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noahgibbsI read here pretty regularly, but write rarely. I don't think that's likely to change much. But right now, Twitter has a long shadow of Elon Musk over it. Also it's been not-great for my mental health for some time. Also I should be trying to write and express a lot more and read a bit less, just in general. So, y'know, life.
I've been teaching myself piano for a bit now. I'm not great, but I am significantly better than I used to be. I'm also learning from Professor Youtube, so my understanding of music theory is now far, far better than it has ever been, which is interesting. I always kind of felt like "music was a language" was a weird pretentious exaggeration. Music isn't a language exactly like, say, French, but I'm starting to see how it is, in fact, a language. It's not *that* much weirder than American Sign Language in a lot of ways. But they say a lot of what defines a language is what you can't not say (e.g. Italian makes you identify gender, Japanese makes you identify the level of politeness.) And music has some fun weird answers to that. Now I just need to, like, actually get good at some of it.
We're loosening up our Covid discipline, much like everybody else. Not completely, but more than we have been - we're seeing people a bit more, sort of thing. I don't think Covid has changed much, but we're also feeling the sheer exhaustion of 2.5 years of this.
Paying attention to the structure of writing is showing me what a master of his craft Terry Pratchett is. I've been reading more to the family lately. He's just incredible. The way that he takes a philosophical theme or three ("what is a king?" "what is death"? "what is a healthy relationship between predators and prey?") and finds several different ways to riff on them, with different characters in different situations, and then twist them all together into a satisfying ending is just jaw-dropping.
I have a whole bunch of stuff I should do, listed out on the whiteboard. And more not on the whiteboard, of course. It doesn't feel overwhelming, exactly. But it feels never-ending, and like I have zero interest in doing it.
Okay. Should sleep now.
I've been teaching myself piano for a bit now. I'm not great, but I am significantly better than I used to be. I'm also learning from Professor Youtube, so my understanding of music theory is now far, far better than it has ever been, which is interesting. I always kind of felt like "music was a language" was a weird pretentious exaggeration. Music isn't a language exactly like, say, French, but I'm starting to see how it is, in fact, a language. It's not *that* much weirder than American Sign Language in a lot of ways. But they say a lot of what defines a language is what you can't not say (e.g. Italian makes you identify gender, Japanese makes you identify the level of politeness.) And music has some fun weird answers to that. Now I just need to, like, actually get good at some of it.
We're loosening up our Covid discipline, much like everybody else. Not completely, but more than we have been - we're seeing people a bit more, sort of thing. I don't think Covid has changed much, but we're also feeling the sheer exhaustion of 2.5 years of this.
Paying attention to the structure of writing is showing me what a master of his craft Terry Pratchett is. I've been reading more to the family lately. He's just incredible. The way that he takes a philosophical theme or three ("what is a king?" "what is death"? "what is a healthy relationship between predators and prey?") and finds several different ways to riff on them, with different characters in different situations, and then twist them all together into a satisfying ending is just jaw-dropping.
I have a whole bunch of stuff I should do, listed out on the whiteboard. And more not on the whiteboard, of course. It doesn't feel overwhelming, exactly. But it feels never-ending, and like I have zero interest in doing it.
Okay. Should sleep now.
