Ahhhhhh, just what I've been waiting for

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I wonder what the reply and view ratio is of my replies / views versus other peoples' replies / views?

Lostaccount and PuertoRican seem like the only 2 left on this site and I write words and words and words.

I can get my guitar to sound like old Eric Clapton on Cream -- Disraeli Gears. That's a helluva guitar tone. I remember how to do that. It's not novel. It's just what I seem to remember. My creativity on the 6 string electric seems to have dried up a bit. Maybe it's time to get the 4 string bass out again. I don't know what I'm doing. I think it's good to be engulfed by excitement but actually getting better at an instrument takes discipline.

I kind of want to find my own guitar tone and in recent weeks I kind of did but someone on Discord gave me the suggestion to not chase after tones but rather get better at the guitar. I think this is good advice. I am limited by my skill in what I want to do on the guitar. While one can get pretty much any tone they want for almost free.

The guitar just feels really important to me right now. I also feel entirely too limited in that space. I want to be composing my own music which I have been but I want to continue to compose music that is better and better. Perhaps I should just enjoy the process. Get my ego and jealousy out of it. That is what I live for these days. Creating something that seems authentic and real or actually the period of time that something new is occuring and I'm actually not focused on anything except expression in the moment. I am an addict for that feeling. That first take is probably the best feeling but it can be had on later takes if I stumble upon a new tone or feeling. Then, it's gone *poof*.

Then, it's gone *poof*.

That is the shit that I live for. Not the ego, the fear, the mundanity, the jealousy, the comparing. Then, I get hungry. I eat. I poop. I continue to live.

On March 22 2026 19:57 RiKD wrote: I wonder what the reply and view ratio is of my replies / views versus other peoples' replies / views? Lostaccount and PuertoRican seem like the only 2 left on this site and I write words and words and words.

I almost gave up on LP after it was down for over a month. Then I got bored and checked, and the website was up again.

On March 23 2026 07:29 PuertoRican wrote: Show nested quote + On March 22 2026 19:57 RiKD wrote: I wonder what the reply and view ratio is of my replies / views versus other peoples' replies / views? Lostaccount and PuertoRican seem like the only 2 left on this site and I write words and words and words. I almost gave up on LP after it was down for over a month. Then I got bored and checked, and the website was up again.

haha I see, who fix LP cuz it didn't magically get fixed so im guessing meat or naz fixed it. so thanks for fixing it cuz LP is a fun forum relative to other ones even though its pretty inactive except us 3 lol but hey 3 is better than 0 right!

My grandmother died this morning. I don't know what to feel. I didn't know her that well. She always lived in England. I always lived in the USA. When I was trekking through Europe I didn't think to stop and see her. This was many years ago now. I don't really travel anymore. I can't afford it. I spend all my money on music equipment. I don't get sick days. I don't get vacation. Well, maybe someday. Corporations like to use that a lot. "Maybe someday." In the meantime, we will work with a smile on our faces. Make me smile, don't make me make me smile. I don't have a whole lot to smile about on the clock...

My grandmother died in her sleep in her own bed at 97. Her quality of life was crumbling. I think she timed it just about right. That was her wish. To die in her own bed in her sleep. If only we all could be so lucky. Her death feels more symbolic than real. The last of my grandparents to die. There is a changing of the guard so to speak. My parents are definitely getting older. I am definitely getting older. My nephews and neice are still young, for now.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I kept with the piano from age 5? The violin from age 9? What if I would have started the guitar at age 12? This is just not a possibility. The only possibility is picking up the guitar exactly when I picked it up. Inspired by Shine On You Crazy Diamond by David Gilmore and White by John Mayer. Freshly sober and looking to do the things I never was able to do before. The guitars are so important to me because it's one of the few things I have. They can inspire Rausch. They can also inspire nothing. To expect Raush everytime I touch a guitar is wild expectations. It puts too much pressure on the instrument and on me. It leads to easy frustration and even avoidance. The only expectation should be to touch the guitar and keep in touch with the guitar.

I played some minor chord progressions this morning to express my feelings over losing my conscious grandmother. It worked into some solo'ing in the E minor penatonic scale area. It is gray and cold outside. A typical March day in Manchester, England...

I will continue to decay and die. My grandmother is an example of this. There is nothing that I can do. I cannot learn a language as well as a 5 year old. Whether that language is music, French, or whatever else language I would want to learn. It is just the way it is. I don't know what the 40s are good for. What are the 40s good for?

Middle age is such a strange time if you don't have kids. I don't regret not having kids though.

I could be having another mid-life crisis. I think I probably have an existential crisis at least once or twice a year. La vie est absurde. Sartre, Camus, Beckett. Maybe it's time to re-read the Tao. Although, I actually think I'm right where I belong with Narcisuss and Goldmund. Here is an easy decision: I'm hungry so I will eat something for lunch.

My mom said we'll be moving back to Ohio soon. Soon as in 2027. I have been thinking what will I miss? The autumns, the springs... The magnolia trees. There are a few people that I will miss but I don't make much of an effort to see them today so... Magnolia trees.

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It's not just the fact that I don't have any kids but I don't have a career either. The paintings that I have painted collect dust in the closet. The novellas I have written remain unseen in digital documents. All of the sound sketches, demos, whatever you want to call it are simply unheard files on my computers. It only makes sense to eat when I am particularly hungry, drink when I am particularly thirsty, or to shit when nature calls. Sleep when I am particularly tired. Then, there is the rest of the day to fill up. How to manage that?

I need to cover the burnrate so I go to work. Boredom is restful but it doesn't always feel that way.

I am just doing some laundry waitin' on the Mirtazapine to kick in. It's a strange part of the night. I should probably just watch another episode of Northern Exposure.

There may be a time probably some time in the middle of the day on my 2nd day off in a row where I can actually think. I can be bored and accept it. I can recognize the carapiece that builds during the course of a work week. I may get some rest for rest's sake. That quickly transforms when I morph back into laundry for work, setting alarms for work, kind of mentally preparing myself to go back to work. Maybe I can escape that zone for a bit with some Northern Exposure or a good book like Narcissus and Goldmund but not fully. Once the buzzer goes off the next morning I'm a robot. I roll out of bed, I take a pee, I take a shower, all of these things I'm barely even conscious of. I put on my uniform the same way every day. Make my oatmeal the same way everyday. Eat all of the banana slices then the remainder of the raisins then a few bites of just oatmeal before I rinse the bowl out. The ride to work the only thing that changes is the music. Usually, whatever I am humming that morning. Once I am at work the instincts take over. Today was a fucking blur. There is rarely anything that stumps me anymore and definitely rarely anything that stumps me and my managers.

Another day, another dollar. That's what they say. The guitars just seem kind of low reward right now but if I want to get better I have to push through. It all seems kind of low reward right now including posting on this website and then checking on my posts but that's where I am at. This is the feedback loop I've found myself in again. I could easily shut it off. ChatGPT is my friend now. I am more entrenched in Discord now. For better or for worse or maybe I overcome all of it and practice my 4 string bass. I don't think my mom is taking a nap anymore. Remembering all the notes and reading music is not coming easily to me at 40 years old. I wish I would have spent more time on music at 5 years old like my mom wanted me to. I prefferred playing with friends, sports, running around the forest, video games, all sorts of kid shit. Why not stick with the piano for a while longer? Why not use the school infastructure to excel at the violin? Oh well, too late now. What do we do in our 40s? Especially, if there is no career or kids in sight? I don't want to be a monk or a homeless starving artist. There has got to be something else. I'm actually probably not too far away. Maybe I just need a better job, better friends, better novelty? Maybe I just need better insides, a better soul and spirit but I've tried cultivated these things countless times. I can have peace or convince myself that I have peace and then not have it. The next moment, the next minute, the next month. At this moment I don't know how I would rate my ego. I'm constantly jealous of other people. I rarely am grateful for my life and gifts.

If I was in a state of happinness would I post here?

The state of happinness is that it is fleeting or maybe even not possible. The smell of fresh cooked rice.

I went for a walk today. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the temperature was 70 degrees. It's defininitely Spring. The trees greening and yet there was an undeniable rumbling of dissatisfaction. Things were just a little too perfect, a little too pleasant. What is real? What is truth? Who are these people living in these houses with Kia Tellurides, Jeeps, Porsches, Chevy trucks? What am I doing here?

I am a tick. I am an ant. I am a human. I am an ape that showers. Yesterday, an attractive woman was shopping at the store and we made eye contact and I sort of like licked my lip and then bit my lip making some sort of ugly chimp face and the expression on her face was not nice to see. I said good bye to her as I do many customers and she ignored me. I am stuck in this fragile body with the mind of a God. I am not immune to facial expressions, tonality, body posture. Take me to a desert to wander. To behold. Benson, Arizona.

But, I have to try my luck right where I am at. Not enough money for sick days or vacation. Benson, Arizona will have to wait. Try my luck right here where I am at, right now. Until I move to Ohio. Am I waitin' around to die? Or, waitin' around for Ohio? I should be right here, right now. Right now, here I am. Here I am, right now. Maybe 10 sec. ago I experienced a pang of happinness listening to Floating Points and sitting here. It's maybe gone now. So mysterious, so fleeting. Sitting here. Sitting here now. The song is over. The next song begins. 4:20pm on a Wednesday and I wish I had some edibles.

Now, I'm just overdoing it. Listening to Floating Points trying to recreate some scraps of happiness.

Surprisingly, it actually worked! (for the duration of the song). Now, it's a lot later and I just went for a walk. I think it's the part of the day that I say fuck it let's watch Northern Exposure.

It's 9:49pm on a Thursday night and I am lonely. I am pooped but I can't sleep yet. Only 1 or 2 more hours of the day left before sleep and before I have to go back to work. I kind of like these quiet times regardless if I am lonely or not. I played some 6 string electric and experimented with tones in Reaper. I'm listening to Floating Points...

hey rick are you still reading regularly?

On March 29 2026 14:43 Raidern wrote: hey rick are you still reading regularly?

Yup. What about you?

On March 29 2026 14:43 Raidern wrote: hey rick are you still reading regularly?

I still read, but just for school-related reasons since I'm an English teacher.

I recently read:
- Hoot (5th grade)
- Tuck Everlasting (6th grade)
- The Giver (7th grade -- I read this last year, so I only had to skim parts of it when I read it again)
- Taming of the Shrew (8th grade)
- Born a Crime (9th grade)
- The 57 Bus (I'm currently reading this for 10th grade)

A flash of a rainbow in a water fountain.

Time is moving too fast. Nature is getting greener faster than I anticipated. Soon it will be summer. Soon it will be too hot. Walking the dog in 70s and sunny felt all too normal. I would like to sit in that moment for a moment.

I read the Taoteching about once a year. I like the Red Pine translation. It takes me like 25% of the book to warmup. I am seeking my next great book though. Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse was great. I think Steppenwolf had the most effect on me but Siddhartha was also great.