Category: My bad

Troubled….

I went to a gospel concert last night, and I rarely get a chance to have my face rubbed in my prejudices quite so roughly.

1.  Lead chorister / choirmaster was the very parody of a jump up to Jesus gospel singer.  He also sang flat until he warmed up.  FRICKIN AWESOME ON KEYS THOUGH. no SRSLY.

2.  For the love of GOD people, Jesus was NOT BORN IN A MANGER.  He was born in a stable and LAID IN A MANGER.  If I hear another person sing born in a manger as lyrics I’ma lose my mind.

3.  Gospel should have a live band or a keyboard player as accompanist OR NOTHING.  This group had a very sophisticated set of keys that did everything a band in a box could be expected to do, including sliding up half a tone, and providing ludicrous amounts of bass and percussion, but no soul whatever.  That was candidly the most disturbing part of it.

4. Excellent use of soloists, although I’m not a fan of the sliding up into Minnie Riperton high notes.

5. I’ve heard every Christmas song a lot over the course of half a century; you’d think I’d be happy to hear different arrangements. As well as they were sung, and the choir sang their faces off, believe me, the arrangements did unspeakable things for long dead bears.

6. My cognitive biases had me saying to myself, “And how much more I love my dear little Beacon choir, even if I’d rather hack my feet off and eat them than submit to our current choirmaster by joining.”  Don’t play well in the sandbox, me.

7.  I got to sit next to Tammy, win, and walk to and from the theatre, win.

8. And I wrote an air walking home.

 

xmas cards

Almost 20 stamped, addressed and ready to go.  I concentrated on people at church who don’t come often and people I wanted to thank for their presence in my lives, including people I normally only interact with on facebook or elsewhere on the Internet.

also, mOm when you see this can I have mailing addys for Greg and Tracy, ontie Mary and Uncas Barry and Gary, as well as Phyllis?  I can’t find my mailing list from years past…..

Despite everything – unemployment, the weather, and other things one shouldn’t publicly relate – I’m in a really good mood.  I got a ‘wretched chore’ off my list yesterday and everything balanced to the penny, so I’m a happy happy girl.  Also, I went to London Drugs yesterday looking for Blue Heron Coffee and couldn’t find it.  Now normally I’d lose my shit and panic, but old age is causing me to do things like (literally, in this case) step back and look more carefully.  THEY CHANGED THE EFFING PACKAGING.  grr.  So then I looked, and there they were, for 8.99 A PACKAGE.  Normal price 14.99, normal discount and London Drugs 11.99.  I bought 5.  Glad I went! And if anybody from church is reading this, this is why I don’t buy coffee at church.  Plus I hate Spitfire Longbottom with a passion, it tastes like mud a Komodo dragon got busy in.

Also I dropped off more receipts at the accountants and I may actually get my taxes up to date, and I found the perfect gift for Jeff, which I have no intention of buying – it’s coasters made of Antarctic maps.  Jeff’s on a really serious “READ ALL THE BOOKS ABOUT ANTARCTICA” kick; he’s relating all the best anecdotes.

I still have to go to Surrey, but maybe I’ll combine it with another errand. A leathery or musical errand.  Or maybe I’ll just grimly go straight to my errand and come back.  Thinking about my mortality doesn’t please me, and thinking that my final resting place is going to be a funerary park in Surrey about blows my tiny mind.  Paul was so sweet – when I told him I was getting the cremation ‘package’ I bought back in 95 transferred to the Lower Mainland he asked if he needed to pay for it (there’s room for two in that niche, haw haw), and I said, “Considering we had a joint checking account in those days, uh, no…. you already did.”  And besides the separation agreement says we no longer owe each other anything, although I keep thinking I want to break into his apartment and steal the damned rug we bought on Pender Island.  I LERV DAT TING.

Margot is still playing “Go Home Fly You’re Drunk” in the kitchen.  I don’t know where all these sleepy, weaving, falling down flies are coming from, but even so they’re more than a match for Miss Margot.

frabjous news

I have simply spectacular good news but I can’t say anything about it until I receive authorization.  It has to do with me and music.  I’ll leave it at that.

Board meeting was excellent and productive.  We had a board meeting/potluck and Jeff grazed on leftovers.  One of the joys of Unitarianism is candle wax, and I got some on my gran’s linen tablecloth but sing HA I have already ironed the wax out and I’ve run the tablecloth through the laundry.  So no harm done.  We had to make some hard choices, but Debra is an awesome minister and she is completely unFaZed by organizational change, is a great communicator and gosh darn a nice person.  She told her partner recently that she’s falling in love with Beacon.  I dearly love Rev Katie and really enjoy her posts (and her hubby’s) on facebook (the only way I keep track of her as there is meshugas about a retired minister poking head back in to a church for a couple of years) but she is a reserved individual and Debra is a gregarious individual and it’s obviously playing out in an interesting way in congregational life.

I’m seeing Katie for lunch today – her treat, yippee.

TAMMY IS COMING THIS MONTH.  So looking forward to seeing her and her mum, whom I usually see at the festive season.

Sue is playing Santa Claus in a play which I am going to go see.  She says playing Santa Claus is hot and hard, which kinda makes it sound pornographic now I write it out like that.

I got a completely unprintable and exceedingly welcome compliment from somebody recently, to the point that I must now quote Mark Twain: “I can live two months on a good compliment”.  I may have to stretch it out even farther than that.

I have a very obnoxious complaint to make about somebody and I am not going to publicly state it.  I want a medal or something.

I think Jeff is thrilled we had company; there’s whipped cream in the fridge and the kitchen table is now clear.  Oops, just put laundry on it.  O well, it was nice while it lasted.

This afternoon after my Katietime I will do something productive, just haven’t figured out which of my piles of shit I should attempt to render into something useful first.

I love Lockout.  Guy Pearce is A GREAT SMARTASS. Man after my own heart.  Here’s a quote from him: [2007, on his music] “I don’t want to make music to get into the pop charts and make a career out of it. I just want to play music with other people. Sometimes I record it. I think there is a value in recording it in the same way that you might write a diary. Writing a diary does not mean that you want to publish it. If this is my diary, I’m not sure that I want it to be read. And anyway, I think there is an automatic disdain for somebody who is too ambitious. People think as an actor you are gifted and don’t have any troubles in life. You are lucky to be doing this thing where all you have to do is go around telling lies and you get to kiss beautiful women. So how dare you want to be able to do this other thing. I am not interested in releasing music to a skeptical audience.”

I mourn the passing of Dave Brubeck, and light a candle also for the victims of the Montréal Massacre

oy – the crazy, it burns

Re a livejournal ‘friend’.

 

WTF?  Okay, so you’ve banned me from commenting, but why?  Either it’s because one of your friends breaks out in pustules at the very mention of my name, or because I said something to offend you personally… and of course I’m being given no opportunity to improve my behaviour.  I can’t help your friend, if that’s what the trigger was; she was craycray outta the gate.  Okay, crazy in this case is a slur…. how about absurdly sensitive, entitled, and broke my brain the day she told me that she’d ‘talked to her psychiatrist and HE diagnosed you as BPD’. Without ever seeing me.  Ya know I’m not driving to Seattle to see a psychiatrist that diagnoses people he hasn’t seen and discusses the results with other patients! woo hoo.

 

I’ve been all kinds of crazy, but I don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD. Seasonal affective disorder, sure; OCD, very likely; ADD, probably; full on depression with suicidal ideation, been there, dun that, got NO urge to get back on that train and likely won’t; migraines (which affect mood), check; rather more narcissism that makes me comfy when I get back into a mode where I can examine it, sure, but hey, I’ve written 250 melodies and you haven’t –  so I get to be ‘all that’ in those things I’ve accomplished.  But all of this is manageable, especially with the form of cognitive behavioural therapy I prefer, the friends I have, the brother I live with and my worldview, which is, depending on the day,

It isn’t about me, unless it’s happening INSIDE ME.

The universe is neutral, people are not.

This too shall pass.

My mother loves me, and she would if I was an axe murderer.  Fortunately she didn’t raise me to be an axe murderer, so she doesn’t have to visit me in jail.

I am a worthwhile person, whose behaviour is sometimes thoughtless and shabby.

Life is a curved line.

You start helpless and peeing yourself and people take care of you.  You end helpless and peeing yourself and people take care of you. If you’re really lucky, you achieve bladder control somewhere in the middle and look after people who are helpless.

Virtually nothing that happens to you happens because you deserved it.  We’re all accidents, we all came to being on a razor edge of improbabilities. Honour the complexity, the scale and heft of your life – in spite of your accidental arrival.

 

Brain hurts

It’s like a slap in the face to get up and realize there’s NO MORE SUN.  But hell, it’s October.  And October is SOME OTHER PLANET Month. (Obligatory Joe Hall reference).

I’m off to put gas in Ziva, maybe even for the last time as the plates expire at the end of the month and I’m not renewing them.  I will collect Katie and bring her back here for laundry and other mischief, and then churchy type stuff in preparation for the Board meeting tomorrow.

I am working on three new songs simultaneously.  One of them is because I downloaded a free app which allows me to strum chords I couldn’t play tanked up on painkillers, meth and ketamine, one of them is vibrating rapidly back and forth between being George’s theme (Lady of the Deep Waves) in my imaginary show and being something sad from the Game of Thrones universe, and the other is a Celtic style “Go forth and be happy” kinda tune.  I must be driving Jeff nuts, I’m practicing for hours every day and unfortunately it’s rather hard for me to write songs without actually, you know, like, singing.

I am contemplating the list of things I’ve put off with misery.  I’d like to trade that in for some feisty action and a dirk to slit the gizzard of my procrastination but the friendly NPC at the counter is NOT helping.

I’m enjoying having a phone that allows me to post pix directly to my blog though, I think it instantly made it more fun and interesting.

 

Visits.

Visited with Sue this morning to help her download from her daddy’s funeral. He was 102.  Meshuggas about the inheritance; waiting is.

LOVELY visit with Mike last night (funnily enough I’d been kvetching to Paul, with whom I was practicing yesterday, about how MIKE WUZ NOT RETURNING MY CALLS WAHWAH) and he called around 8 and I kinda forst him to let me come over.  I brought Otto and sang Theo’s Theme and John Scalzi’s Blog and Compost and Grateful and It’s Just So Nice When Someone knows your Name, and Lemming’s Twofer, and the first verse of Wanted to Believe, and Mike sang the drop D version of Dylan’s Tangled up in Blue and another song, I can’t remember which.  We talked about various things, including how trying work is for him right now, and how the insomnia really doesn’t help. BUT HE FOUND THE TAYLOR.  His parlour guitar was lost in the move but he found it again, and so me happy.  I was VERY BAD and drank two beers, which made me so drunk I collapsed on the sofa and slept from 10:30 til 8:30 the next morning.  Two beers.  I always was a lightweight, but this was ludicrous.  Also worked on Rozo for a while, her shoulders were a reticulation of weenie little knots.  While I was there Mike called Brian and I got to talk to him for a while.  There is nothing like the sound of a friend’s voice, yanno?

This morning I came home and promptly started brekkie for Jeff, being melon and bacon and pamcakes, and then Sue called and I went off and had a second breakfast of more coffee.  Also, getting checks signed so I can pay some churchy bills. Then I wandered into a sign shop and ORDERED the John Caspell Memorial Pinball Parlour sign for reelz this time, and then my other errands got shunted aside as I had to trot home due to the coffee.

Now I am looking up the language of flowers on the internet for a bouquet I’m buying for the minister tomorrow and as soon as I change my clothes – ew, slept in my clothes, what am I, frosh at some scummy college??? – I’ll be off to buy a floral bouquet, pick up some more spray paint, and buy some eggs and butter to get going on some biscotti.  Roast chicken for dinner tonight.  MMMMM chicken.

I cooked a pork roast the other night with basil and lemon thyme from Suzanne’s deck garden.  It was nommy too, although Jeff owned that it was a little overcooked.  We did agree that pork roast should be roasted, it doesn’t cook right in the crock pot.

Paul and Keith are off to Seattle for the long weekend.  Katie is doing cat care this time; I should call her.  The only reason I know she’s alive is from her facebook comments.

Miss Margot has been extra barfy.  I need to brush her very very thoroughly and give her a lot of kitty malt.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SINGING NEW SONG FOR MINISTER.  he he.

Note to self

February 7 2010, what was I doing?  Well, apparently, according to my computer I completed the lyrics for and the accompaniment for a song of my composition (circa 2008) called “Mythical”.

I completely lost any recollection of the song until I was reviewing what I had recorded in Garageband many many months later and then I had one of the more classic WTFs of my adult life.

I had NO RECOLLECTION of having recorded it.  Just to screw myself twice over I performed the song in a D open tuning and so could not determine what the chords where which accompanied it.

I tuned Smokey into a open D mode and then just spent an agonizing hour trying to recreate the song.  If I had just had the brains to write out tabs OR ANYTHING I could have saved myself the irritation.

I have recovered the song and am pleased with how amazing Smokey sounds in that tuning (and he really does too) but appalled that this song and many others could have just vanished because I’m so careless of my prodigal song writing output that it just never occurred to me that what I was doing needed additional notation.  However I think I’ve learned my lesson.  I’ve written out a cheat cheet.

 

Sundry and various

DARWIN’S BEARD!!! Have any of you seen the sheet music for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody?

A.  It whipsaws back and forth between 4/4 and 5/4 time. Cazart!

B.  It uses guitar chords so hard to play that only somebody with a left hand like the Incredible Hulk and the speed of the Flash could even attempt them, let alone play ’em in close order drill like that. Cue me swearing like a dockside bawd.

C.  Crawling away now with my various inadequacies breaking trail.

Phew, Imagine is much easier, played slower, and still interesting musically.

If anybody’s wondering I’m working my way through MTV’s 100 best pop songs looking to challenge myself with new chord progressions and possibly ‘Songs I may attempt to learn at some point.’

Oh, thank the Zimmermans for Dylan, the worst chord for Tangled Up In Blue is F#m, which is a bar chord so simple even I can play it.

Mike’s 45th bday today at Garry Point Park.  Jeff and I plan to go for a couple of hours.

Jeff and I did the lawn yesterday which improved the appearance of the place markedly.  I had a horrible experience getting the gas for the lawnmower earlier this week but I’m not going to complain about it as I have calmed down somewhat.  Life is full of sad realizations.  Including the sad realization that whoever owns the place across the alley has now spent thousands of dollars on renovations to that house, only to once again rent it to what appears to be the same ilk of person who trashed the place the last time.  IE smokers with big dogs and a relaxed attitude toward garbage in the yard.

Can’t get hold of Katie, she keeps leaving her phone at home.

I should really get back to backing stuff up before my 5 year old hard drive quits.  Jeff has been quite diligent about reminding me and I’ve been a slug.

Jeff came up with a really interesting mapping idea this morning.  I will be messaging Coz Gerald to find out just how hard it would be to for cartographic newbies.

Google and Jeff’s cellular provider have finally fixed their handshaking problems regarding the calendar in Google.  This was a real issue as the push notifications to the phone were broken for like a month, and it’s hard to run a business when your appointments keep disappearing.  The two of us are considering getting new phones, but I’m kind of inclined to keep the Blackberry until the keyboard softsides up.

Dead Can Dance concert in August, so looking forward to it.

Okay, back to work….

 

The little list

I made a list of things that make me happy about 5 years ago (probably before I blew out my back), and it’s really interesting to see how things changed.

Foreign films.  Still true.

Wreck Beach.  Still true; but I don’t go as much.

Roller skating.  I haven’t done that in ages, and given that my balance is not good, I think that’s done.  I still have ice skates but gosh, I’ve put on enough weight to make them a bad fit.

Writing songs.  Now folks, what do YOU think?  SVQ.  Still my favourite activity by far.  And so cheap! And so close! And so filled with inertnesting surprises!

Baking pies.  I don’t think I’ve made more than one pie since I started living with Jeff.  That, I hasten to add, is not his problem/fault/responsibility.  Mmmm, pie. Too hot to bake right now.

Going to a spa.  Oh, yeah.  In fact, I think I may book something soon.

Cooking a large meal for a houseful of friends.  Still true.

Throwing a party.  Still true.

Walking.  enh, not so much.  I have to get going on this and just make a walk part of my morning routine, rain or shine.

Watching bugs.  I can still do this for hours.  I prefer that they not be silverfish under my bed though.  I just cleaned under my bed, laid down some silverfish poison, and found twenty bucks.  Even my fucking room is expressing an opinion on the subject of how stytastic it is.

Listening to live music.  And you would guess….?

Home-making presents.  Still doing that.

Watching fireworks.  Well, the Vancouver crowds suck unholy mops, but yes.

Walking downtown on a Saturday night.  I love people watching.  Early in the evening, before the drunks get violent.

Getting a massage.  Sadly, I have to pay for these now.  I can winkle a few minutes out of the kids, but sigh.

Driving through terrain.  I love highway driving in BC.

Seeing unusual animals – pets, IRL, zoos, TV shows – I loves me weird critters.  Current favourite is velvet worms.

Travelling alone.  I hate it; I prefer to do it alone.  And sometimes being by myself at 30000 feet is okay; that’s the part of the trip that doesn’t freak me out.

Eating lobster.  Yes.  This.

Having sex.  Haw, haw, haw.  I’m celibate now – have been for a year – and I can cross this safely off my list of things to enjoy.  This aphorism deleted.  And nobody wants to hear details either way so, bully for me.

Going to the ballet.  Haven’t done that in ages.  The last opera was ruined by the perfume (Fuck Entitled White Women and their TRAIL OF TEAR GAS).  But I could definitely handle some dancing soon.

What wasn’t on the list – drinking beer. Surfing the internet or watching ER for 6 hours at a time.  Hugging my kids.  Hearing a friend’s voice on the phone.  Going to church.

Dead loss

Yesterday was a dead loss due to a migraine – not much pain but violent visual disturbances including one quarter of my visual field disappearing before an onslaught of boiling, twisting, geometric-and-then-fractal rainbows held in a semicircle.

This morning laid out tarot…

VII Swords for querent, ow.

VII Pentacles for cross card, double ow.

Followed by The Sun (XIX), and Strength (VIII). ?!

Followed by King of Pentacles and The World (XXI).

Followed by

V Wands

X Wands (this and the next card emphasize the first two very nicely, just in case I wasn’t getting the message the first time)

V Cups

Knight of Pentacles

TL;DR:  Querent is lazy and intellectually dishonest and her troubles are much of her own making.  Some decks are tricksy and hard to interpret; my deck rolls over from a sound sleep, karate chops my liver, follows with a right cross to my face and goes back to bed.

 

Lunch happened dinner didn’t.

Thank you LTGW for a superb lunch and the even more amazing and gratitude inducing pep talk afterwards.  You da man, I loves you, blah blah blah woof woof.

On another subject entirely….

After many years of sober consideration, aided by being up Too Fracking Early, I have come to the conclusion I should no longer use LOL.  Instead, this serves as a public notice that if you have amused me with your ideas and posts and pix and whatnot, I will in future being SVQ – Snickering Very Quietly.

Today, Lunch with Tamara, movie with the kids.  Me happy!

Long and McQuade solved my closure problems!  For twenty bucks I got 10 feet of 2 inch gluebacked black velcro.  Also more straps, guitar cleaner, and OF COURSE I FORGOT TO GET A HEADSTOCK TUNER, the one thing I actually NEEDED from the store. Estupido, muy estupido.

Lovely to talk to Tammy (different Tammy) this morning.  She saw Gaudi’s Holy Family in Barcelona, happy sigh.