A friend made a post on her blog about physical attraction and her relationship to it.

I think she has a little inner war going on about external attraction versus inner value. If she is attracted to someone for external attributes, does that make her shallow? Et cetera.

My 2 cents, which I get to make as lengthy as I want because this is MY blog, are in short, no, it doesn’t.

In long, I think “the external” is too broad a topic. I see two major categories that deserve distinct attention.

1. External beauty that is inborn and lucky trait. The kind that makes me go see every movie with Johnny Depp in it, regardless of whether I think the movie will be good or horrible. The kind that manifests in both of the lovers I’ve had in my life, causing me to go, “zuh? why am I the lucky schmoe who gets hooked up like this?” External beauty of this nature doesn’t say a whole lot about the possessor of it, but hey–I don’t know many who are immune to it.

2. The sort of external beauty that reflects a choice.

Your body (I feel) is one of the most readily available tools of expression that you have. I feel it only makes sense to be attracted to (or unattracted to) the choices that people make with their bodies, and the thing that I like about this is that it’s based in something other than chance. It’s a real reflection of who a person is.

I’m generally attracted to people who do anything off the beaten path with their body-canvas. I’m further attracted to people who bash existing stereotypes and roles with their choices, because I hate stereotypes and roles, and it lets me know that I could definitely like that person. I think it’s really hot that my boyfriend has long hair and sometime’s wears women’s clothing.* Actually, one of the chief things that attracts me to a person is how out-of-line they are with gender norms. It’s just how it is. Gender sucks. You bash gender, you’re in with me. The interesting thing is that I’ve always felt this way, but only in the past year or two have I really explored my feelings on feminism and gender–leading me only recently to my “gender sucks” conclusion.

~

I was always a feminist, because I was lucky enough to have a mom who was a feminist, and because of a general pervading feeling of “duh? of course women should have the same rights as men?” I went through a few stages in the relationship between my self-image and my feminism. When all my friends were getting excited about shaving their legs and buying lipstick for the first time, I didn’t think beauty should matter to me at all, and didn’t shave anything or wear any makeup.

I don’t remember when I started shaving and wearing a little bit of makeup, or why. I guess the collective excitement got to me. That, and the fact that I was still reading teen magazines. Why did I ever read those?

My relationship with makeup ran its course from disdain to grudging desire to be attractive to the mere desire to differentiate myself with things like lots of black eyeliner. I don’t feel that the desire to differentiate oneself is childish or antifeminist. I don’t see how I could possibly not feel the desire to differentiate myself. I also acknowledge that I am differentiating myself just as much on the (considerably more frequent) days that I wear no makeup at all, and I enjoy those days as much as the black eyeliner days.

I stopped shaving under my arms about a year ago and initially planned it as an indefinite experiment. I knew that I generally found it attractive when other women did not shave, and that therefore it was quite possible that the only reason I was shaving was because I was afraid of what people would think or something. I decided therefore, to stop for as long as it took to make a decision that would really be my decision. When I became equally comfortable walking around hairily in a tank top, then I would be ready to say “I shave/don’t shave simply because I like it this way.”

And I found out (this is the ending of the story that is obvious to everyone but the person going through it, I guess) that I really do like not shaving better. It’s more comfortable, but I also just really like it. It would be a betrayal of me as a person–not as a woman or as a feminist or as an anything else, just as me**– to start shaving again. So I haven’t. And that makes me like me, externally and internally.

–

*I tried my hardest not to get into a feminist dissection of this phrase, but I just couldn’t help it. My boyfriend does not, in all fairness, wear women’s clothing: he wears clothes which were manufactured for women, but which belong to him. He is a man, and since the clothes do belong to him, in the barest of truth I have to conclude that he is wearing a man’s clothing. But y’all know what I mean.

**Which also comes back to feminism, because a large part of my feminism is the belief that a woman should be free to make choices as herself first–before she makes decisions as a mom, as a woman, as a feminist, as a wife, as a sister, as an anything else. That’s part of the freedom that women have been denied: to consider ourselves.

So I’ve been complaining for …what… a few years now? about not having a drummer.  I put up a few new ads on Craigslist, and I guess new year’s is the time to do it or something.  Now I’ve got seven or eight different people who’ve responded to me.  I’m as daunted about this as I would be if NO one had responded to me.  Now I’m like… okay, what do I do?

Well, rorie, you could be an adult and set up times to meet with these people.

Okay, but what if I meet with them and don’t like them–then what?

I’m not great at rejecting people.  I’ve been realizing that part of the reason I’ve had such a hard time finding a drummer is that I want to find someone whose playing I really like–yet, at the same time, I really don’t feel like I deserve someone that great to be spending all that time rehearsing with me, especially when my ability to pay them is dependent upon how gigs go.   I want someone I can grow with — I guess a lot of musicians want that?  Yet when it comes right down to it, I don’t think I feel like I deserve to have other musicians invest their time in me.  Maybe I just need to get over that.

In the meantime, though, I’ve spoken to a few other musicians and gotten a tentative band lineup (sans drummer) together.  We’re going to start rehearsing next week I think.  No matter what, I’m forcing myself out of my me-and-a-guitar comfort zone…  It’s way past time.

And since I’ve made that decision, there’s a buttload of work I could be doing on Marketing Me With a Band.  So I guess it’s time to get moving.

There are a few awesome photographers sneakin’ around at the lobby of the Patchogue Theatre. One of them is Walter Petrule, who photographs every performance there and does a kickass job. Another is Leah Haynes, whom I just met last Sunday and who sent me these.

She also invited me to join something she’s involved with called The Free Artist Network. I have a little page there (I’m actually just setting it up) now, so please check it out, set up your own page, and say hello.

thefreeartistnetwork.com/roriekelly 

(Remember, the more social networking sites you join, the more points you get in Virtual Heaven.)

i won a caption-writing contest and i didn’t even know it.

http://trevorlikestodraw.com/winnerz.html
(The one with the witches! That’s my funny thing that I made up!)

I got hooked up with these great folks called Paradiddle Records (who as we speak are mixing and mastering Jay Scott’s live album, which I’m on a little bit) and they have helped me out with some online distribution of my acoustic EP, the four songs i have copyrighted right now.

Here’s where you can buy it, if you’re so inclined. Spend five bucks, support them, support me, everyone’s happy.

The weird thing about being a (kind of broke) independent musician is that I already feel like this EP–recorded variously in late 2004/early 2005–is like “rorie kelly: The Early Years.”* I’ve been aggressively making music–by which I mean, playing out constantly and really trying to promote myself–since the year I turned 20. I am now 23 and a half–and you know what? A lot happens in a few years, if you’re talking about music. And I’ve changed quite a bit. I still play acoustic, but I’m looking for a band and I wouldn’t touch the word “folk” with a ten-foot pole anymore. And I do like a lot of folk music. I just feel that it’s a term that people unthinkingly apply to anyone with an acoustic guitar, especially woman, and it has come to feel like kind of a write-off. Folk is also a very low-key genre and I’m interested in being anything but low-key. And I think that comes across in my performance a lot more than it used to.

Jump Little Children was my all-time favorite band until only a few months ago (because I realized it was time to move Tegan and Sara to their rightful place on my list. JLC still rocks my freakin’ socks). When they released their second album, Vertigo, they also began selling a double-CD called “Jump Little Children: The Early Years” at their shows. It was a mix of questionably well-recorded demos and early live shows. I was (and am) a crazy fan, so I was just as excited about this as I was when the Beatles Anthology came out. And the coolest thing was not “yay, more music from JLC!”–it was hearing the immense differences between how they used to sound and what they had grown into. Hearing the roots of the music. It was hella encouraging, too, to know that Jay Clifford was not born into the slinky, unearthly grace of his voice–he worked for it and he earned that grace. Hearing a good-singer-that-will-be-great learning to use his voice is such an inspiring thing, I think. It totally blows all of that self-defeating “Well, people are born with talent and I just don’t have it” crap out of the water.

Anyway, on my end of things, I have this album I’m STILL finishing up (that I started working on in 2005, if anyone’s counting) that I think sounds really freakin’ awesome–but isn’t even released yet. I’ve just gotten online distribution for my acoustic EP, which I’ve come to think of as like, “The Rorie of Yesteryear,” and I’m promoting that–but in the meantime, my mind is already on how I want to record album number two, and on which of the freakin’ billion songs I have piled up will be making the cut.

I don’t know. It’s odd. I need to either get signed, or get a whole lot better at this whole “independent musician” stuff right away, because … it’s time to get in gear. Really time to get in gear. 2007 served to drive that point home or me again and again (and again) and 2008 is the year to make it happen.

*If you want to hear about the REALLY early years, I self-recorded ten or twelve songs in my bedroom in 2001 or so. Boy do you not want to hear that stuff. (Unless you’re Rakie, in which case you don’t have a choice because you’ve already heard it.) That was the “this girl could get good in a few years” era. Still like a few of the songs I wrote from that period, though.

I really like making fliers.
I think I’m posting this less to promote my show and more to show off my pretty thing that I made.

I need to get my priorities straight.

I’ve been having a hard time. Getting up early and working all day and getting to bed late having spent all day just barely catching up with work, and not getting to implement anything new or work on what’s most important to me… It really doesn’t agree with me. It agrees with me less and less the more time I spend doing it. (Exhibit A: the stress rash on my hands, which disappeared when I moved out of Rockaway and quit my crappy job, is now back.)

I’ve made a lot of changes in my life in attempts to make this situation short term and finite, not long term and ongoing. But… at this moment, I’m still here, and all I can do is keep working and hope I see the results soon enough to keep from going crazier than I already feel.

On a less solemn note, I spent $90 of the $100 Borders gift card my parents got me for Christmas, today. I haven’t spent $90 at Borders… ever. I’ve never had that kind of money. It was a joyful experience.

Here’s what I got:

Leave it to me to spend half of my Christmas gift on like… business. Whatever. I’m hardcore excited about all of it.

I’m also almost through the third Stephenie Meyer book, eclipse, and I’m kind of disgruntled that I’ll have to wait for her to get around to writing and publishing another one after this.

Is the best way to describe this past weekend.

Friday night Dan Gluszak (whom you may know from his band Envy on the Coast) lent me some of his unspeakably awesome drum skillz for a few songs on my hopefully-soon-to-be-released album. (Gray Starlight and Pennsylvania, for those of you who care to know.)

Let me explain to you about this kid: he’s so good. I speak of his drummerly skills with an enthusiasm I usually reserve for Tegan and Sara. He seems to know more about what’s right for my songs than I do. He’s also the nicest guy, and working with him is the easiest experience you could imagine. And I’ll have you know: a lot of people say all of these things about their drummer of choice, and then when I hear them, all I can think is “wow, that drummer sure is… competent…” Dan’s different. He’s solid as can be, but rather than just keeping time and playing a variety of acceptable-and-expected rock beats, he gives you a kickass arrangement that is tailor-made for your song. He has, I can assure you, a long and illustrious career ahead of him. And folks like me will be eternally citing his name on Craisglist ads–”I want a drummer like this guy”–but knowing we probably won’t get one that good.

Thanks Dan. As always.

On Sunday I got to be a very small part of Jay Scott’s upcoming live album. Jay is this incredible, soulful singer and songwriter who reminds me a little bit of Joe Cocker, but without John Belushi wiggling around on SNL making fun of him. (Maybe someday.) (Okay, I guess that’s not really possible for a lot of reasons.) He rented out the lobby of the Patchogue Theatre, brought in these awesome musicians he’s been working with to back him up, and proceeded to play a show that will soon turn into an album. And I’m on it twice: once because I accidentally tripped over the audience mic, and once because he invited me to sing with him on his song Lonely Road.

I can tell you, because I lived through it, that it’s an awesome album. And it doesn’t even fully exist yet. Keep an eye out.

What are yours?