kiwi the people

i am a pretty faithful online viewer of the daily show, and new zealand just doesn't get enough fake press. so this video brought two beautiful things together and gave me a good laugh to boot.

mefloquine and other drugs.

it's been a while, i know. i was busy at the tail end of the conference i mentioned in my last post. and then i was terribly sick (arghghg summer cold!). and then i was busy again with various birthday celebrations and doctors' appointments and so on.

birthday: i'm 29. thirty minus one! now that i am aware that life begins in earnest at 30, i'm not freaking out at all... okay, maybe just a little. almost thirty, what?!? i'm not supposed to be an adult. but here i am. and my upcoming 30th year is as good as my just-passed 29th was, then i guess being an adult is sort of great.

and doctors' appointments: i'm getting everything checked out and vaccinated in preparation for my trip. contact lenses that are actually the right prescription! wow! potentially psychosis-inducing medication! awright!

thing is, malaria is not nice. if i get it, i don't want it to get bad. ergo, it looks like i'll be taking mefloquine (brand name lariam). apparently the potential side effects are... interesting. i have no problem with vivid dreams, though i'm not sure how much more vivid they can get compared to the dreams i already have. (my doctor told me "weird dreams"; has anyone ever had "normal" dreams?) then there is the slim chance of developing hallucinations, suicidal imaginings, &c.... so i have to start with a two-week trial run just to make sure i don't go nuts.

my doctor also lectured me about drinking water and DEET. this is all rather new and intriguing to me. i have a filter for my water (hoping to double up: filter and boil), my deet-permeated mosquito net for sleeping, and am packing lots of neosporin, &c., since i was also told by a vanuatu resident that "everything here gets infected." fun!

anyway: wednesday i start the lariam trial run to make sure i don't lose it, and after that is an 8-day tyhpoid vaccination, and then a week before i leave i start taking the official course of lariam. i already had the hepatitis A vaccination.

happy fourth.

happy fourth of july to all my U.S. friends. it's a good thing, this country of ours. here's to hoping more people around the world get the respect of their personhood, rule of law, and rights that this country is supposed to be well-known for.

and if rule of law, and respect of certain persons and their rights, have been shoved aside in our own country a bit lately, may they be quickly restored.

i'm actually working today. catching up on things that are easier to do when nobody is in the office and no clients are calling. i'm scrimping (or making up) every bit of vacation time i can, so that a week or two will be paid while i'm in vanuatu. but tonight, at last, i depart for a messianic jewish conference that i've attended in whole or in part for almost every year of my life.

this conference, in combination with my tendency for yearly reflection around the time of my birthday, means that july has always packed an intense punch for me. it's historically been my favorite -- and most challenging -- month of the year. so let's see what fun adventures this july holds in store!

done. for now.

yesterday root signals wrapped up the final mastering for the preview of our T'fila l'Moshe project. you can go to our myspace page for a listen. best served loud, in the dark, with headphones.

i have been so obsessive and nit-picky about these songs for the last few weeks that it's quite difficult to get out of that mode and just listen to the music as music. but hopefully there are some people out there who can get lost in it and really absorb what the music is doing and saying.

my personal contributions were vocals, composition, and several instruments. and a lot of arrangement and production work, which of course takes up the most time. i can't decide which is more emotionally harrowing: 1- knowing that many people will hear my voice, sometimes unaccompanied and completely exposed to the elements (it's my own fault for liking plainchant and balkan white voice singing so much)... or 2- the hours and hours i spent tensed and straining to hear faulty notes, hisses, ringing, stray noises, harmony syncing, a voice quality that is great on its own but doesn't fit with the mood of the track, &c., &c....

but it's a total rush. i loved (almost) every minute of it, and it was a great learning experience... which will come in handy now that we have to record and produce the second half of the album.