Kidz

There is a summer music camp going on at my workplace right now, which is pretty much the only time of year I'm around high school-aged kids. This has caused me to make 4 observations:

• They're not really sure how to talk yet. Most of them either talk way too loud, or they are so painfully shy that they don't talk at all. Also, the loud ones do a LOT of singing that sounds horrible! Today I heard about six of them (girls AND guys) singing a terrible song from a musical, and they had chosen a key that was out of all their ranges!*

• High school kids have a smell. I wouldn't say it's necessarily bad...just kind of "musky." They bring it in here every Summer and it takes a couple of days after they've left for it to go away.

• Every year, there's ALWAYS a kid that works to actively destroy some part of the building. A window will get shattered, or some graffiti will show up, or some other shenanigans will happen. EVERY YEAR.
• There is always someone who barfs. Always gotta have some barf in there.

Wow, this totally makes me sound old and crotchety. It's not that these things really annoy me (except the terrible singing,) it's just interesting to see how these things stay the same year after year.

*OK, those *particular* kids were doing the musical theater camp, but I still think they fall into the I-don't-know-how-to-use-my-voice-yet category.

I Got the Shakes!

So yesterday when I got home from work, I noticed that my right pointer finger and thumb (my mouse-clicking hand) were twitching involuntarily. Uh-oh...

This may be one of many signs that my desk job is getting old. Time for less work and more slacking!!!! Woo! Happy Summer, imaginary blog readers!!

Poop Surprise

So one of our dogs, Beauty, has developed the weirdest phobia...grass. She's decided - only in the summer months - that she hates it and doesn't want to "hang out" on it at all. You can guess what happens when she does her business in backyard. Poop surprise! She's developed this complicated method of straddling the concrete walkway and the grass that doesn't always succeed in hitting the target...so that's cool. (Naat!)

The only explanation we can think of is that grass and summer brings bugs to our yard that seem to love biting her. They don't bite Fritz hardly at all. Beauty has the sweet blood. Another possible explanation is that she's always hated being wet or having any part of her body touch water,* and in summer, grass has a much greater chance of being wet than any other time of year. So she'd rather just avoid the wet feet.

Funny girl! She's got all kinds of personality quirks. We've only just grazed the surface.

*After she takes a drink of water, she literally dries her tongue by licking the first available soft surface -- every time. Usually it's a person's leg or shoe. Some of our guests get pretty confused by this.

It's funny

It's funny...

how quickly moods can fluctuate. when I'm moody.

how little things like certain smells and feelings can trigger the most vivid memories. 

how much getting a good night's sleep can improve my outlook on life.
(ha! I just typed "lice" instead of life. "outlook on lice" -- awesome. )

how time speeds up and then slows down, sometimes when I want it to and sometimes not. most of the time not.

how I take some things for granted. like music. what would the world be like without music? we are so lucky to have that.

how we all have dreams every night but rarely remember them. we have a whole different level of consciousness that we're totally unaware of. that's nuts.

how I get really anxious about meeting someone new or giving a presentation at work, but a week later, can hardly remember doing it at all. let alone care how it went.

farts. farts are just funny.

The Radio at Work Can Read My Mind!

Dudes. I was TOTALLY just trying to remember the title and tune to a song I was humming last night, and it just came on the radio. I'm not making this up. This radio station has magical powers!

For anyone who cares, the song was "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Crofts (1972). Also, I totally love the toy piano in this song. Awesome.

Bought Together, Part 1

Woo!! Just got back from our Spring vacation! Ten days on Padre Island, TX, baby!! I should be able to come up with some material to write about from that, but I'll need at least a week to let all my experiences get really absorbed into my brain... Lotta strands floating around in there now......Hm.

So, I decided to introduce a recurring theme called "Bought Together." Originally, this was a game we play sometimes at drinky-parties once everyone is good and sauced. The object was to come up with the two most outrageous / gross / freaky items one could buy at the same time at the Super Walmart (we always said "super" because then you get more choices of items. Like pretty much anything. You've got the full palette to choose from.) So, you'd start your turn by saying "Walked into the Super Walmart and picked me up some _____________ and a nice little _____________."

Dudes, the possibilities are endless. And with Walmart, you can also choose from all the services like the photographer, the beauty salon, the tax service...yup. It's hilarious!

So here's my first entry. I'm not using Walmart, I'm using Meijer (also a dept store,) but I totally get bonus points because I ACTUALLY went to Meijer and purchased these things. IN REAL LIFE.  

Here goes....

"I ran into the Meijer and snagged a value pack of pregnancy tests, a can of Metamucil, and some Advil Liqui-Gels!" TA-DAA!

Try it the next time you need a party game. It works best later in the evening, if you know what I mean. Heh. It also works better if said in a southern/hick type of accent. I don't know why.

On Musical Genres...

Well, I suppose I should say something here about music since it was my major in college and grad school and I guess I've put some thought into it...

I don't like many of the labels people assign to music. Mostly they're more limiting than helpful and what's worse is our tendency to use categories like "genres" as a way to reinforce arbitrary differences in us. Race is a big one. Really, there's not much difference between "rock" and "soul" other than the fact that "rock" = "white" and "soul" = "black" in most people's minds. Same thing with "blues" and "country." Today, blues and country sound pretty different, but in the 50s & 60s, there wasn't much difference at all.

I think genre labels also limit what people can do with music. Musicians are pressured to write songs that fit into certain structures like making sure there are "verses" and a clear "melody" and simple, danceable rhythms. Genres are also expected to adhere to many other conventions, like a band's overall "sound quality" (ex: distorted, bass-heavy, twangy, subdued, over-produced, under-produced, heavily synthesized, etc.)

In this country there's a lot of pressure for songs to have both vocals and lyrics. Frankly, I don't think there are enough competent vocalists to cover this! In fact, a song's "melody" doesn't always have to be the most interesting thing about it. Rhythm can be interesting too! Syncopation is great! So are really complex rhythms like duples-against-triples, and all kinds of variations. Really, "sound quality" and "energy factor" are probably two things that I consider more interesting than what the singer is doing.

There's also pressure to assign a genre to yourself in order to get gigs and do successful marketing. Even if you just want to play gigs at bars and upload some of your tunes on itunes, most of the time you have to choose a "genre" from a drop-down menu and have that define what you do.

This whole set-up doesn't allow for much creativity or originality. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of musicians who ARE actively pushing the limits,* and I think their stuff is pretty sweet. I just think more of it would be better.

*Prince, Rage Against the Machine, P-Funk, That1Guy, Sufjan Stevens, Primus, Tree Thump, Balkan Beat Box, White Stripes, Hazmat Modine, and many more!