Category Archives: Music

Almost the day : Birthday Month update

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Today has been a fairly laid-back day. Considering.

I got up at 10-ish and have been on slow ever since. Pauline & Kathryn’s class was having a reading day and I decided to forego more Protégé work this evening in Allen’s class. We will be doing more next week.

So I have been giving myself a break.

Last night was my party at Crane Alley. I thought it turned out nice [some pictures someone else's]. Thanks to all who came! I hope you find something to enjoy in your presents but I know music is a very personal thing. More in a bit about the party.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is actually my birthday but it is set to be a little more down-to-earth than last night. I have an hour massage scheduled in the afternoon and there’s a full lunar eclipse early enough in the evening and it is supposed to be clear out. Bitterly cold. But clear.

I know to be a realist about the weather here in mid-February but I have some hope. That is, 28-hour or so forecasts are starting to be admissible evidence in my world.

I’ll probably take myself out to dinner somewhere—no idea—and if anyone wants to join me let me know. You are definitely off-the-hook for buying my dinner but I’d love a little company. Probably 6 or 6:30ish.

I went and saw my friend, Eva Hunter, perform solo Friday night in Danville. Gina was there, too, so that was nice. Eva was willing to sing me a song for my birthday but unfortunately the song I want hasn’t been in her repertoire for a while now. Since before I started seeing her perform 5-6 years ago. :(

A large amount of my “free time” after work and sleep from the evening of the 13th until sometime yesterday afternoon was spent compiling these, writing notes, burning and packaging them. Everyone who came to my party got a set. [One person left their's so if it was an accident just let me know and I'll happily replace them. But if you'd rather not that's fine, too.]

I haven’t made a compilation CD since coming to Urbana-Champaign in August 2004. Actually. The last one ended in August 2003. Oh my. A time of pure hell, but a year before I left and moved here still.

This was a hasty project that took up much of my time for 5 days, and it is certainly no attempt to be comprehensive. That would be a fool’s errand. I do like it, though, as I have listened to them over and over for much of that 5 days—certainly since the playlists were finalized. Of course, getting them finalized takes a lot of listening to transitions and such.

Starting tomorrow, I need to get back on track. Sure. It’ll be my birthday.

So I won’t try and make up 5 days of work in one—another fool’s errand—but I will begin with something I enjoy like beginning a new-to-me Harris book that looks very important to my paper.

Back to the party …

Thanks so much to whomever paid for my dinner and drinks. And an especially big thanks to those who took good care of Lisa. She would not let me give her a tip. She said my friends took care of me and very good care of her. Thank you!

She then told me I could come in for dinner next Monday and give her the tip. I told her I would do my best but laughed and said it would be smaller next week.

I got a ride over from a vixen and a ride home from a wonderful couple I wish I saw far more of. Of course, I wish I saw much more of everyone who was there. Tentative, vaguish commitments were made with a few folks. I certainly hope I see Ben around at some point. He’s at GSLIS but I just met him last night.

Rachel knit me a sweet hat during the party, or at least finished it there. Tom gave me a productive-looking book: Hickman, Larry A. 2007. Pragmatism as post-postmodernism : lessons from John Dewey. New York: Fordham University Press.

I had the butternut squash ravioli, which was OK but it was much better the 1st time. I had 4 pints of Guinness (and have felt surprisingly good today) and 3 sips and a lot of sniffs of a fine scotch compliments of El Diablo. A few other sips were had by others so it did not go entirely to waste; not that it did anyway. But more was “consumed” in the typical sense with the help of others.
Oh, by the way, the shirt I was wearing was having a birthday of a sort itself, it is 29-years old.

In between most of the above and here, I took myself out to the diner for dinner and began on that Harris book: Harris, Roy. 1996. Signs, Language, and Communication : Integrational and Segregational Approaches. London; New York: Routledge.

I’m going to close this now as I want to go back to slowly passing the evening. Tomorrow involves work and meetings and so on beginning at the normal time. But that is tomorrow still.

What Martin Luther King Jr. Day now means to me

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Truthfully, I will not be addressing that directly as such. Much more oblique will be my comments.

But first some initial resources:

Five years ago today—well, it was 20 January in 2003—I was sitting at home listening to the MLK Jr. specials on the radio (NPR) when at 4:02 PM CT I heard that 12,000 soldiers from Fort Hood (4ID) were being mobilized.

4th Infantry Division (4ID) is the division I retired from and the one my son was serving in at the time. Not that this was publicly known yet, but they were to be the hammer out of the north from Turkey in the initial invasion of Iraq.

Later that evening after a couple pints of beer and attempted reading I went by the ex’s for a hug and some talk. Jeremy called while I was there. Said aircraft had to be on ships down south by the end of the week & they’ll be 2 weeks behind. When I got home from Mary’s I called my mom and then my sister.

So, here I am, almost 44 years old & my baby’s ordered to war. Where did I go wrong? [my journal, 9 PM 20 Jan 2003]

The complete irony of the formal announcement of these deployments on Martin Luther King Jr. Day did not escape me. Nor will it ever.

My son’s deployment was quite hard on me. The reasons are quite complex and I will never fully understand them myself and certainly never be able to explicate them to others.

My son and his family have been lucky so far and he has had a job for the last couple years such that—unlike many who have been back several times in the last almost 5 years of war—he has not. That shall change soon, though. He is on his way back to Fort Hood and the 4th ID.

So here I sit again contemplating my son’s (possible) deployment.

That, and so much more, is what Martin Luther King Jr. Day will forever mean to me.

… consistently we are resistant to love …

Four Bitchin’ Babes. “Beautiful Fool.” Beyond Bitchin’

Song I used to “commemorate” MLK Jr. Day 2003, the mobilization of 4ID and the march to war on my 2003 compilation CD.

Christmas visit with family and friends

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I went to Falls Church, Virginia to visit family and friends 20 – 29 December. I got home yesterday evening. Drove to Bloomington (1 hour) and flew through Detroit to Dulles and back again.

Going out of Bloomington vs. Champaign is about $150 cheaper round trip and parking is free, which is a substantial savings. BMI now has free public wireless! Yay! Champaign did already for UIUC folks since it’s owned and run by the University, but I read recently that they opened it up to all of the public. Bravo! Now if only the larger airports could get on board.

I was overjoyed to have wireless in BMI on the way out since my flight hadn’t arrived and I got an update from Orbitz before the airline (Northwest) even mentioned it. It seems our airplane couldn’t see well enough to land and got diverted to Champaign to refuel before coming back to Bloomington. Other planes were landing and taking off, though. We left Bloomington after my flight to DC from Detroit had left; many others on our flight missed their flights.

I used the wireless to get several more updates from Oribtz and found a phone # for NWA. They had me re-booked already on a later flight out of Detroit so
I got to DC a couple hours later.

Coming home, our plane in Detroit had maintenance issues and we finally got another plane scheduled for about 3 hours later. Not too bad, but it’d sure be nice if the airline had paid for wireless. I think free public wireless should be at all airports, for many reasons. But until wiser minds see reason and understand service it’d at least be nice of your airline would provide it once you have a delay. Oh well. Travel; it could’ve been much worse.

I had a wonderful visit with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece, son, daughter; and friends, Miss E, and Christina Pikas and her husband, Mark. Thanks all.

Saw several movies. Ate assorted cuisine, including Vietnamese with Christina and Mark. Also had great Chinese with E. Played games. Talked. Went to the Natural History Museum and Botanic Gardens. Helped figure out the audio wiring in a new house. Helped with the cooking, sometimes. Ate lots of tasty food.

I fear Christina’s Mark had to suffer through a goodly amount of librariana/grad school talk. Sorry, dude.

No idea what the mail state is since it’s been held since the 20th. Perhaps it’ll get delivered tomorrow; I believe that’s what I asked for. Online holding of your mail is easy, btw.

I have to say that I’m already feeling overwhelmed. So much to do. Bottom line, I put off a major decision until after this visit. Now, I’m back and facing a massive deadline on the 11th of Jan. I was ordered to leave it be until after my visit, so I did. If this does not go well then it’ll be decision time. I have only discussed this with an extremely small number of people; can only think of 2 at the moment and I did not bring it up on my trip. While I love and trust everyone I saw on my trip, I wasn’t ready to discuss this. Don’t really have the words to explain it anyway.

I did 4 loads of laundry this morning, which is a large number for me. Went to the grocery store. Trying to do final updates to several posts; publishing one. Need to reply to a couple serious comments. Changed the header images on a single post and the main Archives page with some slices of a couple photos I took at the United States Botanic Garden. Published another post [Sorry if I'm overloading you, Christina.]

Photos of Christmas presents (known, to date; see mail comment above). Red penciled the current state of my bibliography. Read some. Watched 3 episodes of the Simpsons Season 2.

I know this is fragmented and brief. So much more could be said about many things.

I relaxed while on vacation, while I did not end on a relaxed and rested note, since I was tired most of the time on my visit. I might ought to broach a serious topic with some other folks, but I have to focus on moving forward towards the 11th first. If I reach that OK then other issues may melt away.

I really did enjoy spending time with everyone I saw. I sure wish my niece had been less sick, though.

Perhaps I’ll write more about this year ending and the new one beginning tomorrow. Perhaps not.

def:lld

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Life. What the fuck is that anyway? How do we know if we’re living it?

Mama I’m strange
The thoughts and the wants are the locks on the back of my brain

Melissa Etheridge. “Mama I’m Strange.” breakdown.

Last week ended … weirdly. In a flattering way mind you, but nonetheless weirdly. One could do with more of (parts of) that.

Friday was a very slow day with a few hours to make up due to weirdness.

Last night I really slept like crap. I had multiple bad headaches. I could and did manage to find another “place” in my mind/head every so often but in every place I found another, different, bad headache. I should have went to bed way sooner than I did.

Stayed up too late, and watched a movie.

Now I’ve been sitting at this computer almost all day and I’m very tense. And if not at the computer(s), then I’ve still probably been sitting. Been freezing rain and stuff outside. Thankful I am for online public library renewal.

And, as one will notice based on further reading, I’ll be sitting at the computer(s) for a while now.

Aunt Wanda

Thursday my mom called to tell me that my Aunt Wanda had had an operation and that at some point she started fighting for her life. Mom called this morning to let me know that Aunt Wanda had passed earlier this morning.

… and i really don’t know how it happened so fast
how we all grew so old
how we fell out of touch …

Eva Hunter. “Cold Shivers.” Fancy Prairie.

I will most likely be attending a funeral in St. Louis in the next several days. Eva’s son, thankfully, does not tell the entire story.

I got to (re)know my Aunt just a few years ago. Unlike when I was a kid, I found her very comforting to be around and my view of our relationship and her importance in my life [mostly] from a very early age was dramatically shifted to the better. I am so glad for that. I haven’t seen her in a few years either now since last spending some quality time with her. I am so very sad about that.

I accidentally left a very important (personal meaning) knee pillow at her house the last time I was there. I knew it was safe.

Do I wear a uniform? How in the hell do I begin to answer that question now?

What I should be doing

Should be seriously focusing on bibliography. Need annotations (lots of re-reading), lots of synthesis (lots of re-readings), well-crafted essay on the connections between Harris and Hjørland and due fairly soon. Need drafty thing real soon. Finished in two weeks, perhaps.

Also have class in the rare book room Wed. AM to see 2oth century fine press books.

Only thing left in Dave’s class (Python) is a lecture next Thur. and then a take-home final which I’ll have a week for. Unfortunately during prime bibliographical essay writing time.

I have a draft of my CAS paper proposal (for Spring) out for comment. Awaiting feedback. Won’t make registration during Fall but want to be ready to register as soon as it re-opens at start of Spring.

As I hope any library-type reading this knows, the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control Draft Final Report came out. Comments are only open until 15 Dec. Comment link on the previous link.

I began reading this Friday morning but haven’t gotten very far. This is very important in my opinion but the timing really sucks for academics (and many others) whose semesters will be wrapping during and until the deadline.

I hope I have time to comment on this. If I am tight on time (“if” haha.) then I may concentrate on the educational part 5. But maybe something else will really capture my thoughts as I read it, so who knows?

Little time to be as engaged in this as I would like. See my various comments re CommentPress version of this.

What I am doing

thinking I should clean my apartment. dead give-away.

books read in 2007 data collection. primarily this, but am also generating data for related things so I’m annotating in various ways as note-taking and data verification. But not on anything imminently critical. [did a lot of this earlier in the day.]

calling my brother-in-law for his birthday, Christmas-time arrangments discussion.

looking/listening for linguistically-related song snippets for use as epigraphs. no time to explain.

dreaming about going beyond what I need to be doing in the present re my CAS project. Doing what needs to be done soon is important, and it is a part of what needs to be doing overall, and a time to reflect, consider, synthesize, and present some of that coherently. All critical. Yet, still, I want to go on questing.

thinking about my aunt, and a funeral.

not thinking about the topic of my bibliography.

reading a bit more of the Working Group report. dreaming about what I’d love to do with it but simply cannot. We need a CommentPress version. Quickly.

writing blog posts. [across all of day.]

Recent life before now

I went to Columbus, OH to be with Sara, Max, and others for Thanksgiving.

Monday afternoon I went to Bloomington-Normal for a dental appointment. Saw my friends Mo & Chris and a few others. Ended the evening not feeling very well.

Slept like crap (not as bad as last night). Was sick on Tuesday. Unfortunately, where it was all overcast when I didn’t want to climb out of bed at 6 AM on Monday, on Tuesday when I didn’t climb out bed for a couple hours it was all bright out.

Need to make that missed time up during break.

Wednesday through the present, thinking & scribbling about (scholarly) annotation tools [began in the context of MDRT discussion pt. 2 on OAI-ORE.

A non-wrap up

So work towards my bibliography is most crucial and not getting done. Not capable of much sustained, coherent thought at the moment it seems. And the only serious reading I am trying at the moment is the LC Working Group report.

Life cares not a whit for good timing.

This is still confused and/or confusing, in an odd order, evasive, etc. Little of that is actually intended. Sorry.

“It’s a metaphor, if you know what I mean”: DDC’s fundamental flaw

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you could always hear the rub squeaking
of those two tree limbs
’til one day one of them came down
taken down by the wind
but on the one that’s still there
you can still see where the bark was
rubbed bare
it’s a metaphor
if you know what i mean

Ani DiFranco ¤ “how have you been” ¤ out of range

Today I discovered a, perhaps the, fundamental flaw in DDC. There is (practically) no concept of metaphor.

I was cataloging a German book on Metapher which had no Dewey number in the record so I turn to the Relative Index and flip to m…e…t…a…p…h…o. Uh. Huh? Wait. “m” “e” “t” “a” “p” “h” “o”. Blink. Turn away and look back. Try again. Question my sanity and/or my spelling. And slowly realize that metaphor just ain’t to be found in the Relative Index (print DDC22). Knowing full well that this concept has been around for a day or two, I fire up WebDewey to see if there is something more up-to-date. In the Relative Index I find zip, nada, zilch. Try in the Schedules. I think I got 3 possibilities, all of which are possibilities but not necessarily good ones.

Head over to ClassWeb and put the LCSH “Metaphor” into the LCSH–DDC mapper and get 10 possible numbers. Much better, although many of those were only slight variants. Looking at these actual numbers in the Schedules, in most cases, still left one with no idea they were looking for the concept metaphor.

Now, I am well aware that metaphor would (should) show up in many places in the DDC Schedules based on the way DDC is constructed. But there is practically no explicit mention of it anywhere.

While it may be possible that we could have natural language without metaphor, it would certainly not resemble anything humans know as language for the last 2 millennia or more. Nor is classification even possible without metaphor.

Yes, my claim as to the, or even a, fundamental flaw may be a tad strong, but I still find this immensely disturbing.

Another disturbing thing I noticed today was the wholehearted amoral stance DDC takes on occasion. For instance, see this sequence:

304.6 Population
304.66 Demographic effects of population control efforts
304.663 Genocide (Class here ethnic cleansing)

On what level exactly is genocide a population control effort? (except in a very euphemistic sense)

Of course, there are 1000s more of these sorts of things that are amiss, along many dimensions.

Some days and for some items DDC and LCSH work just fine. But on other occasions the utter failure of being able to adequately express a topic in one or the other (or both) is incomprehensible and frustrating.

I do love cataloging and classification. I just wish we had some better tools, much better rules, and systems that took advantage of the work we do and did amazing things to present our resources to our users after they had (reasonably) easily found them.

Book, music, communication, content, social

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This post is technically only for me, but feel free…. It is, in effect, a manually constructed “del.icio.us post” to collect the comments that I have made in the last day or so on issues of language. Oh, and some added-on self-analysis and rumination.

Books

See Also…, A study of scanning habit : a couple of comments

Pegasus Librarian, The Book-ish-ness of Books : a couple of comments

Life as I Know It, A Book Is A Book Is A Book – Or Is It? : a couple of comments and an email exchange. Thanks, Jennifer! And I apologize for making your “head heart.” ;)

Music

Pegasus Librarian, The Book-ish-ness of Books : a couple of comments (but the same as above under Books)

Communication, Content, Social

Stephen’s Lighthouse, Internet Activity Index – From communication to content

Other word issues from last couple days

On Assumptions about language use in tagging : my own post and especially my multiple comments on it.

Before I get to my self-analysis prompted by much of this discussion, I would like to say that:

All I can say is that I hope I have been reasonably coherent across this discussion, that I am thankful to everyone for making me think, and for participating in this conversation. I also hope that whether folks agree with me or not that they see that I think there is an important difference in these two (allowed) uses of book and that I am not just being pedantic.

Sorry, ripped myself off from my own comment at Jennifer’s place.

[All the below is really just me talking to me. Read it if you must. Perhaps it'd be better not being here. I don't know. Perhaps it'll do someone some good to see that others have serious questions in their own lives, too.]

I am not trying to be a pedant. I am not trying to be an ass. I am not trying to tell others how to use language.

I am trying to show that it might matter how they do, and why it does.

I am at an odd place in my life and in my career. For many reasons, I do not know “my place” in either. I have some vision(s) of how I might fit into the profession, but it is a difficult position. In fact, it is a position that I seem to be adopting along many axes. Bridge; boundary object.

I am not a good researcher, and quite likely never will be. I am (at the moment) not a good practitioner. That, I full well know, can be remedied. I have been an extremely good practitioner; in this field and others. But at the moment I am a neophyte struggling with a complex form of practice; one which some people would argue that I, and people like me, can never really succeed at. I even accept that argument; at least, in the best of all possible worlds. But we do not have that world; so I struggle to become a good descriptive and subject cataloger, be that traditional cataloging or metadata. [I was telling Tracy just today that things would be better if I could just be Candide....]

But I do, in many ways, by bent and education, sit in the middle of practice and research. I am reasonably good at seeing how each matters for the other. Kind of hard to make a living at that, though. And one always runs the risk of becoming a thorn in the side of both camps. C’est la vie!

This is one of the biggest splits in our field I feel. Perhaps I’ll have to learn to accept a measure of success as something along the line of 1-2 helped in their thinking and/or navigating the theory-practice divide to 10-12 regretting that they even heard of this particular thorn.

Praxis (in the Donald Schon sense) is what I want to affect and effect.

Kathryn and I had a discussion of something I might do in the realm of knowledge organization research today. It seems to fall into the middle ground as above. Pauline said she expects me to do important work. Bridging this divide, or more importantly, helping others do so, is important work. She didn’t say it’d be easy work. And I’m sure she didn’t mean so either.

But as your girl says:

and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way
no, well o.k. then
don’t cry

…

i do it for the joy it brings
because i’m a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world
i do it because it’s the least i can do
i do it because i learned it from you
and i do it just because i want to
because i want to

Ani DiFranco ¤ Joyful Girl ¤ Dilate

Or, for the other view:

come on kids, let’s all hold hands
and pretend we’re having a good time

…

so just suck up and be nice

…

cuz i’m a pixie
i’m a paper doll
i’m a cartoon
i’m a chipper cheerful free for all
and i light up a room
i’m the color me happy girl
miss live and let live
and when they’re out for blood
i always give

Ani DiFranco ¤ Pixie ¤ Little Plastic Castle

Jesus, my friend, how did we get here again?

I’m a small honeybee
I drown in the water
you are my hand in the well.
HOLD ON

Bif Naked ¤ Hold On ¤ Purge

Musical construction and judgement

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[Yes, I realize that is a British (or alternative) spelling of judgment. I prefer it. It looks stupid to me otherwise.]

I know that many of you could care less, but I have added a section on many of my musical compilations to my web site. Perhaps I should stipulate that I mean since the era of CD recording, and, more importantly, the era of CD recording in my life.

I have made assorted compilations since at least 1979. All of these were meaningful to me in some sense. But beginning in 1999 and the experience of my divorce I began recording these more as musical diaries. As I say on the main music page:

The following is a list of the CDs that I have recorded mostly for myself, often for others. I got my audio CD recorder in mid-1999 about the time of my divorce because there were too many CDs to split. Seeing as that is also about the time I came back to life in a very real sense I naturally started recording compilation CDs – but from now on they’d serve in a more symbolic way. They became about the construction, deconstruction, reconstruction, delineation, and judgment of the world in which I find myself, and the one I would like to see realized… In other words, they are, in a sense, my diary. I’d like to issue a hearty caveat lector though. Do not read too deeply into any particular lyric, concept, etc. In some cases I have captured the mood better than in others, in some I can no longer recall the original meaning, sometimes I can but it has a different one now… These are all consequences of, or are they data, or maybe premises for, my theory of music.

You may notice that they start losing titles near the end. Lack of finished liner notes happened even sooner. This is a real shame as there is really no way to go back and do them. Meanings shift or are forgotten. The last several were recorded under some of the worst conditions of my life. I was recovering from severe clinical depression and the realities of the world in which I found myself—and in particular, my job—had me completely unbalanced and highly suicidal. Those last few rarely are listened to anymore; they are too painful.

The page ends kind of abruptly about this time in 2003. That is the last CD compilation—as diary—that I made. I did record a 2-disc compilation for jennimi in the very early days of this year based somewhat on another binary set that are “deeply” meaningfully named Cataloging Music and Cataloging Music 2. Thankfully I did a better job naming the compilations I sent her. Those are the only compilations I have recorded since August 2003. Grad school, even as ridiculously easy as an LIS education is, got in the way.

I would love to get back to the recording of music that is deeply meaningful to me. I am—again—trying to be better about journaling. Blogging has had a serious negative impact on keeping a journal of things not said out loud and publicly. Hopefully there is some meaning in those things I do say “out loud and publicly,” but there is far more in what is not said.

Balance?

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well, I am an idiot walking a tightrope of fortune and fame
I am an acrobat swinging trapezes through circles of flame
If you’ve never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame
and though I’ll never forget your face,
sometimes I can’t remember my name

Counting Crows – Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby – This Desert Life

Balance.

I once thought I knew what this meant. I once thought I had a modicum of it.

Now, I’m not so sure of either of those.

There has been a lot of talk in the biblioblogosphere about balance. Walt Crawford, in particular, has devoted a couple of words to the subject here and there [buy his book]. During all of these discussions I felt that I had a decent balance in my life, or at least as much as I could based on my circumstances.

But I think I was drastically wrong. First off, deciding whether one has balance in a certain situation is vastly different from deciding one actually has balance in one’s life. That was my 1st mistake.

Mistake number 2 was perhaps lying to myself. Maybe I did; maybe I didn’t. Either way, I think I have changed my mind.

Despite taking time to relax, enjoying reading for pleasure, watching movies, going to the bar, hanging with friends, coming to accept much about the productivity of being a graduate student, and so on, I have been and am repeatedly ill. Physically, in particular. But also existentially.

I have been to the doctor and she has been unable to determine anything wrong.

Despite all the things I do to amuse (or is it to distract?) myself, my life seems to revolve around school and related-educational/professional experiences. Unfortunately, I am becoming less comfortable with formal education. I absolutely love parts of it, and parts of it I despise (the production aspect and semester system, primarily). This is a problem on several fronts. It is a definite problem in light of what a very dear friend of mine wrote to me recently:

I think it’s because you’re afraid that you might find Life post-school as disappointing (wrong word, but I can’t quite get the right one this morning) as you found it before you started back in education. You’re used to your role in the classroom and are unsure how you’ll find your role as a librarian.

I think she makes a very valid point. I have elided the exact context of our discussion, but it is a part of my current issues.

I truly need to discover what balance is for me in my life. Then I need to pursue it. A large part of my recent problems are related, if not directly causally-related, to this issue of balance. A large part of the problem, besides needing to come to an acceptance of this truth, is that I feel like I have little control over much of the things I lack. A second large problem is that to get to a point where I am able to remedy some of these issues requires successfully negotiating myself through some of the things that I dislike the most in life. The primary reason I ended up in the Army so many years ago had to do with avoiding some of these same issues.

Some of the things I need in life are mostly out of my control (see, I was good and did not say completely). I try to go places where I might meet people/someone but I cannot simply conjure up discussion partners nor a companion. Perhaps there is more I could do all along this spectrum of companion-seeking. I have had a few suggestions from some folks, some of which I try, some I do not. Doesn’t mean they are bad suggestions but just that they don’t sit right with me, or at least not now.

There are things I could (theoretically) do and that I could possibly work harder at. I have a couple of folks who would love to have in-depth conversations about some of the topics of prime interest to me, which is one of the main things lacking in my life. And, bless their hearts (Jodi, primarily), they keep trying, but our prime communication mechanism is email.

Call me a Luddite, or non-L2, or whatever you like, but serious conversation is almost impossible for me in a non-face-to-face setting. I am looking for full-blown, full-on conversation and not some pale specter of it that can happen in email, blogs and other electronic means. Because, well, I already have that. I am not claiming that such is impossible by any means. It happens (for me) on rare occasions. But it is vastly too hard for me to accomplish via these means generally; it is too hard for me and takes far more time than I would like. It takes forever to clarify terms and fine points, which leads to leaving some of them unglossed, which, in turn, leads to needless argument over things which are in actuality agreed on. Knowing that I have folks who’d like to converse with me and being unable to do so effectively just adds to my issues.

Things that I want very much to do do not get accomplished. Things that I tell others I will do drop by the wayside. Luckily, so far nothing of major significance that I have promised anyone else has slipped. But, for example, when I tell Jodi I will write a post on a certain conference program then I should. I know she understands, and I even understand, but whether it has to be or not, the “failure” increases the feeling of unbalance, amongst other feelings.

The kid could really use a vacation. I could be wrong, but the last real vacation I remember having was in 1984 or 1985 when my mom and her man came to visit me in Belgium and we traveled around Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

Sure, I’ve had things called vacations since. But when I was in the Army most of my vacations happened when things at home got so backlogged that I had to take time off to deal with domestic chores. When we have taken a vacation as in going somewhere it was usually for more ulterior motives even if there was a bit of amusement and relaxation mixed in. Right before I left the Army the whole family took a trip to Illinois to visit colleges for both Jeremy and me. On the way up from Texas we stopped at the Cotton Bowl to see a Major League Soccer game and fireworks. It was the 4th of July.

Vacations as a student have been for the exact same reason. There is so much to do around here; always.

I’ve been to visit family in DC at some point early in this century and while it was quite relaxing I don’t exactly consider visiting family to be a vacation. And considering that my apartment was invaded by a large number of mice which ended up making me deathly ill for the next 6 months, well, not so vacation-like in the end.

The last couple conferences I went to were in many ways vacation-like but they were not vacations. They were conferences.

So I ought to just take a vacation, you say? Right. Drop me a line in my comment form and I’ll tell you where you can mail the check.

I do not know what any of this means. Not as regards my life; other than things need to change. Not as regards school. Not as regards job hunting. And not as regards this blog or my other adventures in cyberspace.

I won’t say that I’m going away because I don’t think that’s true. I may be fairly quiet for a while, both here and in commenting on others’ blogs. Or I may not. I will try and accept that my weekly reading lists may be most of what I do for a while. I have had a few people tell me that they find them useful. Feeling useful is a nice feeling for me. As for anything else I cannot say. I have no doubt that on occasion something will exercise me past the point of silence.

I am not avoiding anyone and I most certainly do not want my friends to think they must or should avoid me. My friends know the various means to get a hold of me and I am thankful that they do use those means, and I hope that they will continue to.

I have some very big, and to me terrifying, changes to face in the near future all the while attempting to deal with the issue of identifying and incorporating some balance in my life. I have no idea how I’ll fare. But I go into it knowing that I have many people who care about me, some deeply. This knowledge, in the fullest sense of the word, can only help.

…we drove out to the desert
just to lie down beneath this bowl of stars…

Counting Crows – Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby – This Desert Life

Now wouldn’t that be nice…

Monica Del Castillo

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Thursday evening I was going to head out for some beers at The Blind Pig when I got a MySpace message that Kayla Brown would be at Aroma Cafe at 8 with Mike Ingram. There was to be another act also, coming down from Chicago. I don’t get to see Kayla often enough due to the timing of her shows so I put off the beers and went to Aroma for some outdoor summer music.

Monica Del Castillo and Dan Ornduff opened and they were awesome. Dan plays beautifully but very understated and Monica just has an incredible spirit. They mostly play in and around Chicago, but I see from Monica’s tour page that she’s been to Wisconsin and Minneapolis recently. You really should check her out if you get a chance. [And check out Kayla, too, of course. But where's that damn CD, kid?]

www.monicadelcastillo.com

www.myspace.com/monicadelcastillo

I got a nice 6 song EP for $7. This is my favorite song on the EP and perhaps of the evening:

But I keep my distance from these fairy tales
Cuz I really don’t need anyone to hold
And if it takes a lifetime I will wait for someone who

Who dissolves into my smile
And gets swallowed in my eyes
Well I don’t expect that you would understand

You Would Understand – Monica Del Castillo

8 supposedly random things about me

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Not tagged as far as I know but will play along anyway.

1. Having recently been “syndicated” in 2 places (that I’m aware of) [1][2], I don’t really know how I feel about this.**
[My last name is misspelled at one of them, but that is anything but random.]

2. I need an interview suit.

3. I really dislike shaving. And I don’t care much for beards.

4. The top 3 artists in my collection by number of CDs are: Ella Fitzgerald, Ani DiFranco, and Lambchop.

5. I dislike the orthography of “dependant.” I know the dictionary says it’s fine, but I still think it looks ugly.

6. I had an hour-long massage today. Been way too long.
btw, my massage therapist has been doing this a long time and she considers my back to be the toughest she has ever met. Not exactly a compliment. :(

7. Went to a meeting. Did my duty and wrote it up. Got invited to be on a “hot topic” panel at ALA. Pretty random.

8. If I wasn’t going to be out of town this Friday I could have had lunch with somebody I said I wanted to punch.
[That was just a metaphorical punch, btw. Oh well, hopefully soon. Eat your heart out, Tracy. ;) ]

** In my quest for brevity I wasn’t as clear as I’d have liked to be. I am honored to be included with many of the folks on both of these lists. It’s just that I don’t think of my blog as a “cataloging blog” or a “coder blog” or even a “library blog.” It’s just (part) of me and, as some of you know, I am trying to stitch my life together. You will find shades of all sides of me here: the goofball, the word lover, the philosopher, the cataloger, the desirer, the depressive, the patriot, the protester, the father, the student, the reader, the music lover, the friend, the “32 flavors and then some.” Seeing as I’m still not sure how I feel about blogging, it’s pretty simple that I don’t know how I feel about being in other places. But I do appreciate it.