Diet Coke Is My Crack

Right now I am high on Diet Coke. I restricted caffeine all day today and then binged on Diet Coke about an hour ago. I am high as a kite! I wrote my manager an enormous laundry list of all the creative projects I've been wanting to pursue and I realized I should channel some of this into another blog because it's been awhile and I miss me.

I love having these bursts of creative energy. Honestly, my two and a half year old daughter is going through this phase that is so exhausting. I feel like at the beginning of the day, as I sit and try to enjoy a cup of coffee, I am watching her, like I would watch a hamster on a hamster wheel, tirelessly running around and around. Then, suddenly, the coffee is gone and I am inside the wheel with her, running around and around, thinking "Where can I get off this thing?!"

I watch the clock and pine for nap time -- which comes and goes with no success because instead of angelically resting her head next to mine and reading Madeleine, she is jumping up and down on the bed yelling passages from Dr. Seuss then collapsing on top of me in a fit of giggles. So that's the phase, a lot of running around and jumping around and yelling and singing and pushing me out of the door of her room and telling me to go away, she only wants to play with Daddy. Daddy gets to have all the fun these days, and I am mean Mommy who has to remind them both that one can't live on chocolate Pudding, and that nudity isn't always appropriate in the yard. But I digress.

So I sit here in my quiet living room. My husband is out playing music, Evie (the wonder kid) is sound asleep after a long day of not napping. My thoughts turn to some new songs that are long overdue and my recent mastery of Garageband. I use the term "mastery" loosely. Let's just say this: I have learned to use Garageband. In general, technology and I are like fire and water. I'm like the fire with my intense burning desire to have technology aide me in my endeavors, or in watching a DVD. And technology is like the big cruel wave of water that puts out that fire and says, "you have no idea what you're dealing with." Or like the DVD player that, I swear to you, sends mean messages to me through its display. I push "open" and it says "no". I push "play" and it says "no". So anyway, I can plug my guitar into the little mbox recording thingy and then plug that into my computer and, voila! Music is made. It is a beautiful thing.

So the other night, my husband Brian was out playing music again and I thought I would work on Garageband. I thought I would surprise him by showing him that I could learn to do these kinds of things, that I could move forward, stop living like a hippie and record with my computer instead of using those gigantic reels of tape that are now in large immovable boxes in our garage. I raided his stash of equipment, I read stuff, figured out how to plug it all in, opened up a new song file on Garageband and began to play. Nothing. There was no sign that life existed anywhere as far as the computer was concerned -- unless I put my hand on top of the small box my guitar was plugged into. I kid you not, this is what technology is like for me. I put my hand on top of it and the light turned green; I took it off and it went dead again. I spent an hour on the phone with Brian's friend Larry, who is a recording genius. He walked me through step by step until finally we figured out what was happening.

A bit beleaguered, but still willing to try, I popped open a can of the old Diet Coke and proceeded to record two guitar parts that sounded pretty darn good. I was so pleased with my work, I thought I would just leave the computer open on the dining room table with the headphones plugged in so Brian could come home and marvel at my brilliance.

Brian came home late and just crawled into bed. I awoke in the morning, excited to play him my tracks and realized I hadn't plugged in my computer. It was dead, and "saving" the project I had worked on, well, that would have been one more button to push.

So here I am tonight, writing this blog fueled by Diet Coke instead of recording some amazing new songs on Garageband. If you are reading this, it's because I remembered to save my work this time. Let this be a cautionary tale to you. Diet Coke and technology don't always mix well with Lux Land. But enjoy this song anyway. It was recorded on tape and didn't need to be "saved." It was embedded into this blog post by someone who actually knows what they're doing. It's called the Astronaut song. I've got to run now; my DVD player finally opened so I can put in Twin Peaks and figure out who the bleep killed Laura Palmer.

Listen to "Astronaut Song":

Click here to check out Lux Land's MySpace page.

Comments

[TexasProgressive3]

Watch this video about DONALD RUMSFELD"S ASPARTAME (yes, that Donald Rumsfeld, Aspartame is Nutrasweet, etc) and you'll never touch another drop of diet anything.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-566922170441334340

[Guitarsandmore]

Try to switch to decaff first. Pepsi makes a pleasant tasting Diet Pepsi Caffeine free. Then trade that in for Decaf Tea. Then trade that in for bottles of arrowhead spring water.

The Decaf Tea is just tea and has no chemicals like the coke or the pepsi. very bad for you.

[cinemaven]

I'm working to get off diet coke... maybe one of those cool rehabs would take me..

I do love the garageband idea though. I might have to make a purchase for my musical child. It would be great if he could lay down tracks using his bass and electric guitars.

[AlliJo]

Wow, I got so much more from this than a caffeinated "soccer" mom. Some how I didn't get the whole Volvo SUV, private school brat thing... I must have missed something. I thought this was a charming glimpse into the creative "schedule" of a songwriter who happens to have a small child.

I loved the song!

[starrianna]

This is a scary article.

There are so many soccer moms hopped up on Diet Coke and Diet Pills, that I'm surprised we don't hear about more accidents on the news involving maniac mommies in their Volvo SUVs killing someone because they're in a hurry to take their brats to private school, or cheerleading practice.

[wayoutleft]

you maybe want to pick up a case of diet. not so much because, as you will soon discover , besides making your music easy to record, garageband also makes it easy to change in every possible way (a studio take is now a keystroke); but more because the solution to the laura palmer murder is a long hike through the sinister pines. (yes, the north cascades can get REALLY strange.) do not miss the altest country act you will ever see or hear playing where laura and friends go to shed inhibitions.

[rektruax]

Her Dad did it. End of story.

[nuanetsi]

Watch out for the aspartame - research it - bad stuff.

[dexxjones]

i know, nuanetsi. that's why my editor is so adamant that i not drink it. but then i SMOKE too so there you are.

[protagonia]

nuanetsi See Profile I'm a Fan of nuanetsi

Watch out for the aspartame - research it - bad stuff.
----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­-

I warn my friends about asparatame all the time. Some of them defend it like a junkie. "I don't know what I'd do without it!" Addict talk for sure.

[dexxjones]

for me it used to be pepsi one but is now diet mountain dew. PLEASE nobody tell my editor- i promised him i was drinking water. :)~