There are so many thank you‘s to give out this year, and don’t have a lot of time to get them all straight before my final post is due. I, we, obviously owe a great deal of thanx to Cat Connor and the rest of the official Blogathon team for getting us to and through this point with hardly any significant technical difficulties – not to mention an excess of enthusiasm and cheer. Cat went above and beyond her call of duty by sponsoring me back when it looked as though i might not even make the ‘thon cutoff, and for that i am very grateful. Which naturally leads us to my sponsors: Cat, Rabi, Tony, Courtney, Dave, Tom, Alayna-Renee, Maggie, Amy, and my roommate Kate. In my mind sponsoring someone for blogathon not only includes a donation to a sympathetic charity but also a vote of confidence that the sponsoree will work to the best of their ability for an entire 24hours to create new and worthwhile content. Knowing that the eyes of my sponsors were on me i couldn’t help but want to do my very utmost to show that i’m serious about this event.
I can hardly forget the people who kept me awake, especially Lynne & Benjy, who definitely spent a lot more time talking to me than anyone should ever have to. Next, there are the people who physically showed up to put in time on this project. Lindsay – who is one of the most talented people i have ever known (and a hilarious co-worker); Kate – who brought me humor, granola bars, and support … all unconditionally; Elise – who really shouldn’t have even put up with my sleepless wackiness as much as she did (and whom i will commence cuddling with very shortly); Gina – who continues to inspire and amaze me with every note she exudes; Jack – whose humor and grace at being rescheduled paid off in finally recording one of my all-time favorite songs; Karen and her bemused patience at my insanity over the entire event; and Dante – who didn’t even get to play on all the songs he could have added his talents to.
My final thank you is simple: thank you for listening. It doesn’t really feel like it, but i’ve been playing my heart out now for more than just a couple of years, and today i think my music might have traveled farther than ever before. Thank you for humoring me, and for being patient with me, and for spending your time and bandwidth on me; it means more than i can sing, strum, or even plainly say.
people
Shower #2. Elise is passed out cold across the room, so it’s up to me to sit here with goofy-sized headphones one half-noon. Not that she was going to help with that or anything.
I usually play Stay a lot more aggressively than i did in that version, which tends to draw a lot of complaints from Elise, so when it came time to do this one i gave my battered voice a rest and just crooned it. For the most part. The two requests were the second to last couple of songs i recorded tonight, and they definitely allowed me a chance to do something different with my voice given the shape it was in by then.
For those of you who were expecting a Madonna fix, try one of these gems from last year: Like A Virgin, Gone, & La Isla Bonita. No, i will not link “Secret” … it was terrible enough the first time through.
Blogathon: 19/24 – Closer To Fine
It’s a little overwhelming to have so many of your favorite people in the same house all at once, if only because you can’t pay attention to them all as well as blog. A sour look from Elise when i got downstairs to apologize to Gina from ousting everyone from my room as Lindsay popped in and out of the kitchen. I tried to find Kate to see how she’s doing, but apparently she ran off to feed someone’s fish.
I know, there are a lot of pets to keep track of. For the record, this is a full list of the pet-content of all the houses any of us will be in today: two ferrets, three hamsters, a chinchilla, one ten gallon tank of fish, one medium sized ball python, the largish tank of fish that Kate was feeding and… um… that could be it. Lots o’ Pets.
Everything has taken on its own sheen in my room as the fan sucks in cool moist are from the outside. Elise is sitting on my bed trying to tune her clarinet, Jack and Karen are somewhere else in the house observing the ‘thon action from a safe distance, and Lindsay and Kate left to pick up groceries for the dinner i’ll be mooching off of later.
All this activity is so strange compared to last year when Gina would stop by my apartment every so often with a guitar or butterscotch cookies. This year i have an entire handful of people who want to contribute to my songs, and i have roommate and friends who donated to my charity, and i have a state of the art 8-track mixer so that i’m not singing into the miserable little speaker in the front of my moniter. It’s still a little lonely, though, even with my obsessive checking of statistics and having surfed halfway around the ring already.
Well, at least i found two new linkers: Speechless and Lynne @ Ursie, who specifically complimented Lindsay on her harmonies. Go L-dawg!
It seems that the delerium has set in…