now that's what i call impressive

today is march 4th, 2008. thirty years ago exactly it was march 4th, 1978. thirty years ago exactly my parents got married. and they're still married to the same people! granted, it hasn't, you know always been the "perfect" marriage - there are always going to be differences and discrepancies and who knows what else, but the point is that i would like to hereby congratulate my parents for being so amazing and dedicated as to stay together for THREE DECADES. over a quarter of a century!

this is cool.

so, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! :D

home

home
what is home?
where you hang your hat
where the heart is
but you can hang your hat anywhere
and your heart is in your chest
so home is...
the world?
but the world is not a safe place
at least, not always for me
then, home is...
i don't know where it is.
:(

i is famous?

i don't quite know if that's really true, but, well... let me begin at the beginning.

i went to neby this past weekend, and it was pretty much amazing. there were some definite ups and downs (for example, being in a highlander with three other people for 20 straight hours, only to end up in a giant hotel with over a thousand people milling about, lights blazing, music blaring around the general vicinity - talk about your sensory overload), but overall the weekend was really cool. i wish i'd gone to a bit more morning sessions, but well, that's a rather moot point, and not really the main point (moot or otherwise) of this post.

the main point (moot or otherwise) is that i seem to have gathered some kind of following from the citizens of this country and canada. it's quite interesting, actually, to have people come up to me (that i don't know, or have never seen IN MY LIFE) and ask me things like if i'm on facebook or myspace... it's definitely a different feeling. for one thing, i'm glad people like my music; that to me is the main goal - writing good songs that people can relate to (and are not about sex, drugs, women, partying, materialism, fakelovewhichisreallyjustmoresex, physical attributes, etc.), and maybe that help somebody who's having a bad day cheer up, or show someone who's tired that other people get tired too, and that it's okay to let those feelings show sometimes.

so yeah, that's really the point (moot or otherwise) of this post; is mainly to let people know that 1) i really appreciate the fact that people are open enough to sort of look past the words and see into the deeper meanings of the songs (which i try and make as clear as i can without blurting out the message blatantly, and spoiling the "poeticness" of it all), and 2) this music, whether i write it or not, is music from the soul, and in my opinion, that's really what we're lacking in today's society. - soul. and i'm not necessarily talking about "soul music", because to me that's different; no, i'm talking about music that rises up from the deepest point of your being to soar out of your mouth like sun rays through clouds (yes, those lovely crepuscular ones). - and even, to me, in some cases "from the heart" doesn't mean all that much, because the heart is a physical organ, and yes, it has emotions and feelings, but really (in my humble opinion), the soul is where it all happens. truly. eternally.

and so, on this note, i will leave you with a quote from a really great daily prayer/devotions/quote book called Reciting the Verses of God: "He that riseth to serve My Cause should manifest My wisdom, and bend every effort to banish ignorance from the earth." - (Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 138)

sad face. e_e *blogs about it* happy face. ^_^

i am disappointed. i was really looking forward to having my cd done by neby... well, neby is two days away, and i have two songs done - one i can't even get at, because it's on the school computer and in a file format that's not compatible with my own computer, and one that's okay, but not quite up to par... bah.

i have basically been working on making a cd ever since i started playing guitar and writing music. people always encouraged me, and that was great! except that i felt as if i was constantly letting people down every time the same old situation played out...

"anna! how are you? how's the cd going? do you know when you'll be done?"

"i'm good - busy... i still haven't found somewhere to record yet, so i'm still working on that..."

and that would be that. every public function, every Baha'i function, every time i saw anyone who knew that i play guitar and sing and write music and was trying (still am, obviously) to produce some kind of cd or album, every one of these situations would, without fail, bring this topic up. and i would still feel as bad every time i had to squirm in my shoes and answer the questions as honestly as i could bring myself to be. i always feel like i got these looks of "wow, you sure are taking your sweet time about this, huh?" whenever i would tell people i was "still working on it", and that would drive me even further into guilt-mode.

that's when i realized that i was still just sitting on my rear in my bedroom, strumming my guitar and waiting for an agent in a helicopter to zoom past my window, somehow hear what i was doing, and swoop through and carry me away to be famous in california.

dream on.

so then i really DID start working on it. i searched online for recording studios, i went to a couple recording studios (disastrous. never let them wake you up and make you sing early in the morning when you know your voice needs time to wake up too), and i called people. most recently i've been talking at (not to; they don't return my calls...) someone who works at a recording studio near me, hoping that i'd be able to get in there for some recording time and whatnot.

more dreaming, apparently.

so now i'm full-on going to do it myself, thankyouverymuch! - i am in a recording class, i get at least six hours of time in the studio every week, i know how to run the equipment, and i have an awesome friend who can improvise on the ukulele (how rockin' is that?!) for accompaniment and such, and i have improvisations of my own as well to go along with whatever else is in my head.

so sadly, my cd will not be done by neby. but look for it before Ayyam-i-Ha for sure!! (and, should something somehow delay its release even further, i am completely and entirely determined to birth this technological little baby of mine before we get too far into march!)

count on it!

i got blindsided today...

... by a dentist.

let me tell you my tragic tale... (cue sweeping fantasy-themed music)

prologue
*while driving in the car*
mom: "it's just a topical filling, they said they probably won't even have to numb you or anything."
me: "good, because i hate needles."

chapter one
i had a dentist appointment this morning, at 10 AM. so to be on the safe side, i showed up at about five 'til, 1) so i wouldn't have to wait very long, and 2) to be a little early, but not so early that i had to wait around for, say, a half hour...

luckily, i still got to wait until 10:30 to go into my appointment. (good thing i got there early, right?) so, after i got into the little room off the side of the hall, in walks the dentist's aide.

"have you had restorations before?" she asks, putting on some latex gloves.

seeing as i had no clue what a 'restoration' was, i replied, "uh... no...?"

"so this will be your first one, then?"

(realization dawns) "oh, you mean my filling? oh, no, i've had those before."

"okay then."

and then she's gone, leaving me to wait another fifteen minutes, forlornly slumped in the chair, not even caring if they think i'm sleeping - i just want to get DONE.

so, after those fifteen minutes, in which i think i actually may have been on the brink of dozing off... in waltzes the dentist (who will remain nameless to protect the...him).

chapter two
"good MORNING anna!" he says to me, while seating himself in nice little swivel chair. "sorry to ah, wake you..."

i was past jokes at that point, and was only able to muster a half-hearted, "ah-ha... no, i'm definitely awake."

"okay, good." he then proceeded to mention something about more snow, i gave another half-hearted reply, and then he set to work. "open up..." he brought out his pokey-tool, tapped the offending tooth (which apparently had a cavity) twice, and then said the worst six (seven if you count the contraction as two) words in the universe:

"all right, let's numb you up."

let the freak out begin!

then, oh, he's just getting a q-tip with this glob of stuff on it - okay, it's just a topicalll WHOA WHAT IS HE DOING WITH THAT NEEDLE?! yes ladies and gentlegerms, he had a TWO INCH LONG needle sneakily stowed away in his left hand, while his right was deceptively smearing something around my tooth.

then, he took the needle and *CENSORED DUE TO GRAPHIC NATURE* while shaking my cheek; then he removed the horrid accoutrement (the needle, for those who speak american) and proceeded to *CENSORED* in a different spot, still shaking my cheek.

let the sobbing begin.

his parting words, before he left me for ANOTHER ten minutes: "yeah, that's not fun, is it?"

then he patted my shoulder, and was gone.

chapter three
the pain in my left cheek starts to subside as the side of my mouth begins to feel the effects of whatever it was he injected into me. as i sit, staring out the window, i start to formulate plans in my mind: if he doesn't come back within five minutes i'm getting up out of this chair and refusing to come back ever again... i've lost all sense of amiableness towards this man... nobody gets to jab anyone with a needle without warning like that... cruel, sadistic little *CENSORED DUE TO DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE*...

oh, look - it's been four minutes. aaaaand yes! he's back.

"you all numbed up, anna?"

with as much congeniality as i could muster, i muttered, "pretty much."

"then let's get to work."

i won't give you the details of what happened next - it was your typical drilling, filling, shoot some antibacterial-soap-in-the-patient's-mouth kind of dentist appointment.

and then it was over; they gave me some nasty "all-natural" (granted, it was actually) mouthwash to get rid of the nasty soap-taste... frankly i think i would have been better off without the mouthwash, but the entire day had already been shot to pieces, so why not?

yeah, whatever...

"the numbing should be gone within an hour," the dentist told me, as a... parting... remark?

"okay," i said, knowing i would be blogging about this later (a.k.a. NOW).

so, i was admittedly annoyed when, two hours later, the left side of my mouth was still pretty darn numb. and this is exactly why i have sworn a vow that i will never go to the dentist. EVER. AGAIN... after my appointment on the 27th.

*sob*