I know most people are angry that it’s snowing here in April… but me, I’m quietly happy it’s the perfect weather to watch the snow fall from my desk and put ‘Ghost of Tom Joad’ on my headphones. Sparse, quiet music is so seasonal… thanks universe for one last shot.
Insomnia. What a curse. I’ve been up since 4:30am and it’s a drag. Sounds like there’s a child crying outside but I can’t find anything (anyone) so I’m guessing it’s just one of the neighborhood cats hiding out of sight.It’s haunting. Tonight though insomnia seems totally worth it - I came across this youtube video (below). It’s just the vocal track from the stones ‘Gimmie Shelter’. It’s Mick Jagger and a backup singer, Merry Clayton and wow! Story goes the Stones called her in at 1am and she came to the studio in her pajamas on and curlers in her hair and she was pregnant and on her third pass at ‘Gimmie Shelter’ she gave this performance. This earth-moving, I’m-giving-you-everything-I’ve-got kind of performance. On the final chorus when she’s shouting ‘rape murder…” and her voice is cracking and Mick is in the background cheering her on is the stuff rock and roll legends are made of. And just when I thought I couldn’t love the stones anymore…
Kill Your Television (Recap)
I wouldn’t say it was hard. I wouldn’t say we succeeded. But I wouldn’t say we failed. Giving up TV for seven days went something like this:
Day 1: dinner/playing music/book shopping/coffee shop
Day 2: dinner/gym/movie/go home and read
Day 3: dinner/do hair/do a fun little graphic design project/read/bed
Day 4 (friday): dinner (with plans of going out, that fell through turning into: playing music and watching a movie)
Day 5 (saturday): breakfast/gym/errands/lunch/wedding stuff/watch ONE episode of supernatural/get dolled up/go to formal birthday/eat/drink/merry
Day 6 (sunday): linternet/weisman art museum/hong kong noodle/watch ONE episode of Vampire Diaries/Another friends birthday dinner/drinks
Day 7: Passover Sader.
So, in the end we watched 2 episodes of television and 2 movies. It was a really cold week so that made it harder. I think it’s OK. I’d be happy if that was how many hours of TV we watched always. Next Goal - try to make that a reality.
My grandpa bills typewriter. Maybe my favorite thing in my home. #typewriter #grandpa #wagners #midwaytypewriterexchang. #lcsmith&bros #old #vintage
Kill Your Television
1997 through 2010 I either did not own a television or I owned a television that had no reception and was only good for watching movies. Then, in 2010, I move in with my boyfriend and we get this 42” flat screen and we can stream netflix and watch hulu on it and the next thing you know I’m pulling down 5 episodes a night of whatever TV series I happen to be into at the moment without a second thought. It’s relaxing and gluttonous and downright disgusting. At times I’d go as far to say it makes me feel like a junkie. Last week as we whipped through season 2 of “The Killing” (awesome series btw) I’d had enough and I turned to my bf and begged him to join me in turning off the TV for a week… to start with anyways.
Today was our first TV-less day. After 3 years of being completely out of control it was a big change. I got home from work and E was cooking dinner. I sat on the couch flipping through his ‘runners’ magazine (I’m sorry but a magazine entirely about running is ridiculous - do you really need more than one issue ever?) and then jumped in the shower. We had dinner together at the table rather than on the couch and we chatted and it was nice. Then he picked up his guitar and I picked up my violin and we played music together for about and hour and then it’s what… 8:00? And we look at each other and say, “ermmm… what do we do with ourselves now? This is really sad.” I’d like to interject here and come to our defense in that tonight was the first night of a nasty cold snap so there is a ‘coop-ed up inside’ thing going on. Anyways, we decide to brave the cold, pick up some cat food and run to the book store to get some new books. We ended up spending a good hour rummaging through Barnes and Nobel then we walked over to starbucks and got some hot liquids and made our way home. On the drive home we concluded that it was actually a really nice night and that we should cancel our Netflix subscription. I’m looking forward to cozy-ing up in bed with my new book and I’m looking forward to what the rest of the week will bring.
Learnin’ the fiddle
This was recorded after 2 months of lessons… FIDDLE is hard, it’s really hard. I’ve had 3 years of piano and 6 years of private guitar lessons and I can tell you fiddle is hard. I’m going to track my frist couple years in hopes of seeing some progress. This first video is terrible. I am off tune as much as I’m in tune and I’m holding the bow weird. And I’m SO! SERIOUS! I look angry I’m concentrating so hard - ha. Lets hope in 2 more months the video is not so painful!
me:
this is how the song SHOULD sound!:
Insomnia
For the past two nights I’ve bolted up, wide awake, at exactly 4:30 in the morning. This isn’t like me. I love sleep and sleep loves me. I haven’t been drinking I’ve been super active I’ve been doing everything right but I’m still up in the wee hours of the night. Tonight is a particularly lovely night to be wide awake. Snow is softly drifting down under the orange glow of the street light outside of our house. Tonight my boyfriend darted up at 5am and started to get ready for work when I pleaded with him, guiltily, ‘go back to bed it’s the middle of the night I just got up because I can’t sleep’ He tried, but he’s been outside for the past hour shoveling and scraping off our cars. He’s so thoughtful and he likes to take care of things and it’s this sweet loving trait that I don’t always possess. If I was a better girlfriend I’d welcome him in with breakfast and some hot cocoa but our kitchen is in a state of disarray and our refrigerator is stocked with nothing more than pickles and Sri Racha sauce.
but I got cat class and I got cat style (une part)
We have a lot of neighborhood cats but a couple days ago a little grey cat appeared on the scene whom I had never seen before. He started milling around our house for a couple days. I can’t tell if he’s young or small, I CAN tell he’s been outside for a while, he’s really dirty and a little matted and a little beat up. Two nights ago the temp dropped to below zero, windchill of f’ing freezing, so we decided to let the little guy inside. He came onto our porch, ate some wet food and when we went to leave the porch he darted in the house, through the living room and down into the basement. All the while our cat has no idea anything is going on. The whole next day we were at work the little grey cat hid in the basement while our cat lazed about upstairs blissfully unaware.
Last night we finally caught the little grey cat (I’ve named him Setzer, for Brian Setzer) and brought him back to the porch with food, water, litter box… while we figured out what to do with him.
Good news - we learned we can bring him to the vet and get him scanned for a chip to find his owners.
Bad news - if he has no chip we can’t keep him, he peed on the floor rather than the litter box and that’s a deal breaker for me (see the story of my old cat). We’ll double check with the neighbors (finger crossed) and It will break my heart to bring him to a shelter but I don’t know what other choice we have, I suppose we could just throw him back outside - who knows which fate is better/worse.
The vet appt is for 3:00 today. We’ll see what happens, fingers crossed.
We spent Saturday day and night babysitting. I really like this baby mostly because he looks how I imagine my boyfriend would look as a baby but also because he’s a really good baby! We played a concert for him and he was lovin’ it! For a good 20 minutes he was all smiles and belly laughs. By the time we broke out the video camera he had nearly lost all interest. So unfortunately this is him having very little interest in us playin’ our hearts out :)
*with only 6 weeks of fiddle lessons under my belt, I am terrible. Thankfully he is too young to know any better
