mood

geeky

So if you've seen me performing lately, you might've noticed I'm trying to learn how to drum. Not with a drum kit (Rock Band aside, I'm not *that* coordinated) but with a used ashiko I bought, and sometimes with a borrowed djembe from Betsy or Sooj. I'm learning a lot.

It is SO MUCH FUN I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU OMG. Playing beladi on "White Rabbit" was ABSOLUTELY the highlight of Faerieworlds Decompression for me. :D You wanna know why people dance when they're drumming? Because HOW CAN YOU NOT. Srsly.

Many many thanks to Char for teaching me some basic things at the last Conflikt. I've got basics! I've got a list of rhythm patterns! Now the main thing I need is lots of practice. LOTS of practice. Especially if I'm drumming & singing at the same time, as I have a tendency to get really into one and forget to do the other. (It happens both ways.)

Also many thanks to the gracious and wonderful David Burch, who taught Tony and me how to tune/tighten up my ashiko, which kind of needed it, it turns out. It'll soon be sounding better than you've heard it before!

I've also gained a new appreciation for my guitarist as rhythm instrument. I tease Tony a LOT for being part squirrel, as he sometimes speeds up when he gets really into a song and the adrenaline gets going. Well, now I've learned how INCREDIBLY EASY that is to do. Or rather how incredibly difficult it is *not* to do. Especially if you're not used to being rhythm. I was playing djembe on Sooj's Super Sekrit Parody Not To Be Named Just Yet, and partway through she indicated for me to slow down, just like I do for Tony. Part of my brain went but SHE sped up, I was just following HER! and then the part of my brain that actually has the sense went but you're the DRUMMER, Dumbass Fox, you're not SUPPOSED to follow anyone, they're supposed to follow YOU. The main rhythm instrument sets the tempo and HOLDS it, and the rest of the band leans on you; that's the drummer when you've got one, and if you haven't got one, it's usually the rhythm guitarist.

If you've got a performer who plays more up on top of the beat (I remember my dad commenting that Johnny Cash was like this, when we were watching some early recordings), it can feel like they're speeding you up, and if you've got a performer who hangs way back on the beat (the singer from Cake comes to mind), it can feel like they're slowing you down. And that's the trick, because they're *not*, and if you let yourself speed up because you *think* you're following, then they have no choice but to follow *you*, and then it's vicious-circle time!

Captain Obvious, right? I can hear all my musician friends going duh. And I knew all of this, in theory. Really I did! But in practice? I'm used to following! I'm not used to being the rhythm instrument. Turns out it's quite a challenging job.

Still an incredibly fun one. Moar plz!


*****

Apropos of nothing, here's a song, because it's in my head right now. Spinners who spin staves, I'd love to see one of you do this song. Somehow it just made me think of lots of high tossing. Also I've just always loved this video.

( Right now, you should click the cut tag. )

mood

amused

Today I witnessed an act of vigilante gardening. There's a gentleman who passes me most days that I walk to work, cycling in the opposite direction in his smart orange vest and neatly-trimmed white beard and brainy specs, who always has a polite hello and a smile for me.

Today, I came upon him with his bike parked by the side of the road and a pair of pruning shears out, furiously attacking an overhanging blackberry bush. He was so engrossed he didn't even notice me, and I decided it might be safest not to interrupt him. It wasn't his house, based on where I see him coming from and passing to every day; apparently he'd just gotten so sick of blackberry thorns reaching out to grab his arms and legs and face that one day he decided to bring pruning shears with him on his commute and take matters into his own hands.

It was kind of awesome.

***

Also today, I was feeding wheat thins to the crows as I usually do on my walk, and just in the very last block or two of my route, there were suddenly MASSES OF CROWS. More than I've seen at one time in my neighborhood EVER. They all descended on the little bits of food, which was far too little for their numbers (they usually only show up one to three at a time, five at most!), then swooped around me in a circle, then perched all along the telephone wires and LOOOOOOOMED. Seriously, I was *surrounded* by crows on the wires on all sides. It was kind of creepy and also kind of cool. I tried to get some photos while backing away slowly. They even followed me a bit, shifting en masse just once from their perches to new perches a little farther along. Then I turned the corner and they watched me go. A couple of people came out of the nearest house and were just as weirded out as I was.

They probably won't be out for feeding on my way home, though, since it's raining pretty hard now.

mood

busy

By the way, a quick by the way:

Vixy & Tony will be playing at a benefit show at the Mandolin Cafe in Tacoma on Saturday, August 14th. We'll be joined by Betsy Tinney and Sunnie Larsen, and the other acts that night will include Jug of Punch and Alexander James Adams. Come and have fun and help out a good cause!

(Aside: I try to keep up with the gig announcements here, but Tony is really the one of us who can be relied upon to remember things, so you should follow him at tfabris if you aren't already. Or just check our schedule page.) :)

In the meantime, there are some Youtube videos posted of our Can't Stop The Serenity concert from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!

mood

pleased

Been trying to catch up on posting the photos that've been languishing on my laptop. Of course I'm too scatterbrained to do them in chronological order, so there's still stuff from April that's not posted yet, but I'm posting stuff from June and July. Because I'm contrary like that.

Faerieworlds!

Fremont Solstice Parade!

Also I added some more pics to my Spring 2010 set. They are entirely pics of flowers, just to warn you in case that's not your thing. A few are technically from summer, but there weren't enough to merit their own set. And anyway summer came AWFULLY LATE THIS YEAR I'm just saying.

mood

pleased

So as you know if you came to the last Wayward gig and/or the Big Damn House Concert at Betsy's, Kitten Sundae went kind of insane recently and covered Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir".

It was awesome.

At first I thought Tony was completely nuts, but what won me over to trying it was really listening to the lyrics and discovering that it... actually... kinda works as a Doctor Who song. If you squint. Not so much a narrative as a jumble of his memories. But still.

Coincidentally, there had already been another song (by Robert Plant, no less) that I'd been thinking of in context of the Doctor. (That one comes later.) I dearly wish someone would make fan videos of these songs, but since I lack video skills myself, I decided to make LJ icons. Yes, I'm crazy. Yes, this plan stalled out during Faerieworlds prep, but my consolation for being back from the Realm is getting to finish this and finally show them off. :)

Edit: OMG OMG OMG SOMEONE *DID* MAKE A VIDEO! It's here! Thanks to hiddenriver for finding it! Eeeee! I love how a lot of the lines suggested the same things to them as they did to me! <3 <3 <3

For a lot of nearly all the lines I couldn't decide on one image, so if you try to read the lyrics straight across it sort of reads like some kind of demented remix. :D Also I left out things like "oooh mama mama." (If you simply must have a Doctor Who icon that says "ooohh mama mama", you can make your own.) Also there's a lot of variance in what people think the lyrics actually *are*; we mostly took the version we do from this live performance. (Although we kept the original order; Plant scrambles the verses a bit there.)

Screencaps almost all came from Sonic Biro. A few came from the BBC website. I tried to make it so the icons would all stand alone even without the song's context; some worked better than others.

Enjoy! Feel free to take & use. Credit me if you are so moved.

( 'Kashmir', by Led Zeppelin, in LJ icon form. )

...I'll get around to the other song I have in mind real soon now. :)

mood

amused

Me: I do not approve of this!

gfish: What's your stance on gravity?

Me: I'm down with it.

gfish: AARRRHGHGHGHGH I'm leaving now.

Me: o/~ Youuu just wish you'd thought of i-- o/~

gfish: YES.

mood

proud

To quote seanan_mcguire quoting the NPR page:

"Last month when we asked the NPR audience to submit nominations for a list of the 100 most pulse-quickening, suspenseful novels ever written, you came through with some 600 titles. It was a fascinating, if unwieldy, collection.

"Now, with your input, a panel of thriller writers and critics has whittled that list down to a manageable 182 novels. That roster, which we now offer for final voting, draws from every known thriller sub-genre—techno, espionage, crime, medical, psychological, horror, legal, supernatural and more."

Here is a link to the full story, including the list of 182 novels being considered for the top 100.

So they say lobbying is okay, right there in the article, and this is me, lobbying. I'm not sure how I made this list; it would mean a lot to me to make the final cut. Please consider swinging by and taking a look at the nominees? And maybe, you know, making with the clicky?

Now please excuse me. I seem to have something in my eye.

mood

cheerful

So, Morning Glory Chai has a brewing location right near my office. The air often smells quite yummy around here. Sadly, though, they have apparently tried several times to grow a purple morning glory in the little dirt plot out in front of their space, and it keeps dying. Like, they've tied lines to the telephone & street sign poles to try to give it a boost, and everything. I've seen three tries now, I think. They have a ton of other happy flowers growing there, but a morning glory for some reason just won't.

This is kind of hilarious in a sad way, because morning glory is a pest in this area; it's invasive and you can't get rid of it fast enough and people in community gardens yell at you if you throw it in the compost bin without chopping it up thoroughly because it'll just take root and grow there and you'll have a big mass of morning glory where your compost bin used to be. And they cannot get it to live in that spot. I dunno if it's too sunny there, or if it's the exhaust, or if the city sprays weed killer, or what. Though the blackberry patch just half a block down is always COVERED in morning glory that has no trouble at all. It is a mystery.

* * * * *

In other news: Check out what my husband has been up to! His current project is called the Kalamazoo (if I knew why, I have forgotten), a hand-pump train car without rails, for Burning Man. This is why we can't have nice things have no room in the garage. :D

* * * * *

In other other news: thank you to everyone who came to the Big Damn House Concert and to the Can't Stop the Serenity Screening this weekend! We had a great time and we hope you did too.

I came to the house concert straight from work, where it had been a phones-ringing-off-the-hook kind of day, and so I was sort of out of social spoons before I even got there. So, if I spoke to you and was weird, or if I didn't speak to you and I normally would have, please accept my apologies. It was One of Those Days. When not on stage, I'd really rather have been under the bed. Fortunately stealthcello applied some Kitten Therapy.

I went straight to the CSTS screening from my work's company picnic, but there wasn't much I had to *do* at the picnic, and there was MUCH more get-ready time involved (and much less getting-ready for me to do as Kaylee!) so I was much more myself. :) My bandmates were FABULOUS as always: Me = Kaylee, Sooj = River, Tony = Simon, Marian = YoSaffBridge, Sunnie = Inara, Betsy = Zoe (what a Zoe!), and Torrey = Blue Gloved Agent.

Much gratitude to tereshkova2001 for distressing and staining my coveralls into authenticity! Which more than made up for the fact that I didn't realize my liquid black eyeliner is sparkly until after I'd used it to make engine grease smears. I mean, uh, it was magical Firefly engine grease because Firefly is a sparkly magical ship. Yes.

Best part EVAR: cheyennewright of Girl Genius fame, who was there to MC, *also* showed up as a Blue Gloved Agent, and since neither had a partner, they spent the whole shindig MC-ing two by two and looming like very menacing looming things. (Check out his Eyebrow of Doom in those photos!)

Edit: Forgot to mention the OTHER best part EVAR: Cheyenne said he'd been a fan of "Mal's Song" from way back, since before we recorded the studio version! Which means back when gfish and I played it at Consonance! Eeeeeee *squee*

Gotta get back to work with what little brain I have left, but see Tony's post for more comments and thanks and links.

Thanks again!

mood

working

There's work going on in my office building this morning that involves some very noisy buzzy power tool or other. It's in the lobby; I *know* it's in the lobby because I both saw and heard them doing it on my way in. (They seem to be replacing carpet, but there's also some sort of stone or faux-stone tile that I think they're taking up.)

My office is *right next to* the lobby. Both my office and the lobby also border on the parking garage.

Weirdly, the noises echo in all manner of unexpected ways. As I move through my office, it sounds like the noises are coming from the office on the other side, or the kitchen, or several directions at once, or immediately above my head.

Sometimes I think it's no surprise how ghost stories and supernatural myths get started, whenever people don't think to analyze their perceptions for errors.

Ah, now they've added a percussive counterpoint of hammering to the Power Tool Symphony in F. From sitting at my desk, if I went strictly by the evidence of my ears, I would think the hammering was happening in midair at about eye level, approximately six feet in front of me.

Good thing I keep some ear plugs around for when the leaf blower guys are here. I think it might be a mostly-voice-mail day for the phones. Hope your day is more peaceful than mine.

mood

cheerful

I keep having dreams about airports and airplanes. Sadly I also keep having dreams about being abandoned in them. Although the laptops that inflated airbag-style were pretty amusing. Also the part where seanan_mcguire had managed to page our missing parties for us by mysteriously having their names printed in the tourist guidebooks, saying things like "Lyta, please meet Vixy at the point indicated on the map on page 350," and on page 350, "Lyta, here is the spot where you need to meet Vixy now [arrow pointing to spot]". (I didn't even notice the pun until after I woke up. Paging! Get it?) (No, I don't know who Lyta is.)

The 107th street crows are becoming an entertaining part of my commute. Sometimes one or two will head for me when they see me coming now. On Monday, when I had to go home sick, I was too out of it to remember to take food for the walk home. So I walked a different route than usual, but they still found me and followed me, going "where's the food? Ya got any food? No food?" Most of them left off after a few blocks, but one juvenile followed me, silently, nearly all the way home. Every half block or so, flap-flap-flap-perch right above and ahead of me, just watching while I cawed weakly up at him, then flying ahead again once I passed.

Tuesday there was positively a GANG of juvenile crows on my way in, just mobbing the Wheat Thins like crazy. Yesterday was not as fun, because there kept being other people following right behind me or jogging by or walking dogs, and the crows won't come eat without a bit of people-free personal space. I think I entertained a few people, though. The crows like to pop out of nowhere and startle me when I think none of them are there.

I have done a Thing last month & this month which may possibly save my company $500-$600 a month. No, it's very much *not* an exciting thing that I did, but I'm excited about it because I really actually do like the people I work for quite a lot, and they have been *awesome* about my mom and everything, and it feels great to do something good for them above & beyond just doing my job well. It also feels great to be actively helping make sure we stay in business and I *have* a job, since business has been slowing down a lot lately.

Tomorrow is the Big Damn House Concert! I'm terrified, as always. Ah, but it's going to be fabulous. :) See here and here and also here for details on directions, donations, etc., and please RSVP to betsyt@pinecoon.com. Vixy & Tony will perform a set, then S.J. Tucker who is RELEASING HER NEW ALBUM MISCHIEF AHEM AWESOME will perform a set, then the amazing redhead Browncoat Marian Call will perform a set. You know us, though, there'll be some musical bleed through in all directions. :)

Then Saturday is the Can't Stop the Serenity charity screening, with food and concerts and Dr. Horrible and all kinds of shiny raffle stuff if you buy the extra-package ticket of ZOMGness. Plus you can see me in my new Kaylee coveralls that tereshkova2001 thoroughly abused helped me distress to look screen-authentic!

Also, my husband is awesome. Have I mentioned that my husband is awesome? My husband is awesome.

See you this weekend I hope!

mood

excited

Greetings, friends! Here's what we're up to this month!

******************

Pre-CSTS Shindig at Wayward
Saturday, July 10, 2010, 6:00 PM

One week before Seattle's Can't Stop the Serenity, the annual charity screening of the Firefly movie Serenity, we will be playing the usual celebratory shindig! Vixy and Tony and SJ Tucker and Betsy Tinney and Sunnie Larsen and a bonus Seanan McGuire!

Seanan (aka Mira Grant) and Jennifer Brozek will also be treating us to selected readings from their just-published works of fantasy and horror, and there will be costumes and a raffle of shiny things and all the usual fun Wayward shindig stuff. The fun all begins at 6:00 pm! Come out to see us and have some iced coffee on this wonderful hot July evening!

******************

Big Damn House Concert at Pinecoon Manor
Friday, July 16, 2010 7:00 PM

A gigantic triple-bill house concert at the wonderful Pinecoon Manor, with plenty of parking and the most gorgeous outdoor amphitheater you could hope for on a warm summer night. We'll be sharing the stage with Marian Call, SJ Tucker, Betsy Tinney, and Sunnie Larsen. It's going to be a truly amazing night!

NOTE: Please RSVP to betsyt@pinecoon.com so they know how many people to plan for. Also, please don't be deterred by the nearby construction; we're really there, we promise! :)

******************

Can't Stop the Serenity Screening 2010 at MOHAI
Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:30 PM

Vixy & Tony, as well as the amazing Marian Call, accompanied by Betsy and Sunnie, will be performing a short set of music at the Can't Stop the Serenity charity screening at the Museum of History and Industry.

PLEASE NOTE: There are two tiers of ticket levels, a $15.00 level and a $30.00 level. You must purchase the $30.00 level that includes food and the additional events to get access to the musical performances.

Remember, this is a charity event, and a portion of all proceeds are donated to Joss Whedon's favorite charity, Equality Now. Please come! This will be a huge event, with attendees in costume and everything. It's great fun every year, so don't miss it!

******************

Faerieworlds Summer Celebration, Eugene, OR
Friday, July 30 through Sunday, August 1, 2010

We don't have the time finalized yet, but Vixy and Tony will definitely be playing a set on the Village stage. And if the wind is right, you might just catch us adding a note or two to the amazing music of SJ Tucker and Tricky Pixie! And of course we can be found throughout the weekend roaming the grounds in our best faerie style. Come join the fun!

******************

We hope to see you all! Keep flyin'!

mood

optimistic

Music lovers! People lovers!

Your magic and aid have saved Alec and Kore and Fae Hollow!

And so, turning the wheel...

The musician that s00j fans may know of as the Mandolin Holy Man is in need of surgery and could use a little of your magic, too.

mood

frustrated

So, costumers and other sewing-types, a question.

Getting almost completely done with a garment, only to find that you've screwed it up badly and it looks awful and you're going to have to start entirely over from scratch: common occurrence? Learning experience? Happens to everyone, you're not a real seamstress until you've done it at least once?

Tell me this is normal. Please.

I hate wasted time. I hate wasted time more than almost anything else in the world. I *doubly* hate wasted time when it's entirely due to my own stupidity.

K.I.S,S.

I'm going to bed now.

mood

silly

So, you might have heard of the internet meme some time ago, where you replace a word in a movie quote with the word "pants". My favorite examples are from Star Wars ("I find your lack of pants disturbing") and Lord of the Rings ("Gondor has no pants. Gondor needs no pants.") It is hilarious and giggly and allows us all to be twelve for a while.

The other night, tereshkova2001 and s00j and I played a new version of the game, which I'm calling Shakespeare's Pants.

My favorites that I can remember (please forgive any errors in original quotes):

Give me your pants, if we be friends.

We are such stuff as pants are made on. (Alternate: We are such pants as dreams are made on.)

Pants delight not me: no, nor skirts neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

If our trousers have offended, think but this, and pants are mended...

Know that Macduff was from his mother's pants untimely ripped.

Here's the smell of the pants still!

Sweet Hamlet, thou hast cleft my pants in twain!

To thine own pants be true. And then it follows, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any pants.

Would that I were a patch upon those pants, that I might touch that cheek. (Okay I made that one up just now.)

How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine pants.

A plague on both your trousers! (Alternate: A split in both your trousers!)

Where be your pants now? Your bloomers? Your kilt? Your flashes of underwear that were wont to set the table on a roar? (I'm stupidly proud of this one because it scans to the original.)

mood

Working. Totally working. Yes.

I like hsifyppah's updatey posts full of things! So I'm going to try and do some.

***

Yesterday the crows were waiting for me on my way to work, not in the tree above but actually perched on the low fencepost thingies where I usually put the food. :D They flapped away just a bit when gfish drove by on his way to work, but then they came back. Hee. On my way home, I had three different encounters; one with a very large bunch that was clearly going LOOOOM on the wires to protect a nearby juvenile, so I left the food and kept moving quick. Two others where a crow flapped by from behind me just at the edge of my field of vision, to perch DIRECTLY above where I was about to walk under. Hee. Same pattern; leave some food while cawing at them, walk away a few feet, look back, they swoop down once on a flyover to check it out and then swoop down again to eat it. Usually joined by some friends.

This morning they weren't around at first; they showed up after I turned the corner. After I fed those, another showed up down the block a bit. Then another showed up a little further. Then another showed up after I turned the corner onto the main drag, Dayton, and I left him the last of my food. Then *another* showed up and I had to explain that I didn't have any more, but there was plenty back that way. Word travels fast over the crow internet, apparently.

***

Night before last I dreamed that some bad guys had taken us hostage in a kind of house arrest in the house I grew up in, pulling their red SUV into the driveway behind one of our cars. We had to let the big gala party event go on as planned, without letting any of the important guests or press know that we were being held by bad guys, so we hid omnisti inside the base of a HUGE cake in the shape of a snowman with a top hat. The plan was for him to crawl out of the cake and go out the basement window for help. Only the cake wouldn't fit into the main part of the living room because the top hat's brim bumped the ceiling, so hammerdancer and katez_chan had to move the cake into the kitchen so we could rearrange the living room furniture. I hoped that Jamie was explaining the delay and extra moving around to K; I think they were texting to each other. (The texts are coming from inside the cake!)

***

Yesterday, tereshkova2001 and I gave blood! It's been probably about two years since I last gave, maybe more. Things have changed! They don't drop your blood in the little jar of blue liquid anymore, and centrifuge you if the reading is too borderline. Which is great, because the centrifuge was making me really dizzy I sometimes wound up with a bruise on my finger from where they had to pump out so much extra blood for that. Instead they have a little slide that has a section like two slides close together (I can't find an image of it but I don't have time to try too hard); they touch the slide to your pricked finger and it sucks it up between the two panes of glass; then they stick that into a machine and it checks your iron... somehow. Apparently it can give a "false low", because I read as too low the first time (12.4, when you're supposed to be at least 12.5. Don't ask me the units because I have no idea) and they said I could do it a second time if I wanted, or I could decline. I opted for the second stick, which means two pricked fingers, and the finger-pricky-needle hurt a lot more than I remembered, but I just pretended I was being tested for Kellis-Amberlee. The second was 13.something so I got to donate!

And it wiped. Me. Out. I was pretty much fit for nothing but sleep after that, with a side order of staying awake long enough to eat something. I have never had that reaction to giving blood before. But I'm older, and, as seanan_mcguire reminds me, thinner. :) And hey, hopefully my blood will do someone some good. (Fishy and I are both O-positive so the blood banks are always after us.)

***

Oh hey, boss stuck in traffic + Comcast rep running late = I have another half hour or so of peace! I'm off to play Echo Bazaar totally get more work done!

mood

working

( Bits and bobs of what's up with me... )

mood

geeky

2010 is about half over and I can't believe I haven't made a bookpost yet!

I haven't had nearly as much time for reading this year. I haven't had as much time for a *lot* of things this year. I'm hoping that will begin to change now that things have settled down with my mom. *crosses fingers* But I'd still better post now before I forget what these books were even about. :)

( Here's what I've read so far! )

mood

giggly

Me: Oooohhh, would you cut me a piece of that coffee cake too?

Fishy: Sure! How big would you like it?

Me: Erm. Not too big? I know that's kinda vague, sorry. I'm not very good at being able to tell just by looking, y'know, how many inches square something is, or something.

Fishy: Like I'd want it in inches anyway! *noise of disgust* I'd want it in attoparsecs!

Me: How big is an attoparsec?

Fishy: About an inch.

Me: Why do I even talk to you?

Fishy: *falls over giggling*