Well, it’s a Museday. The last time I posted was in late September. Clearly life is having its way with me right now, as I’m not particularly inspired to even blather on here on the blog.

This series was meant to be almost a meditation – every Tuesday (or so) I’d post about some topic, whether it be musical or otherwise (but mostly musical), and it would keep me creating and creative. But a few things happened over the last year or so that really messed with my desire to share much of what’s going on with me publicly. People who are too sensitive. Beloved friends slightly younger than me who died suddenly. The tennis match-like back-and-forth of worthiness and worthlessness that is being a sensitive artist.

I desperately want to WANT to create. I desperately want to FEEL like people I depend on for music-related things are all on the same page. But time creates distance, distance increases anxiety, anxiety breeds worry, worry breeds resentment. I’m not saying anything is REAL about how I feel about the various things I’m doing or my relationships with music stuff, but it’s definitely making me feel less motivated in general, and kind of depressing me (and thus keeping me from working on stuff).

But let’s take stock. Let’s have ourselves one of them certified, Erin-phrase-coined “Gratitude Adjustments”:

In 2022, I played a PILE of wonderful shows with my boys in Chandler and The Bings. And I played my roles as bassist and singer well in the vast majority of them, which makes me very proud. We had a great bonding experience with our trip to Laredo that was only sullied by a bad stomach bug which led to the very first time I’ve ever left the stage to vomit…and then vomited off the side of the stage out of the view of the crowd. It’s quite a story that’s quite gross, and if you’d like to hear it, I’m happy to tell it in person.

My solo shows were mostly pretty good, and I was VERY consistent this year, basically playing every first Saturday except for July. I love the venue, the staff is wonderful, people tip very well, and I really need to grow this side of my musicianship. I think it would be good for my development to have some bigger crowds to play to, though. So I’m going to work towards that in 2023, stacking up the wonderful venue I already play and maybe even finding some more…

I got some very cool new gear and some of my existing gear got an AMAZING update that inspires me to play more, which is good. I keep meaning to make videos about the guitar and little amp, but that’s another casualty of life in general. Just hasn’t happened yet.

My body has held up pretty well considering I packed on an extra 15 lbs this year. Going to do my best to get that off in triplicate this year, hopefully by my birthday in September. That might be too tall an order, but progress toward healthy living is most important. My health is paramount and I need to stick around for my kiddos.

To close this out:

I am thankful that I can still do this music stuff.

I am grateful that my health so far has remained pretty good (gotta figure out the heart flutter, but…)

I am hopeful that I can stay disciplined and make the necessary changes to lead a more healthy lifestyle.

Now that this is turning into a “Goals” post – completely unrelated to the fact that it’s a new year, mind you – my goals are now to get healthy, get better at playing the songs I perform, get working on my ear training and theory knowledge, get the worthy songs I’ve written recorded, mix the old ones that were already recorded better (and improve the performances if necessary), get some new songs together, release some new music (having one song on the streaming platforms seems kind of sad), get my goddamn ass in gear in general, and get some MONEY.

That’d be nice, right? Rent is EXPENSIVE. Shit, everything is.

Anyway, thanks for reading and I plan to get back in this Museday Mumblings habit again. Have a happy day whenever you see this, and may you stay healthy and safe.

Peace be the journey!
TMS