An Evening with Charlie Bartlett

The weekend begins. After breakfast-for-dinner with Tony, I decided to watch a movie I've had sitting on my DVR for a while - "Charlie Bartlett" with Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey Jr.. It's had a few laugh out loud moments, but I would describe it as choppy.

It was another busy week at work - I spent the lions share of the day in meetings, following by an extra meeting or two. In between I managed to get a little work done, but for the most part I am carrying a lot of stuff into next week. I may, if I am up to it, spend a few hours working over the weekend, but right now I am definitely not there. I am not even anywhere close to there.

Tonight, I just want to relax, to slide slowly into the evening, and to spend some time reading "Spares". That is a perfect way to start a three day weekend. My plan is to keep it simple tomorrow - breakfast, a little cleaning, a little laundry, and then out to a movie and lunch. I'm planning on seeing "The Guard" tomorrow at a matinee. It's playing down at the CineArts theater in Santana Row, which is a very nice theater.

At some point over the weekend - perhaps even tomorrow, I am going to tackle this big stack of books on the kitchen table, sort through it, and find the fifty books that I want to retain. Depending on when I contemplate that task - some days I think it will be easy and other days I wonder if I will be able to do it. I definitely attach to books. I love reading. I read a lot. I've always read a lot. Each book contains within it an entire world and that always amazes me. (Of course, some of the books and some of the worlds are far better than others.)

I am finishing up "Spares", and I've got George R.R. Martin's "A Clash of Kings" and Suzanne Collin's "The Hunger Games". I am looking forward to each one. "The Hunger Games" is technically young adult, but I happened to be a fan of Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson.." series and James Patterson's "Maximum Ride" series - both of which are young adult. A well-crafted story, regardless of the intended audience, is a piece of art. Just writing about books makes me want to curl up and read, so I may call it an early a night - and then read into the deep darkness of the night finishing up "Spares".

Grace, Art, and Beauty

My dinner tonight was a simple but excellent Cobb salad. I spent the rest of the evening relaxing, then catching up with my DVR watching. I watched an episode of Eureka, I watched an episode of Haven, and I watched the Jon Stewart show.

Interwoven through those shows I was moving stuff from the kitchen into the spare bedroom. I pretty much got all of boxes cleaned out of the kitchen - they are now stacked in the middle of the floor in the spare bedroom, with the rest of them in the dining room. My kitchen table is still covered with books I haven't started sorting yet and I probably won't do that until Friday or maybe one of the other days this weekend.

Having officially recaptured my kitchen however I'm looking forward to cooking dinner tomorrow night. I've been eating out a lot and I can tell the impact of processed food on my system. I'm craving fresh fruit and fresh salads. Maybe an egg white omelet or two.

Let me entirely switch gears now. I'm not sure if you're fans of the show So You Think You Can Dance. If you're not you're missing what really amounts to being a truly incredible show. I've always been terribly impressed by the raw physicality and grace of dancers.

I remember when I was an undergraduate I had class, a theater history class, that was preceded by a jazz dance class. It was held in an auditorium and sometimes I would arrive early before my class began and join a handful of people watching the jazz dance class. Over the course of the semester I recall just a tremendous growing admiration for the sheer strength and stamina of the dancers. That feeling infuses me when I watch So You Think You Can Dance. This season has been incredible and it has come down to two truly amazing dancers - Melanie and Sasha. They are both simply dazzling. So, that is my little tribute to one of the truly entertaining pieces of television out there.

Since this is my three-day weekend tomorrow is my last day of work this week. I've got a small stack of meetings, I've got about 20 odd things stacked up in my e-mail box, and I've got about a dozen open tickets. What can I say - it's been a week. I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend. I really want to go out and see the movie The Guard with Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. My tentative plan is to do that on Friday.

So as I slide into the weekend let me do it in the state of grace, dazzled by the dancers on television, and anticipating the power of modern theater through the lens of filmmakers. It seems that I am ending the day in appreciation of the arts that so cover our lives, that so enrich us, that so dazzle us. The picture that graces the beginning of this entry are those two amazing dancers I spoke of earlier, Melanie and Sasha. This is link is to one of their routines that brought the house to it's feet - enjoy - Melanie and Sasha Dancing.

Life is Mystery

It is a quiet Tuesday evening here in San Jose. I thought I'd take a few minutes and write about today. It was an interesting day. It started with the strange dreams about the nature of reality that I wrote about a short while ago and that contemplation of reality continued through the day. I had worked late last night and I went into the office early this morning with the intention of leaving early. Unfortunately that didn't happen. My calendar is kinda full this week and that is has made for some days are passing very quickly. This is my short work week so I have Friday off.

I came home tonight and stopped at JC's for some barbecue. As usual it was excellent chicken and hotlinks. I had that simple barbecue dinner and spent two hours watching the series finale of "Falling Skies". It was an excellent series and I'm glad to hear they renewed it for another year. It has an excellent cast Noah Wylie, Moon Bloodgood, and Will Patton. (I also happen to be a big fan of Noah Wylie's "The Librarian" series. It's sort of a guilty pleasure for me.) Rather than letting the DVR skip the commercials I let the commercials run and used that opportunity to start moving things back into the spare bedroom. The apartment complex is planning on coming to on Friday for a plumbing inspection, the routine deal, happens once a year. I had quite a few boxes stacked in the kitchen that I needed to just get out of the way.

I have all my books stacked on the kitchen table I'm guessing there's maybe 200 to 250. There might be less. I'm going to take a run through them, recycle more than a few and try to cut the number of actual physical books I have down to 50. I'm not really sure I'll be able to do it but I am going to give it a try. I would say that I currently do about 80% of my reading on the Kindle. I'm just a huge fan of the Kindle. Electronic media is the wave of the future whether it's books, music or movies. We can resist it but it's not a resistance we will ever win.

T.R. is traveling right now, sort of a mini vacation, sort of a getaway, sort of her retreat. All of those things wrapped together. We will communicate as we can while she travels and I'm sure I'm going to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about her. I am, as I mentioned in my profile, intensely private person. There are a variety of reasons for that, some good, some bad and most just are. it's hard for me to quantify or qualify the impact she's had on me. She moves with the simple grace, as mere TR, and it is sufficient that she is TR, and it is sufficient that she is mere. Sometimes life is about the sufficiency of things. Sometimes life is about the mere-ness of things. Whatever it happens to be about, life in all its glory is Mystery.

Is Reality Fragile?

I’ve mentioned before I am reading “Spares” by Michael Marshall Smith. I am at a point in the novel where the hero is about to enter “The Gap”, a sort of alternate reality/cyberspace construct to attempt to rescue the spares (clones) and the nature of reality is very slippery. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the book so it came as no surprise to me at all that I tossed and turned most of the night dreaming about the nature of reality.

Let me paint the scene for you. In my bedroom I have minimal furniture – I have a bed, two little night stands, a lamp, a hamper and a ceiling fan/lamp. There is a sizable window on the east wall of the bedroom and the window is shaded with both blinds and curtains. Because of the heat I have the window open and a small fan in the window and because of the light that streams in from outside I have the blinds lowered and the curtains pulled, all except the very small portion where the fan fits. Both the window fan and the ceiling fan are on, slowly turning, to keep the room nice and cool while I sleep.

I am laying there in bed, tossing fitfully, dreaming that the very nature of reality in the room is shifting. There isn’t a specific shift going on – it is just that everything is very amorphous, very fluid. Each time I sleep, reality shifts. Each time I wake, I anchor my thoughts on certain things and reality settles back into place. Somewhere in the middle of the night I realize that I can hold reality constant as long as I limit my thoughts to about seven or eight different items. It is only when my thoughts go above that number of items that reality begins to shift. Half-awake, half-asleep I anchor the room in my mind consciously by counting the objects in the room and placing them each in their proper position.

Then, finally, I am able to fall asleep and sleep soundly through the remainder of the night.

As a result of this nocturnal exploration I woke up this morning with my thoughts slowly maneuvering around the question of what is real. I think there was an interesting insight wrapped inside the dream. The human mind can hold, on average, four objects in our minds simultaneously (two in each hemisphere). When we cross that threshold, we begin a process of rapid switching objects in and out. The more objects we attempt to comprehend simultaneously, the more likely we are to make a mistake in our comprehension of the objects and by extension our interpretation and perception of reality becomes increasingly inaccurate.

Reality (based on our perceptions) is a fragile place. The more complex reality is the more fragile it becomes. I think that is a lot of the power that lies in any of the approaches to reality that stress simplicity and being “in the moment”. The fewer items we attempt to comprehend in any given moment, the more likely it is that our comprehension of those items will be accurate. By pulling ourselves into the moment, by focusing on a few simple things, we are better able to accurately perceive reality. It’s not that the complex nature of reality becomes any less fragile, but rather that we are more accurate in our interpretation of reality at the given moment.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-many-objects-can-you-hold-in-mind-simultaneously

Strange Dreams and Ordinary Days

I had another strange dream last night. I dreamed that I was kicked out of a luxury hotel. (Basically, in the dream, I was escorted out because I questioned (forcefully) the quality of some of the services the hotel was providing and the overall quality of the facilities). I have no idea why that dream surfaced - I've had a few confrontations with hoteliers over the years - but I've never actually been kicked out of a hotel. My most recent hotel stay (at the Town & Country Resort in San Diego) was excellent.

It started thinking about the recent flurry of strange dreams I've had and I have an inclination to lay the root cause on my apartment floor - specifically, on the new carpet. Not the new carpet itself, but the extended game of Tetris and the very significant re-ordering of the interior of my apartment, the significant changes in my living spaces. I suspect those have reached fairly deeply into my subconscious and have caused those deep and still waters to be stirred, resulting in the strange dreams. They haven't been bad dreams - they've just been vivid, unusual, and strange.

I've been moving slowly in my game of reverse Tetris, but I am going to pick up the pace this week. The property management firm wants to come through and inspect the plumbing and the smoke detectors (a yearly inspection), so I'll have to move a few boxes so they can get easier access to the kitchen. I've still got the boxes to be sorted through in the kitchen.

With the start of waking from the strange dream, it has been a good day. I met T. and B. at the Hickory Pit for breakfast. From there we went and saw "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes", which was very well done and enjoyable. A stop at the bank, a stop the gas the car, a hair-cut, a quick stop for lunch (sushi and Miso soup), then a couple of simple errands wrapped up the day. I swung home in the afternoon and took a short nap, then ordered pizza for dinner. Dinner is now done and I'm lazing my way into the evening, watching "The Last King of Scotland" on IFC and playing a bit of my game of reverse Tetris.

Comic Con 2011 Photo Set

Here's the link to the final photo set from the 2011 Comic Con trip. An outstanding time as usual!

San Diego Comic Con 2011

Have a mentioned that in my heart of hearts - I such a total geek.

Swordfish Dreams

I woke this morning from a dream of grilled swordfish and asparagus spears. It was a very vivid dream and I woke up hungry. I usually don't dream of food, but food (from a conversation with T.R.) was high on my mind last night when I drifted off to sleep. I may have to make it a point to find that piece of grilled swordfish this weekend.

That puts a strange thought in my mind. There are times when I find myself limited by the range of my habits. Thinking about the swordfish - there is excellent fish at the Race Street Fish Market, which is not that far from my apartment and maybe twenty minutes from work. I always enjoy the food there, but I rarely go there. Why? Habit pushes me toward other places, no other reason.

I've been reading an excellent book - "Spares" and I'm about two-thirds of the way into novel and it is outstanding. Twice in the last week I ended up either staying up late or getting up a little early so I could move through a couple of chapters. I'm within a night or two of finishing the novel and I almost don't want it to end. I'd definitely recommend it, just as T.R. recommended it to me. Well worth the read.

Today was a good day, breakfast, socializing with friends, a late burger, some DVR time and soon enough I am going to curl up with the novel and finish the day.

The Weight of Things

There are days when I let the weight of things get to me. I woke up on Tuesday thinking about the phrase “the weight of things” and have been contemplating it through the course of the last two days. When I say “the weight of things” I mean, I think, the value and importance that we assign to all the various objects, incidents, and accidents that move through our lives. Each thing has its own weight, it’s own true weight, and then we add to (or subtract from) that weight by our own choices and value judgments. During the month of August I want to spend some time focusing on the weight of things, focusing on the choices I make in regards to the weight of things, and maybe shift some of that weight around.

A Slow Journey Through An Old Box

I've started to slowly move things back into place in the house, sorting through them as I go. Tonight, I moved my computer table back into the spare bedroom (my office) and I threw out the contents of one drawer, one box, and an old light box.

The one drawer was an old desk drawer that contained some "stuff" that had probably been in there for years - old pens, old office supplies, old business cards, an envelope of old photos of no significance or quality. The only thing of interest that came out of that old drawer was an old pocket watch of mine. I'd almost forgot about it, so I moved it over in with my other watches.

The box was incidental paperwork that I'd held onto from about six months ago - since six months have passed I simply tossed it. Several of my boxes of stuff are now date stamped - if I am not in them after a certain amount of time passes away, out they will go.

The light box was an old light box I had kept from the days when we used to make technical drawings by hand. It's all done by computer now, so I have no need for it. It survived the last purge more from nostalgia and potential use that anything else - but, I haven't used it for over a year, so out it went. Once I get through my purging, I may take up drawing as a hobby again, in which case, if I need a light box I will just get a new one.

Over the next day or two I am going to break down and through away two pieces of furniture - an old desk and a four drawer bureau that I used in the bedroom. Both of them had been "stuff repositories" and with a few exceptions, I rarely dipped into them to use the stuff they contained, so by the law of usage they are done. Neither of them are of any particular value as furniture - both are just incidental pieces that were picked up somewhere along they way purely for their utility.

So, it was a night of steady progress in my minimalist journey. Slow and steady almost always takes us where we're going. Tonight's plan is simple - some DVR, some reading, and then some quality time with T.R.

The Return

Rapidly back into the swing of things at work I was struck by two things today.

First, the volume of irrelevant email is, as always, amazingly high. I picture offices full of people whose sole job is to write irrelevant email and see how widely they can get them distributed.

Second, I am struck by the number of times people in a big organization are simply looking for someone, anyone, to throw them a lifeline of some sort. Usually, it's because they work for people who fall into the first category above.

So, with those two observations in place - it was a good return to work. Yes, I had a small mountain of email to surmount, but I managed to get through about 75% of it. Yes, I went to a meeting that spun out of control and stretched on and on and on. Yes, working for micro-manager's is as pointless as it is amusing. But, all in all, it was a productive day.

I don't have anything major planned for the next couple of months, so I am looking forward to slipping into a simple routine and savoring these late summer days. Of course, that is a plan, and we all know what happens to the best of plans.