Music, culture, distracted posting

Just sitting around at home, trying to work on a mixed CD for the folks at school.  We all promised that we’d make a mix of our favorite songs and then share, so as to increase our musical horizons.  When you listen to 10+ hours of music a day, sometimes you have to have someone inject some new sounds into your repertoire.  When I’ve got a resonable playlist, I’ll post it here, so you all can oh and ah at my fantastic musical taste.  I’m going to try to keep it pretty folky, since there was an original idea to have each person’s mix be one genre, and since much of my music falls into that very broad category.

I’m going to a conference call today on how my mother’s church can work with the new Orlando Performing Arts Center.  Kind of exciting to think that Orlando might have an answer to Playhouse Square.  It’s not nearly as much of a cultural wasteland as you naysayers out there may think.  Or at least it won’t be in five years.

Actually, when you think about a new performing arts center, you realize just how much interesting culture there is in a place.  I think that once it’s consolidated, people will take quite a different view of the city, and perhaps the city will take a different view of itself.

I’ve got to get going so that I can drop mom at work and have the car to get to this meeting later.  I got a new licence, with a horrible picture, for this very moment.  So, more on cultural development and Orlando next time.

Postscript is that I’m staying at mom’s until Monday night, so photos won’t be up until Tuesday at the earliest.

Been a long time coming

Woah, back on the blog – I’ve been away too long.

So, lots of developments. I went into a bit of a funk for a few days when I couldn’t get my design for studio worked out. Called mom, talked it through with her, got a few ideas, came into studio and worked out the plan in less than an hour. Woo Hoo. But then again, after worrying over the plan for so long, I lost a bit of what the overall architectural vision of the place is. Recoverable, and that’s the next task, after all, but a little scary to find oneself so unsure of something that is really the basic unit of what makes a plan architecture.

Anywhoo, on to more exciting/recent developments, I voted today, and I hope that you did too.

Sunday night I drove up to Portland with a greatly reduced crew to the Bonnie Prince Billy concert. A bunch of folks bailed on the show, but thanks the power of Craigslist, we were able to resell the tickets no problem. The show was awesome despite the fact that I only recognized about four of the songs, and the fact that we were sitting about 10 feet away from a guy who decided to heckle for the entire show.

The rain in Portland that night was particularly bad – we think that the leaves had covered all of the storm drains, and we actually had to cross in the center of streets because the intersections had become impassable rivers. Also, there was a rumor that there was a small earthquake while we were in the show! The rain, though, has started in a serious way, and it’s impossible to keep dry, although my Patagonia jacket does well for the top half. Gotta get some fenders and some rain pants.

Big brother Dan is visiting, and he helped me set up a new external hard-drive for my computer, so that I can hopefully get my creative suite running fast, lightning fast… He’s also cooking tasty food for me, and we’ve gotten to chat a bit. Tough trying to get time with him while trying to be a responsible student.

Oh, by the way, on Friday, there was a really great lecture by the folks at Lead Pencil Studio. The work was inspiring, and it was fascinating to glimpse how their collaborative creative process worked/how they blurred the lines between art and architecture.

Ok, off I shall go to grab precedents for our little cabin we just designed for building construction – whoops, aren’t the precedents supposed to come first?

Happy Birthday to me

I had a wonderful birthday today, including a very happy party last night. We had all sorts of desserts, (it was a dessert potluck) and some dancing, and just a nice little group of people that all fit quite comfortably in our little house.

I spent most of the day in the studio today and didn’t get much done – in part because I had long phone conversations with Dad, Dan, Mom, and Ray. I’m definitely feeling very rough around the edges as far as school goes. I did an abysmal job on our assignment on Friday and I feel like the work I did get done today is pretty substandard. I don’t know what it is, but my jive is off, and I want it back. On the other hand, I’m doing pretty well with the reading and writing, so there’s something.

On that note, I’ve been meaning to write a bit more about the Thinking and Making, but I’m not sure it will happen any time soon. We’ve been reading about Existential Space, and I’m guessing that I might have a few thoughts about our Spatial Composition reading every week, since it’s nice and theoretical.

Off I go to do a bit of reading before bedtime. I’m 24!

What a day, what a day

Actually, a couple of days.  Let’s go back, back to…Tuesday.  I stayed up late on Monday night, watching movies On Demand.  Tuesday morning I woke up and decided that it was the perfect moment to begin shaving again.  Since it’s been about a year since I last shaved, and I haven’t shaved regularly since high school, this is an undertaking for me.  I got prepared and then took my shower, which was at least half an hour of bending over in the hot water, focusing on my lower legs.  They’re lovely, let me tell you.  Well, upon exiting the shower I felt faint, and stumbled over to my bed, where I collapsed.  I worked hard not to fall asleep, and managed to get myself upright once again, angling for downstairs and a glass of O.J. to get my blood sugar back up.  Well, I didn’t make it.  I fainted right outside of my bathroom, collapsing in a heap on the floor.  I was lucky enough to not hit anything and to come to almost instantly, as my stepmother yelled to ask if I was o.k.  I yelled back that no, everything was not o.k., and she ran up to help me back up.  We made it down half of the stairs before she set me down, telling me that I was actually gray, and went to get me that glass of O.J.  Almost the instant that I started to drink it, I felt better again, but it was really quite a scare that the combination of staying up late, being quite dehydrated from the previous day, and taking a long hot shower could cause me to faint.

After my fainting spell I ate breakfast, read for a while, and then accompanied my dad to Winnie Palmer Hospital, where he works, to see the new building.  He worked closely with the architect, Jonathan Bailey, during the design of the building, and as an architecture student I wanted to check out the building.  It’s a beautiful building, not what you’d think of if you imagined “Hospital.”  It looks more like a hotel, with a lovely open waiting area and café seating on the first floor, and semi-private rooms throughout.  It’s truly state of the art, and I think they did an excellent job of balancing the requirements of the building for privacy and maneuverability.  The concept of the panopticon, that dreadfully unpleasant 19^th century (?) prison scheme, is transformed and reapplied here, so that the centralized nurses stations in the various pods of the building have sightlines, which means that doctors and nurses can quickly see where their attention should be focused.  The greatest drawback of the building that I noticed was that wayfinding would be difficult for an inexperienced user: the building is made up of clusters of circular pods, and looks uniform throughout.  There are few obvious landmarks and the color scheme is a constant black, beige, and white.  There are subtle indications of location and there is signage to direct you, but the building isn’t inherently clear.  Still, it’s a lovely building, and I think that as the staff gets used to it, they’ll really begin to value its many great features.

We returned home after the visit to the hospital, and shortly before we headed out for dinner, my mom called to tell me that our dog, Max, had died the previous night.  Max was 13 years old, and was sort of an old curmudgeon, but despite his character flaws, he was so loveable.  He’d bark at anything and wouldn’t quiet down when you asked him to, he’d freak out when a storm came, or when a tall male would approach him, and he’d dig in the backyard, and I spent most of my time being upset with and annoyed at him.  But I’m so sad he’s gone.  He was my quintessential pet, the pet for me against whom all other pets will be measured.  I had other pets before him and have already had other pets since, but he’s Max, my archetypical pet.

Anyways, I tried (and succeeded for the most part) not to cry at the news, since it could have really set me off, considering that it happened to be a year, to the day, since my stepgrandfather had died.  Thankfully, we were heading out to dinner with my stepaunt and stepgrandmother, so I put Max’s death out of mind and just enjoyed the dinner, despite the fact that conversation somehow came around to the various dogs in the family.  I made it through dinner, went home, and got down to packing.

Throughout the day on Tuesday, we watched as Hurricane Ernesto traveled across Cuba and made landfall in Florida, trying to determine whether my plane would be able to leave the next morning.  I was lucky to find that the signs posted at the Southwest terminals on Wednesday morning stated that planes leaving at 8:50 and later would be delayed; my flight departed at 8:10.  I’m not sure that they did actually delay the other planes, since the reports of the day that I received said that it was mostly dry and that the storm was no worse than any other storm, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.

I spent pretty much the whole of Wednesday traveling.  My flight was uneventful, the way I like it, and then I waited an hour at the
Albany airport for the bus to the bus station.  There, I waited three and a half hours for the bus to Great Barrington.  That wait was less than pleasant, but the bus ride itself was actually rather nice.  I decided to stop reading, since I was going through my book much too quickly, and instead, I just looked at the passing landscape and thought about life a bit.  I pondered how Oberlin orientation was going and made a note to check in with Caitlin and Anna before they began trying to co-captain the Preying Manti.  I thought a bit about the previous day’s adventures, and about the four feature films that I’ve watched so far this break (Match Point, The Lord of War, Supersize Me, and My Summer of Love).  I got excited about visiting my Grandparents. 

But, the sort of revelation that I had pertained to the upcoming
Vermont visit.  It struck me that with the going away party for the
South Main gang, and just the fact that I’ll be there towards the end of summer, I imagine the visit will feel like the end of summer camp.  You know that time when you’re staying up late at night, going through these rituals of trying to get the most out of being with another human that you are particularly enamored of?  When you’re trying to get the last drop of a place, trying to suck that last little bit of marrow out of that particular part of your life?  Except that while I imagine that will be the emotional setting of the situation, I can also see the distinct possibility that I will in fact be on the outside of the rituals.  In my mind’s eye I can see this plate glass wall dividing me from those moments of deep experience; after all, I’ve been away for the past three months, and since it’s summer in Vermont, that counts for a lot, since everyone has come out of hibernation.  I’ll do my best to make sure that those mental pictures don’t play out that way in reality, in part by making this trip full of new things, not just replays of old times, but at least I’m prepared for the possibility of that lonesome feeling of being the outsider.

As a counterpoint to all those thoughts, however, I just want to say that I really do like being in this part of the world.  The mountains are about the right size for me, about the right distance apart, and there are lots and lots of trees.  There are lovely old houses, and the sky is blue.  Particularly in Brattleboro, people are comfortable with one another, and there’s a lot going on at the small scale.  I know why it was hard to leave here, and why I thought I might end up returning.  I think that this trip is confirming for me that it’s a real possibility that I would move back to Vermont at some point in my life.  The similarity between Wales and Vermont also still pleases me (Back story: I wanted to visit Wales, inexplicably, for many years while I was growing up, and finally went in 2003 when I was studying abroad in London.  It was my first real adventure totally alone in the world for just over a week, and I walked around the countryside just absorbing it and pondering life.  It was a fantastic and formative experience).

Of course, as always, there’s more to tell – of today’s stroll around Great Barrington, where I ran into Emily and arranged to tentatively get together with her on Saturday, and where I tried on a fabulous and fabulously expensive sweater by “Amiee G;” of last night’s conversation with Grandpa about the merits of thinking and the wonder of life; of how I can’t get enough of the Diamond Age – there’s always more.  But for now I’ll get going and spare you from this grandiloquent mood I’m in.  Hooray for making it through such interesting times with such grace and flair.

Flickr, I hardly know her

Couldn’t resist.

As we speak, I’m uploading my first set of photos to my new Flickr account.  Very exciting, but a somewhat slow process.  The photos just happen to be – you guessed it – pictures of my cube house.  Because of that, some of them required serious photoshopping, since they’re photos of flat drawings.  Hopefully they come out o.k. online.

What to say, what to say. On Saturday, I went to Speaking of Women’s Health, a conference which my stepmom Debbie helps organize.  It was really fun to be able to go with so many of the women in my family, and the speakers that I saw were very good.  It’s inspiring me to be ever more careful about sun tan lotion and perhaps to take up shaving since part of the gift bag is a very nice razor.  Debbie did a great job, and I’d definitely go again.

I’ve just blogged a photo from Flickr, so I guess that will show up before this post.  But I don’t want to have to individually blog each photo I post, so I’ll have to figure out a way to finesse the system. I guess I’ll just recommend that you, dear reader, look at the set to which the photo I blog belongs.

So, I guess that after all I don’t have much to say, because I’m now burned out on all this technology.  I’m rereading Diamond Age, one of my most favorite books, speaking of technology.  I left the Bible with mom, but I think she might get me a copy of that translation as a gift, which will be interesting.  And today I took some pictures of flowers around the house before my battery ran out to both test out my new memory card (hooray) and to get to know my camera in a more than business relationship.  Those, of course, will be uploaded to my new Flickr account at some point, perhaps when I am again using my fast little Mac.

Ok, off to edit the Flickr post and go get dinner.