Weekend report.

Weekends are the punctuation marks of the week. Sometimes, they're question marks - endless hours of agonizing wondering about something that developed over the week, and remains unresolved. Sometimes, they're periods - definite endings, decisive and clearcut. Sometimes they're lazy, lounge-around-in-your-pajamas ellipses marks. Sometimes, they're semicolons, brief pauses before jumping into the next week. Sometimes they're exclamation points. You know those kinds of weekends.

Friday night, I did some wandering about downtown, shopping for a new pair of black shoes (which people who know me will think is ridiculous, since I only have 20 or 25 pairs of black shoes, but seriously, my favorite multi-purpose black shoes have died a slow and painful death because I wear them every day and walk miles and miles and miles...) and managing to pick up a margarita shaker (some people call them martini shakers, but clearly they haven't experienced the tequila-goodness I know and love), some obnoxious socks (they say "Ice Princess" across the top), and the aforementioned essential new black shoes (I was tempted to get the leather fringe, grommet-happy, chains and spikes stilleto sandals....but then I remembered that I'm not Joan Jett). Then I met up with my roomie and we grabbed dinner at her place of employ (which, good food, but hello! $23 for four (4) scallops? What the fuck?!), followed by a nice, leisurely trip home on the el before getting gussed up (warmly, 'cause it's damned cold lately) and heading down to the Belmont/Clark neighborhood for a crawl through some of their lovely pubs and clubs, wherein I drank too many margaritas, my roomie landed a date with a (super-cute) 36-year-old doorman, and we both went home (more or less) happy. Waking up was another story.

Saturday was waking up earlier than anybody who drank as many margaritas as I did should...but doing it, because I'm badass like that. I got around, got dressed, got together with my lovely friend K and her son, got breakfast with my roomie, got over the inevitable digestive adventures that always result from alcoholic overindulgence, got my ass to the suburbs and mall-shopped until I couldn't mall shop no mo. I racked up quite a decent hall, including cute new pants for work (love skirts but FUCK it is cooooooold out there), a new keychain (why not?), and Happy Bunny pajama pants, which, in conjunction with my new fuzzy slippers, are now my favorite thing to wear ever in the history of garments. They are ungodly comfy, and the fact that they're smartass, too, well, that's just gravy.

Sunday, I met up with a new guitarist/songwriter, and wow. Wowwowwow. We did one of my songs and a couple of his, and spent three hours or so playing and singing and getting a feel for whether or not we could work together. With his stuff....not sure yet. He's a stickler for exact inflection and that's a good thing, because he clearly has a good feel for what sounds good - not to mention that I really dig the stuff he's written. But it remains to be seen whether or not I can consistently nail the specific flourishes and dynamics he's arranged. They're not quite my usual style, so it will be a bit of a challenge to get them note-perfect....but I really like the tunes, so I'll be trying. On the other hand, I'd lovelovelove to have him working on my material. The one of mine we did, he added some guitar and some harmonies which were subtle but really nice....and he suggested a slight re-arrangement, with full fuck-off options (meaning I could tell him to fuck off and quit messing with my song), but which I tried out in a compromise sort of way, and really actually liked a great deal. I take a more open, fluid tack when it comes to songwriting....I think mostly because I am such an imperfect instrumentalist that I can only do so much, and I need other people and their experience and talent and ears to really flesh out a tune, to get it closer to the potentials I hear in my head.

Anyway, it felt good to collaborate again, to work with another musician and feel good about the music we were making. So, hand drums and a better guitarist, and three sets of harmony vox. A good start. This week, I hope to add cello, another guitarist, and maybe a harmonica player to the mix. It's gonna be so damn cool.

Ode
by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.

World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Yep. That about sums it up.