Time for an update, I guess.

My typing has been poor all day, for the last couple of days really - I don’t know if it’s a slow net connection or some kind of mental problem on my end, but it’s annoying me. I’ve had a lot to do in the last few days, but all of it’s invisible - lots of emails, moving around files, tweaking websites - none of it real, visible projects. It feels once again like there are about 6 hours in a day. I think “I’m going to get started on my real work any second now” and then I realize it’s 2 in the morning.

Lots of stuff is going wrong. My car stereo went out, but then magically came back. My caller ID is broken, or maybe it’s just that nobody calls me anymore. I went to the dentist and got fillings, and now one tooth perpetually feels like its got popcorn husks stuck underneath it. And my fucking apartment rental company is fucking me over on my last months’ rent. I paid a last months’ rent, and now they are saying I have to pay a last month, and I will somehow magically get that money back when I get my deposit back. But I know and they know that in about 8 years, I will get a check for $47 and a receipt for a new washer and drier or something. The company is Equity Rentals. Never, ever trust them.

I’m trying to get as much of Summer Rain done as I can, given current circumstances. It’s slowly getting there - I have about 6 of the last 15 chapters done now. I’m hoping, as always, for a good weekend. Since I’m close to broke now, thanks to my apartment management, I’ll probably be spending the whole weekend inside, doing nothing but writing and playing bass. The bass is good, but I have a long way to go. Having a good amp helps. Falling asleep at like 7pm for 2 hours every night does not help.

The cleaning/packing process continues. I gave away or sold a handful of items here at work today, which is good - I had no idea what I’d do with a 12” monochrome monitor. I’m also frantically throwing out everything I can, in an effort to at least make the place look a little more vacant. Because of this apartment bullshit, I won’t be sending out any boxes for a bit, but hopefully I can get a bunch of them packed this weekend.

I think it’s time to go home now.

I am TV-free. For a month. I sold the piece of shit today, and now there’s a gaping hole in the stack of equipment and cables next to my computer. My “entertainment center” is a coffee table, on which the TV, a speaker, two VCRs, a tape deck, a receiver, a CD player, about a hundred CDs, and a dozen or so VHS tapes live. Now it’s minus the TV, since it would cost me about $50 to ship, and that’s all it’s worth. And I sold it for $75. I’m already going into withdrawl though - I got home from work, plopped down on the bed, stared at the blank spot on the way, and… yelled FUCK! I now need to do something creative with my evening, for a change. So this is how I used to write 4000 words a day…

I have yet another stupid nostalgia-trip story. I was at the mall Saturday, and went into the mall music store, which is usually a good place to look at a couple of bad guitars and then leave. But on consignment, they had a white Cort headless bass, with Steinberger tuners. About ten years ago, I bought my first bass, which was identical to this one, except my old one wasn’t wired - the knobs were missing, along with the jack, back panel, wiring harness, and foil shielding. I bought my old one for about $100 or $150 and rewired it, but it sounded like shit and had horrendous buzzing problems. I also painted it all up and put stickers on it. This one was in great shape - the fingerboard and frets were decent, the paint was original and new, and the electronics were pristine. I had to hear how it sounded stock, so I asked the guy to plug in, and a minute later I was going through a nice Hartke amp.

Some background on me and the bass: I started playing in the last semester of high school, towards the very end of the school year. I bought this Cort bass as a graduation present to myself, and took lessons all summer from Jamie Magera, a local guitar prodigy. In Bloomington, I took classes through school, met a lot of other musicians, and never got to the point of being really good, but I did play in a Calypso band in front of a sold-out IU Auditorium, so I did okay. After I got into computers, bass fell by the wayside. I tried to pick it up again in 96 with a Fender Precision fretless, but it felt alien, and I didn’t do too well. I’ve always since wished I could play something, but I never had the time. Every time I see a band live, I want to be the one on stage. I wish I could record a 4-track demo and trade it with people. And when I got that bass in my hands on Saturday, it felt natural again. Steinberger-based basses feel very strange - the body is small, the scale is short, there’s no tuning pegs or headstock on the end, and some people can’t stand them. But since it was my first bass, it felt RIGHT.

A minute later, I whipped out my Visa card and said, “I’ll take it.” I also picked up a 20 watt Hartke amp, which kicks some serious ass - ampmakers have really gotten their shit together in the last ten years. I hauled all of the gear home, unsure of how I’d even start playing or learning. At home, I ran through scales and the riffs that I knew, and things slowly got back to me. And on Sunday, I got a strap, tuner, and one of those “Metallica Riff-By-Riff” books. It might not be a good start, but I used to know more of their stuff, and it’s got my fingers moving again. I think this will be the perfect new hobby to pick up, especially after I move.

Michael Stutz was here all weekend, and we hung out on Thursday and Saturday. I’d write more, but I just ate some really greasy pizza, and I think I’m damaging this computer.

I am still sick. I managed to sneak out of work on Thursday afternoon and catch a doctor’s appointment at the Polyclinic. After reading a March 1998 issue of Forbes for about an hour, the doctor gave a quick listen to my cough and determined that it was bronchitis. He gave me antibiotics and told me about 9 times to drink lots of water with them, or I would explode and possibly kill other people nearby. He also said I should be better by Tuesday, which blows the whole idea of being better today. I do feel somewhat better today - not as much coughing or aching. Of course, my thirteen hour nap helped somewhat.

I wish Seattle would give me some nice weekend days before I left. I woke at about noon today, and the sun was peeking out a bit. Now it’s 3

and it looks like the sun is going to set in about 2 minutes. I don’t know what I would do if it was sunny, except maybe drive to the mall or bookstore or something. But dammit, I want one good Saturday with some sun and my sunroof before I junk the fucking car and go to riding the subway. I hate driving in traffic, I hate I-5, I hate parking, and I hate my car, but nothing beats a steady speed on some winding hills with the Rush song “Red Barchetta” in the player.

I had many weird dreams last night, which is strange because I’m trying to lay off the NyQuil after a 14-day stand. I wanted to learn to fly - a plane, I mean. In the dream, my uncle Jim used to have a pilot’s license, but it was decades expired and he couldn’t teach me. I was going to get LASIK surgery on my eyes to pass the flight physical, and I even went up on a test flight with anotheer pilot. Then I remembered I was going to New York, and I got all depressed because I thought it would be almost impossible to find a place to take flying lessons if I lived in Manhattan. My parents were mad at me for wanting to fly. I was in New York and my uncle died. When I went home, I had a neighbor I didn’t know who looked like Nancy Travis who was in a wheelchair. I was strangely attracted to her. I went to visit my dad at work, where he was raising bioengineered plants like the ones in Jurassic Park. I was trying to get him and mom to pay for a summer program at Rutgers. I started thinking about how I would set up my .forwards on the Rutgers email accounts, and then use gnus on 34.216.9.77/ to read all of my mail. When I woke up, I had a strange, intense feeling where I missed my old Escort, and how I should sell my VW and buy a Corolla or something similar with a really nice interior.

And right now I’m listening to the newest Pat Metheny album Imaginary Day, which does remind me of the Escort, and the trip I made up to Bremerton last summer with the MiniDisc, listening to Metheny. (Look in the 1998 entries in the beginning - it’s in there somewhere.) This shows that I can be nostalgic about something that happened less than a year ago, which shows that I’m completely insane.

The Karate Kid was just on. If I ever make a movie, no matter what it is, I’m going to cast Pat Morita as something.

I better go do something before the hundred mile an hour winds start.

I’m still sick, but I think I’m making progress. I slept almost all day yesterday, and thismorning it didn’t feel like my lungs were full of paste. I’m still not up to 100%, but I have hopes of being functional by the weekend.

I’ve started reading alt.hackers again, and it’s got me all messed up on this early-90s technology kick. It’s amazing how little things have changed in some ways. If you ignore all of the internet explosion bullshit and Bill Gates’ totalitarian wet dream, the old iron was still the same. Unix machines have become more powerful, and now anyone with a PC can have one, but the basic tenets are the same. Gcc, sed scripts, X11, sockets programming, it’s all there. But back then I was logged in via a 286 running Procomm and a Sytek 2400bps connection, instead of a Pentium and an ethernet connection. Even with all of the crap on the web, I really miss the days when usenet was a cool place to talk and find information, and there were a few cool internet BBSes to mess with.

Nothing else is going on, and I think I’m going to get back to being sick and stuff.

I am back. I am sick. I could barely talk today, and felt like crawling under my desk and dying all day. But I have a deadline this Friday, and I had 248 mail messages waiting for me at work, so I had to get there. Plus I woke up at 6am when the Nyquil wore off, and I had nothing better to do. Actually, I had a lot of better things to do, but I chose to go to work instead of calling in. Maybe tomorrow.

New York was cool, although I was too sick to do much. It was good to see Marie for a couple of days, and hang out with my two feline friends Mungo and Henrey. We did go out a few times, to a Ukranian deli, to the village to look at CDs, and to Tower. I bought two new prerecorded MiniDiscs (Ozzy and Pink Floyd) and I saw the lab which was used as an exterior in Seinfeld when they went to get the frozen yogurt tested for fat content. So that was my big brush with fame for the trip.

Actually, on Saturday, we went to a big party at this giant three-story house. It turns out that the place used to be divvied up into tiny apartments, and in 1943 and 1944, William S. Burroughs lived there. Kerouac and Ginsberg visited there a lot, and it’s the place where Lucien Carr visited the morning after killing David Kamerrer and showed Burroughs the pack of bloody cigarettes he lifted from the body. It’s a flat with some real history to it.

Of course, when we were there, all of that was gone. The building was converted into one giant house long ago. Burroughs’ old residence is now a kids’ bedroom, full of toy cars. On the top floor, there was a bathroom that was seriously as big as my entire fucking apartment, with a sauna, giant bathtub, fireplace, everything. And the whole house was wired for audio and TV, so you could listen to music all over or divide it up to certain rooms. Later, we were trying to guess how much the place would sell for - at least in the seven digit range.

So here I am, sick. I better stop my whining and get some rest and a few good belts of the Robitussen. Maybe tomorrow…