week one

followers, living in your hollow words
i have seen your nine to fives wash away your dreams

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This week was my Brandi Carlile week, and I saw her twice at Irving Plaza...I was supposed to go to her show in Boston last night, but decided against it at the last minute. It's interesting...and somewhat embarrassing...how easily I become enthralled with people and what they do. It's borderline obsessive, and I'm not sure how to describe it outside of the typical fanatical situation. It's not that. Well, sometimes it is. But for the most part, I have found strong female performers to look up to since I can remember...and as embarrassing as this might be, I'll take you down memory lane...

The first "obsession" I can remember was the Lawrence Welk show. I was three-ish. I loved that show...the pretty dresses, big band music, and probably the bubbles at the very end. Anyone else? I watch it now and laugh at myself, but it is what it is. After that I can remember loving a performer on the Nickelodeon show "Roundhouse." It was like an SNL for kids, but they sang too, and there was one actress in particular that I was seriously drawn to. After that, it was Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, and Bernadette Peters (I was a big fan of musicals in high school). And then it was Sarah Silverman (which kind of came out of left field). And then I went to a Brandi Carlile show that literally changed my life...which brought this fan thing to a whole new level. I have her freaking lyrics tattooed on my arm.

Soooooo, where am I going with this? I learned something throughout this last string of shows, and I'm going to go ahead and go so far as to compare this to an addiction. You tend to do something over and over again because it feels really great and you can't get enough of it. But then, eventually you start to not feel so good anymore after it's over. And that's kind of where I'm at. I think Brandi served her purpose in my life by giving me the wake-up call that I needed, but it's time for me to kind of move forward and stop getting caught up in comparisons and frustrations because I don't feel as if I'll ever be as great as her.

My brain understands that comparisons are stupid, and we're different people, and I really need to stop being so distracted so that I can really focus on exactly what I am trying to do...

Whew. This was a bit of a silly therapy session, but I feel better now.

My first week as my own boss was awesome, because I've basically been on vacation. I think I still averaged 30 hours or so of some sort of music-related exercise. So I'm happy :)

I wish I had red hair like Alison Sudol,

Lauren