Not many people had anything they wanted to ask me, alas, but I promised answers to those who did, so here they are. Feel free to go back and ask more if you want.
Would you please comment more frequently? It feels like we rarely interact any more.
Yeah, um…*blush* I’ve been really bad about this recently, and I’m working to get better at it. Mostly, I just went through a period where I was really withdrawn, and wrapped up in my own stuff and not really paying enough attention to everything else in my life. I regret that, but I can’t undo it, so all I can do is work to re-establish good habits.
It’s not personal. I sometimes get behind and just don’t catch up, and sometimes I see something I mean to reply to, mark it for later, and then space on it. I’ve even done this with far more important correspondence, to the point that I had someone ask me why I wasn’t answering any of their email, and I blinked in surprise and said “I haven’t?”, then went back and found four consecutive messages I’d failed to actually acknowledge.
Long story short: I’ll try. You remain dear to me.
How did you start making music?
Any day now, I hope to find out… *grin*
I’ve always been interested in music, though I never had any musical training in my younger years. If you left me near a piano, though, I’d sit down and play with the keys, trying to work out the puzzle behind them. I never did learn to play it, although I got pretty good at making a sort of tuneless avant-garde jazz that amused myself, though it likely drove anyone else within earshot insane.
When I was 16, I took money from my first real job over the summer and bought an electric guitar. It was a Rickenbacker 230 Hamburg (six-string solidbody electric), and I got it for a criminal price from a guy who needed the money quickly to buy a keyboard for a gig his band had coming up and was selling his least-used guitar for a fraction of its value. But I never really learned to play it, and didn’t have anyone to teach me. So when I was moving to Georgia, I sold it to help finance the move, and regretted it ever since. I kept telling myself that I’d get around to buying another guitar and actually learn to play it, but I kept putting it off until 1998, when a near-death experience convinced me that the time to get around to the things you want to do is now. I went out and bought Fenris, a Fender 12 string acoustic (the one I still play), and enrolled in a class to get the basics. Since then, I’m largely self taught, though I’ve been looking about for someone to help me get past the plateau I’m on and move up to the next level. At some point, I’d like to also get another electric guitar, and indulge the part of me that always wanted to be a rock star.
Are there any sports that you like to watch?
There are some sports I enjoy a great deal. Alpine skiing and figure skating hold my interest completely during the Winter Olympics, for instance. I was at one time an avid baseball enthusiast, but in recent years I’ve not taken the time to really keep up with it, and since I never watch live TV anymore, the chances I’ll stumble across a game and stop to watch it are remote.
Having said all that, if someone I’m with is really into a sport, I will almost always enjoy watching it WITH them, even if it’s not something I’d necessarily watch on my own. I have very fond memories of watching World Cup soccer with elgecko, or cricket with fleetfootmike. There’s something wonderfully communal about sport, and, when you think about it, that’s really the whole point of being a fan of something; being part of a larger community of people who share that enthusiasm. I might find myself more into a sport if there was someone nearby in my life who was also enthusiastic.
(I recently did attend a baseball game; I got tickets from my employer in a drawing, and took kitanzi. It was a great deal of fun, though I probably enjoyed it rather a bit more than she did.)
If anyone still wants to ask something, the link is at the top. (Or you can comment here, but I’m not screening replies on this entry. *grin*)