The Memorial Rainbow

Quick update before bed. I guess I was going to write more, but I ran out of energy.

Internet's been slow here the past couple of days.

I'm moving rooms on Sunday, so I'm going to spend Tuesday going through EVERYTHING in my room and packing it up, making arrangements as need be, throwing old things out, what not, organizing. I'm actually really psyched to do it. I'm not psyched to be working a double tomorrow, though. Hopefully I get some practice in tomorrow. I have a lesson on Wednesday and of course, no practice.

So I figured I'd write.

A long time ago, when I was going through some rough times, I wrote in here a lot. I wrote about the things that were going on in my life, and I used this journal as a place to promote my work. People read along, for a good couple of years. I came out with an album, and then I came out with a book that grew into a series.

I'd post on here every once in a while after that, and my entries got more cryptic as they went on. And who knows how often I'll write now? But this time, I'm writing less for you and more for myself. Tumblr is too PC, Twitter not enough characters, Facebook too perfect. And yeah, maybe I'm writing from work at the moment, while I'm putting in information and being a database.

But nobody's really reading this yet, are they?

Here's the thing: I've been in New York City over four years now. Do you know how many albums I've produced in that time? Do you know how many songs I've written, how many times I've gone out there to promote myself? I actually made a habit out of it a long time ago, before places closed and I had to work instead.

There was a boy. It always starts out that way, there was a boy. We promised we wouldn't get too far in deep, that we'd be honest with one another. He supported my art. I was able to find temporary work, go to open mics. When I was let go from that job, he ensured I wouldn't have to worry, took a new job himself to make sure he could support both of us, moved in because living in New York is crazy. We were both crazy, we both had our faults, but at the end of the day, we were honest with each other. We didn't go to bed mad.

That was the most creative period of my life in NYC. I got a new job, one that enabled me to grow up from the crazy that I had been accustomed to. I found an open mic I could go to and even got my own show. I went to Comic-Con and we performed, and I created an album, and everything was perfect -- until it wasn't. I don't want to say my anxiety got in the way, but having all of your belongings in trash bags in your kitchen is more than a little rough. We grated on one another. Somewhere in the shuffle, my flash drive with my Comic-Con stuff was thrown out. I blamed him way more than I should have. I started blaming him for everything. He let me.

I went through a depression for the first part of 2015. Nothing happened. I woke up, went to work, came home. I wrote a little bit, but I was out of it. I was in survival mode all over again. The old-school methods I had used a long time ago woke up again: God hates that you were being creative, so He sent bedbugs to stop you. You might think I'm crazy, but that was the way my brain was operating.

I wasted a year. I wasted an entire year. At least he was around, right? At least he was being productive, starting his YouTube channel. I stayed off the computer. I let him have it. I was just in the way, right? I didn't want to take the computer and waste time while he could be recording his shows. For what it's worth, I did try. I lost sleep composing music for a friend's cabaret and now she's not talking to me because I wanted to be paid for a future one. I choreographed a dance and performed it in front of others, and then a fight broke out and my boyfriend escorted me into the nearest Mickey D's before the cops could show up. It was supposed to be a competition, and nobody won.

Things like that wouldn't knock old Emily down. I'm not sure he ever properly knew old Emily. Old Emily existed before January 5, 2012.

And you're still here in black and gold
Your inner core the only change
So how much of the girl I fell for still remains?

You know what I should have done on January 5? I should have quit the city. I should have called my dad, said "this isn't working out, I'm coming home." And yeah, I signed a year lease, but those things are just numbers in this city, anyway. I would have gone home, maybe gotten yelled at a bit, but hey, I would have gotten what I wanted out of the city, right?

But in the end, I'm glad I stayed. I've learned a lot about myself, about the way I process things. I've learned that it doesn't matter where you are, as long as the people you love are around you. And I've learned what that actually means. I know now what New York City is, for better or for worse. I know it's not a be all, end all. I know people romanticize it, and even those who live in the city romanticize it. It's our bubble. We live here, and if anybody threatens it, we act like it's 9/11 all over again. (Ted Cruz just made some interesting comments on this.)

Because we make it, right? Because we all struggle in this city. It's a shared struggle that we romanticize so much. We talk about how hard it is to find a dollar coffee, how we're squished like sardines in the subway car, the number of homeless people and pigeons and piles of puke we walk right past on our way to work, where we must dress exactly how they want and act exactly how they want in those high rises lest we go back to working at Mickey D's. (And they probably make more money, at this point.) Everything is always our fault, but that's okay, because we're making it in the real world. We have our shoebox apartment and we wouldn't have it any other way. We can't afford to go out because we're too busy working two jobs, but we certainly have it better than anybody at home, right? We blow through our bonds and have no money left in our savings accounts, no future, but we're living like the starving artists on Broadway. You know, just like Jonathan Larson. God bless Jonathan Larson.

We pick up and we scrape by, and we're nice to those near us as long as that niceness doesn't actually hurt us any. We put on our headphones and ignore the beggars on the train, the people sitting with cardboard signs as we go to work in our elite sports clubs. We oversleep because we don't want to get up in the morning, but hey, it's what "real people" do. And I don't doubt that anywhere. But I used to talk about the Oxford bubble, and now I'm talking about the New York City bubble, and I'm wondering just what is real. Is real life what we make of it? If so, then everybody in New York City automatically gives too much control to everybody else. We have to, in order to make this city work. If you deviate too much, you're left behind. If you don't move at supersonic speed -- and that's saying something, considering this city must be moving faster than Top Thrill Dragster -- then you have no time or energy or money to write or music or create or anything. And it's even worse for those of us who deal with mental problems, who were bullied as kids, whose fathers' words echo in our heads even when our mothers tell us they no longer matter. New York City is okay -- but it's not for everybody. To pretend it is for everybody is to shame the world we live in, to shame every place that isn't New York, to ultimately shame New York and the individuals who might be creatively trapped here.

And I know what everybody in NYC might be reading. You don't like it, then leave?

Maybe I will.

I go to Jersey for a jaunt and I plan my life, knowing that when I'm back in NYC, I'll be moving too fast for me to properly think. I go to Albany for my yearly jaunt to the convention and I feel tired the entire time, unsure if I should return back to the city. I go to Cedar Point, because maybe racing for the sky and racing underneath the sky are two separate things. Maybe I can't fly in NYC. But maybe that doesn't mean I can't fly at all. Maybe it just means the buildings are too tall here for my liking. Maybe the skies are too crowded. Maybe it's more hopeful for me to leave.

There's only so much you can learn in one place
The more that you wait, the more time that you waste

In July, I went outside of the city to have the most successful gig of the year. We made it all the way through and my client was so happy, and I'll never forget the look on his face and I learned we might actually be making something here. While I was in Charlotte for the gig, my boyfriend was busy being in somebody else.

He told me in October. I should have chased him out, burned his things, but I was stunned enough that I let him stay another month. I still haven't gotten rid of some of his things.

But I dealt with the stress of that, and I've dealt with the stress of it, and I need to toss those things out. I've tossed out memories before, and I'll do it again. I say that I remember everything, and it's true -- but just because I remember something doesn't mean I don't want to remember. The past means nothing. The past doesn't help me out. The past doesn't pay the bills. It only holds me back.

I'm furious.

That may be the best thing to be right now.

For now, though, I work. And I plan, in the little bits that I can. I get outside the city to think. I take the ferry. I fix music. And hopefully, this summer, I'll go back to the place where I had my successful gig, and lightning will strike twice.

And the thunder will follow afterward.

Finished Pondicherry! Well, the story version; the song version got recorded but is still in bad-note limbo. I'm going to try to upload the story tonight from Dylan's house, but that depends on his internet. It needs a bit of polishing, but not much. I'm thinking it might also go into the "takes place in Ohio" book, but I'm not sure.

Nobody knows how important this is to me.

I also need to film the rest of the Midnight Rave video tonight, and I suppose I need to pack for that.

Shed for him is my fifth tear,
Find it in the title here.
Written in one single word,
"An eye is an eye, unless it is heard."

I was late again to work today. ( Read more... )

It's, like, disgusting right now. I can literally hear the wind outside. Saw on Twitter that there is a tornado watch until I start my shift at my job. I need to find my meds before I go to work, because I will probably start things off with a HUGE headache. I've been dreading today ever since Monday, when I figured out that there would be maintenance tonight. Not really happy about that either.

I just turned on "Shining Collection" from Gravitation, and it reminded me of this year's Ohayocon. During the formal dance, they played this song, and a cosplayer dressed up as Ryuichi got on stage and started to sing, which generated a mosh pit. After that, cosplayers dressed up as Yuki and Shuichi got on stage (note all of the cosplayers are girls, as which frequently happens with Gravitation), and Yuki proposed to Shuichi on stage, which of course got everybody screaming. Some girl behind me said it was the best Ohayocon ever. And Dylan just stood there the entire time like, whut? (It's okay. Really, it is.)

I love how he recognized the Gravitation music from CyberLight. Witness the power of sparkling on stage.

And then Green Day turns on, and we're done with that.

I'm watching tosh.o on Comedy Central, which reminds me of this most recent Spring Break. Apparently Tosh is the only thing on TV at 12:00 midnight...or at least the only thing my boyfriend wants to watch. It was pretty funny staying up late at night to watch it, considering I couldn't really sleep. Too much going on, and so much to see and do. It was really overwhelming.

Right now I'm adding information on how to find all of the episodes of HPP! onto the Pretty Cure fan wiki. It's a bit time-consuming, but at least it will be done. Should have done that from the beginning. And I just realized that I left all of my food at home. Great. I'll need to make a short Kroger trip now before I head to work. Although if I head to Kroger, I can prepare for my Bad Day At Work in style. I've done it before, and it perks up what should have been a bad day and makes it an okay day.

Like tabloids. I don't mean the trashy ones, I just mean like People and InTouch and the like. So easy to read, so easy to lose yourself in, but worthless if they don't come with crosswords. A good crossword will last me about an hour at work, which is wonderful especially when you're on the phone back to back with customers. I can't write anything during that time, or even really read, but I can have that track going in the back of my mind and wonder what a four letter word is for 'ocean' while someone's box is rebooting. Packed my DS for lunch break, and if things get slow, I might try to continue to write some of the lyrical stuff I've been doing.

Remember when I went to Nashville? How my music was good, but the lyrics left a little bit to be desired? Mostly because all the music I listen to is in Japanese? I'll probably have straight-up poems to read at open mic night tomorrow, because I've been thinking of ways to weave words together and make things work. Hasn't worked quite lyrically yet, but with every song, I get better. My music isn't just for me anymore. I want to make a perfect merge of music and lyrics. I feel like I really accomplished that well in Midnight Rave -- even though nobody will know what the song is about, really, they can get a picture of what's happening from the lyrics. I wanted to write something Owl City-ish, where even if it doesn't make sense, it gives you pictures, thoughts of "a girl whose hair is blue" and "midnight chiming by lines of gold." It makes you think, but then it also has simple love lyrics.  (Dammit, Mill, come home!)

On that note, does anybody have any great music that they love that they would like for me to listen to?  The catch is this: the lyrics must be English.  I'm trying to listen to as much as I can -- I want to write both artsy and radio-ready stuff.  Monday, when I felt like crap, I went to Newark and bought the new 30 Seconds To Mars cd, and that had some *interesting* lyrics, I tell you.  Anything and everything would be great, guys, even if you don't have an MP3.  Make me buy the stuff.  Or look it up on Vevo.

Stinking Ohio weather.  The high for today was 68.  The high for tomorrow is 40.  Can I move early?  Please?  I have HAD IT up to here with Ohio weather.  Seriously, it wasn't even this bad in Indiana.  And I remember Indiana.  It's true that I've been in Ohio too long.  I love Ohio.  Seriously, I do.  But even being in Zanesville is okay as long as I'm myself.  I go to the toy section of Target.  I play with dolls and Legos at my desk.  I have a full 96-pack of crayons in my possession.  I know this won't last forever, and I'll get professional and understand where I need to go and how I need to do things.

But I think I'll be a kid up until I decide to take one on.  You can't grow up too soon, I suppose.

Today's entry is on "Almond Dust," the album I'm going to release most likely on June 30th this year!

As I'm going through some music-related things, I realized that the same music file I used to record "The Tiger And The Lighthouse" before I left Miami also has "Graduation" from Burnout on it.

The recording, at this point in my musical-sound technical career, is like, "wtf?" I can hear the 'speech enhancers' on Ringo doing their thing. It sounds *awful.* But I made it just last year, and it'll go on Burnout, and I'll make it sound as good as I can by compressing it and what not. At least that version of the recording is nice and bright. Although I now realize listening to it that, for copyright purposes, I took the alma mater out. I think it sounds better with it.

But this still makes me cry at the end. I realize what I weaved into the song, and it makes me both happy and sad at the same time. At the very end of Graduation, there are five chords that spelled out what I wanted for my future. None of that has happened. Though when I saw the end of the song, in my head, I saw the way the story was supposed to go. I do this a lot for my songs, and oftentimes, the first picture I get I'll consider a gift from God, a little tagline that I shouldn't take too seriously but I should use to inspire myself.

My tagline for "Graduation" involved me getting my degree and walking down off the platform, then seeing somebody I loved on the other side. He held out his hand, and I just cried, with a smile on my face. As I sniffled, the song ended, and I realized after I wrote it that the song had a bittersweet quality to it. Why I was crying, I might never know. But perhaps I was crying because I knew -- even then -- that somehow, I had what I wanted at that moment, and I knew it would all be to waste.

Good morning, my miko.

Jonathan's Lullaby ended up being written the same way, with a "tagline." But more on that in a minute.

I'd like to say a few words about the songs I've written for Almond Dust so far. Let's start with "The Tiger and the Lighthouse," which I actually wrote while I was still at Miami. In a way, "Tiger" plays the same role that "come alive" did at the beginning of Russian Mountain Nation -- it bridged a gap. "come alive" was written at the end of my high school career, the summer before I went to Miami; yet, it was included on RMN. Likewise, "taskana" was put in as an introduction interlude -- it was my way of saying "okay, we're done with that period of my life, moving on now." So "come alive" and "taskana" are *VERY* much like "Tiger" and "1:15:23" on Almond Dust. "Tiger" is my way of saying, "okay, let's start this sucker off." And "Tiger" fits my theme of this album, which is "What's your story, morning glory?" Each song on "Almond" is written for or about somebody else, other than the interludes (which I think there will just be 1:15:32). "Tiger" is written for Dylan, because he "is" a tiger, per se. I know it's not a perfect recording of "Tiger" that will be included on the volume, but it'll still be there. It's gonna be like my 'track 0,' a bonus track of sorts. I think it gives the image of me arriving at someplace, not sure of how or why I'm exactly there (which explains right now very well).

1:15:32 was an interlude track I wanted to write. After I moved, I put up my clock from Miami, and it stuck on 1:15:32 for a long time until I swapped the battery out. I felt like it represented what I was feeling, graduating from school and just going back to my hometown. I felt like I had failed myself in some way, and I wanted to express that chaoticness...while still being open to what the world might have for me. 1:15:32 includes motifs from Triangle (from Yes Yes Lord Amen! and Yellow) and The Tiger And The Lighthouse, which are very similar to each other in chordal structure. To me, 1:15:32 also represents stepping away from who I was at Miami and saying, "okay, we're done with that. Let's move on."

That brings me to "Broken," which is a song I wrote for my friend Jesse (you fuzzball!). If you know Jess, you know that, while he lives far away, he's very perceptive about things, and I wrote the song from his perspective, but I also put a lot of my own thoughts into it. It was written shortly before Midnight Rave -- the Garageband version puts it at about the 3rd of July.

I have all of these tracks and their order finalized -- The Tiger and the Lighthouse; 1:15:32; Broken; Midnight Rave. Broken will be followed on Almond Dust then by Midnight Rave, which I consider a beautiful mess. The story behind Midnight Rave is something that only I can fully understand, and it's about somebody who is very important to me (though I won't say who; TTR readers probably know). It's a beast of a song at five and a half minutes; I worked on it at the same time as Jonathan's Lullaby and while I was doing that I was like what the heck, this is a huge song. I just recently mastered it, though I've had the information for a while now. But I think I sang this track very well, and it will be effective. It'll be my one introspective, experimental track.

After Midnight Rave will probably be other tracks I haven't set down yet -- Mirror, which is the song with the lyrics I posted earlier, and a piano-only track called Things Will Change (written for somebody -- or a lot of somebodies). Fitting in there is Song of the Miko, which I have written on before.

The last track on Almond Dust will be "Jonathan's Lullaby," which is just that -- a lullaby that taps out at less than three minutes. It took me a while to write it -- it came in pieces. One of my coworkers is expecting, and the baby will be named Jonathan. I wanted to write something that she could sing to him at night. Surprisingly, though, God gave me a "tagline" for the lullaby. (On that note, Octane 93 -- Haru is gonna end with Prodigal's Lullaby. What's up with lullabies being the last word?) The tagline happens right after the guitar and the strings, the other two of the three instruments, fade out and it's just the piano. In this tagline, I see myself singing the song, weaving its colors, on a stage; then, after I'm done singing, I jump down from the stage, where someone else is waiting for me -- the person I started the album off with. He holds out his left hand, and I take it with my right. With that, we run off to the right of the stage, into a blinding light. This tagline is not bittersweet, but it is happy and lifting.

Almond Dust is officially getting its own tag. No, freaking seriously, people, this album is going to be awesome. Six tracks are done, and they all sound great. And, of course, I no longer want to sleep! Night turnover. (sigh)

Easton is, like, awesome.
In case you didn't know.

I'm sitting here in Panera, which is actually a new Easton find for me. My plan for today was to take Ringo along (hence this entry!) and go find some new stuff, maybe buy some new things, and at the end of the day find my way to Starbucks in Barnes and Noble and write an entry or two, send some emails, the whole nine yards. Except I didn't exactly know how I was going to eat. Panera has solved that problem; I've done all my fun shopping, and after I'm here I'll go to Barnes and Noble. (And before going home, I will stop by Walmart. Even the most glamorous of divas needs toilet paper.)

I am making a mess with this sandwich.

Due to me staying up late again last night (it was past eight before I finally fell asleep), I got up at three and made my way to Easton by five. For those of you not around this area, Easton is an outdoor shopping mall. It has a TON of stores, and a lot of them are well priced. What I like about Easton is that they're always putting something new in; and they have more than the mall, too. Easton is off of Morse Road, which is The Busiest Street In Columbus (patent pending), so there's a crapton of stuff there as well. When I went shopping for hotels around Ohayocon, I started my search around Easton, because I know the area. (I also know a killer scenic view that takes you there from my place, avoiding those gosh-awful interstates. There was an accident on Hamilton today, though, so I skipped that part and went for 270.)

I started my trek away from the main mall, as I wanted to go to Old Navy. Gosh. I haven't been to Old Navy in AGES. Anyway, they redesigned the interior of the store, and it looks SO fresh! They moved everything around, and the checkout line is so cute -- it reminded me of Hot Topic with all the candy and stuff out front. I like that vibe they're going for -- but I know Old Navy is also classy. While there I found the CUTEST trouser jeans, and they were on sale, so I scooped them up! (It doesn't hurt that they were a size smaller than the current Old Navy jeans I'm wearing. I love losing weight. It was a major picker-upper.)

After that I headed to the actual mall. There's tons of parking, if you know where to look and you don't mind walking. I parked in a garage, because I knew while it would still be cold, I'd probably have electronics in the car all day. The South garage is just a jaunt from the Holy Land Barnes and Noble, but I hadn't anticipated the Panera nearby. Hooray for soup and sandwiches!

From there I walked around the mall. I had an American Eagle gift card I wanted to use, and while we have an AE in Middle of Nowhere-land, I still wanted to use it. I looked at other stores -- I still love Forever 21, and I discovered H&M has great prices -- before stopping at American Eagle (conveniently next to the Apple store). I usually don't go for A&E -- I don't know what it is about their style that doesn't throw me. Aeropostale is my preppy style, Old Navy is my everyday look, and Hollister is where I want to go if I want a taste of summer (which considering today's wind chill, I spent a lot of time in there ogling the bathing suits). But A&E has always straddled the line for me, plus, their prices are usually a bit higher. Well, with the gift card, I could ignore that last factor for today.

And I found AN AMAZING DRESS. I fell in love with it, and I was so excited when I found a large on the rack. I tried it on in the dressing room and it fit me perfectly! Plus at $35 it wasn't out of my budget at all. I still have some money on the card if I want to use it back here. (By the way, Steph, I used your All-Access thingy. Don't be a hater. I'm sure you get some sort of reward for that XD)

After that I went next door to the Apple store. I asked about a cute little microphone that I've been looking at for the past few years months. And lo and behold they still had the little sucker in stock! It's called a Snowball and it should hook up to Ringo without any software (all the wonder of Mac, haha). I'm both very excited and VERY scared to use it. It will get its first test runs more than likely on Sunday, when I record episode 3 of HPP! (more on that later). I can't wait to hear how it all sounds.

I am still dreading my Leopard upgrade. I should just get it over with. Perhaps spring break? As if I don't have enough to worry about.

Anyway, now I'm here, the other stuff is in the car, and I'm almost done with my food. I'm going to head to B&N, and I might pick up a CD at Walmart while I'm there. I'm divided between Kesha and Nicki Minaj. What I've heard of Minaj's story is inspiring. Why am I such a Top 40 junkie? Oh, that's right, the colors are way vibrant and candy-like. :) That's also why I'm a small Bieber fan (I definitely do not have Bieber fever, but a Bieber cold, and it's all the music. Plus, how can that kid take all that pressure? God's *got* to be on his side.)

OH! And I'm gonna be on Z92 tomorrow! I'll be covering for Andy. Now if I could just wake up at the right time...

I need to actually remember to write in here.

Instead of going outside and spending more money, and buying unnecessary caffinated drinks, which I don't want to do anyway, I will stay here and open up my window and write. Not actually open my window, mind you. Just the blinds, to let some extra light in. And I might turn on the news. See what's going on in the world, aside from my little one-bedroom apartment.

Oh, lookit, a Pokemon movie's on. This will make up for me not going to Cleveland this weekend, I suppose? I donno. I wanted to go, but it's going to be hard for me to try and go tomorrow with everything else that's happening, and my sleep schedule being what it is.

So there's this boy. He gets so confused sometimes, and he doesn't exactly know what to do. I wish I could help him, and perhaps I could help him more if we weren't apart all of the time. That brings me back to something that I've been meaning to write on for a while now. Pain. Do most people just go throughout their lives trying to avoid it?

This is more about me than anything, so let me tell you about pain. I do try to avoid it. I'll be the first to admit that when something seems hard, all I want to do is run and hide. I know what I'm capable of as a person. When I say I'm good at music or something, I'm not just saying I'm good for my own benefit. I'm not just trying to build myself up anymore or grab attention. I'm *telling* you that I'm good at music. I'm saying that I know what I'm doing, and I feel like if I'm skilled enough in a field, I should find a job that lets me do what I'm designed to do. I mean, instead, I'm here, and that's painful enough. But when your best friend chides you because your job is not in your field and you're just trying to save up money so that you can get out and quit said job without starving...Do people know at all how hard this is for me? Do people understand that even as I'm here, in the city I grew up in, I'm still learning how to be me in a way I couldn't before? I shouldn't be punished for that, and yet, I feel like sometimes the one way I'm punished is when I do it to myself.

It's so dark now. I feel like running and hiding. But I know I can't do that. So, I post this instead.

When writing music, especially as a kid, I understood that colors went in a certain pattern. If I deviated from that pattern, and something didn't sound right, then I didn't want to keep that chord progression. I found that most everything revolved not around the key, but around the turning chord -- the dominant. When I wrote in C, that chord was G. Where did G go? I would ask myself. Most of the time, especially when it was younger, G went to C, but sometimes if I wanted it to sound cool, it would go to A (A minor), or even sometimes to F.
The pattern I used for, oh, about 95% of the songs I wrote as a kid was a simple one that went from C to Am to F to G (I to vi to IV to V). Sure, you can invert that, or substitute a ii for the IV, but that's the basic thought process behind 7-year old Emily's music. Which I do have some recorded! "Bravery" follows that pattern as well (diverting when the music modulates, but whutever). The left hand carried the beat and the harmony, as well as the chords (broken, not blocked), and the right hand carried the melody.

That's for you, tiger. I'm trying to work on describing how I compose music.

Perhaps it would help if I actually *composed* some.

Penguins is a topic on Jeopardy today.  I called Jesse, and he was ecstatic.  He's obsessed with penguins -- all birds, really, but mostly penguins.

To continue with our snow that we've been receiving today, I'd like to give you all a free song.  You have to sign up for SoundClick in order to download it, but it's a piano piece I wrote back in high school.  I recorded this version at the same time I put together Russian Mountain Nation.  When I wrote this song, I thought about snow, how it falls from the sky, and the peaceful feeling that it gives when you let it.  When you're trying to drive through it, all you want to do is scream, sure.  But once you let go and you let the snow claim its territory, once you accept that you're snowed in,

(While you're at SoundClick, download your free version of Shut Up And Listen -- it's up there, too!)

To download "Snow" and Shut Up And Listen -- and to check out the rest of my music -- you can go to SoundClick.  You can also go to Bandcamp to download SHL -- "Snow" is only available on SoundClick.

So have you downloaded your copy of Shut Up And Listen yet?  I know I have!  Oh, wait, I own the album already without downloading it.  Silly me.  :)

I've been writing a lot today, but it's just practice writing.  It's nothing that will ever show up on this blog or anywhere.  I've been thinking more recently about prompts and what not, though.  I want to see what I can do about it.  Plus, if everything goes well, I want to have a new book out by the end of the month!  When it's finished, I'll have excerpts up here so you can read the first parts of it. 

All right, back to writing and working on music.  Ciao!