Flexing your Music Ear

Last night on our Saturday dinner date, my SIO and I were half way through our Margaritas, when Ben Harper’s “Steal My kisses” started playing overhead.   I began swinging in my seat and singing along when suddenly I decided to change the lyrics.  I do this often.  Something SIO finds extremely funny.  It was my kind of music and I intended to enjoy fully.  Changing the lyrics just adds to the fun.

“You know, we are going to have to start hanging out in more bars that have live music.”  I grinned.  He laughed and told me he knew he was a bad influence. “Why?” he asked.  “It’s for this new project I have started.”  He went on to tell me how picky I was about my music taste, it’s one of the reasons I  change the lyrics to songs.

Picky?  Me? 

Every Thursday we go to a particular bar that has karaoke and we sit there and judge the performances, judge mind you, never perform.  He has some training and so do I.  He always threatens to get up and sing but hasn’t yet.  I won’t. I refuse. I’m a chicken. <Cluck Cluck>   I am very vocal about what I don’t like: most country (There is a ton of karaoke country…why?), bluegrass, heavy metal, not a huge Janis Joplin fan (he wants to call off the relationship over this statement), the list goes on. 

He asked how I could possibly make an unbiased decision about music that I dislike?  I went on to explain that he knew my musical background ground:  piano, organ, voice and choir.  I know my music.  I know talent when I hear it. I still know what it means to be musically talented. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.  Cut me some slack here. 

His area of expertise is much farther into the  general talent area than mine.  He sees it on a daily basis, on a broader spectrum too.  He is the perfect partner to accompany me on the journeys into the musical night live of our town and beyond.

So were going to flex our musical ears together.  Hopefully I am going to be swinging in my seat, and if he gets bored he can start up the Soundhound app on his iPhone to see just how good the band is really playing.  I think we are in for some serious  Ear Flexing of the Musical kind.

  Peace. NEPB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beQdeKWDjNQ    ( Ben Harper- Steal My Kisses )  be prepared to Dance!!!

No Regrets - Dear Friend

After posting yesterday’s blog,on my need to make Manwich, I received a personal note from an old friend, a comment regarding unrequited love. He had attached a very sad song.

 I sat this morning, organizing my desk, sorting through papers, tid-bits of notes that I jot down when I get ideas for writing, looking at old photographs. I had Sting playing my favorite album, a song played, the words were similar to that sad song he had sent.  I thought back to my freshman year.  I never knew how my friend felt.

I was young  and foolishly head over heals in love with his friend.  It was the reason I was so far from home at a college I had no business attending. When I was dumped, he stuck by me, taught me to play the guitar and was a big brother to me until I made my way back home to Virginia and another University.  We lost touch and somehow reconnected through Social Media, you know the story.

I didn’t always see the easy path and certainly didn’t see what was right in front of me back in the early 80’s.  Too blinded by being dumped, I never would have believed that this young man had feelings for me. 

We are cautioned constantly to plan for everything: look before you leap, buy life insurance, plan for your financial future.  We tell our children not to fall for the first girl/boy that comes along “they will break your heart.”  We cautiously tell them, remembering our own heartbreak.

Well what’s the fun in that?  We need these experiences to grow, to learn, to live.  I certainly did.  I learned several times.  Looking back I have a few regrets, the good out shines the bad by far.  I have 5 beautiful children and I would not have them had I not made some of those bad choices and then tougher choices.

I have chosen a much different path than that of my friend.  I am a different person now.  I have to keep moving forward, no looking back in regret.

You are right old friend, “it ended long before it could begin”.   No regrets.

Peace.  NEPB

The Manwich of my Relationship

It had been a stressful 3 days; the diagnosis was in, not the greatest news. It was not totally unexpected, sprung on me yes, but I was beginning to get used to this.  It was how this relationship worked:  my significant other (SIO) and I.

We are fiercely independent. Never wanting to worry the other with trivial things, but yet we seek each others opinion often, even on trivial matters.  As for the major issues of this week, I wanted, correction: I expected a little more. Yet neither of us is willing to give in to this war of independence.

I was explaining this to my friend.  I had been in touch with her daily, updating her throughout, explaining my frustration, with the lack of information. This morning I called again to update her.  The stress finally getting me to me, I gave in and the tears began to flow. “ Why couldn’t he let me do the littlest thing?”  I sobbed and laid my head on the steering wheel.  It was unlike me.

Explaining further to my friend, I recalled how her husband returning home one weekend, complained of illness.  He was “dying” and needed his favorite food… Manwich.  We scurried off to the grocery store to purchase the ingredients. I was completely shocked. My friend is an excellent cook and she was being asked to prepare Manwich?  I remember her shaking her head in disbelief but she prepared Manwich for her “dying” husband (He recovered fully from his sinus infection).

I sat this morning, crying in my car asking why my SIO wouldn’t let help him.   “I want to do this tiny little thing for him. I just want to fix his “Manwich!” almost shouting into the phone.  Realizing what I had said I started to laugh hysterically, tears streaming down my face.  I dug around in my car for a napkin, anything to wipe away the tears.  My friend laughed loudly at my absurd statement.    

She’s heard me say it time and time again.  “I want my independence and boundaries”.  I want to pick up and go as I please, answer to no one.  My SIO wants the same.  We both roll our eyes when friends ask when we are getting married. We are not, don’t ask again.  Having been down that road once before, neither of us has a mind to go there again. 

So why can’t I fix “Manwich”?  It’s his boundary and I’m not suppose to cross it, like my own that I protect as I do my children, fiercely!  Last night, checking in on him, I asked what he needed:  cleaning? laundry? food? I was gently reprimanded for even suggesting such things.  Boundaries.  I left him to rest in his boundaries, no “Manwich” prepared.  He was safe and sound for the time being. I had done all I could for him that day.

There will more of his boundaries I will have to cross in the next few months and he knows it. We will deal with this as he allows.  I will try not to be so fierce; try to put myself in his shoes.  Try.

I hope he likes “Manwich”

Peace.  NEPB