beautiful, funny, sad & true

I don’t know quite how to put everything into words, but I’ve been feeling things shift lately. After a very hard couple of months, it seems like I’ve finally come out of that metaphorical tunnel. You know, the one with the seemingly unreachable light at the end of it.

I’m not quite ready to start jumping for joy just yet, but things are definitely looking up lately, and for the last week or so, I’ve almost been feeling like my ‘unstoppable’ (John Vecchiarelli’s immortal description) self again.

I even consulted the I Ching today, for the first time in ages, and this is what I got:

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The Hexagram:

#43 – Kuai / Break-through (Resoluteness)

Above – TUI / THE JOYOUS, LAKE
Below – CH’IEN / THE CREATIVE, HEAVEN

This hexagram signifies on the one hand a breakthrough after a long accumulation of tension, as a swollen river breaks through its dikes, or in the manner of a cloudburst. . .a change in conditions occurs, a breakthrough.
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I edited it heavily; there’s much more interesting interpretation at that link. This isn’t the same version as the book I have, either, but I had to have something to share with you.

This weekend I’m finishing up the mixing for the new Crystin Byrd song, spending some time with a really sweet friend of Alyssa’s who is visiting from Florida, looking at antiques with Saussha and a friend of hers, and I’m even meeting a new friend in person for the first time. It promises to be a good weekend. Oh, and I’m also going to take my car to Midas (again!) so it can get the adjustments it needs to hopefully pass DEQ this time. I was in and out of both places on Thursday, so keep your fingers crossed that it will be fixed relatively easily and cheaply. I wanna be legal, yo.

I feel like something big and great is about to happen, and I’d just like to say to whoever’s listening (or reading) that I hereby declare myself open to whatever that may be.

But like I said before, I may not be quite ready to start jumping for joy just yet, but I’m feeling much better, and I’m trying to simply ‘relax and pay attention’, as my friend Susan would say.

One of my friends at work has a little can full of little sayings by authors, philosophers, spiritual people, transcendentalists, people like that. Every day, we pick one and read it aloud. Here’s mine, from last week.

After I posted my blog entry on Sunday about that cool house (see here), I did a little poking around. I was wondering why they don’t just put it on the National Register of Historic Places, and have a chance at having the building renovated.

What I didn’t realize is that lots of owners of old houses are touchy about this subject. Part of having your building on the NR of HP involves making it open to the general public for a few hours each year. The ‘general public’ of course, means everyone, and that means the place has to be retrofitted with extra earthquake and fire protection, made handicap-accessible, all of the doors have to be a certain width, and a myriad of other modern treatments. Obviously, nothing of the sort existed in the 1880’s and ’90’s, when Portland Heights was being built, so to bring an old house up to today’s specifications can involve major surgery. This can ruin its ‘period charm’.

And in extreme cases, places like this would simply be laughably difficult to make accessible. It’s on the edge of a hill, the main entrance is up a bunch of steep steps, and I’m sure its earthquake and fire resistance are minimal. If the owners were lucky, the entire house would be taken apart and moved to a more stable location. If they were unlucky, it would just be condemned, dismantled and sold for its period fixtures, or its siding, or its trim, or its stained-glass windows.

I’d sure like to see it saved, and it’s so perfect where it is–with the raised corner room that overlooks the entire city–that I can’t imagine moving it. Modernizing it would seem to be impossible. I wonder if there’s a way to save it and improve it, using private funding or something, so they don’t have to carve it up or move it.

Something tells me it will eventually get the same treatment that the Simon Benson House got a few years ago, which would change it and make it look more modern, but at least it wouldn’t have to be completely destroyed.

* * * * * *

This may all be interesting and everything, but the real story is that last night I cried for two hours, until I finally was able to fall asleep.

Today was the strangest day of what was already a roller coaster week.

Morning started out fine. I was a little spacy at work, but I felt okay. I decided to go home to eat lunch, and I had an errand to run while I was out. When I got in my car, though, it wouldn’t start. GRRR. I had a bill payment that absolutely had to be paid today, so I had to walk a mile home, write a check, walk to the place and pay the bill, and then walk that mile back to work.

I’ve been in such a state this week that I completely freaked out, because I had Gig Number Four tonight. I called Steph to let her know what was happening with my car, and then I started frantically texting and calling everyone I could think of to make a a backup plan for tonight, which meant I would need to either arrange a ride or borrow a car. . .anything. I wasn’t picky.

Everyone was either busy, or not in a position to give me a definite answer, so I put out a mass e-mail at work entitled, “car won’t start.” “Anybody know what I should check? Battery’s fine, it has gas and oil, and the starter’s fine.” I got a bunch of responses, and everyone seemed to be suggesting that it was spark-related (spark plugs? spark plug wires? distributor cap?), so I went out on my break and figured it couldn’t hurt to try and start it. It started perfectly, as if nothing had happened. PHEW. (And GRRR, for making me walk to pay my bill, and for making me think I needed to run around and text and call.) I checked the spark plug wires. Two of the four were loose, so I cinched them down. So far so good.

[Side note on that: when I went back inside, lots of people asked if I’d gotten the car going, and when I said yes and told one lady how, she furrowed her brow and said, “Hunh. I’ve never heard of that happening before.” As if it’s either impossible for spark plug wires to ever come loose, or it’s unfathomable since she’s never had the exact same experience. Cracked me up. Anyway.]

I met up with Saussha after she got off work, and we sat outside Urban Grind and talked for about twenty minutes until I had to walk back to work. That was really nice, cause we haven’t had the chance to do that for weeks.

After work, I went home, sat down for about one second, then loaded my instruments in the car and headed down to Lake Oswego for the gig. When I got to the venue, it turned out to be a little restaurant in a strip mall. Not exactly rock and roll, but I’ve certainly played worse. I made my presence known to Steph, who was busy talking with her family and friends, so I loaded my instruments in and then went back out to my car to listen to NPR for a while, because the group who was playing was too loud to talk over, and just plain boring. (Guy singer who played forgettable, strummy acoustic guitar songs, and he had a djembe player with him. Yawn.) After about ten minutes, CellistSkip arrived in his blue van, so I went over to say hi, and after about ten seconds of talking with him, I realized I had locked my keys in my car.

Sigh. As if I needed anything else stressful to happen this week. Sure, might as well add that to the list.

The restaurant owner very gamely tried to open the driver’s door with a coat hanger, and seemed to be making progress until he dropped his butter knife down inside my door. It’s still in there, by the way, and probably will be for quite a while. Once he realized my instruments were already inside, he figured the problem could wait, so he gave up and went back inside. But I was nervous about that, because Honda Civic hatchbacks are the most commonly stolen type of car–especially when the keys are in the ignition!–so I really wanted to get the situation handled. Skip gave the coat hanger a try, but despite his herculean efforts, he couldn’t quite get the door open either. Luckily, John (who is a fan of Stephanie’s, and who I’ve met a handful of times) had a Triple-A membership, so he was able to step in and save the day by calling them. (THANK YOU AGAIN, JOHN.)

Playing with Stephanie and Skip at the same time is a blast, and we always sound great together. Tonight was no exception. The second set was particularly great. When we were finished, we stayed and talked with Julie (from PDXposed, who filmed Stephanie and me down in Seaside last November) and a whole bunch of other people, drank wine and had ‘Greek’ veggie pizza and ‘Mediterranean’ nachos, which were the best nachos I’ve ever had. All in all, I’d call the day a success, cause it ended on such a good note.

I’m finally home. THIS WEEK HAS FINALLY COME TO AN END.

And now I’m going to spend the next fourteen hours in bed.

First, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s written, called or lent an ear these last few days. I reallyreally appreciate it. It’s been tremendously heartening and touching, especially in such a difficult and crazy week. Actually, I think this week might have been a month cleverly disguised as a week. I’ve been running on adrenaline, wine and coffee (and lots of water too, don’t worry!) and had three incredible shows so far this week.

Yesterday’s Gig Number One was the one with Stephanie Schneiderman. Total blast, and a very unusual show in that it was just me and her. Usually we play as a trio or as a full band, but this time it was just us, so I got the opportunity to pull out all the stops and play acoustic guitar, accordion, piano, and cello. Practically every song was different, and it was really fun. Sometime soon, I’ll have to write about why playing with Steph means so much to me. It’s a pretty good story, actually.

So. . .on with the story at hand. The minute that show ended, I had to pack up my car and race over to Mississippi Studios for Gig Number Two with Susie Blue. It was spitting rain on the drive over, and parking was nightmarish, but it was a great show. The instrumentation was Susie playing guitar and singing, Skip on cello, Jen on harmony vocals, and I played accordion. Very intimate, but it still definitely rocks when we play that way. The other nice and unexpected thing about that show was that I ended up just sitting around talking with the owner of the studio about production, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I get a phone call before too long.

Then tonight, Gig Number Three was the CD release show (at Mississippi Studios again!) for Breanna Paletta’s new solo album. I think this was quite possibly one of the best shows of my entire life. Here are some pictures:

If you’ve got any pictures from the Stephanie or Susie shows, please let me know. For some reason, they never seem to make their way to me, so if you’re sitting on a goldmine, please. . .help a brother out? Thank you. :)

The moral of the story is that when you’re feeling sad, it’s really nice to have amazing friends to talk with, stellar music to play, and a busy, fun life to fall back on.

But then there are the quiet times. . .