Thursday, September 8, 2011

It's been a while....

So, I stopped reading the Steven Tyler book for now. I have read the whole 'Hunger Games' series and loved it. I should have blogged about that, they were great and I can't wait for the movie. Jacob and I want to go to the midnight showing, so if any of you are up to it, let's go!!
   It was hard to find time to read them, but after letting other things go like school for example (ha ha). Jacob would ask me every three minutes, "What part are you on now????" I'd have to re-read that whole page once I got him quiet again. I loved that he wanted to share it with me, but I read slow and comprehend slower and I need to get into the zone.  My blog may be boring for a while. I may just write just to write. Facebook seems too public for me and I may read something again, finish the Steven Tyler book, but I feel a little behind in school, so I will probably be doing catch up there for a while. Campout this weekend!!! Yeay! If I finally invited people successfully, I'd love to have a comment:-)

Monday, May 16, 2011

Moved by music

I love music. It moves me, no doubt. If I were at an Aerosmith concert, I know I would turn into a completely mental person and be swept away and crying like a total lunatic. But...Steven Tyler knows so much about music and how it should be done that this part of the book is a wee bit slow for me. I still like it ,  but I loved it when he talked about how he felt (the noise) and he I am reading the steps of what he did, and where he went. He is a perfectionist with the 'how' of the delivery. I only listen, but he hears EVERYTHING. Great for us I guess, but kind of a burden for him or his drummer maybe? I wonder if Joe, in his band couldn't play, what that would do to their relationship. He says he is addicted to the way he plays.
    I'm looking over what I have underlined in the book and it's quiet a lot, so maybe it's not as slow as I think. Reading about all the drugs makes me feel bad for him I guess. But he says that in the 60s everybody was your friend and it seemed like drugs were really no big deal and they were everywhere.
    But, my dad is 3 years older than Steven and you couldn't find a person more opposite. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to even find drugs now or when I was a teenager.
     I do continue to enjoy his perspective though, just to see how he looks at things. Music meant (means) everything to him in detail. I'm glad he made it and that it makes him happy. My old boyfriend was very unfulfilled because he never was famous. It would be very sad it you only have one main thing that would make you happy and you couldn't have it and had to settle for filling that hole with other lesser things.
    I like how he put incense all over when he would sing so that people could remember his smell. Who thinks of that? That is a good idea.
    He would drive his mom's car downtown, get a parking ticket, throw it away and drive home. What a stinker!
    He liked the lifestyle of the music scene. He liked how people would accept the "sideshow character" and you have to fit in with him because he belonged and you didn't yet. I like accepting differences like that. He was "into his own weird world." I think we all are, I know I am.
    He says that, "a gang got you protection and it also attracted girls, who are always into that kind of a..hole." Isn't that the truth! Like if some bad boy loves us, THEN we must be worthy or loveable.
    I had to laugh when he said, "No wonder the town is filled with alcoholics-there's nothing else to do." I remember my uncle saying the same thing when I was young and asked him why everybody always goes to the bar in town. Like reading a book, driving somewhere, playing in a band, playing with your kids, or anything else was out of the question.
    Here is it, "I'm an animal of the beat, I have the ears of a bat. If a drum beat is a hundredth of a second off, I become unstable. I rant, I rave, it has to be fixed or the world will stop spinning on it's axis. I drive my band crazy with this sh.t." I am editing for my sensitive readers:-) Amy is like, "Who, me?"
     He calls himself an A..hole. I guess I should believe him. My mother told to always believe a person when they tell you how they are, because they should know. So those first things admitted by a person, believe it! Like, "I'm no good in a relationship." You should say, "GREAT! Hot Dog! Thanks for telling me, BYE!" then run. Do not stay and try to be the one to change them!
    "I probably drove everyone nuts." He wanted to bring stuff out and not let it fester. It seems to me that he was the driving force for all of them, Aerosmith. Nothing like feeling as though you are trying harder and dragging everybody else along. Man does that sound familiar.
     OK, on to something a little more depressing to me personally, "'She' had the biggest boobs-I couldn't even look at them while I was standing in front of her, they were so big, it so affected me, I was stuttering, because she was so beautiful." Great, and he likes blonds too. I am impressed that he said, "Affected" and not "Effected." OK what defect in me wants to stand in front of him in all my glory and say, "well?" I guess it would only be validating if he thought I was attractive.  Why does his opinion matter? who know, who cares, I am just curious. Also curious to know if he would like my noise.
    

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"It's the fear that drives us."

   "I lost all that mystery when I was on drugs. Drugs will steal you like a crook. Spirituality over. I could no longer see the things I used to see in my peripheral vision. No periphery, no visions" (p.17).  "One night my childhood ended. I passed it up, but then I got curious. I don't know if it was the smell or the romance, but eventually everything that I did was illegal, immoral, or fattening" (p.29-30).
   I probably shouldn't start here, but the one time I felt high was when I was in labor with Jacob and I was given a narcotic for the pain. Had I known what it was, I would have passed. I thought it was less harmful that the epidural...which I soon got after the narcotic didn't to squat for the pain. But, it did do something. In a way, everything seems more simple and clear from my end and everyone else seemed like a bunch of time wasting idiots. There was a nurse that was asking me questions she could have asked my husband who was just standing there laughing at me. I didn't want to answer her stupid questions because it seemed illogical. I wasn't into conforming and being polite just because it was my expected role. I was like, Whatever. Then I asked my Dr. how much longer this was going to take and she started going into this long drawn out thing about the ins and outs like she was a lawyer or somebody I would sue if she gave me the wrong info, so I asked again, "Ok, so, how much longer will it be then?" Then everybody laughed at me. Great. I just wanted an answer like 10 minutes to 3 hours is my best guess. How hard is that? So then they thought I was the idiot and they lied to me about my epidural being in the room. I was in the tub and it was helping and I did not want to get out until they were ready and in the room. When I got out,  he wasn't even in the hall. Then they said that they didn't think I would be able to get out that quickly. Idiots and liars.
     So I liked seeing things that way, but I hated the feeling of loopy-ness.
     On page 31 he talkd a little about being lonely walking home in the dark and abandoned when his friends would leave in September. he said that it's rough stuff when you're young. He wondered if he would be like some crabby adults he knew when he got older and that he's still so much he's not sure of and that it's the fear that drives us. It's the fear that drives me CRAZY.
      I remember feeling sad as a kid about the possibility that I wouldn't have much control over being like the adults I knew.  If, as I had heard frequently, that all kids are the same, then the natural progression is that eventually we..I was going to turn into...one of 'those.' Of course as I went along I did whatever I could think of the stop that from happening and I still get bummed when I think I have failed in any part of that. I think it must be because of laziness and I just have to try harder, because it's just too easy to be a pain in the ass.
    I loved reading (p. 32) how he will never forget the moment he had when camping with a friend and a couple of girls. They hiked in the dark, pitched a tent, drank and made out. "We woke up in the morning to someone shouting, 'FORE!' We were on the 3rd hole of a golf course. Naked and hungover, we grabbed our stuff and ran like hell.
     Now that's funny. I am desperately trying to think of something funny that I have done to try to beat this, maybe something will come to me in a few days. For now, the Oreo story will have to do. I have to admit that my sense of humor got me out of quiet a few messes as a kid. It's a fine like to walk to know if you can crack a joke or even try to be funny or if silence or apologies is better. So, I'm about 7 maybe and I'm living with my Dad and God bless him, he likes candy as much as I do. He got these cookies, not technically Oreos, just cheaper. Well, I wasn't exactly crazy about the cookie part, but I loved the cream filling. You can see where this is going.  My dad made his lunch to take to work every day. 2 sandwiches and a handful of cookies in a baggie. I still thank GOD to this day that he was in a good mood that day, because this could have come out badly, I will never forget the day he came home and had this total smile on his face with his eyebrows raised and he looked down at me and asked, "Vicky, did you eat all the cream out of the cookies?" Crap! red handed, but I blushed, smiled up at him and said, "Nooooo." It felt like a moment, so I went with it. He thought it was a cute kid thing...thank goodness. I think he picked me up and said that he had to smile to himself when he got to work and started eating his lunch and he could see that I had licked all the cream out and then stuck the to cookie parts back into the cookie jar. He asked me not to do that from now on and I said OK. Now THAT was good communication!
     OK, p. 33. I like how he (ST) says, "I thought that through the power of song, God was there. It was the energy rolling through those hymns." That's why he thought God was in church, because of the music. I like how in the music he liked and in his own that it makes him feel close to God. It's all about feeling moved emotionally and he gets that through music. That's cool. I get it and feel moved emotionally through music and that's why I like him, but his is on a much bigger scale that mine. Why he's a rock star I guess. "...That's as close to God as we're going to get, short of a mother giving birth."
      He does not go chronilogical, but it still has an order to it. He talks about this huge rock he wanted to climb on top of. It was 30 around and 7 feet high, he thought, "If I can get on this rock and stand where no other human has ever stood...I can communicate with aliens. This raised some eyebrows among the other eight year olds on the playground." He was talking about a rock his kids climbed on and then went to this story, I like his sense of humor, even though it's all true, which makes it all the better and funnier.
     He carved his initials and thought one day they will come and "they will know that I was here and wanted to make contact, and that I was one of the humans who wanted to live forever. That was my kid thought."
     I really like reading (and thinking about my own) about the things that people remember about their childhood and how they can see the sweetness in it now. I want to live forever too. Just me and Steven maybe? He could sing to me and I could massage his feet. He sings to me now I guess.
     I used to think smoke stacks made clouds, that if I threw my vitamin C behind the couch that they would never be found, that Mr. Rogers loved me and I was his favorite, Dandilions were the best kept secret because they were free and beautiful and then magically turned into those puffy things that occupied me forever, and that even though my Dad told me that Santa was not real, if I believed in him, then he would be to me.
     There's something, freaking Santa! All these stories. I talked about Santa to my kids but whenever they asked if he was really real, I couldn't bring myself to tell them yes. Even though I know they wanted me to. I would tell them the story about how the 'legend' of Santa began and we could still believe in the spirit of Santa and giving, just like with Jesus. At the time, I didn't want them to see those 2 things as the same. Santa and Jesus can not be seen, and one is real and one isn't? Maybe they are both not and it's all just stories? OK, like church, when a group of people all go and believe in the same thing, there is a power there and they all claim to feel it, but I think that can happen in many different areas. Kids feel that with Santa. Anyway it was bittersweet. Lizzy still clings to the Tooth Fairy with a passion.
    P. 36, "That was my childhood. I read too much. I fantasized too much. I lived in the 'what-if?' You can't go home again; you go back and it's not the same. It's all crazy, small. Gives you vertigo, trying to go back. Like if you went to visit your mom, walked into the kitchen, and she had a different face."
     I remember driving to my grandma's house with my Dad when I was about 9 and I was looking out the window. He said, "Look at everything and take a mental picture in your mind. Someday all of this will be gone or so different that you won't recognize it. I hate change, but it still happens. So put this in your memory and save it." What a powerful moment that was for me. I get choked up now thinking about it. He made such a point sometimes to really teach me things and be a good father. I appreciate that so much.
     I had gone back to MN after being gone for about 10 years or more and it was so different. The house I grew up in looked so old. All the plants and trees and even the fence had been ripped out. My Dad worked so hard putting it all in when I was little. We went to "Frank's" 3 or 4 times in one day just to knock it all out. It was a big deal whenever he spent money and worked hard on something. He was so proud of it. I see it in my mind. Never thought to take a picture of it. I really did think it would always be there. Who rips out trees for God's sake? Everything was smaller and older or replaced completely. That was probably the first real time that I felt my Dad's words so deeply. I visited everything I had loved and experienced and realized that I would have to rely on my memory because it had all changed without me.
     Chapter 2! Listening to Elvis was like being bit by a radioactive spider. Chubby Checker's the "Twist" was such a big hit, even your parents wanted to see him. It's fun for me to read about all the things that moved him and remember my own. He hadn't had sex yet, but he heard it in the music, all the feelings. It makes sense to me now why he is such a good judge on American Idol. He can appreciate all kinds of music and like his mother, he can accept all the kinds of people that sing it. "I had been zapped by a tractor beam and it was pulling me toward the mother ship."
    He loved playing the drums. He started teaching himself by buying a record to teach him how to do it. I love that he knew what he wanted to learn and went after it, he took it. I love that. He said his songs were his way out. I'd like to know more of what he means by that. If he is or was really ADHD then I'm sure sitting around and thinking of doing some boring job that normal people do, that thought might have driven him completely crazy with nowhere to aim his creativity, no outlet. That would have probably been really depressing I bet.
    Man I love to write! This would be great if I could do this for a living. To love what I do and get paid and appreciated for it. Hmm. I am loving this and I am not writing about every little thing. When I go to the bookstore and see all the books, I think that if I did write one it would just be 1 in a million, it would be nice if people liked it though. Even a few, I would like that.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Now where was I...

I was about to talk about page 1 before life interrupted me. Here is what I read in my weakened state, "Life is short. Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollable, and never regret anything that makes you smile. We're not quantified; there's no chart of desire. Hunch, conjecture, instinct...a blind allegiance to anything can get you killed, and always remember...sing as though no one can hear you; live as though heaven is here on Earth." and "If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you're a singer, everything looks like a song."
    So by the first sentence I am starting to bawl. I want to be this way, more like him. Maybe it's the real me, but I am just too afraid of the consequences. I especially like that life is short, break the rules, blind allegiance is dumb, and heaven is here already. That's what I want. I have felt so smothered, chased, trapped and almost hunted in my life, that I've just turned into someone that hides, goes along, and tries not to make it worse. I've been trained that way where it is now instinctive, but that's not really me and I know it. I am what he said. When I feel safe. I just have to get there, that's my struggle.
    OK, back to the book. Page 2, yes this is going to take forever. His mom told him, "If you manifest the light, you will become a dartboard for others' fear, doubts, and insecurities. And if you can handle that, Steven, you may have your Blue Army." I like that too. I've noticed that when I'm the most vibrant that 'some people' try to skwush me back down.  I hate when it's done in an indirect way too!
   People that have a talent for cutting someone down with a smile on their face and knowing that they are trying to make the other person feel crazy, are the truly evil people in my opinion.
    "Radio plays your song; it crawls inside of the people listening and changes their everything. They start singing it! You got into them. You made love to them. You got into their soul...and vice versa." Yes, still on page 2. I do love this about music. I love loving a song and feeling something: upbeat, sad, like I can relate, or just to get up and dance around and belt it out too. For example, "What it Takes," by him is one of my favorites, and dang it, it's on my ringtone! When he sings, "Tell me that your body doesn't miss my touch, tell me that my loving didn't mean that much, tell me you were lying when you're crying for me!" That verse always hits me like a title wave, and I love it. When I first heard it as a teenager too, it's like, Really! I am here feeling all this sorrow and you're fine?! And there ya have it. You can be in a relationship with someone and have no clue how they really feel. You can be 100% and think they are the same even when they're hanging out at 15% and then whammo.
    I dated this musician once and when we broke up, he was looking at the bright side and said, "Well, I am looking forward to all the songs that will come from this breakup." Hoping he could make his break as a singer songwriter off of the ending of our relationship. Yup, I'd call him a 15%-er.
    I am trying not to edit myself as I write. I feel like this is turning into it's own book and I should just shut up already. But that's me. I want to start sentences with 'and' and 'but' sometimes and overkill details and keep talking. So then, on to page 3! Gotta love it. BTW did you know that 'motherf...er' is one word? I did not know that:-) No hyphens, not 2 words, just one. Bet that one's still not in the dictionary. I read that in one of his interviews in a magazine. Adding that flavor to your vocabulary doesn't always have to be a bad, crude, or ignorant thing, sometimes it's just flavor and it fits. Not that I'm going to start whipping it out at the drop of a hat, but I will keep it in reserve for when moment strikes.
    So Page 3 (I was interrupted by noise, imagine that). I didn't know he painted! That's cool. I want to paint too! I always have, but there is no money it, only joy, so of course I had to cross that off the list and FOCUS. But I will do it once I wriggle free. I also did not know that this dude has 2 doctorates, one from Berkeley, the other from UMass, Boston. I'd like to get details on that. I can NOT see him in a classroom. It may have been awarded for what he has achieved, like with Oprah.
    This is going to be a hell of an entry, because I want to get caught up to where I am in the book. OK, hang on, we are jumping ahead to page 6! "Like all parents they were concerned, but I was afraid to tell them that I have never felt more comfortable that being lost in the forest." He talks about loving the quiet of the forest and the magical-ness of it and being a country boy. He would make up stories about shooting a rabid rattlesnake when he got back to his friends in the city after his summers in the country.
   P.19 he was talking about pretending to be a Lakota Indian (which I have in my blood, so that jumped out) and he was shooting all these bluejays! At first I was like, "ICK!" but then he said that they raided the nests of other birds and flew away with their babies, that they were carnivorous like hawks and lawyers, so then I was ok. They are just so beautiful...deceived again, dang it.
    We're almost there. The story about his mother's father was wrenching. He lived in the Ukraine, Germans invaded and machine-gunned down his father, mother, and sister and he jumped in a well and survived that, then caught the last steamer to America-wow.
    It's funny how when you're a kid that your parents are so big in your life, then not so much as you are in the full swing of doing your thing (even though their influence is totally there driving you crazy) but then as you get older, they seem to be there again as you try to still figure things out. He was talking about his dad, who is 93, coming to visit him and he was playing the piano while he sad next to him. "He played, 'Debussy's Clair de Lune.' It was so much deeper than anything I have ever done or ever will do. It invoked so much of that early emotion laid on top of my adult emotions that I wept like a baby." So here comes some noise, this makes me want to give him a hug for being so emotional and genuine, and sweet and I wonder how that relates to other parts of his life. My mind jumps to all the women he has been with, OK that's what I really want to know: How does he look at sex. I guess that is one of my mysteries about men that escapes me. I am assuming that they can totally just separate physical from emotional during sex. Live have to pee really bad after you see a movie and you waited until long after your warning signals were going off and now finally release, flush, and it's over. Is that about right for some guys? Maybe for him after a concert, "she's cute, I feel like a rock star, that was nice, run along." Makes me want to go, "Really? wow (ew wow, not envious wow). But maybe there has to be some of those out there? Maybe some men have someone they love and make love to and then at the same time can separate also have women that are totally unemotional ego trips or physical releases, which maybe in their heads they don't see anything wrong with that, even if they are aware that the woman they love would. Hmm.. OK, back to the story.
    He really misses his mom. She died and he wonders where she's gone. I hate it when people answer this question as if they are stating a fact. I am just up to my eyeballs with people claiming to have answers that they want to cram down my throat, because it would be wrong to not believe it too and here are 92 million reasons that they are going to beat you over the head with until you conform and submit. No thanks.
    He says that she argued with principals over his long hair and loved and nurtured him whoever he wanted to be. I think he is suggesting (p.24) that he may have had ADHD and his mother got into it with a principal that suggested he be removed him his current school, "she was soooo 'for' me. 'What? Are you kidding? I'm taking him out of this school. Fuck you!' she said. OK she didn't say that (part), but here EYES did." It's great to feel backed up by your parents, especially when you don't expect it, but can count on it anyway. That's cool.
    He bought some of the woods he used to go walking in as a kid, but hasn't been out there because he's afraid it won't be the same. It's so weird to experience something as an adult or visit it, when you have your childhood perception of it. It seems so different and you think, I think, was it even really that way? It seemed so much bigger, scarier, prettier...

Friday, May 6, 2011

Starting a new book...

I have always been anti-blog, but I like typing much more than writing. My friend started one and unlike my other friends, I look forward to reading hers. I am a journal person and the potential lack of privacy of a blog bothers me a little.
   Anyway, I have started Steven Tyler's book, "Does The Noise In My Head Bother You?" I knew I would love it from the title. That title is totally me, but I don't ever ask, I just assume that it does bother people, so when it doesn't seem to bother them, I am always surprised.
   I wanted to write about things in the book as I read them, just to keep track of the progression and see what I think by the end of the book.
   I bought it the day it came out and started looking at the pictures first. The picture of Debbie Benson, I loved how he said, "O, how I loved her...RIP." So great 6 seconds into this book and I'm tearing up already, but I love it. I love FEELING something. "What it Takes" is one of my favorites because it always gets to me.
    When I saw the picture of his mother, I instantly saw his daughter Liv in her, that was cool. It's funny that Liv a big reason I started liking Steven Tyler. I always liked Aerosmith of course, but it wasn't until I liked Liv as an actress that he started to stand out to me. When I saw him as her father, it made him more real to me. I love the way she looks at him in pictures, she just beams. Gotta love that. I remember someone saying, "yeah, that's Steven Tyler's daughter." I said, "Who?" Then the song came out and that video with both of them in it that was totally sweet. That's when my soft spot for him started.
   OK, so by page one I am crying! Holy cow! I feel like checking my birth control pills to see if I am in my PMS zone and in a weakened state that I can blame on something or if I'm just mental. Yup, mental.
    I like how he dedicated it to his mother too.