jtthomas | Entries tagged with family

that I can attend Boskone next year provided my roommate comes with me. This is funny. I'll be 21. I can drink by then. I can get a hotel room without needing anyone else by then. But I don't get to take public transportation with her knowledge unless I have a chaperone.

Whaaaat.

If I've never mentioned it, my parents' house is kind of huge. (Not my house anymore. Nopes.)

My mom grew up here, then bought it from her dad for cheap. The main part's about a hundred years old, and there are at least two separate extensions, a huge basement, and both a second floor and an attic. The attic's basically empty, but the basement has all of my baby clothes and about three thousand vinyl records (at least half of which were destroyed in a flood when I was little, sadly).

The upstairs, however, is a mystery most of the time. It's where my dad's stuff goes when he doesn't want it. That means, of course, anything technological. He's kind of hopeless.

According to my mom, somewhere upstairs, there is a bunch of recording stuff. As in, she bought him enough stuff for his own recording studio and he never touched it after opening it for Christmas when I was a tiny child. So now, she's offered it to me if either one of us can find it upstairs.

I spent probably about an hour upstairs today trying and failing to find any of it to see if it's even compatible with modern technology (we still have a Windows 95 computer upstairs, too, so if it's not then it's staying here for someone else). But it's impossible to find to see if it's even worthwhile to claim as my own.

Things I did find:
--my mom's sign language textbooks
-~~-my late aunt's~~ mandolin, in desperate need of repair but maybe I can play it then?!?!?! I may save up some money for those purposes (update: my dad thought it over, he thinks it's his godfather's originally, most likely from the 1930s, and he's fine with it being mine since otherwise it would sit around. Also, the upstairs of this house has no heat, so me having it means it's not in the cold all winter every year which is probably better)
--extra guitar strings
--at least two guitars my dad would never admit exist, one of which is a 3/4 classical with not a single sign of who made it but at some point it was fitted with a strap button which has since fallen out given the hole and the fact that it had a strap tied onto the headstock with a literal piece of nylon string
--an Appalachian dulcimer which my dad has now declared I can have, because it came from Little Bear's original owner. Needs new strings, is otherwise perfect. Is also adorable, has its own case, and is definitely mine
--a whole lot more books than I thought I had
--a bag of cords I need to go through tomorrow in case there's one of the ones I need for my drawing tablet (the cord is nearly broken)

Overall, pretty successful in unexpected ways.

Current Mood: tired

Started a practice livestream. Yep. Link here.

Edit: Done, super long, stories intermingled with music on three instruments. Meet my dog toward the beginning; migraine she warned me on is just starting to hit now. Ends with me demonstrating the fact that humans can, in fact, purr both inward and outward -- was that

technoshaman I saw wondering about that one time? Not sure if the audio actually worked on that section (maybe?). Lots of me just fooling around on various instruments, especially my fife. Also, this thing's unlisted because family talk, but nothing much.

Not a bad thing for once, however odd that feels to me: my mom tried black beans for the first time in her life this week, and she greatly enjoys them.

Current Mood: surprised

Christmas is just about done here. My family being Catholic and holding mostly Quebec customs, the new year tends to be the end of most of the festivities. (And Sherlock Holmes's birthday ends the rest.) So now I can get away with curling up in my room and trying not to scream.

At least I'm home alone starting tomorrow -- everyone in the family was on vacation and thus in the house all week, so I couldn't even listen to my own music except with headphones on. All I could listen to was country Christmas from Christmas Eve until today. But I could play instruments around other people, provided I was careful not to sing any of the songs that have a single iota of non-Christian energy in them. Let's just say I got quite a bit of instrumental practice. And I got a bodhran from my parents, so that's an upside. My mom tends to go all-out for Christmas, so I have new violin strings and a fife as well. I got Amazon and Barnes and Noble money from the siblings, all of which has now been spent on quite the variety of things (American Gods, blank sheet music notebook, Rise Up Singing, and the NESFA hymnal off BN and their Marketplace, gig bag and guitar stand off Amazon).

Just about ready to scream at the misgendering, of course. My aunt gave me $50 for my birthday and I still haven't touched it, so I'm starting to think I might just buy a binder with some of that. My parents wouldn't take it away or destroy it purposefully, so at least there's that, but still. It was on my Christmas list, right below the bodhran in priorities and significantly higher than the fife or strings. I have almost $30 on my Paypal and I'm considering just using that instead. If I just transferred the $50 there, of course, I could get an extra binder off GC2B. Now that's tempting, provided I can figure out how to use Paypal in the first place.

Already looking forward to the prospect of not being here starting in a couple of weeks, of course. Doesn't look like I'll be able to get to Boskone since it costs so much to get into Boston via the commuter rail, but at least I know it's happening and I can start saving up for future years. And I'll probably spend the weekend writing a bunch of stuff anyway.

(On an unrelated note, is it normal for parents to refuse to allow an adult child to have a lock on their bedroom door? Because it's only just occurred to me how weird it might be that I'm not allowed to have a lock on my bedroom door. They have a lock on theirs.)

Current Mood: managing
Current Location: bedroom with door shut
Current Music: silence while I wait for people to leave the house

That moment when my father steals my guitar for a minute and starts playing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"...

...then says "if the fate allows" to remove the only semblance of a reference to anything not purely Christian.

Have I mentioned how Catholic he is? I feel like I need to point out just how Catholic he is. He's so Catholic it's not even funny. I also feel like I should mention *this is why I wear headphones to listen to any and all music when he's home*.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Location: in bed, door shut so he doesn't know what I'm doing

with a knot in my stomach because it's not the first time I've had these thoughts.

Cut for family issues, slight but not urgent mental health stuff, and general confusion.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: confused

...none of which are particularly nice discoveries:

--Fifty years ago, classical guitars had a different tuning machine installation than modern ones do. It took me three hours of research to find the one existing and purchaseable tuning machine which fits Little Bear, who my dad and I have been repairing.
--Fifty years ago, classical guitar strings were made with a smaller diameter than modern classical guitar strings. Little Bear's fourth string keeps breaking after only a few days of play as a result. Only one set of strings, D'Addario Classics Rectified, Moderate Tension, have the .028 diameter Little Bear needs (because we sure aren't replacing the bridge after all this work). But naturally, Amazon doesn't want to say if those'll get here before I head back up to college Labor Day weekend. (The not desperately needed three dollar violin rosin I ordered at the same time, however, will be here Friday. Because naturally.)
--Little Bear's probably going to need to be tuned down to second fret for a few months at least, and more likely forever. I might be able to push it if the new strings work, but even that's a risk.
--Apparently, Little Bear has a d-neck in a very 60s style ... and is the only classical guitar in the family as such. Thus, there are no other guitars that don't give me tendon problems that I can play while waiting for the new strings.

On the upside, I have now learned the use of a thumb pick and the new tuning machine actually works, when the strings are good. And there's a week and a half for Amazon to figure out what they're doing.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Threes, Take Two (practicing when the fourth string snapped yet again)

Prompted by the fact that Little Bear is undergoing repairs (tuning machine is corroded and the size is odd so we're ordering it), so he went upstairs and took another classical guitar down. (And then proceeded to tell me there was another classical guitar upstairs which was really only suitable for parts. I thought Little Bear was the only classical in the house until yesterday.)

1. his favorite twelve-string, Betsy. A father's day gift when I was about three years old.
2. his favorite six-string, Ross. Yes, the patriotic names are a thing. Older than me, so I'm not sure where it came from. Currently on loan to Nephew J.
3. his Taylor, a big baby which was a Christmas gift about five years ago. Nickname is Eagle.
4. his Martin, a more recent gift, though I'm unsure of the occasion.
5. Technically my sister's guitar, but he plays it more often than she does, so an Alvarez which sits on the rack next to Little Bear.
6. A Checkmate classical guitar, unknown origin but believed to have been given to him in a pillowcase. It was either this one or the classical-for-parts.
7. A Takamine twelve-string, currently under repair after at least a decade of neglect from my uncles. It currently has only six strings on it, and all thoughts of changing strings are waiting until it can be trusted not to break.
8. Ellie, who is not my dad's guitar. She's his best friend's guitar, but seeing as we live in Massachusetts and said friend only comes up from Florida during the summer and does not have space in his car for a guitar, Ellie is effectively a member of the household.
9. My first guitar, a baby steel string which broke in half when I was approximately thirteen years old. Suitable only for parts.
10. Whichever aforementioned parts classical my dad was talking about.
11. At least one of my late aunt's guitars, which my dad refuses to talk about but my mom has repeatedly pointed out are sitting upstairs, gathering dust. I believe there are two or three of these, but I'm unsure.
12. Little Bear, who is now mine.

I know I'm missing at least one guitar, which is the worst part. (ETA: a travel-size classical. Still missing one and I know it.)

This isn't touching on all the guitars my uncles bring over. One of my mom's brothers and two of my dad's play, so at any given meet-up there can be an additional four or five guitars sitting around. Adding in my brother, my cousin, my dad's other best friend, and the woman whose guitar Little Bear originally was, I'd say we have a choice of twenty guitars for ten people when we have one of our larger bonfires.

That's weird.