Imperfect piano recitals & unremarkable concerts

I don't remember a time when I DIDN'T want a piano. At 55, I FINALLY got one - in early November 2021, to be exact. A friend was getting another piano and needed to get rid of this one. Found affordable piano movers and, at long last, my dream has come true! 

I've never had piano lessons (which is rather obvious when you listen to me). Thanks to everyone who passed on their kids' long-abandoned how-to-play manuals. I'm posting these videos for my mother and to show you that I have been using your piano books! 

Playing piano calms me. It takes my mind away from the stresses and gut punches of chronic unemployment, of gaining all the weight I lost in 2018 & 2019, and of generally feeling pretty lost these days. 

I'm going to try to upload a video of my playing something on the piano each month for an entire year. I guess it doesn't take much for me to humiliate myself on the Interwebs. Again. Seriously, I'm trying to be brave. I'm trying to show that you don't have to do something well to enjoy it and share it.  

Thank you for watching & liking each video (as in, you literally click "like" on each of them). And if you don't, just move on - there's zero reason to be an ass and say something sh*tty. Zero reason. 

My First Imperfect Piano Recital: Amazing Grace.

An Imperfect Recital for May 2022: Bach, Minuet. This is the six-month mark! 

An Imperfect Recital for April 2022: Simple Gifts.

Happy Birthday for Alex, April 2022.

An Imperfect Recital for March: My Country Tis of Thee... or is it?!

Added bonus: Unremarkable concerts of me singing with my guitar, playing about as well as I do a piano: Act Like a Married Man and Your Cheatin' Heart.  

I upload my imperfect musical performances and unremarkable concerts to this YouTube playlist. 

Men in the USA are Terrifying

I am deeply afraid of angry men in the USA: SO many are armed with multiple guns and see glory and satisfaction and some sort of twisted justice for themselves in murdering people with those guns. Whether it's a man in a car angry that I'm riding a bicycle or an online troll angry at my words: I am afraid.

Also:

if another country had this many mass shootings you would be too afraid to travel there and protest their citizens from immigrating here - Myka Fox on Twitter.

What keywords do I use with this post? Uvalde, Texas? Tops Supermarket in Buffalo? El Paso Walmart? Gabby Giffords? Sandy Hook? Columbine, Colorado? Republicans? GOP? NRA? 2nd Amendment? Children were once fetuses?

Wondering

I've been wondering if I will ever have the opportunity to start a social media post with this phrase, or something like it, ever again:

I am so happy/thrilled and honored to announce that...

It's been a long time. 

To my neighbors & other former friends

Shout out to the neighbors who stood in my backyard in December 2016 and insulted me and said I was being hysterical and that Trump and Hillary Clinton were the same and none of my predictions about the Supreme Court, abortion, immigration and more would EVER come true, as well to the people on Facebook who said I was too political and absolutely ridiculous to be SO worried about any of this. 

And ALSO to all the "we need to come together with the other side" people. 

F*ck you, sincerely & completely. You did this. This is you:

Of course, you'll never admit it. You'll never apologize. That's also why you are .