You’ll be glad to know that I’ve pretty much been laying low this whole weekend, so I’m feeling much more like myself again.

Saturday morning, I rode the MAX downtown to meet my dad and stepmom at Jake’s Grill for breakfast. It went…okay. Uhhh, it’s complicated. After they left, I went and looked for a new pair of shoes, but couldn’t find any that I liked. Came home and ended up doing laundry, dishes, boring stuff like that. Shelby and I were going to go to MusicFest NW, but the only bands we wanted to see we’d already seen before (for the most part) or were friends with or whatever, so we decided to give it a miss. Plus it would have been ridiculously late–the last band, Derby, didn’t start until 1:00 a.m.– and she had to work at 8:00 the next day. As I’m sure you can imagine, I sure needed the rest, so I was quite happy to stay home. I ended up watching “I Heart Huckabees.”

Today, Joan and I went to see “La Vie En Rose” in the theater. We both thought it was excellent, and the girl who played Edith Piaf is an incredible actress, but be warned. Her life story is an e x t r e m e l y tragic one. We were both feeling really sad afterwards, so we went for a walk through my neighborhood and then went for gelato.

After that, I drove way out to Beaverton to get another guitar amp, like this one. Since Steph’s band has been playing so many big shows lately, I’ve been using my bigger amp more. It’s forty-five years old now, and it’s the best-sounding amp I’ve ever heard in my entire life, but it’s a little bit too old and fragile to use day in and day out. It gets ‘tired’ on long gigs, and it loses a little of its edge. So I found one on Craigslist that will be perfect. I almost didn’t get it because one the aftermarket speaker had a problem, and the guy had also swapped the original power tubes for lower-output ones. (This just means it wasn’t nearly as loud or as clear-sounding as it would normally be.) We tried lots of different things, and he ended up putting back the original speaker and the high-output tubes, and suddenly the amp completely came to life again. It sounded loud and and pristine; just the way it’s supposed to. I can’t wait to use it at the show on Wednesday night, which I’m really looking forward to because Steph’s band is opening for the Paperboys, who are pretty big-time. If you live in Portland, please come see us!

So.

I’m feeling much better tonight than I was on Freaky Friday, just two short days ago. Amazing what a little rest can do for a person.