what i did yesterday instead of blogging

hey there. i miss you, blog. but sometimes you have to get outside. yesterday i spent nine disgusting hours overhauling my patio with the help of my sister and her friend molly. you see, my sister is moving to portland on monday [BOOOO!] and we're having a little going away bbq/dance party to send her off right. so the patio has to look its best. and it really does.

dammit, the pictures i took are sideways. but i have to go to work and i really want to show you.

my day thus far

sorry, dear readers, for the lack of postings this week. it's been a crazy one. i'm behind the bar five nights this week, plus things are picking up at red hot, plus it's my last friday with moxie. so let's work out that equation:

bar 10 hrs monday
+
bar 12 hrs tuesday
+
red hot 8 hrs wednesday
+
bar 10 hrs thursday
+
moxie 8 hrs friday
+
bar 10 hrs saturday
+
bar 12 hrs sunday
+
bar 10 hrs monday

um, is that an 80 hour work week? i don't know whether i can count monday twice.

and i wonder why i'm feeling strung out and exhausted. don't get me wrong, i love my bar and it's a great time of the year to work. this is just a long stretch.

to get to my original point, that being a detailed review of my day -- what else are blogs for?...

after closing the bar last night at 4 am, i came home and was surprised to find my housemates not only awake but quite active, cleaning the house even. for you see, dear readers, my beautiful apartment is being using as a location for a movie!

so i woke up at 9:30 to a production crew arriving at my house, complete with annoying yippy white dog and idiotic starlets. i tried to sleep in, which was not happening. eventually i was presented with the life-affirming experience of walking out of my room bleary, tired and unready for the morning, dressed only in a towel and blind, confronted with cameras and a dog named harpo and a dozen people in my kitchen.

i hate the movies.

songs of enchantment

from the last page of the book i just finished -- songs of enchantment by ben okri:

the girl began, singing:

how does love create immortality?

and the others replied:

love creates mystery.

and mystery creates thought.

thought creates action.

and action creates a life.

the essence of your life is your gospel.

and your gospel is your light.

your light is your immortality.

and so love creates immortality.

spanish pictures

click on the picture below to see my pictures!

adventures in spain

why to watch your children carefully

los peregrinos

i'm a little busy today, so here's some great reading -- check out my parents' blog on the camino to santiago.

oh smurf.

i was always jealous of the smurfs, what with their white hats and mushroom houses. yeah, the gender ratio was pretty rough, but you know, i'm a modern man. and brainy smurf was awfully handsome.

but now all my dreams have been realized. i can finally LIVE INSIDE A MUSHROOM!

well sort of.

read the incredible story here.

my only question is, does it smell like mushrooms all the time? because that would be gross.

not as gross as nasal cleansing with bourbon!

i'm always right...

yes, i'm up at 10 am after falling asleep after 5 this morning. i am tired. but it was fun last night, i made some money and we only had to kick one person out, so i guess i can't complain.

remember this post? you should, it's only from three days ago.

well, it looks like i was right!

i think dressing up dead animals is this summer's hottest fad!!

well, that and laughing at paris hilton while she's stuck in jail.

my productive day:

i came back from spain exhausted but with a renewed sense of purpose, more motivation than i've felt in a long time. and that drive has actually lasted. the afternoon i returned i gave my room a thorough spring cleaning -- we're talking closet reorganization and home improvement. i still don't have new curtains (damn you, ugly curtains! your waving in the wind taunts me). but i'm feeling good and this fantastic weather has got me rolling.

tempy asked today where we'd rather be, and for the first time in a long time i can say i'm content right where i am.

so today i slept in, sort of necessary really when closing tonight at 4. but after the late rise, it's been a fun day:

i bought a new 400 GB hard drive in preparation for recording my songs.
i took my new/used/stolen bike for a full tuneup and new seat/pedals/chain/wheel/lights/bells/whistles.
i sunbathed at the foot of the manhattan bridge.
i had a sushi picnic with my friend who's moving to boston next week.
i ate ice cream.
i did some laundry.
i tended to my flowering strawberry plants. they actually survived the winter!

as ameet might say, onepromofo. one productive motherfucker.

and once the ice cream settles, it'll be time for a nice long yoga session. maybe a nap first?

sorry to those of you stuck in an office right now. just remember i'll be working past 4 am tonight and then up early to head to queens. i think that makes up for it.

this brave soldier

have you ever wondered what those nasal cleansers are all about? drew from toothpastefordinner.com has made a video to show us.

100th post!

This is the 100th post in the short life of this mostly neglected blog. That took much longer than I'd expected.

I've found my new summer pastime. Who wants to head up into the Hudson Valley for an art project?

more toothpaste for dinner

back in brooklyn

what a time. hopefully i'll have a chance to fill you in on the last few days of insanity in barcelona. but for now i am back home, back "where everything echoes and fades away differently because of the excessive noise that makes Things tremble" (rilke).

i'm trembling out to lunch.

is this a weekday? what day is this?

i´m in an internet cafe in barcelona and pink floyd's wish you were here is playing. in my delirium, i'm loving it.

36 hours in madrid... is not enough. but it was enough for the prado, the reina sofia, massive amounts of art really. i love heironymus bosch. also rediscovered my love of the spanish sculptor pablo gargallo.

36 hours was also enough for riotous late nights walking and drinking with friends. new and good friends. next time i´ll have to come on a weekend. and next time i will NOT get up at 5 am and drive seven hours to barcelona, which i just did. thus the delirium.

i can´t remember the last time i slept more than a couple hours. and now a sleepless weekend is surely in the works. i mean, it´s barcelona. nice that now that i´m finally over my jetlag, it's time to go home.

lesson: always check your elevation

yesterday morning i left my parents on the rainy, muddy trail to santiago de compostela, parting ways on a medeival bridge in a tiny village. i don´t envy them. a 500 mile hike over a month and nothing but rain in the forecast. plus they´re not catholic, and as my dad pointed out at mass, these people kicked my people out. there´s evident spiritual value in a long hike along a 500 year old pilgrimage path. but it´s also dominated by catholicism, the values of which are nearly diametrically opposed to those of my family. i´m interested to see how that plays out as they continue their journey. there´s a link to their blog to your right.

after leaving my folks behind i headed south, thinking i would outrun the rain by heading to the high plains of madrid. first mistake, as eliza doolittle would point out: the rain in spain stays mainly on the plain. so it rained harder and harder as i drove on through, well i´m not sure what, it was raining so hard i couldn´t see much. i decided to take backroads to get a better sense of the landscape and turned south towards logroño and la rioja. rain can´t stop me from wine tasting.

second mistake: not reading the map carefully. the further south i drove, the higher i drove. i saw a car stopped at a gas station but thought i was seeing things and continued on. soon i found that the car covered in snow was no mistake. first it was light snow. then heavier. the roads got steeper. my tiny prius slid back and forth on the narrow mountain road as the conditions closed in on whiteout. IT IS THE FIRST FUCKING DAY OF MAY!!! i kept thinking. if there hadn´t been other clueless drivers on the road, i would have turned back. when i finally reached the pass at 6000 feet i was thrilled. my white knuckles were sore from gripping the wheel and my shoulders ached. and when i finally stopped in a town to rest and have some lunch, nothing was open for the may day holiday. goddamn socialists.

but it was worth it. as i rolled towards my destination, blue started to break through and i was treated to splendorous views across the plains, bright yellow mustard and rich green fields dotted with sheep and ancient villages reaching towards the freshly snow-capped hills. all the more spectacular was my arrival into segovia, a beautiful city with a huge old city high on a hill. i stayed around the corner from the church where isabel was crowned queen of spain. i drank spanish beer and ate 10 kinds of pork (the local speciality) and watched football and wandered the darkened alleys that smelled like smoke and wet rocks and ham.

and now i´m in madrid. not in the cards originally, but que sera, sera. i´m in a backpacker´s hostel, sites that i usually avoid like the plague but with the cost of parking my car in central madrid, it´s time to save some money. a couple days to explore this giant city isn´t enough, but i need to be in barcelona by friday morning. that´ll be a fun one...

hope all is well in the states. ¿did you see this? crazy. sorry i´m missing the derby party. someone get drunk for me.



somehow i think that won´t be a problem.