Author: Alyxander James

Song School, and Returning to Reality

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Hello, dear readers! You may remember that I took last week off from the blog because I was busy unplugging at Song School.

The week at Song School was…well, pretty incredible. We made new friends and connected with old ones, we got some writing done, we learned a ton. I don’t have adequate words to describe the experience (largely because I am exhausted and struggling with re-entry into real life), so here are some pictures.

The St. Vrain

The St. Vrain

Friends!

Friends!

Group sing in the St. Vrain

Group sing in the St. Vrain

Performing

Performing

Singing with friends

Singing with friends

It was truly an amazing week, and I left feeling like my head was full to bursting with new lessons learned and my heart was full of gratitude.

Re-entering real life has been a struggle. Going back to work this week has been rough and overwhelming. But I am so glad we were able to go. I am also glad to be back to sleeping in my own bed.

Song School!

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Hello, friends! First things first: there will be no blog next week. That’s because I will be in Colorado, attending Song School, and will not have internet access (or time to blog).

The past week at work has been pretty ridiculous (read: extremely frustrating). It has frequently felt like every little thing that could go wrong has done so. I am beyond ready for vacation. I am trying really hard not to mentally check out before I actually leave. Today is my last day in the office for about a week and a half. I have one meeting to get through this afternoon, and I’m sure there will be a few last-minute things to sort out. I just have to hang on until 4:30.

I am so, SO excited to be heading back to Song School. My partner and I attended for the first time last year, and it was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends we made last year, and meeting new folks, and learning enough that I feel like my head will explode. It’s going to be great. This year has been extraordinarily productive for me from a songwriting perspective, so I’m excited to see how that impacts my experience of Song School.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty to talk about in two weeks, when I’m back to reality. For now, though, I’m on vacation. 🙂

Follow Through

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This has been a long week already, and I’m glad it’s almost over – work has been frustrating, and I’m super ready for a vacation. Thankfully, we leave for Song School in just over a week!

On a personal level this week has been an exercise in follow-through. A fellow Song Schooler on Facebook organized a songwriting challenge for this week in preparation for school, and I decided to join in – writing a song a day for seven days straight. I know that I can do this, because of all the writing I did in February. But it’s still a challenge. I’ve been having trouble with mornings for a couple of months, and my evenings are often full, so I was definitely nervous leading up to this week. So far, though, I’ve managed to get up at my first alarm every morning this week and sit down to write.

I didn’t finish the song I started this morning (in fact, I think I’m going to set it aside and start fresh with a different idea after work today), but if I do manage to finish a song today, I will have hit my 2018 songwriting goal. For the whole year. On August 2. Each of the past two years I have written 20 songs. I decided that this year I’d be outrageous and set a goal of 40 songs. I’ve written 39.

It is a weird and wonderful feeling, following through on a goal all the way to completion. This is not something I’m super familiar with. A lot of my plans are hatched when I’m hypomanic (hi, Bipolar II brain), and they fall apart when I come down, which is really defeating. The fact that I set what felt like a totally ridiculous goal that I’d have toil at all year and probably wouldn’t actually achieve, and that now I’m going to hit it two thirds of the way through the year…it’s pretty unbelievable.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to repeat this in future years, but I’m not thinking about that yet (or, at least, I’m trying not to think about it yet). I’ve been fortunate to have the time in my schedule this year to make writing more of a priority, and I’ve worked hard to actually write on a regular basis (with the help of classes at the Old Town School, in particular). It feels good. And I’m looking forward to coming away from Song School with some fresh inspiration to keep going.

Music, Music Everywhere

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It’s a musical time of year.

Monday night, I had my first gig in about four months. I was nervous, but I actually ended up having a lot of fun. There were some magical moments where the whole room went silent while I was playing, which was super gratifying.

The downside of Monday night gigs is that Tuesday is a work day. I didn’t get home until about midnight Monday night, and I struggled to wake up Tuesday morning. It was worth it, though.

Tuesday night I had songwriting class. Usually I end up writing my song for the week’s class on Sunday or Monday night, but I was weirdly on top of things last week (knowing I wanted time to practice for Monday), and had written my song on Wednesday. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to remember it. Thankfully, I had a quick voice memo recording on my phone to refresh my memory. I love my songwriting class – I love the community of songwriters that I am part of. They’re good people. Class is always a highlight of my week.

And somehow, we are now only a couple of weeks away from Song School! I am excited and nervous and am planning to sit down this evening to start making lists to help mitigate the nervousness. We met so many wonderful people and had such a fantastic time last year, and I can’t wait to be back in Colorado.

I’d love to hear what is bringing you joy this summer, friends! What fun are you having these days?

Sleepy Starts

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I’ve been having a very sleepy couple of weeks.

When July started, I had these grand plans of getting up early every day. It…has not gone well. I’m learning that if I don’t get up as soon as my alarm goes off (or whenever I first wake up on my own before my alarm), it gets progressively harder to get up. I’m a little disappointed in myself for not having a better handle on mornings.

On the other hand, a lot of my other goals for the month are getting accomplished. I’m walking more, I’m impulse spending less, and I’m getting a lot done at work. So there’s that.

On Monday night, I have my first gig in a few months. I’m nervous about it – despite being in songwriting classes consistently, the creative well has felt rather dry lately. I feel like I’m fumbling around on my guitar, and writing lyrics is often like pulling teeth. I know I just need to keep showing up and working through it, but it is pretty overwhelming. Still, I’m going to play on Monday and try to work in some new stuff. We’ll see how it goes!

Temperature Regulation

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Hello, dear readers! First, allow me to apologize for the lack of blog last week. The site crashed on Tuesday night and I didn’t have time until Thursday morning to deal with it. Thankfully, we’re back up and running. And now, on to the blog!

As appeared to be the case in much of the northern hemisphere last week, it was HOT in Chicago (with the added midwestern bonus of humidity on top of that). I…don’t cope well with heat. I’ve been having some issues regulating my body temperature anyway (I seem to never be cold when everyone around me says it’s freezing indoors), and then our air conditioner went on strike in protest of having to work so hard to keep up. So last week was pretty miserable a lot of the time, and I was pretty focused on just getting through it. The heat finally broke over the weekend, and that was absolutely lovely.

This week has been more manageable in terms of temperature, and after giving our air conditioner a cleaning over the weekend, it seems to be working better. I still feel gross a lot of the time, but it’s better than last week.

Despite the weather, there’s been a lot to be happy about the past couple of weeks. Here are a few of those things:

  1. Good movies. In an effort to be in better air conditioning than what our sad little window unit could provide, we went to about as many movies in the space of a week as we often do in a year, and they were all great. We saw Ocean’s 8, which totally lived up to the trailers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the Mister Rogers documentary, which left the audience in sniffles, and Incredibles 2, which was hilarious and adorable. All highly recommended.
  2. Good friends. Between seeing movies and just making some other plans, I got to see a lot of friends in the past couple of weeks, including a couple we almost never get to see anymore. That was lovely.
  3. Good news. While yes, there’s been a lot in the news to be horrified about, I’ve gotten some personal good news at work – I got a bonus, and managed to move some projects I’d kind of been dreading forward with a minimal amount of distress.
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This is one of those weeks where I feel like I don’t have a lot to say. I’m less down than I was last week, but still rather out of it. So let’s keep this one short and sweet. Here’s a list of three things that have made me smile this week:

  1. Nerdery. Last weekend I spent many hours with fellow nerds playing DnD. Before I went to each of the two games, I was feeling pretty blah. But I’m so glad I went! Few things make me as happy as collaborative storytelling with friends.
  2. Music. On Sunday, my partner and I participated in our songwriting class’s end-of-session showcase. These showcases are always fun and always make me appreciate the songwriting community we’re part of.
  3. Friends. I’ve had a lot of reminders this week that I have a great support network holding me up. I’m grateful for all of the people who stick by me even when my brain is misbehaving.

Down

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I’ll be honest with you, dear readers: I’m not feeling great. I’m currently being paid a visit by the Depression Monster. While nothing in my life is logically all that awful, there have been enough hard things lately (not to mention the dumpster fire of global issues in the news) to trigger a downswing in my Bipolar cycle.

The good news is that my recent med adjustment seems to be helping: I’m not particularly anxious. The bad news is…well, I’m depressed, and there’s no anxiety to distract from that. I have to grapple with it head-on, and I’m out of practice with that.

I know that my brain will even itself back out in the end. This current space is just a hard one to occupy, especially when the whole world feels like it’s burning.

Which, I guess, is all to say: hang in there, friends. I know I’m not the only one struggling. Hold your loved ones close and prop each other up. None of us can do this alone, but together, we’ve got a fighting chance.

Road Trips and Recovery

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Last weekend, my partner and I took a whirlwind trip “home” to the Twin Cities. His dad had gotten tickets to see Paul Simon on his farewell tour. Plane tickets from Chicago were unusually expensive, so we rented a car and drove up, leaving very early Friday morning.

The concert was incredible. I will freely admit that I am not super well-versed in Paul Simon’s music, but I knew enough to not be completely lost, and watching the show as a songwriter gave me a real appreciation for the level of craft he brings to his music. Also, anyone who can perform on stage for that long with that much energy at 76 is pretty incredible in my book.

We tried really hard not to overbook ourselves on this trip (something we often fail at), so Saturday was fairly laid-back. I got coffee in the morning with a professor I knew from bible college. We’ve been trying to get coffee together every time I’ve been in Minnesota for the past eight or nine months, and I’m so glad it finally worked out. That afternoon, my partner and I got lunch with one of our favorite people. It wasn’t a super long visit, but it was great to see them and catch up a bit. In the evening, my partner’s Grandma came over to his parents’ house to join us for dinner, which was also very nice.

Sunday morning, we got an early breakfast with my best friend (another of our very favorite people), which was delightful, as we don’t get to see each other nearly often enough. And then we made our way back to Chicago, which took a couple of hours longer than the trip out, thanks to detours and lane closures between Milwaukee and Chicago.

By the time we got home, we were pretty exhausted. Unfortunately, neither of us could take Monday off, so we dive headfirst into the week and hoped we’d make it.

And for the most part, we’ve managed. Unfortunately, yesterday (Wednesday) it sort of all caught up with me – the cottonwood trees were shedding everywhere (it looked like a snow storm on parts of my commute), which made my sinuses cranky, and the increased heat and humidity combined with already being exhausted all conspired together, and by the time I got home from work, everything hurt. My joints ached. Putting pressure anywhere on my arms or legs hurt like a bruise. I had a headache. My eyes ached when I tried focusing too hard on anything. I was pretty miserable. I ended up taking a Benadryl and heading to bed around 8:30.

I’m writing this Thursday morning on my way to work. I feel better than I did last night, although I definitely wished this morning that I’d gone with my instinct to bring my work computer home with me yesterday so I could work from home today. I’m hoping the extra sleep last night will have been restorative enough that I’ll make it to the end of the week.

I am annoyed that my body can’t handle a low-key weekend road trip without at least one extra day to recover, but I’m not really surprised. I’ve made an appointment with my doctor to talk through what options I might have to manage this better (something I started looking into before I got sidetracked with top surgery prep). So we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be present in the aches and pains, and be grateful for what my body can do.

Start Another Year

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On Sunday, I turned 30, and I can’t imagine having a better time doing it.

I woke up a little later than I’d planned, but still early enough to write my morning pages before the day got underway. We went and got breakfast at Smack Dab, one of our favorite local breakfast and coffee spots, and it was a delicious way to kick off the birthday festivities.

Next, we walked over to our neighborhood farmers’ market and picked up a bunch of fresh produce.

After the farmers’ market, we went home and listened to podcasts while we knit. It’s something of a weekend tradition at our house, and it was lovely and relaxing to incorporate our routines into my birthday.

After a couple hours of knitting and podcast-listening, we decided to walk to the restaurant where we were getting lunch. I got to indulge in my favorite gluten-free beer and an incredible gluten-free fancy grilled cheese sandwich.

Our final outside-the-house stop was at Women and Children First, where we each ended up picking up three books and decided to make a pact that we’re not allowed to go back there until we each finish the books we bought.

The rest of the evening was spent with more knitting and relaxing. It was truly a lovely day, and between the day itself and all the sweet messages I received on social media, I felt very loved and very ready to enter into a new decade of my life. Thanks to everyone who made me feel so special!

And as a bonus, I leave you with a picture of the completed LEGO set my partner gave me as a present, which we assembled together last night:

LEGO “Women of NASA” set