One Off

Move over, Papa John

Sep 092010

In case you’re wondering, this is what I made and ate for dinner tonight. If you’ve never grilled a pizza, you have never lived. (It was seriously so good.) (Which isn’t anything like being seriously so blessed.) I even made the sauce from heirloom tomatoes, used basil from my herb garden, and bake the crust from scratch. (I didn’t make the pepperoni or the mozzerella. I mean, let’s not go overboard…)

Now I just need to find someone who wants to come over and clean up my kitchen. Why, oh WHY did I fire my cleaning lady? The savings just aren’t worth it!

Random Thoughts Edition - September 8, 2010

Being Existential, Friends, Living It Up, Luke The Dog, Reminiscing, School View Comments

Sep 082010

So, I can’t seem to muster the mental energy lately to write a fully-formed, well reasoned blog post. Of course, most people would probably argue that I’ve never written one of those before in my life…but that’s another topic. So, it’s time for another random thoughts edition of One Off.

***

Sad. Sad, Sad, Sad. Epic Sad. Summer is over. To Wit:

This makes me sad. Our summer was so short this year. And rumor has it that we’re in for another very wet winter. The lawn outside my apartment is already a mud bog, and it’s only been raining for a week or so. I, at least, hope that we get some snow this year around Christmas time.

***

Speaking of Christmas time, it’s been cold and rainy lately, and every time the weather changes like that, it makes me want to start decorating for Christmas. I know, I know. It’s only September. And I may not be able to control my impulses when it comes to money, but I will refrain from decorating for Christmas until November. I may not have a lot of self control, but I think I can manage that. I bought my ticket home last week, and got my time off approved, so I will be down in Utah this year again. I will be home for almost a full week this time, so I might actually have some time to meet up with friends while I’m there. Especially if you’re available during the day time during the weeks.

***

I seem to be running into a lot of people lately who are capable of hearing only what they want to hear, and not what I actually say. If I say, "Once we start the project, it will take a minimum of three weeks to complete," the person to whom I am talking will hear, "The project will be done in three weeks." If I say, "We don’t do physical distribution of audiobooks, we only do digital distribution," the person to whom I am speaking will hear, "We do both physical and digital distribution." Did I all of a sudden (or is it "all of THE sudden?") lose my ability to communicate clearly? Did I ever have that ability?

***

I’m completely sickened by the jackholes in Florida who are planning a book burning of the Koran (Quran?) this weekend. I’m so, so, so tired of ignorant people making offensive decisions without at least trying to understand what it is they are fighting against. Sure. We’ll burn the Koran because some terrorists are Islamic, but we’ve never actually read the book, so we don’t know for sure what it teaches. Of course, some terrorists are Catholic, but we won’t burn the Bible, because those Catholic terrorists don’t reflect the point of view of all Catholics. All of the hatred, ignorance, and anger that resonates amongst people has really started to affect me lately. I just wish we lived in a world where those who are religious wouldn’t use their religion as an excuse to stay ignorant of the world and the people in it. It’s possible to be religious and still be enlightened and aware of the greater picture.

***

I’ve been feeling a little bit of…what’s the word…homesickness, I guess, for my old classmates and life at BYU. I never felt like I fit in all that much with the MDT kids (despite my trying desperately), but they were a really fun group of people most of the time. In the last few weeks, I’ve been mentally reliving the "breakthroughs" that I had when I was in school. Landing a supporting lead in a mainstage play the first week of school as a freshman, the first time I got really good scores on my acting proficiencies, the time in my first acting class when I made the class laugh doing an exercise when we were only able to speak in gibberish, doing The Fantasticks with Korianne and learning, for the first time, what it meant to have a fully two-way relationship with your acting partner. Choreographing a dance piece based on MacBeth with Nicole that the teacher still remembers eight years later. Taking coaching with Dave. Ballet with Richie. As difficult as the MDT program was (and, as worthless as the degree is in the "real" world), there were a lot of good times. I miss that.

***

I also miss some of my old former friends. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life when it comes to my relationships with my friends. I’ve lately been wishing that I could undo what I did and go back to the way things were. We’ve all moved on in our lives, and a reconciliation isn’t really likely (and perhaps not even recommended) but I still miss having those friendships more readily available.

***

On a more upbeat note, my dog is apparently part squirrel. The acorns have started falling off the oak trees here at my apartment complex. He likes to pick up the whole acorns (he won’t touch the ones that are cracked open) and carry them back to the apartment. Then he deposits them in a pile under the dining room table. He doesn’t chew them, he just carries and collects them, like he’s preparing for winter. It’s really strange.

***

I have two new neighbors who moved in a month ago who happen to be brothers of one of the guys I went to school with in the MDT program. They’re really cool guys, but they’re both built like brick walls, and always find ways to go around without their shirts on. (Let’s be honest…if I had a body like that, I would too.) My neighbors exacerbate my body image issues.

***

And lastly, here’s another photo from my photowalk on Labor Day

This is the underside of an old, abandoned train trestle over the Sammamish river. The slats across the top are actually the railroad ties.

A Labor-Free Day

Being Existential, Food, Gratitude, Living It Up, Pictures, Ramblings View Comments

Sep 062010

Sometimes, I think the universe just understands when I need a little break. Like this weekend, for instance.

I’ve been, not busy per se, but erstwhile occupied. I’ve been doing a lot of things I have to do instead of things I want to do and, as a result, I’ve not had much in the way of "down" time. Work has been going along well enough, and I finally feel as though I’m starting to fit into my place in the company a little more than I have previously. I’ve got my first 1-on-1 with my boss tomorrow, though, so I guess I’ll find out if my assessment of the situation matches his…

My audiobook company, Open Book Audio, has begun to change shape a little bit. Originally envisioned as an audiobook production company, my business partner and I have started morphing the company away from a production model and toward a distribution model. So, toward that end, I have been spending almost all of my non-work time in front of the computer designing and programming the new Open Book Audio store. (I keep linking them here on my blog to help drive the search engines to the site, so forgive the repetition). I’m quite pleased with the way the store has turned out, and the platform upon which the entire site, including the store, is built is an extremely flexible and easy to use one. We’ve already started listing products from other publishers, and we’re hoping to increase that number significantly over the next couple of years. We’re also in talks with the major retailers (Audible, iTunes, eMusic, etc.) to get our titles listed in those services. (It’s like pulling teeth, but we’re well on our way.)

So, Friday night, all day Saturday, and almost all day Sunday, I sat in front of my computer immersed in CSS, PHP, HTML, and LMNOP. (That last one is fake, by the way.) Last Sunday night, I finally launched the work I’d been doing for the last month, and actually went to sleep not making a mental list of the things I needed to work on tomorrow. It is extremely fortuitous that Monday was a holiday, otherwise, I wouldn’t have had much of a weekend at all.

This morning, although the weather was, shall we say, less than idyllic, I decided that it was time to have some fun for a change. So I did. I took Luke for a walk, and ate breakfast. Then, after looking through a Facebook album of one of my friends where pretty much everyone in the group of people looked like Abercrombie and Fitch models (and wore about the same amount of clothing), I decided that I would go run on the treadmill for about 30 minutes. I came back, took a shower, got dressed, unfriended my Facebook friend with the posse of buff gym rats, and then grabbed my camera.

I haven’t gone shooting in months. Too many other distractions. Work, Open Book Audio, the new piano…they didn’t leave much time for shooting pictures. This time, I decided that, rather than drive all over the place trying to find some amazing vista to photograph, I’d stay within the city limit of Redmond. I’m glad I did, because I found a beautiful little spot that I had no idea even existed.

Right near the city’s campus (city hall, police station, senior center) there’s a river trail that runs alongside the Sammamish river. Summer’s just starting to come to a close, so there are still some flowering plants, and everything’s green. I can tell that it’s going to be spectacular when fall comes, though. It was so isolated and quiet. I actually climbed across the river on that old abandoned train track you can see in the photo, and walked back up the other side of the river where I found this guy just plodding along in the river:

If you will allow me to wax grateful for a moment: I am so grateful that I moved to the Seattle area. The first year and a half were very difficult for me up here, and there are moments (October through May) where I can’t help but ask myself what I’ve done to move to a place where the sun only shines 17 days out of a year. But I love, love, love Redmond. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. It feels like a small town (albeit a very sophisticated one) with easy access to big-city accommodations. It really is the best of both worlds. Where else can you walk out your door to see a bald eagle or a great blue heron, and then drive five minutes to thousands of restaurants, art galleries, movie theaters, and more shopping than you can shake a stick at? I just wish I could afford to buy a house here. At the very least, I hope I never lose my job, because I never want to leave the Pacific Northwest. I’ve lived all over the country, and no place compares with this gorgeous, wonderful place.

Once the very relaxing photo walk was over, I came home, took a nap, made homemade pizza, a loaf of bread, and a homemade razzleberry pie. (Raspberries, Blueberries, and fresh-picked blackberries from the vines just outside my apartment). Then I watched an episode of Bones (thanks Netflix!), practiced the Maple Leaf Rag on the piano, and now here I am. Oh yeah, and I played about an hour of Angry Birds on my iPad. Fun game.

I’m the kind of person who, even when relaxing, has to be doing something. The difference between relaxing and not relaxing is whether I’m doing something I WANT to be doing or something I HAVE to be doing. And, honestly, many times, it’s the exact same activity. I just have to be in the mood for it.

In fact, the only thing about today that wasn’t perfect was that I did the unthinkable: I let my cleaning lady go today. She’s been picking up after me for over a year, and she was awesome. Unfortunately, with the new piano and some of my other bills, I just can’t justify the $240 a month I spend to have her clean my house–particularly since I’m not a very messy person. This will, unfortunately, eat into my relaxation time, but overall, I think it will be a positive change.

I’ll be posting more photos as the week goes on. I took about 400 shots, so I think I’ll have some good ones in there to play around with. In the meantime, go to http://www.openbookaudio.com/store and buy an audiobook. It’ll do you good. And while you’re doing that, I’m going to go and scoop up a bit of vanilla bean ice cream and place it over a piece of still-warm razzleberry pie. Happy Labor Day!

Goodbye to summer, Hello to Joplin

Being Existential, Music, Ramblings View Comments

Aug 292010

So, I know I haven’t been blogging very much lately because I’ve been wanting to enjoy summer instead of actually sitting in front of my computer.

Well, I think it’s safe to say that I will probably start blogging more often. Because, I am afraid, that summer is over! I know that summer generally is supposed to last until September 21 or 22nd, but in Seattle summer lasts about three weeks.

I’m sad that summer is almost over, seeing as how we only got about five days of it. But, I am actually kind of ready for summer to be over because as the rain starts to come in, I’ll actually have the desire to spend the time inside to do what it is I need to do on the weekends . For instance, I spent most of the day on Saturday and Sunday this week sitting in front of my computer working on the website for my company. We’re going to be launching a new store soon, and a whole new distribution service, and since it was raining outside I figured it was as good as time as any to work on the website.

I’ve also been playing my piano a lot. I forgot how much fun it was to play piano when I didn’t have to play piano, but when I got to choose to play the piano. I’ve been playing a lot of classical music, including Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Claire De Lune by Debussy, and other sonatinas and preludes by Chopin. But the thing that I’ve been enjoying the most, is the maple leaf rag by Scott Joplin.

I know buying a piano with what was, essentially, my retirement fund was a bad idea. Intellectually, I know this to be true. Emotionally, however, I am really glad I bought the piano. It’s hard to explain how important having a piano has become to me in the last couple of weeks, but having it here and available to play whenever I get the urge, has been a really relaxing thing. Even though it requires electricity, it’s one of the few things I do that doesn’t require a computer screen of some kind.

There are just too many screens in my life. I wake up, and the first thing I do is look at my phone. I watch TV while I eat. I sit in front of a computer all day long at work. When I come home, I watch TV again. Then I’ll sit in front of my computer for two or three hours. I spent most of my day in front of the screen of some kind. I spent so much time looking at screens that sometimes I feel like I forget what the real world looks like.

In addition to keeping me away from computer screens, playing the piano is helping me reconnect with skills I forgot I had. And I feel better at playing the piano now than I did when I was playing actively. I seem to be able to pick up new songs more quickly, and much more accurately than I have been able to in the past. My fingers are more agile and I think, more than anything else, in the intervening years between taking piano lessons and now, I’ve learned how to focus and how to practice. Before, I was most interested in getting to the point where I can play the song rather than getting to the point where I can play the song well. This is especially true because I was playing songs I didn’t really enjoy all that much.

Now that I get to pick the songs I play I enjoy it a lot more. When I was young, my mom would have to time to me on the kitchen oven timer for 30 min. every single day for my piano practice. And it was a fight. These days, it’s not uncommon for me to sit down to piano for two or three hours in the course of the day and just play for the fun of it. It’s been very relaxing and very centering. And the best thing is, because I can put in headphones, I can play later at night which is when I play best.

In any case, yes, I will be paying off this piano for many years to come. But, I think it was worth it. Now, whether that justifies spending the money right at this point in my life, I can’t say. But, at least I know longer feel buyer’s remorse over this purchase. And since the sun is gone for what will probably be another 8 1/2 months, I’ll have a lot of extra time to practice playing the piano.

And maybe someday, someone will actually come up here to visit me and we’ll get to hear me play. (I’m talking to you mom and dad).

Side note: I apologize for any grammatical errors or spelling errors in this blog post. There are likely more than usual. I’m testing out the new dictation feature on my computer and thought I’d dictate a blog post to see if it was faster than typing it out. Turns out, it is.

New Photo: Can You Shake?

Living It Up, Luke The Dog, Pictures View Comments

Aug 272010

Luke Shaking Hands

I don't really know why, but I really like this photo. It doesn't have the best composition, but it's just so stinkin' cute. This is the foot and hand of my neighbor Brigette, getting Luke to Shake.

Mock (yeah) Ing (yeah) Jay (yeah) Yeah (yeah)

Angry Matt, Books, Media, Rants, Seriously? View Comments

Aug 232010

So, as I begin to write this blog post, it’s 10:52 PM on a Monday night, and I’m just biding my time until midnight. Why, you may ask? That’s because, at midnight, the final book in Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games trilogy comes out, and I have pre-ordered it for delivery on my Kindle. I want to get an hour or two of reading in tonight if I am able.

I’ve not been this excited about the release of a book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out back in 2007. The Hunger Games ranks right up there in my list of favorites along with Harry Potter and the Fablehaven series.

While I’m waiting, I’m doing laundry, doing dishes, and listening to the audiobook of You Suck by Christopher Moore…a very funny novel that is basically what Twilight would have been if it were written by a sarcastic sex-crazed frat boy instead of a sexually frustrated suburban housewife with attachment issues. (In all honesty, Stephenie Meyers is a really nice person, and pretty cool in real life, but sometimes, reading the Twilight saga is enough to make me sprout breasts.)

And I’m blogging. Because, seriously, if you’re lame enough to be waiting up until Midnight for a BOOK, then you might as well cement your lameness by writing a blog post about the fact that you’re waiting up until Midnight for a book.

I thought about writing an epic rant about the jackbags who are trying to stop the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, but I feel like this topic has been played out in the media far too much. I won’t write a full-blown rant, but I would like to say a few things.

If you are one of the mindless masses campaigning against the building of an Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, you should be ASHAMED of yourself. Ashamed.
If you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and you’re campaigning against the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, you should be ashamed of yourself, and then you better go repent. LEST member of the LDS church forget, less than 40 years ago, it was still officially legal to kill a Mormon in the state of Missouri. If you’ve been in the church for any amount of time, then you know what can happen when we start being prejudiced based on religion. And for a group of people who make up less than 2% of the population of the United States, you should be fighting for these Muslim’s rights as though they were your own…because one they were your own rights that needed fighting for, and almost certainly they will be again.
Islam does not equal terrorism. Saying that an Islamic center shouldn’t be built next to Ground Zero is like saying that Marriage should be made illegal in Utah and Arizona because there are a few polygamists living there.
Seriously? SERIOUSLY? With all of the problems going on in the world, THIS is what we’re going to focus on? Whether a group of Muslims can take an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory building and turn it into a community and cultural center two blocks away from the site of the world training which, by the way, you can’t even SEE from ground zero, is really the MOST important thing we can be dealing with? How about working on joblessness, or homelessness, or lambasting Dr. Laura for saying the N-Word on the radio.

Okay. I’m stopping now. Seriously, though, if another person sends me an invite on Facebook to join another Anti-Muslim group, I might have to look up their address and firebomb their house. Oh wait. Then they’ll probably start discriminating against gay Mormons. Oh. Wait. They already do that. Nevermind.

*Rant Mode Off*

Eliza? Where the hell are my slippers?

Anyway, um, Mockingjay. Can’t wait. I will probably be worthless at work tomorrow. Which, let’s be honest, isn’t a huge step from how I am most of the time. This new job has me feeling more than a little inadequate…something that I’m not used to feeling at work. In my personal life and human relationships, yes. But not at work.

Whew. This blog post got all angsty all of a sudden. I think I need to go sit in a hot bath with a cold popsicle. (And no, that’s not a euphemism for anything. You’ve got such a dirty mind.)

To all of you Hunger Games fans, here’s to a fantastic Mockingjay Day!

It’s SUPERDOG!

Luke The Dog, Pictures View Comments

Aug 232010

I love this picture!

Special thanks to my friend Bill at http://punishedpixels.com for taking the awesome photo of Super Dog.

Under Construction

Living It Up, Ramblings, The Technology Whore View Comments

Aug 192010

So, things are looking a little different here at One Off. I've finally started getting around to making some updates. This new WordPress theme I'm using is sick in the number of configurable options it has, and I've not yet decided on what I want and don't want on the page.

Some of the changes I've made:

I've added the categories of the posts as a series of tabbed menus across the top.
New header image…not sure if it's quite what I'm going after, but at least it's something
New widgets and cleaned up the ones already there. Not sure how I feel about the whole widget thing…still trying to sort it out a bit.
Changed the color scheme slightly
Implemented Google Analytics, so I will have irrefutable proof that there are five people who visit my blog.
Changed commenting systems.

The last one is the biggest change. I've decided to implement the Disqus commenting system. It will let you log in with an OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, or Yahoo Email login, and post comments that way. It allows for threaded messages and replies, and gives me a much better and more flexible comment monitoring system. I'm still tweaking it, but I'll be sticking with Disqus for the time being.

More changes to come, I'm sure.

A Problem of Guilt

Ramblings View Comments

Aug 162010

It’s time for therapy blogging with Matt. Tonight’s topic: Guilt.

I have a problem with guilt.

All the time. Even when things are going well and right, I feel guilty.

Tonight, while I was playing the piano, my mind began to wander (as it often does when I’m playing the piano), and I remembered back to a day in my sixth grade English class with Mr. Soltis. We were doing a vocabulary lesson where we had to take our spelling words for the week, and place them into sentences. In my hormone-addled Jr. High School mind (Jr. High is the armpit of human existence) I thought it would be funny to use the vocabulary words to poke fun at Mr. Soltis himself.

Now, normally, I was a pretty good kid in school. I didn’t sass the teachers or cause problems in class. It was exceptionally rare that a teacher got mad at me…at least to the point that they let it show. But Mr. Soltis was my neighbor from across the street. His daughter and I were in the same age and knew each other pretty well. I felt like he would understand my playing around. So, I started writing these mild jabs using my vocabulary words.

Eventually, when it came time for us to read our examples, I started reading through mine. Being a class full of Jr. High kids, they laughed at my jokes, which was really what I was after. Mr. Soltis, however, didn’t find it funny. He exploded and told me that I was so cynical, and to stop reading. I was mortified. I just wanted to have a little fun.

I relate this story not because I think that the story itself is particularly interesting, but more because it illustrates a problem that I’ve carried with me for my entire life. I still, to this day, feel guilty about it. Mr. Soltis’ class was my third class of the day, and I remember trudging home feeling horrible about making him mad. I even confessed to my parents because I felt so bad.

It’s not uncommon for me to involuntarily recall various moments of my life that make me feel guilty: the time my mom found a piece of "erotica" in my pocket that I had written as part of a meme in my highschool where my circle of friends were writing filthy letters to "Dear Diary," the times I’ve destroyed friendships, the lies I’ve told to people who trusted me, the times I’ve failed to keep my commitments. They just flow like water.

I don’t really understand where my nearly crippling sense of guilt comes from, or why it has become such a demon in my life. But it’s omnipresent for me. I seem to remember every single thing that I’ve ever done wrong, and I feel terrible about it. I’ve got a mental catalog that I am able to pull out at a moment’s notice and flog myself over.

This wellspring of guilt has, of course, managed to shape my life pretty significantly–particularly in regards to those issues surrounding my sexuality and, even moreso, my participation (or lack thereof) in church. I spent most of my life feeling guilty about not being able to get married and have kids and be the "ideal" the Mormon man. I felt insane levels of guilt every time I struggled with feelings I didn’t choose or couldn’t control. When I decided to take a step back from participation in church and re-evaluate my life a little, I felt guilty. I still feel guilty that I’ve disappointed my parents and family members.

Guilt has been such an overriding emotion (is it an emotion?) in my life. I was so worried about doing something wrong, I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of experiences.

Does anyone else feel like this? What do you do to get around it? Because I would really like to stop feeling like the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and figure out a way to live my day-to-day life without having to flog myself with a mental cat-o-nine-tails.

New Song (And video!) – Choosing

Media, Music, Videos View Comments

Aug 152010

Since I got a new piano, I figured I’d try something a little different with this song: Rather than recording and produce it all up, I though it might be a fun little change of pace to do a videotaped performance on the new piano. So, thanks to my (awesome) digital SLR, a nice little shotgun mic, and my rockin’ new piano, here’s the video of Choosing.

This song was inspired by a friend of mine who’s been stuck in a very unhealthy relationship for a couple of years. She knows that she needs to move on, but is terrified of what that means. So, as a result, she’s essentially chosen not to choose. I can relate.

I’ve decided that I wanted to start writing some songs in a little more theatrical of a style. I have such a background in musical theater, it just makes sense. Plus, the emotional, soaring ballads are my favorite anyway. This is very much a rough draft of the song…I may change the structure or melody still, but I like the basic feel of it so far.

Choosing
Music & Lyrics by Matt Armstrong

Now that I’ve chosen
I can’t decide
If, in the choosing, I chose wrong
Or I chose right
If my decisions
Cast me aside
Now that the choosing’s done
Am I the one
Who has to abide
The choice left behind

Now that it’s over
Now that it’s done
I can stand here feeling guilty
Or move on.
Another decision
Step off or postpone
Now it’s time to wake life
Step forward and taste life

Time to shout it from the rooftops,
"I am here.
There is something deep inside of me still living."
Raise the curtain just in time for my premiere.
I’m breaking down walls I’ve built
Of all of my anger, guilt, and fear.
The choices are clear.

So, this is choosing.
Why so resigned?
Choosing to choose is, well, not easy
But it’s time.
Choosing a future
Free from my past
Wow. I can’t believe
I finally chose
At last.

Older Entries

Move over, Papa John

Random Thoughts Edition - September 8, 2010

A Labor-Free Day

Goodbye to summer, Hello to Joplin

New Photo: Can You Shake?

Mock (yeah) Ing (yeah) Jay (yeah) Yeah (yeah)

It’s SUPERDOG!

Under Construction

A Problem of Guilt

New Song (And video!) – Choosing

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