So....

I've been bad. I've gone and read some fic. HL, Methos, my eternal number one fic reading fandom, the one I always keep coming back to.

And... there was some really nice characterisation there and all. And yet... suddenly, a bit of romance creeps in, and takes me right out of it, and I can't get back into the story, afterwards.

Why am I so bloody allergic to romance? It's not even like it would be out of character for Methos (unlike Sam and Gene, whom I really can't see having candlelight dinners and giving each other flowers)! Methos' entire relationship with Alexa is straight out of a romance novel. And I've written some bad romantic angst for him myself, in my very first fic, way back... Yet I can't read that kind of thing.

*sigh*

I also notice that I - hypocritically - tend to avoid fics featuring OFCs, and to some degree even OMCs. Hypocritically, because I've written both - in particular, I've written an OFC who's only a hair's breadth away from being a Mary Sue (maybe even is a Mary Sue) - and in a Horsemen fic, no less! I really should give some of those fics a chance.

Every time I go on one of my weirdly intensive music listening trips...

it makes me want to learn an instrument. (Guitar, bass, or drums. Oddly, preferably the latter, but that's not really very practical, is it?)

I can't really afford another creative hobby; it would only dilute my efforts in all the other areas I'm already not quite active enough in. And also, the kind of music I'd like to make would be with a band, and I imagine it would a) be very difficult to find one, and b) it would take years to get good enough to even consider trying to find one. If it's even possible to get good at all, when you start learning in your thirties.

The reasonable thing to do would probably be to try and find a choir again. But my voice is all fucked up from nearly twenty years' lack of practice... (I'm told it used to be quite good - but that was when I was a teenager.)

Then again, a choir isn't really what I want.

Hmm. Individual singing lessons, maybe? To see if there's still something to salvage?

Inconsistent much?

If I have something like a top three longterm favourite bands/musicians, I think it's probably these (in no particular order, except maybe chronological):

Midnight Oil
Radiohead
Phideaux

Which makes for a frelling weird "top three", even in my own opinion.

("Longterm favourite" defined as "artists of whom I'd actually like to own pretty much every album they've recorded". There aren't many of those for me. Mostly I just pick a couple of favourite albums by any given band or solo artist.)

PJ Harvey and Kate Bush might be candidates for that list, too, come to think of it. I just don't have as many of their albums yet - but I love all that I do have, and love practically everything I've seen and heard on youtube and elsewhere.

325 words to 6000.

Hahaha, I can't believe that song just came up randomly!

This is really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8byXSML4bY

Hard to believe that's live. (Or is it? Maybe they do... digital stuff to the recording, afterwards?)