It’s late spring in Santa Fe, and that could mean anything – even snow. Just as the first shades of sunrise were hinting at morning, it was [...]]]> Sometimes I think the only reason my body and brain have trained me to sleep poorly is so that I can occasionally witness mornings like this one.

It’s late spring in Santa Fe, and that could mean anything – even snow. Just as the first shades of sunrise were hinting at morning, it was calm out. Windless, coyoteless, dogbarkingless, carless, windchimeless calm. It was mild overnight and I’d left the window open. It had been one of those nights where I slept, but 50 or 60 times. On a sleepless night, I don’t dream. On a night of profound sleep I don’t dream. On nights where I sleep 50 or 60 times, I dream. I don’t remember hardly any of it but I know that I like it, and even if I can’t remember the details it’s nice to know I’m dreaming. And it had taken me a while to actually settle down because of the stresses of the day and the disruptive influences of 2 gigs over 3 days. (I sleep horribly after a gig, more so after a gig with a commute. I can’t be forcefully, intentionally awake for an hour of Night Driver on highway 25 and then instantly drift into blissful sleep; it takes a couple of hours to switch modes from Must Not Sleep to Must Sleep.

Anyway, the birds started. There are tons of birds here, even some surprising tropical looking ones from time to time. I feel like there are more birds than when I lived in the lush coniferous rainforesty suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and certainly more than the inner city and surrounding suburbs around New York. It’s one thing to know there are birds here, plenty, and it’s a whole other thing to hear a late spring morning.

It was like the first day ever. Hundreds of birds singing their personal tunes without restraint or fatigue all overlapping  and merging into a beautiful, if chaotic, symphony. It’s hard as a human not to impose human motivations over the sounds, especially when we think we know what they’re for – expressing happiness, finding that one mate out of all the other gray desert birds, signalling danger. (It’s weird to find myself making that human vs. animal dichotomy, too. Why couldn’t we have any underlying messages in natural things. Until the very recent past, humans weren’t apart and above nature.) It’s a sound that’s both spiritual and grounded; heavenly and earthly. A little slice of life moment that for all I know had completely to myself.

And then it stops. The birds have an unspoken agreement to start more or less the same time, probably cued by the eternally optimistic robins, and then to fade to almost nothing almost in unison. By the time the sun is up, the wind has started blowing again and the first commuters are speeding their way to work down our little bedroom community’s main road just behind my house each on their phones and slurping coffee from metal commuter mugs and doing 60 or 70 (instead of the marked 45) to minimize the pain of the trip.

The first alarm clock in the house goes off, and part of me knows that I can then allow myself to sleep because there’s maybe only 20 minutes of possibility now. (Heaven forbid I grant myself the same freedom to sleep earlier in the night. I don’t get it, either.) The dogs stir and go outside the first time; once they’re back in they meander uncomfortably between the bed where I’m still laying, my kid’s bed, and my wife’s office where the day is closest to having begun. Every time the chihuahua brings a new toy up onto the bed and props herself against me to get purchase while she’s patiently ripping the seams apart I briefly awake, then drift into shallow dreams for another minute until someone else does something. The coffee grinder. The shower. Barking. The day has begun, I just won’t let myself admit it yet.

There will still be birds chirping and nesting and doing whatever they do throughout the day, but there’s nothing like that first dusky half hour. And again, sometimes I think the only reason my body and mind have beaten me up about sleep for the last two decades is just to have the occasional chance to witness stuff like this.

And you know what? It’s just might be worth it.

Loki came to us through one of our first friends in New Mexico. Her teenage daughter had given him to [...]]]> All right; we’ve had the 411 on the old guys – if you knew them, you probably got what you needed, if you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t care. Consider this more of same.

Loki

Loki came to us through one of our first friends in New Mexico. Her teenage daughter had given him to her teenage boyfriend as a kindhearted but ill-conceived gift and it worked out as it probably often does – the boy’s parents told him to get rid of it or they would. We’d met the puppy several times and found him adorable and we took him in without hesitation. It was pretty win-win.

A charming, cute puppy, he’d share a dog pillow with his older buddy Watson and chase his surrogate mother Sheba around. They were told he was a Rottweiler mix, but he looks like some special pureblood Shepherd more than anything now that he’s grown. (Part of his charm, to be honest. Watson was a coarse haired, robust Shepherd Rottweiler mix with black and tan colors, so we had a soft spot for animals factory-configured the same way.) He’s grown into a good looking dude.

When we did the math, it was possible that he’d been taken from his mother too early, and that may have caused some behavioral problems later. He’s been reliably edgy around strangers,and when he first became an adult, he horrifically attacked Watson and in all likelihood shortened his life.

We took him to a dog behavioralist we were recommended shortly after the big attack. The doctor confirmed that he was wired a little funny, and his natural urge to be the alfa (younger, bigger, stronger, healthier) was fighting with his nervousness about it and it would build up until he lashed out. He gave us some techniques to help him feel more confident, and slowly but surely they have made a big improvement. The behavioralist was clear that it was very unlikely that it was most likely genetic and not the result of something anyone had done to him. He’s always been great with kids and with the other dogs, and as tempting as it was a couple of times to put him to sleep or rehome him, he has turned out to be a good dog and gets better all the time. I’ve let go of blaming him for Watson’s passing – Watson was on this earth for 15 good years. And I’ve learned a lot about fighting the temptation to assign human motivations to canine behavior. His attack on Watson was very hard on me, and it’s probably going to take me the rest of our time together to get completely over it, but letting go of things is far more transformative than we can know until we actually try it. As much as I hate things that provide me with “experience” or “opportunities for growth,” the experience of living with him has given me opportunities for growth. There. You made me say it.

So he’s got a that tough exterior and a pretty tender soul. He’s quietly affectionate, bordering on needy at times, and his edgy nature means he knows where every single living being in the house is at once at all times. Even if there are 20 people visiting.

Molly

Anyway, Molly showed up a little over a year ago during the last ugly snowstorm of the season. My wife was out and about in the snowy, nearly zero degree  when she noticed a pickup rapidly driving down a side street with a dog chasing. She pulled over and tried to get the dog’s attention, but it was a little timid. Knowing there wasn’t much she could do to get the dog to come to her if it wasn’t interested, she walked back to our truck, and by the time she’d hopped back in the dog was waiting next to it to join her. Apparently, someone had figured that after sunset on one of the coldest days of the year during a snowstorm was a pretty good time to just release a six month old dog out into the wild. “Someone will come along and help her, it’ll be fine.” People…

When she got home, we introduced her to Loki first because the old dogs were going to more or less fine, and they played instantly. (Without any real pause for basically a whole year.) While it’s anyone’s guess what kind of mix she is, I see pit bull and boxer. She’s amazingly athletic and has remarkable energy. Every once in a while she’ll slip out the front door and lead us on a chase, but besides that and occasional protective barking outside, she’s a joy. She’s tough looking from whatever melange of breeds she happens to be, but there’s not a mean bone in her body. (She might hurt people from time to time by stepping on their feet or headbutting them though.) She mouths; if you walk down the hallway, she’ll walk right next to you and put your hand in her mouth. It’s not painful and it’s not aggressive, but it can be startling to guests who aren’t used to being around dogs. We work with her on the little things and there are no big things. She’s very affectionate and very sensitive – if you actually yell at her, she’ll hide from you outside for a while. She’s gifted a finding the single most uncomfortable position for you on the bed, like on top of your legs or where she bends your spine just half a centimeter, but it’s THAT half centimeter. Other than wrecking little stuffed toys that she’s not supposed to have, i.e. my daughter’s, she’s never done anything. She figured out the dog door instantly, no accidents, no nothing. I really enjoy having her around.

Lupé

Guadalupe, or mostly just Lupé, is a chihuahua. She’s the first small dog I’ve ever lived with. She’s the closest thing to a purebred I’ve ever owned. (We think she’s the real deal, but I don’t care enough about it to do anything to find out.)

I was surfing craigslist as I often to to clear the cobwebs out while I’m between tasks for work, and she was being offered for rehoming because a young family had discovered one of their kids was allergic. We met under suspicious circumstances in a supermarket parking lot and they basically handed her off. My wife was there (I keep saying “my wife” not to be objectifying or something, but I’m trying to pretend to be anonymous and smart with my privacy and all that) and asked some good questions. Lupé is evidently 2-3 years old and she’s lived more than  a couple other places. She’s probably had pups at some point. (“She’s got TITTIES,” as one nurse friend pointed out.) We never found out if she’d had shots or anything, we just redid everything with our vet to be safe. She started out kind of timid with us, and she didn’t completely get the Go Outside To Do Your Business thing for a while. Not like constant incontinence as with Watson, more like “I don’t feel like going out in the cold so, sssssssss. There, done.” It was probably not helped by having old Watson having constant accidents in the house to mark on top of, and unless we forget to open the dog door after a storm or something she’s self-corrected and bats 1000 these days.

She’s awesome. She’s funny and sort of smart and mostly good natured. She’s less yippy and protective than the chihuahua you’re thinking of. (The vet said, “Wow… is she always like this? This is a great chihuahua.”) Where a big dog can run three steps without turning or slowing down in our house, she can run full speed. She leaps up the 2 steps from our bedroom like Superman. If a weird noise happens, i.e. a loud and unexpected fart or a buzz from a musical instrument, she barks at it. She looks like a fruit bat when she eats. She’s super affectionate and always ready to play and always happy to see you and she embodies the un-cautious exuberance that makes me love canines.

It’s a lot like having another real dog. It’s also a little like having a cat. It’s also weird, like her brain is so small that she can forget things after 5 minutes and she’ll end up barking at me when I come out of the shower because she forgot I was home. But once she realizes who I am she’s happy to see me again.

the crew

She plays full force with the big dogs – she’s 10 pounds or so, Molly’s in the neighborhood of 40, and Loki’s coming up on 80 pounds. The big dogs don’t play full force with her, and they’re very good at modulating. Like the two bigger dogs can be playing tug of war fully intent on dislocating the jaws of the other dog. Lupé will jump in the middle, and they’ll dial it back from 10 to maybe 1 or 2. Still sincerely playing, but at the right pace so the little one can be involved.

The way they all work it out is impressive, and she only gets hurt when one of the others joyfully steamrollers her, never from paw or or teeth. If it gets a little carried away, she has a special Yip, it’s kind of like dog “tapping out” and they just reset. And she’s so small that every room provides 25 places she can take refuge if she needs a time out.

(Old Watson accidentally toppled on her the first day she was with us, it was a thing he just did toward the end, and she’s had a little limp ever since. It’s kind of sad to think about since Watson was such a good-natured dude and would never harm her on purpose, but it doesn’t actually seem to bother her. Plus it’s kind of gangsta.)

They are all friends and they sleep on top of each other and don’t fight over food. When little Lupé, now spayed or neutered – never remember which is which – humps Molly, Molly just relaxes and enjoys the little energetic back massage. They’re better friends with each other than our previous crew ever was, and it’s funny and charming and awesome. It’s about as different a group as you could pick in most ways, and when I see how well the balance works I’m pretty sure we’re not going to take in another dog because it would be so easy to screw it all up. They come in and check on my during the week while I’m working; Lupé just rarely these days, once she seeks out a sunny spot, she’ll stick there unless she wants to stomp through the wires and boxes on my floor to look for wayward food crumbs or plastic bottle caps to chew on. Loki will quietly settle behind me and I won’t even know he’s there until I get up to get some tea and he’s getting up at the same time and leading me to the door. Molly will burst into my room Kramer style every once in a while and nudge me with her wet dog nose and then disappear just a quickly once she got what she came for.

It’s a little sad because all old Watson wanted from his companions was to play and to be friends, and as well as they all got along, he never had that kind of thing with his crew. He would have loved this.

As different as they are from the last batch, there are also a ton of parallels; Loki’s the alpha but he’s mostly hands off like Watson was. And he’s a big, daunting shepherdy dude with some genuine herding behaviors. And he’s the one who keeps an eye on visitors, and he’s the one who hates it when one part of a group runs ahead while we’re hiking or something.

Lupé is the second oldest, like Ruby, and she’s got exactly same coloring and more than a few of the same behaviors. She’s real girl, and truly lovey to just a few people.

And Molly is our scrappy junkyardish dog like Sheba was; Betty Davis eyes like Sheba had, and more of a dog’s dog than the other 2 put together, also like Sheba. No illusions about being a person with her, with the farts and barking and unrestrained dogxuberance. Rough around the edges with a heart of gold. The one that nobody looks at first, but the one that’s least likely to do anything aggressive or unkind.

Parallels.

It’s a good little team, and the more time they spend with each other and with us, the better they get. Nobody’s perfect, the people included, but man… dogs are pretty great.

For more dog photos, check this album.

Brain: No can do, señor.

Me: What? Why?

Brain: I’m too tired. You’ll have to find something else to do for a while.

Me: Too tired… to sleep? [...]]]> Me: OK brain. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Let’s just get this sleep thing happening and we’ll both feel better in the morning.

Brain: No can do, señor.

Me: What? Why?

Brain: I’m too tired. You’ll have to find something else to do for a while.

Me: Too tired… to sleep? That doesn’t even make sense.

Brain: It does when you think about it. And I’m too tired to think about it. So don’t ask.

Me: What are you talking about?

Brain: * sigh * OK. Here’s the deal. In order for you to sleep…

Me: Us. In order for US to sleep. Not me. Us.

Brain: Well, no. Mostly just you. I’m still pretty active even when you’re asleep so it’s not quite the magical rejuvenating “just lay there and feel better later without actually doing any work” thing it is for you. There’s not that much in it for me.

Me: But you haven’t let me sleep well for like 18 years. What’s all this rejuvenation you speak of?

Brain: Whatever. Anyway, in order for “us” to get to sleep, I have to send this tiny squirrel here to the other side of your brain to flip the sleep switch. And today, there are just not enough calories left to send him on his merry little way.

Me: Squirrel?

Brain: Ayup.

Me: Calories?

Brain: Ahhh-yup.

Me: …

Me: But how many calories could it possibly take to send a tiny squirrel from one side of my brain to the other?

Brain: Well I’m not some kind of Farmer’s Almanac for brain squirrel calorie consumption, but if I had to ballpark it, I’d say it was in the neighborhood of 3.

Me: 3 calories? Like 2 Tic Tacs?

Brain: Ayup.

Me: But we’ve burned a hundred times that with this inane internal dialogue!

Brain: Sure, but those calories have already been preallocated.

Me: Preallocated to “inane internal dialogue?”

Brain. Yep. (You might want to look into changing that. That could be one of your problems right there.)

Me: …

Me: But I ate two green chile cheeseburgers tonight? That should be more than enough calories to fuel the squirrel. That’s a surplus of calories based on my body weight! A surplus!

Brain: Sorry, you spent 10 hours lifting alpacas and shit today. Those calories aren’t a surplus when your body can use them.

Me: Alpacas? Oh right, that whole “alpaca shearing” thing I volunteered for. That was crazy, right?

Brain: Word. You’ve got to stop helping people out. I keep telling you.

Me: Man am I with you there… But what about beer? There’s plenty of calories in beer, isn’t there? And I even had that fourth one last night that I didn’t really want. I opened it without thinking and was like, Oh I guess I need to drink you after all.

Brain: I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t make these decisions, you do.

Me: Huh. Can’t I just get up and drink some V8 Splash or something? A chocolate chip cookie would surely provide 3 calories which could be used to push me over the edge into sleepyland?

Brain: Well, you could try if you’re awake anyway. But I’m pretty sure those calories wouldn’t really do anything for you until tomorrow. You simply don’t have enough energy to go to sleep right now.

Me: What? Why would I have to wait until tomorrow for the calories to work?

Brain: I don’t know, biology or something. I’m your brain, not your alimentary tract. What do you want me to say?

Me: This is crazy. Not enough energy to go to sleep? Well what the hell am I supposed to do until morning then?

Brain: Well, let’s see. I mean, there’s plenty of stuff. You could stare into the darkness. I guess I could wiggle your legs and/or feet for you?

Me: Hey! Wouldn’t that take calories?

Brain: Yeah, but you’ve already allocated some of them to stuff like this. Good to go if you want to. (You might want to look into that, too. Seems kind of antithetical to that sleep thing you keep whining about. What’s done is done though.)

Me: No sleep tonight, huh.

Brain: Nope. OK, well there’s one little something I can do for you – when your wife starts snoring, I can make you think you were about to go asleep, but then you’ll wake completely up each time she snores. Then you can start the day feeling some righteous outrage, like someone robbed you of that sleep you weren’t actually ever going to get anyway.

Me: Uh, nah. That doesn’t sound helpful.

Brain: It’s better than nothing. Really – it would be like you’d be almost asleep… SNORE… wide awake. Drifting, drifting, almost asleep… SNORE… wide awake. At least you’d mix in a bunch of almost-asleep moments. If you put 1,400 or 1,500 of those moments together, that’s almost like sleeping.

Me: …

Brain: Oh, come on. You KNOW there’s a full moon tonight. You might as well be a werewolf, you ain’t stayin’ asleep. Face it.

Me: Man, fuck this. I’m getting up to read.

Brain: Not this time, buttercup. Your body is assed-out tired. You personally lifted 25 or 30 animals that were like 150 pounds each. Since you’re going to be awake all night, you should try to do that math. It’s a lot of pounds to lift though. Like 90,000 or something. But I’ve got you. No “warm milk and a book” fallback plan tonight.

I mean, dude – you’re 40 years old. You can’t go out and lift alpacas for a day and not expect to pay some kind of price. So here we are.

Me:  Damn.

Brian: Well, don’t say I didn’t offer you any alternatives.  I mean, first you wanted to sleep, now you don’t want to not-sleep. There’s just no helping you.

Me: …

Brain: Oh, all right. Here’s what I’ll do. Tonight’s a total wash, there’s nothing I can do about it. But you know when the sun starts to come up and you hear the birds singing?

Me: Yeah? Like when I smell my wife starting to make coffee?

Brain: Kinda…

Me: Like the exact moment where I realized I’ve made it through the night without sleeping and have to get up soon to start a new week of drudgery running on fumes alone?

Brain: Nice, exactly! Just then, right at that moment when you’re completely aware that you aren’t gettin’ any tonight, let’s do this: you’ll suddenly get all comfortable and warm and feel irresistibly tired.  You’ll pass reliably into a deep sleep. Probably have some crazy dreams about assembly lines or whales or some shit.

Me: Well, then I’d at least start the day by waking up, right?

Brain: Exactly! But it will only work if you have less than, say, ten minutes for the whole operation.

Me: So you’ll let me sleep, but only if it’s guaranteed that I won’t get in more than about five minutes.

Brain: Riiigggggghhhhhttt. You got it now. If I, Brain, get the vibe that you could squeeze in like 20 minutes of sleep, ain’t nothin’ happening. Simple as that.

Me: Wait – why will the ‘sleep squirrel’ suddenly have its 3 calories in the morning though? Where would those 3 calories suddenly come from? Wait – what the fuck am I even talking about? This doesn’t make any sense at all, and I OWN you, Brain. You should just do what I want.

Brain: You DO own me, and I AM doing what you want. You think I’m forcing this stupid internal quacking on you? At some level, you WANT this. Otherwise you’d stop doing it, right? (But then what would poor, tormented you complain about?)

Me: Complain? I’ve got plenty of things to complain about. I don’t need this.

Brain: You’re the boss. Then again, if you really believed any of that, we wouldn’t be here now. Keep telling yourself whatever makes you happy though. Some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable.

Me: I’m not one of those people!

Brain. Sure, sure.

Me: Damn. Well, whatever. I’m going seriously work at changing some of my priorities soon. Like tomorrow. New priorities. I’m not doing this shit any more. I’ve had enough of it.

Brain: Gee, I’ve never heard any of this before. You must be really serious this time. (I wish I had some way to indicate that I’m rolling my eyes at you right now. Metaphorically.)

Me: Bastard…

Brain: Yeah. I gotta be me. (Which is to say, I gotta be YOU.)

Me: All right, all right. Let’s just do this thing.

Brain: No time like the endless present.

Me: One thing – is this brain squirrel thing for real?

Brain: Man, you really DO need some sleep. *snicker*  See you tomorrow!

My kid loves insects and lizards and small animals of [...]]]> I might not be the coolest dad in the world but… well, I’m not sure how to finish that without hinting that I secretly believe that I actually am the coolest dad in the world. And I’m probably not. But I’m not bad. Mostly.

My kid loves insects and lizards and small animals of all sorts. My wife mostly doesn’t care and I definitely encourage it. This year, I got around to ordering the cool butterfly chrysalis set I’ve wanted to get for her. It seems like monarchs are no longer the butterfly du jour, but painted ladies will do just fine.

They were here in the mail when I got home today, and I just casually set the little box down next to her where she was setting up to do homework. The cute, CLEARLY LABELED, colorful box got her attention right away, and she read what was inside.

I’d only ordered them a week ago, so I was mostly pleased. I feel like I got slightly ripped off in a way, the “kit” I purchased had a coupon for them redeemable for a reasonable-sounding five bucks. I didn’t want to fill the card out and actually mail it, what with it being the 21st century and all, so I used the recommended web address. You put in a specific coupon code (which seems a little curious I guess), and it gives you the appropriate package because they sell more than one variation. Come checkout time, the five bucks has mysteriously ballooned to $14.95. I did it anyway, partly because I’m an idiot, and partly because it’s about what everyone seems to charge. I have to cynically wonder if that’s not why the mantises I ordered under similar circumstances last year were “out of stock” – maybe if people send in the five dollar coupon, they’re out of the five dollar mantids. I digress. And I also need to look into mantis pods…

Anyway, they’re cool. We have a big mesh cage for them to hatch into, but for now, they’re in a little jar with some foodstuff in the bottom. There are five of them, and they’re making little silk structures to get comfortable. Happy, healthy. We keep an eye on them for a couple of weeks, and once they do their pupae thing and form chrysalissssesses (yes, that’s how it’s spelled; I’ve read a lot of books) at the top of the container, we carefully remove them and place them in the larger mesh thing to mature and hatch. Once they hatch, we get some fresh flowers, sprinkle them with sugar water to nourish ‘em up good, give them a chance to eat and inflate their wings and whatever else newborn butterflies do, and we set them free. I’m looking forward to it, and she’s already excited about it. She’ll probably stop checking on them every five minutes at some point, but it’s great to share my enjoyment of literal little things with someone.

5.12.2011 UPDATE
The little guys have tripled in size, from a little less than half an inch to about an inch an a quarter. The good/goo in the bottom of the container has gone, their silk nets are all over the place, and a couple of them have started hanging from the top. If it’s not just a caterpillar fire drill, that means they’ll form chrysaliiii now, and we can remove them from the plastic container and suspend them in their mesh cage and start to watch for the next big transformation.

Even my bug-averse wife is pretty interested in them.

Also, caterpillar crap is called frass, and it’s proportionally huge. It would be like crapping out something the size of your head several times a day. With the amount they eat and the pace with which they grow it’s probably not surprising.  Frass.

I’ve been completely disinterested in the e-book phenomenon. I like reading, I get books cheaply, I read them, it works out. I love buying used books, ex-library books with card pockets in the front and exotic stamps from places like “Ohio” and “Florida.” I can set a cup [...]]]> Love. I accidentally love my Kindle.

I’ve been completely disinterested in the e-book phenomenon. I like reading, I get books cheaply, I read them, it works out. I love buying used books, ex-library books with card pockets in the front and exotic stamps from places like “Ohio” and “Florida.” I can set a cup of tea on a book. I can smash flies with a book. I can use a book to prop open a window. I can bring a book in the bathtub with me without any real worry about what will happen if I drop it. (I don’t love books that someone else has underlined in, though. Nobody’s perfect.)

I’m also kind of weird about electronics. I don’t use an iPod despite my years of involvement with music and my not-insignificant CD collection. I never got an iPhone. I cancelled my Android phone’s data contract; I liked it OK, but I just didn’t need it. I don’t have an HDTV or a BluRay player. I’ve tried iPads, and I think they’re neat and fun and I have no interest in having one because for all the cool things you can do with them, they’re computers, and I already spend wayyyyy more time than I want to in front of one.

As much as I can be a gadget guy in certain specific ways and in certain specific cases, I can take or leave most of it. The accolades being showered upon the latest batch of ebook readers were interesting, but in the same way that haggis is, or maybe army ants. I read about things because things are interesting, but I don’t want all of them.

But I ended up with a Kindle.

Partly, I have to acknowledge that my frequent visits to Amazon probably wore me down. I forget what the exact number is and I don’t care enough to look it up, but there’s some magical number in branding and advertising whereby a person will suddenly find a certain proposition intriguing. I must have seen 16,000 Kindle ads on the Amazon home page, so maybe the number is 16,000. I cannot swear that marketing didn’t affect me, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Partly, I’ve been more and more interested in writing again. I’ve been journaling and doing “the morning pages” and even sketching out and falsely starting novels. The attention that lesser-known authors have occasionally managed to gain through doing self-published ebooks was inspiring, people like Amanda Hawking. The more I read about people like that, the more I became interested. Once my interest crossed a certain threshhold, I realized that as inspiring as their successes were, I had no idea what a) the ebook experience was like, and b) what the quality of writing was in these overnight (yeah, I know, I know) runaway successes’ works. I’d occasionally try to read an ebook either on my laptop or my Android phone, but I couldn’t get into it. (I don’t even like reading instruction manuals on a computer screen. PRINT ME A BOOK!!!!!)

So I suddenly became interested; my interest was partly selfish, in the sense that I wanted to research a possible writing outlet. The more reviews I read about readers and how people liked them and how good the screens were getting and all, the closer I moved from “I might not completely hate it” to “I might actually enjoy having something like that.”

After my usual painstaking research and considering different makes and models and different sizes and colors, I pulled the trigger and got a 3G Kindle 3. The screen in the third generation Kindle was reviewed very well, it had enough space, and the free 3G was a kicker – I occasionally need to check my email on the run, and it would theoretically handle it for me. I like Amazon anyway, and with one of the freely available conversion utilities, I could most likely wrangle any ebook content I came across into a readable form. I didn’t care that it didn’t work with any library systems at that time. I wrestled with getting the WiFi one just to save a few bucks, and the ad-sponsered one that’s a bit cheaper wasn’t in the mix yet to confuse me further. I bought it sight unseen; I hadn’t read any review issues that led me to believe that I’d need to hold one to make my decision.

I never considered the iPad seriously; I’ve seen their ebook interface and found it compelling and attractive, and I loved the ease of the touchscreen, but I’d read mixed reviews of using it for reading for long periods. I’ve tried Angry Birds and Garageband for the iPad, and I’d use it about 20 minutes a year, so it was kind of expensive as a reader anyway.

I considered the nook, especially the color one with the hackable Android OS, as I mentioned, I liked my Android phone just fine so I’d assumed it would be comfortable territory. In the big scheme of things, I couldn’t think of any important use for color in a book reader; if I was buying a photography book, I surely wouldn’t buy it electronically anyway, and not a single novel I own makes use of any color. And my faith in Amazon as a company made a difference; the free 3G was honestly a deciding factor, and if I was betting on a free 3G provider who was probably going to stay in business for the next couple of years, I knew who I was going to bet on, and it wasn’t B&N. (Sorry, guys. I liked your stores!)

I read about several others, but all things considered, only the Nook and the Kindle made my short list.

The Kindle came in a cool little box, partly charged, and with my Amazon account already put in. The 3G worked out of the box, no contracts, no personal info. Getting books onto the Kindle was as easy as copying files to a hard drive. The user interface took almost no learning, although I did look up a couple of less obvious features over the first couple of days. It was as close to plug and play as I could have hoped.

Some thoughts:

The Screen
The screen is great. It is very easy on the eyes, pleasant to look at, smudge resistant (which is important because the first 2 weeks of use, I kept trying to do things with the touch screen, and it doesn’t have a touch screen). Redraws and page turns are a little slow, but not any real hinderance.

I read faster on the Kindle than I can in print for some reason, and it’s got to be largely because of the screen. One less-than-obvious benefit to an electronic book is that the type size is not fixed. I prefer to read with pretty small letters under perfect circumstances. But as the day turns to night and my eyes start to glaze, I can bump the text size up in increments and just keep going.

The interface
It took me a few moments to get used to the page turning mechanism. It’s quite clear and not difficult, but it’s set up so that there’s a forward/back button combination on each side of the screen. My instinct was to Push Something On The Right to turn the page forward and Push Something On The Left to turn backwards. It doesn’t exactly work that way. I still think I might like it better if that’s how it were set up, but it’s a pretty minor consideration.

The size
The size is perfect for me. The screen is roughly the size of a paperback novel’s page. The overall footprint is probably 50% larger than a typical smartphone, but it’s very lightweight and thin. I can fit it in every coat pocket I’ve tried and every cargo pant pocket I’ve tested. I bought a cheap neoprene sleeve on Ebay to protect it, and I bring it all over.

3G
The free 3g works. For book delivery, it’s as quick as you could ever need.

The web browser is a little clunky, partly because of the navigation buttons, partly because of the keypad, and partly because the screen only displays 16 shades of gray. But it’s usable and it’s free and it’s there. I can check my Gmail from the road and I can use Google maps if I get stuck somewhere and I can check Facebook if I can’t remember the address of an event I’ve been invited to. If I ran my business off my Blackberry, I would not get much use from the internet connection here, but for my needs, it’s pretty excellent. And the 3g is supposed to work  not just all over the US, but in 150 countries; no roaming when I’m on the east or west coast of the US, and it’s nice to know that I’m good next time I visit relatives in Denmark.

Zip lock
One of my favorite things about it is that the normal Kindle 3 fits perfectly in the zip lock sandwich bags we happen to have around the house. I can read in the bathtub without being unnecessarily distracted by the prospect of splashing or dropping my little portable library into the water. (My wife killed a cell phone by dropping it into the only glass of water in the room once. These things happen.)

I’ve read about 20 books on it at this point, some old friends and some new discoveries. I’ve purchased one book and downloaded many others freely. There are probably tons of other resources out there for people who know what terms like “seeding” and “leeching” are, but you may never need to resort to Those Ways Of Getting Things. (I’ve downloaded a couple of PDF books and converted them, and I was disappointed at how many typos and formatting errors there were compared to other sources, but I guarantee you that varies quite a bit.)

On dealnews.com they have 4-10 free Kindle books practically every day; the titles are all on Amazon anyway so that’s not the only way to find them, but I’ve found their suggestions frequently useful. (I visit dealnews all the time anyway though.) I’ve also downloaded many titles from www.manybooks.net as well, they have tons of cool public domain books in all sorts of categories and the quality of the formatting and proofreading was solid. If you’re the kind of person who happily reads classics, you may never need to purchase a thing.

However, when it comes time to purchase, the process through Amazon is painless. You link your Kindle to your Amazon account, and you can send files wirelessly via “whispernet,” which I guess is their 3G network, freely and instantly. They have optional for-pay services, I’ve read that you can send PDFs to yourself through your Amazon account and they get translated into Kindle’s format and sent back to you for some nominal fee, $.15 I think it was, but I’ve never needed it.

If you source books from places other than Amazon, you may find Calibre handy. I have found it slightly less than intuitive as far as managing all my books, but it has tons of conversion capabilities so even if you just used it to mash other formats into something Kindle-friendly, you’ll find it well worth the free download and learning curve.

Conclusions
At the end of the day, I love my Kindle. At any given time I have about 150 books on it. I even have a jazz fake book or two on there on the off chance that I ever take another jazz gig, the screen rendering of sheet music PDFs is small but super useable. The experience of using the Kindle is transparent; once you’ve opened a book and started reading it, the minimal interface fades away and you’re left to your words. There are capabilities for annotation that I haven’t cared about (I don’t write in real books either), and I occasionally use the built-in dictionary to catch words that haven’t yet made it into my vocabulary, but for me it’s been less about how e-books can be better than books by being electronic and more about how they can be just as good as printed books without needing to be printed. A slightly clearer way of expressing the same way might be – books are still books even when they’re not printed on paper. For some reason, I’ve found it reassuring that this is the case.

I guess part of my resistance to the e-book thing could be phrased more or less, “But… I like REAL books!” Fortunately, I still live in a world where it’s possible to still love real books; I’ve purchased and read several since Kindle entered my life and I have no plans or reason to stop purchasing used books. Especially things with illustrations or color, like art, design, photography, and illustrated history books. Now that I’ve reconciled my love of real books with the peaceful and life-enhancing coexistance with my Kindle 3, it’s a good time to be a fan of reading.

The me that had never given e-books an honest tryout set up an imaginary war between “real books” and “electronic books,” but in the end, they’re all just books. And books are good.

I’m going to start blogging again, I’ve had enough of a break to put some energy into it and other writing projects and exercises leave me wanting more outlets that I’ve got, so here goes. Meanwhile, I did set up a photography website as I mentioned I’d probably do first. We’ve had [...]]]> Hello. I’m back.

I’m going to start blogging again, I’ve had enough of a break to put some energy into it and other writing projects and exercises leave me wanting more outlets that I’ve got, so here goes. Meanwhile, I did set up a photography website as I mentioned I’d probably do first. We’ve had a complete changeover in our dog lineup and added a couple species of household guests. I’ve got a lot of new questions and still have a lotn of old issues. Mostly I just feel like writing more, and my novel project isn’t a reliable outlet 100% of the time.

I’m working some of the kinks out of a nifty new blog theme and have a whole shit-ton of ideas to write about. At least 3. Maybe more. (I never, ever say things like shit-ton in real life. I’ve been reading Steven King books lately and as a direct result I find myself constructing little adjectives like that. I’m not sure I like it, but it happens.)

So, uh… what’s up?