I know, I know.

Yes, yes. Two days, no update. Well, it was the weekend and I decided to give myself two days off from everything - the gym, sorting the studio, doing this blog. I wasn't even here on Saturday night, so ha. :/

To add insult to injury, I'm not giving you a long blog update tonight, as the boyfriend is very sick and is staying here to as to get some peace and quiet and a bed really near the bathroom (he's been put in the spare room so I can sleep and gym and everything in peace). I've taken the role of nursemaid so far as to give him a homeopathic treatment without actually telling him what it was. Though apparently muttering "Ah! Arsenicum!" whilst poring through my box of goodies doesn't increase his confidence in me.

However, on one slightly work related note, the installation of Mac OS X on the new (old) mac went wrong and now the whole thing appears to be totally farked. And my resident expert is too busy wretching his guts out to help me fix it. Ah well. Tips, anyone (On start up it's just getting stuck on the timer with what looks like a no stopping sign - it went for a full 9 hours last night without actually booting up fully)?

Fuck.

Well, I did go out with good intentions of completing all the tasks on my list, but I almost died between ASDA and Homebase, so I've decided just to come home and hide in my bathroom til everything goes away.

Thwarting the system.

Despite the idea of this blog being to update at the end of the day, to be sure I cover everything I've done every day, I'm doing this now before going out and doing many of the things I really should be doing. It is fun to thwart, because any word with that many mismatched consonants is alright in my book. Also, most people thwart dragons and evil wizards and such, and that would be cool.

I got hit with surprise customs charges on the "bargain" microphones I bought off ebay t'other week, which didn't come from Edinburgh after all, but the middle of the bloody USA. Unfortunately, my ribbon mic's coming from there, so I'll undoubtedly end up with another bill like this in a few days' time. Annoying.

Speaking of, I am totally freaking out about the amount of money this has cost so far. I know that I was prepared to spend a fair amount to get this started, it's just that actually doing it has made me feel a little bit nauseous. I'm sure I'll get over it, but I'd like a cuddle. On the plus side, Bertie is now officially mine and will be coming to stay very soon, or so I hope.

The gym is making me feel loads better, and I think I'm going to ask for more weights exercises at the review on Wednesday - my stomach muscles and the ones round my outer thighs feel left out. For those of you who've met me, this'll probably come as a surprise, but I'm actually enjoying the exercise and activity. Perhaps it's addictive. Ah well, I always thought I should have one anyway.

I have to take my dining table apart, and I can't work out what tool I need to do so. Today I must do laundry, go to ASDA/Walmart and go to Homebase. Woo. And Oot.

TPBB (tiny post before bed).

Very short, as must get lots of sleep before rising way too early to go to the gym for the priviledge of making my thighs hurt even more than they do already. Did no studio based work today, as was too knackered and now wince when standing up, sitting down and climbing stairs. Did, however, get fooled by my brilliant system of arriving at the gym in time for the friends double bill into doing an hour's cardio instead of half an hour. In my defence, I am feeling very fat & also it was that episode when Chandler's in a box.

Sleeping now. Will do more tomorrow.

Trust it not, for it spaketh untruths.

Despite what the blog tells you, I've slept since making the last update, which means it was made yesterday. This is a different day's blog, dammit!

Not a lot to report today. I went to the gym for a couple of hours, first for the induction and then just for the damned exercise, and i felt so good after I was done. Felt like shit while I was doing it (and, I might add, during the ritual weighing procedures beforehand), but walked out feeling almost perky. Came home and really wanted to start work. But, of course, not everything's ready yet, not everything's even here yet. So I spent a bit of time making some room to move stuff around to (eventually) make room for the arrival of Bertie sometime in the near future.


Thus, in an arid region for actual information, I'll give you a handy glossary for future reference:

Sunday, Cathy, Joni and BabyJo are guitars - guitars only have one name, and are female. Joni was my first guitar, after the guitar I learned on (which was not mine, and I named Joannie), and BabyJo looks like her, but is much smaller.

Three is my tenor guitar from the US. Yes, it's a bad pun. Take your time.

Ruth is my big harp, who keeps changing her name. She was Sian when she got here, but she arrived new so I figure she's still finding out who she really is. Ruth doesn't feel right either. She'll let me know eventually. Her little sister is Joanna. Joanna likes to snuggle.

The keys are a different issue. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, they always give me two names: a male one first, then a female one. In some cases, like with my trusty rusty beast of an upright (Henry Jane), the two names are used as effectively one (she is only ever Henry Jane, never just Henry, never just Jane). Henry Jane is, as all acoustic pianos are, a girl. However, all my keys have some gender issues, ranging from near androgeny to some serious lesbian butch going on. A good example is my CP70B, who is a serious cross dresser. A male impersonator, if you will. She's damn good at it too. Her name is Philip Letitia, but people just call her Philip. It's better than way. The new piano's name is Bertie, but she's Anna to her friends. We barely know each other right now, so I'm sticking with Bertie for the time being. We'll work towards it. I'm so sad that she's still so far away. A nice dutch man sold her to me, and things always bode well when there's a Dutch person involved.

As a side note, the gym is not only helping me overcome the large-ass-tired-after-stairs issue, but is solving a minor personal crisis on another level. After far too long catching the bus to Uni every day, I began to believe that the way the day turned out would be based on whether or not I managed to obtain a Metro on the way in in the morning (or, indeed, by very good fortune on the way back. Tip: always check the back seats upstairs. It's a goldmine). Having moved here, and having bought a car and suchlike, I was afraid that I would never see Nemi's shiny happy face again or, more importantly, find out if her blue haired friend ever recovers from her breakup (totally tragic at the time - i'd have snapped her up if she wasn't two dimensional AND fictional). My friends from the time can atest to this. Imagine my glee, after two solid Nemi-free months, upon discovering that my gym stocks the Metro, and that there are still copies available late into the afternoon.

(Please, no suggestions about looking up the strips on the website. I tried this once. It only made me feel dirty).


Well, must be up early for the rigors of the cross trainer and suchlike. Plus, I'm knackered. NN.

Bedtime.

I'm going to keep this brief, because I have my gym induction at 10am tomorrow morning and I'm not getting the early night I planned due to unexpected pub quiz incident (joint 3rd, btw - and Valletta is the capital of Malta):

Went to Oxford today.
Bought piano.

Scary monsters (and super camera problems)

Having spent a good long while searching for my usb cable so I could upload pictures from my camera for y'all to see (and having then found it sitting next to said computer, looking suspiciously innocent), I have discovered that I never installed the drivers for it on the mac (the laptop having recently sadly, passed away) and now have no idea where they are. Sigh. I can only assume that this is my mother's disembodied influence attempting to stop me from posting pictures of my things on the interweb.

But ah! Let me explain to you the lack of post yesterday. It is not, as you may have assumed, my inability to keep a new resolution after only a few days. Actually, I have a tale far more disturbing to relate.

I came in late last night. The boyfriend and I had been working on putting the studio together (read: playing with the CP70-B until I got cross about him putting his feet on it and went upstairs to shift the heavy stuff myself & then him talking me through all the pretty coloured dials on the console) and then went back to his for Chinese. I then insisted on watching terrible Ben-Elton-book-adaptation-movie. I didn't get home until past 1am (rolling into the driveway with the lights off, because I find myself coming and going at late hours a lot at the moment, and I'm afraid the neightbours will get the wrong idea about me... or something).

I dumped my bag and jacket in the hallway, brushed my teeth, checked all the windows were closed downstairs and then went into the living room to get Danny Wallace (or one of his books, at least - they make up two of three literary comfort blankets, the other being Good Omens by Gaiman/Pratchett) and to update the blog. I sat down in my big comfy chair (one of two which came with the console) and noticed an odd sound. Like music coming through a wall from a neighbour. Except that I live in a detached house, and most of the people within the nearest mile radius of it will have been tucked up nice and quietly by this point. I listened harder. The sound had a kind of crackly feel, as though it were coming from an old gramophone record. The style of the music seemed to be Sinatra-esque, early 20th century. White guy, band with actual instruments, a whole different kind of performance. I realised it was coming from the amp, which had been left on, attached to the Yamaha CP70-B through a little mixing desk from when we'd been playing with it earlier.

Let me give you some context: My house smelled when I moved in (and still occasionally smells) of old people. Something (must be pipes or similar) makes it sound as though someone is shuffling up and down the stairs at about 7am every day. I live alone, and I know it's not me. I am not going to go into my entire belief system right now, but I do believe in what people might refer to as ghosts, though I don't think that they're dead people who come back. It's complicated. In fact, that detail makes my reaction to this situation less in keeping with my general character. What is probably more important is that I'd bought series 7 of Buffy as a treat and it had arrived that day. I was thus halfway through a 14 hour Buffy marathon. That shit can make you jumpy.

So when my amp started singing what I could only think of as lonely old person music from seemingly no source, I was more than freaked. I checked all the rooms for sad aged folks, including under my bed before I got in it and climbed under the covers for safety. From my tent-like fortress of protection, I rang the boyfriend to tell him I was being haunted by malevolent forces with dated taste in music and that I was somewhat uncomfortable with the whole situation.

He said it was probably the CP70-B picking up radio.

And that's why there was no blog last night. If you think about it, I was held back from you by supernatural forces. That's not my fault. Anyone can fall foul of them. What with the malevolent evil and all.

In other news, I joined a gym today. And I picked up a MASSIVE box from the post office which I've just realised I've forgotten to open. Off I go to do so. Wish me well, adoring nations.

Twenty minutes until tomorrow.

I promised myself (and, by default, you) that'd I'd post to this thing every day. It is part of The Discipline. As is typing using capitals in all the right places. I hope you're appreciating the efforts I'm going to.

I also promised you photos of the family. However, this would involve finding the usb cable for my camera, which is currently in one of my boxes of cables in the studio (still haven't finished unpacking since the move. sigh). The boyfriend and I are rearranging the studio after the arrival of my desk on Thursday tomorrow, so I shall dig it out then and upload you a bunch of pics.

I wanted to take pictures of the rain storm we had this afternoon too. I danced about in it some. Heavy rain is one of the environments I feel most comfortable and joyful in, and heavy rain after a heatwave just has that added bonus of feeling kind of spiritual. It's like when I lie down on the grass and I get dizzy. It's one of the reasons I'm here in Derbyshire. I love this countryside, the Peaks. I'm determined that I'll go out there more and see and walk and sit and think, preferably high up and alone. Lots of things to do.

Til tomorrow. Sleep.

Momentum.

"The problem," an Irish man said to me yesterday "with having a home studio is having the will power to force yourself to work every day. I used to get up in the morning and, instead of going to work, I'd watch a bit of telly, or go down the shops for a while."

He looked at me cheerily as he said this and I tried not to look guilty. This, so far, pretty much sums up my work ethic for the past three years of my degree. Aside from the TV part, as I don't own one. I do, however, own a well used Buffy DVD box set and a computer.

To be fair, when I say I did no work, that's not essentially true - I did no work on what i was /supposed/ to be doing. I did plenty of other stuff. I organised myself enough to go on tour around the country for 5 months or so (save for a three week break in the middle for my second year exams). I recorded the first album in the middle there somewhere, too, and managed to hold down, at one point, three jobs aside from the music and the degree.

But I am Gormanesque in doing the things I should be doing - I usually find a way of doing everything else possible first. And here comes the tricky part: I've set myself up to do what I want to do - and only what I want to do - for the next year or so. I'm building (well, putting together without touching the actual structure of the house at all, as the landlord probably wouldn't approve) my little home studio in the spare bedroom upstair in my little detached house here in sunny Derbyshire. I've moved to a new county to do this, where I know very few people. This is it.

And that's where the fear kicks in: what if I can't do this? What if I'm not good enough? What if I just. dont. do. it.?

This is where you come in, gentle hypothetical viewer. You are the person I have chosen to share this with: the excitement, the confusion, the inevitable panic. You are also, more importantly, my official driving force. You're going to guilt me into this.

So, I hereby bestow this quest upon your substantial and yet graceful and aesthetically pleasing shoulders, and end this first post with the promise of pictures tomorrow - I'll introduce you to the toys, the machines and my ever expanding family. Until then, take care of yourself, look both ways crossing the road, wear sunscreen [dance, even if it's only in your own living room], eat five or mpore portions of fruit and vegetables per day and get enough sleep.