MeghanIsMe

While my bicycle was being stolen late last week (more on that later; it's quite a story and I did get it back!), Miriam and I were driving to Prince Albert and Saskatoon and back. We ended up in a situation where we're not quite sure whether we were taken advantage of, or whether we took advantage of someone, or if it all kind of evens out. I'm hoping it was the third.

I had a Robson 61-key keyboard before the fire that I paid $50 for and that insurance valued at $300 to replace with a 61-key MIDI controller. But someone much more local had been selling a far nicer Yamaha digital piano for $340 (a P-155), and after arguing with myself for days about whether I could justify buying it, I decided to go ahead and found it had already sold.

So I started looking for other such deals and found one It was way the hell up in Prince Albert. It was one step down the model lineup from the P-155 (it's a P-115), but it was also rather newer and had all the features I could really want even if it wasn't as nice looking. And the seller wanted $200. Including $80 for gas, that was still a good price and less than what I was willing to pay.

I contacted the seller and asked about coming up on the weekend. He said that he was moving on the weekend, could I come up before then? I asked whether he was taking it with and I could contact him after he moved and arrange a time, but he said no, it had to go before then.

That was Wednesday, and I had a dental appointment Friday so my only option was Thursday, the next day. I'd hoped Miriam could come with if I was driving on the weekend and was a bit disgruntled at having to rush out, so I said that that would cause me some difficulty and would he take $150 for it instead? I'm really awful at asking for concessions like that, but it worked out; he would!

Miriam decided she did want to come with because her pain wasn't too bad that morning, and she could either do some work in the car or take a vacation day. So we drove the four hours to Prince Albert, playing Semantle and talking, stopping on the way to see a giant robot made out of tires, so a big bonus for me! On the way, we messaged the seller once when we were about an hour away, and again about ten minutes out, with no response.

We arrived at the address and I knocked on the door while Miriam and Ella waited in the car. Eventually a woman answered the door and I said I was there about they keyboard. She was very confused. I offered more details, then pulled up the conversation I'd had with the seller. She seemed kind of shocked - maybe embarassed? - and said that her son had listed the piano for sale without telling her and that she wasn't ok with that price. I'm not good at figuring out what to say in situations like that, so I said that I understood and went back to the car.

Miriam and I talked a bit. She asked what a price that would be reasonable to me was, and I thought about it and settled on $300. I wouldn't have driven to Prince Albert for that price, but the gas was already spent. So Miriam decided to go back to the house and ask the woman what price she would accept. We left Ella in the car and went back together, and when we knocked the door was opened by a little girl (I think at some point we learned she was six) wearing just a nightshirt. Miriam asked if she could get her mother and she kind of stood there looking at us and smiling. Miriam tried a few more times, and we learned that her mother was "upstairs," but when Miriam asked if she could *get* her mother from upstairs, she just kind of smiled.

So Miriam knocked again on the open door and the woman returned. Miriam asked what she would be willing to take for it, and she thought about it for a bit and finally said maybe $400? She said that it had been a birthday present for her son, was $1500 new, and that it had taken her a long time to pay it off. We told her that we understood, but that was just too much for us right now. Meanwhile the little girl had noticed Ella in the car and seemed pretty excited about her.

In what was absolutely *not* a conscious attempt to ingratiate ourselves (we just like making little kids happy by letting them pet the cute doggo!), Miriam commented that the girl seemed really interested in Ella. Would she like to meet her? Her mom said that recently a dog had barked at her daughter and scared her, so she was nervous around dogs but really liked them. It was determined that the little girl, who was still too nervous to really talk to us, *did* want to meet Ella, so I went back to the car and got her.

While I was away, Miriam talked more with the mother. She said that, in case she wanted to have a parental talk with her son, she should know that we drove four hours from Regina because of her son's post, and he had known that. Interspersed with that conversation, the little girl had asked a couple times if Ella could come inside! Miriam said that no, she couldn't but the little girl could per her outside and maybe give her treats? She really liked Ella a lot. So I went back to the car to get treats, which took a little looking around among the road trip ephemera, while they talked some more.

Having thought about it more I guess, the mother said that, well, maybe she'd take $300? She said that she had just been approved for disability but the checks weren't coming yet and she really needed money. Miriam agreed and told her that we'd have to go out and get more cash since we only brought $150. Her mother told the girl that we were going to be leaving for a little bit (to get money) and then coming back and then we had to leave because we had a long way to go. At the thought of Ella leaving, the girl started crying!

I hadn't heard any of that, so when I got back to the porch, Miriam said that I should go get the extra cash and she and Ella were going to stay there with the girl and her mom. I was a little confused about Miriam seemingly inviting herself to sit on this woman's porch and I asked the mom if she was ok with that. She was, and Miriam filled me in on their talk, so I drove to the nearest branch of our bank. On the way, I thought about the whole situation more and, before starting to drive back again, texted Miriam with my thoughts. Contextualizing the talk with her son (they have to move that weekend and won't take the keyboard with them) and the mother's statements, I realized that they might be getting evicted, and maybe her son thought selling his piano could help. I didn't express it in the text, but I felt uncomfortable about that and worried that maybe we were taking advantage of them? But from everything I had read online, $300 was a good but still fair price; people don't realize how fast digital pianos lose their value. And Miriam checked several times during the course of the conversation that she was really, definitely ok with that price.

While I was away, the very nervous little girl eventually was brave enough to let Ella eat a treat or two out of her hand. She also dropped and spilled the treat bag on the porch, twice, so Ella got a lot of treats that day! It seemed to make both of them really happy, so it was all definitely worthwhile!

So I got back, exchanged cash for the piano and stand, and loaded them in the car. Miriam told the girl that we would be leaving and she started crying again. I felt so bad for her! And if they *are* getting evicted and in dire financial straits, I feel so bad for all of them. It's so awful when people are in that position, and it makes me feel sad and powerless.

Miriam and I talked about the whole situation as we drove. Did we take advantage of them because they needed cash? Did *they* take advantage of *us* because we'd driven so far and were willing to pay a higher price than we would have otherwise paid? I think we still don't really know, but we both kind of hope that it all evened out, somehow, and that our buying the piano was a help to them.

And then, on the way home, we stopped to see a longtime friend of Miriam's in Saskatoon who, by complete coincidence, is moving away for a year or so very shortly. Since Miriam may find a faculty position somewhere else by then, we may not have had the chance to see them again if we hadn't happened to be near Saskatoon that day! So in the end, that made the gas money worth it in itself, and that takes some of the sting out of the higher price for the piano.

It's ironic that I was first introduced to Shawn Colvin's concept album about her divorce, A Few Small Repairs, in my ex's music collection. I do have to credit her for my initial exposure to feminist/lesbian folk rock in general, too.

I love A Few Small Repairs in its entirety. There's some continuing catharsis in listening to it: it makes me feel understood, and it makes me really happy to have left the life I was in and to have built the one I have now.

I thought it would take longer for my piano practice to encounter limitations imposed by my hardware.

I can nearly get through Prelude in C without lengthy pauses to look at the sheet music, so I decided to start on Eric Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1. The prelude is entirely arpeggiated except for the single five note chord at the end. The gymnopédie heavily uses three-note chords from the beginning though, and my keyboard can't manage too many notes at once. I'm using the sustain pedal, and I can clearly hear sustained notes dropping out as I play notes on top of each other.

As well as the onboard (pretty low-quality) sound synthesis, my keyboard is a MIDI controller. I have Plogue Sforzando installed to use with a really nice Steinway concert grand piano library. I was playing that way in the Netherlands, but I didn't bring my MIDI keyboard with me when I moved. The one I bought here has significantly better key action, but it doesn't pass the sustain pedal state through the MIDI interface, so I basically can't use it for MIDI unless I'm willing to forego pedaling, which I'm not. Sforzando allows something like 128 simultaneous sounds, but this keyboard must be limited to 6 or 8? And beyond that I really miss the Steinway sound: the difference is night and day.

The most affordable solution may be to find a USB foot pedal I can map to the sustain pedal in Sforzando. I do have a USB foot pedal--it's in the states with the rest of my stuff.

Once upon a time, I bought a cheap music-type keyboard from Goodwill. It came with a folding X-style stand that was fine except it was too short for me. I ended up turning it sideways and securing it with a twist-tie.

A little while back, I ordered myself a nicer keyboard. It's a 61-key MIDI controller with velocity-sensitive keys. I bought the suggested X-style stand with it from the music store. To my surprise, it has the same issue; it's too tall at minium height. I have it turned sidewise and again am using twist ties to keep it from folding up.

I write about this because it just collapsed, and as I worked to secure it up again, I wondered if this is just me being too short for a standard height to work (I'm 5'11" so that seems unlikely), or having bad luck with cheap keyboard stands, or what? If I use the stand as intended, the keys are definitely too high for good ergonomics, and if I sit in a taller chair my feet aren't flat on the floor.

I'm listening to They Might Be Giants' album "The Spine" as I work. I don't know how many times I've listened to it already, but I only just realized that Thunderbird might be about someone who's dad died in an alcohol-related car crash when she was a little girl? Maybe?

Aw, poor pupper. I had all the windows wide open today so the condo would feel fresh and outdoorsy. I just realized that Rufus was sitting on the couch shivering; he gets cold so easily. I snuggled with him to help warm him up, gave him a towel to burrow under, and closed the windows down to a sliver.

I'm listening to Stat Songs as I work. This is the greatest song on the album.

"A leg
Now I get it
I'll tell the person next to me
And then haul off and die"

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but the more I listen to Jethro Tull, the more I think Ian Anderson's flute solos are sexy as hell. Lisa gets it; she's been an Ian Anderson fan since before I was born. (Yes, I was dating a woman old enough to be my mother, as she once pointed out. Age is just a number.)

And listening to Thick as a Brick on the greatest hits album on vinyl is such a perfect example of what gets lost in newer mastering techniques that push everything up until the whole track is playing practically in the red.

So much of this song is relatively quiet. Then, after "My words but a whisper, your deafness a shout," an instrumental noise slams in and out like a slap in the face; crack! then it's gone in a moment, back to the quiet vocals. Mastering by pushing everything up to the top of the scale and cutting it off with a brickwall limiter just kills that whole effect. Dead.

The tonearm on my linear tracking turntable has sticky grease, and tonight the problem was worse than before; the tonearm kept sticking on its track and the needle got stuck in one groove as if there was a scratch in the record.

I had to lift the needle, run the tonearm up and down it's track, then try a couple times to put it back down in the right place. After I got it there, I commented to Danae, "See? This is *way* better than CDs!"

At some point I need figure out how to take it apart far enough to regrease the whole slide...

1st of May, 1st of May! Outdoor...snuggling starts today!

https://youtu.be/gEjRHFom1Kk

Jonathan Coulton's "First of May" with sign language performers.

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Could we *please* have some dry weather now? I'm not snuggling or doing anything else outside in the rain!

On a much lighter note, but still regarding trans issues in music, I got to introduce a trans woman who's really into electronic music to the work of Wendy Carlos! I'm so excited when I get to show people things that I think they'll really love!

The belt on my CD changer is broken and I haven't gotten to it yet. So tonight I'm playing records. See; no single point of music failure! *laughs*

I finally digitized "In the Hall of the Crimson King" after buying it at a local store a while back. That's the first (and so far only) record I've bought new. And now I'm listening to the Moody Blues again. Among other music, Erik played some Tom Lehrer at his place. When he gets here, maybe I should play my Tom Lehrer albums!