In Transknition

To bicycle, or not to bicycle?

I hate my bike.  It’s a GT Aggressor hybrid, about ten years old, and I hate having to bend over it and put all the weight on my hands.  It sucks.  I was looking at cruiser bikes online and thought that I could sell my GT and get one of those.  I went by the bike shop my sister uses to see what they had. Saleswoman: What’s your budget? Me: $200-ish. I think I want a cruiser. Her: We can do that!…

I hate tropical storms. They remind me of the time, back around 1995, that my evil ex-boyfriend forced me to drive in one from West Palm Beach to Miami, on the interstate, in a car with no air conditioning and only one working windshield wiper. To get a UPS for his computers so he could keep the internet up during the storm. He didn’t go with me, of course. I went alone, and had to drive with the…

Max Richter by ear

Max Richter has long been my favorite modern composer.  His “On the Nature of Daylight” is so beautiful that I always want to cry, despite having listened to it god knows how many times since the early 2000’s.  I was listening to it yesterday and thought, “hey, the second violin part would be crazy easy on cello.”  So I tried it by ear and it sounded right.  I checked Noteflight to see if I could…

Mom and I have been binge-watching Blacklist on Netflix. The stories are ridiculously improbable sometimes, to the point ofoccasionally causing me to cackle and mock the writers, but James Spader is so much fun to watch in this that I don’t care about suspending my disbelief. Also, the plots usually aren’t terrible, just silly at times, and a couple of the ongoing storylines are gripping enough…

Sleep is a beautiful thing. My cold still hasn’t gone away completely — it’s been what, three weeks? But since Friday my sinuses have been clear enough I’ve been able to sleep with my CPAP mask on. Ohmygod it’s so wonderful. To give you an idea as to the difference, my Fitbit tracks sleep, and during the worst of my cold it wasn’t even registering more than two hours total asleep because I was…

I practiced cello three times today, about 20 minutes each time.  That’s about how long my left hand could take before it gave up.  As I said in my last post, I’m working on first-position extensions.  All my practices today were focused on that.  No trying to play music, just pure technical work.  Scales, over and over, D and A.  Focusing on posture, breathing, exactly where I’m putting my…

Cello lessons have resumed.

Today I had my first cello lesson since April 5th.  Yeah, seven weeks and two days.  And it felt so, so good to have a lesson again.  I’ve been practicing more lately, but it’s much easier to push myself with my teacher sitting right there. The last time I saw Luna she’d arranged Pachelbel’s Canon in D as a cello duet.  That day she had me play the bass part.  Today she started me on the melody.…

Experiencing the SJW label

When it comes to the label of “Social Justice Warrior,” most of my friends are like, “Fuck yeah, social justice is awesome.” The big exceptions are the friends whose SJW experience involves college-age kids and/or Tumblr. It seems to be a purely generational divide, at least in my limited experience.  People willing to accept the SJW label who are 30+ seem to be a much different crowd than the…

Cello practice: back on track?

I used to have cello lessons on Tuesdays at 4pm.  My teacher, Luna, got a summer gig playing on Tuesdays, so she wanted to change me to Thursdays.  It took a little while to get that straightened out, and I’d already missed a couple of lessons before that due to either depression (mine) or gigs (hers), so it’s been like 6 weeks since I’ve had a lesson.  I was supposed to start again today, but…

Civil War thoughts (no spoilers)

I had heard really good things about Captain America: Civil War.  Some of my friends said it was the second-best Marvel movie thus far and everybody was Team Cap and… I have to disagree with, like, everybody.  I was disappointed in it.  It wasn’t terrible, but I feel like the plot was an excuse to have fights, rather than the fights enhancing the story.  Don’t get me wrong, the fights were cool…

Every day, twice a day, I walk the same route down a street near my house.  It’s a fairly busy two-lane road, but there are some beautiful forested areas on the north side of the road — the side with the walking/biking path on it.  And two creeks.  And a cute footbridge.  So this morning I took some pictures.  The full photoset is here. A few days ago I installed the Fitbit app, curious about how…

Devil’s Millhopper: first trip

I say “first” because I will definitely be going back.  Soon. Devil’s Millhopper (link goes to office state park site) is a sinkhole.  An ancient, gorgeous sinkhole.  There are 232 steps to the bottom, and a half-mile nature trail around the top edge (although the path is far back enough from the edge that you can only see forest from the trail, not the sinkhole itself).  It’s beautiful outside…

Exercise gear is evil. As in, I am buying some. Some of it will come in very handy for my daily walks: a small hydration backpack, a sun hat, and some new socks because I’ve worn through the six-pack I bought in January. Seriously, they all have holes now. Because I’ve walked like 700 miles since then. (I average 200 a month, but April saw me sick for two weeks.) Also, if you need a Fitbit, for…

Hiking outside Atlanta: first trip

This post is going to be very long, because I had an amazing time and want to document the whole thing.  I went up to visit a longtime online friend this week, and we had the best time and are already planning for me to come back. (more…)

Catchup: February to April, 2016

I haven’t been blogging, mainly because I’ve been extremely depressed.  Like, to the point that my psychiatrist has brought up electro-convulsive therapy as a possible option.  A couple of weeks ago she added Ritalin to my medication regime.  Seems to be helping. I’m still walking at least 6 miles a day.  Never stopped.  So that’s good. I haven’t been playing cello much. Am still taking lessons,…

Cello lesson: real cellos > electronic ones

Today’s lesson: C arpeggio, more work on 1.15 “The Happy Farmer” (which I just need to polish now), and Luna says my vibrato on 1.13 “Rigadoon” is really good.  Now I need to get better at doing vibrato while bowing correctly.  Hard to do both at once, right now. We started a new piece, 1.16 “Minuet in C” (my first Bach! Yay).  I did a reasonably good job of sight-reading it, but I need to listen…

I bought a car.

Monday my ex-MIL told me she wanted her car back (the one I’d been borrowing since August).  Wednesday I went to the credit union and then started car shopping.  After a shitload of research and visits to a few car dealers, I wound up getting a 2009 Honda CR-V EX, white, with 92K miles on it.  I picked it up yesterday, and I’ve already (and accidentally) dubbed it the Nerdmobile because I’ve…