Singing My Songs – Thoughts from April 3 and 10, 2022

April 3, 2022

I’m listening to an autobiography by Phil Collins read by him. He has had a life in entertainment since he was a young boy. His transition from a drummer and backup singer to the main singer in Genesis made me want to listen to my songs. Sometimes I listen to myself and wonder why I ever thought I could sing. Today, I thought my voice was better than many of the singers who have hit songs. I think the difference is hearing the potential of the recordings and not the incomplete versions I recorded. When I listen to the songs, I can add at least one more voice to the mix. Many of the songs I recorded late at night when Patti was sleeping so I didn’t use my full voice. Also, many of the recordings are the first time I recorded them. They were live recordings made to record the ideas for the songs. Sometimes my older songs sound better in the vocals, but that’s only because I built them up and edited them. I quickly recorded most of the later songs so I could listen to them in the car and continue working on them in my head.

Listening to my songs always makes me sad. I know I will probably never complete them. Time and money are the biggest barriers to continuing to develop them. They are definitely not the only barriers, though. Even singing in the car wears out my voice. I know it’s partially the air conditioning and other aspects of singing in the car, but my vocal range decreases by the end of my trip. Another aspect I can’t ignore is not working on writing and other things I need to continue to work on. On that note, I present the next paragraph.

I uploaded the new changes I made to my book today for the e-book version. Before I upload the print version, I want to make sure the formatting is correct. I’m actually interested to see if it will let me upload the print version without making me change the version number on the book. This could be something I made up in my head or you can only make so many changes to the print book. I guess I’ll find out.

Quest will probably be hiding when I get home. Patti has been keeping just her in the bedroom. There’s food, water, and litter boxes in the bathroom which I guess she has used, but she usually stays under a desk with the TV on it covered by pillows so I can’t see her. She has stayed away from the cat tree because we cleaned it recently. She was making good progress getting along with the other invading felines, but Patti started keeping her in the bedroom and I think she’s hiding again out of habit. I miss seeing her face right as I walk in the door. I hope we can get back to that soon.

April 10, 2022

I was trying to remember my birth. The only thing I could remember was the date. I know I didn’t understand the concept of time when I was born, so I must have learned this years later. Maybe I just knew this information wasn’t relevant to who I would become as a person. Some adults still don’t understand this concept. The only thing relevant to us at birth is our genetic makeup. This only changes who we are a small amount. Most of who we are inside comes out of our experiences with the world. There are few experiences happening in the first year of our lives. Your parents may remind you of experiences you had, but you were still getting the hang of your senses. You will not remember experiences when you don’t understand what they are yet. What am I trying to say? Quit focusing on your birth and experience your life.

That last paragraph was profound. I don’t know if I can top it with this one, so I won’t even try. I’m declaring right now that tomorrow I’m going to exercise. It’s been a while since I’ve exercised. I can blame my squishy couch all I want, but not exercising did not help. It will take me a while to get back into full exercising, but showing up is the most important step. Exercise!