Flutterby™! : 55

Copied over from Facebook, rather than changing the framing:

It's my annual "get a place for people to comment so my timeline remains usable tomorrow" post... So, yeah, June 26th this year is my 55th journey around this particular star. I've kinda gotten over celebrating a particular day, rather than making them all special, but it's a good reminder to take stock and retarget as necessary.

This time around I'm pushing some of my personal boundaries by trying to be even more outspoken about improving the city around me, whether that's working with neighbors on traffic safety or helping organize larger forums to try to help Petaluma navigate its next decades (I'm typing this in between emails about a forum to explore a proposed downtown zoning overlay).

Voice lessons have become their own thing. When I started them it was to support the square dance calling, now I feel like beyond the aesthetics of my voice, I'm getting a lot of value out of working on diving into my feelings around the lyrics, and learning how to express them in ways that people around me interpret in the same way that I mean it. I have long known that... the best metaphor I've found is that I express emotions with an accent; I don't process emotional content from others in ways that they expect, and they don't get from me what I'm feeling, and singing is getting me deep into finding ways to consciously explore that channel.

I'm gradually easing back into square dancing and calling. Need to get back to someone in the east bay about what a Saturday mid-day calling gig might look like, and the pressure is building to restart something here in Petaluma. But for now I'm filling in for area callers, and seem to be getting good feedback for what I'm doing, so it's a good chance to get up and hide behind the mic.

Haven't been on the bike in a while, and haven't been running much, most of my exercise has been walking. I could use more of that, but it's a matter of what I can squeeze in when.

Work is fun, I see a lot of value in the product I'm working on. I'm weighing the general product direction vs what I use, and struggling with that a bit, but mostly I really like what, with whom, and when I'm working on. I look forward to the week, and it's hard to complain about that.

And when I'm not engaged in one of those things, I'm, yeah, in the workshop making sawdust. Having the back yard feel pretty close to finished is amazing. The house projects are here, along with all sorts of fun diversions, and I'm looking forward to learning more about luthier work as a friend using the shop gets further along in his guitar building project, and on whatever else pops up along the way that could be fun to do.

Currently listening to Tom Waits — Ol' 55