the summer so far. . . .

I had given myself a short list of things to do this summer. So far, I have done one of the big ones and two of the small ones.

The large item I have struck through on my list is the completion of another album-length CD of our music. We finished this just last week, and it has about 10 original songs, including three or four (depending on whether you're counting joke numbers) for which Lauren wrote both words and music, one for which I wrote both words and music, one on which Lauren and I co-wrote the lyrics and I wrote the tune, one on which I wrote the tune and Lauren wrote the lyrics (the afore-posted "5th of July," [top song on the page] which rocks), and a couple instrumental guitar tracks. I'm trying to get more sophisticated with recording, trying to add bass and lead tracks as appropriate, and that made this a bit more complicated and difficult to pull off. I'm happy with it. We're both happy with it. I think we're getting into a good songwriting mindset, and I think we're improving as writers.

Meanwhile, for whatever weird and at this date unexplored reason, over the last two days I've started writing 3 songs. One already has a bridge and chorus, and a lead part.

One of the small things is that we've made it to a couple art museums already, and out to the coast at least once: I wanted to be sure to get in some small day trips, to help our sanity.

The other small thing is that we've been down to LA twice already. I wanted to get down there a handful of times, and go someplace. In fact we're scheduled to take more such outings.

I haven't yet written a paper on Schutz or on Merleau-Ponty (that one will take as looong as it needs; it's still really in the roasting phase, and we're barely thinking about how to grind and percolate it). I have a book review to write. I haven't yet finalized classes for fall, but will soon because I've got some good and some delightfully silly ideas for Theory of Knowledge. We haven't yet watched Blazing Saddles despite threatening too. We watched Head tonight after driving up from LA. That makes much more sense than might otherwise initially seem to be the case.

And that's about it. My mom's birthday is next weekend, and I'm going to the AAUP Summer Institute (aka Red Camp for academics).