thursday random elevenish: “updating from tuesday?” edition
As alluded to earlier this week, the weather’s been rather awful, and it’s been keeping me from my primary source of stress relief; getting outside and riding the bike. The severe weather warnings have been coming in most of the week for the mid-Atlantic/Southeast, talk of 40-60 mph winds and tennis ball hail, which, y’know, is wonderful (and looking out the window, seems to have already started). We continue, it seems to live in interesting times.
As you might suspect, I’m posting the usual playlist post a day early because I’m taking tomorrow off. After the last two weeks aiming for deadlines and continuing to fill the two jobs, I need a bit of a break, and after wrapping the play at school, the kid wants to come home for the weekend, and I don’t blame her, so I’m going to go grab her around lunchtime.
Who knows what the weekend itself will bring. A friend is organizing an online music circle Friday night, so I’ll probably spend an hour or two hanging with the musical friends I haven’t seen in person for more than a year, which’ll be nice. A social interaction that doesn’t turn maudlin would be nice. I stopped in at the grocery store bar for a beer the other afternoon after errands and ended up chatting across the space between tables with some acquantances about the memorial service for a fellow regular who passed away a week or two back. It was nice (the guy had an interesting life and great stories), but…sad. Apart from getting my back adjusted at the chiropractor yesterday afternoon, my free hours haven’t been particularly eventful. Given the week we’re in, the girls are out even more than usual, doing socially-distanced performances to celebrate their hobby’s national heritage, and the boy, inspired by his newly-licensed status, has been out a bit more with friends. I work, I run an errand maybe, take care of the minimum in Pokemon Go for the day, figure out dinner, then settle in to bed, usually able to sleep, but more often this week, struggling with it.
Insomnia’s a bitch.
In generally good news, I got stimulated (financially) yesterday and paid today, so I can put a few extra bills to bed and make a nice addition to savings. The new record is starting to trickle out to streaming services (I think YouTube is first out of the gate, but the rest will join the party in the next 48 hours or so), so that’s a few fractions of pennies in my pocket there if you listen or some kid on TikTok decides “Make It So, Engage!” is worth dancing to because it sounds like something their aging mom listened to in college (hint hint). Finally, my lovely spouse seems to have wrangled herself an appointment for the vaccine (she’s got a couple of attributes that bump her into the group ahead of my classification), so maybe, just maybe, we can maybe start considering what the world looks like when this is over.
So, to wrap this up, I present this week’s randomish streaming playlist. I can tell I spent a few hours this week listening to instrumental progressive metal as background while writing bureaucratic bullshit memos, because it took a good four or five tunes before any lyrical content showed up. It’s not a bad collection, really; progressive jazz-rock, jam bands, and the theme song to the BBC Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series…I’m digging it.
- “Vital Transformation” – Mahavishnu Orchestra, John McLaughlin
- “21st Century Schizoid Main” – Fuzz
- “Journey of the Sorcerer” – Eagles
- “Jetpack Blues, Sunset Hues” – Anaanaguchi
- “Teen Town” – Weather Report
- “Metro” – Alkaline Trio
- “Fairies Wear Boots” – Brownout
- “The Lion’s Roar” – Cynic
- “Three of a Perfect Pair” – Between the Buried and Me
- “Ambush” – The Fearless Flyers
- “Robot Stop” – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
- “It’s Catching Up” – Nomeansno
- “The Sinister Minister”- Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
- “Ebb and Flow” – Larry and His Flask
