Yesterday I had an ingrown toenail removed and the nail bed deadened on the left side of the big toe on my left foot for the FIFTH time.  And every time I have the procedure done, I’m promised again and again that this time the procedure will work and it won’t come back again.  Well, if it does, I have figured out the final solution.  I’ll make dang certain that that toenail never comes back again.

That effing ingrown toenail will never come back again, because there won’t be a toe for it to come back on.  I’ve been looking for a use for my Sawzall ever since I bought it.  The metal-cutting blade should work, right?  While I’m waiting to determine if I will need to self-amputate my toe, I’m dealing with the results of yet another $300 visit to the podiatrist which is insurance doesn’t cover because my insurance sucks the giant ogre wankie of doom.  I’ve got an open wound on my toe where a giant boil/callus used to be, I’m spending my retirement fund on epsom salts, and lurching around the complex like Gimpy McGimperson while I am “walking” the dog—all the while wishing that I had a Hoveround.

(No, but seriously.  How much do you wish that you could just ride a mobility scooter around all day?  Not because you had to, but because you could?  That would be awesome.)

You may have noticed that I’m not writing as much lately in my blog as I have in the past.  There is, in fact, a reason for this that has absolutely nothing to do with an Obese Matt™ riding a Hoveround down the sidewalk in blue fuzzy slippers.  I haven’t written in my blog because I’ve been busy writing a book.  I started this book project back in September or October, I don’t remember exactly.  Last Sunday, I finished the first draft of the book.  Right now, it’s sitting at about 440 pages and 105,000 words.  I’m in the middle of editing the book right now, but when I edit things, I tend to make them longer. (“Hmmm.  I wasn’t very clear here.  Let me remove that one sentence and replace it with 12 paragraphs that say the same thing, but in more detail.”)

Once my edit is done, I think I’m going to ship the 593 pages of manuscript to a professional editor to make it presentable.  Then I am going to self-publish (at least initially) while I attempt to shop it to publishing houses.  I will, of course, also record the audiobook version of the title, and sell it through Open Book Audio.  I’ve had several people ask me if they could read it, and the answer is: not yet.  Right now, the structure is a complete and total train wreck.  I’ll get that fixed and do a quick once-over on proofreading, and then I’ll let select folks read it.

It was actually quite fun writing a book.  Memoirs, in general, aren’t as exciting as fiction.  But I can actually say that I have written a book.  Yay for crossing off one of my Bucket List items.  And maybe, after a lot of work, this book will actually be good enough to not be a complete and total embarrassment to all of the people in my life who tried (and failed) to teach me to be at least remotely literate and not write really long run on sentences that don’t really have much important to say.

In other news (I’m piling a bunch of unrelated stuff into a single blog post because I’ve not written anything in such a long time), I have purchased a new domain name.  Some douche nozzle has been sitting on the mattarmstrong.com domain name for years and years.  They want $1700 to sell it.  I will buy that domain name someday when money is no longer an issue for me, but not yet.  In the meantime, I purchased mattarmstrong.net and mattarmstrong.me.  Over the next several months, I’m going to be moving my entire site (including this blog) to the new addresses.  This mattarmstrongmusic.com domain will still work for a good long while, but since I’m doing so much more than music these days (and so little of that) I wanted to get a more generic domain.  Besides, when my book becomes a New York Times Bestseller, I want people to be able to find my blog more easily to partake in even more of my clever witticisms.

And except for these things, I haven’t been doing much…except orchestrating and recording a medley of Frank Wildhorn songs for a friend’s high school theater competition, transcribing the chords from a new song I discovered that I want to record, prepping a couple of new books for the Open Book Audio catalog, working a full-time job, cooking up a storm (I made Preztel Rolls the other day, and they changed my life), and crocheting two new afghans. Oh, and I’m just finishing up the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix, and I’m trying to get in about 9-12 miles on the Elliptical each week.  (I refuse to buy bigger pants.  I will give up on life and wear sweatpants to work everyday before I move up to a 36” waist.)  Oh yeah, and I got a bug to start re-learning the guitar again that will probably only last a week or two.  And I’m playing Skyrim.

Geez.  I seriously need to learn how to relax.

The last week has been interesting here in the great PNW.  This is an area that is not particularly well know for massive snow falls.  In fact, it is not uncommon to not have any snow at all during the winter.  Or at least that’s what I’m told.  Of the last five winters I have spent here, three of them have had fairly significant snowfall at least once.  In any case, about a week ago, we started hearing whispers of a mammoth winter snowstorm that would be barreling down upon us.  Soon it was all that folks could talk about.  This last Saturday, I was out in the car, and it began to snow, and it snowed hard and fast for a good while.  By the time I had gotten home from my trip, there was about an inch of snow on the ground.  Folks began to get excited.

Of course, as is often the case around here, snow doesn’t last that long.  By Sunday afternoon, all the snow had melted.  There were spits of flakes now and again, but nothing major.  But, the meteorologists told us, the big one is coming.  At work on Monday, folks began making plan for what we would do for the BIG ONE that came on Monday night.  Schools were cancelled for Tuesday morning in anticipation.  It was all that anybody was talking about.  The evening news spent 45 minutes of its 60-minute broadcast talking about snow and how bad it was going to be.

But when Tuesday morning came, I looked out the window and saw green grass.  There had been no snow overnight. At least not where I lived.  So, I went into work, a little disappointed.  I know better than to buy into that whole “excited about snow” thing (it comes from living in Michigan…the novelty wears off quickly). Nevertheless, I found myself buying into the excitement.  SNOW DAY!  So, it made working on Tuesday all the more difficult, since I had been expected not to have to go.

Tuesday night, after some more flurries here and there, the news folks were still warning about the horrendous snow storm we would be getting.  Again, the news spent 45 minutes of their hour-long broadcast talking about the snow we would be getting tomorrow.  Again, schools and businesses were announcing closures in anticipation.  And again, by the time I went to bed at midnight, the ground was still green.

Fortunately, this morning when I woke up, it was white.  We had gotten about 2 inches of snow where I live and got probably another two inches throughout the day.  A bit less than the 12-18” that had been estimated, but when it comes to snow, I’ve learned that everyone here exaggerates.  I chose to work from home because, hey, everyone else is, so why not.  I probably could have come into the office, but since nobody else was there, why bother?

Luke the Dog™ loves the snow.  That is, I believe, proof that dogs are, in fact, of significantly lower intelligence than humans.  Humans know better.  Most of them anyway. Most humans stay at home in front of a fire with a mug of hot chocolate, wrapped up in a soft blanket, and read a book.  Or watch movies. Or play video games. Or bake four dozen pretzel rolls on a whim.  There are a few mentally challenged individuals, most of the men, who think that being outside in the snow is fun. Some of them even find frozen lakes, cut a hole in them, and sit around for hours like dumb-asses trying to pull frozen fish out of the water. This is, of course, the definition of stupidity.

Had it been up to me, there would have been no outside time at all.  Snow is fine through a window. But my deep-seeded dislike of snow was overridden by my even more deeply-seeded dislike of cleaning up dog poop from a shag rug. (They never go on the laminate…always the rugs).  So we went outside a few times.  During our lunchtime outing, we met up with some of Luke’s friends: Merlin the Dachshund, Gordon the St. Bernard, Peanut the Chihuahua, and Roxy the Rat Terrier.  If dogs had the equivalent of a late night house party while your parents are out of town in a bid to become the most popular kid in school, it would be playing in the snow.  Watching them play together almost made the fact that I was voluntarily standing out in the snow freezing my Rastafarian nay-nays off seem not insane. Almost.

And, best of all, by the end of the day he was so pooped from all his romping in the snow that I found him sprawled out on my bed, spread eagle, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and snoring…not unlike a trashy prostitute I…um…knew.  Yeah.  That’s it…

In any case, chances are I’ll have to go back into the office tomorrow for work because I won’t be able to justify staying home.  The snow is supposed to have stopped, and it should begin warming up tomorrow and raining, which will melt the remaining snow quite quickly. It’s all for the best, I suppose.  I’d rather do my work at work and my home stuff and home anyway.  But I may take the dog into the office with me tomorrow just so I don’t have to drive home to take him out at lunchtime.

So there you have it. The annual Seattle Snow™. May it not happen again until 2013.

This year’s Christmas was a little more special than usual, because I got to meet my first nephew.  His name is Charlie (Charles), and he was born on the morning of the 28th, at a whopping 9 pounds, 11 ounces.  (His older sister was 10 pounds, 13 ounces when she was born.)  The plan was to have a natural childbirth this time around, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.  He was too big, and up until a few days before the surgery, he was butt down.  It also turned out that he ended up having the cord wrapped around his neck twice, so it was probably for the best that the natural birth wasn’t ever attempted.

Both mom and baby are doing well, although he’s dealing with a bit of jaundice right now.  But they're both home from the hospital, and now the fun times begin. :)

Welcome to the world, Charlie.  I’ve already decided that I’m going to send you your birthday presents on your half-birthday, so they don’t get lost in the Christmas rush.  That is, of course, if I get approval from your mom…who I would never dare oppose in matters such as this.

So, a couple of months ago, I started crocheting an afghan to give to my sister for Christmas.  This started right about the time I was redecorating my apartment and re-teaching myself to sew, all while baking up a storm of Christmas cookies.  The timing could have been a little better.

Well, I finally, finally finished it.  It took me the better part of six weeks, and about a total of 110 hours, but it’s done.  And it’s been given away.  I didn’t have it done by Christmas Eve, when we did our gift exchange with my sister’s family, so I ended up having to give her an almost finished afghan, then take it back that same night, and finish it on Christmas day. 

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I stopped crocheting because I was worried about what other people though of me.  I realize now that’s not true.  I quit because it takes for-freakin’-ever.  I can pretty much guarantee that’s the last time I EVER do an afghan that requires me to make granny squares (or hexagons, in this case) and then stitch them all together.  That’s just not going to happen.  I may start up another afghan, but it will be one of those zig-zag ones or something like that.  These fancy ones take just way too much time.

Okay. You’re going to need to brace yourself here.  Are you sitting down?  Okay, good.

2011 was a great year.

Okay?  You’re back with us now?  You didn’t hit your head too hard on the concrete when you passed out did you?  I know, I know.  It’s a surprise, but it’s true.  For me, 2011 was a great year.  2011 was the year that my audiobook company finally started making money.  It was the year that I finally reached the kind of work/life balance that I’ve been aiming for since I entered the workforce.  It was the year that I met and talked with my neighbors, progressed at work, learned new skills, and resurrected long-neglected ones.  I made lots of music, gardened, crocheted, sewed, played video games, took photos, started writing my book, cooked a lot, began working out again, and finally started learning how to live within my means.  I got to welcome my beautiful new nephew into the world.  I broke up with Facebook. I became an (official) manager of other people for the first time in my career.  I spent time with my family, played with my dog, enjoyed the short (but beautiful) summer, lost 15 pounds, and gained it all back. 

I did a lot and experienced a lot this year, but what makes 2011 such a special year for me had less to do with what I did or didn’t do, and much more to do with the tectonic shift in my attitude about my own life.  For the first time in my life, I became comfortable with myself as a person.  I was able to finally see past my shortcomings and appreciate my strengths.  I stopped making and tracking my resolutions or goals on a monthly basis.  I (largely) stopped bemoaning the fact that my life hadn’t turned out the way I expected it to.  Rather than feeling lonely or left out, I began to find a great deal of comfort in my own solitude.  My life became far more peaceful than it has ever been before.

A large part of that shift is related to a choice I made a few months ago to stop caring about what other people thought of me or what I do.  I was able to speak my mind more freely, and not worry about how people saw me because of it.  I did the things that made me happy, regardless of how doing so made me look in the eyes of others.  I stopped “apologizing” for being the way that I am, and instead learned to appreciate myself.  I learned that I’m awesome, and I don’t freakin’ care if you don’t think so.  I discovered that I have never met anyone like me in my life, and that’s pretty cool.  I finally learned to appreciate my unique skillset and personality. 

If I may submit an example of this change:  2011 was one of the most musically prolific years for me since I retired from performing.  My skills are rusty, my voice certainly not in top shape.  Nevertheless, I stopped caring if people liked my music, and I posted it online anyway.  I endured a bit of (I believe) friendly ridicule from some co-workers over the content or quality of my music.  In the past, that would have torn me up, and I would have bemoaned the fact that I wasn’t any good.  This time, I actually managed to let it roll off my back, and I kept doing my thing anyway.  I was able to realize that not everyone will appreciate what I do, and I don’t care.

As this year quickly coasts to its close, I find myself a happier person.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I’m still sarcastic, a little bitter, and prone to fits of ranting.  That will probably never change.  But I’m learning to let it go much more quickly—to move on.  Perhaps it’s maturity.  Perhaps it is my comfortable isolation.  Perhaps it’s a fluke. And most importantly, perhaps it doesn’t matter.  I feel as though I made some important steps this year toward getting to know who I really am, and not who I thought I was or was told that I should be.  Not bad for a year’s work.

To all my friends, family, co-workers, and other, anonymous readers of my blog, I wish you a very Happy New Year.  May 2012 be as fulfilling for you as 2011 was for me.

I love Christmas Music.  I have for as long as I can remember.  I usually start listening to/singing along with my Christmas music about the same time I start decorating for Christmas—which is usually November 1st.  I even recorded an album of Christmas music with backing tracks that I helped to arrange and that were recorded by some of the top-notch studio musicians in Nashville. 

One area that has always alluded me, though, was the area of a capella music.  I’ve never been able to do it very well.  While I have a “strong” voice, I’m not particularly good and blending.  I have been trying to write an a capella arrangement of a Christmas song every year for the last six or seven years, and I’ve never been able to get even remotely close to a viable product.  Until this year.

I started this just over a week ago, and have finally finished my first-ever a capella arrangement—a six-part  arrangement (5 backing vocals and a lead) of the Christmas song, “The First Noel.”  This has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs.  I used to sing it to myself when I would deliver newspapers late at night when I was 13 or 14, walking through the streets in my neighborhood taking in all the Christmas decorations. 

I started by playing all 6 parts into a sampler so I could get a rough idea of how I wanted it to sound.  Then I transferred the resulting MIDI file into Sibelius so I could print sheet music from it.  Once the sheet music was done, I started recording.  I began with the Bass line, and sang it through three times.  Then I went through each remaining backing part from the bottom to the top, doing each one of those three times.  (Total of 15 tracks).  After I cleaned all of those up, ran them through a very light auto-tune to lock in the pitches, and lined up all of the consonants, then I went back and recorded the lead vocal four times, comping together the final vocal from the best bits of those four takes.  I am super thrilled with the way this turned out.  I think it’s one of the strongest pieces of music I’ve ever done.

So, if you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like to hear 16 of me singing simultaneously, you can listen below.  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year!

My latest audiobook, Night of the Long Knives, by Fritz Leiber, was released yesterday, and is now available for purchase from a couple of different retailers.  (I personally prefer Ambling Books myself.)  It should be available on iTunes and Audible in the next several weeks.

This is my first sci-fi book, and it was a nice change of pace to read something other than classics for a change.  It’s a shorter audiobook, just over 3 hours, but it’s an engaging story. 

So, if you’re interested in listening to me read an Audiobook, click here, and go to the Open Book Audio website.

Well, I did it.  I managed to sew myself a collared shirt.  And it actually looks pretty good.  And now that I know how it’s done, it’ll be much easier on the next shirt.

Not Shown: Me wearing the shirt, because between the time I started sewing this shirt and the time I (almost) finished it, I gained 10 pounds (@#$% you, Thanksgiving leftovers) and I can’t really button it without it looking a little ridiculous around the middle.  Note to self: on the next shirt, make a large.  On the plus side, I have FINALLY discovered the cure to all of my sleeves shrinking on me.  When you make your own clothes, you can cut the pattern in such a way to accommodate your long gorilla arms.

It also still needs the buttons sewn on (the button holes are there, but they need to be cut open). 

This was actually really fun to sew.  I had to learn all kinds of new tricks.  Thank goodness for YouTube.  I never would have been able to figure out what easing is or how to do it otherwise.  And I’ve already got the fabric for the next version of the shirt.

Anyway, when I get the buttons sewn on and drop that 10 pounds, I’ll take a picture of myself wearing the shirt. Until then, it’ll just have to look pretty on the hanger.  Unless there’s anyone out there who weighs a little less than I do and who has monstrously long arms.

Le Sigh. I love Holidays.  Not fake holidays, like Halloween or Valentine’s day, where you still have to go to work.  No, I love real holidays, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and the 4th of July when you don’t have to go to work.  In terms of work, though the greatest of these is Thanksgiving.  Because every year, Thanksgiving comes with a 4-day weekend, which are seriously the best. 

This year for Thanksgiving was a little strange, but enjoyable, nonetheless.  I had Thanksgiving dinner with my friend, Melissa and a bunch of people from her Choral Conducting program at the University of Washington.  I had never met any of them before, but they were a fun bunch, the food was good, and I made a particularly stunning caramel apple pie (if I say so myself.)

On Friday, I actually ventured out to the mall to do a bit of shopping, wander around and enjoy the hustle and bustle, and to see a movie for which I’ve been waiting for months.  The mall was packed, which was to be expected, but I got my Bath and Body Works pine-scented candles (my yearly tradition), my Auntie Anne’s pretzel with caramel sauce, and I got to see The Muppets.

The Muppets was fantastic.  It’s the best Muppet movie since Jim Henson passed away.  The voices are a little “off,” which is to be expected since Jim Henson and Richard Hunt passed away, and Frank Oz doesn’t want anything to do with the Muppets anymore.  (For shame, Frank.  For shame.)  But it captures the spirit of the Muppets so thoroughly and completely.  The music is ludicrously catchy. And I am not ashamed to admit it:  When they recreate the opening to the Muppet Show with all of the original puppets, I got a little choked up. It was a brilliant, heartfelt, un-ironic, funny, charming, uplifting movie from beginning to end.  Grade: A.

Also on Friday, I ended up cooking the 20 lb. turkey that I purchased but that I didn’t make for Thanksgiving.  It was quite yummy. And I will be eating it for the next two weeks.  Because a 20 pound turkey for a single person and a couple of ravenous dogs can go quite a long way.  I’ve got another day or two of turkey sandwiches in me, then I’m going to make a big pot of turkey noodle soup.

Saturday consisted of two things: Assassin’s Creed: Revolutions and Arthur Christmas.  The first is a video game that I’ve had for a couple of weeks but haven’t been able to play very much.  The second is the new animated movie that came out.  Arthur Christmas is another really delightful little Christmas movie.  It was done by Aardman Animation (the same studio that brought you Chicken Run and Wallace and Grommit).  The computer animation is fantastic, the story is perfect for getting into the Holiday spirit, and Bill Nighy’s portrayal of Grandsanta was hysterical.  Really fun movie, and it will get put into my Holiday movie rotation.  Grade: B+

Today, the majority of the day was spent on Assassin’s Creed.  And I’m dreading having to return to work tomorrow.  Christmas feels so very far away right now.

However, the real excitement in my life over the last nearly two weeks has been the (temporary) addition of a new member of my family: Jasper the Dog.

Jasper’s owner watched Luke for me a couple of months ago when I drove down to Utah to visit in September, so I owed her a favor, and offered to watch Jasper for her while he was out of town.  Jasper is a 1.5 years old, and is some sort of Terrier/Chihuahua Mix.  He’s very affectionate, wicked smart, and has been a holy terror for the last week and a half that he’s been at my place.  He was rescued about two months ago, and has a few abandonment issues.  It started out with he and Luke the Dog™ not getting alone very well.  Well, to be more accurate, he was afraid of Luke and would snap at him if Luke got too close.  Luke was fine with Jasper.  Eventually, they got over it, and now they’re good friends, and like playing together.

Jasper is a very demanding dog, though.  He gets jealous easily.  If I wanted to pet Luke, Jasper would get in between Luke and I.  If I sat down anywhere, Jasper climbs on top of me, whether I want him to or not.  He demands to be picked up all the time, which I will only do when I want to.  And, for the five or six days he was here, he was afraid of everything and everyone.  He would walk very timidly behind me when we were out walking, and Luke would walk in front of me, pulling, so I ended up looking like a drunk showgirl trying to do a sideways showgirl walk with a broken high heel. 

The bigger problems, though, were Jasper’s attitude.  Jasper peed or pooped in my apartment 12 times in 7 days.  He chewed through both Luke’s leash and his own leash.  He ripped a hole in my bedspread.  He climbed up on the table and shredded one of my bamboo placemats.  He would go into my closet, grab my socks out of the hamper, and carry them all over the apartment.  I eventually had to crate him whenever I left the apartment for more than about 5 minutes.

As I mentioned, he’s very, very smart.  When properly motivated, he would pick up obedience commands in a matter of seconds.  But he’s uber-stubborn.  When he wants something, he will completely disregard you.  I don’t allow my dog in the kitchen when I’m cooking, and Jasper would sit at the entry to the kitchen until I turned my back for one second, and then he’d run in and try to get into the garbage, or jump up and get something off of the counter.

Despite all of that, though, Jasper is a real sweetie.  He obviously loves being around people once he trusts them.  He loves to cuddle in a way that Luke never did.  He actually likes sleeping under the covers of the bed, which was really nice on those cold nights.  He was like a furry hot water bottle.  Except for the time he decided he needed to warm up his nose by sticking it down my butt crack at 3AM.  I tell you what: if you are the kind of person who has a hard time getting up in the morning, you should invent an alarm clock that will simulate a cold, wet dog nose in your butt crack.  That will wake you right up.

In the last week, he’s really come out of his shell, playing with other dogs in the complex, interacting with all of the office staff and regulars.  He does a better job of playing fetch than does my Golden Retriever.  And, like Luke, he eats like a fiend.  But getting any work done with him around is very difficult.  He’s like most of the MDT people I knew in college: he insists on being the center of attention all the time, and if he’s not, he’ll pee on your bed. Again.

So, Jasper goes back home tomorrow, and I will get to finish the sewing project I’ve been working on, and Luke can go back to sleeping on the bed without worrying about getting kicked off by a dog 1/10th his size.  It’ll be weird only having one dog in the house again.  But, I do think that this cured me of the craving I’ve been having to get another puppy anytime in the near future. One dog is enough for me for now.

Well, I hope all of my reader(s) had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and you’re all giving your Pandora Christmas Music stations a workout.  Speaking of, if you need an expertly chosen Christmas music station, you can find my Christmas music station here: http://www.pandora.com/#!/stations/edit/341352601847510870

As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog posts, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time writing a book over the last month or so. It’s a memoir covering the first thirty years of my life.  I’m not sure if I will ever release it to the public (it’s pretty stinky right now), but it’s been a good exercise in shutting off my internal editor and in sticking with a project.  I’m about 60K works into the book (about 240 pages) and I’m only about half of the way through what I want to talk about in the book.  I’m really enjoying the process of writing, though, and the further along I get, the most enjoyable the process itself becomes.

What I have found most valuable about writing this book, however, is a chance to analyze my life through the lens of time.  And when I manage to chronicle those aspects of my life that I find to be of great import—those experiences that I remember and hold on to both mentally and emotionally—I begin to see certain patterns emerging.  It really is a fascinating experience.  For better or for worse I have, over the years, formed a pretty stubborn mental picture of who I am as a person.  You only have to go back through my old blog posts over the last eight years to put together that mental picture of your own.  (Side note: I have been blogging for EIGHT. YEARS.  That’s insane.)

As I’ve started examining my formative experiences and memories as part of this memoir, though, I am beginning to see how deeply my self-painted portrait has been affected by one very specific character trait: my desperate desire to receive approval from everyone.  I can go chapter by chapter of my memoir, reading story after story, and I am constantly awestruck.  The life I have lived, which I would not consider a particularly happy one, would have been so much more enjoyable and fulfilling had I been strong enough or stable enough to follow my own road without worrying about others’ opinions of me.  So many of my emotional stumbling blocks were built by decades of trying to fit my own idea of someone else’s opinion of what I should be–an opinion that, had I been able to look at it objectively, wasn’t anything at all like what I thought it was.

But I’m getting a little too “meta” here.  An example:

I like to crochet.  I learned how to crochet when I was probably five or six years old—possibly earlier.  It was something I was really interested in.  My mom taught me—despite not really knowing that much about crocheting herself.  I had a large denim bag full of all different kinds of yarn that I would carry around with me.  I had crochet needles, and knitting needles, and weaving looms.  I started learning to sew when I was around seven years old. I really liked all of these things.  But as I grew older, I stopped doing them.  Not because I enjoyed them any less, but because I started going to school, spending time with other children, and realizing that crocheting wasn’t something that other boys did. 

My denim bag of yarn was lost to the ages.  We moved to Michigan when I was nine, and I didn’t pick up a skein of yarn for another 15 years.  I had allowed my concern over what other people would say about me to have so much control that it caused me to stop doing something I truly enjoyed.  It was so important that I was liked and popular that I would never allow myself to do something out of the ordinary like that.  Ironically, by not being myself and failing to ever really achieve my perfect mental image of what I should be, I managed to make myself even less popular, less liked.  I couldn’t be myself, and I couldn’t be anyone else, so I just was.

It wasn’t until I was many, many years older, and started working at the Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley that I picked up my crochet needle again.  In the long hours at rehearsal where you weren’t doing anything, but you needed to pay enough attention not to miss an entrance or cue, I would sit in the corner of the room and crochet squares for afghans that I was making to send to my family.  I felt safe doing that in rehearsals because, let’s face it—if there’s ever a group of people who understand what it’s like to bean outsider, it’s theater people.  Most of the boys are gay, most of the women are uber-pretty but super-smart (a very unpopular combination) and almost every single person is a little off-center in one way or another.  Nobody mocked my yarn and needle.  Instead, someone would come up to me and ask, “Are you knitting?” Or, “I didn’t know you could crochet.  What are you making?”  Nobody cared.  And a few of my family members got afghans out of it.

But I never took my crocheting out, for instance, when I was sitting on an airplane to fly home.  That wasn’t a safe environment. I didn’t want to have to deal with people who thought it was a little “fruity” that some guy was crocheting on the plane. Yeah, it’s an uncommon sight—for a man to be crocheting. But I knew that if I crocheted on a plane, someone would make fun of me for it.  I don’t know why that bothered me so much.  I don’t know why I cared so much that some person I didn’t know, and who I would never see again, would think less of me as a person because I happened to be crocheting on an airplane.  But I did.  So I wouldn’t.

In the last few months, I’ve been picking up a lot of my Home Ec. skills again.  I bought a sewing machine and made curtains and my own clothes.  I’ve been baking more than Sara Lee.  I’ve been decorating like I was trying out for a show on HGTV.  And tonight, I picked up a skein of yarn and a size G crochet needle and started working on another blanket.  And for a while, I thought, “Man, I’m glad I’m alone at home so I can do something I enjoy.”

Lightning bolt.

Why, in the name of all that’s good and holy, can’t I crochet wherever the hell I want to?  Why couldn’t I go sit in the crocheting group that meets at the local fabric store for two hours every Saturday if I want to?  Who cares if I was the only guy there?  Sure, it’s a little different, but so what?

And the funny thing is that, for as much worrying as I do about my “sissy” hobbies and how they make me look, they’re not that big of a deal.  I have a male co-worker in his late 50s who told his wife that I had been teaching myself how to sew again.  She mentioned that she really liked sewing, and he replied that he didn’t even know how to turn on a sewing machine, let alone make clothing.  She offered to show him how the machine worked, and he played around with it. The next day at work, he said that it was actually fun, and he enjoyed learning how to sew a little.

The head maintenance guy at my apartment complex was in the office when I took Luke the Dog™ over to get his daily cookie, and I mentioned that I was crocheting.  He’s a rough and tumble guy from Texas who does appliance repair and building maintenance for a living.  He drives a beat-up pickup truck.  And he asked me if I could show him the pattern that I was using, because he wanted to start crocheting again too.  Color me surprised.

I have another group of friends who create amazing costumes and props, and dress up to go to the comic, sci-fi, fantasy, and steam punk conventions.  They play dungeons and dragons, video games, take photos, make movies, and always have a great time.  And their hobbies are a little outside of the ordinary.  But they are some of the happiest, friendliest, and most fun people I’ve ever had the opportunity to spend time with.  And they don’t care at all.  They do what they love, and they’re happy.  I do what I love, and for most of my life, I’ve been embarrassed or ashamed, and I’ve been unhappy. 

I have spent such a huge portion of my life trying to be what the cultural zeitgeist says I should be as a thirty-something male.  First, I tried being a 30-something Mormon male.  Then I tried being a 30-something Gay male.  Well you know what?  I’m Matt.  I’m sick and tired of trying to be this idea of a person that has nothing to do with who I am.  I am tired of feeling like a failure because I fell short of an ideal that isn’t all that unique, special, or beautiful to begin with.  I’m tired of hiding my true personality, skills, talents, and abilities because somehow, along the way, I developed this crazy idea that the things I like to do aren’t socially acceptable or, more importantly, that it matters whether they are socially acceptable or not.

To quote the Broadway musical, La Cage Aux Folles:

It's my world that I want to take a little pride in,
My world, and it's not a place I have to hide in.
Life's not worth a damn,
'Til you can say, "Hey world, I am what I am."
…
I am what I am,
And what I am needs no excuses.

I will never like sports.  I like building things and carpentry, but I also like crocheting and sewing clothes.  I’m a balding redhead who still has dreams of playing the romantic role in a musical.  I don’t like alcohol.  I am attracted to men.  I can bake better than almost anyone you know.  I write and sing syrupy music that I really like.  I like being outside, but I really like sleeping in my bed.  I’m pale and a little chubby. I don’t like loud crowds or going out.  I want to learn how to shoot a gun.  I like staying at home alone or spending time with a small group of friends.  I don’t know how to fall in love in a healthy way.  I’m intellectually smart, and emotionally stupid.  I geek out over computer games like a 12-year-old.  I’m a nerd. I like to garden. I’m a good conversationalist.  I’m a pretty good writer. 

I am not a stereotype. And I’m not a failure because I’m not a stereotype.  And if the world doesn’t like it, the world can bite me.  I don’t care what you think anymore.

Wouldn’t it have been awesome if it was 2008 and I could have titled this blog post The Great Redecorate of 2008?  Alas, I was three years late to the party.  In my own head.

Anyway, as usual, I eschewed relaxing this weekend in favor of being wildly productive.  Thus far this weekend I have:

• Sewn a sweatshirt
• Made a pineapple upside-down cake
• Consumed the entirety of said pineapple upside-down cake
• Recorded 75% of a new audiobook in one day
• Ran royalty reports for audiobook sales
• Did quarterly sales tax returns
• Painted my living room
• Walked Luke the Dog™ twelve times
• Tried a new pizza place and two new burger places (Mega yum on all three)
• Four loads of dishes
• Seven loads of laundry

And yet, somehow, in the midst of all that, I still managed to take a minimum of two naps a day for the last three days in a row.  See, America.  Do you see how productive we would all be if we could adopt the siesta as a standard operating procedure here in the US?

In any case, the biggest project, painting my living room, was a major pain in the butt, and I’m not altogether sure that I like the resulting color.  But it’s painted now, and I won’t be touching it again until after Christmas, at which point I will probably try to repaint the living room one more time to get the color I actually want in there.

In the meantime, though, here are some shots of the recently reassembled living room:

Things I particularly like: The new curtains, the way that the dark furniture stands out from the wall, and that awesome wishbone lamp on the table which I commandeered from my bedroom.  (My bedroom now has all the old, less awesome lamps, since it hasn’t been redecorated yet.  And here’s the head-on view:

The back wall on the left still needs some artwork of some kind, but that will have to wait until a) I am done paying nearly $1000 to board Luke for Christmas and b) the Christmas decorations come down.

It’s just too bad that I have to go back to work tomorrow, or I could get so much more done!

My little sister is about seven months pregnant with her second child—a little boy.  I have heard it said that as a woman gets close to the end of her pregnancy, she begins nesting: she experiences an almost overwhelming desire to clean, decorate, and fix up the house.  I don’t know if that happens with all people, but I do know that in speaking with my sister in the past, she has been doing a bit of nesting lately.

I have too.  I don’t know if it’s the weather, or the fact that I just signed a new lease, or a completely overwhelming desire to never see a white wall again for the rest of my life, or perhaps because I’m feeling sympathetic nesting vibes from my sister, but I have been pretty desperate to fix up my apartment and have a much nicer-looking abode.

It started a couple of weeks ago when I signed my lease.  My lease was set to expire at the end of November, and I had just discovered that my rent was going to go up by $235 a month, which is a bit out of my price range.  Fortunately, I waited about a week, and the rent fell by $110, which is still more than I’d like to pay, but it is within my payable budget.  (It just means that I have to save $110 less every month.  Boo.)  Once I signed the lease, I realized that this would be the start of my third year in the same apartment…something I have never done ever in my life since I moved out of my parent’s house to go to college.  I’ve been in Seattle for a little over four and a half years (!), but I’ve lived in three different apartments during that time.

So, now that I knew I was going to be sticking around for a while, I figured it was time to invest a bit in my living space, and make it feel a bit more like a home, and less like a sterile, white-walled monstrosity with really awful cabinets.  So, I went to Home Depot, got a bunch of paint chips and a few of those color book fans, and set about picking a color palette.  I decided on a dark chocolate brown, a very pale robin’s egg blue, a celery green, and a pale yellow color to help brighten up the space.  I went and bought a sample can of each color, put them on the walls, and realized that it looked as though I was trying to decorate a baby boy’s nursery.  Way too pastel, way too cutsey, and not at all my style. 

So, next I decided I’d start with fabric rather than paint.  I went to Joann Fabrics and found this really great fabric for $20 a yard and 40% off.  I bought nine yards, and bought the blackout lining as well, and decided to sew my own curtains.  The only problem?  I don’t own a sewing machine.  I borrowed one from some friends only to find out that it was broken.  Nobody else I knew in the area owned a sewing machine, so I finally broke down and bought one.

This is the model I eventually ended up going with.  Now, I learned to sew when I was about seven or eight years old on my mom’s 50’s-era Singer sewing machine (which, coincidentally, still works and she still has.) It weighs a blue ton, has very few special features, and is all manual.  My new sewing machine has 60 some-odd new stitches, a drop-in bobbin, and will thread the needle for me.  This may not be very special for people who sew a lot, but it was a revelation for me.

So, having not sewn in something like 15 years, I proceeded to make my curtains.  Now granted, curtains are pretty darn easy to sew.  It’s just a flat panel of fabric with a liner.  It’s not like I went all Schmuel the Tailor on them.  (Bonus points to anyone who knows that reference without having to look it up.)  And they turned out well.

Then, once I had the curtains up, I was finally able to choose more accurate colors.  I started with the safest color (the brown) and the easiest room (the dining room).  I spent all of Friday evening last weekend taping and painting the dining room a nice café au lait color.  Again, I believe it turned out quite nicely.  Especially when I dressed it all up and made it look like someone with class lived in my apartment, instead of someone who cooks pizza rolls on tin foil and then eats it on the floor of the living room because he doesn’t want to get the dishes dirty.

I still need some artwork for the wall to the right of the dining room area, and if I were a bit more adventurous, and had a ton of extra money to spend, I would get a small chandelier to hang in the dining room instead of the single (crappy) pot light that is there, but I don’t want to go to that much effort.  So, instead, I brought my brushed nickel teardrop lamps out of the bedroom where they were languishing (since I never spend time in my bedroom) and put them out in the dining room. 

Then, I basically spent the rest of the next week (this last week) wishing that I had something else to sew.  I couldn’t afford another couple of hundred dollars for fabric to make curtains for the dining room or my bedroom.  So I decided I would try my hand at sewing clothing.  Now, the last time I tried making clothes was when I was working on the cruise ship back in 2000.  I was buying all of my fabric in shops in Denmark or Sweden, and buying all of my patterns there too.  And most of the patterns didn’t have any instructions in English.  And I couldn’t really ask for advice from the people there.  Suffice it to say, the results were less than ideal.

My first apparel project was the green hooded sweatshirt you see me donning in the picture to the left.  Yes, in case you are wondering, I did actually take a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror.  I know, I know.  It’s tacky.  Just deal with it.  I didn’t want to set up my real camera gear.  The fact is that a) I made a piece of clothing from scratch and b) it actually looks fairly well-made and I would be able to wear it out into public.  There’s supposed to be a drawstring around the bottom of the sweatshirt, although I haven’t been able to find one in the right color.  I suppose it’s all for the best though, because putting a drawstring on the bottom of a sweatshirt doesn’t make any sense to me.  It would just make me look like a green pumpkin with legs.

After a harrowing week at work, I also decided that I was going to take a much-needed day off from work to just relax.  I lounged around the house for most of the day, then when my cleaning lady came, I went to get a burger for lunch, get my oil changed, and get a sample can of the new green color that I’m going to be painting my living room.  This evening, after a dinner of homemade waffles with caramel sauce and sea salt (drool), I pulled out my paintbrush and started putting the color on the wall.  I actually like it a lot. 

It looks a little more blue in this photo than it does on the wall, but again, this is just a quick snapshot with my phone.  I am pretty sure this will be my color.  It’s light, and just a shade away from being a neutral green, so it’s not too wild.  And it brightens up my dark apartment (especially on cloudy/rainy days) a lot.  I’ll let it try overnight, and then I’ll go get the full gallon of it tomorrow, and paint tomorrow night.  This room will be quite a bit trickier for a few reasons.  First, there’s a butt-ton of electrical equipment in it, so that will have to be dismantled and moved.  Meaning that I won’t be able to easily listen to music while I’m working, which may drive me to violence.  (I hate doing work like this without music, podcasts, audiobooks, or the TV on in the background.)  Second, I have surround sound speakers on the back wall and ceiling and a cable conduit that runs along the entire ceiling.  That conduit has to come down, and it’s pretty ugly, so I don’t want to put it back up if I don’t have to.  I may need to find another options for my surround sound speakers.  (I feel like I need a #FirstWorldProblems hashtag here.) Finally, there will be a LOT of taping in this room.  I hate taping a cutting in.  My least favorite part of painting.

Next, I have picked out the color for the kitchen, but I haven’t convinced myself that I really want to paint the kitchen anyway.  There isn’t a lot of paintable space, but I’m not really in the mood to move or paint around all those appliances.  After that, I have to take a break until after the first of the year.  I need to get all this done soon because with Halloween upon us, it’s almost time for me to start decorating for Christmas.  Also, my savings account needs a breather to recover.  I haven’t spent a TON of money on my new nesting habit (maybe $500 total), but I’m on a very tight budget these days, and I hate to dip into my savings account for something that’s not a necessity. I spend most of my time in these rooms anyway.

I’m not sure why the nesting bug hit me so hard and so quickly, but I really hope that nobody else I know is planning on getting pregnant anytime soon.

So, as predicted, my hyper-emo state of the last few weeks managed to build up and spill out as a depressing ballad about a relationship that didn’t work out.  This one is not drawn from any personal experience, per se.  I have determined that I need to write an upbeat song next.  Just to see if it’s mentally and physically possible for me to do so.

This particular video was done in a new way.  Rather than record the piano first, then record the vocals, like I usually do when I record, I set up the microphone in the room with the piano.  I plugged the audio outs of the piano into Pro Tools, and listened via headphones.  Then I did a take where I sang and played together.  Then I did another take focused on my hands on the keyboard, playing along to the original take, only this time, I didn’t sing.  Then I did one more take of playing and singing with the camera (almost) focused on my face.   Then I cut the three takes together in Pro Tools, exported the audio, and cut the video together based on the cuts I had made in Pro Tools.

Ideally, I would have had three separate cameras set up simultaneously, so I didn’t have to do the cutting together, but it was just me and my single camera, so I had to make do with what I had.  Also, it would have been good if someone else had been able to frame and focus the camera for me.  It’s hard to set the focus on your camera when the thing you’re trying to focus on is actually behind the camera doing the focusing.

It was a fun Sunday evening, project, though.  And now I won’t get this song out of my head for about two weeks because I have listened to it about 250 times in the last four hours while editing.

Also this weekend, I painted my dining room and did a bit of decorating.  Photos coming soon.

When I was in high school, I idolized this guy named Jesse.  Jesse was handsome, popular, and friends with everyone.  He was the ultimate social butterfly.  He would go from group to group with ease, fitting in easily with pretty much every clique or social stereotype you could image.  He was just an easygoing guy like that.

Jesse was in several shows with me in high school and so we spent a fair bit of time together, and I was always envious of his social abilities.  I had always wanted to be more social, be more popular, but I just couldn’t seem to figure out how to do it.  I studied Jesse’s social skills trying to glean his secrets—to no major effect, I’m afraid.  In fact, at one point, I got so fed up with how popular he was that in a late-night fit of emo angst, I wrote this truly awful poem called The Social Butterfly which, thankfully, has been lost to the annals of time.  Hopefully never to be recovered.   (I plan on going through some of my old things when I’m home for Christmas this year, so it should be interesting to see what I unearth).

Here’s the thing about me: I am just not a terribly social person.  Or, at least, I’m not a terribly social person in the way that many people consider being social.  I don’t like parties, large groups of people, clubs, gatherings, activities.  I like to spend my time either alone, or with a small group of close friends.  I’ve always been the kind of person who has a few extremely close friends rather than scads of acquaintances masquerading as friends.  I don’t make friends easily, and my reserved nature (okay, you can stop laughing now—I am reserved when I’m around people I don’t know) often causes me to give off the impression that I’m unhappy, unlikable, or judgmental…which, to be fair, I am sometimes.

And as much as I joke about not having friends on my blog, I do have friends.  But I don’t have many friends, and I have very, very few that are what I would consider close friends.  And the funny thing about my friends is that of all of my friends, I don’t think the great majority of them would like each other very much, because they’re so different.  I’ve got friends who play Dungeons and Dragons and dress up for conventions and Mormon friends who ride 4-wheelers and surf.  I’ve got gay friends who like to go shopping, and dog owner friends who like to stand out in the parking lot in the rain and watch their dog play.  And I’ve got theater friends who are simultaneously the life of and death to any social gathering.  (Seriously, have you ever been around a group of theater people?  It’s like witnessing a living, breathing train wreck.)

Getting all of these people in a room together would be a fascinating experiment in reaching the critical mass of social awkwardness.  Which is one of the reasons why I don’t host parties very often.

Since high school, my outlook on being social has changed quite a bit.  I was envious and desperate to be part of every social group, to be liked, and to feel as though I belonged everywhere.  Then I went to college and was inducted into the sewing circle of nutcases actors that made up my musical theatre program, and I cared less about fitting into every group—because I felt like I had found my group.  Then I went through a very difficult time where I found myself alone all the time, and I felt like I had become unmoored from society. 

What I’ve come to realize, however, is that as I get older, my desire to be part of the social scene has nearly disappeared.  I was at work today, toward the end of the day, speaking with a couple of my co-workers.  One is a younger guy (23), the other, a woman older than me (43), and I am stuck dab in the middle (33).  The two of them are very social people.  They’re always going out to eat, and going to clubs, and hanging out with friends, and doing things.  They thrive on social interactions.  And they, as many people do, kept trying to convince me to go out with them.

And here’s the thing: I should.  I know I should.  But I don’t want to.  And the reason why I don’t want to has nothing to do with them.  I actually enjoy the company of both of them a lot.  But “going out” for me has become such an unappealing concept.  Going out means going to a loud bar or club where I only know the people I’m there with.  It means interacting with people I don’t know in a situation where I’m super-uncomfortable.  Going out is not fun for me—it’s an exercise in sheer terror.  I can put on a good face, but “going out” scares the hell out of me.  Which is why I don’t do it.

Over the last year, I have tried to force myself to be more social.  When people invite me to go do things, I always try to say “yes.”  And most of the time, I’m really glad I do.  I’ve had fun over at friends’ houses playing games, I’ve had fun going shopping or to the movies.  (Side note: if you ever want to “go out” with me and know I’ll have a good time, keep it to no more than four people, let’s go to a decent restaurant that’s quiet enough that we can talk, and then go to a movie at a nice theater.  I know it’s low-key, even boring, but it’s my kind of activity.)  But there are certain activities where I just know I’m going to be so miserable I can barely force myself to consider it, let alone actually do it.  Bars and Clubs, for instance.  Parades. Street Fairs.

And, of course, I don’t drink.  From what I understand, drinking is the universal social lubricant.  It’s too bad it impairs your judgment, costs a fortune, and tastes like licking an elephant’s ass crack.  (I assume.  I mean, I’ve never tasted alcohol. *rim shot*)

I used to feel like being alone was the worst thing in the world.  I suppose it comes from hearing in church that, “Man was not meant to be alone.”  Or it came from watching other young people experiencing sociality (did I use that word correctly?) and having a great time.  But when I do social activities, I don’t often have a great time.  I endure—and sometimes not even that.  Also, I have this paranoid sense that when I do force myself to participate in social situations, the people who invite me always question why they did, because I get really quiet and withdraw, and don’t delve in and take part.

I like my friends, and I like spending time with them.  I like doing some social things. But I really do like being on my own quite a bit too.  I like being able to do what I want, when I want it.  I like my projects and hobbies.  I like accomplishing things.  Now, what I really need to do is to find someone who wants to bake with me, or go on a photo walk, or work in the recording studio, or pay for me to refurnish my apartment.  Because then I could be somewhat social and not feel like I have been rode hard and put away wet* when it’s all over.

*This is not a euphemism.  Get your mind out of the gutter. Also, if it were a euphemism, being rode hard and put away wet would be a good thing. Which it’s not…you know what?  I’m just going to end this blog post now before I get myself into any more trouble.

When it comes to people, it’s often hard to get below the surface.  People don’t often let you get to know their true selves.  And sometimes, that’s tragic.  Because sometimes, a person’s true self is glorious and wonderful, and far more deep, profound, or moving than the face they present to the world.  On the outside, they may look like they stumbled out of bed with a hangover and directly onto the pages of PeopleOfWalmart.com, while on the inside, they are rainbows and unicorns.

And sometimes, it’s probably better that you can’t see past the surface because on the outside, they may look like this:

While on the inside, they are like this:

Of course, I exaggerate.  Even my Inner Fat Emo Kid would never pierce his lower lip or wear pigtails.  Tres gauche.

No, my Inner Fat Emo Kid and I are pretty darn close.  And we’ve been a lot closer lately. He has been blasting his death metal and writing sad poems in his journal alone, moping in his room a lot.  This is nothing new, of course.  My Inner Fat Emo Kid has been doing this steadily since 1994, when I was 16 years old, and I discovered that the world is always a more tragic place when you’re driving through the late-night streets and empty cemetery of Albion in a 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis LS.  (And my goodness…you should see home of the horrific emo poetry I wrote back then.  Huh-larious.)

Of course, back then, Inner Fat Emo Kid wasn’t so inner, and he wasn’t so fat.  But still just as emo.  Or rather, as emo as a clean-cut, red-headed, Mormon kid wearing a purple shirt, mustard yellow shorts, and black and brown loafers with white socks can be.  (Geez, that’s a mental image I wish I could erase.  Thank goodness there are no photos of that, or I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from posting them on the blog.  Inner Fat Emo Kid loves suffering.)

As I’ve gotten older, Inner Fat Emo Kid still manages to mope around every now and again.  But these days, he’s a little less Emo, and a little more Fat.  And, I hope at least, a lot more inner.  Except of course, when summer finally goes away, and I find myself staring at the prospect of another long, dark, and wet winter. Then he’s much more emo, much more fat, and a whole lot less inner.

That’s right!  All of that pictorial diatribe above was simply for me to complain about the weather!  Well that, and Halloween. 

My hatred of the miserable “holiday” called Halloween has been well-documented here and here.  My feelings on the subject have not changed, but have, in fact, strengthened. And I think I understand why.  Halloween falls into a bit of a happiness black hole.  During the summer, the sun is out, the days are long, it’s warm(ish) and dry(ish).  People are suffused with an excess of Vitamin D.  There are flowers, sunshine, and lollipops.  Well, maybe not the lollipops.  But there are popsicles.  And in England, they’re called Ice Lollies, so that’s close enough.  But it’s Summer!  And summer is awesome.

And then in November, it’s okay to start decorating for Christmas.  (And don’t you dare even start with me.)  And there’s Thanksgiving, when even Inner Fat Emo Kid can make himself so full of yummy food that there’s no room left for the Emo.  And after that, there’s Christmas.  And Christmas is the calendar equivalent to unicorns pooping rainbows and glitter.  It’s the most awesome thing ever.  And it makes me happy, and it has great music.  And it doesn’t matter that daylight only lasts 17 minutes because there are twinkling lights and pine-scented candles and the promise of presents and going home to visit family and letting my mom do the dishes for two weeks because she is apparently the only person in the Universe who actually knows how to load the dishwasher correctly so instead I get to go downstairs and play video games while she cleans up the kitchen. 

But Halloween just falls smack-dab into the right armpit of the year.  (The left armpit is the Late February-Late March kill-me-now-if-I-don’t-see-some-sunlight-or-flowers corridor.)  Summer’s over, but the real holidays haven’t started yet.  It’s too early to decorate for Christmas, and it’s too cold and wet to enjoy being outdoors. 

But seriously, this year, I have noticed a major shift in my mood when summer came to its very abrupt end.  I’ve been working very hard to keep myself busy, and to enjoy what little sunlight is still available to me, but I’m a bit worried about how I’m going to manage to cope through the upcoming winter.  Normally, the beautiful Seattle summers are enough to keep me going, but the last two years we’ve had very poor, cold, wet summers in comparison to what I witnessed the first two years I was here.  It didn’t start until mid to late July, and was over by the first week of September. 

So, I’m going to try a few things differently this year to try to stave off the Seasonal Affective Disorder of Doom™ that I can feel sneaking toward me on little hippopotamus feet.

#1 Must. Keep. Exercising.  I started swimming several miles in July.  I lost a bunch of weight really quickly, and had a lot more energy.  I was actually getting up and going swimming before work.  I have not been able to keep that up as the days are getting shorter.  I’m a rise-with-the-sun kind of person, and it’s been very, very difficult for me to get when it’s still completely dark outside.  And going after work is pretty much not going to happen.  Once my shoes come off after a long day of work, I’m not goin’ anywhere.  Except maybe to the apartment complex hot tub to soak for a few.  (Note to self: Go soak in the hot tub).

#2 Eat Better. October is very bad month for Matt nutritionally. And I can attribute it to one thing:

Look.  I know it’s horrible for me, but I don’t care.  They start putting those damn little monopoly pieces on the 10-piece Chicken McNugget box, and I will go all SuperSize Me.  (PS.  Did you ever notice that McDonalds doesn’t use the term Supersize anymore?)  So far, I have won 300 Coca-Cola Points, a $5 Wal-Mart Gift Certificate (Megan, I’ll give this to you because I don’t have a Wal-Mart in my area, and even if I did, I wouldn’t shop there.  But you’re strong enough to withstand the evil so I’ll bring it down when I come for Christmas), 20 4×6 Photo prints from Snapfish, and a $40 Tiger Wood 2012 Master Xbox Game.  Oh, and a Medium Fry, two breakfast sandwiches, and two quarter pounders.  Once this orgy of fried foods is over in two weeks (*cough*) I’m back to healthy eating. 

#3 Modern Pharmaceuticals.  (And don’t worry…I totally had to look up how to spell pharmaceuticals.)  This year, I don’t care what anyone says.  I am not going to go through this winter on my own.  I don’t believe I need the help of any prescription friends yet, but I’m all about the herbal supplements and all that crap.  Melatonin, Vitamin D, St. John’s Wort, Monkey Placenta…I don’t care.  I will take it all.  Load me up with as many pills as needed.  Hell, if I have to start chugging 4 Loko and 5-Hour Energy, I will do it.  If Nature can’t provide me with what I need to make it through this Winter, then Amazon.com will.

#4 Light Box. I’m pretty seriously considering getting one of those full-spectrum light boxes that you shine in your face for 30 minutes a day to help wake you up.  To be honest, it sounds like a scam…especially considering how stinking expensive the dang things are, but I’ll give it a go.  Especially if someone buys me one.  I’ve got one picked out already and it’s even on my Amazon wishlist—your one-stop shopping destination for buying me Christmas presents!

#5 Create. Look, I’m miserable, fat, tired, and cranky.  So, instead of falling into the trap of doing what would come naturally (i.e., becoming a right-wing radio talk show host), I’m going to try to direct what’s left of my energy toward being creative.  Writing songs, finishing my book, recording an audiobook, taking more photos.  I’m sure that all of my creative efforts will reek of Inner Fat Emo Kid, but that’s okay.  At least he’ll be so busy being tragic that he won’t be able to completely drag me down all winter.

And if all else fails, I suppose I could always dress up as my Inner Fat Emo Kid for Halloween.

• Scott Sigler got his new novel Ancestor published by releasing it as an audio podcast for free
• The London Library is massively increasing the size of their digital collection

Matt didn't care so much for Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin
Andrew is, once again, slogging his way through Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

OBA Book Club Selection

OBA's May/June Book Club selection is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, read by Simon Vance. Stay tuned for a blog post where you can comment and discuss.

Andrew thinks it's time that the Vampire Trend have the life sucked out of it.

Sylvia asks us what to look for when shopping for a discount audiobook production company.

Copyright (c) 2010, Open Book Audio, LLC

• Happy Audiobook Month!  (And Dirty Book Day on June 11th)
• The Audie Awards were held, and here's the winner's list.

Matt really enjoyed Empire by Orson Scott Card, read by Stefan Rudnicki
Andrew is listening to Bel Canto by Anne Patchette, read by Anna Fields (RIP)

OBA Book Club Selection

OBA's May/June Book Club selection is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, read by Simon Vance. Stay tuned for a blog post where you can comment and discuss.

How many audiobooks do you listen to in a year?

• 25% – None
• 5% – 1-2
• 5% – 3-4
• 15% – 5-7
• 15% – 8-10
• 35% – 11+
  

What do you use to listen to audiobooks?

• 21.05% – Don't Listen to Audiobooks
• 0% – Tape Player
• 21.05% – CD player
• 10.53% – Computer
• 63.16% – iPhone/iPod
• 15.79% – Other Phones
• 10.53% – Other Digital media Players
• 5.26% – Other Devices
•  

Copyright (c) 2010, Open Book Audio, LLC

• Register to attend a free Audiobook Webinar on June 8th, 2010.  
• Blackstone is releasing Audio Apps in the iTunes Store
• Check out AudiobookCommunity.com and let us know what you think.

OBA Book Club Selection

Andrew's on an Audiobook Break
Matt went back to listen to the Hunger Games and Catching Fire…and he likes the books better.

OBA's May/June Book Club selection is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, read by Simon Vance. Stay tuned for a blog post where you can comment and discuss.

Or you can find the digital download version from Audible or Simply Audiobook.

Andrew and I Answered the question:

"Here's my question: I would like to record and press up my own reading of the audio book "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace Wattles – but to only give away, not sell.  Can I do this without endangering myself legally?"

We gave away two free copies of our latest book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

You can find the whole book at the Open Book Audio Store.

Congrats to @Otaen and @EAYCCHAIR for winning.  We'll be in touch soon!

Copyright (c) 2010, Open Book Audio, LLC

Open Book Audio recently released a new Classics Collection production of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, read by Matt Armstrong.  We’re extremely pleased with the great work done on this project, and are proud to have this fantastic book as part of our ever-growing Classics Collection.  You can fine more information about this audiobook in the Open Book Audio Store.  You can go there to hear a sample of the book. 

You can also hear Matt & Andrew talk about the book and process of recording it on our most recent episode of the Open Book Audio Podcast.

As part of our launch celebration, we’re giving away two free copies of our audiobook: one digital download, and one deluxe CD set.  To enter, just follow the two steps below:

1. Follow Open Book Audio on Twitter.  (You’ll need a free Twitter Account).  You can find us at http://www.twitter.com/OBAudio.
2. Once you’ve followed us on Twitter, post a tweet on your account using exactly the text below:

@OBAudio is giving away two free #audiobook copies of "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley. http://bit.ly/aww7TN

You’ve got until Monday, March 17th at 11:59 PM to enter.  We’ll draw two entries from all submissions on Tuesday and notify the participants.   Good luck!

Overdrive has FINALLY released their Overdrive software for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Andrew likes it a lot.

Tantor Audio is currently giving away the Simon Vance's recording of the classic The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle for FREE.  More information here.

OBA Book Club Selection

Both Andrew & Matt loved "The Book Thief"  Matt gave it 4 stars, Andrew 4.5.

OBA's May/June Book Club selection is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson, read by Simon Vance. Stay tuned for a blog post where you can comment and discuss.

Or you can find the digital download version from Audible or Simply Audiobook.

Open Book Audio is pleased to announce the newest addition to our Classics Collection, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, read by Matt Armstrong.

You can find the whole book at the Open Book Audio Store.

We're also giving away two free copies of our audiobook: one digital download, and one deluxe CD set.  To enter, just follow the two steps below:

1. Follow Open Book Audio on Twitter.  (You'll need a free Twitter Account).  You can find us at http://www.twitter.com/OBAudio.
2. Once you've followed us on Twitter, post a tweet on your account using exactly the text below:

@OBAudio is giving away two free #audiobook copies of "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley. http://bit.ly/aww7TN

You've got until Monday, March 17th at 11:59 PM to enter.  We'll draw two entries from all submissions on Tuesday and notify the participants.   Good luck!

Copyright (c) 2010, Open Book Audio, LLC