Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

It's been pointed out to me by a couple of rather upset people that "hide under the covers and don't answer the phone" as a temporary response to the trebuchets and ballistas of outrageous fortune (well it felt like more than mere "slings and arrows" to me anyhow) uh, makes one set of people worry, and another, overlapping set of people frustrated because they want to help and I'm not telling them how. So on the one hand I got the word out, and got some helpful and valuable expressions of support back; and on the other hand I more Drama And Stress around me than I meant to. I'm sorry.

Yes, I was hurting that badly (still almost that bad, but I'm slowly clawing my way out from under the rock). I felt unable to cope with, well, pretty much any form of communication at all; starting that long entry was a challenge. (Editing it was even more of a challenge, and one I failed to meet, as y'all can probably tell.) But I did think it was apropriate for my friends to know what had happened and why I had been out of contact for a couple days and was likely to be out of touch and/or in a foul mood for the next while as well. (I know people worry when I disappear randomly, as well...) But I thought I'd make it to rehearsal despite how I felt, and that I'd be back again to post responses (mostly thanks) to the comments and maybe talk about other things as well in a day or two. I didn't mean to do a "core dump and dramatically vanish" bit on y'all, really. And I apologize. By way of explanation (a different word than "excuse", and I know the difference), I was coping even less well than I'd noticed at the time, and last night when I was going to try to force myself to communicate, dammit, I got hit with a migraine at the level of: moan oddly enough to make the cat really worried and walk around the house saying, "Explodey-head is a bad thing. Where's the ibuprofen? It was here it was here it was here. Oooh, 'splodey head not good. Bad 'splodey head. It was here, where could it go? Not fair not fair no moving for inanimate things. 'Splodey head not good. My head is exploding. It has to be here. Oooh, I've got explodey-head." Dunno if it was the storm approaching (doesn't actually feel very stormy though, despite the terminology), complete randomness, or a side effect of spending too much time curled up under the covers. Still, I'd meant to post something hours before the migraine anyhow, but didn't manage to drag myself to the keyboard.

Hmph. I'm rambling and tangential and my sentence structure sucketh; clearly I'm not "all back" yet.

Anyhow, I do have a double-handful of unrelated topics I want to get around to writing about here. I just thought I needed to get this entry out of the way first: Thank you, and I'm sorry for making some of you worry. ( status and short-term plans )

The responses do make a difference. Right now I can't begin to describe how much, so I'll settle for saying "thanks" for the time being and try to do the feeling justice when I'm handling communication better.

[Expletive]! I just realized what else got stolen, and though it's nowhere near as big a deal as the rest of the things they took, it's still frustrating and infuriating.

They got away with almost all of my drumsticks, a noisemaker, and (if I correctly recall what was in the front pocket of one of the stick bags), my drum key and part of one of my cymbal stands. I had a lot of different kinds of sticks, for someone who doesn't identify as a drummer. Sticks are mostly relatively cheap, but they add up (and I liked the brushes I had). I hope the claves weren't in the "aux & misc" bag.

I think I've got a pair of "Hot Rods" in my recorder bag, and a pair of nylon-tipped 7A sticks I'd pulled out of the stick bag to practice with, but my "special effect echo" sticks are gone, and my brushes, my #2 sticks, the spare 7As, some oddball stuff, and ... oh badword badword badword ... I think possibly both sets of finger-cymbals. And at least one set of mallets. Argh.

It could have been worse, it could have been worse, it could have been worse. The stick bags were in there because I had meant to bring the snare drum, but I was running late, so when I realized I'd just locked the door with the snare still inside the house, I decided I didn't have time to put the sticks back or fetch the drum. Halfway to the convention I realized I'd forgotten my recorders. If I'd remembered the recorders, they would've been in the van when it was broken into, and losing those -- tools I use on a regular basis and can't afford to replace -- would've been quite a handicap.

"we spent a highly enjoyable couple of hours at a table outside the cafe, geeking so intensively that i'm sure people blocks away were suddenly having strange urges to fire up that PDP-8 in the garage." -- merde, 2003-07-26

Okay, so it's snowy in Maryland (and lots of other places). Yesterday the television news as all full of The Storm. Extended hours for news programming, lots and lots of location spots, and so on. A real fuss.

But it wasn't even really a storm; it was just snow. Maybe I'm not fully appreciating the effect 'cause when it stopped yesterday after the first pass (for folks living too far away to have eastern US weather as part of your background noise, it was a two-part weather event with a few hours break in between), steps and rooftops along Lombard Street had about two inches of snow, but I thought I heard someone on the telly report that Mondawmin Mall (about half a city-width north of here) got seven inches. Still, it seemed like unremarkable snow to me. Pretty enough, sure, though it set no records in that department either (too warm at the start of it), but it seemed like the Big News was simply that it was a) the first snow of the season, and b) a bit early for this area (again). Yes, I wanted to know how much of a mess it was going to make, and yes, everyone else needed to know how it was affecting traffic and school/event cancellations, but from the news coverage you'd think it was the railroad tunnel fire or a proper blizzard. This wasn't a blizzard, it was just a pile of snow a few weeks early. (And too many accidents, but I'll come back to that.)

But the point of this entry isn't to go all curmudgeonly about this -- the previous paragraph is more head-scratching than "get a life". No, the point is that I don't remember this sort of reaction from my childhood. And that brings up the question: Have Balto/Wash newscasters gotten more excitable regarding snow, or do I just not remember this from when I was a child because I was outside playing in it instead of noticing what was on television? They did seem to have backed off the extra news programming and urgent tones of voice today: on the one hand there's more snow on the ground than this time yesterday, but on the other hand there's no rush hour to get all scrambled up today.

Now admittedly there did seem to be an awful lot of automobile accidents on the news yesterday, and sensible advice about winter driving being given, and at least one reporter did make a comment about how, being the first snow of the season, area drivers had forgotten how to drive in snow and needed to relearn ... but that only causes me more head-scratching. Last winter wasn't all that long ago, in terms of human memories and skill acquisition/loss. Winter driving isn't something that one should need to re-learn every year. It's not even difficult, really, especially if you want to take the most often suggested approach to it: just allow more following distance, plan for more braking distance in general, keep your speeds reasonable for conditions, and don't make any really sudden moves. No special skills on that list, just pointers! Now if you want to drive a bit faster, or need to traverse unplowed roads in an unsuitable vehicle, or deal with steeper hills than we have in most of Baltimore (admittedly you don't have to go very far outside of the city to find them) covered in ice, or get into and out of parking spaces without bothering to shovel them first, then there are special snow-driving skills that come into play, but even those shouldn't be lost from one winter to the next. The first five minutes behind the wheel in the snow should bring all those memories flooding back.

This region does suffer from what one ex-housemate referred to as "water-soluble driving skills", so I'm accustomed to the area getting all flummoxed by rain and snow in general, but I'm having trouble with that "Since it's the first snowfall of the season everyone will have forgotten everything they've learned in the last five to forty winters they've been driving here" business. Even if it is true, it bloody well shouldn't be.

But then again, we seem to forget our lessons from one election to the next, too, so maybe some environmental poison is robbing the population of our ability to retain what we learn.

Oh bother, I guess I went into curmudgeon mode after all. Harumph!