April 2004 Archives

they're building the new conservatory of music down the street and the drill sounds like a big phone. brrrriiiiiiinnnnggggg bbbbrrrrriiiinnnnnnggggg.

do not answer it.

you cannot trust someone who calls on such a big phone, right?

i'm pretty happy. last night i finally got to see first time caller which my old/good friends sean and ted wrote and then actually made.

it's the blob(g)lob!

um. i've been reading lots of blogs lately. and lots of some blogs. i just found one that makes me happy and has killed *most of the afternoon*!!! go ajax! whomever the hell you are...

yep. i've got one of those jobs where you're so fuckin' busy you don't know what to do until you have absolutely nothing to do but hell if you'll tell anyone or they'll give you stuff to do when you're in the so fuckin' busy stage.

but this is a digression. my idea, and you're part of it, is the blob(g)lob!

Going here will help with the whole relax-o thing.

yes. it is true. i hate the title of this blog. it's all blehfull.

so i will change it. i think to Glob. just as soon as i get a chance to hack a bit.

why Glob? um. heck. it's an anagram of blog. and i dig the congealed meaning which in some ways reflects the snowball of ideas here. there is no plan to this blog/glob. there is no theme. it's just a bunch of mostly pointless ramblings that may amuse a few of my friends and some very bored people at work. (me)

when it's hot out (and boy, is it lov-er-ly out!) i am happier.

this becomes oh-so clear to me when it actually, and unfortunately rarely, gets hot in san francisco. my back relaxes. my mind chills out. my smile shows up even when i'm doing dumb work stuff.

i think it just takes me an inordinate amount of energy to stay warm. in the normal temperate weather here, i always have a second job. remaining above freezing.

i can sense it looming. the weekend.

it's 4:29 and in half an hour i get to go home. this week has been all kinds of stressful and i'm greatly looking forward to having a nice wallow tonight. sitting around in front of a bad movie in which things explode while i drink chilled vanilla vodka with coke. and eat popcorn! yeah! beat that you stinkers!

i've spent most of today retyping old contracts and massaging subtitle edits in italian, german, french, spanish and chinese. please remember the umlaut! the independent contractor shall grant the SFS a worldwide, perpetual, fully paid up, exclusive license to use and exploit the universe like a day-old bagel in a florida nursing home.

you try reading that shit for typos. pages of it. brains, they melt to the floor. please! the explosions! bring them to me!

like the borg musical, my life is in exciting 4-D!!

this means i'm having time-space issues.

there is only so much time. i have spent some of it eating, which makes everything better, but still, this issue is there. time. in the words of Sifl & Olly, "can time get any wider?" i hope so. because i want to be able to fit more into the time i've got. because i want to wrap up entire months and present them to people i know. whole months with nothing in 'em but time.

i think, though, that more time is not what i need. what i need is a better time-space translator. and a hug.

gosh. as great a time as i had with the boys...

i don't ever need to go back to vegas.

i've decided vegas is where fake breasts go to die. i really cannot decipher why people make it their regular vacation spot. it's as lovely as a sewer after a heavy rain. as refreshing as a nail-studded baseball bat.

but it was excellent to have long meandering conversations with my friends about how we're all growing up. having these conversations in vegas made them especially poignant.

i used to turn the corner and look for it in the driveway; her gold truck.

then, when it was gone, i would flinch everytime a gold truck drove past. or just a truck. or a gold car.

now i catch myself looking for it. even when i know it's not in town. i get to turn the corner again and hope it's in the driveway.

we're having a reunion dinner at amazonia on monday night. it will be the first time i've been back since i left. i'm excited about it. even if steve can't make it and danah will be late. they say you can't go home again, but i wonder.

this is all a long winded and mismatched prolgue to the announcement that i'll be in vegas this weekend. wish me luck.

yesterday was Bev's last day. Bev's been working at the Symphony since the dawn of time.

when i first arrived, a year ago, this wee grey haired woman peered over my cube and told me i had to come to the peep show, 'cause i was new.

reading and responding to bill's blog, we're discussing the future. in his case, how to plan for what appears unattainable. in my case, how to start seeing a vastly different one with the same old eyes but a revamped heart.

i started talking about they way i felt in terms of an "unpanic attack."

in the same way i sometimes get overwhelmed with anxiety, i've lately felt overwhelmed with possibility. i open my eyes and think: gah! look at all the things that could happen to me, things i've always wanted but never really could focus on in any tangible way. ideas that were abstract but which now resonate when i tap them with my finger. solid. possible. happening. overwhelming.

the past twenty-four hours. WHEW!

that's really all I can put into words now.

but I'd like to give a shout out to Boris before i crawl into bed with an absolutely huge smile on my face.

my parents seemed as concerned that madhavi liked them as she did that they liked her.

i'm amused.

let's just hope her parents like me as much as my parents like her.

in yet another marathon phone call (my long distance girlfriend lives a mile away), we stumbled onto a new topic. we'd never talked about god before.

she doesn't believe in god and i do. except that we both believe pretty much the same thing, we just have different names for it.

the jewish sh'ma prayer goes: hear oh israel! the lord is god. the lord is one.

to me that has long meant that recognizing the unity, the singularity of the world is to recognize god. the lord is one. achieving that oneness, that is our lord.

listen up you! here's what's important: we're all in this together.

when i write things, i get to write drafts.

when its live, there's just one take.

i walk with madhavi to kinkos, on an errand from work to take advantage of her swinging by to say hello. we talk about her ex and mine. we talk about how the emotions have shifted around. we talk about where we are.

the corner of franklin and hayes, she says.

my bubbe pulls me aside after the seder. she's pretty old now and i don't get to see her that often. she says to me, 'i like her.'

that's all. she's talking about madhavi, whom i brought to meet my family.

despite having just flown back from melbourne that morning, madhavi seems to have made a resoundingly good impression -- something which does not surprise me at all. once again, i'm amazed at how completely normal it all feels. how situations that should feel exceptionally strange/stressful/overwhelming just end up feeling right.

my head is in a fishtank.

it's allergies, not fish. but listening to this new music i've downloaded off songfight, the balance in my head is off. actually, all my balance is off. i feel off kilter.

but there's more good news than bad news. i got a keyboard tray off craigslist for $20, and now my keyboard and mouse are at an appropriate height. hopefully this will help my wrists. the article i'm writing is coming along nicely. i saw Hellboy last night and it didn't suck! i actually liked it. but all this is just good news appetizer.

last night i finally met leila.

we'd introduced ourselves on friendster in the fall, but decided not to actually meet for reasons of timing. i started reading her blog regularly, though, and began to feel like i knew her over the following months. i watched her go through breakups and flirt and feel scared and alive and happy. some of the things she wrote helped me deal with the elements i struggled with. particularly this phrase:

"and what's just a memory to you now
feels like everything I have"

now, with a whole new set of circumstances in my life, i contacted her again and suggested we meet. i'm writing an article about blogging and wanted to interview her.