It’s 11:30 p.m., and it’s a very stormy night.

Nights like tonight are the nights that I really miss my old Taylor House apartment. You know, the one on the third floor of the hundred-year-old mansion. The one with the beautiful views of the city from three different directions. The one that I could watch fireworks downtown during the Rose Festival, the Starlight Parade, and on Independence Day. The one from which I watched almost every single sunset. The one that I called the Rock Star Factory. The one in which I learned how to play the accordion and the cello. The one in which I learned how to become a recording engineer and producer. The one in which I went from being a regular guy with a crappy job to a really talented guy doing what he was meant to do with his life. Basically, it was the place I lived when I learned how to do (and to be) all of the things that I’m doing (and becoming) now.

On stormy nights like tonight, the wind would beat the rain against all of the windows, and threaten to blow the roof off of the building, and I loved every minute of it. In fact, the more the wind howled, the more I enjoyed it. I would crack the window open, turn off all of the lights, turn off all of the music, light a candle or two, and just listen to the wind. I’d sit at the window and look out over the lights of downtown, or, on the warmer stormy nights, I’d stand outside on the fire escape, drinking a glass of wine, daring the wind to blow me down.

I wish I would’ve had a camera back then, because the sunsets alone were priceless. But then there are the countless memories of Katrina Petrovisky-Mouskewicz (the best cat ever), Amber and her fearless blind cat Kati and her mischievous rat Hannah, Craig, Kevin, Jeri, Meechai, Pelsang and the constantly rotating crowd of Tibetans, Erika, Daniel and the constantly rotating crowd of Brazilians, Henry, Morgan, Kristi, Amanda and Simon; the house parties until 4:00 a.m., Decemberists sing-alongs until the wee hours, mix CD’s which I still cherish and enjoy to this day, Jake and Skip flicking cigarettes from the fire escape to the street below, endless hours of recording my parts for Crystin Byrd’s “My Silence” CD, S.S. Flint and her pencil drawing, Jaime and Becky’s “Bus Song” and “12 Step”, rolling up the rug and recording the sound of Laurena the flamenco dancer weaving her magic spell, playing the cello badly while Andrea played the piano beautifully, climbing onto the roof for no reason at all, reading in the sun on the fire escape, seeing BoringFish again, walking with my guitars to the recording sessions at Jackpot, and a myriad of other things.

Here are some pictures of the apartment and me at the time. I have more, but they’re not on this computer. The best ones of all are the ones in my mind, anyway. The two gables on the right (top floor) are that apartment. Yes, I had a fireplace. And yes, I used it often.

I lived there for three and a half years, from when I was 30 and change to when I was 34. Moving out of there, while it wasn’t easy, was the right thing to do at the time. Sure was sad, though. It was by far my favorite place that I’ve ever lived, and I fully appreciated it the whole time I was there. I look back on it fondly as the place that I lived during the biggest changes of my entire life.

LoveItLoveItLoveItMissItLoveIt.

[edit: Incidentally, my gesture in the bottom picture has prompted a few questions. Since Crystin Byrd is the one who took that picture, I was doing an imitation of something our bass player and his girlfriend at the time used to do, which was to randomly make that face and gesture, and at the same time make the sound of a hissing cobra. It was very funny, and they would do it all the time. They might sneak up on each other in the kitchen, or it could be just as likely to happen when they were sitting and watching a movie. They could do it in a romantic and funny way too.

So there you have it. Not that it’s going to make any more sense, but at least you know the context, and that it’s not a “Hey, baby, lemme grab ya” expression or anything.]