i am writing this without my glasses on, because they've been irritating my nose. the downside to this is that i can't see shit. oh well, pardon any typos.
last weekend, as i mentioned in my last entry, we went to upstate NY to play a show and stayed for a three-day weekend in a house that our friends rented. i am from an area near where we went, and i've never felt what it's like to experience the area as a "tourist" until now. it was surprisingly nice despite the irony! we went to a lake, and lots of nice coffee shops and bookstores, and two very good restaurants. i did feel like i was cosplaying, and it was kind of funny. the show was also very nice — i already wrote a bit about it for my blog post, which i linked to earlier in this paragraph, and which also contains a recording of our set.
when we got home, i went back into a busy work week and found that my fabrication order had been delivered. it was the last mystery object for zine club, and it's still too soon to risk spoiling the surprise, but i was very pleased with the results. i prepared and mailed out all of the shipments, and in the process, i officially launched my new project, AV club, which is replacing zine club moving forward. so far, i've only shared it with the zine club member list, and i haven't posted about it anywhere else yet, but already we have 15 members. yay!
i started reading a book called wisdom wide and deep by shaila catherine, which is about concentration practice in buddhism. it's been a while since i've done much reading on the topic, though i have continued to practice meditation somewhat regularly. so far in the book, everything i've read is stuff that i've heard multiple times before, but i have enjoyed this particular wording of it. reading about buddhist teachings is very interesting because it feels like you can read the same thing each year and get something completely different out of it. so far in this book, i've been reading about the five hindrances, and noticing how much of what i would have previously categorized as 'desire' now seems to me to actually be 'restlessness.' hmm...
there is a very intense heat wave happening in my area this week. we have a window AC unit, which, when run continuously on max, has just barely brought the temperature in our home down to 85ºF (30ºC). i hate running it for so long each day, because it's loud and sapping up all our electricity. but it's been 100ºF outside for four days, and it sadly doesn't seem optional (except at night, when i've just been opening the windows and pointing a lot of fans at myself). i also have been spending less time outside, and exercising less, because the temperature is making me lethargic. i hope it breaks soon, because my health is not being helped by this.
today, i braved the heat to visit a friend who's leaving tomorrow to travel for three months. i was glad that we got to hang out before she left. i set up a ghost instance (open source newsletter software) on my server for her to write about her trip, and keep me and other people updated on here whereabouts. having just set up the ghost instance for AV club last month, the tool was fresh in my mind. i like it ok so far, and it seems practical. i wish more people would use RSS, but for better or worse, i guess that email is much more widely used now for subscribing to things.
ok, it's getting late, and time for me to stop trying to look at things without my glasses on. good night!
