Late Resolution

Maybe it's time I make a resolution to play my bass everyday until my forearms start to "feel the burn". I've been playing my guitar more than my bass lately and it's helping me better understand the differences between the two instruments. I think people tend to think the bass must be easier because it has four stings, not six, but I would say it's different, not easier. You can make either instrument as easy or complex as you want. First off, the bass is bigger and heavier and so are its strings, so you need more muscle when you play it. Second, it's usually filling a different role than the guitar does musically and you have to be able to understand that. Anyway, it's all fun and a good way to amuse myself just about anytime at all.

Yee Haw!

Last night was girls night out. Sis and I had a plan to go to Portsmouth to catch Stagecoach Dick, the world's only Shuttlecock country cover band, at the Blue Mermaid. One of the Dicks had sent out an email about the show earlier in the week and recommended showing up early because the place is pretty small. We might have gotten there in time if I hadn't forgotten to bring my money and ID with me the first time we left the house. We got there around 9:30 and were turned away at the door and told it would be an hour and a half wait. Rather than wait in the freezing cold to wait for a chance to see a bunch of Dicks playing country music, we decided to head over to The Press Room and try our luck again later.
The Press Room was it's usual brick, dark, pub-ish self. The last time I remember being there was high school, but it seemed basically the same. Sis and I spotted the infamous Bruce Pingree there, which makes sense since he's the one who runs all the music there. He gave her a wave hello, which led me into a spontaneous, yet hopefully subdued, outburst of "We're not worthy!!" Dippy for sure, but he is The Man when it comes to certain genres of music around here.
After fortification with some Irish Coffee, we decided to try our luck again back at the Codfish...uh, I mean Blue Mermaid. We had to wait about 10 minutes out in the arctic chill, but a few people left and the man let us in. Our timing being what it is, as soon as we walked in the men of Stagecoach Dick were handing out party favors and Dick Cheney awarded Sis with her very own Stagecoach Dick tshirt. She's got all the luck. And all the connections. As usual, she was assaulted by a horde of various old friends in various states of intoxication. I got myself a drink, found a good perch and watched the band. I love that band. I can't help it. I've gotten over the fact that I don't really talk to anyone when I go out with her. I don't want to, really. I just want to watch the band and enjoy the music. And that I did.

Backwards

Oooooooh, don't you just hate it when you come home at the end of the day and realize you've been wearing your sweater backwards all day long?
That never happens to you? Oh.

Oh Crap. I Think It's Making Me Feel Better

Finding myself in a dark mood, what great luck it was to come across The Goth-O-Matic Poem Generator. Only thing is that now that I've been playing with it I'm feeling kind of amused and happy. Drat!
Don't forget to read the tips.

Snow Day

OK. Great. So I got up and checked outside the window and then to the local tv station's website to make sure the girl's school really is cancelled due to snow today. She gets to sleep in without interruption. But now it's nearly 6:30am and I'm still awake waiting to see if my school is going to cancel. Hope I can fall back asleep for another hour or two if it does.

It's the Most Miserable Day of the Year

This is true! Today does suck. My girl's school announced a two hour delayed opening last night and I didn't know about it until I tried to drop her off at school at the usual time this morning! I feel so cheated.
Of course, I had a class to teach at 9am anyway, so it wasn't like I personally had the delay, but I could have made plans in advance rather than getting back home at 8:25, verifying the delay by watching the local tv news and then asking a neighbor to help out.
The blizzard was from Saturday night into Sunday morning. The skies were clear by the end of the afternoon yesterday. I woke up this morning and it was sunny, so I just figured everything would be scheduled as usual.

Hunker Down

We've got a nice, big Nor'easter/blizzard going on right now. It started last night and has been snowing and blowing ever since. A big gust just came down the street and created a whiteout so I couldn't even see the houses across the street. The city trucks were out plowing throughout the night. They sound like moving earthquakes and I feel them as much as hear them.
I went to the supermarket yesterday afternoon and it was the most crowded I have ever seen in my life. The parking lot was full. There were no carts left in the store and everyone seemed to have the same reaction to seeing that big empty spot where the carts are usually parked right inside the door. They looked at the emptiness, laughed and went back out to the parking lot to scrounge up a cart out there. The check out lines stretched back to nearly the middle aisle of the market, but everyone was good natured about it. The coming storm was definitely one reason why it was so crowded, compounded with the fact that it was a Saturday afternoon and there's a big football game this afternoon, or this evening. (I'm not a big football fan.)
The local tv stations have all advised people to hunker down at home. According to the scrolling text along the bottom of the news screen, it seems that all the local churches have cancelled their services today. It's the first time I've ever seen that happen. I'm really enjoying this storm, but I can't help but wish it happened on a weekday for the school cancellation effect. ;)

Uh-huh

Grrrrrr. Just wrote a nice cleansing rant and Blogger froze up and I lost most of it. I'm not going to try to recreate the whole thing and it's even about a topic I don't blog about here much, but today it just feels like it's okay if I do.
I'm getting really fed up with the cumulative effects of my ex's efforts to discourage my daughter's relationship with me. I tried to call her several times last night, since I call and talk to her every night she is at her father's, and even left two messages, but she didn't call back. I called and spoke with her this morning and asked if she heard the messages. She said she did. I told her she could call me anytime at all. She said she knows. But she didn't call me back and she sounded monosyllabic and distant, the way she usually does when I talk to her when she's there. When I pick her up for the half of the week she spends with me, she starts talking a mile a minute and doesn't stop for an hour or more. Sometimes she goes on so much I have to ask her to stop for a while because I can't endure the barrage. But when she stays at her father's house and I talk to her on the phone she is absolutely monosyllabic. She sounds bored or angry or disinterested. Whenever I ask her about it she claims she's tired. I know what she's really doing is demonstrating her loyalty to her father. He demands that of her. I try not to pull back because I don't think it's right to make her spend her time figuring out how to please me when she should be learning how to understand her own feelings. The problem is that in her father's culture you are supposed to concern yourself with everyone else's feelings first. To consider your own feelings first is selfish. Of course, in this culture we believe that you have to understand your own feelings and know how to take care of yourself to be able to really take care of others. So it's a classic culture clash between a culture of interdependence and one of independence. I spent years trying to conform to those other cultural norms, but eventually it came clear to me that I needed to be true to my own beliefs that were formed long before I married into that culture. She's going to have to figure out as she grows up how much of each culture she wants to claim as her own, but I hope a few other things also become clear along the way.
My mom and my sister tell me my girl will realize what her father has been doing when she gets a little older and more independent. She'll realize that he's been trying to undermine her relationship with me and coerce her into a role of providing him with emotional suppport that is inapproapriate for someone her age. Eventually she will come around to see, they say, that I'm really not the bad guy he tries to make me out to be. He wants to punish me for leaving him and he wants her to punish me for it too.
I wish it could be different now. I wish she didn't have to go through this stupid shit now and that both of her parents could be grown up enough to at least pretend to be polite, say hello and look each other in the eye. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to be patient and have faith that someday she'll come to see things differenty.