Welcome, Yule-- Harper's Traditional Winter Solstice Post
The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive. And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake They shouted, revelling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind us - listen! All the long echoes, sing the same delight, This Shortest Day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace. And now so do we, here, now, This year and every year. Welcome Yule!
Last night, I put a brand new song up on my Patreon site, available only to patrons. It's a scratch track and not release-quality, but that's where all my new stuff is going, and my plan is for it to remain there for a week before it's released to the Bandcamp site, if it gets released there at all.
Patreon is pretty simple: patrons pledge to give $1 per song I release there. Eventually, it'll be a repository for a lot of live recordings, stuff I don't intend to record, and new things I do intend to record.
Here's the link to my Patreon page. If you can contribute and want to, please do. Once I get five or six patrons there, I'll start adding some more incentives, like custom songs, opportunities to request recordings of things, etc.
And if you just want to check out some more polished material, I'm trying to put something new up on Bandcamp every few days. Here's a link to my Bandcamp page.
None of this costs a lot of money. But every little bit helps me work toward relying less on my day job and more on creating cool stuff.
So now the question is, "Where to go from here." Now, I'm lucky in that I have access to good computers and friends with loads of knowledge about things like recording and engineering and mastering and stuff like that.
And the fact is, if you consider that I haven't released a new album in 12? 13? years (OMG), well. There's some material out there, and you might not even need all 5 of the new songs (or the unruly 6th one, which is in the poetry refrigerator at the moment).
I'm looking at how other artists promote themselves on Patreon. In particular, I'm impressed by South African Nate Maingard, whose goals are tightly organised, whose page is nice and slick without being super commercial. Now, obviously the guy is a hipster and much younger than I am, but I like the structure he's created. If you take a look at the goals and levels of patronage along the righthand side of the page, you'll see that not only does he offer a lot, but people are taking him up on it. Some items are limited, and you can see exactly how many patrons he has at that level by checking out the information there. He also writes for hire, which is something I've considered as well. Sonnets For Hire! ;) Also obviously, this guy travels and I don't, really; that's not a possibility for me right now for a lot of reasons. But I wonder: How possible would it be for me to move in this direction, positively and probably kind of slowly?
What do you guys think? Am I grasping at straws?
ETA: This is not pay to play. You can get anything on BandCamp for free. Not so sure I'll take the same tack with Patreon, but possibly take a leaf from my South African (not a) pal's book and release some teaser tracks, because otherwise how will people know what I sound like?
I'd forgot that weeks ago I had requested four days of holiday at the end of this week, because bardling was meant to be here and I wanted time to spend with her on musical activities.
So tonight when I checked my work HR page to see what time I needed to be in tomorrow ... I found that I'm not scheduled for work! With the time I've had signed off plus the four days of holiday, I don't have to go to work at all this week!
You guys cannot imagine how good that made me feel. Or maybe you can: I am just happy to have another week to get things sorted.
And I will make those phone calls. And I will get this sorted. And I will finish song number six, because song number six is being difficult and needs help!
I've never done the whole NaNoWriMo thing. While I understand that the communities behind this movement are pretty good, I always felt like every month should be writing month. Of course, encouragement is good and communities are good, and I love all the different writing things that go on in Second Life during November. I know I don't write as much as I should, though this past month -- indeed, the whole period since LonCon -- has been full of songwriting.
So, with that said, I think I can do my own little writing challenge for November. I will write at least one song a week for the duration of the month. Now, since it's unlikely I'll finish a song in the next hour, we could count anything more I get done on this fragment, or this one as the song for the first week, since there are only two days in that week and it's going to be over an hour from now, at least in London. Both these songs have been set to music and partially scored, so it might be cheating a little bit. I guess the one about children was actually started this week as opposed to the other one, which was started sometime last week, so maybe we'll only count that one.
Anyway.
9 November 16 November 23 November 30 November
Those will be the due dates for the songs, since I tend to tell my diary to start my week on Monday.
Now... for those of you who are interested in such things, what sorts of subjects would you like me to write about? Inspiration is beautiful and comes from all over the world. It never hurts to borrow someone else's. ;)
Early Sunday morning, Emily and Andrew arrived to stay over after hanging out with friends in London. They came round about three in the morning; I didn't mind as I was up anyway, talking to a friend on Skype. We chatted for just a few minutes before everyone went to bed, but today, for multiple reasons, was really nice. In my long lj history, I've talked often about my blended family and what that means. I think it's safe to say that, in the ten years I've been in the UK, we've done an admirable job of growing closer as a family, supporting one another, and just generally staying friends.
My stepdaughters are a joy to me. Their partners are both thoughtful young men who have their best interests at heart and are part of our immediate family as surely as any of the rest of us, are. Their mum is someone I'm happy to call a friend and delighted to have at my house pretty much anytime. My son seems to be doing really well in California, judging from the fact that he's too busy to talk to me much. And when we do have time to talk, our conversations run the gamut. I am quite proud of him, even though he doesn't really understand why.
Today's long conversation with Emily and Andrew flowed from writing, to depression, to family history, to various fandom topics and round again to where it started and back to other things as well. They were planning to leave in the early afternoon and ended up staying for dinner. That made both Joe and me happy.
I don't talk often, here or on Facebook or anywhere else that I talk, about what a precious gift I have, this amazing family. It makes me feel humble and very very grateful for the life in which I have these seven people around me.
Many of you know that I'm a strong believer in the concept of the plural family. I tend to talk about this most when discussing polyamory, but our expanding nuclear organism is just as much of a wonder. Of course I invite many people into the family of my heart, but the family of my marriage and my son and these strong, talented, capable stepdaughters I have (who so often feel like the daughters of my heart if not my body,--and I hope their mum feels that way about my son as well). Their well-chosen, worthy partners make me even more proud of them, and each of their young men brings his own flavour of joy to the family table.
Spending the whole day in a revolving conversation with Andrew and Emily is just about the best Sunday I can imagine right now.
The year after keristor was killed, I purchased a guitar that belonged to him at the Filk Fund auction. It took me two and a half years to write this song.
The link should load pretty quickly. For those of you who won't want to click through, we had a great room, Tenby is lovely, we saw seals and birds and great sunsets and sunrises, and I always love visiting Wales.
I almost posted something serious and potentially controversial here, but then I realised people commenting on it all would just make me feel like shit, so I deleted it.
Sorry; my trust level is pretty low at the moment.
It's hard to re-open my life for discussion. I just really don't talk about important things to anybody but filceolaire and alpacaaddict anymore.
I had to work later than usual tonight. Not that I'm complaining: it's the only night of the week I ever have to work late, and I don't always have to work late. But the body makes habits, you know? My body's habits are incompatible with managing somehow to sleep until 9am except on days where I don't have to get up at all.
Due partly to bloodymindedness and partly to -- no; never mind; due completely to bloodymindedness, I've been working sick for the last three days. I know this is a foolish thing to do, but I did it anyway, and for comeuppance I now have a chesty cough that threatens to gnaw through my lungs and not very much of a voice. I'm wheezing when I breathe, and the last time I felt like this, my GP signed me off work for two weeks because I had a chest infection. I don't feel like I can afford to be sick any more, ever, so I'm not going back to the doctor with this one. Throat sweets and inhalers it is. And I may call in to work tomorrow.
After work, my bus was late. Then the bus I was meant to connect to was late, meaning my regular bus went on diversion because of nighttime construction toward Surrey Quays. The upshot is I didn't get home until nearly 11pm, and I hadn't had any dinner. My amazing son went out and picked up some chicken and chips for me, and that made me feel better.
It's late now and I have to go cough myself to sleep.
That strange noise from the bathroom was more than just the drying rack I tripped over falling forward.
My cat hates me.
People I like hate me.
People I don't care for all that much hate me.
Strangers take one look at me and hate me.
By having all the colour cut out of my hair, I will get to experience the joys of being discriminated against both because I'm fat and because of my age, not just the first one.
The grocery order won't arrive before I have to leave, and nobody will open the door, and there won't be any groceries.
I might fall and hurt myself if I take a shower, but I have to take one before I go out. Maybe I will succumb and just not go out rather than risking it.
There is a lot I have to do that I have not done. I don't know why I cannot make myself get to these things.
There are people I need to have important conversations with. I don't know why I cannot make myself contact those people.
I might be a bad sister because I haven't gotten in touch with my sister recently.
I might be a bad Sister because I haven't gotten in touch with my Sisters recently.
There won't be enough money for anything.
I should change this user pic because I don't look like that any more.
My pretty green shawl needs a mend, a wash, and a block, but I can't be bothered to do it.
I actually don't even know where my blocking kit is. Maybe I will just get a new one.
Can you really have enough knitting needles? Am I approaching that point?
I'd really like a new 3mm needle for 2-at-a-time socks.
And some new sock yarn too.
I should bring That Project along to knitting today to see if BFF thinks I'll have enough to finish.
Blech; I have to go to knitting and be graceful.
I am not very graceful.
Can't go if I don't at least wash my hair!
Why not just skip it?
I handle everything by skipping it.
(This has been a brief glimpse into how I think about everything.)
It was the weirdest thing. First, I was in trouble for not going to rehearsals with this orchestra I was playing with that was actually a bunch of kids in their teens and twenties. I have no idea what I was doing running around with these children, but there you have it. I seemed to see the director as some sort of authority figure. I may also have been in love with him.
Then, as a result of finally showing up and managing to fix several of my bandmates' mobile phones and possibly an iPad (don't ask), I was offered some kind of fellowship at a university which seemed to be attached to my high school alma mater, which was this bizarre place in Michigan, only it looked a lot like Camden Lock Market.
Time flew by, as it does, and I'd been there for ages, and this director and I were apparently having a real life relationship, though I couldn't even tell you what the fellow looked like: he was mostly a compelling voice over the phone and a lot of titillating ideas (isn't that always the way), but we had trouble finding places to be together because his place was cramped and he lived with about a dozen other people for some reason.
So one night, I had the bright idea that I should check out the university digs, since they gave them to me as part of the fellowship. I was expecting some dingy room with a single bare bulb, particularly when I found out that the address was located somewhere in the camp area of my old alma mater, and that's where it becomes important that the Fine Arts building (lovingly nicknamed F/Arts) that was really just a cabin had been replaced by something that looked a lot like Camden Lock Market (see above).
I went to the desk and presented them with my letter of residency, and they told me where to go and I started walking. My knees were hurting me, but I reminded myself that as this was a dream I could get around easily even if I still had arthritis, so there was this floaty chair assigned to me. I got to the digs door, where I was told I was on the 42nd floor, to take the stairs up to the lift and just press '42', and then I'd be able to find my address.
I looked up into the night sky to see hundreds of glimmering little bits of light that might have been houses, up in the sky. I figured you'd have to be important to rate one of those. I got in the lift and pressed 42.
Whenever there's a lift in my dreams, it always seems to go sideways. I'm not sure why that happens, but there you have it. I went up for a ways, sideways for a ways, then up again. Different people got on and got off.
Level 42, as it turned out, was the launch pad for the floaty glimmer houses. I couldn't believe my luck, but I also was kicking myself, because how long had I been there without realising I had a floaty glimmer house? Somebody should have told me, but I'm sure I'm just as bad about reading mail (e or snail) there as I am here, so. I walked to the new residents reception kiosk and gave them my letter. They chuckled and plugged a number into my floaty chair, gave me the key, and wished me a good night.
It was like flying above a Disney set. There were lakes and waterfalls and all manner of nifty little things, and when I got to my address I realised they weren't glimmer houses, they were glimmer neighbourhoods. I could see one in the distance that was all moderny, but mine was castley, which suited me just fine. The door was green. I expected to have a little room in a nice residence, but as it turned out, the whole thing was mine. Little invisible servants kept asking me what I would like this or that room to be. The dining area was like a restaurant -- complete with people eating in it. I set the space to private, and they all got up and politely left, carrying their meals in little picnic baskets. I had to come back later and set several other entrances and exits private as I shooed off more and more diners. A neighbour told me they ware glad I'd finally appeared as everyone was getting tired of the squatters in my house.
Which had a room for knitting, and a room full of gadgets, and a room full of harps, and an office at the very top with a 360° view of the surrounding neighbourhood and a skylight that looked up into a clear night sky, always above the clouds. Every so often I'd discover a new exit I needed to make private, but I was on the phone shortly sending a text message to my director telling him I'd found a place we could be together.
I was conscious the whole time this was a dream but great little details kept shooting through that must have come directly from my subconscious. The last scene was me giving the beloved a tour in the floaty chair and whizzing all around showcasing the little street of shops in the neighbourhood, meeting my neighbours, and whinging about the necessity of going down to campus to teach class.
