Tag: daily photo

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I’m scattered in many things, and much of what I do, I do unevenly. My projects get done bit by bit with gaps in between. Thus with my website. I put it up a couple of years ago using the BlueHost’s proprietary site building software, so when my hosting agreement with them expired unexpectedly, all of the architecture of the pages vanished also. I got a new host for my domain and somehow figured out how to put up a place holder page. Time passed, which is always my problem.. I can generally figure out how to do something like this, but unless I do it regularly i forget all the various passwords and steps involved. It doesn’t help that the hosts I use have bizarre, contraintuative interfaces. So in the midst of all the LJ kerfluffle, and my attempts to clean up and unify my online presence, I turned my attention to that placeholder page which had a link to a WordPress blog that I had installed on the site, but couldn’t remember how to access. Could I figure out a way to point the link to my recently revived WordPress-hosted blog?

The answer is no, but I did figure out how to build a new re-direct page with a proper link and, after much fumbling got it up live. This involved me figuring out some things in Dreamweaver and a couple of failed FTP attempts. I probably ended up doing it the hard way all in all, and I have hired someone to do a total redesign and relaunch of my site, so I don’t think I’ll be doing much more tinkering, but I still feel a little bump of acomplishment.

Here’s something else of interest: WordPress has taken note of the lj situation by posting special instructions for importing your lj entries over to WP account. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like an intriguing possibility.

Here’s something else that makes me happy: a Japanese ink brush pen. So nice to draw with.

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From Tuesday’s office holiday party, which was pleasant, if subdued. We’re not a hard drinking bunch, and so there were no alcohol fueled outbursts or any suchlike. I’ve never experienced the archetypal boozy, no-body-can-look-each-other-in-the-eye office party. Not like I’m hoping to or anything.

It’s snowing a bit outside. I haven’t checked the weather to know if it’s going to be a heavy storm or what, but pretty big flakes are stuttering out of the sky. Flakes I can live with. My least favorite sequence of words? “Freezing rain mixed with sleet”.

I’ll reluctantly admit what Facebook is good for: keeping people informed about your events. I am notoriously bad with announcements for when I’m doing something, like tomorrow, when I’m performing with a group of guests at Location One, starting at six pm. See, announcing it like that I just did what news editors call “burying the lede”. I should have made that announcement a week ago here with fanfare. I should have a standing Nayland Blake mailing list that gets periodic updates from me. Goodness knows that enough people have told me to put them on my list. And goodness knows that there are people more than willing to help me with it. But it doesn’t get done. The pathology stems in part from a “don’t talk about yourself all the time” message that got early on in life. But knowing the cause and ending the behavior are not always the same thing. I was surprised to find that Facebook makes it easier than just about anything else to send out a generalized announcement to your contacts. I was able to let over 400 people know about the event. And now I’ve let you know.

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Some long dream this morning. My sculpture teacher Jake Grossberg once said, apropos of Jonathan Borofsky’s work: “Everyone’s dreams are equally interesting, which means they’re equally boring.” I’m tempted to write out my dreams here when I remember them, and a friend from college publishes a dream gazette, which is a great project, but when it comes down to reading other people’s dreams here on LJ it’s rare that I make it all the way through. The thing that unnerves and thrills us about dreams is their tone more than their events, and tone is precisely the thing that remain so elusive in writing.

Today also marks the beginning of a new experiment: poetry on the iPhone. In the same way that I have a hard time reading people’s dreams, I also have a hard time reading poetry. It makes me squirm to say this, since not only am I friend to several poets, but I fancy myself a cultured guy. There are any number of times that I go through a phase of buying poetry books, reading a few and then dropping them back on the shelf for a couple of years. I do love hearing poets read however, and on Sunday I had a conversation with Dominick about his recent discovery of audio books (something else I’ve been resistant to for years). Yesterday it occurred to me that there may well be quite a few sources for read poetry online. As of now, I’m just going with some podcasts I’ve found on iTunes, but I’m interested in expanding out from that – so if you know of an interesting source, feel free to suggest. This morning I listened to Elliot’s “Prufrock” some John Donne, and Christina Rosetti’s “Echo” which begins: “Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream;”. A poem about seeing one’s dead lover in a dream. Something I’ve had happen quite a few times. One interesting thing about poetry on the phone on the subway: it means that I can’t listen to something and read something like I often do. A good thing all in all.

What with the dreaming and the poetry, I rushed out of the house today neglecting to reinsert one of my sd cards into my camera, meaning that the pictures from last night’s office party remain unprocessed, and I need to pick up another card if I want to take pictures today. Better go do that.

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That’s how I find the fact that someone took the trouble to warn others off of the bed frame they were throwing away. The exclamation point is the best part.

God knows I’ve picked enough stuff off of the streets that I would appreciate the heads up on a potential infestation (no snarky jokes about my dating habits, please).

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Snow coming on. The year winding down for all us Julian calendar types. People are posting their year end wrap-ups. Most of the time I don’t read them and we know this lil journal is self absorbed enough that I probabaly shouldn’t write one; I’m always chewing over the meaning, for me, of what just happened, to me. But here goes anyway:

When I think about where things are at just now for the country, here’s the image that comes up: we have been sick, sick in body and sick at heart for years now. Those who have believed in the current crop of leaders, have seen the economy turn to quicksand, the moral compromise of many of those leaders, and the elusiveness of the supposed security those leaders promised. For those of us who chafed under the Bush administration, we have endured the unease of seeing Cheney’s termites at work on the constitution, and watched helplessly while the rest of the world came to regard us as either rapacious porn peddlers or half crazed bullies. On either side, impotence and frustration. You can’t walk around with that kind of knowledge year after year and not feel its effect. So this year’s election asked us in effect: you’re sick, what are you prepared to do about it?

Amazingly, America somehow summoned the courage to go with the unknown, experimental treatment. We don’t know if it’s going to work. We haven’t even begun to feel the real effects of the pill we took this November. But one of the immediate benefits was the reaffirmation of the American willingness to strike out in a new direction, something that in itself is powerful in its implications. At a time when so many nations, frozen in their suffering, have been unable to make change or worse have chosen to retreat into more oppressive and centralized states (Russia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Israel, Iran), America’s choice highlights the underlying strength of our governing principles.

Anyone who has done any sort of recovery work will recognize this feeling: you start going to meetings and you start experiencing the “Pink Cloud”: hey I decided to stop drinking and now all my problems are solved! I can pay my rent! I feel great about everyone, and so on. After a short time comes the inevitable crash: the problems that one was turning away from with addiction are separate from the the addiction itself. And so you have to begin the painful work of facing each of those problems sober. It can feel scary and tempt one to despair to see the full extent of the mess the binge has caused. It’s this queasiness that I feel the country is in now. The full extent of our challenges remain unknown, and as they come into focus it’s tempting to question our choice to face them. And many are bone weary. But the choice was the right one

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Those who know me either through this journal or elsewhere, know that I am tidy only episodically. Usually I would spend some time bemoaning this. I won’t. But I have been going through a slovenly patch. Today, I’m making an effort to shift that.

Recycling goes out on Thursday night for Friday collection. Last night I managed to take out two boxes of corrugated board which had the effect of clearing a space in front of my kitchen window. I’d been living with it blocked for so long (months let’s say) That I was taken aback to see the light spilling in. There are quite a few other piles like that around my house.

I’ve been reading Alan Bennett’s Writing Home, which in it’s way is cheering for the project of this journal. A reminder: it’s enough to record impressions; do that enough and you end up expression opinions. Bennett’s diaries contain many notes about life under Thatcher, and in reading them I get an interesting angle on what life is like under Bush: a daily flow of sanctimonious thuggery. Bush certainly hasn’t led with Thatcher’s iron noblesse (we’re more easily awed by the folksy style here anyway), but he has presided over the most aggressive attempt to undermine the constitution in the past century. I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t griped about it enough. I hope I’m more on the watch for the coming administration.

A friend asked me at lunch the other day how I was, and in response I launched into a long description of a dream I had just had. It was a funny response, but one that was attempting to express the way in which I feel at a turning point. I don’t quite understand the dream but the clarity of the remembrance seemed important to me somehow. This has been a very big year for me, full of good news on the career front, as well greater personal prosperity than I have enjoyed in many years. Normally I would find a way to fritter that all away, but I feel that somehow now I have the tools to tackle the future differently.

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Got this dvd at the TES gift exchange and not only does it have completely acceptable holiday music (played on solo acoustic guitar), but it’s the first Yule log video I’ve ever seen with footage of someone adding wood to the fire. Usually the loop is so short you never see the fire being tended to ( the classic WPIX log is about six and a half minutes), but while I was watching, somebody just tossed a log on! I don’t know why I find that so satisfying.

here’s hoping that all the rest of your experiences make you feel as good.