As far as I know, he’s still in business.  I haven’t driven that stretch of Sixteenth Avenue during the last couple of times I was in town, but as of a few years ago, he was still at it.  And no, I didn’t stop by to say hello or anything.  In fact, I never met him back in the day, and I didn’t want to, either, all things considered.

And what happened to B?  Well, I was in college at the time, and one of the things college is good for (aside from the whole getting-an-education thing) is meeting significant others.  I think you can imagine where this is going.  After a couple months of dating B, I met K, who would change the course of my life, and I knew that our orbits would synchronize from the first minute we met.  K and I would be together on-again-off-again for the next five years, through both of my mullet haircuts.  B joined the Navy and I’m sure is living a perfectly functional life somewhere.   Last I heard, she got married and had a baby when she was around twenty years old.  My mom really liked B, actually, and they kept a friendship going for about a year or so after that, and wrote long letters back and forth, much to my annoyance, because I felt it sent a terrible message to K, who I count among the great loves of my life.

I still find myself wondering about K occasionally.  She moved to EmeraldCity at the exact same time I moved to Portland, and we went our separate ways and lost contact, somewhat surprisingly, after that.  She’s not on any of the usual social networking sites, and doesn’t seem to have an online presence, despite the fact that she works as an artist for a well-known video game company.

I’m not feeling romantically nostalgic for her, even though it may seem like I am.  I am curious, however, to see how her life has turned out, and every once in a while I’ll see something or someone that reminds me of her, and that will make me start to wonder.  We’ve all known people who really made their way deeply into our hearts, and sometimes the echoes of their voices seem to reverberate back into the world again.

But I’m not a Pollyanna, and I’m not stupid.  There were good reasons for us to split up, despite how much we loved each other, and I’ve never regretted our decision.  Most important of all is the fact that if we had stayed together, I would never have met the myriad of great people I have in my life now (hello, myriad of great people!), or made the changes in myself that needed to be made.  The people I’ve been with since then have affected me even more deeply, thanks in part to the experiences and expectations that I learned from my time with K, but also thanks to all those years of therapy, if we’re being completely honest here.   Doesn’t mean that I can’t wonder about her sometimes, though, and that’s perfectly okay.

There’s a Decemberists song, one of my very favorites, called Red Right Ankle, which has a poignant final verse that sorta sums up this weird, non-nostalgic nostalgia that I’m feeling, and I’m going to use it in an attempt to tie up all of the loose ends of this entry into a neat, tidy little Scooby Doo ending.

This is the story of the boys who loved you, who love you now and loved you then
Some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you, some just laid around in bed
Some had crumbled you straight to your knees, did it cruel, did it tenderly
Some had crawled their way into your heart, to rend your ventricles apart
This is the story of the boys who loved you
This is the story of your red right ankle.

What a strange feeling this is.   What a strange entry this is.  And not a bit of Scooby Doo in the ending after all.  Sorry about that.

accordions, Decemberists, and EmeraldCity – This involves a night when I made a noticeable transition from fan to equal participant.

shock – This was one of the worst days of my entire life.

good news and truth – This was the end of said time.

Yakima trip, part one – This was quite possibly the worst Yakima trip ever, in which I lost a friend.

Tinkle – Tinkle is the name of a fictitious product; this entry describes a hilarious parody my friends and I made of sports drink commercials from the early 90′s.

on tour, day 3 – This was one of the best and most memorable days of my entire life.

my dinner with Andre – We read the screenplay in the play-reading group, and there are also some ruminations about why this movie meant so much to me.

‘six-six-five and one fucking half’ – This is a rock ‘n’ roll story from way back in the day.

errrr. . .hi, mom – I have to be honest; I really like this particular entry.

O, the hilarity ensues – ‘Good luck driving around with my dead, pregnant wife!’

please ban more books – The school district in the town in which I grew up turns out to be responsible for upholding a ban on a very famous book.  Glad I left that town.

litany – This was a hilarious repartee my friend and I shared.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support throughout this last year.  In case this somehow wasn’t enough for you, here’s the entry for the best entries of 2007.

Have a great new year!

OneYearAgo

I’m not quite sure how to tell it, but it involves two accordions and a member of the Decemberists.

So at the show on Friday, there were three groups. The first was a group from Alaska, the second was Susie and the band, and the headlining band was the person whose CD release party it was. I was quite happily surprised to find out that DecemberistsAccordionist was playing in the headlining band, because I think she’s really great, and finally I’d get the chance to meet her and tell her so. It’s also gratifying, in a different way, because I get the chance to be on par with lots of the people who I’ve looked up to for a long time, as a participant instead of merely an observer. Making good connections and new friendships like that is always a great feeling.

Accordions are like cellos, in that they’re fairly uncommon, and people tend to use only their own for years on end. Whenever you get the opportunity to play someone else’s, you tend to take it. She wanted to try my accordion, and I wanted to try hers too, so we did, and it was really fun. She’s got a really nice one too; very small and light and easy to play, and sounds very much like a musette. Mine’s huge and heavy, but it has a wider variety of sound possibilities.

There was an impromptu bluegrass jam session happening backstage in the green room, involving DecemberistsGuitarist, DecemberistsAccordionist, MississippiStudiosJim and a really amazing girl fiddle player. I could have listened to that all night. CellistSkip joined them too, and then they asked for different songs. I was sitting and listening–not playing, because there was already an accordionist involved–and then Skip started playing “Comfortably Numb” by HugelyFamousPinkEnglishBand. I grabbed my accordion then, and started to play the really high violin part, in harmony with what Skip was doing. Super fun and hilarious. The real show always takes place backstage.

By then the first band had finished, and it was Susie’s turn to play, so we went out onstage. Sounded great and felt great, but on about the third song, one of my accordion straps broke. I ran off stage and grabbed a chair to sit on, but it was still pretty much impossible to play. The song came to an end, and I told Susie what was up, and ran offstage again. She started to tell a story, I think. I don’t really remember, to tell you the truth. I was too busy freaking out.

Jim took a look and said, “Maybe we can fix it,” but we couldn’t. It had snapped in the fatal spot. I asked for DecemberistsAccordionist, but she was nowhere to be seen. Someone went and found her, and she very generously allowed me to use her instrument for the remainder of the show. Extra special mega-thanks to her for saving the day.

Tonight I’m taking it to the repair shop for some new straps. Can’t live without the accordion at all; it’s my bread and butter instrument, and yes, I do know which side the butter goes on.

Saturday I drove up to EmeraldCity to play guitar with Brandon and the band. It was really fun, as usual. His mom happened to be in town. I didn’t recognize her at first–it HAS been fifteen years, after all–but she refreshed my memory, and she’s a really sweet lady. So our first two sets were flawless, but by the third set, my pedalboard started acting up and losing power. Sheesh! Two weeks ago, the metal screw that tightens the hair on the cello bow broke. Friday it was the accordion strap. Saturday, the pedalboard was freaking out. What’s next?? Never mind, GearGoblins, I don’t want to know.

After the show, the three of us went to FamousRestaurantThatRhymesWithPennies. I got back to LittleBrothersHouse at 3:30 a.m. It was a really great time all around.

My mom was also at LittleBrothersHouse this weekend, and I haven’t seen her for a few months. It was a really good–if short–visit, and you’ll be glad to know that on Sunday we made Mister T sandwiches. I swear those things are going to catch on.

CatZooey is back with her owner now. It was great to have her staying here, but it’s also nice to have my place back. I spent last night cleaning like a maniac. I still have more to do, but it’s quite an improvement over the way this place has been lately.

So yeah; quite a weekend, indeed. Here’s to plenty more just like it.

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.]