All you need is…

love.

I admit it, I’m a sucker for love (as if you couldn’t tell from my previous post).  I don’t think I will ever be jaded when it comes to love, no matter how many times my heart is broken.  It it something I truly believe in because to be honest, if we don’t have love, we don’t have anything to live for!

Sharing a quote from one of my favorite films, Love Actually.  The beginning of the film starts with Hugh Grant’s character stating the following:

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspision love actually is all around.”

I hope you all have someone to love, whether that be a girlfriend, boyfriend, mother, father, sister, brother, friend.  Because truly, it is the root of all happiness.


The Lovers

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that’s actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can’t understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Why karaoke is never/always a good idea…

Is this you?

Is this you?

When I think of karaoke I think back to my first experience of it.  Being 18, having just arrived in Japan and on a bus going somewhere.  We were all jet lagged and completely agog at our surroundings.  For many of us, it was the first time being out of the country, let alone in Japan!  At one point the tour guide, a petite (well, aren’t all Japanese people petite), young pretty girl gets up, grabs the microphone and a monitor above her turns on and unfamiliar music starts to play.  Then we see Japanese characters appear and she starts to sing.  In the deep recesses of my mind I knew the Japanese loved karaoke…but never did I expect this.  That memory is burned into my head as my first karaoke experience!

That being said, I don’t karaoke regularly.  In fact, I try to avoid karaoke bars at all costs.

“But you’re a SINGER!!  Why?!??”

For exactly that reason.  People find out you’re a singer and expect you to sound like Mariah Carey, Debbie Harry or Celine Dion.  You never do and instead of enjoying your performance, they’re slightly disappointed because their expectations are set too high.

I also tend to start judging people subconsciously.  Not that I expect people to be good when they’re doing karaoke.  I mean, there’s good for karaoke, there’s good in the sense that it’s so bad it’s good.  But often times there’s that middle ground which is the most painful for me.  I was joined by another singer friend last night and we were discussing this.  What often gives me a bad taste about karaoke are the people who think they can sing but are always just a little off pitch.  It actually hurts my ears…which is part of the reason why I don’t go to karaoke that often.

That being said, I can’t avoid karaoke completely.  After all, I’m friends with GAY people *shock, horror*.  And as we all know, the gays love karaoke (or at least my gays do!  *waves*)  I actually recently enjoyed a karaoke stint at my friend’s wedding where they had karaoke set up at the reception.  But then again, we were mostly singers in the same group and so there were no expectations set.
Last night I joined quite a few friends at Encore for fun and frolicking…and karaoke.  Now, this is a semi regular gathering with these folks and the last time I was there I opted not to sing anything.  But I decided last night that I’d probably need to get over my fear/haughty thoughts about karaoke and do it.  As it happens, I had a great warm up because when I walked in my friend Michael told me he was doing Love Shack and that he needed a girl to sing with him!  Karaoke is kind of like chocolate…once you have it, you want more.  You can’t just have one!  So I signed up for another song.  I was holding off for my friend’s Tim & Susan to get there but finally turned it in…I was told at the time it would be a 2 hour wait.  WTF?!  Yes, this place is THAT popular.  Lucky for me it ended up being only about a 50 minute wait.  I heard my name called & I thought, well, this is it.  Drank my liquid courage, put on my sunglasses and walked on stage.

At this point in the story, maybe you’re thinking you’d like to hear about how everyone came to their feet in utter awe or maybe you’d like to hear that I fell flat on my face in embarrassment….neither of those things happened.  BUT, people did get into it.  Tim walked in just as I started singing and joined me for a bit.  Then unbenknownst to me, a girl I had just met that evening took the other mic for the last few verses with me.  It was a lot of fun.  Will I become a regular karaoke singer? No.  Will I feel more willing to sing in the future?  Yes.  I just hope my voice teacher from college never walks into the bar I’m singing it at….she’d have a heart attack with my antics! 😉

Where did November go?!

Hey there.

Long time no talk…this month has flown by!  I’ve traveled the past three weeks so forgive me for neglecting my blog.  Lots going on with the end of the year.  Lots of stress, lots of excitement, lots of disappointment…thank God 2008 is coming to an end!

I hope you 5 readers out there are doing alright.  I’ll be moving my blog soon to a new site.  Stay tuned!

ROCK THE VOTE!!

Hey party people.

Short but sweet as I’m in PA (a swing state, dontcha know) and need to finish some work.

This PSA is just to say get out and vote. Don’t be complacent…don’t assume something or someone will win because of what the polls say.  No matter who or what you vote for, it’s important.  I pray that tomorrow evening will bring good news, but it may not if you don’t do your civic duty and vote!

And that’s all I have to say about that…