Self Care – Dad and I Singing “Oseh Shalom”

My Dad’s a Hazan, I’ve mentioned this many times, so that’s out there.

He also writes music, and likes to take Jewish prayers and arrange them into these rather nice songs. Here’s a clip of Dad and I singing his arrangement of “Oseh Shalom” at his Cantorial concert last year.

(Obligatory self-criticism incoming…)

I really shouldn’t have had my hair pulled back like that, and I really… really… don’t like wearing suits. I also honestly feel awkward singing on a stage without also playing a guitar, which is why I mostly stare at the music stand… while the music is there, I’m not really reading it so much as wishing I had a guitar… heh…

But otherwise… this is pretty nice…

Sorry for the self-promotion, here…

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I’m Heading Back to New York

My flight back to New York is scheduled  for 3:30pm. Assuming it isn’t delayed, I’m probably boarding now. And that’s it…

The end of my awesome vacation with my brother in Georgia.

Back to…

New York, Teavana, parents… life…

I think maybe I should move back to Georgia…

Vacation Note: I’m On My Way to Georgia

For those who don’t know, I live in New York. But at the moment, I’m boarding a flight to Georgia. I’ll be there until April 25th. I’m very excited.

I’ve got a lot planned. I’m going to be rooming with my awesome brother. We’re going to a festival, cooking food, and hanging out. I’m also going to be checking out the Anthropology graduate programs at a school or two down there.

I’ll have Self Care posts scheduled, and I will attempt to post a few other things, but I can’t make any promises beyond the Self Care posts. I’m continuing the checking out. I want to enjoy this time and not be stressed.

 

I’m trying my best to avoid things that stress me this week. I need less stress in my life, even if it’s temporary.

I should say… when I say that I have “a lot planned”, a very large part of that plan is just relaxing and enjoying myself, not stressing about anything. That’s the biggest thing, actually. I don’t set up itineraries for a vacation. To me, that seems to defeat the purpose. I don’t want to be on any more of time crunch then I have to be. One day, I might have enough money to take an open-ended vacation… maybe. That day is not today. But 7 days… I can enjoy that.

This is definitely self care for me.

See y’all in a week!

Self Care – A Gift for Chrome Users

(Note: the word “cuck” is used here a bit. However, it’s required, as it’s in the name of this awesome extension.)

Do you use Chrome? Do you abhor the word “cuck”? Would you like to make it disappear?

Then you’re in luck!

Now, for an (un)limited time, you, too, can change the word “cuck” to the phrase “scary ghost”!

All you have to do is install this wonderful extension.

And you’ll never have to see the word “cuck” again.

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Sorry for Today’s Silence

I kind of accidentally chose today as a day to do absolutely nothing. The increase in pollen has my allergies on high alert, which means I’ve been through two boxes of tissues already today, and I didn’t get to bed until 4:30am this morning, and had to be up at 9am. So I’m exhausted and sneezing.

Today’s my lazy day. I’ve got a recipe going up tomorrow, and I’ll get back to the regularly scheduled Astronomy Picture of the Week next Wednesday.

Self Care – A Few Pics from Passover

(Quick note… this is the last of the overly religious posts for now, my fellow atheists. I just enjoy this holiday and want to share it with y’all.)

The first night of Passover ended on Monday, April 10. Well… okay… it actually ended today, March 11th, just after midnight. And it was a lot of fun… well… it would have been, but I’ll get to that…

First things first…

Of course there was a lot of religiosity, here. It’s a Jewish holiday, after all, which means services, prayers, and all that jazz. I don’t mind it, personally, because I grew up with it, and it’s not boring. Since my atheism isn’t exactly a secret, I got to make little asides and jokes last night that my family largely found funny because they know where I’m coming from. I have to be more careful tonight, because tonight’s seder is with some of Dad’s congregants, and they don’t know. But I’m okay with that, since I’ll probably be more focused on my fingers which… again… I’ll get to that…

We actually shortened things up nicely last night, so we got to the meal quicker than we have in the past, which was great. And the meal, of course, was delicious!

But I’m getting ahead of myself (largely to pad out this intro before the fold… 😛 )…

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Sorry… Forgot Posts Today…

Sorry I forgot the Self Care post today. My brother got into town last night, so I stayed up getting kinda drunk on really expensive scotch with him and Dad, and then I woke up at 12pm today and had work at 3pm. So… apologies.

As for news about the Circus Peanut administration… it’s been kinda light in terms of stuff worth highlighting, to be honest… although that’s partly because I decided, what with Passover coming up and my vacation the week after, to take a break… my anxiety’s been spiking horribly again, to the point where 10mg of Lexapro a night is doing fuck all for me. Although I’m sure that’s been obvious considering how my posts have been pretty much since Agent Orange was elected (nothing but anger, cynicism, and hatred).

I need some laughter and happiness.

But anyways… that ableism post has been coming along, and in fact I’m going to focus on it for a bit, so I can put that and my commenting policy up before I start my vacation in Georgia next week.

I’ll see y’all with Great Guitar Solos on Monday at 12pm.

My Recordings! Two Songs I Covered and One I Wrote in 2006

I entirely forgot about these.

This is really fascinating. Turns out I do have three songs recorded. Two are covers, and one is an unfinished original. I’m trying to remember the context. I know I recorded them back in 2006 (holy shit… I wasn’t even 21, yet!), but that’s about it.

The last one, the original, is what fascinates me the most. I managed to find two different versions of lyrics I wrote for it, neither I identify with now (and will not be sharing, because they’re both terrible). But I’ll get more into that with the track.

I’ve been asked in the past when people were gonna hear me sing and play guitar. Well… here you go. They’re from 2006, so it’s been a long time since I put these down, but this is what I actually have recorded…

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Self Care – OMG ANIMORPHS!!!!!!!!!!

I remember reading these stories when I was a really young child. In fact, what drew me away from them was Harry Potter. I read Sorcerer’s Stone when it first came out. I was 11. So I ended up growing up with Harry Potter, reading each book as it was released.

And, sadly, I sort of forgot about Animorphs. Occasionally I would stumble on them, but it wouldn’t stick, until much later (or rather recently, depending on your perspective), when I started thinking about the books again. I re-read the first two, and was like…

Holy shit… I expected this to let me down, but it didn’t!

And then… I sort of forgot about them again…

Until a few days ago. I was on a friend’s Facebook wall, reading through a thread, when some comments went off topic to talk about Animorphs. I was excited, of course, but before I commented, I saw a comment saying something that made me way more excited than it should have…

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