Thursday, July 27, 2006

Of Music and Mortals.

Enjoy the Silence cover by Lacuna Coil


Check out Lacuna Coil

Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Can't you understand
Oh my little girl

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm


~~~~~

Of course, they could never outdo Depeche Mode, but I like how they did this song anyhow.

I don't have anything really exciting to talk about; I've been taking a lot of pictures, and I updated my photography blog, so you can check that out. I've resolved to carry my camera around with me everywhere, so that I am never left wishing I could have caught a moment. In the meantime, I've got to get to bed so I can get up early tomorrow. I am going with my sister to the ranch, then to the mall to get her ears pierced. It's weird to think that at eighteen she's only just now getting them done, but she never used to go for that kind of thing. It's kind of cool that she finally is.

I suppose I'll turn in.

Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole. -Samuel Tayler Coleridge

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Sailing!

I went sailing today, and it was amazing. My friend takes sailing lessons, and I was out for lunch with her when she suggested I join her in her lesson. I thought at first I wouldn't be able to, figuring I'd need a parental unit to sign a safety waiver, and seeing how my mom was at work, that wouldn't work. However, the instructor was a little lax about that, so I was able to get on a boat in the lesson. I'm not really at risk for an accident, anyway; I'm a strong swimmer, and did take scuba training for open water certification... although I'm not certified. But whatever. I was feeling a little apprehensive at first, because I thought I'd get frustrated or confused on what I was supposed to do, and both my friend and the instructor kept overloading me with information to remember. Once I got on the water, however, it was easy. Just hold onto the tiller, keep the boomsheet rope semi-taut, and catch the wind. I learned what 'tack' and 'jibe' meant, tack being when you sail into the eye of the wind with the bow and jibe when you sail into the wind with the stern. At least, I think that's correct... some of the information I'm not sure I remember correctly. What was more interesting was that at the end of the lesson, after we put the boats (we were sailing little seven-foot lasers by ourselves-really cool, except you have to duck if the boom comes swinging around on a jibe and there isn't a lot of head room) away, the teacher taught us about the physics of how the wind affects the sail and how fast you go. She had prompted the class with a question about why you don't go as fast if all the wind just blows straight into the sail, and you don't let the wind blow streamlined through the sail. No one had an answer, so she explained it. It works in the same way an airplane wing does; above the wing, the wind blows across and creates pressure, also creating lift. The wind underneath the wing creates high pressure, and also pull. You need both for the plane to stay up, and move forward in the easiest and fastest way. So, when the wind blows over the rounded part of the sail, it creates lift, and when it passes through the other side, it creates pull, and makes everything streamlined.

I think that stuff is pretty interesting, but the best part was being out there on the lake in that boat... talk about freedom! We used to have a 27' Catalina when I was five, but I used to get scared, because sometimes it would be really choppy, and I'd freak out that the boat would flip over... I didn't know a whole lot back then. We ended up having to sell it, because my Mom and Dad were the only ones who really enjoyed it. Plus, my sister used to get really seasick... puking over the side the whole time. Not fun. But once my dad finishes school, we can get a boat again, and I'll go sailing with him. That I would enjoy.

Learning to sail was pretty much the highlight of my day... I'll have to go back and see how much it costs to take lessons. Being out on the water made me think of my friend Kim, who lives in Las Vegas and has a sailboat on Lake Tahoe. Maybe I should go down there and go sailing with her.

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. -Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The Haven

I added a blog to my account called The Haven. It's a place to put all the pictures I take and collect that I don't put on here.

In addition to that...

...I have been thinking about joining the AFROTC (Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps). For the life of me, I don't know why. The idea is just appealing to me, although in my heart I know I'm not meant for the military lifestyle. I'm too much of a thinker... not enough of an empty vessel for their "I own your ass" ideals. Plus, my fantasy of becoming a musician would become pretty much completely extinguished if I abandoned it to go play soldier. Maybe I'm just romanticizing the military. It's not all that romantic, I know... One of Dean's friends, John, was talking to us about his experiences as a pilot in the Air Force, and it isn't all that glorious. He's had a fulfilling life, but some of the consequences seem a bit unsavory. For example, he has a constant buzzing in his ears because of the guns and bombs and stuff going on around him. Not exactly great. I'm just not that excited to have to be in a combat zone... if I was stationed somewhere that wasn't a warzone, then that would be fine, but I don't think I'd be able to hack it under those circumstances.


Other than that, I've got the musical to concern myself with. I've gotten my parts down to where I don't really need to focus on them a whole lot. I still practice at home, but during my lessons, we don't really work on it anymore, because I just don't need to. So we work on other things, like one of my German pieces, An Die Musik. It's coming along nicely.

Today I didn't do a whole lot; mostly set up The Haven, messed around with my myspace template, and went out in my front yard to take some pictures of stuff. I have some gorgeous yellow and white roses growing through the weeds (which , due to my mothers' and my efforts, are receding slowly), so I took a couple pictures of them.

I'll probably update The Haven later, putting on some recent pictures. My camera has the capability to record up to an hour of film as well with excellent quality, but both Youtube and Myspace won't upload them for me... The files are too big, or some such rot. The films themselves are all less than five minutes long, so I don't know why they won't upload... I'll have to investigate and find another way to get them online.

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them. -Henry David Thoreau

Friday, July 14, 2006

Speeding up and slowing down.

Lots has been going on in my life recently, so I've been doing a lot of random writing and living, and not a whole lot of blogging. So excuse the abscence.

I can tell you that what has been taking up most of my time is music. We started working on this year's musical about a month ago, and this year we are doing A Little Night Music. I am one of the waltzers, whose job is to act as the muses in the story, guiding the plot as the principal characters generally make a mess of themselves. The story is essentially about people falling in and out of love at the turn of the 20th century, and humor and passion run rampant. It's going to be a wonderful show, and the cast this year is excellent. By the way, this whole production is put together courtesy of my voice teacher and his wife, who also gives lessons. They usually have two shows, and second show being put together is a show called You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, which is something of a little more childish nature, but sounds like is going to be an excellent show as well.

Anyways, apart from that, I've been enjoying myself. I go up to Dean's ranch occasionally with Adrianna, while other days I spend writing, practicing guitar or piano, singing, walking down to the park, and cleaning. Yes, I said cleaning... we Washingtonians have to be prepared for lazy, rainy days, even in summer. You eventually think you've run out of things to do, but then something presents itself.

To tell you the truth, for the past week, I've been caught in a slump. I've lost some of my stamina, I'm afraid, and I can be found lying on the the couch channel surfing instead of actually doing something. Maybe it's the streak of bad weather we've been having; who knows. I suppose I shouldn't be making excuses for myself. And while it is easy to just get up at noon and sleep the day away, it's not very useful or productive.

So there's my bit of scolding.

I guess I haven't been doing all that much. I'm thinking about getting back the job I had last summer, which was watching a woman's children for her. That's probably the hardest job there is, besides defusing bombs and commercial tuna fishing. That's the solution for the teen pregnancy problem: make all teenage girls babysit two children under the age of 8 for three months, and then ask them if they want to have sex. If the answer is yes, then they MUST be insane (or a commercial fisherman). The consequences are too harsh, yes indeed.

But the attraction of the job wasn't the children, though I have to admit, the youngest one was only a year old, and could be adorable at times... when she wasn't neck deep in crap and screaming. No, I really had a fascination with the money it brought in. That's how I bought my car; by the end of the summer, I bought a car for $800 off Adrianna's friend. It's not exactly gorgeous, and it does have a few things wrong with it, but it's a car, and I do have a certain amount of pride for it. So, I guess it's kind of like a practical husband; not exactly Heath Ledger, and does leave the toilet seat up, but hey! You love him anyway, right?

I've been watching WAY too much Comedy Central. Ha.

Right now, it's pretty late, so I think I'm going to leave it here and type more tomorrow, so I can get some sleep.

“In rock ‘n’ roll, you’re built up to be torn down. Like architecture in America, you build it up and let it stand for ten years, then call it shabby and rip it down and put something else up.” -Joni Mitchell