![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Massage! Madrigals! Rock Band party!
Jun. 13th, 2009 01:16 pmYesterday turned out to be one of those days that had nothing planned at the outset then ended up super-packed. I don't mind those usually; part of why I can be so planning-adverse sometimes is that I like to have a lot of wiggle-room for last-minute things.
I did my shift, then taught a class on Hermetic laws. Eh, not my favorite topic but some topics I love, and some I'm just passing on the info. It ended up running long, so there wasn't much afternoon left to me. Dave Huggles wanted to have a Rock Band event, and sometimes it's nice to have them here since there's more room and I can get intoxicated without worrying about a drive home. And that way we don't have to have friends to have a party, we can borrow Dave's friends! Okay, some of them are our friends too, but Dave was doing all the organizing, such as it was, we just provided the space.
Anyway, after the class I had only a little time to start cleaning the place before I had to depart. I went to a chiropractic appointment since my neck had been in such bad shape the day before; she popped it but good, then I visited with their new massage guy. Lest you become irate that your tax dollars are paying for me to get massages (by way of health insurance supplied by the state of Texas), this was that sort of massage where you don't really have the soft-focused Calgon-took-me-away feeling, but feeling closer to crying and cursing the guy as a sadistic bastard, which was really what I needed; it gets the job done. It almost seemed incongruous that he was playing Enya. But I think it's a law that they have to.
I barely had time to get home, take a shower, and leave for madrigals. Some folks in the choir have been trying for months to get me to go to this monthly medieval jam session... there kept being something else scheduled, but I wanted to at least make it once- they kept inviting me, and I don't know from madrigals, but why not, you know? Well, there were eight of us, average age about sixty, and I just completely sucked at it. These are folks who if you point at them in the store and say "sing an F sharp Mixolydian¹ scale!" they could. If you give me a starting pitch and then tell me to give you another pitch I can usually figure it out given enough time, but I was way out-classed by this group. Hey, I started out as an instrumentalist, knowing pitches was a subset of knowing what buttons to push, and not an independent skill usually taught. But they were very encouraging and insisted that I keep coming and that everyone sucks the first time, so I didn't feel like a complete loser.
By the time I got home, it was a pretty full house, and after getting some food and intoxicant in me, I jumped in to the Rock Band festivities. I divided up the evening between singing, playing bass, circulating, chatting one-on-one, and keeping Eric company. Parties aren't usually his thing and sometime he finds a place to hole up away from the noise but he seemed to enjoy himself and was more social than usual. Plus he's really cute when he gets liquored up. I got to meet some new people, catch up with some folks I didn't know too well or haven't seen recently, and visit with some of my favorite regulars, and overall it was an excellent time. I really hated to pull the plug around 2am, and it broke my heart when a spontaneous plan to go out and hit some 24-hour diner materialized but I had to stay home and be responsible and go to bed since I had to work at 8 this morning, but that's okay.
Now I probably ought to quit avoiding my afternoon tasks, which involve de-booking seven bookshelves in preparation for room painting. And we have a good bid and a floor material all but decided on, so the bedroom is quickly headed towards fabulousness.
¹ In making sure I spelled 'Mixolydian' correctly, Wikipedia tells me than songs which use that mode include 'Norwegian Wood' by the Beatles, 'Satisfaction' by the Stones, and the themes to both Star Trek: Next Gen and Katamari Damacy.
I did my shift, then taught a class on Hermetic laws. Eh, not my favorite topic but some topics I love, and some I'm just passing on the info. It ended up running long, so there wasn't much afternoon left to me. Dave Huggles wanted to have a Rock Band event, and sometimes it's nice to have them here since there's more room and I can get intoxicated without worrying about a drive home. And that way we don't have to have friends to have a party, we can borrow Dave's friends! Okay, some of them are our friends too, but Dave was doing all the organizing, such as it was, we just provided the space.
Anyway, after the class I had only a little time to start cleaning the place before I had to depart. I went to a chiropractic appointment since my neck had been in such bad shape the day before; she popped it but good, then I visited with their new massage guy. Lest you become irate that your tax dollars are paying for me to get massages (by way of health insurance supplied by the state of Texas), this was that sort of massage where you don't really have the soft-focused Calgon-took-me-away feeling, but feeling closer to crying and cursing the guy as a sadistic bastard, which was really what I needed; it gets the job done. It almost seemed incongruous that he was playing Enya. But I think it's a law that they have to.
I barely had time to get home, take a shower, and leave for madrigals. Some folks in the choir have been trying for months to get me to go to this monthly medieval jam session... there kept being something else scheduled, but I wanted to at least make it once- they kept inviting me, and I don't know from madrigals, but why not, you know? Well, there were eight of us, average age about sixty, and I just completely sucked at it. These are folks who if you point at them in the store and say "sing an F sharp Mixolydian¹ scale!" they could. If you give me a starting pitch and then tell me to give you another pitch I can usually figure it out given enough time, but I was way out-classed by this group. Hey, I started out as an instrumentalist, knowing pitches was a subset of knowing what buttons to push, and not an independent skill usually taught. But they were very encouraging and insisted that I keep coming and that everyone sucks the first time, so I didn't feel like a complete loser.
By the time I got home, it was a pretty full house, and after getting some food and intoxicant in me, I jumped in to the Rock Band festivities. I divided up the evening between singing, playing bass, circulating, chatting one-on-one, and keeping Eric company. Parties aren't usually his thing and sometime he finds a place to hole up away from the noise but he seemed to enjoy himself and was more social than usual. Plus he's really cute when he gets liquored up. I got to meet some new people, catch up with some folks I didn't know too well or haven't seen recently, and visit with some of my favorite regulars, and overall it was an excellent time. I really hated to pull the plug around 2am, and it broke my heart when a spontaneous plan to go out and hit some 24-hour diner materialized but I had to stay home and be responsible and go to bed since I had to work at 8 this morning, but that's okay.
Now I probably ought to quit avoiding my afternoon tasks, which involve de-booking seven bookshelves in preparation for room painting. And we have a good bid and a floor material all but decided on, so the bedroom is quickly headed towards fabulousness.
¹ In making sure I spelled 'Mixolydian' correctly, Wikipedia tells me than songs which use that mode include 'Norwegian Wood' by the Beatles, 'Satisfaction' by the Stones, and the themes to both Star Trek: Next Gen and Katamari Damacy.
