I’m having a BAD night. My head is spinning. I’m out of control.

I’m in a nightmare place and I feel like I have demons in my skull. I usually don’t blog at these times. I usually go it alone. Or, rather, I talk to one of the 4-5 people I have. Sometimes my husband. He’s one. Then I have about 3-4 people I go down a list. They’re there for good reasons. I picked them out for specific reasons. They have their roles. I talk to these people about how/why it’s all falling apart for me. They listen. Or tell me what to do, sometimes. It’s not an ACTIVE telling me what to do. Or maybe, sometimes it is.

I don’t know. These things fluctuate.

Today there is so much about this that is physical. It’s all been physical, so much leading up to this point. My body has not been cooperating with me. I don’t want to slow it down. I know I need to though. I wanted to stay up and make videos. I’m not going to. I’m going to force myself to go to sleep. Maybe. It’s still up in the air.

I need to figure out a way to take more CONSISTENT care of myself while still reaping the benefits of the good things that are happening to me right now. There are such positives to what is happening to me right now.

I wish I could figure out a way to explain that I SO want what is happening to me right now – want to keep it, want to embrace it, want to find a way to WORK with it and figure out how to fit it into my schedule and routine … but that I need to tweak things so that it works with my body a little better. I wish I could just turn the whole thing a little to the right or left so that it all gelled a little bit better. That way, it all would be like it was tailor made for me. Maybe like an exercise routine or something that I picked out. Or a diet that wasn’t a diet. Like something that is hard, yes, but very welcome and worth the difficulties and growing pains.

I guess life is not a buffet of our choosing.

It’s a shame, because I’ve been pretty accomadating thus far toward this process. I feel that it should accomodate me!

The Way I Am

Another Fun List. Yay for Me.

1. things are getting better on Thursdays. They’re better on Thursdays, and they’re better locally – musically. I think that I’m finding my niche in Austin.
2. I still feel very nebulous and homeless and plan-less in general and I need to tighten up about my goals.
3. I’m really addicted to caffeine and I don’t know how I let this happen.
4. My sleep is all karked up.
5. I think I’m losing some of my memories.
6. I’m writing a LOT of songs, so that’s good.
7. I’m not really all that depressed anymore.
8. I think that I’m going to have to live with the fact that I’m sort of a sad, wistful person. Who’s a little off to the side …
9. Playing on Tuesday was a real treat, and the piano was really, really there for me. Everything just kicked in. It did what it was told. It became my instrument again. There was no-one else there and I didn’t care anymore.

I’ll leave it at that.

Late Night Listage

1. My husband said “you should just use your Song Fu photo for Nur Ein.” I just went with it. I don’t know… whatever monkey. I’m thinking it’s a good idea. I’m also thinking it’s silly to worry too much about that crap. I went through a LOT of photos of me looking for that and ended up going for the one that I used before. I’ll probably delete some of the superfluous photos that I don’t need to save space.
2. Things turn on a dime, and I’m pretty sick of it.
3. I need to just get through the next couple of weeks. Cleanly and cool-y.
4. I’m ready to start spending more time on stuff, in general. I mean on the music. There’s been a lot of rush-job.
5. I am feeling kind of hollowed out inside, lately. A little sad. I think I miss Song Fu. When it was going on, I think I was more excited about stuff. I have to find something that does that for me in the same way- because it’s not going to be there for me and I can’t rely on it to ever be restarted. I’m hoping that I get into Nur Ein like that, but at this point I’m just reactionarily, writing songs …
6. At some point, some day … I’m going to figure out a way to get my point across. But not this day I think. Not this month, probably not this year or even this decade. Maybe not this life. Maybe I am just tootoo weird. Maybe I just can’t find my way out of my head. Maybe I’m not good at sharing.

Maybe I’m defective and not fixable.
6. Ack.

I’m Denise …

Hi, I’m Denise, and it’s time for another one.

I’m not making light of people with addictions to substances, first of all. This is my disclaimer.

I don’t talk about my problems. This may come as a shock and a surprise, because I can be quite the little whiner. I’m not going to get into root problems today either. I do want to say something though.

I am a perfectionist. I’m a practice addict. I will go-and-go-and-go-and-go until I drop.

Until I’m dead.

I don’t know what it’s like not to work.

I will work until I’m dead. It’s not about the money, because I rarely, if ever, make anything substantial. It’s about a calling. It’s about being professional, getting things done, contributing to society. If we need money at a particular time, I go out and hustle for it so I can continue working. I don’t know if that makes any sense. I work, all the time. All of it is done so that I can KEEP working. I don’t really know any hobbies or pasttimes. It all feeds into the art, for me.

So it’s easy to OVERwork.

There are some tragedies behind this that make me not as good at the work as I want to be. Right now there are some things that are all globbed together that are making certain facts come into play. I won’t talk about the reasons, but here are the facts.

1. Since February, I’ve started to kinda suck.
2. When I say suck, I mean according to my normal skill level.
3. I don’t think like I used to. I’m not as quick. The people who are very close to me know this, and they know that I am talking about musically. They see that I am not as sharp or fast as I used to be. I’m talking about my husband, and people I allow into my circle to be close to me.
4. I’m not reading books anymore. I mean, like … EVER. It’s been almost a year. I don’t have my music organized, and I live in a thick black fog.
5. I don’t play stupid games on my iPhone. I stare into space.
6. I’ve started blogging, Tweeting, checking email (this one’s REALLY bad), and
7. I have become addicted to songwriting contests for their serial due-date value and to making videos.
8. I am not performing live in a consistent fashion. I’m not calling out or pursuing shows at all.
9. I get sick a lot.
10. I’m back in the agoraphobic phase.
11. I’m not eating right.
12. I’m sleeping less that 4-5 hours a night, on average.
13. I’m making ill informed decisions about all kinds of things. They may be the correct decisions, but I’m making them in a haphazard, ill-researched fashion. Not like me.
14. I’ve stopped hanging out with my Austin people. Any of them.
15. I live in a cave.
16. We don’t really even go to brunch anymore.
17. I don’t practice much downstairs (this is veryvery bad)
18. I am addicted to pianoteq
19. I chat WAAAAAYYYY too much. It doesn’t matter than I’m doing other stuff. I’m in my cave. It doesn’t matter.
20. I never go to the humidor anymore. OR RUTA MAYA. This is terrible.
21. Perhaps the biggest doozy of all:

I’m not making organized lists, my desktop is disorganized, and MY LYRICS FOLDERS are not neatly splayed out in organized folders where everything is right there at my fingertips.

One thing I am doing is recording. Lots and lots of recording. Badly. Recording and keeping up with lots and lots of people who seem to be able to do this fast-paced online living in their sleep even when they are falling apart.

I am neither cool, smooth, or zippy. So I’m jealous all the time. It sucks. And jealousy is ugly.

I’m not this way and that is okay. I’ve learned some valuable things. Hey, I’m blogging about this now, aren’t I?

busybusywrongwrong

I need to be better. I’m not eating, and I’m not sleeping. I need to get ON-IT!.

Apparently, it’s really not very motivating to have your entire psyche filleted by a physic vampire – but there you go.

I’m being really extreme here. I’m totally fine.

I just can’t seem to get it together. Song Fu opens up this week again. ACK! My studio is a SHAMBLES. There’s stuff on Brigit’s Flame to do. I’m not going to even bother to make links. All this means that I pretty much just need to get all this stuff together. Like I say I’m going to do but never really quite manage to complete.

Oh well, at least I have written my complete bio.

The 4 Month Challenge

I have a friend called Shelley who is a very motivated human. I met her in Longhorn Band. I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of my time in the band, as I spent most of my time in the pit percussion area (mallet instruments), muttering under my breath. Like Gollum, but not as charming.

Anyway, Shelley exercises and stuff. I’m kind of on an exercise kick too, and I’m receiving the benefit of happy drugs since I’m ditching some of my more offending pharmaceuticals. I won’t get into it, but I’m not as sickly as I used to be. No more Hector Pi Laureate or anything. No more hormonal madness. Nada. So I have an oppurtunity to bend my metabolism to my ever-loving whim.

I put my goals up in a previous blog entry. So how am I doing?

Well, not well so far. This is typical of me. I always rebel at the first start. I stick my tongue out at it.

AT THIS POINT:

1. I have not gone to martial arts this week once. This is bad because I only went once last week, and twice the week before. Unk! I’m going to have to go tomorrow morning, which is going to HURT! And then there’s classes every day including Saturday. I should try to make Saturday, because they have tournament practice then. I should also go Thursday, because that’s when I usually meet up with the 8pm people (which is where I should be tonight!).

2. I didn’t write down my food for the last two days. This is a two day slip-up and has happened for the first time in over a month. I’ve been good about this for an entire month. I’ll write down my food as soon as I’m done with this blog. I’m going to take my vitamins too, because I just loaded three weeks worth of them. It’s not on my “official” list of goals – but it should be in my mind.

3. I practiced for over 4 hours today, so that’s good. It was not really regimented practice, nor did I really get any ideas down. I am firming up ideas for 3 or 4 songs that will need to be finished and put on the 2 hour set though. I’ll need to tighten up on the scheduling and get organized about the rehearsing soon, but it’s good work. I did some good vocal rehearsing.

4. I was all over the place today, socially. I’m net-stalking people who really shouldn’t be net-stalked … I’m CARING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK (this is a huge no-no in my case), I’m getting in over my head. I need to detach and go back into my own little world. I have told myself that I’m Face-banned. I don’t know for how long. This is good. I’ve enrolled in a writing contest and I’m waiting for Song Fu. These things don’t directly pertain to my goal … but they will help keep me out of the trouble that excessive brooding brings.

I will try not to engage in excessive blogging, or Twittering … or anything.

5. I didn’t get anything done on the studio, but everything tiny thing in the house that I clean is a step in the right direction toward that.

Practice makes Totally-Adequate-and-that’s-Just-Fine, thanks

I’m in a group on Facebook where we’re trying to meet our goals by the end of the year. Here are mine:

Denise’s goals:

1. Go to martial arts no less than 3 times per week for the rest of the year

2. Continue writing down everything I eat – every day (avg. 1200-1500 calories-ish, and not usually more than 2100-2300 – depending on exercise needs and other-type things)

3. Get my studio completely set up and all my songs rough recorded

4. Rehearse two full sets to “readiness” so that by January I can … START PERFORMING AGAIN.

5. Think before I dial, click send, or do other potentially neurotic activities.

I would like to blog my progress on these things, but I’m going to be gentle with myself. If the computer distracts me from all this, off it goes. I suppose I will (try to) keep you updated, whoever you are

addiction

I have a little sneaky and insidious problem.  I don’t talk about it, because when you put it on paper it seems like a really righteous thing.  It actually sounds really cool.  Actually, I’m sort of proud of it.  As far as addiction goes, I think it’s much better and less shameful than other addictions – which actually makes it more shameful, and probably (for me) more dangerous.

I seriously think that this is probably worse for me than drugs, or eating, or sex, or smoking, or whatever I’ve been doing.  It’s over-practice.

Over-practice has caused me physical pain, emotional pain.  It’s broken my heart and my spirit.  It’s made me sick.  It’s alienated me from my friends.  It’s completely stagnated me in my career.  It’s given me an illusion of control.  It’s made me feel completely justified that I’m doing the right thing.

You can’t get arrested for over-practice.  Now I actually have had to go to rehab for my addiction, when I had a binge and I popped my arm and gave myself tendonitis or something like that – in January.  I’m lucky I don’t have carpel tunnel.  But there’s really no methadone for the hacking that I do.  In some ways it shares some traits with anorexia; with the striving for perfection.  Anything that is self-loathing about oneself can be rectified in the abuse heaped upon me in the quest for ultimate perfection.  Because it is impossible to score a perfect performance.  If I restrict myself and my career to when I score a perfect performance … that’s a harshness.  An ultimate punishment.  Something that I probably will never live up to as a professional.

Over-practice has its benefits too.  It’s one of those addictions that I’m good at, like sex or eating.  The ones that are legal … that you could do fine if only you could do them in moderation.  See, I’m fine at the just-staying-away from it stuff.  I can’t get hard drugs – nor have I tried them.  I’m a wussy – because if I actually did something like coke and I could get it easily and I derived any benefit from it, I would be totally screwed and I’d be hooked.  And that would be bad because there is a stigma and I am not good at being that kind of problem child.  I am too secretive and I would not be able to handle that kind of pressure.  I think that I’m so above all that though, and I’m really just exactly the same.  Except I’m kind of worse, because I’m in loads of denial about my problem.  And my problem really isn’t seen that seriously because it’s not really that dangerous (like meth or whatever) or troubling (like cannibalism).  I’m totally in denial, bent double-over like Igor with laughing drool squibbling out the corner of my mouth, 3AM-crazy-eyed and wheezy.

But I secretly know I’m not any better than anyone else.  I won’t take signs and signals or no for an answer - the eyes are bugging.  And this scares me in the dead of night, at 3:28 AM when I’ve played the first four systems of the Rondo from the Pathetique over and over and over and over and over for the past hour and a half.  Making it faster and faster and faster and faster.  Thinking that if I could just make it absolutely perfect … that my life would be completely okay and that everything would change for me.  And it’s all because I’m acting out.

My husband says that all these feelings of mine – these feelings about the “new person” and the “old person” (and my lack of control particularly on the latter issue) are really all about the fact that I don’t have my enviornment under control.  I’ve got to finish setting up my room.  I’ve got to clean up my area.  I’ve got to finish putting my software together – that last little bit so that I can do the rest of the stuff that I’ve got to do for the musical.  Then I will be good to go.  Perhaps I will not be obsessing about stupid crap.  But as it is now, I dread the morning – and I sit around and over-practice rather than go to sleep.  Of course, I make sure that I’ll over-practice by ingesting four cups of coffee during the day.  

None of this is smart.  None of it.

But it all looks good on paper as I get more and more flawless technique and I slowly die inside – heading for another bout of tendonitis like I had in January because I pushed my luck with a Liszt piece I shouldn’t have been abusing myself with.

And then, after, the shame of knowing what I have done, and how bad I will hurt in the morning and how I don’t know if I’ll be able to function.  Just how sick will I be from it all?

Practice makes Perfect!

PG-13, mild language post

Armand Assante, Love, and Donuts [LANGUAGE ADVISORY]

I have an Armand Assante bathroom. I’ve been visiting it a lot this morning, because last night, the beer and cigar fairies came and danced in my forest (no, not in my gutter – so remove your mind from it … even though there is no “you,” because this is my second “blog” and I don’t actually believe anyone is reading this so I can actually go relatively unobserved). Let me tell you, it’s pretty liberating to have Mr. Assante looking down at you (from a large poster on the back of the door) while you do your business; as if to say “you really aren’t living right.” He’s doing it with a kindly attitude, as if he cares about your body, your life, your career. He’s got a cigar in his hand – so he knows how it is. He’s being very zen about the whole thing. He just wishes you’d get some exercise … or go to the doctor more often … but whaddayagonnadoaboutit?

I’m writing in here, but I feel like sometimes I’m only writing in here because I’m trying to keep up with the rest of “blog university.” My husband is looking at other people’s blogs and telling me how much more “me” I could be. I know that’s not what he’s doing, but we both agree that I would be more successful if I had more of a “web presence.”

I was working while shoving donuts in my face. I was actually getting a lot done (besides the fact that it’s rather dubious for a “rock star” – ha, ha – to be shoving donuts in her face) and putting in my stuff from the tiny recorder I have this neat thing that I work with where I put all my “input” … jams, thoughts, sometimes “voice-diaries” down. I might integrate it into the blog if I get brave … I don’t know. I know that on lj you can do voice posts … although I’ve never done one. I’m pretty shy about getting my voice out there.