One of my staff is satan. She has equated not being a meat eater to being healthier in a holier than thou sort of way. While I certainly respect that dietary choice and have cut down siginificantly in my own consumption, avoiding the red meat is a dietary choice, not divine provenence. She has been sick in some form or another since November. I, ultimately being a good guy, gave her a ride to work last week. My reward for a good turn was to begin wishing for my own demise. In her "Superior" way to us carnivores, she passed along some bug that felled the other staffer, me, our Business VP and our overall boss. My direct report might be down for the count by the time anybody reads this. If my kids get it, I may just have to kill her

I've been fighting that bug for a few days now. It kept me from some of my son's birthday festivities and wrecked a guest dj gig for me over the weekend. Damn thing felt like brochitis. Given the lack of return for the drugs I had on hand, it was time to quit fooling around. I went and got myself checked out this morning. Drove over and walking up to the entrance. two employees were smoking right at the door. Jerkasses!! Move away from the fucking door as my respiratory functions are already messed up.

After the obligatory hour wait and the surprisingly happy note that my weight and height are getting along, the good doctor who sounded alarmingly spot on like Apu prescribed me my first z-pack. It's already making some progress. I'm sure having an idea as to what is going on and a map to follow help in the healing process. I tried working yesterday and when standing up at my desk made me utter a very eloquent "Whoa," I knew it was time to surrounder completely. Been a long time since any type of illness has knocked me so on my ass like that. The dearth of decent daytime tv made me want to slap my sickly staff with a strip steak even more. Thank fuck for my dvr and miracles that is an xbox.

My Dad called me earlier to say that mom has successfully beat back her ailments that had her on prednizone, insulin and other whatnot. That really is terrific news, but what came out was "Dad, that is cough, sputter, wheeze, cough, awesome! She must be cough, hack, cough, pound, be really cough,cough, thrilled."

This to shall pass. Drink your juice, kids

Lil devil turns 10 today (Crap I'm old)

I went out on a semi-blind date in November and it went okay. About a day and half later, I got a note from the other party explaining that she had a nice time, "but...wanted to concentrate on another relationship."

I did call previous to this and that made me wonder. I believe I even journaled about it previously. Essentially I was being test driven. Afterwards, I felt more played that anything else. That kind of sucked to hear, but I wished her well via email and soldiered on.

This week, out of the reasonably clear blued sky, I get a email from her saying, "Well, I'm suddenly single again and am exploring my options and thought I'd see how things were with you. Maybe you'd be up for a glass of wine somewhere"

I got to admit. I'm a little stuck. She's an attractive, well-read sort and we gradually got along okay, but part of me is thinking if I didn't warrant a second look in November, what changed. In essence, I have the lil devil on one shoulder telling me, go, what could a drink or two hurt. That lil angel is saying watch out dude, since you weren't a on the radar, you might not really be on there.

I'd like to trust my gut on this one, but lately my gut has shit for brains.

This is pretty dumb, but it made me laugh. Explains why it might be sticky in those places.

My Ipod is a very schizophrenic place. I listen to a little bit of everything. Everything from Sonic Youth to Billie Holliday to the National (thanks Jenks) to Eric Clapton and back again. But there are some signposts that become iconic in your musical lexicon. I've never been too concerned with being cool, mostly because I was never very good at it, especially when it came to tunage. Listen to what moves you.

In my early teens, it seemed like everybody has a copy of Hotel California, Rumors, Led Zeppelin number 2 and 4, Who's Next, you get the idea. When I was 13, 14 is when I started venturing to shows and the first significant one I attended was when Bruce Springsteen played Shea's Buffalo (I know this was before most of you were born for as (e:Drew) pointed out recently, I am really old). It was one of those holy shit evenings. I had two one or two other shows at that point and they were fun. My best friends big brother knew somebody so somehow the four of us were in the third row off to the right hand side of the stage. No opening act, just three and a half hours of musical bliss. You walked away going, "Okay, I get it now. They should all be like this." I was sold, that undescribable something something played out in front of me. I had a used copy of Born to Run that I liked a little but seeing it live sealed the deal. Got Darkness on the Edge of Town when it came out the following week and never looked back.

When he came back two years later to play the Aud, we returned. Same thing at the beginning of the hype for Born in the Usa and so on. I don't make a big effort to make repeated viewings. Other favorites like REM and U2, I've seen three times but I didn't do much work. Either Bruce's records have come around at the right time in life to nudge me to the shows or the shows themselves have fueled interest, or the occasional, now increasing amount of downloadable boot legs have made it a prequisite to see where things are when the man comes to town. I know that's not cool, but fuck you, do I mock the amount of Journey you have on your cd shelf. See, bugger off then.

So, it's a little bittersweet. I went to the last show he did at HSBC arena and had godawful tickets, only to have a "Man in black" come up and to my party and relocate us to the front row on one side of the stage. How you can not like that? When he played Darien Lake, I nearly went without, only to find Ticketmaster releasing good seats the day of the show, so off I went. I go with the trust the art, not the artist. Actually did meet the man at a book trade show(?), bought him a beer and we chatted for a few minutes about the Yankees for a few moments (see, I'm not starstruck, just have favorites) before mutually moving on.

I blame the bittersweetness on my automobile. I had to deal with over $800 in car repairs since January, an automotive clusterfuck of epic proportions. So, the discretionary income, which is never large, took a huge hit. First ticket price I paid was $5.00. This year's price was 95.00. Given car repairs and the upcoming birthday mad rush, I had to say no this time around. The arena now charges a $15.00 convenience fee. Convenient for who, exactly?

Number one son's birthday is next week and he doesn't charge that much, but the windmills are tilting in his favor.

Sorry, boss, I have to sit this one out. I'll wait for the download. It's been a nice run, but you're charging too much this time.

Thanks for the fun along the way.


UPDATE at 5:30 Friday: An Acquantice calls with a ticket with no strings, by 6 I'm in the Arena lobby, free ticket in hand.

UPDATE at 11:30 Friday night: post concert afterglow, it was sooo good, one of those events you can just lose yourself in the hugeness of it all. Wound up dancing a couple numbers with some anonymous woman, high fiving some new freinds and just letting the tunes take you away, that for a few hours, "It's alright." Definitely had a time.

Still grinning.