A Short Letter to My Macbook

Dear Knight in White Shiny Plastic Stuff:

I need you to work for me today please. That was a bitchin’ viola line I needed you to lay down just then. But you snapcracklepop like cereal. I’m tired of tweaking you, and adjusting you. I’m tired of the words buffer and engine and all that. I don’t want to parse through my sample ditching the wondrous bits of things that make you flow like sonic gelatin over a landscape of orgasmic delight (I don’t even know what that means).

I would like us to reach some level of understanding on this. Can ya WORK with me here? Can we make some beautiful music together? It’d be realreal SWELL!

Love,
RangerD

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?

Puh-Poo and Sharpened Blades

The excrement has really hit the fanblades of destiny now … I think this is a wakeup call.

The other morning I woke up at around 4AM, and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I was restless.  I tried everything.  Now I’ve made some revelations since my last post, so I haven’t been quite as antsy … and I’m almost ready to finish my backlog of updates and stuff I have lying around on my computer and really start this online experiment that I’ve been trying to do for awhile.

So I was lying in bed, thinking about why I dawdle.  I was thinking about how I don’t like to put things online because of the fact that I have been worried about censorship for the past ten years.  I haven’t wanted people to get offended.  There’s more, of course, and I’ll probably get deeper into it in some other online places … but really I’ve been watching myself.  Sometimes it’s good to watch yourself.  But really, I hold back – trying, wanting, striving … to be perfect.

Yes. Perfect. The me actually believing it can be done and is required of me.

What is perfect?  Not me, of course.  And I’ve always hated that fact – much more than the avarage person.  In a way that is very, very self destructive.

So I lay in bed that fateful morning thinking about this stuff and how I think too much and blah-blah-blah (basically thinking too much about thinking too much).  And I decided to get up and do some work.

I fired up the old gal (my inspiron 1150).  But it didn’t fire.  The network card, which is being held together by green electrical tape and is embarrassing anyway, got stuck.  The little black pushy-button-doohickey thing that you push in to pop the card out was permanently stuck way out of the computer.

I took the entire computer apart that morning.  Down to the bare innards.  I’ve seen deep down into that computer’s deep inner being.  I feel as though we truly, truly know one another.

I am now typing this entry on a brand new MacBook.  It’s white, pristine.  I feel like I’ve cashed in my long standing relationship – a ten or twenty year marriage, perhaps, for a zippier hot blonde or something.  I feel like a dirty old cheap man who has decided it’s time for a playboy bunny now that the surgeries aren’t working for his older, fifty-year-old model anymore.  

Husband thinks that I anthropomorphize these things, I’m willing to bet.  But the Mac is so sleek and white that I couldn’t help but mess it up a bit with the sticker that GEB gave me (that stands for something for a reason).

He kind of unwittingly helped name my computer because some people at his job gave him some sticker from a label maker.  His other job I mean.  During some days, he is a coffee shop person, although I don’t know what you call a man-barrista …

What are you if you are a male Barista?  A Barrister?  Isn’t that a lawyer?  Why does a guy get to practice law and a chick make your coffee … who made that rule?  I’m getting all mad now, over stuff that I don’t understand.  I’d ask GEB – but then he’d probably learn that I had a blog … he’d probably learn who they sold the droids to – and that would lead him back … home {ulp!}

This post is too silly to continue.

CRASH!

My computer needs (again) a new motherboard. This will be its THIRD successive motherboard. I can’t believe it’s still under warranty. When I go to cafes, people actually feel very bad for me (you know – with the wireless card and the electrical tape and all) …

In other news, don’t you fret (my LARGE audience …) I WILL be recording soon. My engineer actually didn’t call me back, but I was still being completely paranoid. I ran into him at the humidor and we got to talking about all sorts of amazing things. Felt as though I was totally grokked about music school … even got to talking about DM and he knew of her teacher (I am still really upset that she did not live to see ‘Two Hands‘). So it was a really good conversation.

So I was just freaking out with all the drama – oh no, I have to just quit music and become a chimney sweep because no one wants to work with me … (not that it wouldn’t be exciting to be a chimney sweep. Perhaps I should write a chimney sweep song – although it has already been done. Do we really need more than one?) Anyway … It was the week after south-by-south-shimmydowntha’drainpipe … so what did I expect?

Well, my engineer (I know, that sounds really possessive - but it has to feel like he is or it doesn’t work) … he’s a GENIUS … is as picky as I am about absolutely everything … also seems to dislike when dj-s butcher Violent Femmes songs … and has an engineering (and personal) background that is going to make what I have to do very interesting. I’m very excited.

I just have to figure out my money situation. I have the money for the recording. But the problem is – the marimba. I decided to use most of our “standing around money” (i.e. – our music money) for paying debt (I hate paying interest). So now I have to convince everyone in my house to eat ramen (because we’re probably not going to stop smoking fine cigars …) so that I can bulk back up. Or maybe I just can’t have it both ways. I guess we’ll just have to see – because I’d also like the husband to be able to buy some uber-camera. We’ll just have to see if Mr. Bush sends us our money – and if that helps.

I have more funny stuff to write about – but I’ll have to save it. I have to frantically write out LISTS, LISTS, and more LISTS! Much to do from now ’till then! AGGGH!

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.