I’ve been trying to enjoy the little things today, like watching the little black birds bathing in the large dark puddle of my neighbor’s driveway, seeing a man smile as he passes a woman carrying a baby, and the chuckle of an old woman even though I don’t know what she was laughing at.

I woke up depressed this morning and it’s probably my own fault. I barely got 5 hours of sleep after going to bed late. I’d been working on setting up the new rack for mastering effects for my audio with the new setup. I suspect I recorded the audio a little too hot to begin with even though I like the sound of it. Once I start running EQ and compression on it and get it where I like the sound, it falls apart in the final steps of the mastering. I am close, but still so far. I also find myself losing a lot of sounds, like “d’s” and “th’s.” Anyway, I was just frustrated last night and I knew I needed to get to bed. But I’m like a bulldog with a bone. I just can’t let something go when I’m working away at it.

Of course, Temmy woke me early this morning wanting to cuddle. Worse, she didn’t want to sleep much. She was ready to get up and play, wanting me to feed her first.

So, I woke up and started my morning routine. As I went through it, I felt worse and worse. I was just certain that I was a total, pathetic failure. Lack of sleep is my critical voice’s primary weapon to making me feel like surrendering and giving up. I know this, and yet I still do this to myself. So, that’s when I started looking for things that would make me smile.

I went to town and got done the couple of things I needed to. Had lunch with my son. Then I went to take a nap. Wish I could say I felt better when I woke up from that, but I really didn’t.

Then I got really stupid and returned to trying to master the audio, taking some different approaches. Oh, yeah, the library didn’t have any books I needed — bummer. But, I did find books on airbrushing and podcasting, which they didn’t have years ago when I was looking for them. I guess I’m just ahead of my time. This means that in five years, they will have books on mastering audio. Mark my words. Same thing happened when I was doing herb research and many, a many other things. But, I’m also not finding good help on the Internet either. It’s really hard to go listen to a training video of someone saying, “I can help you get great audio sound quality” when they themselves sound like they are in a long pipe. I’ve also determined that Izotope puts out great audio products that probably help someone who already had an excellent grasp on what they are doing, but they don’t care to explain HOW to use their products to beginners. Their videos all seem to be “Look at our great features,” but there’s nothing what all the gizmos do. I fit somewhere in the middle. I have a simple grasp of what needs to be done. I know what I want it to sound like (and I’m not someone who hates the sound of my own voice (what does that say about me?) so it’s not like I’m trying to make myself sound like something I’m not). I’ve had some good sounding audio. I just want it to be back there and just slightly better and easier to edit. Yeah, that’s probably the impossible right there.

So, I’m going to have to stop and take some time to actually go find good learning tutorials and watch them, take notes, then come back to the audio. Lots of people complain that there are no women in IT careers. Well, you want to know where else they are lacking? Audio engineering apparently. Dang near every tutorial is a man talking about mastering men’s voices, usually his own. Okay, see, I’m frustrated. Grr!

And yes, that frustration bleeds over for the critical voice to tell me every other area of my life where I’m failing and there are many. Which just makes me tired. Which frees the critical voice.

Yes, I must get more sleep if I’m going to stave off the depression that my brain is so willing to shovel at me.

I’m much rather be a happy creative. I wonder if I will ever get there or if that is a completely non-existent state.

I’m going to sign off and go get some sleep.

May fortune favor you, my friend.