Ninety

I spent a solid 90 minutes tracking guitars today and I feel a tiny bit better about the state of the world right now. Granted a tiny bit better than OH MY GOD WE’RE TOTALLY DOOMED AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE RIGHT AGAIN is… well… relative, dig?

I put rhythm guitars onto one song as a bit of a warm up and then went nuts doing leads. Five songs. The four that got vocals this morning and one more that was left over from last time I did leads.

My finger tips are killing me right now. I really need the band to get back together so I can get my fingers into regular shape again.

Song Number 16

Here’s another new song. This one is better than most if not all of the others. At least I think so right now. I’ll likely change my mind later.

Both of my parents are asleep. They both fell asleep with a TV on. Dad is in the living room. I need to sleep in the living room. I can’t find the remote. I think he might be laying on it. I can’t sleep with headphones on. Insert the sigh of frustration here. At least he got up and walked around on his own, including a trip to the bathroom. No assistance from me was needed at all. That is huge. Super huge. What a relief.

Granted, he fell asleep with the news on, and this network ran the same 30 minute news program at 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00. I think I am going to hear the same things maybe five times before the talk shows come on. Gross.

Late Music

I put rhythm guitar on two songs and leads on two more. Not bad considering I didn’t even have a musical thought until 9:00pm. The leads came easy tonight, which is nice. The rhythm tracks came harder than they should have given how easy the parts were, but it is okay. My shiny new Les Paul could probably benefit from new strings though. Weekend plans.

It’s Monday

It’s Monday, and Monday sucks.

I mowed the entire lawn yesterday, front and back. My body will likely never forgive me. I just vacuumed up the lake in the cellar. It wasn’t as bad as it was last week, and there was a whole extra day worth of build up so I think there is improvement. I had to empty the wet vac and carrying that out of the bulkhead is painful. Carrying the dehumidifier tank is painful too, but not nearly as much.

Suffice to say, I’m a hurtin’ red head today.

It’s a nana sitting night tonight, and tomorrow’s nana sitting work day will also be a papa sitting day too as we’re expecting him to come home. The last time he came home we were all so happy, right up until the moment when we realized how much nursing care he still needed and from there it was awful. Not to imply that we weren’t happy he was home, just to say that none of us are trained health care workers and it was incredibly difficult. I am seriously hoping it’s better this time. Fingers crossed.

I wanted to do car music this morning but had too many other things to do. I have one song ready to mix and I’ll probably do it at my mother’s house tonight. It’s a 12-bar blues and it’s not good. Not good at all. It’s a song though and it counts.

Okay, going to work now. Mondays suck.

50/90 Update as July Ends

Harry is out of the house right now. I’m exhausted like you wouldn’t believe but I really want to be awake when he gets in so I am trying to do stuff to keep my brain functioning.

July is going to end in 90 minutes. That seems like a good time to give a quick summary of the 50/90 project. Today is day 27. How am I doing?

I have 13 songs finished and listed on my account page. There are another 12 songs in progress. Three are ready for vocal tracking, and I am hoping to do some car music in the morning. Of the other nine, the only recording that has been done so far is bass and drums, which are done on the computer. Based on that you could make the argument that no actual recording has been done at all. Whatever. Six of those nine songs do have lyrics and a melody already written out. I usually don’t start working on that until the rhythm guitars are down, but with all of the trips to my parents house, I haven’t had as much guitar time as I would like and I have had to do things out of the normal order.

50/3=16.66666667. Fifty songs, three calendar months, that means 16 and 2/3 songs per month, right? I like to break it down to 16 in July (because the challenge starts on July 4th so it misses out on three days and is therefore shorter than the other two months), 17 in August, and 17 in September. I’m at 25 right now. I would say that I am ahead of the pace.

Not bad, Robert. Not bad at all. The question is, can I keep it up? We shall see, Robert. We shall see.

Car music in the morning. It’s a moral imperative.

Music… kinda stalled

I haven’t had a lot of time for music over the last few days. I’ve snuck in two new song ideas but that’s all. I have three songs ready for vocals so maybe if I get that done in the morning it will kick start things a bit.

I have 13 songs mixed and another 12 in progress. I’m so far ahead of the minimum pace that it’s nuts.

Rock and roll, eh?

Don’t Wanna

I don’t want to go to my parents house tonight. I don’t wanna go I don’t wanna go I don’t wanna go.

*sigh*

My brother was there last night and he had a rough time. Not for the usual reasons though. There was a power line down just a little way down the road from the house. I heard it actually caused a fire. Power was out for hours. That means no air conditioner. No fan. No wifi. Hell, in other words. Mom’s pain went bad right after the power outage started too, just to make things worse.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don’t let things go that bad for me tonight.

I got six hours of sleep last night, which is okay, but there was a full hour of being awake stuck into the middle of it all. That means I’m tired today. I’m feeling all the stress. Even the stress that I normally manage to keep at bay. It’s all hitting me right now and I haven’t even left the house yet. Shit.

I don’t have any 50/90 music ready to be worked on tonight. I can’t play guitar there, and everything that has guitar and needs vocals already has the vocal parts written. If I’m to get any work done it’s going to have to be new bass lines. Oh well.

I’m tired and I’m stressed and I just want to go to bed for 18 hours or so.

Lunch Break

I’m in the office today. I need to come in four times this month and today makes three. I have Thursday penciled in as the fourth visit.

Last time I came in everything on my desk had been moved around. I assume it was the cleaning staff. This time everything was where I left it. That’s nice to see. I told myself that I had to get a mouse pad before I came back and then completely forgot. The desk is arranged in such a way that there is a seam right where my mouse wants to be. It’s annoying. A mouse pad will fix it… if I can just not forget to grab a mouse pad. I ordered one on Amazon today. Read the first paragraph and then try to guess what day it’s scheduled for delivery… go on… guess. (Thursday)

I had no traffic this morning. Well, almost no traffic. There was a slow down at the junction between routes 93 and 128. Other than that, and one lady who was tailgating me at 70 miles per hour (asshole), the commute was easy as can be. Here’s hoping the same thing happens on the way home. Fingers crossed.

I didn’t forget my lunch today! Will wonders never cease? I did buy a bag of Peanut M&M’s from the vending machine though. Not my finest hour.

Last week my sister was unable to cover shifts at my parents house, so my brother and I just alternated days. There was a whole week where I slept at my house one day and at theirs the next. Today is the first day since that started that I won’t appear at the house in Tewksbury at all. I love my parents. I really do. I’m also very happy to have a day where I am not there. It’s such a stress relief. I’ll be there tomorrow night and all day Wednesday though, so let’s not get all kumbaya and shit.

This morning, before work, I looked at posts on this page made on July 26ths in past years. Last year there was a post talking about my progress in the 50/90 challenge. I had six songs finished and 17 songs in the pipeline. I am crushing that pace right now. Today I have 13 songs finished and 23 in the pipeline. Winning. I wonder how far along I was in 2014 (the other year I completed the full 50 songs)? Who cares.

This weekend is a Harry weekend. This is a good thing. That is a happy thing.

Okay, back to work.