this is such a bad idea this is such a bad idea

This blog was originally posted to The Dresden Dolls Diary.

ok, i warned you.
here’s a set of stills from the scope they did of my vocal vag.
it’s in motion. your folds open and close hundreds of times per second to create the vibration that makes sounds, comrades.
so these are stills catching me in action singing different pitches.
rad!

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k14/Bill_H/amanda/2e6d4283.jpg

they are apparently called “kissing nodes” since they are right across from each other.
your folds are supposed to close completely.
as you can see, mine don’t close because those fucking nodes are bumping up against each other. they’re in love.

oh, you people. thank you for all the advice and support. it’s amazing how many of you have knowledge about this or have had it done – crazy.
everybody’s always got shit wrong with them. we is human, we is flawed. thats the story.
speaking of flaws, by the way, i must own a terrible mistake i made in the last post:
vocal CORDS, not vocal chords. kinda beautiful, that mistake. and the two words are obviously etymologically related. cave man music!: strike cord, make chord.

there is a bus advertisement in boston that is DRIVING ME NUTS: it is a wheel of fortune advertisement featuring the sparkly wheel of fortune green-letter board with the text:
THE WHEEL’S ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND.
so:
how is it THAT NOBODY CAUGHT THAT? like, between all of the people at the ad agency, the printing agency and the bus-ad mounters nobody made a call and was like: THIS IS SO FUCKING GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT? fuck man. school-children all over boston are going to see that sign. it’s like anti-education.
i’ve said many time that when i die i want all my money to go to this obscure non-profit in england that is devoted to the upholding of the correct usage of the apostrophe. i know, i know. i do not capitalize. shuttup.
on this subject i am reading yet another amazing book by my all-fav-time crush bill bryson called mother tongue: english and how it got that way. fascinating stuff, i recommend. i love bill. he needs his own song. christopher lydon got one.

i go in at the beginning of march and then plan to undergo convalescence at home while i work on the artwork for the solo album.
it’s funny, but i don’t think of the silence as being that difficult. i notice that when i’m at home working i will go hours and hours days without talking and not notice.
i was thinking about singing myself up for a silent meditation retreat during the two-week perdiod (i’ve done several of those, and they are wonderful) but then i realized that was just a pussy-ass move on my part to escape the work i need to do. speaking of which, i’m hunting for various designers of high artistic repute to help me with various packaging/website/projects. if anyone knows anyone awesome (and truly professional) comment me with a link. preferably people with high-concept art-love, nothing too corporate or corny.

i was in new york for about 8 days and did nothing but run from one meeting to another. and i’m not exaggerating. except for the day i was hung over. that day i did nothing but suffer.
i stayed in lance’s HOT upper-west side apartment (he was in berlin with meow meow) and woke after little sleep every morning to negotiate the subway system and the cab traffic. brian came and joined me for a few days. we were manager hunting.

we’re in love with our new record. the working title is “No, Virginia” and unless something wins over that, we’re sticking with it. brian and i have been spending hours poring over old photos for the album artwork.
i’m also working hard on a songbook to accompany the record with ALL the sheet music for yes, virginia and no, virginia. i am torn about what to call the book. “possibly, virginia”? “a virginia companion”? “steal this sheet music book”?

our band is good. we love our band.

there was also endless talk in the New York Meeting week about my solo record.
it’s so weird seeing all these industry folks sizing me up, sizing my music up, while i size them up. this place where business collides with art – it’s strange lands.
i only know what i know, i only know how i deal with my band, my music, my business. it’s only in hearing about other artists careers that i learn about what makes me different.
i wish i knew more songwriters and musicians. the odd thing is that i get the majority of knowledge about other people’s careers through magazines, books and other music industry people.
i wonder if they all feel the same way. we are all ships passing in the night, huddled in our sealed-up tour busses wondering when we’ll get to the promised land.
some of the things that i learn about other artists that i love and respect shock me. some things don’t shock me.

i am getting on a plane today to head for the west coast….quick meetings with katie kay and our new post-war trade intern leslie and then two weeks of seattle goodness.
jason and i are going to hunker down with the evelyn twins and finally finish this record. why am i making so many records? i Do Not Understand. something happened.

while we were in new york brian and i also stopped in and did a quick-for-fun recording with our friend franz from world/inferno and the Hold Steady. franz is a the-shit accordion player.
we did two covers: one for a johnny cash compilation and one for a jonathan richman compilation. both songs came out great and i won’t ruin the surprise too much – hopefully they’ll both come out by summer or fall.

while we were in there i was telling franz about my hangover, which was still, three days later, hanging on over. i cannot drink like i used to. i swear, i used to be able to take it. nowadays my sensitive little yoga-body is becoming a wuss. drinking is terrifying. hangovers are terrible. someday i will write a long story about the year i spent at 20 completely drunk and all the embarrassing details and near misses with rape and death. one thing is for sure: if i stack up all of the serious mistakes and regrets and shame-filled moments of my life, most of them fall in the drunk basket. thank god i never spent a year on hard drugs. why do we do this?

i went to the dentist and she told me i’m brushing too hard and that my gums are going to slowly disappear if i dont fucking watch it. i have been trying to brush with less vigor.
i write so hard when i use a pencil that i often rip through the paper.
i have been singing so forcefully for so many years that i have KISSING NODES.

is there a message here somewhere?

franz and i were about to take vocals in the studio in brooklyn and franz noticed i was passing up the delicious cashews that brian was offering me.
i told him that i’ve learned my lesson too many times: eating before doing vocals = bad. we then exchanged stories about accidentally eating tons of mexican food before performances and what occurs (hint = nothing good).
i once ate a giant burrito before a gig in pittsburgh. i almost vomited AND fell asleep during the set. we agreed that there’s something evil about a burrito specifically: it just BEGS to be finished. it’s very hard to wrap up and save for later. franz re-enacted the moment in which you are sitting there, over the plate of enchiladas, having eaten half of it and already full, continuing the raise the fork to your mouth while simultaneously thinking “THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA”. what the fuck is up with us humans? why are we so un-evolved and completely stupid? i don’t envy us.

i was prescribed a sort of anti-reflux medicine that all patients of this surgery have to take before going under the knife. i never take medication but i take a lot of vitamins. i was supposed to take one each morning before eating.
ok. easy. oh, and not drink. i think. whatever.

so the other night i had 3 glasses of wine with dinner, went to bed, woke up, ate lunch, took the medication, felt queasy, got in the car to go to yoga and then had to pull over on storrow drive and yarf in a plastic micro-center bag. it didn’t even occur to me that it was the medication. i was in such a state of shame about my hangover the previous week that i decided i was just an alcoholic and that i should book a ticket to LA and head to promises with lindsay and brit-brit. i went to yoga, threw away the yarf-bag in a parking lot trash can, spent the entire time curled up in a ball on my mat, went to drive home, and yarfed again (this time in a chinese food take-out bag). it was a terrible day. there was a party at my house that night (which i thankfully wasn’t running) and i barely made it upstairs. max played the accordion. i just noticed there is lots of accordion in my life. i love saying Yarf.

from comments:

kristie wrote

Amanda,
I need new headphones for ipod/walkman use. do you have any reccommendations?

You rock, by the way.

i use two headphones, both expensive so brace yo’self:
for casual listening and excercising and karaoke filming i use bang & olufsen wrap-arounds, seen here: http://www.bang-olufsen.com/page.asp?id=46&bhcp=1
for serious listening and studio-monitoring when i sing, i use (getting geeky here) HD280 sennheisers: http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite/productdetail.asp?transid=004974

Jessie Maims, R.O.C.K. wrote:
This surgeon isn’t the same one who took away Julie Andrews’s voice along with her nodes, is it?

funny you should ask. actually, the doctor who is doing the surgery in teh one who SAVED julie andrews’ voice afer she got it all fooked by that other doctor.

Eric wrote:
Break a leg in surgery. I found a copy of Blackfish in my parents’ attic and will send you the pdf as soon as I have a chance to scan it.

damn, man! send that shit!
for everyone elsE: blackfish is the zine i made 4 issues of in high school. it’s hilarious. i’d love to post copies somewhere online. i used to spend hours and hours and hours making them.
and eric and i recently re-united at a DC show – we went to high school together and eric was in the first play i ever wrote and directed. yip times! i love Again things.

MISC ART DEPT:

long ago, when i was working as a street performer, some film student asked me if i would do this, so i did.
here i am, as the 8-ft bride in a student film with avant art-rock in the background:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4DIc7hs_MgE

ah to be 22 with that much free time.
it’s funny, i look back at things like this and barely remember doing them. i like to think that it isn’t that my memory is bad but just that my brain is full.

in NEWSES:

after my convalescence, i’ve got a few things coming up.
the dolls record (pope’s clever new title: “Know, Virginia” – which to me sounds like the name of a planned parenthood campaign) is going to come out in late may.

i am going to make a few very small appearances in may (including the yoga journal conference – namaste motherfuckers! – in boston, my first attempt at singing with my new CORDS).

then in june i’m going to play at boston symphony hall with the boston pops. i had no idea just how much of a huge deal it was until i told my parents and they flipped out. i suppose it’s hard for me to gauge because symphony hall is right down the street from my house and i pass it on my way to the grocery store every day. it’s just THERE. but man, folks is psyched, and i’m psyched and i’m going to kick ass all over the place with those fuckin’ real-music playin’ bastards. keith lockhart, the conductor, apparently asked if he “gets to wear make-up”; this is going to be great fun. i might make him a dress. maybe a kimono or something. o boy o boy. i will be playing piano in front of a 100-piece orchestra playing my songs. this is cool. i will do some solo stuff, some dolls stuff, some other stuff. surprises will be.

in july i’m putting together my own little party-land at the Rothbury Festival, which is about a 3-hour drive from chicago in the middle of the woods. we’re getting a TENT and i am very happy.
we will have croquet and cold drinks and lots of friends over to play. parades and head-shaving may be involved. Ill be playing every day of the festival: the dolls will be playing the mainstage, I will be playing solo in the tent and I might even be teaching yoga in the morning like a fucking hippie.
Aw yeah.

…………………..

more later.

i still have two blogs on my desktop from australia and montana. they are now Vintage Blog

maybe instead of posting them i will sell them to people magazine to get money for crack

.

love
a