So, I’m a week and a half into a two-week virtual program management workshop.

I genuinely like my co-workers; they’re all decent people from the boss on down, and we’re all working toward making things in our organization work a little better and make a lot more sense. “Drinking from the fire hose” is only to be envied if you’re a contestant in Stanley Spadowski’s Clubhouse in the world of UHF, and I don’t live in that world, so our goal is to make things easier and make more sense.

To do that, we’re spending a couple of weeks figuring out ways to impose order on the chaos that our organization’s culture encourages, and make it easier on all of us; being constantly reactive to interminable chaos isn’t sustainable (the boss and I regularly count “talking the other back from the ledge” as part of our other duties as assigned, and it’s going to drive us both mad before long), and it’s our group’s mission to bury that dysfunction and create some kind of order. If we manage to, it’ll be a decent capstone to both all our careers, and I can do some good without being anyone’s boss, which is kind of also a goal, but we’ll see…

It’s good, valuable work, but as I said earlier, I’m leading things an awful lot, and that’s exhausting, especially when I’ve got a few doctor’s appointments for various things (teeth, sleep, backaches) scheduled. But, we’re getting it all done, and in the end, I think we’ll be able to influence our broken organization at least a little bit, and it’ll carry me forward to the next thing (I’ve got to manage about twelve more years until I get into the retirement zone, and I need a solid project to keep me engaged) and let me notch another win or two before I hang up my CAC card.

But, for the moment, it’s exhausting, especially since I’m also working on making this new house a home and not going mad in the trying.

Speaking of the new place, we spent labor day weekend in the company of our friend Kevin, who helped us sort through a bunch of little projects, including entertainment center set-up, Ikea shopping and assembly, and toilet fixing. Kevin’s a good friend.

I wasn’t at Dragoncon this year, apart from the online Fresh Filks here (at about 42:00, though don’t skip my friends DJ, Summer, or Sunnie also on the bill!), though S&K carried the Humdingers down there for another year, and all seemed to go well. Maybe I’ll be on site again next year, representing the Dragoncon Filk Track, which my friend Amber has run for the last half-decade with great skill and aplomb. I highly recommend digging into the live streams for some solid entertainment.

Otherwise, there’s not been much else, honestly. It’s been work, some fitness outings, the occasional beer at a local watering hole, unpacking boxes, and reading a bit. This is kinda what life looks like right now, and for the foreseeable future.

But, honestly? I’ll take it.

As of this past Wednesday, we’ve been in this house for two weeks. There are still boxes everywhere, though there are fewer than there were two weeks ago, and as I type this (on Thursday evening), I’m sitting here listening to some tunes (a new record from Worm Quartet, mostly) and the new LG WashTower thing that got delivered today washing the clothes that have been piling up for the past week since I last went to the laundromat. Since last weekend, I’ve stacked a bunch of boxes in the attic, hung some guitars on the walls of the office, and weirdly, discovered I own a shed.

Yes, there’s a shed on the property that wasn’t readily apparent, for a number of reasons. It’s way in the back of the property that’s deceptively large (most of an acre), painted the color of autumn leaves, and hidden behind an area a few dozen yards deep that’s thickly covered by underbrush and young (2-3 inch diameter) trees. Based on the vintage Skippy peanut butter jars holding rusted screws inside, it’s probably been abandoned for twenty years or more. The particle board walls are in rough shape, though the framing is solid and it was dry inside, if covered with cobwebs and weeds and things.

I had been planning on putting up a shed soonish anyway to hold my bikes and stuff (rather than keeping them in the finished basement that is in the process of becoming the tv/media room), but I’m now planning on replacing the walls and doors of the existing unit, cleaning it out, and using that after clearing a path (using my trusty Lidl chainsaw and newish weed trimmer) back to it. It’s likely to take a while, but it’ll get done.

Otherwise, apart from the work around the house, I’ve been busy at work, co-leading a virtual program management center workshop, and facilitating the transition of one of my old not-really-my-job-anymore responsibilities to someone new. It’s exhausting, because the workshop requires me to be “on” most of the day, and the transition involves dealing with one particular guy who has serious asshole tendencies. But, it’s getting done, and I’m heading into a long weekend. I kind of wish I wasn’t so busy and could take Friday off, but stuff’s gotta get done.

Also, I’m not at Dragoncon this weekend in ATL, though S&K are there as two-piece Humdingers (on a romantic getaway), plus I’ve got a tune in the annual songbook and have recorded a short set for the ’23 Fresh Filks 2x10s that’ll run at 8pm eastern on Friday night at the link I just posted, so I’m still involved on some level.

I’ll miss all my friends I don’t get to see so often, but it’s not like I’m not scary busy at the moment, so I’m not as broken up as I could be, and I’ll almost certainly be back next year.

As it stands, we’re planning on spending the weekend shopping for bookshelves so we can unpack a few more boxes, and hanging out with our friend Kevin for a bit. I think that’ll work out okay.

As is usual, here’s some tunes that Spotify and my hard drive spit out:

1. “Demogorgon” – Jeff Whitmire
2. “Do Your Balls Have Names” – Worm Quartet
3. “Holiday Road” – Lindsey Buckingham
4. “Candy Apple Road” – Annabelle Chairlegs
5. “Every Saturday Night” – Vandoliers
6. “Mr. Holland’s Locust” – My Son The Hurricane
7. “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” – JJ Wilde & The Glorious Suns
8. “The Pit” – Mouse Rat
9. “Shoegaze” – Alabama Shakes
10. “Doombop!” – The Toxhards
11. “Jackson” – Trixie Mattel w/ Orville Peck
12. “No-No Song” – Ringo Starr
13. “Movin’ Right Along” – Fozzie, Kermit

Yesterday, the lovely spouse and I signed our names and initialed in a bunch of places within a four-inch-thick pile of papers (or a few dozen MB on the thumb drive included in the folder we walked away with), and I handed over probably the largest cashier’s check I’ll likely ever have to deal with (a hair over six figures, to give you an idea) over the course of my odd little life, and now we’re officially the owners (or at least the lien holders) on the home in the photo below:

As mentioned previously, it’s just around the corner from our old place (which my realtor tells me the new owner/investor is happy with as a project ripe for flipping), and a little more than twice the size, and full of modern conveniences like solar panels and dual-zone HVAC (well, as soon as the guy installs the second unit on Thursday), and all sorts of neat other things that keep folks from tripping all over each other.

Sure, the washer/dryer stack (that which fits into the space allotted) won’t be here until next week, and some other furniture bits will be added over the next couple of weeks or months as we continue to unpack boxes and place and receive orders for some new pieces, but as of yesterday (or really this afternoon after we went back to the settlement company after I finished a really long meeting and signed a couple of places they initially missed), we’re here and we’re on it, and it’s ours.

Additionally, since the drunk driver knocked the mailbox down last weekend and the former owner/realtor has an insurance claim in, I’ve got some paperwork filed with the local USPS office until I can get a new one up this weekend, we need to go down the block to pick up our mail (including the new bank card to replace the one I lost in the move, dammit) for a couple of days, but we’re on our way. The locks are replaced with new ones and we have new towel racks and stuff to make it ours, and I spent a few hours on Sunday (along with a trip to Lowe’s) to fix the damned Mansfield toilet I didn’t even know was it’s own thing until I landed in a house with one that’s probably been there since the mid-70s with bolts I needed to hacksaw through, but it works now and I can mark the fix a success part from the extra nicks and scratches on my hands to match the ones I picked up during the move to succeed the ones on my knees and forearms from the bike accident the other week.

So yeah, lots of work, so far and in the future, but it’s in my name now, and I’m not moving again until I can help it.

Just wanted to share that with ya; it’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.

So yes, it’s been a little quiet around these parts lately. You could say that we’ve been rather busy. That’s apart from healing up from my pine cone encounter that threw me over the handlebars of my bike and covered large bits of my body with road rash and bruises, and working with the body shop to clear all the headlight and pre-collision system malfunction codes after they fixed the physical stuff, ticking off a big bucket list thing by catching Willie Nelson live in town, and getting the girls ready to go back to school next week.

We kind of did a thing – a big, giant major thing.

Two Sundays ago, on a lark, we decided to take a look at a house for sale, just a little southeast of the house we bought twenty-five years ago, just before we got married.

We liked it. It was solid, well-built, and filled a lot of the needs we’d been having for years. For one, it was twice the size. Secondly, it had been freshly updated with some very nice modern conveniences, and third, it was twice this size, so we wouldn’t be tripping over each other like we’d been doing for years.

We’d recently redone the living room and updated the appliances in the little green cape cod that has been our starter home for the last two and a half decades, and decided that doing that to the rest of the house with five full-sized people living in it wasn’t something we would retain our sanity while attempting. I’d started tentatively digging into the idea of selling our “needs a lot of work” place to an investor/flipper, over the last couple of months, and while the idea seemed at least somewhat realistically possible, it was largely aspirational.

In any case, I now sit here, two and half weeks later, in a new house a mile or two away from our old one, surrounded by boxes, having sold the old place to an investor, for a quite a bit more money than I’d initially predicted, on Wednesday after having it on the market for less than 48 hours, ten days prior, and waiting for the title/settlement people to finish all the paperwork and finalize this new place we’re currently squatting in.

Three weeks ago, this whole sort of idea was a pleasant fantasy, but now the biggest hassles (selling the old place, moving all our stuff) are over and apart from being a little impatient with the paperwork, we’re living in a much larger, much nicer house that checks the boxes to clear a lot of deficiencies we’ve been dealing with for way too long.

This isn’t to say that the last three weeks haven’t been some of the most stressful in living memory, and I don’t look forward to doing this sort of thing again any time soon, but we’re getting through it, and I think things are going to work out for the best.

Here’s to hoping, anyway. Bring on the paperwork.

♫ Bicycle Man, Bicycle Man
Bicycle Man meets Pine Cone Man
They Have a Fight, Pine Cone wins
Road Rash Man ♫

…but at least I finished the Capital Trail Summer Challenge Virtual Birthday Challenge…413.6 miles down, the last four bleeding.

As indicated earlier, I spent most of this week in a funk. It sucked.

I think, finally, though, I’m maybe coming out of it. I had a busy workday Thursday (which ended with C-suite level kudos to me in a departmental all-hands meeting, which was a nice surprise, even if it bumped right up against my doctor’s appointment), and a reasonably decent workday Friday – largely quiet, and let me get some necessary training in to fulfill my continuing education requirements, and a great bit of “solve all the world’s problems” discussion with the boss.

It’s hot as hell outside, though it mostly didn’t stop me from getting some outside time, even if the bike rack won’t work on the still-giant rental while the car’s in the shop. I still think I’m going to just throw the bike into the van and knock out the last 21 miles I need to finish the summer challenge this weekend; I’m tired of waiting.

Nothing huge on the agenda this weekend apart from some kids heading out of town on adventures, and the lovely spouse and I heading out to catch a Barbie screening for Saturday date night. I hear it’s nice and subversive.

In the meantime, here are some tunes. Sort of all over the place, from 80s and 90s hits to some Stones for Jagger’s birthday this week:

1. “Sometimes Always” – The Jesus and Mary Chain
2. “Hang Fire” – The Rolling Stones
3. “It’s Your Voodoo Working” – Eilen Jewell
4. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” – Love Canon
5. “Foxglove” – Murder By Death
6. “Lint Head Gal” – Phoebe Hunt
7. “Head Like A Hole” – Nine Inch Nails
8. “Thieves” – Liz Cooper
9. “This Too Shall Pass” – OK Go
10. “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” – The Mavericks
11. “Mysterious Ways” – U2
12. “Factory Girls” – Flogging Molly, Lucinda Williams
13. “Fall on Me” – R.E.M.
14. “Big Me” – Foo Fighters

I’ve no idea why, but the depression’s hitting really hard over the last week. Usually, I can find some sort of historical event in the calendar that pulls this stuff up, though I can’t this time; I guess I forgot to write it down or I’ve blocked it from my memory. In any case, I’ve just kind of been numb since the middle of last week.

Last week started out with a couple of highlights, actually. My shows at ConGregate went well, and overall, the whole weekend was generally very enjoyable, as we got to spend some quality time with friends I don’t see all that often. Then last Tuesday was our Twenty-Fifth Wedding Anniversary, which, one could argue, is significant and we commemorated the occasion with a nice date night. It’s not always been easy, but we’ve mostly made it work, and it’s a thing that we can be legitimately proud of; our relationship has evolved over the last 30 years or so we’ve known each other, but I still love her dearly and know I always will.

By mid-week, though? All shades of grey and covered in bubble wrap. Hard to feel much of anything. Can’t get excited, can’t get angry, can’t feel.

I’ve muddled through, even if I’ve not been as productive as I would have liked, and got the stuff done that I needed to get done, at work, at home, and in terms of my fitness goals; I even recorded a decent vocal track for the tune I’m working up for the “Streamer Song Swap ’23” charity record. That said, though, I am struggling to muster enthusiasm.

The closest it’s gotten the last couple of days was Saturday’s drive west to tick off a couple of new State Parks (Staunton River and Staunton River Battlefield) in an effort to change up the scenery and get some time in the sun which usually helps things a bit. The seven miles or so I hiked across the two parks was pleasant, though neither of them are going to end up on my regular rotation. It wasn’t the parks, though, that resonated. Since I still have that subscription to satellite radio in the car (the general area I was in is a radio and cell service dead zone), I diverged from my usual Hair Nation and 1st Wave to try something new. After fiddling about with Yacht Rock Radio for a bit, I landed on Prime Country of all things, which is dedicated to 80s and 90s country music. I’m not sure why I landed there, though it kind of hit the memory/nostalgia sweet spot between spending weekends with Dad and the AM radio in his car tuned to the local country station, and the early 90s “awkward country phase” where in college my lovely spouse and I spent a year or two going to a bunch of country shows and festivals in that weird period where country music got sort of progressive and feminist for a while (rather than the current bro-country business and it’s racist dog-whistles)…

In any case, as songs from Reba McEntire, the Judds, Joe Diffie, and the ridiculously infectious “Nobody” by Sylvia played for a couple of hours on route 360, I caught a minor wave of wistful nostalgia, both in terms of missing Dad terribly (this is about the time of year he passed; maybe I just answered that question from the first paragraph), as well as the pleasant memories of that time in college, which was a great time in my life, where the relationship that’s defined more than half my life was taking shape, with it’s new and exciting feelings of falling in love and figuring out what all that sort of thing means.

The emotions prompted by the music threatened, for a little while, to beat the depression back, and while I didn’t quite tear up, I started to feel like I might, which, given where I am in terms of crappy brain chemistry right now, I’m going to call a win.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a song about this sort of thing. A lot about this sort of thing, proving that these emotions (or lack thereof) hit me somewhat regularly. Music is memory, at least for me.

I may be mentally ill, but at least I’m consistent.

By the time anyone’s reading this, I’ll be on my way south to participate once again in ConGregate, a wonderful convention in Winston-Salem NC that does me the honor of having me as a guest once again in 2023. I’ll be playing a bunch of shows and sitting on a few panels, and generally hanging about with friends and enjoying the company of my lovely spouse who’ll be joining me.

If you happen to be in the area, here’s my schedule as it stands for the weekend:

• Saturday, 11:30am, Hearn C/D: Blibbering Humdingers performance
• Saturday, 1:30pm, Salem: Panel – “SF Themes in Rock Music”
• Saturday, 3:00pm, Hearn C/D: White Plectrum and Friends
• Saturday, 5:30pm, Hearn C/D: Chuck Parker performance
• Sunday, 1:00pm, Winston: How We Found Fandom

So, yeah, three shows on Saturday – solo, with the band, and with pretty much every other musical guest performing the tunes of our good friend Keith Brinegar, aka White Plectrum, who’s been in the con scene for decades, and has a ton of great songs, but is having some health issues, so we’re all stepping up. I’m really looking forward to it.

There’s also a couple of “open filk” sessions throughout the weekend, and in general, I’ll likely be supporting my musical friends performing throughout the weekend, so I’ll likely be there. There’s lots of good stuff to do, which you can browse to your heart’s content at congregate92023.sched.com if you’re so inclined.

I could talk about this week, but it’s mostly been work (lots of work), biking, and rehearsal for this weekends so I don’t suck. I’m gonna need this long weekend with my friends playing rock star.

So it’s been a quiet a couple of weeks in terms of posting missives here that no one reads anyway. It happens.

I’ve honestly been mostly working too much and neglecting much of the rest of life, at least until I got to the end of June and it’s big work product deadlines, then I took a long Independence Day weekend, spending some time with friends, catching a show, and trying to remember how life works when twelve- or thirteen- hour days aren’t the norm.

Less quiet this morning, as I woke to dripping ceiling in the hallway after someone overflowed the upstairs toilet. Joy.

Oh, and for the second time in a month, a teenage boy hit my newish car. The last one was relatively minor, as, I suppose is this one, but involves replacing the headlight assembly and front bumper cover he drug the passenger side of his late-model BMW across. Seriously, he peeled holes in the plastic of the bumper cover, which is at least unique, and does a pretty good job of showing who was moving and which direction he was going. The insurance people are still figuring it out, though in the end I think it’ll work out in my favor and I’ll get my deductible back.

I’m becoming way too much of a regular customer at the body shop, where we just picked up the little yellow Honda after the door thing.

Yay.

Seriously, I need to figure out what makes me so attractive to teenage boys.

Anyway, that’s all I got; I’m playing the boss this week and I’m tired of answering all kinds of emails that are getting in the way of me doing my own work.

But yeah, tunes: extra nineties triple-A radio, or at least sounding like it, plus Stevie Nicks covering Buffalo Springfield followed immediately by The Cranberries covering Fleetwood Mac in a nice circle there at #s 6 and 7, and a pretty damned perfect fusion of Cash and Zep at #10 I didn’t know I needed in my life:

1. “King of New Orleans” – Better Than Ezra
2. “Good Day For The Blues” – Storyville
3. “Little Black Backpack” – Stroke 9
4. “Moment in the Sun” – Clem Snide
5. “This Forgotten Town” – The Jayhawks
6. “For What It’s Worth” – Stevie Nicks
7. “Go Your Own Way” –
8. “Dreams” – Brandi Carlile
9. “Through & Through & Through” – Joel Plaskett
10. “Whole Lotta Folsom” – The Surreal McCoys
11. “Barbarella” – Scott Weiland
12. “Honeysuckle Blue” – Drivin N Cryin
13. “Swallowed By The Cracks” – David & David
14. “Love And Anger” – Kate Bush

Been a bit of an overwhelming week and change. LONG work days involving going into an actual office for several days in the interest of meeting deadlines and doing our part to quash the “drinking from the fire hose” mentality my workplace just can’t seem to let go of. Lots of personal stuff to do and one fewer cars to get it done (especially since the Eldest started the new job recently and works on the other side of town), and a weekend full of all kinds of other things keeping me busy.

Here, on Tuesday afternoon, I maybe have a chance to breathe a bit.

Not all of it was bad. We got a lot done at work those couple of office days, and I really rather like the co-workers I was engaged with (we’ll see how we do about changing the culture). I got quite a few miles in on the bike and foot, and even dragged my Lovely Spouse along with me to visit a couple of new state parks, saw some friends at the soccer match on Saturday night, and celebrated the aforementioned Eldest’s birthday.

Of course, I also had the estimate for fixing the little car ratcheted up a few hundred bucks over the initial, had like 45 hours logged on the books by Thursday afternoon at work, bumped up against (admittedly First-World) financial stresses of there not being enough money due to these unexpected expenses, and, of course…Father’s Day.

Yes, I seriously struggle with this holiday. Of course I miss my Dad, though I also, somewhat shamefully, doubt my own ability and worthiness in the role, even if I’ve occupied it for nearly a quarter-century now. I can’t help but compare myself to the standards society presents, and find myself wanting, and then I just stress out some more.

Damned Imposter Syndrome.

But…yeah. At least my unending feelings of inadequacy occasionally lead to decent creative output, but when it comes to the whole “parent” thing, the incompetence doesn’t always feel like an illusion.

Oh well; I shall continue, as they say, to deal with it.