Noses and keyboards

I just finished stretching and I successfully got my nose to the ground. I wrapped a 20lb weight in a pillow and balanced it on the back of my neck. Then, I grabbed my feet and made increasingly pitiful noises until my face went all the way down to the ground.

I need to work on getting my shoulders down and straightening out my lower back. I've found that a mix of Ulrich Schnauss' album Goodbye and recordings of birds go very well together. And I might go so far as to say it's damn near "heavenly."

I don't know exactly at which point I became such a sonic enthusiast, but I'm... happy I did. I edited out an expletive there. I know I've mentioned this before, but I often entertain a weird possibility which would subject everyone around me to the music that's in my headphones... at the same volume and in the same language. Sometimes people need to get rattled. Sometimes people need to be uplifted. Sometimes people just need to be reminded that there's very much a plot and storyline in any direction they might be facing at any point in time. The colors we see in our days have nothing to do with what's in front of our eyes.

I read an article this morning which summarized a recent study done on human sounds. The researchers found that humans from vastly separate cultures can comprehend the human/emotional connotations embodied in different bodily sounds. Groans, laughter and screams were all correctly related to their corresponding circumstances.

Insofar as we understand our own (Western) music, I think the minds of even the most recreational music listeners pick up on the emotional suggestions of the piece at hand. At some point in our not-too-distant past, humans were actually able to feel tsunamis coming in the distance. This awareness has since faded. And perhaps a bit further back, there were actually a greater frequency of instances of unbridled love and emotion. It'd be like a human acting like a happy dog who wants to lick every animal it sees. I can't, however, say it's a bad thing that there aren't more people like Richard Simmons and Pee-Wee Herman running around. But that doesn't mean the intention can't be recognized and used just a bit more often in public. I imagine more than one caveman met his demise by attempting to cheer up the wrong cavewoman in the company of her apelike-manfriend.

That was a tremendously bizarre tangent. And if you pieced together any sort of meaning from it, I'm both impressed and appreciative. Take some time to think what you would choose to subject the world to if you could hijack the global airwaves for a second. I'm going to take a moment and appreciate the very under-appreciated Nicola Tesla.

It's cold again in Texas. We had a couple of weeks in the 60s but now it's frozen. It's actually freezing tonight. And I'm wearing two pairs of socks just to stay comfortable. It's... please pity me. Pity the unsuspecting Texan who got caught in the cold front. It went alllllllll the way down to 30 degrees. I'm actually just happy we didn't get it as badly as the rest of the country. I spoke to someone on Thursday in Tulsa who was expecting over an inch of ice. Terrible.

I'm only a few pages into Philisophical Investigations by Wittgenstein and I've stumbled onto what I think is my favorite literary quote to date. While describing the journey of a thought from conception to vocalization to reception, he states:

"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."

It's brilliant. I couldn't have put it better myself. I could launch into an over-sized description of what I think Communication is to me, but I don't have the energy at the moment. Suffice it to say that I'm happy we got vocal chords along with our opposable thumbs and I think more care should be given when speaking to others in general.

I'm going to have the house to myself in the not-too-distant future. I was talking to my landlord earlier today and went into my housemate's room to check on the current state of things. In the room, I happened upon a certain informative brochure. My 40 year-old roommate-person apparently has the time and resources to consult an audiologist for two custom-fit ear monitors (turbo expensive musical performance enhancements), but he's completely unable to pay the (horribly cheap) rent on time... consistently. Anyway, Mr. Man is going to be gone in the next month or so. I'm looking forward to it. The place will smell better and I'll be able to clean things without hearing him bitch and moan about me harming his various percussive instruments. According to at least one person I know, I will never be a good drummer unless I have at least four xylophones on display while they actively collect dust.

I've been playing my guitar a lot. And it's fun. It pulled a couple melodies that have been floating around in my head for a couple years now. It's nice. I don't really have any words for them. Go figure. But they'll be there when I do. I might just start dedicating some time to songwriting. Who knows. I would like to send some songs to friends and family at some point just to let everybody know I'm still kicking. Whatever. Time will tell. I'm gonna work on my pancake and keep trading.

I'm also kicking around the idea of composing some type of literary piece of moderate length. The idea of communicating reason by compounding emotional experiences in someone is appealing to me. Right now, I talk to people on the phone and am walking a very fine line between caring about what they have to say and shoeing them into the pen of Resolution with a linguistic cattle prod of monstrous proportion.

Anyway, in lieu of a serious relationship, I'm considering writing a book. Granted, it will take many months before any measure of reciprocation is seen, but... time is on my side. Life is endlessly short.

My tablet arrived in San Jose for repair two days ago. They haven't called me to tell me just what exactly is wrong with it, but I suspect they will shortly.

I currently have a 32mb image from the Hubble telescope as my background. It's spread across three monitors and is dreamy :)

Part of this being my blog means that I can geek out a little bit about completely lame things. It's beautiful. I didn't get a dial-up internet connection until I was 17. I didn't get a computer that ran faster than 1ghz until I was 20. This machine, although considered to be out of date already, rocks hugely :D

Okay. I'm going to read into slumber. I'm working in 8 hours.

>>"Never Be the Same" on Goodbye by Ulrich Schnauss