dglenn

From the Quotation of the day mailing list, 2008-04-30:

"The reason why dirty books remain in the shadows is very simple: the book trade is not comfortable with masturbation. Books in which children are abused, women murdered and men brutalised crowd the shelves of WH Smith. Books in which consenting adults enjoy each other for the healthy entertainment of literate wankers do not." -- Rupert Smith

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/dirty-sexy-money-the-writer-rupert-smith-on-his-lucrative-pornlit-sideline-801572.html]

(submitted to the mailing list by Trevor Goodyear)

dglenn

I am feeling extremely whiny, near trantrum-ish, definitely ready to sulk, today. ( But you probably don't need to hear me whine as much as I need to get it off my chest )

I hate missing out on the fun of performing -- and in front of a bunch of friends, at that. I hate feeling like I've let my bandmates down. I hate feeling like I've let the audience down. (Oh, the band can get by without me and put on a good show, but having any of us absent diminishes the effect, and this was already a less-than-the-full-band gig.) All of that is a bigger deal, emotionally, than the physical pain and illness that are keeping me home. I thought I could cover those feelings with enough reminders that illness is illness and there's just not much I can do differently right now, but it's not working. I'm frustrated and miserable and want to scream at the universe that it''s all JUST NOT FAIR and I deserve a do-over because I'm special and realities like illness aren't allowed to take away my Darkover weekend.

I'm not especially worried about the Regency ball because I have a pretty good idea who'll be there for it, and that bunch doesn't need much leading -- I get the word out and get sheet music to people, and when the dance starts I usually mostly just blend into the rythm section -- so as long as enough people brought last year's music with them, that should go okay. I still feel like I really ought to be there though.

I had a lot of 'maybe's for the Playford dance -- somebody please tell me that enough musicians showed up for that and it went smoothly?

dglenn

Dvorak: "I'll keep an eye on things here."

Qwerty: "Unless you get distracted by a new idea or something shiny."

Dvorak: "New ideas are shiny. That's why they're so hard to resist."

-- from Freefall by Mark Stanley, 2007-01-03

dglenn

How brown do you let tomato catsup turn before you start to worry about safety rather than just aesthetics? (I'm thinking about those leftover fast-food catsup packets that I occasionally pull out of my fridge, never being sure what colour I'll find inside until I open one.)

I specify tomato catsup because the only other kind of catsup I have any experience with is mushroom, and the mushroom catsup was already brown when I first saw it and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be that colour. Which suggests a follow-up question: how many of you have eaten non-tomato catsups?

I had a thoroughly wretched day. Woke up coughing badly and spent the rest of the morning that way, then crashed again, woke up just before the HCB gig in the evening, still at home, un-showered, and in so much pain it hurt even to push the buttons on my phone. So, a missed performance, womdigious pain ... but one encouraging sign: no coughing from about 20:00 to 23:30! A little tickle now, but down in the "maybe I can squash this with albuterol and menthol" range. Now if I can convince my body to get back to sleep again in time to wake up early enough to throw instruments in the car and head up to Darkover for the Playford dance in the morning, maybe the next twenty hours won't such as much as the last forty.

Still not really sure about playing woodwinds -- will have to see just how well I'm breathing tomorrow -- but if other melody instruments make it, I can stick to guitar and bass.

If I'm not coughing in the morning then I'm probably also not contagious, right?

dglenn

"Don't think of documentation as time taken away from developing a product; think of it as time spent figuring out what exactly you're developing. Documentation is as much part of the final product as anything else; without documentation, a product is inaccessible to users." -- Peter Seebach, 2004-02-10

dglenn

The flu roller-coaster continues. After a somewhat promising Wednesday (I didn't feel well enough to go to rehearsal, but if the next day had been as much better than Wednesday as Wednesday had been better than Tuesday, Thanksgiving dinner might have been doable), my Thursday was rather worse. Coughing more often and more uncomfortably, sleepy, achy, and queasy. Didn't make it to family Thanksgiving in Montgomery County (where there'd be at least one person whom it would be Very Bad to infect with what I've had). Didn't even make it next door -- fell asleep around the time things were starting up there, and was probably coughing too much to reasonably go be around a bunch of other people. I was feeling rather out-of-it most of the day anyhow.

So today and Saturday remain uncertain. I'll have to see how I'm doing this afternoon. If nothing else, I'll need to get out to buy more cough syrup again.

I've found more cat vomit (last night, Perrine threw up on my camera -- eww -- this after I found a chunky puddle in the hallway and vomit over the side of the litter box; now I found dried mess on the stairs). Either she's got a tummy bug, or the different brand of cat food disagrees with her; not sure which. (She acted as though she liked this food, before she started throwing up.) Wondering how many more messes I haven't discovered yet. Bleah. (She hasn't sneezed since the day I posted about her having multiple sneezing fits, FWIW.)

dglenn

I have set lists for the Playford and Regency dances at Darkover. The Regency music will be the same as the last few years; if there's a chance you'll be able to play for the Playford dance (11:00 Saturday morning), email me and I'll send you the PDF of this year's music. Likewise if you can do the Regency ball (5PM Saturday) and don't have last year's music handy.

I'm not sure I'll get a chance to print copies, so the more folks who can print the music and bring a copy, the better.

dglenn

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" -- Charles M. Schulz (b. 1922-11-26, d. 2000-02-12)

To those celebrating it today, Happy Thanksgiving!

dglenn

"Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they're just privileges. And privileges can be taken away." -- quixote @ Shakesville, 2009-11-08 [ thanks to realinterrobangfor pointing it out]

dglenn

This coming weekend is Darkover. As usual, I'm looking for musicians who'll be there, to play in pick-up bands for the Playford dance (11:00 Saturday morning) and the Regency ball (17:00 Saturday evening). I don't have a set list yet. (I'll post again when I do.)

In other Darkover news: The Homespun Ceilidh Band will be playing for the costume(optional) ball on Friday night, and a concert Saturday at 16:00.

dglenn

Doing better; still weak, still coughing, not needing cough syrup quite as often, and sleeping more than an hour at a time. Hoping this is really the final stage of this ick, since I've already had a couple rounds of "I'm starting to feel better; oh no, I'm worse" already over the past couple of weeks.

Having lynsaurus and Sheepie bring me supplies helped a great deal. (Some overlap, but no waste as a result of the duplication -- though I was startled by the intimidating number of eggs Sheepie left in my fridge when I woke up and saw what she'd brought. I thought the second loaf of bread might be an oops, but I've been craving bread the past few days and toast is pretty easy on the stomach, so that turned out to be a good thing.) I am grateful to both for the help, and hope I infected neither of you.

I don't usually bother with whole oranges, most often dealing with that fruit in the form of juice. Gonna have to remember this for next time: orange slices are a lot less harsh on an already sore throat than gulping OJ is.

At some point I should figure out what the key ingredient in Tic-Tacs is that helps open up my airway (at least in the original flavour and the wintergreen ones).

If I'm up to it, I've got a lot on my plate this week. HCB rehearsal Wednesday, probably a family thing Thursday (though I've not heard anything yet), then performances Friday and Saturday at Darkover. I've been warned that if what I've had really is hamthrax, it'll be a while before I get much stamina back (and given my perpetual spoon-deficit anyhow, that'll likely be true for me even if this has been Ordinary Flu), so I'm rather nervous about trying too hard on the first bits and falling down on the later bits. But first things first ... and first is to see whether the next twenty four hours show as much improvement as the last fifteen or so, or whether this is just another undulation in the symptom roller-coaster that I'm sick and tired of.

So: still breathing, thanks (to a rather significant degree) to medicines brought by dear friends; and hoping to be well enough to perform at Darkover this coming weekend. Wish me luck.

dglenn

From the BBC television program Waking the Dead, episode "Deathwatch: part 1" (written by Stephen Davis):