Domestic Goddess My Foot

Another unfounded blog title, inspired by all of the cleaning and Other Good Things that I did today around the house. I accomplished everything I had set out to do apart from my homework (shhhh) which has nothing whatsoever to do with the content of this blog anyway.

I have been living in two places at once, here and on the Shadow Box. How I found my way there and became part of that I will never know. Because I feel like I come from a different place to most of them, a different mindset, a slightly more dramatic obsessive one, I’m sure.

I’m just sorry I missed all the fun, the thread really seems to have taken off from my comment, and I haven’t been there to see the repercussions.

Once I had supplied my advice and especially after making my apology it was clear that my view point, by contrast to the opinions expressed by those on the Shadow Box (I’m sounding more lawyerly by the day), seemed a little strange and misguided (these are my words for myself and I am not hinting at what I they think of me and my opinions, save for further mess I may need to clear up). But I think I may have hit upon something at least. There really was a bit of a debate going on. And ah, maybe they did move past the obsessive involved fan phase faster than I did, maybe it was something they experienced long ago with someone else, maybe, maybe – it’s like the chicken pox, if you get it when you’re young, giving goodnight kisses to posters of Hansen (does anyone remember that boy band now?) you grow out of it easily and progress to bigger better more informed and mature things; but, if it hits you later in life it can go much much deeper, resulting in denial and developing into an all-consuming paparazzo like fixation? Well yeah, whatever, I’m being histrionic again. By the way, I love that word, I discovered it today searching for synonyms for ‘dramatic’ to describe myself and my words, and I found that – and it’s the most eloquent description for it yet. Right, so...

I know this misunderstanding was mainly the fault of my theatrical over zealous apology. Of course I did mean to apologise, but ended up giving a little more than was due, and I think that it may have come across like I was going to follow my melodramatic words with equally melodramatic self-deprecating actions.

But most everyone who was being honest and upfront about their whole past and feelings about the situation, would have, or did identify, and the others just made it terribly clear that none of them had ever ever needed that sort of advice, and that my hints as to them having ulterior motives were verging on discourteous. But hey, it wasn’t the readers of this blog, so they needn’t know about my very tongue in cheek comment about all of that.

Speaking of this, and so I might use my theatrical eloquence to highlight something much much better than my own stupidity… I have been overwhelmed and greatly cheered by the compliments and support I have received of late; I would like to take a moment to thank the readers of this blog especially, and the Shadow Box community at large. I am only sorry that I have been taking a break from it all lately, but really, now that I look back at the dates – six days hardly constitutes guilt trip; Amanda sometimes doesn’t blog for a month; I must just fee that way because I enjoy it all so much, and I mustn’t let the sort of duty I feel for my blog ever get contaminated by the reeking dislike for my homework and the dishes. Which, owing to the fact that it has been three days since I started this blog, I have actually made some headway on. Ghastly really, the one genuine piece of holiday homework that I was given soon turns into four that I ‘think I should be making some progress on for next term.’ But consider this – if one procrastinates at procrastinating, that is puts off putting it off, which is a double negative; does this mean that they actually get the job done rather promptly?

Anyway, one thing that I have been meaning to share with you is my singing lessons’ holiday homework. I have been trying every day to sit down and belt out some Camille and some Regina Spektor, but as one would expect I have become tired with those two songs and my allergy to complicated scales and woe in the face of The Vacluse Lament persists. So, today (which is actually the 31^st of March) I was looking through my own book of song poem things for something to practice on. My mind had become very fed up with the whole situation and resigned itself to the fact that none of the other crap was important because I never wanted to perform that damn scale to an audience anyway (I do understand that practicing it is going to allow me to do songs in the future but it is dreadfully boring). So here I am sitting here with my song poem thing book looking at all my tuff trying to pick out something that had real character and an actually finite melody (still figuring out what that word means to me) and I found this song I wrote, hang on I can tell you how long ago – on the 11^th of April 2007, called “You’ll Hate This Song Like My Taste In Music” and aside from the very imaginative title, what is also good about this song is that it is/was very cathartic.

The whole idea originated from these two lovely personal messages that I got on the fan forum I mentioned earlier which I posted some of my poems on. I had this list of bands that I liked up in my profile, the very same list that you see here actually. My username was an acronym of these four people that I sometimes depict in my artwork as representing the four facets of my personality (these also feature in my avatar, they are clockwise from top: Desri the devil, Jane the angel, MJ the free spirit and Oliver the libido). But in short this girl, and I know she’s girl because I actually went to school with her, who by the way had never said a word to my face about this; sent me a message to tell me that (and I compile the insults) I was a “really fucking lame little dirty poser” for having that as a username and expressing an interest in those bands. She said that what my username represented did not exist, even though I never claimed that they did, but she thought it was grounds to tell me to “grow up and except myself” and stop talking about these bands that I have “probly never even fuckin heard of” (I love it when you incense someone so much they lose their powers of grammar and spelling). Sounds like I still take it personally, but I’m just giving you a clear picture. Actually, after the initial shock, I thought it was quite hilarious. The whole thing is so littered with teenspeak insults it was hard to take the poor girl seriously. She never took me up on the issue, but did send me another message after I deleted all the details in the profile (in an unrelated attempt to close it down) congratulating me on the fact that although I was still a dick, a loser and a poser; I had made her life that little bit easier by not claiming to like all those bands.

… Back to the song. Upon discovering these messages months and months after they had been sent, I knew something had to be done. And following the words “Don’t mess with me or I will write a song about you” which I think were uttered by Stephen Sondheim, I decided to write something about it.

And so was born the scathing sardonic epic that is “You’ll Hate This Song Like My Taste In Music.” Ha! Not really. The point was what drew me to the song was the fact that I had always envisioned (or en-whatever-it-is that you do when you hear something instead) a dog howling at the end of the chorus, in the style of Patience Hodgson from The Grates going nuts at the end of a live performance of “Howl”. A real mocking Chihuahua type thing. Although I knew that I would have to and was capable of doing it I had never been able to do it quite right. So today I sat down and tried to get this happening and it all sort of grew from there and I was able to sing this whole song to my satisfaction. I was quite amazed at my efforts just quietly. The finished (and by finished I mean it is a vocal track and nothing else) product was very close to that way I had imagined it should sound when I wrote it almost a year ago. I came away from the whole situation feeling quite uplifted actually – that is until I played it to my mother.

I had requested that if it was bad that she simply say nothing. She of course did not say anything. Albeit because she was too busy with the finances, but with a few prompts she confessed that she really didn’t have anything to say good or bad, except that one of my lines had too many syllables in it and this ruined the whole verse. Charming, I know.

I feel no worse for it though, because really this whole thing was pointless since any progress I had made really wasn’t progress at all, and the only practical accomplishment of the evening was the substitution of the five syllabled ‘unfortunately’ for the four syllabled ‘such a pity’.

And on that dreary note I shall bid you adieu at one in the morning on this April Fools’ Day.

Strangely enough my computer is having a joke at my expense and fails to believe that it is April first, telling me instead that it is actually one PM yesterday. I do wonder how long it has been half a day behind, must have something to do with the strange beeps that have been emanating from it of late…

☆Anika☆