Not As Easy As It Seems

Well, I've been practicing my song, Stand By Me, for a few months now, and my worst fear concerning performing the song was that my chord changes would be sloppy and slow, but boy, was I in for a shock. The way the night goes, the showcase begins with mostly little kids. Some sing Twinkle Twinkle, some recite little ditties, some recite stuff they've actually created on their own. As the kids started taking their turns, and the moment of my performance grew imminent, I began to get nervous.

No sweat, I reasoned with myself. After a couple of adults went on, I figured it was now or never. So I stood up, and went to the stage. I think walking up to the stage I began to hold my breath. By the time I was sitting there, pretty much in the spotlight, where you can't see anyone, I was mentally a full blown nervous wreck. I tried to start things off by prefacing my performance with humorous information regarding my only having had a guitar for four months, and how it was certainly going to sound like it. Then I started playing, and it sounded okay, but my goodness, it sounded loud...and that meant that all mistakes were going to sound loud. That really put me into a panic. I started singing, and seriously, I must have sounded like a warbling anxiety mess. Here's how it looked:



I played on, my eyes were filling with tears, I was so nervous. My throat was closing up, which was making it sound like I was forgetting the words, but really, I knew if I sang, it would come out in a sob. I kept smiling, which is key. At one point, everyone started singing along, which is a GREAT feeling. I think the guitar playing must have been the best part, but several times my hand started feeling really wooden, like I couldn't strum with any sort of finesse.

I was so embaressed.



When I went back to my seat



I shed a couple of tears - the ones that had built up from my nervousness, and I couldn't really talk for about fifteen minutes. I have never been so nervous in my entire life. BIG UPS to anyone who performs. I don't know how they do it. Maybe if I was a natural -- but learning something, and not being 100% confident is...almost torturous.

The rest of the trip was good, but I'm exhausted.

Hitting the Road Again

We are going to drive to Vacaville today, to head to my mom's brother's house for the weekend. My uncle, Keith, has a big annual party with a talent showcase. He plays with a band, and this year they are featuring some CCR songs, as well as their usual 50's and 60's rock and roll staples. Several other people play their own or popular stuff. Since Todd got me the guitar last May, I have been practicing Stand By Me, and I think I'm going to go for it!

I have never played the guitar in front of a crowd. So. It's a pretty short song, and just for fun I'm trying to learn a Beatles song, too. The guitar playing is okay, but singing while playing is more difficult that I imagined. It's a start anyway. I'll post pics as they emerge.

Space, such a rip off.

Yeah, so. Billions of dollars so that we can do more stuff with outer space. Because putting money toward ending hunger, needless suffering due to treatable disease, and the slow but sure destruction of the environment can all take a smelly backseat to space. Doesn't anyone think the exploration of the solar system is a little overrated? I'm so annoyed at this.

Long Walks on the Beach...Gone Wrong

Long walks on the beach are so relatively good. I have some experience with walks on the beach. When I was fourteen, I was at the beach with a good friend, and we wanted our moms to take us down to the pier to see the KROQ van, which was there due to the OP Surf Competition, and our moms were like, no, we won't drive you down there. So we walked. It was quite far -- much farther than we had anticipated. So that was a long walk. Another time I went for a walk with the guy that another good friend had a major hard crush on, and this fellow and I ended up bonding and then going for a swim in the ocean at night with all of our clothes on, and then had to walk back, soaked. That was a long walk. (Subsequently, we became involved in a relationship that made the long walk, although originally a walk of shame, worth it.) So, my long walks on the beach have had a pattern, essentially ending up with me getting in some trouble or drama.

I can see how long walks could also be uncomfortable. There's hazzards like sand in shoes, rusty nails, glass, stinky smells, tsunami-ish waves engulfing pant legs, and sunburn. I do think that the ocean is a fascinating place to hang out. And Long Beach has...an ocean. Alas, the breakwater makes said ocean disgusting. There are several groups attempting to put plans into action that would remove the break water and bring back the surf to Long Beach. I am all for this...as it's not fun to live with an ocean in my backyard that I can't swim in. Plus, the beach is dirty. And, seriously, I'm not a germaphobe or even really that concerned about germs in general -- but Long Beach and even Belmont Shore is NASTY. There are so many homeless that the beach ends up being thier refuge. There are showers, bathrooms, and sand, if adjusted right, isn't too uncomfortable to sleep on, as it retains heat pretty well. Plus, it's rather inexplensive to go to the beach for recreation, so you have large lower class families flocking there for solace, and trash can be a problem. That smells bad. So it's a dirty place I don't visit as I normally would visit the beach.

Even though I'm not taking the plunge in the breakwaters anytime soon, I do use the cemented pedestrian path that runs alongside the shore for exercize. Today I was doing the three mile loop, and I passed one of the giant gutters that drains to the ocean, and I saw this seagull. It didn't look good, It's head feathers were all ruffed up, and it wasn't moving away from the bike path, like most birds would and it stopped me, mid-stride. I was like, oh seagull, what's wrong? And I noticed that there was a long piece of fishing line coming out of it's mouth...and my heart just dropped. It means that either the gull ate some bait, and swallowed a hook, or it just happened to swallow line; whatever the reason, it didn't look good.

It makes me so sad, to think that humankind causes the earth such suffering. And I know the bird wasn't thinking emotionally about the pain he was in, but I still can't help thinking that if mankind didn't exist in it's current state, then this seagull wouldn't be dying a slow, torturous death. Think of all the suffering humankind causes. It's almost immeasureable. That seagull's death and pain was so rediculous. I mean, is anyone really fishing out of the breakwaters because they are starving? Or are these simple hunting pastimes, meant to evoke a time when we really depended on our skills as food providers; in other words, when we really meant something on this planet.

I often think of trash and waste, and how awareness on this issue hasn't put enough of a dent in the problem. In this way, I'm kind of an anti-naturalist. I think that nature is the answer, not the problem. Of course, there are disasters that are soley nature's fault -- but so often it's where human's greed has placed people that is the problem. The Tsunami? Yes, it would have been tragic any way you look at it, but what about the aspects of tourism that made it such a grand disaster? You have thousands of locals working for pennies in one area so that the well off can relax and take advantage of the cheap labor and facilities, which are often exploitive. Katrina? Yes, hurricanes are unavoidably life threatening. But why where there leevees in the first place? I believe the Katrina disaster, with it's destruction on such a grand scale, to be the effects of greed. It's hard to prove, but terribly convincing.

Today's long walk wasn't romantic, but it stirred a lot of passion that I had forgotten about. I'm going down that same path tomorrow, and if the gull is still there, I may try to take it to the vet. What was that book Anne Lamont wrote? One Bird at a Time? We'll see.

You don't need a pyramid. Silly Government.

So. Lately, it's been all about food for me. I'm trying to sort of cut out rediculous thinking/obsessing from my life, and food has been taking the place of real happiness for me. It hasn't always been about food. At one time it was about boys, and at another it was about music, and at another it was about wearing black lipstick. So somethings I've outgrown, and it's kind of nice that I chose lipstick and not tattoo ink, because if I was sitting here as I speak with the lower back tattoo I desired as a teen, I would be depressed. Ugh. It's so rediculous, I can't even write it. Sigh.

But that's not the point. The point is, I, like, I imagine, several Americans, like to obsess about things, and things are really not the point, are they? I like to fixate. Okay. I admit it. I like to obsess over things. So.

Do you ever wonder, like when you're trying to do something positive in your life, if you're always just banging your head (and not in a good way, Blythe) against a wall? I often feel like a wind up toy that imagines it's getting somewhere. Spinning my wheels. Like, now, I'm on a 10 day cleanse. There's no food -- just drinks. And today, on day four of this cleanse, I began to have dramatic energy, and my vision almost seems better, and I'm a little hyper -- and I'm thinking, hey, this is really great. I like having energy! And I'm hyped about how our culture is all about food, and about how we really live our lives around food -- and I'm thinking, this is great! Not having to have to think about eating -- though it is very hard, very hard indeed. I'm missing tastes and chewing and everything -- but I feel strong! And then I begin to think. And I think: Obsessing over food vs. obsessing over the absence of food. And on one hand I think b wins, because b is kind of happy and almost feels high at the moment, and a is usually grumpy and weak.

So I'm glad I'm on the cleanse, and I'm hoping that it leads to better health overall -- and I'm afraid of sabatoging myself. I'm really good at that. But I will go to the beach this week. I will!

Thanks for being there. I know this must be the worst post ever. Thank you for being a friend.

Yes. Light in August. No "a," no "the."

Just wanted to correct my error.

Sigh.

I was looking over my research paper from Blythe's American Lit class (I'm really not good at research papers. My research always seems a little -- half witted? flimsy? rushed? random?) and I realize that even though I wrote that paper in May -- I read those poems totally differently now. I look at what I wrote, and I think -- geez, I was really only seeing one layer, wasn't I? And poetry...well, I write an awful lot of theraputic prose, none of which is a stone's throw away from barely lyrical journal entry type writing...and I've been kind of a coy kitten about really jumping into analyzing great poetry, because I don't feel immediately comfortable with poems -- who does? It's not even supposed to be comfortable -- but, because it's so immeasurable, I shy away, which is rediculous -- REDICULOUS! because when I read my research paper I realized that poems are such a personal written expression that they take some getting to know. I read the poems I had written on again, and it was like I read whole new meanings. It was like, what did you write your paper on, you shallow halfwit!

Morrissey writes -- "has the world changed or have I changed?" and it's haunting, really, because the words don't change -- but I read and understand differently, and end up changing my story. Maybe that is why I get so conflicted about writing. With writing, especially fiction, poetry, you are never right. You are always dealing with conjecture -- and that's the beauty, no? It's just when I go to write essays, it's like I tell my brain -- okay, you are writing this to society, so you better dumb it down. Not that you, my dear, cherished instructors are "society," but you know, I'm trying to write this so anyone actually interested in whatever I'm writing about can follow my line of thought. But I never get past the tip of the iceberg. I know the Hemingway thing, about only giving the tip -- but when it comes to essays, you are supposed to go to the bottom of the polar cap -- you know, like the cores that they drill in the artic? you are supposed to go UNDER that stuff! (I'm laughing out loud) you know, where the fish dont even have eyes anymore.

I think teaching literature must be the greatest job in the world. I mean just reading those poems again after studying them four months ago -- I have a whole fresh take on them. Sylvia Plath keeps amazing me with Lady Lazurus -- which may be my favorite poem by a woman. And Neruda's poems? I mean, yes, okay, romantic -- but so heartbreaking. Of course, I have a little thing for heartbreak -- who doesn't? Admit it.

And animals? Animals trip me out. I mean, my cats like to sleep with me. They like to curl up in the crook of my arm, RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and sleep. I mean, human, human, cat,cat. I'm a human? Don't they know this? When my male simese, Roman, was a kitten, he was so small, the runt of the litter, that he fit in the pocket of my cargo pants. If I tie one of my sarongs into a sling, he will stay in there, right next to me all day. Um. I didn't just admit to carrying around my cat in a sling, did I? What I'm saying here is that these are animals, man! What do animals dream about? How do beings function that don't have language? Just instict, feelings, and some memory. Todd's Uncle, UM, thinks that it must be peaceful in an animal's brain. Maybe.

And you know what? I didn't apply for facilitator. I was really entertaining the idea -- but the commute just didn't...the drive...the hours...but let me tell you, I am a nice girl to have in the class. I won't let you down as a student. I'lll always have something prepared. Bible as Lit -- I'll give you my best. Early American Lit -- I may be sleepy -- but if I have that triple Americano before class -- which I know I will, because I will have to leave my house stupid early to beat traffic, and will have time to stop -- I will have questions, comments, etc. I should have been a fasiclitator a year ago. Dang.

And you know, I really am sad to leave after next semester. I'll probably still ask you for help/thoughts. But the big school should have some instructors that ring true -- but it's like I tell Tamara -- you guys have something special at Fullerton College. You all get an honorable mention in my book.