Tag Archives: musings

All I want for Christmas . . .

No, it’s not “you” or “my two front teeth,” though if you promise to scrub and wax my kitchen floor until it’s shining I may reconsider. It’s this lens. This triumph of photographic technology.

The 50mm f/1.8 lens. Yes, I’d like the 1.4 lens, but since it’s about 4 gazillion times as expensive, I’ll make do with this lovely object. I was about to commend my own frugality, but then I remembered that I already have two lenses . . . and so even purchasing a third lens might not put me in the category of a Scrimpin’ Sally.

So why do I want this lens? Well, its aperture potential is much wider than my current lenses, and a lens with a wider opening means more light comes in, which means I can capture better pictures in low-light situations and get better bokeh . . . and I’ve heard it’s great for portraits and food photography, which are my favorite things to do.

Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaassseeeeeeeee????? Saaaaantaaaa? Let me tell you how good I’ve been this year:

-I didn’t hit Scrimpin’ Sally

-I didn’t make fun of Picky Polly

-I may have taken out the trash once . . . oh wait, that was last year

Arncha proud of me??

(I know neither a Sally nor a Polly, but I’m banking on the fact that Santa has poor eyesight, a bad memory, is generally behind the times, and enjoys it when I use words like “arncha” since it makes me sound like an annoying little girl from a ’50s sitcom, when Santa was in his prime)

That Santa–it’s like he’s not even grounded in reality anymore.

Of course, some more Burts Bees products, bottles of Lestoil, tubs of Noxzema, or buckets of Vick’s VapoRub could all help me with my sniffing problems. Help feed them, I mean. Have you ever stuck your nose in a tub of Vick’s? Oh, how I pity those of you who haven’t. I bet Santa is a huuuuge Vicks addict, what with living in the North Pole and all. He probably has a constant runny nose and rubs Vicks all over his hairy, wrinkled chest every night.

Ew. Let’s keep Santa fully clothed for the remainder of this post.

And now that I’m thinking about presents, a couple more Jeffery Farnol novels couldn’t hurt, just so I don’t wear the cover off of Winds of Chance. Nope, they couldn’t hurt one bit.

Until we move to a different apartment and that last box of Farnol novels going up the steps herniates something or someone.

I’m also very bad to my skin and regularly fail to use make-up remover before going to bed . . . or moisturizer for that matter . . . so I could use some Clinique “Take the Day Off” remover and some of that yellow moisturizer my sister Erica swears by (and I steal every time we’re together) . . .

Oh yeah, there’s always the fabled microplane zester that everyone has been extoling on their blogs for about 10 years. I’m so behind the times, man . . .

. . . or a bunch of great clothes that make me look a) more curvaceous on top, b) less curvaceous on the bottom, and c) make my eyes look bigger and my skin look smoother. In general, I’m going for a combination of Kate Moss and Marilyn Monroe. Both skinny, and also curvaceous; there’s got to be a way to have it all. Santa? Hello? Santa?

Hmmm, we seem to have lost the big red-suited fat man. Maybe he doesn’t know who Kate Moss is–too modern. He’s stuck in the past, the old geezer.

What’s on your Christmas list this year?

Gig at the Red Line Tap

Photo by Casey Jo Jenkins

My friend Carrie is a singer songwriter. She was classically trained, but her clear and pure voice makes her the perfect fit for Celtic and folk as well. She’s recently made a foray into blues and jazz and blew me away at the fall Blues concert I talked about a couple weeks ago.

I love singing . . . but I’m not a performer at heart. Or rather, I’m a torn performer. If you’ve been around this here blog for a while, you know that my parents were in a band for about 11 years and toted me around as a young thing to places like Japan and Daytona Beach, where the classic rock blasting through the speakers didn’t prevent me from going to bed on a blanket by the mixing board at the allotted time.

I’ve inherited my parent’s love for music, and once I get over my nerves I really enjoy performing. But those nerves . . . those nerves. They can kill it for me, and are one of the big reasons I decided to switch from being a Classical Guitar performance major to an English and French major the winter of my sophomore year. The way I explain it genetically is this: my dad is a behind-the-scenes guy. He mixes, runs sound, records, and has a fantastic ear. If he performs, it’s in a group such as a choir. My Mom, however, is a spotlight girl. She’s comfortable on stage, at ease being the center of attention, and has been singing under the stage lights all her life. Then they gave birth to me–and I landed somehwere between the mixing board and the stage.

Personality wise, that is–my Mom did not actually projectile-birth me into an aisle at a concert.

Right.

I may or may not hate being the center of attention–it gives me an unpleasant feeling deep in my stomach. This explains three things: why I’ve never been good in front of the camera, why my dreams of being a famous actress crashed around me at a tender 14 years of age, and finally the subject at hand: why doing back-up vocals is the perfect solution for me. I’m not the main act, so I don’t have to sweat it–but I get to be part of the amazing music that other great musicians are making.

It’s all coming together into such a neat package, isn’t it? It’s like my personality may actually make some kind of cohesive sense instead of being a riff-raff of sillyness, weird little dances, and this uncontrollable habit I have of spanking my loved ones.

Moving on! All of this has been a backdrop to the following: when Carrie invited me to sing with her for her gig at the Red Line Tap here in Chicago, I said ‘yes’ immediately. Carrie will be singing and playing the guitar, her husband Eric is on the piano, Petras is on the drums, and I’m the back-up girl. It’s a short set–about 6 songs or so–but it’s going to be be-yewtiful.

If any of you are in Chicago and want to come hear us perform some of Carrie’s beautiful songs, be there Sunday night with a $5 cover charge in hand–I think we’re on around 9pm. You can also listen to Carrie’s recordings online on her website, so even if you aren’t able to come see us in person, go forth and listen to her lovely, lovely songs.

Happy Monday everyone! And by the way, the theme of tomorrow’s post starts with a ‘g-‘ and ends with an ‘-arlic.’ Multiply that times 16 and you’ll start getting close to the wonderment of it all. I can’t wait to share!