Whirlwind

Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written – the past two weeks I was in Boston helping to care for a chosen family member who had surgery. That trip and the surgery went well, and they’re healing nicely. They have three cats, including a 5 month old kitten who was a great model when he wasn’t being absolute chaos:

While I was in Boston, we got an update from Mouse’s new mom! She’s been renamed Nezumi (Japanese for Mouse), and while it took a solid couple of months of adjusting, it sounds like she’s much calmer now and is thriving in her new home. Apparently she’s going to start doing some agility training at home! I’m so thrilled for her, and grateful that we got pictures of her in the sweater I knit for her (which apparently was a little tight across the back…although I’m not terribly surprised, as she was pretty wiggly when I was trying to measure):

This week has largely been me playing catch-up at work and with school, as I fell a little behind on schoolwork while I was gone. Yesterday felt particularly eventful. I worked a half day, then headed to a dermatology appointment (everything’s fine), then a therapy appointment, and then ended the evening with a talent show at school. It was very fun to get to perform, to experience the talents of classmates and professors, and to meet classmates and professors in person that I hadn’t had the chance to meet yet.

And the whirlwind will continue after this week. Next Wednesday I’m flying to Chicago for work, and then staying through the weekend to catch up with some friends. I think once I get home from that trip I’m going to stay put for as long as possible!

On that note, I’m going to get back to work. There might not be a blog next week since I’ll be traveling, but I’ll be back! In the meantime, have some Nova:

Little Soul

This is a rough recording of the song I wrote for my songwriting class this past week. I’ve made a couple of minor changes since class on Tuesday, but it’s mostly here.

I am inordinately proud of this song. First of all, I did some cool things with chords, and I feel like I exercised a lot of what I’ve been learning in my songwriting classes. But aside from that…I love how my voice sounds. I have never, in all my life, been so pleased with a recording of my singing voice. My voice in this recording sounds like I want my voice to sound in my head. While I have dreams of being a baritone, I’m quite pleased with this solidly tenor sweet spot I’ve settled into for the moment. And so I’m sharing this sound clip with you, because while I’m not really using this blog to document my transition process anymore, this is a pretty big personal milestone.

(A funny story about this song: on Sunday, our neighbor’s cat escaped and wound up darting into our apartment as we were headed out the door. Since I hadn’t yet written my assignment for my Tuesday class, my partner jokingly suggested I write a song about the cat. So this song may sound like it has some depth, but really, it’s a pretty song about a cat who got loose.)