On Friday March 2nd, I will return to the stage at Billie’s Black to bring you some new sounds I’ve been stirring up with the help of some awesome noisemakers.
Please join me and my new friends for a night of exploration and experimentation. Just trust me…

Hope to see you there!

Buy The Sublimation of ArinMaya Tickets Here

are we ALWAYS happy? of course not!
are we ALWAYS considerate. no. and that’s the problem.
i believe we should always STRIVE to be our best and to be that towards others. through our words and actions. i know it’s hard to say with love “you’re getting on my nerves,” but it’s possible. it’s one thing to sit alone in a room and be disappointed in yourself. to beat yourself up* about something unpredictable that happened in life or that turned out differently than expected. but it’s yet another thing to take that disappointed attitude out on someone else, based on YOUR view of how things should have gone.

i think the conversation all stems from listening to ourselves. hearing the voices inside our own heads. thinking before we speak. visualizing the golden rule in practice: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

it’s as if we’ve forgotten to teach this to children these days. we speak to each other carelessly and then expect them to do differently. we can do better. and so we shall…

*Note: i do not believe in self-deprecation. though we CAN control our outlook and the way we attract things to us (through words and thoughts and actions) we CANNOT control everything around us.

and now, I feel even more amped to move forward and forward, cause i got an avid proooo
i actually got it with my citibank thank you points! who knew i could actually reap rewards from such a force??!

first off, i feel like i can do anything i want now. of course i can admit i did do some of this with garageband, but i guess i feel more legit now. (no offense apple! i love you!)
but i have been recording references at home for days now and i’m excited to get time in with the band (and to keep growing it – who’s on keys…??)

i’ve been carrying it wherever i go…along with my microphone, mic cord, compact hard drive…. this stuff is HEAVY and my shoulders hurt
BUT it’s so worth it!

i’m feeling so good about the sounds happening in my head – i really and truly cannot wait to share it all with whoever is in he audience in the coming months!
harlem (and TORONTO!!!) here i come

get yo’selves ready – this is fair enough warning…

my brother makes me laugh, most often at the dumbest stuff ever, but i love him so much more for it. my sister and i spend wonderful times sitting in front of the dummy box watching uber-stupid reality shows and we laugh so much we end up crying! my old roomie (and good friend from kindergarten) is one of the people who helped usher me from my more serious college self into my more lighthearted laugh-all-bit-more self.

i’m just going to list a few things here, and i hope they’ll bring you to past memories of laughter and joy in your life. if not, maybe you’ll check them out in your spare time. or maybe you’ll think me a fool. either way, this is just to say, laughter is often a GREAT remedy. it’ll turn your funk upside down, and (get this) you’ll lose calories in the process!

talladega nights
all things (but a few) will farrell
OLD saturday night live (e.g. “you like-ah de sauce” or “delta delta delta! can i helpya helpya helpya??”)
anchorman
*i know this seems like a lot of will farrell, but just enjoy it*
al bundee
sue sylvester’s script for glee!
little miss sunshine
the bondocks
katt williams
“eddie! i want half!”

…this is just a starting off list. feel free to add your own items to the list or start a whole new one.
if you remember nothing else, remember this: love breeds love. truth breeds truth. and laughter breeds all this and more laughter too

happy 2012 (3 weeks later)

It’s downloadable for free on bandcamp, so go get it now!!! This offer may not last too long…
Keep shining!

one of the most important things i took away from the consultations i had with the acupuncturist i used was that it is SO important to eat three meals a day, most importantly breakfast

she tried to help me understand that without breakfast, my system, which is built/designed to feed from what i eat, has nothing to feed on when i don’t eat, hence health problems

alas!

so i started eating breakfast…only to discover it made me HUNGRY!!! usually i would eat my first meal around 3pm when I went to my part time job. before then, my mind was occupied with the things i needed to get done before i went to work. but all of a sudden, i was craving – ravenously craving – food at 1/2pm, lunchtime. and i didn’t like the feeling.

it felt like a self-prescribed emptiness that i created by giving myself something i need, only to feel the loss of that thing – all of a sudden i had created a dependency.

even as i write this, i’m understanding more and more the reason i fought with this food battle, and further why i don’t like to miss people. they’re connected, i promise.

i like to think of myself as pretty easygoing and free. what this means is i can exist on my own without too much help or too much interference, god forbid DEPENDENCY on someone or something outside of me. i try to make decisions that will maintain this “balance” but am often led back to the reality that no man is an island. (‘man’ here is congruent to woman; that woman is me)

so the idea of missing someone suggests that there is something lacking in me – a need i have created outside of myself for someone else or what they have, when previously i at least FELT just fine without whatever it is they have or whoever they are.
i often say “i don’t like to miss people” and this is why. so the logic i claim to hold so strong to makes NO sense because like my good friend Maya Azucena said on stage the other night: i am in love with the idea of being in love. however, beyond that fact, i actually DO want to experience love one day. i hear words like vulnerability float around me like clouds in a rainless sky.

but how can i ever experience that sensation when i simultaneously desire so stringently to need only me?

i’m gonna work on this concept of wanting and needing and missing….and getting the best out of it all. i’ll be back later…
hugs until then,
*arinmaya*

the family i babysit for gets a farmshare in their neighborhood and i usually pick it up. lately we’ve been avoiding radishes because we don’t know what to do with them.
of course we could have just googled a recipe, but me and the mother have decided to just choose something to substitute for the radishes. butternut squash (i LOVE to make a creamy soup from these diamonds) or broccoli or anything but….radishes :-/

however, my recent obsession with late-night shopping* right in my neighborhood at the 24-hour health food veggie market has led me to some amazing finds! 2lbs of red onions for $1??? two heads of broccoli for $1!!! i am in vege-vega-pesce-glutenfree-sugarless-HEAVEN!

(i have a few dietary constraints that get solved mainly by eating vegetables, SOME fruits, some seafood, nuts!, and a few other various and sundry exceptions to the prohibitions set out above )

anyway, last night, i ventured into the land of radishes. there was a little sandwich-sized bag with about 10 radishes (am i doing this plural thing right?) in it and it was in a box with a sign that said $1. so you KNOW i had to get them. my thought was, how about i try radishes with some hummus? i love hummus, and it’s pretty awesome on everything, so why not?

may i just say these last few words very slowly, just to make sure you understand how i feel right now.

WOOOOOOWSERS! radishes are my friend! they are gorgeous and refreshing and crispy and just all around vun-da-ful! and with this olive hummus i have, i could have died! perfection in taste and health couldn’t have come at a better time.

radishes, you have made me proud. and i will be eating you regularly now, looking for you next to $1 signs, and feeling good about myself.

(can you tell i like to eat? more food…and music stories to come!)

*one of my biggest complaints about the states upon returning from paris a few years ago was that parisians eat so well because they cook almost every day, allowed by the fact that there are grocery stores on almost EVERY corner (unlike our liquor stores), and these stores stay open until at LEAST 10pm. alas, our system has some fixing to do ‘pon itself!