Bionic Teutonic

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!

It’s been a busy last couple of weeks. I went home to Montana for Christmas, which was a combination of great and a depressing. My sister is pregnant and totally showing. We got to go in to her ultrasound where she found out she was having a boy and of course all her Christmas presents were baby themed. I met the father of her kid for the first time too and got a good first impression of him. Everybody in the family seems to really like him, which is a first for her boyfriends. So that part was good, but my step-mother’s cancer has returned and she was pretty up and down all week. She has pretty much no appetite at this point and it was pretty hard to watch her butter a slice of bread and then just stare at it for 10 minutes. She has a surgery with a really good doctor in two weeks though that they seem to be really hopeful about, so there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel at least. I also ran into a couple of old soccer buddies in town and went over for a party on Tuesday night where I ran into a ton of old high-school friends. It was really great to see a bunch of them actually. I don’t keep in good touch with anybody from Missoula much, but it’s always good to catch up. Some of them have turned into such crazy looking mountain men. Mountain men that I know and love, but it’s still odd to be hanging out in a room full of what looks like a bunch of big burly loggers with huge beards, only they all have PhDs in things like glaciology and geology.

On another note, I just broke the odd USB copy protection key that I need to my music software. I’ve already lost one of these and had to pay $100 to get it replaced. Again, because software companies won’t trust me, I’m having to get a cracked copy of the latest version that doesn’t require the USB key. I hate it when my software problems are the result of something like this. I bought the fucking thing, I should be able to use it. Now I just get a screen telling me I can’t open the progam without the key so I can’t work on any music. Sucks.

Our friends Dallas and Erin have been visiting for the last couple of days, which has been great. We have been pretty lazy, just hanging out, talking, and eating. Dear lord, too much eating. I was actually in pain last night from eating way too much all day and had to go to bed early and sleep it off. Please self, remind me not to do that again.  Next, it’s off to Orcas island for New Years with a bunch of friends which I’m really looking forward to.

I’ve been starting to get down back handsprings on the tumble track at circus. Last night, with only 4 of us in class, we spent the entire time doing tumbling, which was fantastic for about the first 3/4 of class. I’d been doing standing back handsprings and then moved on to round-off back handsprings and then back to standing back handsprings. Something about the difference in the way you throw your body when you stand vs. doing a round-off beforehand made it so that on the second go around, I basically just threw myself straight into the tumble track. I looked down at that point and saw my middle finger totally dislocated, bent almost 90 degrees off to the left. Scared the shit out of me. It didn’t even hurt that badly, but the sight of it was extremely unsettling. Fingers are not supposed to bend in that direction. I had to pop it back into place. Today my middle finger is about twice the size of the others.

Jesus I’m sore today. I just finished the last of 4 free personal training sessions at my gym, and my trainer just wore me to the bone. I’ve never had personal training before this, and I have to say, I got a lot out of it. I went in with some specific stuff I wanted to work on, mainly increasing my vertical jump and speed (acrobatics requires some explosive power, yo) and the trainer was actually stoked. He told me ‘Thank god. You don’t understand. 95% of the people who come in here just want to lose weight”. It was great, because I used it as educational sessions and was very clear that I wanted to learn about things I could do on my own. I don’t need motivation, I just need knowledge. Since yesterday was my last session, I think he must have wanted to give me something to remember him by, because I swear, it was like twice as hard as the other sessions. Walking is taking some conscious effort today.

Ariel just turned me on to the sub-culture that is steampunk (due to this wedding on her site) and I’ve been totally fascinated for the last couple days. I recognize the aesthetic but have never had a name for it. I think the thing I like about it is that is has cross-over with so many other sensibilities, yet manages to be distinctly it’s own thing at the same time. As my friend Ben put it, it’s sort of like a longing for a golden age that never was. People have created some really cool stuff. One of my favorites is this laptop. I want (though could not afford) one. I also like that it has some cross-over with circus fashion (of the el-circo and mystic family circus vein). It seems to be showing up in a lot of places lately. We just got back from seeing The Golden Compass, which is completely saturated with the steampunk aesthetic. I like.

Christmas is coming up and I’m just now starting to think about presents. I actually hate this part of the holidays. Especially coming on the heals of Thanksgiving, which is such a wonderful, non-consumer oriented holiday, Christmas can sometime feel like a gigantic ruse by the capitalists (whoever they are) to make it a requirement that we all buy lots and lots of crap. Not that I’m very good about living a simple, non-consumer oriented life normally, but somehow the social imperative to buy always makes me uncomfortable. Plus, I have to wonder how much of the crap that people get for Christmas goes to waste because they never wanted or needed it in the first place. I try to ask so that I’m getting people exactly what they need, but not everybody knows what they want when you put them on the spot like that. Oh well. If you ignore the consumption, it’s not a bad holiday. Snow (at least in Montana, where I spend Christmas), family, good food.