According to Trish

… would you bring extra undies to throw onstage or would you just remove the ones you were wearing? Good lord, one sentence into this blog and I’m already talking underpants. I am the trashiest of philosophers, apparently.

All right, little blogmuffins, I’ve been neglecting you. Life is kicking my ass right now so I appreciate you all hanging in there with me. Instead of pissing and moaning (two activities which you would think should always go together, but you might be wrong), I will turn to happier topics.

Before you read on, stop what you’re doing and go out and buy or download Jeffrey Gaines’ live CD. Or any of his CDs, really. I’ll wait.

Now we’re working on the honor sytem here, chickadees, so I’m going to assume that if you’re reading THIS sentence that you have followed the instructions from THAT sentence. I will now continue with the blog and pretend that I don’t know that you’re lying to me…

I saw Jeffrey Gaines last Saturday night at the New Hope Winery. You’ll remember him from this blog http://accordingtotrish.com/2010/04/notamericanidol/.  And let me tell you all about JG because I sorta glossed over him before and he’s not a dude to be glossed over….  For the uninitiated (who really shouldn’t be reading at this point… don’t make me check your work) you may have heard him a while back — he’s best known for his remake of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” 

Here’s my deal with Jeffrey Gaines: If my life were a song, I’d want him to sing it. What do I mean by that? How to say…hmmm… OK, I think we all have those songs that just sort of hit us the first time we hear them — like if there was a song in your heart or in your soul and you didn’t have the musical chops to bring it out yourself and maybe you didn’t even quite know what it sounded like but then WHAM! Someone comes along and they’re singing yoursong! Something resonates inside of you like they just lifted the music right out of you and delivered it to you with all the heart and soul and passion that you hoped your song would have. Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying I could’ve written any of his songs (or any song for that matter), I’m just saying it’s one of those things where something in me recognizes something in his music in a very (cosmic? primal? …that all sounds sort of goony) let’s say instinctual way.

Sounds heavy, right? But no one can deny that music is some heavy shit. And if you have a soul I’m sure this has happened to you. And if you haven’t been bowled over by music in this way at least once, there’s very little hope for you and I’m going to have to ask you to stop reading my blog because being so near to you scares me a little bit.

All right, so let’s be honest here, peeps. Most of you probably didn’t do your assigned homework so it looks like I’m going to have to break things down for you. Howzabout some bullet points? We’re rocking it corporate-style in the WiFi Hot Spot. Hang on to your butts… it’s getting cruh-za-zee….

Here’s what you could learn about life from going to a Jeffrey Gaines show (and fortunately or unfortunately, I’m the kind of person who can formulate an entire life philosophy based on how my Cheerios (TM) congregate in my bowl… there’s the tiniest possibility that this could be exhausting to the people around me):

1. Live with passion, baby. PASSION. What is life without it? It’s a big bowl of oatmeal, minus the raisins and the brown sugar, that’s what. (Don’t argue with me on this, either. Honestly, I’m getting sick of fighting with you…) What excites you? Talk about it, sing about, groove your bad self all over it but own it. Claim it and make it yours.

2. Dig thyself. I cannot overstate this. Listen, we’re not all songwriters. But if everything you did in life could be translated into music in some way, what is the riff that would make you nod your head, close your eyes and jam along to your very own music? Do it. Jam on, mammajamma. Be confident. And if you’re enjoying your own tune and you’re authentic about it, chances are that other people are going to dig it, too. And if they don’t, so what? You still get to enjoy what you love.

3. Trust your voice. Again, we’re not all musicians but we all have a noise to make in the world. Trust your ability to riff on your own creativity. Maybe last time you sung something THIS way but this time you’re going to sing it THAT way. Trust yourself to carry it off. It’s your song, baby! Play around with it. If it’s not coming out how you like it, feel free to stop in the middle and switch keys. The point I’m making here is that if you’re being original, you can’t mess it up because it’s yours.

4. Be your own band. You don’t have a drummer. Or background singers. Or a guitar tech. So what? Pound your foot on the floor and beat the crap outta your guitar until the strings break. The audience won’t even notice that it’s just you up there. Sing at the mic, sing from the back of the stage and trust that the mic will pick it up. Fill up the whole space. Yes, you are big enough to pull it off. Don’t be afraid.

5. Get your head out of your ass. Yes, personal heartache and all of that stuff is a very big deal. Huge, especially since YOU are the one feeling it. But you know what? There’s other stuff going on in the world, too. Take a look at it. Learn from it. See how it can inspire you to do bigger things with your own life.

6. Laugh. Go ahead. Maybe you’re singing a heavy song. Maybe you’re singing a song that an entire generation considered the touchstone of their first heartbreak . Maybe you took this awesome song and made it awesomer (I made up that word) by just singing the shit out of it. And people creamed their undies over it. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t stop in the middle of the song and tell ridiculous stories about it. Don’t make it all too heavy.

7. If the power goes out, eh, oh well. Finish your song anyway and know that the audience is with you, singing along.

8. Let people dig you. There are lots of people who love you. Let them. Take their requests.

9. Smell good. That way you can hug people and it will be nice for everyone.

At the risk of this becoming a really bossy blog post, let me say this: You must go see him live. I think he’s mostly touring in Europe in the next few months but knowing most of you, you don’t have much going on anyway so you might as well make a day of it…

I’ll try to not make it so long between posts next time, kiddos. Until then, XOXOXO….

I never thought that I would be the person who was having a spat with her neighbor. But here we are, in a veritable turf war over dandelions.

I posted on facebook the other week that I was committing surbuban heresy by not using chemical dandelion killers on my lawn. My immediate neighbor — let’s call her “Fern” – has let me know on several occasions over the years that she hates dandelions worse than she hates Republicans and that if she sees one (a dandelion, not a Republican) she has to immediately rip it out of the ground and flog it as if she were Dick Cheney and the cursed weed was a Gitmo detainee (or something like that). After a while I got the feeling that her general outrage might just be a thinly veiled plea for a specific action on my part.

We have done the chemical treatment once or twice over the years but I try to avoid it when I can. I’m no hippie (despite the presence of a Phish CD in my hybrid vehicle — OK, two Phish CDs…) and yes, I do shave my underarms and attend to various other forms of personal groundskeeping. But I’m not a huge fan of the Suburban Steroid Lawn. Really, to me, it’s just grass. You walk on it. Animals crap on it. It’s not a carpet and I find it silly to treat it like one. Also, I have a toddler in my house. Toddlers spent 90% of their waking time on the floor. Chemicals on the lawn get tracked into the house and all over the actual carpets and floors — where my darling Little B is picking up every teensy little thing and taste testing it. Not to mention, the runoff from all the chemicals is very bad for local water sources and everyone on our street has private wells. So the way I see it, I’d rather deal with some dandelions than deal with spreading poison all over my entire lawn. (I will admit to using occasional targeted weed killers like Round Up — I just hate the idea of covering the better part of a half acre with the stuff.)

However, I know people get nuts about their yards. And after a certain age in particular, people get absolutely obsessed about their yards. I’ve seen “the change” happen to people I know…  And I would like to tell you all now that if I ever get that crazy about my grass that I would like you to take me to an art movie house and duct tape me into a seat because I will clearly need some reprogramming. It’s one thing to get some sort of peace and joy out of gardening. It’s entirely another to patrol your grass for weeds as if you were a Minuteman doing border patrol.

But even I had to admit that this year the dandelions were getting a bit much. I knew that we were probably ticking off the neighbors, which I didn’t want to do. So we bit the bullet. I nagged the husband to go outside and do the dirty deed. Our front yard is now one unbroken stretch of green.

Then there’s the back yard. Last year we removed an old above-ground pool that we inherited from the former owners. Problem is, when you remove an above-ground pool, what you’re left with is an enormous round depression in your yard that looks like a meteorite may have once landed there. And our landing sight is full of sand and rock, which is on top of a membrane that I can’t seem to dig out. Oh yeah, and there are weeds. Lots of ’em.

We let the big mess just sit last year because our financial situation was changing and we didn’t want to put out the money to pay contractors. But Tom and I both agree that it’s an eyesore and we have already starting getting estimates to get it done this year. But in the meantime, the dandelions are having a dandy time in there.

Then one day this week I returned home from picking up my daughter at school and my husband says, “You’re going to love this. Right after you left today, Fern came over and started pulling dandelions in the backyard. She left just a few minutes ago.”

Now Fern and I have always been friendly. She had keys to our house. She let our dog out a bunch of times when we were away. She once drove me to the doctor’s office when I was having strange pregnancy-related symptoms. But I have felt the tide turning in the past few years — ever since I told her that I was voting for Obama in the primaries and not Clinton. Seriously.

Now it’s important to know that this woman is home all day every day. She spends a LOT of time walking around her yard, talking on her cordless phone and smoking. So I guess she has a lot of time to look things over.

I began noticing little comments here and there after Benjamin was born. She emailed me to water our grass seed after we had some work done — I was uncertain whether to be amused or annoyed (I decided to be grateful because I honestly had forgotten). Several times she complained about leaves in her yard (that we both knew had blown over from our house) and talked about how some pine cones from her one tree fall on the other neighbor’s property and that she feels bad about it and has to go over and pick them all up.

I knew what she was getting at. But I have two small kids, a big commute every day, a job and a husband with a very hectic work schedule. And even if I didn’t, I still don’t care enough to spend time patroling her yard for foliage that might have blown over from ours.

But I couldn’t blow off the Weeding Incident. So I emailed her. I tried to be dispassionate about it and just state the facts. This is what I said:

Dear Fern,

Please do not weed our yard. I know that dandelions bother you and because of that, we treated the grass with dandelion-killing chemicals last week. I personally do not like to use chemicals unless I have to, but we felt that we should do it because we do not want to upset the rest of the neighbors.

As for the site where the pool was, we realize that it is an eyesore. There is a thick membrane underneath the sand and rock and we have decided that we want to bring someone in with heavy equipment to remove and re-grade the site. To do it ourselves would take forever and Tom’s work schedule is extremely hectic. We could not afford to have someone do it last year, as it was the first year that we didn’t have the income from Tom’s day job. We have already asked our lawn guy to give us an estimate on what he would charge to take care of it this year.

If you have concerns about our yard, please feel free to talk to us about them.

Trish

Within the hour, she approached Tom outside and returned our house key. Then I got an email which I won’t reproduce here because I don’t think it’s fair to post something she intended as a personal correspondence. But the jist of it was that she was just making a neighborly gesture but if she had known that I was so touchy she wouldn’t have. She gave me a big explanation of how dandelions are spread. She said she didn’t think much about the former pool site in our back yard, but now that I mentioned it, it probably was a big breeding ground for mosquitoes but, oh well, it’s been that way for years. And also, she will never step foot on our property again.

I replied that I had no intention of turning this into a turf war, that I just wanted to let her know how I felt. I mentioned that we’d always been neighborly and I hoped that that could continue. And I pointed out that the pool had been that way for less than a year (which made the email feel a little less magnanimous, but that one pissed me off).

So at this point… whatever. I have bigger fish to fry than getting into a pissing match over this. If she’s going to sit in her home and feel hostile toward me, so be it. But I have to admit, I was outside with the kids yesterday wondering if she was inside her house shooting daggers at me. Maybe she was and maybe she wasn’t. I honestly hope that she has something better to do.

And while I try to act like I’m above all of this, I will admit that the big joke in my house right now is, “Did you feed the dog? No? OK, don’t worry about it, I’m sure Fern will be over to do it later…”

But I’m me. And for me nothing is ever about only what it’s about. It’s all gotta go big. So my thoughts on this one are along these lines: In trying to be a good neighbor, a good citizen of the world, a good spouse, a good mother, a good sister, a good daughter, etc., how much do I need to conform to other people’s ideas of how I conduct my life? I think in a lot things, there’s what I would do based on what I want to do, and there’s what I actually do based on how it will affect the people around me. It’s a compromise — “No, I don’t really want to go to your jewelry party but you are my friend so I will show up as long as you don’t expect me to buy a bunch of expensive crap that I don’t need.”

And from the other perspective, how often do I scrutinize my friends and neighbors and expect them to live up to my expectations? Do I expect perfection? Do I make unreasonable demands on things they “should” be doing when maybe those things just aren’t important to them? Is it unfair to expect the people around me to adjust their behaviors for my own comfort? And to what extent are their quirks really affecting my day-to-day life anyway? Are they just a few dandelions on the lawn or are they causing little earthquakes?

I think the bottom line is that very few of us exist in a vacuum. I think you have to be true to yourself but be considerate to people around you. Don’t be the neighborhood jackass. Accept that people are rarely going to give you perfection — and that you will rarely have perfection to offer them. Decide what you can live with.

And if you see a few dandelions here and there, sit your ass on the grass and take a good look. They’re actually sorta pretty.