I’m letting my natural curiosity lead me in learning this guitar. I’m doing a youtube tutorial course right now which is like, 10 to 12 minutes every day for ten days. And then you practice after. So far I have learned chords A, E, and D, how to fingerpick, changing chords (but i need to make that quicker), and a few memorized melodies. Only two melodies really. BUT I also finally learned how to read guitar tabs today, because the tutorial had a melody I wasn’t fast enough to follow watching his fingers. And then I practiced for a long time trying to get the tune right. It was fun!

I’m also finally reading Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey. In the beginning she makes this point that capitalism started on plantations, and it’s really stuck with me. I think even I bought into the whole grind culture and trying to work all the time and not having enough time to rest. I do rest, I’m pretty good at not constantly working. But I do have capitalism-related guilt about resting. I will lie down and start thinking about all the things I have to do. She talks about a lot of other things that are part of resting though, and includes playing a musical instrument in the category of rest. Which is good because that’s my current hobby. But also yeah working on learning guitar is restful. It’s such a different way of using my brain and body.

I am taking lessons in guitar this fall, so I’m excited about that too. They gave me a questionnaire to complete and one of the things it asked me was my goals. And to be honest my goals are very modest. I would like to be able to play some songs. Specifically Wish You Were Here, and Help I’m Alive. But I am aware I will be learning other songs along the way. But yeah, it’s not like I’m planning to join a band. Maybe write songs for my videos, that could be a thing. But not really much else. I feel like I put all my ambition into my film and game and teaching career, and not so much into this area of my life. Even my game career doesn’t have as high ambitions as my film career though. Like that’s the one area of my life where I’m like “I want to win an Oscar” which is kind of a long shot considering how marginal my characters are and how little the Academy values that. Ahh I shouldn’t shit talk the Academy. I do know people in the Academy now, since they started expanding it to get more BIPOC in it.

I’m feeling discouraged about trying to get my feature film made. I feel like I really enjoy making experimental films, and they are cheaper to make than narrative/dramatic films, and I am generally speaking a poor person, so I haven’t made a lot of dramatic shorts. But since I make so many experimental films, I’m not really taken seriously as a potential feature filmmaker. Which is depressing. Some stories just lend themselves to experimental filmmaking better than dramatic filmmaking. I don’t know, it’s depressing. I wanted to make a sitcom some day too, but I’m just feeling right now that my dreams are unsupported. And it’s not that I haven’t directed dramatic films, just not enough I guess, or not the right kind. But how many is enough before they will let me make my first feature?

Anyway blahhh there’s my public moment of despair for you all to see.

I did an edible this weekend and it made me super paranoid and I wanted to come down as soon as I was high basically. But I started mulling on the Digital Footprint and what that means for people, and most of all, what it means for me who has left smears of myself on almost every social media website. I think it’s kind of messy, this blog itself is a whole big package of my thoughts over the last 20 years, and with the benefit of time, some of the things I thought when I was like, 26, I don’t think of the same way now that I’m 46. So I guess I hope if anyone digs up some old post where I said something cringey, they can see it as a process that I’ve since moved on from. Except for some things I admit I still believe in. But yeah. I kind of envy my friends who always had to have a difficult to find social media presence because of their job or something, like all my teacher friends who are anonymous enough that they aren’t easy to google. Meanwhile my students can just open this blog and read all my stuff.

I think I am recovered enough that I can go to the gym today. I haven’t been since way before I got COVID. And I miss it! And it’s been days since I started testing negative again so I think I am ok for people to be around. Anyway maybe I’ll go walk my dogs first before doing that, they are bored and inside for too long.