Iced Tea Forever

My older sister found ITF and left this gem of a comment. But I thought it deserved a better place than buried under an old post, so I’m repeating it here:

Tom, I’ve just discovered your blog and feel obligated to let you and the rest of the world know that you owe much of your literary greatness to me. I realized that you were uniquely gifted and downright funny at a very early age (yours, not mine) and sailed through my high school Creative Writing class with my ever popular “Tommy stories”. For example, your deep insight on self image at the age of two. You were looking in the mirror saying, “I’m ugly”. I tried unsuccessfully to convince you that you were cute but you eventually decided, “I’m just right.” Obviously you still understand that (also a good haircut helps)! Carry on!
–Big Sis

Ha ha! I really haven’t changed much!

Here are the flowers my Mom sent me the other day. They’re in full bloom now.

In the meantime, back home in Indiana, I was told it was 17 degrees this morning. It was frigid. Clearish sky, the sun might have been shining. So the Sunday School superintendent says it made him think of spring!

Oh right! Give me a break! Ain’t no springtime has 17-degree mornings!

Now I’m an author. I’m also an editor. And a poet. Basically, if there’s anything I want to be I just call myself one and say that I am. But judging from some of my writings (like that last sentence), REAL writers would probably want to disassociate themselves from me.

But that’s the beauty of blogging, you can just excuse stuff like that because “I was writing stream-of-consciousness!” Conscience. Conscious. Conscienceness. Konshunce. Konchunceness. See, I’m doing it right now.

Anyway, I enjoy immersing myself in constructing deep poetry. The difficulty in being a male poet is that poetry requires a deep connection to intense feelings and emotions, and we all know that a male’s strong point usually isn’t a connection with his emotional being. So I have to really dig deep, look down in that hidden and secret place, try to find those elusive male emotions.

I’ll let you know if I ever find them.

I write by the “inspiration” method. I don’t usually just sit down and decide to write a masterpiece, I have to be inspired. For instance, I’m working on a poetic masterpiece about eggs. I like eggs, and one day inspiration struck me and inspired me to write an inspirational work on eggs. So I am.

A similar reason was behind the following masterpiece. One day I was inspired to write a poetic work on inspiration. Here it is for your edification and inspiration. Thanks to Crystal and Merry for their valuable editorial assistance.

Inspiration

One day the thought occured to me,
While musing on the arts,
That I should write some poetry
And maybe warm some hearts.

I thought it really would be fine
To write myself a poem,
A soothing way to while the time
Just sitting here at home.

I got a pen and sat right down,
The words began to flow.
For inspiration came and found
A muse prepared to go!

The words, they fell and formed the lines,
They just were meant to be.
The rhythm came along with rhymes,
It flowed right out of me!

This inspiration thing is great,
I thought triumphantly.
My poem and verse will be first rate,
I’ll write prodigiously.

That inspiration kept its surge,
And I was on a roll.
Then it stopped.

Tom Troyer
7-’04

Yes she did. I got this box in the mail, and I wondered what in the world was in it. Daffodils! She sent me some last year too. Both times in the middle of a snowy and freezing winter.

She sends them sealed in a Ziploc bag with a wet paper towel rubber-banded around the bottom of the stems.

This is how they looked when I first got them yesterday.

And, this is how they look tonight!

Thanks Mom.

She reads this blog you know.

I miss Merry and Crystal.

I talked about my new quartet, here’s a link to their website: Vocal Witness

Keith just recently started working on it. And for you who were whining about mp3’s, there is a track off of their CD you can download!

It’s been a long day. I was fasting from iced tea today, until now. Ag would be proud I hope. I rehearsed with my new quartet tonight! So since I needed to sing this evening, I refrained from iced tea. Kind of like a mini Lent or something.

I have some buddies out here in IN that sing in an a cappella quartet called Vocal Witness. They made a CD last year on which I did some engineering/mixing. I’ve also filled in on baritone for a gig once, I sang with them at the Haiti Auction last May in Shipshewana. And I’ve been rehearsing with them some recently while their baritone is away for awhile. Anyway, their bass is resigning so it looks like I might be joining them before too long. Time to get back in the singing groove!

You’ll notice under my disclaimer that there is now a Syndication link. There was some question earlier as to what RSS and XML and Atom and Syndication was exactly, here is a good primer.

By popular demand, here’s a sampling of Heartbeat’s new CD I recently reviewed.

I slapped a few clips of several tracks together to give you a quick sample of the album. Download it here (2.4MB).

To give you a true indicator of the magnitude of today’s happenings, I present before and after pics.

Be prepared to be astonished and amazed.

Before:

And after!

As you can tell from the look on my face, I feel so much better!