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I had some broad plans for this trip, I guess, but the way the chips fell, I just stayed in the Kent / Cleveland area the whole time. I was too tired to jet off for New York the day after I arrived, so I didn't go see Ahmed on Letterman. It was alright; his sister was there for him, and he said that he met Will Smith on the show and gave him a Sinkane CD. Awesome! Though I really would have liked to see him. and Kate as well.

The next planned destination was Pittsburgh, to visit Greg and Emily. I intended to leave Friday morning, but there was freezing rain and the roads were very slick. I used to be a pretty good winter driver, but didn't really want to test it after not driving on four wheels much at all for a couple of years. I spoke to Greg about it, and we were both pretty let down, I think. We agreed, though, that instead, as a Christmas/birthday gift to him, I have to get around to recording the handful of post-ohio-exodus songs I've written that he likes and send him a CD or a tape or something. I intend to polish off one or two per month until April 19th. Here's a taste, Greg : http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28949228

After cancelling the Pitsburgh trip, I decided to take a walk in the woods with my mom, since that's about the only thing that is actually made better by a little freezing rain. All the small branches and twigs were encased in an icy shell about 1/4" thick, and against the grey sky backdrop, when the light catches it right, it's truly beautiful. My mom's morning walks in the woods haven't been the same for her since our dog Levi died, and I know she was grateful for the company. It's odd; he's been gone for a long while now, but I still expect him to be there at the top of the stairs every time I come back to my parents' house. The absence is still jarring. Though I do catch myself now before accidentally asking my mom where he is.

As I was falling asleep the first night here, I noticed a smell that I had forgotten about, right after the furnace kicked on: the subtle scent of heating vents, processed warmth, modern comfort. I don't think I ever registered it as a smell before, just as the feeling of warmth, but since I've been away from it for a while, it jumped out at me. There's so much comfort here. Easy, domestic coziness. I was having dinner with the Laniers, family friends since forever, and Phil showed his son, Sam, a napkin with Santa Claus on it, and said, "Who does that look like?"
Sam, being 2.5 years old, naturally responded, "Cat Stevens."

Sam kills me.

He has this game he plays while eating his food: he takes a bite in a well-strategized place, and says, "What does this look like?"

"An airplane!"

Then another bite. "Now what does this look like?"

"An anteater?"

Another bite. "What does this look like?"

and so on. It's perfect.

Phil plays a number of roles for me, but one of them is as a parallel universe for what could have been my life if I had quit music early, stayed in Ohio, and married someone while young.
I mean, plenty of people stay in their hometowns, especially when it's a college town that makes it easy to extend your stay after highschool. But Phil is one of the very few people I know that is actually happy in Kent. Most people who stay here end up either alcoholic or Christian-by-default. yikes.
I spent most of this trip at about and 80/20 split: 80% dread and 20% hope that I would run into someone I know, in the mall, downtown, or at the grocery store in the middle of the night. Some poor drunk or Protestant to whom I either specifically or generally don't have anything to say.

So for the most part I've stayed in the house, baking, hanging out with the family and watching movies after they've gone to bed. The few excursions I have made have been pretty good, though. Breakfast with the Stines, watching the West Wing with Michaelanne and Jim, and skating with Mila. Everywhere I go I drive my mom's or sister's car and sing along to music loudly. I may end up heading back to LA with a sore throat.

Party Prep

I'm spread a little thin lately, but I did enjoy feeling busily domestic yesterday. Because we're having a holiday party at the apartment tonight, I baked a pumpkin pie, then did a blue load of laundry, then baked a cherry pie, then washed my browns. This is in addition to the apple pie and the other pumpkin pie that I prepped earlier in the week and froze for baking today. I cleaned up a little (still a long way to go) and coordinated with margaret about party plans. The other day our friends Elizabeth and Rajeev came over for dinner while I was making the apple pie and they were both impressed with the fact that I make my own pie crusts, and with the apple turnovers that I made with the leftover dough. I think tonight is going to be a success.

Tum

The update here is that I'm doing much better, thank you, and even though it felt like something much more severe for a couple of days, now I think I just pulled a muscle while jumping out of a scissor lift.

Maybe I am getting old.

Kind of a Mess

Things were going well for a while, and I expect they will continue to do so, but this week has been a wreck. Yesterday I went to an urgent care facility because I had been having some pains in my lower abdomen for a few days. Dr. Cho groped around and told me it wasn't a hernia, and I told her about my history of appendectomies as well (forgot to tell her about colon cancer risk), but she pretty much just said that if it keeps up for a week we could run an ultrasound or CT scan. I got the impression that she maybe thought I was just trying to scam for a prescription for pain meds. The pain I can handle. Not having any idea what's going on, that's more difficult to deal with.

Also, it turns out that I don't get any sick days at work. I hadn't thought to ask about it when I first took the "promotion", because I don't really get sick and don't generally need sick days, but this business got me thinking about it. I'm pretty much ready to tell them that if they don't want to let me have a week of sick days, I'm going to go back to just editing shows and they can find someone else to do the supervisory stuff. With no compensation, it's not worth the stress and responsibility.

After a few days of getting 10-13 hours of sleep a night, I realized that I think I might be depressed. Lately I've been feeling more socially incompetent that usual and I feel like I am trying too hard. But it's just as likely that I'm sleeping that much because it gets dark so early and laying down doesn't hurt.

Margaret and I are having a party at the apartment this weekend and the plan is for me to make a pie every day this week to serve on Sunday, but so far I haven't really had the motivation. I've assembled most of the ingredients, and that's about it.

The Survivor season is over, and I think I'm going to miss the steady, consistent work.

But I know that things will turn around soon. I'm going to Ohio, I'm going to see my family and old friends, I've decided to start playing music again and I'm going to jumpstart that in the new year.

ATTN: EST

It seems I will be making it Back East sooner than I thought. I stumbled across a cheap ticket and so I will be in Eastern Standard from the 17th to the 23rd. I will be seeing Kent Folk, probably Columbus Folk, I may be going to New York and I will most likely swing by Pittsburgh.

Please make your reservations now, or look for me at

Blue Nile
Luigi's
Adriatico's
Mad Mex
Foodswings
Kate's Joint
the Zephyr
Towner's Woods
and Dancing Goats early in the morning with Phil.

b

Udpates all around.

Thanksgiving: Successful.
Prepared food. Cut thumb. Ate. Socialized. Made people laugh.

Los Angeles: Weirdly hazy for the last few days. I'm not yet sure what's normal around here (nothing) but the fog in the evening seems really odd, since it's not actually that cold out. The evening fog is dense enough that it collects on the face shield of my helmet and makes operating the motorcycle kind of difficult. I drive anyway. But calm down; I'm sure it will be fine.

Still not sure if I am going to go to Ohio for Christmas this year. I mean, in terms of raw numbers, I can probably afford the plane ticket, and I can afford to miss some work, but it's really difficult to justify paying 600 dollars for a few days' worth of Ohio hangouts. I may end up skipping the busy season again this year in favor of going for my mom's birthday at the end of January. That may end up being our new family tradition.

Lately I've been feeling guilty about not taking advantage of everything that LA has to offer in terms of arts and culture, so I'm going to make a serious attempt to embrace more of it. Last night I went to this event at the CalArts theater and thoroughly enjoyed it. I do get a little frustrated at events with Q & A sessions, for two reasons:

1. I usually have questions, but I never ask them because they are always technical in nature and I'm sure they and the answers they drew would bore most attending audience members, since I would allow myself to get really mired in the technical details of any approach toward making real art from audio/visual media.

2. I absolutely hate 90% of questions I have ever heard at these events, whether it's at a straightforward film screening with David Lynch, or this avant-garde presentation with the artist last night. It just seems like most people who are willing to pipe up and ask a question (in front of a couple hundred people) crave the attention, and thus load up the interrogative with a dense exposition that attempts to clearly demostrate their full mastery of the weight and symbolism of the event at hand. AKA you're a second-year film school student who loves the sound of his/her own voice. Please stop.

In brief, I would love Q&A sessions if the Q's were different. And shorter than the A's.

We had that little weight loss competition and I won. It was nothing monumental, but I dropped about 10 pounds and 1.5% body fat. In the interest of continuing with that momentum, I am going to take the $250 I won and use it to join a boxing gym, to further the quest to get back down to a reasonable weight.

Let's see, what else? Oh. I'm writing this now while I'm waiting for Survivor to show up. It's extremely late, but we have to finish it by the end of this week, so I have to start on it as soon as it arrives at 9pm. At the moment I am considering going straight from work (I'll leave at 6am) to my bootcamp class. I wonder if running a few miles and doing pushups after staying up all night working would make me pass out, right in the middle of lunges or squats or something.

Also, if anyone knows any (well-grounded) musicians in LA, please send them my way. This whole not-making-music thing is bullshit.