Just Dreaming |
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Saturday, October 27, 2001
Downtime  The rain finally arrived... I think I was ready for a day like today, in which I just might stay in all day. I did find a few postcards yesterday. I tried the big Powell's bookstore, and another Powell's, which both yielded zero cool postcards! It's not that they didn't have any... Just their selections, ahh! They need to get some cool ones for a change. Or I suppose I should just stop thinking maybe next time they'll have something cool. While I was downtown, doing really more walking than I was in the mood for (after morning treading) I stopped at the central library... Still one of my favorite places to stop, when I go downtown. I may scan a postcard or two later... Hmm, I wonder what places I might not have found, which are good for black and white postcards, in Portland? At the library, I always head straight up to the third floor, arts and music, by elevator.. Sometimes I love to stand under this dome. It makes me a little dizzy. Then, I might rush down these stairs, full blast.. Going down stairs is fun! Friday, October 26, 2001
Happy? I don't know what it is with all these happy feelings! ;-) The sun is shining, I have  to get going! First I'm going to post a post-treadmill, pre-shave photo from early this morning, before I fell back into bed for more sleep. The rain is coming, and the sun is shining, so I'm on my way! Thursday, October 25, 2001
Odd Ad I went to the local suburban Powell's Book Store, hoping for maybe an interesting postcard or two.. Nothing. Actually even the downtown Powell's doesn't have all that many postcards.. I need to scout around town! Anyway, they did have this odd little near postcard sized ad, however... They wrote too much on the other side to actually be able to use it as a postcard though! Pinks I was wandering around this evening, enjoying the beauty of the sunset and the sun on the trees... I didn't have my camera with me, however. As usual, lately! So, I thought I'd post some flowers from a walk last spring.. This page needs some colour up here..  She Noticed What??!! OK, so what if I was sort of lingering for a minute over by her section..He hehe... She *did* come around the corner, then after doing something, she turned, and gave me the sweetest smiling charming "hi"!! I don't know, things seem to be warming up with her a little?? (Not just this, but lately, I think.. Sometimes people seem to put a little "extra" on, after some turning point?) Could be I'm dreaming... Could the girl who's my first at work choice to get stuck in the elevator with, be moving in my direction? Dreeeeeam - - dream, dream, dream. Still, that was nice...Two good days in a row??! What! ;-) Sweet As Ever Damm this is sweet. I remember why UB40 used to be my all-time favourite band. Wow... UB40 apparently released their new, 14 track CD, "Cover Up" in the UK, October 15.. I've just now come across it, last night. I haven't found when the US release date is, yet.... Doesn't seem to be on the radar screen here yet. Ooooooooeeee. This is the UB40 sound I fell in love with. Mellow and full, and the melodies... Neither of their last couple of new material releases did that much for me ("Labour of Love III" & "Guns In The Ghetto.") This one though, oh man.. I feel inclined to get in touch with old UB40 buddies. The feel of this one... That's it, it's really warm. I love Ali Campbell's voice!!! Yeah, they got their feel back... Who would have thought... First Bob Dylan, with "Love and Theft"... Now UB40 has gone into some sort of talent time capsule... Amazon UK customers have it right, this is definitely a five star album.. I love it!!! (OK, I'm only through the first nine songs already, but I do love it..) From Elsewhere... I took a long lunch hour yesterday, and went back downtown for more postcard browsing.... I looked and looked, and only found a couple more. It's hard to find ones you really, really like. I've found some of my favourites are printed here in the U.S.... Some of the ones I enjoy the most, and that tend to be a little harder to find, come from the U.K. or France. I posted one yesterday, an American scene from 1939, which came from France. Here's another, printed in the U.K., this one of a float plane, flying past the Statue of Liberty. .. The base almost makes me think of a pyramid or something....I immediately liked both of these. Something hard to define... Sometimes, you just know you love something. You feel drawn to it. Why is it that some of the coolest things are hard to find? I mean, both of these were the only copy of each, there... I only learned that later, after looking through scads of others, but it's kind of a neat thing to find out. Wednesday, October 24, 2001
The Joy Of Discovery I've just learned what "publishing" one's blog pages means, and how to do it, without funky little "test" or "just another test" messages. So I can save anyone who might look at it that minute, the trouble! :-) There are so many fun things to find out about, or learn by trial and error... This is good, since I know there are so many things I don't know yet about this sort of thing... It's fun to have a bunch of ideas floating around in my head now about things which might be fun to do with a web page, in the future - - and to actually have an idea about how I might bring those about! New And Fresh, From 1993 A couple of Beth Orton songs lately have me really thinking I need to make an Orton favourites CDR.. "Roll The Dice" and "Release Me," from "SuperPinkyMandy." I've always loved the way, when you discover music you like, it doesn't matter when it's from. Everything you hear by that artist sounds "new and fresh." He he... I was thinking 'SuperPinkyMandy' was Beth's newest album, because it's the most recent I acquired (and the best overall I think.) However, it turns out it's from 1993, only on Japanese import... Postcards From The City Last Friday afternoon, pre-Blog, I was wandering around downtown (Portland.) It was sunny, a little chilly, but really nice... Years back, I lived close enough to downtown to walk there... After that, my office was up in a small skyscraper, the 200 SW Market building, for years... What a great place to walk around. You could walk on the waterfront, up to Portland State University, through the park blocks, or just around downtown... One of my anchor activities, then, and on any trip for years there, was shopping for records, new and used.. Now, I work and live on the outskirts of town. My commute is nice and short, except that I have only a smidgen of time for listening to music while driving to and from... Anyway, last Friday was the best time I'd had downtown in years. It somehow almost felt like "my downtown" again, familiar and comfortable like it used to be. I know my way around. I love the feel of a city. It's like, I can be in downtown Portland, and sometimes, if the mood is just right, I might feel I'm walking the streets of London. That city captured my imagination.. Since I no longer haunt the record stores (which still seems kind of strange) I have to do something else in the city. Hey, postcards!! I love cool postcards.. I mean, interesting ones. I go for colourful ones, odd ones, charming ones, and some dramatic black and white postcards too. For a few months now I've had a small gallery of old black and white postcards in my desk area at work. I noticed a while back, that most of them are of New York, with a small representation of Paris, too. I wasn't too voracious in my postcard purchases Friday. Actually, I never am. I look through lots and lots of postcards, but I only ever find a very few I really like. I've been wanting to add to my black and white gallery, and I found two... One's of rays of sunlight streaming into Grand Central Station, 1926, similar to a couple others right in front of me.. I love those. The other one is one of those skyline photos, of a DC9 plane flying over New York City, in 1939.. I think it's beautiful.. Coolin By Sound This morning on the way to work, first I skipped over a couple other songs.. Then came to a really cool groove, which sounded even better when I turned it up! My whole CRV was moving with Pavement's "Coolin By Sound," from their single, "Range Life." Mmmm... Ha, when it first came on, I was thinking, "This is great!" Then after a while I started thinking, "What is this?" Now, mind you, my CD changer is filled right now with CDR's I've made myself... Now I'm thinking, "I've got to get more Pavement onto CDR!" and "I need to listen sort some more music and make another CDR or two.." There's nothing I love more, well, few things I love as much, as listening to music I own, which sounds great, thrills me, makes me happy, makes me go crazy with delight, that I don't even know "exactly" what it is! He he he... Well, it's fun. Like a mystery. I design it that way... Long ago, when I used to be really into reggae, and before the internet was big, I bought lots and lots of LPs, and later CDs, handfuls and sometimes boxfuls at a time, partly to provide for the future delight of finding unknown treasures within my own collection...I was thinking, "Hey, long from now, I could be retired, and perhaps this music won't be available any more. So I will be well set, then!" Hmm, except for the last few years, I haven't been into reggae, at all. Maybe I'll get back in the mood some day? I really like the idea of downloading scores of music instead... Although, you don't get those really beautiful graphics, like on some LPs.. The problem, well if there is a problem, is that I tend to download gobs of music, and sometimes, don't do anything at all with it, for months on end. Like, "Cool there's the new Garbage album, download it immediately!" Or, "Oh wow, a cool Bob Dylan bootleg set, get it now!" Or, "What? Someone's put up a bunch of Pavement albums, wow, I better get them now. Bound to be a few good songs in there." Then, the hard drive starts filling... And you end up buying a new bigger drive, and it starts filling, then.... It's all worth it though. I love music. Tuesday, October 23, 2001
Infinite Sadness Sadness.. I haven't decided if that's one of the topics of this blog yet. Hmm... Fall back into sadness? Ahh, we have to remember to fall back our clocks this weekend. Else risk being an hour late Monday. That happened to me years ago. I just a few minutes ago ran into my old boss when that happened! I must have survived it. I suppose sadness can be interesting. It's sort of a foggy place. But then, I love fog. Sadness is just one of those things.... Will I Ever Even Ask? Life is too strange. I don't know what this means... Just now, I went scouting a little cafe near here, which seems pretty charming, and looks like it might be a good choice for a potential first lunch date.. Just in case... Cafe Allegro passed my final scoping, it's little, casual, and nearby. So, I was just walking back in, pleased with my "find" or at least my preparation, again, just in case. As I walked in the corridor, who should walk out? Yes, the one I was thinking of asking to lunch! (Unattached, and interested, I think.) Ha! Of course I was spacing out and she almost got by before I even looked up and said hi... No time to ask her then... Typical! What does it mean? Why would she, of all people, show up right then? Just as strange, if not stranger.... Yesterday afternoon, I figured I'd go down to the lunch room for a break, something I don't do all that often. I'm up on the third floor, waiting to go to the first, in our three story building. I'm waiting and waiting, it's a slow elevator. I start thinking, ahh, what if I got stuck in the elevator with some woman? My old girlfriend? No, not her, that was then, this is now.. So, who here would I *want* to get stuck in the elevator with? Easy! "unmarried, except I think she has a very serious boyfriend," little tiny one... I think, "nah, she never rides the elevator anyway..." Besides it seems a little too far fetched. I have my crushes. ;-) So I hear the elevator coming... I'm thinking, "OK, soon some really boring person will walk out of that elevator, and I can stop dreaming of the fun of being stuck in the elevator with the girl of my choice..." The door opens... **She** walks out!!!! Oh man. I fall to pieces.. What does *that* mean?? Feeling The Music Oh yah!!! Sometimes Everclear just hits the spot!! I wish I was in my CRV now, just blasting.. Ak, why is it, whenever I am having the best time just smiling and feeling the music, with my headphones... at that very moment, someone who hasn't come over to talk to me about anything for days or weeks, chooses that exact time to come over, make me remove my headphones, and talk to me??!! That shouldn't be allowed. ;-) Ooo, the desperation and determination in Everclear's "Loser Makes Good." "You smart a**'d college f**k, act like you think you're tough. I was just like you..." Well I was that college f**k, still am, kind of. But I can really identify with this song... [Edit note: Fixed the title to this Everclear song..] Blasting Out It's funny how some mornings I feel like blasting out on the way into work. Like this morning, some really loud, raucous Eels, sounded just right. The funny thing is, the last song I listened to, and one of my favourites of theirs, is "Novocaine For The Soul." Kind of a scary title. The lead singer's had a lot of trouble in his family, with suicides and things, so it's sort of understandable. Anyway, so I've been meaning to make it to the dentist... Actually, I've been avoiding the dentist for a long time! I hate the dentist! Ahhhhh! They hurt me! However, my new dental plan offers fully paid nitrous, yeah!! Actually, it's a lot better than novocaine.. Kind of reminds me of that though. "No, it's not working yet, you better increase the dosage...." :-) Too bad they don't give you some nitrous for later, just in case the tooth starts hurting again. :-) Ak, I need some extra strong coffee or something today... I have to stop waking up at 5:00AM or 4:00AM! Yeah, I've gotten up and done my treadmill, since I couldn't go back to sleep... I want my sleep though! Sometimes, I'd really like to be able to program myself. Like, "OK Matthew, sleep from now until 6:00AM. No waking before then." Or, "OK, you've identified this girl, and she appears to be a good prospect, now ask her out. No, not 8 months from now. The very next time you see her." I need some pre-programming!!! She Linked Wow, Laura actually linked to my blog! What an honor. :-) Yes, she is the one who influenced me to do this, and I like it! Much more than I ever would have thought. Thanks Laura, for the tips and inspiration.. Laura's blog is here, and she has lots of interesting and artistic web pages to look at endlessly, too... Monday, October 22, 2001
I think this font should go to blue now. I really like blue...... :-) And the header, I'll try the same colour as my CRV, well sort of. My CRV is brighter, very blue! OK, I've changed the order, I want to see what it looks like... what a joy to be able to actually post pictures. I love it!  Alright, now here is the odd little image I was trying to post to my blog over the weekend... This was a little poster from a cool library book from a few weeks back. Ahhhhhhhh! How do I do this!!!!!!!??? There has got to be a way to post a photo from a blog to one's blog. Well obviously, people do it. So why can't I???!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!! Outside My Bedroom Window What a weird dream I had Sunday morning... Well usually I don't remember them but this one I did. I was laying in bed Sunday morning, thinking how I just never seem to sleep in lately. Then I must have drifted off. Except, I wasn't aware I was in a dream.I heard some odd noise out front, and walked down the stairs of my townhouse ... Looking up at me through the slats, way down low, who was that!? The closer I got, I could see it was a couple girls, or maybe young women, so I wasn't quite so mad... Not some kids or something. I went out, and there was a whole gathering to the right of my door, in a little area out there... (Now if I'd been Dennis Wilson, I'd probably have joined the gathering, just for the girls... well, I was tired, I could only think of peace and quiet then!) It being early Sunday morning, and me thinking I had been upstairs trying to sleep in, I said something like, "What's going on here!?" And some guy got up and said, "I live here," and apparently walked to his nearby place. Hmph! I walked in, and back upstairs... Then they got louder. It sounded like the rag-tag group was singing a peace song... Ak! Why here, why now? Well, Portland has plenty of peace protester types, but not *right here*, usually! I was very tired then, so I opened up the window and shouted something rude down at them! He he he ehe... Then again! A little later, I looked out my window, and saw my second oldest brother David, with his mid-1960's crewcut, walking on a (high school?) campus. Hmm.. At this point, I was starting to suspect this was all unreal. Well it was unreal, it was a dream! I woke up a little while later... Luckily, it started raining, and I slept for hours, past noon.. :-) Does this have anything to do with a dream a couple weeks back, in which I heard Bob Dylan singing a line or two about peace, an unfamiliar song? In A Sweater :-) It's so rainy and dark today. What a perfect day to be inside, maybe sleeping, or having a nice hot cup of coffee.. Just relaxing in, with the rain out there.. Oh, I love how women are shaped differently. :-) A nice looking woman in a sweater just looks nothing like a guy. What a delight.. Constant Musings Another name I'd considered for this blog, is "Constant Musings." Those who know me know that I tend to write a lot. I've been known to deluge those I am close to, with email. Lots of times I am just musing about this or that. I have a really sweet friend right now, who I've done this with... I do get carried away though. Hey, here, why not? No one has to read it, or respond to it, so that's good. It's just a place to express oneself, right? "Just Dreaming" is pretty accurate too.. Dreaming of the girl I hope to meet, when the time is right... Dreaming of the future, an early retirement, lots of travel, a quiet, private place to live. Just daydreaming! I sort of love being off in a dreamland.. |
Thanks to Laura if this works! 
