solarbird | oh right hello livejournal

Right, um, it's been a week. Damn. Okay. A quick list:

1: Cultural Warfare Update has taken a little hiatus. I will be resuming CWU posts, but I apparently need a little time away from it for the time being. (This bit is the only Culture War portion of this post, if you're looking at my stuff via that filter and that's your primary, consider this a vacation announcement.)

2: I'm fine. I haven't gone anywhere, though I will probably be away from LJ at the end of August and early in September. After that I rather imagine things might get back a little more towards normal. Right now, things are strange. Not bad. Just strange.

3: Bullet list of things I'd be thinking about more if I wasn't distracted:

A. The markets are about one more Bear Stearns-level failure away from a panic. Dr. Bernanke is walking a slackrope over the Grand Canyon; let's all wish him the best of luck. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed.

B. This global oil production graph is not reassuring.

C. This external financing statistic is not good news either. Sorry.

So anyway, you might keep eyes on that stuff if you want.

Okay, so anyway, stuff is happening. In list form!

1: Last Wednesday: good research lab interview. I need to be doing more of this.

2: Thursday, I was weirdly sleepy all day and actively slept a lot. Anna wasn't feeling normal either and stayed home from work. I did get some cool historical photos scanned and put on the Uplake website gallery, though.

3: Unexpected Music Weekend begins.

Friday: Singing, high B is wholly a note for the first time. Not a good note (or even a controlled note) but a note. That evening, I go to the Tricky Pixie show in Redmond. I know some of the band and end up playing around on my flute some for one of 'em after the show. Spontaneous applause happens from strangers. Three people (including people in the band) tell me I need to be performing in front of people. Two people ask me whether I'll make flutes for them and how much they cost. Um, what?

Saturday: I go to a house filk. Apparently, I make an impression as a couple of people talk later about the flautist; I also get the piano ringing along with me when I lead in singing General Taylor, after which three singers - at least, a couple of singers, possibly also an instrumentalist - in the group skip the next turn because they don't want to follow me (not my interpretation: they say that), to which I am all, "um, what?" I have found my voice and it is apparently loud. Afterwards, we had a big gaming thing at our house, particularly featuring out-of-towners rmd and clauclauclaudia, which was fun.

Sunday: Large swaths of music I knew when in TGM hangs out in my head, I play some of it. That evening I write the lyrics to "Artifacts You'll Never See," c.f. Music: above.

Monday: A friend of risu's comes over; she's another musician. We talk music some, I have Popcorn - my main flute - out and twiddle with it, she asks me whether I'll make her one and how much it costs. Apparently there is some heretofore untapped demand for weird little bamboo flutes made by me and it is making itself apparent. Who knew?

Tuesday: Not interested in fighting it, I pull my flutemaking kit back together. Hey, why not? It's all still here and I like it anyway. Maybe I'll sell some flutes.

Anyway, I've got music (chords and most of the melody, anyway) for "Artifacts" now, but I'm going to rewrite it; it needs some major surgery, but I think I know where it's going. Also I want to rewrite the lyrics in the coda, I've decided it's too cute by half, tho' some people like it.

spazzkat showed me how his midi keyboard hooks up to his iMac and I've gotten the beginnings of a grip on Garage Band.

I want Artifacts performable by Saturday. It's a purely artificial deadline as I have no performance plans, but I want it.

In other news, I've also done some other stuff (a little work at murksouth, some gardening, some housecleaning) but mostly I don't care. Honestly, it's all been about playing and writing and singing and notes and lyrics.

I'm not sure what the deal is, but I kinda like it.