Not much to say today, but saw my good friend Doe posting on FB that she just added to her blog, Doses of Doe. I was just thinking earlier today, I should blog something. Trouble is I can never think of what to talk about. I know, many of my NY friends are falling over right now. I used to have at least 2-3 blogs running at the same time. And not having much to day was a rarity between my Rdykes, or rather Sabrina’s RDykes’ coffee meets, and what I’ll call “EDS survivors” coffee nights. Between 8 yrs in Los Angeles and than the terrible awful in the place we shall not name, I’ve become quite the introvert. I can bet anyone that has met me after I left Brooklyn would not describe me as gregarious. Yes, I used to be described as “gregarious.” Who was that person?
Due to my cuter-half’s job I’ve also had to curb a lot of my brutal honesty. I’m not upset about that, since if you know my story at all, you know being honest has not done my career any favors. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still brutally honest. However, I make sure I’m more aware of the audience. Hmmm , I now see the correlation to why some people think I’m rather quiet. I’m just smiling and thinking evil thoughts, since I’ve lost all my old partners in crime. Well, not lost, I moved away. It’s really hard to pass along a sideways glance and a quick quip without being physically present.
Sooo what’s new? Unfortunately some of the better news I can’t share just, yet. I’ll share the lesser exciting bits. Back at the piano this morning. Yeah yeah, still plodding away at the Simply Piano app. It’s a bit lame, but it’s easy to do and great for sight reading. I’m still in Essentials II, which means there are 2 more sections to go before I get to reading lead sheets. I’ve wanted to learn how to read lead sheets for a while. I pulled the plug on my Patreon subscription to Bill Hilton. No fault of his, I had over 50 lessons I had yet to even view. Figured I should stop payment until I catch up a bit. Found a new free YouTube vid where he’s going over 3 easy jazz tunes. I’m working on that and another updated improv vid. Trying to learn and remember the 12 bars of chord progressions, is going slow. Hopefully I won’t have long sabbaticals between practice sessions like I did in the place we shall not name. Simply Piano app is fun, today I played some Aerosmith tune. My 14 year old self would be proud!
I’ve gotten much farther in piano as an adult than I ever did as a child. Pretty soon I’ll pass where I went in my on/off again years of guitar study, too.
And yes, believe it or not I’ve found a new dojo a few weeks back. Further, I’m still training. Often I find a group, do the free/cheap intro package, maybe a couple meet ups then ditch. Lack of meditation before and after class is usually the kicker, but I’ve given up on that.
I can’t honestly say I train even twice a week, but I’ve made it past the introductory 8 classes. I was going 2x a week until the screaming dragon of legal bull fucking shit woke up for a bit. Argh! I think that’s been slayed…. or at least napping. I really don’t want to talk too much about it, because I’ve noticed a bad trend. If I talk about or post on social media about training, working out, piano… shortly afterwards I stop.
I’m more than a little superstitious that even this bit of writing and the fact I talked about it to someone last night on the phone, that I’ve already jinxed myself. I haven’t earned a new belt yet. I did say I’ve only attended about 8-10 classes, so we’ll see. If I stay past the intro, it’s usually shortly after the first or second belt I tend to lose interest. This is also when I realize I’m the only Queer in the group, and people are being “nice.” I start to notice no one really wants to hang out, even just to geek out over martial arts. One guy is super friendly to point I was afraid maybe he was being flirty, but no. I get so thrown off if I think a guy might be flirting. It’s so rare! Fortunately, he just likes to geek out over martial arts, and gets excited talking about it. Actually, all the guys do, which is cool. No one is using training as a distraction and no 13-15yr old “adult students” that are obviously in involuntary karate daycare.
Unlike past attempts at combining training with socializing, this time I’m waiting. I’m not going to be the first to ask someone to coffee or go see the latest kung fu/karate movie. I’m too tired of being disappointed. The class is pretty small and as far as I can tell there isn’t much outside class socializing going on. Then again I’m still on the “intro package,” and after changing schools many times I’ve learned rarely do you get social invites until you’ve proven you’re sticking around past the point of getting a free uniform. I have hope, though. This group seems pretty decent. No one talks politics, so no clue if there are conservative-phobes. Fingers crossed.
What else?
Stopped reading with probably less than a hundred pages left of The Magician (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott, and the same with Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. Had to stop barely a hundred pages in to some book I started about a guy trapped underground. One sec, let me look, ahh Last Words by Michael Koryta. Last Words trigger my fear of being buried alive, not a good bedtime book.
I know so boring… I’m falling asleep listening to my own story in my own head.
I know you all want to hear about the terrible awful that happened in June. I did write about it, but I don’t want to post it. Not today, and maybe not ever. I didn’t sleep for two days and totally messed up my digestion for a full week just writing about it. Yes, nothing but rice, bananas and applesauce for my diet. I’m still on that diet, too. Although, I’ve added protein. June is a hard place to visit. I wrote my story, from my perspective, and it’s … well, hindsight is a fucking bitch. So many calls to people and “rpofessionals” pretending to help and so many lies, just so many people fucking with you. Hindsight is going to be a real bitch, I think, for the next few months.
OK, not what you were expecting, but moving right along. Learning to talk, share, and be more open and open to creative energies.
If you’re reading, what do you want to read about?
wondering about all the things
that I’ll never understand
there are some things that you can’t know
unless you’ve been there
but oh how far we could go
if we started to shareI don’t need to tell you
what it is about
you just start on the inside
and work your way out
~ Ani DiFranco (from song Work Your Way Out)