Chapter one

Finished chapter one of my book. Don't have a title yet, so I'm calling it "My first book." It's about people writing stories, and it's also their stories. Then they all die.

Music of the Month

I love music. I grew up with it, and it's always been very important to me. I really and truly love every style of music, and am so happy that this is now the trendy thing to say.

"I like both types of music, Country and Western."

I try to support independant music as well. Since 2003 I've recorded all the music that I've purchased. My list is called Music/Month, and has the byline, "1 CD/month to support artists & industry." When I write freehand I use numbers, symbols, and abbreviations.

Here is what I've purchased in the last 4 years.

10/3 Breeders, "Title TK"
11/3 Kid Koala, "Some of my best friends are DJ's"
12/3 Yeah yeah yeah's
1/4 Black Heart Procession, "Amore Tropico"
2/4 Wig in a Box, "Songs inspired by hedwig" -- a fundraiser!
3/4 Black Heart Procession & Solbakken, "In the fishbowl
4/4 Blonde Redhead, "Misery is a butterfly"
5/4 !!!, "!!!"
6/4 Ween, "The Pod"
7/4 Citizen Fish
8/4 Dilinger Escape Plan, "Miss Machine"
9/4 Peaches, "Fatherfucker"
10/4 Kristin Hersh, "Sunny Border Blue"
11/4 Stereolab, "ABC Music"
12/4 Tortoise
1/5 Hippos
2/5 Boards of Canada, "Geogaddi"
3/5 50 ft. Wave
4/5 ... and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, "Worlds Apart"
5/5 Morcheeba
6/5 Cat Power
7/5 The Muffs, "Hamburger"
8/5 Mary Timony, "Ex-Hex"
9/5 Gorillaz, "Demon Days"
10/5 American Analog Set, "Set Free"
11/5 Sonic Youth, "Experimental Jet Set, Trash, No Star"
12/5 Frank Black
1/6 Bratmobile, "Ladies, Women, and Girls"
2/6 Frank Black, "Honeycomb"
3/6 Ladytron, "Witching Hour"
4/6 Yeah Yeah Yeah's, "Show yer bones"
5/6 Ladytron
6/6 Beta Band, "From Heros to Zeros"
7/6 Peeping Tom
8/6 Vines + Errase Errata
9/6 Delgados "Hate"
10/6 Decemberists "Picturesque" + Tegan and Sarah
12/6 Mew + Midlake + Joanna Newsome + Metric
2/6 Sonic Youth + Jenny Lewis
3/6 Modest Mouse + Air + !!! + Frank Black
6/6 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks + Trail of Dead

As you can see, sometimes I skip a month, and I've recently been trying to buy two per month instead. Some are amazing, some are dissappointing, but this is a fun thing.

I'm not sure if it would be better to download than to buy CD's though. Plastic is bad, and the fuel used in transport is bad. I wonder if the musicians get more money if I download and album from them. This is something I should find out.

Mew Special

The title is what band and song that I awoke to, running through my head. It goes like this:

"Special, blah blah blah blah blah....
You know blah blah blah blah..."

I don't really know all the words, or enough to form a sentence, but it's still a beautiful song.

I have two more days of work left before I'm unemployed for two months. Here are some goals for this summer, or at least this month.

By August 20th I'd like to have written my first novel. Fer sure.

By July 22nd, when I'm getting married, I'd like to be in good shape. That's exercise, people. I've got the time. I need an hour a day, 6 days a week. But I have the time, so I should do it. Last week I overexerted and hurt my back though. I took a week off, and am going to the gym today. I'm also keeping track of what exercise I'm doing and when I'm doing it. So far it's just not enough on paper.

Also by the wedding I need to have everything planned for the wedding. I need a caterer, some sort of flower arrangement, a bartender, some sort of parking solution, clothes for me to wear, and some wedding playlists. Yow! Maybe we need a wedding photographer too, although we know so many photographers that I don't see why we'll need to pay.

Oh, and a honeymoon as soon as possible.

A to-do list!

The end of the year, the beginning of the project

Yow! I'm going to write a novel this summer. School is over in two days, but I basically have about 3 hours left of work to do. Maybe 4 or 5. That's plenty of time. All I have to do is grade two small classes worth of finals, clean up, and do the end of the year procedures. I always kind of like the end of the year stuff; it's like a scavenger hunt of people's signatures. I think it's because it comes in this nice list format, and I always like crossing things off lists.

I'm also going to be planning our wedding, and getting in shape. Those are my only activities. Everything else is secondary. I'm considering this a job this summer. Maybe not during our honeymoon, and maybe not on days when Jessica is off, but I'm going to be at my computer typing an awful lot. I also think that I might start drinking tea. Maybe not though, as it stains one's teeth, doesn't it. I'll have to think about the tea.

I should keep in mind that if I really just sit at my computer all the time, then I'm going to forget how to be social. Also I'm not going to give Jessica any space. So, I guess I need to figure out other activities as well, probably based on exercise. I like hiking. Maybe I'll go on lots of hikes and give Jessica days off. Those are like vacation days at the house.

What's my book about? Well, you'll have to wait and see!

25 most censored stories, 2007

Here's a link to the 25 most censored stories of 2007, as compiled by Sonoma State University.

I look for it every year. Some years it's easier to find than other years. This year it slipped by, but a friend of mine, the Rabid Wombats blog, caught it.

Check it out. Save the world.

Caffiene and your brain!

Wooo! Zooom! My mind flies by at 1000 miles per hour, which is really fast for sitting in a rolling chair. (Get the implied double meaning? I'm sitting in my chair while my mind is moving, but I'm also conjuring the image or literally rolling, in a rolling chair, at 1000 mph. That's seriously fast, past the sound barrier. (Of course, theoretically this is easy to imagine. With frictionless wheel bearings, on a good slant, in a vacuum, gravity will pull you faster than 1000 mph. (But, frictionless wheel bearings are imaginary - they don't exist, how could they? You only need bearings that are good enough to have a max speed of over 1000 mph. (See? I did it again! I implied that the giant vacuum with the slant long enough to roll a rolling chair up to 1000 mph DOES exist, by the mocking tone I used when noting that the frictionless bearings don't! (Anybody else realize that I'm now inside of 5 sets of parentheses? This is seriously off topic. These metatopics just keep coming to me. (I'm thinking very much nonlinearly. Of course, grammar is an art (some call it a metalanguage) and the use of parentheses is subjective. This could've been written with much different prose. In fact, I think almost no one would open such a ludicrous amount of parentheses; maybe Gabriel Garcia Marquez would. (Ms. Charlip made me read 100 Years of Solitude in 11th grade, and while only about 5 of us read it all, and I thank her kindly for years of excellent teaching (I still think about the 5 types of comedy also), I think my readers might have some words for her (Another pun! 'Have some words for her?' Wooo! Zooom!) Of course, maybe they'd pass their thoughts on to the great Colombian grammarian savant instead.) The problem with thinking this nonlinearity, is that it is very easy to lose your train of thought. This comes about much more frequently in conversations with multiple people, but with me it happens, occasionally, solo. The problem with WRITING nonlinearly is that, even though we have the grammatical structure to do so (parentheses,) it makes the reader strain to figure out what the hell is going on. (Of course, Joyce still got published, as well as many other prose artists. Grammatical engineering is just another tool in the literary artists' box.) Illegibility is a problem, however, and isn't really something to be sought. )))))) The reason I'm thinking so fast is that I had a small cup of weak coffee at the donut shop this morning. I also had a bran muffin and a sesame bagel - no cruller. I don't usually partake in caffeine. When I do, Wooo! Zooom! (Triple-O-mind explosion!) Of course, the mind is influenced by chemicals. The ancients knew this, in a way. They didn't know much about what those chemicals were, but they knew which plants to chew, frogs to lick, and so forth. Recently we've learned about how life's basic activities alter our brain chemistry. (Recently meaning the last 100 years or so.) Food, sex, exercise, sufficient sleep, sleep deprivation, stress, et cetera, all effect our affect. (I couldn't resist! (I should've. (Oh man, totally non linear again, but now I've got a nagging conscience to return to the train - the train of thought. (It's going to be hard though, if I can't lay off the puns. (I need a plan of action: no more puns or double entendres. If one slips out (I seem to not be able to help it,) then try to refrain from commenting on it. (I seem to be having difficulty with this as well.) That's a plan!))))) Caffeine works profoundly on me, but for the last 15 years I've been trying to get better at noticing the subtle changes of brain chemistry. Eating healthily changes me over the next day or so. Exercise changes me for the next two days, or so. Coffee works for about 2 days. 36 hours of hyperness, then it tapers off into a lull of less energy, mood, and esteem for the rest of the second day. Sad, but Wooo! Zooom!

Find your own brain chemistry, and you can be your own engineer. Most all of us self medicate, but an advanced technique is to self diagnose, and treat the causations of happiness, rather than the symptoms of unhappiness. Experiment on yourself, and enjoy.

20 days later!

This has been my longest dirth of bloggery. 20 days have passed since my last blog expedition, and I haven't even been infected with a fast zombie virus. Yes, we saw 28 weeks later last night, with an old friend. It was terrifying, heart rending, and apocalyptic. With 28 days later, these are the best horror films of the decade. There are only one or two good horror films a decade anyway, and these are excellent.

Blair Witch in the '90's, if you could trick yourself into buying into the hype.

Poltergeist of the 80's. The Believers was pretty good too. Oh, and The Hitcher. I think Alien belongs here too.

The Shining and The Exorcist in the '70's.

Hitchcock before that.

What am I missing?

The crap/worth ratio

So, through out my life there have been periods of great reading and periods where I'll read one book in a year. As I've matured I've tried to make sure that I always have some time to read. One of the few great joys of commuting on public transportation is the free hour of reading each day that one is offered like an hors d'oeuvre at a wedding reception.

In the spirit of documentation, I've been recording all the books I've read since the mid '90s. Of course, books serve several different purposes. Any mathematician, indeed anyone with a liberal arts education, knows that books impart knowledge. However, most of what I read is fiction. Within the genre of fiction there are categorical differences as well. For instance, Charles Dickens probably fits in a different space than Judith Krantz. Don Delilo probably has more in common with Dickens than with Krantz. Harry Potter, though, well, that's more debatable.

Literature has an amazing transformative power. At the end of any great novel the reader is a different person than when they started. This is not necessarily the case when one is reading a silly little science fiction book about cats in space, or a Stephen King novel. Sure, technically neutrinos have passed through your body, and isotopes inside you have decayed, so really you are changed, but you haven't been transformed by the book in the same way that you would if you finished War and Peace or A Farewell to Arms.

So, I've recorded all the books I've read in the last ten years, and I've rated them all as crap or worth. Thus was born the crap/worth ratio. I try to keep it about one. That is, for every Game of Thrones (the best fantasy book since the lord of the rings) I try to read something valuable. Of course, literature is valuable, but so is Barbara Kingsolver. Douglass Adams is fun, but too fluffy for worth. (Oh, it's wonderful, and you should read everything he ever wrote in his short life, don't get me twisted.) Nick Hornby counts, and Vonnegut counts, and David Sedaris counts. Neal Stephenson only sometimes counts.

I'm making it seem like the other books are crap, and that's not really what I mean. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that when I reread Narnia a few years back it was for entertainment only. When I read Beth Lisick's Everyone into the Pool, sure it was entertaining, but it was a poignant memoir as well. I ruminated more about the human condition through the consumption of the memoir than the fantasy, even though C.S. Lewis' moral masterpiece is so grand in scope.

Read, read anything. With every other book, push your boundaries.

Exermacise

So it's easy to sit around and indulge. Sometimes I just indulge myself in daydreams, imagining what it would be like to just eat fast food and pizza every night, never exercise, not go to work, but just hang out with friends, sleep, and play. That'd be great. Of course, it wouldn't be as great as accomplishing the goals that I've set up for myself, love, travel, financial security, et cetera. The indulgence of slack would be great in that it would taste good and be so easy. Of course, when you gorge yourself on round table your blood leaves your head to go to your stomach, your mind slows down, you get a little release of endorphins, and you score a food drunk. Really, when I'm daydreaming about dropping out into slackdom, isn't my body just asking for drugs? Is this different than just wishing I could get drunk all the time, and buy cough syrup by the case?

It's more difficult to intentionally be cognizant about your own behaviors. I really enjoy playing basketball, tennis, and ping pong. Hackey Sack, soccer, frisbee I also enjoy. Yoga, weight lifting, jogging, these are work. I don't actually enjoy doing any of it. What I do enjoy, however, is the results. Those last three activities I do much more often that the previous six. Sure they release their own exercise endorphins, but they also keep me centered, keep my energy levels up, keep me healthy, and keep me strong. They are an important component of my life, and I wouldn't be able to cut it with out them.

A wedding of weekends

Our wedding is coming up in about 2 1/2 months. We still have a huge amount of stuff to plan: food, cake, invites, honeymoon, gifts, flowers, clothes, music - we still need to plan a plan of what we need to plan. We need a meta plan. However, both of us are working so hard, that when we get a day off, we just use it to decompress and relax. When we both get a day off at the same time, then we just get to spend some time together. We haven't made much time to get things done. But, we will! Somehow the time will be made!

Work for love!

Hot Fuzzy Genius

We went and saw Hot Fuzz last night. It seemed to be getting good reviews, and I loved the Nick Frost/ Simon Pegg wit that flowed through 'Shaun of the Dead.' I was expecting it to be fun and light, maybe not as good as 'Shaun.'

We loved it. It was the perfect crowd, with 14 year-olds innocently randomly going "Boom Chicka Waa Waa" in front of us, and arrogant but stunned older teens behind us. We were apprehended by the movie, and we all laughed at different types of comedy. The lowbrow for the teens, the scat for the kids, the irony for us - well, I like it all.

Then we came home to find out that the Golden State Warriors had won, upsetting the number one seed Dallas Mavs. I'm a local from Oakland, and now live in San Francisco. The Warriors are our team. I've always loved to play sports, but i haven't really watched a season of anything since I was a teen. This is different though. The Warriors always stink, so now that they are pulling out some magic, the joy and ebullience is infectious. There is community built on our local team.

Of course, it's not going to mobilize us out of Iraq and into Darfur, but that might not be bad. I'm not saying that we don't need to leave Iraq and get into Darfur, but that the sports might not be subtracting from the cause.

Let me explain. Marx famously said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." He was talking about how people and movements are numbed by Religion. It wasn't a value judgement - he wasn't saying it was good or bad, he was just saying it was numbed. Of course, if it is used for nefarious purposes such as propaganda by a state or greed by a minister, then evil is certainly inserted into the equation. Well, organized entertainment, such as television, most film, some music, and almost all sports similarly can anesthetize a populace, or at least a statistically relevant portion of a populace.

In the zealous moral enlightenment of my youth, when I was formulating world views upon world views, I didn't realize that this didn't need to be a bad thing. I thought back then that people needed to work in their free time to save the world. They needed to be inspired to do so. Well, certainly many people are numb in our culture, but it turns out that some people are depressed instead. We need to strike a balance between the horror of our work, and what we are doing to the future earthlings, and our inner selves. If we are happy we can be more productive. So, for some, the Warrior's win will help us make the changes for which we strive.

Language and Prose

I just wanted to share this from the 50's. I often do this myself, when I'm waiting in line with no book to read. Writing can be beneficial mentally, even if it's filler. Often I'll actually write a letter, so as to have an audience, even if I have no intention of posting or sending it.

A long way down

I just finished an excellent book, 'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby. Fabulous fabulous, with it's themes of depression and community, this book is a great portrait of one of the base human themes of modern society. Plus, it's darkly humorous and a rollicking good read. Secondary themes of bibliophilia touched me in personal ways, as I've been reading more voluminously, and enjoying it correspondingly more as well. I highly recommend it. It's intriguing, smart, easy, fun, and fundamental.

Existence is hard. We are very smart, and we know how to compare our situations to others. The other situations don't even have to be real, we can still compare. And therein lies the sorrow. Why isn't my life better, and more like something else? One tactic I've been using is seeing the little flowers that are hidden in the grass, the ones that are so small you don't really notice them unless you happen to be sitting or lying in the grass. You have to look really closely, but there is something beautiful there. Even sitting in line, or on a bus, or having a harsh day at work, when I get a second to stop and think, I can always find a little flower.

I thought this would just be a little trick in an arsenal of personal existence strategies, but it turns out to be very useful over all. You know how stress relief helps alleviate everything from allergies to insurance rates? The ripple effect from this observational paradigm shift has had a similar effect on my outlook.

Great books are nice too.

We Mourn Virginia Tech

The terrible shootings in Virginia have shocked me, and reminded me of my thankful enculturation. Anthropologically, an observer is much more successful if they can effectively ignore their intellectual and moral upbringing and observe objectively. However, we are human, and it serves to remain so. It's important to maintain the thoughts and feelings at your core of existence as well. These might get in the way if you can't separate them at will, but they are still important to have. That is, their existence is crucial, lest you fall into sociopathy, but being able to compartmentalize gains you a skill in helping you become a useful observer.

This last week I've mourned the victims at Virginia Tech. The heartbreak, the loss of innocence - I've been left speechless. Here's a fair essay about it. Last night I heard that the previous day was the most violent in Iraq to date. It's also important to remain objective. 300 lives in Baghdad is a larger number than 33 in Virginia. They are both atrocities. They both need to be stopped.

Note: It wasn't an American bomb that destroyed the marketplace in Baghdad (although the CIA certainly has been training the use of these explosives for decades.) It was our actions in this war that created the anarchic situation in Iraq however, and it is our responsibility to put an end to it.

RIP, Dr. Kevononnegorkianut

Kurt Vonnegut influenced me from the age of 13, when I read Slaughterhouse 5. I don't really understand how people can not understand the horrors of war. They have the same access to 'The Red Badge of Courage,' 'Hiroshima,' and 'Catch-22' that I had. It's an intentional ignorance, isn't it? Denial of the horror of the wars of the world? How many wars are going on as of today 4-12-7? I'm guessing 30! What's your guess? I was off by a bit.

Kurt Vonnegut used his gift to help people think. He understood how important life was, and how important it was to live.

Work hard to make the world better! Play hard, so that you are better at it.

The Taste of Money

Don't eat money. I won't talk about why. When I was a kid I could accidentally do magic. I could put a penny in my mouth, suck on it, and turn it into a dime. I didn't do it very much. I didn't realize it was really special. And, thankfully, I was instructed not to put money in my mouth. It is not healthy. When I tell this story people cringe. I hope you are not cringing.

Yesterday we did our taxes and got that pleasant surprise of some money back. Of course it's already our own money, but the pleasantness is still pleasant.

Poverty affects more people on this globe than it doesn't. Economically, since even the fattest of us fears it, humans continually strive for more. Even the most philanthropic, the Bill and Melinda Gates' of the world, still achieve heights of wealth that are literally incomprehensible to a majority of the planet before topping out and giving back. Almost all of the philanthropy in the world is by people who are still earning more than they give. That is, their net worth is still increasing. (Over the last decade or so Ellison and the Gates' and many others are really and truly retiring into their philanthropy and giving more than they are getting from investment. Hopefully this will continue and amplify. It could be a real lever in equalizing the differentiation between the rich and poor.)

Instinctively, people with access to modern society strive for a level of wealth that will provide a certain level of comfort. People will wish for alleviation of hunger, safety from random criminality, shelter from the environment, and enough leisure time to relax and have relationships. The last one in general is a necessity, because mental health is still needed for survival. This should cost about $10,000 a year. (See this article in Mother Jones.) After that, it's all gravy, and one's foci should be the same as Bill and Melinda's: happiness, and goodwill.

Now we just need to get people to start at our lower number, instead of $1 billion.

Dystopian Feelings

I had a flash the other day. I was just walking down the street, and I started thinking about the future. Not an individual future, not our destiny, I just randomly thought about what our world will probably be like in 43 years. There'll be around 9 billion people, with significantly less arable land and potable water due to our radically altered warming earth. The second derivative of the population growth and temperature increase curves will only zero when we approach the constraints of our environmental system. There's no reason to believe it won't be terribly violent. It could be peaceful - I hope for (and work for) peace - but our species has never shown that it can handle a change in a peaceful way, so there's little reason to expect it. Disease may be great. Technology could be stifled. Authoritarianism may become even more prevalent.

And then I crossed the street. I noticed a funny looking mutt, a golden chihuahuatrevier? I remembered the errand I was on.

Well Respected Man

Food is a good example of equilibrium. I'm not speaking of food in the conceptual sense, that it is necessary for survival. Instead, I'm considering food's more personal effect on us. Today I went to a farmer's market where a local bakery has a shop. It's one of those extremely gourmet bakeries where you can get breads you'd never think of, but the regular old whites and wheats are also amazingly delicious. These are breads that you can put your nose on and inhale an aroma that transports you to a communal timeless orgy of hungry happy enthusiasts, each with eyes closed, a creeping smile accompanying the rising lungs. These are breads with 6 or 10 ingredients. They are meant to be eaten within 24 hours. Day-old is a sad sorrowful tale for an unloved loaf. At this market I bought a loaf of something called Pain de Mie, and a small round. The total was only $4.50! A good loaf of bread costs about the same at the local supermarket, but I get this amazing, fresh delicacy. I can't wait until my wife gets home, so we can eat her birthday bread. I'm making her special artichoke dip to go along with it. The artichoke dip is high fat and delicious, but it also has a ton of artichokes. We stick our bread in it, but we also stick fresh carrots and lightly steamed zucchini in it. So, we get lots of flavor, and lots of vegetables. Delicious, and overall healthy, this meal resonates with equilibrium.

The Rest Will Follow

I'm listening to a band called "... and you will know us by the trail of dead." Some people just call them the "Trail of Dead." They sound like some crazy death metal outfit, yeah? Well, they rock out, but their lyrics talk about the state of life, and the state of the world. Check out the song "Worlds Apart," on the album of the same name. It's about september 11th, and how we are in a candy store throwing a party while everyone else is locked outside. What are we going to do about this? For too long, the answer that those in power give is "Barricade the Door!" Was September 11th a brick thrown at the window? What will we do?

Drrrty

I'm listening to one of Donna Matrix's mixes. It's a break beat mix from 2004. It really gets you moving, twitching, really. In the last hour I've run 6 errands (all from the phone and computer) and organized two aspects of my life. It's Jessica's birthday on monday, so we've been celebrating. Last night she worked a 10 hour day, did a two hour freelance project, then I took her to see some live music. Mew is a danish rock band that sings about giraffes in a high pitched melodic way under booming bass, guitar, and drums. It was an amazing show. Jessica said it was one of the best she's ever seen. I loved it too. She seemed really happy. Then I massaged her into sleep. That's a good birthday present, I hope. She was happy, so today she'll carry it into her work. It will spread. This is why it's important to be happy. This is why music, art, wit, etc. are important. It lets us work better to make the system work better. Contribute!

Coming in from the cold

Popped a CD into my computer today so I could save some songs on my computer. A hidden video that I hadn't expected popped up. It was a story of two young Londoners, single, professional. Lonely. They didn't meet. They were parallel, they passed each other on their routes to work, they ate on different benches in the same park. They didn't meet.

Our lives here are fleeting, and every second counts. Foster love, and create a happiness inside yourself. This will help you to better impact the world. More on your purpose in life later.

Test Run

This is the first entry of this blog, Horror Love Equilibrium Point. That ludicrous title came at me unexpectedly, but has to do with a world perception that I will discuss repeatedly in the future. I hadn't thought of a title, or really thought about the fact that a title would even be needed. Then, there I was, signing up on Blogger. It asked me for a title. "Gee," I thought to myself, "I h'ain't really thought o' one." (I think in conversational conjunctions.) "How'bout 'The Point of Equilibrium Between a Polar Dichotomy of the Realization of Unjust Worldly Acts and Personal Joy and Eudomonia?'" That was too long. Besides, isn't a 'Polar Dichotomy' redundant? Thus the shortened but atrocious title was born.

A note on style: I promise to strike a balance between using annoyingly obscure words like 'eudomonia' and speaking like a slurring gutter punk with a 3rd grade education. I'll link M-W.com also, in case you love words too.