Pain of Mind

Yes, this is the title of the seminal Neurosis album, which has still never been bested by another band.

It also describes my current complications. My mind is slovenly and mired due to caffeine withdrawal, and my body is battered and torn from playing basketball like I was 20 years younger, two days ago. It was immensely fun, and I was atrociously terrible. I hucked airballs. I fouled people like frightened billy goat. I also made a few shots, played 3 games of solid defense, and contributed what I could. In reward I sprained my heel, bloodied my knee, bruised a rib, and have the sorest legs and hips that I've had in years. Great fun. Once the swelling goes down, I'm getting back on the court!

Procrastination Blues

I've been helping people out with minor legal troubles, and playing video games. That's all I've been doing. I've been caffienated, and now I'm not. My mind has been working, and my heart, but I've been inactive, thriving on any and all reasons to do nothing. Today I'll get some exercise, and do some chores, but it's to be more of the same. As always, I say, I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow will be glorious.

A day of stuff post portland

Went to Portland with Jessica last week to play and to visit Johanna, Brad, and Annika, as well as Uncle Rick, Aunt Nancy, and Jackson. Had a blast. Ate some delicious food, and some not so great stuff -- this reminds me, I should yelp our stay.

Took yesterday off, basically, and the day before. Friday was a business day, and I just flitted it away, old-school procrastination style. Yesterday I had the car, and did some food shopping. Still rather unsuccessful though. We're stagnating food-wise. Made pizza, but it wasn't very good -- too thick.

The housing search continues tomorrow, with me calling mortgage brokers early in the morning.

I also need to order transcripts for Hayward as well as go down to SFUSD and raise hell. In the same vein, we need to plan a trip down to LA in order to do the same with LAUSD. That's a lot of work, but it's worth $1500 a year. That's important.

Lastly, I seem to be fearing writing. Why should I fear? Fear is the mindkiller. Sure, that's weakly plagiarized, but it still is. Take this example. I originally typed, "Fear is the minkkiller," as if fear is capable of killing minks. That sounds like a metaphor for impotence. Now we are getting on to marketable story points! Roar!

Too much to do, and nothing to do at the same.

Summer again

Restart again! Tried to restart on that caffeinated day in spring, but had no real time. That is, until now! Summer is here. Yesterday I turned in keys. Everything for the next 10 weeks is just going to be chores. Sure I have tons to do, and I'll get to that in a moment, but free from the time constraints of having to be at the same place, at the same time, 5 days a week. This extra level of freedom should translate into more blogging posts, if I can maintain high levels of will power. That shouldn't be too difficult.

This summer, of course, I'm going to try to write that book. I still have it fleshed out and begun, I only need to commit to sitting down and writing, daily, prolifically.

Simultaneously I am going to try to buy a house in Oakland or Berkeley. The market is perfect for us, very low. We have capital. We have income. We have longevity. This is the time. This summer specifically.

Of course, that takes some precedence, so, conceivably I could end up putting off the book. We shall see.

Other high agenda items include reconnecting with family and getting back into yoga. Changing into club one kind of killed that in favor of lifting weights. I'm injured too much though, it seems, to not do yoga as well. However, I was injured a lot when I was doing tons of yoga too. Have to go more moderately and more often. That sounds like summer to me.

Restart, click-buzz-whirr

So, I stopped blogging with the end of the last school year. I got married. We went to France. I did not write a book. The school year began, and I took on extra assignments. Still not in shape, though I'm no worse than last year. Financially we are in the same boat also, although we don't have a wedding coming up. Jessica is still stressed out perpetually, but that's how she rolls. We play Carcassonne all the time. I'm the master of the count. She's the master of the builders, the inns, the river, and the roads. She wins about 80% of the games. I'm not sure how.

I'm going to start writing again as well. The same book that I started last year. I'm worried about trying to sell it, but I'll come to that after it's written - that's a big enough assignment.

This entry is good practice. Instead of writing what I normally feel, which would be full of natural anomalies, incongruous logic, absurdism, abstruse sentence structure, and vapid verbosity, such as this current sentence, if I included remonstrations against torpid zygomatic A. Aferensis and their inheritable propensity for sloth. No, I shall be clear and concise.

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.