August Update

It's August, and I haven't posted for a while.  Let this be a general update for those of you whom I'm friends with and whom I haven't talked to in a while. 

But since I've moved to Lincoln, I've been spending a lot of time working and not very much time socializing, outside of a pretty small circle.  I spent so little time socializing while I was in Oakley (if you exclude Wednesday night basketball, I think I went to a grand total of 3 social functions (defined as a planned social interaction with one or more persons) outside of school the entire year... not exactly a huge number) that it's been weird getting back to where I know people in town and where I hang out with people in town.  All the same, I'm still apparently quite the hermit, though I'd probably love to see you. 

Back To School

Or, rather, not.  This is the first August in about 20 years that hasn't featured me getting ready to go to school/back to school in some capacity.  College classes start up on Monday.  The kids in the school district in which I used to teach go back on Wednesday (their teachers have been in in-service for about a week now).  The kids in the school-district here in Lincoln have been back for a few days.

I miss teaching, and interacting with students.  Several of my kids from Southeast have expressed quite a bit of disappointment that I'm not teaching this year.  I guess I'm somewhat disappointed, too, but it might be nice to have a job that doesn't require me to swallow my philosophical/moral beliefs, and which doesn't make me hate myself.  I'd like to return to teaching someday, but when I do, I'm going to be very careful about how I do it, and where.  The moral sacrifices required in most school districts right now, though, make me too sad and angry for it to be a viable option.

That said, as my kids from Southeast are heading off to college, I'm getting all nostalgic.  Best of luck to you guys.  I know you'll do amazing things.

Speaking of Jobs...

While I left Oakley to pursue a project as director of student outreach for a non-profit here in Lincoln, that opportunity pretty quickly became untenable (for a variety of reasons, at least some of them my fault), and so I will not be doing anything even resembling that.

Well, sort of.

I've been spending large parts of the Summer working with Ryan at setting up a new business.  Without divulging too much, we'll be an Arts and Entertainment hub, likely in downtown Omaha, with two 100+ seat theatres (for performances), a full-scale cafe, and a gaming center.  My job is to run our community outreach programs, and to do whatever I can to make everything else function smoothly, efficiently, and effectively.  Right now, we're narrowing down our list of buildings in which we might put this thing.

It's given me a chance to meet a lot of interesting people, and I've been spending a lot of time learning all sorts of new things.

That said, I've also been pulling 60-100 hour weeks most weeks, with more than a few 14-16 hour days.

Who knew starting a full-scale effort like this from scratch would be so much work?

First Crickets, Now This?

You may remember my ongoing battle with crickets from about a year ago (1, 2, 3).  I haven't had any insect problems in the new house, which I share with 3 members of the Lincoln slam community, but instead we've had slightly larger, squeakier problems:

Mice.

At least 3 of them.  They live in our ventilation system, which means the various humane traps we've placed around the house have done exactly bupkus, as have the slightly less humane sticky traps.  I called an exterminator about a week ago, but so far, we haven't been able to get them out of the vents long enough to catch them, humanely or otherwise.

Last year, I'd have entered into some type of long, moral dilemma regarding the ethical course of action.  But I've hardened quite a bit since last year, and now I just want the mice gone.  It'd be preferable if I could find another place for them to live, but frankly, timeliness is my top concern. Very specifically, I want them gone, and I want them gone now.

If I had a moustache and a 12-gallon hat, I'd even post a "Wanted (out of my home): Dead or Alive" poster and call all of my roommates "Pardner", but I don't have either of those.

Sorry, little mice.  You are so very cute with your whiskers and your twitchy noses.  But find somewhere else to live.  You are no longer welcome here.

Back to the Basics

A few interesting developments have sprung up this Summer: a house without internet, and lots of walking.

I do not have internet access at my house.  I can see several wireless routers in the area, but all of them are protected by WPA/WEP (or equivalent), and so they are unusable.  So we have no internet access whatsoever (no cable, either, for what it's worth).

I never thought I'd say this, especially given how the internet was, in many ways, my lifeline while in Kansas, but I like it.  It means fewer hours surfing facebook. less checking my e-mail, and almost no online gaming.

It also means that if I want to send an e-mail/facebook message to someone, I have to physically move somewhere with internet access, which in turn means I usually just pick up the phone and call, or I don't worry about it.

When you couple this with how I've been walking most places, it means that I spend less time sitting around on the internet, or if I am going to sit around, I have to walk 20 minutes first.  The only time I drive is if I don't have to pay for parking, or if I need the ability to get to different places quickly, or if it's going to rain.

I don't know why, but I never walked anywhere while I was in Oakley. I drove to school (which took, at most, 3 minutes), drove to the grocery store (another 3 minutes), and drove to the next town when I needed things I couldn't get at the grocery store (that one's reasonable, as the next town over is about 22 miles away).  But I never really walked, except when I was walking to a football game to film it.

I don't know why that is.  Maybe I wanted the ability to leave quickly after I was done for the day? Maybe I was just lazy?  Maybe it was nice just knowing that if I wanted to, I could pick up and go somewhere else?

Whatever the psychological reason, I find it strange that I rarely (if ever) walked while in a small town, and now that I live in a mid-sized city, I walk almost everywhere.

I'm still de-compressing from last year, but being in Nebraska feels healthier.  I have issues remembering to eat regularly (or sometimes at all), and I'm pulling ridiculous workdays, but I'm generally much more relaxed now than I was even 6 months ago.

Some of this is because I've gotten rid of a lot of the distractions I used as intellectual anesthetic (I no longer feel the need to stop thinking and be still), and some of it is because I'm getting a lot more social interaction than I've been used to.  A lot of it is because I'm getting a lot of physical activity, between walking everywhere and playing tennis.

But it's nice. I am writing and sleeping and sometimes even eating, and I think I am happy.

Weird Phone Call at the Office (A Dramatic Scene)

Scene: The fairly non-descript office of the Nebraska Writers Collective.  Andrew is sitting at his desk when the phone rings.  He answers it.

Andrew: Nebraska Writers Collective, this is Andrew, how can I help you?
Caller: Matt?
A: I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong number.
C: How'd you know it was me?
A: I'm sorry?
C: Where's my brother?
A: Matt?
C: Yeah, where is he?
A: There's no one here by that name, I'm sorry
A few seconds of silence elapse.
C: So... where is he?
A: Right now you're talking to a fellow named Andrew, at the office of a non-profit organization. No one named Matt works here.  So I think you've got a wrong number.
C: Okay...

After a few more seconds of silence, Andrew hangs up the phone. His facial expression reveals that he is confused, and is trying to decide if he was overly rude to this (clearly very confused) caller.  He sits back down at his desk, and opens up his blog.

[Exeunt]

Two Books I Would Like to Write, and an Unrelated Note

1) "Why I Am No Longer a Teacher, and Why I Will Always Be a Teacher"

An ethical discussion of the US's public education system and moreover, an indictment of the ways I find it to be morally and philosophically deficient, interwoven with memoir and interviews (similar to the way Don Miller writes), and also likely lots of humour.

2) "How to Write So That I Will Love You"

The first sentence of this book will be "I will probably never love you, but there is still hope yet for your happiness and writing acumen yet!"  The last sentence of this book will be "I might someday love you."

The in-between bits will be a stylistic exploration of writing, with lots of illustrative examples and also lots of useful lies.  I plan on also following Drew and Erika's lead by using "Strunk&White!" as an expletive throughout the book.

The Elements of Style can go roll an egg.

Also: a rhetorical primer, and likely some discourse on what I believe the roots of narrative writing are (Hint: It starts with a "C", and rhymes with "Hair-ick-turr"), as well as how we might begin accessing those roots.

Related: Stephanie Meyer can also go roll an egg.  So can Dan Brown.  Tom Clancy doesn't have to go roll an egg, though I want him to watch so that he understands very clearly what he's done.

* * * * *

On a completely unrelated note, the city of St. Louis is now my second favourite city in which I've spent less than 2 weeks of total time.  The first is Madison, WI, but only by a very small margin.

Last Night Was a Good Night

1) My hearing-aid is finally getting fixed.

2) Stir-fry and board-games with a friend last night. He made the stir-fry (various sweet peppers, celery and beef strips, accompanied by white rice), I made a delicious smoothie (Orange juice, fresh raspberries and blueberries, vanilla yogurt and a banana; it was a nice fruity smoothie with a bit of a blueberry aftertaste) and we tried to figure out how to play Race for the Galaxy. 

There was some fun as we each tried to find a way to make the other guy pick "Produce" or "Consume", and so the game lasted a little longer than perhaps it should have. The friend ended up beating me by 11 (39 to 50), as he had two six-point development cards out.

It's a fun game; I like the "optimization" type games, and I appreciate how the game does not allow players to screw each other over at all.  Not that a bit of screwage isn't fun at times in a board game, but it's nice every so often to play a game that focuses on progressing faster rather than slowing your opponent down.

3) Played tennis with two friends. It's my 3rd time out on the court in the last 3 or 4 months, and after we played king-of-the-court for a while, a fellow from the other court, who is a CPA in a town nearby, decided to join us. I think he played tennis while in college (probably a decade or so ago, if I had to guess), and so he and I rallied for a while while my two friends (who just started playing last year) rallied on a different court.

I was hitting my backhands better than I've ever hit them, as I finally switched back to a two-hander and apparently figured out my footwork.  He was the better player by a pretty decent margin, but it was cool just being able to keep up with him and win a few points. 

I wouldn't be able to hold my own in a match against this guy without a solid month of work on my serve (at least!) and serve-return, and even then, would probably not do much better than a 6-4 set (with him winning and me playing at my absolute best), but it was still pretty cool to be able to hold my own in rallies.

4) Mumbles and Dusty, two poets from Sacramento, were in Omaha and needed a place to stay.  I saw them perform at the National Poetry Slam last year (in a duet piece, actually), and so (after a phone call to me by a member of the Omaha poetry community) they drove down to Lincoln, arrived at 1 am, and we talked for a bit.  I had an air mattress set up for them, and I think they were happy to not have to sleep in their cars.  I imagine that they are still asleep.

I'm off to make a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. It will probably have very thinly sliced apples in it.

Pun of the Day: 1 June 2009

A violinist was was working on composing a new piece when he noticed that every time he played it, his dog and cat would come into the room, sit quietly, and then fall asleep. Being the observant sort, as well as something of an amateur scientist, he tried this at a friend's house; the same thing happened to her dogs! Immediately, this violinist contacted the director of the local zoo to see just how far his abilities extended.

He'd had some splendid success at the zoo, where he could enter the tiger pit and play the tigers to sleep with the soothing sounds of his violin, but wanted to test out his hypothesis in a more challenging environment: the jungle!

After several hours of hard hiking, the violinist found an ideal clearing, which happened to be right in the middle of an area known for its wildlife. He takes his violin out of its case and begins playing.

Sure enough, before too long, a pack of gorillas (who are, by nature, wary) sauntered by. They were immediately entranced by the music and sat to watch. Several minutes later, the same thing happened to several elephants. Before too long, there were tigers, ocelots, jackals, and a whole variety of birds, all sitting very still and very peacefully while this violinist played.

Suddenly, the violinist was attacked from behind by a leopard, and killed!

The animals were aghast (they're anthropomorphized for the sake of this joke), and asked the leopard "Why, why, why did you kill this man?!"

"Huh?"

"The music, you fool! You killed the music! Didn't you hear it?"

"What music?"

Pun of the Day: 23 May 2009

(This one is an Andrew Ek original)

If, instead of using palm-reading to tell the future, I am using nostril-reading to tell someone's future, am I making prognostrilcations?

New Poem: Love Letter from Ares, God of War, to Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Wife to Hephaestus, God of Blacksmith'ry

(Draft 1 - critiques welcome)

“A Love Letter From Ares, God of War, to Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Wife to Hephaestus, God of Blacksmith'ry”
Andrew Ek

Can you feel the sunshine, love,
bearing down warm upon your face?

You spend so much time underground
with him, the lord of volcanos, but
the world deserves your beauty;
your belief that you do not deserve
its beauty in return mystifies me.

I do not understand why you
render yourself absent so often,
and yet you do, Aphrodite.

His reason is simple; he is outcast, as am I, markedly different.
His mark a disfigured body, mine a disfigured soul
both too twisted for the realms of perfection
and yet I strive sometimes for normalcy, for calmness.
It is in these moments of lucidity that I can think.
These moments unnerve me, but I find myself in one now. 
Still, I much prefer the blind passion
of battle, of love, of conquest.

You, you are love incarnate,
and found in carnality, in the flesh.
We are kindred in temperature
and temperament, with none
of the cool rationality that marks
him to whom you bound yourself.

But Aphrodite, you and I are
creatures of passion, and the
blood coursing through your veins
is much the same as mine,
as is the blood left on the battlefield
by my work in the affairs of men
and their foaming at their mouths.

It is all the same, all made of heat.

Aphrodite, your name means “foam-born”
and your very birth was an act of violence
when your father stabbed his father
and stole the throne
you were borne of the droplets of blood, of conquering
it is only natural then that we should love each other.

We are not like your husband working at his forge,
steely and deliberate; the impulses he delivers with his
hammer are different from the impulses which govern our lives;
They are arguably more pure.

He loves you deliberately, beautifully, but not like I do.
His love is a cool and solid thing.
He is the better man.

We are that which we create, Aphrodite:
lust for flesh and lust for blood;
you and I create passion, blind and fervid.
We are the genesis of the uncontrolled,
making men and women out of cowards,
but it is just as often that we make cowards
out of men and women.  Surely you remember
how we fled the shores of Ilium?

I create bloodlust and hatred;
I am rage and destruction.
These are hardly conditions for you.

Your husband, Hephaestus, creates strength;
his creations at the forge are solid, ornate, beautiful.
You inspire him in a way that you never did me,
and every shield, every breastplate, every buckler exists
to bring a warrior back home to his lover after the fighting ceases,
after my work is done.
I am the cause for death, grieving, tears and destruction.
He preserves life, such that you might make life joyful
after the burnt farms have grown back and the dead are buried.

It is too often that our works destroy each other, Aphrodite,
and so it is better that we are apart,
lest we destroy each other too.
It is better that you are underground.

But even with this distance, Aphrodite, I still wonder:
can you feel the sunshine, love,
bearing down warm upon your face?

I do
like waves of blood
on the fields of slaughter.
The feeling reminds me of you;
there is a certain serenity in it,
a certain sense of peace.