accordion – Page 2 – Jill Domschot

I find the music almost intolerable, but I have to admit that my anti-authoritarian nature closely resembles those now old youths from the late seventies and early eighties. I never could manage to force my hair to stand on end. In high school, I asked a punk rock friend how I could shape my hair into a mohawk like he had. He looked distinctly uncomfortable and told me it would wreck my beautiful hair but gave me a recipe nonetheless.

My hatred for authority figures is not as shallow as spiky hair. It comes from a lifetime of observation, watching what petty tyrants are capable of because most people make no hue and cry over their overreaches. Being institutionalized from kindergarten up allows most to be right in line with injustice and overreach; it’s simply what they’re used to. A handful of us freaks never adapt, however. We might have very low or very high IQs–we might not fit in for whatever reason–but we never can fall into line. We are belligerent with every unconstitutional traffic stop, we don’t wear our masks, we just don’t. One year, I refused to acknowledge DST, completely confusing everyone who has been deluded by the government into thinking the sun is directly overhead at 11 AM. Guess what? It is not.

I am more punk rock than I wish to be at this time of year. What gets to me about DST is that it’s completely arbitrary. There’s no reason to do it. It never did save energy, and the evidence is conclusive that it’s bad for the health. It makes me excessively angry, only I never know who to take out my aggressions on. This week is, therefore, like every time change before it: running off no sleep and desperately wanting to hurt someone in the government, anyone will do. Use torture until the forces relent and go back to standard time. God’s time–when noon means the sun is directly overhead, and we are allowed the healthy properties of early morning sunlight.

Today my mentality is better. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m still punk rock about the issue. But I rose this morning and plodded through my exercise as exhausted as the other days, and felt less angry. The problem is it’s just as life-sucking to be constantly angry as it is to be forced into enacting ridiculous nonsense. The government and its nanny state doesn’t care two wits about me or you, and neither do I care for them. They can strip us naked, search our luggage and homes and cars, interrogate us for no reason, shut our churches down and force us to pay over twenty percent of our income to them in taxes so that they can continue being tyrants, but what they can’t do is steal my soul or my joy.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, and I will wear my green (green stands for being Catholic, btw, but my ethnicity is also Irish). In fact, I purchased a green shirt with a norteño style accordion on it, and I will wear it to work tomorrow. It says “Air Accordion” at the top, which is a bit ridiculous, as I would be playing my own ribcage. Just the thought of being that ridiculous brings me further joy. I think I might die laughing while I pretend to play the accordion at work.

I happen to work in an office that sits under the Vatican flag, and it makes me consider how young this nation is; it’s tyranny is childlike compared to older authority systems. And despite the mixed history Rome has as an authority figure, to me it’s quite a bit more valid than the US government. It has reformed itself throughout many centuries. I don’t see the US government reforming itself. I could be wrong, though. I’ve been known to be on at least three occasions.

I hope you enjoy your corned beef, if you do that on St. Patty’s Day. As for me, I will eat my American-Irish cuisine and pretend I’m a San Patricio, playing my Mexican songs on the accordion. My excuse is never learning Irish songs…because, why would I when I can learn perfectly good polkas and cumbias to sing along with? I’m a woman obsessed, a woman on a mission. Please do not get in my way, unless you are playing punk rock Irish rebel songs. Those are almost tolerable.

If it seems that I’m trying to write more on my blog, yes, I have been. I get overwhelmingly busy, and this is the first to go. I no longer wish that to be the case. As today is a day off, and I’m being lazy more than I am productive, I thought I would write a simple note here on productivity. It happens through A. hard work and B. organization.

I’ve long been organized with my exercise routine. I walk for 30 minutes every evening, and do a focused exercise for 30 minutes in the morning. I follow a routine: cardio, strength, stability, repeat. That makes 6 workouts a week, with Sunday reserved for one long, relaxing walk only. This combination, which has some overlap — e.g., some stability workouts are combinations of cardio plus balance and standing abs — works. I’m only exercising an hour a day, but my organization keeps me fit.

As I’m staring at my laptop from the office shed I rarely have time to use, I’m wondering why I can’t apply this kind of organization to finishing my current novel or playing the accordion. To be fair, I subscribed to the Acordeonisticos website to try to create a more focused approach than playing an hour a day of whatever I feel like playing. But I’m still prone to playing whatever I feel like playing, even after subscribing. I need a focused plan! An example might be: music theory, practice old songs, learn a new song, repeat, with Sunday my anything-goes day.

Re writing, my organization amounts to writing 1000 words a day. This is an extremely disorganized plan. I need those 1000 words to be focused. I need to do more mapping and editing. My mapping exists, but it is very slapdash. I will provide a pic, so you can see how slapdash it is. I will also provide a pic of my beloved office that awaits me, a dusty place shut up most days because I have an office at the parish I use 45 hours a week. But I can’t use that office to write; my only shot at that is to sit in the office kitchen on my lunch hour and slam out a few words.

I’m not one for outlining. It gives me the horrors and bad memories from failing at English class in my childhood. I probably should have paid more attention to it. I need to start outlining. Following an outline is the only way to write a book, unlike the pattern of threes that could work for music, as it does for exercise.