#1417, Thursday, April 30: Baby steps in new performance mode

Post 1417, Day 120 of 2015
- 1,581 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

It didn't take me long to get over my shyness as a solo performer.

I went out and played a set this past Tuesday, and won over an initially indifferent crowd. It didn't hurt that I had accompaniment for the last song of the set, which swung mightily, and iced the performance cake.

I don't know to what degree I'll develop this aspect, but it has turned into more fun for me, and I can't see ending the experiment, which started as a way to perform some songs I like that other musicians don't know (making it difficult to perform them as an ensemble).

My guitar work remains rudimentary (I'm being kind to myself). And my vocals aren't what I would consider more than acceptable. But I just try to put over the song, and choose good songs. That is the key to what success I'm seeing.

I went out and did it again last night, with similar results. If I can win the crowd over - and by that, I mean engage them in my performance - among a lineup of much more accomplished musicians than my limited vocal-guitarist work, I get a feeling of real satisfaction.

Practicing in public, as I do, will let me, over time and with repetition, get into that zone I love so much with my bass playing. I think.

I leave you now with a new quote I like: 

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth."  Marcus Aurelius

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   203.6 lbs

Previous Weight (4/29):           203.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 0.6 lbs

Diet Comment

Off-plan eating (a little) added a small amount of weight, well within normal variation. And, at the end of the month I am eight pounds lighter than on the 1st (and eleven pounds lighter than the year's high weight). Not too shabby.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (36g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), celery, raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch
Salmon salad on mixed kale greens.

Snack
A Quest bar.

Dinner
Peppers, onions, and cheese omelet with feta and spinach chicken sausage, and a Quest bar.

Snack
A Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 98+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1416, Wednesday, April 29: Really? This is still a thing?

Post 1416, Day 119 of 2015
- 1,580 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

The first paying gig I ever had was at a gay bar on the Upper East Side. I was sixteen-going-on-seventeen.

I had no consciousness of homosexuality. I hadn't figured out (or spent any thought trying to figure out) which of my friends growing up were gay (more than a couple). I didn't have much of an idea about heterosexuality either, as it turns out.

Maybe it was naivete that I didn't felt threatened or pressured in my first foray into a gay scene. The audience was appreciative. They danced. They tried to buy the band drinks (none for me - the bartender wasn't having any of that, and he also, as it turns out, was spreading the word to not proposition band members). I was 'safe' from any homosexual peer pressure.

It wasn't long before I had friends who were gay and open about it. I didn't get a whole lot of insight into the scene, we interacted the way friends do, without any real sexual component.

The only problem I ever had with a gay man was on a flight back to NY from Madrid, when a Catholic priest sitting next to me got very, very handsy. I changed my seat. It reinforced my negative feelings about the Church, but didn't change anything about my feelings for gay men.

I'm writing this because I haven't been able to avoid the news that the Supreme Court is taking up the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. That's what happens when I get the news. I thought the issue had been settled the way it was, in my mind, fifty years ago. 

Didn't think it was still an issue, except for the usual homophobic suspects (Catholic Priests and their Bible-thumping ilk). 

Very simply, we are all trying to make it through, as best we know how. If you follow the Golden Rule, you'll do the right thing. Imposing your ideas on anybody else? That's Golden Rule-breaking stuff, right there.

You are my brother, my sister. No matter what you believe, what you look like, the amount we have in common is many orders of magnitude greater than our differences. 

The world is a crazy place, and the US is among the craziest places in the world. This is among the two things I can't believe are still an issue here (legal pot is the other one).

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   203.0 lbs

Previous Weight (4/28):           201.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 2.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Late night snacking is, I think, responsible for this blip. I don't know what caused the carb craving that led to dessert after lunch.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A Quest bar.

Lunch

At Ruby Tuesday's:

Deluxe bacon cheeseburger, with spaghetti squash on the side. Not shown: A salad from the salad bar, a piece of chocolate cake for dessert.

Snack
A Quest bar.

Dinner
Turkey chili (with black beans) and cole slaw.

Snack
A Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 98+ oz.  A shot of Jameson's.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1415, Tuesday, April 28: Future unknowable

Post 1415, Day 118 of 2015
- 1,579 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

It is a given these days that having goals are important.

I'm not so sure. I can't see it as an absolute. I am not certain that any goal can be reached by planning, and I'm not certain that any human achievement is the direct product of goal-setting.

The only reason I'm uncertain, is that I also see that working towards a goal can produce benefits. I'm just not sure where intent fits into this.

Some say it is all about how you go about it. Visualization seems to work in achieving goals. I'm not certain there is any scientific evidence to support this, but my personal experience supports visualization as a useful tool, when you visualize your goal achieved in the present.

The problem with planning, and the problem with at least some kinds of visualization, is that it is future-oriented. It takes you out of the now. And, the future is unknowable. On the other hand, there's the whole failing to plan is equal to planning to fail meme.

Not living in the present isn't a good thing. Planning, with all its hallucinatory anticipations, is kind of fun. But Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was right in Slaughterhouse 5 when he said, "Nothing succeeds as planned."

Thinking about the future seems to be the essence of doing business, which may be why I suck at business. Or why that has no interest for me, at all.

I don't know. Nothing going on with me right now was in my plans five years ago.

I think that says it all.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   201.0 lbs

Previous Weight (4/27):           201.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 0.0 lbs

Diet Comment

A full day's eating, on-plan, and I am maintaining. Finally feeling a bit better. Best sleep in two weeks last night.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (36g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), celery, raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch

Roasted turkey breast chopped salad: Parmesan cheese, baby kale, baby spinach, chard, cole slaw mix and balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner
Turkey chili (with black beans) and a Quest bar.

Snack
Celery with home-made mayo and a Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 112+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1414, Monday, April 27: Among us, not of us

Post 1414, Day 117 of 2015
- 1,578 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Locally, there was a tragedy last night. A well-known member/booster of the blues scene, a pillar of the music community, sat in at a gig, then had a heart attack and died.

I did not know him, although I was very familiar with his name, we were Facebook friends, we often found ourselves in the same audience. But, somehow, we were never formally introduced, and we never played together (he played blues harp).

A lot of people assume I have always been in Syracuse. I have participated in countless conversations where people, talking about events, places and other people that aren't part of my background, have to be reminded that I don't know, I wasn't here.

I had never set foot in Syracuse before the interview for the job that brought me here. The only places I know in and around Syracuse are places I have gone to to see or play music. I haven't really done any kind of sightseeing. I've plopped myself here, with a "Here we are, just as we are" attitude about the relationship between locality and resident.

The thing I love about the area, the thing that is keeping me here now and for the foreseeable future, is the music scene, with which I have a total symbiotic relationship. I try to nourish the scene - I go out and support live music. I show up at open mics. I show up at your gig if you're known to me. I'll sub for your bass player. I'll talk with you about anything.

In return, I get a music scene. But...

It is an aging scene. A lot of the people I play with are old guard, old school. I don't know many local musicians who didn't grow up here; and not a single person who came here after I did (so, no college students in my circle).

Which means, some of the gigs I could play, like the great one that came to a bad end last night, aren't open to me. Because, there's a bass player for that gig that has been there, and is a life-long friend of the other musicians.

It creates a little tension for me, because I am greedy, I want to be a part of all good music-making. Then I remember.

I play pretty much as much as I choose to. These people have accepted me as part of the scene. Even though they forget I haven't been here forever, they remember who has, and the deserved and understandable preference for a known, versus the guy who, while not seen as new or even unknown, doesn't have a common accessible history.

I am among them, but not of them.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   201.0 lbs

Previous Weight (4/24):           203.4 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 2.4 lbs

Diet Comment

Another sickly, unproductive, listless weekend, and back to weight loss.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
Onions, peppers and cheese omelet with bacon.

Lunch

Salmon salad (Wild Alaska pink salmon, celery, mayonnaise) on baby kale, baby spinach, chardand cole slaw mix.

Snack
A Quest bar.

Dinner
Grass-fed beef burger with cole slaw and a Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 96+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1413, Friday, April 24: A pause for recovery

Post 1413, Day 114 of 2015
- 1,575 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I may have overextended myself a little last night. I'm not as sick as I was Wednesday, but I'm not as well as I was yesterday, either.

Getting old comes with a price - which we gladly pay, given the alternative. You do what you can to stay healthy, you try to keep your mind active and functional, but the physical and cognitive changes that come along with aging... come along with aging, like it or not.

The one I'm dealing with today is, of course, the longer/slower recovery time.

So it goes. It looks like my mad dash to the City tomorrow isn't going to happen after all.

I need to give myself a break.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   203.4 lbs

Previous Weight (4/23):           201.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 2.2 lbs

Diet Comment

This is what restaurant eating does, and why I don't eat at restaurants a lot. I regret nothing, but wish I'd been better prepared for the day.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (36g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), celery, raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch

Roasted turkey breast chopped salad: parmesan cheese, baby kale, baby spinach, chard, cole slaw mix and balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner
A couple of Quest bars.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 64+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1412, Thursday, April 23: Big softy

Post 1412, Day 113 of 2015
- 1,574 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I'm a sentimental guy, and a romantic.

Which basically means my emotions can be easily manipulated.

I cry at movies. I even cry when watching TV. I'm embarrassed by this emotional manipulation, but I have a Pavlovian response to bold expressions of love, sacrifice, overcoming adversity, and so on.

That is fiction, or at least, my emotions are being stirred by things happening to someone else, fictional or non-fictional.

I do feel that writers are cynically pulling my strings, evoking a response from me just because I suspend belief so easily, and just because they can. I guess I've been conditioned. Probably by myself.

This would be a bigger problem if I weren't aware of it.

But the ease with which my emotions have been manipulated in the past has made me guarded in many of my real interpersonal relationships. That's sad, because I want to be open and trusting - and that is currently my default.

But, as Ringo says, it don't come easy.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   201.2 lbs

Previous Weight (4/22):           202.4 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 1.2 lbs

Diet Comment

I lost back what I gained yesterday, thanks, I think, to a good night's sleep and feeling better generally.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A Quest bar.

Lunch
Due to a forgotten lunchtime dental appointment coupled with hunger and no easily available no-time options, I went for Roasted Pork Egg Foo Yung from the local Chinese takeout and ate at my desk. Light on the sauce, no rice.

Snack
Pepperoni, celery and home-made mayonnaise.

Dinner
At Funk'n'Waffles: 

Bacon, brie and basil waffle with apricot jam.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  36 oz.   Water: 112+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1411, Wednesday, April 22: Recovery day

Post 1411, Day 112 of 2015
- 1,573 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I actually woke up in the middle of the night (again) and couldn't go back to sleep. I took another sick day. But that was the worst I felt, and felt better and better as the day wore on, with a bit of napping, and by the time I went to bed, felt confident I had turned the corner.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   202.4 lbs

Previous Weight (4/21):           201.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 1.4 lbs

Diet Comment

I hope this weight gain means I'm starting to get healthy.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
A cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (36g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), celery, raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch
A Quest bar.

Dinner 
A take-out grilled chicken, spinach and cheese focaccia, and a Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 80+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1410, Tuesday, April 21: Still sick

Post 1410, Day 111 of 2015
- 1,572 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Still sick. A few of my friends have had a similar illness, and I called to compare my symptoms with theirs. It looks like I (finally) caught a flu that has been going around for a few months. It looks like it lasts 10 days, which, as of today (day five), means it should be over at the end of the weekend or early next week. Meanwhile, the number one symptom, fatigue, is the worst part.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   201.0 lbs

Previous Weight (4/20):           201.6 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 0.6 lbs

Diet Comment

Not the increase I was hoping for, but the last time I was this light - my year's low, so far - was on my birthday.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
Scrambled eggs and toasted Ezekiel 4:9 Flax sprouted grain bread.

Lunch
A Quest bar (ta-da!).

Dinner 
Capicola.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  10 oz.   Water: 112+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1409, Monday, April 20: Still down

Post 1409, Day 110 of 2015
- 1,571 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

This will be brief: the symptoms I was complaining about Friday intensified over the weekend. I was quite sick. I went out for an hour Saturday, to get my iPhone repaired, and when I was done and home, slept for six hours.

I am still sick today. I haven't been getting regular sleep, and have had very restless sleep when I do sleep. I haven't slept through the night since this whatever-it-is affliction began (Thursday).

I went to work today, but left early. By the evening, I was feeling better.

That's why this is brief.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   201.6 lbs

Previous Weight (4/17):           208.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 6.6 lbs

Diet Comment

Thanks to my weekend of illness, and the accompanying loss of appetite and alternating chills/sweats and dehydration, I have this crazy three kilo weight loss. I expect to gain weight back the rest of the week.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
Scrambled eggs and toasted Ezekiel 4:9 Flax sprouted grain bread.

Lunch
A berry mix-cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, frozen organic mixed berries, kale, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend).

Dinner 
Wild-caught salmon burger and quinoa-lentil pilaf.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  0 oz.   Water: 80+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1408, Friday, April 17: I'm down

Post 1408, Day 107 of 2015
- 1,568 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Now that good weather (really NICE weather!) has arrived, I find myself feeling quite uncomfortable. I am coughing, and have quite a bit of congestion.

It is probably allergies. I never had a problem with spring allergies until I moved to North Carolina in 1986. But their toxic Spring pine pollen brought me to my knees - literally, from sneezing fits that lasted for minutes, until I was gasping for air.

So, I'm not, as I write this, feeling all that well. When I get home from work in about fifteen minutes, I'm going to enjoy some Throat Coat tea, and keep on working on my new Mac until I fall asleep. I had to leave my new computer forty minutes into setting up iCloud. It should be finished by now.

Last night, i am Fool had a great rehearsal, with lots of laughs and good cheer and, of course, good playing. I am looking forward to our concert next week.

That's all I've got for today. You'll read more when I've finished Monday's blog.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   208.2 lbs

Previous Weight (4/16):           209.2 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Well, as always, low-carb is the easy way to drop weight. I ate a lot of food yesterday - it was a very high-calorie, high-fat day. Ending the week at the week's low. Still haven't had a Quest bar. That might change over the weekend.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
Skipped.

Lunch
At Ling-Ling's Chinese Buffet and Grill:

Brussels sprouts, kimchee, and, from the "Mongolian Grill", my go-to dish: pork and chicken with cabbage, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and broccoli.

Dinner 
Cheese, greens, peppers and onions omelet.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 48+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!

 

#1406, Thursday, April 16: Daily comment process

Post 1407, Day 106 of 2015
- 1,567 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

A comment made (that I am not taking personally) got me thinking about my process for writing these five-day-a-week Daily Comments, so I thought I would clarify.

In general, looking at a blank page and thinking about a topic, I'll start with a statement or a question that is on my mind. And by on my mind, I mean whatever occurred to me when I started to write. 

Just one topic. I don't have enough ideas for more than one a day - any extras can get me over the hump when I'm drawing a total blank. And sometimes, when I don't have any extras in the mental bank, you get a Daily Comment that just admits I have nothing to write about.

From that one statement, it's pretty much just written riffing (I like that phrase). I am not adverse to going off on tangents, but I try to stay approximately on topic. Sometimes, when it seems like I'm not, it is because that lead sentence that always introduces my comments is, er, misleading - it is a segue from nothing to the thing I actually want to write about.

My style guide, as it were, has only one rule: No more than three sentences in a paragraph.

In conversation with me, this tendency is so obvious that it is characteristic of me. As is my verbosity. That is where the next step, editing comes in.

I re-read what I've written at least once, usually more. Then I start editing. First for spelling and grammar (I may be the only one who cares, but I do). Then (believe it or not) for concision. You should see some of these posts before that - I sometimes end up with half the words I start with after editing. 

I usually only do that one re-edit. Publication waits until I have finished the Food and Diet Section, usually the morning of the following day.

So, thematically, the Daily Comment is nothing more than whatever bullshit was in my mind at the instant I decided to start writing. Nothing more serious than that. Possibly good for insight into my particular flavor of craziness, and really, written as much (or more) for me than for a reader.

Oh, and today I got a new MacBook Pro, and am easing out of the Windows world; I'll miss the file-handling and the delete key, but I believe I can get over the first, and maybe, won't miss the other as much when destructive backspace is all I have. I do have some Windows-only programs I might use Parallels to keep on board, but I'm going to try and minimize that.

We'll see.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   209.2 lbs

Previous Weight (4/15):           208.4 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                + 0.8 lbs

Diet Comment

Ugh! Last night's late (post-gig) dinner, which contained the first pasta I've eaten in a very long time and a big dessert), followed by a late snack (not particularly low in carbs), has undone me. Today, low-carbing.
 

Food Log

Breakfast
Skipped.

Lunch
Scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon.

Snack
Pepperoni.

Dinner 
Ground turkey burger with cheese, guacamole and cole slaw. 

Snack
Pepperoni and cheese with celery and home-made mayonnaise.

Liquid Intake
   Coffee:  28 oz.   Water: 80+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!