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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

Vacation in Geektown

Howdy.

It's been awhile, again, but mostly because we've had visitors here. Karista was in town for about 5 days, and we went to Ocean City for 2 days, and we went to DC, and hung out a bit here. Then the Beej was in town, and he introduced Pat and I to a new geek card game called Anachronism, which is actually quite fun. He and I were able to do our perhaps new tradition of hitting the Rec Room for burgers and gin and tonics. Holy Damn the burgers there are good.

Work has been slightly frustrating, but still enjoyable.

The weather's been hot and gross, but Jeannie and I have been taking walks again before we go to bed. It's nice and relaxing and I really enjoy it.

That's about it, really. We're going camping next weekend with Pat and Aimee, hopefully the waves will be big and the weather won't be too gross. Until next time.

Back from the Dead

I'm back, writing for the first time in a long time. Haven't been around Baltimore or haven't felt motivated.

Jeannie and I went on vacation to St. Louis, which was fun, and we've been back about 3 weeks and life has gone back towards normal. She had surgery again and is recovering and jobless for awhile. My life is the same, still working on music and working at the B and N.

Some memories from the last few weeks:

1. Had a strange argument with my sister while in St. Louis. Strange because it's the sister I feel closest to.

2. Jeannie and I went to Rocks State Park and went swimming in the rapids (which was fun and awesome) and I lost my wedding ring in the river as I was going through the rapids and put my hand on a big rock. When I took my hand off, the rock just slipped the ring right off my finger. That part sucked. But the rest of it rocked.

that is all for now. Jeannie is home.

Not Dead Yet.

I've just been too busy to write. MIDSUMMER opens tonight and Jeannie and I have been putting in our time working on the set.

Had a great night last night. I got home from the rehearsal early (around 8) and I could tell Jeannie wanted me out of her hair because she had a lot of work to do, so I called BJ and we met at the Rec Room for burgers and drinks. Maybe it's because it's been a long time since I had a real good burger, but damn it tasted good. I mean, holy shite that burger was good. Look out, that's a good burger. It's also been a long time since I've gone out and had a few drinks and shot the shat with a good buddy, and it was good to see the Beej, and he looked like Allen Ginsberg.

My back is sunburned from working on the set Monday and Tuesday, and since yesterday afternoon, on and off, it has been itching uncontrollably. It would be very comic if it wasn't so uncomfortable.

3 am

Stayed up late last night, listening to old songs, searching for any nuggets that might be floating around back there. Listening to how the music has changed over the last couple of years. I think I'm finally out of the "instrumental that leads nowhere" phase, although I definitely still have those that keep popping up, but for the last month or so I've been very interested in working with a lot of vocal lines and focusing the songs on the vocals.

I'm enjoying a little snippet of a song I worked on the other day. It's called 'crazy.' I like it because I think if somebody hung out with me for a day and followed me around while I piddled around the apartment doing the things I do, at the end of the day they would feel something similar to what they would feel at the end of listening to the song in headphones.

Enough about stupid songs that nobody will hear. Life is fine.

On the Pot

I have been remiss. Been too busy to write, which is odd. When it rains it pours. Working on MIDSUMMER set, and it's going well.

Some thoughts from the last couple of days:

1. Working Friday night with Jeannie on the set, both of us in work clothes, it's getting late and we're cutting wood, drawing things out with no music on or anything, and it's quiet and fun and peaceful. Joking, yelling back and forth between the buzzing of the saws. And after awhile Wayne Willinger comes in, for some reason, and he's giggly and confesses to us, "I'm an occasional pot smoker..." and he's high and funny and sweet. He's so nice, there to pick up "wigs and ladies' dresses" for a show that the autisitc kids he works with are putting on. He cranks up the radio, because the station is going to be playing a black sabbath album all the way through-- he's been waiting for it all day...it was an odd night, sweet, fun.

2. Not much else. Strange dream last night involving Rich. Haven't been eating too well.

none.

haven't written in a few days. been working more, and starting to work on the set that I've been procrastinating.

Some things from the past few days:

1. Going out and getting some Chinese food with Jeannie, at the cheap little place in Hampden. It's a great little place, narrow and deep, and I enjoyed sitting at the counter waiting for our food and looking out at the street through the bright, pale blue neon sign. And watching the woman make fresh sushi. It was a scene that was cheery and sad at the same time. Chinese restaurants always make me sad in a good way.

2. Getting through work yesterday without having to talk to a new manager who I don't like and who makes me unhappy to go to work. So yesterday was a good day.

Two days off of work starting today. I put some new strings on the guitar and hooked it up with some open tuning.

.5

Happy 6 monthiversary to me and Jeannie. Ain't life strange n' grand.

Didn't sleep well last night. Too many thoughts about work and the set that I've been procrastinating.

Drove to the Giant-G this morning to buy some sausage, as I had a hankering for a big greasy egg, sausage and toast breakfast. Also bought loaf of bread.

Things to remember from yesterday:

1. Hi-5's with Jeannie watching THE APPRENTICE. Quick 7 minute walk and then watched some of ER.

2. Jeannie asked me something while she was asleep in bed last night. Both of us remembered this morning that she asked me something, but neither of us remember what it was. It must have been strange, though, because when she asked it, I said to her, "Are you asleep?"

None

What a day.

Long day of work today, and Jeannie's not home yet, so I don't know what to do with my evening. I want to go walking cause it's so damned nice outside.

Things to remember about yesterday:

1. Walked to the Giant-G for floss and bubble bath. Put way too much lotion on my hands and had to use my elbows to open the door and wipe my hands on the grass.

2. Been reading Stevie's BLOG. He's more articulate than I used to give him credit for. Maybe he'll amount to something someday.

3. Layed in bed wondering if, in fact, I do not have enough ambition, creativity, or intelligence to ever have a job that seems somewhat interesting and pays well. The only quality that I am sure that I have in abundance is love for Jeannie and my friends, and I don't think anyone's going to pay me for that anytime soon.

4. Delicious black beans and rice with sausage for dinner. Gave me the farts somewhat fierce. Farted in bed and Jeannie had to get up and light a match. Sorry.

Fudge Factory.

Jeez. What to do with the day.

Things to remember from yesterday:

1. Quiet night at home alone. Watched TV ate rice with sweet and sour sauce, and aforementioned handful nuts.
2. Brush teeth and jokes in bed in the dark. Ha Ha.
3. Slept with fan on.

What am i doing? There's no one there.

I just ate a big handful of honey roasted peanuts.

There's not really that much else to tell, actually.