Holy cow! Freezing rain! The roads are ice -- like, take-a-running-start-and-slide-across-the-street ice -- and G & I went out there...
We were going to have our first class at "The Drawing Studio" on Division this morning. The Studio folks, however, did the sensible thing and didn't open today. Can't complain though -- it was neat to see the town all frozen over. Of course, I wasn't the one driving...
Man, I woke up at negative o'clock this morning. I was feeling ill... Which resulted in a mere 3 hours of sleep last night. Back to bed with me! [That is, after I blog. ;-) ]
...Meanwhile, G has been wrangling rsync for me, setting up my new 500 gig Lacie backup drive. [Working on digital movies, you need that much space!] She's over at the studio right now, wrestling with a job that she started running last night.
I made my first quiche last night! Mmmmmmm!! ...And you wouldn't believe how simple quiche is to make. Really, all it is (in essence) is 3 eggs, 1.5 cups of whipping cream, and a cup of cheddar, all in a pie crust. Y'know: It's amazing how the addition of heavy whipping cream to our staples has blossomed our cooking round here. :-D
Thursday I made Israeli Fondue. That's edam cheese, avocado, sour cream, and a white wine base. This is part of my big cheese kick, that was set off by purchasing this groovy little book that describes all the major varieties and has a picture for each one.
...This cheese book has really rekindled my interest in fondue. That, and figuring out that if I do one-fourth recipes, I can make fondue as an appetizer for each meal. You just can't have fondue as a main course very often -- it's too heavy. But as an appetizer? Oh yeah.
The Mirah concert on Thursday was AMAZING good. I'm so sad that mph isn't doing mp3 friday anymore -- I've been collecting a bunch of songs that I'm nigh desperate to share with folks out there. Mirah's song "promise", which is on her new album "C'mon Miracle", tore my heart out at the concert. ...Played it for G and tears spouted in abundance. She put it on repeat while I was out doing errands, and when I came back she was a dessicated husk.
It's that good.
This week has been hard, but in a different way from last week. Last week was family and memorial service and... ugh. This week has been about getting the gears of routine life moving again. After Christmas and dad's death and New Year's at the coast and the memorial service... There was a lot of backlog to deal with -- including psychological backlog.
Those poems I wrote Wednesday were a good sign. I guess they sound more flaily than how I heard them in my head -- I think I worried G a little, there. But then, I have a kind of flaily sense of spirituality. It was good to reconnect with that, after (and I don't mean this badly) being in other people's spaces for such a long stretch. Nice to reconnect with my own.
This upcoming week's big theme: getting the studio prepped for Artist's Way. That's all I've got left! One week, before G starts her new life (tee hee!) as a facilitator. Wow.
On my own end of things, I'm finally getting enough of the vital housework cleared away that I can begin thinking about my own projects. Nothing horribly new: YL and the HPL film are still the big things, just like last year.
But at least with YL, I've got a different feeling about the project beginning to emerge. I've spent years learning to write and honing my basic ideas. It feels like the time has come to transition into a more traditional research mode. Kristian, author of "Our Enemies in Blue" really has me inspired... I need to get my research a bit more nailed down -- but perhaps in 2006 (yes, next year) I'll be ready freddy to start pitching a book proposal to publishers. ...That's the new feeling: "Oh yeah. Books are just product. Knowing what I want to write is important -- but I have to be able to pitch the idea first, and a publisher has to buy it."
So far, the research I was beginning to do at the PSU library on G's work days was really cool. I was getting my theses articulated, and hunting down the historical data I needed to either prove or disprove them. Oh yeah.
The Lovecraft film is also on my mind. I don't have a work schedule envisioned yet -- but the mood to animate is growing. I'm also getting psyched to do the soundtrack, which will be a real task unto itself. Example: "Hm, that would make a great sound effect: to dip cheesecloth in water, freeze it, and then bend and crunch it for the microphone." Not bad, eh?
On that note: I am so excited about the new version of GarageBand! I'm sure it won't be everything I want -- but it does have some interface that deals with actual music notation. The little player-piano squigs just weren't doing it for me. ...Next thing I'll have to figure out: how to get my electric piano to function as a midi keyboard with GarageBand.
Hey -- at the Mirah concert, the band "The Blow" (also quite kick-ass) was playing all its beats from a 12" Mac Powerbook. When I went to see Dahlia with Leopoldo and G, the music was achieved with the same trick. Anyone out there know what software these folks are using?
We were going to have our first class at "The Drawing Studio" on Division this morning. The Studio folks, however, did the sensible thing and didn't open today. Can't complain though -- it was neat to see the town all frozen over. Of course, I wasn't the one driving...
Man, I woke up at negative o'clock this morning. I was feeling ill... Which resulted in a mere 3 hours of sleep last night. Back to bed with me! [That is, after I blog. ;-) ]
...Meanwhile, G has been wrangling rsync for me, setting up my new 500 gig Lacie backup drive. [Working on digital movies, you need that much space!] She's over at the studio right now, wrestling with a job that she started running last night.
I made my first quiche last night! Mmmmmmm!! ...And you wouldn't believe how simple quiche is to make. Really, all it is (in essence) is 3 eggs, 1.5 cups of whipping cream, and a cup of cheddar, all in a pie crust. Y'know: It's amazing how the addition of heavy whipping cream to our staples has blossomed our cooking round here. :-D
Thursday I made Israeli Fondue. That's edam cheese, avocado, sour cream, and a white wine base. This is part of my big cheese kick, that was set off by purchasing this groovy little book that describes all the major varieties and has a picture for each one.
...This cheese book has really rekindled my interest in fondue. That, and figuring out that if I do one-fourth recipes, I can make fondue as an appetizer for each meal. You just can't have fondue as a main course very often -- it's too heavy. But as an appetizer? Oh yeah.
The Mirah concert on Thursday was AMAZING good. I'm so sad that mph isn't doing mp3 friday anymore -- I've been collecting a bunch of songs that I'm nigh desperate to share with folks out there. Mirah's song "promise", which is on her new album "C'mon Miracle", tore my heart out at the concert. ...Played it for G and tears spouted in abundance. She put it on repeat while I was out doing errands, and when I came back she was a dessicated husk.
It's that good.
This week has been hard, but in a different way from last week. Last week was family and memorial service and... ugh. This week has been about getting the gears of routine life moving again. After Christmas and dad's death and New Year's at the coast and the memorial service... There was a lot of backlog to deal with -- including psychological backlog.
Those poems I wrote Wednesday were a good sign. I guess they sound more flaily than how I heard them in my head -- I think I worried G a little, there. But then, I have a kind of flaily sense of spirituality. It was good to reconnect with that, after (and I don't mean this badly) being in other people's spaces for such a long stretch. Nice to reconnect with my own.
This upcoming week's big theme: getting the studio prepped for Artist's Way. That's all I've got left! One week, before G starts her new life (tee hee!) as a facilitator. Wow.
On my own end of things, I'm finally getting enough of the vital housework cleared away that I can begin thinking about my own projects. Nothing horribly new: YL and the HPL film are still the big things, just like last year.
But at least with YL, I've got a different feeling about the project beginning to emerge. I've spent years learning to write and honing my basic ideas. It feels like the time has come to transition into a more traditional research mode. Kristian, author of "Our Enemies in Blue" really has me inspired... I need to get my research a bit more nailed down -- but perhaps in 2006 (yes, next year) I'll be ready freddy to start pitching a book proposal to publishers. ...That's the new feeling: "Oh yeah. Books are just product. Knowing what I want to write is important -- but I have to be able to pitch the idea first, and a publisher has to buy it."
So far, the research I was beginning to do at the PSU library on G's work days was really cool. I was getting my theses articulated, and hunting down the historical data I needed to either prove or disprove them. Oh yeah.
The Lovecraft film is also on my mind. I don't have a work schedule envisioned yet -- but the mood to animate is growing. I'm also getting psyched to do the soundtrack, which will be a real task unto itself. Example: "Hm, that would make a great sound effect: to dip cheesecloth in water, freeze it, and then bend and crunch it for the microphone." Not bad, eh?
On that note: I am so excited about the new version of GarageBand! I'm sure it won't be everything I want -- but it does have some interface that deals with actual music notation. The little player-piano squigs just weren't doing it for me. ...Next thing I'll have to figure out: how to get my electric piano to function as a midi keyboard with GarageBand.
Hey -- at the Mirah concert, the band "The Blow" (also quite kick-ass) was playing all its beats from a 12" Mac Powerbook. When I went to see Dahlia with Leopoldo and G, the music was achieved with the same trick. Anyone out there know what software these folks are using?
