Getting Better
(18-27 September 2006)
27 September 2006
Happy Birthday to Emily
Clayton
-It's rather anticlimactic to have both Em & I work on her birthday, but with
all our various trips coming up this winter & on into next year, it made the most sense. We had vegan cake &
Mexicali Rose & I was able to score playoff tickets to see the A's, most likely next Saturday (if their series goes four
games). I even pledged to root for the A's, which will only be challenging if they wind up against the Twins, who are
my favorite team that made this year's playoffs. Em also revealed to me that she actually doesn't mind getting older
the way that I do, & that she thinks it's fun to joke about, but it's not a big deal. This sort of floored me,
because I go around assuming that after about age 21, everyone's dragged kicking & screaming into their next year of age,
clinging fiercely to the prior year as the rug is pulled away. I think birthdays would be more fun if I didn't feel
that way. So it's good that Em doesn't, & I think she had fun.
26 September 2006
-Migraine: 10 hours, left side, moderate,
cause unknown.
-I can't believe I'm about to start wearing sunglasses. But the amount of light that I take in
(especially on BART, which is a vortex of doom for my head) is far too much for me to function.
-Giants 4, Diamondbacks
2. This was almost certainly the most exciting game I saw all year, & the cheapest too! We were in the
center-field bleachers on the backs of a ticket giveaway through work, getting to see the Giants try to round out their
just-shy season. The game was distant enough to feel detached through much of it, but in the late innings when they
rallied to tie, it got exciting right quick. Then Emily predicted Moises Alou's first-swing walk-off homer, landing
just a couple rows back of the wall in left field. It was quite a finish. The sheer elation of that kind of end
to a game has to be one of the best conduits to that old God-it's-good-to-be-alive sensation.
25 September 2006
-It always surprises me to realize how many people
are just mailing it in at any given time. It shouldn't, it really shouldn't.
-San Francisco just keeps getting
warmer. It's going to be 100 degrees by mid-October.
24 September 2006
Happy Birthday to David
Kunkel
-Did anyone get me a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine? Buying
it in July, not telling me, & having my first issue show up yesterday? Because I apparently have a full year
subscription that I didn't request, didn't pay for, & was never told about. I pretty much hate magazines. I
certainly wouldn't put Rolling Stone in the top ten to twenty magazines I would get if I didn't hate them. So...
what's the deal? I suppose it didn't help my whole feeling about all this that Jack Nicholson, perhaps my least
favorite entertainment figure of all time, is on the cover of the first issue to show up.
-Emily returns to work tomorrow
after a 9-day at-home vacation taken in large part to stave off the loss of vacation days, which only accumulate so far.
I think she should take time a little more often.
23 September 2006
-The music of the new Dylan disc feels a little
repetitive, but a lot of the songs are really great. They seem softer than normal, but no less timely. &
they're all long.
-Exit Dav, stage Maine via points all around. I can't believe that Stina's committing in principle
to a return to the East coast. She's a hop shy of applying to Divinity School. If there's one thing I know,
though, it's that the future is open.
-Introspooktion is back; I can't wait any longer for the October spirit. Also
archived 160 days of the page, which is scarily close to half a year. Too many projects!
22 September 2006
-I must admit that when I saw this headline, I thought the article would be about
how Hugo Chavez was unpopular enough in the heartland of the US that his bashing Bush would help the Republicans in the
midterm election. But no one is that honest or upfront in politics, of course, so the article is about some cop-out
Depublicans defending Bush against words that they themselves use against him. What kind of xenophobic nonsense is this
comment: "If there's any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him
or not." Now, not only do Americans get to exploit the world, but we have the exclusive right to critique our
government? Because of course we don't critique anyone else's... If you're not voting Green this year, you're not
paying attention.
21 September 2006
-It's amazing how long it's taking my finger to
actually heal. I really wanted to stop wearing band-aids today, but looking at it, that just doesn't seem
advisable.
-The phrase "In America, justice is spelled J-U-S-T-U-S" has been coursing through my head all day.
I feel like I made it up (I certainly didn't copy it from anywhere), but it seems like such an obvious phrase that I
couldn't have been the first person to come up with it. I feel like it could be a slogan of greatness in the right
situation.
-Another day where an absurdly busy afternoon followed an embarrassingly light morning. Seems to be
happening a lot lately. Next week will be fairly busy all the way through, which is nice. Anyway, I've been
thinking lately about the phenomenon of group blogging in preparation for the likely update blog that is coming for the APDA
Nationals 2007 site. For those who don't know, I'm helping run the '07 Nats in Poughkeepsie, New York, & will be
creating the site for said tourney soon. Anyway, I once found group blogs to be dull & even distasteful, but part
of me really wants to create one now. It seems that group blogs are the proper forum for political or "idea"
blogs, whereas I prefer individual blogs to be highly personal/emotional. Anyone got any ideas? I think it should
be a big group... maybe 36-on-36. Ah well, I just can't think outside of inside jokes today.
-I have finally passed
that pinnacle threshold of e-mail popularity wherein my spam folder on GMail (which only holds a month at a time) is over
2,000 e-mails large at any given time. Yes, I post my e-mail address, linked & clickable, all over the internet, so
it's hardly a surprise. There is no complaint herein, only the marking of a milestone that shows I get over 2.75 spams
an hour.
20 September 2006
-I simply can't believe how many of my favorite
musicians have released something in the last 90 days. I just placed the largest Amazon order in history. Even
the Gin Blossoms have a new CD! Unreal. & Ray Bradbury has a book coming out October first. Oh
yeah.
-I'm very content & stable right now, which is probably a great state for going into October & the Winter.
But I could stand to be more inspired. At the same time, not feeling the suffocating drive of inspiration has the
advantage of being more comfortable with pacing myself & letting things take more time. But then I get frustrated
with my discipline. This is a dance I've done with myself for almost as long as I can recall, but it's weird to be so
comfortable with the song that's playing in the background. Maybe I'm letting myself, somewhere, believe that I'm going
to be around for awhile. I don't want to get too attached to that feeling & the ensuing complacency, but for today,
I guess it works. I don't even think that's most of it. It's mostly just liking a lot of my life day to day.
Which, you know, I never expected.
-We're getting better about consistency, which may be the hardest part of doing a
totally formless show.
19 September 2006
-I was eating lunch in my SF Thai restaurant today
when the news ("Just In") came on CNN that there had been a coup in Thailand. All the waitstaff briefly
stopped what they were doing & watched tanks rolling through Bangkok. Then they went back to serving food. It
wasn't quite like Americans in some foreign country shrugging off September 11th & going back to work, but it seemed a
little similar. Given that everyone working there is either native Thai or first generation out, it seemed amazing how
they were able to not be simply glued to the TV. Then again, coups aren't exactly rare in Thailand, so...
-Who says
Tuesday night can't be fun?
-How random is memory? How much of it is a trained, learned skill? How much of it
is about will? Certainly abstaining from slaughtering brain cells has to help, but that can't be the whole picture.
Is it mostly just natural talent? I feel like I need to hold bad memories against people, but that also strikes
me as a pretty silly feeling & one borne purely of frustration. Dunno.
18 September 2006
-As dorky as it is, I actually like a lot of
administrative type tasks. There are plenty of times when I've considered very rote jobs that focus on one or another
of these tasks. I think what I like so much about this job is that it allows me to combine many different statistical,
clerical, & organizational skills into a package where they spell each other & thus stave off boredom. If it
were my whole world, it would be insufficient, but it's just enough to fulfill the work portion of my program nicely.
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