Not to mention running the business of being a musician - being an independent singer-songwriter means wearing a lot of different hats. This week made that more and more clear to me that keeping the hats separate, (or even getting someone else to wear some of them for you) means that each area is going to get the best attention it needs, when it needs it.

2) There really is a craft to songwriting - there are certain things that the hit songwriters do that are repeatable that make for good songs, there are tricks you can apply to songs already written to take them to another level. While that might seem to take some of the magic out of it, it's encouraging to me because it means it's a skill I can learn if I apply myself to it, and I don't have fumble around in the dark and hope things work. If I feel like one of my songs could be better, now I know a bunch of things I could look at to improve it, or I know where to go look that stuff up. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before - I know there are certain guidelines for writing essays and newspaper articles and novels and such, so why not songs? And it's not to say you can't break all the rules in any of these things, but knowing what the general rules are makes a break from them something conscious and purposeful and interesting.

And if the Song School wasn't enough, right after it was the Folks Festival. The first two days of which, I have to admit, were a little miserable due to steady rain. Or maybe I should say steady wetness, everything from misty sprinkling to windblown, pounding downpour. Unusual for Colorado, and she needed it, but it's a bummer it had to happen all over those two days. I got to see a lot of cool acts though, and probably missed a few when I just couldn't take it anymore and had to go curl up in my tent. (Which was behind the stage area, so I got to still hear them, just not as clearly.)

My original plan was to drive out to Song School with Sharon Bousquet (which I did), and then come home after Folks Fest (Sharon couldn't stay for it) with my husband who was going to be in Boulder but then he didn't end up going. I thought that with 10 other Fairfield people going I'd have a pretty good chance of finding a ride home, but I neglected to factor in that all those people would be full up with instruments and camping gear, and so adding another person and gear and instruments was just not gonna happen. So my next choice was the train, which I've done before, but it was sold out till Wednesday, which means I won't be home till Thursday, and which also means I get to hang out in Boulder for a couple of days and visit with old friends. Kind of a nice gentle glide back into the real world I think.

But I gotta do some laundry and think about shipping some clothes back home so I don't have to lug it all on the train. Because while I knew going home on the train was a possibility, there was stuff I had to bring for camping, and then I went and bought a few things - CD's, a sweatshirt, hats (those came with the camp and volunteering) and, drumroll please - A PINK UKULELE! Now I have to learn how to play it. I bought the chord book too. I'd just seen Priscilla Ahn close her set with a ukulele song, and when I went into the little merch shop and saw all the ukuleles it was calling me with its cute pinkness. I strapped it onto my travel guitar case with the blue rope that held up the tarp over my tent, but I still have at least one bag too many to take on the train, so mailing some clothes back is gonna be the way to go methinks. They'll be the lightest.

And then I want to go on a bike ride! I always say one of the things I miss most about Boulder is the bike trails, so I shouldn't miss out on that chance while I have it.

More pictures and stories and such to come, just wanted to say hi and I'm back online. :) (though I'm also thinking I should probably spend a little more time offline in the future. We'll see what happens.)

Heading Off to Song School!

Cross post from MySpace

Current mood: excited

Alrighty, the long awaited time is here! I'm leaving tomorrow for Song School at Planet Bluegrass with Sharon Bousquet and Heather Love, they have a gig in Des Moines so we'll have a little headstart on the long drive to Colorado. We did a trial run of packing the car today and like magic, everything fit!

I had a little breakdown yesterday where I let my irrational fears take over and tell me that everyone in the camp was going to be like Simon Cowell and I was sending myself to be smashed into a pulp, but I think I got that out of my system. My rational self knows it's all bollocks anyway, if the people at the camp are anything like the American Idol judges they are more likely to be Paula and Randy. Thanks to all the friends in the past day who have reminded me of that. heh heh. I promise to go have fun!

Not sure how much internet access I will have for a while now because I'm staying for the Folks Fest after the Song School, so it's pretty much going to be a week of awesomeness camping on the site. http://www.bluegrass.com/songschool/

I pre-recorded a radio show for the 12th of a bunch of women who will be teaching or playing at the Song School and/or Folks Fest, so tune in on Tuesday at 9am: http://kruufm.com/

I'm sure there will be all sorts of awesome to share when I get back!

Wow...

Last performance today. I should be hustling my butt to get over there, but I'm kind of hit with a wave of emotion and I think it would be helpful to process it at least a little before I go.

I wrote this on my MySpace blog, but am feeling like I need to put it here too as a preface to my thoughts today:

7/14/2008 For those of you wondering, opening weekend of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat went really well! We had pretty decent sized audiences every time, even the matinées. The people seemed to really enjoy it and there weren't any major mess-ups, though we all noticed that our Saturday matinée was a little bit lower energy than usual. So hopefully we all learned our lesson about staying up late on Friday celebrating! But let me tell you it was such a relief to have a successful opening on Friday night, and we had worked so hard up till then, the dinner out was needed and deserved. It probably wouldn't have been so late except the restaurant was understaffed for a group our size, so the food took forever to come out. And I don't know if people stayed afterwards and moved on to the bar or what, cuz I went home fairly soon after I finally got my food, which was pretty tasty after all.

This whole process of the show has been quite the learning experience for me. I think I've said it before, but I've never been in a play with such a compact rehearsal schedule, nor have I been in a play with such a heavy performance schedule! We had 4 shows this weekend - Friday night, Saturday afternoon AND night, and Sunday afternoon. The next two weeks we'll have 5 shows because we'll add a Thursday night to each weekend. It's a lot of fun to perform - the show is short but high energy so it packs a punch to both the performers and the audience. I'm not even in half the dance numbers, but I think, once again, that I ended up with just about as much as I could handle. I did get bumped from two less intense dance numbers simply because I don't have enough time to change costumes from one scene to the next, which is kind of a bummer because I still had to learn them before we figured out I wouldn't have time, and they were parts I felt pretty confident about. I think by the end of the weekend I got through the big dance number with minimal mess ups, so hopefully next weekend I'll be great! And now I know that it's really just better for me to do shows where I have a month or two to learn things, rather than 2 weeks.

I think I also realize that part of the fun of doing shows in High School and College was that the plays WERE my life, social and otherwise. Now that I've got other things I need to do, and other friends, and when I don't really know that many people in the cast (though I AM making some new friends), some of the thrill is gone. It's sort of a relief to know I didn't miss something big for myself by not following theater as a full-time career. Which is not to say I won't do any more shows, there is still something pretty magical about creating something bigger than you could do on your own, and it's a miracle how all the pieces fit together somehow at the last minute every time. And then there is that gift of the energy exchange between the audience and the performers - knowing you made someone laugh or gasp with delight, or even think a little differently for a minute. Props and respect to the people following the path full time!

I made a Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat album in the photos section and put up a few pictures of rehearsals and backstage and such. I'll try to get someone to snap a few of me in costume next weekend! The tricky thing is I'm in and out of several costumes so quickly, there isn't much time to take pictures, but I'll figure something out.

Now that the show has opened we don't have daily rehearsals, so it's probably going to take me a bit to get back to a semi-normal routine at home. I actually still need to unpack my suitcase from my Seattle trip in June! Rehearsals started the very day I got back and whenever I did have some time off I didn't really have the energy to do much housework type stuff.

And coming up probably before I know it is Song School in Lyons, CO! 4 days of camping and workshops with amazing people like Josh Ritter, Melissa Ferrick, Pat Pattison, Susan Werner, Steve Seskin, Vance Gilbert, Paul Reisler and a bunch more, then a weekend Folks Festival with Greg Brown, KT Tunstall, Nanci Griffith, Amos Lee, Patty Griffin, Jakob Dylan, Dar Williams, Josh Ritter, Todd Snider, and many many more. The adventure starts August 10th, or maybe the day before, I haven't figured out how I'm getting there yet...

I'm trying to find that mental and emotional balance between not setting up my expectations too high but being really open, brave, bold and ready to jump on any opportunities that might come my way, because there is a part of me that thinks this could be a life-changing event, but that seems like a lot of pressure to put on a few days. hehehe. I don't want to freak out and hang back and miss things. Songwriting can be a vulnerable experience and it's scary to put yourself out there for critiques, but I think that's part of what I need to learn, is to not take things too personally. And from the looks of the website, it's a supportive and nurturing environment.

http://bluegrass.com/songschool/

So yeah, the process of the play has gotten a lot more fun as the performances went on and I've had more time to integrate and get better at the dance routines. I know I still don't articulate as well as the trained dancers, and I'm still pretty dependent on the people in front of me to get through (which is bad when THEY mess up!) but I don't feel like a complete and total loser anymore, so that's good. I'm a little worried about the post-show depression I've experienced in the past happening again now that I've gotten more attached to my cast-mates. (I still feel like an outsider though, and they have another show to do together, so they won't be experiencing the same sort of thing.) Definitely looking forward to doing another show sometime, just not sure when...

I hope I'll be able to get the house together a little now though, and get on a better routine with food. (been eating out a lot which means more crap and more money, bad combo.) and sleep. I'm a night owl anyway, but the after show buzz is pretty bad for my bedtime! And really, I won't have much time before I go off to Song School and then after that it will be time to give a more serious look at my future. The idea of furthering my musical education is really appealing to me more and more. Dancing around a series of ideas like courses at Indian Hills in Ottumwa, finding out if there's a program I could do in Iowa City, cobbling together my own lessons through various people here in town and trying out the Berklee online certificate programs. I can see how much easier it is for these theatre people to express themselves when they've had regular training and a good theatre/dance vocabulary. I know people say that artists can create without needing to be trained, and that sometimes training stifles creativity, but I think that for me I've gotten to a point that training is just going to create a more effortless and smooth path from my inside to my outside expressions. But it's scary to make that leap into full time going for it, instead of a side hobby thing. Just not sure how much longer I can keep it on the back burner though without being too depressed and disgusted and futile feeling. I know it will be hard work and a challenge and less secure than a "regular job". but I'm a creative person in more ways than one, so I'm sure I'll be able to find a balance of doing enough to earn money and still get to create and nourish my soul. Just gotta be patient for now...

Ugh.

Well. I started a new song yesterday. Tis a bit sad I guess, about missing the gals and all the little reminders I have of them in my life, but they are still so far away...
So it's like good that I wrote something, but too bad that it's sad. But it really speaks to how I feel right now. so there. Maybe I'll even sing it next Open mic. I hope it's ready by then.

Had an intro chat with a life coach today. She seems really nice and like she could help me a lot. I need something personalized like that. I've had ups and downs lately, but mostly downs since the wedding I think, so this will be good. I really hate the feeling that my general mode of operation is broken and overwhelmed, I'd like to tip the scales in the other direction. I know I'll never be able to get rid of upsets altogether, but I'd love for them to be in the less often catagory...