Average Jane

Average Jane Starts Her 4-Day Weekend

Never let it be said that I don't know how to enjoy some time off from work. Okay, I did work a little bit today, but when you work in social media you can't ever completely walk away.

This morning I met a buddy for coffee, ran some errands, and surfed the 'net until my sister posted on Facebook that she didn't have anything planned for the day.

After a quick phone call, we decided I'd go to her house with some of my copious vegetable supply to contribute to a batch of chicken noodle soup.

We hung out from late morning to early afternoon and then I went home to spend some time with the hubby. Our thought was that we'd go to the movies, but unfortunately everyone else in town had the same idea. (Did I mention that it rained almost all day?)

So we got some groceries, went home and grilled hot dogs and hamburgers while I steamed a couple of ears of corn.

After dinner, Xena and Velcro helped me catch up on my TV shows.

Tomorrow I'm going to lounge around the house all day until it's time to hit a couple of Fourth of July parties.

On Sunday I have an audition with the band I mentioned the other day. I talked to the guy and it turned out to be someone I've met before. Even better, he'd been thinking of me for his new band project but didn't know how to get in touch with me. Woohoo! So that should be fun.

I have Monday off, too, because I'm taking my birthday free day early to extend the weekend.

Hope you have a fabulous 4th. (If you're not in the U.S., I hope you have a fabulous Saturday.) Later, folks!

Average Jane Remains Bandless

Even though my husband is (always) in a bunch of different bands, we've been looking for a project we can do together and I've been responding to ads for bands that need a lead singer. So far, nada.

Responding to Craigslist and Backpage ads is like trying to find a band by tying a message to a helium balloon and setting it free. (See also: placing Craigslist and Backpage ads.)

Most of the ads have deal-breaking parameters for the singers they want, such as "male" and/or "ages 16-20." One particularly offensive ad contained the line, "No chicks, unless you want to hook up." I wanted to reach over the Internet and throat-punch that guy.

Because I have unlimited access to a recording studio, I'm working on making a personal demo CD by singing over karaoke tracks of songs I like. Last night I recorded "Heartbreaker" by Led Zeppelin and "You Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest. The idea is for me to do a dozen or more and choose the best ones to put on my MySpace page. I don't know how helpful a demo will be for me, but it's one of those "why not?" kinds of projects.

While I was going through old photos last weekend I ran across the set list from a band I was in called White Hot, in 1989 (the height of my blonde, she-mullet days). I showed it to my husband and we started thinking about the possibilities for putting together a "hair metal" cover band with the guitarist from our stalled original project, who already has the perfect look.

Here's a picture of White Hot. You can click to embiggen for the full, grainy detail.

Fun fact about my White Hot days: I went by the stage name B.C. Irons (B.C. stood for "blonde chick" - I was so progressive back then) in the late '80s and early '90s. When I met my husband, he called me "B.C." for the first several months until he got used to my real name.

So anyway, the hair band is one option, and I'm still responding to ads from time to time even though nobody ever contacts me back.

One way or another I'll keep singing - even if my only audience is my husband and the studio cat.

* * * *

Update: What do you know? One of the bands actually e-mailed me back. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Average Jane Gets Her Wish

I've written several times about how overwhelmed I've been with all of my extracurricular activities. Between work, volunteer work, my band, and social invitations, sometimes I'd have weeks at a time where I was only home to sleep.

I've been making a concerted effort to tone things down and it's finally starting to pay off. As of mid-June, I'm no longer on any not-for-profit boards. Band practice isn't currently an issue since my band broke up (although I am trying to find or put together another band soon). I've cut back on volunteer projects, and I'm learning to dole out my time in increments that aren't so wearing on me.

One of the things I try hardest to do with my schedule is spend as much time with my husband as I can. We're both busy people, but I want us to be able to hang out together when our free time coincides. He's always reminding me that he won't be around forever and that probability was emphasized to me this week by the sudden deaths of two celebrities who were younger than he is.

So now I have more time to do stuff with the hubby, cook at home, play with the kitties, watch the stuff we've diligently programmed into the DVR, and just relax a bit. Case in point: I've managed to get in three games of Battlestar Galactica with friends in about a month.

It's hard to break the habit of filling every empty spot in my calendar, but I'm doing my best to rein in the impulse. This afternoon, in fact, I plan on using some of my copious spare time to take a long nap right after lunch.

Ahhhh...

Average Jane Goes to St. Louis

Last Saturday morning, I picked up Bea at 10:00 a.m. and we let my GPS, Inga, guide us to the open highway toward St. Louis, Missouri.

After a lunch stop in Columbia, Missouri at Shakespeare's Pizza, which was just as delicious as everyone who recommended it had promised, we made it to our destination in St. Louis right at 3:00 p.m.

We were there for a pre-Blogher meetup at Soulard Coffee Garden, a charming restaurant and coffee shop. We made our way to their back patio, sat at the biggest table they had, and met up with Kelly from Mocha Momma, Kara from Star Monkeybrass, Jaelithe of The State of Discontent, Kelli from South City Confidential, Angela from Fluid Pudding, Kelly from Sounding My Barbaric Gulp!, Ada of Shouldn't Life Be More Than This?, Melody from Girls Guide to the Galaxy, Mindy of Crafty and Crap and Stephanie of Iron Stef.

In contrast to the librarian-heavy Kansas City social media scene, this particular St. Louis group included a surprising number of teachers.

It turned out that Soulard Coffee Garden closed at 4:00 p.m., a fact not revealed by their website, which is a blog that hasn't been updated since 2006. Thus, we were turned out after I'd had my one iced raspberry mocha. We went to a bar called Molly's a block up the street and settled into a gazebo on their giant patio for drinks and further conversation.

 

Sorry I caught so many people with their eyes closed. That's the risk with candid shots. You can see more photos here.

We hung out there for a couple of hours drinking sangria and other assorted beverages. At one point a youngish guy came over and immediately got on my bad side by putting his hand on my back (no touching!) before asking how we were doing. At first I thought perhaps he was a waiter who had just started his shift, but he was just an annoying dude trying to find out if a huge table of women increased his odds of...something. We eventually ignored him until he went away.

After I'd had a couple of sangrias, the remnants of the group moved on to The Stable in the Benton Park area. I settled onto the leather sofa with my drink choice of the evening, Kasteel Rouge, which had been recommended to me by @TaraCuda a couple of weeks earlier. Yum.

We had more great conversation and some much-needed dinner. Bea and I stayed until about 10:00 p.m., at which point I figured we should head back west on I-70 a bit and find a motel before it got too late.

After a good night's sleep, we found the nearest Cracker Barrel for breakfast (because I can't resist them) and made it back to Kansas City in record time.

It was great meeting so many great St. Louis area folks. I'm looking forward to seeing you again in Chicago next month!

BlogHer for Beginners by Average Jane

Every year I see several pre-BlogHer Conference posts with helpful tips for first-timers. It occurred to me that I may have something to offer along those lines, seeing as I've been going to BlogHer ever since it began. Thus, here's my take on the subject, in no particular order:

• Just say "hi." If I have a cardinal rule for BlogHer Conference interactions, this would be it. You're going to see people you recognize from your blog reading and Twitter icons. Do not EVER think to yourself that so-and-so is "too famous" to want to talk to you. Just go up, introduce yourself, gush a bit if you can't help yourself, and say hello. What have you got to lose? This doesn't just apply to people you recognize. Say "hi" to anyone you run into. The very first person I met at the first BlogHer Conference in 2005 was Liz Rizzo, and we've been buds ever since.
• Bring business cards. Trust me, you will kick yourself if you don't have cards to trade. I can tell you that from experience because I forgot mine one year. Some people will have elaborate cards or other logo-branded giveaway items, but don't feel pressured to go crazy with yours. I use the Avery laser printable cards and they're perfectly fine. If you order soon, you can get something fancier from Moo, Vista Print (warning: Vista Print has no boundaries when it comes to marketing to you after you've ordered!) or another online custom print shop.
• Wear whatever you want. There is absolutely no such thing as a BlogHer dress code. I always dress for comfort. Other people dress up a little bit or a lot. If you're like me and don't post your photo on your blog or Twitter profile, you may want to consider getting a t-shirt with your blog logo or graphics on it to help people recognize you. I generally wear my Average Jane t-shirt on the first day of the conference and switch to something else after that.
• You're not obligated to spend all day in sessions. Feel worn out or overwhelmed? Go back to your room and take a nap. Just not into any of the sessions coming up next? Go sit in the lobby and chat with other conference-goers until the next session starts. I've done both of those things at various times during BlogHer. The last time it was in Chicago, I walked down Navy Pier and rode the Ferris Wheel after lunch. Individualize your conference experience in whatever way works best for you.
• Consider leaving your laptop at home, or at least in your room. Sacrilege, I know! But...how are you going to interact with your fellow BlogHers if you're hiding behind a laptop the whole time? Unless you've been appointed to liveblog, try to spend as much time in face-to-face interaction as you can. That's why you're there, right?
• Don't feel bad about missing things. You can't go to every session on every track. You're going to hear about parties that you didn't know about/weren't invited to/can't find. You'll see some people with awesome swag from mystery sources. There's a LOT going on at the BlogHer Conference itself and there's a whole 'nother level of unofficial parties, swag suites and attendee-organized events beyond anything you could anticipate. If you ask around a bit, sometimes you can get enough information to be able to crash. If not, don't worry - you'll find something else fun to do.
• Pack light. You are going to end up with so much free merchandise and literature, it'll make your head spin. Even if you drop off the stuff you don't want in the recycle room, you'll still be flirting with the airlines' luggage weight limits. Coordinate with your roomie(s) re: hair care appliances, etc. and resist the urge to pack quite so many extra clothes and shoes.
• Relax. Yes, a gathering of 1,200+ bloggers is rather overwhelming. With that many people in one place, believe me, nobody is looking at you, judging you, thinking about how your hair looks, trying to gauge your Technorati rankings, etc. We're all there to learn things, meet people and have fun. You're going to love it!

Note: Yes, I attended the pre-BlogHer Meetup in St. Louis this weekend and had a great time. I fully intend to do a post on it, but I spent most of the afternoon napping on Sunday and haven't even downloaded my photos yet. Plus, Angela was the only person who made a list of everyone who was there, so I'm kind of waiting to steal it from her, assuming she posts it!

Average Jane Plans for Her 5th BlogHer Conference

I know it's more than a month away, but I'm already getting excited about going to BlogHer again this year. If you read my blog directly (rather than via its RSS feed), I'm sure you already gathered that by the amount of BlogHer-related graphics in my right-hand sidebar.

As a little foretaste, I'm taking a road trip to St. Louis tomorrow with Betizuka for the closest pre-BlogHer meetup to me. I don't really know what to expect, but I always love hanging out with people who already understand what a blog is.

This year I'm going to both BlogHer Business and the BlogHer Conference. Because I do social media for a living, I think I'm going to get a lot of value from the Business conference. As for the regular conference - it's all about meeting people!

I'm sure it'll be the usual whirlwind of old and new friends, interesting discussions and ridiculous amounts of swag.

As someone who's been attending BlogHer since it began, I cannot overstate how impressed I am with the way it has grown. I want to be Lisa, Jori and Elisa when I grow up.

Are you going to BlogHer this year? If so, let me know so I can look for you. (Based on last year's experience, I already know that just because I'm looking for you doesn't mean I'll be able find you, but I'll do my best.)

An Average Jane Book Review

Breast cancer. It's something I didn't think a lot about for much of my life. Then one day when I was working at a small interactive firm, the creative director came up to my desk and said, "How do you feel about breast cancer survivors?"

My response: "I'm in favor of them."

That conversation led to an assignment to interview more than a half-dozen breast cancer survivors so that we could share their stories on the Lee National Denim Day website.

The experience was eye-opening. The stories had some similarities, but not as many as you would think for a group of women in the same metropolitan area. One common thread: they were all fighters who wanted to do whatever they could to prevent other women from going through what they had.

At the last Chicago BlogHer conference in 2007, I had the good fortune to meet Laurie Kingston. I'm not sure where our paths first crossed, but I remember having a meal with her and Susan Getgood (and someone else, too. Suebob? Jane?).

I knew that her blog was called "Not Just About Cancer" and that her supportive friends and family had gotten her the BlogHer trip in the midst of her cancer treatments.

I started reading her blog as soon as I got home. It's a wonderful personal journal that really is about her entire life, not just about the breast cancer that she continues to fight.

I was excited when she announced that she was having a book published. It's called "Not Done Yet: Living Through Breast Cancer" and what impresses me most is that it really is about living. Yes, there's a disease and treatments that get in the way, but that doesn't mean she's stopped doing fun things with her family and friends, knitting, playing online Scrabble (sometimes with me!) and otherwise carrying on with her life.

She readily admits that not every day is a good one, but she's capable of letting that go and moving on. She respects her own limits and takes care of herself to ensure that she can also take care of her family.

The book was a quick but absorbing read. The one time I did put it down, I came back to find that Velvet and Velcro (herself a breast cancer survivor), had taken an interest.

Toward the end of the book there were a few paragraphs that I remembered fondly from her blog because I'd posted them to my blog before as a wonderful example of an attitude toward life to strive for:

One morning, as I was making school lunches, I dropped a piece of cheese on my dog's head. I had been slicing it onto sandwiches and had turned to talk to my older son. Multitasking before sufficient caffeine intake has never been my strong suit.

Now, whenever I am making lunches, the dog dances with excitement, his eyes sparkling with hope and joyful anticipation.

I want to live my life like that. Life is good, and you never know when cheese might fall from the sky.

That's how I want to live my life, too, Laurie!

Average Jane Goes to a Concert

Last night my sister and I met up with a bunch of my Twitter and blogging buddies to see a free Night Ranger performance at Old Shawnee Days.

We were standing close to the front and I had my camera, so I took a half-dozen or so photos of the band. Most of them ended up being pictures of Brad Gillis because, as my sister put it, "Hello! Two free tickets to the gun show!"

Lookin' good, Brad, even in my blurry photo!

Here are a couple more that aren't quite so bicep-centric.

We had a great time. The band was tight and knew how to work a crowd. Our Old Shawnee Days insider, @benasmith reported:

 

which made me retrospectively like them even more.

Average Jane, Lyricist

I was hanging out with Cagey the other day and happened to mention that I'm "auditioning" for an original band this week in the form of taking two of their songs, writing melodies and lyrics, recording my vocal lines over them and e-mailing them back.

She thought it would make an interesting post if I described my songwriting process. I was pretty sure I'd written such a post before, but a little Lijit search revealed that the one I was thinking of was back in 2005, so it's probably not too soon to revisit the topic!

So here's the songwriting method I've developed for myself:

• Listening to the songs over and over and over again. I have them on a CD in my car and they're loaded into iTunes on my home and work computers. The background music to my life this week has been two tight, instrumental, progressive heavy metal songs.
• Waiting for inspiration. With that much repetition, eventually a proto-melody line, some lyrics, or both will eventually work their way into my brain. These particular songs have not come easy, but I finally have a melody line for one of the choruses and a few words are starting to make their way in. Once I get even one full line of lyrics, I'll know what a song is about so I can proceed from there.
• Charting the song structure. Before I can write lyrics for the entire song, I need to know what parts are there, how many measures each part lasts, how many times each part repeats, etc. I also need to decide what's a solo (no vocals) and what's a bridge (different vocal part/melody). For that matter, I have to decide what's a verse and what's a chorus! I have no formal musical training, so the notes end up being a combination of the ABACAB structure and hash marks that represent either bars or measures, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.
• Listening to the songs over and over and over again. This time around I have Microsoft Word open on my computer and I'm typing in lyrics as I think of them. There's a lot of stopping and starting. There's also a lot of editing going on, especially because I tend to try to jam in too many words and I always need to strip them back during the review process. I'm singing quietly to myself throughout.
• Singing the songs at full volume. This is a vital step because it's very easy for me to write a song for myself that I can't actually perform for one reason or another. Believe me, I've done it often. At full volume, I can tell where I'm going to have problems with phrasing, certain vowel sounds, transitions, etc. Then I can take steps to fix the song before I waste time trying to record something I can't pull off.
• Recording the vocal tracks. Here's a little secret about me: I hate singing in the studio. The microphone is in a weird position, the vocal booth is stuffy, it's hard to put my lyrics where I can see them and sing at the same time, and I'm always picky about how well I can hear myself versus the backing tracks in the headphones. I drive my husband (the studio engineer/producer) crazy. Still, this is the vital part, so I'll bite the bullet and do what I can to get the songs sung as close to what I had in mind as possible.
• Nitpicking the production. After I'm finished singing, my only role in the finished product is weighing in on the effects that are added and requesting a note correction here and there, which can either mean re-recording a part or having it fixed with software.

Today my goal is to start the third step and make my way through the rest of them to where I can record tomorrow afternoon or evening.

Of course, the band may not like what I come up with. They could meet me and decide that I'm too old, fat, etc., even if they like the songs. Who knows? Either way, it's good practice and a fun creative outlet. Wish me luck!

Average Jane Starts Another Home Improvement Project

I know I said I was finished with spending money on remodeling projects for this year. We got our lovely TV room. I finally painted the half-bath adjoining that room just this Monday night. That should be enough, right? However, this one is different.

Thanks to current economic conditions, my husband's recording studio business has been sloowww this year. He had a great idea for a demo package he can offer bands that will allow them to record live for an hour - as many songs as they can fit in - and then he'll mix for the next hour and send them home with a demo CD for $100.

The problem with this idea is that it would mean moving away from the word-of-mouth marketing model which brought vouched-for friends of friends into the studio (and thus, our house), to marketing via advertising. That would be all well and good except that the studio does not have its own bathroom, which means that strangers would be trooping through our living area to use one of ours.

Now I (mostly) don't mind his friend-clients coming downstairs to use the facilities, even though they almost always catch me vegging in front of the TV or doing housework dressed like a rag-picker. However, I can definitely understand his security concerns with having random musicians off the street casting their gaze over our limited store of valuables.

This leads to our latest home project: building a half-bath in our basement.

The way our house is set up, there's a stairway that leads down from the studio, past the garage, and around to an outside entrance to our basement. It's not completely protected from the elements, but it's close enough.

So, we have guys building us a bathroom this week. They've already jack-hammered the concrete floor, installed the below-ground plumbing, and framed out the bathroom and foyer. By the time I get home tonight, I imagine it'll be sheetrocked.

Because we're the type of people who will tell a contractor, "Here's what we want, this is what we want to spend, and we don't care about the particulars," the wall that separates the bathroom area from the rest of the basement is not quite where we'd envisioned it, but I'm just going to plan to shuffle stored items around to different shelves until the stuff we use more frequently is accessible again.

No matter what, the end result will be very handy for the studio and for when we have parties out on our deck.

This is the last project this year, though. I swear it!