beautiful, funny, sad & true

This month is effing crazy.

First twelve days of the month, I have only one day with nothing extracurricular planned. Then I have a few blissful days of nothing–besides work, that is–before the craziness starts in again. From the 16th on, I have only four ‘me’ days.

It’s like, play rehearsal, play rehearsal, gig, play rehearsal, play rehearsal, actual play, nothingnothingnothing, gig, out of town to mix a CD, friend’s birthday, gig, gig, gig, out of town to be best man in friend’s wedding, nothingnothingnothing.

So that’s why I’ve been a little more scarce lately. I’ve been traveling at close to light speed for this whole month.

OneYearAgo

Starting tomorrow, one of my New Year’s resolutions is coming true.

It’s the private one, so don’t expect me to elaborate too much, but I will say that it’s a big one, and that it’s something I’ve done before, and that it changed my life dramatically. Now if I could only get the puddle of water off the floor of my car, I’d be very happy indeed.

I never did shake off that dream yesterday. I came home, watched “Boogie Nights”, and then called my brother’s wife. Both of their kids were asleep, so we were able to talk for about an hour, which was really nice. We haven’t had that kind of luxury for quite a while.

When I did finally go to sleep, I had another dream–too short to warrant an entire entry of its own–in which BoringFish and I were together, and we decided to get married. (“Not right now, but–y’know–in the future.“) Isn’t that funny? Two dreams about the same person, two nights in a row.

This afternoon was rehearsal with Susie Blue and GuitaristJason. I played accordion and cello. We have a few shows coming up in January and February–at great venues like the Doug Fir and Mississippi Studios–and it’s been ages since we played together. Sounded great and felt great, and I’m really excited for this round of gigs.

Tonight is SSF’s birthday party. A bunch of us are going to get sushi at her favorite sushi restaurant, Kappaya, and then we’re going bowling. It promises to be a blast.

I’ll keep you posted as some of the other resolutions are met. Right now, though, I’d better ‘motor’ (remember the movie Heathers?) if I’m gonna make it to the sushi place on time.

Despite my melancholy-ness in the morning, yesterday and today were great.

In the afternoon, I recorded more accordion parts for the upcoming Susie Blue CD. We also tried some piano, glockenspiel, and acoustic guitar parts, but as usual, the unsung hero of the day was the Omnichord. That little thing has proven to be worth its weight in gold.

After I got home from the recording session, Joan and I went to see Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox, and it was amazing. We were surprised by the amount of sadness and pain their family has endured throughout the generations, including the current one. Fantastic story; much more about family dynamics and spiritual worldviews than about soap, definitely.

From there we went to Hama Sushi, where neither of us had been before, but turned out to be a hidden treasure. Their sushi was incredibly affordable, yet still very well-made and tasty at the same time.

After we’d had our fill of sushi, we went to Ikea. It wasn’t Joan’s first time there, but it was mine. She bought a small bag full of cool things for like $35, but somehow I ended up empty-handed. I was really only there to look, since I’ve bought so much new stuff for my apartment already. I was impressed by their use of space in their designs. Many of the pieces are meant to cram as much functionality as possible into as small a space as possible. Oh, and they also have frozen yogurt cones. :)

This morning was S & W’s wedding, which was beautiful, personal, and incredibly touching. My favorite part was where they had each guest drop a rock into a container while they poured salt over it, creating a container full of salt and stones, which symbolized the friends’ good wishes and hopes for their future. It was really beautiful. I dropped in the biggest stone I could find. Oh, and during the reception, guess who caught the garter? That’s right; good ol’ Mr. T.

Oh yeah; in case you didn’t know, my nickname is Mr. T.

The rest of the day I spent on apartment-related stuff. I found out last night that what I’d bought last week and had been using as an incredibly uncomfortable, heavy, small comforter actually turned out to be something called a ‘featherbed’ which is supposed to go UNDERNEATH the mattress pad, and make your bed softer and more padded than it was before. Sweet! As if it was possible to love my bed any more. So I put the featherbed where it belonged, and got an actual comforter.

In addition to that, I got rid of my old CD shelf (it went to someone else in my building) and a bunch of books and stuff are going to Goodwill tomorrow morning. I also put the little shelves I got from Alyssa in my bedroom, and rearranged my books and CD’s appropriately, which means that the living room is now even more opened up, and the bedroom no longer has books, CD’s, and instruments strewn all over the floor. Quite a successful day, I’d say.

Now I’m having a glass of wine and watching a nature show about macaws.

Can’t wait to try out my new-and-even-better-than-it-was-before bed. If you’ve been reading my blogs since the MySpace days, you already know how much I was in love with it, and that I’ve already raved about it at great length, but now it should be even softer and more amazing. I’m not sure how that’s possible, but I can tell you that a third–or for me, it’s probably more like a fourth–of my life just got that much better.

I’m a bit melancholy today.

I don’t think it’s anything big–most likely caused by the myriad of small worries and anxieties that have come to the surface lately, mixed with a liberal dose of exhaustion–but it’s there nonetheless, and I’m feeling it today.

It’s been a pretty decent week, though. My friend Jeannie came to visit from Virginia last week, and we finally got a chance to have lunch together on Monday. It was great to see her, and the ‘scuttlebutt’ or whatever is that she’s planning to move back to Portland in a year, after her job contract is up for renewal. Or, I suppose, NON-renewal.

The Steph Band played a show at a park down in Lake Oswego the other night, which was filmed by two local television stations. Two impossibly chipper women from the “E-Zone” came out and introduced us, telling us to “be sure to tune in and find out when tonight’s show will be aired” and all that. There were two or three camera operators, and even a crane. We all kept smiling at each other in a ‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ kind of way, like we couldn’t believe all this was happening for just a little ol’ band like ours. Tony Furtado joined us on guitar and banjo, and Breanna Paletta sang harmony vocals. It was about ninety degrees outside, even before the stage lights were turned on, and it seemed that every time a camera was pointed in my direction, a larger trickle of sweat would run down my face. Yeesh. I’m sure the show will be fine, though.

Thursday I was a basket case, so I stayed home and worked on my apartment. I got a couple of little lamps to go on top of the new bookshelves, and cleaned up all the random boxes of stuff that’s been floating around, some of which has been there since I moved in a year ago. I took my chair downstairs to the basement, to make more space in here, and that made a dramatic improvement. The only thing I have left to do is decide which pictures I want to get printed and framed, now that I have the perfect places for them.

Last night was S & W’s pre-wedding party. They’re getting married on Sunday morning, so last night they had a string of events for their various friends and family members to come and hang out with them. We/they started off at Vincente’s, then moved to the Lucky Labrador, then a handful of the group–myself not included–went 80’s dancing at the Fez Ballroom. It was fun, but both places were extremely loud, especially the Lucky Lab, so I could only hear about every fifth word of the conversations, which is extremely frustrating for me. I’m an introvert by nature anyway, but I AM getting better at reaching out and paying attention, so I felt very frustrated that I just couldn’t hear well enough to stay engaged. (Get it? STAY ENGAGED at a WEDDING PARTY? Now THAT’S good comedy, and THAT’S what keeps you reading this blog.)

This afternoon I’m going to record more accordion parts for Susie Blue’s upcoming CD, then Joan and I are going to see a documentary called “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox”, which I wanted to see when I went to Seattle to see Paprika a couple of months ago. It looks really great, and Joan’s one of the few people I know who appreciates a good documentary the way I do. From there, we’re going to Ikea to check out the new store. It’s all about keeping her occupied, because the guy she’s been with for the last year just started seeing somebody else, so she’s looking for ways to be out and about and distracted from thinking about all that.

We’ll see what the rest of the weekend brings, but it’s been a few days since I’d written, so I thought I should check in with you and keep you updated.