Took off early Friday
Packed up the truck
Drove up north
Talking Heads on CD
Slowgoing, but good company
Made it there in a few hours
Picked up kids
Met Leah’s parents
Hung out till sleep
Morning kid’s football game
Got there too early
Breakfast at Denny’s with Leah’s parents and kids
Back to the football game to deliver a player
Game was great
Talked a lot to Leah’s Mom
Got lots of sun (and Leah a little sunburnt)
Went to a baptism
(Mormon Baptism)
Extraordinary event
Back to the home of Leah’s ex
Trepidatious but okay
Left there and got dinner
Four Seasons store a time warp
(Why did they have magazines from 2002?)
Back for the kids
Othello and Jungle Book
Breakfast continental
Dropped off the kids
Headed back south
Basket preparation from Target
Leah has skills
Visited Los Angeles Cathedral
Explained some Catholic Doctrine
Admired the extraordinary Cathedral
More heading south
Visted friend Chris, and his wife and daughter and new son
Wonderful talk and company
His daughter has grown so much in the past few years!
Lunch at Heroes
Young Zachary is remarkable
More driving south
Making good time
Some groceries at Whole Foods
Home Home / Good to be home
Juicing like crazy
Unpacking and relaxing
Wonderful talk, cathartic talk
What a good life
What a lucky life.
September 2003 Twenty-seven posts
A little bird (named Lilia Phleger Benjamin) told me…
Hey Joe, I’m in the Fall/Winter issue of Entrepreneur Magazine‘s “Be Your Own Boss” edition… page 6, talking about online groups, and she included my mention of WebSanDiego.org!
So, that’s pretty cool.
Thanks mucho Lilia!
And oh yeah, last night Quicksilver came out. And I bought it. And so far I like it. And it weighs a ton. And it’s so dense NS has launched a wiki to let readers annotate and explicate the thing.
Welcome to the 21st Century, where concordances happen in real-time.
frederick douglass hip-hop king (mind the noose and fare thee well)
came to me inside my dream (mind the noose and fare thee well)
his advice rang like a bell: (mind the noose and fare the well)
mind the noose and fare thee well (mind the noose and fare thee well)
…
well,
love is not the enemy of life
no,
love can give more freedom than it takes if you’d like
…
love is not the instrument of pain it’s just your mind
New blister on 4th toe or right foot. Still undefeated in my racquetball class. Tired but feeling good.
I have procured the signature to add the class. This time not in pencil, so when I take it to the Dean’s office they won’t look at me like an idiot when I look offended when they tell me the add form is an official document and needs to be in pen. Of course, nowhere on the form or in the instructions does it specify ink or anything.
I’m hoping I haven’t made any other errors with the add form.
Experiences like losing a lunch hour because something was signed in pencil and not pen make one surly. It leads me to think things like “when I am king, I will fire your inflexible, bureaucratic, rigid-minded, halfwitted asses!”
Whew. Got that off my chest.
Sorry for the language there Mom. Not called for, but it’s how I really felt. But moderation and calm have won the day, and I am falling in compliance with City College policies.
Time for bed now.
Something Deeper Than These Changes comes out tuesday. I went to Tower today and they had one in the bins. I won’t quibble that it’s out a day early. I was hoping it would be there. So far I like it very much. But then, I’m a fan. The Statue Song makes me want to cry it’s such a perfectly sad song. And of course some of it has made me laugh out loud already. Stew is a great favorite. Several months ago I went north to see him play with “The Cover Problem” in Los Angeles. Took a train up, and a bus to the gig, and a Greyhound back. It was a great disorienting/orienting evening. The man actually recognized me, we having had corresponded since I set up his online “diary” stew sez.
The new record actually includes lyrics. I’ve been transcribing Stew/The Negro Problem lyrics since 1999 or so (and I think I can believe my smorgasborg). So it’s kind of neat to have the lyrics and not have to interpret so much, not that the lyrics aren’t a hodgepodge of baroque, arcana. Stew’s words are lovable to me precisely because he woos the muse of the odd.
I’ve seen Stew play several times now here in San Diego. I think three times. And then up in Los Angeles with TCP.
It’s bittersweet then, to note the news that he and Heidi Rodewald appear to be headed to Gotham.
As usual, Stew has insight to burn, and kicks the ass of anyone who thinks it’s a dis to L.A., or who thinks the move legitimizes the NYC bigotry of New Yorkers. That bigotry being that NYC is somehow the greatest city in the world. Screw that. He says, on the negroproblem mailing list:
New York Provincialism – one of my big topics. my biggest problem with NY (besides large rents and larger roaches) is New York’s weird love affair with itself. It strikes me as oddly provincial for a place so super cool.
A NYer was recently complaining to me about how boring a certain very small city was that she got stuck in during a business trip and how “horrible” it was that there was so little to do there. A Manhattanite complaining about a small town being boring is as childish and absurd as a bumpkin whining about Times Square traffic.
I love that The Man Himself runs a little mailing list — and posts to it.
So Stew will be in residency, more or less, in the Northeast. I wish him well, and I hope Stew and Heidi find the city wonderful and invigorating.
I’m sad to hear them leaving SoCal, even if it only ends up temporary. But I’m also reminded of a certain Frank Zappa, taking up a residency in the Garrick Theatre of NYC in 1967.
In the end Zappa was more a creature of L.A., and returned “home” to Los Angeles. Comparable? Time will tell.
These changes are deep for Stew I think. I say, mind the noose and fare thee well.
Awesome party last night. You really had to be there. Leah and I are blessed with wonderful friends.
I’m tired but I’m working, yeah
The new place is officially christened. In spoons and beer and the kind of excellent talk you get when people have no agendas and chill out the way human beings can when we are at our social best.
No, I’m not afraid to intellectualized things of the heart. There’s definitely something happens when good people together that is inexplicable, unreproducible, mysterious, and wonderful.
And I mean wonderful as “full of wonder.”
There’s some wax to clean from the living room. And the floors could use some cleaning, but all is right with the world. I’m struck by the sense that…
And I am right,
And you are right,
And all is right — too-looral-lay!
Work not bad
Car insurance enabled
Racquetball class rewarding
Two feet aching
Truck driving well
College parking sucking
Dishes need doing
Rearviewmirror fall down okay, cheated there
Address changes pending
Bills paid today
Still in arrears
Home office chaos
Leah stomach churning
New curtains awesome
Hot dogs enjoyable
This entry over
SDWUG / Golden Hills Free Web Meeting on Community Wireless [16-Sep-2003]
Perl Mongers [16-Sep-2003]
SanDCHI’s September Meeting Announcement [17-Sep-2003]
Hacking – ACM San Diego [18-Sep-2003]
UX SIG meeting at Mitchell [23-Sep-2003]
Toorcon [26-28-Sep-2003]
So I had a long talk with my friend Chris last night, and we caught up and talked and talked. He and his wife recently had another child. Young Zachary. I’ve been asked to be a Godparent. I wept and was honored.
So how well does an unorthodox lapsed Catholic agnostic do that?
I don’t think I can do any worse than other people do, and I might even do better.
So here’s something I haven’t thought about lately: spirituality, spiritual growth, and teaching.
And really, there’s much more going on. That’s just a snippet. Ikea and Target were also interesting last night. And yes, Der Wienerschnitzel. And the Trolley.
I lead an interesting life, and I like it. I am happy.
Time to shower and get to work.
Onward.
