Hello dudes!

(I wrote a lot of stuff. You may want to read a few parts and then come back later. I don't want you to get Lindsay-brain overload. And what I really mean is you'll probably get bored here. But thanks for reading.)

So, it's been a long time. If you have a blog you know that sometimes you're just not feeling it. But I think I'm coming back. Ohhh, I'm a coming back. I've just been super busy, and I don't really blog at work, and work involves lots of computer time, so then I don't want to squeeze even more computer time at home into my busy-ness. And then you sorry suckers don't get to read what I did that day. And then from the looks of this thing it seems like I've been sick for weeks and weeks, instead of just the few days of ickyness in real life. Well. Now I will update you.

Things I have been living:

Congress of Starlng rehearsals, leading up to last night's big damn CD release concert/party. Full band: Andrea guitars keyboard piano, Aerin tenor guitar and other guitars, Shannon drums, Brian bass, Lindsay vocals keyboards electronic noises, Lexie vocals shaker, Tamika cello, Anne violin, Jack cajon djembe. So it was a big ol band and a lot of work finding time for us to coordinate and rehearse. We played straight through the album, including the hidden track at the end. We also wore masks and were the opening band, Hostile17, which was an inside joke for Buffy fans, one of which I am not. Still, we played only three songs, and they were the theme songs to Buffy, Angel and Firefly, and I thought it was a funny idea. Plus they were haaardcoorre. For this show, Andrea taught me how to use some of her new computer programs and the midi keyboard to recreate sounds that are used to make rhythm tracks on the album. It's been really hard for them to play live with the recorded tracks in the past, so this time I was putting the sounds together live. It was hard to relearn the way the "buttons" on the keyboard worked, like instead of notes of the scale, they were clinks and water droplets and baby noises and cats. And the sound it made when I pushed this C key was twice as long in duration as the noise on the C key an octave above it, and the pedal worked differently, and higher up keys were not necessarily higher up notes, and keys I was pushing down at the same time that would not make a good chord sound on a piano made perfect sound combinations, and the sound that comes out of this G key was not a lower pitch than the A key right above it, instead it has the same pitch and the same sound but the A key is louder than the G key. So I had to rewire my brain a little, which was like mastering a tricky tongue twister. Lots of people came and the night was a great success. Plus I got to walk in and go up to the maitre'dee and say, "I'm with the band." Who hasn't wanted to say that?

I was asked to record a song that one of Andrea's students had written. It is a timely song, kind of a silly dramatic ditty about Cook County government and players in the upcoming election. This guy wrote it and wanted to try and get it out there before the election, so he hired me and a guitar teacher from the school and bought some studio time, and we went out one night and made a sweet little recording of this song. It sounds just great, and it was very fun to go to a studio for the first time and sing inside the little soundproof vocal booth with the round screen in front of the mic and headphones and everything. I have to give this guy a ton of credit for having the drive to take this little song he wrote and hire people to put it together and sound awesome. I can email it to you if you wanna hear it.

Rehearsals for the butoh-style movement piece I'll be singing in at the Cultural Center on the 15. All I can say about that is goddamn, it's amazing to sing in a giant domed room with incredible acoustics.

Subbed some WW. Did a kids 2nd bday party on the 34th floor penthouse party room of a building two blocks from the lake. The party itself was really fun but I had a weird interaction with the kid's dad, who as I was leaving gave me a tip (pretty standard), and then reached into my bag of shakers that I had to buy to do these parties, took one out and was looking at it. It had neat rainbow colored beads in it and was kind of cool. He was talking about how much he liked it, so I was telling him where I got it, and then I'm getting my stuff together, and he gives me a few more bucks from his pocket as a little bit extra tip, and I'm getting ready to go, and he says, "Hey is it okay if I take this? For my kid? I just, I think it would calm him down- (touches my arm) That's not gonna screw you up is it?" and in the situation I couldn't really say no, or at least I was kind of flustered and said, "Uh, okay," and he said great and walked away. It was a little thing, but it made me feel really shitty, because suddenly there was this obvious power dynamic that hadn't been there before, where this guy who hired me is just TAKING something that I own. Didn't ask if he could buy it from me, it wasn't like his kid didn't want to let it go and I gave it to him, just buttered me up a little and then took my stuff. I suddenly felt very used. And it's weird, but being a performer for hire, it's only the people with lots of extra money who are going to pay the big bucks for you to play at their kids 2nd bday for under an hour. Sometimes I feel like simply my presence at that sort of event means that the point of me existing is allowing rich people to do rich people things. That night I worked at this benefit at work, a big fun concert and silent auction and fundraiser, since we are a non-profit. And there I was ringing up giant orders of people with lots of money to play with. Don't get me wrong, I think it's super great that they're supporting the school, and with the parties too I really love being able to do that for people and make occasions really special by using my skills, but the serving aspect of it and the power imbalance that sometimes shows up got to me a little bit that day.

In other news, I still completely love teaching WW classes. Love it a ton. I have so much fun and I can't believe it's my job. My classes this session are really great, great kids and great parents and nannies in there. Triplets in one class. I'm going to do their bday party in December, and I am SOO excited about that. They are little smart sweethearts and they make me grin.

There was Halloween. I performed at the Spooky Singalng at work, a big kids Halloween concert. It was super great, lots of cute costumes, fun songs, collaboration with 3 other teachers went really well. My boss said she was impressed and thought we did a great job, everyone had fun. Thanks for all your song suggestions!

I needed a great costume, hence the V. Hungry Caterpillar. Much of my recent time not blogging was spent creating that costume. Bought sweatshirt & pants, sewed elastic inside to make bulgy caterpillarness, spent lots of time fingerpainting foamcore, and cutting it out, and pushing little holes into food pieces with the cap of a lipstick. It was a great fun project and I was super proud of the results. People dug it! Kids especially were able to figure it out pretty quickly, and I was so pleased. I wore it to my classes on the 31st also, where I nearly died from the cuteness of everyones' outfits. When we went out that weekend though, I didn't go as a caterpillar. Instead Ben and I pulled together Joel and Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and went to a great party in the neighborhood.

Other stuff. Babysat Finn. Had to pick him up from school and take him to his dad's new place, so they had to buy a carseat for our car. For two days I was driving around with a carseat in the back. Crazy. We had a fun time, although the fire alarm went off while I was there and Finn got pretty freaked out. We went downstairs with the other tenants and a truck came and everything, and the alarm was really loud and Finn hates loud noises. It was a false alarm, but Finn talked about it all night and kept asking me if I was SURE that it wasn't going to go off again, and then said, "I never want to come back to this apartment again!" which was not good, but eventually I got him calmed down and I think things will be fine. It's hard to get a scared kid to go to sleep. I've never had to do that before. It made me really sad for him, because I hate being scared.

Jesse came to Chicago! At first it was just going to be him and a friend coming to town for a concert (Jamie Lidell), but then the friend had a friend, who had a friend, and suddenly four people were staying at our house. I was worried about how the night might play out with such a crowd but it ended up fine and really fun. I went with them to the show and then we got pizza and found enough floorspace for everyone to crash, and in the morning Jesse took us all out (!) for breakfast at the Cozy Corner. It was a lot of fun.
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I had lunch with my long-lost friend Liz at the gallery where she works. It was happy. I have been having good friend times and good talks, with Emily and Lauryn and Julie B, and good phone conversations too with Janna. Yay friends.

I clocked in 1000 miles on my new bike. I still love my bike. Every day.

Other: Saw friend Kevin's play, Tracks. Went to excellent bar afterwards, the Hungry Brain. Saw movie The Prestige. Had fancy dessert one night at Lula. Had yearly evaluation at work: I meet or exceed expectations! Things are all good with my job now. Huzzah!

So, that's pretty much all the stuff. Today I'm going to do yoga and some data entry project and close my old bank account at TCF. I have been gradually switching to Chase. So far it's awesome. Tonight I'm going out for dinner and then to see Borat with Taavo & Meredith & Ben. Tomorrow Ben's folks are coming to town to see this Acoustic Africa show at the OTS. Should be a fun weekend.

Yay blogging!