What a nightmare!

I've spent all night researching and listening to lullabies so I could be go off and be intuitive and write 16 bars (or rather 32 -- AABA format). I even talked to Mom about her singing... she was just "too busy" to sing to me:

"Besides, honey, you were a good baby. I gave you milk and you were happy. And if I was asleep, you'd play quietly in your crib as long as you could see that I was there."

Even though she couldn't remember her own mother singing and especially her never having time to rock any of us (except the youngest who was a bit sickly and uncomfortable), it was cool to talk about this. I don't feel like she plowed me with milk to shut me up (my original excuse for growing up fat -- which is a lie anyway since I was a skinny kid!), but she actually had a nice memory of back then. That's not usually her strong point, Mom is a no-nonsense, let's get work the done kind of gal. (But I also know why too: she was always disobeying her own mother so she could go out and play! hehehe Hence, the music to Pilya...)

In any case, I'm having a hard time starting this damn thing and have a terrible headache and case of cabin fever. So I'm buying batteries for my roll-up piano, bringing some headphones and going to the park or the library.

I just need to have something on paper for my collaborators TODAY or I'm in deep scheduling poop.

Oh, and by the way, the very last thing Mom said is she does remember her mom humming/mumbling or singing something to her little brother to get him to sleep, but it wasn't anything that had words or a tune she could remember.

Wow, validation... isn't that cool?!

Lullaby

Hi Heidi and Viv,

I'm writing you two because you were in class when I wrote "Lily" -- the piece that I still hum to Kate at bedtime?

Well, I'm working on a lullaby for the mini-musical tonight and look what I read in wikipedia:

Asia has its own versions of the lullaby as well. In Tamil (a language of southern India), a lullaby is called a thaalattu (thal means "tongue"). A melodious sound is created by frequent movement of the tongue at the beginning of the song, hence the name.

But most notably is the use of the oyayi in the Philippines, also called huluna in Batangas. In fact, the use of a song in putting a baby to sleep is so popular that almost every mother in the province is said to have composed at least one lullaby for her child.

So I don't know if I should be mad or assume my mom had one and just forgot? I know when she had her first grandchild she could only come up with church hymms in English... but she was always singing to get the baby to sleep... so maybe I'm not so "left out" after all...

I feel very comforted for some reason, and wanted to share.

Ricardo NO ESTA AQUI

I went to the diner to get my birthday wishes :) tonight... and he's not there. Fired they said.

I'm bummed.

I've emailed him and hope he emails back, but he's not done that yet... so he's probably gone forever, unless I run into him at the laundrymat or Albertson's.

Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

Adios, Ricardo. :(

Happy Belated Birthday to me!

(BTW, aren't those are cool candles -- look at the color-coordinated glow! They're from The Glow Company in the UK.)

My my, I really have work on this "time" thing -- I'm even late for my own birthday!

It went to bed pretty late but had to get up to see my shrink... man, I hate that, it really screws with my (albeit weird) sleep. I barely made it back without falling sleep somewhere in Hollywood, but took a delicious nap in the afternoon.

[Oh, the best birthday present: after four drafts of our outline for the mini-musical and oodles of hours in meetings in person, on the phone and emails, we got greenlit this morning to move on to the rough draft. YAY! That was also delicious.]

By the time I woke up, my collaborator, bookwriter Myrna, did a down and dirty rough draft of the book, and she and lyricist, Kellen, took me out to an Indian dinner. YUM!

We got back to Kellen's house at 11:30, shot a little footage for the documentary then spotted our songs til 4:00 am... we're pretty much on schedule now and I managed to get a little nauseous because we started talking about the music... my area. The thought of all that responsibility made me a bit crazy, until Myrna assured me we'd all be in all of it together. Thank goodness she and Kellen are so even-keeled and respectful... I'm a bit "wowed" at how well we're working together.

Anyhoo, more on that process later... just wanted to share what this year's birthday was like so I don't forget. Funny thing about birthdays... they're really "just another day" -- and yet they're so, so special, no matter who I spend it with or what I do. I guess it's the one day I get to celebrate ME without any guilt! LOL