on discipline

i need to discipline myself to write songs.

today i had a line in my head. and i came up with a nice riff. but then it sounded too much like a hippy folk song and i am not yet ready to write hippy folk songs.

and then i came up with another line.

a whole concept for a song.

and it was good.

it would be good.

but i need to write the rest of the song that goes with these 6 lines that i've written (and the musical concept in my head for how the song plays out)

but.......... i'm tired. it's been a long weekend, and a long and busy week. i want to watch the x files and grey's anatomy and skype my friend.

and i think back to what amanda palmer wrote last week, about writing her new song "machete"

"it was at this point that i gave myself what i'd call an enforced crossroads. a fictional ultimatum.

i was like: ok. you are going to have one of two lives. you are either going to be the person who stayed up and wrote the song, or you're going to be the person who went to bed and didn't write the song. you are either going to be a songwriter, or a boring fucking parent. which would you like?"

except for me, it's like... i am either going to be the person who wrote the song, or i am going to be the person who watched tv.

i am either going to be a songwriter, or a boring fucking lazy tv-watcher.

so...

"let's go to work"

the joy of adrenaline

tonight i went to see caitlin moran.

i have been to a few live events in the last few weeks, because i like live events. i have seen a trio of female artists putting on a show for international women's day, i have seen yhe comedians josie long and andrew o'neill, i have seen marina and the diamonds, one of my long-time musical adorations.

tonight was different.

it was a splendid evening - she was "in conversation" with matthew everitt - so essentially her just talking and occasionally being interrupted or guided. 

she spoke quite a lot about politics - but the good, liberating, revolutiinary politics. the personal politics, how each person needs to stand up and change the world just one tiny bit, in their own way, and tell their own story. 

and at the end, as with the last time i saw her, she signed books. last time she praised my hair (and wrote in my book "YOU WIN HAIR") and told me debbie harry was obviously talking about me when she sang "tonight, your hair is beautiful".

tonight she grabbed me into a hug and said "hello gorgeous! you look amazing!" and then asked how my night had been, how my day had been. when i told her i had been working for amanda palmer, she asked about the baby. and she took a photo with me wherein i look suitably awkward.

and then on the way back, another feeling was all around my body. 

i felt weirdly alive. happy. content. 

the adrenaline of meeting caitlin moran had given me a spark - the spark that i forgot the feeling of.

so... maybe i should just go around meeting celebrity feminists every week. 

but that could get tiresome.  and creepy.

but it also reminded me of the last time i felt this particular rush of happiness. it was september, after seeing fight like apes live. but i didn't meet them after that show. as soon as the music ended and the lights came up, i didn't need to meet them. i had a feeling inside of me. a buzz, that made me know that i was alive. 

adrenaline.

energy.

living.

that is what i thrive on.

in which i suffer head trauma from 20p

i went to town today, as i often do, and i was walking home, as i often do. and i suddenly felt a massive whack on my head. i looked down, and saw a 20p roll across the floor.

somehow, from somewhere, a 20p flew across the sky and hit me in the head. right in the top corner where my forehead meets my hair. since i was crossing a road, there was nobody in front of me to throw it, so i can only assume it either skilfully thrown from a car, or from one of the windows of the 20-odd storey premier inn that was on the side of the road i was headed towards.

but i carried on walking, touched my head, and realised i was bleeding. and it kept bleeding until 15 minutes later i was at university, so i washed it up in the toilets, and went home... where it continued to bleed.

now i have a lump on my head, and have had my fringe pinned up all afternoon and evening to prevent my greasy hair from infecting the wound.

i put the x files dvd on my laptop to play, and as the menu played the theme music, it sounded eerily slow. i was convinced this was my concussion setting in and, since my housemate hadn't come home from work yet, i was going to pass out and die a lonely death.

then i realised that VLC media player was just set to play things at "slow" speed.