We made it. It was yet another month-long week and our souls have been nearly sucked dry by the punch clock, but no corporate vampire is going to keep us down. We’ve got 48 hours of sunlight, so while our blood-sucking overlords sleep the sleep of the (spiritually) dead we can bask in extra sleep, enjoying time with friends and family, indulging the muse, and just generally enjoy our lives away from the grind.
If you have to work the weekend, just know we’re with you in spirit. And of course we’ll have a couple cold ones waiting for you when you clock out.
How was the week? Mine was the same with a side of meh. Last Thursday I leveled up my getting older game. I woke up around midnight and had the worst charley horse I’ve ever had in my life in my left calf. I’ve had my share over the years, but this one was like Guinness Book of World Records-level. I discussed this earlier in the week. Well it ended up bruising. It’s still swollen a bit but not much pain, just tender.
Our daughter lost her apprenticeship at the spa she got into. Nothing she did wrong, but the owner said she just doesn’t have her speed up to the level they need it to be at. She doesn’t think the school my kid is going to(and graduating from) is doing her any favors. That’s great to hear when you’re about 3 weeks from passing her state final. She really likes our daughter and told her to graduate and gave her a list of things she needs to work on/improve, and that she’s invited back in January for the next apprenticeship. It was all very disappointing, but not the end of the world.
Honestly, I think it’s for the the best. Our 21-year old tends to burn the candle at both ends, and then adds an extra wick in the middle. It’s like she went from zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds. She’s put herself in these positions before and she ends up making herself ill, so I think the owner of the spa did our kid a favor. She knew she was getting in over her head so she gave her an out. The fact that they opened the door for her to come back in January shows they see something in her. Not sure our kiddo sees the bright side in all this just yet, but I think she will.
I’ve been working on some music lately. Brought up my little Arturia analog/digital mono synth and my 8-track digital recorder and have been doing some improvised recordings. I’m currently at 5 pieces so far. I’ve got a title and I’m even starting to put together ideas for album art, which I will paint myself. I know, putting the cart before the damn horse. Maybe get a few more songs put together first, huh? Yeah, that’s how I roll.
The songs have sort of a sci-fi score vibe to them and are very short. A little over 2 minutes is the longest so far. I also bought this cheap multi-effects pedal for another project I put out a couple years ago that’s proving quite useful. Wednesday night everyone was gone, so I brought all my stuff out into the living room, along with my son’s student xylophone from high school band and recorded some more. It was a great feeling sitting in the living room as the sun was setting, music running through the headphones as melodies turned to songs seemingly out of thin air.
I remember 30 years ago when my wife and I would head up north to South Haven, MI for a day or two of staring out at Lake Michigan over the bluff on the outskirts of town. Along this bluff there’s a row of beautiful, magnificent homes that have been there for probably 60, 70 years at this point. I remember one in-particular that had these massive windows that allowed you to see all the way through the house to the back side of the home that faced out over the bluff, another giant picture window there to make the view even more spectacular. I was early into the songwriting and recording game, so in my imagination I thought how amazing that would be to have a piano and recording equipment sitting right by that picture window that overlooked the expanse of that Great Lake, and how inspiring that would be to sit down at the piano and play as the Michigan sunset set fire to the horizon.
Of course I was putting the cart before the horse. I mean, at that point I never even dabbled on a piano, but I was and am all about the aesthetic. I could just imagine all the inspiration that would be coursing through my veins if I had that kind of space to create in. Sunrise with coffee brewing, sitting at the piano writing songs and working on an album. Sunset with a glass of scotch, composing some great pop song or even some instrumental work. Recording pieces for film or just a grand pop rock album. No 9 to 5 to destroy the vibe, just writing and creating.
It was always my biggest dream. Like most dreams, though, you wake up from them and realize you’re standing in some strangers front yard staring into their front window. They’re cowering off to the side calling 9-1-1 and you’re burning rubber to the state line.
But I digress.
Point is, sitting in my living room Wednesday night making my little wonky synth songs made me feel just a little bit of that feeling. It was nice. And who knows, maybe I’ll come into millions of dollars by some twist of fate and I can go on up to South Haven, walk up to the front door of that house on the bluff and offer them some astronomical price and they’ll take it.
But I doubt it. I don’t play the lottery.
At least I still have this weekend to look forward to.
Complex Distractions 