Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Two Hours to Go

The weekend is about two hours away. 123 minutes, to be exact. I’m finding motivation a little tough to come by this afternoon but I will get everything that needs to be done today done today as far as work goes.

Jen is planning on spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. How good does that sound, right? I will go grocery shopping afterward. I’m a little behind on my protein intake for today so I may need to eat something substantial after I get home. I am ahead of the game on hydration though. My post-lunch one hour pause before having anything to drink will end in about three minutes and I’ve got a 20 ounce bottle of Gatorade Zero upstairs in the fridge with my name on it. After that my daily liquid intake goal will be obliterated nicely.

I put out four mouse traps in the cellar. The cats don’t come down here so it should be okay. Let me rephrase, the cats are not allowed down cellar. They very much want to come down here, I just don’t let them. One trap went off but I think that was due to a ghost, or an Earthquake or something. No mice were involved. I did see one running past the base of the stairs. I was upstairs and opened the door to come down and there it was. Asshole. Was it the same mouse I saw earlier? How the hell should I know, it was a mouse. I wasn’t checking for identifying details. Sheesh.

Reminder to myself: Write lyrics tonight. Record vocals in some random empty parking lot tomorrow morning. Maybe take the cameras to the ocean for sunrise on Sunday. The forecast at Salisbury Beach looks promising. We’ll see. Sunrise would be great, but music is what’s important. I also need to clean the kitchen and do a little work straightening out the kids rooms this weekend. That’s important too, but a different kind of important, you know? Health and well being and happiness vs musical mental health. Simple. Speaking of, when’s the next band practice?

Okay, Robert. Go get that Gatorade Zero and finish your work projects. You’ve got this, red head. No problem. 110 minutes until the weekend.

Post script: There was just a blast of thunder outside that was loud enough to shake the walls a little. It didn’t set off any of the mouse traps though. That’s good.

Three Cheers for the Mouse Hunters

Yesterday, for the second time since we adopted our two cats, Lily and Robin were stalking something. They were spending a lot of time watching underneath the refrigerator. Occasionally they would try to reach under and grab something. There were a couple of times where we could hear something rustling but we didn’t actually see anything.

Last night I woke up at around 3:00am. The cats were freaking out. That’s not terribly unusual as they often get the zoomies over night. This time I could hear some squeaking though. They were hunting and their prey was freaking out. Later, after I finished my exercise and guitar playing, I went into the bedroom and saw them both hovering over something in the attached bathroom. I turned on the light. There was a mouse laying on it’s back. I thought it was dead but it twitched. It was playing dead. I went to get something to pick it up with and while my back was turned it ran for it. The cats chased. I closed the door and let them do their thing.

15 minutes later I opened the door again and the mouse was once again playing dead. I had a broom and a cardboard box on me this time. I swept it into the box and it jumped out. I smacked it with the broom and swept it up again. I took it outside and dropped it on the edge of the woods. It made a run for it. Good riddance, home invader.

Three cheers for the mouse hunters who once again earned their keep and protected their new home! I gave them a handful of treats as a reward for a job well done. Good kitties! Good, good kitties!

Post script: Fuck. I am working in the cellar. A second mouse just poked it’s head out from under the desk drawers next to me. Son of a bitch! Well, we do live in the woods and the weather has been awful for a week now. This is to be expected. Still… asshole mouse.

Still On Plan

Last night I said I wanted to put guitars on a couple of songs today. I did it. Last night I also added a new song idea. That’s one of the songs I played guitar on this morning and boy was it sloppy and bad. Today is going to go down in history as one of the sloppiest playing days I’ve ever suffered through. I don’t care. I also added a new riff idea this morning. We’ll see if it becomes a song. I hope so.

Next on the agenda is writing lyrics and melodies. I have five songs that are ready for them. Let’s see how many I can get to today.

I played my SG yesterday and I didn’t put it away. As I was working out the new song structure last night I did it with the Les Paul in mind. Today, with the SG sitting on the stand I decided to start with a different song and use the SG as a warm up. When that song was done I swapped them. You’d think that playing something else first would have warmed me up for the new song. Nope. I sucked equally on both of them.

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282/365
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Musical Plans for the Next Few Days

Tomorrow is Friday. The weekend is almost upon us once more. I want to make a musical plan for the next few days and then actually try to stick to it. As if.

I currently have 13 songs in progress. 10 started in May, and three in June. Two songs have rhythm guitars along with a melody and lyrics. Three more have rhythm guitars only. Tomorrow, before work, I want to add rhythm guitars to at least one or two more songs. If I can add a new song or two as well, that would be nice, but I don’t want that to distract me.

After work I want to focus on adding melody and lyrics to songs that have guitars. I want to have a nice batch that are ready for vocals. Saturday morning I want to have a good car music session where I add vocals to as many songs as I can. Anything I don’t get to on Saturday I hope to do on Sunday. If possible, I want to add lead guitars to at least some songs by the time the weekend is over.

If I can get through all of that before punching in to work on Monday morning, I will consider it a musically successful weekend.

Challenge accepted.

Sleep and Stomach Stuff

I wanted to go to bed early last night but I ended up staying awake until almost midnight. Dumb ass. The numbers my Apple Watch collected were pretty weak. I didn’t have a lot of restful sleep and my heart rate didn’t drop very much. I managed to keep the CPAP mask on all night. That’s been a trial for me lately. I have to put it on super tight to keep the seal from letting go. I’ve had two days in a row without problems, but the previous four or five days all had me taking the mask off at some point in the night because the bad seal kept waking me up.

I woke up with some stomach fun this morning too. Yesterday I had a big lunch. It was way more food than I can handle post-bypass. Then at dinner I did it again. I had way more food than I could handle. It resulted in me feeling uncomfortably stuffed for hours last night. Eventually it passed and I was able to have some water and a snack before bed. It did result in me waking with a stomach ache. Not one of those really bad curled-up-in-a-ball-on-the-floor type stomach aches, just a normal bad stomach ache. I tried to work through it while exercising but I had to stop. I spent some time in the bathroom (TMI) and eventually it passed. I had some breakfast and it didn’t come back. I feel a little worn out this morning, but I don’t feel any pain now.

And that’s the health update for today. I’m going to have lunch about an hour from now. I don’t expect any problems, but I should probably make sure I don’t overdo it again, right?

Just Like the Bad Old Days

This is why I hate working in the office. Well, it’s one of the many reasons why working at home is infinitely preferable.

I drove for an hour this morning on both route 93 South and route 128 South without coming anywhere near the speed limit. From Methuen, MA to Waltham, MA at an average of probably 20 miles per hour. My 40 mile commute should have taken me about 40 minutes on the highway. Instead it took about 95 minutes.

No reason for it, just volume and gridlock. It’s infuriating. The best part is that I get to do it again tonight at around 5:30pm. Hoo-friggin’-ray.