Tuesday 21 December 2010

Lord Willin

As a man was leaving the office, a girl I work with said "Merry Christmas".
He turned around and said, "The same to ya'll too, Happy New Year!"
To which she replied, "See you next year!" Laughter was exchanged and general good vibes spread through the office.
As he walked out the door, the gentleman (who was wearing a Gator hat, by the way) said, "Lord willin, I'll be here!"
And I knew he was right, and thought of all the vain things I make plans about and was reminded of this passage from James 4:

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”


Monday 13 December 2010

Is That What It Is?

Artemis is the Greek goddess of hunting, wild animals, virginity and the moon, twin sister of Apollo. This guy asked for my phone number over the weekend and it made me think of this story (and wonder why it's been 2.5 years since the last time that happened, what is it about me? I've been told I'm intimidating, being a referee of men's rugby (and women's), tall and not ugly and all). Anyway this is the story:

Artemis was once bathing in a vale on Mount Cithaeron, when the Theban hunter Actaeon stumbled across her. Enraged, Artemis turned him into a stag and, not knowing their own owner, Actaeon's own dogs killed him.

I mean she was pissed he saw her naked. She couldn't have him going around saying, "Yo I saw that virgin goddess Artemis naked!" BUT, I think it's significant that she turned him into a stag (deer), allowing him to live in the form of an animal she held sacred. Hmmmm. Then again she probably knew his dogs would attack him if he were a deer.

Infinite Jest, an amazing book I just read and highly recommend, had a character named Joelle/Madame Psychosis who was beautiful (the former love of her life, Orin would continue to refer to her as the "P.G.O.A.T.", as in Prettiest Girl Of All Time). Her father warned her about men who were only attracted to her looks, ("The sweetest syrup attracts the nastiest flies.") so she was paranoid about that. But the author called it "Actaeon Complex", ("deep phylogenic fear of transhuman beauty"), which is what men get around women who are so intimidatingly beautiful they're actually repelled by them and can't bring themselves to even talk to her. I can't say this is my problem (I'm actually quite awkward and get this same Actaeon Complex around good-looking dudes as I go around looking like an unmade bed) but it makes me feel better to blame it on this. Maybe I should be asking "What's wrong with this kid who wants my phone number!?!?" (just teasing - I know that a girl's phone number is like a trophy for a guy)

*(Ultimately, at Thanksgiving dinner at Joelle's parents' house (with Orin at the table) her father revealed some gross crap about him being in love with her so the mother freaked out and went down to the basement where the father had his lab (he was a low pH chemist) and threw a beaker of acid at the father, who ducked, so it ended up breaking on Joelle's face, which made her deformed and un-look-at-able, so she joined the Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed and took an oath to always wear a veil to cover her face. And obviously Orin dumped her soon thereafter. At least she didn't have to worry if men were just interested in her physical appearance anymore.)

From wikipedia, other reasons I identify with Artemis' story:
The childhood of Artemis is not fully related in any surviving myth. The Iliad reduced the figure of the dread goddess to that of a girl, who, having been thrashed by Hera, climbs weeping into the lap of Zeus.[17] A poem of Callimachus to the goddess "who amuses herself on mountains with archery" imagines some charming vignettes: according to Callimachus, at three years old, Artemis, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her six wishes: to remain always a virgin; to have many names to set her apart from her brother Apollo; to be the Phaesporia or Light Bringer; to have a bow and arrow and a knee-length tunic so that she could hunt; to have sixty "daughters of Okeanos", all nine years of age, to be her choir; and for twenty Amnisides Nymphs as handmaidens to watch her dogs and bow while she rested. She wished for no city dedicated to her, but to rule the mountains, and for the ability to help women in the pains of childbirth.[18]
Artemis believed that she had been chosen by the Fates to be a midwife, particularly since she had assisted her mother in the delivery of her twin brother, Apollo.[19] All of her companions remained virgins and Artemis guarded her own chastity closely. Her symbols included the golden bow and arrow, the hunting dog, the stag, and the moon.

"She wished for no city dedicated to her..."
"...Guarded her own chastity closely."

And she killed Adonis, the guy everyone thought was so hot. (Also from wikipedia):
In some versions of the story of Adonis, who was a late addition to Greek mythology during the Hellenistic period, Artemis sent a wild boar to kill Adonis as punishment for his hubristic boast that he was a better hunter than she.

So, Artemis is one of my favorite mythological figures. There was a point but I forgot it.

Sunday 12 December 2010

You Know Who You Are

Thank you for bein a friend
Travel down the road and back again
Your heart is true
You're a pal and a confidant

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see
The biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say

Thank you for bein a friend.

Thursday 4 November 2010

I Want To Be Weird Again

"What kind of music do you play?" Uh, Haylee Slaughter Music. I don't know. Some of it can be pegged into a genre but some of it cannot. Since I've been recording an album in a real studio with a very talented producer, I've taken into consideration mass appeal to a certain extent and attempted to meet the listener halfway. There are songs I've deemed too personal that have been left off the final track list. The tendency to hold back and water it down now is stronger that I started refereeing seriously, for fear that rugby people will hear a song or read this blog and think "Ummm, yeah, what an unstable emotive weirdo." Referees are definitely not supposed to be unstable, emotive weirdoes.

You know who my song-writing hero is? Daniel Johnston, an unstable, emotive weirdo. So RAW, so REAL. Much of his early stuff was recorded on toy organs or badly-tuned guitars onto a cassette. Check him out, : http://www.hihowareyou.com. I want to make music just as weird. Some instrumental, all experimental, brutally honest lyrically, all music that exposes my heart and soul in a way that makes other people uncomfortable.

In the first two years of my refereeing career, I thought I had to fit a mold, not stick out too much more than I already do as a female. Be humble, not join in conversations, always get to meetings on time with my clothes ironed and my shirt tucked in. In other words, Play the Game. It's not quite me but I think that in a way these expectations have helped me grow up a little. In other ways, I've have to suppress who I really am for fear of weirding people out. I'm much more morbid than I allow myself to let on, and I've learned which anecdotes I need not share. Maybe these are good things. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to understand where I'm coming from, and it's really quite a hassle to try to change this on a day-to-day basis.

I've got high hopes for this record I'm working on right now; Internet radio play and shopping it for song placements on TV, movies, commercials or with major recording artists. I may do a CD launch party and actually perform for the first time in months. Who knows? But when it's done, I want to let myself be weird again. Really weird. Daniel Johnston weird.

Monday 18 October 2010

Some Things I Learned This Weekend

1. I need to learn how to get in touch with my feelings.
2. I have to stop spitting.
3. Being teased by both my mom and my coach together is disturbing.
4. Many things are not within the scope of my control, but many things in fact are.

Monday 27 September 2010

Quote of the Day

"You play right up to your limit and then pass your limit and look back at your former limit and wave a hankie at it, embarking. You enter a trance. You feel the seams and edges of everything."

....TALENT IS ITS OWN EXPECTATION.


-from the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's so weird and I can't put it down.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Routines

I was going to say something nice about routines giving me confidence. It just occurred to me what was missing from my athletic development: I'm not superstitious enough. Rafael Nadal, a great tennis champion, was so reliant upon his routines that he declined an invitation to meet the Queen of England at Wimbledon, saying, "It was disappointing for me but the Wimbledon club knows I have my routines before the match." Most of the routines I do have now are about food (e.g. packing the cooler with pre, during, post match snacks, then enough calories for the ride home), but I could get weirder about my watches or the way I tie my bootlaces. Hmmmm...

Saturday 7 August 2010

Traditions

It's not just the name of a local shop that sells ceramic knick-knacks to old ladies who have nothing better to do than shop for ceramic knick-knacks.

Monday 21 June 2010

Townes Van Zandt

A girl at church (Laura) was the first person to mention him to me after she'd been to one of my shows, asked me had I heard of him. Then, at a record store downtown the guy in the store pointed out a TVZ vinyl double album (Live at the Old Quarter) and spoke of it with such reverence I regretted giving my turntable to my dad. The latest sign was Brother Rufus (my harmonica player!) loaning me an issue of American Songwriter that featured Townes Van Zandt, and the article quoted several musicians. These resonated with me:

Guy Clark:
"And that poetic nature that's so richly inside Townes' work is like standing in front of a Van Gogh or a Renoir. You want to be able to access that part of any artist or writer or poet... They show you what a true artist is capable of doing."

14-year-old Elijah Berlow (Proctor School, NH)"
"He's such a poet, a really, really sad depressed poet. I tell my friends: 'Listen to the words...,' because at first, you know, they don't; they're about the sounds. But you put on 'Flyin' Shoes' and they don't have a chance. I tell 'em, 'Keep listening! Over and over 'til you get it' and they always come back blown away. My friends are inspired. They wanna write songs, but then they realize this is way hard."

Grace Potter:
"...you hear a song like "Waiting Around To Die" and there's such enormous despair, you're consumed by it. Taken whole from a very few, very pure lines... and as a writer, who doesn't want to do that? The way he does it so completely? Wow.
"And it sets a standard. Even his voice is poetry: The beauty is in the broken places! He always chose the perfect place, the perfect word to break... and he never overdid it. As a singer, that's part of it, too: He knew his voice inside out, how to deliver his lines so he could deliver that pain and never let the emotion take over, but be so real because it's true when he wrote it; you know that, but it doesn't make it true every time you sing it. That's the deeper poetry."

Good things come in threes, so I'm sure supposed to get into him now. The good Lord thinks I'm ready to learn from his songs.

And this is just brilliant:

Legs to walk and thoughts to fly
Eyes to laugh and lips to cry
A restless tongue to classify
All born to grown and all grown to die.
From "Rex's Blues" by TVZ

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Naked Dream

I walked into a department store completely naked. I think it was the shoe section. This tall sales lady with long blonde hair is gossiping loudly/making fun of me to someone else. She said, "Who leaves the house without pants??" very sarcastically. So I walked right up to her counter and said, "Yeah, I'm naked." Apparently someone had taken my clothes, but to me there was no shame or embarassment, just a matter-of-factness about the situation. Then I started to say something, can't remember exactly, either "someone took my clothes" or "hey I need to buy some clothes." I think it was more about fear of confrontation, or my lack thereof, which is good! Despite my obvious handicap, I took care of business. Take that, tall blonde harpy.

Sunday 16 May 2010

Femininity

It's something I'm putting emphasis on lately. WHY?

When it was still cold, a friend (Gage) called me out about my track pants and huge men's training sneakers (that "even (he) wouldn't wear") and ar-teest Unplugged In New York sweater and challenged me to do at least one feminine thing a day. Don't become "one of those!", he warned. And I knew he was right - I could've taken it personally in a negative way, but knew he had a good point. If it wasn't worth the effort, he wouldn't have suggested it.

AND WHY NOT?

It's strange, as a woman, to be asked to justify my choice of attire, because dressing nicely with mascara and hair down really is a huge departure from my usually indifference. There must be some agenda! No, I just want to look nice. Hopefully I've never been some poster child for women who refuse to be attractive because wearing make-up is selling out.

WHY NOT?

And you dudes out there who say they love women who wear their hair back in sweatpants and wife beaters, God bless you. See you when the weather bans skirts again.

Thursday 22 April 2010

a Tarheel's hatred I understand

The Daily Tar Heel
February 9, 2010
1990 columnist
http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/why-i-hate-duke

(In Summary)
"Now I realize that school spirit is a pretty goofy thing to some people, but I'll tell you something: I hate Duke with an infernal passion undying. I hate every leaf of every tree on that sickening campus. I hate every fake cherub Gothic piece of crap that litters the buildings like hemorrhoidal testiments to imagined superiority. When I see those Dookie boneheads shoe-polishing their faces navy blue on television, squadering their parents' money with their fratty elitist bad sportsmanship antics and Saab stories, I want to puke all over Durham."

...now THAT'S hatred.

I for one have had experience with Duke students, and I can pretty much concur. Trying to perform my weekly gig at Pasta Bella in Durham about five years ago and four couples from Duke were out for some dinner before some function, and I couldn't help but overhear their talk about boarding schools and new cars. Ugh. I'm sure I've been influenced by all the friends I had at Carolina, but take it from me: I understand.

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Baseball

I've written about how much I love baseball before. It's a new season, and the Red Sox look terrible. But April isn't even over!! They'll come around. The Braves (the team I grew up adoring but sort of abandoned when their pitching staff was traded away) have a new hot shot rookie, Jason Heyward, a 20-year-old who hit a dinger in his first AB in the Show. There's already been a no-hitter. Peter Gammons is gone from ESPN and works strictly for the MLB network now (which is super cool of him but I miss him, however John Kruk's presence on Baseball Tonight sort of evens it out).

My point is this: last year, I didn't watch enough baseball throughout the season. This year is going to be different. I love BASEBALL. I don't have a hardcore passionate allegiance to any one team, but there are those I follow and root for (the Sox, Braves, Cubs, Dodgers, the National League in general) and there are teams I have a strong dislike for (Cardinals and Yankees, however in the case of NY it's pure, unadulterated hatred). I'm somewhat ambivalent toward my "home" teams of Florida, the Marlins and Rays just don't do it for me, even though the Durham Bulls are the AAA affiliate of the Rays and I used to go to Bulls games all the time when I lived in NC.

This year, I will watch more baseball. It makes me happy. It's a beautiful and unique game in so many ways, and I'm not going to look back in October and again say, "you know, I didn't watch many ballgames during the season."

Regret is the biggest sin!


Monday 5 April 2010

Believe In Me?

Listening to my new Breaking Benjamin station on Pandora. I don't know how to describe it but I like it - emo? post-modern grunge? Some stuff is too harsh but it's all deeply heart-scabbing and the masochist in me likes that.

But one song just now caught my attention with a few lyrics - Believe by Staind.

"Cry myself to sleep" ?? The only time I think I've ever really done this was when my dad wouldn't let me stay up late to watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure on television. Is it really possible to fall asleep crying, with your nose all running and sobbing for air and whatever anguish causing the tears tormenting you? Just sayin.

What what does it mean when you ask someone to believe in you? The last time I remember that discussion was from Pretty In Pink, and I didn't really understand it then either. Molly Ringwold was all, "If someone doesn't believe in me, I can't believe in them." What the heck does that mean??? I believe in God, meaning I believe that He exists, that He's everything he says He is, etc, but I'm reluctant to parallel that to "believing" in another mere human.

There goes another one! A Shinedown song! "The only thing I still believe in is you." from "If You Only Knew".

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!!?!?!?!??!!??!??!?!?!!!????

Boy this Three Days Grace song is pretty intense ("I'll get lost if you want me to/somehow I've found a way to get lost in you").

Look, I'm not hopelessly lost for some mindless jerk who's unaware of my existence, but I do have a mild-to-medium crush (on a kid who likes Breaking Benjamin, haha, which is why I looked them up on Pandora, which is sort of lame but for this purpose I don't care). Do I believe in him? Uh, I believe he exists! I know he knows I exist! I believe that he is a good person. I believe that he makes me a better person because of the reasons I've chosen to contain my feelings for him by just writing songs and being polite. (The reasons could but won't be another blog entry).

There's another one! A Seether song, "The Gift" - "a reason to believe in me".

Even Paul Simon said in "Kathy's Song", "So you see I have come to doubt/all that I once held as true/I stand alone without beliefs/the only truth I know is you."

I guess if I wanted someone to "believe in me", I'd want them to trust me, root for me, have faith in me and my goals and know whole-heartedly that I will accomplish what I want for my life. I know that my coach believes in me, my parents and sisters do, and anyone who considers me a friend, but I'm having a hard time relating this to romance. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this because of my lack of experience.

Andrew McCarthy said, "I believed in you, you just didn't believe in me." Apparently this "belief" is a two-way street! I'm still puzzled.


Sunday 21 March 2010

Sweets

Happy Spring.

Called a wrong number today thinking it was my dad's (non-existent) cell phone and the guy said "it's alright, honey." This perfect stranger called me Honey, and it was nice. It made me think about all the pet names for women are derived from sugar:

Sweetheart
Honey
Sugarpie
Sweetie
Babycakes

Now, things made of sugar are nice at the time, but in the end are bad for you. The downfall of most any man is because of a woman - Adam, Solomon, Bill Clinton, etc., and the downfall of our society right now is excess carbohydrates!

Coincidence???

I think not.

Monday 15 March 2010

apart

My heart breaks for his broken heart
Cause he doesn't see what I see
That he makes me a better me
So I've set him apart
And it tears me apart

Sunday 21 February 2010

I Can Let Go Now

by Michael McDonald. Sung by Alison Krauss from her So Long, So Wrong album. Have listened to it over and over for days. That, coupled with JM's In Your Atmosphere, got me to thinking about those feelings I'd had before. I tell you what, for a songwriter, memories of heartaches past can be the gifts that keep on giving. "I'll Never Fall That Far Again" was written yesterday thanks to playing that song over and over again, remembering that I'll never feel that deeply again, that it's over and done with, that I can be objective about it now.

Anyway, that's not even the point. I have something to say. It must be prefaced. This is a new and unique situation, and that's what's great about experiences to write from - don't want the same old form of rejection over and over. Gimme some different brands of loneliness! The loneliness of mutual admiration that goes unspoken. Haha, I wrote a song called "I'll Just Smile" about this one tragic kid (with a beautiful soul) I dig but have decided to absolutely not adjust the thermostat and never share my feelings although they're fairly obvious. But it seems to fit more for this other kid I really dig recently, but I want him to know. Whatever, the point is, I want to feel everything. I want to know what it's all like - and as of late, genuine, pure feelings have been dominating my emotional landscape. And that is good, because it is new and different. I just want to tell him how I feel, and preface it with "I don't want to be anyone's girlfriend, and I know you don't want to be anyone's boyfriend, but I am so stinking fond of you."

Sunday 7 February 2010

John Mayer show, Tampa, Fla. 2/5/2010

Heartbreak Warfare
(jam with Steve Jordan -->)
Crossroads
(pullin out the chops early!)
(he thanks everyone for being there "it blows my mind and fills my heart")
Bigger Than My Body (freakin AMAZING)
Belief (Emmy called it)
("who out here is single? who's happily single? don't owe anyone a text, or a phone call!")
Perfectly Lonely
Assassins ("this is about me") ("I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet, but your kids are gonna love it")
Steve Jordan solo (ROCCCCKKKKS!!!) -->
Waiting On the World To Change
(changes to a Gibson, scats! --> Charlie Wilson organ solo) -->>
Walking On the Moon (Police - I called it!)
Edge of Desire (!!!!)
(after this he takes a sign from a girl in the audience that says "I'm your Joshua Tree" and acknowledges that the Rolling Stone article that reference came from was "not a shining moment in my career", sings a verse from My Stupid Mouth a capella )
Half of My Heart (sounds GREAT live, oh my gosh)
-->Dreams (Fleetwood Mac) -->> Half of My Heart
(comments that this is one of the best performances he's heard the band ever play and is grateful to not be "bored any more")
All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye (just before he began the song, he had that look of regret, the song is still hard to play)
(talked about visiting his dad at the old folks' home he lives at and his observation old people are still people but that he wouldn't say what we want to hear, "that old people are our greatest natural resource", but each person is the "same soul moving through and your body changes - "I'm still that crazy little kid"
No Such Thing
reintroduced the band and thanked us profusely
solo --> Gravity -->Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke) -->Gravity

Encore:
Who Says
Friends, Lovers or Nothing

Sunday 10 January 2010

Sum Zero

The great thing about
zero expectations
Is zero
disappointments.

Monday 4 January 2010

My Healer

Around 11:45 this morning, I looked up the local list of Al Anon meetings. I've been feeling some anger and resentment lately that I haven't been able to shake so I had a real urge to go. As God would have it, there was a meeting a mile away from my house that started at noon! So I jumped on my bike and headed down there. Of course, the topic was anger - and it was a great meeting with some great sharing from about 20 people who were dealing with the same stuff as me.

But the best part happened afterwards. The Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that is held at the same church let out just before us and everyone was either mingling or making their way off. I got on my bike and in my usual fashion sprinted toward home. Just as I got on the sidewalk I saw a man on a bike in front of me who'd just left the AA meeting, and he was going pretty slowly so I was planning the safest way to get around him. When I got up behind him though, I heard him singing something so I slowed down and followed him to listen. He was really belting out, with all his heart, "MY HEALER, MY HEALER, OH JESUS, OHHH, MY HEALER", a spiritual song I'd never heard. It was so beautiful, and this guy could really sing, but the conviction in his voice, the truth, the belief, the gratitude was what moved me most. I found myself crying, and followed him stealthy for several blocks, because I didn't want to disturb his moment with God. He'd just left an AA meeting, and was uplifted and couldn't help but praise Jesus Christ for delivering him the guilt and shame of sin and addiction. He is FREE because he's been HEALED by a loving and gracious Savior.

This man didn't know he was a living sermon today. Who knows how harrowing his story might be? We all have a story, we all have a cross to bear. Many broken spirits have been healed by Jesus Christ, and I praise my Father in heaven today that I'm one of them.

My healer, my healer, oh Jesus, oh, my healer.