If It's Nerves, They Can Go Die Now K Thx Bai

There's an industrial-sized wrecking ball making short work of the inside of my skull at the moment. The nerves of my entire face feel like someone just tweezed them apart bit by bit with an ice-pick, especially around my eyes. When I coughed, whichever -entire- set of receptors that went from the top of my head to the back of my neck promptly went, "BURN BABY BURN". As a result, my cranium feels heavier than a lead cannonball balanced on a toothpick.

I hate having migraines.

...On the other hand, I'm not entirely sure why having a migraine - and the first signs of it some five hours ago - prompted me to walk to the mall, shop for groceries, thumpity-thud back in a taxi caught in the biggest traffic jam I've seen in a while, sweep my room, MOP my room, prepare vegetables, and promptly proceed to spend the next hour and a half cooking dinner.

I just tried to put some wall decorations up. My head is starting to get ornery and give conscription orders.

I think it's time for bed.

OWW. Yes, I should have been in bed five hours ago. It's called Live and Don't Learn.

Owwww. OWW.

Head, Meet Wall Meet Sticky Surface Meet...et. al.

October isn't even here yet and I'm already choking on apprehension.

The quartet premiers my composition for 'A Malaysian Affair', the Young KL Singers' big yearly concert. They have been absolutely wonderful about practicing and trying their best to get it sounding as good as they can for the last three weeks.

That's where the apprehensive sets in.

I feel like I'm letting them down by not being able to give them more help with vocal technique to sing it right because I don't know how to. I feel I've let them down by not writing a -better- song for them to sing, after listening to the rest of the solo acts. It intimidates the -heck- out of me, truth to be told. Listening to what everyone's done and the little voice in my head keeps whispering, 'Yours is so simple it doesn't hold up, it's not complicated or fantastically ear-catching like some of the other pieces by the rest.' Even though it took me months and three rewrites to finally come up with something that worked, that wouldn't totally defeat people with no music training to sing (it was originally for a whole choir, and I didn't want it to be too daunting. It isn't fair, not to people who genuinely have a musical ear but can't read notes, plus there are so many other songs.)

It requires spot-on pitch precision because it's acapella. It has a canon that has every means of going wrong if one of us loses the thread. Much breath control and technique needed to keep it light and lyrical, and it's demanding only because it requires so much -precision-.

The quartet's just been so good trying to put it together at such short notice. And I keep thinking that it's not good enough, that they deserve so much better, that I could have done SO much better with it. I'm supposed to be a classical musician.

My choir mistress gave me such an honour to compose for this event.

And I can't get rid of the nagging little whisper in my mind saying that I've let her down and everyone else.

The Fifth Wind, Pirates and err...Ink! Not Rum!

Those sneaky pie-rats proved to be far too tempting. I -was- going to go to sleep. Really.

The challenge of the blunderbuss was just too, too seductive a siren song.



"It's only a tentacle. You've got a sack of pepper to throw, right?"
"...Well, YES but TENTACLE."
"You have the Fifth Wind. A sturdier blunderbuss was never made."
"Right. Point. Charge?"
"Charge. --CHAAAAAAAAARGE!"


And now I -am- going to bed. Really! Just because I'm looking at barnacle pictures to try and plan Tierre's wedding dress o' barnacles from Davy Jones' Locker...and those gooseneck barnacles are so pretty with their red and mother-of-pearl shells...and they'd be so nice as trim for the hem...

I mean, BED! BED!

Anyone Gotta Can of Germ Begone?

...and I can't even begin to tell you how good it feels to be out of bed and mobile for the first time in two sick-filled, germ-infested days. It's bad when I take a day's leave from work because I'm sick (I'm the only one in the clinic to handle my side of work. Taking leave = baaaaaaaaad). It's -really- bad when I take two days because I can't get out of bed, and that's precisely where I've been.

It still doesn't explain why I've choreographed an entire set of Irish dance steps to the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, Jack Sparrow's theme, and the theme for the Kraken. Yes, Irish dance steps. Those four years of Irish dance lessons have apparently resurrected themselves with a vengeance and I've no idea why they've chosen to do it with three of the most unlikely songs in the universe. Madness may be an explanation. In fact, I'm quite sure it factors in there somewhere very heavily.

I did, however, manage to find my way to Ikano's Fasta Pasta to catch Az Samad performing in the evening! There also needs to be a law against taxi drivers who don't -tell- you they don't know where a certain place is until -after- you're five minutes into the journey, but that's another story altogether. It was worth it, anyway, for a few hours of great music. Man, I need to get out more, I've really -missed- events and music like this (story of my life, eaten by work and no transport. Bah.) Am really glad my brother poked me into seeing Az, or I really would've been Highly Deprived --my favourite of the sets? The Tupai song! (I didn't MEAN to choreograph a set of Irish dance steps in my head to it but I did. My brain is WEIRD.)

Other than drawing Pirate Girls and being sick, that's...really all that's been goingon except rehearsals for choir and quartet. Yep, Pirate Girls. Tierre and Olna Rosetta have been Committed To Paper. They need fixing, since it's just a mess of blue pencil and wayward lines, but...it's a start.



Now I just need to sketch in the blunderbuss for Olna Rosetta...

Plots, Pirates and Pandenomium, Whee!

I have Pirates of the Caribbean 2 in my head and it won't go away. Mostly it's the soundtrack (which, incidentally, I find -excellently- mixed - there's a depth of sound to it I rarely find on recordings of orchestral music). I'm always a fan of great music, really - I haven't found much to sit up and go OOOH over for a while that ways though, and this soundtrack does just that. It's worth listening to, certainly.

I don't write fanfiction either - not my thing - but I did wind up writing a piece to amuse a friend. It's set in the Pirates universe of course, and if apple branches, crows' nests and taking rum hostage sound like the quirks of a deranged brain, you'd be absolutely right. It's my trademark. I deal in Strange Brains, after all.

That being said and done, I actually have found time to sit down and sketch again, albeit scribbles here and there.

Meet Beldame Constantine Kante, when she's not in the John Constantine universe. She's a private investigator who has a penchant for seeing Strange Things and the Supernatural, and has a partner named Dominic 'Nic' O'Reilly - who just happens to be a werewolf.



I TOLD YOU shooting my partner would make me CRANKY and you WOULDN'T LISTEN WOULD YOU!

Yes, she's generally cranky all the time. And yes, her name IS Beldame - the hag. She, obviously, is not. There's a story behind that, but that's a whole other story in itself. I may ink her tonight; I'm nervy about that because I happen to like the sketch and ruining it -while- inking is not my idea of a good night, no indeed.

Maybe tonight I'll have time to sketch Tierre and Olna Rosetta, the Pirates of the Stealthy Starfish What Roams By Starlight. (There's a story to THAT too.)

And Az! Thanks for stopping by! Definitely going to try to get to one of your shows in August for sure.