Who would have thought, Gentle Readers, that a 3 minute (well, more or less) song would have turned into a 6 page (and counting!) fiction short story? Certainly not me, but that's exactly what's happened. Unfortunately I can't publish it here, Gentle Readers, because I've had unscrupulous internet pirates steal my work and try to pass it off as theirs in the past, and I don't want that to happen again. If you're interested, let me know in the comments and I can email you a copy of what I've got so far.
The song is called Excursion Around the Bay and it appears to be a folk song of Newfoundland, though certain clues contained within the song suggest to me that it, like so many North American traditional elements, may have originally come from Ireland or Scotland, and had its words changed to fit the current audience.
The lyrics of this song have bugged my hindbrain since I first heard them 8 weeks ago and I finally decided that I'd have to do something about it to try to make sense, real sense of them, somehow. The six page fictional murder mystery that I'm writing is the result. The first draft doesn't have much mystery to it because it's written from the husband's POV after the fact, but I am considering, now that I've got the story elements working the way I want them, re-writing the story from a 3rd person POV as its happening. May make the story even longer, but oh well.
This is the kind of stuff I do when I'm bored. LOL, perhaps I should get bored more often!
We Three
Three good reasons to get out of bed on a cold, rainy night!
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
A Little Anxiety
Gentle Readers. . .
I am about to come out. I have autism. Actually, I have Asperger's, which means that I'm very different from Joe Average and am not very neurotypical, like the rest of you.
However, unlike many others with Asperger's, I don't suffer from a whole lot of noticeable anxiety, and I don't have a lot of meltdowns. But when I do, they tend to be big affairs, stuff it takes a while to recover from, mentally, even if I don't cry and carry on like some children do. When I meltdown I withdraw. Totally. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I just shut down 200%, particularly if I cannot get out of the situation. And most neurotypicals tend to interpret this as me being 'shy' or just me being an 'introvert', when I'm actually in considerable distress and need help. Unfortunately, I can't ask for help during a meltdown as I become non-verbal.
Recently I got reproved by somebody online. He doesn't know me from Adam and we will likely never meet in person (this is what social media does to our relationships!!) but it came at a bad time. I was already feeling a little anxious over my Amtrak trip of considerable length and about staying with a friend of mine, mostly because this requires me to leave my comfort zone and kills my routines and so on.
But I am going to my friend's home specifically so that we can see this individual perform. And my Asperger's brain is SURE, 200% convinced, with absolute conviction, that this gent who so far has only had one poor online interaction with me, is going to do something horrible to me in public (decry me from the stage, perhaps) and humiliate me and forbid me from ever being in his presence ever again.
Ridiculous, right? Of course. In reality he has forgotten all about it (because there are other massively important things taking up his time right now), in reality he won't stop the show because of me, in reality I am not that important. In reality, I can go to the concert and feel safe 'cause there's absolutely no way what I fear would happen.
But such is the joy of a brain with Asperger's that I have had to deal with this fear ever since the (admittedly small) incident happened. And it has sucked out the joy and anticipation entirely.
I suppose a psychologist would have reasons for why my brain had this response, I can guess at some of them. A lifetime of authority figures pointing their fingers and snarling at me would be one. My trust issues, another. PTSD (because I was bullied so badly for the first 13 years of my life), a good third. There are probably more.
All I know is that I have 2 days to work through this fear and anxious state and to reclaim the excited joy again of going on vacation to see my best friend and to make music with her and to take her to her first concert with these particular performers.
I hope I can do it.
I am about to come out. I have autism. Actually, I have Asperger's, which means that I'm very different from Joe Average and am not very neurotypical, like the rest of you.
However, unlike many others with Asperger's, I don't suffer from a whole lot of noticeable anxiety, and I don't have a lot of meltdowns. But when I do, they tend to be big affairs, stuff it takes a while to recover from, mentally, even if I don't cry and carry on like some children do. When I meltdown I withdraw. Totally. Mentally, physically, emotionally. I just shut down 200%, particularly if I cannot get out of the situation. And most neurotypicals tend to interpret this as me being 'shy' or just me being an 'introvert', when I'm actually in considerable distress and need help. Unfortunately, I can't ask for help during a meltdown as I become non-verbal.
Recently I got reproved by somebody online. He doesn't know me from Adam and we will likely never meet in person (this is what social media does to our relationships!!) but it came at a bad time. I was already feeling a little anxious over my Amtrak trip of considerable length and about staying with a friend of mine, mostly because this requires me to leave my comfort zone and kills my routines and so on.
But I am going to my friend's home specifically so that we can see this individual perform. And my Asperger's brain is SURE, 200% convinced, with absolute conviction, that this gent who so far has only had one poor online interaction with me, is going to do something horrible to me in public (decry me from the stage, perhaps) and humiliate me and forbid me from ever being in his presence ever again.
Ridiculous, right? Of course. In reality he has forgotten all about it (because there are other massively important things taking up his time right now), in reality he won't stop the show because of me, in reality I am not that important. In reality, I can go to the concert and feel safe 'cause there's absolutely no way what I fear would happen.
But such is the joy of a brain with Asperger's that I have had to deal with this fear ever since the (admittedly small) incident happened. And it has sucked out the joy and anticipation entirely.
I suppose a psychologist would have reasons for why my brain had this response, I can guess at some of them. A lifetime of authority figures pointing their fingers and snarling at me would be one. My trust issues, another. PTSD (because I was bullied so badly for the first 13 years of my life), a good third. There are probably more.
All I know is that I have 2 days to work through this fear and anxious state and to reclaim the excited joy again of going on vacation to see my best friend and to make music with her and to take her to her first concert with these particular performers.
I hope I can do it.
Technical Note 2
Well, Gentle Readers, I think you will enjoy the changes that I've done to the Stewpot today.
Basically, it's just doing some housekeeping, but I've also added some interactive type stuff for you, Gentle Readers! I think you will like the changes:
A) the ads are now a discreet little banner at the very bottom of the page. I know I hated seeing a big green banner. Very distracting.
B) I changed the links so that we can actually SEE the text. Don't know about you, but not being able to see links and so on really bugged me. Now, they are purple, and very visible.
C) I added a picture to the header of this blog. The current picture is clickable and leads to the website of my re-enactment group. I expect to change the picture every once in a while so we all don't get bored looking at the same thing, but they may not always lead somewhere else.
D) I have added some links that I personally love. Go check them out, they're very cool. As I come across more links, I will continue to add to the collection.
E) I re-ordered the layout a little so that it's easier to navigate. The blog now looks cleaner and easier to use.
A Technical Note
I think I am going to change the colors of the text in the column where all the previous posts are. I can't see it. And if I can't see it, I'm betting, Gentle Readers, that there are some of you out there who can't see it either. Look for this change sometime in the next 2-3 days.
First Song!
Greetings, Dear Readers!
Today, I am going to talk about something that's very exiting and personal -- the birth of a new musician. Or rather, it's the re-birth of an old musician, and I . . . well, I'd best start at the beginning.
Once upon a time there was a Canadian Folk Rock band from Newfoundland called Great Big Sea. And Great Big Sea has a front man and lead singer/guitarist (who also plays other instruments) who when you see him on stage is infectious and charming and brilliant, he's obviously highly talented as well as highly learned in the art of music.
And Great Big Sea came to Minnesota to play a concert at a free festival, and there at the festival was a woman who was feeling unhappy and repressed and smothered because she had, over a decade ago, lost her voice to the ravages of pneumonia, double bronchitis, and poorly managed asthma. In fact, it had been so long for this woman that she hadn't even realized how fraught her soul was at the loss of her music.
The woman had known of Great Big Sea for some time, but had never seen them in concert before. So, curious (because she wanted to see if they were at all the same in person as they were on the single track she had of theirs), she wound up near the front of the stage, packed in amongst shouting, dancing, singing concert goers.
The music started. The man . . . her heart knew what he was doing, but her brain couldn't put it into words. Watching the lead singer and his friends (for obviously, they were more, far more, than mere bandmates) not just perform but love the music -- and share the love, and demand their audience love it right along -- set off a spark. Just a small one, but it was enough.
By the end of the concert her world had exploded. Something in her soul that had been dead ever since she realized she had to give up the music came to life again. Colors were more vivid. Sounds were louder. As she walked back to her car and then drove home amid the never-quite quiet city night, she knew what her course had to be.
Find the music again. Look back into the soul, and try to find that which she had thought was banished, long ago. When she found it, she discovered to her shock that a small but life-altering part of her past had also been buried and was now returned to her.
She was Irish. Not just Irish American. Irish. She'd had a great aunt, whom everyone in her family had called 'Mom' McFadden instead of using her first name. Mom was a tiny, fragile, elderly woman when the woman first knew her, but her blue eyes still snapped, her voice still carried an Irish accent that you could break rocks on (despite at least 50 years of living in America), and it was Mom who was the matriarch of the family, not Nana, as the woman had supposed most of her adult life.
Why, the woman wondered, had this memory been set so far aside? Further probing into her memory, released by the music, revealed that Mom had taught the woman her first folk tunes, Molly Malone, and others, now only very dimly remembered. And these songs, in the Irish way, did not flinch from death and drunkenness and poverty and adultery, and that it was the woman's parents who had decreed Mom a bad influence on their young daughter, for even then, the daughter showed unmistakable signs of wanting to live on the social fringe, when her parents wanted her safely in the middle.
Mom bowed to the parents. The music stopped.
Until Great Big Sea brought it back. The woman remembered other things too. How Mom McFadden's Irish accent was so strong that even her daughter-in-law picked it up, somewhat, along with her son. And the woman's hindbrain remembered that she, too, had imbibed the accent learned and heard at her Irish great-aunt's knee, and began forming, naturally, the words and sounds of the old country, once again, in her speech and in her song. Now that there was no fear of punishment, the woman's brain understood, it was time to bring back not only the notes that were long dormant, but everything else as well.
It was time to remember, without fear, what the child had once known and loved.
She found her guitar, the bold blue acoustic dreadnought, dusted it off, found instruction on the Internet, and set to work. Soon, she discovered that one melody instrument was not enough, and bought penny whistles, knowing through instinct (and perhaps, some dim memory trace) that she could play those, which, sure enough, was true. She found MIDI files and MP3 files and began to sing in earnest, dredging up all she'd ever been taught about how to sing and the whys and wherefores. She discovered, to her astonishment, that the new asthma medications were actually repairing her lungs, and her voice, while ultimately still ruined, was yet good enough to sing around a campfire, or when she visited the 17th century, or with friends in the living room. Her pitch was still sure, her support still decent, her tone had actually improved over the years.
And now, 8 weeks almost to the day that the music returned, the woman (through diligent study and practice!) has successfully married the guitar chords, strumming technique, rhythm and that ever-elusive quality we call 'musicality', to actually be able to play her first song. It's not just vaguely moving from chord to chord with nothing behind it. It's not just hoping that some of the strumming is right, here and there. It is an actual *song*, real *music*, and this woman is quite grateful and proud.
I have had nobody to teach me. I practice alone. I don't have anyone to play with. It has taken 8 full weeks of virtually daily practice, but I can play MUSIC on the GUITAR, an instrument that I did not know or have any experience with when I started.
This is a big deal, Dear Readers. In the middle of everything I had to adjust some stuff because of my eye issues (which, if you don't know what I'm talking about, I will address soon!) -- for instance, I was unable to see the guitar strings for about 10 days, and I still can't see the bottom 2 strings very well -- but I have made those adjustments, I'm pretty sure. (as regards not being able to see the E and B strings, I am putting more effort into learning the strings and fret board by feel/sound alone, and I turn my guitar towards me more than normal to see where things are with my good right eye . . . I'm also considering getting a silver Sharpie and coloring the strings silver to make them stand out against the fret board.)
There were times these past few weeks when I didn't know if I'd ever get anywhere with the guitar. It seemed so unwieldy, and there is still so much to learn that I don't know and need to play catch up on (like, time signatures!) that other instrumentalists can recite in their sleep.
Learning The Lusty Young Smith (a bawdy folk song -- even then, they were fusing genres! -- from the Elizabethan era, true, it only uses 3 chords, but still!) and really making *music* come out of my guitar reassures me no end that I really am going upwards and onwards and not just around in circles.
It feels good.
Today, I am going to talk about something that's very exiting and personal -- the birth of a new musician. Or rather, it's the re-birth of an old musician, and I . . . well, I'd best start at the beginning.
Once upon a time there was a Canadian Folk Rock band from Newfoundland called Great Big Sea. And Great Big Sea has a front man and lead singer/guitarist (who also plays other instruments) who when you see him on stage is infectious and charming and brilliant, he's obviously highly talented as well as highly learned in the art of music.
And Great Big Sea came to Minnesota to play a concert at a free festival, and there at the festival was a woman who was feeling unhappy and repressed and smothered because she had, over a decade ago, lost her voice to the ravages of pneumonia, double bronchitis, and poorly managed asthma. In fact, it had been so long for this woman that she hadn't even realized how fraught her soul was at the loss of her music.
The woman had known of Great Big Sea for some time, but had never seen them in concert before. So, curious (because she wanted to see if they were at all the same in person as they were on the single track she had of theirs), she wound up near the front of the stage, packed in amongst shouting, dancing, singing concert goers.
The music started. The man . . . her heart knew what he was doing, but her brain couldn't put it into words. Watching the lead singer and his friends (for obviously, they were more, far more, than mere bandmates) not just perform but love the music -- and share the love, and demand their audience love it right along -- set off a spark. Just a small one, but it was enough.
By the end of the concert her world had exploded. Something in her soul that had been dead ever since she realized she had to give up the music came to life again. Colors were more vivid. Sounds were louder. As she walked back to her car and then drove home amid the never-quite quiet city night, she knew what her course had to be.
Find the music again. Look back into the soul, and try to find that which she had thought was banished, long ago. When she found it, she discovered to her shock that a small but life-altering part of her past had also been buried and was now returned to her.
She was Irish. Not just Irish American. Irish. She'd had a great aunt, whom everyone in her family had called 'Mom' McFadden instead of using her first name. Mom was a tiny, fragile, elderly woman when the woman first knew her, but her blue eyes still snapped, her voice still carried an Irish accent that you could break rocks on (despite at least 50 years of living in America), and it was Mom who was the matriarch of the family, not Nana, as the woman had supposed most of her adult life.
Why, the woman wondered, had this memory been set so far aside? Further probing into her memory, released by the music, revealed that Mom had taught the woman her first folk tunes, Molly Malone, and others, now only very dimly remembered. And these songs, in the Irish way, did not flinch from death and drunkenness and poverty and adultery, and that it was the woman's parents who had decreed Mom a bad influence on their young daughter, for even then, the daughter showed unmistakable signs of wanting to live on the social fringe, when her parents wanted her safely in the middle.
Mom bowed to the parents. The music stopped.
Until Great Big Sea brought it back. The woman remembered other things too. How Mom McFadden's Irish accent was so strong that even her daughter-in-law picked it up, somewhat, along with her son. And the woman's hindbrain remembered that she, too, had imbibed the accent learned and heard at her Irish great-aunt's knee, and began forming, naturally, the words and sounds of the old country, once again, in her speech and in her song. Now that there was no fear of punishment, the woman's brain understood, it was time to bring back not only the notes that were long dormant, but everything else as well.
It was time to remember, without fear, what the child had once known and loved.
She found her guitar, the bold blue acoustic dreadnought, dusted it off, found instruction on the Internet, and set to work. Soon, she discovered that one melody instrument was not enough, and bought penny whistles, knowing through instinct (and perhaps, some dim memory trace) that she could play those, which, sure enough, was true. She found MIDI files and MP3 files and began to sing in earnest, dredging up all she'd ever been taught about how to sing and the whys and wherefores. She discovered, to her astonishment, that the new asthma medications were actually repairing her lungs, and her voice, while ultimately still ruined, was yet good enough to sing around a campfire, or when she visited the 17th century, or with friends in the living room. Her pitch was still sure, her support still decent, her tone had actually improved over the years.
And now, 8 weeks almost to the day that the music returned, the woman (through diligent study and practice!) has successfully married the guitar chords, strumming technique, rhythm and that ever-elusive quality we call 'musicality', to actually be able to play her first song. It's not just vaguely moving from chord to chord with nothing behind it. It's not just hoping that some of the strumming is right, here and there. It is an actual *song*, real *music*, and this woman is quite grateful and proud.
I have had nobody to teach me. I practice alone. I don't have anyone to play with. It has taken 8 full weeks of virtually daily practice, but I can play MUSIC on the GUITAR, an instrument that I did not know or have any experience with when I started.
This is a big deal, Dear Readers. In the middle of everything I had to adjust some stuff because of my eye issues (which, if you don't know what I'm talking about, I will address soon!) -- for instance, I was unable to see the guitar strings for about 10 days, and I still can't see the bottom 2 strings very well -- but I have made those adjustments, I'm pretty sure. (as regards not being able to see the E and B strings, I am putting more effort into learning the strings and fret board by feel/sound alone, and I turn my guitar towards me more than normal to see where things are with my good right eye . . . I'm also considering getting a silver Sharpie and coloring the strings silver to make them stand out against the fret board.)
There were times these past few weeks when I didn't know if I'd ever get anywhere with the guitar. It seemed so unwieldy, and there is still so much to learn that I don't know and need to play catch up on (like, time signatures!) that other instrumentalists can recite in their sleep.
Learning The Lusty Young Smith (a bawdy folk song -- even then, they were fusing genres! -- from the Elizabethan era, true, it only uses 3 chords, but still!) and really making *music* come out of my guitar reassures me no end that I really am going upwards and onwards and not just around in circles.
It feels good.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Stress
You know, it's very easy to tell when I've been under a lot of stress, because my body goes haywire. Just wanted to make that known. At the moment, I am spotting like nobody's business and have had charley horses in my calves for close to a week. Yes, I'm stretching, yes, I'm drinking (even) more water, yes I'm not over-working at the gym and yes, I'm taking care to have some extra potassium and electrolytes.
The spotting, now, I don't quite know how to get rid of that. If anybody has any suggestions, let me know in the comments!
The spotting, now, I don't quite know how to get rid of that. If anybody has any suggestions, let me know in the comments!
Today, Gentle Readers, I would like to talk about weddings. Specifically, the social roles and expectations that seem to show up when we talk about weddings that don't really happen anywhere else. I am on the fence with some of them, and some of them I still think are completely unequivocal.
Take dressing in a certain way (no tuxedos on guests before 12 noon, no matter how formal the ceremony, no pants on women guests if its formal after 6pm, etc). My take on this is that regardless of the time of day or the formalness (or not) of the ceremony, you need to dress in such a way that the bride doesn't feel awkward around you. If she asks you to wear a Carmen Miranda outfit, so be it! If its a beach wedding and she doesn't want people to wear shorts and flip flops, ok. I feel that a wedding is about the bride and groom. If they don't want a stuffy formal affair, then we need to bow to their wishes and be gracious about it. Conversely, if they do want a formal red-carpet ballgown and white tie evening, it's our job as guests to come up to scratch, no matter how we personally feel about opera gloves.
Take a wedding I went to recently. The ceremony was held in an enormous, beautiful, VERY High Church church, more of a mini cathedral than anything. That location almost automatically insisted upon formal wear, right? Well, you'd think so but the bride has a personality and strength of will to match the grandeur of this church and she insisted that dressing up was not an option. She wanted people to wear whatever they felt comfortable in.
So most of her guests showed up in suits and/or business casual attire anyway! Some even went further than that, I saw many women in skirts, and a few gentlemen in formal short kilts.
I'm guessing that 'wear what you feel comfortable wearing' is still going to get trumped by 'we need to respect the event, the couple, and where it's held' every time.
Take dressing in a certain way (no tuxedos on guests before 12 noon, no matter how formal the ceremony, no pants on women guests if its formal after 6pm, etc). My take on this is that regardless of the time of day or the formalness (or not) of the ceremony, you need to dress in such a way that the bride doesn't feel awkward around you. If she asks you to wear a Carmen Miranda outfit, so be it! If its a beach wedding and she doesn't want people to wear shorts and flip flops, ok. I feel that a wedding is about the bride and groom. If they don't want a stuffy formal affair, then we need to bow to their wishes and be gracious about it. Conversely, if they do want a formal red-carpet ballgown and white tie evening, it's our job as guests to come up to scratch, no matter how we personally feel about opera gloves.
Take a wedding I went to recently. The ceremony was held in an enormous, beautiful, VERY High Church church, more of a mini cathedral than anything. That location almost automatically insisted upon formal wear, right? Well, you'd think so but the bride has a personality and strength of will to match the grandeur of this church and she insisted that dressing up was not an option. She wanted people to wear whatever they felt comfortable in.
So most of her guests showed up in suits and/or business casual attire anyway! Some even went further than that, I saw many women in skirts, and a few gentlemen in formal short kilts.
I'm guessing that 'wear what you feel comfortable wearing' is still going to get trumped by 'we need to respect the event, the couple, and where it's held' every time.
Hello, World!
Hello, Dear Readers! Welcome to The StewPot, a blog where anything and everything may get discussed. This is the inaugural post of this blog, it's my first time ever doing anything like this, and I hope you'll follow along with me as I share my thoughts about all kinds of things. I am also willing to give advice here, if you have a question or a concern you'd like my advice on -- about anything --, please share it in the comments or email me directly -- though if you do want advice, I will post your question and my response on the blog, just FYI. I am also learning about the technical side of blogging as I go, so please be patient and say something in the comments if there's anything you'd like me to address.
Please note, ladies and gentlemen, that I am a blunt, honest, open individual and I expect this blog to be the same way. I believe in what I believe in, and I am not ashamed to talk about my stuff. You will hear some incredibly non-politically correct stuff on this blog. Be ye warned! I am also a geek, so there will probably be a nerdy bent to most of what I say. If this freaks you out, if you can't handle 'those Star Trek people' or people who have decidedly strong opinions, this may not be the blog for you. I wouldn't want to waste anybody's time, so I'm letting you know up front what the deal is.
That said, I hope to have a good time on this ride and I invite you to come along o'me and share the fun!
Please note, ladies and gentlemen, that I am a blunt, honest, open individual and I expect this blog to be the same way. I believe in what I believe in, and I am not ashamed to talk about my stuff. You will hear some incredibly non-politically correct stuff on this blog. Be ye warned! I am also a geek, so there will probably be a nerdy bent to most of what I say. If this freaks you out, if you can't handle 'those Star Trek people' or people who have decidedly strong opinions, this may not be the blog for you. I wouldn't want to waste anybody's time, so I'm letting you know up front what the deal is.
That said, I hope to have a good time on this ride and I invite you to come along o'me and share the fun!
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