wave hello!

I can imagine what it's like to love a yet unborn baby.  I can imagine because I love Google Wave and it's not even out yet.  I've seen the ultrasounds.  I have listened to the heartbeat.  It will be beautiful.

Twitter, you are useless and annoying and you can go to hell.    

Hello Google Wave! I cannot wait to welcome you into my newly reformatted computer.

Oh yeah, Windows 7 rocks my socks off too.  This will be a good electronics and connectivity year.

thieves

I find that Thievery Corporation fails very rarely.  I have never seen them live but I have a hunch that they know how to please a room.  And that's really what they do.  Which sense is your fancy? Thievery Corporation delivers it.  Take the obvious Lebanese Blonde.  There are so many reasons for why this song is as loved as it is by djs.  You feel the desert sand on your skin, and the most gorgeous desert sunset blinding you in an exhausting, hot haze.  Good electronic music is like that.  A live atmosphere sketch, if you may.  Like a drug, it evokes a particular feeling as the set goes on.  Thievery is good at evoking the desert heat.

They also have mastered the art of brief vocals in electronic tracks.  Done well, it has a minimal feeling, almost like a haiku.  Take again, the chorus from Lebanese Blonde.

Too low to find my way
Too high to wonder why
I've touched this place before
Somewhere in another time

Despite the female vocals, the track never feels trancey.  There's the beautiful, lingering sitar, then hand drums layered with a smooth horn section.  The track gets it right in so many ways.  It's so rich with harmonizing ideas, one could almost make an hour long set out of this single song.  When I'm spinning I will definitely make a Thievery remix set.  The atmosphere they write music for, more often downtempo than not (although note The Track That I Can't Find's drum 'n bass core from The Mirror Consipiracy album) is also fitting in many circumstances.  Last night's wine drowned dinner was accompanied by their album, as is today's late morning.  Irish breakfast tea with buttered Thievery toast, anyone?  Love these guys.  That is all.

fail

I flaked out on a sort of phone/internet date last night (which I set) an now I'm home, she's out and I'm lonely.

I was supposed to be a volunteer usher for this performance tonight at CounterPULSE (the place that almost gave me an internship) and despite leaving Oakland 45 minutes before I had to be there, I was still 15 minutes late and they had found someone else to fill my position.  So I went home with my tail between my legs.  I'm ushering there tomorrow too so I guess I have another chance to make a decent impression, but I got turned away by the executive director of the place.  

I think I have the need to really fail at something at least 3 times a week.  Now I am making a grilled cheese and it will be the best grilled cheese I have ever made.  Will.  Not.  Fail. 

It's hard to write when you work a lot.  This week I've worked a total of about 65 hours and I am really fucking tired! This is why I'm limiting myself in how much I can work post-Burning Man.  This year the playa will take some getting used to.  I'm having a really hard time imagining myself in Black Rock City, not going to work, not even being in the same realm with my jobs... unreal.

But back to writing.  I thought of something particular to blog about yesterday and now I can't remember what it was for the life of me.  When I'm not working so much remembering will come easier.

The past week has been such an exhausting emotional rollercoaster, it's hard to gather up my thoughts enough to express my feelings without boring everyone with minute details.  I suppose my emotions are still wrapped up in the details of the accident, both with my car and with my personal life.  There's not enough of a time cushion between the events and my current state of mind.  The 3/4 of a bottle of wine that I have just consumed isn't helping things either.

I have officially given up on this blog being anything but a space for experimentation and whining.

Goals for the upcoming week:
-figure out the rest of the insurance mess
-write at least 2 more times
-acquire a hammock
-exchange camera
-finish that damn book already
-don't be late to work
-

decisions

I am tired of making decisions.  Over the past week I decided to come back to a job that I was almost sure I had left behind.  Good decision.  Then I decided not to go see Phish up at the Gorge after all.  Bad decision.  While at work on Thursday, I decided to go out for lunch.  Another bad decision.  Then a man on a motorcycle decided to crash into me.  Really terrible decision.  I didn't decide that, he did.  Now insurance companies and the police are going to decide if the accident was my fault or his.  Is it just me, or is that a bit ridiculous?  We are two human beings operating these big, deadly metal machines, and we happened to collide.  At the scene of the accident, the police officer that wrote out the report said something to me that I keep thinking about.  He said, "You know, it's just an accident.  He probably could've done some things better, you probably could've done some things better."  And I know, the important thing is that I'm okay and I think the motorcyclist is okay as well.  I still don't even know his name.  That's all in the the police report.

That being said, this is my fucking blog and can I just say, this shit blows!!!  How's that for a philosophical assessment of the situation?

Pop!

This article on Salon.com about an interesting parental choice brought back ideas that I haven't thought about extensively in a while. I haven't been too concerned with gender differences as of late, strange as that may seem.
Today at the store I witnessed a very common scene. A girl of about 5 or 6 stood in the check-out line with her mother pleading for another fruit wrap in the sweetest voice she could conjure. The woman in line behind them stood there with an unconscious, adoring look on her face. Finally, overwhelmed by the cuteness of this child she began to coo loudly. "Oh my gosh! Look at your shoes! And how they match that pretty shirt you have on. You are just so cute! Ah! Oh, I just know you have the fashion streak in you. Dontcha? And I have no doubt you'll keep being this fashionable when you get older." Then to the mother, "How adorable!". I clearly remember being told things like this from a very early age. And yes, I bet the little girl will stay this fashionable, in small part thanks to a stranger in line at the grocery store.
Considering how impressionable a young child is, and the speed with which a young brain absorbs information, ideas and symbolism, it's clear that envirionment plays a huge role in gender identity. If the environment includes people like that woman, it is very easy to be convinced that being typically male, or typically female is what you strive for. Perhaps this little girl never gave a second thought to her matching shoes and skirt. Perhaps it's the mother that picked them out in the first place. The idea was either planted in her head, or it was encouraged to flourish.

These Swedes are up to something, though I doubt that I would follow their example when it came to raising my own kids. I would try to be as gender neutral as possible, but I doubt I'd go so far as to hide the sex of the child from the world.

'cause you're free to do what you want to do

On this here last day of June of 2009, I would like to wish everyone a very happy Pride!

Photo taken on Sunday, June 28th.