October 2006
Monday, Oct 30
The studio tech power and house power are now hot. I was outside by the live room today, and heard the new transformer humming.
I may or may not fire the contractor, depending on how/if he redeems himself the next time I see him.
There are still very large expenses to reckon with, and the equipment list is now down to absolute bare-bones, how-drastically-minimal-can-we-go-and-still-do-broadcast-production. Ensemble music recording will have to wait. But that's okay.
Had I known a few months ago that it would come to this, I would have held off on some of the purchases I've already made. But as they say, who knew?
Wednesday, Oct 18
I was lying on my back on a plastic blow-up raft in a bright midday river, and caught the current. I realized that I was being carried away downstream, not knowing where, and it suddenly opened out into an enormous body of water, so wide I couldn't see either shore, and it was an intensely bright, beautiful sunny day.
As the raft I was on merged with the unbelievably huge body of water, I was joined alongside by two young girls, also on rafts; they were already engaged in quiet conversation and paid me little mind. We rode the current further out into the massive body of water, almost like a small ocean, and far off in the distance I could see great industrial rigging, and a couple of freight ships.
Then, a passenger plane suddenly materialized a few hundred feet above the water, moving backward. It went in a downward arc, smacked the water very hard and bounced up, like a huge skipping stone in reverse. It landed a second time on a metal platform with large surface mounted hooks, and was still.
"There's going to be a wake," said one of the girls.
'Yeah, I know," I replied, and watched as a large wake approached from where the plane had first hit.
It came like the waves of childhood beach vacations, and toppled me over into the water. I went down, and it was dark. I began kicking furiously, trying to get up to the surface, and could not. I realized I was fully clothed and had shoes on. I somehow took a quick breath and kept trying, but never made it above the surface...
Tuesday, Oct 17
My son turned twenty.
My daughter's doing too much with too little time.
The kitchen's in the hall.
I'm sick of microwave/takeout food.
Three trips to (b)Lowe's in one day - a personal record.
Formica samples are ugly and they suck.
So does Home Depot's Expo Center.
Where the hell is the studio interior glass?
The driveway has filled up with trash again.
The desk/console arrived, in fourteen boxes. They're in the back of my pickup because there is absolutely no other place to put them.
These are good issues to have...no really, I am loving every minute...
Thursday, Oct 12
My butt is cold, and my headache's too.
When I was around nine years old, my older sister was a Girl Scout. I overheard one of her troopmates relaying a story about reading aloud from a magazine, where the author was saying, "My, but it's cold, and my head aches, too." The girl's mother overheard her, and thought she was saying "my butt is cold", which was considered coarse language in mid-sixties America (I still think it so). The ensuing confusion made for a humorous story for this girl to tell her troopmates. When I heard the girl tell it, I thought she meant, "my butt is cold and my headache is, too."
Soon after I overheard this story, my sister and I were hanging out in a church classroom while our mother was upstairs in choir practice. I pondered the sentence that caused the confusion, applied some rhythm to it, and began sing-songing it over and over. As the evening wore on, I began driving my sister absolutely mad with it, adding little timbral dips and swings to the rhythm - "my BUTT - is COLD, and my HEAD-ache's, TOO."
I was bored, and it was fun. My sister wanted to kill me, which made it more fun.
That was forty years ago, and even now, on occasion, my butt is cold and my headache is, too.
Tuesday, Oct 10
The kitchen is having a makeover. Its entire contents are spread throughout the house.
The studio interior doors arrived - and are the wrong size. Turnaround time not yet determined.
There is a small group of men painting window trim and air-spraying the new kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts...which means more payroll on Friday.
I lost more business yesterday, from a longtime client who landed a new account. She wanted to work at my studio, but I don't yet have one.
I think that I am never going to have one. This is not ever going to stop; it's simply going to evolve over a long period of time, slowly changing but never ending.
Every night I have disturbing, dread-filled dreams. The situations and settings vary wildly, but the theme is always the same: helplessness and losing everything. I had a brief version of the one where I'm driving too fast around a very sharp curve, go airborne, and land in a deep dark body of water. Haven't had that one in a long time.
Anybody got a loaded .45 I can borrow? I just need one bullet. You'll have to come get it when I'm done.
Tuesday, October 3
Welcome to October, and I am still without a functioning place of business.
I'm poised to replace the HVAC guy, who worked for both my father (commercial) and my mother (residential) and has now lost my account. I fail to understand how I rate the treatment I've received.
Electrical was supposed to be here today to install the transformer and breaker panel, involving several hours without electricity. It's not happening, and how nice that I foolishly planned my day around them.
I'm still trying to figure out what was accomplished in my absence last week.
This is the thanks I get for being good to work for, and always paying promptly.
The day WILL come when I regain control, and those who have slighted me along the way will never know what hit them.
Rant over.
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