Les said, the better II

sophie likes it when i post after drinking a bit, so hi sophie, i had a teeny bit more wine than i would have meant to. it’s what comes of drinking out of jelly jars.

Ok, so I haven’t been doing that much that’s touristy, mostly hanging out with friends and friends of friends. I did go see Grant’s Tomb, however, so I’m being a tiny bit touristy. I’ve been spending a lot of time in coffee shops, cafes, and food establishments, especially ones that serve coffee. I’ve heard local types talking into their cell phones about hosting activists. And I’ve seen signs in restaurant windows that say “peaceful protesters welcome.” The city of NY is not happy that the republicans are coming and seem to be welcoming activists, such as myself, which I’m happy for.

There are police all over the place however. Jess reports that they’ve been doing drills all over the place. She says she’s seen cops running around in riot gear and that there have been way more sirens and cop cars racing around than normal.
I went by Madison Square Gardens today (pictures will be forthcoming) and the place is already a zoo. There are no parking signs everywhere for miles around. The arena itself is surrounded by police barriers. Despite massive crowds of pedestrians, the sidewalk was made fo narrow that we had to walk single-file. There is a covered, opaque pedestrian bridge from the parking garage to the arena. Jess says that it was specially installed so Republicans didn’t have to see any part of the city. It does have a temporary look to it. Lanes of traffic have been taken up by modular units (aka trailers) parked in the street. I don’t what they’re for, but there are a lot of them. Beyond that, news vans everywhere. And more police officers than you can shake a stick at. I asked one of them where the “free speech” zone was going to be and he said, “gee i dunno. You’d better ask your congressman.” gee, thanks. I don’t know what’s going on with demonstrations, except that United for Peace and Justice is being allowed to march past the convention site, but not being allowed to gather in Central Park. There’s a big grassy area called The Great Lawn. It’s lovely. Apparently, the city just poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into makign it the lovely lawn it is today. They do sometimes refuse permits to events where the lawn may be trampled. However, they usually allow stuff when the groups plannign stuff have an alternate rain location. UfPJ thinks the refusal is politically motivated. They’re probably right.
I’m staying in Harlem right now, the neighborhood is called Spanish Harlem, probably because of the amount of Spanish one hears being spoken. The nieghborhood is maybe a tiny bit sketchy, but basically ok. It’s only at 136th, which is just a short block away from the 137 metro stop. My hostess is a friend of Jess. I’m very grateful.
Last night, Jess and I walked around the West Village. Today, we walked around Chelsea and then went to dinner at the Brooklyn abode of school housemate, Aaron. He has a very nifty new house. It was nice to see him after a summer away.
Things are going basically ok. I’ve been stressed out after several conversations with my lawyer. I spent a bit of time freaking out and I’ve been storing stress in my jaw, a new location for me. It’s driving me nuts, but I keep finding myself holding my jaw muscles tight. I think this is going away though. It feels better than it did. I’ve been exchanging emails with Cola and how grown ups shouldn’t freak out about stuff, and she correctly pointed out that I’m involved in an unpleasent legal action, I’ve moved far away from home, I’m in a strange city right now (which is a city as stressful as San Francisco), etc. And what it meant to be an adult was not to avoid being freaked by stuff, but to sit down and take care of what needs to be taken care of. (Like Ratty posted: it’s not my fault, but it’s my responcibility. v. wise.) I don’t know how well I’m doing on taking care of stuff (kind of ok, I guess), but I was thinking about the adults I know and admire and whose blogs I read and they all kind of do freak out under stress. So I don’t need to be a hero of stoicism. I don’t know how desirable that even is in an artist, such as myself. Although, maybe it would be nice if I could be totally rational all the time and put all my angst and whatnot into musical endeavors. Totally passionate music. Totally passionless self. Maybe this wouldn’t be good. The problem with people who try to be rational all the time is that they think that they are. Even when they’re not. It would be better to let myself freak from time to time and know that I’m doing it.
I want to be the kind of person that my cousin was. I admire/d her tremendously. Losing her hangs over me. I have an idea in my head that she was not the type of person to freak. But thinking now, I remember how she was when her brother was dying. She was so worried that whenever he got worse, she would have a small stroke. It was terrible. We weren’t sure that she would outlive him. But when he passed on, I won’t say she was acting rationally right away, but she accepted it. She beleived he went to heaven (he was a priest, she was a nun) and was releived that his suffering was over. I remember that she used to watch videos of speakers talking about mindfulness. I remember watching one with her where the speaker said to go ahead and feel your emotions, but to be mindful: to be aware of what you felt and how you were acting. A mindful person would still get angry, would still freak out, but be aware that she was freaking out. She would give herself room to experience stress, but she wouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking she was behaving rationally when she was not. Maybe all that mindfulness is good for jaw unclenching.
So I just need to be aware of what I’m feeling. Not easy for somebody as spacy as myself. And while I have a bunch of things to feel stressed about, I have many thing to be happy about. tomorrow, I’m meeting with a Columbia adjunct professor to ask questions about the program. George Lewis is going to be teaching there, which is a good draw. And I’m in NYC, a city that I’m find of, and, if I go to Columbia, a city I would spend a few years in. Nicole is coming out Friday, which is exciting. We’re going to participate in Critical Mass and go to a Bell ringing Event which involves Pauline Oliveros. Maybe we’ll go to an opening at the Kitchen. And, of course, the big march. It’s very exciting. And I’m starting to really look forward to the semester and doing more work at school and hearing what people have done over the summer. I live in exciting times.

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.