girls just want to have fun

One of my fondest memories as a child was going to my dad and stepmother’s studio apartment in DC when I was 5 or 6, blasting ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ on the record player, and literally bouncing off the walls while singing into my hairbrush. I LOVED Cyndi Lauper just as much as I loved Boy George, and that’s saying A LOT. I loved their hair, and their clothes, and their attitude. They were so unique.

Last Saturday I got to see her Live for the first time and it was everything I could have hoped for and more. The woman is a vocal freak of nature. Her songs are HARD to sing, she sings at full volume much of the time, and a lot of her songs enter the head voice breaking point. I did a cover of ‘When U Were Mine’ last year at TT’s and nearly blew out my voice singing it; I had to warm up religiously before even thinking about the song.
She comes on stage prancing, practically running, and just wails. Perfectly. No faltering, amazing breath control, it’s as natural as breathing to her. There was one point when she was literally lying flat on her back and singing at the top of her lungs, right on pitch.

God, it was awesome.

I had pangs of jealousy when Amanda from the Dresden Dolls came on stage to sing ‘When U Were Mine’ with her. Fuck, really, this song out of all songs? Oh well, she gets that privilege because she’s worked her ass off for several years. I haven’t.

I’m having feelings of ‘where has all the time gone, it’s June 20th?’ I’m starting to freak out. I need to get disciplined again, I need to make time, say no to going out and to occasions, it’s just…….. it’s just………..

I really love being alone. I really love living so close to everything. I love walking out of my apartment and being 3 minutes away from a relatively major square. I love walking to the square, and then continuing to walk to the next major square, and then continuing to walk to the next and then the next, just because I feel like it. It’s a whim. I was just getting iced coffee at my favorite coffee shop and kept going.
A few weekends ago my day went like this:

-Woke up at 8am, put my hair in pigtails, washed my face and all that other morning stuff, and walked to Diesel to sit and have a sesame bagel with avocado and tomato (no cheese), and a large iced coffee.
-Sat at Diesel for an hour reading ‘Confederacy of Dunces’. Decide to go check out some bikes.
-Despite spitting rain, I walk to Porter and then to Harvard, stopping in two bike stores, and my fave mod furniture place, Abodeon. If I hadn’t had the bagel I would have gotten a Japanese doughnut filled with red bean paste at the Porter Exchange.
-Get to Harvard at 11am and decide to check out movies. The Namesake was playing at 11, I had read the book and my mom had recommended I check it out. I go. I’m the only one in the theatre and it’s awesome, I can’t stop smiling. I have a fleeting thought about how it would be so cool to have someone to make out with in this empty theatre, but then the movie starts. I watch and cry every time scenes of India come on the screen. Dear god, I hope I get to go there someday. Please, Please.
- I leave the theatre hungry and can think of only one solution – I go to Central Square and feast on a typical Saturday Indian brunch: veggie samosas, baingan bharta, shahi paneer korma, saag, kheer, all washed down with a hot milky glass of masala tea. I read my book. I am in LOVE with the day.
- I go grocery shopping at the co-op
- Go home, take a nap, eat a small dinner and go to Berklee Performance Center to see Feist by myself.

That was my day and night. Alone. It was probably one of the best weekends I have ever had.

Ok, so the point of this tangent is that I’m not living in this apartment forever. In fact, I’m moving in September. I’m moving out of the center of things to an area that is borderline suburb-ish. It is something that I Never Ever Ever thought I would do until I was at least 45 or so. Why I am losing my mind?
Basically, so the logic goes, I am going to be moving into a house that has a lot of space. I will be living with someone, but there is enough space so that it will also give me some alone time. I will have my keyboard/possible piano in a separate room rather then next to my comfy bed, and in between the mountains of clean and dirty clothes on my floor.
I love where I live, but I can get very distracted by the people around me and by the close proximity to awesome things and drinking establishments. I need some order in my life. I can’t write anything besides one verse and one chorus. I have at least 7 musical ideas in my head; they’ve been here for a while, and no lyrics to go with them. It’s maddening. It can all be justified by ‘I need to enjoy this for all it’s worth, because I might never have it again’. But you can say that with anything really, and not have it hinder your musical productivity.

The other thing is that I haven’t felt like myself in so many years. Myself, uninhibited by anything or anyone, without questioning or wondering what the person I love will say. …Me. Sarah Joelle Rabdau. It’s really exhilarating. I am slightly nervous for September, fearing that I might fall back into someone that withdraws and is chronically unhappy unless ignoring or running away. I don’t want to be that girl ever again. It saddens me to know that I was submerged in that stifling realm for a long time; through no ones fault but my own. I was too scared to admit things weren’t right and to lose so much that I loved.

But…..fuck…..I have so much work to do.

Oh, but I just got my Netflix…………..