Carol Kroll

It’s getting stormy out here…

But THIS time I’m staying put in my little inner tube. If you were passing by on a huge ocean-liner during this squall, you would probably point and say: Bloody madness! Sure. But what other choice do I have really?

Photo courtesy of The Onion

Care for a long story? Sure. That’s why you come here.

So. Morgyn asked if Sweet Jelly will be playing out any time soon. Nope. Doesn’t look like it. But we still make music every other Tuesday and I still enjoy that part of it. That and the musical collaboration of 3 very talented friends. After 8 years, it’s your family and what you know. I am still its loyal subject. Why else would I drive 4 hours roundtrip in every weather condition imaginable two times a month?

But, yes Mo, I need to perform. I crave it and I miss it. Just like I need to make visual art and gravely missed doing that too before my recent revival about a year ago. I have tried to conform and fit in by playing “normal” and trying to ignore this part of my personality but it isn’t working. I have been trying to ignore it since I was 16 and wanted to join a band and make my own animated music videos. That didn’t really go over very well with my parents as I was doing it, and the need/drive never went away. And sort of began when I got the lead in my school musical of “Sakura” in first grade, continued when I played piano at school talent shows every year, longed to be the 5th Monkee, was picked for all city choir (the only one from my school) got to “travel” for that and made up a wickedly cool song about the boy I fell hopelessly in love with when I was 17 who broke my heart in 10,000 pieces claiming I was “too good for him” (what is that sh*t?) my sister Cindy remembers. I cried for MONTHS. I’m talking hysterically sobbing, not eating, not talking, and the serious urge along with research to join a nunnery. And if you know me, crying really isn’t something that how shall I say, comes naturally for me.

So, sorry everyone. Apparently “it’s” not going away.

And when I continue to try to ignore this annoying fact about me, I end up becoming fat, lazy, apathetic, and locate myself on the couch night after night watching Everyone Loves Raymond with a large glass or 5 of red wine. It really is easier that way. Less painful and less work.

But, I rarely do anything the EASY way. Or at least for long. THIS I can count on. Good to know THAT part of me still exists. I love making everything harder than it needs to be.

And now that I am determined to duke it out with myself once and for all in my life, you as the reader of this blog, will have to bare witness to this imaginary struggle that exists inside my head. It’s now a showdown. And who knows? When they haul me away kicking and screaming to the quiet hospital, I may continue blogging about it from my little padded room. Surely they would allow the internet there. Typing might be hard with that special jacket, but I’m resourceful.

Photo courtesy of koolbirks.com

Since I quit my graphic artist’s office job two years ago to help maintain our home business of web page making and domestic normality, and to “find” myself, ironically, I started feeling more and more “lost” viewing my creativity as a curse and not something that should be cherished, something which instead often fills me with guilt and frustration. And so I chose many times to turn it off and ignore it. Grass needs to be cut, dishes need to be done, and bills need to get paid – you know – REAL world stuff. I even went and got a library assistant job to FINALLY make a decent NORMAL sane person’s living. Right as I was making real headway with my art too (the timing was not coincidental, btw… and an extension of my subconscious mind’s fear of happiness) But it didn’t pan out the way I had hoped. I was actually quite offended when most of my close friends laughed at me and chided, “But Carol, and please don’t be angry, but working at a LIBRARY is the LAST place I picture you…”

But I was offended. So I’m this loud mouthed ridiculously goofball of a person that couldn’t be quiet enough or smart enough to work in some place as sophisticated as a library? (I thought in silence)

But now I am starting to get it. And I dont think that is what they meant. Or they did, but they were right, I didn’t belong there.

So since I can’t deny this annoying part of my personality that wants to perform and sing on a stage, along with the other extreme of being a total hermit and making visual art, last week, I sang with a different band here in Madison called The Gomers.

Now before anybody wigs out about my band adultery, let it be known that this is a thing called Gomeroke and I am among MANY who get to play rockstar for 3 minutes with a real band. Believe me, I keep fighting the loud shouty voice of: How did it come to this? Singing karaoke with a (albeit talented) cover band and a number clipped to my ass like the rodeo.

But it’s fun and provides my fix. Not to mention, having complete strangers come up to you after your number and telling you, “You rocked!” (and) “Had no idea all that would come out of a little girl like you!” helps too. I’m 36 and hardly a little girl, but my self esteem on all fronts thanks you. And believe me, the audience last week, was not kind to some that graced that stage, so I am taking what people said to me, about me, to heart. I do plan on doing it again. At the very least, it releases a lot of pent up energy for me and maybe along the way, getting better at my craft. I did miss my bandmates, though.

Currently I’m cleaning my studio (which is a fancy word for what used to be a child’s bedroom in a 1950’s ranch style house) to get it ready to paint and remodel. Green. I love green. I bet my neighbors are so pleased to see this when my windows are open. No insanity here! Move along please.

This is a process I have been involved in also for two years. But fear has held me down on the ground with a knife to my throat and I have basically avoided making any real advancements. Either to the structure itself or what is made IN it. Fear of what? Oh that is a very good question indeed. LOTS of things. Failure, success, stupidity, brilliance, naiveness, wasting of the time, the silliness of my goals, the list is endless, really.

Here’s a box of my lyrics. And thus have labeled the box accordingly.

Some have musical mates set to them and are living happily ever after on a recording somewhere, others are dying a horrible unsung death. And perhaps rightly so. Or not. Im on the fence what to do with this box that has been a lead balloon in my studio and a big pain in my ass for about 8 years now. How about a little multiple choice and audience participation about said box?

Do I…

A. Keep it
B. Burn it
C. Chuck it off a bridge
D. Bury it in my backyard with a big note on it that says “Confederate Money”

Personally I like option “D” and find that quite humorous as an image of the next family that lives here unearths that find as they put in a new flower bed.

I’m torn. The last time I went through and chucked all my old artwork back in my mid 20’s, I made the mistake of doing it at my parents house (where it was all kept at the time) and various family members “rescued it” (unbeknownst to me) and now it is on their walls.

Not.

Really.

What.

I.

Was.

Going.

For.

I know they were only trying to help and I know it makes them happy and that really is the important thing, but when I look at it, I see old shite. They hate hearing that, so I don’t usually say anything. It is really hard to explain. Maybe its the urge of needing and wanting to do something better? Or looking at your sad attempts head-on, amplifying the CURRENT doubting Thomas’s that like to hang out “upstairs” during the times you really ARE making headway. “See? You do suck. Check out THIS painting you did 300 years ago! Can’t deny THAT can you? Hey look Bridezillas is on…and you are getting sleepy…wine anyone?”

Oh, I will probably keep the damn box and browse through it for curiosity sake, might be some nuggets in there for new creations and my side project I am working on, but I think it would be freeing if I just burned all of it in a fire. Along with some of my artwork when nobody is looking.

Speaking of which, I was waiting for a painting to dry and decided to rewrite what I lost earlier today. Tah tah for now!