Author Archives: Autumn

Quiet

The plan to “choose silence” and not waste energy on energy-absorbing things that don’t support a healthy mental and emotional environment continues apace. This means, by extension, that my commenting in general is going to decrease. If you’re one of my regular reads, it isn’t that I’m not reading your thoughts; I’m just not saying anything unless I can say something meaningful and say it right. One of my goals is to cut down on idle conversation, because I’ve observed lately by listening to others that it (a) consumes energy that can be better directed elsewhere, and (b) very often creates negative energy that gets spread around. And combating negative energy means using up yet more energy, perpetuating a vicious cycle. I want to spend more time thinking about the words I use, and that doesn’t make for very efficient light conversation. I’m also trying to cut down on the amount of negative energy I encounter, to further reduce the amount of stress in my life.

I still intend to use this journal to work things out, and to keep people up to date on what’s going on. Posting frequency has already decreased to a certain extent, as you may have noticed; it may decrease further, or it may not, as the plan requires.

Important Concert-Related Announcement

To all Random Colour and Invisible fans:

Due to an unacceptable rate hike from our regular venue, the double-band show on January 20 has been cancelled.

I know you’re all devastated, as you were deprived of our gig last fall as well. When we have another date we’ll announce it, but do be aware that because of various other commitments it won’t be until late spring at the earliest.

Thanks, everyone, for your ongoing support.

Back

The weekend was less stressful than I expected, probably because I made the conscious choice to be alone, to focus on me and my thoughts instead of getting caught up in idle conversation. (Or, in the words of another on-line journaler, I “chose silence”. Ivy, was that you? I can’t find the reference now.) Among other workshops there were two lovely guided meditations, a peaceful ritual, and lots of time in my room journaling longhand and meditating about various challenges and stalled areas in my life. I discovered a whole bunch of things and made a couple of personal breakthoughs; now all I have to do is follow up on them, which is not so easy.

Liam had an excellent time with his local grandparents, who stayed with him while we were gone. Knowing that they had such a good forty-eight hours together has opened up a lot of possibilities for us.

In Other News

‘Other news’, of course, being news wherein I do not obliquely express an unhealthy desire for a majority of the planet’s population to vanish. After the last post, I didn’t want to leave you all wondering what had happened to me over the weekend, as I’m going away and won’t be journaling. I wish I could say it was on a mini vacation, but it isn’t. So I hereby provide you with a short recap of what I did while Liam napped:

Plugged the microphone into the minidisc player. Clipped the mic to my music stand. Recorded a chunk of my hour and a half of cello practice this afternoon. Put the headphones on to check for recording quality.

Cue jaw drop. Wow. Just — wow.

I can feed the minidisc signal into a regular stereo and listen to it via the stereo speakers, and also record it onto a cassette, which means it’s analog. Therefore there must exist a way to feed it into the computer and transfer it to a digital file, because I know people do this with cassettes and videotapes and such things. It will be a project of mine next week, the researching of this. It likely involves cables that I do not presently own.

In the meantime — wow, both for the quality of the little stereo microphone I ordered and for the minidisc recording ability. Also, my cello playing does not suck. The purchase of these items may well be paid back by repeated use of them to convince me of this alone.

Grant Me Patience

For the second day in a row our water has been turned off. I couldn’t give Liam a bath again. I have piles of today’s dishes by the sink. I’d planned to do Liam’s laundry tonight. If we need to go to the bathroom we’ll have to knock on the neighbours’ door. Why? Because the downstairs neighbour tried to use her washing machine last night, knowing that the connection was jerry-rigged yesterday to temporarily stop the leak that had been going on for some time. (But whenever a puddle would appear in our garage, it was, “No, nothing’s wrong in my apartment”. Why she chose New Year’s Eve to call the landlord and tell him about this ongoing problem, I will never know.) The jerry-rigged plug was jarred loose, and there’s water all over the garage floor again. HRH checked it, and sure enough, using the washer had broken the temporary seal and water was leaking once more. The only way to stop it was to turn off the main water. The landlord’s back and trying to fix it now.

She also left the washing machine on all night. It was jammed, and the humming was so loud it was vibrating our floor. It’s a miracle that she didn’t burn out the motor. (If she had, it might have solved a lot of problems.)

I know she’s not all there, and I have had great tolerance. But my patience is really, really running out.

On the other hand, I had a lovely day out, having lunch with Roo and tea with Prospero’s Daughter. Also, the microphone for my minidisc player arrived, so I can experiment with that now.

LATER: We have water again. The leak has been fixed. Her washer has been unplugged and she has been explicitly forbidden to use it until a repairperson has looked at it.

Wasting Time

I am currently doing my best to avoid working. So far it seems to be successful, because now I only have an hour and fifteen minutes left before I have to get ready to leave for lunch with Lady Roo.

Not that I’ve been completely wasting time: I’ve had breakfast, caught up on correspondence (which is a fancy term I use for e-mail both business and casual, filing paper mail, making/taking phone calls, reading news, and tracking info down), and tidied up. I’m just aware that I should open a file and do some writing of some sort, but doing busy-work instead. Busy-work does need to get done at some point, after all.

Look! An hour and ten minutes left! I should see how many words I can get thrown down in an hour. Messy, but good exercise.