After a brief vacation over Thanksgiving, I’m hopping back on the work wagon. I had two designs for one client, and some updates for another client to take care of today, as well as the usual full roster of Monday phone calls. Got a lot done, but not a real exciting day.

I’m officially signed up for my first voice lesson. I decided to see how I can improve my vocal range and emotional delivery by working with a voice coach. Janece kindly provided me with a list of local coaches. The one that caught my eye was a woman named Susan Carr who said she’d done work with Alice In Chains, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Alien Ant Farm among others. She’s about twice as expensive as the other potentials I contacted, but if she helps me wake up my voice for this album I’m working on, it will be worth it. I’m supposed to bring a finished song of my own material to sing for her, as well as other material I’ve been working on. So I need to get cracking in pulling toether some examples of where I want this worship album to go.

Ever heard of the Space Elevator? Check out some info on it here and here. There’s a company I found that even has a countdown to launch of their version of it. Basically, a space elevator is a thin ribbon of super-strong carbon nanotubes that extends from a platform on the ground up into the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. Machines would be able to move up and down the elevator carrying payloads of as much as several tons of material. This would make it possible to drastically reduce the amount of materials we can put out into space. One article says that it will chop the per-kilo cost of getting material into space from $10,000-40,000 down to a mere $100. That means we could cheaply build space stations, solar energy fields, send up cheap telecommuncations satellites, more easily shoot off vehicles for space and planetary exploration, etc. etc. — all for pennies on the dollar. This kind of thing seriously geeks me out. It’s an incredible concept, and one that I’m hoping comes sooner than later. Because we’re now able to produce the carbon nanotubes that make the cable possible, it’s more a question of when than if at this point.

Oh yeah, and my daughter is beautiful as always. But you knew that… I was talking to her tonight on the changing table as Janece was changing her, and my heart almost ruptured from love. She was getting all excited and trying to make little communication noises while kicking her feet around and smiling like all get out. She was just locked onto my face, absorbing it and reacting to my little monologue to her about how cute she looked, and how much fun we are going to have as she grows up, etc. Man, I love that little girl. I told some friends in jest, “why didn’t you tell me having a kid was going to be so much fun”? And of course they said right back “Like you would have believed us anyway…” Which is true. I was an ignorant heathen, but I’ve seen the light…

Had a great, relaxing day. Short summary — got up late, at a big lunch, slept some more, saw The Incredibles, walked Tova, wrote music and slept again. Janece does a good job of hammering out the details, so I won’t cover that again.

Why be thankful? Without getting too philosophical, I think for me thankfulness is the best way to recognize what is beautiful in my life and take time to name it and savor it for what it is. Without being thankful, all I can see is what’s going wrong, what’s lacking, what could be better. Being thankful helps me recognize and participate in the joy that’s happening around me, and gives me a place of strength and peace to tackle breakdowns in my life. It’s one of the quickest ways for me to go from being anxious, jittery and angry to being relaxed and open to the opportunities and experiences that life brings. It focuses my attention outward away from the nervous babble in my head about what’s wrong with my life towards the lively and beautiful world and people that I am around. Gratitude is an acknowledgement and affirmation of beauty and life, and the more I practice it the better person I am.

On another note, if you haven’t already, go and see The Incredibles. Now. Go. Brad Bird, who also directed The Iron Giant is a true genius. There are very few movies that work on every single level — characterization, action, set design, story arc and cohesiveness, consistency and liveliness — but this movie is one of them. From the gorgeous retro-50s inspired design to the nuances of character expression to funny and poignant writing, this movie kicks ass. A friend of mine (check out his website here) told me that he was ready to walk right back in and see it again after he saw it the first time because it was that good. I agree. I have a short list of directors that I’d like to collect — Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, Terry Gilliam and a few others — and Brad Bird will be right up there on the list as long as he’s making movies. And what a great partnership with Pixar! No wonder they ditched Eisner’s bloated and bland Maus Haus — they’re in a league of their own, and Disney had nothing to offer them. They are a shining star in movie making excellence and I wish them a long and prosperous dynasty.

Still reading? Go see the movie. Now! Go!

• I’ve been reading the latest issue of Esquire magazine. They’re officially about “Man At His Best” if you believe the hype. Sure, it has the requisite high-class evocative girlie pics you’d expect from a men’s magazine (more tasteful than Maxim but still pinups when you get right down to it; although, I have to say the issue with Rachel Weisz was eye-poppingly gorgeous), but it also has some of the smartest and most interesting writing I’ve read in a while. Their current issue has a feature called the Best And The Brightest — a tour through some of the most influential people in the arts and culture — an excellent read — and it also has a great article by Chuck Klosterman about corporate rock music dying because it doesn’t talk to people’s actual lifestyles. It’s definitely worth the subscription. In fact, Janece and I just re-upped.
• A friend of mine told me recently that he and his wife just went through an exorcism with their pastor over some issues that had been plaguing them. He said there wasn’t any mumbo-jumbo and that it was almost clinical in nature, just a challenge and thorough examination of the demonic possessors and a non-emotional banishment. He said it also made a big difference for them and their family. There are many fairly non-religious people that believe in mystical activity by non-human beings. Christians have historically said that there are benevolent (angels) and non-benevolent (demons) non-human forces at work, but even though I’ve grown up in the church, I haven’t heard much about exorcism or how to deal/interact with this other non-visible world. Their experience has me interested in the subject, and I think I’ll start some low-level poking around to see what else I can find.
• I’ve come to deeply appreciate This American Life. It’s one of the most interesting radio story shows I’ve heard, and Ira Glass and Sara Vowell and David Sedaris and the other contributors are some of the most funny and thoughtful and compassionate interviewers and writers working out there. They have streaming archives of all their shows out there going all the way back to 1995. It’s an awesome resource, and they’ve kept me company through a lot of long nights of web work. In fact, I listened to two shows today while working on some designs for a local energy company.
• The reason I mention This American Life is a segment they ran on a project called The Apology Project. From the site,
  

  “…an art project he began in 1980 and ran until his untimely death in 1995. The rich legacy of this project consists of over 1,000 cassette tapes filled with confessions and people’s innermost thoughts and feelings, which were recorded over the telephone during this fifteen year period…”

  There are a few transcripts of calls that are unbelievable. Check them out. I heard the one of the runaway kid on the show — it was heartbreaking. I’m thinking of getting the CD. Why is confession so powerful? And what is behind the urge, even in the most sick and weird people, to confess or ask forgiveness?

• One more link for funsies. Great friend of mine, Heather Roraback, does some beautiful paintings. She asked me to do a quick site for her for her new line of paintings for stylish modern baby rooms, and I did. Check it out at TinyCookieBaby.com. And buy a few while yer at it… For the geeks out there, the site is done completely in DHTML and CSS. Found a great script for the fluffy clouds over at Dynamic Drive. I had to do some mods to the script to get the effect I wanted, and make the cloud .pngs transparent in IE. I also got a scrolling div area script from Dynamic Drive as well that I modded for the text area. I did all the hide/show scripting m’self, tho.
• Speaking of links, what’s the best protocol for linking out to sites from a blog? I usually have the site I’m linking to open in a new window. I figure that makes it easy for people reading to check out what I’ve linked to, and then easily come back to read the rest of my thought. (That is, if they care… ). Anyone care to comment on that? What your preference — links in a new window, or in the same window?

I have a personal coach — Dana Roc — who is massively cool and who I’ve never met. (She lives in NY, and Janece and I are going to visit her at some point.) She’s been coaching me on my personal project — an album of alternative worship material — and also more than that. Her coaching has been to tackle the subject of how I’m being about my life and how that affects my ability to carry through on the things that matter to me — things I’ve been stopped in.

Our agreement over the last two weeks has been to take on impeccability — doing one thing 100% full out for a week. I picked excercise. Nothing big — just a 3 mi. walk with the dogs and some strength excercises like pushups, squats and core strength every day for a week. I did it for 6 days the first week but left out one day. When we talked about it, something she said gob-smacked me between the eyes.

She said (paraphrased), “Paul, your conversation justifying why you didn’t have to be impeccable all 7 days is the same conversation that’s having you not get what you want in life. The bargains you make with yourself that let you out of really being your word, and the rebellion you have about not being completely impeccable with your intentions is costing you the life and success you want to have. Your rebellion is really resignation — that things are always going to be this way and that you can’t make a difference for yourself. You make it OK with yourself to have ‘less than’ on the delivery of your word, and consequently your dreams.”

POW. SMACK. ZOINK.

I started thinking about that — that when push comes to shove, what I draw on is not my integrity to make my life happen, or courage to take on challenges, or optimism and joy in my own future. It’s resignation. That’s been what’s fueled me when the going gets rough, and why I don’t have the life I want. Not only that, but I started thinking about Amira. Kids learn from what you do, almost more than what you say. Is that what I want her to learn — that it’s OK to be resigned about living your dreams and being your word? Hell no. Big big realization.

So this week I made it happen. All seven days, rain or no rain, middle of the night or not, tired or not, I hauled my pasty white bum out onto the street to walk and excercised when I got back. And you know, I feel really great. I’m a web designer and I sit at my desk all the damn time. Even when I’m relaxing, I tend to do stuff like browse the web or work on my music software — sitting stuff instead of active stuff. So walking and bringing my muscles back up to speed has felt terrific, like giving my body something it’s been craving.

This next week, I’m staying impeccable on excercise. And I’m going to add another item — practicing either my voice or an instrument for 1/2 hour a day. This impeccability/non-resigned muscle is kinda weak right now, so I’m taking it slow, but I’m starting to experience the power of what you can have when you draw from your word, not from your resignation or cynicism.

Thank you, Dana, for being a great coach. And thank you, Me, for taking on your life.

Rocked

• Amira, who would not stop smiling at me today when we were getting ready to go to lunch. That girl has a death grip on my heartstrings, and it gets worse everyday. I never would have believed having a kid could be this fun until it happened.
• My giant regular meatball sub with extra meatballs from Quiznos. Mammoth. I should have used a fork, but sometimes you just gotta get your hands dirty. I hope I didn’t put anyone else in the Alderwood Mall food court off their lunch.
• My friend Eric telling me out of the blue that my voice is really and that the material I’m working on for my worship album is going to be good. He doesn’t even really dig worship music in general, but he likes what I’m doing. Compliments out of the blue about something you care about are a true gift.
• Coming up with a great logo idea in the 11th hour for my new company/partnership called Trivekta. I had a bunch of lack-luster ideas that were frustrating and wasn’t making progress, but all of the sudden pulled it out at the last minute. Feels good to see something click after chasing a bunch of dry dead-ends. I’ll post it when I get it done.
• The moon behind the drifting high mists on my walk tonight. Had this gorgeous rich blue hue. Found myself wondering how to duplicate it in Photoshop or a 3D program. Why? Because I’m a geek.
• Being a baby ninja. When Amira’s sleeping, I can sneak in and out of the bedroom to get stuff without even setting off the super-sensitive baby monitor. To give you an idea of how sensitive it is, it can pick up the heat duct in our room when it pings as the heat kicks on.

Sucked

• Having to soothe Punkins to sleep for the second evening in a row. It’s a helpless feeling to watch her little body contort with hysterical crying and not really being able to do too much about it. I know she’ll get better at not melting down when she’s tired, but it’s hard to watch.
• Wasting time watching a whole 3 episode Monty Python’s Flying Circus DVD when I could have been working. And then realizing that it wasn’t even all that funny and I didn’t get much out of it. And then wondering if I’m getting old and humorless. And then realizing that as a consequence I’ll have to be up ’til 3-4am working on designs.
• Having to keep spraying Seurat (my Dalmation) with vinegar water to stop him from barking when Janece’s parents walk across the kitchen upstairs. We’ve lived in this house for almost 3 yrs, and he still barks loudly and annoyingly when people walk around or the cats run across the floor upstairs. When it’s all said and done, I’m fond of the guy, but after having Tova (our Samoyed) for a year plus now and seeing how smart he is, Seurat’s bone-headed untrainability with barking is getting insanely obnoxious by comparison. Guess I’d better not have a second child, eh?
• Hearing that my friend Eric is going to spend a full week+ taking a vacation, hanging out with buddies and playing World Of Warcraft. I’m not a big gamer, but time off just doing something you love with people you like hanging out with all day sounds amazing. But, that’s not for me, at least right now. Hopefully soon?
• Coming up with a ton of great ideas for posting audio, video and other cool stuff to my blog, as well as doing a kick-ass redesign, and then realizing I have way too much to do every day to try and fit something that extensive in.

Gotta go work on my designs. Hopefully it’ll go fast.

I’ve decided to do at least a small post every day. Helps to keep the writing juices flowing, and maybe after a while I’ll develop some kind of a “voice” that I can maybe use elsewhere. I’ve had a little hankering to try my hand at some fiction writing for a while, but my work/music/girls/friends take precedence right now, so I’m going to set that aside for now. ‘Til then, I have this little backwater on the Net to try my hand.

I’m going to start with a new feature called Rocked/Sucked — to follow right after this…

Sorry, Everybody.

I’m sure this site is making the rounds right now, but it’s worth linking to since it made me shed a few tears: one for the sheer crazy enormous possibility that America is — all those people out there that care about their country and the world and want to make a difference, even though you probably couldn’t get them to hang out together at a party to save your life — and a second for the good natured people of the rest of the world who love Americans and wish us well. The world is at once worse and better than we can imagine…

The only sour note is all the lame-o “republican idiots” comments. I have many great people in my life, friends and family, that voted for Bush and none of them are idiots. I don’t understand their vote given what I know, but they’re definitely worth talking to. If Dems are going to make any advances this next election, we need to start having conversations with the other side to win them over…

They got my blog. Anyone have any fixes for how to stop their onslaught? I’d sure love to see some prosecutions start rolling down, but that’ll probably take a while under the new spam laws…

For now, if you want to leave comments, just know that I have to moderate them before posting and it won’t show up instantly. But I’ll get to it… Promise…

UPDATE: Thanks to a nice woman named Michelle, I went out to a WordPress spam resource and found two fixes — one to keep spammers from filling up the MySQL db and one to stop spam programs from hitting the comments .php page. Seems to be working great so far.

God knew I needed a boost. That must be why Amira suddenly, and for no discernable reason, decided to make a big leap with me today and smile at me. On purpose. Not just once, but twice. More details on her site…

Kerry, you weren’t the best candidate, but you (and Gore before you) are smart, thoughtful and courageous Americans — not endowed with the easy media charm of Clinton, but deeply committed to the health of our country and the well-being of our citizens. I’m sad that you won’t be leading us through the next four years. We could have used a steady, non-inflammatory hand at the helm. I hope your time with us made you less reserved and political, and more passionate and committed. I’m glad that you will continue to work in the Senate on our behalf.

As for the future, here are a few bright spots:

• In an election thought to be an easy win for a sitting incumbent in wartime, Kerry and the groundswell of progressive activism brought the sweats to the Bush team. We came within inches of kicking their asses out (via the electoral college, granted, but I’ll take what I can get). We fought harder and with more unity than anyone expected from the left. The structures built in this election remain, and I believe the will also remains (once the sobbing dies down). There is a lot of work to do. It took the Republicans 20 years to build their current political empire. But I’m encouraged that with less than four years to organize, we almost beat them. Let’s make 2008 our comeback.
• I’m kinda glad that there is a GOP congress and white house in complete charge of this mess. If Kerry had been elected, I suspect he would have become the fall guy for the shit that’s about to hit the fan in the next four years. Now, the the GOP will only have itself to blame for what’s coming down the pike. And with a massive deficit, foreign policy chaos, a divided electorate, and all kinds of back-alley nastiness that is being investigated (you hear that, DeLay?), the chickens are going to come home to roost in a big way. The American electorate may be a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but I predict that the bad news is going to get even harder to ignore.
• Even though Bush took office again with a clear margin (not a landslide by any means, but decisive), it was only on the coattails of punitive and divisive social issues. Analysis shows that without the social issues, the electorate lines up in a big way with the Dems on a lot of other issues. 51/48 isn’t a mandate, no matter what they call it. In conversations with Republicans, they tell me that if the Dems can show they have a bigger tent on issues like divorce and abortion and, yes, even gay marriage (ie. room for people who disagree on those issues) they would easily win 20 states. The economic, class and race issues resonate, but middle America feels that Dems are out of touch socially. If Dems can find their voice on issues of justice, as well as seeing where we can be conciliatory on social issues, we could take back our stand with the public.
• Blogs and PACs. The hype may not have been completely justified, and yes, blogs can become an echo chamber for like-minded people to avoid the hard work of actually getting challenged on their beliefs, but they facilitiated some amazing victories. MoveOn.org and other PACs raised a staggering amount of money, mostly from individuals in small amounts. It was grassroots participation at it’s finest. And the takedown of the major media conglomerate Sinclair Broadcasting was a symphony of work by bloggers and readers to systematically complain to advertisers and apply pressure on them to back off from the nasty and unethical partisanship they displayed in forcing their subsidiaries to run an anti-Kerry “documentary” just before the election. It worked so well that Sinclair stock plummeted, losing over $100 million in value. Extraordinary, and very instructive. Technology has opened the gates to grassroots activisim at a whole new level, and that bodes well for our country’s health, especially over the next four years.

I’m under no illusions about our road being easy. We suffered a clear defeat. But even though the next four years and maybe beyond promise to be long and probably rough, we can build lasting pro-people political muscle that we can put to good use for the American people. In the words of Martin Luther King,

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals…

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation…

The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.

Like a lot of other people, I’m depressed. Mostly not because my side lost, or because of what I believe will be a backwards slide in policies on Iraq or taxes or social security reform or the supreme court justices, etc. etc., tho. They’re all serious issues, but ones that our country has survived through before and will again. They’re issues that can (mostly) take place in civil discourse.

No, I’m mostly depressed by the fact that this election was won not on those issues, but on gay marriage. The Bush team cynically used an exaggerated and grotesque caricature of one group of Americans (gays) to frighten another group of Americans (evangelicals) so that they would forget all of the other relevant issues on the table and single issue vote this election. Every analysis I’ve seen said this was an election decided soley on social issues, with gay marriage being one of the biggest. And the gay marriage bans that passed weren’t just against gay marriage — they strip gay partners of all kinds of different rights including raising kids and any other activity shared by a couple. Completely punitive and unnecessary, and nothing more than an outlet for rage and loathing and disgust and all of the other baser human emotions.

Whether you think gay marriage is right or wrong is beside the point to me. The statement now given to gays in a public policy way is that the evangelical church *hates* them, can’t stand them, and wants to make their lives miserable. As any former or current churchies can tell you, this isn’t new. I’ve have no idea what to tell my gay friends about church. There just aren’t many evangelical churches where they would even feel welcome to set foot in the door, much less join the congregation. And it’s even more depressing that the animosity from evangelical Christians is now a set of mandated govt. policies.

It’s a far far cry from Jesus taking the time to go to the houses of those labeled as sinners and untouchables to eat and have a good time with them. This election makes it clear to me why Jesus’ harshest condemnations were all, without exception, directed at the professionally religious lost in their piety and self-congratulation and disdain for those who are “dirty”.

Shame on the Bush team for so brutally and calculatedly dividing Americans to win back power, and then hypocritically throwing out some “we want to unite” language. And shame on evangelicals for falling for it and being manipulated to give in to their worst instincts.

So, on Nov 3rd, all of us Americans will wake up and check the other side of the bed to see who we’re sleeping with for the next four years… I still maintain that the election will be a Kerry landslide given all of the stats and shifts I’ve seen over the last week, and the last month or two, but since both sides are claiming victory by a landslide I’m not really unique in that. (In fact, I’m one of those third-tier cling-on blogs that rehashes other more politicially savvy bloggers for fun and profit…). I think either way we’ll avoid the nastiness of 2000 and have a more decisive victory this time.

So the big question is, no matter who wins, what’s the landscape going to look like on Nov 3 in terms of our national conversation and unity? Worst case scenario is that the blue/red civil war that’s been going on goes physical somehow — rioting or scattered acts of assault. Seeing as this race has reached the high tension level of a major cliffhanger sporting event, it’s probably not beyond the pale that some kind of crazed “fan” incidents take place — especially given the level of rhetoric from wingnuts on both sides that think that it’s Armageddon if the other side’s guy wins. Slightly less worse is an increased level of tension and venom in our governing bodies, with one or the other side claiming no legitimacy for the other’s term in office and major political deadlock that prevents either man from making decisions that could move our situation forward. Slightly less worse than that, but still lame, is the continuation of the red/blue divide in America expressed in a nasty personal kind of way. For all those reasons and others, that’s why I hope this election’s numbers are decisive, and I think a lot of Americans feel the same way.

No matter what happens, I would ideally like to see the same effect as what’s been happening on a couple of email arguments I’ve been on with two different groups. It was Reps, Dems and a few independants kicking around the issues (and candidates) and challenging each other to prove our stances. I came out of it no less convinced about Kerry, and the Reps were no less convinced about Bush, but something happened in the middle. People said “I see your point” and “I hadn’t thought of that” and “I can get why you’re angry” — respectful and thoughtful replies that defused the anger and opened up the way for a better flow of ideas and solutions. We still ended up on opposite sides of the issues — passionately — but without venom or condemnation. A door was opened for future conversation and a few points of common ground were revealed. If a majority of other Americans feel the way that I, and we, did about being tired of the constant partisan accusations and want to see some solutions implemented, we could see a serious change in our national mood over the next four years. And, again, that would be hurried along by a decisive win by either guy, in my opinion.

So here’s hoping for a landslide of some kind. In Kerry’s favor, of course…

UPDATE: Want a more civilized balanced nation after Nov. 2? Join me in taking the pledge. (Or the counter-pledge — whichever suits your fancy….)