Days of Yore

i'm sitting at my desk at work, though it is the beginning of summer, which means there is less work to do on my account at the moment. so i'll take some time to explain what i've been doing during these last months of reticence. and as i do this, i am listening to a record from my youth, The Wallflowers 'Bringing Down the Horse' which is a very fine effort, and i am reminded of the time i actually saw said Wallflowers in concert at SPAC in 1996. i went with the boychuks and olivia porter, who i was in love with, and so at times when i hear Bob Dylan's son sing about headlights and treehouses, i am reminded of innocent crushes and devastating heartbreaks. i am like that a lot with a lot of songs. i have certain Jeff Buckley songs reserved for certain girls, Death Cab for Cutie and Radiohead songs reserved for others. A particular Sarah McLachlan song always takes me back to a time when i was loving a girl from the North County, and here we are again thinking about Bob Dylan, and now his son, and now Olivia. It's not that i'm hung up about all these girls from my past, it's just that music has a way of making you remember the times in your life when songs were the post-its marking the pages in the book of your life that were your favorite parts.

in april my wife and i ventured out to Hollywood, Caliornia to see my brother. he just graduated from his tech school, where he learned sound engineering after a long and storied trek through higher education. i'm proud of him, because he's already got a job, working as a sound engineer, just as he had always wanted, for a company that installs commercial sound systems for public entertainment venues. we had a lot of fun, just spending quality time yucking it up...we also met some chickens!



it made me really proud to visit my brother at his place of business. he brought us to his studio, wherein there was a wall with speakers encircling us, and he proceeded to show us his chops. and it was good.

after LA, we came back and i had my Upright Citizens Brigade graduation show. i finished my Improv 101 class (am now registered for 201, which starts in July), and it was a sight to see! I have video of it, thanks to heather, and i was happy that my friend Jason came. i hadn't really invited anyone, mostly because i was sure it would suck, as we were all just learning, and it did kinda, but it was something scary that we did, and after it was over, i was glad to have the support! You can see my teacher's closing remarks below



heather and i have only this week returned from a 10 day trip to colorado in which i was living the mountain man lifestyle: wearing fishing lures on my hat, spotting wildlife, shooting targets, smoking cigars, drinking scotch, eating steaks, and fishing. it was such a relaxing time, i wonder why i don't just buy a horse, move to the mountains, don't bother nobody.

The tragedy beneath the surface of all this merriment is that i lost the promotion i was about to get. my agency lost a client, the client i was going to write for, and so poor nick is still editing pharma copy...but for how long?

but i take it in stride, because i'm looking around the annals of my life, and i'm the happiest i've ever been. i've noticed that i've changed. whereas i used to be an immature blob of depression who lived in his parents' basement, lazy and jobless, i am now a hardworking, married, mature man, gainfully employed and in love. and it makes me marvel at the length of a lifetime, and the things we can become. i'm going after my goals (writing, improv, career) and have the girl of my dreams on my arm the whole way. I'm now learning that even after only 8 months of marriage, all the songs i had earmarked for the other girls in my past are slowly becoming songs about my wife. Death Cab, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and Sarah McLachlan -- they're all about her now. Their past, dead significances replaced by the harder, enduring sediment called true love. i will keep those fossils near to my heart, a museum of all the things i used to be.