Category: Uncategorised

up for grabs!

New York is perfectly lovely. There is a bit of a shortage of free wifi, but luckily, there’s one cafe down the street from Jess’ apartment which has it. The coffee here is pretty good by nyc standards, which are just different than the west coast and that’s ok. I order a cup of coffee, not a latte. You’d be a fool to order a latte or to drink coffee without creamer in it. Jess is the perfect hostess and I’ve been spending time with her charming friends. Yesterday, the sister of my next host showed me how to light a fire with just a stick and some kindling. We did this in Central Park. She bowed a round astick ona piece of wodd and put the results in some kindling and it burst into flame. I was most impressed. I’m going to learn this skill, but maybe not in Central Park. If the end of the gran epoch or something is like y2k was supposed to be, I’m habign out with her. (The gran epoch: UNIX systems will run out of digits for date information in 2030. They count the number of miliseconds since 12:00 AM Janurary 1, 1970 GMT)

Unrelatedly, women who pee on the toilet seat are annoying, but women who do that in the handicapped stall are evil

i love cities. cities rool. i’m happy to be here. it’s thunderstorming right now. that is all.

SFGate: Authorities to turn up the volume for GOP convention _ a 150-decibel ‘megaphone’

150 decibels is way past the threshold for phsyical pain and will permanently damage your hearing. The device the nyc cops have purchased is a focussable sound beam. It can hurt you without hurting them. They can aim it. It will not diminish in volume at the same rate as normal sound. In short, they can permanently deafen you and then go for donuts.
At guitar center, one can purchase extremely cheesy earplugs actually called sound filters. I wish I could tell you the brand name. The rating on the back for how much sound they block is extrmely poor. The packaging claims that they respond to sound levels. Tests are done at very low levels so they block out only low levels of sounds. the packaging claims that in a firing range, those little sound filters work almost as well as the big earmuffs that shooters wear. A gunshot is only 140 decibles. At that lower volume, “any length of exposure is dangerous; noise at 140dB may cause actual pain in the ear.” This thing is ten decibels louder. The cops in nyc want the ability to make all protesters go permanently deaf.
Theoretically, things like pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, whatever are supposed to do no permanent harm. this is not the case with these devices. They will maim people for the rest of their lives. the police claim they’re not going to turn them up that loud. Why do they even have them? Why would they have a weapon and not use it? It’s illogical that they would purchase somethign with those capabilities with no intent to actually put them to use. If that was the case, why not diable the higher volumes?
In short, protect yourself from the pigs by getting ear protection. They have two of these things and plan ” to mount them on Humvees posted outside Madison Square Garden.” You won’t hear it until it’s too late. I say, if you’re near there, you ought to be protecting your ears. 33 db reduction isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing. Or order 40+ db protection from germany 110 db is “safe” for a short period of time, less than half an hour, but that’s better than nothing.

my credit is not good enough to refinance.

i’ve been waking up super late. i’ve been super-tired since i got here. my room is still messy, but getting much much better. i had to do something or fema might have interviened.

any my lawyer just called. i have to start refinancing my condo TODAY. I have to go to the bank TODAY. with the cleaning, laundry (still need to buy soap), errands and lawyer stuff going on, will i ever manage to leave for nyc? or will i just be super tired? i need to buy a new pillow. i’m sleeping super-lightly. bah.
must stop whining. i only have to take 2 classes this semester and 1 next semester. of course, i think i may enroll for 4 of them, just cuz they look interesting.

there was just a bunch of kids fighting in front of my house. didn’t see it, but most, but not all, of the kids who ran off afterwards were african american. My upstairs neighbor, object to the “black kids” running amok. She says “this is a family neighborhood now”

code words

black kids don’t belong here. I pointed out that black kids are clearly part of families, but she postulated they come from “crack houses.” Does she think this is New Haven?

there you have it. “family” means “white middle class” and sheltered as hell. Yo, this is the suburbs! oh my god, it’s the burbs. the evil, boring as hell, nothing for kids to do burbs.
a large group of my white neighbors are now talking to the cops. i want to go home.

Absolutely nothing.

No, ok, my flight came in ok, obviously. I flew red eye. I’m all exhausted. I feel whiny, so I’m going to whine. I hate flying red eye, but flying in the heat would have cooked my bass guitar. You can only fly dogs red eye in the summer, cuz they get cooked too. If it will kill a dog, it will kill a bass.
My house is cleaner than I remember. I think some of my friends may have done some cleaning after I left. I can’t remeber. I haven’t done anything today but sleep and look in vain for my pillow. There was brown rice in the cabinet, so soon I’ll be eating some rice. Where has my pillow gone? There’s also food in the fridge… soy milk and something unidentified. All from last May. But not my pillow!!! bah! Did i bring it home with me?? Did somebody borrow it? Why did I not toss the soymilk, the egss and whatever the green fuzzy thing is/was?
The bugs here are loud. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow, I’m cleaning my room and the fridge (at least it’s not as bad as spring break) and doing a bit of laundry and making sure my bills are all paid and the next day, I’m going to nyc.
my houseplants seem to be dead, except for my cactus. this is why i keep a cactus as my sole plant. i can neglect it and it doesn’t die. and chicken doesn’t eat it. wow, i’m probably never going to see chicken again. (that’s my ex’s cat. she’s a freaky beast. spooky as hell. nurses on her tail. attacks houseguests. scares ellen. she’s, um, great. she hasn’t attacked me in years tho.)
I hate flying red eye. I hate connecticut. ok, i don’t hate connecticut. this year should be better than last year. (i think i got married one year ago today, but i’d have to go look at paperwork to be sure.) This time, it will be the second anniversary of my momther’s death and not the first. and i already know people. and i’m not going to have a marriage fall apart. but it’s going to be cold again and i’ll prolly still have some culture shock. i dunno. i really didn’t want to come back at all, actually. but i know it’s good for me and i don’t want to be a quitter. and i’ll have a very valuable MFA which will open up a million doors for me and i’ll be able to move back to berkeley and live among the bobos. …. or got to more school! The question of what to do with my life after grad school is becomming more pressing. I’ve been thinking of applying to Columbia. I talked to a grad of there and he said it was great. But as Jim Newman said, when’s the last time you heard of a composer with a PhD? (technically, it’s a DMA, but yeah.)
I don’t know how much I love california or how much I hate what happened to me last year. But I came back, so I’m not a wuss. I just woke up. Haven’t eaten anything except for the rice i’m now consuming. horray for dry goods. i was hoping to find tv dinners in the freezer, but they all died in the spring break disaster.
I’m going to stop prattling on about nothing. Homesick already, but what do you expect? The summer went so fast. I didn’t get to see half the people I wanted to see and I didn’t really accomplish my goals. I finished (well, it needs editting) only a string quartet and played no gigs. I think my cousin dying threw me off. Didn’t care about stuff for a while after that. At least I don’t have many relatives left to die off. There should be peace on that front for a while. Hopefully.

Where do I see myself in 5 or 10 years

Berkeley. (ok maybe new york or europe, but let’s say berkeley or oakland). With a kid. yeah really. i have a dog. having a kid can’t be that much worse. you can take kids a lot more places than you can take dogs. plus there are day cares and boarding shcools and summer camp. and let’s say teaching. i’m going to be teaching musical things to college types. not very exciting, maybe, but i’ve been risk-adverse lately. except that breeding is prolly more risky than most other ventures. i dunno. it seems like if you just have one kid, you can take them with you most places. the only children i’ve known have all been very civilized and some of them are well-travelled.
in 54 minutes, i can go back to sleep.

there are clothes all over my bed, but i think they’re clean. the house is cleaner than i remembered. i gave a concert right before i left. i don’t know where my pillow is. you can call me in the mornings. i can’t beleive i’m spending another year here. i miss you.

well, i did all my errands except the computer padding. i faxed my tax documents off only to find out that the reason the irs decided that i owe them like three thousand dollars (ack) is because they never got my 2002 return. they owe me money from 2002, which is good. anyway, i had to drive down to los gatos to refile for 2002. this is why it’s good to either have a tax accountant or to use turbo tax which keeps files around. i mailed the return, but they never got it. anyway. i got to see my dad yesterday, which is nice. didn’t expect to. i must go off and get padding for my computer so it doesn’t get trashed like mitch’s did.