beautiful, funny, sad & true

I’ll write more about my sadness et cetera some other time soon, but in the meantime, it’s like I’ve always said. If you’re having a rough time emotionally, it helps to have great friends and a busy, fun life to fall back on while your wounds heal.

The trip and the gig were both a total blast. Stephanie and I flew down to Reno, then drove four hours to Elko to play at Great Basin College. We played there last year with Dirty Martini, and Steph had played there twice before that, with DM and on her own. So she has a considerable base of fans there, and it turned out that I even had a small (but strong!) contingent as well, which was surprising and cool to learn. It was just an all-around great experience.

We played outside this time, in the ampitheater right in the middle of the campus. It was a warm, breezy night, and it was particularly beautiful. Steph played acoustic guitar and piano–they wheeled a real piano out to the ampitheater for us to use!–and I played electric guitar, accordion and piano on a few songs too. We were totally on. We barely missed a note, and we felt totally in sync with each other. After some of the tough gigs we’ve had lately, this was a welcome relief. Total blast, and I have a feeling we’ll be back down in Elko again before too long.

After dropping our instruments at the hotel, we decided to try our hands at gambling. I tried a slot machine at the first place; put in a dollar and instantly won eight dollars back, so I took that as a good sign and stopped. We walked through the rest of the place and were unimpressed, so we walked across the street to a larger, more bustling casino. We each got a drink, and she played blackjack for a while. I don’t know how, so I watched. She got on a nice little winning streak too, earning twenty dollars from the five she started with, but she left empty-handed after a few more hands, despite one of the other players’ advice, “Hey, you should quit now, while you’re ahead.” We walked around again, and I decided to try some slot machines again, since I’d had good luck with them before. I started with twenty dollars, got down to almost nothing, and then won thirty five, so I decided to quit too.

The drive back was really nice. Steph had about a million phone calls to take care of, so I drove the whole way back to Reno. We stopped at a wide spot in the road called Trinity, which I think used to be a mine, but has since been reduced to a rest stop on one side of the highway and a dilapidated truck stop sign on the other. We stopped for a few minutes so I could take some pictures.

At the rest stop there, we encountered the most foul and disgusting porta-potties either of us had seen in our entire lives.
Steph opened the door to one and instantly stepped back, hands over her face in horror. “I’ve never seen anything that disgusting before,” she said. With a statement like that, my morbid curiosity was piqued, so I took a peek. The inside was smeared with feces, and there was an enormous pile of it on the back of the toilet seat. Repulsive. We both cracked up laughing, and I said, “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
Good-hearted Steph gave the unknown person the benefit of the doubt and said, “Maybe it was dark, and they just couldn’t see what they were doing.”
“But there are huge flood lights everywhere. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be able to see. I’m gonna have to ‘poo-poo’ that theory.” (Now THAT’S good comedy.)

We arrived at the Reno airport and ate at a really good little brew pub there. The flight, however, was pretty rough. Despite the nice weather, there was lots of turbulence. We were all getting increasingly nervous as the plane kept shuddering and lurching. Finally it settled down and so did we. But once again, when we started our descent into Portland, it happened again. It was very nice to be down on solid ground again. And can I just say how nice Portland’s airport is? It’s really beautiful, especially in the evening sunshine.

I hung out with NeighborFriendSusan for a little while, since I hadn’t seen her for a few days, then I went to bed at 10:30. Slept until 11:30 the next morning, when BoringFish called to see how I was doing. We talked for a while, then I got up and decided that today is the day I’m going to get my pictures framed and hung in my apartment. I chose my favorites and took them over to the photo printing place, where they’ll be done any minute now, so I’m gonna head back out. I’ll take pictures of my new-and-improved apartment once I get them hung. I daresay you’ll be impressed with the new look.

Last night I set up the Mail program on my new iMac. This wouldn’t normally merit mention in a blog entry if not for the fact that somehow it ended up downloading some particularly ancient messages–some from almost two years ago–that I thought I’d deleted long ago. I was repelled yet strangely fascinated.

I couldn’t pull myself away until I was unable to hold my head up anymore. I decided it was probably time for bed, and on my way to my bedroom, I took a look at the clock on the stove; 4:30 a.m. Yikes.

I finally got to sleep at around 5:00 a.m., and my alarm clock went off at 7:00. Didn’t get to take a nap today, either, so I’m expecting to crash really hard any minute now.

Tonight I put together the second of the two chairs I bought to go with the new little dining table. Quite the hassle. . .at least if you’re me and clueless with tools.

This coming Thursday and Friday I’m going down to Nevada to play with Steph, so if by some chance you live in Elko, and you’re reading this, you should come see us and say hi. We’ll be playing at the college there on Thursday night. Last time we were there was last September on a tour with Dirty Martini, and it was definitely the high point of the trip. I’m already looking forward to eating at that Mexican restaurant!

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.

So I’m sitting here at the computer just now, with my apartment door open, like I do when it’s a beautiful evening such as this, and a guy comes to the door.

“Hey,” he says.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Is this Twenty-One Fourteen?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “What’s going on?” I’ve never seen this person before, but he looks harmless enough. He walks into my living room and slowly shuts the door behind him.

He asks, “Aren’t you Seattle Guy?”

“No.” I look at him, trying to figure out what in the world he’s referring to. “I’m confused.”

“Oh,” he says, turning toward the door, opening it, and walking back out to the street, where his car is parked.