Those reading this space and what things I say in other spaces lately are no doubt aware that I’e been struggling. I’m not sure what it is, really. I suspect it’s a shifting mix of cabin fever, depression, anxiety, boredom, mourning, anger, existential dread, fear for the future, stress, ennui, a well-timed mid-life crisis, frustration, rational reactions to the state of this undeniably f**ked up world, and a bunch of other feelings, states, and conditions that I don’t necessarily have the words for.

And, possibly worse, additional stress and anxiety resulting from the fact that I don’t know how to fix it.

I am, however, muddling through, getting up each morning, going through the motions to get the stuff that needs done mostly done, and going to bed to do it all again the next day. It’s not something I really have a choice on (which is it’s own kind of frustration), so it’s gotta get done, because I have responsibilities I can’t really abdicate.

While my definition of “muddling through” might differ from those people stuck in the house with me, I get through days. Not always pleasant days, but it’s the “get through” that’s the real operative clause.

It’s been suggested that perhaps I need a change of scenery; some novelty.

To that end, I did a little research on likely destinations, and booked myself a long weekend of solo camping and mountain biking in the “wilderness” (by the way of the National Park Service, anyway) for early next month. A site a few hours away from here where I can spend a couple of days riding unfamiliar trails and looking at things I’m not currently surrounded by. Clear the head and purge the ballast in a socially-distanced, responsible, and cost-effective way.

And I’m not really telling anyone where I’m going (apart from my immediate household), because that’s kind of part of the whole “escape” thing too. I just need to get off the grid and live alone with the trees and my thoughts for 72 hours or so, without being concerned with dealing with anybody else.

It’s going to be my time.

Damn, I hope it helps.*

__________

* – …at least as much as this morning’s long-overdue hot shower felt. That was a short bit of glorious pleasure after most of a week without.

I don’t really wanna talk about the weekend. Suffice to say it was extra stressful, not particularly restful, and ended Monday morning with wonderful news about middle-of-the-night policy changes at the office that mean I need to take some proposal packages I’ve been working on for the last month or two back to the drawing board.

The highlight of the weekend, such as it was, was my catching a snippet or two of conversation between two hikers half my age that I passed on the trail while pounding through a fifteen mile bike ride on Sunday that included appreciative comments about my ass. That said, fifteen miles in about an hour *and* being objectified by anonymous young women as a “slightly better than dad bod” middle aged man didn’t generate enough endorphins to overcome the general deficit of such and pervasive sense of ennui.

Not even sure what the coming week holds. I guess I have opinions on the latest headlines, of course, and have, thus far, been able to restrain my feelings of schadenfreude. I’m going to be the better man here, and wish 45, Mrs. 45, and the rest of the ever-increasing administration population who caught this thing at the superspreader Rose Garden meet-n-greet, and all the people affected at last week’s post-positive test rallies and fundrasing flesh-pressers and Sunday’s stupid drive-by well. Nobody deserves to deal with this crap, especially the 213k and counting we can’t ask about it anymore.

Just go vote for the responsible adults this time, okay?

…Anyway, the coming week. I don’t honestly know what’s coming. Probably nothing particularly significant to daily life, because daily life is work-bike-cook-sleep-repeat now, and that’s about all it’s going to be for a while. We do have the water heater install scheduled for the afternoon (with a window not quite as wide as a cable install), though it should be painless and ideally, I can take a hot shower this evening an finally feel like something more closely resembling human for a little while.

Ideally. We all know how this year is rolling.

It is indeed Friday when this gets posted (if not when it gets composed). This week, clearly, has not been good. Lots of crap, everywhere, shoveled heavily over my existence. To put it plainly, it sucked; there was very little worth feeling good about, all told.

But, this is the world we live in now.

My only escape, sort of, was riding the bike in the woods, and having a couple of beers with my fellow barflies at the Kroger bar on Thursday evening. Of course afterwards, I had to grab some groceries, which is kind of tedious, even if you’ve got a couple of pints in you while you walk the aisles. Sobers you right up.

Y’all have read the posts this week; I don’t need to elaborate. Life was…not good. Some of it I didn’t even mention, and I’m not going to, because it’s not necessarily mine to tell, but take it as read that things were generally awful all around.

But, it’s kind of over, at least. We have that. I won’t belabor it.

I shall, however, say that today is once again Bandcamp Friday, where the service waives fees and all the proceeds go to the artist. One could do worse than to grab the tunes from any of the folks in the “play list” category to your right (bandcamp links will be on those pages if it doesn’t go straight there). One could also aim toward the “tunes” category to your left, which includes a few links toward stuff that I’ve been involved with and/or contributed to.

Of course, if you like me, you could take a look here:

That right there is my record; I’m mostly proud of it. If you were interested in buying that, or anything else from bandcamp, today would be the day, as the artists get a little extra. Just sayin’.

Anyway, other tunes. Spotify generated a “Time Capsule” playlist for me Thursday afternoon; that’s where this week’s tunes come from. It plays like late high school/early college, if I were just a tiny bit cooler than I actually was. Enjoy:

1. “Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out)” – Tesla
2. “Rush” – Big Audio Dynamite
3. “Lay It Down” – Ratt
4. “In God’s Country” – U2
5. “Voices Carry” – ‘Til Tuesday
6. “Stars” – Hum
7. “Man on the Moon” – REM
8. More Than Words” – Extreme
9. “Nothing Else Matters” – Metallica
10. “Zombie” – Cranberries
11. Androdgynous” – Replacements
12. “Coming of Age” – Damn Yankees
13. “Driver 8” – REM
14. “Blue” – Jayhawks
15. “Punk Rock Girl” – Dead Milkmen
16. “Where Is My Mind?” – Pixies

This morning’s title, plus a maybe a few choice obscenities, were some of my first words yesterday morning when the shower definitively confirmed the suspicion underlying much of the previous week:

The hot water heater died.

Yes, “hot water heater” is rather redundant, but that’s what said device is indeed called on all the websites of the various services selling it, so that’s what I’m going with. In any case, after shopping around a bit, I’ve got one ordered and it’s set for install on Monday (dammit), and said purchase has, regrettably, killed the forward momentum of my personal savings/debt elimination program for this month (dammit again), but that is, I guess, what savings are for.

The “Monday” bit adds one final “dammit” to the proceedings, because the showers are going to be cold for another couple of days, and knowing my body chemistry and exercise schedule, showers are absolutely necessary.

And that, dear reader, is pretty much the icing on a crap cake for this week; a week where my nerves and brain have basically given up in the face of this ridiculous world and country we live in where dear friends have serious medical emergencies, others dear to us get isolated due to viral panic and security theater, my efforts to get ahead of the fiscal year game regarding program packages gets rebuffed because the process is ridiculous and ever-changing, and the nominal leader of the nation refuses both to accept the republic’s two centuries’ worth of tradition of peaceful transfer of power, and denounce white supremacy and virulent racism in a public forum.

That last one deserves special mention; as that sort of action is kind of a deal-breaker in civilized society. As I (and many others have similarly) posted on social media recently:

In a good and just world, this would go without saying, though as it’s painfully obvious that we’re not in one of those, I shall say:

I condemn white supremacy. Emphatically. No conditions.

…if that’s something you can’t say, perhaps we might need to re-evaluate some relationships.

Yeah, it’s that simple. In cases where I have any kind of choice, I’m not gonna deal with folks who can’t simply say “Racism is bad, mmmmkay,” because I have enough garbage in my life right now as it is.

So, anyway, this post got a little more serious than I’d originally intended, but frankly, that’s where we find ourselves in this world right now. And one of the few things we have individual power to do anything about it is to vote for the non-racist, non-denier-of-science, non-asshole candidate in the coming election. I’ve already done so. I hope you do too; and if you choose to vote for the other guy and enable that kind of crap? Please reference the previous paragraph.

Also, “both-sides”ing it doesn’t really apply here. The other guy may not be perfect, but he’s not a racist jerk. Also, “Antifa” isn’t really a thing; never was. There’s legitimately no proof that I’ve seen that it isn’t a made-up straw-man organization; at most, it’s a general sense of opposition to right-wing authoritarianism. Also, even if it was real, if you have a problem with being “Anti-Fascist”, you’re not exactly on the side of the angels.

I really wish I wasn’t this distraught, stressed and angry about everything, but as that is where we find ourselves, I might as well channel some of those feelings into, well, something.

Here we are. I’ll go back to taking cold showers for another couple of days.

On Friday I spent some time talking about “The Six Month Wall”, and how the way to get past it, according to experts, is to just give yourself permission to be less productive and take a bit of a break.

So, this weekend, that’s what I did. The weather was mostly crap, so I stuck close to home, apart from the usual Saturday morning grocery shopping. I took a nap (or at least laid in the dark for a while) to manage eyestrain issues, rented some escapist action movies from the box outside the grocery store, and got some quality couch time in between changing loads of laundry, both Saturday and Sunday.

I mostly took a break from headlines and social media, which was also helpful. As I responsible citizen, one needs to keep abreast of current events, but I purposely avoided diving deep into hardcore political analysis about the new Supreme Court Nominee (though honestly, having read up on her in the past, I’m not really a fan; I’ve no beef with religion or what somebody chooses to believe, but if one is in public service in this country, it’s got to stay personal and not be on the forefront of your politics or professional output) or the President’s taxes (the NYT’s Sunday drop was neat, but unsurprising).

I didn’t stay totally away, as we got word that a very dear friend (really, one of the anchors of our chosen family) is facing some serious health challenges (bite me 2020; I’m so done with you), and we kept one ear to the internet for updates, but Sunday was devoted largely to binge-watching the first season of The Boys on Amazon Prime, which is dark and cynical as all get out, but it’s still a universe that isn’t our own, and thus provided some escape.

And, if I hadn’t been listening for my phone to vibrate, I would have missed a message from an old college buddy who’s on the return leg of a solo motorcycle tour of the east coast from Georgia to New England and back, and was passing through the RVA Sunday evening. So, the lovely spouse and I closed out our Sunday night by meeting him at a nearby drinking establishment for a beer and some conversation. I get to see this guy maybe once every couple of years when I find myself in Atlanta with rare free time, and it was nice to catch up again in person, especially since he’s living such an interesting life, and happy to share it. Also, in the “small world” department, he unknowingly made a couple of Humdingers road gigs a bit more pleasant due to his current business venture.

So, yeah. I didn’t have high expectations of myself or the world this weekend, and, apart from one nice surprise, the universe basically lived up to them. Hoping for an improvement in the week ahead.

Earlier this week, a friend shared a series of posts on social media from a disaster response expert about “The Six Month Wall,” a point in any ongoing crisis where a person is just done, tired of the grind, of coping, and has just lost all semblance of enthusiasm, motivation, and productivity.

I’m there. We’re all there. My depression and anxiety are higher than normal. I struggle to summon enthusiasm for anything, even stuff I love. My creative output and motivation has dwindled to about zero. I’m stuck.

I did a little online digging, and found an article written in the UK Telegraph by the source of that series of tweets, Aisha Ahmad, that expounds on the idea a little bit. I recommend you read it, there’s some good information there. The gist, however, is to recognize that this “wall” hits pretty much everyone, like clockwork, at this time, in this type of situation (disaster response, deployment, distant assignments), where a person’s “normal” is up-ended, and adapting and dealing with the changes becomes increasingly tiresome and burdensome. The good news is, however, that the wall passes, usually after a couple of weeks, and can be made easier with certain coping mechanisms, the biggest of which is managing expecations of yourself; specifically, lowering them.

It’s totally okay to give yourself permission to be less productive and creative for a bit. It’s okay just to go through the motions and do the minumum required to satisfy your commitments.

For people who’ve been conditioned through life, academia, and fast-paced public service work toward achievement though, it’s a tough thing to do. Some folks say “Cs get Degrees”, but for some of us, that’s really not good enough, is it?

I’m trying. I’m letting go of some of the workload, or at least handling some of the more routine stuff, rather than the big show-stopping projects, for the day job. I’ve kind of let the music lie fallow a bit, other than workng some of the background cycles in my brain. I’m trying to sleep more, reading (more) books about realities other than this one, and give myself some more of the rejuvenating activities I enjoy doing.

And it sorta works. It’s not a switch to flip; it’s a process. I’m also kind of impatient. It doesn’t help that this wall is hitting right at the season change when I struggle with allergies (whose symptoms look just similar enough to the ‘rona that it tweaks the worry a bit), or that eye strain is still real because my damned new glasses aren’t in yet. Or that I get pulled into other people’s drama because they don’t necessarily have the coping skills they should, or, or, or…..

Oh well, as I say, I’m trying.

“Normal,” if we ever do get back to it, is probably a good way off, in any case. I found this piece this morning that talks to a bunch of experts about “…how the pandemic finally ends”, and it makes a lot of sense, which if not amazing news, is actually pretty well sourced and makes consistent sense with the evidence available and what I’m seeing in the world.

Unlike the story coming out of the White House, we’ve not “rounded the corner.” Unlike the popular conspiracy theories I hear around me in checkout lines or when I find myself in places that conservatives feel “safe”, it’s not going to just disappear after the election.

We’re in adaptive social distance mode for at least another year in the most optimistic of circumstances. Luckily, as Ms. Ahmad says in her piece:

Do not be afraid of round two. You have already learned how to navigate this “new normal” and have the skills you need. Remember, in their first six months of deployment, most people spend all their time simply figuring things out. In their second round, they know the terrain and are much more effective. Same rules apply here. You have six months of vital experience that prepared you. You already know how to survive under these conditions. You have proved you can do it.

I really hope so.

___________

In the meantime, we have music, which can be an effective escape, or at least a form of therapy. Stylistically this week, Spotify is giving me lots of indie and punk-adjacent, and it’s not a bad listen, but I can’t help but see so many song titles apropos to the current situation:

1. “Why Can’t I Touch It?” – Buzzcocks
2. “Feel The Same” – Bully
3. “Then They Came For Me” – The Drones
4. “Homosapien” – Pete Shelley
5. “Black Magic” – Jarvis Cocker
6. “Natural’s Not In It” – Gang of Four
7. “Whole Wide World” – Wreckless Eric
8. “A Moose Moving” – Hopfratei
9. “Talking Heads” – Black Midi
10. “Three Girl Rhumba” – Wire
11. “So Blue” – Frankie Cosmos
12. “Pink” – Mothers

The world is losing way too many good people right now.

This week/weekend has been rough. Beyond my uncle last week, I learned that I lost a friend (who had officiated over 3600 weddings and loved sharing bizarre musical instruments) to complications of a stroke, and several friends have lost beloved pets, not to mention the 2000 or Americans lost to COVID in the past 48 hours.

Then there’s the big one that could impact us all. RBG.

The Titan of the Supreme Court, feminist trailblazer, influential jurist, role model, and total badass finally took her rest, 45 days before the election, but not before getting in one final parting shot, dictating to her granddaughter that her most fervent wish is that she not be replaced until there is a new president.

If you all remember the far away times of 2016, when Justice Scalia passed ten months before the election, the Republican leadership in the Senate put the brakes on President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, because in an election year, “the people should decide” before a new Justice is installed.

If you believed they’d stick to that…well, I’d love to sell you something. It took around an hour before Majority Leader McConnell made it clear he intends to fast-track whoever 45 nominates ASAP. Rules for thee, not for me, I guess.

This is now the story of the election (even if I’ve already voted, which I’ll have done by the end of the day); we’ll be watching very closely, and as much as I’d love to “go high” as Michelle Obama implores us, my inclination here is that we obstruct *everything* for the next month and a half to keep this from happening. Given the two picks 45 has made thus far, can you imagine what sort of candidate he’ll put forward when they just don’t have time for vetting? It’s gonna be ugly.

________________________

So, personally, the weekend, if nothing else, allowed me to accomplish a couple of things. Friday evening I ended up running a couple of things out west to the kid, and had a nice dinner at a cool little Indian/Meditterranean cafe. I got my bike back, and put it through it’s paces, and had the shop/brewery throw in some nice hand grips and a free beer to make up for the delay (yes, in Richmond, EVERYTHING is a brewery). I also got the gutters cleaned on the house, which was long overdue.

Beyond those couple of things, though, it’s been nothing but eyestrain and a persistent cough that I’ve picked up in the last 24 hours, plus, you know, the general crappiness of the world. And for the next few days, I don’t really expect it to change.

Best thing I can say about this week is that it’s basically over.

This whole week I’ve been struggling with respiratory/allergy issues, and given the Current State of Things ™, I’ve of course been worried that it’s the dreaded ‘Rona, even if the symptoms don’t at all match up to those reported. Mostly, I’ve just felt like crap, and have been fancifully tempted grab some powertools and drill a hole in my head to relieve the pressure (I did not do so). Staring at at a computer screen eight or nine hours a day for work doesn’t help either, especially given that I now *know* my prescription isn’t up to snuff and my new glasses are at least a week off. This is also keeping me from doing necessary music stuff I owe to other projects, since almost all of that lives on the computer too. I didn’t get anything done this week apart from knocking out a handful of click tracks, which is about as low impact as it gets.

Literally the only cool thing I did this week was getting out to the park for an hour or so on Wednesday with the kids flying an old RC drone I had in the closet and doing a little hiking along the tidal marsh.

The day job itself hasn’t been particularly noteworthy; prepping acquisition packages and program managing another software test. This is my life. The people can be a pain in the ass, but that’s nothing new. At least I’ve finally confirmed that I make too much money to be affected by that OASDI payroll tax deferral boondoggle, though it’s still going to be a rude awakening for so many of the rest of my public service bretheren.

As far as the world goes, it continues to be awful. 200k dead of the virus and so many don’t seem concerned at all. I’m continually worried about my friends in California, Oregon, and Washington where the world’s on fire, and my friends in Mississippi and Alabama who are watching hurricanes bear down on them…again. Then I read this article which puts actual voice to the kind of unconscious thoughts I’ve been having about the state of the planet and the species for a while now. TL;DR? It’s a perfect storm of crap.

And finally, I got word this week that a relative who was very dear to me in my youth passed away. Although the hunting, fishing, and guns never really took with me, I know it’s at least partially due to his influence that I find so much peace today wandering the wilder places of the world and experiencing nature. Thanks for that, Uncle Bob; it means the world to me. Rest well.

In any case, here’s some tunes. I can tell I’ve been listening to 80s alternative, jam bands, and riot grrl lately, because that’s the mix that spotify spits out:

1. “Come For Me” – Sunflower Bean
2. “Old Time Feeling” – S.G. Goodman
3. “Berlin” – Adult Mom
4. “Zombie” – Langhorne Slim
5. “You’re Standing On My Neck” – Destructo Disk
6. “Leave My Party” – Miya Folick
7. “Daisy” – Kate Davis
8. “Mississsippi Nuthin'” – Shovels & Rope
9. “Gimme Brains” – Bratmobile
10. “People Who Died” – Against Me!
11. “Cemetary Gates” – The Smiths
12. “Seconds” – LCD Soundsystem
13. “Brand New Beast” – Rosie Tucker
14. “Wild Child” – Shopping

In an age that seems eons ago, 2018, The Blibbering Humdingers released our most recent record, Fantastic Geeks and Where To Find Them, to much acclaim. We played all over the place with it, and people seem to dig the cool 1920s aesthetic most of the record presented.

Since the initial shows supporting this one, Scott and Kirsten, the band’s intrepid leaders, have been talking about a video for the tune “Blind Pig”, both because we like it, and because it allows them to show off their ballroom dance skills (they’ve been taking lessons for a while now, and it shows). Life happened since then, and we never quite got it. Then COVID happened, and I haven’t seen my friends in person since January.

This didn’t stop the signal, however. I shot some greenscreen footage here, they shot footage there, and they put it all together in a pretty cool video for a fun song (featuring some of the best bass playing I’ve done to this point, if I do say so myself), that captures the feel of the tune pretty grandly, and shows just how much prettier they all are than me:

Enjoy.

For the first time in like two weeks, I’m coming off a decent night’s sleep. I am not sure what I did to achieve that, but I’m going to try to do it again. A solid eight hours makes something of a difference. I’m going to chalk it up to yesterday’s refreshing rain, which I’m pretty sure we’re getting it again today. I’ll take it. Bike’s still in the shop for at least another week anyway.

Work’s been happening in fits and starts; the test partner we’re working with, who was constantly pushing ahead without following procedures until we got them scheduled, are all of a sudden having huge problems sending us test data…surprise surprise. Amazing things happen when you follow direction, crap happens when you don’t. Otherwise, it’s been the usual spelunking in old documents to fix issues other people have in “Master” schedules, like skipping a whole year on a particular project. This is why they keep me around, I guess.

Today’s title could refer to a couple of things; You could chalk it up to my politics (which were seriously tweaked this week by the ramshackle implementation of the gawdawful Social Security-killing payroll tax deferral Executive Order), the fact that I’ve made something of a start on writing some new musical material this week, or that the kids are figuring this virtual school thing out pretty well.

But mostly, it’s acknowledging a certain milestone I predicted earlier this week; my eye exam yesterday confirmed that I have indeed entered the progressive lenses club, which should make my navigating the world somewhat entertaining to watch for a couple of weeks once the new glasses come in.

One more reminder that I’m growing older, which I am reminded of almost monthly now when yet another former co-worker who I consider in the “peer” category announces their retirement, but have that sense of relief yanked away when I realize I’m still about a decade and a half away from that sweet release.

Anyway, tunes. Lots of indie I haven’t heard of, which isn’t a problem, because it’s usually cool, and I feel good giving someone else their fraction of a cent in royalties*, and I discover things like the neat Dire Straits-like vibe on #11, and that great bass line on #13:

1. “I Fucking H8 U” – Globelamp
2. “Pretty” – Girlpool
3. “Dear Prudence” – Siouxsie and the Banshees
4. “Isolation” – Ty Segall
5. “You Can’t Talk To That Dude” – Jonathan Richman
6. “Elementary School Dropout” – Yucky Duster
7. “In A Van” – Saintseneca
8. “Roulette (feat. Ruby Amanfu)” – Steelism
9. “She’s A Nightmare” – Honeyblood
10. “Take Off Ur Pants” – Indigo De Sousa
11. “Far From Born Again” – Alx Cameron
12. “Passion Fruit Tea” – Retirement
13. “Evolution” – French Vanilla

_______________________

* – Prompted by a friend discovering their music used in some kid’s TikTok video this week, I looked at some reports with the distributor, learning that I have earned slightly more than one penny in streaming royalties since my record hit the services back in July. I guess that’s cool and all, though I’m glad I’ve got a decent retirement savings plan in place.