Twas the Day After A Muse Concert

Today’s Fashion Attire:  Today I’m wearing a V-neck orange cotton sweater (Lane Bryant $12) layered over a black spandex tank (White house Black Market $15) with medium wash jeans (Gap Outlet $30) and beige waterproof suede and shearling boots (Naturalizer $60). I’ve accessorized with my  silver dog tag cross pendant (Cookie Lee Designs Party $30).

Outfit Justification: It’s raining, and it’s the day after a lovely concert on a Friday. I contemplated wearing my newly purchased Muse T-shirt, I changed my mind since I was sporting the AC/DC  tee yesterday.  Two days of rocker tees in the office was a bit much for me, especially since I’m not a 14 year old boy.  I went for the rain prepared preppie Halloween look.  The orange compliments the blue streaks in my hair.

Twas the Day After A Muse Concert:

So, in case you missed it, I saw one of my favorite bands, Muse, in concert last night.  I’ve been so excited about this concert since I heard they were touring to promote this album.  I love this band. And they are one of my favorite bands to see live because they are so amazing. The first time I saw them in concert was 3 weeks before I married Jeff.  Somehow I always associate this show with our wedding.  I liked Muse a lot. But as a couple Depeche Mode is the band that we associate with our (Jeff and my) love affair.  The Depeche Mode concert was the first show we saw together as a couple.  As we were planning the wedding, I was constantly listening to The Resistance by Muse.  I was dying to see them live because I had heard so many wonderful things about this band’s live performances.  Even though money was super tight because we had a wedding to pay for, somehow some way we were able to score tickets to that tour. And it was the most amazing experience and that further enhanced my love for Muse.  And performing itself.  About 6 weeks after, I was back on stage singing with a jazz trio.

My love affair with Muse may not be the longest affair I’ve had with a band, it is intense and meaningful.  The two artists that I’m emotionally involved with is Muse and P!nk.  Something about their music really moves me and affects me in ways I can’t really explain.  (I’m really upset that I won’t be seeing P!nk in concert.  The show is sold out, and it’s also the same weekend as my friend’s bachelorette party. It saddens me so much that I can’t write about it any further.)  Muse has such powerful music.  I’m such a freak, I try to sing as many of their songs in karaoke.  Time Is Running Out is one of my signature songs  that I sing.  I do it well, and it’s rare that you see a woman perform it.  And that’s where my love for Muse began.  My love for their music has grown immensely since then.

Last night’s show came right at the right time.  With me struggling with a bunch of things emotionally: turning 40, weight  and body image issues,  my struggling singing career,  this show came and did a lot of musical soothing.  After a good show, I usually get inspired somehow.  When I saw Pat Benatar and Journey last year I was inspired to really write this blog and pursue the dream of fronting a band.  Last night I was inspired to continue being the performer that I am.  I lose sight of my abilities sometimes.  When my friend Starr, responded to my last blog by saying  “Believe in my faith in you, until you can you have faith in you” I had forgotten that some of my friends really do believe I’m talented. Sometimes you have to turn those who love you and know you for strength to get through low periods, when no one calls you back for that gig.  I left the concert and went straight to a karaoke bar and sang Madness by Muse. It was a good performance.  Considering I only sang it once before, it was impressive.  Watching that band rock out last night reminded me, that I can rock just as hard and do it well.  I just need to keep at it.  My time will come. 

Stuck In A Rut: The 2013 Vivian Rogers Ammon Story

Today’s Attire: Today I’m wearing a grey cotton shawled sweater (Banana Republic $38) over black cotton skinny legging pants (NYDJ Outlet $20), white ribbed “wife beater’ style tank top (Old Navy $8) accessorized with a grey flats (Payless Shoes $12) and purple, teal, gold cotton scarf.

Outfit Justification:  I subscribe to this page called Dresses on Facebook. This page puts a bunch of outfits together and then posts them on Facebook.  I generally like these outfits, but I’ve recently started to look at these outfits to see if I can duplicate them.  Today I had most of the pieces to duplicate the outfit, but I made a few changes, like my flats are grey instead of black, and my scarf is multicolored instead of grey.   The outfit is OK, the pictures that are posted don’t show a body in the clothes, so looking at my big body in the clothes doesn’t really seem to have the same appeal I thought it would.  Oh well.  Maybe I’ll try again someday.

Stuck In A Rut: The 2013 Vivian Rogers Ammon Story:

My friend Natalie and I have a little game we play via email. We’ll be chatting about this or that, and something catchy in our conversation will come up and we’ll make it a book title for our Autobiography that we haven’t written yet.  For instance I’ll complain about not liking my outfit and I’ll say it looks like I got dressed in the dark. And either me or Natalie will turn it around and change it to:  Got Dressed In the Dark: The Vivian Rogers Ammon Story.   Apparently “Stuck In a Rut” is my 2013 story.

As 2012 was coming to an end, I did some reflecting as people often do toward the end of a year.  I had decided that 2013 was going to by my year.  I spend the majority of 2012 being sick (and depressed).  And as 2013 is the year that I turned 40, I figured this was going to be my year. This would be the year that I would really come into my own in terms of my music career. I expected things to be really good in 2013. I know this is delusional thinking, but I thought all these positive changes were going to happen this year.  I would be focused on the things that I wanted to accomplish. I’d make some really positive healthy changes this year and things would be better.  Unfortunately that hasn’t really happened. 2013 has started off not so fantastic. And I’m already feeling defeated.  And I just feel super stuck in my life.

I have positive things in my life. Yes, I know that I have a wonderful husband who I love, and who loves me back.  And we have each other and this a good thing.  But we’re both facing the barrel of the gun of age 40. I can’t speak for him, but I’m feeling less than stellar about my life going into 40.  He and I have gained a tremendous amount of weight. Yes I’m making attempts to get that under control, but things like an injured leg, cold weather and several hard days at work in a row, kill the motivation to workout or eat healthy.  I just want to go into my hole and hide and cry, which I’ve done a few times already this month.

Things at work have gotten very difficult.  I work really hard to try and make a difference and make things better.  But I’m really ineffective and feel that way.  I’m frustrated, and my efforts are in vain when I try to improve things.  There’s a lot of bad behavior around the office and that behavior gets rewarded.  I’m not running around touting my accomplishments, and they seem to get overlooked because I’m not screaming “look at me, look how great I am”. I’m not that way.  I just want to get things accomplished and make my boss and my department, look good.  But that’s not happening and it’s frustrating me, because I don’t know how to fix this.

The pursuit of my music career feels like one of the largest sources of the things that sadden me. I want so badly to be a rock singer.  But it feels like every opportunity I pursue, seems to fall apart or just dead ends.  And I start to second guess myself.  I start to think am I delusional?  Am I not as good as I thought I was? Did I blow a hobby like karaoke out of proportion? Am I only good enough to sing karaoke? Is that all it will ever be for me?   Did I only have one shot with a band and that was it? I now question my talent on a regular basis. When people cheer for me after I sing, is it because they’re drunk and they’ll cheer for anyone, or do they truly think I’m talented?  I’m not so sure any more.

My husband is my biggest cheerleader when it comes to my singing.  He thinks I’m amazing.  I knew my husband had strong feelings for me when we were dating, but it was the day after he heard me sing karaoke for the first time is when he declared he was in love with me.  So when he tells me that I belong on a stage fronting someone’s band, I think he’s biased because he loves me.  He wants to encourage me because he thinks that I would be happy doing that.  And I would.  And he wants me to be happy.  He loves to watch an audience react. He really enjoys the reaction I get when I sing.  Especially when there’s shock value involved.  People usually don’t expect a black female to sing songs written and performed by a white male, and then they don’t expect it to be good.  My husband tells me that my voice is unique, and it’s different, which is why everyone notices when I sing.  He says that I’m a performer, I don’t just sing a song, I perform it.  All these lovely things he says about me and my singing, I desperately want to believe.  But I don’t.  I’m concerned that I’ve already gotten my hopes up too much and now I have a self-inflated ego about this thing and it’s only bringing me heartache.

I do wish I had dreams that other people thought were “typical”. I wish I dreamed of being married with children in a house somewhere.  But I don’t.  I don’t want children.  I don’t long to be anyone’s mother.  I’m not all that jazzed about owning a home.  In fact I’m afraid of owning one. My friends and family might think less of me because I feel this way, and spend less time with me because they think something is wrong with me for not wanting children, there’s nothing I can do about that. I know what I don’t want.  And they might think I’m stupid for wanting to be a singer, or better yet a rock singer, but again that’s been my dream for a long time.  I never pictured myself being holly homemaker.  I pictured myself on a stage performing.

As I reflect on my thoughts, right now I’m unsure about a lot of things in my life and it makes me sad.  That’s where I’m at.  2013 hasn’t proved to be my year yet.  And maybe I was wrong to think that it could be.