6/13/07 - 12:33am EDT (little yellow's revenge)
I got pulled over by a Baltimore City police van tonight after filtering through traffic on the scooter at a long red light. I didn't even get my helmet off.

"Don't bother. Do you know why I pulled you over? That's illegal. And its kind of a dick move. Right? So don't do it. Have a nice night."

I love my police experiences. Especially while on the scooter.


Had a great time this past weekend sitting in with Clarence as well as Mike Westcott at the small, but mighty Greenbelt Blues Festival. Today, I spent a good bit of time on the phone with Bill Heid - whom I haven't talked to in almost half a year. I'm really going to miss my musical identity in DC, but the idea of starting that over somewhere new is pretty exciting in its own right.


So I fixed the big shower leak... the leaky sink drain... the leaky toilet... the house was clean, neat, and awkwardly charming as ever. It was the most comfortably livable its been since I bought the place. No problems, no surprises.

Inspection day comes, I get up early and drive out to a little waterfront cafe out in the county for breakfast, as I don't feel like being in the way of the inspection. An hour or so later, I make my way back home... and the first sight I see is something I haven't seen in over a year... a kitchen sink full of standing water. The house knows. Its trying to screw with me.

My guess is, they ran the dishwasher, clothes washer, and toilet at the same time, making sure everything worked. That tends to overwhelm my old pipes, and this happens. So now I'm thinking this is the big wrench in the works I've been half expecting. I don't hear from the buyer's agent that day, or all day the next day. I'm losing hope, but at least people are still seeing the house (I've averaged a person a day since its been on the market even after we went to contract).

This morning, I get a call from my agent. "Turns out they didn't see anything as being too bad - so we're still on." This really seems like the perfect situation. The buyer is looking for something with potential and doesn't mind the work. He can't afford much over a certain amount, though. So I don't waste any time or money fixing any problems to try to bring up the value of the house, and he gets something with a few dents and scratches (or a squirrel-chewed soffit) that he can afford. Its just happening so quickly, I can barely believe it.

Today I had a very strange feeling. After letting the folks at work know that this is my last two weeks, and talking to the realtor, it was really beginning to sink in that I had some serious momentum. Not too long after that, I had a very strong, very instinctive compulsion to call my mom and tell her the good news. For about three seconds, I had the complete thought in my head that I needed to catch her up on everything right away.

It wasn't terribly emotional or depressing... just a very disorienting for a fraction of a second.

I haven't posted this here before, but it is fitting... found in a folder also contiaining my uncle's birth announcement, and a letter written from my grandmother to my mom telling her all about her new baby brother.

"A Richer Life in 12 Steps" (circa1952)
1. Keep life simple.
2. Avoid watching for a knock in your motor.
3. Learn to like work.
4. Have a good hobby.
5. Learn to be satisfied.
6. Like people.
7. Say the cheerful, pleasant thing.
8. Turn the defeat of adversity into victory.
9. Meet your problems with decision.
10. Make the present moment a success.
11. Always be planning something.
12. Say, "Nuts!" to irritations.

Nuts!

So the ball's rolling. On Thursday, I'll put up a list of stuff I am selling/giving. I need to get rid of a lot of what I own very quickly.

In the meantime, come see my ironic cover band play at the Ottobar in Baltimore Friday night. It will be good. I promise.

Sometimes I find it weird that my brother has become such a staunch conservative in recent years when our general nature, while being independent and responsible, sort of goes against aggressive capitalism. We're both relatively terrible at making money. Its not that we don't work hard... its more a hesitation to screw people over. Not that capitalism=screwing... but you know what I mean. Andy also wisely added that the things we've always loved... just don't pay.

Just today, I had to give the Subaru its 90k checkup. Decided to throw the mountain bike in the back and just ride it home from the garage. 12 miles each way. 12 very hilly miles. 12 very frustrating hilly miles. I used to ride 25 hilly miles each way to and from work regularly. I also used to weigh 15 pounds less. Hmm.

It was frustrating, but that only challenged me to get back into shape. I've decided to leave my job coinciding with the house sale because I need some time "off". Some very strenuous, backbreaking time off. I really need to just dive into nature, get back into shape, and most importantly do the things I really really love. One major thing on the list is biking the complete 370 miles of C&O Canal love. I need to go hike Old Rag and Whiteoak Canyon again - and since there's no rush, I can get a backcountry permit and combine both with an overnight camp in between. I've also been meaning to get up into the Adirondacks...

Towards August, I may do a very long, winding, cross-country motorcycle ride - stopping to see all the places and people I've been meaning to see for so long. Of course, there'd be one more run of the BRP, through Asheville down to Nashville, onto the Natchez Trace down to Franklinton, LA, a stop in New Orleans, then follow the river up to Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, then Minneapolis... out to Colorado, Utah, Arizona, over to LA, then up to SF and into Washington that way. A giant W across the US for Washington? Keeping in mind I'll still have to fly home to pick up the car and drive it all again...

Its fun to be overwhelmed with vacation plans.

So while all of this is just beginning to set in, I still have domestic duties. Lawn mowing and house-vacuuming were in between the bike rides. When I came home, I literally collapsed in the hammock, with Otis and Shirley rolling around in the fresh cut grass. Exciting new adventure aside, I will miss this place.

(01D turning left... final?)
There's nothing quite as cool as being able to appreciate and share in the meeting of a friend's lifelong goal. Congratulations, Tom!



I've spent quite a few hours in small planes since middle school... I was even planning on getting my license with some of the money I instead used for the house. Its expensive, and in many ways impractical (the hundred dollar cheeseburger syndrome that pilots and boat owners both face)... but there is just nothing like it. Motorcycles come close, and are in fact a lot more exciting and visceral in a lot of ways. But... still not the same. Flying also makes visually unremarkable men much more appealing. Last time I went up with my friend David, the photo I took (though, with me wisely cropped out) landed on his personals profile, and quickly caught the attention of the new love of his life.

Yep. That's me flying that there Cessna. Oooooh, yeah.



It should come as no surprise that not only is Tom a pilot, but a damn good one from what I've seen so far, and from the comments by his instructors and examiners alike. He also has a knack for straightforward instruction. There were a few things I forgot, but I got it back very quickly. Hopefully we'll be able to afford a few more flights, maybe even a cross country, before I head out of here... then I guess I'll just have to start the process on my own at some point. Poor me (literally).

We talked a lot today about the process of just going and doing what makes you happy... taking risks... not settling for comfort when actual happiness isn't too far past that. I sometimes forget that I'm already doing that in a lot of ways.

Had a fantastic show the other night with Judd & Maggie, and Steve Delopoulos of Burlap to Cashmere fame. We had no rehearsals whatsoever, but pulled out probably one of the best sets I've ever played with them, and reminiscing about the more hilarious (to put it nicely) aspects of the late-90s Christian music scene with Steve made the night.

Playing with Clarence tonight... at a DC institution. Listening to an LP of Ramsey Lewis playing at Bohemian back in the mid 60s right now.

Yeah, doing what makes you happy is pretty much where its at. Especially if you've got people there with you to help enjoy it (which is to say, I'm posting my gigs off to the side again... don't say I never told ya). Now I just need to find out how to get paid to go hiking and I've got all of my bases covered.

---

(all that i still need to do)
One of the things I'll miss most about living in the deep south part of Baltimore is the quality of amateur fireworks on patriotic holidays. A lot of hard earned money goes into making those family backyard picnics memorable (or, more importantly, making them better than the neighbors'). It goes on all night.

After work on Saturday, I had a bunch of preparations to make for a bike trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway, and wound up falling asleep on the couch 5 minutes after walking through the door. Decided on Sunday to forego that plan and instead throw my tent and music gear into the Subaru and head to Mike Roy(senfelder)'s farm down in NC. His new band was playing with J Roddy & the Business and Pablonius Bill outside under the stars.

I bid Oat and Shirley adieu. They could care less.



One quick stop enroute to reluctantly get rid of my grandparents' beautiful Baldwin spinet piano had me a little moody, but I picked up another box of books, jackets filled with scraps of paper and notes written by my grandmother in the mid 1930s.

So I superslabbed it all the way down to NC to make time (less than 5 hours). When I pulled into the farm, any pent-up bitterness I had about Mike's abrupt departure from Baltimore (and from the music we were working so hard on) completely vanished. Perched on a hill off of US-64, with a white picket fence on the driveway, tons of open space, a bunch of naked babies running around in the sunset, and a keg of local honey ale on ice... was the cutest dang double-wide in the bi-Carolinian region. The man is living the dream.

Here's Aubin watching her daddy do what he does best:



The music went late, then the magic went later (one of Mike's friends is a research scientist who also happens to be a magician - but a real one... the kind that makes you wonder if he's evil. Stuff was disappearing, changing, simple product packaging was rewriting itself, cats and dogs living together...) There was also a lot of beer. I have never sang so loud as I did for J Roddy's backup vocals. Mike's hands bled with tambourine enthusiasm.

I love my tent. I don't use it nearly enough. The last time was in Glacier - which is to say before Sara even started law school. I love that my tent has glow in the dark zipper pulls, for convenient late night fuzzy-brained bladder relief.

The sun came back up, and there was brief debate about whether Bojangles or Panera would be the better breakfast stop. I think everyone wanted to say they wanted to go to Bojangles, but didn't really want to. Nothing like having mosquito bites, sunburn, dirty hippie-like feet, greasy moustaches (well, some folks) and egg souffles with hazlenut coffe in the middle of a very predictable sprawlplex.

[The fireworks are still going.]

I hit the road at about 11:30 today and decided I wouldn't take any interstates home. I'm a real sucker for the pre-interstate travel culture... motor courts and neon lights... see the USA in your Chevrolet kind of stuff. The main travel roads like US-301 are still full of it. Some are still in business... some look heartbroken sitting abandoned next to a check cashing place and a used car lot knowing its about to be another Panera. But when they're left off on their own to die naturally, there's a strange sort of dignity about those places.



I ate lunch in a Halifax, NC. Not that there was a restaurant there, but I grabbed something at a gas station and was waiting to find a nice place to eat it. I figured it would be like every other crossroads town, but as I came to the end of the main street, there were a series of very old buildings tucked away near the woods, and a small cemetery. The first headstone I brushed off was from a man born January 9, 1758 (exactly 220 years older than me).

I know its cheesy to say (and Disneyfied since Cars) but I still think its amazing just how few people really even think about a sense of place and a sense of time, or seek to get a better understanding of both. When I was a kid, car trips with my parents were always about going off and finding all the cool little places that are unique to that area... places like that cemetery... along the way and learning their history. Now you see DVD players and dark tinted windows coming standard on "family vehicles". Bah.

Besides a holiday bottleneck at the Harry Nice bridge (with self-congratulatory "Nice Bridge" signage) because a lot of other people thought they were being smart and avoiding the DC Beltway, it was smooth travel all weekend. I probably should have taken the bike (I never used my keyboard at all), but lately I've been wondering if I should give up two wheels altogether and build me a Fioppero. FIOPPERO!



Before I left, I quickly threw this together to give to Mike... in the style of his second album (where he did the guitar and vocals, and I did everything else), its a sort of lost track that we performed live but never recorded.

Old Heart

[the fireworks are still going]

5/21/07 - 1:09am EDT (lunch, lunch will keep us together)
First off... I love Myspace.



Now then... no bites on the house yet, but it has only been on the market for about a week and has shown at least once a day. I don't know if that's good or bad at this point. I'm kind of sick of strangers routinely walking through my home, especially when I'm there... but I enjoy being able to do a little tour guide work and diffuse some of the real estate bullshittery that tends to tie these things up.

Sara was here last week. Best week ever.



We saw the world's boringest baseball game, caught up with great old friends on both sides, had a motorcycle adventure, saw pandas and sloth bears, went to the most depressing mall on earth, ate gelato, ate sushi, ate mexican, ate barbecue, ate brownies... but we were healthy and had salad, too (of course, Sara's idea of a salad consists of jicama, avocado, corn, tomato, cilantro, homemade dressing, and filet mignon.)



But it wasn't all smiles and giddiness. OK, it was, but people aren't used to that from us. Truth is, law school is over and we both know we'll be in the same city, starting a whole new chapter by the year's end. Sure, Sara has to take the bar and move... and I have to sell the house and move... but never before has the fruit of the last two years' labor been so clearly visible.

Speaking of fruits... Otis has been off kilter lately, so I had to take him into the v-e-t. After a pitiful half hour of mewling, he turned on the charm.


By the time they called me to say he was ready to be picked up, the head doctor said all the technicians there were in love. Hearing a Nigerian man say with a smile, "All de nurses loaf him" made me proud of my boy (and forget how oddly relaxed he was during the temperature-taking). Unfortunately, the first $20 thimble of amoxicilin was knocked over by his swishy tail, and since the visit Shirley only hisses and bats at him. She's paranoid its some kind of conspiracy. Otis has been infiltrated and can not be trusted.

In other animal news with no apparent backstory, I give you Canada goslings and a heron who thinks he's a crossing guard.





That's alls I got.

(coffee is for closers!)



For the last few months, I have felt certain that it was just time to go off and be somewhere else. A lot of coincidences seemed to line up, and it was almost as if I had no choice but to pull up my roots and relocate to the northwest. People have been telling me for years that I'd be completely in my element out there, both in terms of environment and general attitude. My girlfriend's family lives there, she'll be going back there, two of my good friends from work have relocated out there and say there's an open door, and last year was a definite renter's market out there (great places could be had cheaply), and in all honesty, I just felt burned out here. Work, family, music, friendships. I felt like everything was exhausted and becoming constricting.

... and then there was the house. A lipsticked-pig that I fell madly in love with (I blame my mom's gift of the ability to see the core beauty in everything - even crap that just ain't right). As my fantasy of what home ownership was supposed to be melded with the reality of buying a $96k home that looked too good to be true, I also realized that everyone could identify with the money pit-type story. Sure, there have been problems, but truth be told, I'm a survivalist at heart and the things I've faced in this place haven't been *that* bad. Some plumbing hiccups here, some surprise craftsmanship issues there... all part of buying a cheap old house, really. If anything, injecting some affable pessimism (or just plain blarney) into the story just made it more entertaining to talk about, and everyone loves a "thank god that's not me" story now and then. Truth is, the place had gone up nearly 40% in value in two short years, and it was easy to talk about it as just a short-term investment that I had to "endure".

But in all honesty, the house was a lot more than that. The only silver lining in my mom's passing, really... and her spirit is deeply woven into the whole process. The pink flowering dogwood out front was the first whisper that I should just pull the trigger on it. The porch, the woods, the sheer charm of it all... she'd have teared up at the sight of me holding the keys, not to mention spent many a weekend here gladly helping out with the landscape and decoration of it - and I'd have given anything for that assistance, as my actual last moments with her were spent in unfortunate latent boyhood angstiness trying to settle into my last rental; passive-agressively suggesting that she might help best by staying in the living room and doing nothing and letting my dad and I wrap up.

But that's another ramble. Point is... over the two years I've been here, I've figured out the quirks, added more family heirlooms and touches, and really started settling into this as a home. (Otis and Shirley even became outdoor cats for 5 or 6 minutes at a time until the bus goes by and scares the bejeezus out of them) Compound that with Dad's decision to sell the actual family home and all the discomfort that caused, and it became that much more personal.

That brings us to today. In the last month, thanks in large part to the ridiculous amount of media hype over mortgages (any rational thinker would know that risky mortgages have always been out there, and the 2001-2005 steam train of variable-rates would lead to mass-foreclosure - but the media whips it up into a huge surprise story and the market reacts immediately), my house has lost over 9% of its value. 9%... one month. Then, my "sure thing" job-wise in Seattle is suddenly downgraded to a "good chance". And looking closer at the rental market, its gone up significantly since last year. Sara finished law school, but will be living with her family, who - not to say this lightly - just don't like me (or her, for that matter), and will probably go out of their way to make things difficult for both of us. I know she's come a long way with dealing with those emotional skeletons in the closet, but I have reason to be apprehensive... her pessimism really is just a remarkable thing, especially when the parents lay on the guilt. And the classic twist of the knife... general spring cleaning and redecorating has really multiplied my general sense of pride in owning this place (not to mention further development plans of the area show major commercial and mid-income residental development in the next two years, surely driving up the value of this place).

And yet, I signed on a selling agent today. It's probably in the MLS right now, as we speak... at a starting price $10k less than I wanted last month, but doing a lot of looking around, I realized I had to. I'd rather not budge on price, but will offer closing help and a warranty. All the hoops (read : extra money lost) sellers jump through these days. The financials of this look like, after the dust settles, and the fees, taxes, closing, and commissions are paid... I'll walk away from this just about breaking even.

Still not bad (hey, living for free for two years and getting a car out of the equity is great!)... but it makes the awkwardness of everything else harder to feel good about. If I'm gonna let go of my pride, I'd better be selling out.

Sara will be here in 48 hours. We've got a lot of time together on this visit, and that is very much needed. I'm hoping all I need is a nice reminder of the light at the end of the tunnel... a reminder of the joy of risk taking. Conversely, maybe Sara (who is finally DONE with law school!!!) will get a good jolt of the beautiful potential of life, and shake loose the last residual emotional bonds of law school.

So anyway... if anyone wants a charming little "1.5 bedroom" 1000sq ft. 2-story cottage, a beautiful city view yet surrounded by parkland, with updated appliances, off-street parking, and help with closing costs... let me know, or better yet, contact Debbi at Long and Foster - Federal Hill. Shirley jumped right into her lap when she came over today, so I guess that's a good sign.

(look out, squirrels)
Daddy's goin' plinkin'.

I hate being one of those people who do nothing but share pictures of their cats... but... ugh. I hate myself. See, Shirley isn't a terribly photogenic cat. Usually my little autistic princess is doing something like this :



But today, I got a great one of Shirley being the Shirley that you can never photograph... fuzzy, and yet looking like she's seen the face of God.



So, in summary... Koreans (especially males - and parents) need to stop injecting unnecessary drama into their lives all of the time, step back, and acknowledge the need for a serious discourse on mental health. I knew that long before the whiny little Hot Topic bastard at VT thought he'd be a big scary man, but now more than ever its apparent. Not so much in his outburst, I mean... he was beyond help... but more in the "community's" reaction. Despite your best efforts, folks, there's no need to worry... we only rush to judgment on races who have a long history and established faith built on unprovoked mass violence... like the A-rabs... and Otis.






... I want brownies.

(right about now...)


Just got a call from Clarence saying Jesse James Johnson/Brown passed away a few days ago. What a damn kick in the gut.

I honestly can't remember when and where I first met Jesse. It was 1999 and Dru Lore probably had something to do with it... or maybe just an evening of scouring clubs looking for something I couldn't find. By that time I could just barely legally drink, but I already had some regular sit-in spots with some amazing players around DC and Baltimore (Detroit Slim, Dave Porier, Clarence Turner, etc), but no regular gigs I truly enjoyed playing. I was getting sick to death of playing soft blues jams for largely white upper middle class types in sports bars. I wanted legitimate soul.

Of course, its hard to say "legitimate soul" as a cocky 21 year old and not look like an ass. Its equally hard to define it now as a cocky 29 year old and not offend people. But I don't mean black / white... I'm not talking rich / poor... but they do both factor in a little. I guess to me its more the ability to both understand and appreciate *all* of those different nuances that go into the core meaning of the blues... and most importantly to not treat them like an act, a gimmick, or a feigned identity, but just to instead be able to understand them as real life and give all due respect.

That's a hard kind of person to find in a place like DC these days, but, of course, there are two DCs. I remember very early on when Jesse asked me where I came from. "PG". He nodded, "oh, ok, man... that makes sense now. 'Cause I was damn sure you wasn't from Northwest!", and his gravelly laugh transitioned into a drag off a Newport.

Race was never an issue (much to the surprise of people on both sides of the Anacostia)... nor age for that matter. He had a natural charm and charisma that would reach out to anyone within earshot, but his command of the songs and clear longevity at the game brought sincere respect easily. While he was doing his thing with the audience, Lee, Turner and I would set up the rhythm and it all just clicked. It wasn't polished or rehearsed... sometimes it was even bad (especially as the evening wore on, the guitar fell further out of tune, and the knottyheads kept coming)... but it was just so damn soulful.

When Jesse sang Otis songs, people got up and slow danced (in Adams-fucking-Morgan!). Bands of Northern Virginia post-frat kids would storm into Toulouse and spend an entire set clapping along. Go-go parties at the downstairs club at Player's Lounge would die out and the thugs would come upstairs to nod their heads and smile to Jesse's Clarence Carter-style rapping. I have never, and probably will never see another frontman with the universal draw that Jesse had... and all the while, he just played it cool, made friends with the crowd, and kept them coming back for more.

When I moved back to Baltimore, I barely saw him, and his health started to get worse in 2004. We'd talk on the phone every now and then and or someone would tell me he they saw him... but even though he'd do every few Saturdays at Player's Lounge, I never quite made enough effort to just go play with him again. Bigfoot told me he was in the hospital a few weeks ago and I felt terrible.

I pleaded for a phone number, or even the name of the hospital... but then I realized I wasn't even sure of his real last name. Honestly, I never really got to know much about his life, outside of his basic story of coming to DC in the early 60s with Bo Diddley, and staying here when Bo went on (like so many musicians tend to do) because of a woman. Looking back, I was nothing but yet another audience member in Jesse's show.

But it doesn't matter. I just wanted to tell him how important he was to me... how some of the best times I've ever had playing music were with him, Lee, and Turner. I wanted to thank him for letting me share the stage with him for all those years, and for all the stories he shared with me, making me feel like even though I was born in 1978, it was like I'd been a part of soul music ever since the beginning.

Maybe I will get to pass that on one day, but for now I'll just think back to the club gigs all over the city, the regular nights at Toulouse ("Too Loose") and Player's Lounge for years, hanging out in Bo Diddley's old basement off Rhode Island Ave and listening to records, the July 4th block parties in Southeast with a stomach full of beer, cornbread and greens and my keyboard slippery from the ribs and chicken... and all of those smiling faces on the other side of the stage each time, staring at the man laying down the legitimate soul.



"I've Been Loving You" by Otis Redding
Performed by Jesse James & the Raiders at
Jackie Lee's in Northeast DC, October 2002

(small shadows)
City cats don't care about calendars... equinoxes... painted eggs or eastroturf sales at Rite-Aid. They know its spring the day the plastic comes off the windows and the fresh air comes pouring in.

Ya got your "leftover tuna" days... your "laser pointer power hour" days... occasionally there is even the "mouse in the living room" day... but the first open windows of the year dwarf them all.

(as if you knew what a Peabody was)
After a great gig with Clarence Turner and Mike Westcott last night at Chick Hall's, I came home and fell into a very deep sleep. Had a dream where I got rid of everything I had and was living in the basement of a 70s-era high rise housing project. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't bond with any of my neighbors because wannabe-Indymedia podcasters kept wanting to document my "story", so I was dividinig my time between exploring the space, keeping a look over my shoulder for legitimate threats, and trying to get the new media types to understand that just because they have liberal guilt, they shouldn't declare a white guy living with a bunch of black people to be "revolutionary". I miss PG.

60 and sunny today... I had too many errands to do to take the bike out, but I did some more park exploration. The first step was eating lunch under the planes at BWI's observation park. Not terribly thrilling, but the number of men in Members Only jackets with air band scanners, binoculars, and long telephoto lenses made it fun. I wanted to ask them just what it was that drew them to making a spectator sport out of commercial aviation, but then I saw that quite a few were retarded.

The next stop was Fort Howard, in between North Point (where Baltimore crushed the Brits in 1814 following Alexandria and Washington's pitiful France-ing), and Beth Steel. The peninsula itself actually reminds me a lot of the Hamptons with the mix of history, agriculture, and waterfront property... but the orange dust from Beth Steel (now Mittal, soon to be yet another foreign owned company since the government is declaring Mittal a monopoly) would ruin the white party at Puffy's.

Fort Howard was once the primary defense point for Baltimore, and its batteries are still largely intact, and are now routinely climbed over and peed in. By the mid-20th century, a large VA hospital was built there, but the idea of sick veterans living in a beautiful facility surrounded by coastline at the site of one of the country's most historically significant battles is clearly too much of a good thing; its about to be levelled and turned into more yuppie condos. The park offers some amazing views, though. Today was clear, and from the same point on the beach I could see the Key Bridge in Baltimore, and the Bay Bridge all the way down in Annapolis.



I went further up the Bay into Cecil County and twisted and turned through Elk Neck State Park, to Turkey Point - a lighthouse and hiking trails up on a 100' cliff overlooking the Bay. Turkey Point has the historical significance of having more female lighthouse keepers than any other light in the US. Mmmm, baby. It gets so cold and lonely up on that cliff...





On the hike back to my car, I passed a young family with an infant in a stroller and a 3 or 4 year old boy running ahead while wearing a hat with two dangling puffballs on it that made him look sort of like a Sanrio character. I smiled at him and said hello, then his eyes lit up and he yelled, "HIIIII! This is the best day of my LIFE!!!" and kept running down the trail.

Sara was having a bunch of angst-inducing things stack up on her, and a brief phone call didn't really end well. I think the hardest part about being in a long-distance relationship is that, while every relationship has days where people's moods are more or less opposite, there's an added feeling of desperation when you can't actually be there. The person in the bad mood feels worse about bringing the other person down, and the person in the good mood finds it hard to relate and/or unsuccessfully tries to offer encouragement... and there's nothing I hate more than that feeling of being disconnected and not being able to do anything about it. To Sara's credit, she's had years of conditioning to just shut down and roll on until skies clear up, but for me - something about the way I was raised keeps me from being able to just drop something unresolved. I feel like I can't hang up or let go until an amicable understanding is reached and both people are content. In theory, I guess it sounds like a good thing, but more and more I'm becoming pretty sure that its to my detriment.

But my solo exploring today reminded me of one of the best ways we are well-matched: that desire to get off of the main road, out of the mainstream and go be surprised by something. Its been responsible for some of our coolest moments. Montauk, the Apostle Islands, the Vantage Horses, and of course the Enchanted Highway. Even the Asian Cookery section of a rare book shop in a small Minnesotan port town (my new favorite picture)

That Pochacco-looking kid had the right idea

(great moments in cameras)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!


Andy Nelson's BBQ - Memphis in Baltimore


father and son about to sign the deal...


Last Thursday, I spent some of my day off hiking through a preserve on Kent Island. Nice little trail, great views, probably the last actual day of winter with some frost and snow left on the trail before this week's drastic warm-up... I'm definitely going to miss the Chesapeake one of these days. (Though I hear Puget Sound is kind of pretty). The last few pics in the set are taken from my street. I realized I have never given a good sense of what a great view there is of downtown Baltimore from my neighborhood.