Hunting The Muse

Writing helps me find my ideas. It's your choice to be subjected to it all.

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Curt Is:

Musician, Programmer, Polyglot, Rennaissance Man, Bon Vivante

(credits)

Hunting The Muse

Tuesday, November 27, 2001
Fatherhood - it'll be kicking soon.
(10:22 PM)
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Man, money going out all over the place. I bought my christmas plane tickets today - $460 for denver, which is the most expensive it has ever been... and paid rent for december today as well.

I'm off to florida tomorrow for five sunny days, good food, card games, and apple pie. Nothing better than that.
(4:09 PM)
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So I wonder when we get another one of these? :-)
(10:29 AM)
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I saw Harry Potter today. Some of the sights were just majestic - I think I feel an affinity towards Harry even more than most - I looked sort of like him as a kid, wanted to be a magician when I grew up, and owls have pretty much always been my favorite animals... so I loved seeing some of the scenes, and was especially amazed at how much some of the sets (like the Gryffindor common room) looked EXACTLY like how I imagined them - made me think that maybe Rowling is some kind of wizard and had some sort of psychic transference going on... at least it made me doubt that it is as simple as descriptive prose evoking a different, independent mental image in each of us. It was eerie. However, it was very much the pacing of a book rather than a movie, and often came across as a brutally efficient transcription. Probably all Columbus could do because of the kids, but really it just made me want to read the book again. (Maybe that's not bad, though.)
(12:55 AM)
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Yeah, here's where you find yourself when you are procrastinating bedtime and surf semi-consciously.

(12:27 AM)
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Monday, November 26, 2001
Erotic Computation Group - Now HERE'S a reason to go back to graduate school. Or be a beta-tester!
(2:00 PM)
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Sunday, November 25, 2001
Here is the blasted nethack game that has been occupying a lot of my time lately. I'd feel less guilty about it, except that every once in a while the game crashes (it seems to be a problem with only MY computer), which leads to me losing my high-level characters after hours of game play AND I HAVE TO START ALL OVER because the game doesn't allow you to restore from an earlier point in the game. Here is Valiser the Elven Wizard on the first level of the gnomish mines.

(11:54 AM)
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Salon.com People | Wilma Mankiller - the first female president of the Cherokee Nation. Interesting in how it challenges the preconceptions of who/how a native american leader should be.
(11:21 AM)
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Ahh.... one step closer to having linux be my only needed computer - I have my pilot cradle synced up to Evolution now and am starting to build up my address book again.
(2:05 AM)
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Saturday, November 24, 2001
Bookbooters: Get Published Today - looks like an interesting site - more interesting is their partnership with Digitz.net who does a lot of what I have been looking for... they also mention a booksurge.com - a whole subindustry of stuff I want to learn more about.
(5:47 PM)
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Electronic Musician wrote an article about how the record labels aren't all that bad, they're just a business, and it seemed to make sense at first until I realized their numbers bothered me... so I wrote the authors a rebuttal.
(3:07 PM)
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Well, I made my tofurkey tonight. I had Thanksgiving alone this year - first time in a while - so I didn't have someone to help me with the things I forgot. First, the basting sauce was supposed to be soy sauce and orange juice and brown sugar, which I know works... well, I was out of two of those so I used soy sauce and apple cider and sucanat... it was still pretty good though. I roasted it with onion and potato (didn't have carrots) but I didn't exactly want to EAT the onions so they just sat there... But everything else was pretty damn good, and now I have lots of leftovers to get me through the weekend.

I think I've finally hit bottom in my post-breakup funk - I wrote a couple of bitter emails to the ex (nothing too bridge-burning, though), got really grumpy, rented some porn, slept until 1pm, and then the metaphorical fever broke - I still slept late this morning but I felt capable of getting up earlier... and I've been in a good mood all day and had lots of project and business ideas. So here's hoping it continues to get better...
(12:05 AM)
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Wednesday, November 21, 2001
found Buffy on usenet overnight. watched it this morning. Dude, they boinked.
(2:18 PM)
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Tuesday, November 20, 2001
I FORGOT TO TAPE BUFFY TONIGHT. Oh, woe is me. I feel awful. That ruined my whole night. I am such a wreck for Buffy. I have a codependent relationship with a television show. I love Buffy. I am committed to Buffy. A week apart from Buffy tears me apart. I wonder if she missed me? Gads, she probably didn't even notice. I do so dearly wish that Buffy The Vampire Slayer, from 8-9 pm on UPN on Tuesdays, would notice me. I honor Buffy with everything that I do. And I let Buffy down. I forgot to tape Buffy. I am sorry, Buffy. I am sorry.
(11:54 PM)
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This is really funny. Make sure you do it until the end just to see how entertaining it is. Around 20 questions I think. Oh, and there's a big [sic].

When you nearly die does your live flash before your eyes?

click on yes or no

yes
no
(3:58 PM)
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Thought police - you know, the subject material of his writings is very upsetting and all, but the thing I feel deeply shocked about is that he is in prison for ten years for writing about something that he intended as private. I see a private journal as merely the offloading of private thoughts one has inside, and I have a pretty central belief that we should be able to think whatever we want to. The thought that someone could stumble across a guy's private journal and that the guy could go to jail for ten years for it makes me feel sick.

I suppose it would be different if his writings were "Next Tuesday at 4pm I am going to take Timmy to Tijuana and here is my flight confirmation number" but the charges were porn, not conspiracy or attempted abuse.
(1:26 PM)
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Oh, and it's his birthday today, too. And Aaron's. And Killer's. I don't have a link for Killer.
(12:11 AM)
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Yeah, so my buddy Peter - the guy on my sidebar in training to be a father? He had pneumonia. And got feverish. And started to practice being a father with, you know, whatever was handy around the house.

(12:05 AM)
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Monday, November 19, 2001
Boy it took a lot of energy to get to my todo list today... I got some overdue things done though. Sleeping schedule is basically backwards right now. Hopefully I'll get the remainder done tomorrow and then will be able to have a good thanksgiving. It's all boring stuff like 401k transfers, paying for health insurance, tying up loose ends socially like how I left my recording equipment at my friend's house.
(6:45 PM)
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Sunday, November 18, 2001
We worked on two new songs in my new a cappella group - "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" by The Beatles and "Little Wing" by hendrix. I'm not as sold on Little Wing as I was initially because everyone is so dead set on sounding like the guitar licks - when I think there's a lot that can be done just with the chord progressions to make it a more vocal-sounding piece. Maybe it will be okay, though.

I have this vague feeling like I am sort of "missing something" with the ex - like I know there are definitely some things I should be thinking about, realizations I should be making... but I am just so drained right now and don't really want to go through it all. Would rather just do mindless things with friends for a while. I can easily feel guilty about it though because I care about her feelings.
(3:27 PM)
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Saturday, November 17, 2001
I went to the Portland symphony tonight - my first night of true high-falutin' Portland culture! The company I was with was very nice too. Funny thing - both her and her sister said they felt they had known me their whole lives.

I totally think it's because of my new Eddie Bauer clothes. Thanks, Arian!
(3:12 AM)
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Friday, November 16, 2001
The Portland chick got voted off of Survivor last night. I don't watch the show, but I read Salon.com's coverage. Man, they roasted her. They hated her more than they've hated anyone so far. That's funny!
(2:44 PM)
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Things are starting to feel a bit better... I mean, I think I am at least able to identify a pocket of certainty I am comfortable remaining in... that there are very definitely some things I need to go through right now that aren't compatible with me being involved with her. Hopefully I will end up learning if those are problems with *me* that I evolved from and solve, or problems inherent to the relationship itself that can't be helped.
(1:26 AM)
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Wednesday, November 14, 2001
Senseboard Technologies AB has a product idea that is so friggin cool I can't believe it. Peter, you out there? You will want.
(11:55 PM)
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Tuesday, November 13, 2001
I broke up with my girlfriend of almost 4 years last night. I've written a bit about the saga before - hopefully enough to sketch it out but without totally invading her privacy. It feels really immense, at the same time that I don't even know where to get a foothold so in ways it is easy to go back to routine just for comfort. Played piano for a while today, then went to the a cappella rehearsal where I was basically the leader for three hours... I was really high energy at rehearsal, which seems strange in hindsight.

Things had started to work out between us last week but then I had a delayed reaction and felt like it was almost working out too quickly, like I was skipping over something. Then more stuff happened that freaked me out, and I just felt like I was going to keep being in agony for the rest of the months while she would be gone, with no certainty things would be better when she came back, and I just couldn't handle the thought of four more months of being so agonized. Kind of weird to think that something as awful as a breakup would feel better than the alternative. But I also have doubts - it doesn't feel immediately right that I did this... but I tell myself continuing on would have felt more wrong... but I doubt, like if I'm just forgetting all the subtleties of how amazing she is, or if I'll ever find someone who understands me as much, or when I think of her happy with another guy. I have a lot to let of. Ugh. :(
(10:25 PM)
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Woo-hoo! Another Fatherhood entry!
(10:04 PM)
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someone told me blogger is down - but blogbot isn't... so I'm checking to see if their xml-rpc service is down.
(5:07 PM)
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Monday, November 12, 2001
Here is a selection from my Very Bad Novel:

Detectives Ed Frankel and Joseph Johns sat in a Chevy Nova halfway across town, old seventies music blaring out from an 8-track.

"Wow, can you believe people used to live like this?" chuckled Frankel.

"I know! I could barely figure out the stereo." Joe turned in the passenger seat, bending a knee to face Ed directly. "And a Nova - can you say 'Incompetent Drug Dealer' any louder?"

"Or 'Undercover Cop', for that matter. A Nova, on a street corner, headlights off, two guys sitting in it together. How could it not be a stakeout? What else would they be doing, talking about politics?"

"Don't get me started on politics. Oh wait, you also need those two-by-two cardboard containers with four styrofoam cups of coffee in them - "

Ed laughed out loud. "Where can you even find those anymore, do they stop by at the local baseball stadium? And then of course there's nowhere to put them - "

"And then the car has to take off - "

"And the hot coffee spills all over the driver - "

"And he's got a clean shirt in the next scene!"

Ed and Joe burst out into laughter together. They had been partners for over ten years, had been best man for each other's weddings, had introduced each other to their future wives. Every day they looked forward to starting their workday together.

"You know, Joe? Every day I look forward to starting my workday with you."

"Me too, Ed. Are you ready?"

"Let's do it."
(12:38 AM)
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Sunday, November 11, 2001
Here are the projects I am working on right now, whether actively or dormant:

My novel - I'm not taking this too seriously but it is fun to feel like I'm participating.
A ringtones site - I can figure out how to make ringtones from midi so I'm working with a site that is trying to get a catalogue together to sell them legally - I would get a royalty for how popular "my" ringtones are.
My a cappella group, The Pieholes - I seem to have become one of the main music directors here although I'm hopeful about a couple of the other members so maybe it won't be too much of a time drain.
Online-music thinking - I've lost a bit of momentum because I don't feel as interested in kazaa/musiccity as I was in napster, but I still keep up, and a netfriend wants to work on a website about the subject with me. (It's be nice if there was a way to make money off it though.)
Business ideas - I'm toying with ideas on online publishing and music (sheet music) publishing
Consulting - pretty much waiting on business cards. I want my business cards!!!
A potential very early-stages startup on network video, just for fun - I barely know anything about this. It would be a work-for-free java project to make a prototype at which point we ask for funding, but I'm investigating it for now.
Musicbrainz - I've severely lost momentum on this.
Playing Nethack Falcon's Eye - my level 9 gnomish wizard died when my wand of lightning's bolt ricocheted back onto me and broke my wand of cancellation - the damage took away half my hit points and killed me. I was being so careful, too. :-(
Real Estate - I'd like to get more into this, even if only to buy a house myself - but maybe there are career things I could look into.
And finally, piano. I don't have any goals for this right now, that's the only problem - if I had a house, I could put together little recitals of friends. If I can make up with my composer friend I can potentially have another project going there, too - and if I get off my butt and compose my Stonecutter song for piano and soprano, I might be able to get someone to sing with me - but that is a major effort I can rarely muster up the energy for.

Other than that, I'm mostly trying to make new friends. Other than my a cappella group (that could work out well), I've got two Beths and a Kate that are very early-stage potential friends. Eventually I might be looking for a romancey woman friend also but right now the thought just exhausts me. I haven't exactly resolved things with Tamara, but right now, in our "not-talking" stage, the thought of talking with her kind of exhausts me, too.

I guess what I should probably do is go through my projects and fine-tune - ask myself exactly what it is I like and don't like about the prospects.
(12:24 PM)
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Well I've had a goal of letting my brain settle but it hasn't really set in yet. It's an odd feeling. I've always been about re-inventing myself. I guess this is another go-round. What's strange is that with all the potential transition - changing jobs, if not careers; the potential end of a relationship; my desire to buy a house - it doesn't feel exactly agonizing... but the problem is that I feel just wasted right now. I realized yesterday I've just been focused on how tired and beat up I feel and for a couple weeks there I had forgotten to hope or make goals I was excited about. So now I want to figure out what I need to do to be able to feel optimistic again. It might be as simple as finding a life salesman somewhere that talks about how cool something-or-other is.

The other thing that might help is that I am thinking of joining a health club - I've never done that before though and have never really had any friends that were health-club-regulars - willpower would get me through the first few sessions but after that I'd want to feel like there would be social reasons to keep me coming back and I'm not sure if everyone else would seem like a freaking alien to me. :-)

If anyone has suggestions on how to delve inside and find goals, I'm all ears - what I usually do is just get out a piece of paper and start free-writing about everything I can think of doing - but unfortunately what really happens is that the stuff that comes out is all the goals I've made in the past that I remember wanting to do and then discarded for one reason or another. Even though the reasons might have been good it ends up feeling like a big old busy-headed guilt trip. I'm more in the mood to seperate wheat from chaff and boil everything down to what really excites me... but I can't think of a writing or list-making exercise that fits for that and *doesn't* end up with that busy-headed feeling. Maybe I just need to go for a hike or something (in the Portland rain, yeah right).
(11:54 AM)
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Saturday, November 10, 2001
You know, I love this template, I really do, but then I go look at other folks and I notice that others are using it too (since it was a pre-approved one) and then I don't like it for a few moments... until I forget.
(1:04 PM)
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Guess I'll give a brief update about Tamara. Hey, is anyone reading this at all? Comment here or email me if you know my address. I probably need to figure out how to get this in circulation... anyway, all through Tamara's overseas stay we've talked about doubts about the relationship and using the time to be sure. We both talked openly about what it would or could be like to be intrigued by someone else - like if it would happen, how we'd deal with it, wondered if it would happen, etc. So then it happened... it happened in a way that I really didn't like, but the challenge is figuring out which parts of that I just opened up to, and which parts I can fairly feel pissed off about. So, it happened, but on her end. It hasn't happened on my end, and there's all this extra baggage there, like if things are ending now, I wonder how long it'll be before I'm in a happy relationship again - I'm a relationship kinda guy. So anyway, we talked it out afterward, and I still wasn't sure how I felt, and then I had a second wave of being bothered by it and I backed away more. That's kind of where it is right now. We're not talking for a while, until I want to start talking again.

I'm spending some time trying to get my head together. I still really want to buy a house. But I also really want a job that I enjoy. I have been toying with starting my own smaller side businesses but the general process of making things real from absolutely nothing still feels kind of alien to me, so I don't know if I can do it. In order to get a house as a self-employed person, you need to have a two-year track record of income, and the interest rates are a bit higher. That's no fun. So I'm starting to think of going back to the salaried life a bit... but I don't feel hopeful of finding one that will be something I truly enjoy. So I'm a bit torn... I really wish some newer creative answers would start to reveal themselves and I'm working really hard to visualize that happening. I'm not bad at coming up with ideas... just need a bit of ignition past that point... and a bit of good fortune mixed in.
(1:06 AM)
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Okay, 1700 words for chapter one. Man, short chapter.
(12:39 AM)
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Friday, November 09, 2001
I did another session of writing today and only got another 700 or so words out. I don't know how people do 2000 a day. I'll keep plugging away - so far what I have is cracking me up.
(11:51 PM)
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I've been using the BloggerBot through AIM almost exclusively, but I realized that it encourages shorter entries. Can't edit and it cuts things off after only a couple of paragraphs. Think I might need to start opening myself up a little more in my blog, and write bigger entries. I have just the idea on how to enable that, too...
(5:03 PM)
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Boy I am avoiding my novel like a contagious friend.

Had a good choir rehearsal, made up with the director... have to make up with my composer friend now.

Had a couple more job leads, but not of the salaried sort. Found out I need a salaried sort if I'm going to buy a house. Sigh.

Lately really enjoying the idea of starting a music publishing business.

That's all for now... really short thoughts lately. Tamara has really been distracting me from other stuff. We are "not talking" (like "on a break") right now. No idea what that means.
(1:35 AM)
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Tuesday, November 06, 2001
Well I got price quotes on making small orders of books - granted, I chose the worst case scenario, a sorta ritzy scenario with heavy paper, some color pages, and one book, but it was for $330. I seriously need to hunker down and find out some other ways to print/bookbind cheaply.
(12:35 PM)
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ABCNEWS.com : Weird News: The Wolf Files - I have a feeling this link will change, but right now it is a timely extension of my interest in the hilarious vulva puppet gallery.
(1:39 AM)
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I wrote a bit more of my novel tonight but I am so dreadfully behind - 555 words. But at least I finally have an idea that actually sort of entrances me. It is the story of the stupidest female spy in the world. I think.
(1:06 AM)
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Monday, November 05, 2001
Had a great experience with the world series tonight! I hate watching baseball as I have no patience for it. So I clicked over in the bottom of the ninth with just enough time to understand the situation by viewing the graphic in the upper left, and then saw AZ tie the game, and saw them win it two pitches later. Instant requitement! That's the way it should be.
(12:03 AM)
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Saturday, November 03, 2001
Well, overall a hard week with Tamara but it feels a little bit eased right now. I'm sort of opening myself up right now, the fact is that Tamara and I are "separated" so it probably starts making more sense for me to start living like that, whether that means dating other people or not. In a way I'm sort of jealous of her because she says she has all this perspective now and appreciates what we have even more - I sure didn't get that perspective though.

I spent $750 (!!!) on clothes yesterday. Haven't gone clothes shopping for so, so long. Eddie Bauer and Nordstroms. Two pairs of shoes, cords, khakis, and a bunch of shirts/sweathers. cool. Didn't realize how many different ways you could dress without button-down shirts.

Haven't started my novel yet, I just have to get on the ball now... :-)
(7:11 PM)
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Friday, November 02, 2001
Catfight! Mrow!
(12:09 AM)
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