Crazy

This week's theme has been: crazy.  Examining the darker, stranger side of human consciousness.  This project, this year is definitely taking a toll on my body - sniffles, headaches, fatigue from lots and lots of hours going into non-paid projects (this one, and others that I do for networking/career-forwarding purposes, or at least that's the hope).  I've also been very fortunate to have had plenty of paid work this year, and lots of great friends in a city where there are always at least four of five things happening that I want to go to.  Trying to put a positive spin on "overwhelmed" - I'm overwhelmed because I have so many options, so many things to do, so many directions I could possibly go with my work.  One of my main money gigs is ending, and (again with the positive spin) I'm looking at it as a time to transition.  But to what, exactly?  There is no clear path.  I'm resisting the urge to say yes to every 10-cent gig that comes my way, because then I won't have time to do this or other things that have artistic merit and might pay off later... In fact, all the options that interest me most are invest-time-now-maybe-maybe-maybe-get-paid-later sort ...but the rent's due every month, and now I'm looking at going through at least a phase of a lot more freelance ping-pong - 1 hour here, 2 hours there - to make ends meet while I go after these get-paid-later opportunities.   It's tiring enough to make a person crazy.

Of course, crazy pop songs more often than not fall into the "unhealthy relationship" category:

Tuesday: "Crazy", Willie Nelson, made famous by Patsy Cline - crazy for loving a love-em-and-leave-em type (but ya can't help it, can you?)

Wednesday: "Crazy", Gnarls Barkley - a rare exception to the bad-romance-crazy rule of pop songs.  The perceived craziness of artists: there is freedom in losing your mind and following your "crazy" path.

Thursday: "The Closest Thing to Crazy" - Katie Melua - I have really good memories associated with this song from when it was on constant airplay while I lived in London.  Upon re-examination, I'd say this song falls pretty squarely into the bad romance category.

Friday: "Crazy", Aerosmith - I was really excited by the time this one rolled around on Friday.  Nice when I'm particularly excited about my song. More bad romance.  Why we gotta drive each other crazy, people!?  Geekery:  A lot of harmonic interest in the Crazy songs I chose.  Even in this one - a power chord rock song - the melody contains a lot of flavorful extensions or accented non-harmonic tones (don't know which way they'd be analyzed, frankly, don't really care anymore - they just sound cool). 

Last night's notes: (aka - times when I'm not so particularly excited about my song)
I am tired and i don't feel like staying up any later to learn my song.  Trying to put a positive spin on always having more to do than i have time for.  Really just want to skip learning the song and go to sleep.  At least it's a song i'm familiar with by ear - Crazy For You - Madonna
truth is, i'm not very excited about this song.  nothing against Madonna, and I remember liking the song before, just not excited about it in comparison to the songs i've learned this week. 
Enthusaism, the #1 most important ingredient - actually WANTING to sit alone in my apartment late at night learning pop songs. Nothing else would keep me awake, nothing else would keep me from hanging out more with my friends or doing other things with my time.
Am excited about Crazy ON You (Heart) tomorrow.  Gonna see if I can make that opening guitar solo work on piano.