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.