It seems like I have a habit of quitting things right when I'm getting good at them. Not sure why. Perhaps self destructive. Perhaps set goals too high. Perhaps care more about figuring out the process. Most likely realize I'm not any happier when I'm good so i would then flit off in another direction. That's most likely. Lots of bouncing from one thing to another because of an underlying unhappiness that can't be solved by any hobby. At least I haven't bounced from one woman to the next.

Thinking of how i ran 20 miles at 11.5 min per mile pace a couple weekends in a row years back. I was capable of going faster. At the time i thought myself embarrassingly slow. I suppose it was slow. But started running again 3 weeks a go and how i wish i could run easy 11 min miles now. Now easy is 15. I think. But it's so hard to exactly pinpoint easy. I have run 82 miles in 3 weeks. Twice i pushed myself too hard. Felt scary weird afterward. Except for that i feel much better. My body was turning into something i wasn't enjoying being inside of. It's getting better but I need the patience that comes in part from being happy. Happy  people aren't constantly searching for that magical thing. I am happier now. Though still searching.

Learning 12 string guitar and going to scallop a cheap 6 string. Practicing everyday. While continuing piano. Have finished Chopin funersl march and basically gladiolus rag though couple pesky parts.

Happy Running by David and Megan Roche.
Run a ton easy. Throw in some strides. Get a dog? Don't be so hard on yourself you typical neurotic runner. Have fun.

Between Light and Shadow by Marc Aramini. An in depth analysis of Gene Wolfe's writing. Wolfe is now my favorite writer I guess. I love the short stories in particular. I want to write just like him. More or less. And that's ok. And that's a breakthrough. I'll be reading this a long time.

I gave up on the John Gwynne series. Too stupid. I'm done with that kind of vapid fantasy.

The thing about the UK is the percentage of creative people is much higher. It's still a small minority but it's enough that it really makes a difference. Additionally the extreme verdancy and high latitude combined with the atlantic meridional overturning circulation current. It all combines to make it objectively speaking the nost magical place on earth. Excluding very small areas elsewhere of course.

And of course many of those really creative brits take it completely for granted. They focus on their minority status (which would be the case anywhere and would be even worse anywhere) and focus on all the things that could be better because of course in a lot of ways the UK does suck, just like everywhere else. Which is still quite laughable. It is the best place on the planet. 

I finally reviewed the solution to Masquerade in detail yesterday. I wonder why I hadn't long ago. But I wrote in detail elsewhere. There was something else I had meant to write about here but I've been sidetracked. 

I started Chopin's Funeral March. Used to be i didn't like the somewhat positive turn it took. But in a recent listen i found that to be perfect for death shouldn't be completely terrible. It's important to not see it that way. It's maybe a perfect piece of music for viewing death. Perhaps the darth vader theme which i had heard so much more of made it hard to appreciate.

Just about "finished" with Gladiolus rag. I guess may do Maple leaf but Funeral March takes precedence. 

I started back at performing monkey piano last fall. So far brushed up/perfected/learned:
1. Rach prelude in c sharp minor
2. Moonlight sonata slow movement 
3. Most famous pathetique movement 
4. Beethoven's 19 sonata one movement 
5. Nyman heart asks for pleasure. 
6. 1st 3 pages of Beethoven's 7th symphone 2nd movement 
7. Gladiolus
...??? Other stuff not worth mentioning 

Inspired by 3 galloping dogs i finally bought what i think is decent reverb. Fogconvolver. Also Garritan Personal Orchestra 5 which... I think I like better than East West Silver but maybe it's the reverb. Back hurts too much to sit up and work on really writing music or performing monkey much. 

Also acquired autoharp and amp. Working on ukelin and gurdy. 

I liked Silver Mount Zion latest album and finally after a year have begun listening to the rest of their stuff and Efram's Godspeed you. I really like 4 songs so far and many others are pretty good. 3 galloping dogs has me deciding again I need to try again. I want to get at least two other people and perform live.

Still, I bought GPO and close to buying fog convoluter. I have never paid for any remotely decent convolution reverb. GPO is a bit cheap but good value. Just for composing. Ultimately want to perform live.

Performing live is what it should be about. Humility. Not fame. Not amazing. Not mass produced art reaching millions.

Also made a large playlist of shoegaze.

I have never written myself out of a bad place. Only the opposite.

Hurt my back 10 days ago. I can just about stand up straight without pain now. Almost. Can slowly walk. No disc herniation. I think I know what to change for prevention.

I really don't like steroids. Stomach ache for days and highly irritable. Not thinking well. 5th day of steroids and can't stand them anymore. Won't take the last day.

I was actually in a sort of good mood last few days. "Vegging" while I healed. Playing Morrowind. Tomorrow I shall attempt to go to work. It's a long walk to office. I might need a wheelchair. Not sure how that would go over.

I have small children. I have to get better. I need to survive and keep a job another 20 years. For them. Not for me. Nothing much for me.

I'm not good with words despite really trying. I hardly have anything really worth saying.

A person friended me that I went to school with. I think from elementary school on up? Not sure. Want to find out. We once had a 30 second conversation about Clive Barker and I can't recall otherwise ever speaking to him. But I had felt at least in high school that I wish I had known him. Then he was suicidal. I wasn't much better.

Now he's 47. He lives with in his mom's house who is a bipolar alcoholic with dementia. He has 22 dollars to his name. No car. Just started a new job as a waiter. He walked 3 miles to work because mom wouldn't let him borrow the car. She's screaming drunk crazy and police have been called and he doesn't know what to do.

He lives a 1000 miles away. I really don't actually know him. Apparently he has no one. Some fb "friends ". He had a sister. I don't know what became of her.

I will do nothing for him I guess. Talking to him at all on Facebook is strange considering I didn't actually know him.

But he likes the music I like. DCD, the cure. He reads. He's androgynous. Gay.

And he's 47 years old and he has 22 dollars to his name and no one good in his life. He was suicidal 30 years ago and it looks lije things haven't improved. My wife isn't going to let me reach out to some stranger  But he seems to have spent his life working at amusement parks and on the beach.

My stomach hurts. I'm hot. It's hot upstairs because heat rises. Downstairs hurts my back worse.

I have two small children. Something horrible HAS to happen to me. There's no way I will be allowed to be with them as they grow up.

I will listen to probably DCD. Starting now.....

And think of another time.

Reading George Macdonald earlier. Great largely forgotten writer. It's slightly horrifying the people who lived and have been forgotten.  Not just him but thinking about his characters as real people that in some variation they were.

My stomach hurts. I'm in a bad place. I have wrote my way out of a bad place. It's Sunday night. Insomnia night.

I thought of the giant sequoias the other day. I tried to work on a story that had a scene there. I ruined the sequoias.

Finished Brent Weeks Lightbringer series except for the last book which isn't out. Was strangely unhappy during it. Kind of neglected my other hobbies during it. Wondered though if it was just too much injustice. But it could be something else. Spend time writing letters I won't send to people I knew decades ago. Gave up my sexual abstinence after a month or so because I think it was getting me in a bad mood. Have a theory it turns the "must improve" part of a man while neglecting the "maintain/stay alive to rear my children" part. I really had this feeling of dying of a heart attack. Perhaps there's something to that. What few studies there are suggest people who have sex more often live longer but the science isn't that great. Being around a few more decades matters more to me. I don't really feel like there's anything too terribly important to otherwise accomplish. That I have any chance of accomplishing.

Anyway, Weeks' series is about Kip Guile and Gavin/Daven Guile. They both have very special magical powers and suffer great injustice. Gavin/Daven lost his powers, or at least he lost yellow, blue, green, subred, etc. Everything except black which he refuses to use. Preferring to be blinded. Preferring to die. Young Kip is a budding great magician who has never been properly trained but at 15/16 is already amazing. Their father is a terrible man. Color wights are also a bad thing, I guess. And some special order. Or who knows. Maybe the Chromeria is really the bad guy.

Now reading some book. Except son has my phone and I can't remember name... The Curse of Chalion by Lois Bujold. Great detail. Lupe Castelar is a sort of teacher/chaperone to a noble young lady and her friend. He escaped from being a galley slave. Just a tinsy bit of magic. I would like a tad bit more. But just when one gives up hope finally there is some related to Death magic.

Finally bought expensive racquets Wilson Clash. 2 for 480. Doesn't seem to be anything special about the Clash Tour. Though I was a little hasty in not even demoing that one. But online reviews suggest the two are practically the same. I'm liking the Clash though. Also really trying to hit a straight arm forehand with australian grip and even hitting a backhand drive with same grip. Went to "league" night at the posh club and played well enough.

I need to lose weight. I need to stop eating sweets every single day. Donut/s for breakfast. Cookies/brownies sometimes during the day. A pie on the weekend. lol. Straight up addiction like any other addiction. Over the years gradually it happened. Helped by being able to gorge myself when younger every single day while staying skinny for years. Now I'm 240 and don't lift weights. 6'4" and still athletic. Still. How silly to worry about this. No time to go run for 2 plus hours.

Close to finished with Gladiolus. Taken my sweet time. Enjoying it but feel like eventually, learn it or give it up... Wife doesn't complain I guess.

Reading book one of Brent Weeks Prism series. I had read most of it many many years ago and hadn't liked it much. Because I liked Night Angel so much better. Too much explaining the magic system in the early going in Prism. Reminiscent of Sanderson. I prefer mystery around the magic system. But it can't be helped. So I wasn't into it before I guess. Anyway I then had Dazen and Gavin confused. Which is somewhat understandable but not really, if you are paying close enough attention to enjoy the book.

I always assume I was stupid in the past and suspect that was the case here, that I just wasn't capable of thinking well enough to follow the nuance. Maybe true. There are worse things then feeling like I'm still improving at 46.

This time around I'm really enjoying this series which hopefully the last book will be published this year. Haven't read fantasy this good in quite a while.

Just now it's clear Kip is also a Prism but Gaven is keeping it a secret as supposedly there can be only one at a time according to their religion.

In other news I have decided to possibly never have sex (in any form) ever again. Unless wife actually wants to. Hopefully this doesn't make me more likely to get prostate cancer. It's sort of like returning to my childhood. I like it a lot.

Have been riding an exercise bike at least 10 minutes most days. Got to a lob in doubles that other players thought was amazing.

Been trying to keep arm entirely straight on forehand and arm feels really good even whike using extender ripstick weighted to over 12 ounces. Which is great for a huge serve but not so great for my forehand and the forehand is more important. I will try switching back to prostaff.

Just hitting everything continental/australian. With the prostaff at least seems like that works fine. And i hate hitting western on the run.

Read all but the dying part of biography about Arthur Ashe. Great guy. Was very lucky in the people that were in his life as a kid. Living at a park with a tennis court in backyard. That guy who taught him from a young age. And Dr Robert Johnson who has since been put in the tennis hall of fame. Ashe was very smart, very good guy. But also really really lucky. Except for the heart attacks and AIDS of course.