Come Tomorrow

It has been a while since I updated my blog. Well there's a reason for that. I have not had much to say.

I didn't want anyone to think I was neglecting it, or worse, dead.

I am still here. Just living life. Waiting for a COVID19 vaccine. Working from home. Playing with my cats. Listening to music, watching movies & videos, going outside on weekends to do yard work, or better, sit around listening to podcasts and eating pretzel pieces from Snyder's. That's really it. Except yet I am still playing around with music. Also we take walks at lunchtime unless it is too windy.

So really, nothing more than that. But I am still here, I promise. I know you miss me, adoring fans fan.

 

Life Post: Everyday

 Every once in a while, I figured I would write about my daily life and how things are going. It's my blog, after all. I do have a personal journal at livejournal.com, where I type about all things "me", but every once in a while I figured I'd dump a little life-load onto this blog too.

I think I am manic again. More energy, too talkative, scatterbrained, argumentative/aggressive... annoyed easily, with a sense of urgency in all that I do. It is frustrating me. Mostly because these are the best medications I have ever been on, and yet they aren't preventing me from episodes. But I do not want to switch. I would like to stay on these. They do lessen the episode extremes,  a lot. To the point where my Pdoc in my file labeled me as Bipolar II when I have in fact been diagnosed Bipolar I because of psychosis and extreme manic episodes. But my medicine tamps it down so much that this new guy just doesn't even know.

I have been pretty productive at work which is really great. The past few days it's been in the 80's (70's today) and so we have been working outside. Our laptops are from the company, and they have immense batteries. My personal computer (that I am typing this one now) has a battery that, when unplugged, lasts about 30 minutes. Our work computers last 5 hours. !!! So we just go outside and work. It's super nice. I have a tan. I grew up in WA, where there is no sun. So I never thought I would ever get a tan, but I have just from a few hours of sun. It is so nice. I am happy it is now springtime in Arizona. Punxsatawney Phil may have seen his shadow... but the Maricopa Marmot did not.

I am listening to a really great new album. It's called "When The Sea is Cooling Down" by Eelison. It is like... chillstep. It's dark and moody but relaxed & mellow with light vocals, and the beats are chunky and bass is slammin'. It sounds good. For January it is tied in 1st place with Tengri's "Best of Chillout" album which features some amazing tribal psychill, complete with brain melting acid sounds, tablas, and bongos (from what I can tell).

Speaking of music, we need to seriously start looking at pricing mastering services. I have 16 tracks I would like mastered, so maybe a year subscription to emaster might work... but we need to see if that is the best deal, first. I keep making music, so who knows how many tracks I will have in a month.

My mate is currently working on a ranking project. She's doing the Indigo Girls and Taylor Swift songs/albums. When she posts the results I will link it here. 

Ok, I think I covered everything worth noting. That's my life.

2021 Music Project

 So if you followed my original blog at all, you know I love to do Top 10 lists for the best psychill/psybient albums of the year. I do this because I looooove psychill. It is the most beautiful and it calms me. Last year I did the Top 20, for 2020. Now this year, it will be the Top 21 for 2021. See where this is going?

I am so very, very glad I am doing 21 and not 10 this year, because I have something to admit: This is an incredibly difficult project to undertake. The reason is that there are so MANY releases that come out every month, and I wanted to listen to EVERYTHING and start my reviews or at least write up a little blurb about it for later in the year. Always before, I would wait listen to music throughout the year, and then hurry and compile the top 10 in December. This time around, I am listening to everything as it comes out, if I am able to (I might miss stuff) and writing notes on each one. 

As a result, I have 10 albums on my "maybe" list (it's either the "maybe" list, or nothing, right now) and it's only February 1st! I won't say who I've listened to and liked enough to put on that list, but 10 out of who-knows-how-many is pretty good already. 

Someone asked me recently how I discover new music. I told him that I get it primarily from psybient.org and reddit. I frequently (everyday) comb the two of them to see what's new. Also some labels I subscribe to on bandcamp.com send me e-mails with their new releases. I don't always have the capability to obtain each album - but those ones that I don't, I definitely stream - either from Bandcamp, Youtube, or Spotify. 

I am a music junkie. I love my job because it  enables me to listen to music non-stop if I want to. I love discovering new artists and albums - new to me, I mean. The other day, I discovered an artist called Panda On The Bamboo Tree. I thought what a cool artist name! I listened to their album from 2018 and really liked it. Then I went on reddit and discovered that Panda On The Bamboo Tree came out with a new album JUST THIS WEEK. I have yet to listen, I will tomorrow I am confident. 

And I will leave you with a screenshot of my favorite artist, Astronaut Ape, thanking me for the review his album "Ten Minutes Eternity" (my #1 fav album ever) received from 2013.