So, I was talking with my friend Andy, who never fails to give me some good food for thought, and he mentioned the idea of post-traumatic growth. Basically he was pointing out that trauma is not without some value and that after all the other, more negative aspects of experiencing it, some individuals experience significant growth. I ponder whether this has happened to me or not, and if it has, whether it’s happened one or many times.
I’ve been trying to spend more time multitracking instead of woodshedding for the last few days.. we’ll see how long I keep it up, and how long it takes before I have a album worth of coherent, usable together recorded material. This isn’t ever likely to make it to a album unless I decide to publish a “best of movie soundtrack” thing at some point, but it is fun.
So, finally after many months of slowly nudging the project along, my solar lithium battery boxes are done. I’ve done a load test with a space heater, and nothing other than the space heater got even remotely warm. I am feeling victorious 😉
There’s many little bits of the project left to do – I need to hook up something to maintain the old lead acid pack, in case I decide to use it for something, I want to add lighting to each battery box, and a alarm light, and of course the battery box heaters – which are already in place and all the wiring is pulled for, but I need to connect up the relays and drill a hole for the 110 cable to go into one of the boxes.
But, still, I am running off the lithium batteries. This is a major milestone.
“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”
Anonymous, often attributed to Gandhi or Buddha
So, I’ve a number of times experienced the so called “Steakhouse Syndrome” – getting a chunk of meat stuck in my throat and being unable to swallow. I think that Seroquel makes this somewhat worse by weakening my voluntary control over those muscles.
Anyway, the solution for me – and note that I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice, and if you kill yourself doing this don’t blame me – seems to be to hold my chin tucked while swallowing repeatedly. This is hard to dig out of the noise of the internet so I am posting it to my blog in case it helps anyone else.
Well – sadly I was hoping to get to 2000 hours and maybe get to a level of skill where I’d impress my dad – not easy 😉 However, he’s no longer with us. My project to become truly great at this remains though.
So, I’m coming up on 1500 hours. I had hoped that I’d make it to 2000 and actually manage to impress my dad with my musical skills, but alas, I ran out of time on that one. But, I’m still working on my skills, and I’m still enjoying the process. I’m trying to get a bit more experimental, take some more risks, in the hopes of finding more of whatever it is I’m looking for in the process of exploring solos.
I was pondering trying to use some AI tools to create a index of the 1500 hours of recordings of my practice. There will, of course, be many more hours by the time I’m done. It seems like automating the process of creating indexes and enabling people to find the songs they wanted – maybe even having the ability to rate different versions and to listen to your favorite version – might at some point be worth doing. I still have hopes that someday I’ll put together a patreon account. I wonder if I’ll ever actually find time to do it. And soemtimes I wonder if there’s any audience out there that wants, or will want, what I’m putting together.
I also need to do some more tracking. I’m aware of the fact that I’m putting it off, although I don’t exactly know why.
(Among other things these are the only way I have to communicate with her)
I do understand that you have a serious mental illness. I also understand that the person who strangled you – leaving bruises on your neck – wasn’t me. That is almost certainly where you picked up the PTSD. I’m sure many things I’ve done have triggered your PTSD – if I’d thought about the fact you had it, and understood how it happened, and not been all tied up with my own story, I would have behaved differently. I think I’ve already apologized for most of the things I’ve done. I also regret anything inappropriate I wrote in the letter to you while still in severe B-12 depletion and half-crazy from my time with Kayti while I was in Fred Brown. Or anything I’ve said while islanded / multiple during a manic phase that upset you.
You might *consider* apologizing for some of your behavior when we were younger. If you cared about me at all, which seems unlikely from where I currently sit.
I also understand I have made *no* attempt to contact you other than by paper letter lodged with our parents for *17 years*. The terrible danger that you’re in is in your mind. I’ve made every attempt to extend a olive branch and to apologize for the things I *did* do wrong. I’m not asking you to befriend me or even be in the same room. But it would be a big step forward if we could have *some* system of communication to at least do scheduling. This would be in your best interests since you *don’t* want to see me.
One of the definite bugs that’s been introduced via whatever I was exposed to in my childhood is I can’t cry when I want to. Like right now I feel like crying – I definitely feel like I’m being treated quite badly – my mom of course also can’t answer the phone while my sister is around, so I can’t talk to her about being kicked off my trip dates that she had agreed to without any attempt to apologize – so I feel like crying, but I can’t.
I can cry sometimes when listening to certain songs or watching certain movies, but I can’t cry when sad things happen. I still haven’t cried about my dad dying, for example.
I need to add a tag for my sister. Will probably make it easier for her to follow my blog since I imagine she only cares about the articles that mention her.
OK, that’s done. I’ll try and go back and tag some of the relevant articles. Anyway, the latest stunt is my planned trip in September must be moved. Now, keep in mind, I *asked for dates* repeatedly and didn’t get any. So I tried to pick some while I was there. There’s a paper calander I used to look for dates that my sister was not there. My sister clearly knew I was going to be at the memorial, because that’s why she didn’t go. (Her hate for me is bigger than her love for my mom, apparently). It had nothing. My mom’s iphone calendar had nothing. I asked my mom if the dates were okay. She said they were. I went back home and the next day bought tickets, and sent the itenerary to my mom. Nothing. Today – four days later – I get a email telling me I have to change my dates. No apology from my mom for making me jump through hoops, just her and my sister had already planned something for those days. Something not on the calander and hithero unknown. My sister clearly could have looked at the calander when she arrived and passed the message on to me *then*, but no.
This is not totally out of the realm of what goes on. I’ve been asked to change dates for my sister’s convenience before. And I do understand my sister has a severe mental illness, probably in fact worse than mine, and given that I do also have one if there’s anyone who should be understanding it should be me. But I do also feel like whenever a choice has to be made, I end up being the one who loses. Part of this is my sister is extremely good at manipulating people, and I generally try to just be compliant with whatever people want.
But it’s almost impossible for me to imagine that, especially if my mom’s memory gets worse, I’m ever going to get to see her. My sister has pretty much demonstrated to me that she has no interest in treating me fairly. I don’t think there’s going to be anyone to intercede to make sure I can be at the memorial service for my mom, or that I can see her in her last days.