The Autistic Me

Music is important to me. It's not quite an obsession, and I'm not a scholar by any means, but music occupies a significant part of my life. When I work at my computer or write at my desk, I like to listen to music. It's in the background, blocking all those other sounds that distract me. Music is my "white noise" while I work on projects. Sound quality matters to me. Recently, I reimported my favorite CDs into iTunes because, back in the day, 128kbps was what my hard drive could hold, and I skipped so-so tracks back then. But, the tracks sounded "tinny" to me with better headphones, earbuds, or via the home stereo. At 256kbps I can't tell the difference between the CD with these tracks with headphones. (Maybe it is my age, but I doubt anyone could tell the difference unless sitting in a silent room.) I opted against ALAC / AIFF for now because of space. Yes, I have that many CDs and I'm not always connected to the interwebs. If we som...

In response to several queries from friends, a bit more elaboration on my plans. I applied for a number of teaching posts and have now received the standard letters proclaiming an "overwhelming number of highly qualified candidates" for each opening. The decision to not teach part-time as an adjunct, at least for now, was best for me. I'm too tired to drive two hours (or more) to teach one class in the fall for 80 minutes. Also, teaching part-time where I wasn't renewed full-time wasn't going to be comfortable. (The hiring process still angers me.) The pay was fair, but the situation would not have been healthy for me. If I teach again, it will be somewhere more welcoming. My passion remains creative writing, and the rhetoric of stage and screen — followed closely by the visual rhetoric of page design (including digital "pages"). Give me scripts, sets, and camera angles. I'll ponder what makes a great play vs. a great movie, and how both are...