two topics, and two half topics:

1. napnea

2. da studio es da bomb!!

taking the second first...I guess the real point of the studio stuff is that I am feeling well enough and strong enough to set it up (sometimes with help), and able to work in it and run it.

weak. on oxygen. still no bargain.

but able to fill in some holes, get some folks what they want.

that is such a dream for me. another Walk in Heaven. yesterday with Don and Mary...until something turns out not to have worked...I was able to fix a couple of things up to give them some options, and put my tracks for them on a hard drive for Jim's studio.

not like climbing a fourteener, I daresay. but a dream for me.

the day before with Lost Alamos was pretty full on. I want to put at least guide vocals on their material, so that even if someone else records the parts for real later, they'll know how the parts were meant to work. plus, there's one song that is finished except for vocals...if we can get those done, my beautiful and expert friend James Tuttle has agreed to mix it, and it could be available for download on the Lost Alamos site...also available as some tangible return on the project I was hired to produce almost three years ago, which became the project of producing us, the band, instead.

I've been saying that what I trade, through these medical days, is one kind of I-don't-know for another. when I went into the hospital, I didn't know. I just didn't. now...I don't know. I just don't.

but I'll take this I-don't-know over that one, all day every day.

I haven't, the Reader may expect, been singing.

if I didn't sing for that many weeks when I was healthy...it took awhile to get my voice to do anything. anything.

putting down guide vocals...my voice started to smooth out a little. it may smooth out more as I reach, if I can continue to.

but the air stuff...I don't know. I just don't. take the oxygen out, do a couple of takes, put it back in. use the studio to the fullest to piece parts.

I joke that I have four O2 tanks in my living room to get more air into my recordings.

but...I sang on the new mic.

I say it's da bomb!

Mary Huckins, bless every cute and talented hair on her head, took pictures of it.

and when I was doing the guide vocals, I tried to get them so that if at some point it became more valuable to have actual Scott vocals on the project than actual good vocals, there would be no oxygen noise, etc. to keep that from happening.

we'll all find out together, shan't we, what is down that road, and how long it winds.

I've held a guitar.

times when I had not played for weeks, even before all of this, it was always a looooong way back.

but outside maybe of general strength issues, it's not like there's a direct major physical impediment stopping me from practicing guitar, maybe kind of getting it back a little.

I'm not promising anyone that I will never play again.

I promise that I'll find the good three notes, and play them first, if I do start to play again.

I realize that, maybe especially for the now ironically named Unassisted Living (Ken Morris, Peggy Dennis, me), that my vocal parts are even more necessary to having a band presentation than any and all instrumental tracks I might have done.

guys, I don't know.

but I'll find out on a great mic.

***********************insert tertiary topic here...the BNB

yes. I have had over a week, maybe two without a Big New Problem. (for a bit, they seemed to be coming two a day)

but today is a day of a BNB

Big New Blessing.

non-medical variety.

and I'm always non-specific about unfathomably wonderful gifts...how big, who gave them...it tends to be embarrassing to folks.

but the efforts in concert of a number of angel people have enabled me to end up with a cable for my studio (and every other music I ever play) that mere mortals could never ever aspire to having. I'm telling you. no one alive would not experience sticker shock at it, and no one alive would believe how generous people , including one I haven't even met, were to make it happen.

Dear Supportive, Enabling Reader, I feel I should tell you those things as well, so as to make the things that inspire me and make me smile do the same for you.

better sound.

may my days here allow for time time time to enjoy it. every pull to not only life but what I make of my life counts towards inspiration and wellness. towards healing and being careful, but not playing small; looking to the future seems like the genius response to what I am going through.

this will help me listen towards the future.

and

maybe

it will allow me to keep 78% of the studio permanently set up in the living room. so each track is easier to approach. without asking folks to change cables and lug stuff.

******end of topic #2 1/2

the joke is, ok, number one, we need to get organized, and B.,

napnea.

that's what my sleep has become. I'll sleep for an hour and a half, be awake 45 minutes, sleep for an hour and a half. if I do it four times a night, I consider I have had a night's sleep.

but it ain't what I want.

maybe I need to look at the naprosyn I'm taking. I don't want naps...I want giant droughts of healing, in sleep. if I am on dilaudid, a morphine, then why is Morpheus no more accommodating?

today's BND...Big New Drug...may solve that.

started the etopaside today.

that's the famous "palliative chemo" drug Dr. Gore prescribed. I've held off taking it, though I've had it since Friday...I wanted a few more days of feeling my best, while company and sessions were coming through.

............see if you can see this coming...I don't know how it will affect me.

so I have nothing scheduled for awhile, for the greatest response- ability.

but, guys...it's a move. on the chessboard. maybe not the chessboard of beating the cancer. but the chessboard of more days like today.

something that could help.

and if it induces a little fatigue...makes me sleep though the night...I could be ready for that.

last 50% topic...

Longsuffering Longterm blog Readers...have you ever seen me use an emoticon?

I'm guessing not.

and it goes with this idea I have about masculinity, which as anyone who knows me knows is really the most important quality I try to cultivate:

I am not cute.

I used to read the Man from U.N.C.L.E books. only to fill the time between when the show was actually airing. I remember the villain of one was named "Tixe Ylno", because his name spelled Exit Only for the western world.

this guy wrote this book in a bar someplace.

anyway, a foxy female spy said to Illya Kuryakin, "say, you're cute!"

he replied, "Madam, I am not cute. A batch of mongrel puppies is cute."

I thought it was a good distinction.

so, leave the emoticons to the mavens of cuteness in this world, say I. but I did kind of decide to strike back when I received some sideways (literally) email from a very cute source, and did this:

l l l l l l l l ( l l l l l l l .................I said, ATTENTION, soldier!

maybe a couple more:

}{ (United Artists, like on the Hard Day's Night album cover!!)

as the British loan officer said, #4# >*

(pound for pound, this is greater than I'm asked to risk)

Scott

p. s. United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. I knew someday, lives would depend on my knowing that answer. like "Klaatu barada nicto" which is what you say in The Day the Earth Stood Still if you need to stop the robot from destroying the earth. thought it might come in handy.

now...without Googling....Mr. Waverly and his boys fought the world conquest dreams of THRUSH.

anyone know what that stood for? I'll write the answer in a subsequent entry if there is popular demand...ok, any demand whatsoever.