a type o' thought

strange world.
ya really gotta wonder what the hell we're all doing.

oh, i know what i'm doing, at least right now: filling in my time with something that is, i hope, not boring, or hurtful, or toxic, or stupid.
like so much of what is out there.

what can one do? i mean, besides joining all the organizations that are devoting themselves to really improving the world and all the lives of as many people as possible? after that, what?

hum it all away? just like those funny ladies in the fifties who were so determined not to notice what a pile of shit they'd been sold in their 'happy' marriages, where all the husbands got to demand whatever they wanted, and screw around all they wanted too, and all the women had to do was pretend they didn't see; or pretend they didn't want any other life but picking up dirty clothes and cooking.

in fact, i would pay a lot of money right now, today, if i could find one of those women to clean up the mess at my place, which is somewhat overwhelming, but that's just because i was working at a job all this week which required my traveling to another location and being there for the whole day. i'm not used to that. i'm self-employed usually, which means you can work in your jammies, if you want, and you can figure out the answers to the creative problems you encounter while you do the dishes. sometimes the most amazing ideas come to you in a pot of porridge.

i'm a firm believer in the creativity that exists in chaos. maybe it's because i was one of eight children. maybe it's just because that's how the whole world seems to operate. maybe creativity is chaos. but oh, it's so chaotic. sometimes one longs for one thing and one think only.
no, it's not a typo.
although i am. a type 'o'. also negative. so i guess i'm just going with the flow when i see red.

it's in my blood.

sun spots

I am doomed.

Thus I thought as I sat in my very own back garden today, as the sun shone and warmed my legs. first time on the chair out there, and although i did do a lot of yard work beforehand, still, it's a dangerous precedent. the sitting, i mean. because once you're out there, it's to hell with all the obligations, isn't it?

here i am, a singer/songwriter. i've got so many jobs i have to do to keep up the gigs, the writing, the promoting; and that's only for the regular stuff. but i've also got the show this year - my zootcase project, and with that, i have created an enormous job for myself, especially since help is so hard to come by. (nobody cooks the dinner, or washes the dishes, and god knows, the sheets need laundering once in a while).

no, can't afford the household help, but i was actually talking about musical help - people out there who might want to support an independent musician in this, in any, endeavour. now, i do have friends. and many of them have stepped up to the 'giving' plate by purchasing my upcoming cd in advance. that helps finance the manufacture. so thank you to them.

but there are organizations, like the arts councils; can't seem to break into that little clique (you have to hire someone who knows their way around the application and requirements). then there's the local radio station that says it wants to "support jazz performers in Canada", but sadly, they do not support me - neither by playing any of my songs, nor by helping with this show ('you can rent our space for over $1,000.'). well, if i was a corporation, maybe, but i'm just a music performer, singer, etc. maybe they don't 'help' me because i haven't got the big machine behind me; i'm not performing with the biggest names. i'm not a big name either.

no, i'm just a simple independent music lover; i play with people who are fantastic musicians, but also people i like.

so i'll probably end up financing this work of love by myself, and that's ok, since it originated with love, and is still a love story. love makes the songs go 'round, i reckon.

so as the sun goes around and gets warmer and brighter, i'll just enjoy all the decadence of just sitting, and the music that keeps going around too, my friends, and the wee shoots that are coming up in the garden, and whatever i get done on my own. god bless' the child that's got its own.

your eye a heap, not to mention your head

when an old boyfriend appears in your dreams, in some strange house; and then your sister turns up, telling you that she's just so, so angry, what is one to make of that? am i simply bored? lost in the dreary and all-enveloping grayness that is currently covering our part of the world? the rains continue relentlessly, and yet they don't seem to really wash anything. i have no sense of clean or new, or any kind of refreshment. is this the strange house that is my lot these days?

gosh, oh golly!! i must be alzheimering. after such a fun time i had last night, singing with the jazz trio, and really enjoying the music. you see how quickly i forget. perhaps the rains are indeed washing away things. i'm becoming like those horrid little children that i am occasionally forced to spend time with in the classrooms of this city - the ones that must be constantly entertained and/or amused every single minute. catered to in any manner possible, and god forbid they should ever move their own three-lettered anatomy and make things better themselves.

hey! that must be the angry sister speaking up.

it's a dull saturday night when a person has to attend to their own psyche for amusement, playing all the parts. but i do seem to be doing a good job, and yes, i do want to talk about it.

i promise myself that tomorrow i will do some more music. it hath charms. but also, as i told myself just the other day, i owe it to myself for all the meals i cook with love, and all those hours with the ingrates at the schools. i am paying the bills, after all, and so i figure i'm indebted to that long-suffering person, - me - who is saddled with the job of keeping this body alive and housed. i owe me big time to get out there and do something interesting with all my talents. using that word in the biblical sense, of course, but also in our modern usage, just a little. don't want to be falsely and overly uriah heepish. i owe it to my girlish self to have fun.

but tonight...i'm just goofin' around and goin' nowheres fast.

send in the roses

it's just too nice outside to be sitting at a computer, and besides, i have to exercise my body and try and repair the damage that i've done to it lately. right after the last blog, i went out, came home, got out of the car, and immediately went smack onto my tailbone. the one bit of snow that we've had over this winter, piled up on the sidewalk, then immediately melting, and at night turning into a treacherous slick of black ice. i went down really fast. it still hurts when i walk, but i'm not hanging back, not me. it's onward and tailward.

until yesterday, when i rushed with gleeful anticipation into the showers at the local, on my way to the pool, and once again, damn if that old world of objects and such didn't get in my way. what the hell is a door doing closing so fast that i don't even have my foot out yet? and why the hell do they have that little step up there anyway, just so's it makes a trap for the wee foot. toe, actually. and now it's purple. much like my language when that happened. poor little woman in the sauna didn't know what catastrophe was landing on her previously serene moment. my apologies to her and anyone else who heard me. it hurt.

and it hurts now to let the toxins of these injuries course through my otherwise pristine body. must away to the outdoors and walk them all off.

here's hoping i make it home safely. (by the way, is this a cosmic message, or something? should i be slowing down to smell the roses that aren't yet blooming? somebody, please, send me some roses.)