I used to be a regular over at Self-Portrait Challenge until I realized that, um, I am a really crappy photographer. Still, it’s one of the coolest weekly bloggity things out there.

This month’s theme of “Political” does make me want to crawl up into a little hole and die, but since it’s “Memival Week” at Looney Tunes (I am going to spend one week participating in all of those memes and carnivals I just don’t have the discipline to do on a regular basis.) I am just going to have to bite the bullet, deal with the theme, and participate.

I thought instead of one photo that sums up my feelings about how this election is going, I would give you a little photo essay instead:

Why, hello!

What? Would I like a moment to answer some questions about Obama, Hillary and McCain about the upcoming elections? Well, let’s see, a good portion of my life is already taken up with incessant news coverage about it, but since this is a rare opportunity…sure! Why not?

Who am I going to vote for? Hmm….I’m not sure.

Which issue do I think is the most pressing problem in America? There is the war, of course… and I think that the economy is… What? Who do I think is the best looking candidate?

Well, I would rather talk about more important issues but if I had to only pick between the three? Probably Obama.
Could we move on to something more relevant, though? I have to run some errands soon.
How do I feel about McCain and the whole “Did he have an affair with a lobbyist so long ago I was still in braces?”

That is a better question, although I think that the way it was done was poor reporting. I think the thing that concerns me more is the “Lobbyist” aspect and that he is not practicing what he preaches because he’s really in bed with a lot of big businesses and…What? Hillary and Don Imus share the same Dry Cleaners and does that make her a racist?

Um, I’m not really sure that matters? Isn’t there another question that…Huh? No…I didn’t really know it was leaked that Bill Clinton is secretly eating at McDonald’s again. Um…Is that really pertinent to the election? Well, it’s a shame that someone from Obama’s camp got fired for saying that he’s not going to be a good first husband because he’s suffering from Post Presidency Depression and that he’s been hitting the fry sauce really hard. That does seem a little juvenile.

Seriously, though…Don’t’ the candidates want to know how I feel about the war or foreign policy concerning…No…I wasn’t aware that Oprah had, “I heart Obama” tattooed on her Va-jay-jay…Um, I don’t know what to say…How about…EWE??

You know, these questions are really starting to piss me off. Can you PLEASE ask me something that is relevant to…Ok, seriously, I do not CARE if McCain thinks Hilary has cankles and NO, I DO NOT WANT TO BUY HIS “Get ‘er done!” TSHIRT!!!

Look at my face. I am done. Pissed. You are taking up a lot of time from my life. Time that I will never get back. I’m giving you one more chance to stop the petty name calling. So, I’m telling you to ask me some REAL questions! Stop with the superfluous crap and, tell me what the candidates want me to know about them.

Do I think that McCain will be soft on immigration because of his change in campaign managers? No, I didn’t know that he lured Pedro away from the Napoleon Dynamite campaign. Having a Hispanic with an unfortunate wig managing your team doesn’t necessarily mean that he is soft on immigration but…What? Hilary says that Tina the Llama asked McCain to stop using her likeness in his campaign commercials and Obama chimed in, ‘Your mom goes to college!”?
GGAAAAAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!

I AM SO FREAKING SICK OF ALL YOU!

I THINK THAT I WOULD RATHER VOTE FOR A THREE-TOED SLOTH! OR PEE WEE HERMAN!! OR A FREAKING FICUS TREE THAN ANY OF YOU!!!! AND FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I AM NOT GOING TO VOTE! I AM JUST GOING TO STAY THE FREAK HOME ON ELECTION DAY AND EAT NACHOS, A VAT OF BEN & JERRY’S AND A CHOCOLATE CAKE THAT IS THE SIZE OF MY HEAD AND IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT THAT I BECAME A BIG, LARD-ASS, NON-VOTING CITIZEN!!!!!!!!!!”

That helped, but it would be a LOT better if someone could just give me a big freaking remote to fast forward through the next 8 months.

I’m rather tired of it all.

This post is killing two birds with one stone.The MOST exciting is that my long-awaited duet with Loralee Christensen is finished and uploaded at the bottom of this post. At last!

Also, this is week three of February’s Self Portrait Challenge. The theme is “Black and White”.

I have wanted to do a series like this for a long time. I prefer a strong contrast in black and white shots and I have prominent features that can pull it off. True, the color on the IPOD and the heavy contrast is akin to those prints you used to hang in your room in Junior High, you know, where the woman has a tear running down her face and her either her lips or a rose has a hint of red to it?

So, forgive the cliche, but I like these.

I picked a secondary theme of music for this series.

WHY, you ask?

Brace yourself. This is long, but it represents six MONTHS of planning and work, so it should be.

Last June, I received a very lengthy, very amusing fan email from a vocalist in California. Her name was also “Loralee”. She was even a “Loralee C.”! She was Googling herself in the middle of the night and found my blog. Just from THAT information, I knew we were going to click, and we have. She calls me “LL” and I call her “Thing Two” or “Thingy” for short. It is just too WEIRD to call another person “Loralee”.

I heard her CD’s and raved. She saw my dorky youtube videos and was very complementary.
About 6 months ago, we started discussing the possibility of recording a duet together. This is no small consideration, since I live in Utah and she lives in California. One day, though, we just decided to DO it.The next issue was what on earth to sing?! Thingy is all rock and roll and I am classically trained.

Hmm…A quandary.

She came up with such a great suggestion, I am ashamed I didn’t think of it myself. I love the song, “For Good” from the Broadway musical, “Wicked”, a story about how the witches of OZ became who they ended up. This song has such a sweet melody and the words are so emotional and meaningful to me.

She wanted to record it and asked if it would be a good idea. The answer was, “HELL yes!”

Once we decided that the project was a GO, we began the very long process of recording and mixing. Loralee 2 laid down her tracks in California and then sent it to me. My parents got me studio time for my birthday and I laid my vocals down in 70 minutes.

There were some concerns on my part. I have never recorded solo in a studio, and this was a stretch for me vocally. To quote my brother, “Where did your opera voice go?”. I love singing like this, but to be honest, I am usually not allowed or asked because a lot more people can sound like this than when I sing opera, if you get my drift. Liken it to being Dark Karo Syrup your whole life and then switching to being Light Karo Syrup in an hour.

People ask how we managed to “Blend”. This would be the almost 25 YEARS of choir I have participated in. You get good at matching people if you do it enough.

Besides being much less experienced than Loralee 2 at studio recording I had another fear about this project. This song is just about as emotional as it gets for me. I don’t need to go into it, but I was worried how I would do. I had to book my session 2 months in advance and it fell just a couple of days after a huge, horrible fiasco in my life. The day of my session I felt like a humiliated, despised, guilt-wracked heap of pathetic.

I didn’t think I would be able to eek anything out during my session. Is it was, I came of lighter and more nasally then I would have liked but this might have something to do with the tears and the mucous that came as I snotted all over the microphone at times. The sound guy was very understanding and he had plenty of water and tissues on hand for me to use.

In the end, I just grasped the lyrics for what they were: Take hard things (And the snot-drenched) , and try to get by by remembering what good came from it.

So, I did.

I sent back my vocals to California and then “Narren the Amazing” stepped in and worked his magic.Narren is the dad of Loralee’s son. He has a studio in his house and he is the one that recorded Loralee2 and mixed EVERYTHING for us. He put in all the instruments you hear and blended us together. He is so talented. Every time I listen I hear some tiny detail that I cannot believe he thought to add. What an ear.

I think the end result is that we sound really good together. It was a stretch for both of us, but it was so worth it. This has been one of the highlights of my life. It is just a perfect story, a perfect song and a perfect experience for very imperfect people.

The moral of our fairy tale?
Never underestimate what a bit of rampant narcissism at 2 am can garner you!

Enjoy it. WE did.

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(I need to mention that if Jonathan had not left my three boxes of vocal memorabilia on my driveway in the RAIN while we were renovating our basement, there would probably be more photos of me actually singing n’ stuff…)

I decided to start participating in Self Portrait Challenge again. The challenge for February is “Black and White”.

I still don’t have my computer with my camera attachments and editing software, so I am posting a shot from October when I was dressed in a negligee running around Logan so my friend and I could take “Ghost” photos and she could practice long exposure with her lens.

This is me in down time. Luckily, I have a basic editor and could switch it to Black and White. This is cheesy and I hope I do better on later entries, but we work with what we have, right? I believe I look slightly annoyed because it was about 30 degrees out and I had just encountered some poor college student on the bike path. He about crashed. I guess he didn’t expect to find a mom in her 30’s cavorting around campus in her underwear at midnight.

I wasn’t going to post again today, but my plans for the evening changed and I actually had a moment to sit at my computer. YAY.

Eeek. I have only done two self-portrait challenges for December, so I figured I should remedy that situation. The theme for December is “RED”.Red is my favorite color. Even though the mattress is the most sucky and uncomfortable thing since the PAP smear exam, my bed is my favorite place . It makes complete sense that my bedding be a lovely, deep and perfect red, don’t you think?

It’s a new month and new theme for Self Portrait Challenge.
The mantra for December is “RED”.Bridgy’s husband and my husband work at the same company. It is lovely because I have a friend that I can sit with at company functions.

Bridgy took this shot of me putting on lipstick in the bathroom at the company Christmas party. She’s nicer than I am. At last years party, I snapped a picture of her flipping me off while she sat on the toilet.

I still don’t think she’s forgiven me.