Monday, October 31, 2005

In Passing.

Busy week so far. I've been running back and forth between work and Coriolanus rehearsals and light hangs and whatnot. I met Bernie on Sunday, he's very nice and very helpful and not upset that I've been using him as a glorified gofer for the last couple of days.

I love watching rehearsals sometimes. I would much rather watch an early tech week rehearsal than a show after it's opened. The shows usually feel dead to me, whereas in rehearsals so much new stuff is being figured out, how to adjust to fit this new space, how to adjust to the new moods that the lighting and costumes create, there's so much discovery and playing and improvising that has to happen. I think it's why I'm always ready to be done with a show right around the time that it's opening. Anyway, this show is, for the most part, good. There definitely some scenes (and actors) that are better than others, but it works in the places where it really needs to work. And there's lots of blood. And Pat Kilpatrick's member. Jesus, if that ain't worth the price of admission I don't know what is...

Ah, I gotta go to bed. Jeannie's out at the cabin tonight, but I'm staying at our apartment cause I have to work early tomorrow morning and I'd lose over an hour's sleep if I drove out to the house. So I miss you, the Jeanners.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Saturday Night's Alright for Bathing

Greetings from day 4 of house-sitting. Things are going just fine, with a few minor dog-related adventures involving blood-dripping incisions, poopy dog hair, and hot male-on-male dog action. But the dogs are getting used to us, we're getting used to the dogs and the house, and the only thing that isn't getting better is the much longer drive to work and anywhere else that we might want to go.

Jeannie and I both had Thursday off, so we headed to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia for the day, where we saw some historical stuff, walked across the Potomac River on a footbridge that's part of the Applachian Trail, and had a mediocre meal on the second floor of a strange restaurant that reminded me of a one-room schoolhouse or the church on Little House on the Prairie. Which was also the schoolhouse, so I guess I'm being redundant.

Tomorrow is light hang day for Coriolanus, and I will meet somebody named Bernie who has volunteered to help with the lighting. I get the feeling that he's an older gentleman, and not just because his name's Bernie.

I brought all my recording equipment here to the house in the hopes of having somme sort of cool "recording-in-a-big-house-in-the-woods" expereience, but so far nothing of the sort has happened.

We've been enjoying making fires and having a big kitchen.

Thanksgiving is getting closer, as are visits from several close friends, and I'm looking forward to everything. Life is good in the hood.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

An Unfortunate Event

Not much happened today--a cold, rainy day off of work, running errands with Jeannie and because of the weather, some napping occurred.

Unfortunately, there was one low-lite of the day, and here's how it happened:

To start off it should be noted that Jeannie had just eaten a sandwich made of onions, banana peppers, red peppers, cheese, and tomatoes. She also had some fries. And ketchup. So, her breath wasn't smelling that great. I think we've all been there at one point or another.

So, we're on the couch and I'm laying with my head on her lap and my eyes are closed, and I notice that her breath smelled differently than it normally does (which is sweet and wonderful and a mouthful of sunshine). But the smell reminds me of something, and I can't quite place what it is, and then I remember what it is, so I tell her this story:

When I was a kid, my next door neighbors had trained their dogs to go poop on a concrete pad in the corner of their yard. It didn't smell too great when you got near it. But then, when it would rain, all the poop would get washed away, and then when you went near the corner of the yard, it smelled like a strange mixture of fresh, just-rained grassy smell and recent dog poop smell.

Perhaps I used poor judgment in telling Jeannie this story to illustrate what her breath reminded me of, but we both laughed about it, and I thought we were all good. Then, a little while later, I was telling her how relaxed I was resting my head on her lap, and just as the words were coming out of my mouth, she poured cold water on my face. She said she thought it would be funny, but I don't think it's very funny. We've tentatively made up but I think it's definitely going to put a strain on our relationship for awhile.

Anyway, tomorrow we start house-sitting for the next 11 days. Whirlpool tub, here I come.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Earliness

Well,, here it is still morning-time and already two interesting things have happened. The first is that I realized that my new favorite word (and the one I have been using most often recently) is 'seriously.' A truly great word, especially great if used to punctuate every sentence. Seriously.

The second interesting thing is that Jeannie and I were sitting on the couch a few minutes ago, and I was kinda lounging about and had my legs and feet stretched across her, and she yanked on a leg hair that happened to be sticking through my sock. I said something to the effect of, "Ouch, that hurt." Then she said, and this is the funny part, "Oh, I didn't know that was one of your hairs, I thought you had a rabbit hair stuck on your sock." Needless to say, we don't have any rabbits, nor do I usually come into contact with rabbits before 10 o'clock in the morning, but that's what she said. Seriously.

I have bad gas today. It hurts and stinks. The worst kind. Seriously.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

She still just wants to Party All the Time, Party All the Time.

Thank you, Eric Elz, for putting Party All the Time back into my head. I mentioned to my boss that I had Party All the Time stuck in my head, and he said, "Yeah, that song's not bad, but the album is terrible." The dude owns the damned album. There are many moments when my boss is completely and utterly frustrating, and then there are moments like that when I love him.

Jeannie is upstairs babysitting Samuel, and I just got home from work, and I'm a bit hungry. It's pretty dim in this room, there's just one lamp on over there by the wall, and there's a tiny little $1.00 clock from IKEA sitting on our bookshelf, and it ticks remarkably loudly for just costing $1.00. I'm wearing a horrible shirt that reminds of something that Pat Robertson might wear on Easter. Every now and again, this laptop makes a sound like there's a little bird trapped inside of it.

There are several things today that I wanted to write about, but I've forgotten them, so they must have been, in the long run, stupid. I think important things generally stay in our heads, and stupid things go away. It's always been a big part of my lyric writing, and why I tend not to write things down.

Does anyone think I use too many commas? I've always been very pro-comma, but sometimes I think I might over-use them.

I remember one of the things I wanted to write about: dream last night where I, maybe Jeannie and I, were visiting the Schlueter-Steinmetz' and although Henry was only supposed to be about 5 or six in this dream, he looked like he was about 13 and looked nothing like the cute little Henry we all know and love. His teeth were all messed up and he looked very....dumb. There's not really any other way to say it. He looked like your stereotypical midwestern farmboy. It was a vaguely terrifying dream.

I hear Jeannie walking across the floor upstairs. Samuel must be asleep and she's coming downstairs to our place.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

End of Day

Danny crashed here last night, so this morning Jeannie went to work and I drove him back to Jon David's apartment. Then it was off to work for me. A busy day, then came home tonight right as Jeannie was putting Samuel (upstairs babysittee) down for bed. So we read him some stories and then laid there as he fell asleep, and now we're making some of the most kick assingest food in the whole world. Mofo pea soup. Campbell's plain ol' green pea soup. It's awesome.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Criminal Intent

Danny Dolan is over and we're sitting around watching some Law and Order. We were supposed to go do some duckpin bowling with Pat and Aimee but they had other stuff to do.

The day was pretty much exactly as we had planned. Nap, then trip to bakery, then working on recording. Put some more touches on 'True Love,' thanks to some guidance from one R. Riley. Sent off the new mix for his consideration.

Highlight of the day: because of the rain, there was an intersection near our house where the traffic lights were out, and two policemen were out directing traffic. Jeannie and I both commented on the fact that we really enjoy watching police officers direct traffic. Because it's something that seems complicated but they make it look so easy. It's like a big dance that takes up a whole intersection. I don't know. It's an interesting activity that I've always enjoyed but never had paid attention to enjoying.

We just had a laugh about Rich R. eating popcorn sandwiches. Here's to you, Richard!

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

I woke up this morning with Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time" running through my head. I haven't been able to get it out.

Well, after wasting yesterday's day off, Jeannie and I were going to do something fun and exciting with today's day off, but it's been raining all morning. So we've decided to take it easy and go to the bakery, then work on individual projects; painting and recording.

More tonight, probably.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Operation: Stand the hell around


Well, "Operation: Meet u2 2005" has proved itself to be a big ol' fat failure. After a morning meeting with Ian to play around with some lights for Coriolanus (which should be pretty interesting and lo-tech), I headed down to DC to the MCI center to wait outside the loading dock in order to give U2 a copy of my CD. This whole plan worked in St, Louis a few years ago, by the way. Well, I got down there at around 1pm, and ended up standing around until 6pm, when U2 arrived, and sped past in their big black cars. Didn't get out. No cd was handed off. I did manage to snap this picture, though.


Still, this picture ain't really worth standing around for 5 hours in the surprisingly cold DC air. And I had to pee nearly the whole time, but didn't want to lose my prime position, as there were lots of other geeks there. And I didn't really talk to anyone all day, because the other geeks there were all superbly annoying. So afterwards I headed into DC's Chinatown to have a delicious Chinese dinner. Although eating alone at a restaurant is always depressing, and I've already talked about my strange sadness associations with Chinese restaurants. I really enjoy going into the Chinatown sections of different cities, though. I took this other picture tonight of DC's.



Hung out with Danny Dolan after arriving back in Baltimore, went to Soundgarden and browsed the cd's. Browsing cd's isn't as fun as it used to be now that I work in a cd store.

The Jeanners is home from hangin' out with her friend Katie.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Pokin' at ya, pokin' at ya!

Jeannie and I sat in front of the TV last night for a good 3 hours. Which perhaps explains my blank mind when I wrote last night. SVU is like crack cocaine in our house sometimes.

Tonight I'm going in to CSC to poke around our lighting stuff to see what sort of weird materials we might have on hand to make some cool, non-traditional lighting instruments. Then tomorrow morning a lighting fieldtrip with Ian to play around in the space. Then, tomorrow afternoon, "Operation Meet U2: 2005." So I'll be heading into DC in an attempt to meet U2 again and give them another cd, just in case they have worn out the first cd I gave them due to repeated listenings.

That's about it. Some things I saw today:

1. An extremely tall version of Pat Kilpatrick. (not really Pat Kilptatrick, just a tall guy who looked like Pat Kilpatrick.)

2. An old man wearing a checkered sport coat and bright yellow pants with a fly that was either open, broken, or very strangely cut. It kind of looked like he had a basketball that was trying to come out of the fly of his bright yellow pants.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Peep Stevie

My mind has been strangly blank today. Except for these little bits:

1. I estimated today and figured that I've eaten around 468 hot dogs in the past year.

2. Someone with a stutter breaks my heart every time.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Stevie Earl Jacobs' blog, I highly recommend it. He is apparently applying for the Chair of Theatre Department at the University of Oregon, and has kindly included some of his application materials in his blog. He walks the fine line between genius and psychopathy.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Monday, Monday

Fall is definitely in the air. Just went outside to take out the garbage, and it's a cool, sunny, windy, crisp fall day.

Jeannie got a good night's sleep last night (she's had insomnia on and off for a week or two) and she's still zonked out. Danny Dolan was over last night when I got home from work, we talked for a little while and then took him back to the apartment where he's staying while in town.

We're getting to the point where I start to worry about the lighting that I'm supposed to be working on for Coriolanus. I hate that point. Even though I have a relatively small job to do, it feels like the whole production is resting on the fact that I NEED TO START WORKING ON IT RIGHT AWAY. Which is not true. Just my damned midwestern work ethic kicking in.

Reading Elz' BLOG made me miss driving in the midwest. It also made me miss hanging out with Drew and Ricky. The summer before I moved here was one of the best of my life, mainly because I got to hang out with Ricky and Drew and Karista a lot. And sit outside and smoke cigarettes (yesterday I used the phrase "smoke 'em if you got 'em," and I instantly craved a smoke), and drink lemonade.

Not looking forward to going to work this afternoon. Maybe Jeannie and I can do something fun before I have to go in.

Oh, and I got the feeling from an e-mail Rich sent that he wasn't crazy about 'True Love.' Which I can understand, but makes me worry about my own misgivings about the song, and makes me worry that it needs more work, and I don't know if I have the energy to put more work into it. I think I have an internal time limit when I work on a song, I can only put so much time into a song before I'm 'done with it.' I guess that's when it would be beneficial to have bandmates or a producer around. To keep the creative fires burning. Oh well. C'est la guerre.


Sunday, October 16, 2005

Not at Home

I'm writing this at 12:41 in the morning, and I'm in the kitchen of a huge log-cabin in the woods. Jeannie and I are house (and dog) sitting for the weekend. When I say I am in a log cabin, you might be picturing an Abe Lincoln-woodburning stove-one room shack kinda thing, but it's more along the lines of a huge-ass, five star luxury hotel-like mansion that happens to be built from huge logs. Seriously. I am sitting in the lap of luxury, and it is a very warm, expensive lap. And we get paid to stay here. It's a pretty nice deal, any way you look at it. The house belongs to Jeannie's speech therapist and her husband (who is also a doctor).

Anyway, so we're here in the middle of the woods and it's great and everything except that they only have dial-up access. So I'm typing this and remembering how much I hate dial-up and this damned AOL browser.

It's been a good couple of days. Worked on some music yesterday and put what I think are the finishing touches on 'True Love.' Walked to the grocery store. Wore my favorite autumn shirt that is falling apart and almost dead. Then we started house sitting yesterday in the evening and took baths in the whirlpool tub and made a nice dinner and watched tube to try to make us sleepy.

Then work today, which was fine.

Highlights of last few days:

1. Walk to grocery store. The sun came out for the first time in about a week, and I got to wear my favorite shirt, and I saw a shiny gold coin on the ground but did not stop to investigate it. Also saw what looked to be a 110 year old woman driving along happily in a tiny car.

2. Saying "grunties" last night in bed with Jeannie, over and over again and giggling every time.

Thassall for now.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Night-time/Morning-time.

Well, it's quarter to 2 and I'm home from inventory early, and that puts me in a good mood because it went well, but I took a big nap with the Jeanners this afternoon in preparation for staying up late and now I'm not tired. Time to waste some more time!

Today was good. When Jeannie got home we went on our lunch date to Panera, which was fun because it reminded me of when we lived in St. Louis and I would be working a night or overnight shift and I would go pick her up from work at the architecture firm and we would go have lunch at Panera. That kinda stuff was about 5 years ago. Back when we had money, ha ha...
Anyway, we had a good lunch date, and she filled me in on some of the backstory about our new neighbor that she learned when new neighbor came down to hang out yesterday. Then we got to go to the grocery store. We bought lots of things, including red peppers, grape jam, sweet relish (for my doggies), toilet paper (red charmin, the good stuff), and other things that I don't care about naming right now. Tuna was one of the other things, boring stuff like that, so you see why I'm not interested in naming it.
Then we took a big long nap. Jeannie was super groggy when we woke up and claimed she couldn't drive but we went and dropped the car off at the shop anyway. It was funny, but probably one of those things where you had to be there.

I have noticed a couple of things lately:

1. I think the thing that I find most attractive in the world is effortlessness. The ability to do something without trying, or at least without seeming like you're trying. You might have to work very hard to do something well, but you do it in such a way that it doesn't seem like you're working hard.

2. I'm writing more now that I know people are reading. I'm also writing more because I bookmarked my blog, so now it's just one of those daily things I check, like my e-mail. I don't know if this is good or bad, but I'm starting to enjoy it. I don't think that I've changed the way I write too much now that there's folks out there, so that's good. But the damned posts are getting longer. And I've started using things like italics.

Life is good tonight. I guess I'll try and go to sleep now.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

11/12

Happy 11 monthiversary to me and ball+chain! In exactly 1 month, Jeannie and I will get to go out on our first anniversary dinner, which I am very much looking forward to. I'm still lobbying for Red Lobster, although she has vehemently vetoed that and is probably already making plans for someplace specializing in vegetables and tofu. Bleagh. We don't get to go out to eat much. But man it would be awesome if we could go to Red Lobster. What would be especially awesome is if there was a damned Ponderosa within a 2.5 hour radius of this supposedly "cosmopolitan" city.

Mental note: eat at Ponderosa whenever you see one.

Ok, that first paragraph was me trying too hard to be funny. I'm gonna stop that now.

I have realized that the reason I've been feeling so burnt out at work is because I've been working so many closing shifts. Going in to work at 3 gives me about 6 hours to waste and sit around thinking, "Man, I don't want to go to work in 5 hours..." ... "Man, I don't want to go to work in 4 hours..." ..."Man, I don't want to go to work in 3 hours..." etc, etc. So I sit around all morning building up all this negative energy, preparing myself to hate the day when, in fact, work is not all that bad. That being said, I have to go in to do inventory tonight (6:30pm to 3am) and man, I really don't want to go to work in 6 hours.

There are so many people I owe e-mails to. Sean and Rich top the list. If I owe you an e-mail, don't worry, you're on the list, but those two fellas top the damned list.

Still really happy today about Jeannie's good report from el doctoro. Jeannie's at work now, and I think she must have gone to the gym afterwards because she probably would've been home by now if she came straight home. We're gonna go to the grocery store today! And I think I might try to persuade her to use the Panera gift certificate we got and go on a lunch date with me.

I just got a lovely e-mail from Schlueter, and she said she's been procrastinating on her...shit, I forgot the right word for what she's working on...it's the thing you write when you're getting your doctorate---DISSERTATION. Anyway, she's been procrastinating working on her dissertation by reading people's blogs, and I'm here to tell her that if she REALLY wants to do some procrastinating, she should write her own blog. An excellent time-waster.

I'm realizing it's not surprising that time-wasting has come up so much in recent lyrics, as I do a lot of it. Why does a part of me think that time-wasting isn't a bad thing, but instead one of the best things? Is it part of the whole Jack-Kerouac-Tao-"do nothing"-stuff? Probably. Who cares, really?

I hear Samuel running around upstairs, and I'm hungry, and I feel sweaty, and I cut my hair this morning, and am also trying to grow a big bushy beard for winter-time.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Poor Customer Service

I was in a foul mood after about 9pm at the ol' B&N tonight. Chances are, if you came in after 9pm and asked me a question, the answer you got was either "Nope." or "I have no idea." The thought that kept running through my head was Ted Knight's from 'Caddyshack': "Don't you people have HOMES?" We were busy, though, and the music department made a lot of money despite my assness.

The best news of the day is that Jeannie went to the doctor and they stuck the ol' camera down her throat and said everything looks to be healing well and nothing odd looks to be growing, and nothing looks pissed. So that makes me n' her happy campers indeed.

I found myself thinking about friends today before going to work. Driving down highway 83 to go to the recycling dump with Jeannie and I was thinking about Ron Rybkowski, for some reason. I can't remember what put him into my head. But I realized that it's been awhile since I called him up, and that I should do that, but now that it's been awhile it would feel weird doing that. I hate it when that happens. Anyway, thinking about Ron got me started thinking about college in general, and made me a little nostalgic. Ah, nostalgia, schmostalgia. It's nice be here, now.

Seriously though, if you haven't rushed out and bought the new Ricky Martin cd yet, do it NOW.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Go buy Ricky Martin's new cd. It is AWESOME.

Well, I didn't really get to see Jeannie at all today, which means the day was pretty much a total waste. The only redeeming aspect of the day (aside from aforementioned new Ricky Martin cd), was doing some recordings this morning. Started playing a little Eno-based recording game: recording several short piano phrases of different lengths, then looping them all and playing them all at the same time, but because they're all different lengths, they interact differently with each other each time they loop. It's a nice little way to start the day off with some randomness. I also like it because I don't save what's generated, just scrap everything and start a new one tomorrow. Why do I like the "fart in the wind" aspect of so much of what I do?

Anyway, I have a feeling tomorrow's gonna suck.

Weekend Roundup and Hoedown

Well, a very nice weekend is over, and though it rained for a good part of it, my parents had a great visit. Jeannie and I really enjoyed having them here, and I miss them, which is kind of strange but a nice feeling. We went to Havre de Grace on Saturday in the pouring rain, walked on the promenade (with an umbrella that kept randomly closing on our heads), and ended up going to the "worlds largest decoy museum," which is exactly what it says. It's very strange. It's a museum devoted entirely to duck decoys and the people who make them. Complete with wax statues (maybe the statues were rubber, not sure, but they were very lifelike) of local legendary decoy artists. They also had an older guy on site who was carving decoys, and he was very funny, telling us about his carving process and peppering the stories with jokes you could tell he used every time. But he was very nice and cute and he loved what he did. Which I guess is all anyone ever needs.

Sunday was spent driving around the city, looking at interesting buildings and churches, and also a very good time. It was really enjoyable hanging out with them. It's great to finally be in a place where my parents are realizing they don't have to worry about me (and Jeannie, and both of us together), and that I've turned out different than them, and different than they might have imagined, but that I turned out ok. It takes a lot of strain out of our relationship.

Jeannie and I babysat our new neighbor Samuel last night. He's 2, and he's very cute and his mother is British and works overnight on Saturday and Sunday nights. So we'll be babysitting him some weekends while she's at work. He's got a lot of energy, but can also be very calm and thoughtful and sad. It's nice. Why is it that I tend to like sadness better than happiness? I feel like sadness should be the normal state of the human condition. It's the emotion we should feel most often. Why?

Saturday, October 08, 2005

A nice little bit of info.


Ahh, I have discovered how to upload pictures into the B-logs...my popupblocker was keeping the upload page from opening...

Anyways (my father always points out that Dennis Franz' character on NYPD Blue always says 'anyways', with an 's' on the end), here's the picture of the blue on the floor, taken with an old-ish digital camera bought with my first rush of power-plant money, so it's grainy. Remember, grain=art.

Morningtime

Man, what's going on? Jeannie couldn't sleep last night, and I woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up and have been puttering around, reading and pooping and I took a picture of the way the sky (a nice sunrise blue) was reflecting off of the floor. Maybe the sky iteslf isn't sunrise blue--because it's still raining like hell, one of those steady-ass lingering rains that will last for days and days--but the reflection on the floor was blue, for some unexplainable reason. And a nice blue at that. Maybe that's why I took a picture of it.

I don't like not being able to sleep. I routinely get 10-20 hours of sleep a night, and I know that this 5 hour night means I'm gonna put on my crankypants by mid-afternoon. And because of the rain, I have no idea what to do with my parents all day. I suppose something shall be figured out and I'm not going to worry about it.

Jeannie's at work at the B&N (she works there now, as a shelver) until noon. I'm guessing the folks are going to call around 10. I've been entertaining the idea that, if they open a regular Charles Village B&N, I should try to transfer there as the music manager and Jeannie and I should move to Charles Village when our lease is up. Aw, who cares.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Open-faced turkey.

Well, the parents are in town, and we went to Cafe Hon for dinner, and it was fine, although the place was noisy so Jeannie had to strain her voice a little bit to be heard, which ain't good. But it was fine. My parents came back to the apartment and we gave them birthday cake and presents and drank tea. It was nice. I think they enjoyed seeing the place and they're glad they're here.

Today at work I almost had to blow up like a bomb because they put up a notice that nobody could request days off between Nov. 20th and Dec. 31st. Oh hell no! I shall not stand for such B-crap! But I had a talk with Donna (bosslady) and she said that was just so that when everybody asks off for Christmas week she can tell them to go blow it out their bloody arses. She said that Jeannie and I can get some days off to travel around the holidays. But I'm guessing we won't have much time in St. Louis over Christmas. Which is why everyone should come visit here! Yum, Baltimore in winter!

Even though I haven't told anyone (except Jeannie) about this here B-log, I feel like I'm writing a bit differently now that I'm considering coming out of the closet and telling people I have a B-log. I've always written with certain people in my mind as an audience, I guess, but it feels different now that people I know might read this sometime. Well, I'll do my best to not try to feel pressure to be witty or funny, because when I do that I usually end up drinking to much gin and tonics and then spend a day and a half puking and sleeping in Jen and Brad's bathroom. Ah, I can't wait for Thanks-giving.

Just for the record, I think the funniest sentence I've written in this B-log is "Look out, that's a tasty burger." The funniest phrase is "aforementioned nuts."

Jeannie's going to bed. She just kissed me on the head and said she loves me. It's raining outside, has been all day. The air is a little bit heavy and humid, and the only things I hear right now are the steady hum of the laptop, the sound of the rain outside which is the same consistancy but a little bit higher, and the refridgerator--layers of hums.

Is "Look out, that's a tasty burger." actually a sentence? Does it have all the necessary sentence-parts? Anyone?

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Addendum. Is that a real word?

Just thought I'd add -- Been listening to the latest Sigur Ros album. Very good mid-tempo background music. All the vocals sound like they're backwards. Only negative feedback I have for the band is that sometimes the vocals sound like a cat meowing. Which is great for somebody like me who likes to meow along to songs, but bad for people who don't.

I've also been on a Brian Eno kick after reading his book "A Year with Swollen Appendices."

Self Flagellation.

Ok, today I realized, after looking at people's Blogs, that I do not write in mine nearly enough. I think this is because of a few reasons.

1. I'm not a very good writer, and I always find it to be a little bit of a chore. Kind of like exercise, one of those things I feel like I "should" do in order to be a better person., but secretly hate.

2. My life is happily, blissfully un-interesting. I think one of the things I'm most thankful about is that I have genuinely talented, interesting friends--because it takes the pressure off of me to actually have a life. When I hang out with them, they bring the life.

I added a picture to my profile today, and I think I look pretty intelligent in the picture, but after re-reading through old posts (and showing the whole blog-thing to Jeannie for the first time) I realized that I write mostly about eating and farting. Which is fairly appropriate, but I guess the truth about me lies somewhere in between the picture and the words.

Lots of visitors. Robin and Gena came for a great quick visit that involved lots of wine drinking and conversation and muffin-eating. My 'rents are coming this weekend. Then Schlueter in early November, and I hear a rumor of a potential Ricky Elz visit in November? I sure hope so. 'Twould be a good time.

Too many stories about work to tell here.

Now that Jeannie knows about this blog, and I'm thinking of telling other people about it, I suppose I shall be guilted and forced (in a good way) to write more. It does seem to shrink distances when I read other people's.