A bit worried
So about 2 or 3 weeks ago I had this REALLY bad nightmare. It was basically the worst dream ever. I even tweeted about it during the night right after I dreamt it. I woke up in tears and everything. The dream was that... I was at camp, which I am now... and it was raining a lot, which it has been and is now... and then my mom got an infection in her arm from her IV and she was delaying going to the hospital, which she has now and she's delaying going...
Then in the dream one of the next things was I was suddenly home and beside her crying because she had died. So... I'm a bit freaked out. She's supposed to possibly go to the hospital tomorrow. I told her that I think she should go tonight. She wants to wait until tomorrow to go because today they came to her house and took blood samples which are being processed at the lab. So... yea. I'm just kinda hoping/praying that things turn out OK. She said her fever is back down a bit from what it was. It was spiking up at 102 each time she did some IV fluids so it's most likely a PICC line infection. She needs the fluids because she has trouble staying hydrated just drinking regular water due to the general nature of the longtime illness she has. So it's important for her to run the fluids. If she can't because that's where the infection is that will make things even more complicated.
But yea, I told her that she definitely should go tonight and not delay. She said that she will not hesitate to call 911 if she has to. Currently she still has some old time friends staying from california but, they leave tomorrow. I think she is trying to wait for them to leave tomorrow and then go to the hospital after they leave. I guess at least it's semi comforting knowing there are people at the house with her. But i'd rather her be in the hospital even if it's nothing major. I'm really thinking that maybe I should come home a little early. She's had infections many times before, but the dream I had was REALLY vivid and so I'm just super worried. I'm supposed to be here in Maine until Friday and then head back. I might head back tomorrow or Thursday depending on how things go. So I'm just keeping close communication with her and trying to get frequent updates.
Like I said I'm definitely very worried though because a lot of the dream is the same as what's going on and it was very VERY vivid and just scary. So hopefully things turn out ok and the fever goes away. I'm hoping that she just gets better and doesn't need to visit the hospital. But if she does I'm hoping she goes as soon as possible and then gets better quickly.
Any thoughts/hopes/prayers in this general direction to me or my mom would be greatly appreciated.
A Camp Update Post
Things have been busy at camp. There is always something going on every minute it seems. By the end of the day every night I'm ready to get to sleep and just fall into a REALLY deep sleep. The other night I went out into Portland with everyone and had a great time. We went to the mall and walked around, went bowling then went and got some food and drink at some local nearby pubs and a brewery. I ended the day by getting some gelato. It was REAAAAAAALLY tasty! The bowling was fun. I wasn't too great though... BUT I did manage to pick up a spare by the end. So I think was slowly improving.
I had a pretty awesome burger and fresh brew at a local brewery up here in Portland. The burger was made to order so I got all sorts of special cool toppings including fried jalapenos. I also got some sweet potato fries. I think I love sweet potato fries and regular fries equally. I think it'd be cool to get a mix. So like half sweet potato and half regular fries. Then they shake em up and mix em up. That would be pretty sweeeeeeeet.
Ok soooooo here's an update on my adventure quick dry towel. I've been using it now since I got here. That thing is AWESOME. Seriously! I know I say awesome a lot and I say everything is awesome. But this thing is great. It dries REALLY quick. I mean I come back to my cabin at lunch time and it's dry! My other towels in previous years used to still be wet after dinner sometimes. So that was a GREAT idea to buy that. I've been using my Klean Kanteen insulated a LOT to make iced beverages. Mostly just iced water. Some iced coffee. Som iced tea. I definitely have decided to get a second one just for iced water. I like the insulated one so much more than the regular one. It's one of the things I own that I use the most. So I'm going to buy a second one of those when I get back home.
Finally I have gotten a chance to do a new mix out of my new song. I also got the chance to DJ this morning while everyone was cleaning. My job was to keep everyone pumped up. Mission was accomplished and then some. But I now think I only need to fix 2 more things. other than those two little things this song is ready to go. At the moment I have to create the camper email accounts and I have to take care of a few more computer-y things here. As soon as I get all that stuff squared away I'm going to get back to finishing up the song. I know i've been promising it. So I'll get my but in gear and get to that.
For now I'm going to go fight the mosquito's and finish working on email accounts for the campers and then get to sleep!
Downsize/upsize
So I've been doing some thinking about my computer setup since the new macbook pros came out. I came up with an idea. I've been looking at the specs on the little 13 inch macbook pros. The higher end one that comes with 8 gigs of ram is actually a little better than the current macbook pro I have. So that means I could buy that one and still do all the things I do now at even a little faster speed than I usually do!
I think it would be neat to have a little 13 inch laptop that's easier to carry around with me. But the problem is that I just don't think I could live with a little itty bitty 13 inch screen all the time! I have a 15 inch now and sometimes I feel like that screen is just too small even. So I also was doing some poking around on the Microcenter site and they have pretty decent 23 and 24 ish inch monitors for pretty decent prices!
I also looked up on Monoprice and found they have a little adapter and cable to hook up the external monitor. Sooooooooo here's what I have decided I'm going to do at some point this summer...
I'm going to downsize my laptop to the new 13 inch one with the faster processor and more memory. This will give me all the same stuff I already have but just slightly faster (although not as fast as getting another 15 inch one but that's ok) AND it will give me a nice little portable package to carry around with me easier.
Then what I'm going to do is buy a 23 or 24 inch monitor. I'll hook that up to the little mac via mini display port to HDMI. I plan to run the resolution at the 1080 resolution. This will give me WAY more space to move around when I'm making music and working on little puppet videoness. I'm pretty excited about that. So it's kind of like a downsize/upsize at the same time. I'm downsizing my computer, and upsizing my display. I'm hoping this will help too in my creativity productivity level. There's something about buying some new equipment for creativeness that sparks even more creativeness. Like it makes you even more excited about doing even more.
Speaking of creativeness and doing more, I'm NEARLY done this song. There are just a few little things that I'm trying to fix. The process when I get to the end of mixing and mastering and finishing a song gets REALLY tedious. I start noticing little things that I didn't hear on initial mixes. I really start getting into it and really start trying to make it sound more and more like a professional song. Usually I'll load up hot 100 billboard type songs that sound similar to my song. Then I will try and make my song sound as good as theirs as far as the mixing and mastering goes. It's not easy. I think this song is REALLY starting to sound great though! I just need to fix only a few more little tiny things. The thing about it is after I finish it, I copyright it. And that process is permanent. So you better have the mix you want. Then when I upload it to CDBaby to be sent out to all the online digital distribution sites, that's MEGA permanent. There's no going back from that. So when I get to this point I'm sooooooooooo eager to just post it up. But I know that I need to take my time with it and try and make it sound as best I can because if there is a little mess up later on... it's going to be there for good!
I wanted to have the song done this weekend but I think with all my rushing around and trying to get ready to leave for camp I'll end up posting it later this week most likely. I'm going to try and get it posted as soon as I can but I really do want to take my time with it to make sure I definitely got it as close to perfect as possible. No song can ever be perfect. But from the producer seat... it's best to just try and get it as close as possible. Well it's late and I'm falling asleep in my chair. Gonna get to sleep. Tomorrow is my last improv class. So that is kinda sad, but its been SOOOOOO much fun and I'm just happy to have had the chance to experience that. Anywho, it's sleep time for me... goodnight!
I’m on Spotify!
So I found out today that I got my first sale... or streams... on spotify. So you get paid per stream when people play your music... at least that's what it looks like. The accounting in CDBaby isn't real time so there's a delay to when it posts from third party sites. I finally saw today that I got a number of streams from Spotify. 5 cents worth of streams to be exact!
It was pretty exciting to see that. I was like WHOA... that's pretty awesome! So I now have 2 of my songs up on Spotify. I hope to just keep uploading and posting and all that good stuff. I just think that it's WAY cool that a regular person like me can write a song, record it, post it up and have the WHOLE WORLD be able to listen to it online. I mean just how cool is that?!?!?!
Extremely cool.
So yea that made my day today. I get excited by little things like that. It makes me feel like I'm going in a positive direction with my creative endeavors. I hope everyone else had something fun as well that made their day today!
Some Thoughts of Playing Live
So my goal of consistently playing open mic on a regular basis again is happening. I've really just been playing Steel City Coffee House. I've really found that the people at Steel City are SUPER supportive. I love the crowd and the atmosphere. So I'm trying to just stick with their Thursday evening open mic as my regular open mic. I like to go and play a little early and then order a coffee shop type beverage and work on writing my book.
There are a lot of very good acts and very talented people there! There are also a lot of just super nice people there. Whenever I get off stage after I play people clap super appreciatively and it's just great.
So I'm hoping that once I play there for a while I can try and get a show there! Even just opening for someone on an "off night" would be cool. Once I get a show or two there hopefully that will allow me to book shows at other places around the philadelphia area. It seems like a lot of the other venues and people who run venues all know Steel City. It's kind of like the most famous of all the open mics. So I'm hoping once I can get a show there... that will be a big thing to add to my music show playing resume that will allow me to play bigger and better levels of shows!
I think after I play open mic there for a while or even a few shows I might start trying to get more video footage and then I can post that video footage on youtube. I definitely want more live footage online for the world to see.
Hopefully I can focus as well on building a local fanbase. That's going to be another one of my goals. I want to try and start to get a little fanbase and start getting shows where I see the same faces coming to shows I play. That'd be pretty cool. I think the freakiest/coolest/weirdest thing ever will be when I'm playing and someone is singing along to one of my songs. I'd be like... "Whoaaaaa" if that ever happened. Anywho so I'm going to definitely do as the improv idea I talked about in my previous post and just keep with it. Just keep with open mic and keep it up and see if I can start to make something happen on the local live scene with my music.
Keep with it
One of the really positive things that I've gotten out of my improv class is the idea to "keep with it" or "go with it". It's sort of this idea that even if something isn't going well or isn't starting well just keep with it and see what develops.
So in some of our classes someone started a scene or an idea and it wasn't working. But instead of just stopping it and starting over with something new or just trying to change it to something else the instructor said to go with it! The idea is even if it's not working at first, or if it's a thing that's been going for a while but is kind of stuck... just keep with it and see where it can maybe go. Something else might develop out of it. Or maybe if you are stuck someone else can help you out and then it can turn into something else really cool.
I think that's a very good principle to apply to life in general. Many times in life I feel like I'm "stuck" or I feel like I started something that just isn't going to work. By just stopping or giving up I don't r know where it might have led! Things can change pace in a split second in improv and in real life I think life can do that too! I think it's easy to get frustrated or feel stuck in life. But if we keep with it or go with it and work at it... who knows where it might eventually lead! It could lead to really interesting or good or new things.
The other thing I like to is that even if you keep with something and it does eventually just end without actually going anywhere. You can then revisit that scene or idea when you get a fresh idea after some time has passed. Sometimes it works! So that's cool too.
There are a lot of really good life things to get out of this class. I'm so glad I signed up for it. So the next time you feel stuck on a project or something in life or at work or anything just keep with it... or go with it. See where it goes! If you REALLY feel it's not working... just break from it for a while. Then wait and see if you get a new idea and then revisit it!
I do this a lot in music and my creative things. Sometimes I'll just feel completely stuck on something and then a few weeks or months or even years later... I find a piece of something that works with something else and I create something brand new! I guess this post has been a bit of a positive motivation post. But hey I mean why not? Glass half full! Keep with it... go with it... either way... sometimes things happen when you think nothing is going to happen... and sometimes things don't. But try and give it at least a little bit of a try and don't quit too soon.
On the flip side... if something just REALLY isn't working... it's also ok to end scene and start a new one. I think it's ok either way. I think as long as we feel ok with the decision it's a good decision either to keep with something and see where it goes or to try and start something new.
I think I'm going to see how it changes things in my life if I try and stick with things a little longer than I normally would. So when I want to try something new I'll try and stick with and go with something slightly longer than I normally would. We'll see how that works! I feel like I'm just saying the same thing over and over again? Kinda... I think I am, I was trying to keep with this blog and see if I could type a little longer after I wanted to stop the post. I don't know if it worked. It seems to have made sense. Anywho on this note... I'm going to end scene with this blog post and catch everyone in my next post!