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.

Pedalphilia

Have to be careful calling myself a pedalphile, easily misconstrued, that one. I can’t say that I’ve developed a full-blown case of effects pedal obsession, but repeat viewings of “That Pedal Show” and other analog gear demos have me more and more interested in setting up an analog pedalboard. I’ve dipped my toes back into the analog world a bit since I switched to fee basis three years ago (actually as of yesterday, I think). I got the Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister 40 and a 65 Amps 1x12 cab a while back and later added the Strymon Blue Sky Reverb pedal. I finally got to the top of the Analog Man Tone King waiting list a few weeks ago, and so I’ve added that pedal as well.

I’m taking a serious look at getting a regular pedalboard and using the G2 switching system. I’ll likely add a few more pedals to the arsenal - distortion, compressor, tuner, modulation and maybe some wild cards. I’ve also given serious thought into getting a few more amp heads, likely in the low wattage range. There are great examples of these from most amp manufacturers. I’ve had my eyes on ones from Mesa, Friedman, and a few others. Of course, all this falls squarely into the “don’t need, just want” category, which describes most of my music gear. I’m not going to pull the trigger on this stuff too soon, but it’s fun to strategize and daydream.

I’ve been okay this week on DTD, although my only writing work has been this journal, which, although it might benefit me on a general level, isn’t furthering the craft by much. I need to get back into my lessons. It’s been a few days since my last drink, after skipping Sunday due to the Saturday hangover, I had the last two beers on Monday. Ironically, I had one of those early wakeups on Wednesday morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I knocked out my Korean study and drawing practice and completed the rest of the disciplines after work, except for bass. My elbows were aching a bit, and Aeyong had wanted to fry up some shrimp, so the cumulative standing including work had my back tired and I decided to chill afterward. All that to say I’ve been noticing the gradual improvement in health and well being. I ran for the first time in a few weeks yesterday, which always gives a greater boost to the mood and energy. We did some extra dry goods stocking up at Sam’s yesterday, just in case there is some kind of run on groceries with the Coronavirus panic.

I’ve neglected the Victorian house reading for several days, but I’ve been enjoying Dracula. The language is a novelty and it’s interesting just how much conversation patterns and language can change over the course of a hundred years. This is assuming that people actually talked like they do in this book, which does display a mixture of dialects and patterns, especially between the more educated main characters and the working-class side characters. The language of the cultural elite can be so flowery and expositional, as though the act of speaking was an art unto itself. This is a huge contrast to the Korean language I’ve been studying. It’s very direct and economical.

For example, in Bram Stoker’s England, a character might take an entire paragraph to greet a friend or colleague and invite them to lunch or for a drink. “My esteemed colleague, a many of many letters and degrees, who so loved the learned halls of Cambridge, and yay, in those days did draft many a treatise and manifesto for the impressionable young minds of London, gathering the wisdom of the ages and the world and imparting his considerable and acute thoughts in service of the betterment of the commonwealth, it was to he that I beseeched for the honor of an evening repast and a leisurely commiseration of days gone by over brandy and cigars…blah blah blah….”. In Korean, this would go - 안녕하세요, 브랜디 마시고싶어요? Which is translated as “Hello, do you want to drink some brandy?” Actually, it literally means “Hello, brandy drink want?” Romanized it sounds like - “Annyonghaseyo, mashigo ship oh yo? The tense is off there, but the gist is the same.

This is a bit of an extreme example since almost no modern speakers add all the filler material to a conversation, and in English, we will often ask “Hey, do you want to get a beer?” In Korean, this would be more like “Beer, drink?” or Maekju mashilay? All the pronouns, direct objects, conjunctions, prepositions, etc. are typically implied and only the most critical words are included. Still, it’s an interesting experience to study Korean and then read Dracula and other period fiction. Such a difference in culture and frames of reference.

Saturday means Opeth

At least this Saturday it does. I’ll be seeing them tonight at the Pavilion in Irving. One of my preferred venues all things considered - drive, parking, venue. The opener is Graveyard, haven’t heard of them but I assume they’re appropriately heavy. I’ll follow my typical practice and depart about thirty minutes before doors, 7:00 pm in this case. It’s been a fairly long time since my last concert, at least by my standards. Unless I’m forgetting something, Iron Maiden in September was the last show I attended. Over five months is a long time compared to my concert frequency for the past ten years or so. I’ve actually been enjoying the break and foresaw a decrease as preferable. As luck would have it though, there are several can’t miss shows this year - The Who (actually rescheduled from last September), the Rolling Stones in May, and Roger Waters in October.

The Who and Stones are two long time bucket list bands that I want to see at least once and I should be satisfied. Roger Waters is someone that I can’t imagine has too many tours left in him, but he keeps a pretty steady pace so there’s no telling and I’ll probably go see him whenever I can. That goes for a few bands like Steven Wilson and Opeth as well. I also got tickets for GnR at the new baseball stadium, and although this goes against my normal conventions, there is a pit and I’ve found that makes the gen pop experience much more tolerable. GnR isn’t necessarily a bucket list band since I saw them in 1988, but I was way back and it was hard to really take in that whole show. I’ve said before I thought Slash with Myles Kennedy was more enjoyable and I’m doubtful this will change my mind, but it’s another one-off I wanted to see.

Primus managed to pull a few nostalgic strings when they announced a tour in which they’ll play all of “A Farewell to Kings” followed by a regular Primus set. I haven’t listened to Primus that much, but I’ve been aware of their association with Rush (and Geddy has given his blessing for this tour) and so this seems like a worthwhile show to see. It’ll definitely be the first time I’ve seen the title track, Cygnus X-1 (full version), Madrigal and Cinderella Man played live, even if it’s Primusized. I’ve seen Rush play Xanadu and Closer to the Heart a few times. I also got tickets to Jason Isbell in August and will attend along with the Garrett boys and few old high school friends that I haven’t seen in thirty years - Tom Harris and Jamey Warneke.

I tried out the Nintendo Ring Fit yesterday, and I can say that it’s possible to get a decent workout, at least for my fat ass. They have enough variety so you’re exercising most major muscle groups - arms/shoulders, legs, core muscles as well as some cardio to boot. I’ve got some mild muscle soreness this morning but not as bad as expected. I assume my normal elliptical and running workouts, as well as the various instruments I play, haven’t allowed total muscle atrophy. I’ll probably continue using this program, maybe every other day or at least a few days a week. The limitations of the apple watch are evident with this program because I know I was demonstrably more “worked out” at the end of a thirty-minute session compared to my normal 45-50 minutes on the elliptical. That being said, my calories burnt was about half what I normally achieve on an elliptical workout.

Yesterday was otherwise a decent day. I DTD for the most part, although some elbow soreness made me skip bass practice. There are times where even if I have the mental motivation, I’ll decide it’s a better decision to rest if my old friend the repetitive strain injury is waking back up. I’ve been in a period of decreased severity with the symptoms, which has been nice and has afforded more practice time, but the symptoms have never completely gone away. They mostly manifest with guitar and bass, and so when I do practice I’m often stopping after thirty minutes when the symptoms start to kick in more severely. I’ve come to accept that I just won’t be able to put in several hour sessions on guitar/bass as long as it remains like it has been for the past few years. I try to pay more attention to fatigue and pain signals and I’ve also tried to notice anything I can change ergonomically to mitigate the issues as well.

Wednesday Workday

It’s a rigorous schedule, but someone’s got to do it. Actually, my preference would be to work 2-3 days this week, but I’m still stuck with decreased demand and fewer big cases have been available as of late. I hope that changes, at least until we can pay the house off.

I’ve experimented with my daily routine in the last few days by putting Korean language study and drawing first and then practicing the various musical disciplines afterward. This has been successful so far in that it’s easier for me to maintain my motivation even if my mental focus is flagging a bit in the afternoon. I’ll keep with this for a while and see how it works out.

Another imminent change is the impending abstinence from alcohol once the on-hand supply runs out. This should coincide with Opeth on Saturday, so the timing is fairly fortuitous. This won’t be an absolute teetotal lifestyle as I’ll still have a few beers at concerts, but I’m going to at least give it a break during March and I’m going to try to resume more strict calorie and portion counting so I can lose some weight. On that note I went ahead and bought this Nintendo Switch and Ring Fit accessory, thinking I’ll give their fitness game a try. I’m hoping that some of these exercises will fire up some dormant upper body and core muscles that generally get ignored with my typical cardio only exercise habits. We’ll see.

Although I didn’t make a journal entry yesterday, I did watch the next JCO lecture on form, including one of her short stories. She has some interesting insights on how to add interest by approaching the traditional continuous chronological narrative in a different manner. Everything from making a story one continuous paragraph with no breaks, writing the story out of sequence, writing the story as a series of questions and answers, or only as answers. She even talked about visually altering the medium, e.g. typing out the text in the shape of objects like a tree. I’m not sure I would do this for a normal prose story, but it might be a cool approach for a lyric sheet to a song.

Her short story “Heat” was an interesting approach to narrative in that it seemed to be told by a friend of two young girls who were murdered when they were in seventh grade. Some of the paragraphs seem to be through the eyes of the friend (assume it’s a she) when the girls were still alive, and some of it’s from points in the future, even many decades later. It jumps back and forth between when they were alive, to their funeral, to the distant future, and back. It gives some stark contrast to some mundane observations interspersed with some really dark revelations. It’s very effective.

Yesterday was an overall successful day. As mentioned I studied Korean, drawing, and practiced drums, keys, and bass. As always, progress is slow and incremental but that’s the nature of the multidisciplinary beast. It’s interesting that JCO’s lecture on form coincides with my reading “Dracula” because that’s exactly how Bram Stoker approached his narrative. The story plays out in a series of narratives told through journal entries and correspondence, so you have a limited third-person view and must do a lot of the work to understand what’s transpiring. Most of us probably already know how the story plays out, so it’s not quite as nebulous, but I imagine this must have been a new and provocative take on narrative when it debuted.

The cyclical...

…nature of my health habits is pretty consistent. I start getting bloated and overweight feeling (and weighing, although I usually avoid confirmation via the scale at this point) and this eventually leads me to swear off beer and snacks for a few months. It’s been a long while since I recommitted to that, and I’m consciously avoiding the scale, knowing I’ve let my weight creep up. It’s on me, but I have allowed the recent passing of Neil Peart and Lyle Mays to justify additional beer drinking in a nightly ritual of remembrance. However, this has segued into just a nightly routine of beer drinking along with television or reading.

So, it’s about time to get serious about calorie counting again. This is the method that has worked in the past, I have to be disciplined about it. If it were just extra weight without other adverse side effects, I’d probably ignore it, but it starts to affect my sleep and increased the various musculoskeletal maladies as well. Anywho, I’ve got enough beer on hand at present to get through next week, and with Opeth on Saturday, that will close things out for February and I’ll make March an abstinence month. I’ll see how I’m feeling and if it seems my weight's dropping, I’ll eventually step on the scale again. I’d like to at least get below 200 again, even though my ideal weight is probably 170-180 (based on being somewhat wiry underneath the layers of suet), I know just getting below that threshold results in feeling and sleeping better.

Now, on to the more fun stuff. Yesterday was a fairly solid day, with the requisite drums, keys, bass, exercise, dog walk, Korean study, and nearly thirty minutes of drawing. My writing yesterday was the journal, and I watched the next JCO lecture on addressing taboos. I’ve decided to try and plug along in her lecture series and choose the writing exercises a la carte because it seems like if you take on all her suggested writing and reading, the series will take a couple of years to finish, at least at the rate I read and write. The taboo lecture was very powerful. I gather a lot of her writing focuses on these sorts of topics. I haven’t read any of her stories to my memory, but I plan to rectify that gap. She highlights the history of women writers and how in the past, they were discouraged from writing in general, but if they did write, it was supposed to be about domestic subjects in line with the accepted roles of women in a patriarchal society.

It’s interesting to hear how subjects like domestic abuse and rape were just not talked about as if ignoring them would make them go away. In many ways, we live in a more enlightened age where these former taboos can be addressed in the open, but I know there are still many societies around the world that haven’t moved on from those darker days. My wife’s home country of Korea is still largely patriarchal, and it’s still fairly pervasive as far as I know; daughters are expected to get married and have children. I don’t regularly interact with young Koreans, so I have a feeling this may be seeing a generational shift, along with many other significant cultural shifts that have happened in the age of the internet.

Particulars aside, I think JCO hits on an important point that’s shared by Neil Gaiman in that a writer tells stories to reveal a deeper truth. Often the most upsetting events in our life shape so much of who we become, although we often suppress those memories and will rarely talk about them, even with our closest loved ones. For me, writing and my other creative endeavors are a way of learning just who I am and what I care about. The expression of this truth can manifest in various mediums, but specifics aside, the act of creating is a way of transferring a part of oneself into another form and revealing a bit of who I am and what is important to me.

Another integral part of her lecture on taboo was the technique of elliptical writing. She used Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” as an example of when taboo couldn’t be addressed directly, and so it was expressed in a vague enough manner that avoided the literal homoerotic and left it to the subtext. I’m not sure if I picked up on it when I read it as a teenager, although it wouldn’t have necessarily fazed me if I did. I plan on a re-read in the future. I think the elliptical approach is something I’ve already used, at least in songwriting and often in my natural language and these blogs. I think it’s not only a useful technique for one who may have been forced by their particular situation, but I think it can also be an effective means of leaving things open to interpretation and not being overly literal. It’s sort of analogous to Neil Gaiman’s “truth in the lies” approach, in that you’re expressing a thought, feeling, or theme but leaving it open to the reader to find their truth.

I should also mention I finished reading “The Song of the Black Sword” by Michael Moorcock. I’ve come to realize that Moorcock has a history of repackaging many of his stories, and so what I thought were some stories I hadn’t previously read were included in the original paperbacks I read all those years ago. Within many of those paperbacks were sections that were more like short stories but part of the overall narrative. The paperback book that was third in the original series I read “The Weird of the White Wolf” was comprised of three stories, “The Dreaming City,” “While the Gods Laugh,” and “The Singing Citadel.” I suppose these could stand on their own, but they make more sense as part of a narrative. The only significant difference between SOTBS and how I read the series originally is the later publication of “Fortress of the Pearl,” which now comes after “Elric of Melniboné” and before “The Sailor on the Seas of Fate.” It’s been such a long time since I read these originally that it’s like reading them anew.

I’m still plugging along on the “Inside the Victorian Home,” which has proven to be a great resource alike “The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England.” It’s amazing how different our cultures were just a few hundred years ago. I need to pick my next novel to read, and I think I should shift back to a classic so I can eventually start to whittle down this behemoth of a TBR list. I think I’ll go easy on myself and at least pick something a bit shorter this time, and I’m eyeing “Slaughterhouse-Five” or maybe “The Maltese Falcon.”

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.