resurface

So I guess I should join the host of... well everyone else in the new year. I just haven't really had all that much to say, and certainly nothing to expound upon recently. I guess blogs can be more than just philosophical soapboxes (well for me anyway, everyone else doesn't seem to be locked into that ethos, but anyone that has talked to me over the phone just shooting the proverbial shit would know that I don't do it very well). I also love run on sentences. :-p

I've been playing more guitar than normal recently, partially due to finding some music I actually deem quality, then due to realizing that I have been seriously neglecting some serious parts of my psyche recently. Yes yes, it's true... I have an artistic expressive side, that actually rears its ugly little head every so often. Previously this had been playing guitar in high school, then martial arts in college. I really liked the martial arts, as it was both artistic and physical, exercise and philosophy. Beautiful for 2 birds 1 stone lovers such as myself.

I haven't really felt the continual drive to return to it post college however, partially due to the politics of it, and partially because the urges to go have been satiated somewhat by playing soccer twice a week (although I'm nowhere good enough there to call it anything remotely close to art :-p). So I find myself getting a Mark Knopfler album (of Princess Bride and Dire Straits fame) and sitting down with my guitar to enter a mellow creative state (which of course does not boil over to writing).

My thoughts have turned once again to what I or the collective we should be doing in life. I could go on at length about this, but you probably have already seen fight club, and I don't need to reiterate the seemingly lost children that we occasionally resemble. Actually my biggest problem is that nothing I do at the moment can be shared or used to help others (not even in the classical service sense, but even in martial arts, you could help someone learn). Not sure where to go with that one, but it's under review.

As far as current events go, I go to work, come home, we make some killer food, and find a way to take the edge off until we do it again. Pretty routine, some adjustments to be made, and some things to be done, but I have no huge complaints about it.

I started reading a bit recently as well, currently some George RR Martin, and picked up a new Neil Gaiman and a Cyberpunk series Kris recommended. I'm a big fan of Gaiman (especially Neverwhere and American Gods), and like Cyberpunk in general. The Martin book is like the TV series of fantasy. Trying to be so much like Weis and Hickman, or Feist, but replacing originality with sex and violence. Has it's interesting moments, but doesn't seem to have that trandscendant quality I typically look for. Especially at 800 pages for the first in a trilogy :-p

I've also been reading quite a bit of Wil Wheaton's blog at wilwheaton.net. For those of you that don't know, he played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek TNG. Apparently he became a fairly decent author of short life stories. Kind of the catalyst for my creative malaise (the realizing that something more could be happening, not a mess of my creative outlets themselves).

So at the end of this meandering through my random thoughts, I have completed the first blog of my new year, and am no longer behind! :-p

Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky? I think so Brain, but where are you going to find 3 tons of Alka-Seltzer?