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.

Cho-Panda

The most charming-assed thing in the world, which I forgot about until I was going through my bookmarks today.  This makes waiting for the songfu challenge announcement a little easier!

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?

SATAN’S GUITAR (a very long introduction)

I am a songwriter with a blog. There is a blinking cursor in front of me – like you see in so many television shows when you are supposed to be working but you are not because the stakes are high and you’d rather crawl back into bed and eat a Three Musketeers bar.

I have a live journal, but it is private. I am always thinking of perfection when I write … should I post an official link to the Three Musketeers website? – so that my readers can link up to the history of these musketeers ..? then they can learn the history of both the candy bar, and the musketeers themselves … da, da, da.

Part of the problem, the reason that I don’t get any “work” done – is that I have a confession to make. It is why I have been hiding under my little rock for so long.

I am afraid of the internet. I have a phobia of large, uncontrolled spaces. I am afraid of what a lack of discretion might do to me. I’m afraid of all that time. I’m afraid of what a perfectionist might do in such a space, with all those tools.

Of course, if I actually sit in my own studio for any length of time, it takes me forever to get anything done. I’m actually having a huge problem with that, because I can’t work. I use EQ to apologize for my room, reverb to cover up crap. I’m pretty good at it – but I think in the back of my mind, isn’t there something better than this???

I’m inside a room that is on the major bird highway. And lately, by the time it’s the middle of the night (i.e. better for recording) – I’m in this dead-tired place. And we’ve gotten night birds in on the action now, anyway – like they know that there’s soundproof-free recording going on, because our psychopath raccoons have sent out a bulletin so I can have more Animal Kingdom interference in my life.

I feel as though I complain a lot.

Also, I am defining “work” inappropriately. Just to give myself some credit. I am an extremely prolific songwriter. I feel guilty saying this; as if I am not allowed to compliment myself. This seems to be one of those “things” in the music business that I’m not navigating well. You naturally want people to think you’re a bad-ass, but if I actually walk into a room and tell people “I wrote 37 songs last year and I’m actively in the middle of 54 more; I have learned to play the piano while blindfolded; listen to me play these things really, really fast (not that this matters in my specific field – if I was a concert piano player … I would not be cutting the mustard); da, da, da” … well if I tell people all this I sound like what they call in Australia a “show pony.”

I tell people that I can play many instruments, that if someone wanted a specific part done on a drumset I could do that too – and that I can also play a marimba with four mallets. People talk in the humidor that we hang out in (my husband and I) and I’m always thinking done it, done it, done it … This is of course, when I’m not thinking … [HUGE EDIT DONE LATER 1/21/2010]

My stories are all very weird, and kind of tend to quiet rooms – stop all conversation. “It was all going very well, until all communication was cut off / they died / my toenail was ripped off / etc.”

It’s hard to acquire gigs now based on such dubious connections/occurances.

But I have several of these. I’m high on technique and output … low on the people side of things – which actually includes recording and working with other musicians. The list of places I’ve played is actually pretty hefty – but would probably be met with a “nuh-uh … when did you play there???” Never mind, never mind … I’d say, I’m not allowed to talk about it, because [BIG EDIT SAME DATE]

This also includes the fact that sex and alcohol (which I also enjoy – but in a boring way, being a happily married lightweight … although I’m not judging); these things make these other musicians cooler and smoother than me. So I end up fading into the back of many of these social scenes.

I’m an extremely talented young lady with a severe networking handicap.

Chris Wall, who would probably not recognize me even if we were trapped together in a very small elevator … (and resultingly would not be reading this and would probably not mind being in my silly little blog); once borrowed my guitar from someone else who was also borrowing it. He looked down at it hopelessly and coined it “Satan’s Guitar.”  It is rather … difficult …  But I am not Satan.  Heh, heh, heh …

Have a nice day

FINIS

**********************

TTD: -Go to a nice cafe. WHILE THERE: Get some of that nice Hibiscus Mint tea – which is one of the top 5 reasons to live in South Austin. Revel in the absence of Satan-by-South-Washingmachine. Refine massive “list of things to do” (a work of things in progress)

- BEFORE LEAVING: Do “morning pages” (more on those later). When done, practice for 30 MINUTES [note to moi: NOT SIX HOURS]. While out, stick on earphones and go through songfiles from minirecorder and keep good stuff to work on (so I can finally finish ‘Charlatan.’)

-Come home. Finish Charlatan. this could be after martial arts (more on martial arts and charlatan later). Write about both things in blog.

Let this develop, mellow. See how it goes.

Stop freaking out.