where did July go?

i feel like i missed the whole month of July. i'm a bit sad about that. summer is my favorite season and it's been flying by. i'm not complaining. busy is good. busy is money to invest back in the e.c. company. busy is money to pay for strings and food and bills. busy is just....well, busy. i did alot of stuff in July, but the enjoyment of the stuff, it was too small. too rushed. i couldn't sit back and watch things happen. i was in the thick of it with little or no time for reflection.

i'm sorry if you've visiting here and wondering what the heck happened. also, not blogging has meant that i haven't been keeping up on my diary either. i think today's the day to catch up on that. and a whole host of other things too.

plus, the weather is insane today. sunny, sparse whispy clouds. breezy. this dry, warm day.......i just had the feeling come over me that it was 1980 and it's May in Texas. i'm sitting on the curb outside my house and i have that thrill. you know the thrill: everything is front of you and you don't know anything. everything is still yet to be learned, to be heard, to be seen. i'm only 5 years on the planet and although i've observed alot, there's still alot to be observed.

*****

two men just walked by on the sidewalk behind my house, speaking a language i don't know. it brought me back to here, where i'm sitting on my porch in Baltimore. that 5 year old i was talking about above, she's 30 years ago almost. i'm back here now, but it still feels like a Texas day in early summer. i'm suddenly homesick. not for a place, but for a time and place that can never be again.

John Cheever and more.....

#1BB and I went to see the killer "Killer Joe" last night at Single Carrot Theater. Go see this play. It's a great theater (only 40 seats or so) and it's really well done. As a native Texan, I thought the accents were very authentic! But put that aside--the acting is very good. I suppose i'm not very articulate when writing about theatre. What can I say? It felt trashy and the personalities presented were unnerving. My favorite character was the mother, whom we never saw, but I felt the way Letts presents her: we know all we need to know through her relationships. Anyway, I highly recommend it. It's an intimate experience and it's only like $10 or $15 for a great night out. Plus, then you can go across the street to Joe Squared and order the Spaghetti and Meatballs pizza and have a nice night of it all.

Man, i wish we lived closer to the city. In fact, my desire for this is taking shape. It's time for a move. Time to purge possessions, sell them and give them away. I'm going to mention this in the ellen cherry newsletter, but I'll start here....I have a bunch of books and clothes and cds and cd sampler and stuff I've accumulated that is feeling more like a heavy weight and i don't want to continue to move this stuff around. So in an effort to prepare the house to sell it, I'm going to start by unloading a bunch of stuff. i'll keep you posted on the items and if you're interested, we'll make contact and a deal.

One of the things i'm going through is my library and finding that i've got a worse case of my Dad's disease than previously thought. He likes to get books and more books and more books and more books. For practially every gift giving occasion, i always get books. I love them. I love to read, but i've simply got to many that i've started and never finished or never even started. So, while packing up the books i know i'm going to keep, i've started the slow slog through the ones i'm uncertain about, or simply never read. One of these I got at the Book Thing of B'more. John Cheever's short stories, The Brigadier and the Golf Widow.

Whilst enjoying some tea the other night, I started this collection and have been jonesing for chances to read through the rest of it ever since. And it's a rainy day; I've brewed myself a nice cuppa coffee--as Agent Cooper (Paul Loyd gave me DVDs of Twin Peaks as a gift recently and I've been inducting #1BB into the club) likes to say, i'm going to give myself a little present today and just sit and read until the coffee's empty. Then back to whatever it is that i do that i call "work." I've not read Cheever before, but heard the recommendations. So far, I like.

Texas: you make me sick

Literally. The state makes me sick. Or maybe, it's visiting the state that makes me sick. Who knows? The point is, I went to Texas last week on an emergency visit to my family and I came back with a cold. I haven't been seriously sick with a cold (the kind where you lie in bed for 3 days) since I had bronchitis in February 2006. I was on a great long streak of no sick-ness. It was great. I was getting things done! I felt great! There were times when I was sniffly, but with my Neti Pot, I conquered them all!

No such luck this time. Within in a matter of hours of returning home, I was struck down with a severe sore throat. I made it through my gig on Saturday night, and Sunday, felt better and thought it was on the run. It was going to be short! I wasn't even going to count it as being sick! Monday and Tuesday, I thought was going well. Surely I've kicked it, I foolishly thought. Nope, Tuesday night I basically got in bed and haven't gotten out until this morning. Luckily, I have the luxury of having a slow month of few gigs. (is that luck or laziness? can't tell yet.) But that means I basically had the whole week to get well before my 2 gigs tomorrow (Saturday.) Yesterday was the worst....like Yerfdog (see blog) who was suffering something much worse than I've got (which appears to be a sinus infection) I was bummed and bored to be lying in bed all day when I could have been outside enjoying the strangely hot weather.

But I'm on the mend, I believe. I don't have health insurance and so a visit to the doctor to tell me I have a sinus infection is not feasible. I know that's what it is. And i didn't really want to get a prescription for anitbiotics. I wanted to give my body a chance to heal itself. My medical history is littered with antibiotics when that was the first go-to treatment, rather than prevention and homeopathy. I think one more day of my garlic (eating it raw, cooking it in tea, putting, [yes, i did this!] two small pieces in my nose), and Apple Cider Vinegar [2 tablespoons in 8oz of water--blech] and massive-amounts-of-tea treatments will put me fully back on the road to recovering. But I'm still going to take it easy.

Mastering the new album went well. I'm happy with the results. We had to re-mix 3 tracks and re-send them to Charlie at Air Show for mastering again. Some major mix stuff that would be better fixed at the mixing end than on the mastering end.

Despite being sick this week, I've made some strides toward a location for the cd release party. Progress is slow on this thing. But that's been good so far.

I've watched Season One and Two of the Office (American Version.) I had seen one episode when it was first on TV a few years ago. I didn't like it--it was a poor imitation of the great BBC and Ricky Gervais original. Everything in the episode was a cheap, American rip off of the stoic, uncomfortable humor in the original series.

I was wrong and I'm willing to admit it. The series has taken on a life of it's own, finally and the characters have developed. Really, this is the only way to watch TV. Without commercials and delays between episodes. So my suggestion is this: catch yourself a good cold, call into work, and go to your library (yes, your library) and check out a few DVDs of a TV show you want to catch up on. Sure fire way to get better.

That and having a dog sitting next to you as you write in your diary. A fire truck just drove by, sounding its alarm for several blocks and the sound was ringing through the neighborhood. Morgan sat up and howled, a high pitched delicate howl that I had never heard him do before. He was almost matching the note.