Hi there! Long time no blog.

Things have been difficult to adjust to this year. First of all I can’t believe that the year is already over 1/4 over! I am still writing my resolutions, trying to visualize all the myriad things I need to do to become the change I wish to see or the person I want to be. Thankfully this year I have added taking action to the long long list of things that I want to change.

Every year March seems to come so fast. Is it because I sleep through most of winter, hibernating with my eyes open and the teevee on? The past 13 weeks (!) have been full. This year more than ever it seems that I am working harder and longer, yet financially there seem to be no matching gains . I wonder about this. I think this is greatly contributing to my feelings of disquiet and unrest. According to a wise man, every work should address three components: beauty, gain, and good. Beauty would be your enjoyment, gain suitable financial compensation, and good would be value created for humanity. My job barely addresses those. Even the gain is somewhat unsuitable. Hmmm. I think that I may need to do a strict re-evaluation of what I am doing…

On the evening home front this year seems to be the year of live music. I think that we have gone to see a band at least every three weeks, which for us is quite a bit. Once P-Dawg moved to Denmark & Wadini and I moved in together we kinda quit going to bars. Live music (for us) usually seems to take place at little watering holes. I think we’d go listen to music 3-4 times a year. Now however there seems to be some kind of upswing. Maybe better music is getting book (in wex’s humble opinion) or we have developed a wider appreciation of music. We saw Smokey & Miho a month or so ago with Mermaw & Perpaw - BTW very good show. Someone even recorded the show with a MD and put the result up and available for download (excellent). The recording is nice b/c of all the ambient sound his mic picked up. When we listen to it here at home, it’s like being at the club. If I’m not really paying attention, I sometimes even think that there are people in the house. We saw Calexico a few weeks later, which was alright. They seemed to have a song list that didn’t really fit the venue they were playing. Plus I realized that I really prefer the songs where the lead singer doesn’t sing. Needless to say we left early. Do you like Thievery Corp? They will be in town when you’re here. I think we have tickets already, but if you want to go let me know.

Things on the maintaining this old house were also exciting. It rained quite a bit in late February and early March. That brought some leaks to light and we were forced to get on the roof with some patching paper and a big can of some unholy sticky stuff that stuck to every part of my body not covered in clothing. You don’t really know refreshing till you take a whore’s bath with paint thinner (mineral spirits) and a scratchy rag. While we were sweating on the roof I think I was singing the praises of condos and homeowners associations. Fortunately I have since returned to my senses. The garage, I think, is in its final life stage. It walks on three legs. someday soon we will have to make tracks on the replacement. Thank goodness it is not attached to the house!

Interpersonal relations have been mildly amusing. We have some neighbors who have been less than pleasant in welcoming us to the neighborhood. One evening we left to go run some quick errands and we noticed that there was a great pile of dissolved candy and wrappers (we live near an elementary school) in front of the neighbor’s house. They were out with hose cleaning up after their dogs or something. When we came home later that pile of stuff had been moved from in front of their house to the exact center of our lawn!! What to do? We picked it up and after our initial anger, we laughed at how psychotically passive-aggressive it was. They certainly have some communications issues. O! How shall we broach the great divide?

The wind has started blowing. My toes are cold and the old lady is coughing into her red bandana. I hope it’s not SARS.