I find that overthinking really is my worst enemy. It gets me into trouble and stifles passion and creativity. So I was relieved when I was able to feel something so strongly that the words just came to me.
The only problem with this song is that the words didn’t stop coming. The Madame De Pompadour verse came to me at the last second. More and more lyrics keep coming to me. I think enough so that I may have an Ode To The Doctor part Two.
But for now, I shall share with you a lost verse:
There I sat on my packed suitcase
Waiting for someone to come to me
To take me away from the fear
A crack on my bedroom wall
Erasing all of time
In my hands I hold your words, your memories
Nothing can take them away
I guess we really are The Doctor and Amy Pond
‘Cause one day you’ll look at me fondly
Knowing I was the girl who waited
Yeah… I think that this song is going to need a part two.
An email from the great and wonderful CarylCake. With a surprise for me (to be revealed in a later video) and a song for me to cover. I take a quick look at the chords and read the email. I save it in my inbox and saunter off to work.
The email sits in my inbox for weeks while my life spins around me like crazy. I keep on scolding myself for not making the time to even listen to the song that I am so excited to cover.
I do my concert, pack my belongings, quit my job, move to the city.
Finally. Time to breathe. And time to catch up on all the collabs, cover requests, etc that have piled up in front of me.
I open the email, download the song, and listening to it, I immediately start to cry.
My own feelings that I had pushed back for weeks.
How strange is it that everything is so intertwined? Everything so connected.
Caryl and I have always got along like two peas in a pod. Kindred spirits, really. There’s a reason why an ocean separates us. It’s because having so much awesome on one side of the planet just might throw the Earth out of orbit.
The weeks leading up to the move to the city, Caryl and I exchanged several emails. At a time when everyone had their two cents to put in about my fears, Caryl was the only one who made any sense.
You see, the move to the city represented a crossroads for me once again. The man or the career. Should I stay or should I go? Will the Doctor ultimately become another casualty of Not Ryan (my guitar)?
Lady GaGa is quoted as saying, ”Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”
But at this point, it was too late, as I had tasted love. I had felt it’s breath on my body breathing life into my veins. Not Ryan has always loved me unconditionally. Not Ryan has seen my biggest joys, fears, and sadness.
But what would Not Ryan say if he could talk back?
“A year ago, you took a chance on me. You realized that you could never spend the rest of your life wondering what if. You knew in your heart that if you never tried, you would always be haunted by regret. You trusted your heart. Trust it again.”
And how right was he? This inanimate object who knew everything about how I felt. After all, I confided in him. Not Ryan knew the excitement, the fear, the pain, the incredible joy and passion I felt. He knew better than anyone.
Except maybe Caryl, who seemed to know exactly what to say.
Maybe the Doctor will one day be but a memory. But I know with every fiber of my being that I could not live the rest of my life regretting the day I gave up. Anything worth having has always been worth fighting for.
And so I sat in my empty living room listening to this demo for Ballad For An Airport Farewell. Everything I felt, but couldn’t find the words to say.
Funny how life works. Had I listened to the song when she sent it, I don’t know that I would have been able to put so much of myself into it. The timing was just perfect because Caryl had the words all along that I couldn’t bring myself to write down.
I’ve now been in the city for a couple weeks. Feels like things are moving as slow as ever, but in reality, I suppose they’re moving pretty quickly for me.
I got a bunch of stuff shot and edited for Next Stop: World Domination. The new episode is uploading as I type this. As soon as it’s done uploading, I have to run back home and grab my makeup and hair supplies for Venus Spa and head out to that.
I spent the weekend on the set of Venus Spa. It was really, really cool. I learned so much from the experience. I came in to be an extra and do a super brief cameo (so be watching out for that coming in the fall!) and ended up becoming a production assistant.
I made a lot of connections and realized that acting and set jobs are probably going to be easier for me to get for awhile. So I’m looking for more background work to do for awhile to support the non existent music income. (Still slowly recovering from the blow it took when my ex room mate cut off the internet unexpectedly.)
I did some voiceover work for Wolf Bracker. I really enjoyed that script and hope to do more projects with him in the future.
Also got to cover a song by CarylCake! I’ll write more about that on Friday.
It’s a huge adjustment right now. Kinda scary, kinda liberating, kinda has me freaking out a lot. I was living with a crazy pervy room mate, working full time at a job that took a lot out of me, having no time for my music.
Now that I have nothing but time for art, I’m like a kid in a candy shop completely unable to focus.
I realized that I do work better under pressure, but the pressure to make a living solely as an artist was too much. It also turned out to not be the wisest course of action. There’s so much to be learned from volunteer work and meeting people who know more than I do. (Hey, it’s been known to happen from time to time!)
So I’m back to looking for part time work. Been on a couple job interviews. One looks promising, hopefully I hear back in the next couple of days. I’ve been trying to be slightly picker (read: NO FAST FOOD!) about a new job, but if I don’t get anything in the next couple of days, I will have to go get a fast food job.
It’s been crazy between trying to find my footing, trying to make my presence known and the general adjustments of moving to a new city. I’m hoping that things settle down soon so I can just get on with everything.
9 days away from the concert. I’m so nervous and excited and overwhelmed with all that needs to be done still.
I finally got the posters dropped off to my street team leader. (Thank you so much Mikayla!) They will be getting posters put all around town.
In the meantime, I’ve really got to start promoting the heck out of this thing! Oh, and I must go to Dauphin Music to get a few things.
I did a run through today of all my songs. I’m going to change the order around somewhat.
I’m very excited that my CDs will be coming in the next few days. However, I have had problems with my T-Shirt order, so they will not be in on time for the show. It sucks, but I will make do without.
So for tomorrow, more concert rehearsals, and starting to figure out how the finale of season one of Next Stop: World Domination is going to fold out. Perhaps I should bring things back to the original storyline of this season lol.
Anyways, it’s 2:30 in the morning, so I think I’m gonna go to bed now.
Don’t forget to get your tickets to the concert on the May 14th!
It is with mixed feelings that I finally release a not hate song. I will not go as far as to call it a love song, although I’m sure it will be seen as one.
I have kind of lived in fear of the day that I stopped writing angry and painful songs. I have always done them so well. They have become my forte. It also changes the why and the how I got started writing in the first place.
I started writing when I was 12 to deal with the pain, the anger, the fear and the resentment inside of me that I couldn’t handle. It was all I knew, and soon I found strength in my pain.
I was terrified of the day that I would not be able to write a painful or angry song. Would my career end?
And it snuck up on me, yet hit me in the knees and knocked me down. This new feeling. A feeling I didn’t know what to do with. The confusion and wonder and excitement and all of the amazing that comes with such a feeling. The strange yet intense lack of fear. The absolute panic.
I started to write it down.
But then I saw it… I don’t write painful, angry and sad songs. I write from the heart. I write passionate songs. As long as I can still feel, I can still write.
A little apprehension still remains though. How will the Army Of Awesome take it? Will they appreciate a not so sad and angry song? Because in a way, I feel like I am uploading my first video all over again.
I will edit this later and get into a little bit more detail, but how do I make such an awesome bubble bath?
Warm bathroom. Definitely need a warm bathroom.
I filled the bathtub about two inches full of warm water and then dropped in a quarter of Sex Bomb bath bomb by Lush. Then I put in a mixture of bubble bars. Sunny Side, Dorothy and A French Kiss.
I filled up the rest of the tub with warm water, mixing everything in the water as the tub filled.
To get the extra fluffy big bubbles, I stepped into the tub and thrashed around with my legs. Good leg workout, and makes awesome bubbles.
When I’m not on camera, I lay in there with a Cosmo magazine.
Last night I played an acoustic show at the Towers, a local bar. I am so glad on so many levels I got that gig.
To get this gig took a huge leap on my part… facing my fear of rejection head on. But the guy who books bands there loved my voice and was more than happy to book me.
In all honesty, last night was a total gong show. Got off work, showered incredibly quickly and did my makeup during the commercials on Doctor Who.
Doctor Who was amazing, ended on a hellofa cliffhanger and I rushed to get dressed and my stuff packed.
I got to the bar, and the other band was setting up. The plan they would set up and sound check, and then I would set up and sound check.
Plans change. Oh, have I mentioned that I have never set up my equipment outside my living room before? (Trust me, this makes a huge difference as I will be pointing out later in this post.)
I did not get a chance to set up or sound check before my set. Once the other band was set up, it was time for their set.
They played their set and as soon as they were done, I had to rush to get mine set up and start my set. No time for a sound check so all I could do was guess my levels. (All things considered, I didn’t do a bad job at guessing.)
The set went fairly well. There were no clear cut guidelines on how long he wanted me on stage for, so I had to kind of guess by audience reaction. Oh, also, stupid me, forgot the set list I had written down at home, so I wrote one out at the bar.
I am surprised at just how confident I was to be up there on the stage. I’m usually convinced that I suck, but last night, I knew that I could rock the house. I know people were expecting me to be some meek little Jewel wannabe, but I quickly surprised them by holding my own on the stage with pride.
Besides a few minor glitches, everything went well until I decided to throw in a song that I wasn’t originally going to play. (I won’t name the song because it is on my May 14th set list.)
I actually forgot the chord progression and the words to my song. Yeah. You read that right. I blanked out completely.
So I made the entire song up on the spot.
And ended my night with applause.
I was crowded by people who loved my set. They want to hear more of me. The people at the bar not only want to book me again, they want to give my card to their friends who also own bars.
But no experience is without learning, so here is what I learned from this performance:
1. Thank God I had something booked before the big May 14th concert to work out a lot of the glitches in my sing, play, stomp, stomp thing I have going on.
2. I need an extension chord and longer cables. Dauphin Music is going to continue to love me.
3. I own the stage, and, next time, I will be more assertive in communicating with other bands setting up considering sound checks, etc. I may not require much, but I do require something.
4. I am so glad that I’ve been doing so much more improv in my videos lately. If it weren’t for that, I would have frozen on the stage in panic. Instead, no one knew any better that I completely forgot my song. My best friend was like, “dude, you haven’t put that on YouTube yet” and I’m like “dude, I seriously made that up as I went along.”
5. Never again will I go on stage fully clothed! I now truly understand why so many artists go on stage half naked. It’s because it is flipping hot on stage!
Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up.
I am filled with new found confidence and a better idea of just what needs to be done before the May 14th concert. Hooray! Thank you to everyone who was there, both in body and spirit. I hope to see you at a future show!
My friend Diane was in town last night. I haven’t seen her in years.
It worked out quite nicely that I had the day off, so we spent the day and night together.
The time has flown so quickly that I forget how long it’s been.
The last time I saw her, I refused to play my guitar in front of anybody. It was right before I started doing YouTube videos. I was the star of karaoke night, and I was convinced that my life would go nowhere beyond that.
She was just getting into the situation I was leaving the last time I saw her.
And how the time has flown. Now I’m going places with my music, the happiest and most confident I’ve ever been in my life. She’s broken loose of what was holding her back and now she’s just starting to find her way as a music promoter.
She walks into my house and compliments my studio setup. We chat and catch up. She tells me about her life now, promoting music and how she wants to start doing it professionally.
I lend her some of my literature on the music business and tell her about some of my favorite blogs such as Music Think Tank and How To Run A Band. She introduces me to some musicians she knows in Winnipeg.
I give her a bunch of my business cards to give out and help her set up a Facebook page, which you can like…. here.
I also played my guitar in front of her. It wasn’t until I had been playing for awhile that I remembered that she had never seen or heard me play live.
She ended up doing the video for today’s video and did some of the video for Friday’s video, where I am making a special cake for the weekend.
Yep, we’ve come a long way, and there’s so much further to go still. It’s gonna be AWESOME!
Will there ever be another Friday again where people won’t start singing Friday? I’m not so sure anymore.
So I probably missed the boat with the whole Friday parody thing, but I took the dare and decided to have fun with it. The majority of it was improv. My favorite part of the whole video was the freestyle “rap” I did.
I’m really enjoying doing improv for my videos and find that they are starting to get better.
I don’t really think that there’s much else to say about the video itself.
Yesterday was Thursday. My day off.
I am quite pleased with myself. I got a lot of stuff done. It was an incredibly productive day for me. Got posters for my concert printed up. Did all my laundry. Got a ton of practicing done. In my high heel training, I have finally worked my way up to the 5 inch heels. Now I just have to get more practice wearing them.
I also decided to go out last night. One of the bands playing with me at my May 14th concert had a gig last night and I decided to go check it out. They had karaoke going on before the band started. I sang a couple of songs and rocked the joint. I also ended up booking a gig there playing on the 23rd.
The band ended up starting late, the bar was starting to get out of hand and I was tired, so I didn’t end up staying for the band. It’s a scary bar at the best of times and I was starting to feel creeped out being in there alone.
So I went home, did some more video and updated all my online event calendars, adding my new gig.
For me, the whole going out marked some victories for me. One, I managed to go out and be a little bit social. Two, I was incredibly confident walking up to random people and talking to them. Three, I was very confident and professional when booking my gig at the bar.
Yep. All in all, I really do feel like I am moving up in the world. Maybe I’m just telling myself that to make up for the fact that I parodied Rebecca Black.
