On the drive back from my dad’s house yesterday morning, I took the opportunity–and the big detour–to go down to the shoreline near the mouth of the Columbia river to take some more pictures of the scene I stumbled onto last year.

The thing about the Columbia River is that it’s freakin’ huge.

The other thing about it is that the weather at its mouth is notoriously crappy. It was pretty sunny and bright when I first got there, but the winter storms were moving in quickly, so I ran around all over, trying to capture what I like so much about this remote place, before the weather took a turn for the worse. And it did, too. Just when I had gotten back into my car and decided I’d better high-tail it out of there, the rain and hail started.

But wow. The light changes so often that you could take millions of pictures, and each would be very different from all of the others. Not to mention the fact that the river level changes constantly. Because of all the recent rainstorms, it was much higher this time than the last time I was there. I’d like to camp (meaning, sleep in my car) there sometime during the summer, and wake up to take pictures as the sun rises. I want to be able to capture the spirit of this ghost town before the area gets developed and destroyed forever, but I have to say that it seems pretty unlikely to happen for a while, for the simple fact that it’s just so incredibly remote. There’s only one road in, and it’s an impossibly windy, steep eleven-mile dead end (this section is about six miles in) that narrows to only one lane just beyond the area these pictures were taken, with no shoulder or guard rail, and a steep incline that drops down into the thick forest and on down to the river. It’s not a place to be taken lightly.

I’m definitely going back again, when I have more time to devote to shooting pictures and climbing around a lot more. I also desperately need to get myself a tripod.

This morning, I had a short–but interesting–dream. I always set my clock for 6:45 (too early) every day, and then hit the snooze button three or four times, until it’s 7:20 or so (too late). During one of those snooze sessions is when this dream happened.

* * * * * * *

I’m in my room at my childhood home on 55th Avenue in Yakima. It’s the middle of the night, and I’m in bed. The curtains are open, and the moon is shining brightly into the room. It’s bright enough that I actually think, ‘I bet I could probably read in bed if I wanted to.’ I reach for a book on my bedside table, when suddenly I see a bright orange flash coming from the end of the street. One of the houses at the Summitview end [that's a street in Yakima] of the street has just exploded into a thirty-foot wall of fire.

A fire truck races by with all its lights flashing, but the engine is silent. I get up and walk to the window to look, when suddenly about eight or ten pieces of flaming debris start to land in our yard, and on our house. The house up the street explodes a second time, with an even larger wall of fire. I run to wake up my mom and my brother, and then I see that in our front yard, there are lots of small fires burning.

I pull on a pair of jeans and quickly try to decide which of my instruments to take out to my car. I decide on the cello, the accordion and my ancient white Guild electric guitar. Interesting that the instruments were all the ones that I have now, and that the car was the red Honda that I have now.

* * * * *

That’s the point at which I woke up, one minute before the next snooze alarm went off.

Also interesting that today is the day I’m going to visit my dad. Hunh. I’m sure that fact and this dream don’t have the merest possibility of a hint at a suggestion of a connection.

Maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe I’m like the main character in the book The Lathe of Heaven, whose dreams change the real world–and he’s the only one who remembers the way things were before he dreamed the changes–and that maybe I’m nocturnally bound and determined to destroy Yakima once and for all, via my dreams.

Sorry I’ve been away for a few days. I’ve been meaning to write, but I’ve been busy every single night for the last two weeks. Between the multiple rehearsals for the play, an impromptu recording session with Steph, working a full day every day, it’s just been exhausting.

It’s been crazy. Go to work, go out for lunch with work friends or other friends (like today), come home for an hour or so to eat (or sometimes not), then go either out with a friend, race to a play rehearsal, or off to a gig. On Tuesday, RockShowGirl and I had dinner together here at my apartment, and then she came with me to Stephanie’s recording session–which, incidentally, was great!–and then I dropped off her off and got home at around 11:45. I checked my e-mail really quickly, and saw that Tossed-In was online too. He saw that I was on and called me. We then spent the next hour talking about music and ‘flow’ on the evening of the play, so I finally went to bed at one in the morning.

So yeah; lots of long phone conversations, lots of working, lots of playing, lots of rehearsing, lots of gigging, and it’s not even the weekend yet. Tomorrow I’m working a half day, then driving an hour and a half to visit my dad and stepmom. I’m staying overnight there, then coming back to town on Saturday morning in time to grab my cello and race over to a rehearsal for Bryn Loosely’s CD release party, which is Saturday night. Sunday afternoon is play rehearsal in the middle of the afternoon.

Right now I’m supposed to be getting ready for tonight’s Breanna gig. I’d love to be able to take a shower (woke up too late this morning) and play the cello for a while, but a little bit of down time will help immensely. If I’m lucky, I may just be able to squeeze in all three things.

Okay, so here’s the music I was talking about the other day. The songs are now posted on MySpace, so they’re fair game to share with you too.

The band is called SistersBrother, and I played the drums and the bass on all of the songs.

On the song “Knickers” I also played the pseudo-ukelele part in the verses. On “Danger Boots”, I also played electric guitar in the middle section. On “Vampires”, I used tympani mallets for the first two-thirds of the song, then switched to sticks and rocked out for the last part of the song. On “Swallows’ Nest” I also played the glockenspiel and the flute-y keyboard parts that show up at various points throughout the song. This was the hardest song, as far as the drums were concerned. It’s almost like two songs in one, in that it alternates between a Beatle-esque feel and a pseudo-reggae feel, which are very difficult to transition between. The ‘hiccup’ drum parts during the ending section of this song are surprisingly difficult, and they’re the parts that I’m particularly proud of.

I’m really honored to be involved with Sarah and Jimmy’s project, and I’m glad that I’m finally able to share some songs with you.

My head hurts from laughing so hard.

Just got home from rehearsal for the plays. I say ‘plays’ because in about a month, we’re going to be having a night of six short plays, for your pleasure.

I say ‘we’ because I will actually be playing accordion and piano (and maybe cello or something) as incidental music between the acts, actual music for one of the actual plays, and I’m actually playing the actual accordion in one of the actual plays (in which I even have an actual speaking line!).

I say ‘pleasure’ because that is the feeling you will be overwhelmed by if you come to see this show. Allow me to elucidate.

There are six plays in this particular show:

One–written by a member of the reading group–involves a writer’s struggle to create; one explores the nature of how much information is too much to share with a new love; one is a touching story of a father and a son; one–written by another member of the reading group–explores the nature of predator and prey, and involves both goldfish and marijuana; one is the story of the hijinks that ensue when staunchly feminist Amazon women encounter a handsome male ‘diplomat’ in the jungle; and the play I’m in is the story of a girl who wears a coat that’s made out of meat.

If all of this doesn’t sound enticing to you, then gawd help you. I’m honored and thrilled to be a part of this production. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that this is Theatah At Its Finest. The show will be on April 12th, and costs a mere ten dollars. Contact me by any means necessary if you’d like to come. If you leave a comment here on BFST, I’ll have your e-mail address.

And now I’m home, eating dinner and enjoying what I like to call a Crash Day, where I stay home and completely unwind after an insanely busy couple of weeks of work, rehearsals, gigs, and socializing. Special thanks to Maddy for making the trek down from Seattle to come to the awesome Stephanie gig last night, and for bringing me some DVD’s of a show I’ve been wanting to see for a year.

And now it’s time to start watching said DVD’s of said show. The Crash begins now.

Oh, and hey. . .here’s the first actual incarnation of OneYearAgo!