The Mezzanine

I've started learning to persist at learning things that I'm bad at.

That's remarkably important. (And something I'm not good at doing, yet.)

Re accordions:
- I got into it because my grandmother had one, so I had easy access. It's pretty fun (and good for my core strength). If you wanted to learn it, you would need at least some idea about the "circle of fifths", as that dictates the entire position of the left-hand buttons.
- New ones can be quite expensive, unless you get a very small one. But there are usually a few being sold on Gumtree. (Word of warning: never buy one unless you can play it before handing over money. I spent a lot of money on a worthless instrument that way.)
- I like playing lots of different music, but my favourite thing kind of thing to play is traditional English music (e.g. Greensleeves, or Scarborough Fair). It is my ambition to learn "You've Got A Friend In Me", from Toy Story, because I saw an accordion guy on YouTube playing it and it sounded EPIC.

GM: what systems do you like to use?

Things that aren't D20! And don't have classes! And don't level up! And are completely not D&D-like!

I love the system used by the Buffy RPG (cinematic, with a single D10), I love systems that use 2D6, because I'm a fan of the bellcurve, I love single-pagers (especially Grant Howitt's), I love the skill system used in Lady Blackbird, and I love the Stars Without Number book (although I've never played his system). I'm currently waiting on a delivery of Cortex Prime, and hoping to use it to run a Stargate game.

you said you suck at imaginative play, kind of right after you said you're a great GM!

Heh. True.

My GMing is great because:
- I have mad skillz for creating NPCs
- I'm good at thinking on my feet when my players do ridiculous stuff
- I have read far too much of The Alexandrian, and use his Three Clue Rule constantly

Two of those three points are basically me rocking the preplanning; the other is supported by my rocking the preplanning. And I can't preplan imaginative play with my kids! Which makes me very bad at it.

I am quite seriously considering running a Wallykazaam RPG for my kidlets. (With very clear rules about who has the magic stick at any given moment.)