Unitarian Hymnal Sing-along

In which Kathryn attempts to sing a different song everyday from the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, 'Singing the Living Tradition'. Earlier posts are based on songs from the Reader's Digest songbooks she found at yard sales as a child, including: 'Reader's Digest Treasury of Best Loved Songs', 'Reader's Digest Family Songbook', and 'Reader's Digest Family Songbook of Faith and Joy'. Bonus Folk song material from: 'Folk Song USA', by John and Alan Lomax.

30 October 2005

"You Do Something to Me"

Sing along, everyone! I'm singing to the tune of 'You Do Something to Me': I-i lo-ove this song, I love simply eve-ry thing a-bout it! I love Cole Por-ter too, sure I know he's dead but that can't stop me!' What? You don't remember anything but the tune of the title words from that Time Life collection? Well, yeah, there's that. You should really learn it, and then come over, and we really can just flip through the crazy Pleasure-Programmed for Your Greater Enjoyment Reader's Digest songbook, singing merrily along, la la-la la la. Can we just start with this Cole Porter and Gershwin stuff?

I've just been all weekend at a fabulous massage workshop, and I have no idea why I'm still awake, much less a little giddy at this point. I can't blame the wine, I haven't drunk enough yet. Sometimes my energy seems to be chugging along at exactly the right level, and I wish I knew 'why then?' Especially when sometimes it's after I've eaten something that I'm sure will bring some sort of fabulous sugar crash, and instead my attention is focused and clear and all is well indeed.

I feel like I've been singing all day, which I haven't. (Folks might have stared had I done that in the middle of the workshop.) But I was singing along with my audition-preparation CD in the car during the commute and over lunch, and maybe I'm just excited that I'm finally getting these audition pieces down. (Now if I can just finish my daughter's o-so-elaborate Halloween costume before 5:30 tomorrow, life will indeed be sweet.) Maybe, as a theory, here, it's when I feel like I've been myself all day, with no lapses into pleasing-someone-else-ness. It's much easier on the psyche, that.

Attention, the lack or presense, might have been a great topic for today's post, but the problem is that the lack is all too present for me here lately. My brain is distracted to the point where I don't even have time to idly wonder about what I'll write about, and if any profound revelations are taking place, they haven't exactly jumped to the fore. Not writer's block, really, since I know that I can just write and write gibberish, if necessary. I learned that in a dance and writing workshop led by the awesome Kairol Rosenthal. Writing stream of consciousness can be a way to hook into a host of genuine ideas for future development, and if they don't ever develop, so what!

I'm not going to do stream of consciousness here, for the most part. Maybe briefly, when you least expect it, for kicks and giggles. But I do edit these posts. I am still experimenting with what will inspire me with ideas, and also what will help me to develop coherence and structure within some sort of framework. And this, today, has helped. Not totally incoherent or obsessively self-referential to the point of incomprehensibility, but an ok sort of experiment, from the right state of relaxed mind, in exploring what's bubbling away on the top of my brain.

It's true. You do something to me. You inspire me, o ye fair readers, all three of you, with your attention, and I am grateful for that. Thank you very very much.

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