snowmahgerd26, update 01

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According to the schizophrenic Apple Weather app, 8.2” has fallen in the last six hours. I’ve already shoveled one path out to The Shed (with Kirby’s helpful as ever help) and will, following second caffeination, give it its second enpathening to reach said Shed for solar panel cleaning; aiming to clear them on The Shed every few hours as I’d rather deal with four inches than a foot and a half with a 20-foot window washer thing tomorrow morning. Fortunately, we’re supposed to just get a fuckton of fluffy snow, so ice (FUCK ICE with that 20-foot window washer thing extended and spread) won’t be a problem. Collection dusting later; pretty sure the dust layer is the same as the projected snowfall.

a thing about re-learning to play drums

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Among the few benefits of music school is that, 20 years after I ran away, I retained the ability to reeducate myself – or at least to develop a plan to do so – on drums. Ignoring all of the “percussionist” background and sticking only with drumset because it’s the fun one – or at least the one that I had the most fun with. Can’t figure why I played marimba so much then. Eh, live and learn.

(But it’s nice to know I can still read music without a problem.)

The four things I’m focusing on right now: hand strength (read: make 44-year-old hands do what 18/19 year old hands could do and endure an entire song never mind an entire gig); pedalwork (for some reason, I really glossed over that part); keeping rock solid time; and being present while I’m playing (read: not letting the fuckeries of institutional music education seep into my enjoyment and reentry into the ways of).

Working through both Stone’s STICK CONTROL for the first part and Chester’s THE NEW BREED for the second part with a metronome to satisfy the third. I do most of the practicing on my roland V drums before moving over to the Tama Cocktail Jam kit for the systems/reading playthroughs.

As for the presence, I’m getting there: I’m still counting through 16ths in my head way too much (read: at all) but it’s nonetheless helpful that drumming was, like metalwork is now, one of the few things with which I could lose myself to flow – by necessity and by love.

2026jan24

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I'd had myself convinced that, after 25 years of running one website or another, I was content to let this one slide into the realm of quasi-active portfolio, content to let The Informalities speak for themselves but, after finding rss.social, I'm (once again) inspired to turn this back into a regular blog, to share half-baked or raw-dough morsels of thought that might become something larger or that might exist solely in the uncooked form. Preparations have been made for the great snow-pocalypse of 26, wine has been purchased, dusters for The Collection's long-overdue dusting which I swore I wouldn't do until I had glass cases because I was only doing it once but oh well. Oops.

  • Fascinated by: Neko: History of a Software Pet | Eliot Akira

  • Reading: THE STONE SKY, by N.K. Jemison

  • Watching: DEATH BY LIGHTNING (or, 1880’s WEST WING meets KING OF COMEDY: a brilliant combo)