November has long been my favourite month. Most years I get lovely runs of creativity, a spell of anxiety-free gold-spinning from straw in the form of song writing. Sometimes it emerges as prose or poetry. I can feel myself getting that way already, which is good. It keeps me mentally occupied rather than spending every minute worried about whether Katie (who says she doesn’t want more kids) has a relatively hassle free birth experience.
I wrote a thousand words on the novel (the name of which I must now change… Calamari Boy? Underlings: Part 1? Squid Surprise? Sixers? Who Let the Squids Out? Not Really Human? Something Something George?) in three blocks yesterday, practiced with the filk inflected chorus (and WORD OF GOD WILL SOUND SO AWESOME o yes it will). Jeff and Jeri-Lynn are two of my favourite filkers, even if Jeri-Lynn’s strong voice pulls me into the tenor line. It’s like a valence electron popping into a different shell.
I found out what my vocal range is yesterday!
A2 D5!
That A2 sort of depends on what time of day I’m singing, but the upshot is that I can sing tenor or alto, which is good ta know.
The Fountain of Exposition (hereinafter referred to as the FoE) was also at the choral practice yesterday. Little children are squirmy and screechy, but I was in a good mood and every time he screeched I thought, “ah me, this will be my lot in three years, chasing after a squirmy and screechy toddler!” instead of thinking about earplugs and how I really wanted to fold up like an armadillo, and then I thought about moving to Fort St. John again. And then of course I’d start worrying about the birth again. Worry and anxiety are so frikkin useless; the intelligent thing is to channel them into housework or mending or mowing the lawn, or blocking out the arrangement for Just Might Stick Around (which has glued itself, grr, to the inside of my earworm tunnel). One thing I’d forgotten – Keith was particularly notable for this – is that if you do manage to accomplish the impossible (note heavy sarcasm) and say something that amuses the child, you’re gonna get it repeated, at various volumes, for the next 15 minutes… and sometimes for years. I enjoy being able to understand the FoE when he talks. I like to think my auditory fluency is pretty good; small humans can be a challenge but not in this case, especially when it’s so powerful windy today (all kids are drawn like magnets to light switches, fans and power tools, it’s a law of nature.) Dreffle windy (fan blows). Powerful windy today thar, boys! (Infectious giggling).
Keith saw the car parked in front of Tom and Peggy’s on the way home and invited himself to dinner. (Think for a moment how an otherwise reticent individual feels that he is perfectly okay to do that, and it burnishes their reputation for unstinting hospitality yet again. He gave us a slow clap after we practiced Word of God, and I have to tell you, he never likes anything I sing so I guess being drowned out by other people is the way to go. Around 7:30 I felt a wave of nausea and exhaustion come over me and begged off. I had to sit in the car for a bit before I drove, but I was fine when I got home (??!!) and wrote some more.
MUST REMEMBER TO PUT COOKIE TIN IN CAR.