All posts by Mush

About Mush

I want to be a veterinarian because I love children.

News in brief.

Blurbs

In which I have a metric fuckton of time, but still feel like I’m too busy to blog.

I survived the Morgan family reunion last weekend, which was, in essence, five days of drinking like a fish bookended with two six-hour trips on Greyhound buses with my brother.

Apropos of nothing: THIS IS AN AMAZING GODDAMNED BOOK. You can get it for free here.

I’m doing part-time QA work again, which is good because it looks like I only have two weeks of unemployment benefits left. I went to a mandatory three-hour meeting at WorkSource this afternoon. They showed us how to fill out forms and made us watch PowerPoints on Washington state’s unemployment rate. Totally uplifting. Not.

I’m probably going to have to get a food handler’s card because I’ve started applying at grocery stores and coffee shops. That year I spent taking CCNA prep classes has resulted in a grand total of zero cool jobs to apply for, so maybe I’ll just go the two-part-time-jobs route. (Luckily my gig schedules are usually solid pretty far in advance, so I’ll just be that old crafty bitch who asks for weekends off three months before the kids remember to.)

I’ll be performing at Ritzville this weekend. Yay! So excited!

I know it’s finally summer and therefore really quite hot out, but I’m making chili for dinner anyway.

Not a whole lot, that's what.

Admissions

In which I have nothing to do.

School’s out. I’m still unemployed. Aside from having to apply to three positions per week and recording them on my official Job Search Log – well, that and the occasional gig – I have literally nothing to do.

Is it cool? Yes. Is it weird? Also yes. I feel like I’m getting away with something that’ll cost me later, know what I mean?

I got a fucking C in one of my classes. Final grade. No, I am not shitting you. I’m not stupid; those CCNA test questions are written with malice.

In other news, my ex sent me a text today to let me know that “signed papers” will be arriving at end of the week in the mail. Which means I need to find a lawyer to read them for me, which sucks because I’m poor, but at least it looks like I’ll finally get my name back after an entire decade of having to explain that “Mook rhymes with book” all the goddamned time.

What America's reading.

Soapbox

In which everyone wants to be thin and rich and have great sex. They also want to be more right than everyone else about what God wants.

The top 25 most-highlighted books on the Kindle are about vanity and fucking, the love of money, self-help, and God.

The Bible appears five times.

The other “religious” books are tortured odes to human ego’s self-worship, and are written by the unenlightened. Because when the blind lead the blind, it always works out so well!

There are six novels.

Considering how many Kindles are in use and the type of people who use them, this list is terrifying to me.

The Voice.

Music, Soapbox

In which I do something I don’t think I’ve ever done here: give a vocal lesson!

I have a friend who kicks ass when she shows up at karaoke. She’s been in bands. She’s a singer. She comes to my gigs sometimes.

She posted this article on Facebook today, and I read it, and damn if it doesn’t need a rebuttal. And I’m just the woman to do it! (If you’re too lazy to read the link, it’s basically a bunch of bullshit about how your diet has a profound effect on your voice box, and how you should “eat light proteins” and “avoid dairy” before gigs.)

Over the years I’ve tried it all, and I’m here to tell you that it’s all bullshit. Your voice is no more sensitive to environmental factors than your ankles are. Yes, if you sprain your ankle you’ll need to rest it until it’s healed, but other than that you probably never really think about how your diet or the weather are affecting your gait. No one ever goes around saying dumb shit like, “I can’t have dairy an hour before I walk, because it messes up my ankles.”

Continue reading The Voice. →

Finals week.

Back To School

In which it’s finals week.

I shall {seriously endeavor to} be (mostly) AFK until Thursday night after I’m done with school.

Why? Because it’s finals week, and I’m totally not ready. I have HOURS of LabSim left to slog through, a chapter test and a practice test and and moar practice tests and a final for CCNA 4, and two chapters plus a final exam for SuSE Linux Admin!

All in four days! Gah!

Procrastination, thy name is Mush.

Om Sri GuruBhyo NamaH Hari OM

Spiritual, Travel

In which I fly! To Seattle! On a plane!

Last week I went to Seattle to see my beloved Satguru, Amma, properly known as Sri Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.

While I was there I enjoyed a lovely retreat, learned a new meditation technique, suffered a vicious spring cold, had a series of trippy spiritual revelations, and ate a lot of refined carbohydrates.

My friend Toni was slated to go with me and drive us to Seattle, but for some reason I kept blowing off making our reservations for the retreat and the hotel. Two weeks before Amma’s visit, she called to say that had to have a minor surgery that week and wouldn’t be able to go. Suddenly we not only didn’t have reservations, but I didn’t have transportation either.

And then things got awesome. Continue reading Om Sri GuruBhyo NamaH Hari OM →

Just checkin' in.

Back To School, Music, Spiritual

In which I’m kinda busy!

Last weekend, I had a total blast at Sunbanks (a blues festival near Grand Coulee). Coyote Kings and I played the 2:30 slot on Saturday, and we had an encore and everything! It was freakin’ awesome! The crowd was amazing.

Coyote Kings with Mush Morgan

Then we stayed for another 24 hours and talked to musicians and drank campers’ cocktails and in general had an absolutely fun time! Here’s the photoset.

Tomorrow, I’m flying to Seattle to see Amma. I’ll be home next Tuesday. Om namah Shivaya!

Since there are only two weeks of the term left, I need to be busting ass to make up for the homework I didn’t do last week and won’t do next week. I also need to do laundry and pack. So if you’ll excuse me?

Coyote Kings FTW!

Music

In which it’s gigging season again!

Last weekend, Coyote Kings competed in the Int’l Blues Challenge (held on Clover Island, right before UnTapped kicked off) and we took first place!

2011 Int'l Blues Challenge
Coyote Kings competing at IBC, Clover Island Inn Hotel (Kennewick, WA)

This means we’re going to Snohomish in August to compete against the state’s finalists. And if we win there, we go to Memphis next winter to compete at the national level!

I’ve spent quite a few cycles lately learning the brand-new material and going to band practice and going to UnTapped to schmooze and stressing about the fact that I have no decent gigging clothes because they’re either old or they don’t fit anymore.

Next weekend we’re playing Sunbanks, and I seriously have no idea what to wear. Argh!

Oh, and our new album, Move, will be out in late June!

Blogging! to avoid! doing my homework!

Life

In which I’m just trying to look busy here, guys! *type typity type*

School
Since last term culminated in an exhausting two-week freak-out because I hadn’t gotten my courses finished in time for finals, this term I’ve made myself a schedule.

I’m already behind my clever schedule, and it’s only week 4. Um.

I like my Linux class, my CCNA class makes me miserable, and my other class is fine but the labs and chapter tests are seriously tedious. Waah.

Nicotine
That last quit failed. I just wasn’t prepared to suffer for the necessary length of time.

Quitting smoking is mild yet endless suffering; a feeling that you should be doing something else that doesn’t go away for weeks. It’s relentless. I didn’t have my shit together so I failed to withstand the whisper of the dopamine.

The fact that every drag is doing irreparable damage to my lung tissue is pissing me off, however. There will be another quit, I just need to get my mental and emotional shit together before I face it. Grr.

Clothes
For no particular reason, I broke down and bought clothes from KrishnaCulture.com yesterday. I can’t wait for them to arrive! Two shirts and an adorable gopi dress. Yay!

My jeans are too big. A punjabi I’ve had for years and which has always been tight now fits. I’m probably going to have to buy a couple of new sundresses this summer, so I don’t look like I’m wearing someone else’s clothes. Continue reading Blogging! to avoid! doing my homework! →

School and stuff.

Back To School

In which I haven’t washed my hair since last weekend, and that’s because I’m a full-time student who takes all her classes online. From her room. Which she never leaves.

I’m taking three last classes in this, my back-to-school year. I’m sick of it. I am having a hard time dredging up any enthusiasm at all, and I actually do care about the material.

Work is better. Waaaay better. At work, something breaks and you fix it! Sometimes you have to learn stuff before you can fix it, and that’s okay. At the end of the year, you’ve learned a bunch of stuff, but you did so organically. School is a weird, artificial way of getting information from one place to another. It’s pissing me off. I want it to be over. Continue reading School and stuff. →