Bionic Teutonic

I’ve been thinking a lot about closing doors lately. I seem to have a lot of different things in my life that sort of half occupy my attention. I think that out of fear of letting anything go, I sacrifice having a deeper experience with any of my interests. Sometimes when you put some real parameters or limiting factors around what you are doing, it can free you up, though it seems counterintuitive. I’ve known this to be the case with music for a long time. In school we used to get assignments where certain limitations were placed on our songs in order to force us to better utilize what we did have to work with. I haven’t really ever placed those kinds of limitations on my life before though. While I get very obsessive about things, I don’t usually intentionally close other doors. I think sometimes I get afraid that if I let something go, I will never pick it back up again and it will just slowly fade away from my life. Which is kind of odd, because if it doesn’t tug at me enough to force it’s way back in, it probably doesn’t need to be there anyway (at least that’s how I’ve been feeling lately). I’ve always sort of romanticized this idea of the renaissance man. But I think for me, where I am in my life at the moment, that’s sort of a luxury. If you have a ton of free time, and/or have managed to create a work life where you get to dip into many different interests, this is a great thing to strive for, but if you are like me and spend most of your day completely removed from those interests, trying to cram them all in to the time you do have (also accounting for the need to just veg and recover from work sometimes), you end up making way less progress on things and having less satisfying experiences than you were originally hoping for. Sort of a jack of all trades, master of none scenario. I think I’m going to try and start closing some doors and seeing what happens. This sort of frightens me actually, but I think that fear is part of why I need to do it. To start practicing some more non-attachment.

I have had the worst back pain for the last week or so. I believe I injured it during aerials two weeks ago, but it didn’t really start hurting until several days after that, and since then, the muscles of my back have tensed up so much that I have only managed brief pain free moments. Strangely, working out seems to provide relief, at least for the duration of the exercise. I got a massage from my friend Lily this weekend and she went to town trying to loosen up the knots that have formed in my back, which bought me almost an entire evening without pain, but then it started to come back and has basically returned to it’s previous state. It sucks. I hate being in chronic pain. I went to the doctor yesterday though and got a perscription for massage, so I’m kind of stoked about that. Free massage! Nice. I also had him check out my finger which still has not healed. He told me he did pretty much the same thing to his finger in a biking accident and it was about a 6 month long healing process, which is nice because I was a little freaked out that it had been so long and I wasn’t seeing much improvement.

Holy crap, it’s been a while since I last posted. Lots of stuff going on, including at the moment a pretty nasty flu that has had me laid out for the last 4 days. I’m really not looking forward to going back to work in the morning. Let’s see - not sure where to even start. My life of late has been pretty work intensive, most of it pretty stressful and anxiety inducing, which I either need to figure out how to deal with or make some moves in a different direction work-wise. I’ve told myself I’m giving it at least a year, though that seems very manageable or very daunting depending on the day. Week before last, I did get to go to Chicago for work, which was actually great (if a little confusing*). My mom and her partner Susan drove from Iowa to meet me there for the weekend, so we got to wander the city, going to museums and going out for dinner and such. Chicago was cold as hell (when frozen) but it was great to visit anyway. It was also my mom’s birthday so that worked out really well. I just got a new camera (a Canon digital rebel) so I took a ton of pictures, though I keep getting thwarted trying to get a copy of photoshop so I can edit and post them. Soon.

*Being in Chicago on business was sort of like inhabiting an alternate reality where my all of a sudden, I’m living somebody else’s life (and you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house…. how did I get here?). I had a few moments of disbelief that somehow, this is now something I do. I’m still very unsure about it, and it throws me pretty regularly.

My step-mother Sallie is finally back home in Missoula after a 7 week hospital stay. My dad lived out of a hotel that whole time. Nobody was expecting it to take that long, but she seems to be doing well and is steadily improving. I’ll be seeing her in a little over a month, when I go back home for my sister’s baby shower, and apparently, an Elton John concert (Sallie is pretty much the world’s biggest Elton John fan). My sister seems to be settling into her life in Missoula incredibly well. She has taken over the family store, is having a kid, has a boyfriend that people actually like, and just seems to be maturing on a lot of levels, which makes me happy. She turned a year older yesterday

Music has been a little slow lately. I have been otherwise engaged most of my evenings and the weekends seem to go by with only a couple hours spent on it, though hopefully that will free up a bit soon. I’m trying to only make big plans one out of every four weekends of the month. I have a trip to Mt. Bachelor coming up to go snowboarding with a bunch of friends, I’ll be going to Montana for the baby-shower, and Ariel and I have a couple of other trips in the work, but for those other weekends I’m planning on making as much of a racket as possible (a beautiful racket that is).

Went back to Spokane last weekend to visit my step-mother. Glad to report she looks much better and on the road to recovery. She still seems very uncomfortable and in some pain, but the life has returned to her face and she seems to be improving. I found it a little hard to be around somebody in discomfort like that and not really be able to do anything to help. I felt like I was just observing at times, not sure how to be of assistance. My (and the family’s) hopes seem to be up though, so that’s good. I feel like my life is starting to return to normal.

The last few days we have been waking up to construction workers downstairs. I think my feelings towards them are moving from irritation to loathing. I do not understand why they must keep the hours of a baker. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Ariel looked up the law too, and as long as they are not doing “impactful” work (i.e. hammering), and they are inside, they are free to start as early as they want. Sucks.

Watched a great movie last night called Paris je t’aime. It’s a collection of 5 minute shorts all set in Paris. It was awesome. The film short is a vastly under-appreciated art form I think. And unless you go to film festivals and specifically go to the short film showings, you never really come across any. I’m going to have to do some research and find some more.

It has been a rough couple of weeks here in my world. Haven’t posted much due to a bunch of heavy life concerns getting in the way. Sometimes the world hits you with a bunch of stuff all at once. Several old family friends have died recently and my step-mother is recovering from some serious surgery at the moment which scared the whole family for a bit. I dropped everything last Wednesday to go to Spokane to be with my family through the ordeal. Good news is that she appears to be doing better every day and the latest prognosis looks decent. I did manage to work from the road while I was in Spokane and it made me realize that for the most part, I don’t need to be in the office at all. My work day wasn’t really that different from being in the office. A computer and a phone and I’m set. Offices are SO 20th century.

Given how life has been the last 2 weeks, really all I’ve wanted to do lately is sit around with Ariel and watch our latest TV series obsession, which thanks to our friend Joriel who has the whole series on DVD, is Buffy. So far, it’s only pretty good, but everybody we talk to says it really picks up after the second season and finds it’s legs, so we are sticking with it.  I’ve been having computer program issues lately so music hasn’t been happening as of late. I did manage to install (after much difficulty) the latest mac OS and I should have my music software up and running again next week so I hope to get back into a groove soon. Computers, for making your life easier, sure make it hard sometimes.

I just got back from a wonderful new years with friends out on Orcas island. We hung out, ate good food, drank wine, had good conversation. It was great. There was a hot tub out on the deck that looked out over the water that was pure bliss. The islands up there are very beautiful. I totally see the appeal of life up there. It was also Ariel and my 10 year anniversary! I love my wife. It has been a fantastic decade with her. I’m blessed in so many ways, really.

I’m actually making some resolutions this year. I tend to avoid them as sort of contrived and doomed to failure, but this year it just feels like a good time to take stock and do some planning. So here are my resolutions

1. Pay off my debts (well, apart from my mortgage)
2. Yoga at least 3 times a week (I pretty much do that already, I’m just far from consistent)
3. Write an albums worth of music (I’m not committing to doing anything with it, just to write it for now)
4. One handed handstands! (I’m going to get this down. I’ve been so close for so long)

That’s it really. I have some vague unmeasurable ones like being good to the people around me, but those are the specific ones I want to concentrate on. Hope that everybody’s new year was good. Happy 2008!