I kinda have to force myself to post here.  I mean, it’s not like anybody reads it.  Websites had more purpose before Facebook.

Anyway, here’s my obligatory blog update.

The new band is auditioning a keyboard player on Thursday… which means this band is gonna be rolling fast sooner than I thought.  It’s a good thing.  Hopefully a good push into corporate gigs and weddings will be right around the corner.

People who book bands for casinos never answer their emails.

I got my car running again, although it’s running kinda funny and it needs to get into the shop.  James (oh yes, I’ve acquired a boyfriend too) seems to think it’s nothing serious but… well… I don’t like it.  Besides, I want to sell my car and get something more suited to Michigan.  The Mustang is great, but when I can’t go anywhere in the snow, it’s not very practical.  I want a truck.

Boy I really need to get a demo recorded.

I think I’m going to start working on a new, different aspect of band management than I’ve done in the past.  I want to start looking at style and physical appearance… maybe get them to wear some 70’s style suits and shirts… the look makes a big difference I’m noticing, especially when I’m gonna be putting a pretty hefty price tag on them.

Need to get my own sewing machine.

Somewhere between retiring to bed and waking up to an endless loop of Ease On Down The Road stuck in my head, I had this weird dream about shopping for vinyl records.  There was a Kitten Machine vinyl that I wanted real bad, but it was like $305.  There was a Soulive album there titled Count of Monte Cristo (there is no Soulive album titled Count of Monte Cristo, I have no clue where that came from), the cover art of which was meticulously designed to align with the stars and foretell prophecies of some sort.  That particular press was priced at $416, so being the negotiator that I am I bought the somewhat less impressively designed version at the bargain price of $14.  How I woke up with Ease On Down The Road stuck in my head I haven’t the foggiest idea, but I will attest here and now that that song gets REAL annoying at 10:00 AM on a Sunday when all you want to do is sleep.

Anyway, that’s not what I came here to write about.  I’ve been doing a lot of un-documented thinking lately, which is never a good idea.  I’ve been struggling with the idea of self-analysis;  how can I step outside myself and look at my situation from an unbiased point of view?  How can I be sure that my decisions are made from logic and not from raw emotion?  Is it even possible?  Is this way too deep for plasticwater.org?  All of these are questions I’d rather not answer.

Lately my mood has been like a pensive adagio.  I’ve been doing a lot of staring at walls, lost in thought.  People are beginning to take this as me finally losing my last bean and slipping into insanity, but I assure you that is inaccurate.  At least I think I do.  Closer to the truth is that I feel like I’m at some sort of a crossroad, and the choices I make this year are going to be of the utmost importance.  I don’t know why this year is special, it just feels that way, and who am I to argue with intangible feelings.

There are things I want, but when confronted with the question of why, I stumble trying to answer.  I don’t know why I want the things I do, all I can do is compare it to a feeling of hunger — I feel this way, and to feel better, I know I must eat.  But, this is why we don’t go grocery shopping when we’re hungry.  We end up with $70 worth of food we don’t want.  Time to reflect, analyze.  Make good choices.

Come on and, ease on down, ease on down, down the road…….

I’m in a rather thoughtful mood today.  I noticed a long time ago that I wasn’t updating, but I just couldn’t think of anything to write about.  I still don’t really have anything to write about but this is what’s on my mind.

When I was in 9th grade, I had a teacher named Mr. Sinnaeve (pronounced Sin-a-vee).  He taught English.  It wasn’t until long after high school was over that I realized just how amazing of a teacher he was.  See, Mr. Sinnaeve used to have us freewrite for 10 minutes at the beginning of every class.  Freewriting is an exercise where you grab a pen and a few sheets of paper and just start writing and don’t stop.  Whatever comes out, comes out.  If you ever stop writing, even for a second, you’re doing it wrong.  Needless to say, the end product of this exercise rarely makes any sense whatsoever, but that’s the point.  It’s a valuable tool for finding ideas you didn’t know you had, or just to get something off your chest, or to teach you that it’s okay to write, even if you’re not sure yet why you’re writing.  It was something that I really enjoyed at the time, and really took to heart.  It made me a better writer, doing this for just 10 minutes every day.  At the end of the 10 minutes, we would turn in our freewriting paper, and he would grade it.  The only things he would mark people down for would be if there were eraser marks, or if the paper made too much sense.

Mr. Sinnaeve had a totally different approach to teaching than any other teacher we had encountered in our public school careers.  If someone asked a stupid question, he gave a stupid answer.  “What do you mean by ‘just write whatever is on our mind,’ I don’t get it,” would be answered by something like, “There are parrots in the ceiling.”  And then he would move on.  I was absolutely delighted by Mr. Sinnaeve.

One day, we came in to class and the teacher there was not Mr. Sinnaeve.  I don’t remember who it was, because they were painfully uninteresting and not at all memorable.  We learned later that Mr. Sinnaeve had been fired, because he ruined some ditzy cheerleader’s 4.0 because she couldn’t grasp the concept of freewriting, and her mom threw a bitchfit.  Clearly this girl was excellent and retaining facts and regurgitating them, but if you can’t grasp the idea of just simply writing to write, you shouldn’t have a 4.0 in the first place, let alone get the teacher fired.

I was angry at the time, but looking back, even then I didn’t fully appreciate what Mr. Sinnaeve was doing for us.  By changing the way I looked at writing and learning, he literally changed my life.  I’ve made efforts to find Mr. Sinnaeve recently, because I want to thank him for being the teacher that he was, and I want to acknowledge the injustice of what happened to him.  I want to tell him that I still freewrite every time I need to get something off my chest or come up with a new idea, and that he was the best teacher I ever had.  Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any information about where he is or what he might be doing now.

If anyone can find a Theodore/Ted Sinnaeve that used to work at Holt Junior High, let me know.

It absolutely amazes me how this punk kid became the poster child for the NHL.  I’ve said it time and time again that he’s got a bad attitude and a lack of class and sportsmanship, and this video from last night’s game proves it.

Classy.  I guarantee that if the outcome had been reversed, you would see nothing but good sportsmanship out of the Wings.  It has never been their style to trip or hit an opposing player after the final whistle, and nor should it be.  This is professional hockey, those guys are professionals, they should be expected to act like it.  I would also like to point out that he didn’t confront Maltby like a man, he jabbed him with a stick and then hid behind the refs.  That’s not even acceptable in a street fight, let alone the Stanley Cup Finals.

That being said, I was also once again impressed with the stellar officiating throughout the whole game.  There were (at least) four penalties on the Penguins during which none of the refs seemed to be able to find their whistles.  But, on the bright side, despite the terrible officiating and the constant Crosby/Malkin brown-nosing, we still came out ahead.  If that’s a glimpse of what is to come for the rest of the series, then I’m happy about it.

Although, what would make me happier about it is if Kronwall does to Crosby what he did to Havlat and puts that whiny tinkerbell on the bench for the next 3 games while the grownups play hockey.