I'm really hoping this will be my last year teaching preschool. I'm stretched way too goddamn thin at this center I'm at. I'm at school 8-5 every day, teaching 15 kids, 4 of whom are on the Autism spectrum and qualify for services (but aren't receiving them due to COVID). We stay in one room all day, and maybe if it's sunny and over 40° we go outside for a max of 30 minutes a day. It's fucking depressing, and I have no power to change things because almost all aspects of the day are determined by corporate. It's incredibly frustrating knowing what small changes would make a huge difference for these kids and being unable to actually implement them.

After years of having a vague notion of wanting to teach music at some point, I finally looked into what goes into getting licensed in various places, and it turns out VT has a pretty solid alternative peer review based licensing program. I'm making it my goal to put together a teaching portfolio and pass the Praxis teaching tests by the summer so I can get licensed for the upcoming school year and get the fuck out of CT, and out of the "childcare solutions" racket.

My sister's working on directing a play aboust angsty lovestruck teens set in the late 90's, and asked my to put together a playlist of possible music cues. Been digging through lots of indie and early emo this past week, which has been fun. Here's what I've got so far.

Christ almighty this election is taking a toll on me. On the plus side, the state Rep. I canvassed for this fall, who was one of the deciding votes on my state's police accountability bill, looks poised to win his re-election.

In other news, things have been a bit less dour since my last update. My wife is still doing well, and got to spend some time with her brother when he came out to visit for a few weeks. I had a blast seeing him too - I taught him the basics of recording 7 or 8 years ago, and he's still going strong. Made some beats together while he was out, which was nice.

I'm currently in the middle of job training for my new job, which starts in earnest next week. Pretty mixed feelings about going back to working childcare during a pandemic, but I am really looking forward to consistent insurance coverage again.

Thank you mk - I'm always happy to come back to this lovely place you've made.

I am incredibly grateful that I am easily distractable by my many hobbies. Been learning trumpet the past few months - it's been really useful to have some clear benchmarks of "getting better through hard work and routine", and being able to reach a new part of the harmonic series every few weeks of practicing has been good for my mental health, in a weird way.

Oh, hi.

The summer Shakespeare program that my family runs ended yesterday, and I am fucking beat. Things were a mess this year from a tech standpoint, but the students were great. I recorded one song with a student, which I should be done mixing soon. Sad to be back in a quiet house again, but I am not missing the dirty dishes on every available surface.

I'm moving, again. This time to Brattleboro VT, only about two hours away from my family, into a three-bedroom apartment that costs less than $1000 a month. Teaching preschool, making music, same old same old. Great little art scene that I'm looking forward to becoming a part of.

I'm sort of running on empty these days. This summer took a lot out of me, and sadly I don't have time to rest before moving.

Still, found the time to make a banjo-ukulele.

Tamborine, scrap wood, recycled plastic hit with a heat gun to shrink it.

Expect to see a bit more of me after the move.

[PS: kleinbl00, anyone else with an opinion: I have been sitting on a bit of Tesla stock since 2015, and have been dying to get rid of it for almost as long because Elon Musk is a terrifying crazy person. What do you think are the odds of him actually sticking to all this going private talk?]

with bonus shot of the pastiest leg in the world!

1. Get better at piano.

2. Learn how to make a ring, and subsequently

3. Propose once I make one well enough.

I've got the materials in the mail for number 2, and have been working on number 1 a few hours every day.

Mostly, yes. I started it at the end of college, and just knit scarves. It was totally mindless, and worked well to help me focus. I've always been antsy, which is why I make so much stuff. If you like making stuff with your hands, odds are you'll like knitting.

My suggestion would be to get a big, thick ball of cheap yarn (not too dark or it'll be hard to see the stitches), find a pair of needles, and knit some kind of rectangle. Don't worry about following a pattern, or counting stitches, just get a feel for the tactility of knitting and see if it works for you.

Tomorrow's my day off, I'll upload some links to tutorials and stuff - YouTube is how I learned to knit, I found the visual nature of it really clarified the techniques for me.

Personally, I find knitting very satisfying, and a nice combination of several of my interests. Math, design, craft, hand stuff. It's now something I'll usually do instead of reaching for my phone - not consciously, it's just naturally more interesting to me most of the time.

I'm really good at knitting in near-darkness now because I knit while I'm sitting guard during naptime at the pre-school. There's something very meditative and immersive about just counting stitches with your fingertips, feeling your way along the row. There's a movie theater near me that has $4 tickets, and I go see a random movie a few times a week and just knit as well as I can in the darkness. I usually end up with a somewhat lumpy scarf or blanket at the end of it.

Anyway, I think it's a good way to spend your time. If I could play video games, make music, or read while knitting, I would probably never leave the house again.

Sure!

I grew up right next to a Shakesperean theater in CT. It's massive, I think it housed about 2000 or so audience members in its prime. Its shows starred Katherine Hepburn, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Walken, and a whole bunch of other folks throughout its many years of theater. As a side note, the house my family lives in now used to be an inn that the actors at the theater would stay at during their residency. Probably some interesting ghosts futzing about.

The theater shut down for good the week after my family moved next door to it. It's been closed ever since.

There's always been a big community push to try and have it re-opened, or at least to have theater done on its premises. My brother's big passion in life was acting, and my parents (and some real rich friends) made a memorial non-profit theater academy in his honor a few years ago, and have been doing theater every summer on the grounds [EDIT FOR CLARITY: the literal grounds. as in the grass outside] of the theater. This summer will be the 5th year it's been around.

The gist of it is that 14 or so college-aged actors live in our house for 6 weeks, go through an intensive series of classes on theater-making and put up 2 shakespeare shows in repertory at the end of the program. Other buzz-words include "site-specific" (meaning we usually put up shows in the woods) and "ensemble-based". Basically, the goal is, by the end of the program, to teach students how to go out and make theater on their own, from acting and directing to booking spaces and getting publicity.

As you can imagine, putting 14 college-aged students into one house for 6 weeks can lead to some problems. My job, for the first three summers, was to take care of those problems. I was the cook, cleaner, therapist, bike-fixer, and general handyman for the company. Additionally, I was asked to write, perform, and record music for the shows (which I actually had a lot of fun with), and helped construct the stages and do whatever general work needed doing.

Last year was the first summer I wasn't around to help. It was a slight disaster. The shows went up, but the students were constantly fighting and discontent, and spent almost every night getting completely trashed. We rely pretty heavily on previous students' word of mouth to get prospective new students interested, but I suspect that may not work so well this year. I'm coming back this summer in part to make sure things get back on track, and also to figure out what exactly my job was, and how to hire another person to do it permanently.

I'd be happy to PM you a link to the program's site if you're interested!

You better bet your keister I'm gonna see you when you come to Portland!! Where can I get tickets?

And, for the cat lovers, Kippy:

This is a cat I lived with in Chicago. I was very allergic to her. She very much wanted to sleep in my bed. I became an Aleve junkie.

Congratulations! You've shown that you care enough about human life that you started a homicide statistic with "lol"! You definitely seem like you do give your time supplying food to the homeless, or volunteering on a suicide hotline, and don't just use the excuse of "this isn't an issue that directly affects me" to avoid actually helping anybody not related to you by blood.

I'm sorry that not enough trans people are dying to warrant your empathy - let's hope it stays that way.

Tell me, how are you fighting the Opioid epidemic in America? What are some concrete steps I, as a citizen, can take to stop the deaths of 33,000 of my peers? I certainly don't know anyone who is addicted to prescription pills, so by your reasoning I have no reason to care about it - that's just not something which affects me. I do know a young trans woman who was beaten to within an inch of her life in an alley, but hey, my number's smaller than yours, I should care about your thing instead - fuck her statistically insignificant life!

See, here's the thing about proportions: they tend to point to something larger than themselves. If you actually did give your time to helping the homeless, you would find that between 10-20 of those 50 people might be gay or trans (and before you have a chance - I know I linked to a liberal rag and you are going to debate the numbers, I don't particularly have the energy to find better sources) - a number which is disproportionately high. Or if you actually spent your time with opium addicts, you would find that, again, a disproportionately high amount of them are gay or trans. And do I even have to tell you how many gay and trans people would be calling you on that suicide hotline?

I get it, you don't know any trans people, but some of us do. Some of us may even want to start a family with the trans man they've been dating for 5 years - a thing that becomes significantly harder if he's dead. I completely agree that there is a finite amount of energy that we can all channel to causes that we deem to be important - I just hope that you're channeling yours towards something bigger than complaining about people mourning the dead.

EDIT: I'm sorry that this is pretty aggressive, I don't mean it as a personal attack - in all seriousness, I have no doubts that you are a good person, and I get where you are coming from. This is just an issue that hits really close to home.

<3 I cheated, it's actually two basslines layered on top of eachother.

Thanks, I'm happy with the mix too - yeah, mastering my own stuff. I do it all with stock plugins in Reaper, my DAW of choice. I'll do a writeup of my process when I get home.

A Kramer bass, of the red persuasion. All I remember off the top of my head. Really happy with it, oodles of sustain.

Thanks!

I mainly wrote it because the thought of calling the man who will soon have one of the highest positions of power in the land "donnie-onnie-onnie" was really funny to me, and made me feel a little less scared about, y'know, all the terror.

Also, I figured there would be enough angry "fuck trump" songs coming out, so I wanted to at least attempt to find some sympathy in his situation.

(not much was found)

Didn't fail at any discrete thing, my dad just went off on me the other night and repeatedly let me know that he considers me a failure right now, especially re: deciding to move twice in one year, investing time in non-masculine hobbies/skillsets (sewing etc), telling my parents that it is almost definite that I am never going to be giving them grandkids.

After reminding my dad that he was my age over FORTY FUCKING YEARS ago, that he changed cities three times when he was 22, and was working minimum wage jobs for a few years after college, he settled down a bit. It just made me feel a bit shitty.

(sorry for making this a mini-pubski, bfv :/)

Positives: I have another day and a half to spend with my boyfriend, it was my birthday yesterday, and I have a lot to be thankful for.

Negatives: the obvious.

Not directly related, but I am thinking of moving to Portland to live with my boyfriend and his family. I've been feeling very isolated here, and some of my best friends live a short train ride away from Portland. I haven't really set down my roots here yet - no permanent job, no lease, no gigs lined up. I think, all things being equal, if I am going to be washing dishes and playing in bars, I would rather do it while living with someone I love.

The good thing is, I found out that: a. I like living in a city and b. I like Chicago and would be happy coming back here at some point.

I already have plane tickets booked home for 11/20, I think I am going to spend the next week or so shipping my stuff back.

I'm going to just vent with a list of minor personal fears, because damnit folks, I got a lot of 'em:

-abandonment

- making a shitty album

-that I am going to get to Chicago and have forgotten to do some major thing

-that I am nowhere near being an adult yet

-that I am making some kind of major mistake without knowing it

-health, specifically alcohol addiction and a variety of family health problems

-my parents are in their 60s and I keep having dreams about one/both of them dying

-what would I do if they did?

-will I ever come out to my parents?

And then I get into a funk when I think about these, because even though rationally I know they are mostly common, minor, and extremely inconsequential, I have a difficult time shaking them and not letting them take up most of my mental energy.

It'll be fine in a month, I am just way too damn restless.

I'm 21 now. Just finished college, and am ambling towards actual adulthood. Let me get myself into 15 year-old flac mode:

Alright, we're in there.

Here is my advice to you (and yes, the irony of giving advice about being yourself is not lost on me):

In 2 years, you have the option of nuking your entire social life once you leave school (I talk to exactly 2 people I knew in high school - one of them is the girl I've been dating since I was 16, the other is my oldest friend). Odds are very high that nobody but you will really remember what you did in high school a few years from now. You will be in college, if that is the path you choose, or really doing any number of things that interest you - you get to make actually large choices. But right now, you are kind of on a set track. It's not fun, but you are. You are right in thinking that ACADEMICALLY these years are purgatory - and it is also easy to view your whole life as school-based right now - that is more or less the message that you are probably receiving from every single authority figure in your life.

To the world at large, these years are utterly inconsequential. They are just the time between you being a kid and you being a working, capable adult. But they mean the world to you, now and for your future.

And you know what I would not have done a goddamn second more of? Studying. My little baby heart is breaking when you say you don't want to waste your time - THIS IS LITERALLY THE BEST TIME IN YOUR LIFE TO WASTE YOUR TIME.

And more importantly, this is the best time in your life to make mistakes.

Anything short of murder or pregnancy will almost definitely be forgotten by everyone but you in a year or two.

Your mind, body, and soul are basically rubber right now. Break some hearts, get yours broken - find what you want out of a relationship, or if you even want one at all (hint: they aren't actually as important as everyone makes them seem). Start a shitty band with your friends. Don't know an instrument? Learn one. You don't have to be good - you'll probably never play a show. Dream big, and do things outside of your skill level. Don't know how to make a movie? Sounds like it's time to make a shitty short film with your friends. Don't know how to code? Tell a girl/boy that you are crushing on that you do, and learn how to do it to cover your ass.

And I know I am stating most of this in terms of things you can do with other people - some of my best memories with some of my best friends are from stupid projects we spent too much time working on and never even finished - but you can do SO FUCKING MUCH on your own right now too. Get a shitty job as a dishwasher or cashier (which, by the way, is one of the few things I think you should ABSOLUTELY do if you have the time. Having a shitty minimum-wage job is an actually essential experience for growing up) to pay for whatever new hobby you have an interest in. Mine bought (cheap-ass) audio equipment and darkroom supplies; what would YOU spend $100 on if you had it? What are your passions? What are some small things you wish you knew how to do? You can learn virtually ANYTHING for free - YouTube is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Want to know how I spent every second of my free alone time in high school? On the family computer, with a RockBand (yep, the video game) usb microphone and Audacity, covering my favorite songs. I never looked up how to do anything, I never looked at a manual, I just fucked around for hours and days and years. And it was all just for me - nobody else ever even heard them. And now I'm still fucking doing it, albeit marginally better.

If you had no college to worry about, no school to worry about, nobody to tell you exactly what to do with your time, what would you be doing?

Your teenage years are not for building a resume, they are not for building a portfolio, and they are not for building a future. They are for figuring out what kind of you you like.

So the question is: how do you want to waste your time?

EDIT: My sister is roughly your age right now, and these are conversations I've had with her too. Everything you're feeling is totally natural, and probably something your peers are feeling too. You're not alone in thinking that there is a right/wrong way to be a teenager (but there isn't, so don't worry).

Oh hey, it's me

You all mean a lot to me, and I am glad I found this site <3

Hubski, things are pretty good for me right now. My ex and I are texting each other a few times a day, and just started writing each other letters. I don't think either of us wants this to become a romantic thing again (at least not too soon), so it's pretty low key. Still, I'm really happy to be hearing from her. I was terrified when she said she needed to be alone that it would mean she would drop out of my life completely. I'm really happy too that we have been extremely honest and civil this whole time.

In other news, I might be living on a boat in the fall? For reasons unknown, my dad is trading in his old boat for a new one about 3000 miles from where we live. It starts out in Oakland, where a really good friend of mine lives, so I might just become a live-aboard for a month or two while I sail up the west coast. A bunch of friends (including my ex) are moving to Seattle around the same time, so currently the plan is to go Oakland - Seattle and back, with lots of time in between to see if there is somewhere I want to live/work on the coast.

I have exactly a month until my graduation, which is surprisingly not freaking me out. I still have a pretty sizable chunk of work to do, but honestly, after the craziness of last week, a few papers feel like nothing.

I've biked 50 miles since my breakup, and I feel a lot more comfortable in my own body than I have in a while. I'm trying to not become complacent just because I feel less anxious, I don't want the progress I made last week to just disappear.

EDIT: Thanks again to everyone who helped me out last week, it helped a whole lot, I mean it.

So, my bike got stolen. This wouldn't normally be a big problem, but literally every bike that I've ever owned has been stolen, regardless of what security measures I take to prevent it. This bike theft particularly hurt, simply because I had just spent a lot of time and energy fixing up this bike and installing/tweaking a bunch of brand new parts. It isn't even worth much, maybe $100 if you found the right buyer, and it was the only bike taken from my rack.

On the upside, I've decided to start running as a form of exercise, and that isn't sucking as much as I had anticipated.