just to clarify a point: historically, i've tended to purchase and smoke a small amount of marijuana (away from the house) on and after the solstice. i have often purchased a quarter around the 20th and smoked it every day until around the 5th, saving a small amount for my birthday on the 13th. i refer to this as a end-of-the-year "head cave".

i have taken a very different viewpoint on marijuana since diagnosed with near-osteoporosis. i can try to slow down the loss of bone mass, but i can't rebuild it. smoking anything at all in any sustained manner would be stupid.

that being said, i'm also not in the right mental space to do that. in past years, i've had productive recording periods. the ends of 2014, 2015 and 2016 were very productive, in terms of recording. the end of 2017 was sort of unique, as i moved. i did not "head cave" at the end of 2018 as i did not feel like it (i smoked no marijuana over the holidays that year at all), i found myself sick with a weird pneumonia at the end of 2019 (picked up in detroit) and avoided head caving for that reason and i bought an 1/8th last year on my birthday, after experimenting with edibles around saturnalia, and being disappointed by it.

i have been trying for months to get back on track and the length of the day changing isn't an exciting thing to me this year.

i will probably spend most of the next month reading, but i want to get done the filing, too, and take the next troubleshooting step in rebuilding the recording machine in a stable way.

the machine has been stable with the sound card, so i've re-allowed for usb. i have searched the large drives without it crashing. will it crash while searching usb drives?

if it's stable after a while, the next step will to be to turn the firewire back on. i'm going to avoid those video card drivers for a while, still.