I’m sure that this has happened to you—you’ve been listening to a popular song and you could swear that you knew what the singer was singing … until you actually read the lyrics and realized you were completely wrong. This happened to me with most of Elton John’s early songs—I don’t know if it was his habit of accenting a word oddly or his accent or what but I badly misunderstood a lot of Sir Reg’s lyrics. Frex, the chorus to “Rocket Man” is:

And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time
‘Til touchdown brings me ’round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh, no, no, no
I’m a rocket man
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone

If you had put a gun to my head, I would have sworn that the last sentence was:

Rocket man, goin’ round the world I’m here and gone.

Which brings me to a cute little video I saw on FB a day ago that featured a bevy of beautiful actresses from the sixties through today. It was set to a song by Raspberries, which I always liked when I was a kid, a song that will be familiar to anyone who bought Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix, Vol. 1., but until yesterday I could have sworn that the chorus was, “Please, goooooo away.” I had no idea that the song was actually called “Go All the Way.” Which is why enunciation is an important thing, kids.

I don’t have a new ep of High Tide up today and will probably not get one up this week due to everything going on here. Sorry about that. Check back next week.

WRT what’s going on around here, after much research Ramón went out and fetched home a Midea 8000 BTU inverter air conditioner, which is one of those U-shaped units that the window sash slides into. It’s also got an Energy Star rating and is super quiet.

Granted, the instructions and illustrations are not the clearest in the world, but a video helped us get it installed in the breakfast nook (all of the other windows in the living room/breakfast nook are too big for the bracing bracket). The breakfast nook is now deliciously cool, and the kitchen and living room are acceptable. We have fans blowing cool air through to the dining room and library, and a darling person is sending us a portable AC unit this weekend which we will stick in the library for the moment. Between the breakfast nook unit, the portable AC, and a larger Midea window unit (ideally one around 12K BTUs) we’ll more than match the two tons of cooling power from the defunct downstairs unit. I don’t know what this is going to do to our electric bill but the Midea units are supposed to sip energy so hopefully we won’t get slapped with something atrocious.

The cats are not that happy about the warming of the atmosphere—Jemma has taken to sprawling behind my chair where a lot of the cool air gets funnelled (unsurprisingly—she’s still pretty chunky and has thick fur), and the others have taken to hiding out in the master bath where they can sploot on the cool tiles or in my office which is maintaining a decent temperature. I can’t say that I blame them, but we’ll all just have to struggle along.

Ramón has also found a different AC company that can replace our system for less, and he wants to root around in our records and find who replaced the compressor when we first bought the house and see if we can possibly get that done again. The current AC company is only interested in selling us a new system, which we understand but cannot afford at the moment. I just want the temps to go back down to double digits.

As it turns out I will need additional treatment for the gum inflammation. C’est la vie.

But because Fate needs a laugh as much as anyone else our downstairs AC unit stopped blowing cold air yesterday. I was able to get our AC company out today to check the equipment and it turns out that our compressor has finally given up the ghost. As it’s about 15 years old, we honestly can’t complain since it’s done yeoman work.

That being said, the company gave us a quote of about $12K with a rebate for the repair work we’ve already had this year. We don’t have $12K, pure and simple. Ramón is currently researching window units to try and bring down the temps downstairs and take strain off the upstairs system, with the idea that if we can limp through to October we should be able to get a better price on a system replacement. Seeing as the downstairs unit was rated for two tons (24,000 BTUs), we’re going to need multiple window units to make up the difference. But he wants to pick them, and as he’s paying for them my attitude is, “Go ahead.”

It’s gonna get warm around here, folks. Fun, fun, fun…

A lot of creative types have insomnia. It’s next to impossible to turn off the constant barrage of information churning through our brains at night. We can utilize the most precise sleep hygiene, take melatonin, meditate, use all the tricks, and we still wind up staring at the ceiling at 4 AM while our brains merrily gambol about with memories, ideas, plans, plots, dialogue, etc.

Mine started in grammar school, if I remember correctly, and pretty much runs to this day. I’ve learned how to cycle through various supplements in order to wear my brain down long enough for it to shut up, but any sort of stress tends to short-circuit that process. And like most of us, I’ve been under a lot of stress for years.

That’s not good for a lot of things. It impacts my health, my writing, and my general joy in life. And yes, the knee replacement fixed a large chunk of physical pain that’s been keeping me up, but other body parts decided to pick up the slack. I think what I’m trying to say here is that if I’ve been terse for the last couple of years or so, it’s because I don’t sleep much these days.

If you’re going through this as well, be kind with yourself. You’re not alone, and thinking that you’re a slacker or beating yourself up because you’re not getting everything done that you wanted to accomplish isn’t going to help anything and, frankly, isn’t deserved.