Apparently I didn't make myself clear earlier.

I am in a band run by someone who thinks "The Man Who Sold the World" IS A NIRVANA SONG.

Pity me.

Shortly, my band-mates and I will rock the house, or kill each other. Possibly both.

Wish me luck!

Apparently I have been championing the cause of "Walking on Sunshine" SO enthusiastically (and our real girl singer has missed so many practices) that now I'M going to be singing it.

The good news is, I have serious karaoke training wheels for this. The bad news, if you're stuartc or the neighbours, is that I have serious karaoke training wheels for this....

Um, yay?

Hey, look! It's me, on stage, all blurry. (And there is NOTHING IN FRONT OF MY FACE IN THIS ONE!!!)

I did have to crop out Dan's elbow. Typical.

Still waiting for the nice people at work to cough up more pictures...

The annual office Christmas party Generic Politically Correct Non-Denominational Holday Party (With Christmas Trees!) has come and gone. I played in the office band once again, and overall it was quite good.

+ We were MUCH better rehearsed and prepared this year.
+ The venue was much more conveniently located, and better laid out for hauling stuff around and setting up.
----- My dear husband stuartc was sick and couldn't go.
+ He understands that the show must go on and all that.
- The party was on a Friday this year instead of a Saturday, so we didn't have a lot of time to prepare and set up.
+ Did I mention this hotel is sanely laid out? We were set up and ready to go, with no incidents, in plenty of time.
+ This hotel also has a modern (and properly grounded!) electrical system, so we didn't have to spend 2 hours getting rid of a 60-cycle hum in the PA.
- We were on BEFORE (and slightly DURING dinner), so people were still arriving, and were mostly still sober.
+++ We absolutely rocked. People clapped and cheered. Despite being sober, some of them apparently nearly started dancing.
- We did, inevitably, screw up a couple of times.
+ Apparently no one noticed.
+ "Moondance" needed another guitar solo anyway. (Okay, not really.)
+ This year's dress actually stands up to a strong light.
+ I bullied several people into taking pictures of me in The Dress.
+ The Victoria's Secret Highly Technical Device worked pretty well.
- There were a couple of technical glitches with that, but I'm pretty sure only I noticed.
++ I actually had sufficient cleavage that when I found a spare guitar pick at the end of the night, I had a place to stash it.
- Had to loan out my book light to Mr Big Cheese for his saxophone stuff.
+ There was enough ambient light that I didn't need it.
+++ I had everything pretty well memorised anyway.
+ Actually got the book light BACK at the end of the night.
+ Found a solution to the 4-page fold-out Girl From Ipanema problem. (Answer: Drumsticks.)
- The order got switched on us, so I didn't get out the 4-page fold-out in time to use it.
+ I played it from memory just fine.
- By the time I noticed people starting to strike the equipment, I had drunk too much red wine to even think about pulling the car around.
+ Happily, we had an entire spare SUV of space, so mine wasn't actually needed.
+ At least I'm a pleasant drunk, if a bit babbly and random.
+ I didn't actually fall off of The Shoes.
- Ow, my feet.
+ Stayed in the hotel overnight, like a sensible person.
- By myself, as previously noted. Don't like sleeping alone.
- No coffee makers in the rooms.
--- $3.25 for a fracking cappucino in the hotel Starbucks. Sheesh.
+ Stopped by Trader Joe's on the way home to pick up some necessary bits.
- At noon on a Saturday. WTF was I thinking?

And finally, the realization that I've been avoiding having:
+/- I have GOT to start playing more than one gig a year. This is ridiculous.

Pictures forthcoming.

1. It really is going to be O.K.

2. It really is going to be fun. Heck, it's fun now.

(The party is TOMORROW! And I think we're actually READY!)

This is SUCH a bad time to have blisters on my fingers.

Or to be having an altercation with a lead guitarist who is, at this point, Just Showing Off.

Dan had to leave practice early today. Within minutes, I was ready to kill the rest of them.

I really must learn the Command Voice. (Or at least hide the drumsticks when certain annoying people are around.)

It also boggles my mind how our Fearless Leader, who for SOME REASON seems to think "we" all know how to play The Girl From Ipanema (because "we" did it 2 years ago, before I was even employed here) is the SAME PERSON who has absolutely NO IDEA where his sheet music for "Desafinado" is even though WE really DID do that one and we did it MORE RECENTLY. Am I just being totally unreasonable here?

Also, people keep getting the days mixed up. How hard is this? November has 5 Thursdays in it this year. Deal with that!

Part of the reason the music has made everything better?

Now I know I'm not the only one who sucks at these songs right now. (-:

Band practice was remarkably productive.

I was correct that it was in fact D. that had that scheduling conflict that prompted all the lack of communication and ensiung drama. I am very slightly annoyed with myself, because I was the one who pointed out that he is the glue that holds us all together, and that practice would be utter chaos without him; so it's at least partly my fault we had to be there that early. But you know what, I was RIGHT.

Sometimes I get tired of being right…

The music has made everything better. Some of it utterly sucked, but we all got through it together, and now we know (some of) how much work we still have to do. I still need to have a Girl From Ipanema-related miracle occur, but I'm working on that.

I also did some sort-of productive shopping. Sadly I will have to go back to the Halloween shoppe and complain that when I got home and opened my pair of boot toppers to try them on, there was in fact only one in the package, which is not very useful.

Now the couch has got me. Whatever I do, I'd better not start playing WoW or I'm doomed. There may also be a nap in my future.