Random

I think this might be mostly an issue with having interesting things to write about, but I think I'm going to mention listening to music at random.  It's hard to make a good playlist if you don't know your music library pretty well.  It's pretty embarrassing when you only know the songs a little bit, but you think you know them better than that.  Although, this is hard to just sit down and do.  So, you spend a lot of time playing songs at random and seeing what happens.  Sometimes I'll listen to albums all the way through, but I tend to drift off a bit more when I do.  I am a lot more involved when I'm selecting songs one at a time.  It takes careful timing to play an album all the way through.

East of Eden

I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful.  But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley.  The water came in a thirty-year cycle.  There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass.  Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain.  And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain.  The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley.  The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray.  The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs.  Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley.  The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death.  People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking.  Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away.  And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years.  It was always that way.

John Steinbeck - East of Eden (pg. 5-6)

Taking Breaks

I don't really like taking breaks from playing bass.  I'm not sure if this is a healthy thing or not, but I shouldn't be thinking about it this much.  When you take a break from something you're supposed to get rest and feel well.  I've taken long breaks before so I know I'm not actually losing any of my skill, but I can still feel something.  I'm gonna need to get over this.  I can't practice every single day.  If I don't practice a day or two before a show or a recording session, I'm still going to be able to play.  Things are not this intense.  If anything, I think that this means I should start taking longer breaks from playing my bass until insignificant things aren't going to bother me anymore.