Monday, August 31, 2009
As we're probably moving very soon, a few pictures to remember this house by. (Also motivated by watching part of a documentary last night on the photographer Art Sinsabaugh.)
The lawn nazi next door wanted me to cut all this down. He thought he was doing me a favor by starting to cut it down himself. I let him know that actually I really like having it there.
Such bits of foilage actually provide shelter, etc for various species of wildlife. I don't remember what reason I gave to him though. There are some groundhogs in in the area. Also though I like verdancy. Any really. Love weeds. Uncut grass, etc.
OK. It's too cute to not point it out better.
That's an unknown cat. I went outside to take pictures of the two extra cats we feed but didn't see them. Now one is in my kitchen but I can't be bothered to take a picture of him.
An evil 'weed' I've had a few arguments over the years about being made to cut down.
The view while laying in bed and reading a book.
Loki watching the birds. (There's an invisible bird feeder in the window. One in the kitchen and one outside my wife's office room.) I put in all new windows. My father-in-law said he would show me how to fix the inside part of the wall but never did.
Paddington, Loki and Vega.
The street is much steeper than it appears in this picture. Notice the front wheel of the black car at the last house on the right. A lady lived there in the 50's and 60's who wrote a book called 'The Girl from .. Street'. In it she writes about how both of her parents went insane and were institutionalized while she lived there. Also her best friend died while sled riding down the road. Whacked his head off a car.
This is a house at the other end of the street that caught fire a few days ago. The man who lived there is in critical condition at the hospital. His girlfriend was unable to wake him up. She jumped out from the second story window.
Right above the blue car is where the house would have been that caught on fire about 6 weeks ago that was torn down a few days past. One lady died in this fire.
This grass is too short.
This apartment building at the end of the street was just built. Will mostly be filled by college students. Idealistically speaking it should not be a bad thing. But realistically it will be. If nothing else I won't be able to park on the street. More likely they'll be loud at night, etc.
The lawn nazi next door wanted me to cut all this down. He thought he was doing me a favor by starting to cut it down himself. I let him know that actually I really like having it there.
Such bits of foilage actually provide shelter, etc for various species of wildlife. I don't remember what reason I gave to him though. There are some groundhogs in in the area. Also though I like verdancy. Any really. Love weeds. Uncut grass, etc.
OK. It's too cute to not point it out better.
That's an unknown cat. I went outside to take pictures of the two extra cats we feed but didn't see them. Now one is in my kitchen but I can't be bothered to take a picture of him.
An evil 'weed' I've had a few arguments over the years about being made to cut down.
The view while laying in bed and reading a book.
Loki watching the birds. (There's an invisible bird feeder in the window. One in the kitchen and one outside my wife's office room.) I put in all new windows. My father-in-law said he would show me how to fix the inside part of the wall but never did.
Paddington, Loki and Vega.
The street is much steeper than it appears in this picture. Notice the front wheel of the black car at the last house on the right. A lady lived there in the 50's and 60's who wrote a book called 'The Girl from .. Street'. In it she writes about how both of her parents went insane and were institutionalized while she lived there. Also her best friend died while sled riding down the road. Whacked his head off a car.
This is a house at the other end of the street that caught fire a few days ago. The man who lived there is in critical condition at the hospital. His girlfriend was unable to wake him up. She jumped out from the second story window.
Right above the blue car is where the house would have been that caught on fire about 6 weeks ago that was torn down a few days past. One lady died in this fire.
This grass is too short.
This apartment building at the end of the street was just built. Will mostly be filled by college students. Idealistically speaking it should not be a bad thing. But realistically it will be. If nothing else I won't be able to park on the street. More likely they'll be loud at night, etc.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Was thinking to grasp a better understanding of all the keys by writing a song in each. This is A minor, I think. All white keys but I don't think it's C major. Sounds like home is the A note...
--
In mostly unrelated news once again my back is hurting. Once again it starts hurting when I lay down and after 4 or 5 hours of sleep I have to get up. It seems when I jog I don't have this problem. So I guess I should continue jogging. I quit my jogging program of a while ago because the extreme long distance stuff I like was giving me a bad headache after each run. Despite paying attention to electrolytes this still occurred. Instead I tried to run faster and suddenly I had the knees of an old man (too fast too soon I guess.)
So I wandered away totally from running and once again my back starts hurting.
I should do some sensible jogging.
I'm worried that my body is falling apart and I'm only 36. Have a bad heart. (And it really seemed like I felt it fluttering last night...) Have bad kidneys. Bad back.
No more crazy exercise experiments.
Friday, August 28, 2009
I bought a medodica about a week ago. I messed around with it a couple of times before doing this very quick improvisation.
It could be better but I didn't try very hard.
...but I am curious to figure out what I need to do to make something that sounds as good as this:
Hmm, even the melodica just has a nicer sound...
...OK. Now I went back and added a bass and changed the FX on the melodica. Now has a tape delay effect (GS-201). Much better. But maybe too loud now. Also went and bought a hohner 26, which is what Pablo used at least in the his early years.
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/fifths.html
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html
...I had been wondering... the Just Scale is what makes sense. I first stumbled upon the frequencies of the equal tempered scale and was surprised to find it off from the obvious (1.2, 1.25, 1.333) Instead found this: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
which doesn't seem to work out at all. Results in 1, 1.06, 1.12, 1.19, 1.26!, 1.335?, 1.414, 1.498!, 1.59.....
I had made the assumption of a just scale.
But I had additionally wondered what would happen as one changed keys and normalized into the new key. So to go from C major to C# minor, would the ratios change?
Apparently so thus the existence of the equal tempered scale to keep things standable as you changed keys.
..clearly so actually. And it would sound relatively awful unless one had just become used to it. Which you can get used to playing stuff all out of tune, etc.
But how off would it otherwise sound?
And how would a scale like this sound?
1+1/16, 2/16, 3/16, 4/16, 5/16, 6/16, etc?
...I think I'd prefer to use a just scale tailored to whatever key I was in... Not sure how to easily manage that. (..and that's not well worded. But anyway...)
I suppose using a sampler and painstakingly putting each note in. Doing that to construct a number of alternative frequency sequences. Mostly would prefer something larger then the 12 tone scale. Really it's depressingly few notes, seems to me.
..why is there no 1.75, etc?
...to think further... Perhaps I'll attempt to construct a virtual instrument that combines a 16 tone and 20 tone scale. Or 16/10, or 8/10... I think the 16 tone scale I've in mind (1/16, 2/16, etc) would be too consonant. It would too much in agreement. Very pleasant sounding though. But it would be a bunch of people who basically all agree. 2 or 4, 8, 16 such a scale would be our rational minds. Our computer logic. Such a collection of notes would come more or less from the base two numbering system.
While, a 10 or 20 tone scale would come from our hands. Or our not entirely rational human bodies.
Then to combine the two into a 36 tone scale would be two competing and often discordant ideas. That of rational man, our conscious against our unconscious, our ancestry, that which we've evolved from which it is actually essential we hold on to, in order to be happy and find reason to continue existing.
Instead of always using the 12 tone scale (or the few others of nonwestern cultures) there is an infinite number of frequencies that an octave could hold. Of all the possibilities attempting to combine 1/16th, 2/16ths, etc with 1/20th, 2/20th etc seems like an idea to try...
The existing 12 tone just scale perhaps is already doing a far better job of presenting coherent competing ideas. Where by coherent I mean fractions of small whole integers. As opposed to everything being divided by 16 or 20 there is 6/5ths, 5/4ths, 4/3rds, 3/2nds. But, curious to reinvent the wheel some more. ..and actually all but 4/3rds is covered by 16 and 20...
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html
...I had been wondering... the Just Scale is what makes sense. I first stumbled upon the frequencies of the equal tempered scale and was surprised to find it off from the obvious (1.2, 1.25, 1.333) Instead found this: http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html
which doesn't seem to work out at all. Results in 1, 1.06, 1.12, 1.19, 1.26!, 1.335?, 1.414, 1.498!, 1.59.....
I had made the assumption of a just scale.
But I had additionally wondered what would happen as one changed keys and normalized into the new key. So to go from C major to C# minor, would the ratios change?
Apparently so thus the existence of the equal tempered scale to keep things standable as you changed keys.
..clearly so actually. And it would sound relatively awful unless one had just become used to it. Which you can get used to playing stuff all out of tune, etc.
But how off would it otherwise sound?
And how would a scale like this sound?
1+1/16, 2/16, 3/16, 4/16, 5/16, 6/16, etc?
...I think I'd prefer to use a just scale tailored to whatever key I was in... Not sure how to easily manage that. (..and that's not well worded. But anyway...)
I suppose using a sampler and painstakingly putting each note in. Doing that to construct a number of alternative frequency sequences. Mostly would prefer something larger then the 12 tone scale. Really it's depressingly few notes, seems to me.
..why is there no 1.75, etc?
...to think further... Perhaps I'll attempt to construct a virtual instrument that combines a 16 tone and 20 tone scale. Or 16/10, or 8/10... I think the 16 tone scale I've in mind (1/16, 2/16, etc) would be too consonant. It would too much in agreement. Very pleasant sounding though. But it would be a bunch of people who basically all agree. 2 or 4, 8, 16 such a scale would be our rational minds. Our computer logic. Such a collection of notes would come more or less from the base two numbering system.
While, a 10 or 20 tone scale would come from our hands. Or our not entirely rational human bodies.
Then to combine the two into a 36 tone scale would be two competing and often discordant ideas. That of rational man, our conscious against our unconscious, our ancestry, that which we've evolved from which it is actually essential we hold on to, in order to be happy and find reason to continue existing.
Instead of always using the 12 tone scale (or the few others of nonwestern cultures) there is an infinite number of frequencies that an octave could hold. Of all the possibilities attempting to combine 1/16th, 2/16ths, etc with 1/20th, 2/20th etc seems like an idea to try...
The existing 12 tone just scale perhaps is already doing a far better job of presenting coherent competing ideas. Where by coherent I mean fractions of small whole integers. As opposed to everything being divided by 16 or 20 there is 6/5ths, 5/4ths, 4/3rds, 3/2nds. But, curious to reinvent the wheel some more. ..and actually all but 4/3rds is covered by 16 and 20...
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
From R.D. Laing's Knots. Something along the lines of because the person can't respect themselves, they can't respect anyone else who treats them with respect....
Anyone who's unhappy in this society I imagine may in some way not respect themselves... Eventually anyway, because they will reach the point where as opposed to believing it's others fault, that it's the inherent insanity of how the whole society is structured, they will start blaming themselves at least to some extent. Eventually seeing the fault as being their own, and thus feeling themselves to be failures. And then quickly on to not respecting themselves. And thus anyone who rants and raves about all the negative aspects of this society is likely to end up looking like a massive hypocrite. In that if you reach out to them, give them something other than more of the massive indifference which is the norm, they most likely won't be able to give anything at all in return.
Because you respect them and they don't respect themselves and thus they don't respect you... And because to actually break free of such social norms takes strength. And I don't know really. Truthfully it's beyond me. It's not a way I'd act.
More truthfully: In face to face interactions no one really dares to be so honest about the depth of the negative feelings they have, with respect to what this world is doing to them. A ton take prozac, etc. Which strongly indicates their negative feelings run deep. But in face to face such things certainly remain hidden. Short of it being someone you're having sex with.
On the internet a very few here and there will attempt more honesty about such negative feelings.
But, this honesty I guess is more than made up for by all that is lost in this medium. So much that would otherwise be imparted to get the whole picture is lost. And without that which is lost, it is perhaps hopeless and futile to even attempt to understand what in the world really is going on with any individual person.
Someone said the internet isn't real. Well, in face to face interactions no one is real either. The internet was hopefully a way to uncover the parts hidden in the endless banal and pointless face to face interactions where people are doing nothing more than having ritualistic conversations the goals of which are highly crude. Not much more than sniffing each other's ass. The smile to say I'm not a threat, etc.
In face to face interactions you get 10% of the truth. On the internet the hope is that some part of the other 90% will peek through.
That's been my hope anyway.
And it certainly has peeked through at times.
And what has mostly peeked through is incredibly ugly.
But still what we have in online interactions amounts to about 3% of the truth as opposed to 10% generally speaking in face to face where you still can get an idea about all that the person is withholding...
Maybe some of that 3% is different from what is received in a face to face. (Of course such percentages varying widely.) But more and more, this isn't even the case. And less and less is there any reason to bother with the internet. And more and more it seems that the main thing being revealed is that some people are so full of fear that they're afraid to interact by more traditional means...
I'm not trying to call anyone out. This is just how it seems based on a decade of experience. Because of this, among other reasons, I'm reticent to be online. Even this bit of typing, I would have much prefered to be reading a book with the little bit of time I have before work.
Now I've only got 30 minutes to read. And I still have to go make my daily attempt at a one arm chinup, etc.
Anyone who's unhappy in this society I imagine may in some way not respect themselves... Eventually anyway, because they will reach the point where as opposed to believing it's others fault, that it's the inherent insanity of how the whole society is structured, they will start blaming themselves at least to some extent. Eventually seeing the fault as being their own, and thus feeling themselves to be failures. And then quickly on to not respecting themselves. And thus anyone who rants and raves about all the negative aspects of this society is likely to end up looking like a massive hypocrite. In that if you reach out to them, give them something other than more of the massive indifference which is the norm, they most likely won't be able to give anything at all in return.
Because you respect them and they don't respect themselves and thus they don't respect you... And because to actually break free of such social norms takes strength. And I don't know really. Truthfully it's beyond me. It's not a way I'd act.
More truthfully: In face to face interactions no one really dares to be so honest about the depth of the negative feelings they have, with respect to what this world is doing to them. A ton take prozac, etc. Which strongly indicates their negative feelings run deep. But in face to face such things certainly remain hidden. Short of it being someone you're having sex with.
On the internet a very few here and there will attempt more honesty about such negative feelings.
But, this honesty I guess is more than made up for by all that is lost in this medium. So much that would otherwise be imparted to get the whole picture is lost. And without that which is lost, it is perhaps hopeless and futile to even attempt to understand what in the world really is going on with any individual person.
Someone said the internet isn't real. Well, in face to face interactions no one is real either. The internet was hopefully a way to uncover the parts hidden in the endless banal and pointless face to face interactions where people are doing nothing more than having ritualistic conversations the goals of which are highly crude. Not much more than sniffing each other's ass. The smile to say I'm not a threat, etc.
In face to face interactions you get 10% of the truth. On the internet the hope is that some part of the other 90% will peek through.
That's been my hope anyway.
And it certainly has peeked through at times.
And what has mostly peeked through is incredibly ugly.
But still what we have in online interactions amounts to about 3% of the truth as opposed to 10% generally speaking in face to face where you still can get an idea about all that the person is withholding...
Maybe some of that 3% is different from what is received in a face to face. (Of course such percentages varying widely.) But more and more, this isn't even the case. And less and less is there any reason to bother with the internet. And more and more it seems that the main thing being revealed is that some people are so full of fear that they're afraid to interact by more traditional means...
I'm not trying to call anyone out. This is just how it seems based on a decade of experience. Because of this, among other reasons, I'm reticent to be online. Even this bit of typing, I would have much prefered to be reading a book with the little bit of time I have before work.
Now I've only got 30 minutes to read. And I still have to go make my daily attempt at a one arm chinup, etc.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Robin Hobb has taken the withholding of information by characters from each other to a level that is really getting just silly. Fitz has to hide his real identify from his son and daughter. The main thing pulling the reader along is just waiting for him to finally reveal himself. The first book of the Tawny Man trilogy was so much not revealing, not revealing, not revealing and then finally he reveals a bit and it feels like sexual teasing almost. Finally you stick it in! Ridiculous.
Finally he's clearly something more than just some servant. He's Skilled and Witted. He was a close friend of the Prince's father. But still so much held back. And thus one can be botherd to read through book two which is more of the same. The Prince not realizing this is the White Prophet and his Catalyst, the Witted Farseer Bastard. Plus Fitz's daughter. Oh just bring her to the castle and tell her the truth. But then there'd be no book three and really no books at all in the first place. Such is writing.
Furthermore, not quite getting around to having it out with Hap. Not getting around to Thick's Skilling. Not yet teaching Chade about Skilling, etc. Making up rather tired misunderstandings with his new lover. Ultimately it all hanging on the fact that Fitz lives in hiding as a servant when he's really the heroic savior of the whole kingdom whom possesses all kinds of magical powers and has even risen from the dead. No one but Chade and Kettricken realizing who he really is.
Finally he's clearly something more than just some servant. He's Skilled and Witted. He was a close friend of the Prince's father. But still so much held back. And thus one can be botherd to read through book two which is more of the same. The Prince not realizing this is the White Prophet and his Catalyst, the Witted Farseer Bastard. Plus Fitz's daughter. Oh just bring her to the castle and tell her the truth. But then there'd be no book three and really no books at all in the first place. Such is writing.
Furthermore, not quite getting around to having it out with Hap. Not getting around to Thick's Skilling. Not yet teaching Chade about Skilling, etc. Making up rather tired misunderstandings with his new lover. Ultimately it all hanging on the fact that Fitz lives in hiding as a servant when he's really the heroic savior of the whole kingdom whom possesses all kinds of magical powers and has even risen from the dead. No one but Chade and Kettricken realizing who he really is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_ego
I like 'the it', 'the I' and 'the over I' much better than 'id, ego, super-ego'.
The over I is the part of us that tries to be objective. Tries to take a step back and look at our actions and decide if they adhere to whatever moral system we've constructed for ourselves. It's not though the part that makes the moral system in the first place. It's just the part that tries to live by it. The I and the unconscious make the moral system.
The over I though is just as much a part of the unconscious as the conscious. Thus I don't think this three way division actually makes sense.
There is the unconscious and the conscious. And then there is the perfectly selfish/subjective (and perhaps neither word describes it quite right) and the objective/'moral'. Both of which are partially conscious and unconsious.
Through the Over I we get angry at perceived indifference. Through the Over I we feel shame for our failures and guilt. Through the Over I we often purposely choose to not be happy when we otherwise could be.
I don't know though. I suspect it's all just different semantics to look at things from a slightly different perspective that amounts to nothing new actually being done.
I like 'the it', 'the I' and 'the over I' much better than 'id, ego, super-ego'.
The over I is the part of us that tries to be objective. Tries to take a step back and look at our actions and decide if they adhere to whatever moral system we've constructed for ourselves. It's not though the part that makes the moral system in the first place. It's just the part that tries to live by it. The I and the unconscious make the moral system.
The over I though is just as much a part of the unconscious as the conscious. Thus I don't think this three way division actually makes sense.
There is the unconscious and the conscious. And then there is the perfectly selfish/subjective (and perhaps neither word describes it quite right) and the objective/'moral'. Both of which are partially conscious and unconsious.
Through the Over I we get angry at perceived indifference. Through the Over I we feel shame for our failures and guilt. Through the Over I we often purposely choose to not be happy when we otherwise could be.
I don't know though. I suspect it's all just different semantics to look at things from a slightly different perspective that amounts to nothing new actually being done.
Reggae. Last listened a lot in about 1998. Steel Pulse mostly.
Some Peter Tosh...
(the guy who wrote Johnny B. Goode grew up a few minutes from my house....)
Alpha Blondy... And helped me relax although... life passed quickly and somewhat more meaninglessly.
Discovered Augustus Pablo not till 2004 or so.
Just found a wonderful album. Love this song:
I've never taken marijuana but it seems like such a tired stereotype that it's always tied to reggae.
I bought a melodica and want to try doing some improv to a loop like this song. Unfortunately my wife works at home so that's 40 hours during which I can't play it. Nor in the middle of the night when I'm awake either. Hopefully the new house will be such that I can do so without disturbing her.
So a slight reggae kick lately. Tied with fantasy fiction. And all my schooling finished. And a decent job. Making things seem a lot more peaceful. Maybe even too peaceful?
--
I want a house that has big windows which get direct sunlight. The house we're very close to buying doesn't have that. The windows are small and it gets almost no direct sunlight.
But that's in part because there's a lot of trees. And trees are a good thing also.
The free house I live in currently has big windows. In the evening glorious sunlight shines into the kitchen. In the morning glorious sunlight shines into the bedroom. I open the curtain and all three cats immediately jump in the window. Plus right outside we sit food where 3 or 4 others come to eat. In the kitchen window we've a bird feeder. The cats sit and watch the birds eat.
The rooms aren't gloomy as they fill with sun. But maybe losing such isn't that big a deal.
I wanted a lot of plants inside. There are plants that don't need direct sunlight. But not ideal. I want natural light making it not so gloomy.
I try to discuss this concern with my wife and she just gets angry. She wants the house bad.
Also some weirdly shaped rooms. And a crass fake fireplace. I try to discuss how exactly will we put furniture in such rooms? And she just gets angry. My pointing out and trying to discuss negatives is just me starting a fight. Not trying to make sure we're wisely spending two hundred thousand dollars.
Now she doesn't want to get the house because she thinks I'll spend the next 30 years complaining about the lack of sunlight, etc.
I just don't know. The land around the house has potential. The house itself is OK. I guess.
We're driving the realtor crazy I think in how many houses we've looked at now. And I must be really annoying as no house is good enough for me. They're never made with wisdom. Like for example, I don't think people even take into consideration where the sun rises and sets.. Or how certain spaces will just end up sitting forever unused. Or rooms that just don't make sense...
This one has three upstairs bedrooms. With two closets that are 7 by 7 feet. (Almost small rooms basically.) Then a fourth room which is the same size as these two closets. What in the world would we do with such a room?
Then downstairs there is a room that's too long. Sit chairs, etc at each wall and you'd have to cup your hands and yell to the person in the other chair. Or if there was a TV you'd need binoculars.
The room with the crass fake fireplace is open such that almost any furniture would be in the way of where you'd walk to get through the room. And it's a massive fireplace. Dominates the room. What else would even go with it? six feet high. 8 feet wide and it's not even real. Why? Who thought that was a good idea? That room has a tiny bit of ceiling that's 20 feet high. But, if there's ever a good time to have a 20 foot high ceiling, this is exactly a time not to. Supposing you actually wanted to get heat from the fireplace it's all going to go up in that space above.
The house just doesn't seem to make sense. An open kitchen but off it the area to put a kitchen table is slightly narrow. Too wide to just be a hallway but a table would probably have to be up against the wall...
But my wife loves it, thinks it's fantastic. Although she can't answer to any of these negatives. My mom thinks I'm being ridiculous. Although she also can't answer to any of these negatives but to dismiss them as unimportant. I end up being more annoyed that I'm surrounded by people who aren't capable of explaining themselves and having a civilized discussion concerning differences. They don't even want to discuss any of these things at the house because the realtor is there seeing us have an 'argument'. So then I'm supposed to wait till we're no longer in the house to discuss all these issues. Which is kind of absurd. This is two hundred thousand dollars. I should be able to discuss such issues while I'm there in the house.
This one though does have a little minicreek and a good bit of land. There was even a deer hiding in the foilage. There is a field that is roughly 10,000 square feet that I was thinking to do stuff with. Put in a pond and so on. Even if I don't like the house that much the field beside I could make the way I like. Evergreens along the road. Vines, flowers, trees, a pond. ....etc... A place to sit on a swing by a pond and read. A little place that's not really very little at all which proclaims something more than mere survival. Something that borders on being so un-oriented to mere survival that it's absurd. All kinds of paths, etc. Places for people to hide...
And put up a big sign: "trespassers welcome".
And it's a small dead end street in a very verdant area which yet isn't out in the middle of nowhere.
We should buy it I guess.
But it just doesn't feel right... Robert Tinnell's old house with the tiny bedrooms felt right. This one feels not like a home. It feels like an ill thought idea. Which is to say like a typically modern house, thrown together without any real thought for what was being done. Not at one with nature. Not at one even with any potential furniture. Just such and such square footage, such and such bedrooms with big closets... Slap an addition on here. Blah.
An ugly but large house on a beautiful piece of land. I've seen many others that felt more like actual homes. But the square footage and the land is the best buy seen by far. Could it be made to feel like an actual home? Attempting to discuss such things with my wife, and relatives was futile.
Some Peter Tosh...
(the guy who wrote Johnny B. Goode grew up a few minutes from my house....)
Alpha Blondy... And helped me relax although... life passed quickly and somewhat more meaninglessly.
Discovered Augustus Pablo not till 2004 or so.
Just found a wonderful album. Love this song:
I've never taken marijuana but it seems like such a tired stereotype that it's always tied to reggae.
I bought a melodica and want to try doing some improv to a loop like this song. Unfortunately my wife works at home so that's 40 hours during which I can't play it. Nor in the middle of the night when I'm awake either. Hopefully the new house will be such that I can do so without disturbing her.
So a slight reggae kick lately. Tied with fantasy fiction. And all my schooling finished. And a decent job. Making things seem a lot more peaceful. Maybe even too peaceful?
--
I want a house that has big windows which get direct sunlight. The house we're very close to buying doesn't have that. The windows are small and it gets almost no direct sunlight.
But that's in part because there's a lot of trees. And trees are a good thing also.
The free house I live in currently has big windows. In the evening glorious sunlight shines into the kitchen. In the morning glorious sunlight shines into the bedroom. I open the curtain and all three cats immediately jump in the window. Plus right outside we sit food where 3 or 4 others come to eat. In the kitchen window we've a bird feeder. The cats sit and watch the birds eat.
The rooms aren't gloomy as they fill with sun. But maybe losing such isn't that big a deal.
I wanted a lot of plants inside. There are plants that don't need direct sunlight. But not ideal. I want natural light making it not so gloomy.
I try to discuss this concern with my wife and she just gets angry. She wants the house bad.
Also some weirdly shaped rooms. And a crass fake fireplace. I try to discuss how exactly will we put furniture in such rooms? And she just gets angry. My pointing out and trying to discuss negatives is just me starting a fight. Not trying to make sure we're wisely spending two hundred thousand dollars.
Now she doesn't want to get the house because she thinks I'll spend the next 30 years complaining about the lack of sunlight, etc.
I just don't know. The land around the house has potential. The house itself is OK. I guess.
We're driving the realtor crazy I think in how many houses we've looked at now. And I must be really annoying as no house is good enough for me. They're never made with wisdom. Like for example, I don't think people even take into consideration where the sun rises and sets.. Or how certain spaces will just end up sitting forever unused. Or rooms that just don't make sense...
This one has three upstairs bedrooms. With two closets that are 7 by 7 feet. (Almost small rooms basically.) Then a fourth room which is the same size as these two closets. What in the world would we do with such a room?
Then downstairs there is a room that's too long. Sit chairs, etc at each wall and you'd have to cup your hands and yell to the person in the other chair. Or if there was a TV you'd need binoculars.
The room with the crass fake fireplace is open such that almost any furniture would be in the way of where you'd walk to get through the room. And it's a massive fireplace. Dominates the room. What else would even go with it? six feet high. 8 feet wide and it's not even real. Why? Who thought that was a good idea? That room has a tiny bit of ceiling that's 20 feet high. But, if there's ever a good time to have a 20 foot high ceiling, this is exactly a time not to. Supposing you actually wanted to get heat from the fireplace it's all going to go up in that space above.
The house just doesn't seem to make sense. An open kitchen but off it the area to put a kitchen table is slightly narrow. Too wide to just be a hallway but a table would probably have to be up against the wall...
But my wife loves it, thinks it's fantastic. Although she can't answer to any of these negatives. My mom thinks I'm being ridiculous. Although she also can't answer to any of these negatives but to dismiss them as unimportant. I end up being more annoyed that I'm surrounded by people who aren't capable of explaining themselves and having a civilized discussion concerning differences. They don't even want to discuss any of these things at the house because the realtor is there seeing us have an 'argument'. So then I'm supposed to wait till we're no longer in the house to discuss all these issues. Which is kind of absurd. This is two hundred thousand dollars. I should be able to discuss such issues while I'm there in the house.
This one though does have a little minicreek and a good bit of land. There was even a deer hiding in the foilage. There is a field that is roughly 10,000 square feet that I was thinking to do stuff with. Put in a pond and so on. Even if I don't like the house that much the field beside I could make the way I like. Evergreens along the road. Vines, flowers, trees, a pond. ....etc... A place to sit on a swing by a pond and read. A little place that's not really very little at all which proclaims something more than mere survival. Something that borders on being so un-oriented to mere survival that it's absurd. All kinds of paths, etc. Places for people to hide...
And put up a big sign: "trespassers welcome".
And it's a small dead end street in a very verdant area which yet isn't out in the middle of nowhere.
We should buy it I guess.
But it just doesn't feel right... Robert Tinnell's old house with the tiny bedrooms felt right. This one feels not like a home. It feels like an ill thought idea. Which is to say like a typically modern house, thrown together without any real thought for what was being done. Not at one with nature. Not at one even with any potential furniture. Just such and such square footage, such and such bedrooms with big closets... Slap an addition on here. Blah.
An ugly but large house on a beautiful piece of land. I've seen many others that felt more like actual homes. But the square footage and the land is the best buy seen by far. Could it be made to feel like an actual home? Attempting to discuss such things with my wife, and relatives was futile.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Sounds as if it's up too loud and distorted but it isn't... Not sure what that's about.
...come to think of it I wrote the first 2 minutes of this a week ago when I had half an hour to kill and I put it 50 cents out of tune and with some weird effect so it sounded strangely dampened and far away. And I was really feeling it then. This time in trying to finish it I just went with it in tune and no effects and I definitely wasn't feeling it as well... Just arbitrarily grabbed the track that was open and I had toggled to the flat track right before closing last time...
Sunday, August 16, 2009
..so what all books did I buy yesterday? Two Trilogies by Robin Hobb plus two more additional books by her. Then one by Guy Gavriel Kay (The Last Light of the Sun). I had read and liked Tigana and this one is somewhat historically accurate with regards Nordic/Viking history. Then something by George R.R. Martin. I had liked A Crown of Swords I think it was called. Then Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, but that was really for my wife. But I'll probably read it...
..then today I bought three books by Jung and The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash.
Currently was already reading... six books. Deustch, Duncan, Sutherland, Laing, Foucault, and Wolfe. Liking best Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland. Exactly the sort of thing that interests me most of all. And the most comprehensive I've ever come across. Will write extensively about his book later. And will definitely buy other books by him.
..then today I bought three books by Jung and The Mind of the South by W.J. Cash.
Currently was already reading... six books. Deustch, Duncan, Sutherland, Laing, Foucault, and Wolfe. Liking best Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland. Exactly the sort of thing that interests me most of all. And the most comprehensive I've ever come across. Will write extensively about his book later. And will definitely buy other books by him.
During times of change I always have tons of dreams or at least remember my dreams. It is nice to believe they have meaning and I suppose in ways I can discern some meaning. One very noticeable thing that has changed about my dreams from 20 years ago is that back then there was virtually no sense at all to anything I dreamed. There was my body falling apart, pieces falling off, various nightmarish things. Me running off across the landscape trying to escape. I suppose that all made sense but everything else was just totally random.
So in a time of change lately with switching to night shift, working as a nurse, having I suppose less stress, and... I suppose more time off? (although it's not feeling like that at all.... although I will have two 5 day off bits in the next three weeks which is awesome.) Reading a ton of books, including escapist ones like I haven't in years. (Just bought 12 books yesterday.) Also sleeping freakishly hard. Whereas for the last few years I was starting to sleep like an old person. Too light. Waking up after 3 or 4 hours. Then managing to fall back asleep for another hour or three...
Anyway something's very different. Usually in the past it was moving, which I did a lot of, or starting a new job, those two things caused endless dreaming.
I generally don't keep track of the dreams/don't try to remember them. In part perhaps because when younger they were such just chaos, always just that. Last night and recently in general they've been very sensible dreams. Not such random things thrown together. Instead things that actually make sense but I could have as well thought while awake. Almost anyway. Still a few odds and ends put in that don't actually correlate to real life. And there's this sort of rationalism at work as if I'm awake. A part of me is pulling back and looking down and musing about the situation just as if awake, but not so aware it's a dream.
Every night endless dreams. For a change a very partial listing:
The one which has already very much faded from my memory I think may have had some relation to the movie we saw yesterday, District 9. It was an unusual sort of movie and I guess OK in that respect. In the dream there was running and hiding but in a strange area, buildings where I had found secret doors, secret places. And then secret documents. I think I was being chased by Los Alamos henchmen. A very long dream which I can't explain. Consisted of secret places to hide.
Then an almost homoerotic dream. I've had a very few homoerotic dreams in my life. I recall having one in my teens where I was kissing some other guy and liking it. I woke up wondering if it meant I was gay and have remembered that bit of dream for 20+ years. In this one I was at first back in high school or back at high school for some unknown reason where I met this one guy who was gay. He had very effiminate mannerisms. In high school he was suicidal. He was also very beautiful. His eyes and the hue of his skin reminded me of a fawn.
Although I'm not gay, my heart reached out to him, what with being suicidally depressed. And he looked so sensitive. The few times I tried to strike up a conversation he was very hostile back then. In the dream I managed to break through. Found he wrote music that sounded better than mine. Better singer, more 'professional'. And he only posted it on myspace. Because the only people who listen to music anywhere else are actual musicians.
In the dream though I did go ahead and make out a bit with him, just to be nice.
He needed hugs and that sort of thing.
Finally or maybe mingled? I dreamed we (my wife and I) discovered two additional rooms in our current house. The kitchen is in the corner, we found a door that was a hallway with two additional decent sized rooms coming off of it.
In real life the house is quite old and 980 square feet. Which is to say too small for my library. In fact I think I just bought three books yesterday I already own but are in storage. But this house has a downstairs which is trashed and not used. (below ground level.) Long ago water pipes busted and rotted out the floor. Fourty years ago it used to be a barber shop. The couple across the street remember back when it was. There used to be stairs down to it on the inside before the house was converted into two apartments.
Thinking still about buying a house. This current house was free. It was abandoned. Wondering if we should just fix this one up. Fix up the downstairs. Perhaps put an addition on the backside. Put up a fence around the yard. Instead of spending 200,000 on a new house that just wouldn't be 200,000 dollars better.
As always there was a piece of music attached to my dreams. At least there was one that I remembered, probably others forgotten. There is far more music than dreams. as when falling asleep, during that moment where my thinking quits making sense a bit of original music plays. I don't bother trying to take these bits and recording songs. For a change I was going to do so this time but now I've forgotten it. It wasn't anything really special though. The hard part is it's never clear what instrument is making the sounds. So I could never get it to sound quite the same.
So in a time of change lately with switching to night shift, working as a nurse, having I suppose less stress, and... I suppose more time off? (although it's not feeling like that at all.... although I will have two 5 day off bits in the next three weeks which is awesome.) Reading a ton of books, including escapist ones like I haven't in years. (Just bought 12 books yesterday.) Also sleeping freakishly hard. Whereas for the last few years I was starting to sleep like an old person. Too light. Waking up after 3 or 4 hours. Then managing to fall back asleep for another hour or three...
Anyway something's very different. Usually in the past it was moving, which I did a lot of, or starting a new job, those two things caused endless dreaming.
I generally don't keep track of the dreams/don't try to remember them. In part perhaps because when younger they were such just chaos, always just that. Last night and recently in general they've been very sensible dreams. Not such random things thrown together. Instead things that actually make sense but I could have as well thought while awake. Almost anyway. Still a few odds and ends put in that don't actually correlate to real life. And there's this sort of rationalism at work as if I'm awake. A part of me is pulling back and looking down and musing about the situation just as if awake, but not so aware it's a dream.
Every night endless dreams. For a change a very partial listing:
The one which has already very much faded from my memory I think may have had some relation to the movie we saw yesterday, District 9. It was an unusual sort of movie and I guess OK in that respect. In the dream there was running and hiding but in a strange area, buildings where I had found secret doors, secret places. And then secret documents. I think I was being chased by Los Alamos henchmen. A very long dream which I can't explain. Consisted of secret places to hide.
Then an almost homoerotic dream. I've had a very few homoerotic dreams in my life. I recall having one in my teens where I was kissing some other guy and liking it. I woke up wondering if it meant I was gay and have remembered that bit of dream for 20+ years. In this one I was at first back in high school or back at high school for some unknown reason where I met this one guy who was gay. He had very effiminate mannerisms. In high school he was suicidal. He was also very beautiful. His eyes and the hue of his skin reminded me of a fawn.
Although I'm not gay, my heart reached out to him, what with being suicidally depressed. And he looked so sensitive. The few times I tried to strike up a conversation he was very hostile back then. In the dream I managed to break through. Found he wrote music that sounded better than mine. Better singer, more 'professional'. And he only posted it on myspace. Because the only people who listen to music anywhere else are actual musicians.
In the dream though I did go ahead and make out a bit with him, just to be nice.
He needed hugs and that sort of thing.
Finally or maybe mingled? I dreamed we (my wife and I) discovered two additional rooms in our current house. The kitchen is in the corner, we found a door that was a hallway with two additional decent sized rooms coming off of it.
In real life the house is quite old and 980 square feet. Which is to say too small for my library. In fact I think I just bought three books yesterday I already own but are in storage. But this house has a downstairs which is trashed and not used. (below ground level.) Long ago water pipes busted and rotted out the floor. Fourty years ago it used to be a barber shop. The couple across the street remember back when it was. There used to be stairs down to it on the inside before the house was converted into two apartments.
Thinking still about buying a house. This current house was free. It was abandoned. Wondering if we should just fix this one up. Fix up the downstairs. Perhaps put an addition on the backside. Put up a fence around the yard. Instead of spending 200,000 on a new house that just wouldn't be 200,000 dollars better.
As always there was a piece of music attached to my dreams. At least there was one that I remembered, probably others forgotten. There is far more music than dreams. as when falling asleep, during that moment where my thinking quits making sense a bit of original music plays. I don't bother trying to take these bits and recording songs. For a change I was going to do so this time but now I've forgotten it. It wasn't anything really special though. The hard part is it's never clear what instrument is making the sounds. So I could never get it to sound quite the same.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
This Joseph Greenstein strength training experiment isn't working out so well. At first I felt great but now my body seems to have crashed and burned. I've been feeling increasingly fatigued the last week or two now. Today my head hurts, my body's overheated, I've no energy at all, I feel kind of nauseous and... I'm worried about the occasional pains in the general area of my gall bladder...
Then I wonder if feeling this way is unrelated to trying to exercise as I think Greenstein did... Possibly but I won't chance it. I really feel bad. Particularly worried about the pain in my stomach. Both my sister and my mother have had their gall bladders removed. That's something I'd like to avoid having done. That of course though, should really be a matter of diet and not exercise...
Anyway, I'm on fire. Which is the problem with exercise. I've this strange body where I get to feeling this way if I'm not careful. What it is about me that makes me this way I don't know. Again, it seems generally that if I manage to be very consistent then I'm fine. But if I miss too many days, this happens. I maybe missed too many days. But what I was trying to do started becoming too taxing and I really needed to rest a bit here and there.
I'm a fool for trying such experiments. I should really just do sensible exercise. The Greenstein experiment was nice though in that I slept great... And the first three weeks were great all around.
Then I wonder if feeling this way is unrelated to trying to exercise as I think Greenstein did... Possibly but I won't chance it. I really feel bad. Particularly worried about the pain in my stomach. Both my sister and my mother have had their gall bladders removed. That's something I'd like to avoid having done. That of course though, should really be a matter of diet and not exercise...
Anyway, I'm on fire. Which is the problem with exercise. I've this strange body where I get to feeling this way if I'm not careful. What it is about me that makes me this way I don't know. Again, it seems generally that if I manage to be very consistent then I'm fine. But if I miss too many days, this happens. I maybe missed too many days. But what I was trying to do started becoming too taxing and I really needed to rest a bit here and there.
I'm a fool for trying such experiments. I should really just do sensible exercise. The Greenstein experiment was nice though in that I slept great... And the first three weeks were great all around.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Honest!
This isn't a new song. I wrote it about a year ago but at the time I was really questioning just what the hell was I doing exactly with this whole writing music thing, much more so than now, although still am. Anyway both liked it then and thought it embarrassingly awful. Listened to it just now and thought it perfect and wonderful.
Look at the big braying fool. He's honest. Laugh at what a bizarre specimen he is. What a masochist. The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting a different result. He must be a masochist. He's honest and honest and honest and honest. The same word repeated hundreds of times.
..makes for a wincingly repetitive awful song? Or no. Only slightly repetitive all and all.
Let's start from the beginning. Reality is twisted. It must be. How else to explain this unconformed honesty? Some great and fabulous prize looms off in the distance in his mind and he seeks the truth and tries to draw others on along on the journey with him. Honest! Honest! Screaming it with your dying breath, again and again.
Wait. What are you doing? This is strange behavior on your part. This is a bit unreal. And causing negative results...
Still onwards! Reality twists and you journey on and on and on. Here and there coming to close to the edge.
Rarely: an oasis of healing. A moment of clarity. And rest.
Then, again, the ideal looms above. Shining, beautiful, awful, glorious. Onwards and onwards he strives towards it.
This is so strange. What are we doing? Where are we going exactly....?
--
...but I listen to it the next day and I wonder what in the world I was thinking. It's awful!
This is a test.
If it had been a real life, you would have received a cookie.
--
Finished Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy. The final book had an annoying couple hundred page stretch and then a let down as the hero is reduced to having no purpose in life anymore and living in some cottage doing not much.
Otherwise what I found most interesting was how especially in the first two books such awful things happen to the hero, yet it's still something to escape to. How can this be? Because despite all the awful things which happen, all the injustice, and despite all the insights about human behavior that Hobb shows (in an unpreachy way) it's still essentially completely dishonest. If all the rest were filled in that made it like real life with respect to how the characters thought and acted, it wouldn't be any kind of thing to escape to at all.
But it's essentially such lies. Such pretty lies... To write such a book, a book people could actually enjoy reading, it really seems a person would have to value fun/a good time so so much more than the truth.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Same song as before but fixed up.
I was kaput yesterday.
I wonder if my not wanting to spend multiple days writing a song is from a fear of failure? I have a book lying somewhere in this house by a psychiatrist who specializes in creativity and he's primarily all about fear of failure. I think he even went so far as to divide things up into 7 different kinds of fear of failure that you have to try to constantly overcome. I do try to write music, so in a way I've overcome fear of failure. But perhaps not trying too hard is fear of failure rearing it's head in the distance yet again. A foe like a necromanisized(sp) zombie that you keep killing and killing and it just keeps coming back to life.
Probably the name I gave the song (Once built, forever destroyed) game me the impetus to go back and fix it up. There was a part in the middle where I actually wasn't even on the beat! Plus the ending wasn't any good. Added some notes and put in a trumpet. Still the nuance of the trumpet isn't so great. But I can stand this version. It's now not quite such a testament to what a failure I forever am.
Now I've two other creative mediums I haven't really started in because of fear of failure. And, it's not so simple as saying, "Oh, I just fear failure. Well then, I'll quit doing that and get along with things!" It's not so simple in that we do have to try to assess whether or not we'll be successful at something to determine what's the best direction to take...
I have the idea stuck in my head that coffee isn't really good for me. Yet, it seems that in ways it really is. I am a better person if I have a cup of coffee in the morning. Just one cup of coffee changes the way I go about my entire day. The change is somewhat subtle. There aren't quite words to explain what happens in my mind. It's not simply that I have more energy. Not at all. In fact last night proves that. On my days off I don't do a good job of having that one cup of coffee. Now that I have a lot more days off I've been drinking less coffee with the end result that I'm ...sort of dragging through my days but it's not quite correct to define it as if it's a lack of energy.
Coffee is a real bonafide drug that keeps my mind just turning away from negative stuff. I literally take a few gulps and my mind feels like it's in a swirl of enporphins. And I feel as if it helps me ignore some essentially negative aspect of reality. An aspect that facing isn't doing any good whatsoever. Just grinding the life out of me.
I've drank a cup a day maybe on average for a couple years now... And I feel as if in a sense I dragged through years of my life before coffee.
It tastes like chocolate to me. This I guess because my sense of taste doesn't quite work correctly. I once made a pie and accidentally used salt instead of sugar. Perhaps a person with a normal sense of taste would notice their mistake on the first... possibly second bite. I ate two large pieces and just noticed I felt a bit sick to my stomach.
Not much sense of smell, I can barely smell a 'code brown' at the hospital or a colostomy bag. Otherwise I usually just imagine I smell things that aren't actually there. And the sense of taste I guess is somehow connected to smell.
Anyway yesterday, I went without my coffee and just felt out of sorts. Again I only drink maybe a cup a day on average. That's not much. I don't think it's withdrawal. As it's an 'out of sorts' feeling that I recall having continously when younger before I ever touched coffee.
Of course right after the post about sleeping so good, my sleep hadn't been quite as good. So then I drink half a cup of coffee and I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. I almost immediately feel better. And then I fall asleep for 5 hours. Coffee as a sleep aid? (Sigh) My body is too weird. Too impossible to figure out.
I have to get more of into a habit of drinking coffee. Though I hate to be dependent on any kind of drug. The truth is though I just do better, so much better. I defeat the existential nihilism in me when I drink a bit of coffee. Not by thinking more clearly. The opposite. My mind becomes distracted by minutae(sp). Lots of things pop into it which I focus solely upon instead of having a part of me standing back and holding on to the bigger picture in all it's awful glory.
But I have this idea that coffee surely can't be good for my health. And so I hold back. I might not even average a single cup a day.
And, one thing I've noticed is that the quality of my fingernails has changed. They seem a tad bit brittle. I think it's most likely a lack of calcium. Maybe in part because I've been eating a lot of spinach instead of broccoli lately. (The acid in spinach counteracts it's calcium). But maybe the coffee also plays a role...
I think I need to make sure to have one, maybe even two cups of coffee a day. Right now I've just woken up (5AM). Hmmm, but I had half a cup at 9:30pm last night and I am still feeling it. I'm very definitely blocking out the existentialism (the big picture). I'm not thinking about my place in the universe. Not thinking about what my existence is. What I have to show for my life. What few real friends I have. How I'm a lemming holed up in a shack. Not thinking of the truth of what 99.9% of interactions are. Etc. Yeck. Just thinking all about coffee. Now off to eat some broccoli and read a book. In a few hours the existentialism will creep in and I'll have some coffee.
Hopefully better understanding how the coffee achieves it's positive effect won't cause me to overcome it.
Coffee is a real bonafide drug that keeps my mind just turning away from negative stuff. I literally take a few gulps and my mind feels like it's in a swirl of enporphins. And I feel as if it helps me ignore some essentially negative aspect of reality. An aspect that facing isn't doing any good whatsoever. Just grinding the life out of me.
I've drank a cup a day maybe on average for a couple years now... And I feel as if in a sense I dragged through years of my life before coffee.
It tastes like chocolate to me. This I guess because my sense of taste doesn't quite work correctly. I once made a pie and accidentally used salt instead of sugar. Perhaps a person with a normal sense of taste would notice their mistake on the first... possibly second bite. I ate two large pieces and just noticed I felt a bit sick to my stomach.
Not much sense of smell, I can barely smell a 'code brown' at the hospital or a colostomy bag. Otherwise I usually just imagine I smell things that aren't actually there. And the sense of taste I guess is somehow connected to smell.
Anyway yesterday, I went without my coffee and just felt out of sorts. Again I only drink maybe a cup a day on average. That's not much. I don't think it's withdrawal. As it's an 'out of sorts' feeling that I recall having continously when younger before I ever touched coffee.
Of course right after the post about sleeping so good, my sleep hadn't been quite as good. So then I drink half a cup of coffee and I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me. I almost immediately feel better. And then I fall asleep for 5 hours. Coffee as a sleep aid? (Sigh) My body is too weird. Too impossible to figure out.
I have to get more of into a habit of drinking coffee. Though I hate to be dependent on any kind of drug. The truth is though I just do better, so much better. I defeat the existential nihilism in me when I drink a bit of coffee. Not by thinking more clearly. The opposite. My mind becomes distracted by minutae(sp). Lots of things pop into it which I focus solely upon instead of having a part of me standing back and holding on to the bigger picture in all it's awful glory.
But I have this idea that coffee surely can't be good for my health. And so I hold back. I might not even average a single cup a day.
And, one thing I've noticed is that the quality of my fingernails has changed. They seem a tad bit brittle. I think it's most likely a lack of calcium. Maybe in part because I've been eating a lot of spinach instead of broccoli lately. (The acid in spinach counteracts it's calcium). But maybe the coffee also plays a role...
I think I need to make sure to have one, maybe even two cups of coffee a day. Right now I've just woken up (5AM). Hmmm, but I had half a cup at 9:30pm last night and I am still feeling it. I'm very definitely blocking out the existentialism (the big picture). I'm not thinking about my place in the universe. Not thinking about what my existence is. What I have to show for my life. What few real friends I have. How I'm a lemming holed up in a shack. Not thinking of the truth of what 99.9% of interactions are. Etc. Yeck. Just thinking all about coffee. Now off to eat some broccoli and read a book. In a few hours the existentialism will creep in and I'll have some coffee.
Hopefully better understanding how the coffee achieves it's positive effect won't cause me to overcome it.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Beginning part was the first 'original' thing I played on the piano 20+ years ago.
I think it's not very good though. But I wandered off into trying to take that bit and make a complete 'song' from it. Not an easy task. Also I was getting bored. In fact I'd suggest no one actually listen to it. Just marking my musical 'progression' here in my blog.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Sleeping incredibly good for the last month or so now. During that time I've started exercising differently and started working as an RN. And started working night shifts. And have generally less stress I guess. I guess.
I think it's the exercise though. Started exercising as I think Joseph Greenstein essentially did. As an experiment. Greenstein was a professional strongman noted among other things for his exceptional longevity. Into his 70's he could still rip horseshoes in half. Also he only weighed about 150 pounds. Also instead of being a protein stuffer he was a near vegetarian.
As best I can tell he got that way simply by routinely attempting to bend a horseshoe. Although along with the strength in his hands he developed the ability to bite through metal, etc.
Anyway, intrigued by that idea for strength training. So, once a day I've been trying a single time to do a one arm chinup. Which at my weight only 3 people in history have ever even allegedly done. Also then I do a single set of one arm pushups with form that makes them as hard as possible.
It's a combination of scientific curiousity along with wanting to be in a decent shape. I still weigh 242 pounds. Although I look a bit better.
I had almost reached the point of a one arm chinup a few years back following a very slightly more orthodox training regimen and being 20+ pounds lighter.
Anyway, sleeping incredibly well now. Never have insomnia. Sleeping through the day deeply. Able to sleep whenever I think I ought. Then feeling very good while awake.
I think it's the exercise though. Started exercising as I think Joseph Greenstein essentially did. As an experiment. Greenstein was a professional strongman noted among other things for his exceptional longevity. Into his 70's he could still rip horseshoes in half. Also he only weighed about 150 pounds. Also instead of being a protein stuffer he was a near vegetarian.
As best I can tell he got that way simply by routinely attempting to bend a horseshoe. Although along with the strength in his hands he developed the ability to bite through metal, etc.
Anyway, intrigued by that idea for strength training. So, once a day I've been trying a single time to do a one arm chinup. Which at my weight only 3 people in history have ever even allegedly done. Also then I do a single set of one arm pushups with form that makes them as hard as possible.
It's a combination of scientific curiousity along with wanting to be in a decent shape. I still weigh 242 pounds. Although I look a bit better.
I had almost reached the point of a one arm chinup a few years back following a very slightly more orthodox training regimen and being 20+ pounds lighter.
Anyway, sleeping incredibly well now. Never have insomnia. Sleeping through the day deeply. Able to sleep whenever I think I ought. Then feeling very good while awake.
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