A long overdue update on all the things in my world!

Life has gotten a little out of control in the last few weeks (I thought after the semester ended things were supposed to calm down...), so I've been off being fearless without sharing. Apologies! Rest assured, all projects are moving forward.

Update on the Banned Books Project:

I have read six out of the twenty-five books so far. That is 24%, which isn't bad, but also isn't as far along as I wanted to be by this point. Time to kick it into high gear! Since my last update I've read Forever by Judy Blume, The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Patterson, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

A quick word about Of Mice and Men: it's an easy book, but it's not an easy book. It's about a hundred pages, and the narrative isn't filled with huge words; you can read it in about an hour or an hour and a half. The hard thing about this book (which I suspect may be the reason why it's still the #1 banned book in the country) is EVERYTHING ELSE. The plot, which you already know when you pick it up, is heartbreaking. You forgot about that though. You let the book become reduced down to a joke about wanting to tend the rabbits. You forgot what happens, and then three pages into the story you remember. You know, it's the only way this tale can end, and the dread of the ending sticks to you through every page.

Another project I started about a year ago and then abandoned is on my radar again. Last June I bought the world's most beautiful acoustic guitar. It has a big body (think Emmylou Harris' guitar) and is colored dark maroon with a little black on it. It's seen a bit of wear prior to getting to me, but I don't care. I love it, and it's gorgeous. It sounds great when played by someone who knows what he's doing. Sadly, that person who knows how to play is not me. I started lessons last year for a few months. A few thousand factors came into play that didn't facilitate my learning how to play my beloved new toy. On the plus side, none of these factors included an unwillingness to practice, develop the proper calluses, or cut my nails. I didn't click with my teacher, lessons are expensive, and I was going through a major personal struggle at the time. Well, it's been a year now and I think it's time to put down the excuses, pick up the guitar, and learn a little bit. I'm a musician, and a multi-instrumentalist at that, but the guitar is a whole different kind of animal from anything in my comfort zone and I'll tell you why. I play the flute, the piccolo, the bari sax, and I sing. What do all of these instruments have in common? They all deal solely in single notes. You cannot play two notes on a woodwind or sing two notes at the same time. No chords.

Guess what I struggle the most with as a musician? Theory! The way music is put together! Harmonics and chords! All you do on a guitar! I am not a proficient piano player. I can teach myself any melody line that I need, and I can easily warm up a choir. I even play a few scales, but that is where it ends. My mind shorts out when I have to think of music in terms of chords. I do not write my own music (anymore - because I was TERRIBLE, probably because I had no understanding of musical construction). A whole bunch of studies say that learning music makes children more proficient at math, a subject with which I also struggle. I never developed that thing that allows one to make sense of these complex systems of organization. See? I can't do math. I can't handle chords. It all comes full circle! Like a circle of fifths!

Which I CAN'T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND.

For anyone who didn't get that joke (what joke?) it was for all the music nerds out there, and you should just ignore my awful sense of humor and keep reading. Unnecessarily long rant short: Chords are hard for me. Really hard. My last instructor didn't care and tried to teach me the construction of everything I was doing. I didn't understand. I got uber-frustrated. It was expensive. So, I quit. I recognize at the start of this project that I am never going to set the guitar world on fire, and I am completely accepting of that limitation. I am setting out to learn a handful of chords so that I can sit around my backyard someday with a guitar, a glass of lemonade, and play old rock songs while we barbecue. That's all. I've found a teacher (quite the handsome devil, too) who can already sit around and play old rock songs, who is willing to teach me without all the fuss. It's my boyfriend, D'Paul. He's wonderful and (most importantly) extra patient so I'm prepared to give it another go. Wish me luck!