If I didn't have something to be anxious about I'd be worried!

Beginning to look like I have most of what I need for my trip. Next on the agenda is to see just how much I can pack into a suitcase and still be within my weight limit. I am taking as much merchandise as I can to be able to supplement my stay in Brazil. There is a very strong feeling of unreality to this, almost like a dream, a dream come true? A dream state? I wish times like this could be carefree, left to just get excited to where I am going but there is always the anxiety about whether I have remembered everything, losing my passport on the way to the check in, that I end up on the wrong plane and end up in the Russian tundra or such like ridiculous scenario.

But hey, I am a Neurotic, if I didn't have something to be anxious about I'd be worried!



  

Training for Brazil 2014 - Don't dream it, be it!

I did intend to write something yesterday (which I sadly didn't manage) but I just wore myself ragged trying to get everything done (which I did, happily) but I had no on screen time. On top of a million other things I won't bore you with, I also had to fit in an acoustic rehearsal for my solo appearance supporting the Members at the Square on Sat Feb 8th and playing through all the songs I will perform in Brazil on electric guitar. They are both very different sets so they both need time spent on them. I have not played in the Neurotics for two years or more now so I have to train my back to support my electric guitar, my wrists to handle playing a fret board lower down. I have been doing a lot of work sitting at my PC for the last eight months so I have to bring my overall fitness up, hence lots of cycling and walking. It's my version of training for the World Cup or the Olympics, getting my shit together basically for Brazil.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty, exhausted.

It has been a dull and rainy day but I have done so much that I feel as light as a feather, oh, that's due to exhaustion. I have achieved a lot and I've cycled another eight miles. I walked about the same yesterday, I am shaping myself up to be fit as possible before I leave for Brazil as my band are going to be young men full of spark and spunk and I need to be able to keep up. Got my travel insurance sorted, so that was another box ticked. I keep using my app to learn a little Portuguese but it keeps telling me I am a dullard.

Wonder what dullard is in Portuguese (Brazil colloquial mind)?

Life in minutiae

I cannot express to you the good feeling I have over the tiniest things. It really is not the sort of thing that would make an interesting blog entry and yet I think I can get away with it if I don't focus on the details.

The fact is, in the days leading up to an exciting trip, an adventure actually, to Brazil,  I slowly accomplish small but necessary tasks needed to be completed before I go. Each one of these is weighted in importance and satisfaction after completion, greater than they normally would be, because they are a trail I am following to larger horizon.

I am simultaneously really looking forward to it and at the same time, finding it hard to imagine me being there.

Funny, I didn't think I lacked imagination???

Hypocrite, the new single

I have done something this morning I haven't done since 1980, I opened up a newly delivered box of white label 7 inch vinyl singles of my music. Hypocrite/You Said No was originally released as a single in 1979 and is now being re-released on vinyl in Brazil and the United States. These white label copies are to have a 'tour special' stamp put on them and placed in the appropriate sleeve with extra artwork once I deliver them in Brazil. Then a little while later we will have the original replica copies with the original labels and there will also be 200 clear vinyl versions too. Because of advances in mastering technology over the years these vinyl newbies sound better sonically than the original release.

I have fallen in love with vinyl all over again!

Now if only I didn't have to struggle to spell vinyl each time I wrote it, it would help. That is a hard word for a dyslexsic, like me!!! Hang on... dyslexic.. oh bother!

Popticians

Going to be doing something rather unusual later on today, I going to sling my Fender Esprit guitar on in my opticians. This is because I am thinking about avoiding the expense of vari-focus lenses in my new performance shades. It seems logical not to require distance vision when I am going to use them predominately on stage, in performance, where the most important thing is to be able to see my fret board clearly.
This is where the guitar comes in, I need to check that seeing the fret board is within the 'reading focus' of the lenses, if not then I will need the long distance instead or maybe I cannot escape having both.

Decisions, decisions.

Once again my mind is in a mess!

Well, my equilibrium actually, the process of trying loads of different pairs of glasses with a hyperactive optician and general movement in a car kicked of my vertigo big time yesterday, I haven't had it this bad for many years and so spent the rest of the day and all of the evening feeling really awful. It woke me up in the night too, but the one thing I have learnt over the years is not to get anxious about it as that only makes it worse. The big thing I hate about it is though, is the lack of control I have over it, it can hit any time and can be for any duration.
Managed however to get back to sleep quite quickly and had a total of nine hours sleep, much better than my usual six or seven. Today I feel much better but it will take a couple of days to pass.

I'm sure I have far too much to do for this interruption, damn, damn damn!