beautiful, funny, sad & true

This morning at work, I said good morning to someone I rarely see or get a chance to talk to, while I was loading paper into my printer. “Busy weekend?” she asked.

“Yeah. I have two big shows, actually.”
“Oh really? What do you. . .do?”
“Musician.”
“That’s a nice little hobby, huh?”

Nice little hobby, yeah. Thanks for reducing it to that.

I had a job a few years ago that I quit from because it almost killed me. I’m not exaggerating. It did kill my spirit; at least for a while. This was also just at the the time when I was getting into recording and music production. So I quit, and two weeks later, on the day that I left, a guy walked up to me and said, “Well. . .good luck with your career or whatever.” The funny thing is, he actually thought that he meant well.

For everyone else who’s reading this, I have two shows and a recording session this weekend. The first is with Stephanie’s band, as part of the Voices For Silent Disasters series that starts tonight. Tomorrow night is a Breanna Paletta full-band show, and then Sunday is an ‘acoustic’ recording session with Breanna. Last I heard I’ll be playing cello, and maybe accordion and xylophone; things like that.

Nice little hobby I’ve got going for myself. Hope it all works out or whatever.

First of all, let me say Happy Halloween.

Second of all, I’ll spare you the details, but Joan and I are in the process of working things out. Some of our old ‘stuff’ came up recently, and that brought both of our defenses up a little bit. But we’ll work it out.

Third of all, there was a photographer at the event who took a bunch of amazing pictures at the most recent Breanna show. I’m going to get some digital copies, but they’re expensive enough that I can only afford two or three. Please take a look and help me choose? Thank you!
There are a bunch of stellar ones of each of us, but I think my personal favorites are 7 and 24.

This week is about to get crazy. Tonight’s Halloween–no, I didn’t dress up–and Joan and I are getting together for a while. I might meet up with Todd Sabel later on. Tomorrow is rehearsal with Stephanie’s band for the big Voices For Silent Disasters show on Friday night, and Saturday is a full-band Breanna Paletta show. Sunday we’re having a Breanna recording session in the studio. And speaking of V4SD, the artist appreciation party was on Monday, and it was a who’s-who of the Portland music scene. I’m looking for pictures from that night, and I’ll post some if I get ’em.

I’d say my wish from earlier in the week–you know, for the week to get better quickly–came true.

What a weekend.

Friday night I had rehearsal with Breanna and the band. BassPlayerChris was really sick, so he left kinda early, but I stayed around for a while to play through songs with Breanna and NewBandMemberJon. It was 11:30 p.m. by the time we finished. As I was loading my instruments into the back of my car, the hatch started to fall, and the corner of it hit me in the side of the head. Not a fun night. I went home and laid down on the sofa with a bag of frozen peas pressed to my temple.

Saturday J and I went out and about during the day, but we were both exhausted and groggy for some reason, so naps were in order. I laid down at 5:30ish, got up once or twice for a little while, but then went back down until 10:30, got up and dinked around on the computer for an hour or so, then went to bed for real and slept in until 10:30 the next day.

Yesterday, I sorta teased J about something I didn’t realize she was sensitive about, so I inadvertently hurt her feelings. Last night we e-mailed back and forth, trying to work it out, but as of this moment it’s still hanging there in the air between us. I’m sure we’ll be fine; we have a great track record of working things out.

There are a couple of other things happening that I’m not going to write about here, but they’ve been bouncing around in my head for the last few days too.

This morning, waking up was brutally hard after being up so late the night before. I didn’t even have time to take a shower, and I still dragged into work ten minutes late. Went to the deli downstairs to get an egg-and-cheese croissant, but it tasted stale and chewy. I ate about two-thirds of it and threw the rest in the garbage, then went to get some apple cider to wash the taste out of my mouth. Apparently my workplace has ‘secretly replaced their usual brand’ of apple cider with a crappy-tasting impostor.

I’m home for lunch now, hoping that the rest of this week improves really quickly.

Tonight is the performers-and-volunteers party for the Voices For Silent Disasters show that starts this weekend. It’s in a nice venue downtown, where we can all meet each other, catch up with friends, and also find out more about the cause and the events. So that should be fun.

In other news, I finally got a toy piano. I’ve been looking for one for years.

This video just totally brought tears to my eyes and put a smile on my face.

Here’s the story.

Don’t forget to watch Part 2 also!

Hope it moves you as much as it did me. Thank you, Crystin, for sharing this.

I may be a little scarce around these parts for the next couple of days, ’cause it’s my Big Birthday Blowout Bash weekend, and it’s chock-full of fun stuff.

Tonight, Shelby’s taking me out, and we’re going to see DrummerDrew (of Stephanie’s band) play over at Zaytoon, then it’s off to either Pi-Rem or Maiden in the Mist. I’m thinking probably Pi-Rem.

Tomorrow involves BoringFish, then S & W and either sushi or chocolate or both, and then DrummerAdam is coming all the way down from Yakima just to help celebrate my birthday (oh yeah. . .AND he has a gig at the White Eagle).

Sunday, J and I are going to the beach for the day; probably Cannon Beach and Oswald West State Park, but we may head up to Astoria also/instead.

I’ll try to remember to take some pictures and stuff. This promises to be a great weekend.