Archives for November 2005

The other day we all went for a walk. Myself and Monty walking, and JJ on his bike. We had just turned from a laneway into my street, about six houses away from my house, when a blue heeler dog ran out of its driveway and immediately started attacking Monty.

I tried to pull Monty (who was on her lead) away from the dog and away from JJ on his bike all the while yelling at the top of my voice, ‘Come and get your dog’. I must have yelled this out at least twice. No appearance from the owner.

All of a sudden the blue heeler ran back into its yard and when I looked in, the roller door to the garage was descending. I stood there there just shaking and still no appearance from the blue heeler’s owner. A woman delivering junk mail walked up and asked if I was okay. I was still shaking a bit and JJ seemed unscathed. Still no appearance from the owner.

I was tempted to go and knock on the door and demand an apology or something. Still no appearance from the owner.

We walked off and got home without further incidence. I couldn’t believe that nobody was there as somebody had obviously made the roller door go down and they must have heard a) the dogs fighting and/or b) me yelling. How damn rude. I am more annoyed that they didn’t come out and see that we were okay. Perhaps they were afraid of getting told off because their dog attacked mine. These things happen and lots can be smoothed over with an apology. It has happened to me before with this same dog some time ago.

The next day we went out for our daily walk in a different area – JJ was squashed in his pram this time. The pram’s front wheel doesn’t turn so if I have to turn a corner I have to lift up the back so the front wheel is off the ground and then I can move the pram in a different direction.

I had to do this to go around a car that had just backed into a driveway with a trailer full of furniture. People were obviously moving into a house. I don’t mind people blocking off the footpath if there’s a good reason, it’s when they’re too lazy to park on the road and walk that annoys me. As I manoeuvred past the car, the driver apologised for blocking off the footpath. Ahh, I thought, that was so kind of him to apologise to me, it’s so easy to do (for many people) and makes such a difference.

I was reading Ronni’s blog – Time Goes By recently and she had a post there about Age as Adventure. She quotes from Friedan’s book ‘The Fountain of Age’:

‘How freeing, not to have to worry about, or maybe even feel, those old conflicts, about success and failure, in work or love.’

This got me thinking about worrying about what people think about what you’re doing. I used to do this a lot, and still do to some extent but as I get older and gain more experience in life it is becoming less of an issue.

When  I was going to school we had to wear a school uniform and I think that’s the best idea for school kids but there were casual days where we could wear what we liked. I had no input whatsoever in my first three or so years in high school so the clothes mum bought for me I usually hated. The jeans weren’t fashionable at all and I just felt like a hick so I felt like I really stood out on these casual days. Kids can be cruel and one particular day I was wearing what I thought was a lovely flowery skirt and a white or cream top when everyone else was wearing jeans. I admit this was my choice but I got teased for my fashion sense so this made me more self-conscious about what people might be thinking about what I used to wear.

This self-consciousness has extended into other parts of my life with the fear of being teased and ridiculed always in the back of my mind. These days as I’m older and hang around with more mature people, well most of the time, I don’t get teased as much and if I do I’ve learned to laugh it off and not worry about it too much. I can usually give as good as I get but it can still sting. This has taken time and it’s only when I look back at my time in high school that I wish I knew then what I knew now. A common lament I know. Youth is wasted on the young and all that.

Things brings to me to why singing has helped enormously – getting up in front of crowds and singing. My singing ain’t that bad – except when I’ve attempted karaoke and I was always too embarrassed to do that until three years ago.

Two of my friends and I joined forced a couple of years ago to sing together. At first we just enjoyed the experience as we all love singing. We plodded along for a little while not really having any direction then one night in an effort to get some direction I suggested that we all bring along a song to sing to the other two. I chose ‘Walkin’ After Midnight’ by Patsy Cline. It was scary just standing up in front of two close friends and singing to them. Deep down I knew they wouldn’t ridicule me or laugh at me but it was still hard.

In a brainwave moment I suggested we sing the Patsy Cline song to our friend at her birthday in two days hence as she loves Patsy Cline. We practised and practised until it sounded fairly good. I sang the main melody and my two friends joined in to make the song sound more whole without any other musical accompaniment.

We got up at our friend’s birthday where it was all girls and said we’ve got a special present for the birthday girl and proceeded to sing. It went down really well and we were even asked to sing it a second time. Because we had thrown this together so quickly we hadn’t really had time to worry about what people might think.

Our singing get-together’s were quite adhoc. We would usually meet on a Friday after work (only one of us actually goes to paid work on a Friday so we would have to wait for her), have some dinner and drinks and then sing. It’s not really good for the voice to sing after having some drinks, and alcohol takes away the will somewhat. Also eating before singing wasn’t a good idea as we would be full. Add Friday tiredness into the mix and it’s not a really good combination for a decent practise session, especially for an acapella group with no direction.

About a year later we were having one of our singing get-together’s again one of us, K, suggested that we should sing the Pussyfoot song, ‘The Way That You Do It’. I dug around in my record collection and found it so we could hear the original, and write the lyrics down. We started practising it and then in a drunken stupor (well not quite that bad but we’d had some sparkling red by this stage) someone suggested that we sing it on our yearly safari pub crawl. Why not, we all agreed. It was in one week’s time, so at least we’d given ourselves a bit more notice this time.

It went down really well. We sang it on Popeye and got the driver to stop the boat and somehow managed to get people’s attention. Everyone ended up singing along and clapping and it was a real hoot.

We have since done two more shows where we instigated the songs and organising actually doing them. Of course, this has all been for the love of singing, no money involved at all.

After one of these instances we actually sang on stage to a captive audience of people and afterwards my adrenalin rush was present for ages. I had so much good feedback that it was an excellent ego boost and made me think it’s all worth it. We all had our doubts about what people would think – ‘Oh, no, not those girls doing singing again.’ But this has never been the case to my knowledge anyway. If none of this had gone down as well as it did I guess there would have been no feedback from people at all and we wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

I must admit that when I am singing in front of a group of people I tend to not really feel like I’m there. It’s hard to explain, I know I’m singing and getting into it but it’s almost like an out of body experience and while realising this I somehow carry on with the job at hand.

It’s a pretty common thing, people worrying about what other people think of them and/or their actions. Over at 43 things there are 20 people with the same concerns and some suggestions about how to overcome this.

So, in answer to the title of this post, No, it’s not worth worrying about what other people think.

Throughout this season of Australian Idol I’ve sat down most Sunday nights and watched the singing – not because I really love the show and think it’s fantastic, but because it’s something light to watch that JJ can sit down with me for a bit before he goes to bed.

Actually he doesn’t sit down and watch it with me as I discovered a few weeks ago. He likes to show off his dancing skills (I particulary like his bending over bum wobble). Therefore the music in Idol lets him do this while providing me with a good laugh from his enjoyment. Last night I let him watch 3-4 of the songs.

I’ve thought throughout the series that Emily will win but based on her performance last night I began to doubt my theory. Her take on ‘Emotion’ left me quite emotionless. I will never like what I call oversinging – instead of just doing a note, the end of the bar has gotta be sung all over the place before it finishes. I also liked Kate’s version of the ‘winners’ song a lot better.

While Kate was doing the ‘winners’ song I did wonder how Lee would have handled it. Could he, would he have punked it up? I’m so glad he didn’t get into the final two as I don’t see him as a singer, more of an entertaining frontman for a band. I’m sure he’s got his niche, but not as Australian Idol.

But what I thought would be a reasonable night of Idol telly viewing did not do it for me at all. JJ bouncing all over the lounge room was definitely my highlight. I even got up to tidy up in the kitchen before the show finished. I don’t think I will sit through two and a half hours of waiting for the winner announcement tonight. When it boils down to it I really don’t care. Actually the best part of this show is the audition bits at the very beginning of the series.

After Idol finished I watched the last episode of CSI (the Las Vegas one) because it was written and directed by Quentin Tarrantino. I don’t normally watch CSI in any of its incarnations but couldn’t resist this one. I could definitely see the Tarrantino touches (the dialogue between the 2 guys in the locker room for instance). I didn’t realise that it was to be continued at the beginning of the next season though. Bugger.

Last weekend I went to a barbeque – I think I’ve already mentioned that in my snippets post. I’d packed up the car with food (meat, salad and a packet of crisps so JJ had his own stash – unfortunately he ate them all then didn’t want any barbeque), spare and warmer clothes and hats – I thought there was lots more and this doesn’t sound like much but it takes a while to organise so it was a relief to finally get in the car. The only thing I didn’t have was something to drink. I didn’t feel like drinking the wine I had on hand so I had to go to the shop to get beer. I never see the point in just buying a six pack when it’s so much more economical to buy a slab (24 beers).

Not wanting to leave the rest of the slab in a warm car for the afternoon I bought the beer and dropped back by my place to put the rest of it inside. Just outside the front of my place a car was parked and another car was sitting next to it in the middle of the street (that’s the whole road taken up on my narrow street) with it’s door open and absolutely no room for me to get past.

I pulled up behind it and beeped my horn to let them know that I was there. Nobody sprang to action to move the car but the driver sauntered out from the house across the road from me, turned around to face me and gave me the finger. He then proceeded to get in his car and drive off. I don’t know if he realised that I live across the road from him and could potentially make life hell for him by getting up early and making loud noises out the front of my house with my dog and my kid while he’s trying to sleep in from a late and boozy night.

I’m presuming that this guy actually lives across the road. I recognised the car so I’m guessing he does. There is such a high turnover in that house that I suppose he won’t live there for long anyway and I’ll get to enjoy the next lot of uncouth neighbours that don’t show me any courtesy at all. For some reason it’s always boys that live there. There was a woman there for about one or two weeks earlier this year but it’s never a sharehouse full of girls and boys and girls.

The house must be that dreadful that only boys who don’t care too much for an inside toilet live in it. I’m guessing about the toilet situation as I’ve never been there, but there has to be a reason a bunch of girls don’t live there. Not that a bunch of girls would be necessarily be any more courteous though.

I haven’t posted for a few days as I’ve been a busy girl. This is what’s been happening:

• Rehearsals for me and my mates ‘gig’ on Friday evening alongside the RiverTorrens next to two Popeyes with 140 other people dressed in safari suits and the like.
• The actual very short ‘gig’ (performing ‘A Swingin’ Safari’ and ‘Blue Jeans’) to a fairly appreciative crowd, and then the rest of the Safari evening. Unfortunately we didn’t have amplification so much sound was lost.
• Recovering on Saturday. The Christmas Pageant was on, but we watched it on the telly – twice. We also watched The Magnificent Seven, Shrek 2 and goodness knows what else. My sister brought round fish and chips for dinner. I was no good to anyone.
• A barbeque on Sunday for a friend who was visiting from London. He’s one of the few people I know who’ve actually met my son’s father. When we left JJ had been talking so much that his voice was croaky.
• Day off yesterday to update the above linked website. As of this posting it’s not up but within a day or two there will be photos from Friday night.
• Yesterday I also got the plumber round to have a look at the drain in my backyard. It only goes a little way into the ground and the water soaks into the ground. Unfortunately if there’s lots of water like there was a week ago then it’s absolutely usesless.

  I also got the plumber to do a couple of small jobs inside, including having a look at the toilet. He saw my toilet paper and said not to use that one. It’s a Kleenex Cotenelle toilet paper that I buy because it’s twice as long as other types therefore I don’t have to change the roll all the time. He said it’s hard to flush and so is the stuff that’s thicker. He changed a washer in the cistern. I asked about the state of my cistern and he said it would be fine as it’s easy to get parts for Coroma’s.

  I’ll never be buying anything but a Coroma after him telling me stories of builders buying cheaper brands to install in new houses and then plumbers having to replace them a year later because they’re absolutely crap (hah hah – weak joke).

Now it’s back to rehearsals for our next ‘gig’. A friend is getting married soon and she’s asked us to play two songs with our ukuleles. I have warned her that we don’t know how to play that well, but the two songs only have three-four chords so hopefully will sound okay.