teaberryblue

Let's see what I'm up to!

Last week, I went our for a drink with Bianca, then to my psych appointment, then to Ward III with Leslie, Max's girlfriend, and that was awesome. Tuesday, I went to the distillery and hung out on the fire escape with the boys for most of the night. Wednesday, I actually took the train up to Bronxville, got coffee with spiralstairs, and then Kate cooked AWESOME dinner for me with rice and beans and kale and nom. Thursday, I got my hair cut (I just accidentally wrote "I got my hair cute") and then went to see my college friend Ellia's variety show/concert/unveiling of her new video. That was pretty awesome because I haven't seen Ellia SINCE college. Friday, I hung out with Darryl and Dre and we drew things and talked about music's relationship to comics and the idea of media that is made up of relationships between two different types of information. Then I went over to Angel's and we watched Orange is the New Black. Saturday, Angel and I spent the whole day having adventures. Then I went over to Rose-Regina's house for her birthday. I got there very late but I had fun hanging out with Lena and Rose and Rose's friends I'd never met before. Lots of cool cyclist types and we had some debates about Citibike and things and that was pretty awesome because I only have a couple of cyclists in my life.

I need to trade my bike in for one more suitable to NYC.

Yesterday, I went to Flushing and had dim sum with my friend Carly, and then we hung out at the Apple store while she got her music transferred so she could turn her macbook in to get fixed. And then I went over to her place and played with her dog, and from there, I headed to an afterparty for Jonny's burlesque show, and ran into my friend Dara, who I haven't seen in a while because she's been in Utah being in Les Mis. We ditched the party, went to Rum House...and all the other performers from the burlesque followed, so we hung out with them there, and that was pretty excellent. I went home, thinking I was going home fairly early, but the subway was ridiculous and I didn't get home till one.

Oops.

ANYWAY. I've been writing a ton of song lyrics lately-- the most recent song is about the Essex Street subway station transforming into a circus. (It has the lines, "lions don't lie; they're carnivorous" and "rats on the tracks dance like acrobats.") And I want to be able to do more with them than just post the words.

I play a bunch of instruments, probably not well because I haven't kept up with any of them, but I used to play saxophone, oboe, fife, and cello. And cellos are expensive and large, and the other three require your mouth to play so they're not really conducive to singing.

I tried to learn the mandolin, but the mandolin has so many strings that every time I sit down to learn it, it takes me like an hour just to tune it and I never get around to playing it.

So I was at Ellia's show, and Ellia plays the ukelele. And it seemed like a perfect thing to try: it's small, good for basic rhythms, and has a kind of quirky sound that would go well with the kinds of songs I write.

NOW I HAVE A UKELELE.

I already managed to successfully tune it very quickly, and I made myself flash cards to learn the frets. I'm going to work on learning a couple of basic chords and hopefully a very simple song by the end of the week.

I don't know how long it will take till I can play along with my songs, but the promise of being able to is kind of exciting.