Campfyre Stories

So I bombed at the open mic, which I could justify, but I’m not going to.  I think, after having seen how far the quality of the open mic night there has plummeted, I’m going to try to find a different venue.  My three friends who showed up had never seen me perform before, which left me rather dejected and humiliated that they wound up seeing me at my worst.

That said, they are very good friends and the fact that they came out at all means the world to me.  Now I have to come up with a way to convince them to do again sometime…  now that the suck is out of my system.

So I got home around 1:30 that night, but didn’t get to bed until 3 and still woke up at 6 to get to work on time.

I have friends with serious crises and they need me to be there for them and be sympathetic.

I’m less and less motivated to put in additional effort to do my job exceptionally well, since I won’t have it for too much longer.  Of course, as soon as I start to lose that motivation, situations arise that require that level of attention to detail from me.  I’m really just not feeling it right now.

This weekend I intend to sleep.  Maybe play some guitar and/or video games.  Maybe do some laundry.  Mostly just sleep, though.

that’s the update.

I’ll admit it, I’m proud of myself.  I set some attainable goals and exceeded them.

Not only did I write a complete song in a week that is ready to play (probably), but I was going through my song book the other day and found a song I had never finished.  I always liked it, so I took some time and finished it up.  It wasn’t until after I had practiced it and walked away that I realized what it was about…  again, it’s not a love song, at least not a romantic love song.  It’s actually a song that I didn’t realize I was writing for my best friend.

Some time ago (I forget exactly when), I was in a pretty deep depression.  Nothing was going right, I felt like I had no real options that would work for me.  Girl kept saying "You’re too close to this, you’re looking to hard.  Step back and the answer will come."  I’m not a very patient person and "wait and see" is just about the worst possible situation for me to find myself in.  I got frustrated with this repeated advice and unwittingly wrote a song that was essentially me saying all those things to Girl and her giving me what felt like useless advice.

But on the other side of things, her advice was completely sound and, eventually, the answer did come.  That was the missing piece of the song that I couldn’t see while I was in the middle of all the internal melodrama.  I was able to wrap up the song with solutions and answers, and to some extent an acknowledgement of all the things she had said to me.

What I find interesting about the whole thing, though, is that Girl and I are in an opposite situation.  She’s now telling me that she feels lost and that she doesn’t have the options in front of her that she’d like to have.  I’m the one saying "Step back and let the answer come" and, heh, she’s not really feeling it.

And now I have a song that’s really about the relationship that we have, each of us taking one of the two sides, non-exclusively.

I fully intend to perform it tonight.  The only downside is that she won’t be there to hear it.  But at least I have it for her.  It’s a really good feeling to have done this.

My stockpile of pre-written posts are all used up, so I have to start over from scratch once inspiration strikes.  In the meantime, here’s what’s going on…

I’m focusing on my music again.  Not only did I write a new song, which is somewhat of a departure for me, but in going through my songbook (songs I’ve written), I found that there were a few that I had forgotten about.  It looks like they only need a little bit of work in order to be brought up to snuff.  It’s nice to not only have new songs flowing again, but to also have some things to go back to and finish.

Additionally, I’ve been feeling the urge to find other musicians to collaborate with.  I don’t know how easy this will be to find, but the concept appeals to me and I’m making an effort outside of the people I already know.  Hopefully, at the very least, this will lead to me expanding my social circle, which is something I’ve been flailing about trying to figure out how to do.

I figure if my career is going to be somewhat turbulent, maybe I can get some consistency in my music.  We’ll see how that goes.

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Ever since I did that meme that I got from Princess, I’ve decided to make a point to read the unread books that I own.  Being the brilliant person that I am, I decided to start with the longest and possibly most difficult one.  Now, I read fast.  It’s not unusual for me to finish a light novel in a day, but I can’t read more than 50 pages at a time of Cryptonomicon (and at 1150 pages, it means I should be done in a month or so).  In addition to being daunting subject matter, I can’t shake the feeling that Stephenson used this book as an excuse to put into print all the $10 words he knows.  Sure, I can understand "Victorian foofawfery" in context, but damned if I can define it otherwise.

Being the technocratic technophile that I consider myself to be, I do find the subject matter fascinating.  Being the avid science fiction fan that I am, I’m drawn into the genre, however one defines it.  Being as fascinated as I am by etymology and words in general, I understand pretty much all he’s saying, even if he says it in overly-loquacious ways.  I’m exactly the type of person who should be reading this book.  And it is KILLING ME.

There are reasons these books are unread in such great numbers.

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People keep telling me I’m being "mysterious" because I’m trying to shy away from my usual "full-disclosure" mode.  I’m writing a song, but I don’t want to show it off until it’s finished, so I’m hedging my answers when people ask about it.  I have some potential things being set up in the background, but I don’t want to get excited or get my hopes up about things that are possible, at best right now.  Apparently this is so out of the ordinary for me that people seem to think I’m actively HIDING things.

Good grief, can’t a girl have *some* secrets?  Especially short-term ones?

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Spawn and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Men from Mars Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  I went in with low expectations, which were met, but not exceeded, so I was satisfied, but not really thrilled.  Glad I went to a matinee.  Also, we went to a new theater in the area and I was HIGHLY impressed with that, so it wasn’t really a loss at all…

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I was told earlier, in different words, that on some level I am more objectionable than Ozzy Osbourne.  Heh.

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I got whistled at while I was walking through the park this weekend.  It was a real ego boost.  Three cheers for the tit shirts!

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So far, I have plans for 4 of the next 9 weekends, and it’s not even June yet!  Thankfully the weekends aren’t all the way filled yet, so I’ll still have room for last-minute stuff…  unless people start trying to claim my time early.

This doesn’t count major mainstream movie releases.

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I’m not sure what else there is to say here…  although I will put out that I am an extremely lucky woman to have as true and loyal friends as I do.  But that’s a much longer statement than this particular post warrants and eventually it will be a rehash of things I’ve said before in a real post.

There are no details to be had because they don’t currently, nor will they ever, matter.  I kissed a boy the other night.   Half the people whose opinions matter to me would say it was inappropriate, the other half would applaud me for it, but whether or not their opinions matter isn’t the point, the point is that a kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss is just…

I can’t count the number of people I have kissed.  I would hope that most people can say the same.  I kissed people when I was married, when I was dating someone, when I was single, whenever.  It’s just a moment and even with a little passion in it a kiss doesn’t cause drama unless you read too much into it.  A kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss is just…

What is a New Year’s Eve without a kiss?  It’s an incomplete ending and an incomplete start.  You can kiss your friends or strangers.  You can kiss several people and, mostly, no one will think less of you for it.  There’s almost an immunity from whatever kissing taboos there are on New Year’s Eve, but it’s a real shame that those taboos have to exist at all.  A kiss is just a kiss is just…

It was bound to happen sooner or later and we both knew it.  I think that part of the ultimate conclusion for me was to just get it over with already!  And on so many levels we just diffused whatever tension there may have been.  Who knows?  Maybe it will create a new tension, but in the moment?  It was a perfect moment.

A kiss is just…

I’m really getting sick and tired of hearing "It’s not your fault."  I KNOW that it’s not my fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that things are going very, very badly wrong.  "You’re doing everything right."  Yes, I am, and yet, STILL things are going wrong…  things that I have to deal with and attempt to manage.

I’m not going to be unemployed, but I’m still losing my current job.  The fact that we didn’t get the contract is what sucks about this situation and the fact that people (in a position to influence the decision) are saying how amazing and fabulous I am at the job I am losing does not actually change the suck factor of my losing my job and having to learn to do something new.

I want to be angry, but there’s no one to be angry at.  I feel upset, but there doesn’t feel like a reason to actually be upset, since I’m not actually going to be negatively impacted by this.  In fact, the timing of when I stop doing what I’m doing and start doing something else really couldn’t be better.

But, for fuck’s sake…  I finally got to a point where I not only like what I do, I know all the people I need to know and have made an impact and polished my reputation.  Now I have to start all over again, doing something else entirely.

It’s all okay, though, because it’s nothing about me.  It’s not my fault and I haven’t done anything wrong.  I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better?

… it’s kind of a dangerous place to be, because my mind tends to wander in very strange directions.  The very worst place to be alone with my thoughts is probably in the bath because when the strange questions start running through my head, there’s nothing I can do unless I want to get out of the tub.  And, generally, I don’t.

Sometimes I remember and go and find the answer later, so, while you probably never even wondered…

The shortest polysyllabic word in the English language is probably "ai" (pron: ah-ee), which is a type of sloth.  (Word nerds take note that much of the internet lists "Io" as the shortest polysyllabic word in the English language, but as it is a proper noun, I prefer to not take that as accurate.)

This, of course, led to the follow-up question of what the longest monosyllabic word in the English language is, but there isn’t just one, there are several, including: scratched, screeched, scrunched, stretched, straights, strengths and squelched. (Word nerds, there are two ten-letter monosyllabic words in the English language, but as they are archaic, I decided that they didn’t count for my purposes.)

Not that anyone cares, but this is the sort of place my mind wanders to when it has no direction at all.

If you actually found this interesting, you’ll probably like this website, which gave me the best and easiest-to-find answers to my questions.

Which is not the same statement as "I like money".

I have ALWAYS appreciated currency, both foreign and domestic, in part, because my father did and passed that interest on to me.  I don’t particularly collect currency, but I enjoy seeing the differences in the currency of various countries and to be familiar with the anti-counterfeit measures taken on our own currency.

I was really excited about the redesign of the $5 bill, just as I was about the $10 and the $20 and the dollar coins.  When my brother, Chaos, got a $5, he showed it to me very excited because he knew I would appreciate it, though most others reacted with a blasé "So?"

Money, as a concept, often flummoxes me.  I think I’m not in the minority in that.  I don’t understand the intricacies of the economic systems of the world, though I do try, but currency as an art form draws me in.  I love to be the person who talks about how "In God We Trust", "e pluribus unum" and the year of minting are written around the edges of the Presidential dollar coin and how, unless Jimmy Carter dies before they get that far, they’ll release the Reagan coin and Jimmy (and George, Bill and George) may never actually get one of their own.

I notice when my change has something other than an American coin in it and I get a kick out of showing it around.  I can feel the difference between a pre-1965 silver quarter and a more current copper-nickel quarter.  I *never* mistake a Susan B. Anthony dollar for a quarter and I check the dates on all my coins.

I agree with the concept of getting rid of the penny, since pennies cost more than $.01 to produce, get lost or hoarded and smell bad.  I don’t understand why Americans are so reluctant to embrace dollar coins (I think they’re really cool and better to flip than a quarter).  I wish that the $2 bill was more prevalent.  I have opinions on most denominations of US currency and want to see (examine) all the new money as soon as possible, and then pass it on, because that’s what money is FOR.

Yeah, I really appreciate currency, for all that I don’t really care all that much about money.

So, since Dragonmaker had pulled me aside and we had the "No wearing the ex-wife t-shirt to the wedding" conversation, I was in a real state.  I was worried to no end that it was going to be a Bad Thing for me to be at that wedding and I didn’t feel like snark was the appropriate way to handle any of the negatives that could have come my way.

So I decided that imagination and creativity were going to be the best plan of attack.  And I’m pretty creative, and pretty imaginative, so I started brainstorming.  I came up with a number if possibilities, but since there was no (attempted) drama, I didn’t have to use them.  For your amusement:

"Well, yes, I am Dragonmaker’s ex-wife.  Yeah, I realized that after so many years with DM, I actually prefer women.  Have you met my life partner, Girl?"

"Why didn’t it last between us?  Oh, well, everything was really going well right up until the farm animals entered the picture…  *wander off*"

"Me?  I’m just here to make sure he can’t sue me for alimony.  This is legit, right?"

"Hi, I’m [my RL name], but please call me FyreGoddess.  No, really, I insist."

Etc.

Yeah, it’s probably better that I didn’t say any of it.  But I was prepared for the worst.

So we had a company-sponsored happy hour on Thursday, which maybe I went a little overboard at.  Waking up at 6am on Friday morning was not an easy task and I spend the day So Very Tired.  Picking a beer and sticking with it helped me to avoid any kind of hangover, but I was up late and drunk, so I certainly felt the effects, but I made it to work and was damned productive as well!

But I left work early and passed out in the recliner around 6pm.  Woke up around 10 and went to bed for real.  I had this vague recollection of my doorbell ringing at 4am (!!!), but there was no way I was getting out of bed.  I think I finally emerged from the dark bedroom around 11, at which point I went back to the recliner.

I napped, I stretched, I ate a little here and there, not only was I cat, I was a lazy cat.  My cats took their cues from me.  When I got up to get a drink, they got up to get a drink.  When I got up to nibble on something, they got up to nibble on their food.  When I sat down in the chair, there they were, surrounding me.

"Mommy is a lazy cat."

Sunday wasn’t too much better, although I did leave the house (to do laundry in stages) and my mother came over for breakfast and I did a bit of busywork around the house, but mostly, still a lazy cat.

And it felt damn good.  I finally feel recovered from all the go-go-go that I’ve been doing.

Now I can start anew.

There is something incredibly gratifying about knowing the exact attainable thing that you want, getting it, and having it be just as good as you built it up in your head to be.

That was my grilled cheese sandwich.