friday

woke with a pounding headache, due to the mouthguardlessness of my night and the low vodka tolerance i have.

arrived at TBM at 10am, in time to meet up with a woman for an interview for a magazine. we went over to starbucks to talk for about an hour, before she dropped me back off at TBM.

sara and i worked on putting up the last of the trim, cleaning, sorting, adding doorknobs, cleaning paul's wetsaw, etc.

di called me around 4:30, as there was an animal trapped in the exhaust pipe from our boiler in the basement of our house. i told her to turn off the thermostat, and she started to disconnect the pipe, to see what came out. i headed for home asap.

in transit, di called me to let me know that it was two starlings, which were now flying around the basement, to the consternation of the cats.

by the time i arrived home, the birds were outside.

we ordered thai food, went to pick it up, and rented 'eagle vs shark', which was pretty great. then we watched last night's LOST episode.

andrew called, we made plans for next week's show.

i answer emails, i type you blog, i go to bed.

thursday, oh man.

woke and waited for the internet repair dude, who arrived on time, at 8am. he spent almost two hours replacing everything related to the cable for our house - he strung a new line all the way from the street to the house. he seemed underemployed, like he had a masters in electrical engineering or something.

went to TBM, arrived as sara was receiving a flower delivery from her mom. she was so excited.

we gritted our teeth and decided to plow into removing all the adhesive from the front office and hallway floors, which entailed a couple of trips to the hardware store to get mineral spirits and rags and gloves. we got the whole thing done in time for her to catch the train at 5pm.

i went home, bathed, lay in the tub on my aching back. di wasn't feeling good, so i took off to go to andrew & xan's house for a little party, where it was really nice to catch up with a bunch of folks. i drank just a wee bit too much vodka, and decided i'd be better off asleep in the extra bed, instead of driving home. woke at 4:15am, drove my aching head home.

i appear to have lost my mouthguard some time between leaving madison and going to bed wednesday night. if you know me, you know that this means i am in trouble, due to grinding my teeth. when i arrived home at 4:45am, i found an old temporary mouthguard, which i used for the remainder of the night.

tuesday and wednesday in madison

tuesday and wednesday were spent in madison, with di dow the hall in the etching studio working with anna, and mat and i working with erin and heather and matt reedy in the screenprint studio. mat and i both made our own 8-screen prints, in editions of a couple dozen. mine is called 'madison exchange', after the bicycle race maneuver, and the way the bike in my image is leading an array of animals and objects across the page. mat's is another tight landscape / foliage scene based on a photo of sue, i believe. di made a two-plate etching with a fancy pigeon and a dodo.

we ate sandwiches, drank coffee, ate bagels in the morning, and i had a huge "bob's bad breath burger" at 'the weary traveler' on tuesday night. heather's bed was pretty good, but my back is just a bit too picky when it comes to pillows. hard to get up in the morning.

printing was more hand-pulling than i've done in years, of large screens. my stomach ached.

we left madison around 7 or so on wednesday night,a nd drove home. i dropped di at her car, and took mat home to hyde park. on the way back north, i listened to rebecca gates.

monday, to madison

woke around 5:30, got back to work on the drawing. took seth out for a brief walk, then packed while di took seth to my folks' house. di returned, we packed the car, and took off to pick up mat from the howard street station. stopped to get chai, then to fedex the disk to patagonia and to make films for my madison print. took to the highways. di plugged in the GPS unit her brother had given us for christmas, and figured out how to use it. we headed north and then west, stopping to get crappy burger king veggie burgers. arrived in madison around 12:45.

heather met up with us, and we spent the afternoon slowly getting set in the humanities building. mat and i cut films, di started working on her copper plate with ana, heather's roommate. we got coffee and snacks mid-afternoon.

the obama benefit, featuring andrew bird and dianogah, was confirmed and announced today.

by 8pm, we were done for the day, and went to 'the weary traveler' with heather, matt reedy, ana, and erin. i had the half-pound "bad breath burger", with cottage cheese on it. it was amazing. ginger beer.

i haven't mentioned how crappin cold it was all day. sub-zero. painful.

upon leaving the restaurant, we found ana's car had been towed, but was retrieved from a nearby side street. we all drove back to ana's and heather's place, played with the cat, and went to bed.

i had good dreams, though i don't remember them.

sunday

went to bed at 4:30 am, woke at 7am.

went to nick & nadine's for dinner, fell asleep on their couch immediately after.

saturday, milwaukee

dianogah played to twenty people in milwaukee and earned $11.50.

the weather was crappy going north, and worse coming home at 2am. the high winds and heavy snow made for some exciting 2am driving.