mundane life jottings
here comes the sun.
saturday morning and i can't stop thinking about work. this book ([title edited out here because i don't want to end up on search lists or google or found by my work. two worlds colliding and such. i also privatized the journal entry where i offered you to submit photos to be in the book. offer is still good, though. i just won't write the words here]) should come back from the printers in two weeks and that's an amazingly short amount of time. i'll be working all this weekend (i'll leave for work in a half hour or so), because by the time monday rolls around i have to have designed about sixty pages. each one is a free-form arrangement of images. the cover undergoes changes all the time, and is not final until it is uploaded (to the printers; we just say "uploaded.") furthermore, i have to finish the shotlist of sexual positions for the ________ Sex book by monday [again, edited out]. so. a lot of work this weekend. these are times i wish i were paid by the hour and not on salary.
okay, so i never did the illustration submission to illustrate my father's book. which would've paid me about 12X my bi-weekly gross amount earned. that sort of hurts, but i just don't dig doing photo-realistic drawings or paintings. that hurts my hand, it bores me, it's like copying. i can do it, but i find it annoying and unrewarding creatively. i like to show it as my bent-up and sprawled-over mind's eye reflects it. my favorite art job was when a kid heard one of my fucking-around songs, Cicero, Psychochicken (and yes, it was surely influenced--in its initial inspiring image, not in words or sound--by the satire of the Byrne song) and asked me to just paint how Cicero looked to me. he paid me $80 for a rendition of a character i had invented but nobody had ever seen. that was cool shit.
man i love this song. Afro Medusa - Pasilda (In House Todd Terry Mix) just wait for her voice to come in. how i love when i cannot understand a language and i really like the vocal melody of a song. i would hate to lose that part by learning the language. it's one of my favorite things to play songs with foreign language vocals and just hear the human voice as another instrument. this song moves my feet and my thigh muscles and my shoulders and my face and my hands. it's better than coffee. i can feel the whole world waking up, and within me. how i love when a song brings tears to my eyes. but don't go thinking that it is sad. that is just a thing with me. when a song--any type of song--really digs under my skin, i want to cry. it's joy, my love, it's joy. one of these days, i really want to list some songs i want you to check out. or at least to listen to again.
to the online friend who i recently get into a back-and-forth with, regarding his apparent inaction while his nephew was abused (not physically but so what): i do understand what you meant about it not being the right time to act. i am happy to hear you will act. the way you approach it is something a rational person would do. i'm the one who is irrational on it. and that's okay, for me. there are times reason is not the prime mover, nor should it be. you must understand, considering who i am, how that whole thing stirs me up. it wasn't so much the fact that you chose that moment to remain passive, for you are correct: there are times to act and times when you might be kicking a hornet's nest. but the universe places us near someone in need for a reason. i was upset by the fact that you framed the entire event in terms of what it meant to you, how it was about you and your mother, a time to reflect on yourself. we seemed to lose the child in the current situation. and i feel for that child, any child currently in THE SITUATION. you know that. we must always care more about the child in THE SITUATION. and you must understand that by writing what you did, you nearly put me right in THE SITUATION, and there is nothing i can do Right in THE SITUATION aside from rail up and freak on the person who is hurting a child. still, to this day, when i am thrown Back in THE SITUATION, i see the Abuser, and i see the Loved One Who Might've Stopped Everything But Did Not. clearly, i am not done working the whole thing out. clearly, i am not at peace with it. and maybe i never will be. i am willing to admit that it may be more complicated than a situation that involves these two roles that always appear. anyway, i meant to apologize for swinging at ghosts, but you can see that i will not let myself rescind some points. and that is what the universe asks of me, i guess. so i must trust it, and stand behind my words, here. i will say no more in your journal about it. we can trust in you doing whatever it is the universe asks of you. and that is something i can neither know or judge.
when i hear Ben play and sing, it reminds me how much i love making my music. when i think of how i love my music, i feel the strings under my fingertips. i feel the ache from pressing them hard into the steel, against the fretboard. when i miss making my music, i miss that pain in my fingers that comes from playing too long, before the calluses come. and i do miss playing and singing. i really do. but i have to say that i'm very happy with what i do right now. and trust me, i've had a lot of jobs. i've listed them before, with descriptions, and it took pages. i don't have any idea where that post is, or i'd link you. failing that, i won't attempt to explain how many or how diverse some of them could truly be. but i do know what it is like to hate my job, day in and day out. i know what kind of an existence that is, and it is horror. and i did it for far too long. it is so strange, now, to go to work, laugh with people most of the day, find them talented for the most part, lose time in what you are doing, be eager to go back and do some more. this doesn't always happen, and i don't feel this way every second, but you get me. for the most part. it's really strange.
i am having so much more fun since i began making the switch from editorial to design. they didn't want to lose me in the editorial department, and i can appreciate that practically and personally. i'm very glad i am able to edit, and to edit my own work. i love language and wielding it. but as far as practically? as far as what flows and what gets me irritated? design is more pleasing. editing...ends up making me feel very ansty, anxious. i want to throw something. it's like manipulating a screwdriver into a tiny, tiny space, and making tiny, highly-controlled movements while holding your breath. for me, that is. after a stretch of hours. on the other hand, design work is like playing a video game. in easy mode. my first cover comes out soon, and i will have the image blown up and put behind a frame on my living room wall. granted, i have done work before, and good work (much better, creatively), but not published. and that makes a difference. i have had art published, and photography, but it was because my father loved it and he is an author who publishes regularly. this is on my own juice, and it has much wider circulation. my work will be on people's shelves, it will be shown on TV (author's promotion for his book), and held in thousands of hands. this is some wild shit. and then, after that, we will publish S_____ which will be written by me, as well as illustrated and designed by me. that's springtime. spring 2005. yeah. i've got good feelings about spring of 2005. i think it's going to be a very good year, as well. let's get ready. let's make it so.
at work, my friend, the art director for one of our divisions says one of the best things about J______ is his contempt and we all laugh but i tried to explain how much love i have for the world, too, and how that often leads to this contempt, but nobody ever remembers that part. i don't mind, usually, when we all laugh. whether it's with me or at me. i like to make people laugh, i have realized, in this job. i never think of myself as a funny person. i take myself way too seriously. don't think i don't know that. but i do my best to laugh at myself. really, i just want to be honest with myself. that's what i try for, so much. and if i didn't tell such fantastic stories to the world; and if i didn't listen to them so intently-it might work.
the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) who has taken over the protest arrest (RNC) from Legal Aid bent low and smilingly (in a pleasant, white-mustached way) asked me to write him a story of what happened when i was arrested, some of who i am, what i'm like. he said "write it under the heading of Privileged Client-Attorney Information." he told me "don't email it. mail or fax it. i don't trust email." so now i have an excuse to finish writing it all down! how neat. he is building a case, he is represeting a large number of us who were arrested in the protests. it sort of feels historical, somehow. i like it. i can't post any more here until it's all over. but when i've finished with the case, i will post it for any who want to read.
okay, i could go on and on like this. but my hands are beginning to shake. time to run for breakfast.
saturday morning and i can't stop thinking about work. this book ([title edited out here because i don't want to end up on search lists or google or found by my work. two worlds colliding and such. i also privatized the journal entry where i offered you to submit photos to be in the book. offer is still good, though. i just won't write the words here]) should come back from the printers in two weeks and that's an amazingly short amount of time. i'll be working all this weekend (i'll leave for work in a half hour or so), because by the time monday rolls around i have to have designed about sixty pages. each one is a free-form arrangement of images. the cover undergoes changes all the time, and is not final until it is uploaded (to the printers; we just say "uploaded.") furthermore, i have to finish the shotlist of sexual positions for the ________ Sex book by monday [again, edited out]. so. a lot of work this weekend. these are times i wish i were paid by the hour and not on salary.
okay, so i never did the illustration submission to illustrate my father's book. which would've paid me about 12X my bi-weekly gross amount earned. that sort of hurts, but i just don't dig doing photo-realistic drawings or paintings. that hurts my hand, it bores me, it's like copying. i can do it, but i find it annoying and unrewarding creatively. i like to show it as my bent-up and sprawled-over mind's eye reflects it. my favorite art job was when a kid heard one of my fucking-around songs, Cicero, Psychochicken (and yes, it was surely influenced--in its initial inspiring image, not in words or sound--by the satire of the Byrne song) and asked me to just paint how Cicero looked to me. he paid me $80 for a rendition of a character i had invented but nobody had ever seen. that was cool shit.
man i love this song. Afro Medusa - Pasilda (In House Todd Terry Mix) just wait for her voice to come in. how i love when i cannot understand a language and i really like the vocal melody of a song. i would hate to lose that part by learning the language. it's one of my favorite things to play songs with foreign language vocals and just hear the human voice as another instrument. this song moves my feet and my thigh muscles and my shoulders and my face and my hands. it's better than coffee. i can feel the whole world waking up, and within me. how i love when a song brings tears to my eyes. but don't go thinking that it is sad. that is just a thing with me. when a song--any type of song--really digs under my skin, i want to cry. it's joy, my love, it's joy. one of these days, i really want to list some songs i want you to check out. or at least to listen to again.
to the online friend who i recently get into a back-and-forth with, regarding his apparent inaction while his nephew was abused (not physically but so what): i do understand what you meant about it not being the right time to act. i am happy to hear you will act. the way you approach it is something a rational person would do. i'm the one who is irrational on it. and that's okay, for me. there are times reason is not the prime mover, nor should it be. you must understand, considering who i am, how that whole thing stirs me up. it wasn't so much the fact that you chose that moment to remain passive, for you are correct: there are times to act and times when you might be kicking a hornet's nest. but the universe places us near someone in need for a reason. i was upset by the fact that you framed the entire event in terms of what it meant to you, how it was about you and your mother, a time to reflect on yourself. we seemed to lose the child in the current situation. and i feel for that child, any child currently in THE SITUATION. you know that. we must always care more about the child in THE SITUATION. and you must understand that by writing what you did, you nearly put me right in THE SITUATION, and there is nothing i can do Right in THE SITUATION aside from rail up and freak on the person who is hurting a child. still, to this day, when i am thrown Back in THE SITUATION, i see the Abuser, and i see the Loved One Who Might've Stopped Everything But Did Not. clearly, i am not done working the whole thing out. clearly, i am not at peace with it. and maybe i never will be. i am willing to admit that it may be more complicated than a situation that involves these two roles that always appear. anyway, i meant to apologize for swinging at ghosts, but you can see that i will not let myself rescind some points. and that is what the universe asks of me, i guess. so i must trust it, and stand behind my words, here. i will say no more in your journal about it. we can trust in you doing whatever it is the universe asks of you. and that is something i can neither know or judge.
when i hear Ben play and sing, it reminds me how much i love making my music. when i think of how i love my music, i feel the strings under my fingertips. i feel the ache from pressing them hard into the steel, against the fretboard. when i miss making my music, i miss that pain in my fingers that comes from playing too long, before the calluses come. and i do miss playing and singing. i really do. but i have to say that i'm very happy with what i do right now. and trust me, i've had a lot of jobs. i've listed them before, with descriptions, and it took pages. i don't have any idea where that post is, or i'd link you. failing that, i won't attempt to explain how many or how diverse some of them could truly be. but i do know what it is like to hate my job, day in and day out. i know what kind of an existence that is, and it is horror. and i did it for far too long. it is so strange, now, to go to work, laugh with people most of the day, find them talented for the most part, lose time in what you are doing, be eager to go back and do some more. this doesn't always happen, and i don't feel this way every second, but you get me. for the most part. it's really strange.
i am having so much more fun since i began making the switch from editorial to design. they didn't want to lose me in the editorial department, and i can appreciate that practically and personally. i'm very glad i am able to edit, and to edit my own work. i love language and wielding it. but as far as practically? as far as what flows and what gets me irritated? design is more pleasing. editing...ends up making me feel very ansty, anxious. i want to throw something. it's like manipulating a screwdriver into a tiny, tiny space, and making tiny, highly-controlled movements while holding your breath. for me, that is. after a stretch of hours. on the other hand, design work is like playing a video game. in easy mode. my first cover comes out soon, and i will have the image blown up and put behind a frame on my living room wall. granted, i have done work before, and good work (much better, creatively), but not published. and that makes a difference. i have had art published, and photography, but it was because my father loved it and he is an author who publishes regularly. this is on my own juice, and it has much wider circulation. my work will be on people's shelves, it will be shown on TV (author's promotion for his book), and held in thousands of hands. this is some wild shit. and then, after that, we will publish S_____ which will be written by me, as well as illustrated and designed by me. that's springtime. spring 2005. yeah. i've got good feelings about spring of 2005. i think it's going to be a very good year, as well. let's get ready. let's make it so.
at work, my friend, the art director for one of our divisions says one of the best things about J______ is his contempt and we all laugh but i tried to explain how much love i have for the world, too, and how that often leads to this contempt, but nobody ever remembers that part. i don't mind, usually, when we all laugh. whether it's with me or at me. i like to make people laugh, i have realized, in this job. i never think of myself as a funny person. i take myself way too seriously. don't think i don't know that. but i do my best to laugh at myself. really, i just want to be honest with myself. that's what i try for, so much. and if i didn't tell such fantastic stories to the world; and if i didn't listen to them so intently-it might work.
the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) who has taken over the protest arrest (RNC) from Legal Aid bent low and smilingly (in a pleasant, white-mustached way) asked me to write him a story of what happened when i was arrested, some of who i am, what i'm like. he said "write it under the heading of Privileged Client-Attorney Information." he told me "don't email it. mail or fax it. i don't trust email." so now i have an excuse to finish writing it all down! how neat. he is building a case, he is represeting a large number of us who were arrested in the protests. it sort of feels historical, somehow. i like it. i can't post any more here until it's all over. but when i've finished with the case, i will post it for any who want to read.
okay, i could go on and on like this. but my hands are beginning to shake. time to run for breakfast.