The Month of Musical Frenzy

For those unlucky people who don't know (which included me until the first day of February in the two-thousand-and-eleventh year of our Lord), it is the last day of February Album Writing Month. Or FAWM, as FAWM-ers affectionately call it. Defined as 28 days of scrambling to compose 14 songs–an album. I've never done this (obviously), but I was determined to make it through my very first one flawlessly. I mean really. Only 14 songs. In a luxurious 28 days. Couldn't be easier.

Lies! I started out very strong with 3 songs finished in my first week (One Juliet, Harder Things, and Where Did Summer Go?), but after that, Failure took hold of the rudder. And stole my gum, too. Forcing lyrical inspiration is so hard. Poetic inspiration, not a problem for me, so you'd think lyrically I'd be capable. Apparently not. My five-stringed guitar and I had it rough. Not even a piano could ease the difficulty.

However, during this process, I learned quite a bit about myself. For attention-span reasons, I shall only mention three. First, when something is on my mind, it tends to be what all my songs are about. It's amazing because I don't repeat anything. The songs are only alike in theme, yet come from the same experiences and thoughts. Second, I write most of my songs late at night, right before I fall asleep. My explanation for this is that the more tired you get, the more honest you are with others or even just yourself. Why? Because frankly, you don't care what people think about you: all you want is a gosh darn pillow! Nothing else matters! And that comes out in songs as well. Third, the brutally honest i.e. scary songs are always my favorites. There's something in human nature that loves the revelation of truth, even while cringing upon its release.

So let's now conclude. I've only finished eight songs. I'm working on two others, but most likely one of those won't get finished for probably years or something vague like that. Basically, I fail, but not epically, which is distinctly different! So I'm only slightly bothered. My evaluation of the experience is this: hard, but awesome. For any musicians, this is a great way to mine out some creativity from your coal-filled subconscious. And even if you don't classify yourself as a musician, it can still be fun. You don't have to write the music if you don't feel so inclined, or you can just skip over lyrics completely if they've offended you. Do what you want with it! The challenge of a deadline is great drive for growth. Just look what school's done to you. But if you like music more than school, FAWM is a much better choice.

For those who'd like to check it out and/or participate next year, visit: www.fawm.org

In parting, I will offer only a brief farewell–I still have 16 hours of songwriting left! Can't waste time!

Awesome_

Achem: Foreigners on Board

Oh hello, fellow Bowman-lovers! Well, get this: I'm the newest Whatever-You-Call-It on this blog. So . . . you're welcome.
As my first major deal, I would like you to ponder your own Bowman-esque qualities. If you don't know what such people encompass, do not fret. We gotcha covered. You may be a Bowman if you experience frequently any of the following urges:

• To spout sarcastic comments
• To quote movies
• To burst randomly into song
• To be shorter than the average not-Bowman (or if you actually ARE, even if the urge is not present)

 So. See if you measure up. If so, perhaps we'll socialize.
Well then. If you find yourself exhibiting any of these fabulous symptoms, congrats. Duh. Ummm,  k bye. Whatever. [insert smiley face here]

\The Brit Kid

Water Party! In the Basement . . .

Well, I guess it all started when I heard a waterfall. Being in a house, in the middle of frozen Idaho, I figured this was the first of the bad signs. I'm pretty sure it's not a common occurrence to hear waterfall-like noises coming from your basement. My first thought was that maybe someone had started doing laundry (an annoying thought when you've been waiting for hot water so you can take a hot shower). And here, the exploration began.

I traipsed down the stairs (of which there are thirteen, and maybe I'm the only one that finds that odd) and it was freezing. Like super chilly. Of course, for the past few days it's been 20 below 0, so it was a little expected. I still wanted to fix it. This is the part where I was supposed to start a fire in the fireplace that would then warm the whole house cozily, and we'd live happily ever after in our little heat-oasis.
No such luck.
Down the long hallway, I heard my very loud waterfall. Way too loud to be the washer going. So I crept into the shadow's shadows back to the last rooms: mine and the laundry's. As soon as I turned on a light, I pretty much knew there was trouble. Kinda hard not to know when the yellow linoleum has a lovely layer of arctic water and dead leaves.
I still have no idea how there were dead leaves in the basement when this house was built like 20 years ago.
Little-known fact about this house: there is one more room at the end of the basement hallway. It was supposed to become a bathroom (well, still is), but it's hidden very well by our fantastic camping storage and a board covering its doorway. Long story short, I knew where to look for my super-soaking culprit. But first, I grabbed my little sister and a bunch of towels to stop the water from spreading anymore–it was already getting well into the carpet. As soon as that was covered, I moved the board . . . and found an old plastic-covered mattress blocking the doorway. I'm still not sure why the mattress was in that particular location.
Nonetheless, we got the mattress out of the way quite efficiently i.e. Tori accidentally knocked it over. And we still could not see what the problem was. Something to do with the room being uninsulated and also not possessing any electrical lighting or the like. With that problem, we found another. The water was spreading more quickly. And in fact, it was infecting more and more rooms.

So operation Move-Anything-That-Could-Get-Water-Damage-into-the-Family-Room went into effect. I piled clothes and papers and other random things a Stephanie has (water gun, Disney mugs, 5 miles of notebooks) onto my bed. Then, it was move the furniture time. I completely unloaded my bookshelf and carried it out on my own. Tori helped me grab drawers from my dresser before I Hulked it away to safety. Lastly, we spirited away my desk and other important valuables pertaining unto that object (printer, book made into a clock).
By that time, Dad made it home to solve our plumbing problems. Well, not all of them, but definitely more than we could solve ourselves. I was very impressed that we were able to work so quickly and get so many things out that could have been destroyed. I mean, I did drop a couple books (Nooooo!!) but they were virtually unharmed. Dad got the water turned off, assessing the damage and whatnot, and took care of getting an actual bona fide plumber to solve our Mystery of the Mistaken Waterfall. Apparently, since it's been so cold and that room wasn't insulated, the pipes in there froze and broke.
Go Team Idaho.

You know what the worst part of this whole dilemma was? (Well not really the worst, I just say that for exaggerational purposes.) No running water. Meaning no shower. Also couldn't use the bathroom. Or brush my teeth.
So I improvised. With snow.
Okay, obviously I didn't bathe or use the bathroom, but it worked quite well for washing my face and brushing my teeth. I've never had a morning so refreshing. It made the idea of winter camping seem delightful.

Well, the good news is we do have running water again! Which is good. It would've been awkward to tell our neighbors we had the luxury of wireless internet but could we please use their restroom? So for the time being, while those darn back rooms air out, my belongings will occupy the Family Room much like any army could probably occupy France (nothing against the French, love their language and croissants and everything, it's just that the past seems to speak for itself).
And I? I am a man with no home. And by that I mean a girl with no bedroom. The meaning is equivalent.

Awesome_

Foot Thoughts

If Dr. Seuss can have a "Foot Book," (The first book I learned how to read, by the way) then I can have a moment wherein I share with you my thoughts about feet.

First off feet are pretty cool. I have known my fair share of people who detest feet. Think they are disgusting. Can't stand the sight of them, especially in close proximity. I never have understood this.

True, there are some feet that smell. But don't condemn all feet just because of the strongly stinky few. On the whole feet are pretty amazing. If you didn't have feet it would be quite a struggle to balance, stand up, or walk on those little stubbs. Plus the flexibility in your feet which allows you to stand up on your toes for a few precarious moments also lends the added feature of rendering you temporarily taller - which comes in quite useful for us short Bowmans.

Plus, have you ever noticed how dancers, good dancers, use their whole body in each movement. Every bit of them from the head through the fingertips to the toes are committed to the movement and transformed by it. Can you imagine watching a ballet where the ballerina had no toes to point? One of the iconic features of a ballerina is her distinctive toe shoes. Which brings me to another point. I cannot even begin to count the number of people who are obsessed with shoes. It is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for them. And they have closets full of shoes. Now to all of you shoe lovers - What would you do with all your precious shoes if you had no feet?

That's right. Now you can see the wondrous design of feet.

Now the real point of this was that I was going to tell a short little story, which now, seems very anti-climatic. Oh well. I shall share it regardless.

In the summertime I hardly ever keep shoes on for longer than it takes to walk from whatever building I am in to the car or visa versa. And sometimes not even that long as I simply carry them with me. This tends to result in a bit of confusion for my feet. You see, my older sister explained it to me one day. Feet are used to being covered and they adjust their own temperature accordingly throughout the day. So during the daytime hours when normal people are wearing shoes - their feet are naturally a little bit cooler to accommodate for the wearing of socks and tie-up shoes. Then in the evening or at night when it is time to be at home or go to bed, the shoes come off and the body has to work a little harder to warm them up on its own. A wonderful invention -right? Well, then you have people like me, and Kimi as she told me this theory from her own experience. I hardly wear shoes during the day and if I do they are most certainly some sort of sandal that can be easily removed in no longer than 15 seconds. But what this does is confuse your natural foot temperature system and at night when you still don't have shoes on it goes into crazy and over heats my feet to the point that I can't sleep because my feet are so ridiculously warm. The only solution I have come up with is to run my feet under cold water for a couple of minutes and then go back to bed. Kimi said maybe I should wear shoes more often, but of course we know she wasn't serious.

Now last night I had a stroke of brilliance which now looking back I can't understand why I never thought of this before in my life. In the wintertime when everything else in the world gets icy cold, my feet do the same thing. And just like the nights when my feet are boiling - I can't sleep due to the iciness of my footsies. So last night, because I didn't want to take a full shower, I thought, "why don't I just run my feet under warm water until they heat up?" And I did. And it was fabulous.

And that's what I think about feet. Well, for today at least.

_Loverly