Tone Poems

We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.
-- Carson McCullers

Tuesday, September 14, 1999
One year ago: Bits and Pieces
Two years ago: Mozart Out the Window

I spent the evening still digging out my living room and dining room. Looking at my entry from two years ago, I see I was doing the same thing then! I think I'm actually making better progress this time around, though. There have been significant changes in my bedroom already, and I'm doing some good triaging of old papers.

It's a strange sensation, looking at craft materials that I haven't done anything with for a while, or old photos. I even found the power-of-attorney letters that we needed when I moved out here with my parents, back in 1988! I think Jack must have felt something like this when he packed up all his stuff and moved recently. But I've been in this apartment longer than he'd been at his house.

I did get all the books in boxes instead of bags, so I can stack them up. I'm categorizing a lot of random objects: costume and sewing stuff goes together, old mail art that I don't much want is all in one pile, toys are all in a plastic container. I can see the top of my sideboard, now! I don't want to throw the mail art away; I think I'll try to find a home for it somewhere.

I still need to do actual cleaning in the bathroom, and in the kitchen I need to box up the cookbooks (which used to be in my bedroom, and now are on top of the stove) and clean in there, also. Buying a new air mattress is on my list, and making sure that there are clean sheets for everyone who will be staying with me this weekend.

There was a bit of a contretemps on the swing-seattle-chat mailing list today. Someone thought we were being inhospitable, because in response to a call for volunteers to go pick people up at the airport, I reminded folks of the metro buses that run from there to downtown. I didn't mean to be unfriendly; if I didn't need to work, I'd go pick up my guests myself, of course! I was testifying to the efficacy of the airport bus because I've taken it myself!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

I need to get some new CDs to listen to at work. Today I tried playing the Multimedia Strauss CD-ROM as an audio CD! This worked, although I had to manually skip the CD player program past the data tracks. That was really a worthwhile product (and one of the first I ever worked on at Microsoft) -- three Richard Strauss tone poems, with lots of information about the composer, and a commentary that followed on screen as you listened to Till Eulenspiegels, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration. I really like the lush romanticism of Strauss; his Der Rosenkavalier is one of my favorite operas.