Last Post Before Bed...

I just drew this while listening to a recording of myself singing the same song over and over on loop. It was kind of an out of body experience. I think I might sing myself to sleep now... or, err, listen to myself singing until I fall asleep.

Oh. And I saw The Science of Sleep today. It made me cry for an hour and a half. To quote August Rush, "I counted."

Angel Cover

This song has always been very special to me ever since I first heard it. Since I've been in a depressively singing mood today, I decided to try my hand at a Sarah MacLachlan cover. I would've played the piano part, too, but my piano is embarrassingly out of tune at the moment.

So go ahead, click the bear. You know you want to.

Royksopp

I'd never heard of this group before, but I think they are totally amazing. I've youtubed just about every song they have available. I especially liked the video that went this one. It pretty much describes my weekend. And my life.

I'm ready for summertime

This is me singing. Yeah. k, bye.

Downtown through the Eyes of a Naive Wench

I didn't take as many pictures on this adventure as I normally do when I go on my little escapades. Mainly, because I didn't want my camera to get stolen. I started out the night playing the "With Flash, Without Flash" game. It went a little something like this:

Random door near where I parked, with flash.

Random door near where I parked, without flash

I'd say the colors without flash are more true to life, and the blur makes it look gnarly. Without flash wins. On to round two:

Random park bench in the square near where I parked, with flash

Random park bench in the square near where I parked, without flash

Again, the colors here are more true to life with that yellowish tint coming from a street light nearby. Again with the gnarly. Liking it muchly. Now for round three:

Up close and personal with park bench, with flash

Up close and personal with park bench, without flash

Definitely way cooler. It looks like something at an amusement park. All dizzy and pretty-like. Ok. I've got to be sure. One more test:

Random historic building near the square near where I parked my car, with flash

Random historic building near the square near where I parked my car, w/out flash

It most assuredly looks spookier and way more rad without flash. I'm keeping it. No more flash for the rest of the night.

Random parking thingy with awesomely fonted #2

Mandatory tourist shot

Happy Birthday Mike of the Future!

I made a drawing.
It's just a little bit weird.
I think it's the best one I've made in a long time.

Haha, wow.

I have a confession. Sometimes, when I'm bored, I google myself. I did that today and discovered that one of my favorite comic strip artists, John Forgetta, mentioned my blog on his blog. Sweet! Of course this was about three months ago, so I'm a bit slow on the uptake. But it made my day.

In other news, there are 103 days left until my much needed summer break... give or take a day.

This entry will be unforgivably long

So, yesterday I saw this video which encouraged me about being able to afford healthy foods. I had been so overwhelmed before and didn't know where to start. Now I feel more at ease about it. Then I did some research on brown rice, which I made last night. Here are some things I learned, which I never knew before:

• Even uncooked brown rice should be stored in the refrigerator.
• Brown rice that is not grown organically in the U.S. has the highest levels of arsenic than any other brown rice in the world. Conclusion: they ARE trying to kill us.

Then, I also stumbled upon another article today about calcium intake, which I couldn't find just now when I tried, but it was an uber breakthrough for me. It turns out low levels of calcium are associated with chronic kidney stones which is something I suffer from. I also stopped drinking milk several years ago. Even my urologist couldn't figure out why I kept getting stones. Now I know I need to get more dairy.

On a completely unrelated tangent, I saw this video about people's perceptions of those who wear glasses verses people who don't wear glasses. The survey found that people with glasses are perceived as:

• More intelligent
• Less likely to cooperate with others
• Unattractive

Well don't that 'splain' a lot? I, for one, have been wearing glasses since I was about eight years old. That translates to most of my social life. Hahaha. Or UNsocial life. Moving on.

Today I managed to inadvertantly transform my random unfocusing skills into cross-curriculum, interdisciplinary discussions. In short, I taught my composition students what code is, and how they can view the source for any web page on the world wide net. I learned that, whereas most sites have their code neatly organized into hierarchies, the people at google just have one long stream.

For comparison purposes, here is a snippet of the code for Yahoo!'s main page:

And here is a snippet of the source code from Google's main page:

It was such a fascinating discovery that one of my students informed me he would probably go home and view source files all day. I've started a revolution. Ok, maybe not.


I also told them about the Boston Molasses flood of 1919 which they had never heard about before. I can't believe it; it's one of those golden stories you just don't forget, despite the tragedy.

I also have lots of fun sometimes taking screen shots with mwsnap. That, however, is completely tangential. Kind of like this whole post.

So, anyway, I came home and I made a strawberry smoothie, which was wonderful. Then I saw where one of my friends had twittered this video, which I and my so-called evangelical Christian self thought was pretty interesting.

Yesterday my neighbor texted me asking me to listen to the piano part for Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. It's in this nice minor modality, but rock piano is so repetitive and boring sometimes. It was really easy to learn because it wasn't as syncopated as most pieces out there are. Syncopation and complex, intricate rhythms are my musical kryptonite. So is dictation. Ha. He sent me the message at 7am, which was weird, and even though I responded last night I haven't heard back. Whatever. Boys are weird.

Speaking of which, somebody else said he was going to call me yesterday and never did. Before, this really would have bothered me. But this time I got smart. When he said he'd call me, I didn't expect him to. And now it doesn't sting inside like it used to. Go me.

And that's the end of this educational video. Please rewind before returning. Thanks!

There are no absolutes.

The very irony in human logic, is that it falters so greatly. The wisdom that humans have garnered over the centuries can and will lead us to two diametrically opposed conclusions if we allow it to.

There are no absolutes? None, whatsoever?

Isn't that an absolute statement, thereby negating the whole premise?

The answer, my friends, is yes.

I used to sit for hours and read, ponder, write, and truly dwell on the inner workings of my chaotic life, finding patterns and stretching them out in my hands, working through them. Philosophy used to be my pillow, deep analysis used to be my footrest. Now I barely read at all. I feel like I hardly think anymore, other than to solve somebody else's problems for them.

But what happened to thinking for thinking's sake? To reading, absorbing, digesting, disecting, understanding, debating, wrestling? I never seem to do that anymore with anything. I don't have the time. Too much of my life is spent being half-alive, meeting deadlines, keeping people happy, bills paid and my apartment from exploding. I am so sick of running around. I want to quit something and make more time for myself. I want to have time to devote to creative pursuits without the guilty, nagging feeling that humongous piles of laundry are piling up, letters are yet to be answered, and dishes are yet to be done. I want to come home and not be tired out of my ever-living brain.

All these worries, strains and cares keep me from feeling energized, focused, and revitalized. I want to be sharp, ready to take on the world like I was when I was younger. But I have hit this hard stage where my body is wanting to take over my mind and there is nothing to appease it, nothing to calm it, nothing to hold it back, and nothing to give it. The flesh and mind are such mortal enemies some times. I want to overcome it on my own, but I am too weak.

I used to be so strong.

It became so clear to me tonight. Building my band back up is the answer. Chic and I are gonna hold out until the summer so a few people can move on out of our way because they don't belong. Then we're gonna dig for gold and get to it.

It's about time.




And this time I'm picking the name cuz our last one was kinda lame.

Whoa

I came home from church and slept for 4 and a half hours. I feel so fuzzy, man.

And I'm not even hungry, but I dreamed I was eating with my family at McDonalds. Which is really weird.

6am

The sky is still all rumbly in its tumbly.

The good news is, I got to sleep for slightly less than 3 hours in a row. Woot.

3am

This gets a bit old after a while, doesn't it?

It's 3am. I'm going to have an uber crappy day if I can't sleep for more than 40 minutes.

2am

I'm back because I know you oh so desperately needed an hour by hour update of my night/morning.

So it's 2am and this wicked thunderclap woke me back up from my about to sleep.

And the worst of the thunderstorm is officially here. So, naturally, I flocked to my computer.

Then I went out in the main room and sang a series of depressing, bluesy songs in the dark as they came to mind because my voice is very low and rich at this time of night. I enjoy singing low, bluesy songs because they're me. I kinda wish I had grown up listening to more blues and folk music because those genres fit my voice type more than anything else I've ever sung.

Anyway, yeah. It's 2am. That painkiller I took was super good. It removed the headache and now I feel kinda foggy but in a woozy, whoa dude, kinda way. It's comforting through all this.

I need to see my doctor again. About depression. And get back on pills for it.

But I won't.

1am

So, it's 1am.

I caught myself singing in my sleep.

I think I was singing my name.

And I got up to improvise on the piano. It was a very simple, flowy, repetitive motive that had a Spanish minor flavor to it and morphed subtly into various remote keys. I liked it.

It's 1am.

At least the party next door is over.

Pish. When I used to party it lasted at least until 4 in the morning. Lame.