saturday

went back to bed around 4am, jody woke us at 7:30. we got up, bathed, and left for richard & sharron's house, where we ate some breads, drank a bit of coffee, and changed cars. headed to the gallery with ingrid & jody, parked underground by the new gallery. over to 'our' gallery, the morning was spent sorting and hanging work.

when noon arrived, we opened the doors and had a steady stream of folks all day, buying prints, some of the originals, and cider. long, steady day of signing prints.



some time after 5pm, we closed up. (left to right) rachel, di, graham, nick, jody and drew went to a bar nearby, where batman, the old 60's movie was playing on TVs. i drank a vodka orange, bought a round of guinesses, and bored the hell out of graham by subjecting him to a bunch of photos from my computer.

we moved to another bar (cord), talked more, criticized each other's nation spellings of words like colour and aluminium.

at 8:45, jody, di and i went to meet up with richard, sharron, ingrid, cassie (and HER richard), and laura for dinner.
we watched a car get 'towed', out the window, lifted by crane onto the back of a flatbed truck. dinner took forever to arrive, but was quite good - i had cod on mashed potatoes with prosciutto.

back out into the dark wet of night, sharron drove us to jody's, where i now type, about to join di in bed.

thursday AND friday: one long day

hi, i'm writing this while sitting in jody's bathtub (sans water) here in manchester. it's 3am saturday locally, there's a big storm outside, and i can't sleep.

where to begin?

thursday morning, i woke around 6:30 and started working on the four (yet-to-be) paintings on the kitchen table. di ran errands and got me a chai. i added acrylic wash colors to the four pieces, and called them done. actually, i'm quite happy with them.

packed, showered, took the subaru with seth and all our bags to lorna's laces to leave with tyler and stephanie, the house-sitters. along the way, di stopped at a UPS store to ship off a couple of tony fitzpatrick etchings which she had sold on ebay.

the cab for the airport took 40 minutes to pick us up. along the ride to ohare, i made a bunch of calls and took care of the insurance claim for the fender bender the other day.

at ohare we had a typical check-in, except that after getting our tickets, we were in the security line, and diana noticed that the woman at the ticket counter had torn the main page of di's passport, so some numbers were missing. after paying a shit-ton to get the new passport expedited in time for this trip, di was rightly pretty pissed.

the flight was (of course) packed, and neither of us slept for more than 10 minutes at a time, if at all. the pilot came on the PA at one point with an "is there a doctor in the house?" request; some woman was having trouble breathing. a radiologist, an EMT, and various odd-job medical folks came to her rescue, macguyvering her into health with their motley array of medical skills.

we landed 45 minutes early, at 6:30 am. richard met us, and drove us to jody's house, where we met laura, jody's lovely new fiancee, and jody, as they were both on their way out for work. i wrote an email to the airline to complain about diana's passport, then di and i slept for a couple hours.

we woke at noon, embarrassed for taking so long, and called richard's wife, sharron, who came by to pick us up. we went to the gallery, saw richard and elli and met simon, the new help. walked around the corner to grab some lunch, and took it to the new RGG space to see the show there and ingrid (sharron's sister). great family, working together.

spent the afternoon hanging the stragglers of the prints for the show (most of the work was hung already). the place looks great. argued with simon over whether HUM is heavy or not. he likes electric wizard, a band i've never heard but whom i dislike just for their stupid name.

it rained and was dark for the afternoon (all day, actually) (typical manchester, from my experience).

back to richard and sharron's house for dinner with jody, ingrid and elli. both richard's and sharron's mums were at dinner, as was sharron's aunt. charming old ladies. dinner was great - i think it was the ame as the last time we ate there. soup with noodle cassarole, chicken, potatoes, corned (?) beef, green beans, and a dessert of chocolate mousse and apple pudding.

after dinner, jody drove old women home, and richard and i tried not to fall asleep on the couches. jody drove di and i back to his house, where we romptly crashed and slept until half past midnight, when i got up, read a juxtapose magazine on the can (hi tara!), then lay in bed for an hour before climbing into this tub to type.

no going to do more drawing for these patagonia shirts. must scan them and send them off today.

cheers.

wednesday

woke at 6, got up & out. di was up, too, rushing to the museum. she walked seth after i took off. 7am at jamba juice (too much coffee lately), then over to TBM to let the plumbers in at 7:30. did some stuff around the shop, then took off for skokie millwork, paid my bill from last week. talked to insurance companies on the phone outside skokie millwork. down mccormick to lincoln to western to screwball to pick up the two-foot-tall stack of sound opinions reprints (fuck) and their films and keyplate screen to take over to sonnenzimmer. called steve's intern, kirsten, to see if she could do take-off for mat today; she can and will meet him there at 11:30.

took the prints to sonnenzimmer to unload with help from nick (thanks, nick). mixed ink, remembered to stir it well this time.

took off for TBM, arrived just in time to meet up with the plumbing inspector for the village, who did the rough-in inspection, and liked everything except two parts, which pete said he could fix in couple hours. inspector said he could coe back, pete was delighted. i took off for home.

walked seth, answered emails, made a lunch attempting to use the things in the fridge which will go bad while we are in the UK: four eggs, smoked salmon, crusty bread. called southern to talk about some business side of the new record. back over to TBM, talking to jason on the way. arrived again at the same time as the inspector, 2:30. this time all was to his cold, robotic liking. he gave us the green light to proceed. one more rough inspection when we get back from manchester, and we'll be into the home stretch. talked to the plumbers a bit, worked with my dad on the prints i'm carrying to manchester, headed home.

seth and i went out for another walk.

we saw meagan and jesse and stopped to talk, meanwhile di came home. i showered, and sat down to document the prints i'm taking, and answer emails. and type this blog. the rest of the night will be drawing.

ok.

tuesday?!

woke early, left di sleeping. went to home depot (lag bolts, ceiling vents, exhaust vent cover for the roof, 6" vent plug), stopped by the bank to deposit a check, got coffee, and went to TBM by 7:50. the plumbers were already there, waiting to get in.

got pete and john started on stuff. installed the 6" plug over my office, went on the roof to install the vent cover. pulled out drawings for the RGG show in manchester, pulled out paper for the printing today at sonnenzimmer.

dad came by, we figured out some details for the subscription commitments coming in right now, as well as some of the prints which are going to RGG.

i went to whole foods for lunch and had a long talk with jason on the phone while standing in the wine section (not shopping) about song titles and album title, etc. all good decisions.

went to screwball to burn screens. took the screens to sonnenezimmer, where mat was printing the last color on his new renegade craft posters, which are shit-hot. probably his best RCF prints to date. he finished, and we plowed through three screens of diana-and-my new collab print for our show this weekend in manchester at RGG.



nick was working. he and nadine have such a great print shop. nick helped take off for the last half of the third color, after mat had to leave.



i loaded the prints into my car, stopped for a dopio con panna, went to the art store (blick) for a new portfolio and various hoo-ha, then headed home. di and i editioned the prints quickly, and now i type, getting ready to draw a bit and sort out what's left to do before we leave town.

crap.

late, around 11, i started ichatting bob weston, who was with kip and jason at the studio. they worked until 1am, i worked until 1 am.

monday

woke at 5, left for TBM. worked on cleaning, hanging radiator back panels, swapping out burnt flourescent ballast. pete the plumber arrived, dismantled the second bathroom wall to get at the drain. took measurements, made a list, and left to go shopping. my dad brought 2x4s. chuck the electrician arrived. i started framing out the darkroom closet. the electrical inspector came for our rough inspection, said we needed exhaust vents in the bathrooms, otherwise approved. he took off, we finally got around to opening up the one mystery unit above the bathrooms, which turned out to be an exhaust vent blower. re-hooked that into the electrical system, (which unfortunately meant re-doing everything chuck had just done), but we don't have to buy or install anything, which is nice. i took off for home. got coffee to prepare for a long night. on central ave, a woman in a red ford focus rear-ended me at a stoplight. she was distracted by a police officer (lights going) arresting someone and having their car towed. everyone was fine, but my rear bumper (2000 civic) was a bit smashed & scraped. officer walked over, called in for another cop, who arrived and was very cool. woman driver got two tickets, was apologetic. i had coffee all over inside my car. on the way home, jason called to see if i was going tonight. "where?", i asked. he said to the mastering of the new record. no. instead, i went home, showered, unpacked my 'new' used surly long haul trucker frame from tuscon craigslist. di made soup, also cookies. i had to run out to get some ingredients last minute. came home, ate with di, finished drawings for posters for manchester and ispace, went to kinkos to make films, came home to start cutting films. worked until midnight.

sunday

di and i walked for coffee, i think.

at 11am, i went to my folks' house and replaced the attic vent, which had been eaten by raccoons which had been making babies inside the attic. now that the raccoons are gone, i got my dad a roof vent (for father's day) and installed it in the 32 fucking degree weather. seth spent this time running around in their yard with casey, the crazy nut dog.



from there, seth and i (and a trunk full of more oak) went to alan and aviva's studio in ravenswood for seth's final fitting of his new wool-blanket coat. he is a stunt model. i also received my awesome new orange (french army blanket) hat.



when we got home, seth took his new coat for a spin around the yard.



at 6:30, we met up with nina and peter and nina's brother steve for dinner at blind faith cafe. i ate too much, i do not regret it.

home, sleep.