Blegh

Last night, Uberjam and I joined some friends for drinks at the Stag's Head, a pub in the montrose area that we recently discovered. Between the 3 pints of Sierra Nevada I had (5.6% alcohol by volume, ahem) and all the smoke (yuck), I feel like a crapface today. What I wouldn't give for a nap.

Also last night, I got an email from my high school friend Jenn C (hi Jenn!). It was awesome to hear from her. Got me thinking about how difficult it really is to stay in "genuine" touch with folks you know. My friends-and-family address book (family, high school and college friends, former coworkers, band mates, etc.) has a couple hundred people in it. How do you regularly stay in touch with so many people in a genuine way? Mass emails are no good; I send my share, of course, but that isn't what I mean.

There's always blogs. I love it when my friends have blogs. It's like getting to spend a little casual time with them - the way you would at a bar, between classes, etc. - without needing it to be at any particular time, and without the pressure of having to get all the important, heavy stuff into one letter. I know what's up in, say, my friend Amber's life, but we haven't seen each other in years. When I jot off a note to her now, I don't feel distant.

But ... well ... blogs can only go so far, and they aren't the real one-to-one personal communication I'm talking about. When you get right down to it, it takes a big investment of time and energy to stay close with people who aren't close. I want to connect with people in the same ways that I knew them - individually, as friends. But writing a letter like that is an hour's work, and often gets lost in the flurry of more "pressing" things.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening to my good friend Dylan do a radio interview / performance. (He was in Connecticut, but I got to listen, thanks to that new computer magic.) Uberjam and I have a copy of his new solo album, and have been listening to it non-stop. I talked to him on the phone for a minute afterwards, and he was happy to hear that I'd checked out the interview.

I hope that in our lifetime, we see a trend towards even more "human" ways to stay in touch with our friends who aren't physically close to us. Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think it will happen.

We'll see.

(Aside: What I want right now is a program that combines email history and your address book, in a way that tells you more about the individuals in your address book. Like, showing how frequently you email them (both individually and in mass emails), how long it's been, etc:



At least that way, could could see who it is you're most out of touch with. Maybe someday I'll make me some software like that.)

Radio

I'm sitting over at KTRU doing my weekly jazz shift - got a couple long-ish pieces on right now, so I have a minute or two of down time. I didn't really want to come in today, because I was working on some projects at home, and I felt more like going over and getting in some practice. But now that I'm here, I'm having a great time. It really is fun to play music over the air and just get to sit and listen to it.

Also, I hereby send a shout out to Jerry - I played two CDs that came from you back to back; first, the Buddy Rich "Roar of 74" CD, and then the Bob Dorough "Devil May Care" CD. I also found a really rad John Zorn CD which featured Bob Dorough on a piece by Charles Ives. Now THAT is weird.

Catching up, or not

I have been so behind lately. I try to get caught up, but all these interesting things keep coming to my attention. But I have so much to do.

What? You want to know more? OK, if you insist.

Work - it's been a busy time, and small stuff keeps coming in the way of big projects - minor requests, etc. I just automated a database mail merge to contacts at subsidiaries about rate changes to their employee 401Ks. Thrilling, no? And regardless, I gotta hang here 40 hours a week, which kinda cramps my style.

Practice - I have been totally neglecting doing any sort of instrumental practice. Not for lack of love; I enjoy it so much. But not having a piano at home, it requires going elsewhere, and sometimes, that just don't happen.

Email - Inbox at 250 and growing. Ugh.

Reading - My RSS feeds are stacking up, and I haven't read them in days.

Housework - Haha, what's that?

Plus I've got to get my car inspected, go to the gym, register for piano lessons in the fall, organize the weekly music mixers, help figure out the band finances, archive recordings of shows, communicate with fans, etc. And I've been in email conversations with a few folks about political stuff - conversations that generally take a lot of time and thought for me.

Maybe I should start doing yoga or something.

Hello, world

After 35 minutes on the phone with web host tech support, my site is now up again. Ain't technology grand? :(