Tuesday workday

I somehow managed to quickly shift to the daylight savings time change this past Sunday, because 3 o’clock feels like it should, which is still early but the normal wake up time for a workday. The gradual health effects of laying off alcohol are still being felt. Not quite the same as detox, but a gradual improvement in relative energy and sleep.

The coronavirus is still dominating the news as I expect it will continue to do so. Work is still a going thing and as long as they’re open for business I plan on going unless I personally was feeling sick. I imagine we still haven’t seen the full-blown epidemic version of it in the states just yet. I’m curious how accurate a picture we’ll really get because the Trump administration has already proven they will lie, obfuscate, and cloud the picture for political and economic advantage. It hasn’t helped and has only likely made the situation exponentially worse.

Everything from national to local to private organizations has shut down or restricted operations in wake of the virus, in an effort to contain the outbreak. We haven’t seen anything large scale here yet, but it’s only a matter of time. If they cut back at work and I’m unable to get patients, we’ll just dial back financially and hunker down until this thing passes. We’ve been on the accelerated house payoff schedule, but that can be delayed for a few months (or longer if needed) if my schedule falls off at work.

This situation is just another reason why paying off the house has been the best plan. We could essentially live at home and almost never need to leave the house for anything other than groceries and gas for the car. We could even have groceries delivered if need be, although I think the relative risk of exposure compared to our brief trips to the store is about the same. Even though Sams and Walmart stay busy, it’s not like they’re packed to the gills and if you get stuff delivered there are still multiple hands touching it regardless. Hopefully, none of this will be necessary but we’re already in a long term habit of only shopping weekly or less often and we can shift that even further if need be.

I took Sunday off from most DTD tasks, although I did eventually exercise. Yesterday was a bit more productive, completing everything except vocal drills. I’m leaning towards are more guitar and drum focused schedule where I may just steal time from bass, vocals and even keys for awhile. If I had to pick two instruments to be more adept at, it would be drums and guitar. This has changed because I would have always said keys and guitar in the past, but I think drums are the area that will benefit me most compositionally. I’m not giving up on keys, bass, and vocals, it’s just that I really want to get to a higher level on guitar and drums that can be utilized in my songwriting.

I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with my playing, but there are so many inspirational players out there who constantly remind me that there’s so much room for improvement. I was already noticing a small benefit from the fretboard memorization drills, something I had kind of noticed in the past but never really committed to memory. There are only a finite number of notes and positions on the fretboard, so it only makes sense to get them memorized where you can immediately identify the note you are playing. This is really remedial considering how much I’ve learned in the past, but I just want to reinforce those fundamentals and then take what I’ve learned much further this time. The perpetual student - in large part this is where I find happiness and fulfillment.

I finished Dracula yesterday. The Coppola film did end up being fairly true to the original although some things changed in the adaptation as they always do. Dracula’s fascination with Mina and her similarity to his former wife are never a part of the book. In fact, the character of Dracula is fairly flat, more of an opposing avatar or symbolic force of evil for the main cast. We typically only see the outcome of his actions and his actual scenes are fairly brief with only the smallest amount of dialogue. His biggest or at least longest scenes all occur in the interactions with Harker at Castle Dracula, at the beginning of the novel. Still, it’s very effective storytelling and like I had mentioned before, reminded me of the Lovecraftian approach to tangential storytelling. I plan to read the rest of the novellas and short stories in this Stoker collection, but I think I may move onto something else for now.

I’m nearly finished with the Flander’s Victorian House book, so I’ll have to peruse my shelves and see what’s next. Maybe another writing craft book. I’m thinking for fiction I might pick one of the Brontes or maybe I’ll finally try and tackle The Silmarillion.

Frauds, Roombas, and Contraband...

…is a statement that has no relevance to this post, but it was fun to say. Back to work today for the grueling two-day workweek. It’s tough, but some of us are hewn from ancient granite. It was surprising three years ago when I switched over to fee basis, how quickly I adjusted to the then three-day workweek. Within the space of two weeks, I knew I could never go back to a full time five day a week job. I know that’s not an option for most people, and I would work that schedule if I didn’t have a choice, but now I do. Shifting from spending most of your time working and all the ancillary tasks in a typical life gave little spare time for other pursuits. That’s probably the single greatest gift of the job change, all the additional time for creative disciplines.

My typical schedule had been three days/week for three weeks and then the fourth week off, but I’ve adjusted it slightly. Lately, the available work has taken a bit of a hit, plus I’m waiting for a new salary waiver approval to come down, so I’ve switched to two days/week for three weeks, followed by a one-day work week. This is intended to allow me to stay within my current salary limit of $153K, which thankfully seems permanent in case the waivers don’t get re-approved. Under that system, I was able to earn $210K, but it was a national program that needed renewal every two years. We’re still waiting since the last one expired at the end of 2019. As it stands I’m working seven days a month, but will switch back to nine if the waiver comes through. All this in effort to pay our house off by April of next year, after which time I may dial back to seven or even six days a month. My schedule has also taken a slight hit because our overall exam requests have been down for the past few months.

Part of this is external, but part is how many exams our clinic is allowing us to take on. I’m still not entirely sure how that number gets determined, and it puts the fee basis providers at the mercy of the actual number of exams we accept. When the numbers are high, I have no problem getting big exams, and my typical day will just be one patient. Here lately, those larger exams are scarce, and so I’ve even had them cancel the odd day when I couldn’t get an ideal patient. Other providers will see multiple patients with smaller exams, but my preference is always one patient with a big case that can take care of my entire workload goal at once. We get paid by the number of individual exams within each claim, so one patient could have twenty (or more) exams in one visit. I’d much rather perform twenty exams with one patient than one exam with twenty patients. The latter is much more time consuming, and there will always be people running late or canceling in those numbers.

Enough about work, this journal isn’t necessarily supposed to be about anything specific, but I want to tailor it towards the creative, predominately writing, but any of the disciplines can come into play. Yesterday was a good day. I took care of the daily requisite - ran five miles, walked the dogs, shopped for workweek supplies (sandwiches for lunch and sundry groceries), practiced drums, keys, bass, studied Korean, and spent some time drawing. I hung a bunch of new LOTR paintings (like I needed more) with the use of a new laser level after our old trusty died (I think we’ve had it for 15-20 years). This new one is quite novel; it fires a laser in a 360° circle both horizontally and vertically. I mounted it to a mic stand and just raised it to the height at which I wanted to hang the pictures. The biggest challenge was standing on the step ladder on the bed, not the safest approach I’ll admit. It was either that or move the king-size bed, so I diced with the devil and came out a winner.

I’ve found that surrounding yourself with the things you love is a great mood lifter and adds to the sense of comfort and tranquility to the home. If something makes me happy, I try to surround myself with it and give constant reminders to myself regularly. The result is that our home (primarily my upstairs domain) is adorned with posters and art, centered mostly on music and movies. The living area has an entire wall of bookshelves that I’m close to filling, and this is the third in the triad of happiness for my life - music, books, movies. Within the books (and to a degree, the music and films) are the many other subjects and disciplines in which I find interest - science, history, writing, drawing, philosophy, comics, video games, etc. It provides an excellent environment that enhances all these creative efforts.

Not counting the journal, I didn’t spend a great deal of time studying any writing or working on any of the courses or works in progress. The journal felt like it was at least exercising those muscles, and after I had finished all the other disciplines, I did take some time to complete the chapter (the drawing-room) I was reading in the Victorian home book. I decided to forego any television, and read a few chapters in the Elric collection “Song of the Black Sword.” The order of his narrative is a bit different than the publishing order, as has been determined by Michael Moorcock, so my reading order is different than when I read the books as a teenager. The last novella was “Fortress of the Pearl,” and now I’m reading “Sailor on the Seas of Fate.” I remember scarce little from the first time I read this about forty years ago, so it’s like a new story all over again.

I thought that although it didn’t occur to me back then, Elric and much of Moorcock’s work is so different from Tolkien, who even to this day has remained a considerable influence (in no small part due to the movies). Elric is sometimes labeled as dark fantasy, and I suppose that’s as good a description as any. His stories are often as much about asking existential and philosophical questions as they are fodder for action and the typical fantasy tropes of the hero’s journey with classic archetypes. He does go on journeys, and there are villains and heroes alike, but Elric is never the wide-eyed and earnest character so often portrayed. He rejected his role as emperor of a declining and barbaric civilization and set out looking for answers to life’s most important questions, or at least an escape from a life that had lost meaning. Sometimes I wonder if Moorcock did acid or smoked a lot of weed, there are elements of psychedelia to some of the stories, but maybe he just had a fertile imagination. I enjoy the stories either way.