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Sister Transistor, or my overactive imagination.

It’s been a while since I blogged about anything embarrassing, so here we go.

I think I’ve mentioned that I have an overactive imagination and that I invent imaginary bands. That’s because I don’t believe that my inability to read music/write songs/play an instrument should keep me from feeling like a rock star. This system works well. I recruit other people who can’t play, and we have imaginary rehearsals, imaginary tours, with imaginary gigs at imaginary venues.

Does anybody else do this? Because I put a lot of mental energy into my longest-running project, Sister Transistor, an imaginary all-girl rock band.

Sister Transistor boasts a mixture of real and imaginary band members and a set list of covers which we pretend are original songs. We have lots of pretend drama: Our imaginary bass player, Pangaea is always threatening to quit and join the eco-terrorists who bomb Japanese whaling boats, while our pretend lead guitarist, Beth Hammerdown, recently attracted attention when she became a spokesperson for the Tea Party. It’s an imaginary public relations nightmare.

The whole band thing is an elaborate fantasy that’s been constructed, bit by bit, over the past three or four years. Until recently we were happy without an imaginary album, but since I was learning Photoshop this summer, I decided to use our debut album cover as my project.

Below are my top three album covers.

Album 3: I think scotch and cookies really captures the spirit of Sister Transistor.

Album 2: I recruited my husband as baker and photographer for this one. Pity the man.

Album 3: This might be my favorite. Sorry for eating with my mouth open.

UPDATE: I put my faux album cover on a tee shirt! And I will totally order it and wear it because no one will know who this band is, and that will make me the coolest kid on the block. I know. It takes a special kind of mental illness to make merch for an imaginary band. Actually, it takes a special kind of mental illness to make merch for a blog, but if the Bloggess can do it, so can I.

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The biological time bomb.

When I was younger, I didn’t believe in a biological clock. It seemed incredible that I would ever desperately want children.

Don’t get me wrong – I think I’ve always expected that at some point in the future I’d probably have kids, but I never actively desired them. And in many ways, I still don’t. The idea of having kids is terrifying on quite a few levels, actually. For one thing, I think I’ve mentioned that I worry a lot. Having small humans to worry about would make me a neurotic wreck. For another, I have a weak stomach and kids do nasty things. And then there’s the fact that I have a hard time communicating with people under the age of seven.

So I was pretty shocked about a year and a half ago when my brain started ticking like a time bomb. This state gives new meaning to the phrase “of two minds.” My rational brain doesn’t want children;  it wants to continue living its current rock star lifestyle. Meanwhile, there’s this weird primal voice in my brain that’s just howling for children. I smack it down, but it has weird ways of fighting back. I get strangely emotional when I see baby clothes. Holding an infant sends me into a pheromone-induced haze. The only thing that snaps me out of it is a child howling.

None of this has been helped by the fact that my doctor told me last year that my childbearing days are trickling away. I was 31 at the time. I was celebrating the fact that my 30s were the new, improved 20s and this old guy was telling me that I have a dusty uterus!

Evolution is a bitch. But so is karma. Because I find that some people simply don’t believe in biological clocks. And men I’ve talked to – one of whom was a medical student – seem to believe that the biological clock is a social construct. Oh dear – I used to think that too.

In the meantime, two good things have come of this. The first is the realization that the biological clock will eventually go away. Either I will age out of it or I will have a kid. The second good thing? Thanks to my doctor’s remarks, I now have a great name for an all-female country-western band. Click below, on “continue reading,” for a look at our first album cover. (Apologies to those who don’t see a page break and are just getting an image.) Read more

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