Sunday – 26 August 2007
Yesterday was good. I mean… come on… the day started with coffee and IKEA and ended in Park City watching India.Arie. How could that not be a good day?! I’ve listened to some of her music before, but seeing her live was very cool. She had great stage presence and just seemed to be having a good time. The crowd really seemed to enjoy her performance, as well.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
At last night’s concert, India.Arie played/sang bits of many different songs – songs made popular by other artists, including a really good cover of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s Tell Me Something Good. But, she put her own twists on them and changed the way they came off… and, in that way, made them her own.

That made me consider something that I wrote a couple of years ago:

I’m having a bit of a John Stewart moment, not to be confused with a Jon Stewart moment.

When I say that I’m having a John Stewart moment, I don’t mean that I’m dressing up in a black and green outfit (I did that last Hallowe’en) and saving the world (I do that in City of Heroes). What I do mean is that I think that I am in the middle of rediscovering/redefining what makes me tick.

I used to use a lot of quotes when I was young. To make me sound mature. To make me sound serious. To make me feel like I wasn’t the second-class entity I’d always thought I was.

But the courage to use your own voice, that’s the test of maturity. That’s the proof of seriousness. Maybe that’s my mission here.

To find my own voice.

To find a voice for all these creatures and let them speak in harmony.

Yeah. Maybe. But in the meantime… there’s business.

I don’t think that I have changed that much since I started writing in this. Maybe I have. Maybe I’m “too close” to it to see. I do know that this journal has changed – it has a flavor that is distinctly mine, but does it speak with the full timbre of my voice? Or the voices in my head – past, present and future? I don’t know. Quite possibly so. But, there are still questions to be asked. And voices that need to be heard.

I should find that voice. My voice. And then, I can find the voice for this journal. Will it change the way that I write in here? Possibly. It’s hard to say until I undertake the process. Maybe it will metamorphose into something new. Perhaps it will revert to something like it was before. We’ll see how it goes.

One of the things that I had been worried about was using others’ quotes to express my thoughts, feelings and/or opinions. Listening to the way the India.Arie used other artists’ songs and wove them into and through her own pieces made me realize something: The things that I listen to and read have become a part of my voice.

They are things that have found an anchor and resonated within me. They’ve made a connection. Brought life to some spark. And, eventually, provide a pathway that I can use to relate/convey what I’m thinking or feeling. Even better, they aren’t the only weapons in my arsenal. They are handy, sometimes even convenient, but I have a versatile array of tools at my disposal. No matter which one I choose, it is mine to use.

That’s something that I think I have known – at some level – for a while. But, sometimes, it takes a different lens to help bring things into focus.

And I like the view.

Stray Toasters

  • I have Honeycomb cereal. Before this last grocery run, I don’t think that I could tell you when the last time I had bought Honeycomb was.
  • As promised: Pat, here is your mention in my blog.
  • The War(s) They Fought
  • By way of comes “proof” that I’m Chinese. (Which isn’t really true… I’m Negro-Saxon.)
  • From NPR: My Cancer
  • Tori Amos is apparently coming to SLC in November.
  • If they were to make a Sandman movie, I think that Tori Amos would make an interesting Delirium. Or maybe Evanna Lynch, the young lady who played Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
  • I need to hang my banner. Of course, that means cutting it and prepping it for hanging. And that requires effort.
  • In this picture, we see U.S.Agent (at one point chosen to be Captain America’s successor) getting ready to tear into… someone. (I don’t read Omega Flight, so I’m not sure who that is.) But, that’s not what struck me. ‘Agent’s costume is based on Cap’s. I thought that I had read somewhere… somewhen… that Cap’s tunic was chainmail. That picture looks more like scale mail. And, according to the Wikipedia entry I just found, apparently it is supposed to be scale mail. Now I want to see if I can track down the source that made me think it was chain.
  • I am craving a frozen mocha. But that requires a bit of effort, too.
  • Great. Just found an item that said Cap’s tunic is chainmail.
  • Speaking of which: I remember playing Chainmail many moons past at The Armory.
  • The Armory used to make the best miniatures paints, too…
  • I need to get some paints: I am going to do custom ‘Clix for Hand of Nefer-Tem and Corvus Nox. Because I’m a geek like that. To date, the miniature paint job of which I am most proud was the tattoo I did on Alias‘ arm. I wish I still had the miniature, but I think that it fell prey to one of Mom’s cleaning sprees many years ago.

Time to do… something.

Namaste.