saturday

as i sit here typing at 7:30pm, my hands are dark brown with thick paint.



woke at 6:30, fed the cats, did another round of laundry. did some drawing on the print for the upcoming goodall gallery show. we took seth for a walk, drove to central street, saw lizzie and some other dogs. on the way home, di thought we should start our christmas shopping lists. at home, i unloaded oak from the trunk of my car and split it and stacked various woods.

inside, we talked through our shopping lists, then decided to just hop in the car and go over to the toy store on main street, next to guitar works. we got much of our kid-oriented shopping done, then went to whole foods for groceries and a hot bar lunch. i took di home (listening to 'this american life' about harold washington), grabbed my work clothes and drove to TBM.

i cleaned and started rearranging in anticipation of the inspectors and work to be done this week. dad showed up, and we moved things along in earnest. after he left, i sat and put a second coat of paint on the radiator covers (which need to be hung before monday), then drove home, arriving at 5pm.

i took a bath, ate a dinner di made (cheese on bread, a salad, and vegetable broth), then we decided to walk up to linz & vale for gelato. neither of us dressed warmly enough. on grey, we passed the little house we have been wishing on for jason & hilary, ($100k too much) but this time, it has a new 8 foot tall construction chain link fence around it. we fear that it will be torn down. this is really disheartening for us - we love that little blue house.

once a-fucking-gain, linz & vale didn't have cones, but we got gelato. some other time, i'll go into my issues with a coffee/gelato shop that i keep trying to like, despite the many reasons they keep giving me to dislike them.

walked home. type blog. draw more for the goodall print. paint is on hands. will sleep.

"black" friday

i got up around 5:30, couldn't sleep. spent several hours trying to catch up on emails, sitting down in the living room in multiple sweaters.

after seth walked diana around the block, we decided to drive into downtown evanston to get some coffee at pete's. peppermint mocha, wtf.

home again, i dropped di and seth off and took off for the highway. stopped at the tile outlet on fullerton to et one more box of tile for the surround of the fireplace. from there, i went out to pulaski for an acupuncture appointment with unsoo. she worked on the small of my back, trying to figure out why portions of my feet are still numb from my bike trip in may and june. generally things got better. it was a good experience. my abdomen is something different something.

from there, i got back on the highway. talked to nina who wanted to reschedule today's hang-out for sunday, which is fine, and my dad called with computer questions, so i opted to go straight out to the folks' house to play IT guy.

i reset the passwords for the various TBM office accounts, and sorted a bunch of stuff for the upcoming subscription season.

dad started a fire and we hung out in the living room a bit, i was wrestling casey the dog.

i took a trunk full of split oak, and headed home.

di didn't feel well, and spent the evening in bed. i drew a bit on the poster (very late) for next week's show in manchester. answered more emails, caulked some of the new trim and mudded a couple of missed spots in the plaster. did four loads of laundry. made a mix CD for my cousin jack (see yesterday's dinner) while drawing. got some new ideas for the patagonia projects.

11pm, going to bed. okay, fine.

thanksgivig: the thing.

i did some more caulking, a bit more cleaning, while diana baked a pumpkin pie.

while she was working on the pie, we cooked some frozen pizzas. we agreed that a soda would be great, so i ran down the block and got two cans of root beer, a cherry coke, and a vanilla coke. the cokes were drunk, the root beer saved for later.

i bathed, di walked seth, and we headed out for my aunt and uncle's house. gramma was there, as well as my cousin with her husband, and 15 year old son, and 13 year old daughter. i prodded the kids to find out what they listen to, and generally only received "not classical, not country, not christian music, but everything else" as an answer. eventually i dragged out of my young cousin that he listens to sum 41, green day, blink 182, thrice, etc.

we ate turkey and pie and all the peripherals.

di and i got a little too much family time, and decided to leave at the same time as my folks. mom & dad drove gramma home, and we went to my folks' house to visit casey the sweet but crazy dog.

my parents returned, and we talked about some of the stuff they want to do to their house, and di and i left. home, let seth out, get into bed, type this, sleep.

thanksgiving

woke around 6:30. diana gave me a nice long backrub. it was supposed to have snowed overnight, but there was only the lightest of dustings on the ground. we were a bit disappointed.

we left to walk to central street, but we only made it as far as the park at the end of our block. we decided central street would be too far in the cold, so we looped around and back home, where we hopped into the car and took a slow leisurely drive up greenbay road, turning around in hubbard woods. we stopped and got coffee next door to TL fritz sporting goods in winnetka, where i used to work during highschool, selling sweatpants and ice skates.

as we turned east and drove out towards sheridan road, i saw that fell's clothing store is closing ("going out of business sale"), which is disappointing. growing up, fell's was where i was dragged once every other year or so to get a new pair of khaki dress slacks (in those years when i didn't receive hand-me-downs from billy bach, who was two years older, had the same tall, thin frame, and lived down the block.) fell's also was the supplier of all cub scout and boy scout uniforms and patches. if you earned your stone-throwing badge, you went to fell's to get it.

around ths time i noticed that the light flurries had actully turned into real snow falling. unfortunately this didn't last long, but it was gret for half an hour or so.

we drove south on sheridan, ending up on ridge road, and turning west onto central street evanston. we drove around our neighborhood a bit, since not many people out at all (it being early in the day on thankgiving), looking at houses painted in good colors, or at dogs being walked (lots of golden retrievers out today).

at home, i passed the remnants of the trim up to diana in the attic, where she stacked them. we discussed some plans for the kitchen (paint everything soon, gut and rehab later), and i added the cap to the trim of the one window in the kitchen with casing on it. i cleaned a bit, caulked some of the trim, and cleaned up my tools. a bit more caulking of nail holes, and we'll be ready to paint, hopefully this weekend.

wednesday, at home, mostly.

woke and went to TBM (with coffee). picked up some tools, nitpicked re: the placement of a couple outlet boxes. found that a couple of leaks i thought i had fixed are actually still leaking.

over to home depot for new chop saw blades, a little tape measure, etc.

at home, i loaded the new trim into the house from the garage, sorted the lumber in the den, living room and dining room, then got down to work installing the caps onto the casings installed by paul a couple weeks ago. four different board types, ten pieces in all. over the course of the day i worked with the fire going and did five windows and three doorways.

closer door: cap half-finished. other door: finished.



when those were done, i decided to follow through and get all the quarter-round in around the baseboard, as well.

finished at ten pm, bathed, went to bed.

had extensive, intricate dreams about rehabbing dilapidated factories near the sea shore.

tuesday

i woke, walked seth, got coffee, and went to TBM to survey the whole thing.




stepped out again to go to skokie millwork (arrange delivery of new molding for windows at home), the pet store (cat litter), home depot (12 guage stranded red electrical wire, one sheet 5/8' greenboard, two quarts hammered metal paint, two bathroom wall light fixtures, light bulbs, 8" ceiling vent diffusers, etc). the whole time, i talked to people on the phone, arranging things.

loaded everything into TBM, and got to work cleaning, rearranging.

saw a mom and a child walk by today, and i'm pretty sure the mom said "yes, you're right, that place looks like a dump" as they went past. this line echoed through my head all day.

i built the base for the spray-out booth, installed two 12" sections of drywall for the areas behind the baseboard radiators in my office, pulled nails from some plywood scraps, removed the last bits of BX i could find, separated scrap metal for the junkers, pulled up some of the last old vinyl flooring (terrible terrible adhesive), started installing the doorbell, shortened the ventwork coming into my office (and added new diffusers) and painted the covers for all the radiators, which i hope to hang tomorrow. my dad was by for several hours, as was chuck the electrician. we listened to WXRT today, instead of NPR, as we usually do. the trade-off for hearing pretty good music all day with little to no bad news about pakistan or myanmar was the fact that i heard total bullshit ads for AT&T and menards over and over again all day.

it rained, and the temperature is supposed to drop tonight.

i came home around 8, cleaned my hands (fresh cuts), bathed, ate chocolate chip cookies diana just made, then cooked a frozen pizza. settling in to answer emails and do this blog.

very tired.

monday

i am writing this late on tuesday night.

i don't recall what i did monday morning, but i remember that it got to be 11am sooner than expected. i got email from giovanna and ago in catania (sicily), who are opening a new record store in firenze and want to order more posters. great to hear from them, i threatened to come visit in 08.

i ran down to jason's house, listening to bitch magnet. we got to soma at noon, not expecting kip to show up until a bit later (due to a meeting with a plumber). john wasn't ready, so jason and i went to milk & honey for sandwiches.

at the studio, kip showed up, and we mixed "hollywood nights", "snowpants" and "juice in a shark suit". finished mixing, jason figured out a rough sequence for the album, john burned CDs, and we headed out with a finished album.

i dropped jason at home, then got back on the highway. just south of oakton, i glanced into the southbound lanes just as a truck and car ran into each other. there was a ripping sound, i saw the car spinning, moved my view to my rearview mirror, and saw the car spinning more as everyone going southbound slammed on their brakes. i picked up my phone and was on ith 911 before the accident probably had stopped moving. i told them to send an ambulance. i exited at dempster as usual, and as i passed the fire station on grosse point road, the doors were opening and the truck were pulling out, lights going.

i drove home just a little slower.

sunday

spent the whole day at soma, mixing. 11am - 10pm.

we got five songs done (working titles)-

a breaks b
snowpants
andrew jackson
actual dianogah
song you hate

had a cheeseburger, with swiss and beef brisket on it, from smokedaddy for dinner. the other guys got ribs.

after the studio, i drove kip and jason home, then went home, listening to big black. di and i looked at bills a bit, trying to figure out how we'll pay the next mortgage payment, due on the same day as our property taxes. ooof.

saturday

woke at 8, with 5 hours sleep. fell back asleep with di until 10am, then rushed to et shaved & showered and down to jason's, then on to soma for mixing. at some, john started transferring files from the overdubs at mark's studio, but five of the tracks from one song were missing, having been saved to another disk on mark's machine.

jason and i walked over to milk & honey for coffee & stuff.

worked on new one won, antars, and started on andrew jackson, to add to the list of qhnnnl and puma which we mixed when we tracked, in august.



mark came by around 7 or so, to drop off a DVD of the missing parts for a breaks b. he also brought a microsonics player and a number of 'audible audubon' cards. amazing. more about those later.

finished at 10pm, drove kip and jason home, then went home. found di and seth in the yard. gave di the microsonic and the audubon cards - she was totally thrilled.

off to bed, slept hard.