Author: Ridley

Is anyone else exhausted? Is everyone else exhausted? I keep thinking “I should write” but I don’t have the energy to do much anything, let alone write about it. It’s not just that there’s not a lot going on, but there’s a lot about to be going on and I can worry about things that haven’t happened with the best of them. So, I guess now that I brought it up, I might as well get this out of the way: Over a very short period, I’m going to be checked for three Very Bad Things. Two of them are likely false alarms, tested out of an abundance of caution. The third is the biopsy I mention before. All three checks will be performed over a period of seven days, and that’s a lot to have on one’s mind. But, it’s not all doom and gloom: I got to go up to Austin last weekend and drop off one of my keyboards for repair. “How is that a good thing?” I imagine you are asking. Well, the repair shop is a joint called Switched On and they have a new space up near Flightpath and it is an absolute wonderland for synth nerds. Not only do they do repairs, but they have a showroom full of mostly-vintage beasties for sale. So, if you ever wanted to play Van Halen or Rush on an old Oberheim? Stop in! John is still running the place and he is one of those good, “old Austin” types whose handshake can be trusted and smile is genuine. Don’t take him any Casio CZs, though-they’re bears to fix. Or maybe it was all doom and gloom, because, leaving Dragon’s Lair, I backed into a car that was backing out directly opposite of me. Nothing major, but still, it rattles you. They said that they saw me and laid on their horn which was puzzling because, if you saw a car backing into the same space you were back in to, you’d think you’d stop and maybe pull back into the space, right? Anyway, I don’t miss being around traffic. On the plus side, I did pick up a couple of comics I’d never heard of and was delighted by them both. Chip Zdarsky’s Public Domain is as personal and as meta as it gets, but it’s Zdarsky, so those are strengths as opposed to annoyances. It’s very much not what I was expecting, but I’m excited to see where he goes with it. I had no expectations at all for Zack Kaplan and John Pearson’s Mindset. I’d never heard of either of them but the cover art drew me in, and the interior art sealed it. It’s very early-Vertigo in look and feel in the Kid Eternity or The Enigma sense, but the story is very “now.” I have some suspicions as to where it’ll go, but it’s very thoughtful and just beautifully drawn and colored. What else? Um…work remains work. Nothing new on that front. Nicole somehow made cauliflower palatable tonight (thank you, ras el hanout). I love veggies in a general sense, but the cruciferous ones and I don’t get on well, but she worked some crazy magic and it tasted…good-ish?…to me. Eating well and exercising has me alternating between feeling fantastic at some times, and feeling absolutely broken down and out of gas at others. Ooof..I just responded to one of most painfully stupid TERF-troll posts I’ve ever seen on Twitter. I should go to bed. G’night all. -RK P.S. On the off chance you or someone you know has an old Casio VZ-1 and is struggling with transmitting SysEx over MIDI, feel free to reach out to me. I’ve spent months learning the ins and outs of this odd beastie and if I can make it easier for anyone else, I’ll be happy to do so.

I know the world is nuts right now and, believe me, I’m concerned about it, but things are a little whirlwind-y here in my very limited neck o’ the woods, so bear with me on this. This is just personal stuff. Feel free to move along. There’s some medical stuff in here, so consider yourself warned. Side note: I know they tell you “Don’t talk about medical issues online! Insurance companies will see your pre-existing conditions!” Fair enough, but, I get the sense this advice isn’t really applicable anymore. Anyone who wants that information on you has it. Just trust me on this. They probably know more about what you’re dealing with than you do. I love privacy (although you’d be hard pressed to tell by how I act sometimes), but I feel like this battle was fought and lost. Anyway, my hope is that by talking about this stuff, maybe some other folks will go and see their doctors and make sure everything’s good. If something is wrong, you have it whether you know it or know. You’re better off knowing. Right, where were we? Oh yes: The MRI I had a couple of weeks ago wasn’t great. Well, I’m sure it was a wonderful magnetic image of parts of me, but those images were concerning. Nothing is certain, but the next step is a very uncomfortable biopsy. We’re doing it sooner rather than later as there’s little sense in waiting once the decision has been made. “It’s nothing” is still a possibility, but it isn’t necessarily the most-likely possibility. The path after that is less clear as this is still a recon mission. What we do, and how decisively it needs to be done, will be determined by the results. Nothing I can do right now but wait. I’ll say this, though: I’m glad Nicole pestered me to see a doctor more often. I’m glad my doctor was suspicious of a single marker that could have been a lot of other things. I’m glad my specialist wasn’t satisfied with cursory tests. If this is cancer, well, better to know now, better to catch it early, than to wait until I have symptoms. There are a couple of lesser things that my GP is referring to other specialists. Nothing to worry about there, it’s more about trying to get me to sleep better and stuff like that. He was, frankly, a little shocked at how much my bloodwork improved over the last seven months. Nicole and I have been eating really well, getting exercise, and generally taking care of ourselves. It’s not all doom and gloom by any stretch of the imagination. Speaking of Nicole, I can’t wait to tell you about her latest project…but I do have to wait. I can’t tell you what it is, but she’s got an idea… Y’all take care and be good to each other, -RK

After a month of nothing but frustration and some (likely self-created) stumbling blocks, things are starting to click for me again. Getting this #$%#$(@#$ site transferred was a part of both equations, but I think there’s more to it than that. Exactly what that source of creative energy is, I’m not certain, but I’m not super worried about that right now. Last night, as work was winding down, Nicole sent me this message: “Tea and tarot?” Did you know there are Yoshitaka Amano tarot decks? I wouldn’t say either of us is into tarot, but it’s fun to pretend and get out of work-brain. The first card I pulled was the Fool because of course it was. Anyway, while I’m sure it’s a coincidence, everything I pulled suggested creative energy and the removal of obstacles and I’m not going to with a random deck of cards. The song I was working on is all but done. The only question is whether or not to cut down the extended, slow-build opening which is probably the right answer but…maybe I’ll do both versions. The um, “hit single” version (snort), and the “album” version (guffaw). It’s good, though, and I don’t normally say that about my own stuff. My super-secret-side-hustle is going well, too. There’s been a little burst of interest at an unusual time for interest in this particular subject, so that’s gratifying. It’s still just a hobby and pays accordingly, and I think it is extremely unlikely that it will ever be anything else, but it’s fun and it lets me stretch a muscle that had been dormant for a good while. And yes, I’m being vague (unless you know me personally, in which case I’m just being silly), but I’m more comfortable that way. One thing I haven’t done much of lately is fiction, but I’m getting that urge again and the burr under my saddle is an odd one: The Taco Bell Quarterly. It is, as near as I can determine, a legit literary magazine, albeit one where all of the material must relate in some way to Taco Bell. The fact that they are not in any way connected to the fast food company only makes it more intriguing. I’m one of those folks who generally works better with some arbitrary restrictions or a prompt of some sort, so this is right up my alley. And, I am having ideas. Dark ideas. Probably not-good ideas. But ideas nonetheless. We finally got library cards here in Seguin. For such a small town, we have a shockingly nice library. We’ve visited several times but never filled out the paperwork prior to this weekend. Not an artist’s conception; this is really what it looks like. I’ve done a poor job maintaining my reading levels since I stopped taking the train to work. I have a stack on my nightstand awaiting my attention, but there’s nothing like a “return by” date to get me motivated. I picked up A Blink of the Screen, a collection of Terry Pratchett short stories. Pratchett feels exactly the right choice for my First Library Book in town. Now, I think I’ll retire to the bedroom, do some reading, and try to ensure that Pratchett isn’t also my First Library Fine here as well. -RK

At the end of the three-day weekend, Nicole thought it’d be fun to watch a movie she liked that I’d never even heard of: Disney’s Meet The Robinsons. Y’all, it was surprisingly good. The animation is definitely of its time, that time being the “the late 00s,” which isn’t my favorite look, so I was a little grumpy when it started. But, the thing chugged along like a freight train with an absurd amount of goofy energy, silly set-pieces, the odd celebrity voice, and a pretty solid overall message to go with an off-the-rails story. I’d heard nothing about it and apparently, it did nothing at the box office despite a pretty hefty budget, and that’s a shame because it’s a better film…check that, I’m not sure it’s a “better” film, but it’s more fun than other far more famous (and profitable) Disney properties. Today I learned: One of my favorite bands helped finance Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Actually, it was a bunch of them, but I hadn’t heard Genesis were involved prior to today. It doesn’t mean a lot, I suppose, but I’ve always loved it when two unrelated things I like intersect in unexpected ways. Anyway, while we were talking about movies, I thought I’d bring it up. Hrm…I started at the end, so let’s go backward (counter-clockwise?) through the weekend. Before settling in for a film, Nicole made generous use of my favorite seasoning in making dinner. I’m a sucker for ras-el-hanout in just about anything, and the lack of Moroccan food around here hurts. She fried up some garlicky meatballs, made roasted veggie ragout, and some homemade hummus and it was all spectacular. The ras-el-hanout was the primary seasoning for the meatballs and used to great effect in the veggies too. If you’re a fan of Mediterranean food and have tried any Moroccan meals, I cannot recommend the cuisine highly enough. I spent most of yesterday working on a song that’ll be my first complete effort in years. It’s a full production of the little melody I used to sing to my cat when he was struggling. I wanted him to hear my voice, so I just came up with something I could sing over and over for an hour at a time. I’m reasonably sure it’s the last thing he heard, and I feel like completing this song is important to honor him. I think all the tracks are in place; we’re just mixing and mastering now before calling it complete. Felt good to finally get back into the groove and produce something rather than just “writing” (which could easily be confused for just unfocused noodling on the keys to distract me from actually completing anything). Since I couldn’t eat anything beforehand, around noon we popped up to San Marcos to get yet more blood drawn and schedule an appointment with the GP. I’m sure this has been building for a long time, but it still feels as though “visiting doctors on a very regular basis” became a thing for me very suddenly. There’s probably nothing of note happening, but the doctors are very keen on collapsing the state of that probably to a certainty. It would be lovely if more of this were covered by my insurance, but it’s lovely to actually have insurance. Here’s hoping for very positive results and the unlikely avoidance of a nasty little procedure. We’ve taken to getting up early (by my standards) and going to the park to play a small amount of basketball or soccer and do some walking. Just 30-40 minutes a day at this point as some of us aren’t in peak athletic condition, but that brief exercise is starting to pay dividends. I’m definitely feeling stronger and more energetic, at least when I’m not feeling sleepy from getting up early. It was a good day. With the world seemingly collapsing around us, I’ll take a good day. -RK

Whew. This has been an ordeal. You might notice that the blog looks a little different today. That’s because I’ve just ported it over from Squarespace to a hosted Worpress site. Why? Honestly, I like almost everything about Squarespace, but it has one ridiculous and utterly fatal flaw: Its editor has no autosave function. It’s actually worse than that, because not only does it not autosave, but when you manually save, it takes you out of the post. You save. You go back to the post which is now a “draft.” You click “edit.” And then you can start writing again. This has been an issue for years and when I contact their support team, I get the same answer every time: “Yeah, that seems like something we should have. I’ll make a note of it.” And then, two weeks ago, I had a Very Big Day and wrote a long post about it. There was no hint of an error, but I decided to save anyway just to be safe. When I did, I received a notification that I had to be logged in to save and the page refreshed, wiping out everything I’d written. I contacted support one more time, more out of habit than any conviction it would do any good, and, receiving the same answer, decided it was time to move on. So, off to WordPress because I figured with all of the plugins available, surely there would be autosave and a “save draft” that doesn’t take you out of what you’re doing. I won’t lie: This was not an easy transition. It’s been two weeks of frustration punctuated by bursts of success that kept me going through it. So, where were we? What now? Well, let’s start with a couple of weeks ago. I won’t try to recreate what I wrote then and try to keep it a little shorter: A friend from high school passed. I drove to his funeral and got to catch up with a lot of mutual friends I’d lost touch with, some of whom I’m sure I will again, and some of whom I’ll try to keep closer this time. To be honest, seeing some of these folks was the reason for attending. That part was great. Even under the circumstances, it was a good thing to have been there. I will say this, though: If/when I go, please don’t hold a funeral for me in a church. I suspect both my friends and the church will be grateful for that. To make it a little more complicated, I was actually prepping for a procedure while I was there. I had an MRI scheduled the next morning and needed to watch my diet. I watched it a little too closely, neither eating nor drinking the entire time I was at the event. By the end of it, when I was about to leave, I became terribly dizzy due to it being nearly 100 degrees and being horribly dehydrated. My sister and friends took care of me, getting me some fruit and a soda, so I was fine to make the three-hour drive, but still…that wasn’t clever and it caused them needless worry. The procedure itself went swimmingly for an 8:30 AM Sunday morning MRI. I was in the tube for 20 minutes, but they let me choose my own music. Poor guys had never even heard of Polyphia. When they hauled me out, one of the techs said “Progressive metal? Huh.” Highlight of my day. Anyway, there was a lot more that happened throughout the whole weekend, but those were the highlights. That’s probably enough for now about that time. As a fun coda, the doctor’s office called me yesterday and the receptionist told me that the doctor would want to do a biopsy and she’d tell me more about it in two weeks at my next appointment. If you’re trying to make sure someone has a great weekend, telling them that they’re going to have to have a nasty little procedure but not telling you why is a great way to do it. So, I guess that’s it for tonight. I’ve been working all day trying to get this site looking good enough. It feels like LiveJournal but with all kinds of extra steps, which is not without its appeal, but also kind of a pain. I hope things are good in your neck of the woods. It’s really rough out there, so try to cut yourself some slack. -RK