As mentioned last week, I’m participating in my fourth year of February Album Writing Month, a challenge to oneself to write 14 songs in 28 days. I find I really enjoy it; it forces me to be creative on a schedule, and the community of songwriters involved are wonderful, supportive, and amazing. It feels like […]

By the time you’re reading this, there should be a small army of leaf blowers scraping autumn off of my property. I also have a couple of phone calls Friday morning, so that should make the work day interesting. It’s been, as they say, a week. I’ve been a little on edge emotionally, and again, […]

After writing a whole bunch of paragraphs about how I’m seriously struggling with what I suspect is the second occurrence of the

Given current circumstances, as mentioned previously, Marscon didn’t happen as scheduled in person in Williamsburg this year, but a bunch of regulars stepped up to help create a virtual experience for those of us missing our chosen family of misfits. In the form of a bunch of online meetups, streaming video, and all the other […]

So, given the last ten days or so in Washington, we’re in all kinds of uncharted territory. While the former civics/history teacher in me is fascinated, the concerned citizen in me is, well, concerned, and not in a Susan Collins way. While I am absolutely in favor of impeachment here, because there have to be […]

Marscon, were we in normal times, would be happening this weekend in Williamsburg. It is perhaps my favorite weekend of the year, where I get to spend time with my chosen family of creative, awesome people, making music, making each other laugh, sharing the occasional fortified beverage, and generally enjoying each other’s company. We are […]

That thing they say about interesting times? These might be some. That said, I’ve blathered on enough about politics and Constitutional interpretation for this week; if something happens, it happens, but that’s not what this particular utterance into the void is going to be about. Let’s get dull. This week, on the micro/household scale has […]

So, after a couple of “kick the can” extensions, that $900 billion relief package, tied to the omnibus “fund the government” bill, got through both houses of Congress and landed on the President’s desk yesterday. Nobody really liked it; it’s totally insufficient, but that’s what they say compromise looks like, and it would carry us […]

Today is my last scheduled day of work for 2020. I’ve tied up everything I need to apart from one email response from one individual, who’s reply need only consist of “thumbs up*” for me to close the book on this particular item and feel like I’m keeping the project on track. Also, my body […]

Bureaucratic Talking Shutdown Blues (2020) by Chuck Parker So, if you’ve been reading the headlines, you know we’re running up against the end of another continuing resolution to carry the Federal government over the debt ceiling, and if they don’t get something sorted by Friday midnight, a whole bunch of public servants get furloughed….again. I […]