Ponderings and Musings

I have spent the last hour or two downloading music and watching music videos of all time periods and a variety of genres. The trip around the virtual radio dial has been enjoyable tonight and has been a good little escape. My little projects around the house keep me sane and distract me from the stress of the workday.

I just tried to call it a night. I got into bed, kissed the husbear who was already walking through the dreamscape and then I laid down and stared at the ceiling. I tossed and turned a few times, counted a few dozen sheep and went through my other ritual of boring myself to sleep: counting the classrooms in my high school 25 years ago and remembering which teacher went where. (Yeah, I’m strange, I know.). I can’t fall asleep, though. My mind is processing the days events. I hear folks born around the same time as me do the same thing; they process things. They take an event, think upon it, turn it into an obsession and process it a little more. And then when a resolution is near, they process some more.

The funny thing is, my mind doesn’t want to shut down tonight because I feel good. I think I’m actually excited about going to work tomorrow. I can’t even begin to fathom why I feel this way (no offense to the company I work for); we’ll have half the staffing we’ve had throughout the rest of the week in the tech center and we have three times the number of trouble tickets we usually have. Only the universe knows what lies in the queue for tomorrow but I have to admit that I right now I really don’t mind what tomorrow entails.

Not to sound all corporate shilly and silly but I remarked today to one of my co-workers that the reason I get up and go to work in the morning is because of the people I work with. My co-workers are quite varied in skill set and personality and thankfully have gotten used to me but when things get tough we pull together and do what we can do to keep the chaos at a dull roar. That’s a good thing. Whilst getting through some technical troubles this week I’ve really discovered that my co-workers have my back and vice-versa. I don’t know why I’m having this surge of energy or sudden realisation of this at 11:30 on a Thursday night, and I’ll probably have to re-read this blog entry in the morning to remind me that I enjoy going to work (since I’m not a morning person) but I consider myself to be pretty lucky to work with the group of people that I work with. They’re good people.

With the constant cutting of costs and homogenization of job descriptions in a very diverse tech center, the stress level often runs high and tempers flare. What was once sweet tastes a little more bitter these days. I’m happy that I can sling back a few drinks with my co-workers after a hard day’s work and swallow that pill along with them.

Tomorrow is going to be a good day and that is because I said so.

I am just getting around to blogging this but you have probably heard the uproar about some of the performances at least week’s Grammy Awards; more specifically the pairing of Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks.

Wow. Now there’s a train wreck on live television.

Stevie Nicks looks as if to be saying ‘What The Fuck Was That?’

Here’s the thing. I don’t know much about Taylor Swift. I know that Kanye West came out during her moment to shine at the Video Music Awards a while back and I’ve read that she’s a really sweet woman who writes beautiful country songs. I have heard her on the radio once or twice and found it odd to hear the use of auto-tune on a country song (though it’s becoming too common these days), but I had never heard her sing live.

Wow.

I’ll preface this by saying I couldn’t do better and I know that. But I’m not paid millions of dollars to sing in front of people nor am I winning Grammy awards. Taylor should have never, ever sang “Rhiannon” with Steve Nicks. There was some really bad karaoke vibes going on during that live performance. Stevie looked mortified a couple of times.

Reports say that Taylor’s earpiece was malfunctioning and she couldn’t hear herself. I have issue with this. First of all, not being able to hear yourself because of an earpiece isn’t working is like saying you can’t hear yourself talk if you’re not wearing headphones. Secondly, though they try to convince us to the contrary, the instruments and the singers on stage are actually making noise outside of what is being piped through the headphones and honestly, I’m sure there were some Really Big Speakers pointed at the audience and I’m also certain that there were speakers pointed at the musicians on-stage. If the earpiece wasn’t working she could have simply taken it out. Thirdly, as a person that sings from time to time and actually went to school to teach others how to do it, I can attest that when you sing you know what each note feels like in your throat. It’s an instinct thing – you know when you’re on key or not, especially if you’re a singer that is considered to be award-winning. You just know it and you hear it. Yes, the earpiece will help you hear things better and possibly hear the backing singers on the other side of a Really Big Stage but you can still hear your own voice in your own head without needing to rely on technology.

I have read that this isn’t the first time that Taylor Swift has been less than impressive in a live performance. This is unfortunate because it seems like she’s a really nice person and she writes really good songs and she is a positive influence in an increasingly wonky world, but for the love of the gods, if you’re going to win awards for singing, then please be able to sing in key.

And Stevie, you dear goddess, what the hell were you thinking when you agreed to do this?

Even though I still DJ from time to time I have been resistant to learn about or listen to Lady Gaga because I thought she was just another manufactured pop entity polluting our airwaves.

Boy was I wrong.

Courtesy of a Facebook friend I followed a link to the video I have included below. Lady Gaga actually has real talent! So I did some reading up on her and I will openly admit right here and now that I was completely wrong when it comes to all things Lady Gaga.

She impresses me.

I had some personal time this morning so I am currently sitting at the local Panera enjoying a nice lunch on a beautiful day. It’s cold since it’s still February and all but the sun is shining brilliantly and my mood is following that lead. This is a good thing.

Since I had some time off I took a ride through the local countryside to clear my head a little bit. I have mentioned before that I enjoy wide, open spaces. I like being able to see the neighbor’s house even though it’s a half mile or so away. It would be even better if I was looking across a lush, green pasture but I can handle a snow-covered landscape.

While the mountains and rock cuts and such are pretty to look at, they’re not really my thing when it comes to a living environment. I would feel very confined and cramped living in the bottom of a valley, especially if it’s a narrow passage; I liken it to living in the likes of a big city such as Downtown Boston, Center City Philly or Manhattan. I attribute this to growing up along the Lake Ontario lake plains at the foot of Tug Hill (along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario). Living on top of a mountain where I have a long view, on the other hand, would be very nice.

This Panera is emptying out a good pace. Because of this, the wi-fi is speeding up. On the other hand a woman just shrieked in glee (and it was a startling shriek) because they now have pasta at Panera. Um, it’s macaroni and cheese.

I like that Panera is posting calorie counts on the menu now. They should include fat grams but perhaps if they did that there would be more startling shrieks.

When I woke up this morning the meteorologist on the local NPR station announced that it was 56 degrees and that we were under a flash flood warning. 56 degrees. In January. In Upstate New York.

That’s not a common thing in these parts.

During my commute I noticed that about 30% of the drivers on the road were bundled up in parka-like apparel and driving like the roads were covered in the ever allusive ‘black ice’. Apparently they didn’t have their radio on or just weren’t completely aware of their surroundings, because as I mentioned before, it was 56 degrees. One surly looking woman still managed to fog up her windows.

While it has been dark and gloomy most of the day today, I have to say that the unseasonably warm temperatures (it was around 50 when I went to lunch) were quite nice. I have been combating my yearly fight with SAD by taking Vitamin D tablets. Those little pebble like capsules are like a little dose of sunshine because I have certainly felt a sunnier disposition this winter. I don’t know if it’s the Vitamin D, the warm temperatures or just my determination not to get all winter blah like but nevertheless I’m enjoying winter thus far.

It’s easy to do when it’s in the mid 50s.

Wow. It’s been a few days since I’ve written in my blog. I seem to be saying that a little more often lately. I suppose if I wrote a newspaper column or something a rerun of a fan favourite or maybe even an ad for roofing would appear in this space.

I have ramped back on my online and social networking habits quite a bit over the past few days. I have whittled my participation down to a few select venues. I haven’t been on Facebook in a week, though I have quite a few requests for various things such as sharing my cows, throwing snowballs and dancing the funky chicken. If you’re reading this on Facebook it’s because my blog and Facebook like to get down once a night and compare notes. I even ramped back on the gay sites, focusing only on those that have featured me in a video or photo spread. I’ll pause while you ponder as to whether I’m kidding or not.

The ramping down of my online chatter has been enlightening. Instead of trying to catch up on hours of daily podcasts and the like and instead I do things like tonight I actually enjoyed just watching television with the family and doing some reading on my Kindle. I also downloaded a bunch of music solely for my enjoyment (instead of for performance as DJ SuperCub). I feel like the stress of the day has melted away. Getting away from the computer for a little bit, or at least using it for entertainment instead of something intense, has allowed my mind to take a break. It has been good.

Courtesy of my dear friend Christine via Twitter:

Text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief efforts in #Haiti.

It adds the donation to your cell phone bill.

My mind has been wandering this evening. I have been dreaming about the days when I used to be able to sit down with a boatload of collected thoughts and write something cohesive, inspiring and touching, all laced with a touch of whimsy.

This week has been all about one thing: go go go.

Earl, Jamie and I had a houseguest from Sunday until this morning. One of our dear friends was in town recovering from a nasty cold; since he’s a flight attendant he can plop down any ol’ place he chooses and he chose The Manor, so we fed him chicken soup and a good helping of this life of control chaos around here and this morning I took him back to Albany so he could leave on a jet plane for his next adventure. He was well rested when he left.

I have been on call, which has been hot and cold as far as intensity goes this week. Tonight has been very busy and I can hear the sounds of an overtime cash register ringing up a big paycheck to be delivered in a couple of weeks.

The year has started on a good note: today the group I work with received two letters of accolades from customers that were impressed with our performance. It was good to hear a “hooray” or two in a society of mostly “boos”. I work with a good group of people. I have always known that.

My personal goals are all off to a good start for the new year aside from one thing…

I’m not writing enough. I hope to fix that as soon as on call is over this weekend.

So here it is 2010. Most people are saying it’s the beginning of a new decade but I’m one of those oddballs that start counts from 1 to 10 and then starts over again, so in my head the new decade will start in 2011. That being said, I feel like something new and fresh started last night at midnight and all is well with the world.

It was a low-key New Year’s Eve here at The Manor. After last year’s excitement of my last DJ gig at the local bar, deflated balloons and plastic champagne glasses, we decided to stay low key by taking in a movie (“Sherlock Holmes”, great movie), a no-frills dinner at the local Pizzeria Uno and then we did something we have never done before. We skipped the Seacrest/Clark dropping of the ball opted to go with Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper on CNN instead. They were a hoot. They had a Twitter and text messaging crawl going along the bottom of the screen and try as I might I couldn’t get mine to appear on there. It was easier a couple of years ago to text a message to the jumbotron at Toronto gay pride. I’ll stick with that in 2010. After the ball dropped I flicked the porch lights on and off twice, declared “Happy New Year”, kissed all those involved, sent text messages to those that I couldn’t reach (said messages failed because AT&T’s network crapped out at midnight) and then declared I was going to bed. I’m such a ball of energy.

This morning I bounded out of bed with a new outlook on life. I have to admit that 2009 was a bit of a bummer in many ways for me, though I can’t put my finger on a specific reason. I’m determined to not have 2010 be an encore of 2009. I think I gave up some things I shouldn’t have and did some things that I should continue to do. I spent a good chunk of the day working the studio and basically keeping it off the grid; the relaxation was a nice change of pace. Oh, and the 60 day beard plan came to an end early to the relief of many.

So tonight as I lay in bed with the laptop and get ready to call an end to the first day of 2010, I can say without hesitation that the year is off to a good start.

Happy New Year!