The Journal of his Delights

I was bicycling home yesterday, not in a hurry and admiring the scenery, when it occurred to me: life is good.

I like where I’ve found myself and who I’m becoming. Yes, life will (always) continue to present difficulties—the challenge of learning my way as a writer; the inner work that’s so important to me, which is hard; and the fact that I still don’t have bookshelves for my apartment—but in a perverse way, I enjoy these (and the other) bumps in the road. Each is an opportunity to test myself against.

Isn’t life remarkable?

A Peak Inside the Writer’s Mind at the End of his Day
Note that names have been changed in order to protect the innocent.

Maybe I should just type for typing’s sake — see if something interesting comes out. This material is kind of dry, and the process may spark something creative for MMM.

Dry, dry, dry.

Hmm… I don’t think a graphic designer has looked at MMM’s page. Most likely whoever put the web page together, designed the layout. Not a good idea, not in this day and age anyway. A good graphic designer is worth their weight in gold.

Still nothing. I may have to wait on this till tomorrow. How about writing the blog post on ZZZ instead? Oh dear god, that’ll be a task. Maybe not a good idea at 4:37 pm. There’s the PPP message instead? No, that should wait till tomorrow. I want to put some more thought into that one. There’s some great material on their blog, and I want to explore it more thoroughly before putting their piece together. Plus the research might be handy for the blog post.

So what do I do now? I don’t want to waste time. And my secret plan to spontaneously manifest something interesting for MMM doesn’t seem to be working. Come on secret plan — you can do it!

Really. Just… come… up… with… something…

Fail.

Gods, but I love the muppets…

Colleague Chris posted an ultra rough cut of the Flutterfrog’s flight at Flugtag USA 2008 Portland.

Flutter Frog Ultra Rough Cut - The Flight from Chris Smith on Vimeo.

Also check out the great slide show on Flickr. Damn that looks like so much fun. I especially love the impromptu basketball game—apparently frogs know how to dunk!

I finished a new poem yesterday, a brand new one—not a foundation-up revision like the last handful have been. Another pleasant surprise is that it only took a week—not a spirit-testing month like Artemis, Third Chance at Resurrection, or Girding Her Loins.

The new poem is entitled Reuniting, and my goal was to pay attention to the muscality of the piece’s language while telling a story at the same time. To give you a sense of what I mean, here’s the first stanza:

The patter of water on concrete,
the sound of the rain’s slip-fingered fall to earth,
delicate like the bones of the inner ear,
made for listening to a softly beating heart.

I’m pleased with how the poem turned out, and will start looking for a home for it.

Did Dr. Horrible get you amped up over the prospect of world domination and mischief making? Now’s your chance to break into the world of super-villainy with an entry level job opportunity.

And yes, it’s full of awesome.

Here is a photo of the Flutterfrog fully assembled before the flight:

And she flew 40 feet in the competition! Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to win. Instead Team Yakima’s 62 foot flight took first place. But word from the crew is that it was a blast, and they want to compete again in next year’s contest.

I hope to have video of the Flutterfrog’s maiden voyage later this week. Stay tuned.

Listen this song by Okay—I just love it, both the driving-ness of the melody and the incredible textured quality of the vocals.

One of the benefits of having one of the editors of The Bay Bridged as a colleague is that I get introduced to some amazing music. Thanks, Emily Rose! You can read a much more articulate and comprehensive review of Okay at her blog.

The Flutterfrog and crew are ready to go.