Eric's House Of Ego

Actually pretty good. The last couple of months I have had back problems which are almost entirely resolved. I had to sleep semi-sitting up on the recliner for a month or so. Laying down caused a lot of pain.

I am slowly coming back to playing guitar. My hands are doing very well. I don't have my speed up, nor my calluses where I want them yet, but I'm getting there.

My lungs are good, I mean really good. I am not as worried this winter about them. Doesn't mean that I am taking too many chances, but less stress is good.

And of course there is the whole thing with us asking for some help, and our friends taking that as a dare. The response helped us immensely and gave us a piece of mind that we have not had in a couple of years. I can never be able to properly express my thanks.

The Shifting City project keeps, well, shifting. I am still looking for the point of view for the lyrics. I am on story line #4 now. Three of them are connected and the direction I am going seems promising. I have all this music, I need words.

FilkCast is done for the year. We put together a month of just music shows and they are already uploaded and scheduled so we have 5 weeks off. Our intention is to get a lot more done with our music in that time.

My weight is a problem, I am the heaviest I have ever been. I still can't get around well, but now that the holidays are over a lot of the temptation is gone. Back to no soda, no chocolate, no fast food, a lot less sugar and simpler snacky things.

Having the trike at the end of the summer helped a lot, but I need something with a more powerful engine. I can still only do so much of the pedaling myself, and not having pedal assist means that even the slightest inclines become difficult if not impossible. We do have a place nearby where I can go several miles with no real struggle. I want spring to get here so I can get back to that.

The new car is ridiculous. We're slowly digging into what that screen does. It came with a few months of Sirius radio, so Lizzie has been listening to nothing but Christmas music since we got it. We were listening to the pop Xmas channel and became the musical MST3K. We've spent several evenings wandering around town looking at Christmas lights. It's our favorite thing to do this time of year.

It gets amazing gas mileage, we can't wait to take it on the road to see what it gets there. Once again, we would not have had the means to be able to do this if it wasn't for the help from our friends.

Our passports expired in 2019, not too long after we got back from England. We sent off the renewals yesterday. That means that FKO is a definite possibility. We need to see our friends.

We're still not dealing with people well. 14 months of isolation did both of us a lot of damage, physically and mentally. Hopefully there will be a couple of road trips and a couple more cons in 2024.

Speaking of which, who will be in Indianapolis for the eclipse? Talk has gone around about there being filk happening somewhere. There are a lot of filkers in the area, and since Lizzie's family lives there, it's where we're going to see the eclipse.

This ended up a lot longer than I thought. If you got this far, say hi, I need to hear from people. I do feel isolated sometimes. Not as badly as I did, but we really don't go much of anywhere, especially with it being so hard for me to get around. We are heading to Winter SACC in a few hours, see some local friends, play some music. We intend to drop in on the 24 Hour New Years Filk tomorrow.

This year has been hard, but it is ending well. Now to make next year better.

This is hard to talk about, so I'll ( put it behind a cut tag )

I need to start recording all my improvisations. I got out the Martin (which I retrived from nainian a week ago) and it's got me improvising again.

I've been having problems with my hands recently. I have had no problems sitting down and playing the Tak (the Tillies shows have all be sitting down), but standing usually means that my right hand seizes up on the fast songs. I figgered out the problem.

I've dropped almost 30 lbs now. My body has changed shape drastically. So my arm and wrist are at a different angle then they were. So I need to work out the new correct way to play guitar, otherwise I'm not sure what I will do.

It's an odd side effect of something very good.

But, back to what I was saying. I've been playing the electric a lot, and getting nowhere. I took out the Martin today, and all of the flailing about I have been doing started making sense. So some new ideas on music might be on their way.

Some old jeans were found ... and I pulled out a couple of shirts that I have not worn in awhile.

Usually I have to stretch out most of my t-shirts ... I haven't had to the last week. An old pair of jeans fit, they are a little snug, but they fit, and I couldn't wear them a month ago.

down close to 25 lbs now