fourth

i really feel like having a muffin for breakfast. a bran muffin, i think. does that mean i will eat a bran muffin today? probably not. is that important? probably not. however, there will probably be at least five other things i do that i really only do because i feel like it, and that aren't that important. for example, i might find myself, a few minutes before retiring for the evening, in desperate want of a bowl of cereal. in all probability, i will consume a bowl of cereal. that doesn't mean it's right.

revelations

one of my friends who has known me for maybe a year was surprised to find out that i'm interested in the outdoors. maybe this is why i don't get invited on camping trips by the people up here. i wouldn't have thought my interest in wandering outdoors was unknown to people who actually were fairly acquainted with me.

i probably surprised a few coworkers with my behavior last friday. we had a field day, with people divided into 7 teams. it was a decathlon. the events were mostly pretty weird, but there were some that weren't completely crazy. the water balloon toss, however, turned really odd when they found that the balloons weren't breaking. they then allowed us to stomp on others' balloons if they dropped them. i got a few scrapes by tackling someone in a vain attempt to protect the balloon i'd just dropped. at least one of my friends was surprised to hear the stories; i like the fact that people didn't realize i could be so competitive. i often feel embarrassed when that side of me comes out.

no, actually

me - "so basically, i'm giving you an incredibly long answer that means no"

d - (laughing hysterically) "are you running for political office or something?"

don't lie on saturday

i went to favorite flat triangular italian food place and had the worst thing i've ever eaten there. very healthy, not very good. now i find myself dying to go back. the menu holds so many vegetarian delights, and several i have yet to try.

so so so oppressively hot

in a bid to protest the heat, i decided to put on extra layers until the situation improves. shockingly, i feel a lot better with a hooded sweatshirt and a beanie on than i did before.

spoken by me

'that's an anecdotal argument without an actual anecdote'

new initiative

i like to provide food for the peeps at work from time to time, and generally the ones who sit near me get the bulk of the shared items. those who eat most frequently will also share on their own when they feel inclined. on occasions when i do email the entire department about food, some people come and eat large amounts of food but never provide anything of their own to share with the group.

partially out of curiousity and partially to encourage greater participation in food sharing, i have decided upon a new plan. today i will be sharing bean dip, but asking others to bring their own chips. my prediction is that no one will eat any. it remains to be seen how this will play out.

mum's the word

maybe it's time to stop gossiping about myself. i have often thought that telling everyone who i'm interested in, etc, was useful. once i pass the threshold where only trusted friends know, it's like pressure to actually do something about my crush of the moment. i don't know, though; the element of tact is useful too.

tonight is officially excellent because i was just able to perfectly drop my 50% organic lip balm onto the bag i'm taking to work tomorrow so that it stayed perched on top. don't have to get out of bed to fix anything, which is a big consideration when there's a ladder to navigate in order to reach the floor.

yum

so my tucked-in shirt and i accompanied a friend to this tasty bakery late tonight, where i ordered a total of two deserts, because there's really no reason not to when you are incredibly hungry. those desserts, served with a devastatingly excellent glass of iced tapwater, were amazing. which leads to the question: if i go back, will it be as good, ever? tonight was just a whirlwind of surprises anyway, and i was so hungry and it was the crazy spontaneous thing to do and everything was in the right place; good weather, smell of rain still in the air, eating outside. it was the second time i'd been to this bakery, and i intend to go back. i just don't think it will be as amazing next time.

sometimes you go to bed

and things are good. sometimes you just tell yourself, 'i'm doing all right for a lost soul.' sometimes you remember that, religiously speaking, you're not lost at all.

can't believe it, not again

the book i just started is horrid. i haven't made it through the first chapeter, and i am holding out hope that the tone shifts, because it's just an endless string of accusations. i think you could take this story and write a fascinating narrative but so far it's an effort simply to report all of the facts and evidence as the author sees it. if you're writing for a cause, eloquence beats arguments.

there've been some ok reads lately though:

boys of '67
-charles v. jones

history of the marine corps since vietnam, focusing on a few marines who began in vietnam and rose to high positions in the corps. heavy on stories, which is good, and the style didn't get in the way at all. interesting perspective on the v-22 osprey, which i had always thought was an airplane that only politicians wanted built. i actually wish there was more on this, but it's not the subject of the book, just something that comes up. i think i read stuff like this because part of me thinks serving in the military is a good idea. something like a 'peace corps' that is actually a permanent thing is more what i need.


fantasyland
-sam walker

this book deserves no superlatives, but it is an enjoyable read. walker joined an expert fantasy league with the intent of both winning and writing a fascinating narrative of the season's course. the suspense of how the season turned out for him was great. the season in questions is '04 and i don't have everyone's stats memorized or anything, so it was fun to try to figure out which players he was talking up were actually going to do well for him.

good riddance

we have team hats for our softball squad at work. they make a joke implying we use steroids. there's a reproduction of part of the logo of a company infamous for distributing steroids. all of this is screenprinted on a trucker hat. many of the team members thought trucker hats were all about ashton kutcher and some fad that's over. i think they must have come full circle then, in a way.

the experiment

i didn't keep a full log, but i think it's pretty much impossible to go an entire hour without thinking about anyone you have a crush on. maybe i managed it on the way home because i made it halfway and perhaps at the office i was so tired that last bit that there was an hour-long stretch when you add in that portion of the commute. i think i probably don't go an hour without thinking about fantasy baseball either, so maybe there's nothing to this.

i wonder if i went an hour without thinking about my hair...again, probably not.

not rabbits

i had to list my interests/hobbies earlier this weekend. i put down, among other things, 'shopping.' why the heck not? it's kinda more fun when you get a compliment on something that you have a story behind it. i have a hard time remembering where the ties come from, but with shirts i can usually give a city of purchase. yes, thrift shopping is a fantastic vacation activity, especially if there are no good ones where you live. not true for me per se, but i like t-shirts with some local flavor. last weekend i managed to pick up a sweet one from a fave radio station. originally, i thought thrift shopping's great virtue was that you're using something over again and thus not requiring new labor, possibly from oppressed workers, to be used. now, i have realized it makes environmental sense as well. shoes and, for me at least, pants are not particularly easy second-hand purchases, but shirts and some shorts can be. ties of course work. when you're done with it all, you can just donate it again and maybe someone else can use it.

someone save me from the older guys

what defines a good week? is it one where you meet your conditions for buying a skateboard now, not after that thing happens? maybe a good week is one where, in the process of turning down a job offer, you hear from two companies that want to interview you. it's even more likely to be one where a third company calls you four days later about a job in a state you'd love. i think a good week is probably one where you realize it's time to be so grateful for the bar of soap and mirror that allowed you to wash most of the poison oak off your arms last weekend. when the poison oak only shows up on the inside of your arm, you know you have to be grateful that you washed up, because it must have been all over.

it's a good thing a good week isn't defined by getting to go to the new movie its first weekend out. a good week doesn't have to be defined by meeting the girl of your dreams, because such things don't necessarily ever happen. i think a good week probably gives you the chance to spend time with friends you haven't seen in a while, and to stay up too late several nights running with no real consequences.


i'm grateful for a good week

doesn't matter

i made a huge gaffe this past weekend on my way to see rhett - i mixed up the 1st and the 2nd. as a result, i missed the concert, missed the chance to hang out with my sister in the bay area, and basicall had a fantastic weekend. really. beach and hiking and burning of fossil fuel. the missed concert was lamentable, but everything else was great. i'll make it up to myself one way or another.

anticipation

i've become a bit of a frustration to certain of my friends after turning down a couple of job offers these past few months. see, i recognize that it makes little sense. i also recognize that i need to be careful to accept something before too much time drags on. however, the big difference between this time and last time is that i have more options coming up. the excitement of potential new frontiers is always a great lift to my spirits. hope is a great thing. dreams are pretty nice too.

smiles aren't for everyone

i've had trouble with my reading list lately, primarily because i have been misplacing or losing books at a rapid clip. i re-read the first harry potter novel while visiting relatives, and that was of course a great experience. it was also 6 weeks ago. since then, i've been reading this and that, re-reading some things, etc. i checked several promising new non-fiction works out of the library today, and began reading one. it's quite thick. part of the reason i got on this non-fiction thing is i have a friend who refuses to read all fiction. while admirable and inspiring, her stance isn't one i can duplicate. i love novels and short stories. however, it has lent nonfiction reading a rebellious cool it never had before.

egg update

i still have over 70 of those things. i haven't eaten a single one, don't plan too, and no one seems particularly fond of them. maybe the new guy will eat some. he starts tuesday the 29th, and somehow avoided starting on a holiday.

enough of the mess

i watched reruns online in reverse order again. it was a bit worse than last time, only because the show was at the same time more watchable, more successful, and probably much worse. well, i thought, there can't really be that many shows that are actually worth watching.

i am so sorry

i moved desks today at work. there were hard feelings about this move. not on my part; i'm closer to my friends again and i have a pretty sweet new locale. mind you, i moved 10 feet and i wasn't divided from those guys by any actual barriers...but i am much closer to whisper range again, which i love.

accidents

it's hard to say where habits and preferences come from, but i can tell you there are times there is no good reason that i start some new initiative. for over a year, i have only worn solid colored ties to church. oddly enough, the trend seems to be that you see a lot more solid ties than before, but i will absolutely do anything i can to find a solid tie before i'll go out the door to church. it's not important, except for the fact that it's what i do. i assume most people haven't noticed, so here i go spoiling the relative obscurity of this practice of mine.

save it for later

better than just watching tv on the internet, which is refreshingly odd. watching tv on the internet in reverse sequence. i'm not sure i'd have the guts to do it to my favorite show, but something kinda lame...it's just the ticket. kinda refreshing when you can figure out the plot in advance and not feel bad about it.

the problem with the world today

sure, i listened to the new voxtrot album. at work. i paused it several times due to distractions of one type or another. it was good, there were some tracks that deserve more attention. i think the lyrics are overly wordy in places; there's a sense of reaching for something that isn't quite achieved. i found myself wondering how much i'd care about this album if i hadn't already been drawn in to the voxtrot fanbase.

the album itself was overshadowed by whiting tennis' three leaf clover, an odd gem with folk and americana inflected throughout. i particularly enjoyed the tottering synthetic parts on certain tracks, which add a charming playfulness. overall strong lyrically, the album should offer much through repeated listens. we will see.

thickening

when is it bad to get a promising phone call? when it throws all of your other calculations completely off. i think it's useful to know that if you had the option of going somewhere, you'd choose that over anything else. it's almost as good if you simply know that this new option would make all of the other decisions much more difficult. i wonder how long it will be until i have made a final choice.

biggest disappointment of the year?

voxtrot debut out tomorrow. this could be the biggest disappointment in some time. it's been a long time in the making; i can't think of many other bands that have had this much hype without ever releasing an album. i've stubbornly refused to listen to advance cuts, so as to be able to approach the whole thing at once. if there's a single track on it that matches 'the start of something,' then the wait is totally worth it. without that song, i'm not sure i would care much about voxtrot. i think i heard 'missing pieces' first, and it just doesn't have the magic. i'm not even sure i think 'biggest fan' is all that magical. is this a band that waited too long to put out an album, or are they going to continue to develop as songwriters? doesn't take the pervasive songwriting references in that latest ep to clue us in on the pressure this band has to feel.

you're just an animal

went to the zoo yesterday, and i was a bit surprised by the fact that they seem to sell a lot of meat in the concession stands, with no real vegetarian options. doesn't that seem a bit wrong? sure, they probably have to sell meat because most people eat meat, and because an institution like a zoo needs to attract the general public's support in order to survive. i suppose if they sold furs it would be a bit worse. still, wouldn't it be nice if they gave a little more thought to selling tasty vegetarian food?

motivation

why would you do anything? when it comes down to big decisions, what makes you go through with it? getting out of bed in the morning is the sort of motivation i can handle. it's easy enough; there always seems to be something to look forward to. i also have the goal of still being able to say i haven't been late to work a single time in the past year. plus, there's always something good about going in to the office these days; the folks there are my tightest bunch of friends here. i think i like what i do enough to make it worthwhile in that sense also. i don't enjoy every last thing that i do during the day, but in any given 2-week period there's a project or two that i find interesting enough.

pushed to the limit

i've always thought the extreme consumerism of my current locale is somewhat distasteful. it's like the land of being able to buy anything for a high price. sure, that could describe america in general, but it's the fullest expression of money culture that disgusts me. there are some things i could afford and that might help me out a bit - sending out my wash is the biggest - that i just can't fathom doing. i'm stubborn in trying to cling to a lifestyle best suited for somewhere else, but sometimes we're true to our principles in ways that are generally pretty insignificant.

one thing i appreciate is the focus that all this grandeur has given me; i realize that it isn't what i want, and for that i am grateful. it's easy to let life sneak up on you, take you places you don't want to go. sometimes extreme distasteful experiences should be thanked for showing us what we really value.

shifting tides

does it seem like every time you go out of town fun stuff happens? there are a number of stories i can recall where i was out of town for whatever reason and something memorable happened. in a way, i was a part of it, at least because i heard about it from people. no one perhaps would see it as i do, but there was a point where i started sticking around more, because i didn't want to miss out. maybe before i move this time, that could actually happen again.

thank yus

thank yu rhett miller, for not thinking you're too good for the old 97s. your solo work plays out better live than on the records, and the believers are great to see with you live...but as you said saturday, "the old 97s have a secret weapon...and it's philip peeples." the believers don't have murry or ken either. that was one mighty good time saturday, and thank yu for doing a second encore as well. seriously, though, i suppose it's too annoying to play all the old favorites, but victoria lee? come on, in the past 14 months, i've seen you 4 times solo or with the believers plus this most recent old 97s show...and you can't play victoria lee one time?! are you sick of it, because you're allowed to be...i just wondered.

thank yu to my office crush for smiling back at me in an elevator, even if you got on your phone immediately after getting out of the elevator. i don't even know how i brought myself to smile at you in the first place. just know that i'm basically enough of a fool that i won't ever speak to you for real.

thank yu to the couple on the subway platform who sang happy birthday on the spur of the moment when they overheard my roommate saying it was my birthday.

thank yu to my vegetarian friends for respecting my effort to try eating vegan for a week.

thank yu to the fried who explained to me that someone with a phd in goverment has a realistic chance of finding gainful employment as a full-time professor.

thank yu to any company whose application does not require you to re-enter all previous employers. resumes summarize relevant job experience.

focus

i was watching tv tonight, something that has become more of a routine for me these past couple of weeks. as with all perfectly normal and perfectly useless behavior, television consumption pulls you in quickly even when you've been away from it for a while. i've heard that if you're diligent enough, you can get to a point where you are simply disgusted by it. i am probably not going to watch a good portion of what's out there, but i consistently take in too many feature-length films in theater or on disc to really become immune to the tv bug.

the thing that was surprising or sad was how hard it was to watch a couple shows without my computer as a handy distraction. the commercial breaks, which i mostly watched on mute, were a real drag without email and web sites to tide me over. it was almost like a test of willpower. it was easy to stick to what i planned once i'd made up my mind to leave the computer alone, but maybe harder than being vegan for 8 days. that's another issue, but i'm not really sure when to back off the vegan thing. probably next time i leave town; eating out and being 100% vegan is tough. i had a couple english muffins at a diner on day one or two, having read one package and determined that they contained no milk products. later on, i checked another brand just to see how safe i was...and they had some milk ingredients. oh well.

back into the wind

cities of the plain
-cormac mccarthy

i have no way of properly addressing this book's significance and compositional style. everything i write reminds me of how little pertinent knowledge of american literature i have attained. i can't possibly see why people would prefer all the pretty horses, unless it is simply because they read it first.

there is a passage in this book, perhaps around page 207 or 209, that was the most incredible i have encountered in some time. perhaps it was the right mood for that day, that evening, that moment. i could re-read it, and i doubt i would feel at all the same. reading many other passages, i could only think how much i must be missing and how i would have a lot to gain from re-reading cities of the plain. overall, the novel was a relief after the heartbreaking depravity of blood meridian. i had to give up on mccarthy for a while after that one. my leap of faith in re-dedicating myself to exploration of his oeuvre was richly rewarded.

cities of the plain is a sequel to both all the pretty horses and the crossing. those familiar with mccarthy's style and anyone who champions authorial freedom will be glad to hear he wastes not a word preparing us for the union between these two worlds. as we find the protagonists from the previous two works of this trilogy united, we hear next to nothing of the time since those works concluded. mccarthy's narrator describes the action. characters are not introduced; they simply appear. you have to make inferences about who they are based on the dialogue. the narrator has no greater inclination to describe individuals withing the story than the laconic cowboy heroes of these tales. mccarthy manages to transcend these self-imposed limitations through the use of alternate narrators, ancient hermits encountered by his characters. their stories are vivid, philosophical, and grandiose. these are the passages that most often defy my attempts at full comprehension of mccarthy's message.

is reading still worth it?

guns, germs, and steel
-jared diamond

this could be one of the "most readable works on the human past," as the back cover states, but that doesn't mean i want to pick up any of the others. it's tough to say there's a lot wrong with it, but its fascinating thesis wasn't always enough to get me excited about reading it. the book's four hundred-plus pages were quite daunting even once i'd gotten a good way into it. reading guns germs and steel is relatively enjoyable, but it can be repetitive as diamond constructs detailed foundations for his ideas. he has to lay out an overarching theory explaining the course of human history, so there's a lot of ground to cover. diamond writes as one who has an answer, not as one who is wrestling with a problem. his breezy optimism and genial tone aren't always enough to bring the book to the level of the most exhilaratingly enlightening nonfiction works. still, at its worst, guns germs and steel remains a book that teaches you more than enough to make it worth the effort.

mid april happenings

there's a somewhat impressive rainstorm going on, has been all day. one of the best things about where i live right now is that whenever there is precipitation of any kind, the sound of dripping water from outside my window is strong enough that i always have some warning of the state of the weather. sometimes there's a bit of rain but it's nearly impossible to hear or see. well, i can always hear it from where i am. i know, i could listen to the radio or something to get the weather in the morning, but i simply have never done that. my computer now has made weather information super easy to find, but the computer is not something i trot out each morning before work. before i leave the house each morning, i do little other than shower. breakfast is exclusively something i eat at work. i've gone further lately, eliminating the morning search for keys and work id by throwing them all in my bag before i go to bed. so turning on a computer and checking the weather just wouldn't fit in. so now, i go off to bed, wishing i had better smelling laundry soap.

in lieu of news, views

if you wanna catch up you'd better run
there's no hiding from days in the sun

when the trees disappear the snow flakes
there's nothing like living when everything breaks

the key

what exactly allows you to transform your relationship with someone to a friendship? there are people at work i am good friends with. there are some i can talk to sometimes and joke around about things that both of us understand or are experiencing. there are some, however, that i pretty much am not going to be engaging in a one-on-one conversation. i'm not sure exactly why this is. i mean, there are people in the office who will talk to me if other people are involved, and who are far from antisocial, but they will not talk to me in the elevator if we are both leaving work. it's odd. i mean, i can tell they don't really want to talk and i don't try to force it.

the difference with friends is somehow they don't mind if you aren't talking about much. you feel comfortable saying exactly what you want, at least with your closest friends. er, at least i hope there are people who'll let you do that. ok...um...right.

the value of anything

i purchased $32 worth of candy eggs today. i don't plan to eat any of them. i would consider handing them out at my birthday party. i also think the experience of buying an entire case of candy eggs is potentially worth a lot more than the experience of eating any of them. there are 96 in total. since i had already spent $5 on diet soda i was purchasing as a pure expression of spontaneity, it seems $32 may have been a little much to spend on candy eggs. i am listening to a pop levi song right now, and i think i would much rather spend my money on candy eggs than attend a concert of his. his band is called 'woman,' which just seems extremely odd. i'm going to start a backup band called 'i don't really want to hear your music' and ask him if he'd like to employ us as well.

signs i am growing up

although i resist it, consciously or unconsciously, maturity comes naturally as you progress through the years. or so it seems. here are some signs i am growing up.

1. i no longer eat huge amounts of food in order to entertain people. mj was present the night i decided to end this practice, although she may not remember.

2. i don't drink huge glasses of juice and milk anymore.

3. i often stop myself from revealing things. this took a while, and i'm still not really good at it.

4. i no longer read the comics section of the newspaper. once i got out of the habit, this was actually pretty easy.


despite this, i am still very pleased with myself when i get taken for a college kid, as long as it doesn't involve a severe scolding. i almost tried to pass myself as a high school kid and go trick-or-treating two years ago, but i think some number of my regular readers here convinced me it was a horrible idea.

second time around

blood meridian
-cormac mccarthy

more disturbing than anything else of his i've read. a brilliant story of savagery, debauchery, war, and life in the truly wild west. some of the strongest characters are never properly introduced. the narrative thrust of the book seems less connected than usual to the actual message. mccarthy tends to use tales told in the course of the action to dig at the meaning of everything, and here those moments arose in my own mind even when they weren't in the text. we learn less about some of the main characters than we do about peripheral figures in 'the crossing.' still, lacking history, these men are so strong as presences in the tale that i found myself as never before wondering what else mccarthy is telling me.

reading your way to the left coast

edgewater angels
-sandro meallet

i have to say i liked this book despite the author's sometimes quirky style. that is to say, perhaps some would be bothered by his penchant for combining words intoone, but i wasn't annoyed enough to take much of anything away from this first-person tale of life in a san pedro housing project. the book is a string of short stories tied together either in plot or by narrative effort - coming off as a young man telling the tale of several years of his youth in one setting. i like that about it; everything stands on its own, and fits together. certainly, it's more organized than a long narrative might be, but who knows. it's obvious the narrator has potential as an author; he spends long days at the library when he's not welcome anywhere else. given this penchant for literary escapism, the cleanly outlined narrative comes off as inevitable.

countdown

i managed to find good homes for two of my favorite don't-really-fit sportcoats. it made me very happy that i didn't have to plain get rid of them. now, if only i had someone who could take a pair of slightly worn green and pink sneakers off my hands...

unbelief

as i try to recover from one of my more egregious errors of the past month, certain sentences i heard last night keep running through my head. i arrived home from work last night around 7:15, having been both unusually productive and surprisingly ambitious in my day's efforts. my roommate laughed as he tried to lure me out to a party across the way and i crawled deep into my sleeping bag to recover, relax, and read the novel i have so desperately torn through. within half an hour, two bowls of cereal and a couple slices of toast were gone, and i had read just enough to blunt the desire to crash.

at the actual party, i showed a best-of-late ability to have a personality. having plunged so often into the frightening depths of aimlessness and indifference, i seem to have failed more than necessary to convince people that i am worth knowing. last night, however, i had the sort of oddly film-worthy experiences that can only mean that i had a really excellent evening. i discussed jazz and other music with a record company employee who promised to send anything my way if i just asked. i cautiously ignored the girl who was relentlessly flirting with several different guys, only to have her tell me that she was in love with me. i managed to deflect this assertion with an anecdote about mj's brother and how he once said something quite similar and meant basically none of it. i was the worst by far at the evening's main video-game distraction and chuckled inside as someone insisted that i'd been brilliant. none of that really compares, however, to my brush with tragic skepticism.

sometimes, we think we know what we're dealing with, only to find later that we missed the true significance of a landmark event. so it was that i became engaged in conversation with a most impressive young lady, missing the biggest hint as it came and thinking i knew exactly what i was getting myself into. she managed to initiate the entire conversation, go out on at least one particularly feminist limb without any hint from me that i'd be ok with that, mention the joy of attending a performance by the band i'd been listening to all week, and generally come off like the most impressive girl i've met in forever. some of this entered into my brain, fairly well marked as important information, and yet i both recognized and rejected the opportunity to get her number before she left. it would have required an extremely obvious effort, but such things are worth it when you meet someone who's unusually worth knowing. so now i've got one beautiful conversation to play over in my head while i try to figure out the least-annoying way of getting contact information for someone i'm not just going to bump into anytime next month. i was thinking, as the conversation began to turn from something that seemed nice to something that seemed potentially awesome, that i probably should get her number. the problem is, i didn't have enough faith in the idea that asking a girl for her phone number at a party is actually an important thing in shaping the next few days or weeks of your life. this is the same problem that leads to me reminisce on the fact that i have never not once applied for a job in a city i have for over a year thought would be an ideal place to live. i am really good at buying awesome sneakers and eating cereal. i am not good at asking girls for their phone numbers or applying to endless endless jobs. in the past six months, i have probably applied for 4.5 jobs (i was rejected by one before i finished the online app), maybe a few more. i have gotten 3 interviews, one offer, and one very disheartening rejection. somehow, this is the effort i have been making to get out of a city i really can't stand. there's a problem somewhere with my faith in the significance of actions like applying for jobs. talking with co-workers this past week, it seems there's a lot more money out there to be made by people with my skills than i would have thought. maybe i don't care about that, but shouldn't i at least hold out until i can find another job in a city i like at a place that will let me wear jeans and sneakers?

gallery update: first installation underway

there's no real explanation for why i am creating an art gallery underneath my desk. it seems to make perfect sense to everyone who knows me. since i don't actually have any landscape photographs yet, i figured i'd be making a few drawings. turns out there are more ways than that to fill a new under-desk art gallery. the first installation is an exhibition of empty beverage containers, now eerily suspended from the desk. it's rather inspiring when you lie on the floor and gaze up at it. i've just got soda cans and foam cups from one of our epic lunch smoothie outings.

going for smoothies at lunch is tough if you actually want to keep it to an hour, because the train ride itself (not including waiting) is at least 20 minutes each way. to properly do the trip, we need some help from the trains; we can't wait too long on either end. we ride the train, in the past taking along the trusty world ball. if there aren't too many people on the train, the world ball can be used for a handy game of catch. there are many stairs and escalators between us and the real world, so an officially-cautioned-against sprint helps once the train pulls in to our destination. this leaves us out of breath, but the juice place is less than a block from the station. having stood in line, we buy our drinks, rush back to the train, and arrive back at work maybe 65 minutes after we left.

a few distractions

do you remember the last time you listened to an album three times in the same day? i do. it was yesterday. the release of new albums may not be the event it was back in the days my parents can't get over, but i did my best to make this one count.

i am planning to create an art gallery underneath my desk at the office. willing to help? send me any unwanted landscape photographs, preferably actual prints not just files. your kindness will not go unnoticed.

finally, if you see a size medium zip hoodie at your local thrift shop, pick it up, email me, and i'll pay you back. tata for now.

how to win affection without trying

for some reason, i am under the impression that richard h. shultz jr. and andrea j. dew's book insurgents, terrorists, and militias, which i just finished, attracts female attention while i read it on the subway. perhaps i am so foolish as to inhabit a fantasy world where an interest in non-state combatants is as endearing as a winning smile. more likely, i am under the impression that anyone who is impressed by my reading habits is probably worth knowing. perhaps ali m. ansari's confronting iran will win me some new friends and acquaintances.

my moment in the sun

yesterday, my roommates wanted to go downtown and see the sights a little. what we ended up seeing was a few kids skateboarding, the inside of a chain restaurant where we paid twice the price one would pay anywhere else in the country, and a discount store where we went shopping for several hours. the next thing i know, we get home at 9pm and we've gotta head out immediately to hit up this party. i end up talking to a lot of people there, but i get really excited when i have the chance to talk to this one girl who's good friends with my roommate, because i think she's cool and she actually likes at least one of the bands i saw in concert last year. so because of the fact that my day consisted mostly of shopping, i end up talking about that particular subject a little too much. i think it might be easy for me to come off as a total idiot if i get stuck on the wrong topic, such as discount shopping. i'm much better off if i can get people to talk about iran or something, where i can use big words and sound intelligent. at least that way, i know that people who think i'm an idiot aren't worth befriending. the best moment of the evening was later on at someone's birthday party, where i am one of the last to show up. most people are gone and we're sitting around talking, when i suddenly hit a balloon so that it falls directly on the icing of one of the cakes. when i go to pick it up, i do it so quickly that some icing is flung to the floor, making a bigger mess. then i take the balloon over to the sink where i attempt to slowly deflate it. instead, i suddenly make it pop, sending icing all over the wall behind the kitchen sink. the host makes everything better by insisting that this act makes him quite glad indeed to have me there.

theft

sheer carelessness and a failure to fully grasp the importance of the fact that our unprotected kitchen window was right by the fire escape led to a valentine's day burglary at my new place. since i just moved to a nicer neighborhood, many people find it ironic that i was robbed at the new place. there were bars on the window by the fire escape at the old place, you know. a recently purchased (used) game system and 1.5 yr old portable computer were taken from me. i haven't fully grasped the importance of everything that was lost, but 6k photos seem to represent the greatest loss. i had been planning to use a number of my self portraits in an upcoming video project, as a fun intro sequence, but that's not happening now. i suppose this is going to kill any pretensions of applying to a photography program this year.

soliciting advice

the fork in the road came but it's really the end. the branch fell when you tried to climb that tree. the hole in the ground filled in with earth before you could escape. i can't figure it out, maybe you can. maybe none of us can figure it out. maybe it's not worth figuring out. i have a choice: i can stay where i am and persist in my bizzare, enlightening dance with misery. i can go somewhere else and hope everything is magically better. maybe everything should be magically better. maybe it's not magic, it's the fact that i don't want to be where i am and that i've been planning my escape since i got here. i'm just not sure this is the escape route i want to take. meanwhile, if the oxygen has held out for 12 months, it can hold another 6. all signs point to yes.

maybe it's not important at all

if you go back and forth daily or every few days or every week about a major decision, shouldn't that mean you are ok going in either direction? i find it difficult to say whether i am really that concerned with the choice i am making now; i have 2 definite options and 1 i might be allowed to take. that's the one i really want, and not because it's unsure; it's the one i had my heart set on from the outset. between the other two, it's harder. there are pros and cons of course, but unlike the 3rd, unsure option, i am not ready to say "i wholeheartedly accept the negatives of this situation because i know i want the positives."

i'm wondering when the light will come down

this week is beautiful. it contains the beauty of pure unbridled pressure, shot from every direction at once, flooding my life. not only have i had the privilege of weighing all my major life decisions at once, the ones that always weigh in the balance are heaving their way into the fray directly. all variables affect the others, all answers have to come soon, all shapes of the soon-to-be coalesce into one. for reaons i cannot fully explain, this transition is a shining model for all the others. it screams from its perch: "oh, yes, you'd better be thinking about all of this, you were never wrong to consider me, never." vindication has come, for the decisions it seemed i was delaying have always been the colors that made the true picture i fashioned of what lay before me.

another point of inflection

i suppose there are times when i must choose something just because i've got to be headed in a particular direction. however, can i expect to always see the important moments while they're happening? the larger changes i've experienced in the past couple years have probably meant a lot both when they approached and when they passed. i expect, however, that at some point i'll realize i've gotten into one situation or another and actually have to retrace things back to some mythical inflection point when it all began to come about. what will be more important? those moments perceived as most crucial, or those subtler changes that might end up moving everything to a new position. maybe nothing is determined by one particular moment. what if it's always possible to step back or to the side, so that no one decision has the power to send me forever in one direction or another.

a couple for the ages

nonfiction is tough. when it's written poorly, it can be devastatingly hard to drag out the information you're seeking. when it's convincing, we start to wonder who's telling the truth. when it's revealing, we wonder how the author could really have known everything involved. still, the best nonfiction offers revelations about areas of the world and life we have never been. i make an effort to read a fair amount from the nonfiction shelf; here are the two i've just finished.

knockoff: the deadly trade in counterfeit goods
-tim phillips

maybe there are enough books already pointing out what's wrong with the world. who decides which things should be exposed? are authors motivated purely by altruism, or do some of them seek more to reshaped the world to their own liking. here, we learn where fake fashion, music, video, and other products come from and how our lives are effected by illegal use of intellectual property. although he trots out the terrorists and organized crime as orchestrators of much of the counterfeiting, phillips does a credible job of problematizing some of the sensationalism this invites. protection rackets, rivalries, and attacks on investigators are all revealed, providing plenty of reasons to swear off purchasing fake luxury items. even without the violence, there is plenty of scary stuff going on when you start talking about counterfeit prescription drugs. the writing never got in my way, and his britishness adds interesting personality in unexpected places. is 'garrett the ferret' a perfect rhyme? it is the way i pronounce those two words, but it isn't for phillips.

the looming tower: al qaeda and the road to 9/11
-lawrence wright

how close were we to spoiling the plot? sure, maybe you'll never know, but this book gives a tantalizing view of what went wrong. part history of al-qaeda, part critique of the intelligence services' pre-9/11 performance, it finds and follows a hero within the fbi, john o'neil. remarkable details of both government intelligence efforts and terrorist groups' history come out in boldly painted fashion. osama bin laden's family life, career, and descent into what might be arrogance, extremism, or excess are revealed.

the safety of strangers

monday night i was up until 1:30 or so after waiting an hour and a half outside for one of those cd release party/concerts at midnight. the band was not completely amazing, but word is their live shows are like that. i figured free was a good price.

the interesting part was the waiting in line. for some reason, i expected to meet some new people, and i did. there was this one girl who was talking to everyone, or at least to me and to the 3 people behind her and her friend. she also enjoyed shouting at people who tried to cut in the line. so this little group formed because one person was unusually boisterous. after a while, the other 3 got cold and left, and i ended up telling these girls all about my life and job and everything. i think i've had trouble finding people to talk to (in person anyway). then you just wind up somewhere and it doesn't matter what you say because they don't really know you. maybe it's just that they kept asking questions; who knows. still, the fallout that results from oversharing with strangers seems a little less than with friends. it's the best of friends who can take it and still love you, but they're harder to find. that's why they're so valuable.

the accumulation of stuff

i had the privilege this weekend to throw out mounds of old junk that my parents no longer wish to store for me. there were a lot of clothes from the 90s that look really bad now, so those were easy to deal with. the hard things are the ones that were given to me over the years - this or that memento of someone's trip, or other presents that were ornamental rather than practical in nature. i suppose the good thing about buying things like clothing is that it can be obvious when it's time to get rid of them. there is no purpose to a shirt that has gone completely out of style, but things that were essentially useless to begin with are harder to throw away. it's like the entire purpose of owning them is showing your respect for the gift giver. so today i was thinking about all the money one can spend on clothes which then become uselessly unfashionable, but maybe it's better to buy things that are easily discarded. that way, the piles of old junk are easier to manage.

many times your speed

slow motion can be beautiful. i'm turning into a plotter, a schemer, because things around me have come to a bit of a lull - a mysterious interval between significant events - where i may have paused my life for a little while. it's easy to plan where i want to be, and it's certainly worth the time. i have so much time i don't even know what to do with it. well, reading another longish book in a week because i can't renew it is one thing i've been doing. naps are another, comes along with the reading. i made (read: boiled) tortellini maybe a week ago. it was good the first day and flavorless a couple days later. i have no idea how the pesto filling lost its taste. i'm not up for bland , i'm afraid. i ate a ton of it.

expanding our orbit

i have been relatively trapped, or i have allowed myself to orbit one particular sun, for the past 3 plus years. sure, i've done a lot of things and travelled some and lived a few different places, but i have been doing the same job. maybe that's not a problem, and after all i am fairly good at it. however, at some point one has to step out of that role and move into something else. i do not at this point think that my future is tied up in any particular dimension, but my present is somewhat limited. going back to school seems like an easy way out. there should be others, and there are. i guess it comes down to daring to take a risk. i wonder often if i should just pack everything up and move, sans employment. who knows what the best idea is, that would be a tough choice but one that might bring me into an unexpected position. i like that part of it.

in which an excellent book is finished

as promised, i wasn't reading only junk.

family matters
-rohinton mistry

heard of him? i hadn't, but i don't know many authors. if you're like me, this guy might be one of the best writers you've never heard of. a family's relationships strain as they struggle to care for their aging grandfather. choices made by family forbears echo through generations in this evocative tale of love, anger, intolerance, and reconciliation.

which is worse?

there are several albums right now that i want to buy but have decided not to purchase in cd form. i think cds are great, and it is nice to have this physical thing, but then you have to move it, and i have a lot of those physical things already. i actually have so many mp3 cds left over from my freewheelin' days of marauding emusic's catalog that it's kinda annoying. then they went over to a 40 downloads per month limit and after getting annoyed with the results (they recommend an album, it stinks, and you're out a quarter of your monthly limit), i finally gave up on them. however, i have recently realized they have almost every one of the albums i want to purchase, and they still provide everything in vbr mp3 format. i find the subscription model, at this point, a bit vexing. they've dropped the download limit to 30, but i would agree that the now-humongous catalog makes it worth it. problem is, i don't want the subscription. i'd probably pay them like 75 cents a track even to download all the mp3s i cared to acquire. i'd also be cool with plunking down the $99 or so for a year's subscription if i could download all 360 tracks as soon as i wanted. alas, that's not how it works.

so the question is, would i rather have music from itunes that costs maybe twice as much ($10 for an album vs $10 for 30 downloads) and is drm'd, or nice clean mp3s from emusic and an annoying subscription. it's like another chore you have to go through at the beginning of every month - cut hair, update resume, return library books, buy the next 30 tracks on your list. the problem is, their business model counts on garnering an average price per download that's higher than what they nominally charge. like a health club, which gets your money whether you show up or not. so do i prefer my freedom from subscriptions, or my freedom from drm? not sure. in all honesty, apple's drm implementation won't give you headaches unless you want to depart the flock and buy someone else's music player.

pizza becomes our ally

last week, a couple coworkers and i wandered around for a few hours after the day ended and wound up eating some ex-sellent pizza. thin crust which managed to be tasty, with superb sauce and generous seasonings. returned this week, again a party of 3, minus one from last week and plus a newcomer. i only got one slice and made sure to get cheese this time in order to best measure the tastiness of the pizza relative to that of other establishments. it was super great. however, i was not blown away like last time, because the element of surprise was lost. still, pizza proves an excellent ally in keeping good friendships going.

book it again

inside the jihad - my life with al aqaeda
-omar nasiri

refreshing because of its simple prose, this true tale of espionage and islamic extremism is most valuable in its even-handedness. the book provides a revealing and distinctly human portrait of the men inside the islamist movement. written by a believer, it helped me feel the author's passion for his faith. arabic words and phrases in the text are clearly explained while maintaining narrative flow. a great read, for its style as much as its content.

trial and error

http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifi've noticed that the last few times i have been able to listen to all or most of an album before buying it, i have quickly decided not to buy it at all. i thoroughly support the idea of a band being brave enough to have the entire thing out there for people to hear, but really there's no way i am going to buy something lousy just because the people behind it are unusually nice. so here's the question: is it possible that i just can't properly see the value in this music because i had to pay nothing for it? i don't think so. i do have a few free compilations on the hard drive somewhere, and one or two of them is truly specacular.

i might make particular mention of starving but happy. i have the original starving but happy compilation and follow-up starving but happier. it was a net release but i believe a label later picked it up; it seemsthat i am correct.

poetry mongers

i have been inspired lately, because i read about this place in seattle where you can go read bad poetry. i think the intention is that you're reading something you wrote in 8th grade. here's something i wrote yesterday.

make your way slowly
as she talks, he will to
ofrward, eyes drift higher,
left and didn't try to smile

a lousy book

i'm not reading all trash on purpose (awol), but i got another loser and it took me a little while to realize it was lame. i promise i'm reading something good, it's just long and thus a bit heavy to take back and forth every day.

the kid who batted 1.000
-troon mcallister

i've read good baseball books. this isn't one. funny, entertaining, but it just has this sheen of poorly written crudeness over it. most of the characters are stereotypes, charicatures, or exaggerations. i mean, this is a book where the minnesota twins have been sold and play in iowa. some other clubs have been moved around. the author thinks it's clever to put famous baseball quotes into the narrative by having his roughly sketched characters say them. famous wit loses a lot when it's divorced from the actual person who said it; the reason it's famous is because of the legend of that individual, not just the words themselves. baseball has a grand tradition, and i'm not sure the way to invoke that is to cherry pick one liners and recast them in a new historical context that only exists in your work of fiction.

not done ending the year

hard to say, but i can't really condemn 2006. i mean, sure there is some temptation to say it was a particularly not great year, but then on the other hand i've learned a lot this year. i think maybe the biggest thing is a sense of how far i have to go in getting everything together. it's tough to consider it all at once, which is why i often make no progress at all. i was thinking as i was walking over to a friend's apartment that she would probably notice my new sneakers. she did, and she thought they were cool. a fair number of people think i have cool shoes. you know why i have cool sneakers? it's because i spend inordinate amounts of time shopping for sneakers. i recently did a phone interview in a shoe store. that was actually brilliant, because i was at some huge record shop and there was no way i could do a phone interview there. i knew the shoe place would be relatively quiet; it was actually rather perfect. i found some amazing shoes there actually; they were like sneakers you can wear to work and get away with it. i'm going to have to go back and find those again.

the point i'm making, having judiciously abandoned the original topic, is that i spend too much time shopping for shoes. at least, that is, i spend more time shopping for shoes than someone who really had all his priorities in line. i think a lot of people might think i spend too much time listening to music, but lately i don't listen that much outside of office hours. the office is actually fun enough that i don't listen all day at the office either. as for the shoes, it's true that i am always looking for the next pair of awesome sneakers; this last time i bought essentially the perfect pair but 1/2 size too small because there was only the one pair in that style. the color was the key; green with pink highlights. i've gotten my money's worth out of these, but i'm conflicted. half the time i am sure they're gonna be fine, the other half the time i figure i need to stop wearing them before i do something weird to my feet. they've been so liberating though; for some reason i have no problem trashing these. a good sneaker looks best with some wear, but the last pair i had (blue with yellow accents) are made with nicer suede that i don't want to see all dirty. there was a point when i had to cut things out of my life; i took sports. i still haven't gone back to reading about sports as much as i would've 2 years ago, but it's come back because i've been too dispirited to go for the other hobbies. aren't you supposed to be artistic when you're down? i think there's a difference between depressed and dispirited. it's the best word i can come up with; anyway, i took about one tenth the number of photos in 2006 that i did in 2005. it's nuts. actually, maybe it's a a fifth. still, i find myself really wanting to buy a used video game system (yes i had one before the move, but didn't play often) because there's little to do. oh well, it's a step towards something.

reinventing the wheel

you want a cause? how about redefining the nature of work for millions of people? sure, you could argue that making life easier on white-collar workers in the first world isn't the quickest way to save the planet. it's gotta be someone's cause, though, and a lot of this is beginning to make sense to me. plus, if you do it right, you'll enable other people to work more effectively to solve the rest of the world's problems. here are some quick points:

*office-based full-time work is really only suited to single people, or to married people who have a partner at home full-time to take care of the many demands of life and family.

*office workers seem to face increasing demands from their employers

*many of those workers have spouses who work full-time

i started looking at this because i thought it might help retention at my office, but it goes a lot deeper than that. has it ever seemed silly to be sitting at work taking up space trying to put in your eight hours or (for any number of reasons) more than that? i think the opinion that regular hours like that are outdated in the modern office is refreshing.

latest books, part 2

an evening of long goodbyes
-paul murray

the narrator of this book is charmingly hapless, a young british twenty-something trying to live like an aristocrat. breezy read mostly, throws around a few stereotypes and then paints in some of the characters in more subtle style.

no country for old men
-cormac mccarthy

for some reason, this is easy to get ahold of while 'blood meridian' has dozens of holds on it. something about the other book finishing tied for third in nytimes poll best fiction of the past 25 years. anyway, this book is disturbing; you'll figure that out pretty quickly. having read two thirds of the border trilogy, i figured it was worth wading through the blood to figure out what else was going on. i don't think this book is trying to teach us a lesson in the usual sense. mccarthy doesn't have an answer for us, it's more of a warning or a lament. the book is an adventure that takes the tragedy of its subject matter seriously.

about a boy
-nick hornby

i have put this off for a long time, because i enjoyed the movie so much that i knew i'd like the book. i've never enjoyed comparing a movie to a book this much. i love the fact that the dialogue is exactly the same in one crucial scene, but the movie takes a different turn by changing the meaning behind the words. part of the enjoyment also came from reading it in a british accent. would have been harder without having seen the film version.

awol: the unexcused absence of america's upper classes from military service - and how it hurts our country
-kathy roth-douquet and frank schaeffer

not quite done because i would have finished it on the way to work and had nothing to read on the way home. i was going into this believing the authors had a good point to make. that's probably why i finished it, because this is one of the worst books i've read all year. it's fairly self-righteous, talks about racism yet offhandedly ridicules the idea of a hiphop class being offered at stanford, and seems to have a healthy degree of animosity toward stanford, the ivy league, and america's wealthiest citizens. there are some touching stories and letters from soldiers and their families, but the overall book is hard to take. i suppose it's the extremely smug authorial attitude; they bash their peers in order to score points with their audience. this is not a book you'd write if you wanted to reason with, say, a left-wing hollywood exec who doesn't want military recruiters talking to her son. it's something you'd write if you wanted to score points with people who already despise the rich. i think it's sad; there's a good point here - the country would be better off if a few more kids left duke to serve in the military for a few years before becoming lawyers and running for office. however, the arrogance of this book's tone might undermine the authors' effort to convince those kids to serve.

latest books, part 1

i have been reading a lot lately, in fact i read the entire Old Testament this year, but in the past few months i have read a number of books not at all related to religion. i'll try to add to the list as i remember some of the things i read earlier, but i still have all of these so it's easy:

blink
-malcolm gladwell

back at the library, which is why i barely remembered to include it. well-written tale of the power of the subconscious' power of rapid decision making. the concept is easy to grasp, but the stories are well written and worth reading. after quickly relating his thesis, gladwell slowly reveals how various people have acquired the expertise that allows them to make rapid and accurate judgements. this is the sort of book you can talk about with other people, and they know what you're talking about because they're reading it or know someone who has.

licensed to kill: hired guns in the war on terror
-roberst young pelton

it's about military contractors, and despite the author's efforts posturing as a neutral voice, he seems to go for the shock value a bit. overall, interesting if you are into the general subject matter, and there's plenty to learn from this.

war reporting for cowards
-chris ayres

some people end up in jobs that aren't what they'd imagined. ayres wanted to be a journalist, just not in a war zone. written with a good natured, self-deprecating style. he's british, so his perspective is a bit different than you might expect.

literature

i continue to test the lending limits of the communal book pile. until early this evening, i had 19 books out, but 3 had to be returned. so being down to 16, the question arises: is there even a limit here? can i just take them all?

when is it possible to take too much of anything? i suppose i think it's easier to think too much is being taken when you're not the taker. for instance, an employer could take too much of your time, right? i often think it's easy to take too much of other people's time, which is why i end up doing it still. what about communal goods though? i generally take a modest share of whatever food has been given to the apartment and then a few days later i'll take as much as i feel like. it seems like it's easy to take more and more, because once you get in the habit of taking a certain amount, you can justify it. then you take a little more, and justify that, and it continues until you realize you might have taken too much. still, it has to be some sort of sliding scale...you could never actually reach a point where you say 'hey, i really have taken too much.' as a result you go on taking too much simply because you've worn down your own sensitivity to your excess and somehow never gone far enough to shock yourself.

musical year in review, vol 3: the new landscape

as mj pointed out in the comments to vol 1, it's not that i am really listening to different music than i did a year and a half ago. the difference is, instead of talking with people about who's coming into town and when and which concert is better to go see, i'm talking to myself about it. that is to say, the discussion is all internal; the music i used to enjoy with others is now something i enjoy alone. have i reached that point in my life when all my tastes and preferences are basically set, and i'm now some eccentric fool trying to hang on to the community he's lost? let's hope not. it is necessary at the moment for me to enjoy a lot of music alone. i have the option of going to the concerts by myself or not going at all. sometimes, i do get caught up having fun with the friends i've made more recently, and i don't see any live shows for several months. then i get thinking about who i might want to see and start checking websites and sooner or later i've figured out what my next adventure will be. i don't know if i have failed to meet the right people where i am or if i was just uncharacteristically blessed at that crucial point in my life when i was fresh out of college and starting off with little idea who i would become. no matter what fears i may have to the contrary, i expect my next move to usher in some sort of renaissance of new friends and exciting things to do.

back to the point though; i have seen an awful lot of concerts by myself this year, and thoroughly enjoyed most of them. i think my favorite was flying out to seattle and driving to portland for that one concert. somehow that ranks similarly in my mind to my solo hike up quandary mountain in colorado. i'd been trying to convince a friend to go with me and he didn't want to, but i sure wasn't going to let that get in my way. never mind that in the course of the portland trip i called the girl i'd just gone out with and began the process of discovering we wouldn't go out again. that drive was thrilling, i was free, no one was stopping me from what i wanted. i don't really blame hollywood for linking romantic success to achievement in other aspects; it's merely a symbol, a plot device. so it's merely coincidental that one of my favorite weekends of the whole year brought the revelation that i'd be alone a while longer. as i have moved away from the people i care about, i've had to live for myself a little more, just in the sense of taking joy in solitary moments more often than usual. maybe that's a part of growing up. i can see now how people can persist in being something no one relates to; they've been separated perhaps from their favorite people and they're keeping it real when there's no one really there for them.

despite what i said already about finding new friends, when i think about moving, it's not usually about being surrounded by folks i care about; most of the time it's about hiking and camping and just burning fossil fuels by myself. i crave freedom, i crave the hideous paved roads that scar our nation, and i crave the sky and trees and the fresh wild air.

the last christmas

i have been looking forward to this christmas for almost the entire year. i insisted that the entire family should gather at my parents' place, and the others actually bought tickets it seems like 10 months ago. for the past week or so, i have been looking forward to coming home and driving my parents' cars around, while in fact i have spent much of the day in bed reading nick hornby. it seems a bit sad to come home and find there's nothing i really want to eat; apparently the fact that cereal - hot or cold, packaged or from the bulk granola bins - makes up perhaps 50% of my weekly caloric intake has not been properly explained to the folks. meanwhile, no one else has showed up yet and the airlines have kindly presented hundreds of dollars worth of compensation to those still-traveling relatives.

it'd be nice to be relating something really sentimental and christmas-y, but really all i'm doing is reading a book and thinking how i could fit a used videogame system in my carryon luggage for the trip home. yes, i am so bored that i might just go buy things to rectify the situation. i do expect once everyone shows up that things will be so bustly that i will once again retreat off somewhere to read and get away from the madness, but so far it's kinda like being 17 again. actually, most of the things that have happened to me in the past 10 months have made me feel like i'm 17 again, if only because that's the last time i was so completely hopeless socially. of course, back then i didn't know any better, and now i guess i can mostly take it in stride. merry christmas and here's to finding my way again.

where you live

people have told me often, as i have expressed disdain for my chosen place of habitation, that it takes time to grown on you. it's true, and not just because it's a hard place to live. really, you have to get accustomed to the way of life. by the time you've been around long enough for the town to have shaped your expectations, you'll like it just fine. yeah, there's a lot of places i'd rather live, but i might be ok at this point. of course, my housing situation is a bit lame and there are no cheap solutions...so leaving looks as good as ever.

musical year in review, vol 2: out of nowhere

the august norfolk & western appearance at portland's doug fir featured ray's vast basement and loch lomond as openers. for sheer surprise factor, it was the best concert of the year. ray's vast basement has at least a couple songs that are as good as anything i really like, and then a few i found vastly annoying. still, for a few confused minutes (i didn't know there were any opening acts) i thought i was hearing new norfolk & western material, and i was pleased. loch lomond, however, turned in the sort of performance i'll be thinking about for years. they trotted out endless musicians and instruments, from celeste to cello. vocals were delivered in a disarming old world drawl, and melodic layers were enhanced by the timbral kaleidescope unfolding on stage.

loch's ritchie young is a great writer and performer, but i think adam seltzer and rachel blumberg could outdo him if they too had the benefit of seven msucians on stage for many of their songs. i would absolutely fire the bass player and violinist if i were those two. it's not that they're necessarily bad, i just didn't like their contribution to the norfolk & western sound. my problem is that i like 'dusk in cold parlors' too much to really want them to go in another direction. i guess i should consider the old norfolk essentially dead and be glad that what exists is as great as it was that august evening. i was hoping somehow m. ward would be on with the band; he wasn't, but it turns out adam has all the haunting guitar textures necessary to do justice to material from 'dusk.' the interplay between blumberg and seltzer is amazing, but i need the other band members to add something to that, or get out of the way.

somewhere early in the set, adam made a crack about hoping the openers didn't outshine him. the audience sincerely expressed their conviction that it was impossible, but it wouldn't be a bad thing. that loch lomond set was stellar. they had the benefit of obscurity; no expectations to live up to. i bought their second cd after the concert, gifted it, and have regretted it ever since. only this evening did i find it for sale online; sign me up for a copy. as for norfolk, they released a full length that either wasn't out by the time of that show or wasn't for sale. i bought 'a gilded age,' and i enjoy the cleverly-worded title track even if the instrumentation is a bit sparse and the banjo part is unimpressive. for anyone who cares, portland blew me away as much as the concert. i was pleased with myself for having wanted to move there. too bad that dream was postponed.

musical year in review, vol 1

plenty happened this year that i know nothing about. just thought it might be interesting to write about how my musical tastes evolved this past year. other things happened that are of a lot more significance than what happened to me.

2006 was significant because i moved away from the people who had influenced my musical tastes the most over the previous 2 years. it was tough; there's no way around it. of course, even if i hadn't gone anywhere, one of them moved anyway, and things might not have been the same. anyway, the most significant development of 2006 is the possible demise of thievery corporation, my favorite musical act for the past while. they fell victim to changing tastes, more than anything. i've gone more down the indie pop, singer-songwriter, americana roads lately. look at the concerts i've gone to this year: i saw rhett miller 3 times, the elected twice, jenny lewis, voxtrot, calexico, neko case, daneilson, tv on the radio, and norfolk & western. there were others - am, tom clark & the high action boys, garrison starr, the frames, ray's vast basement, and loch lomond all played at shows i saw, and most provided above-average music or i wouldn't have remembered their names. loch lomond arguably outshone headliners norfolk & western, but also turned in one of my favorite performances out of any of these acts. martha wainwright probably is the best opening act i missed; she sang on stage with neko and was excellent, so i am sorry i couldn't bring myself to head out early and see her set.

puppets

some people are getting silly puppets for christmas. how would you feel if that were you?

rejection

one of my favorite things about christmas time is the white elephant gift exchange. i really like the challenge of finding something people think is cool. maybe with your family and friends you'll never know if they really like stuff or not. it's always clear, however, with the white elephant things, whose gifts are popular. it's this challenge to get something that resonates with people. there was one monday; i got a couple kinds of cookies from whole foods. i'm not sure if my gift was particularly well received, but it sure beat some of the others. a single package of crackers, snack size. fudge that someone brought to share and then wrapped hastily to join in the fun. a rather large t-shirt that might have been stylish in 1994. the gift everyone really wanted, however, was a card game.

out go the lights

what do you say when there's no reason left to talk? i'm sitting in my apt, no one around, and the last 3 conversations i've had today have been with the same person, all via electronic means. is there something wrong with you when you're on im with someone who's maybe 20 feet away? anyway, i think part of being friends with someone is feeling like you have something to say to that person. last night i talked to an acquaintance, who does not strike me as someone who will become a friend. i suppose i was overly self-interested going into the conversation, because i heard this invidividual something that intrigued me. it was a tantalizing hint at information i had once been interested in, and i wanted more details. that is a way to begin a conversation - 'oh, you know about this,' but maybe the conversation needs to move somewhere else. i don't know what it is, mabye with some people i don't have the faith that they'll be interested in anything i have to say. maybe they really aren't interested in many things i have to say. still, it's easy to talk to the people you know well. maybe that's because you don't get to know the ones who aren't interested in what you have to say.

sometimes i do what i want and it's nice

we were talking a bit last night about individuality. about certain people who might be better off if they changed. i made the case that one must be oneself, or that it's hard to give up individuality in an effort to make more friends, etc. i used myself as an example - do i really have to have crazy hair or do weird stuff or wear tight jeans. there was a lot of laughing about the jeans, but today i found myself internally being far more pessimistic. i was walking, wearing the jeans, and wondering if i've become a little ridiculous. i'm being myself, maybe to the point that no one else likes me, or at least to the point that i am driving people away. it's easy to look at other people and think 'how could you ever dress like that, wear your hair like that; you are totally nuts.' it's hard to look inward and decide you are becoming one of those charicatures. individuality might just drag us off into the corner.

surprises

i know one person who seems to love saying 'it's a surprise,' when asked any number of questions. another individual, shockingly enough, is known for saying 'i hate surprises.' is there something fundamental about the unexpected that should be loved or hated? i have stressed a great deal when i suddenly found out that we're supposed to be signing a lease in january. that doesn't mean that i categorically dislike unforseen developments in my life. when that phone call, from that one organization, finally came, the timing made it a surprise despite the week or so of anticipation and hope. i neither love nor hate surpises

my love

just went to see one of the newer romantic sappy type movies, and oddly enough i came away pining for a place, not a person. not surprisingly, it's the same place where that one job is located. it's not so much that i have to live there per se, it's almost more important that it's what i want and i'm starting to think it's time to hold out until i can make it happen.

howie day

am i having problems here? is howie day not really a household name? because it's not like people listen to howie day because he's cool and obscure. i got seriously ridiculed for calling josh kelly a lesser-known version of howie day. i mean, howie day is pretty popular isn't he???

a phone call

sometimes, there's a sense of nervous anticipation every time a message shows up on the phone. when it's been out of touch with the network and you don't know who has called until you're listening to your messages. you enter the code, and imagine that one person's voice, thinking what they might have to tell you. there's such a sense of relief/excitement/contentment when that voice does come up. if the message brings some other friend to life instead, the disappointment is always there. lately, though, it's an entity i want to call, not a person. if and when that call comes, i hope it will mark the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

old world

spent the weekend seeing some of the great cathedrals of the world, and it was fantastic. i did something i hadn't tried before - instead of just seeing great cathedrals and churches, i went and prayed in great cathedrals and churches. i hadn't explained this to anyone who was traveling with me - it was a private goal - so i was often interrupted in the midst of my supplications. i think the attempt to commune with God in these monuments of religious faith was a satisfying experience. maybe nothing in particular happened, but it helped bring an understanding of the meaning behind these buildings.

sparklin'

i'm investigating an intriguing flavored seltzer-type beverage i had at a party once. It was just amazingly flavorful despite zero sugar content and (if I'm not mistaken) a lack of artificial sweeteners. I had to be wrong on one of those counts, or it was mixed with juice, or something...

melancholy still makes a good muse

i was thinking recently i must be a bit down, because it seems my life is approaching chaos, but really i can't be that down. seriously, if i was fairly well sad, i think i would have posted a lot more frequently in the past two weeks. elation, joy, and surprise make good prose, but there's definitely been plenty of sorrow or angst that have fed my creativity. on the way home, i thought of a short story while i was walking by this subway preacher. i held my latest library read, a collection of essays by a writer who has profiled many musicians and athletes. as i passed the man who told us he knew where he was going if he died tonight, i thought what might happen if i handed him what i knew. yes, i was thinking of the Book of Mormon, but i suddenly had this idea of a short story where this subway commuter hands this novel, with a note on the cover saying "return by 12/14" to the preacher. the commuter is silent, appearing suddenly from the crowd and fading back into the passing mass. he has left this gift, however, which changes the preacher's life. i imagined the process of writing this story. i thought how certain scenes would reveal the world of this religious man, the meetings he attends, the announcements on the bulletin board of his church. i thought of this part of the story, and how i couldn't really write it, at least not without some first-hand research. i thought of the scene as a sketch - the forms laid out for now in general shapes, waiting for details and shades and colors to be added. i liked this new way of conceptualization. i kept walking, and thinking about had just gone on in my head. i thought maybe i should be a writer. that thought felt good. i thought that i wouldn't really know what to write about. i thought that i wouldn't really know where to start or necessarily want to deal with the struggles of becoming a writer. then i figured i could always figure all of that out in my spare time. it doesn't really matter how many of us there are who think things like this. right now, i don't think the soda industry is the answer for me other than it's fun, it pays, it provides benefits, and i'm still learning. i'm not sure what i really think about the concept of success, but half the time i feel like i should find something that matters to me. when i was thinking about being a writer, maybe i forgot to think that i wouldn't necessarily want ot write about anything that important.

Rhett Miller, again

You know it's a good year when you get to see Rhett Miller live 3 times. The most recent concert might have been the best, certainly had the best opening acts. He taught The Believers to play at least one Old 97s song that they didn't know how to play before. I am having a tough time remembering what it was. Here's my top observation, though - the recent solo material he's recorded is much much better live than on the records. I was actually disappointed he didn't play 'Four eyed girl,' so it seems I've become so familiar with the solo work I expect to hear it. The Believers are still the ultimate Old 97s cover band, however; I just hope Rhett doesn't get too full of himself to keep the real 97s together.

shopping update

i bought several things this week, basically all on the same trip, and with the encouragement of some deep discounts. mostly, i bought things i have been in need of - socks, to replace the ones with the holes; pants, same deal; hat, because the current one probably still smells like curry. in the process, of course, i didn't buy a number of other items. the one that impressed me the most, however, was the $8 bottle of soda. that takes guts.

travel once more

it occurs to me that i haven't spent nearly enough time in california this year. i am going to try to make a difference there by visiting the arnold state friday, seeing the elected, and generally running amok.

thanksgiving was fantastic; even though i'd had an early turkey day dinner a few weeks ago, this one was magical as well. the bird meat itself wasn't the attraction. truthfully i was looking more forward to mashed potatoes. i gave thanks for corn dogs. why? i think they are tasty.

milestones

i received my 1000th email at my newest fave address just today. i'd been watching that inbox stuck at 999 for a couple days, afraid if i told many people about it, one of them would just email me and thus ruin the moment. number 1000 turned out to be the thanksgiving dinner plans email, and that seemed about right.

off work early today, went to a movie for the first time in a while. a movie about writing. if i were the screenwriter, of course i would the dynamic of depicting some of the process of writing a novel, but on screen. the layering has too much potential, you know? it was interesting because we ran into a friend at the theater and then the three of us were seeing the same movie, so we had a good experience and got to try to figure out what city was depicted in the film. someone was reading the chicago tribune on a bus, so we went with that clue, although none of us really knew the chicago skyline, so it was difficult to confirm.

the first step off the island

what will the first step off the island feel like? is it painful, because so many will follow? remorseful, because nothing will ever feel that good again? lonely, because you'll turn right back and embrace what you've dreamed so long of forsaking? i expect it to feel like spring, like firm grassy earth; i want a breeze in the air, maybe a late chill, and the smell of pine needles as i break into a run.

enough with these dumb labels

i can't categorize my entire life, you know. that's not even the worst part of it. now every time i label something there's a dumb little line at the end that says "Labels:" and lists them all. sure, maybe i wanted to label things, but maybe i didn't want to be so blunt about it. perhaps i just wanted random words listed at the end. maybe i just entered words in that blank space because i could enter words in that blank space. what if i typed in my favorite chili recipe? is there a limit to label length? i don't intend to find out.

why

can't i buy tickets for a concert before it sells out? especially when i'm planning months in advance to attend and they aren't even sold out the saturday before? i suppose the financial aspects of frequent concert attendance weighed a little heavily in my calculations. i suppose i can't really make any decisions these days. i decided to have dinner at 6. is that my greatest achievement for the day?

101

books to avoid dept: 'club george' by bob levy. it's just dumb. i suppose there are some people who would love his writing, but i hate it. everything is rather mundane. childish perhaps, but not that he writes like a child. he writes as if his audience is completely uninformed, maybe that's it, or that they're uninformed and incapable of insight. it's over 300 pages, and i don't like to start reading books without finishing them, but it seems like a collosal waste of time.

good

today started out awful. just awful. ok, it wasn't that bad when i woke up, despite the intense lack of sleep, and was pleasantly surprised to find my roommate was in the shower and i could sleep a bit more on the couch. then it just went totally downhill, i couldn't think, i was overwhelmed by small things that really added up to nothing much but all demanded my attention at the same time. sleep is vital to proper mental function, it seems. a co-worker asked if i'd come off a redeye. of course, i probably looked worse than i should have because i was at the point of messing with my hair due to the stress, and once that starts there's no turning back. somehow i toughed it out; i told myself the day would end much better and it did. partially the lovely embrace of cold rain as i walked part of the way home, and definitely because i helped a friend who'd called on me for assistance, even when it started to seem a bit inconvenient and she tried to tell me not to bother.

calming down

ok, maybe the beginnings of yesterday's second post were a bit standoffish. i was trying to be funny, i think. the following is a blantant lie.

i ran into a squirrel yesterday, not your average squirrel. it was a little shorter than usual, but what stood out was its excellent backstroke. have you ever seen a squirrel swim? this one would probably win the critter olympics, even if fish were invited. fish, i guess, can't really do the backstroke, so perhaps their participation is not an issue. what animal do you think would win a critter olympics? assuming the predators were not actually able to eat the pray in the course of the festivities, i would go with the lemur. they're pretty much my favorite animal ever, and they have vivid dreams. i read a book once about a lemur that dreamt it was the mayor of a small town in the midwest. every winter, huge snowdrifts piled up on along this town's roads. the stop signs were nearly invisible. a family of badgers got lost one day walking to school. no one could understand it. the sidewalks had been plowed. fresh bread had been delivered to them only an hour and a half before, as the parents prepared their brood for the chilly trek. he was reading about this in the newspaper, but someone started asking him if he wanted to see a classical performance that evening. the hall was empty. he wasn't sure if he was at home or at work; nothing seemed familiar, but then he had the feeling he had been in this place. he switched off the light as he walked out into the hall. his footsteps made no sound. several doors opened, simultaneously. one seemed to lead off into a vast forest. another led into a darkened room that smelled of singed pine needles, and the lemur awoke, early.

if you thought that was all

you probably don't exist. i can promise none of you read that post before this one was published. go ahead, prove me wrong. oh, wait, you wouldn't know about the challenge if you'd read that one first, would you? go back and leave a comment, i'll take your word on it.

tonight i returned to the large recordstore to purchase a fionn regan disc. he's not out in the us yet; i somehow stumbled across him a while ago. this is the fourth time i have gone in search of his music. it was the third time visiting large recordstore in this pursuit. i had found fionn regan's imported, slightly expensive album for sale the second time. it was even set up in a listening station; apparently they know he's cool. i decided at the time i was not in the mood to purchase a cd. tonight, i was in the mood to purchase a cd. i began to have second thoughts about spending the money before even crossing the street. still, i entered the store, walked to where it was still displayed, picked it up, and started looking around for other things to buy. i continued to browse the store's plastic-packaged offerings until i realized i only had 15 minutes to get my groceries. food and the juice i was bringing for tomorrow's early thanksgiving dinner proved more important than buying some british singer's album before anyone else. that's still what's bothering me about this; am i so impatient or elitist that it's important for me to get this cd while no one really has heard of it? i'd be fine with it if only i didn't have to pay extra for the privilege.

door slamming becomes a recurring theme

as i was about to post about something entirely significant, i noticed that someone across the hall had slammed their door several times in succession. it was at least three. maybe five. so what was going on? was something stuck in the door and my neighbor repeatedly attempted to close it, each time foiled by an unseen obstacle? was this a strange cinematic fit of anger, where an angry message was delivered with repeated slammings for emphasis? I can almost see it: "you [slam] [reopen] need [slam] [reopen] to [slam] [reopen] make up [slam] [reopen] your mind [slam]." did they run out of knives and decide to use the door to chop vegetables? there are all sorts of possibilities, but how often have any of us done something like this? i can't think of a single time i have slammed a door five times in a matter of seconds. does that reflect well on my character? will i ever reach the point of using doors as makeshift kitchen implements?

the open door

leaving work, i declined to trace my normal path out the side door and walked all the way out the lobby and through two sets of glass doors. the outer door was open, allowing me to stride through at an easy pace, until i slammed into what was actually not a door at all, but a full length window next to the doors. surprised more than hurt, i remarked to the man i knew was a few steps behind me that the glass must be unusually clean today. however, delivering a more thundering blow, he walked out the door, not turning to look, or reacting in any way, as he listened to his music. i realized in that instant the power people have to hurt each other. his indifference to my accident, his failure to stop, to check if i was ok, to react in any way, was much more hurtful than slamming into unseen glass. i keep thinking this over, wondering if he could have totally missed what had happened, thinking how there is very little chance he heard me speak over his music. i recall, in contrast, the experience of a friend who had a similar accident going in to a movie theater. she was deeply embarassed after a woman came over and asked if she was ok, again hurt more by the social consequences of her accident than by her collision with the glass.

this is not urgent

several things have happened in recent weeks. i went to an art museum. i checked more books out of the library. it rained a few times. i ate out 5 meals in a row. 8 if you count going out to buy muffins one morning and eating one the second day. as recently hinted, i came up with a christmas shopping list. i read an author whose prose i enjoy, but whose writing is unlikely to infect anything i produce. i considered buying a folk album even though it contained a horrid cover of 'purple rain.' i purchased a tv show as a download so my roommate could watch it. i wrote a check for rent. i tied a candy cane in the strings of the hooded sweatshirt that was part of my third halloween contest. i drank bottled water. i put my headphones on while riding in the car with my family.

going to seed

christmas presents. yes, i still have a list. i'm not completely over this consumerism thing; the american passion for acquisition runs deep. it happens to consist entirely of items that should be purchased at a thrift shop. still, i found myself wondering today whether i should ask for some expensive junk. i was in front of a tv too long this weekend, so people kept telling me what i want.