Average Jane

Be Average Jane's Fan

My band, Rock Machine, has finally reached the stage where the marketing juggernaut is going full-bore. Thus, I'd like to point you to our MySpace and Facebook fan pages, where I invite you to become our friend and/or fan so I can spam you mercilessly about our upcoming shows.

I'm extra excited about our logo, which was designed by Kennon James, whom I can't seem to stop name-dropping lately. I love his cartoon style and was quite giddy when he agreed to do our band logo. It's pretty cool, don't you think?

Our next gig (that I know of) is going to be Friday, February 26th at Howell's Bar & Grille in Gladstone, MO. From the online reviews I've read, I get the impression that their food is a cut above most bars, so you may want to make an evening of it.

I look forward to singing for you sometime soon.

Average Jane & the Sea-Monkeys

If you're a relatively new reader, you may not be aware of my Sea-Monkey Journals, which were pretty much what got me started as a blogger. They were a series of e-mails that I wrote to friends chronicling the growth and development of a tank of Sea-Monkeys that I received as a birthday gift in 2000. My friends started sending them to their friends and eventually I had a pretty big subscription list going.

I re-read them yesterday and was reminded that I could stand to loosen up a little with my writing. I think I used to be much funnier.

What started me on this week's Sea-Monkey reminiscence was Keith sending me this cartoon from The Onion:

There's also a Sea-Monkey plotline going on in Kennon James' Mohagen comic (click to embiggen):

I don't know if I'll ever grow another batch of Sea-Monkeys, but they were fun while they lasted.

Average Jane's Day Can Only Get Better

One of the first things that happened to me this morning was that I reached into a cupboard and dumped an inexplicably open bag of powdered sugar into my face, all down the front of my robe and onto the counter top and floor.

I carefully walked outside to remove my robe and shake out as much powdered sugar as possible from my clothes and hair. Hi, neighbors! Don't mind me! Aren't you glad I wear baggy pajamas?

Then I did what I could with the Shop Vac to sweep up the rest before the cats could come in and distribute it throughout the house in the form of sticky little footprints.

You know how when you eat powdered sugar donuts in the car and get the sugar on your clothes, it's really hard to brush it off? Yeah, it's the same phenomenon when you're trying to vacuum it off a slate floor.

So, onward and upward, right?

Average Jane Has Moved On

I learned this week that my old high school may not be a high school much longer.

A handful of my Facebook friends are from high school/junior high/elementary school and I've noticed them joining a group to "save" the school.

Maybe it's because I moved away from the area or maybe it's because I didn't really stay in touch with very many people from that period of my life, but I just can't work up any feelings about the change one way or another.

Times are tough, budgets are tight, and nostalgia rarely has a fighting chance versus cold, hard financial realities. Does it really matter that a particular building may become a middle school after fifty-some years as a high school? I truly don't think so.

I used to nurse a strong nostalgic streak, but 40+ years of life have chased most of those notions away. It's not that I don't care about the past, I just recognize that it's the past and it's over. Everything changes, today is more important than yesterday, and life is a lot less stressful when you aren't struggling fruitlessly to keep everything the same forever.

Average Jane's Studio Kitteh Update

In case you're wondering how Trillian and Dr. Jones are getting along:

Say it with me: "Awwwww!!!"

Dr. Jones has gained an ounce of weight per day since he arrived. I think we're going to need to get them a bigger bed.

Average Jane Goes Shopping

There are few things in life that I dislike as intensely as shopping. That's why I do 99% of my holiday shopping online. It's also why my wardrobe consists mainly of Threadless t-shirts.

Unfortunately, I've gotten to the point where the t-shirts, jeans and Chuck Taylors look is starting to get a little stale on me. There are times when I need some flattering clothes that give the impression that I'm a grown-up, and my supply of said clothes (that fit) was running short.

So yesterday I begged my sister to accompany me on a shopping trip and help me pick out some decent shirts and a pair of everyday shoes that weren't sneakers. She has a good eye for style and fit, but she is not a shopping fan either, so neither of us are inclined to dilly-dally at the store. We make a good team.

I managed to hit the jackpot with the clearance sales at Macy's. I got five tops, a pair of comfortable but not too casual shoes, a tube of the mascara that Kelly recommended, and a couple of random gadgets from the clearance table in the kitchen department.

We paused briefly to recharge at Starbucks, then continued on to JC Penney where I got a couple of necklaces, some sparkly purple eyeliner for stage wear, and two packages of socks to start replacing the ones I keep throwing away on laundry day.

All that took only about two hours, but we were both exhausted. We made one more stop at Best Buy to pick up a couple of birthday gifts for my brother-in-law and then dragged ourselves back to her house.

Sadly, I still need to go to an actual shopping mall for two final purchases that I couldn't secure yesterday. After that, I should be good for another year or so before I have to set foot in another department store. At least I hope so.

Please Say "Hi" to Average Jane

Do you usually read via RSS feed or visit and not comment? Today's the day to come clean and say something...anything.

[Graphic stolen from Mr. Lady] Update: It turns out the graphic was designed by Aimee Greeblemonkey.

Average Jane Inches Closer To "Crazy Cat Lady"

Meet Dr. Jones. Well sure, his name is really Indiana Jones, but I find that it's much funnier to call a 2-pound, 13-ounce kitten Dr. Jones.

So now we have five cats, or as I like to think of it, three cats and two cats. After all, the two tribes never cross paths because three of them live in the main part of the house and the other two live in the recording studio.

We got the kitten because Trillian seemed lonely. Whenever we spent too much time downstairs, she would duck under the blinds in the studio's bay window and stare longingly across at us in the kitchen. That's just plain sad.

My friend, me, had a litter of kittens available and I'd already identified the brown tabby as my favorite. The weather had been preventing me from going to pick him up, so she brought him over on Saturday morning. I had a vet appointment scheduled already, so I got him checked out, vaccinated and tested for FIV within two hours of his arrival.

The first day, Trillian was having none of it and she did a lot of hissing and growling. When we weren't around to watch them, we kept the kitten in a wire kennel, which he trashed like a rock star's hotel room. Have I mentioned that Dr. Jones is talkative? My husband said he squalled so much the first night that he almost lost his voice.

The next day, a switch flipped for Trillian and she finally realized that she now had the world's most awesome toy at her disposal. They spent the entire day running around and chasing each other. Trillian wasn't ready to give the humans credit yet, though. She was rather standoffish to us and refused to play her usual fetch games.

Today is the fourth day and everything has settled down. The two cats are still playing up a storm, Trillian has warmed back up to us and Dr. Jones isn't making quite so much noise anymore. I haven't seen the two cats cuddling yet, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.

Dr. Jones is a friendly little thing, constantly getting on laps, climbing up backs and playing with hair. I have to be careful when he's sitting on me because he has a tendency to launch himself at my face unexpectedly. It's been a long time since I had a kitten this young and I'd forgotten how exuberant they can be.

So mock me if you will, but it's nice to have all the cats happy and content in their own little sections of the household. I think we're all going to benefit from our association with the intrepid Dr. Jones.

Average Jane's Icicles

If I were a home improvement contractor facing my typical cold-weather slump in business, I would drive through neighborhoods and stop at every house I found that had this problem:

Then I would knock on the door and offer an on-the-spot price quote for installing more attic insulation. 

I am just kicking myself for not doing something about our severely under-insulated attic over the summer. This is what I get for being a cheapskate.

Average Jane Plays Another Gig

I woke up at the crack of dawn yesterday to go to yoga class, which necessitated my taking a 3-and-a-half hour nap in the afternoon.

When I woke up, I heard my phone ringing and it was my bass player. He wanted to know if I'd be interested in playing a gig that night. I couldn't see any reason why not, so I readily agreed. It turned out that our drummer couldn't make it on such short notice, but we found a fill-in guy and met up at the club around 7 p.m.

The bar was called Hawg Wild, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it. While we were setting up, a bartender came over to introduce himself. He said his name was Rattlesnake, and this was emphasized by his leather biker vest which not only had a rattlesnake embroidered on the back, but had an actual, taxidermied rattlesnake head attached to the front.

Rattlesnake perused our set list and expressed some doubt about our song selection. I told him not to worry - we were going to rock.

The fill-in drummer was obviously a pro and he did a pretty decent job of following along. A few songs were a little too fast, but that's actually fine in a bar setting.

The only bad part about the evening was that I had a splitting headache that would not go away and no Tylenol with me. You can imagine how much fun it is to sing with a loud rock band all night long when your head feels like it's going to explode.

Thanks to the magic of Twitter, my friends @socreepy (Happy Birthday again!) and @ms_nene came out and stayed for all three sets. I'd like to think it was because the band was so awesome, but even I have to admit that they really stuck around for the priceless people-watching.

The bar patrons who were there when we got there were already hammered. Needless to say, this made them highly entertaining to observe. Keep in mind, this is a bar that owns a portable stripper pole, which they thoughtfully set up next to the dance floor before we started playing.

A guy who was there from the beginning eventually passed out in one of the booths. He was still there, snoring away, while we loaded our gear out the door after 1:00 a.m. and did our best not to bump his motorcycle-booted feet every time we went by.

At first there weren't many people in the bar, but over time more groups showed up. I thought that was rather surprising considering that we were in the midst of a relatively heavy snowstorm.

We never got many people dancing, but the people there seemed to like us. We obviously won Rattlesnake over because he came up to the stage in the middle of a song and handed me a red rose with a rather dramatic flourish.

Oh, and during the last song, a woman lifted her shirt and flashed her bare breasts at us. That's always delightful. Later on while we were breaking down our gear, she came over and told us how much she loved the band. "You know I'm serious," she said, "because I don't flash my boobs for just anyone."

I'm doubtful if that's actually true, but I appreciated the sentiment.

Once we'd packed the trailer, we all headed to IHOP and finished the night with multiple cups of coffee and syrup-covered carbs.

It wasn't the best gig I've ever played, but it felt like redemption for our New Year's Eve disaster. I'm looking forward to completing our set list and keeping our momentum going. It can only keep getting better.