my partner found a chord organ at goodwill today for 14 dollars. there wasn't a
plug nearby to test it so it was a bit of a gamble, but it ended up working
perfectly. i was a bit nervous at how loud it was (coupled with the fact that
there's no volume control), but i figured out some nice ways to have more volume
control. the first is to loosen the air intake/exhaust enclosure so that a bunch
of air could escape from the sides. the second is to cover the hole with my knee
or hand. i'm learning how to control it as i play with my knee to get some fades
in and out and some tremolo. recording it's going to be a separate issue, but
luckily the motor isn't super loud. i haven't checked to see how well-tuned it
is. hopefully it's fine because it seems the only way to fix that would be to
take a knife to the plastic pipes inside it.

i'm hoping i don't have a meeting called tomorrow because i didn't work very
much over the weekend. i should be able to get a good amount of progress in the
morning if i don't get confused. i have a lot of grading stuff i need to catch
up on, but that'll be a later problem i guess.

i did my taxes today. i was putting it off a lot because i was really nervous
about music-related income. i wish i knew that the 2023 paypal threshold for
reporting was 20k... next year i'll probably need to actually file for streaming
income and merch stuff since the threshold is getting adjusted to what, 600? i
hope i have the means and smarts to set aside 30% of whatever comes in or i'll
be crying come next tax season.