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.

Monday, Monday

I’m not even sure of the context of that song, I think it’s sort of melancholy? At least based on the tone, it is. I never bothered listening closely. Mondays have taken on a decidedly different feel for me after switching to fee basis. During a workweek, they are my version of Sunday and there are a few errands I need to run, but otherwise, they’re not the typical dreaded day most full-timers experience. I suppose Tuesday would be my Monday, but in comparison to most of my adult life, it’s also my Wednesday since I only work three days at the most. I didn’t take me long to acclimate to the new schedule when I switched from full time and 18-20 workdays a month down to 9 max. I’ve said before on my regular blog, there’s no way I could go back now.

One of the challenges of daily journaling in JCO’s context is the amount of new input. Spending most of my days at home and following a fairly repetitive schedule, it’s a challenge to think of new things to talk about. In the daily ritual department, yesterday was an “off” day I decided to grant myself and I spent more time reading as well as attempting to bake some bread. The bread would probably past muster in medieval England, but here and now it needs some work. Still, both Aeyong and I had some for breakfast so it wasn’t a total wash.

I finished another chapter in the Victorian House book, this one titled “The Parlor”. The book is broken down by the typical rooms in the Victorian era home, but each chapter wanders from the confines of the structure to its relationship to society at large. This chapter focused heavily on the shifting roles of women. Although much change was yet to come, the beliefs that women were subservient to their husbands and could fill no more important role than raising children and supporting their husbands were being called into question. It’s funny to see parallels even in our modern era between long-held beliefs that people just can’t let go, having become so ingrained in their psyches. “It’s how we’ve always done it” is a phrase that still gets used regularly.

I had finished “Song of the Black Sword” and was thinking about starting a more classic novel, and I initially had considered either “Slaughterhouse-Five” or “The Maltese Falcon”, but ended up settling on “Dracula”, a nice hybrid horror/classic to scratch a few itches. There’s something compelling about fantastic and speculative fiction from earlier eras. I think it’s a mixture of the different syntax, the complexity of thought, and deliberate expression, combined with imaginations that while unfettered in one sense, were still informed by the age from which they sprang. It’s my first time actually reading the novel, although it’s a story that’s very familiar to me. I’m realizing that Francis Ford Coppola’s version was fairly consistent with the book, even down to the diary entries. I’m really enjoying it so far.