As I try to do most years, I break down the year in the form of significant digits. It’s an interesting way of remembering things throughout the year, and I kind of have fun playing around with it. 2020, of course, is 2020, and an exception to most normal things, given this once-in-a-century pandemic. This *was* the year I was hoping to play lots of musical gigs in both the band and solo contexts, but…yeah, we all know how that’s gone. I haven’t played in front of anyone but the cats in real-life since early March. In spite of that, I did accomplish some interesting stuff in that area, as well as in some other spaces as well, so we’ll see how it breaks down as I write this mostly stream-of-consciousness style, in no particular order, unless I decide to edit things further.

• 2: The number of hours I’ve spent in an actual office since mid-March. It’s all work-from-home now.
• 980ish: The number of miles I’ve put behind me on both feet and bicycle. Would’ve been way more if not not for…
• 1: The number of bicycles I’ve totally trashed on the trail.
• 93: The number of books I’ve have read this year.
• 15: How many of those books were traditional paper-and-ink and not kindle-based.
• 15: The number of pounds I seem to have added to my frame, in spite of the bike/hike miles
• 233: Number of *new* varieties of beer I’ve tasted this year (according to untappd). Probably the reason for the previous entry
• 6: Number of instances where I’d been seriously concerned about workplace shutdown because of politicians
• 8: Actual number of live gigs I played this year, in front of actual live people. Six of those took place in one weekend in January.
• 5: Number of online streaming gigs I played
• 63: Number of copies of World’s Okayest… sold, both physical and digital
• 2: The number of songs I released digitally this year
• 15: How many cents I’ve made from digital streaming of my music on the various services
• 3: The number of records appeared as a guest on this year
• 19: The number of songs I wrote this year
• 0: How many of those songs I’ve actually managed to record beyond crap demos
• 6: Number of times I’ve actually been out of the RVA metro this year
• 1: Number of Pegasus awards I was nominated for this year (as part of the Humdingers)
• 0: Number of Pegasus awards we won
• 5: Number of facemasks I’m currently cycling through
• I’ve lost count: Number of friends (that I know of) that have contracted COVID-19
• 0: Number who have died (thank the Maker!)
• ∞: Number of times I’ve mumbled obscenities behind my mask in the grocery store at folks ignoring protocol

There are probably more relevant numbers this year, but these are the ones that come to mind right now. It’s a representation of a year. Not the greatest year, of course, but it hasn’t exactly been that for any of us. Here’s to hoping that the coming one will be less interesting, huh?

At the absolute eleventh hour, after a whole big holiday temper tantrum, he finally signed the damned thing, so the government keeps running, and I can relax, at least about that, for a little while. My topical song sold a couple of copies while it remained topical, and it remains out there for your amusement, waiting for it to be relevant again, because we all know that’ll happen.

Anyway, that particular weight is lifted, allowing me to, at least a little bit, float through the in-between time; that week between Christmas and New Years where there really isn’t a hell of a lot going on, and one just sort of bobbles along doing what feels right. For me, that’s been cooking some food, reading a little less than half of a highly-regarded feminist fantasy novel before becoming kind of bored with it and moving on (though feeling kind of bad about the fact that I just wasn’t into it), drinking the occasional beer, and continuing to work my way through Witcher III: The Wild Hunt on the PS4, because I’ve been playing it for like two years now and figured I ought to finish it one of these months (I think I’m about to wrap up the “second act” of the plot, but really, who knows?).

Christmas itself around here was a pretty low-key celebration – hell, the way this year’s been going, we didn’t even put up a tree, as no one was all that into the whole idea. We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve and slept in. Of all the gifts I found for my lovely spouse, several haven’t even arrived yet, even if I ordered them weeks and weeks ago. Thankfully, the really beautiful hand-painted wine glasses I commissioned from a really talented artist friend were ready on time, and they made her very happy. The rest of her gifts will show up when they do, and she’ll have more little surprises.

I got a few interesting collectibles, a nice sweater, and a MIDI controller for my digital recording rig; it’s basically a piano keyboard to make to the digital samples and synthesizer applications I have on the computer – I’m planning on mostly using it to build drum tracks and maybe more as I develop my limited keyboard skills. I’ve spent a few hours fiddling with it and getting it up and running and building connections between all the appropriate things, though I haven’t done anything at all with it you’d call “creative”, but it’ll come.

We’re going to largely float through things for the next week, largely by ourselves, because of the ‘rona. We did have a dear friend stop by to say hello yesterday as he was making his way back home from the rehab facility out west where his spouse, also a dear friend, is recovering from a stroke a few months back. It was at least nice to chat with a friend for a bit, even through the masks and distanced in the driveway – it’s been a rough time for all of them, and I think seeing friendly faces in the midst of his four-hours-each-way drive was a welcome thing.

I got outside for an hour or two this morning, hiking a couple of miles at my favored local park, and being relieved to find that my ankle was mostly up to it. I also saw some herons, and generally feel pretty good after being out in nature for a bit. It’s been a while.

So, yeah, that’s where things are. They are.

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 through until Biden comes in and pushes for more.

Then, last night after I’d put the internet away for the day and picked up a really great honest-to-blog paper book, 45 decides to throw another 11th hour fit and threatened to derail things because the stimulus payments aren’t big enough.

Stopped clock, etc.

Yes, indeed, $600 bucks is barely half of most people’s rent; in the scheme of things, it’s a pittance; scraps thrown to the dog. In public sector terms, it’s not even real money; in my office, seven figures is a “rounding error.” But, small as it is, it’d help some people maybe salvage the scaled down Christmas they put on the credit card. The $2k he’s asking for (now) would be better, but whatever.

Nothing’s going to come of this, of course, other than the whatever-in-chief throwing one last tantrum on the way out (if you don’t count the shameless pardons that are surely coming here, including war criminals and Congressman Vape), but that last tantrum could be a pain in a lot of folks ass, as to get the final touches on the bill, they passed another continuing resolution through 12/28.

Should he screw this up and delays this business, or vetoes the bill outright (given the timing, a more clever evil politician could make interesting use of the “pocket veto” here, but I doubt he even knows what that is), it’s going to be a mess for a bunch of people who need help, and…guess who might be getting another furlough notice for New Years?

I really, really wish I was out of opportunities to promote this tune…

Enjoy the song for the “imperfect yet timely” artifact it is; it’s pay what you want (including nothing) if you’re hurting, but if you’d feel like throwing a buck or two my way for this one (or any of the songs up there!), it might help keep me in cat food and beer to weather the oncoming storm.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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 wouldn’t let me sleep past 4am this morning, so I got the day started early. Hopefully I can finish it early as well.

We’ll see.

As I said previously, once I wrap things up for the day, my plan is to go out for a celebratory happy hour drink at the grocery store, as one does, because it’s socially distanced and relatively low risk, and craft pints are three dollars. I also probably need some stuff at the grocery store, because with three giant children at home all the time, food, shall we say, disappears.

Feel free to raise a glass of whatever in solidarity this afternoon. Slante.

The big question, of course, is whether my scheduled holiday leave will be paid or not, because headlines are suggesting that passage of omnibus spending bills and the latest slimmed-down pandemic stimulus package are coming down to the wire, presenting the possibility that the government will shut down…again, on Friday at midnight. Why does this happen? Quoth the linked article above:

Asked what the hold-up was, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said: “Why this takes so long is because we procrastinate and we pretend just one more day and we’ll get a better deal.”

Thanks for the honesty, Congressman, it’s refreshing. Happy holidays. In the meantime, should such a thing happen, a few sales of this little ditty would help keep the lights on around here….just sayin’.

Otherwise, life will go on. It always does.

A few housekeeping notes: with me on holiday break, I will probably post a bit less, because a lot of my break is getting the hell away from screens for a while. I wanna cook some meals, and read the couple of nice paper books I got from the library the other day. I’ll probably pop in from time to time, because, well, in ‘Rona-world, internet-enable devices are the great window to communicating with other humans. Were I you, dear reader, however, I’d expect at least a couple of year-end wrap-up and reflection posts, because that’s how I roll.

So, to wrap this up…some tunes. I woke up (again, really damned early) with the first tune on this list running in the back of my mental soundtrack for some reason (I don’t know why – my head is weird); so I fed it into the spotify algorithms and it spit out this play list, populated, unsurprisingly, by lots of 80s hair metal and butt rock, with a few nods to my mid-life 120 Minutes habits as tracked by the service. Rawk:

1. “Wait” – White Lion
2. “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” – Quiet Riot
3. “Who’s Behind the Door” – Zebra
4. “I Remember You” – Skid Row
5. “Sister Christian” – Night Ranger
6. “Fire Woman” – The Cult
7. “Superman” – REM
8. “Got You (Where I Want You) – The Flys
9. “One Tree Hill” – U2
10. “Need You Tonight” – INXS
11. “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) – Kate Bush
12. “Semi-Charmed Life” – Third Eye Blind

___________________________

* – you don’t wanna know how long I tried to get the proper Unicode character to display here before just giving up. Ugh.

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 wrote the song linked above two years ago, but this thing keeps on happening. So, I recorded a version of it this time, in order to be, y’know, socially relevant. It’s not perfect, but it’s timely!

It’s posted, like all my stuff during Covid times, as pay what you want, but I’d appreciate any pocket change you decide to toss my way, especially if I get furloughed just in time for Christmas.

Today inaugurates my last working week of 2020. Thursday afternoon after logging off for the year(!), I shall do the usual run to the pet store to buy cat food, and (assuming further restrictions are not imposed in the meantime and there’s a free table for me to sit down) then visit the Kroger bar and raise a glass of something strong and dark to the symbolic end of the hassles of this awful year, at least at the office.

Before I can do that, however, I aim to route one more acquisition package through the gauntlet of reviews, so it at least has a chance to make the January review deadline. Said package is together, aligned with all the latest templates and requirements I’m able to find, and I even built myself an interactive tracker of required documents built according to the most recent “checklist” template, and I’ve passed it to the first level of unofficial review, while the one wildcard (an unqualified, possibly felonious actor who’s somehow managed to insert himself even further into the process in recent months) generates his bullshit bullet points.

Beyond that and a couple of end-of-year check-ins, I’ve got things all but wrapped up.

Leaving work aside, I’m tying up the last couple of loose strings regarding holiday gifts, and once again keeping a very close eye on Congress, who’ve kicked the can down the road another week, because I’d like to know whether my time off for the holidays is paid leave or furlough. Such is life in the public sector, no matter who’s in the White House.

I even managed to get a little low-impact outdoor time in this weekend, and my bum ankle isn’t complaining too much. I’ve been trying to be serious about resting it and not pushing, though when we get a couple of sunny days in the 60°s in mid-December, my first inclination is to disappear into the woods and put ten or fifteen miles behind me.

But that didn’t happen, because I practiced self-control, and won’t happen today, because it’s raining something awful.

Long day yesterday, longer day today, complicated by a bad reaction to dinner last night. Also, head’s clogged up, and I feel numb, like I’m encased in bubble wrap, except without the cool David Gilmour lead guitar lines behind me.

As such, I present the following:

It’s Monday in early December, 2020; and the state of the world is decidedly “meh.” As usual.

‘Rona cases are concerningly on the rise, in part because of the colder temperatures, the holidays (we’re about two weeks out from Thanksgiving, after all), and people all over the place still politicizing this thing, denying it, and not taking reasonable precautions, as was obvious during my trip to the grocery store Saturday morning. We’re very likely to hit 300k deaths this week, and it didn’t have to be this way. Wear your masks, keep your distance, folks. Even if I don’t particularly like you, I don’t want you dead, okay?

I’ve also got my eyes on Congress, as they’ve created a huge pile of crazy for themselves, doing the unfortunately usual government thing: waiting until the last minute to sort out essential actions; in this case, virus timulus (largely due to idiotic political differences and gamesmanship), continuing budget resolutions (again with the debt limit), and the annual defense authorization bill (being held up by things not not even related to defense, stuff like facilities named after confederate leaders, and a provision of the Communications Decency Act of 1996!), all of which could affect millions of people. Staring down the barrel of a another potential government shutdown this Friday isn’t something I’m particularly looking forward to, plus I know a lot of people worse off than me that could use the small business loans and unemployment expansion provided by the pathetically small $908 billion relief package that’s getting kicked around.

Oh, and there’s snow (not much, but the first time this year) in the forecast. Good thing I’m not really going anywhere.

It’s not all awful, I guess. I’ve got work tasks mostly lined up for the next two weeks before my holiday break, I’m finally past the worst of the flu vaccine side effects, and we got some household projects done over the weekend. I also sold a couple of records in Canada this weekend, for whatever reason; I’m not going to complain.

The weekend otherwise, apart from the raccoons, was typical. I did some laundry, read some books, watched a movie or two, did the shopping, and made an excellent batch of slow-cooked Carolina-inspired pork barbecue. I’ve got fresh local brussels sprouts to roast this week (olive oil, salt, garlic, balsamic vinegar – yum!), and some very nice apples. I did some more recording-for-(not really)hire for a friend, who’s very happy with the results, and although I got a little frustrated with people here and there, it really could have been worse.

As for the looking ahead? All that stuff up there is concerning, of course, but I have stuff to do, and I’ll get it done, because that’s what people with my kind of outlook do. No other way to look at it.

After I finished work on Friday afternoon, I took a quick drive over to my favored local park to get a little outside time. As my ankle’s still healing up, I wasn’t planning anything particularly strenuous, just a little amble along the marsh and a sit on the bench overlooking the river junction for a little bit, maybe see if I could catch a Froakie, a rarely spawning new Pokemon that showed up in PoGo over the last week.

The entrance road to the park loops around a large marsh, with a couple of little observation points along the way that the local birding population loves to use. I didn’t see any birds as I passed the first one, but I did see these guys:

These two young raccoons were just hanging out on the railing, apparently eating up someone’s left-behind snacks, enjoying some late afternoon sorta sunshine. I sat in the car and just watched them for fifteen minutes; it was cool, relaxing, and calming.

After I bid them goodbye, I did walk over to the bench and sit and watch the river go by for a while. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

In the end, this week hasn’t necessarily been as bad as it’s posts suggest. Progress has been made.

It’s looking like that work headache is finally clearing, and the (totally not mine) delays have been noticed by levels of power that might be able to effect change (but I’m not holding my breath). Also, earlier this week I made some music (recording some bass tracks for a friend’s upcoming project) that I think sounds pretty good, and serves the project well. I’ll be sure to point it out if/when it hits the market. I honestly haven’t been playing enough (I need to get back to that), I’m hoping this sparks some inspiration.

Speaking of music, today’s the last Bandcamp Friday of 2020; if you’ve been holding off buying tunes (like say mine), today’s a good day, because processing fees are waived and the artist’s payday is a little bit larger. Go support some good independent artists!

All that aside, the whole week has been kind of blurry. My ankle is still sore (though getting better), and I’ve been kind of loggy since Tuesday when I got my annual flu vaccine (though far from the worst experiences I’ve had with that). But, I’m coming out on the other side now, and hopefully it’ll keep me from getting knocked down with the usual viruses.

The good news is that my reviewing of the calendar this week remindes me that this has been my last full work week for the year. I’m staring down a couple of four day weeks (seeding the schedule with use-or-lose leave) and then two weeks off to close 2020 down. I’ll take that.

Anyway, tunes. This is one of those “made for you” playlists on Spotify, and it’s hitting the mark, starting off with perhaps my favorite REM tune, then (the horn-section version of) a pretty damned great ‘Mats song. From there, it’s some pretty good riot grrl, and some interesting 80s/90s alternative. Not a bad listen.

1. “Driver 8” – REM
2. “Can’t Hardly Wait” – The Replacements
3. “Girls Like Us” – The Julie Ruin
4. “Dig Me Out” – Sleater-Kinney
5. “Gigantic” – Pixies
6. “Sucked Out” – Superdrag
7. “Pot Roast and Kisses” – The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
8. “Club Zero” – The Go Gos
9. “Cool Schmool” – Batmobile
10. “This Woman’s Work” – Kate Bush
11. “White Flag” – Slutever
12. “Smash Hit” – Potty Mouth