A Day in the Life

Woke up, fell out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

And looking up, I noticed I was late...

(Paul McCartney knows my morning routine to a T).

I've recently been inspired by my experiences, family, and friends to start a blog. Partly for kicks. Partly to release some pent-up energy and channel it into something creative. Partly to just do something for me, damn it! :) Perhaps I should be using the energy and time it took to write this to work on my term paper, but this is way more fun! And who is going to look back on their life and say "I wish I had spent more time working on that term paper"? Right.

Before I start talking about my life, I swear the title of this blog is not as conceited as it seems. This is not an ode to me. I was being clever. ("She has this very off-putting sense of humor. You'd know that if you spent any time with her!" -Emily Gilmore... Gilmore Girls fans?). See, I come from a very musical family. My mom loves to sing. My dad plays the guitar like nobody's business (fun fact: he has a sitar. Like from India. Yeah, I thought it was weird too). My grandfather was a record executive at Columbia Records. My parents met at Tower Records where they both worked. Sometimes people wonder what life would be like in the movies, where every situation has background music and every day has a soundtrack. Come hang out at my house for a few hours and you'll know what that feels like. I play the piano and have since I was 8 years old. My dad handed me The Beatles Anthology songbook and said "You want to play piano? Here, play." And the rest, as they say, was history. Ode to Joy was probably the second song I learned how to play, after "Drive My Car" which consisted of my banging the C key over and over (that's what the sheet music said to do!). I've developed my musical skills considerably since then (I can play Twinkle Twinkle now!) to include the likes of Ray Charles and Vince Guaraldi, my jazz inspirations. I do a pretty mean "What'd I Say", if I do say!

See, the blog title has a point! Music inspires me. Even what I hear on the radio. I enjoy a wide variety of music, some of it quite atrocious (Pitbull, there is something about your crunk beats and naughty Spanish phrases that just make me want to dance). I often find myself relating to songs I hear on the radio, and sometimes that's a good thing (I DO wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy! Not all the time, but you know, occasionally) and sometimes it's not so good. And sometimes it just makes me think...

I often find myself in situations and I think, "Oh my gosh, that one song TOTALLY describes my life right now." Perhaps because music has universal themes: love and love lost, friendship, and (if you listen to country music) making you feel better about yourself because at least you're not this guy who lost his job, his girl, his dog, and his truck. When I'm having a rough time of things, I like to just sit down at my keyboard and just play around for hours (Keyboard, if you're reading this, please buy a ticket for the next train to Davis; I miss you). I'm a very Type A personality; everything has a place and a time and a specific way of being done. My keyboard is the one place where I can forget all the structure and organization and just play. How many of us, at 20+ years old, can say that we take time out of our days to just play and do something 100% for ourselves? I wish I did more of it.

Which brings me back to this blog. I'm at a place in my life where I'm beginning to realize the importance of doing things for myself. I'm a notorious people-pleaser and I often place other people's needs and concerns above my own. Doing so has gotten me into a bit of a funk, and from this funk I have learned how much I need to live more for myself. I'm taking little steps in the right direction and I must say I'm enjoying it so far. I feel more confident in myself, more empowered, and more aware of my own needs. And frankly, I have a lot of thoughts and an inflated sense of my own importance, so it seems only natural that I would start a blog, right? ;) I don't know if I'm even very good at this blog-writing thing. For all I know, I'm not saying anything insightful and I'm just blasting hot air (hot... keystrokes?). Whatever. Again, I'm doing this for me and only me. If writing my little Ode to Joy can help me step outside myself and learn from my experiences from a more introspective vantage point, then I can rest easy knowing that I'm doing something wonderful for myself :)

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates

Until next time :)