One highlight of this week’s adventures in mid-Atlantic suburban pandemic life is captured above. Thanks to a friend (check out her tunes; they’re great!) who had an extra, I scored a ticket to the Punch Brothers show in town on Wednesday night. Honestly, I’m still apprehensive about events involving lots of people, though this venue is still the only place I’ve been that’s required me to flash my vax card to enter, and I remained masked throughout except when sipping a delicious local-ish brew. I also never really bother to mix it up on the main floor, preferring a perch near the south railing toward the rear of the theater that gives me a good view of the stage and fewer people around.

The show was, of course, amazing. I’ve been a fan of Chris Thile for years going back to Nickel Creek, loved the dear, departed Live From Here, and of course, simply dig live music in all it’s forms. If you’re not familiar, Punch Brothers’ music is, I guess, “progressive bluegrass,” incorporating elements of pop, classical, folk, and pretty much whatever else they feel like. It’s very cool, and these guys are absolute masters of their instruments. They manage to pull some amazing dynamics out of voice and five acoustic instruments arrayed around a single microphone, and it’s impressive and beautiful, and maybe creates some feelings of inadequacy in this particular journeyman performer.

Anyway, it was a nice evening out in the middle of the week.

Otherwise, the week was pretty typical; lots of work meetings (both wildly productive and soul crushing, sometimes simultaneously), almost sixty miles of biking over a couple of nice days, and some fiddling with the music production software to wrap up FAWM. I also got my car serviced and inspected and a few other odds and ends, but, yeah, nothing especially…um…special.

The weekend coming up is looking quiet – there’s talk of checking out the new brewery/winery/meadery opening up down the street, but otherwise, probably just the usual.

As for tunes this week, kind of all over the map, as you can see, from torch singers to 90s alternative to genre actors to punk, and what might be the best recording of “Crimson and Clover” I’ve ever heard there at #8 – definitely check that one out:

1. “Two Little Men In A Flying Saucer” – Ella Fitzgerald
2. “Party Anthem” – Sloppy Jane
3. Penpals” – Sloan
4. “Thing of Beauty” – Hothouse Flowers
5. “Save It For Later” – The Beat
6. “G.S.K.” – Squid
7. “Bobby – The Pool Sessions” – Wolf Alice
8. “Crimson and Clover” – A.G. Cook
9. “Here and Now”- Letters to Cleo
10. “Need You Around” – Smoking Popes
11. “I Do The Rock” – Tim Curry
12. “Howling At The Moon (Sha-La-La)” – Ramones

If you’ve been regularly reading this space for the last, um, two years or so, I’ve been stressed as hell lately and not exactly in the best frame of mind.

Pretty obvious, right?

After the last few weeks, I pretty much decided that I was taking this long President’s Day weekend and spending at least a couple of days doing very little. The key moment, I think, was when my wife and daughters looked at me across a table of delicious Indian food on Friday evening and told me I looked awful.

Which I did.

So, Saturday, I took some time in the morning to do the grocery shopping, but, apart from periodically checking the washer and/or dryer, I more or less crashed on the couch and binged Peacemaker on HBOMax and ate some Girl Scout Cookies while the house was quiet (the rest of them either had work or events to deal with). It helped, at least a little.

Sunday I did kind of the same thing – a quick run out to do some errands in the morning, but otherwise, chilled around the house, bought myself a treat based on the thing I’ll talk about in the next paragraph, and finished reading a novel.

About that treat – it’s sort of a story. On Friday afternoon, I started playing with some of the inspirational widgets (collectively called “The Muse”) on the February Album Writing Month website, and generated some random words and phrases, which ended up turning into a set of lyrics for a mostly nonsense, but generally foreboding-sounding song titled “When the Seventh Rolls”. As usual, the fawmers looked, commented, and offered encouragement, and a guy I met a few years ago out in the Bay Area when the Humdingers played there dug things enough to ask if he could take a pass at writing some music for it.

Of course I told him “Yes!,” and a bit later, he turned my weird foreboding prophecy nonsense into, of all things, a honky tonk piano tune which is something I would never have thought of, but damn if it isn’t brilliant. Nice little piece of collaboration popping up out of nowhere, and it was a nice bright spot. Oh, as he used a neat little program called Band-in-a-Box to generate some of the background tracks (it’s an app that takes your chord progressions or whatever and generates backing tracks from a huge database of recordings and/or MIDI in a ridiculous number of musical styles), and other friends have sung it’s praises over the years, I went ahead and spent a few bucks on myself and enjoyed an afternoon of fiddling with it. One more tool for the toolbox.

Today, Monday, I had off because Federal Holiday, so I did some chorin’, then, because it was a nice day, I racked my bike and went for a ride, even though I felt a bit crap. There were no parking places at my usual spot on the VCT, so I went to the other end of the trail, and rode a brisk 35 miles from the east end of things, and it was good.

Yeah, maybe just a little overwhelmed this week, not unlike every other recent week, frankly, but…yeah.

Lots of stuff at work, too many damned meetings, briefings, process changes, paperwork, email threads, and…etc. Stuff at home as well – too many bodies in a small space, a huge decluttering project which I truly appreciate, though the “in-process” is a struggle as I trip over things on their way toward being re-filed or Kondo’d out of the house, and an elderly cat who’s decided to completely embrace the id and brazenly knock over trash cans, food containers, any dish or plate or whatever that’s been out of someone’s eyeline for more than a fraction of a second…

I *did* have a couple of days of nice weather this week, leading to a wonderful five mile hike along the river and a really nice 21 mile bike ride. I’m hoping for a bit more of that this weekend, but we’ll see. I’ve woken up to rain, and who the heck knows what’ll happen next.

Wrote three decent songs for FAWM this week, and I’m hoping I have another one in me before the week’s out – I’ve got four to go and ten more days to write them, and would rather not wait until the last minute. Overall, the experience has been a good one this year so far, even if I’ve been two busy the last two weeks to record anything, and I’m leaving a bit of a backlog to catch up on.

But, I’m not going to waste any more time on this contractually-obligated missive; one more self-imposed responsibility I give myself as I just take too damned much on and don’t realize it until it’s already dragging me down.

Playlist this week – full-on indie, complete with banjos and reverb, and several animal mentions. Woof:

1. “You Dog” – Advance Base
2. “Little Sparrow” – Alan Dunham
3. “Plates” – Lala Lala, Benjamin Gibbard
4. “It Came In The Night” – Raincoat
5. “Liar” – Envy of None
6. “Galveston” – Why Bonnie
7. “You’re Not Alone” – Amon Düül II
8. “Green Rocky Road” – Bria
9. “Francesca – The Murlocs
10. “The One” – The Lemon Twigs
11. “Here Comes The Hotstepper” – Dr. Dog
12. “Fill Your Heart” – Biff Rose

I’ll be honest, I’m pretty damned exhausted. It’s been a long week. Pretty much every work day has clocked in at well over the standard eight hours; I’ve been plugged into online meetings for most of those hours, and the rest has been full of documentation, deployment planning for an upcoming major system upgrade, test cycles, and management trying to pile on more and more responsibilities to my already overflowing spoon drawer.

I will say that my bosses, for the most part, are sensitive to overwhelming me with work, because, as they constantly tell me, they need me and don’t want me to leave. That said, I’m very much approaching my limit, and the guy who’s trying to pin management of the SharePoint program on me just might be a bridge too far.

Ugh.

At least I’m lined up to have a couple of million in programs funded this month, as soon as Congress gets off their ass and stops with the ‘Groundhog Day’ budget crap, which is, to be honest, damned frustrating. I can only update this song so many times.

While work has been overwhelming me this week, I’ve also been supervising landscaping contractors working some cool stuff outside, and my lovely spouse engaging in Herculean efforts in decluttering inside. That’s when I wasn’t driving across the county to rescue her with a new car battery. Free time is definitely at a premium. It’s a good thing I got well ahead of the FAWM curve last week, because I’ve only got two down so far this week, and recorded neither of them. Still, I’m past the halfway point four days ahead of schedule; I’m not worrying about not hitting the goal…yet.

The weather today, however, looks gorgeous; even better than yesterday, which was particularly beautiful. I’m going to do my best to tick off a few boxes then knock off a early and put some miles on my bike tires – I really need that right now.

Enjoy what weekend you’ve got – lots of the usual stuff here, though my lovely spouse and I have plans to do a pre-emptive Valentines’ dinner at the new Indian place in town, and spend an evening working through the latest Hunt-A-Killer box, which is turning out to be one of the better holiday gift investments we’ve made – working through the clues is a lot of fun.

So tunes – interesting, kinda mellow alternative/indie again, which a surprising focus on Yeshua (#11 is actually catchy as hell), and the Doobie Brothers cover closing things out comes from the amazingly titled album Gizmodgery, which was recorded entirely with kids’ toy instruments. Boing.

1. “Nine Billion Names (To A. Clarke)” – Mooncake
2. “Mass Romantic” – The New Pornographers
3. “Marrow” – Thao, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down
4. “Half Baked (live) – Jimmy Campbell
5. “Donna” – Rubblebucket
6. “Car Song” – Elastica
7. “Crumb Back” – Mega Bog
8. “Dream Never Dies” – Lo Moon
9. “Southern Mark Smith (Big Return) – The Jazz Butcher
10. “Pattern Doubt” – Young Jesus
11. “The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ” Jackie Leven
12. “Stohner” – MAN ON MAN
13. “Wounds of Love” – Nation of Language
14. “What A Fool Believes” – Self

…different week.

Work hassles, crap weather. Wrote a few songs though.

For the weekend? Delay-blast birthday celebration for the lovely spouse. Laundry.

This week’s tunes? Much alternative.

1. “Motorcrash” – The Sugarcubes
2. “Starry Eyes” – The Records
3. “Just Like Heaven” – The Cure
4. “The Greatest” – SASAMI
5. “Do Me A Favour” – Field Music
6. “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” – The Cardigans
7. “Bones” – Rosali
8. “Salvation Army” – Harrison Whitford
9. “Astronaut” – Katie Toupin
10. “Up All Night” – The Boomtown Rats
11. “The Ballad of Crowfoot” – Willie Dunn
12. “Gigantic” – Pixies
13. “Ballroom Dance Scene” – Horsegirl

For what will be my fifth year running, I’ll be once again participating in February Album Writing Month, a semi-organized exercise in creativity, taking on the challenge of writing 14 songs in 28 days.

In past years, I’ve always hit at least fourteen tunes, with usually at least a few winners – last year, I felt decent enough about the process to release the entire exercise as an actual legit album (I even printed a handful of CDs); and a lot of people seemed to like it enough to exchange money for a copy.

As always, I’m looking forward to the experience – the activity, the community, unexpected sources of inspiration, and all the rest – and I’m hoping I can keep my streak going.

I’m honestly not sure what this year’s output is going to look like – I never do, really. I can say that I expect the general malaise and burned-outedness I’m experiencing to color the output, at least a bit. Like the sky outside this morning, my outlook’s a little cloudy, what with the usual litany of depressing headlines and the fact that we’re approaching the beginning of the third year of this pandemic. The good news is, even those negative emotions can serve as grist for the songwriting mill, and often pretty potently. Even if I’m primarily part of the filk or nerdmusik milieu, a lot of my stuff ends up being kind of personal; right now, the personal is equal parts “tired of all this crap” and “just plain emotionally wrung out,” so a little exploration of dark places won’t be out of place. Of course, I expect there’ll be a few silly trifles and songs about books and movies I’ve consumed lately, because there always are.

If you’re at all interested in following the mayhem (or even participating in this mess yourself), go ahead and click that image leading this post off – it points directly to my profile, though it’s an easy click to start up your own songwriting adventure as well.

Write on.

On Wednesday evening, I was driving my lovely spouse and youngest child back from a recreational activity involving frozen water, and my head started throbbing. Started in the sinuses, and progressed from there; lights of oncoming cars appearing extra intense, noise starting to bother me, all that crap.

We made it home, I took my regular pills and some extra pain killers and went straight away to bed in the dark.

Waking up the next morning, I had that unmistakable hung over feeling, even if I hadn’t had any alcohol enter my system since I enjoyed that single ale on Sunday evening while cooking dinner. I’m not sure if the headache was a full-on migraine, though the experience was so identical as to make no difference.

That said, I limped my way through the work day and its litany of meetings and got my stuff done, but did very little else the rest of the day.

Feeling mostly better this morning; let’s hope it sticks. I’ve got nothing really on the agenda for the weekend, which is, I think, for the best. The weather looks a bit shit anyway, although it looks a bit more that way to the northeast.

Apart from the cranial business, I got a few things of note done this week. It took less than a minute to complete my begging brief to get one of my programs funded for the year, and took my first bike ride of the year on Tuesday when the weather was sort of decent; that felt good. I’ll take successes where I can get ’em.

So tunes – kind of all over the place this week – couple of great indie signature guitar licks in tracks #5 (excellent local fellow I’ll catch in a club one day) and #10 (until recently, the only tune from these guys you’d ever hear on the radio), then settling into mostly 90s AAA rock, which, sure…fine.

1. “Expectations” – Katie Pruitt
2. “Drive Me, Crazy” – Orville Pick
3. “Never Get Ahead” – Bobby Conn
4. “Too Good” – Arlo Parks
5. “Genuine Hesitation” – Matthew E. White
6. “Won’t Stand Down” – Muse
7. “Bite Me” – Avril Lavigne
8. “Howlin’ For You” – The Black Keys
9. “Never Let You Go” – Third Eye Blind
10. “Float On” – Modest Mouse
11. “Wake Up” – Rage Against The Machine
12. “Til I Hear It From You” – Gin Blossoms
13. “I Want You To Want Me” – Cheap Trick
14. “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” – The Darkness
15. “Alive” – Pearl Jam

If I look back at the calendar and tally all the stuff I clearly got done, it’s obvious there was a weekend, but damn if I’m not having a bit of a difficult time feeling like I had two days away from my desk and all the usual office weirdness of making sure the data continues to flow, the software licenses and support contracts get renewed, and maintaining some optimism that the initiatives I’m trying to champion someday make some of these processes more efficient and cost a little less.

I know time has passed, because on Thursday and Friday there was snow. Now it’s gone, and the sun was pretty bright yesterday. I can see the groceries I bought and the laundry I washed. I can see the balance on my bank account going down as the bills I paid, the tequila the girls-of-age and I drank, and the new kitchen appliances I got ordered have their prices collected. The fish tank is clean, as is the floor of the home office/studio/sewing space. Over to the left in the little box I keep it in, the number of miles hiked and books read have increased a bit.

Stuff has happened. I accomplished tasks. But it mostly feels like a dream in between emails sent, questions answered, memos written, and conference calls attended.

There was a break from all this, but I didn’t reap much of a benefit in terms of rest or stress relief. The headlines I read and the obstacles I have to overcome, and the people out there in my community who have so little empathy for their fellow humans…it’s playing less-than-pleasant games with my mental health and general outlook.

Objectively, I can prove that I’m getting by, day-to-day, and the ledger shows I’m making progress, but for whatever reason; depression, ennui, two-point-something years of global pandemic that keeps on keeping on, It doesn’t feel like I’m moving forward, and that sucks.

I just feel like I badly need some kind of win, and such a thing is currently elusive. My outlook on the future is hazy, and not in a good way like a solid east coast IPA; the future of well, All Of This™,, is uncertain, buried in dark gray fog, and so many of us, not just me, are struggling to find our way through it to a result that feels like a positive.

But, here’s to hoping we do.

I’ve registered and paid; I’m now committed to do the Century Ride for the 2022 Virginia Capital Trail Cap2Cap.

Guess I better start training, huh?

For the second time in as many weeks, my region of the country is sliding into the weekend with an allegedly significant weather event. Yesterday was rain and snow that mostly amounted to nothing but what’ll prove to be slick roads today as it’s probably not going to break above freezing all day. Tonight they’re calling for more precipitation, but the various forecasters can’t quite agree on what kind or how much.

I’m leaning toward not much, honestly – just enough to be mildly inconvenient.

“Mildly inconvenient” is actually a pretty good descriptor for the week at large. News on the national and state level has been the usual crap; work’s been quiet, though I’d rather it not be; I’ve got stuff I’ve got to get done, and it’s like pulling teeth to get straight answers out of the people who need to provide them, and the thinks I’ve gotten done have been just a bit more complicated than they need to be, but only to the point of annoyance. The rest of life’s been about the same; little impediments that are *just bothersome enough* without rising to the point of crisis.

Ennui. On we go.

I’ve accomplished just enough to maintain some kind of plodding progress. I got my bike back from the shop freshly maintained and tuned for about half the price I’d estimated, just in time to put it in storage due to weather. This week’s paycheck was nice and heavy thanks to that bonus I talked about, and I’ve gotten a couple of bills paid off, but as most of the windfall’s already spoken for, it’s just watching it flow in and out. I successfully briefed one project into funding and approval at work, onlty to have two more smaller, neglected ones dropped in my lap.

That’s the way it goes..two steps forward, one back. Over and over.

But, it’s better than the inverse, I guess.

Tunes this week? Lots of modern indie, a couple of cool covers, and some J-pop? Not a lot of stuff I’ve heard before, but that’s fine; this is Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlist, after all.

1. “Best Life” – Cheekface
2. “Crimson + Clover” – Pom Pom Squad
3. “Safety Dance” Angel Olsen
4. “SPORTSMEN” – Haroumi Hosono
5. “Cheers” – Faye Webster
6. “Like A Lady” – Pom Poko
7. “New Mistake” – Jellyfish
8. “Those Words” – Mattiel
9. “Don’t Do It” – Courtney Barnett Feat. Vagabon
10. “oh baby” – LCD Soundsystem
11. “Streets of Philadelphia” – Waxahatchee
12. “The Balcony” – Fruit Bats
13. “Traffic!” – Katy Kirby
14. “The Universe” – Death Valley Girls