I've been going like gangbusters on my sabbatical book-project. It's at the point now where I even like some parts. I think I may actually meet the sabbatical-end deadline.

It may be that nascent dream that formed the foundation of my love for mountain areas. For some reason, I've always been attracted to the sharp light, the sound of wind in tall pines, the smell of crisp air. Although I've never done (and now never will) any 'serious' climbing, I love to hike around as much as I can. Jill also is a mountain-lover, I figure it's her Swiss genes. Our kids have certainly been steeped in this. Lian is hiking here and there, and today Daniel picked out one of the highest, most forbidding and jagged peaks, and said "I want to climb that one, Dad."

There is a time of night, just past the full throat of twilight when the silhouettes I described yesterday appear. I'm sitting outside our "Glacier Cabin", and I'm watching this happen to the mountains across the river from me. The sound of the river, a line of filigreed noise. And the sense of quietude, of dissolution into something so much more vast and time-defying, it flows again. Here I sit, and it seems forever.

I tried to take a picture of it:

A big part of my blog-writing reticence, however, is because I haven't been sure what to write any longer. When I first started keeping this journal, death seemed very close. As a result, life became all the more transcendent, each moment an immanent point in a luminous continuum of existence. I wanted to communicate this feeling, to write it for my friends and family. I wanted my postings to matter in some profound way. I imagine that we all want our lives to have meaning, and my writing here was a selfish attempt to exploit my personal situation and concomitant feelings to endow my remaining time with a little more significance.

What does confer significance, though? Nothing, really. Except perhaps the minutiae of life, our daily activities and interactions with others. The initially acute awareness of mortality that drove me to start this blog made it easy to project upon these mundane activities a preciousness, an almost metaphysical eloquence because they all suddenly seemed so rare. As that awareness subsided, the significance I was ascribing to my self-centered observations did also.

So what am I left with? A whiney, "dear diary" confessional? A communications vehicle for people I know? A way to sort, through writing, some of my own personal demons and emotional problems? I don't know, but I think I want to continue with this. If I do get caught again in downward health spiral, at least I won't feel as caught 'short' as I did with the first news of myeloma. I will have left some traces of who I was, what I did, and the thoughts I carried through a particular span of living. This is maybe the best we can hope to do, and ultimately maybe the best way to impart any 'advice' to Lian and Daniel, or pass along my hopes and fears for the future.

When I first started this blog, I wrote: "I bet this will exhibit a lot of the worst aspects -- random connections, wandering thoughts, bogus assertions, self-centered, self-serving and maudlin texts, the whole gamut", and now I am sure that I have accomplished all these things. But I plan to continue, and I think the best strategy is to report on the prosaic happenings of everyday existence. Who knows, maybe I'll even go back and fill in a few of the I'll-say-more-about-this-later blanks I've left in earlier postings. Maybe contemplation through text will help me recapture a portion of the feelings of presence, the 'freeze/flow' experiences that no longer visit me as frequently. They weren't bad.

Time again for my bisphosphonate (bone-protecting) infusion, so here I sit once more at Weill-Cornell. Another good check-up, too, Faiza tells me that all the stats still look fine. I'm listening to Beethoven; the odd juxtaposition of his music upon the "infusion suite" scene seems strangely appropriate, like it was a scripted movie. Definitely heightened reality, somehow. And the music itself, bouncing from the extroverted heroism of the 9th Symphony to the personal courage of his Op. 132 String Quartet. Life can be well-lived. I need to remember this, and Beethoven surely helps.

I thought this might be a good time to recap our recent trip to Glacier National Park. The following is a "we went here, we went there, did this, did that, saw amazing stuff" narrative, so it is probably relatively boring for most everyone. But we did indeed see and do these things. I exist, ha ha. I'll reference portions of the (over 400!) photos I took, but the whole corpus is here.

Day 2: This is the day we enter the Park. On the way to the west entrance, we take a short diversion and drive up to Whitefish, MT to see if it is worth staying over our final night here. It is a lovely town, just on the cusp of significant high-endiness development. It lies at the foot of "Big Mountain" which has a relatively new ski area. We discover a chocolatier downtown with wonderfully delicious treats, so we do plan to stay here next week.

We get to the park, and stop for lunch at the Apgar village campground area. Bison burger! Huckleberry salad! A lot of warnings about bear activity. We chat with a very nice ranger who recommends some good trails for us. Jill is a big fan of always seeking ranger advice in the National Parks, and I am a total convert to doing this.

We drive into the park, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It is all we can do to keep from stopping every 0.5 miles to take pictures. Rather than attempt to describe it, here is a link to the photos.

We were warned of extraordinary winds (80+ mph at the top of Logan Pass), and the warnings prove to be true. In one of the photos above is a picture of a waterfall that, if you look closely, appears to be falling up! The wind is blowing the water back up the mountain.

Our main reservations are in the St. Mary Lodge at the eastern side of the park. We didn't realize it, but we will be staying on the Blackfoot Indian reservation. Stopping by the ranger station, we learn that there is to be a demonstration of Native American singing and dancing that night. We attend later (pictures here (scroll down to the bottom of the page, and also check the top of the next page)) and it was wonderful. The energy was amazing. A lot of ironic Indian humor, too.

One more tale from this day: the St. Mary Lodge advertised a stay in a "luxury tipi". Flat-screen TVs, individual sauna-like things, a lot of tipi luxury to be sure. We decided against it because of the price, and this turns out to be a really good decision. Apparently the winds were so strong that at 5:30 AM a large group of the luxury tipis blew over. poof! went the flat-screen TVs...

Day 3: We go to hike around Two Medicine Lake, seeing several waterfalls and (by now) typically gorgeous (pictures start partway down the page). After hiking about 8 miles, we decide to take the boat back across the lake. Waiting for the boat, feet in the glacier-cooled water. Life is very good.

In the evening, we go to a hard-core sales pitch that the hotel concierge invited us to attend. The poor sales-guy trying to interest us in a time-share-like resort package had no idea how far from 'normal' our vacations usually are. They should probably ask where people work and just ban any professors, especially flaky computer-musicians. After politely saying "no" (many many times), sales-guy Alfredo finally gives up on us. The result: we got a free $50 dinner and a free tank of gas for our car. Even professors can recognize a good deal sometimes.

Sitting out on our porch, watching the stars come out. I described this earlier. I see several shooting stars, making wishes. One lasts about 5 seconds; it even splits in two at the end.

Day 4: Fortunately we are going on our whitewater rafting trip today. I say "fortunately" because for us humans who don't normally hike 8 miles or so every day, our feet and legs tend to, um, complain a little. Once we get moving, however, it all works out. On the way to the raft trip we see mountain goats at Logan pass (pictures on this page), and we take a short hike through the Trail of the Cedars.

The whitewater raft trip is great fun. I only have one picture from it, taken by the company who does the trips:

Day 5: This is the day of our big hike, 12 miles along the "Garden Wall". Unbelievable! Mountain goats, bighorn sheep, snowfields, waterfalls, amazingly colorful rocks and mountain flowers, a perfect-weather day... What more to say? Pictures here. It was hard not to take more. All I had to do is randomly aim the camera and shoot.

We opt not to take a small side-diversion to overlook the Grinell glacier (about a mile hike). It was good we didn't, for the last 4 miles of the trail is a long, hot slog down a very steep trail. We were hurting at the end.

Once you start hiking away from the main attractions, though, any sense of a crowd vanishes. I suspect that most people traveling through many of our national parks don't get away from the known sights too much. Good for us, I guess. There were a few people we met along the trail, all very friendly.

Returning to the cabin, a nice couple next door recommended a place to eat: "Go about 10 miles up the road until you see the 'Cattle Baron's Supper Club' -- you can't miss it!" They were right, it was a strange building pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We probably wouldn't even have guessed it was a public restaurant. Being on the Blackfoot reservation, it is owned and operated by a Blackfoot family.

The decor, the music, amazing. But the food! Oh my! My vegetarian friends will cringe: we have the best steak (beef and bison) we have ever eaten. I would have to compare side-by-side with the Uruguayan food I had 15 years ago. This was incredible. We go back the next night -- I rarely eat this much meat in a week. The second night I ask the server why it is so good. "We're carving the steaks in the back" and indeed I can hear the whine of a bandsaw. Yikes!

I mention the decor and the music of the restaurant. The music was put together by one of the owner's sons, who is a local Native American DJ. Really unusual mix of music. I wish I knew what some of the pieces were. A large wall-sculpture of a traditional Indian buffalo hunt fills most of one wall. The materials used are blackened, discarded styrofoam and aluminum. There is a frieze around the interior top depicting the history of the Blackfoot nation. It's not a particularly pleasant history. Four colors represent the four seasons of the tribal history. We're in winter now, but there is a pictogram of a computer terminal at the end with a bit of light. Hmmmm.

Pictures here from our second visit (I didn't bring the camera the first time). Also the glorious sunset on the way home.

Day 6: Again it seemed our pacing was good -- today is the day of our 4-hour horseback ride. Fun fun fun! On the way over to the Many Glacier area (where the ride will start), we take a short hike up to the Apikuni Waterfall. The trail is much steeper than we realized, so Daniel is the one to walk clear to the falls. Jill and I rest. We're old, our feet hurt.

The horse ride is terrific, like everything else on our trip so far. The horses are very well-trained, and Daniel picks it up straightaway. He rides "Coffee", Jill rides "Jasper" and my horse is named "Smoke". Here (down at the bottom of the page, and on the next page) are the photos. We see a black bear and a female moose with her young (moosling? moose cub? moose foal?) moose.

What I had forgotten is the unknown leg-muscles that get used when riding. Our feet no longer hurt, because our legs are screaming. I took a few pictures of the Many Glacier Lodge after our trailride. Apparently it is booked at least a year in advance. We like our place, though.

Back to the 'Supper Club' for dinner. We're wranglers, yeah.

Day 7: Our last day in the park. Our legs and feet are nicely recovered, so we do a short hike up to Avalanche Lake on the way out. This is a much gentler trail, very popular. There are quite a few people on the lower part. In fact, I don't think we realized how crowded parts of the park become during the day (we're usually hiking early). We can't even find a parking place at Logan Pass.

Oh, we did see a grizzly bear from the car on the way over to the Pass, though.

People aren't quite as friendly on the Avalanche trail, probably a function of a larger number there. But the lake is beautiful, and not as many go the whole way. I bet many of the longer trails that we can no longer do are really something.

We stay the night in Whitefish, good Italian dinner and fabulous chocolate for dessert at the chocolatier. Daniel likes the hotel, it has a fairly intense water-slide in the pool.

Day 8: Today we go home. On the recommendation of one of the staff in our very first hotel stay, we visit the Conrad mansion in Kalispell before heading to the airport. Really interesting -- William Conrad founded Kalispell, quite an individual. Pictures here (bottom of page).

The only minor snag in the whole trip is a delayed flight home from Denver to Newark. We wind up back in Roosevelt at 3 AM. What a trip!

The second related to the park itself. Before we left, I would joke with people "gotta go before glaciers all melt!" Little did I know. I figured that we can elect Obama, reverse the worst of global warming and all will be fine. No, no, no. All available computer models show it's not a matter of if the glaciers will melt but when. The stunner is that most models now predict the glaciers will be all gone in about 10 years. In 1980, over 170 glaciers populated the park. Now there are fewer than 25. This does make me sad.

Real sadness, however, came from news I received partway through our trip. We had very limited phone and e-mail access, and during one of the short periods when I could scan through e-mail I learned the terrible news that the father of one of my closest friends had died. He (the father) was expected to die (lung cancer), but not quite so quickly. I felt very far away from my friend. What can I do or say to help? I don't know. I've never had to face a close family death yet. Oh, oh! Sadness.

At times like this, it is difficult not to think back on things intended, things you wanted to do and accomplish, those that you did and those that you didn't. The past year was fairly intense, pretty good timing for a pre-planned sabbatical.

The near-term future results from an acute case of 'news addiction'. After two weeks of spell-binding Olympic coverage, watching elegant athletics every night, and a week of intense and stirring speeches from the Democratic National Convention, I sit now with nothing on the TV, nothing new on the news websites, only speculative stories in the newspapers. But a hurricane is bearing down on New Orleans! The Republicans are going to have a convention! Classes start in two days! I'm living next week already.

The longer future directly relates to the Democratic and Republican conventions. I want the election in November to be over already, and I want to know that Obama and Biden have won. I have tried not to be 'too political' in my blog here, but too much is at stake for me to ignore. The election is one of the most common topics of conversation with friends, and (like I said) the past few weeks have fired an unhealthy desire for news-news-news. Heck, I even listened to a lot of the silly pundits after the convention speeches. I've sunk so low that I read the "reader's comments" on web-site articles. I have to stop.

But the addiction is fueled by a self-serving investment I have in the outcome of the November election. When I say too much is at stake, I'm talking about a very personal stake, beyond the significant general interests we all share in our democratic choices.

It really bugs me when people talk about John McCain's 'experience' and maverick leadership qualities. Experience with no judgement is just stupidity. One of his primary decisions, to continue the Bush/Cheney policies in Iraq, has a direct and selfish impact on me. This is it: 32 million dollars in federal funding for multiple myeloma last year. What is that? Two-and-one-half-hours in Iraq. How can anyone stand in front of us and say that continuing to spend $10 billion a month on our fun in Baghdad is something we should do? How can anyone tell me that 150 minutes of a misguided military adventure is worth more than the total annual expenditure on the cancer that is killing me? What kind of insanity is this?

Now McCain has put together (with Sarah Palin) one of the most anti-science, anti-research, anti-education and anti-knowledge teams in recent history. I think even Dick Cheney has more enlightened views about research spending than Palin does. Bear in mind that when politicians speak about de-funding stem-cell research, that they seem to be looking directly through the television to say "we mean we are not going to fund research on YOUR disease, Brad Garton!" -- multiple myeloma is a stem-cell cancer (yes I know the difference between adult and embryonic stem cells, but just watch any stem-cell program get loaded with money in this kind of willfully ignorant environment). Jill's Multiple Sclerosis? Let's write that off, too. War is much better (and I bet God prefers it, too, for the religious backers of McCain/Palin).

What's going on here? Is my life 'passing before my eyes', a very slow (hopefully!) prelude to death? If so, this isn't bad. Again I am reminded of younger Daniel's religion, the eternal persistence of each moment of existence. I know how cliched this sounds, but when I have these memory-flashes, these moments of immanence, it stops my time for an instant as I think how precious it is to be alive, just now. You don't know what these moments of remembrance will be, and they fold back upon themselves, each one linking to the others. It is a life. I was there, then.

How to gauge all these things, align them into coherence? Dinner with Dan/Monica (Mollie/Otto), Paul/Hannah and friends, e-mails with my brother-in-law John, discussions with Terry, the political race between Obama and McCain tightening, phone with my mom and sis, cancer stories with neighbors, possible trips to Portugal and China, finishing software, squishing grapes for wine, so much... so much...

... and then I hear that one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, committed suicide. Following a link from a New York Times story about him, I read this evening an article Wallace wrote about Wimbledon -- one I hadn't read -- and he does an amazing job of describing the "beauty" in how Roger Federer plays. Earlier in the article, though, talking about how the final match started, he described the 'honorary coin-tosser', a seven-year-old boy who had recovered from liver cancer and was representing the UK Cancer Society. Then, several pages later, he takes time out from his description of the tennis to write:

But today. October 22. How can I frame this date? I suppose I could attempt a pale imitation of the indirect but powerful way Barack Obama with his preacher-in-front-of-the-Lincoln-memorial speech masterfully acknowledged Dr. Martin Luther King when Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for the presidency: There is a chapel in the middle of the Rutgers University campus. Inside are pictures of retired Deans and past Presidents of the University. Imagine two people coming in separate entrances, leaving together...

Or I could relate a factual story: On the inside of our wedding bands, Jill and I have the number "06646" inscribed. What does this number mean? It comes from page 440 of Introduction to Probability and Statistics (4th Edition) by William Mendenhall; the listing of random numbers in Table 13. Back in the early 1980's, before the contemporary age of ubiquitous computers, using these tables was a common technique for generating random numbers. At the intersection of column 10 (October!) and row 22 (22nd!) is the number, "06646". Jill and I considered it a symbol of the order we had chosen to impose on the randomness of life.

That's it -- this day, October 22. Twenty-five years ago, October 22, 1983, Jill and I stood together in Kirkpatrick Chapel and committed our lives to each other. Today is our 'silver' wedding anniversary! Yay!!!!!!!

What a time it has been. Although we did indeed choose a kind of ordering for our lives, the best it could do is to shift the subsequent randomness (and concomitant decisions/attempts-to-order) for the quarter-century-past unfolding of our time together. We pledged our love to each other, but honestly we had no idea what we were doing. Only through the years have we learned what love truly is, a depth and expansion of an initial intensity that now floods our existence with meaning. Lian, Daniel, our family and friends, our work, our colleagues, I had no idea how rich and wonderful it all would be. I think of Jill, and the thought brings with it an ineffable "correctness" to the universe. I realize this is the typical wedding anniversary cliche, but I absolutely love my wife more than ever. This is the life of goodness and light people desire, the hope I have for our children, the dream of the future. How in the world did I get to be so lucky right now? I ask again: what did I do to deserve all this?

I sit here typing this in the ambulatory oncology waiting room at Weill-Cornell (I have a check-up scheduled today) and I am the happiest man in the world. Again a cliche: I would not trade this for anything. Jill, I love you!

When I say "all is well", I mean really well. Ever since my stem-cell harvest (and in fact ever since it was apparent I had gone into remission) my 'stats' have been good. No evidence of cancer activity, and my body seems to be tolerating the low-dose Revlimid well. Dr. Pearse still sees me once a month, so I know this is probably borrowed-time (but also unknown-time) territory. I apologized a few weeks ago for being a very boring patient, and Roger's reply was: "that's a really good thing." I hope the boredom continues.

So many things have happened, so much I should have written! The best I can do is start to list a few random items, and then pick up the narrative from there:

• My Book of Dreams -- I finally finished my sabbatical project. It was actually completed at the end of August (I made my deadline), but debugging the cross-platform versions was difficult. I intended to post it here earlier... Anyhow, it runs on most Macintosh and Windows computers now, but there are still a small few upon which it will crash. I don't know why. Here is the link:
  
  My Book of Dreams
  
  The response I got after announcing it was predictably underwhelming, but I'm pretty pleased with it. I think even Jill enjoyed it. My life is happy! I'll probably say more about this in future posts here.
  
  
• homesounds -- This was a piece I wrote for Lian's graduation last May. I asked her if I could put it on-line, and she said that was fine. See, I actually did get good work done while on sabbatical... strange but true! The link:
  
  homesounds
  
  Again, probably more to say about this, but I'm just typing to catch up for now.
  
  
• Seattle -- Speaking of Lian, we went to visit her right after the election. What a life! Again the joy we have in her achievements, her apparent happiness. I didn't know that vicarious parental pride could be this good. We had delightful time. Some photos here:
  
  visit with Lian in Seattle
  
  One quick story about the trip: the musical high point for me was a dinner at a seafood restaurant Lian liked. They served lots of flaming drinks and desserts, very dramatic! As we walked in, the pianist was playing typical lounge-piano music, Moonlight Sonata, Stardust. Soon he morphed into the Miraculous Postmodern Lounge Pianist, however, and we were treated to an astounding solo piano arrangement of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Seattle, oh yeah. It was the first time I had ever been there.
  
  
• Daniel's High School -- Daniel is having a blast! It's amazing to see how enthused he is at Biotech High School. He was selected as "student of the month" the first month there! I am using exclamation marks! Again, I didn't know life would be this good.
  
  
• Portugal -- I was invited to perform in Evora, Portugal at a music festival organized by a wonderful friend from my past (Amilcar Vasques-Dias). I suggested that Terry and Gregory come along for some PGT performances, and they agreed. It was one of the best experiences we've had performing recently, mainly due to the hospitality of Amilcar and his partners-in-crime Jose Alberto Ferreira and Rita Valente (and of course Amilcar's wife Manuela...). Certainly more about this later, but here's the website with the music we performed:
  
  PGT-Portugal
  
  and some photos here:
  
  Evora pictures
  
  
• Obama -- oh YEAH! Part of the busy-ness of life in the past month was the election. I did some volunteer work for the Obama campaign, phone calls, etc. and even went to Pennsylvania on Election Day to help get out the vote. I didn't do much, but I felt a part of it all. Certainly there is more to say about this moment in our collective history, but later. I will tell this story for now: Neighbor Mark Aakhus called just before Obama's acceptance speech, and I went down for champaign at midnight with friends in town. On the way home -- this is true -- I danced in the streets! I am proud to be a citizen of our country. I do believe.

I spent most of the weekend eating, relaxing and reading. One of the books I took with me is a recent collection of essays by Umberto Eco titled On Literature. In one of the essays ("On Symbolism" -- Eco is an 'on' kinda guy) he describes (from Goethe) a symbol as an image that either evokes or is invoked by a larger phenomenon. Eco seemed more attracted to the idea that the symbol evokes the broader image, thinking it a more "poetic" move.

As I was reading this, my mom came over and asked if one of the lamps mounted on the wall was shining in my eyes. It really wasn't too bad, but mom had a piece of foil stashed behind the couch to hang on the lampshade to prevent any eye-shining terribleness. And that was it, that was the symbol of my mom's unbelievable thoughtfulness (even in the face of ungrateful-child thoughtlessness), her care for the well-being of others, her willingness to do what she can to make life nicer for those around her. This symbol then expanded, a token of parental love. I saw Lian and Daniel sitting across the room, my hope being that Jill and I also have given them the unselfishness that we learned from our parents. DNA? Tribal/familial love? Species-perpetuation? Who knows, but it lies at the core of our being.

There is a sense that I think Eco/Goethe are wrong in this case, though. Identifying the symbol or symbolic gesture as a token that then evokes a universal image of some kind misses the primary point, at least as I experienced it, of my mom shading the lamp. It was the act of placing the foil on the lamp in order to make life a tiny bit better, the thousands and thousands of these small-but-thoughtful acts through the years that becomes the universal entity itself. When I think back on my life, when it 'flashes before my eyes' in various ways, it is formed by particular moments, remembered individual instances, all strung together as almost independent points connected only by the fact that they happened. My life seems not defined by some universal theme or set of over-arching principles, it is instead the sum of the parts. Perhaps a larger truth can be teased out of the sequence of events, but that overlay is at least one step removed from the pure elements of existence. It truly is the 'little things' that matter. They are what I remember.

I've noticed that my memories also hold echoes for a far greater expanse of time. Driving up to the airport to fly to Indiana today, I passed the rotating radar-dish-thing on the south side of Newark Airport. Instantly in my head I heard the voice of a 5-year-old Lian saying "Look! There's the airplane guider, Daddy!" Instantly I was there, then, again.

Rick has had a profound influence on my life. He and I were business partners and house-mates for years while I was an undergraduate and then grad-student at Purdue in the late 1970's and early 1980's. He and I founded Zounds Productions, the recording studio where I learned most of my analog music-technology skills. His influence runs deeper than that, however, because it was through him that I was exposed to the world of musical possibility, including the possibility that I might be able to make my life in music. Rick is one of the seminal figures in live theater sound design. He now holds a faculty position (and former Department Chair) in the Theater program at Purdue.

Dave Fulton also came over from his home in Whitestown, Indiana for dinner Friday and then again with his wife (and another great friend from the 'olden days') Sherry. Their son Rob (I still called him "Robbie") is a junior at Purdue, so he also joined us. Speaking of profound influences, visit here:

fun music!

The memories! Driving along I-65 from Indianapolis to Lafayette was pretty intense. I used to make that drive twice a day during recording-frenzies. Rick and I had rented a house in West Lafayette to build Zounds, and Rick wound up purchasing the house after I left to go back to school at Princeton. Thus I stayed this past weekend at the same place where I spent a large part of my early adulthood. Reliving it all with Dave and Rick, there, in that place, oh my. I had an uncanny feeling that I could see my younger self, good AND bad, hanging around in the kitchen (probably not doing the dishes), upstairs in the shower, thinking what to record that night. How was I ever to know that life would turn out like this? It was utterly unimaginable to me back then. Lian and Daniel have no idea what may lie ahead. and of course neither do we. I was thoroughly aware of the unfolding linearity of time, but this awareness was compounded by an intersecting, fixed thing that has been. With Gregory there -- intersections from other points in my life -- it all became a really bizarre infolding of my life-trajectory. It seemed like it was a good curve, though. There is nothing I've blotted from my mind because it was so awful, or no real my god why did I do that? recollections. Also, here I am.

What an egoistic entry this is. These things happened to me. This was my life. I guess I can't really write much else. It got even more ego-soaked in the bar in downtown Lafayette (which is much much nicer than when I was living there). There were quite a few younger musicians who somehow discovered that "Mr. Science" from the ancient punk-synth band "Dow Jones and the Industrials" was in town. They seemed impressed, ("you guys are like gods to us!"). but then again they were at an impressionable age.

The concert featured Rick and his students for the first half, very talented kids. Gregory and I played the second half, with Rick joining us on guitar for the last piece. Here is a link to the material:

GT(Th) Purdue, 12/13/2008

"If I try hard to remember, all kinds of stuff comes back -- really vivid memories. All of a sudden out of nowhere I can bring back things I haven't thought about for years. It's pretty interesting. Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we we just keep forgetting, one after the other."

Korogi stands there holding the remote control.

"You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive."

The potent mortal knowledge is still there, but now more of an undercurrent than the defining surface. I suspect that's as it should be, although the strong desire to do things before it was too late sure gave me a powerful local purpose. I need to remember that "too late" can happen very quickly (more on this thread tomorrow).

We're amazingly lucky: all of our kids' grandparents are still alive. This includes my sister's in-laws, too. But that doesn't mediate the sting of life changing, a stroke, a heart-failure, MS, cancer. Change will happen, how we've lived up to the point that it does is probably what determines how life will then unfold after-the-event. Roy is a truly happy person, a guy who has been genuinely delighted by life. I think he'll be ok, at least for a while.

I really want him to be all right, not only for Jill, but because I want to embrace all the 'everything will be ok' new-agey platitudes again. Reading through the past blog entries here, and realizing that life has become much more normalized, I don't feel the ferocity of linear existence as I did just a year ago. This is fine, except that some of that intensity was channeled into an acute awareness of life changing, life flowing. I think it made me a better person. Now I flounder and flop a bit again. A sort of stasis. Other people are doing stuff, accomplishing things. Lately all I do is I poke around at this and that, some coding here, some sound-making there, but I worry that when change comes again I will be flat on my feet once more. Here is my quasi-religious yearning: I want life to be fabulous again, I want to marvel at the simple act of walking down the street and seeing a particular slant of light. I'd prefer it not to be kindled by a belief in imminent death, though. I want Roy's happiness, for all of us.

We try to do this. Here are a few activities we engage during this season to inject some extra-ordinary magic into our little world: First, we bring several evergreen trees into the house and decorate them with lights:

MERRY WISH CARTS