Last night in his Beat Saber stream, Ink Blitz was asking his viewers about their music preferences, and described mine as “’70s, ’80s, and ’90s stuff,” to which I replied “It’s way more than that!”

Of course, his exposure to “my music” comes mostly from the things I request in his streams, plus music I’ve played on my own art streams etc. in the past, so it’s skewed by things like what’s actually available to request, and what suits the mood of the venue. And in those contexts, it’s true that I gravitate mostly towards bubblegum pop or new wave and ’80s alternative. But that just scratches the surface: I have a deep love for ’30s/’40s swing, Japanese city pop (“that anime sound”), baroque and classical (Mrs. Gneech and I have very different opinions on Vivaldi), bossa nova and calypso, and lots more.

The truth of it is that I approach music the same way I approach just about everything else: I look for depth, I explore the weird corners of genre, and I apply that “bringing the awesome” philosophy of searching for things that are better than they need to be. I like glam and putting on a good show, I give preferential treatment to songs that are about more than just “Baby I Loooove You,” and melody is way better than rhythm. I’m not super-into vamping (once I’ve heard a riff three times, I consider that riff done), I think patter must be used sparingly and with a sense of whimsy or not at all (which destroys 90% of rap for me), and I cannot tolerate anything designed to excuse or comfort small-mindedness or deliberate mediocrity (looking at you, most of country-western).

So you might find me listening to Clannad one minute and Cab Calloway the next, then rolling into a Jazz Butcher song that gets followed up by Lady Gaga. So it’s hard to just point at a genre and say “This is my jam.” My jam is the creative process that went into making the music, at least as much as the time period in which it was composed and the medium it was presented in. There are some genres that I’m more drawn to because they embrace those processes more than others (jazz, new wave, etc. all have that counterculture “done because it’s good first and if it makes a buck that’s fine, too” creed), but I can find music to like just about anywhere.

-TG

As I write this, I’m sitting at the drawing table pictured, wearing the headphones and necklace pictured. The rest is a bit harder to pull off. >.>

So! How was 2018? On the grand social scale, of course, it was a dumpster fire. This is hardly news. All the worst people, frantically trying to destroy not just the USA but the whole world, before it all comes crashing down and they end up shooting themselves in the bunker. It’s as inevitable as it is sad. But those of us who are working to build something better will keep working.

On my own personal front, by comparison, it’s been what you might call a challenging year– not in a drama and angsty way, but in the form of taking on difficult obstacles and working to overcome them. This came mostly through the coach training, which was a deep dive into 49 years of mud and gunk that needed cleaning out, but was also singularly more effective than decades of counseling had been on that front. (Which is not to bag on my counselors over the years, but they just didn’t have the intensive focus of the coach training.)

So, looking back on my plans for the year, how did I do?

1. Gneech, Life Coach. This is up and running! I have passed my exams with Accomplishment Coaching and I’m about 2/3 of the way to my first ICF certification. Right now I’m working on fluffing up my client base a bit more, and I expect to go on to become a Mentor Coach for next year’s program. I’ve got a coaching blog up and running, and I’m looking forward to big things on this front in 2019.
2. Help Laurie Get Her Business Running. Well, I did help! She’s still working on it. >.> The business exists, we’re getting our insurance through it, so that’s good! The rest of it is up to her. :)
3. Stable and Reliable Income. This piece is still under construction. As the coaching business grows, it will naturally come to pass.
4. Figure Out What’s Up With My Writing. Honestly, I just didn’t have time to work on this with the coach training going on. I have a project in place to take this on again in 2019.
5. Sell. A. Book. Didn’t happen, ‘cos above.
6. Issues Seven, Eight, and Nine. Seven done. Eight 1/2 way done. Nine will have to come next year.
7. Continue Fixing the Country. I’ve marched, I’ve voted, I’ve campaigned, I’ve called my reps a million times. It’s an ongoing process.
8. Take a Vacation. Alas, did not happen.

It essentially boils down to “the coach training was huge and intense and took most of my mental energy.” So a lot of other things didn’t get done while that was happening. I have no regrets, though– this was something I badly needed.

What did happen was that for the first time since I can remember, I really and truly became friends with myself– like, all of myself, even the parts I had not been willing to talk to since I was four. There was a specific moment that I had never forgiven myself or let go of the pain and shame from, which I confronted and processed… finally. Only forty-five years later! But better late than never.

Confronting this moment led to the birth of Nii-chan, about whom I’ve written at length elsewhere. In a lot of ways, she is the best version of me, and whenever I find myself wondering what I want to do about something, or who I should be in a moment, I ask myself “What would Nii-chan do?” She’s like the integrated version of the Three Lions and an Otter, but even her version of Business Guy is a lot happier. (Nii-chan is also practice for my next incarnation, so I can hit the planet running when that comes to pass. I don’t want to waste forty years of my next life trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.)

So, yeah. It’s been a big year on that score. But where do I want to go in 2019?

1. Bring Rough Housing to Its Conclusion. 2019 will be the 20th anniversary of Suburban Jungle, and it seems a fitting place to bring that chapter to a close. My current plan is to finish the story at the end of issue ten. As my hand tremors get worse, it is becoming harder to keep up with what was already an ambitious production schedule, and honestly, I think that story-wise, RH will be done at that point. So I’d rather finish something and feel good about it, than to drag it out to stay within the familiar.
2. Writing Goals. My goalposts on this front are two short stories sold, an agent secured for Sky Pirates of Calypsitania, a furry novel written for NaNoWriMo, and an anthology project created with FurPlanet.
3. She-Ra Writing Gig. Seeing Seanan McGuire geek out about landing the writing job on Spider-Gwen made me realize that I wanted that experience in my life. Spider-Gwen is a character that Seanan was pretty much born to write, and honestly, I feel the same about Catra and myself. I have no idea how I’m going to convince the She-Ra writing team to let me on board, but I’ll find a way.
4. Full Coaching Client Roster. My goal is 14+ clients by this time next year, including five Creativity Klatch clients and three Mentor Coaching clients.
5. California Trip. I miss Big Sur like whoa.
6. 222 Pounds. Something that wasn’t on my 2018 list was losing weight– so naturally I made big strides on that! XD Specifically I lost 30 pounds since May, bringing me to my lowest adult weight yet. I have another 50 pounds to go to be at my goal weight of 222, but I am confident that I will hit it this year.
7. Continue Continuing to Fix the Country. Keep going ’til it doesn’t suck.

So, yeah. That’s where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going. I think 2019 is gonna be a great year. :)