I keep trying to choose the opening song for a recording, not the whole album yet, just one song I can afford to do properly. At a funeral I know what will make the aunties stand, but someone listening alone may skip before the chorus comes. The boys want the fastest one. My father would choose the one with the cleanest harmony, and I already know my mother's choice will depend on the price of the studio. I played three beginnings on Madam tonight and liked the second best, though I have no ending for it. Wrote that down before I changed my mind. Tomorrow the drummer will arrive and tell me why it needs more drums.

The children at school wanted me to dance while they played, so I stood up from the keyboard and showed them, only a small demonstration became a whole song because none of them would stop! I was hot right down my back, shoes off and laughing too much to sing properly, but the waist felt freer than after sitting on those low stools all evening. One child said Madam can dance, as if this was news from the radio. I drank my warm water slowly afterward and let them argue about who had kept the time. My legs were still tapping under the desk while I marked their work. Those children have used up my morning strength oo.

My son showed me a recording he had cleaned up on his phone, an old rehearsal of our band, and suddenly I could hear my voice without the fan fighting me. I was stoked enough to call my mother from the courtyard, then remembered she would ask what he should charge. For once I wanted him just to play it again. He explained what he had changed and I tried not to interrupt, difficult work for this woman. I felt proud, yes, and a little shy hearing myself so clearly in front of him. He said the singing was already good. I told him of course it was, then asked him to send me the file before he went anywhere.