Today’s header refers not to unfortunate automotive issues (thank goodness), but rather to an old joke I’ve likely made at least a few times before in this space over the years, about having difficulty “getting my ass in gear.”

The last few days, while not being particularly unpleasant, seem to line up with some song lyrics I wrote a few years ago that I haven’t really done anything with yet, but come to mind regularly, for a tune called “White Collar Lament”:

I’m here. I’m here.
But my give-a-shitter is broke

My path is clear.
but what’s keeping me going is Diet Coke.

I’ve got the same meeting three times today
My weekend is still three days away
and my paycheck is already spoken for anyway.

That’s pretty much it. I do the thing, but struggle to care. This is likely most of us. It helps when you give up buying into that “do something you’ll love, you’ll never work a day in your life” crap. My job pays the bills and lets me afford to do some cool stuff now and then; it’s a means to an end, not the end itself. If I meet someone who claims to find meaning and affirmation in the kind of job I do, I’m immediately suspect; they’re either deluded, broken, or trying to sell something. What I do is technically necessary to keep the public infrastructure running, but it’s also unnecessarily complicated by too many steps, too many cooks…too many somethings.

But those of you who are veterans of this particular void-screaming exercise, you already know this. I shall not belabor it further.

Y’know, I’m not even sure it’s worth talking about what the weekend’s going to be like, because you all know what it’s going to look like. It’s going to look a lot like this week, apart from my not booting up the work computer. Stay around the house, maybe go walk in the woods at the local conservation area park along the river if it’s nice. Read, watch a couple of movies, play a game. Cook something…

I actually have been cooking a little bit, improvising with ingredients on hand; earlier this week, I made a really nice homemade chicken barley soup and baked a decent loaf of beer bread. I saw a picture of lasagna this week, so I might go down the street to the store and get the stuff I need for that, because I kind of want some now.

Or, it could be like the other days this week when I couldn’t be bothered and just ate chicken salad sandwiches. Too bad I finished off the chicken salad yesterday.

Nevertheless, we persist. And talk about tunes. Spotify weekly discovery is largely contemporary indie pop and 80s new wave, with some nice modern folk wedged in (I saw the Secret Sisters live last year, and they were amazing. Remember live music?). Not significantly different from the average hour listening to wnrn, and that’s something I won’t complain about, especially with some ‘Mats in the mix:

1. “Double Life” – The Cars
2. “Walking Down Madison” – Kristy McColl
3. “Things I Learned” – Motel Mirrors
4. “Dancing In The Dark” – Lucy Dacus
5. “Better Things” – The Kinks
6. “Hand Over My Heart” – The Secret Sisters
7. “Slipping Away” – Dave Edmunds
8. “Confetti to the Hurricane” – The Deer
9. “Couldn’t I Just Tell You” – Todd Rundgren
10. “Can’t Hardly Wait” – The Replacements
11. “You Better You Bet” – The Who
12. “Dim” – Dada
13. “Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard” – Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

Being Monday, spirits are not particularly high. Heck, spirits weren’t that high for most of the weekend. I’m just kind of on the low point in the curve, but that’s what it is. The Zoom-based virtual wedding party/thing was kind of fun; we enjoyed spending time with friends in a Brady-Bunch like array on the monitor, and I got to play a tune or two. My friends’ wedding (scheduled for early June) isn’t likely to happen the way they expected, so this was a nice way to salve the wounds a bit.

Otherwise for the weekend, I did the shopping, washed some clothes, made some chicken salad, ate some falafel that my lovely spouse made, lost my first full game of Civilization VI (picked it up on a steam sale a while back) to the Russian Empire AI by only a half-dozen points, and even managed to sell a couple of copies of my record while bandcamp was waiving it’s processing fees on sales – another 20 bucks is another 20 bucks.

Beyond that, though, I spent a fair bit of time just, well, existing. Due to current circumstances, my imperfect brain and emotional state just seem to get stuck in a rut…I mean, more than usual. I miss playing my gigs and going to cons. I miss hanging out with my fellow grocery store barfly friends once or twice a week. I miss the (relative) lack of conflict when I’m out and about taking care of shopping; I miss being able to reliably buy paper products…

I know what’s being done right now is exactly the right way to handle this situation, and I know it won’t be forever. I’m not going to say I miss normal, because it’s pretty damned obvious that normal wasn’t working. On my better days, can even convince myself that we’ll build a new normal that makes things better on the other side of this. But, I’d be lying if I said I don’t find at least some of the current situation tedious and wearying.

But, as they say, we keep calm and carry on. I continue to try to find peace in solitude (my introverted tendencies make this easier for me than some), adapting to my work-from-home routine, laptop in front of me and a cat pleasantly dozing just to my left. I can still venture out for walks or rides when it’s not constantly raining like it’s been the last couple of weeks…

We will manage, occasionally kicking, screaming, and sobbing, but we’ll manage.

Wanna know what helps, though? Some of the cool, creative stuff people are coming up with to fill the time. Exhibit A, this excellent and entertaining video organized by stuntwoman extraordinaire Zoe Bell, and featuring lots of her film industry friends. It’s joyous:

Anyway; we’ll keep rolling along, because it’s all we can do. Stay safe and sane, folks.

just be safe!

Being socially distant is probably for the best the last day or two. We’ve hit that part of the quarantine time cycle where I am very quick to snap at anybody and everything that impedes my ability to get my work done, go to the bathroom on my schedule, or simply gets in the way of me taking care of the things I need to take care of.

I am, for the most part, hiding in my bedroom/home office with the white cats (because unlike the rest of them, they aren’t ill-behaved monsters at the moment), staying out of everyone’s way and cursing the people on the other end of the email and collaboration apps, because they are legitimately being a pain in my ass.

Luckily, this emotional state didn’t really start hitting until late Wednesday, after I found myself unexpectedly briefing the deputy head (the Riker to the org’s Picard) of my particular public sector organization on Wednesday morning, and he was asking a lot of questions that indicated that he hadn’t read the pre-brief at all. Oh well, I got my program funded for next year well before this saltiness started; and that’s definitely for the best.

I know the others in my home aren’t being purposely provocative (I can’t say the same about the office people; some of them are unqualified assholes), but emotionally, every closed bathroom door in the ten minutes between conference calls or dirty dish or littler box stink bomb or cake mix package not thrown away after the cake has long been baked and partially consumed is just another poke with a sharp stick.

It is, however Friday (even if it felt it it should have been so by mid-morning Tuesday), and my work calendar is, so far, empty. I put in a few long days earlier this week (last minute special project, because I don’t have enough on my plate already), so I expect I’ll knock off after lunch, because I don’t get overtime, and I’ve honestly finished everything I need to already.

The weekend? I dunno. Being a payday week, I need to do some shopping Saturday morning to fill the pantry, Saturday night is my friend’s virtual wedding shower/party/thing, Mikey’s doing a record release party tonight on twitch, and I have bunch of local craft beer in the fridge just sitting there promising to numb my feelings of woe.

That’s quarantine, baby.

So, tunes. Lots of 80s/90s indie pop rock there at the beginning, before swinging pretty solid into riot grrl in the back half. Just the kind of crunchy, stress-purging noise I needed, quite honestly.

1. “Death or Glory” – Shovels & Rope
2. “Blue Flower” – Mazzy Star
3. “Oogum Boogum” – Alex Chilton
4. “The Ghost In You” – Robyn Hitchcock
5. “The Weakest Shade of Blue” – Pernice Brothers
6. “Eternity Leave” – Cheekface
7. “Dig Me Out” – Sleater-Kinney
8. “Gepetto” – Belly
9. “Hawthorne” – that dog.
10. “Awful” – Hole
11. “Marry” – Magnapop
12. “Seether” – Veruca Salt
13. “Sorry Again” – Velocity Girl
14. “You Can’t Fire Me, I Quit” – Tacocat
15. “Indian Summer” – Best Happening

Quarantine, day…um, I don’t remember:

I commented briefly over the weekend, mostly to vent, with polite sorrow, regarding my gigs getting canceled for May. Things will come back around, later rather than sooner, and I, and my many, many musical friends (why not check out some of my many talented friends in the “play list” box to your right, like say Mikey Mason, who just put a new record up for pre-order?) will be back on stage again, but that’s not now.

So be it. It’s what we gotta do, and we’re all doing out best to cope.

The rest of my weekend was quiet, of course, apart from the storms passing through the mid-Atlantic, with thunder, lightning, hail, and falling trees (we got hit Friday, my friends in the Carolinas got hammered harder on Saturday). Otherwise, we largely held off the depressive feelings by trying to keep busy. We played some games, I cooked a duck (and fed roast duck liver to my cats, because I’m fancy like that) for Saturday dinner, and we did our part to #supportourlocal by ordering takeout from one of our favorite local food trucks, Thai Won On on Sunday afternoon.

Drunken noodles are delicious and good for the soul; taking disinfectants internally is neither. Hang in there, folks.

Well, in the last hour or two we just got word that ConCarolinas is canceled for the year. There will be some online content, of course, but I won’t be in Charlotte rocking the place with my friends at the end of May. Also, as I suspected, but confirmed today, my May 9 show at Retro Daddio in Williamsburg isn’t happening either. We’re committed to rescheduling, of course, but who knows when we’ll be able to do that.

Cancelling is the good and proper thing to do, of course; I’m not suggesting anything of the sort. As I’ve said before in this space, though, this weirdly introverted musician misses being on stage.

I’ll see about streaming soon. I just gotta get up the gumption. I will end up playing virtually for some folks next weekend; a dear friend was supposed to have a wedding in early June, which probably isn’t going to happen (at least as it was envisioned, with the church and reception and such), but we’re having a little virtual party/happy hour thing next weekend (in place of the shower or whatever), and I’ve been asked to play a tune or two, which I’m happy to do.

Well, back to your regularly scheduled Saturday evening.

Since my last dispatch 48 hours or so ago, it’s honestly pretty much the same. I get up, I work for a few hours in the company of my cat, sit conference calls and answer emails, then I try and come up with other stuff to fill the time; and honestly, with few exceptions, I don’t really fill it with much of consequence.

I watched a James Bond movie the other evening. I read a book. I took a quick drive out to the pet store to buy cat food yesterday afternoon. I cooked a nice curry. Watched the latest episode of The Masked Singer with the youngest last night, and now she’s a huge hair metal fan (“they’re so pretty!”).

The odd thing out was that we spent an hour or two shooting my parts for the “Blind Pig” video. There’s going to be green screen, because regular schlubs like us can do that now. It was fun, though honestly, my bits weren’t all that complicated.

The world out there is still the world; crazy garbage flows from her whatever, and my friends in Georgia, which is probably the epicenter of crazy right now, are rightfully concerned. Having spent many a fun weekend in Atlanta, should things reopen now, it’s going to be total shit show.

One bright spot in the political sphere, and quite likely a brilliant one, is the bizarre video of one of my Senators making an awful ‘tuna melt’. Yes, it’s silly and deadpan and kinda sketchy. That said, it’s knocked a ton of damaging garbage (as mentioned in the previous paragraph) off the front page, most significantly, the “ReOpen Virginia” rally downtown the other day, which happened, but NOBODY in the Commonwealth is talking about.

Like I said, brilliant. Drain all that harmful movement’s momentum away by not draining the tuna. My conservative friends on social media are all just talking about that damned sandwich instead of voicing support for ridiculous rallies or conspiracy theories about the current Governor that I’m not going to dignify by linking to.

Anyway – the weekend is going to be about what you’d expect. No point belaboring it, so let’s get to tunes. My weekly discovery Spotify list this week seriously hits some prescient feelings; numbers two, three, five, and eleven kinda capture the moment perfectly:

1. “No More Pennies” – Starcrawler
2. “Pretty Crazy” – Butch Walker
3. “This Boy Is Exhausted” – The Wrens
4. “Please Don’t Call Me Crazy” – The Cactus Blossoms
5. “Life in Quarantine” – Benjamin Gibbard
6. “Brightest Star” – Lilly Hiatt
7. “Thriving” – Diet Cig
8. “Good Place to Hide (at the time)”- Partner
9. “Best Shirt On” – Chuck Prophet
10. “Let ’em Know” – Flock of Pigs
11. “Everything Has Changed” – Best Coast
12. “Not A Complicated Person” – Down Time

I check in today to let the world know I’m still here, existing.

The weekend was what it was; sticking around the house except to do a pretty big grocery run and on Sunday to pick up a new blu-ray player I ordered online from Target, because when you’re stuck in the house, the ability to watch movies at will is essential, dammit (and because the old one has been on it’s last legs for a while – they don’t make ’em like they used to).

Sunday afternoon, as the lovely spouse and I finished off our screening of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (the verdict? good cast, good look, exceptionally lazy storytelling), I could tell I was sliding into one of the less-than-optimal periods of quarantine; my nerves were frayed and I was definitely far from comfortable (my friend Sunnie Larsen shared a bit of social media wisdom the other day about how a lot of us are on a three day cycle, where we’re mostly functional for a few days, then crash hard, in interesting and unpleasant ways – this is definitely true for me).

This carried into Monday, of course, and was exasperated by the fact that work stuff was hellish; I may not have been my best self in terms of passive aggressive emails, but to be fair, in my defense, I was provoked by all kinds of other people changing standards mid-stream, and was diplomatic and not vulgar or profane, at least not to anyone else. I pissed off a few people temporarily, but gave my boss a laugh; I’m not worried.

In any case, Monday sucked. Hard.

Tuesday was a little better for me; I got through the workday without incident, but a variety of conditions had the women of the house take their turn at the bottom of the curve, each with different presentation, and all very different from my experience. It sucks for all of us. We lifted spirits somewhat by saying screw cooking, let’s support local small businesses, and ordered take-out from Luther Burger, which was darned tasty.

Today looks relatively quiet – we’re in that 48 hour window between package due dates and review boards, so I don’t expect much anyway. In fact, other than the pre-review board Thursday afternoon, I don’t have much in the way of work on the calendar; just keep the data interchange tubes flowing (or rather, trust my guys to do it, which I do).

In any case, that’s the picture from here; same as it ever was.

A relatively quiet Thursday, I think, was a welcome relief to internals. Work was stagnant,largely because I worked my ass off on Wednesday and the email server was choking much of the day (big influx of junk in the last hour, but it was all junk), which I’m not going to complain about – I needed the mental disengagement, and honestly took a little of the quiet time to finish reading another novel.

As many Americans have long understood but only recently started talking about, most of us, at least in these white collar, information-driven professions, don’t consistently need forty-plus hours a week to get our work done at a more-than-acceptable level of quality. Sure, there are periods of exception, but honestly, a lot of those heavy periods are due to inherent time-wasting built into the American corporate mindset and way of doing business. Meetings that could’ve been emails, repetitive memos, idle gossip, interruptions, shifting processes, etc…that’s what’s keeping the status quo in effect.

So much of it is driven by the Calvinist work ethic many European settlers brought over with them hundreds of years ago (and much of Europe has pretty much abandoned). Even if we don’t need to do so (and we really don’t), this country puts a ridiculous amount of value on appearing to “work hard” and be “busy”, but it’s really all about appearances, because deep inside, even if we’re in denial about it, so many of us understand that we can get everything done we need to in way less than eight hours a day at the office (I’ve seen the network logs – mindless internet surfing is real and unavoidable). This bullshit is baked into that ridiculous concept of “American Exceptionalism” and our need to appear “special”, but the only people we’re really convincing of our so-called specialness is ourselves; the rest of the cohort that makes up the industrialized world is looking at us and laughing while they take their long lunches in a charming sidewalk cafe someplace.

I really hope that this “Great Pause” as some folks are calling it (I’m personally not sold on the name, but I like this perspective on it) causes us to think about how we work in this country. Things unthinkable even ten years ago (UBI, a system for national health care, student debt relief), all tied in some way to work-life balance, are being tossed around by the most conservative to some extent. These ideas, along with our realization that we’re all still getting our jobs done at home while dealing with all the other bits of angst associated with the current quarantine conditions, in way fewer hours than we thought or convinced ourselves we needed.

Less time at work has all kinds of health and wellness benefits, and much of the rest of our peers over in Europe have figured this out, and the populations are, arguably, healthier and happier. I’m really hoping America gets ‘rona shocked into realizing this too.

I say I hope, but I come awfully close to having those hopes dashed when I look to Michigan, Ohio, or even right up the road to see people who don’t value human life over economic concerns (even though in most cases, they’re the ones whose lives are likely to sacrificed on the altar of the free market), but really, I think it’s mostly about “owning the libs”.

….

In any case, thanks for reading my disjointed stream-of-consciousness Friday ramblings on the state of things. It’s what I do when I’m waiting for people to answer my emails.

As for the weekend, you know where I’ll be, because if you’re smart, you’re doing the same thing and staying home. I do have to make a grocery run, which I’m not looking forward to, really, but it’s unavoidable. Otherwise, I’ll probably play video games, enjoy some craft beer, cook something or other, do some laundry, and clean my fish tank.

The primary Humdingers are taking advantage of empty streets to shoot footage for our video for “Blind Pig”, and I’ve got some instructions for putting together my part of things, so I’ll probably get on that too.

Anyway, tunes. Decently energetic this morning, lots of chunky guitars and power pop, which, if you know me, I’m totally okay with.

1. “Close To Me” – The Get Up Kids
2. “Plastic Skeletons” – Jealous of the Birds
3. “Tiger Lily” – Luna
4. “The Golden State” – John Doe
5. “Expect the Bayonet” – Sheer Mag
6. “Plenty for All” – Hot Snakes
7. “Thorn In My Side” – Quicksand
8. “Something Bigger, Something Brighter” – Pretty Girls Make Graves
9. “Kodachrome” – Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
10. “I’m An Adult Now” – The Pursuit of Happiness
11. “Drown” – Son Volt
12. “Good Good Things” – Decendants
13. “Faster” – Manic Street Preachers

Because I can’t think of anything else, I’ll quote Douglas Adams for today’s headline. Seems as good a thing as any.

I was, as you can clearly read, less than my best self yesterday. Doesn’t mean the feelings weren’t valid, because certain business processes do indeed suck. However, I did get a Metric Assload™ of work done in spite of it. Most of it in service to my actual job instead of the spare (which might become the real job eventually, but not exactly yet), but stuff got accomplished.

Part of me, I think, was bitter because the first thing I saw yesterday morning was my calendar reminding me that I was supposed to host Castleburg’s monthly open mic last night, but, given this whole business, it’s off for at least the near term, and I really miss it.

That said, I haven’t really been in the headspace to even pick up an instrument over the last two weeks. Part of it might be the work space melding uncomfortably with the home space, the displaced college student crashing in my usual music space, or the generalized anxiety and frustration with the world, but I should probably take my own advice and run with the “music is my therapy” concept. I’ve had a couple of friends ask me when I was going to stream again, as well as another telling me to get off my ass and record “Happy Discount Candy Day” because even if it’s really about February 15, it applied on Monday as well.

While my last streaming show as a relative success (40 people or so watching, and netting about $40 in tips/sales), playing to the webcam doesn’t feel the same, even interacting with folks over chat while doing it. I know it’s probably the best option at the moment, but I struggle with it. As much as my tendencies go toward introvert, in performance, the connection with the audience is just as, if not more important than the dancing monkey up on stage.

I suppose I’ll at least try something limited over the weekend; we’ll see how it shakes out.

Nothing particularly significant on the agenda otherwise; I did get both paid and stimulated in the last couple of days, so there’ll be bills to be paid, and I have to go out into the insane world of retail again today or the cats can’t eat tonight. In the interest of efficiency, though, I’m combining it with a brewery run to support local businesses.

Whatever shakes out, I’m still going have an awful lot in common with Arthur Dent. I’ll keep my towel close at hand.