The Red Accordion Diaries

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Last week I gave Graham the atlas, told him to spend some time browsing it and make a list of countries he was interested in. He came back with this typed doc: Since we are all missing travel, we have decided to embark on a world tour, learning and cooking along the way, basically worldschooling from our own home. I don't love strict structure, so I'm keeping things loose and letting the ideas and interests inform our schedules. Graham begged to begin our "World Tour" this week, so Australia is on our minds.
Today went like this:
8:00-9:00    Art craft: we made passports from construction paper and printer paper. Graham designed a logo in my iPad, and we printed four of them for our passports. We also took terrible photos of each family member (no smiling, no hats, two ears) and printed them out. I designed an info page and some blank "stamps" and then the boys glued everything together, made up nine-digit passport numbers, and stuffed them int…

I'm worried. That's nothing new; I'm always worried. I'm also angry and bitter and angry for others and annoyed by others. It feels like so many artists have struggled for so long, and in the slightly-more-egalitarian arts-world that was brought to us by the internet, there was room for non-wealthy people to have some level of success or at least have a small platform or middle class artist life.

Coronavirus is knocking those climbers right back down to where we started, which is to say that now, only the independently wealthy can afford to be artists. That means we are going to hear art and stories from mainly white men with patrons. Lesser known artists -- and those of us who are primary caregivers for small children -- are falling to the wayside.

There is some hope out there that some of those white men with platforms will help amplify the voices of others rather than rolling in the spotlight themselves, but it's a crapshoot. I see more artists than ever actual…

Greetings from bed! I sat in the backyard for half an hour and chatted with a friend yesterday, and apparently that was too much for my little weak body. It sent me straight back to bed and now I'm forcing bedrest so my shoulder and arm muscles will heal on up.

Prior to surgery, I hyper-focused and recorded a TON of content. not knowing when i'd be able to play an instrument again. I still don't know when I'll have access to my right hand, but I do know I've got a lot of fun content to share.

My current problem is that I WANT TO SHARE EVERYTHING! It's like when you buy a gift for some reason, but there's no possible way to wait until Christmas or birthday to give it to them so you must bequeath it to them as a "Second Tuesday" gift or whatever. I want to just video dump SO MUCH CONTENT to my Patreon page.

Alas, I need to chillax. To save up and to post a regular intervals, so as to hide my manic depression a little better :)

In the mean time, here…

Hello from one-handed typing and 4 am! I'm almost 24 hours post surgery.  (Here are my surgery details, if you missed that post.) Spent yesterday on twitter and pain meds, probably not a great combination. I'm up early because my shoulder hurts and i need to ice it and also I need to browse rural land in Scotland because that is a totally reasonable thing to do and think of the novels i could write there and the music videos i could shoot there. Or who wants to buy this castle with me?

Today I'm thinking about how it is far too easy to buy random stuff.

If you're reading this, please join Patreon! Any level is magical ($1! Or $5 to buy me a cuppa coffee!), but I do offer music lessons at the higher tiers, for y'all who've been on my waitlist for a while.
Between credit cards and internets, combined with pain pills ... what pain presents (or even just pandemic presents) have you purchased???


My dad bought a 75" television 9 days before he died. He was going bli…

Hello! If you're a patron, then you can read some personal news here  https://www.patreon.com/posts/blog-some-38347878 and thank you so much for directly supporting me.

I've blogged for 15 years for free, and I'll still make most of my blogs public. But not this one. In an attempt to thank y'all who've joined my Patreon and to make it worth your hard-earned-dollar, I'm putting some exclusive blogs over there. Love y'all.

Also, just join my Patreon if you wanna know what's up with me. (No, I'm not pregnant, though that would be a really good marketing ploy to get you to join my Patreon. But, come on, if you've been thinking Oh I should do that, then maybe just go ahead now pretty please. You can make up a fake name if you don't want me to know who you are.)

My neighbor, who has three perfect children, has "summer rules." I was about to text her to ask for a copy of these rules, and then I thought I'd crowdsource instead. My neuro-atypical self doesn't do well with extreme structure, and I need a lot of options before I find what works for my family. The whole happy-mom-happy-kids thing rings loudly in my head, and, while my kids' happiness is for sure my life goal, I find that if I don't have the ability to WRITE/ART/MUSIC/ALONE TIME even just a LITTLE bit, then I'm a terrible parent.

So.

I gave my kids a couple of weeks of screen time fun, just to enjoy summer.

But I'd like to employ SOME sort of structure. It can't be rigid, or I won't be able to follow it. I was a pretty bossy child, and even my mother always said told me I raised myself. Self-employment was inevitable for me, and it works well. Kids have thrown a wrench in things, and I'd like to see what other people are doing.


Do you ha…