Two More Days!!!

Cleaning... working... cleaning... working... is it Saturday yet?

three more days....

So much to do, so little time.... cleaning my apartment now, working from 4 to 9 then home to clean some more...

ho tornato

The blogging has been sporadic, and for that I apologize. I'm not sure if anyone checks in or not anymore and in truth it doesn't really matter. I was sure that I had posted at least one entry since I returned from Europe in October but it seems that I was mistaken. So to get you up to speed - After Venice I went back to Milan for a night and then flew to Edinburgh. The wedding was great - fantastic to see family and especially to see my cousin so happy; I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time but I enjoyed it as much as I could have. The next day I did the fast train to London and spent a couple days there including a great evening with Ben and Arthur who introduced me to some fantastic people including most of the Lion King cast, all of whom I hope to see again (especially cheetah girl lol). The rest of October wasn't so great for me, I was still feeling really lost and sad. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the things that happened this year and writing a lot of songs. November was even harder, so many associations with her and November....... Did a big Chinese show in AC for thanksgiving which was a lot of fun but that was also replete with memories. A few days after the show I went out to Whistler for a few days to get some early season snowboarding in. That really cheered me up, cleared my head and gave me an opportunity to see some things in a different light. While I was there I made some big decisions about my life. The details are mostly too personal to post here, but basically I decided to get myself a job since the music gigs have slowed to a crawl. Turns out that working, even a crappy job, is a really, really good thing for me in a lot of ways, not just financially. It's put my head in a much better space and that seems to be opening up all kinds of possibilities for me. It's funny because around the same time that I started this job I met someone who doesn't seem to need to be impressed by money, or success, or status, or any of that bullshit - someone who seems to know how to be happy just being a normal person - someone who knows how to handle the drama in her life with grace and humor - someone who (at least so far) seems to like me only for who I am; it's kind of cool.

spritz

In Venice they drink Campari & prosecco over ice and call it a "spritz" which sounds Yiddish to me lol. I left my map at the hotel so i decided to have aperitivo nearby. I'm at Taverna L'Olandese Dolante which is close to the hotel but there's still a chance of getting lost in this place. There are no straight streets, really no streets at all just bridges and narrow passageways that open up into piazzi and campi. Also everything change names randomly. There are also no cars or scooters or even bicycles here which makes it distinctively different than every other place i've been in Italy.

Mobile Blogging from here.

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On the way to Venice

I'm on the train to Venezia.

Mobile Blogging from here.

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Milano pt 2

I Spent today exploring the central and also southwest part of the city. I'm going to the "isola" neighborhood in search of aperitivo and cena in a couple hours. I leave for Venice in the morning :)

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Milano

After meeting up with Angela at the exhibition yesterday, we wandered over to the Brera district and found a nice outdoor place for aperativi. A friend of hers from Parsons who is also in town, and who's name escapes me, joined us. After the obligitory small plates and negroni, we wandered around and dropped in on a party being held in a clothing shop. There was a DJ and they were handing out champagne and some odd bites of food. This picture is from the party. Afterwards we wandered a bit more and discovered a small alleyway with several restaurants. We picked the one that seemed to be the busiest and ate grilled octopus followed by risotto Milanese followed by a whole seabass. The food was frankly dissapointing compared to other meals I've had in Italy but they finished us off with two rounds of cold mirto which was a welcome surprise. I had fun with Angela yesterday but I'm really looking forward to spending some time on my own for the next few days. Milan is a big city and I haven't seen much of it yet. Not sure where I'll go today, but it's grey and drizzly so maybe I'll try to check out Il Cenacolo.

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Italia

I'm off to Italy this afternoon, it's an overnight flight so I'll arrive tomorrow morning in Milano. I've got a friend who's in the fashion industry who was invited to show her new line by Vogue magazine (it's fashion week there), so I'll be attending the opening party for that tomorrow night! Should be fun and exciting (hope i have something fashionable to wear!) Then I'll spend a couple days bumming around Milan and eating risotto, then a couple days in Venice to check out the Biannale and the amazing wines from the veneto, then up to Scotland for a family wedding, a day or two in London to visit friends and then back home - a whirlwind trip, yes but a much needed one.

This Year

Everything changed this year and it's not over yet; everything is still in flux. I'm hanging on and trying to ride the wave to the shore. I only hope that when i get there it's not too rocky, and with any luck there'll be a cabana with someone serving tropical drinks.

I'm not going to blog about my love life anymore - it was kind of a stupid idea to ever do so. I started this blog last year as a kind of travel journal and I'm going to try and get it back on that track.

Stay tuned.

Has it been a week? Really?

This week really flew by. The show last weekend was way better than I thought it would be; lots of fun and great to see all those people again. Howie's wedding was a blast too, especially seeing friends from the old North-Shore days. One of the bridesmaids was someone I had previously met a few months ago at a party, we were seated next to each other at the wedding and wound up talking a bit. There is a strange dynamic with us... i can't tell if it's good or not but she felt it too, so we're going out this weekend; should be interesting.

at the showboat

We're at the casino. Rehearsal went ok and we got here no problem. This shot is from the lobby, never been listed next to ZZ Top before.

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On The Wagon

I'm on the wagon. What a strange thing to say, why a wagon? I'm sure there's a very interesting story behind that idiom, but I'm not so curious that I'm going to spend my time looking it up. I drank too much Monday and I realized that over the last month or so I've been drinking too much in general so I decided to try for a couple days of full sobriety. Yesterday was fine but last night I started to feel kind of crappy, my friend says it was withdrawal but I'm not so sure. Anyway, this morning I woke up with a clear head and a new perspective on things. I've got 48 more hours to get ready for the show this weekend and I need to go get some coffee because I ran out yesterday. Sorry there's not more interesting stuff to write about, sober people are just boring I guess.

Dreading the Wedding

One of my oldest friends is getting married next weekend and I'm one of the groomsmen. I couldn't be happier for him and I couldn't be more honored to be included in the wedding. I should be excited, right? Here's the problem: I've also got a show in Atlantic CIty next weekend. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it - I have six hours of rehearsal on Friday afternoon, then drive down to the casino, check-in around midnight, wake-up Saturday and sound-check/rehearsal with the singers (usually lasts all day), break, dinner, then the show from 1AM to 3AM, pack my gear, change get back to NYC somehow, hopefully by 6AM so I can sleep for four or five hours, shower, dress for the wedding and meet the wedding party in manhattan at noon, pictures at 1:30, ceremony at 4 and reception following. It's going to be really hard, I'm already dreading it.

Echoes

i just saw my ex girlfriend for the first time in three months, and only the second time in almost five. She's living in the same neighborhood that I lived in from '06 through '08, and close to neighborhood where she was at the time as well. Those were the first two years we were together, and the best times of my life. being back there, seeing her there again... the happiness is gone, but there were still echoes of it reverberating from the trees and buildings. There was a day in the spring of '06 when we were walking hand-in-hand on the same street where she's now living. A complete stranger stopped us just to say that she had never seen a couple that looked more in love than we did at that moment. We laughed about that for a long time.

The point of this meeting was mostly to deliver some misc things she couldn't take with her when she moved out, but i think it was also to see how it would be seeing each-other again. We had agreed to make it a very brief exchange and we stuck to that; we didn't say much. Just seeing her and standing next to her was both familiar and strange.... her voice, her smell, her face... my head is spinning right now. She looked like she wanted to cry, I'm glad she didn't. I wish I knew what she was feeling, I wish i knew how I was feeling.

My Left Ear

I'm so tired, I just got back from the wedding. The reception was lots of fun, but went until 2AM and by the time everyone had straggled out it was 2:30. The ride back to the hotel was almost a 1/2 hour so we weren't back in the room until 3. I had a really good time with Annie at the wedding, she's a very interesting person and not at all like anyone I've ever dated or even known. She's also a very private person and doesn't like the idea of me blogging about her, even just using her first name (although that cat is out of the bag) so I don't want to say too much more about her.

I will say that I'm paranoid about all my relationships these days, it's really hard or maybe even impossible to know what anyone's true motives are. I keep reminding myself that trust is something that has to been earned, and once earned must be continually renewed. I'm a skeptic by nature, but I'm also as vulnerable as the next guy when it comes to certain things, so I'm trying to be cautious.

I'm also completely deaf in my left ear for some reason. I think I might have an ear infection or something because it hurts and I can't hear a blasted thing out of it.

Smiling

I've got a date for the wedding! I'm really happy. I can't stop smiling :)

old friends, new friends

Not sure what to write about today. I just finished transcribing another chart for the show. Apparently my ex gf is back in town from her trip to LA. She was supposed to call me to arrange a time to come pick up her houseplants either yesterday or today but I guess she forgot. I saw her making plans on facebook to hang out with friends tonight, friends that I used to hang with too. I miss some of those people. I think that's one of the hardest parts about our breakup; losing those good people that I met through her. At first everyone says, "oh, of course we'll still be friends and of course we'll still stay in touch" but gradually people gravitate back to their pre-relationship groups of friends. I guess it might be awkward to go out with them at this point, I don't know.

Annie is still considering coming to the wedding with me this weekend; I really hope she says yes. I had originally planed on going by myself, but then a few weeks ago, I had been hanging out with this girl for a while and she was into going with me so I asked the groom if I could bring a date. They were really accommodating for such a last minute change. Then a few days ago the situation with that girl changed so I was back to going solo and I was frankly a little embarrassed to show up alone after having asked them to include another person. So if Annie says yes I'll be psyched. She's mad cool and we really like a lot of the same things, snowboarding, sushi, traveling, etc. but the truth is that I don't really know too much about her as a person, so this weekend would be a great chance to find out more.

Anyway, it should be interesting!

Autumn in August

It's grey and chilly outside; a preview of autumn in late August. Perfect weather for running so I'm going to get out there as soon as I've had a suitable amount of coffee to wake up. I still have tons of prep to do for the 9/12 show so that'll be my focus today. I can't believe it's in two weeks! I haven't performed for months and I'm looking forward to it, I'm hearing that there might be a bunch of shows this fall which is great; I love being on stage and I miss it.

This weekend I'm going to a friend's wedding in NJ, I think I mentioned it in a post a couple days ago. The situation with the girl I was going to go with has changed and so I'm going by myself which sucks. I decided to ask Annie to go with me last night but it's so last-minute for her, and we've only really been out a couple of times, so the idea of going to a wedding together might be a little weird for her. So it looks like I'll be the single guy without a date at the wedding :(

The Heat Of The Moment

And now you find yourself in '82
The disco hotspots hold no charm for you
You can't concern yourself with bigger things
You catch the pearl and ride the dragon's wings

They just don't write lyrics like this anymore... I mean, anytime you can sing about disco hotspots and dragons in the same stanza... pure genius.

Strange Night

Last night was strange; a little sad at first and then kind of wonderful.

If you've been following my blog you know that I started casually hanging out with a girl a couple months ago and it kind of developed into something. It's a little hard to define it, basically a friendship with benefits I guess, but that doesn't really sound right. It's definitely not a "relationship" because technically she's already got one of those, but neither of us can deny that we have developed feelings for each other. Anyway, things came to a head between her and her other guy last night and she's freaking out about it and needs space to sort it all out. I really like her, but one of my goals is a drama-free life and I just don't get what's going on with her and the decisions she's making and not making. So that kind of sucked. We had plans to go to a wedding together this weekend but I think I might be going solo.

Then there's Annie, the girl I met on the plane a little more than two weeks ago. We'd only been out once if you don't count the six hours we spent on the plane together and I was eager to see her again, so when I found myself at 'In Vino' having the meatballs (really, really good) and a beautiful glass of Barbaresco, I decided to see if she was free. She walked her dog over to meet me and then we made our way over to a small bar on sixth street. Even though the place was empty, they wouldn't let her dog inside. Our plan was just to have one glass of wine and hang out for a few minutes, so she tied him up outside and we went in. At this point I should describe her dog. He's a big, beautiful, jet-black Mastiff. One of the sweetest dogs I've ever met, really gentle and totally devoted to her; he's also 130lbs. So... before we even sat down to have our wine, he (the dog) was nervous about being tied up, and she (Annie) was nervous about him being nervous. We took a table by the window and Annie decided to move him closer to the window so she could keep an eye on him. The only thing to tie him too on that side was the smoker's bucket. For those of you who don't know, NYC is smoke-free and so bars often put a metal pail filled with sand outside for their patrons who smoke. I don't know what happened next, but somehow the dog got FREAKED out and bolted down the street at full speed with the bucket tied to his leash. It was horrible, the sound of the bucket hitting the pavement kept freaking him out and he was in full-panic mode. He ran into the street and around the block and it's a miracle that he wasn't hit by a car. Annie was in shock, so I took off and tried to catch up to him. It was dark and he was so far ahead of me and out of control that I quickly lost sight of him but the neighborhood people were all helpful, shouting out, "he turned left" or, "he's on 7th St". By some miracle I was able to catch up to him and he, confused and scared, let me take his leash. The happy ending is that he's ok, and once Annie calmed down we had our wine and actually wound up having a really good time.

So I guess all my running finally paid off in a way. I was a hero, and she was suitably impressed.

As Much as I Want To

It's funny how certain songs make you think of specific places or people. I drove down Ocean Parkway today to a pizza joint in Gravesend after our Bocce victory today. Passing by Cortelyou and then Foster brought back such a familiar feeling. I could imagine her in my car right next to me, I still have the same CDs in the player and it all came flooding back to me. I have to admit that now after everything I know, as much as I want to hate her, I don't feel anything but love for her. The three years we had were without question the happiest of my life since early childhood. I would never let her back into my life now; the trust is gone, but there is still love.

Love Has Got A Line On Me

I'm trying to figure out what's appropriate to blog about and what's not tonight, specifically regarding my personal relationships these days. Where is the line and how do I know when I've crossed it? There is a lot of titillating stuff I could write about, but why? Does anyone really care about my love life? After all, the point of my blog isn't to compete with Penthouse Forum or even Harlequin Romance novels..... So for tonight, let's just say that sometimes fantasies really do come true, and leave it at that ;)

Hot Friday

It's going to be another hot one today. I'm excited to see Annie tonight. No, the musical about the red-haired orphan hasn't returned to broadway (thank god). Annie is the girl I met on the plane back from Miami almost two weeks ago. It's been so long that I'm not really sure I remember what she looks like, but I do remember thinking that she was really hot. I think this date is either going to be REALLY good, or REALLY bad. I have no clue which way it will go though. We'll find out :)

ugh

Today is my ex-girlfriend's birthday. I understand from someone's comment on facebook that she's in LA celebrating in her usual dramatic fashion. I know she has one or two friends there, but I imagine she's there because of someone in particular. It's really hard to come to terms with that even months later.

I told you so

Anyone who didn't buy a ton of citigroup when it was like $1.50 a share (or maybe less) a few months ago was a fool. I'm not going to name names in order to protect the foolish and save them from public humiliation.

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呂方跟李翊君演唱会

If anyone wants tickets let me know asap. This is a VIP show so the tickets aren't really even for sale, but I can probably get one or two from the promoter.

ooooh what a lucky man he was

I am a lucky, lucky man.

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Follow Up

She got a new phone and she called me this afternoon. We're on for Friday night, let's see what happens :)

addendum

The description of the girl i met on the plane in no way shape or form reflects my opinion of anyone else's looks. ;)

I'm not really sure what happened but...

I had a date last night, at least I thought I was supposed to have one, but I think I got stood-up!

I met a unbelievably beautiful girl on the plane back from Miami last Monday, I mean like drop-dead, jaw-dropping good looking, and you could say that we... um... (sound of throat clearing)... "hit it off" on the plane, so we exchanged numbers and agreed that we'd both like to go out for a real date. We talked later that night and decided that maybe Wednesday or Thursday would be good. She called me the next day to say that she had a "friend in town" and so could we do something on the weekend instead. That was fine with me so we set Sunday evening as the date.

OK, here's where it gets a little confusing: SHE called me on Saturday to confirm the date, SHE said she wanted to make sure that I hadn't forgotten about HER (I hadn't). She said she wanted to eat at 6:30 or 7:00 and that we'd talk Sunday in the day to set a place. So Sunday afternoon I'm at Crate & Barrel looking at furniture and I decide to call her to close the deal, but i get her voicemail; as I'm leaving her a message my phone tells me I've got an email. The email is a notice that she's left me a message on Facebook (starting to get strange). The message says "I lost my blackberry :(". So I'm thinking ok, not a big deal, maybe dinner's going to be a little later than we thought, but no problem. So I reply on Facebook telling her I'm in Manhattan and I leave my number so she can call me once she replaces her phone, which I assume is what she's doing. I wait..... I wait... I wait.... nothing. no call, no email, no text, no Facebook message reply, nothing! So I wait until 7:15 and then, confused, I get in a cab and go back to my apartment, order dinner, open a nice bottle of Gavi and enjoy an evening at home by myself.

It's Monday morning now and she still hasn't contacted me to apologize or explain what happened! She changed her FB status to let her friends know that she lost her phone so I believe that really happened, but WTF?

It's got to be the strangest way to get stood-up, right? I'm not emotionally invested in this girl so I don't feel hurt exactly,
I'm more confused than anything. I'm just wondering if there is going to be a call at some point and how I want to react to it if it happens. I guess it depends on what she says, although I'm being encouraged by my advisors to blow her off. We'll see.

Un Amarone Buonissimo

I had the nicest Amarone with dinner last night. I should have taken a pic of the label but I was a little distracted. A good friend of mine suggested a restaurant/wine bar called 'In Vino'. The food was very good, but the wine list was extraordinary. I highly recommend it if you find yourself in alphabet city. (E 4th St btwn A & B).

Wait... what?

So it's Friday? It's 5:30? Wha Happun? I feel like I lost two days. This girl that I've been hanging out with came over this afternoon in her bikini to lay out in the sun on my terrace. I'm not sure what happened to my day..... but this is why I get nothing done in my life! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I appreciate every day for the gift that it is. I just wish I wasn't such a sucker for pretty girls, it's gotten me into real trouble before..... add it to my list of things to work on. :)

Afternoon Delight

OK, Starland Vocal Band reference, not cool but appropriate in describing my day so far. I meant to have a productive day, but it surprisingly degenerated into something more bacchanalian, and yes, delightful.

I really need to buckle down and get some disciplined workouts on the bass in every day but I'm having trouble making that happen. I've got a big show coming up in a few weeks and my chops are shit right now. I somehow manage to get my runs in occasionally though; I did get a good three-mile speed workout in with some hills this morning.

My life is good; The sadness is fading, I'm surrounded by beautiful women and great food. What more could a man want?

So now I'm ready for a nap lol. but I need to make myself run through the charts I've got and also try to bang out a rough chart for 沙沙的雨 which is actually a funky(ish) cover of 'laughter in the rain' (neil sedaka?). The Chinese title isn't really translatable 沙沙 is an onomatopoeia pronounced "sha sha" which I guess is like the sound of raindrops so we're calling it "the sound of the rain".

I'll be back to post more later.

I know it

Ok, I'm a lucky-ass son-of-a whatever and please don't think for a second that I don't know it..... I do.

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long-ass day

Yesterday was crazy. My flight was late departing from the gate, then had to go back to the gate because of an "anomaly". We waited on the plane for three hours for them to fix the problem. When we finally arrived at LaGuardia the baggage situation was horrible. None of the bags from
My flight came out until an hour after landing. I can't complain too much though, you can sometimes meet really interesting people on planes :)

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Monday Monday

I had a great weekend. I had some serious beach-time, some really good food, and a lot of fun. I'm packing up now. A little sad to go, but home is in New York. I'll be back.

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afternoon

Back at the hotel after lunch. It cleared up outside and got HOT! I managed to do something to my back dancing last night so I'm getting a massage before I hit the beach for the last time. Man I feel old, not too many other guys my age out there. I gotta work out more.

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Looking for Lunch (in all the right places)

It occurs to me as I'm back out on Lincoln looking for a lunch spot, that a single guy could really have a good time here. I mean I love Brooklyn, but it's kind of off-the-hook here.

Mobile Blogging from here.

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Saturday night

So it's a Saturday night in south beach. Everyone in Italy takes the month of August off and at least half of them come here. It's amazing walking across Lincoln road, you wouldn't believe this many beautiful people could exist. The great part is that the Italian restaurants (and there are a lot of them) are all superb. I just had a great meal and now I'm heading back over to Collins to find a party. I've got Eros Ramazzotti on my iPod and I feel like dancing and meeting people tonight, it's hot and the moon is out. I love this life. :)

Mobile Blogging from here.

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Dinner

Seriously, the best food I've had since the last time I was in Sardegna. The restaurant is called Sardinia and it's really authentic. Amazing, words can't do it justice. It's also way off the main drag so no tourists. Absolutely fantastic.

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Il Ristorante

Espanola way

Espanola way

La Playa

Ok, I'm in South Beach. I hope Capt. Fogg doesn't hate me for not making a family visit but I really needed some time alone on a beach and I'm only here for two days. So far I'm getting exactly what I needed.

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Mas Playa

Palms

Beach

Just checked in. Heading down to the beach. Will post more later.

Mobile Blogging from here.

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Planes at LGA

Decided to get out of Dodge for a couple days. Too much drama in my life here for now.

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First Class Lounge.

Texts

I just got my phone bill for July. My text messaging was off the charts. I've never even come close to the limit I had on my plan but I was 10 times over in July! Needless to say I just switched to an unlimited plan, but maybe that's wishful thinking...

Another Beautiful Day

Today looks like a beautiful day. It's bright and sunny, not too hot, a light breeze; perfect summer weather.

I'm feeling a little blue today. The email exchange I had with Nam yesterday was on my mind all night. It brought out so many emotions, not all good ones either. I don't understand where she's coming from anymore and I really don't understand why she refuses to talk it out face to face. I asked her not to email me anymore until she's ready for that, but I'm not so sure if it will ever happen.

I'm also bumming because the girl who I've become really close to over the last month (the one in my poem) has been in a relationship with someone for a while. Our connection is deep and has her confused and she's decided to take two weeks to try to figure out what is going to happen with him. Out of respect, I'm staying out of the picture until she's sure about what she wants. It sucks for me because we were sharing everything with each other and were both getting a lot out of it. Now I've got nobody but my buddies to talk to.... and my shrink.

I did make a new connection this week with someone who was suggested to me as an Italian language conversation partner. To be honest, there hasn't been much conversation, but that's not necessarily a bad thing ;) As my friend Maurizio put it, "she's teaching you the REAL language of Italy" lol.

I need to crank out another chart for the Sept show. I'm going down the 呂方 set in order so the next one is 養你一世. After that I need to get some road miles in. My speed is getting back up to where I like it but my stamina isn't quite there yet. Then I'm meeting Anna for lunch, it's her birthday so I'm going to take her somewhere special, then who knows......

Not the best day ever

I had such an interesting day. full of really high highs and really low lows. I had an amazing, beautiful time with a very special girl I met recently, and yet I also felt a deep yearning all day long to talk with someone else who means more to me than she should, someone with whom I can no longer speak, at least for a while (a very complicated situation). Then there was my ex-girlfriend who suddenly appeared in my inbox, who still can't bring herself to call me or meet me face-to-face. That is both frustrating and infuriating. My feelings for her are so intense and I fear that the longer they stew the worse the release will be when we inevitably are forced to confront each other.

So it's been a drama-filled day. I really need one or two without drama, but I'm not sure that is in the cards for me for a while.

Well, at least I know I'm alive, right?

Tomorrow is another day :)

La Bistecca

Having the bistecca at Fragole tonight. Not bad, but a far cry from le quattro leoni di Firenze.

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Il Vino

Drama

Breakups are so complicated. Unbelievable drama about the stupidest shit. Making arrangements to pick up some freakin' houseplants that belong to her, having to have a third party do it because she's still unable/unwilling to see to me face-to-face. Am I going to so-and-so's wedding, because if I am, she's not.... geeeeez. I can live without this drama right now, I was doing so well. Practically no contact at all for weeks, and then like 10 emails back and forth in an hour, trivial, mundane shit but fully charged with all of the pent-up, unspoken anger seeping out from between every word. UGH

Lunch

Tagliatelle at Stone Park for lunch today, paired with a nice cold glass of Gavi.

2010

My plan for this year was to run the 9 requisite races in order to qualify for guaranteed entry into next year's ING NYC Marathon. I ran my first three qualifiers in the first three months of this year, then I stopped running. Well, I never completely stopped but I was so depressed during April, May and June that I could barely motivate to do anything - especially anything good for myself.

So now here I am in August starting to get my legs back and feeling motivated to complete my plan. There's a snag - there are not that many qualifiers left this year that I can run. The Chinese show in September and my trip to Europe knock out three or four potential races, and what I'm left with are exactly 6 more (the number I need) that I could potentially run. So I registered for the first one which is in Harlem on Aug 22nd, but in order for this to work I'll have to run every weekend in December which means if a Christmas gig comes up (which usually happens) I'll have to take it and I won't qualify for 2010. UGH.....

a poem for her

pale eyes

a hazy summer sky

or a mountain seen from miles away

restless, craving, never calm

she falls

how can she be so frail

and yet so strong

what draws me to her

half-crazed with doubt

pale skin

a winter morning

or a storm cloud ripe to bursting

wanting to be touched

she waits

how can she be in love

and yet be alone

what needs lie there

unfulfilled

good day

I think today is going to be really good. I've got a lot of work to do to prepare for the September Chinese show, I've got an accupuncture session and hopefully I'll get a nice run in before it gets too hot this morning. I didn't have any alcohol yesterday which was really good for me after Monday night's excess. I'm going to try to wait for the weekend before having another drink and I might fast either today or tomorrow as well.

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one of those nights

ever have a night that you wish you could "do-over", well last night was one of those nights for me. drank way too much, drunk-texted things i shouldn't have said to someone I really care about, and generally made an ass of myself. bad... really bad....

The End Of The Tunnel

Finally some real light in my life. I'd been to some very, very dark places since the end of May. Losing Nam was utterly devastating to me. Most everyone I speak with including my therapist tells me that it will take more than a year for me to fully "get over her" and completely heal from this. I don't know, I can't think in those terms; I'm too impatient! 

I am starting to feel like myself again and much of the credit for that goes to a girl I met a few weeks ago. She is someone who's gone through a similar situation in her recent past, and we find that we can really understand each-other's pain and we also seem to relate well on a lot of other levels too. The best part is that she's also really, really good looking so if this turns into something more, well.... who knows. 

Gone

last post was March 17th. My whole life has changed since then. Nam left me! I dropped her off at JFK on April 5th with tears in both of our eyes, so she could do a 7 week run of Saigon out west. She came back on May 23rd saying that she didn't love me anymore, and she moved out of our apartment on the 25th. The reasons are many and still confusing (even to me). Out of respect I won't get into details of what transpired to cause this sudden and complete change of heart, but suffice it to say that it was and continues to be a shock to me that certain events transpired the way they did and that even after both of us offering forgiveness, she just wanted to end it. No attempt to reconcile.. over 3 years together and that's it... nothing, just over. I'm utterly devastated. I foolishly put my faith in her vows and promises to me that she loved me and wanted to be with me forever. I stupidly poured all of my energies and passions into creating and maintaining what I thought was a really beautiful love affair with the most beautiful woman I have ever known, only to be sucker-punched with this out-of-the-blue situation. It's still unreal to me...  I still awaken every morning reaching out for her across the bed. My emotions vacillate between complete anger at her for what she did and intense longing to see her and feel her again. I have no choice but to resign myself to the fact that she is gone forever and there is nothing I can do about it. I am moving slowly onward into the darkness without a compass, without a star to guide me. "dove sarai anima bella? stella gemella dove sarai?"

I'm Back

To anyone who's still following this blog, I must apologize for such a long interruption between posts. Just to keep you up to date, I ran the NYRR 8000 in Central Park on Saturday morning with a finishing time of 36:24 (a personal best for that distance) and I've been very busy going to Chinese classes and learning material for my next show on 3/29. Nam has started performances of Crazy Head Space, a brilliant new musical, which I saw last night. She is also preparing for her upcoming run of Miss Saigon in Salt Lake City, studying Korean, and continuing to take acting and martial arts classes. Hopefully I'll have more to post soon :^D

Not Too Bad

I ran the NYRR's annual Al Gordon Snowflake 5k in Prospect Park today. It was a beautiful clear morning, but a little bit cold at around 27° at the start. I did better than I thought I would, finishing in 22:18 with an average pace of 7:11 per mile. I had the advantage of having run the park many times, and knowing the hills is really the key to running a good road race. Overall, I placed 528 out of 3987 which is not too bad; a more fair ranking would be to say that I placed 97th out of 387 men in my age group. Placing inside the top 25% of my age/gender group is not too bad considering that 5 years ago I couldn't run a mile period!

Kunjip

We went to Kunjip for dinner last night. The food there is extraordinary, these pictures don't do it justice. Aside from the obligatory kimchee, we had a seafood bibimbop, a scallion pancake, and the most delicious Korean BBQ beef ribs. I don't know what they marinate these in but it's fantastic! We highly recommend this place if you don't mind waiting for a table.

K-town

Mobile Blogging from here.

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Rough

Why do I always sit in the front row in class? The range of individual skill levels in my Mandarin 4 class is pretty extreme. There are several people who have lived and/or worked in China, and a few who studied at the college level in the past. There are also a few people who should probably consider starting over with Mandarin 1. I think I'm somewhere in the middle and I guess I should have sat somewhere in the middle. The teacher turned to me first every time she wanted someone to give examples of grammatical structures or to spontaneously make up sentences or stories in Chinese. She speaks at full conversational speed and I feel like I'm only comprehending about 40% of what she says. I can tell she's going to be the toughest instructor I've had yet.

Nam's got it rough too. Her class has only got 5 students and all of them have at least a little background in either Korean or some East-Asian language, which she does not. On day one of her beginner-level class she was singled out for being the only one who was not able to read the Korean alphabet. She's working really hard at home to catch up, and I'm inspired by her determination. 

She's got two classes per week, and tonight's one of them. I'll be meeting up with her in K-town for dinner afterwards, maybe Korean BBQ...... I'll take pics and post.

Few and Far Between

I've had little time for blogging recently as you may have noticed by the absence of posts for the last (almost) two weeks. We were in Florida for a few days which was nice although the weather wasn't particularly warm. Nam began her Korean language classes tonight; she's actually there right now and I'm waiting to hear how it went. I'm really psyched for her to learn the food terminology. Korean food is fantastic, but I'm lost when I go into the more authentic joints on 32nd St. in K-town.

I start Mandarin Chinese IV at NYU tomorrow and so I've been reviewing all of my previous lessons for the last few days. I'm also entered to run in the Al Gordon Snowflake 5k which will be run on the 21st in Prospect Park this year. I'm really happy that the roadrunners decided to have something other than the grand-prix 1/2 marathon in Brooklyn this year. The course has some serious hills and I'm way out of shape, so I'm just shooting for something around 24 minutes, 23 would be awesome but I think that's not too realistic. 

Nam booked herself in a production of Miss Saigon in Salt Lake City for most of April & May. I hear that Park City often stays open until the middle of April, so I'll be out there for a while as well if I'm not booked. 

Winter

Cold morning, hot coffee, snow in the trees, Dinah Washington singing about how she doesn't hurt anymore. Winter is wearing out it's welcome, I'm ready for Spring.

We re-booked our trip to Florida (where I'm sure it's warm and sunny) for next week because the airline advised us of the possibility of cancelled and heavily delayed flights yesterday, and offered fee-free re-booking. Of course the storm that caused so many problems in other areas didn't do much at all here but snow and rain a little. 

Last Sunday evening was Lunar New-Year's eve, we went out for dinner with some people from Nam's Kung Fu class to a sichuan joint on St. Mark's Place in the village; it wasn't bad, but I miss the real thing. On Monday evening Tae came down from Hartford and we went out to Blue Ribbon for dinner. The three of us shared two appetizers, a whole grilled pompano, and a nice bottle of white wine from Trentino (I really love wines from the alto adige/trentino/oltreppo pavese region if you ever need to buy me a gift) after which we decided that we were still hungry, so we went next door for sushi (and sake). I love living in Brooklyn!

I'm not running much these days although I'm still eating like I'm in training, the results of which are not pretty! Anyway, in February I am planning on resuming a much stricter training regimen. I'll also be resuming my formal Mandarin Chinese classes at NYU in less than two weeks, so I'm reviewing all of my lessons and notes from my previous semesters and drilling flash-cards today. I've also been uploading video clips of various concerts that I've done to my youtube page. You can't see me too much in most of these unless you look closely, but I'm there. The quality of the video and audio is pretty varied. Some of them are board mixes and others are from handheld cameras in the audience. The clips from the Mohegan Sun are great because they're directly from the video feed for the big-screens in the arena. I'll be posting more in the near future. 

Catching Up

Last weekend we drove up to Hartford to hear Nam's dad sing with the Silk City Chorus. I had to sneak this shot with my phone, so the resolution isn't that great. We hit some nasty weather on the way back but we made it home just fine. It's been really cold here all week but we're heading down to sunny Florida next week to visit my family and hopefully get a reprieve from the winter for a while.

brrrrr....

Wow, it's really cold in NY. We're going up to Connecticut for the day to finally visit Nam's family. (xmas got axed 'cause we we both so sick). I'm feeling the need for warmer climes so I think a FLA trip is in the works as well. 

a funny thing happened on the way to the garbage chute

i must have made 10 trips down to our storage space this afternoon. We bought a steel shelving unit for it so we could finally organize the second bedroom closet which has been full of boxes since we moved in. So around 7:15 I decide I'm done for the day but before I make myself a self-congratulatory drink for a good day's work, I decide to make one last trip to the garbage chute in the hallway to take out some remaining trash. I'm 3 feet from the door as i hear it close behind me. I instinctively reach down to make sure I have my keys with me. Guess what .... So now I'm at Loki (the corner bar) waiting for Nam to get back from an audition and rescue me. Oh well.... Could be a lot worse. :)

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Certificate

This came in the mail just before we left for Stowe. I emailed it to most of you, but in case you didn't see it.....

Back Home

We were planning on driving back Friday afternoon so we could have another day on the mountain. However, Nam got a call on Thursday about being seen Friday afternoon for a major print-ad casting. We got up REALLY early Friday morning and drove back allowing an extra two hours for traffic. The drive was easy until we got to the last 5 miles of I95 in Connecticut. An accident had traffic backed up for miles so we tried to take a detour which wasn't so effective. My decision to take the cross-bronx to the Henry Hudson instead of taking the Tri-Borough (I guess they're calling it the RFK now) wasn't so good either. We wound up in midtown with exactly 3 minutes to spare! Later we went to Sushi Samba for lunch and had mojitos with our sushi. I took this shot of the Brooklyn bridge and lower Manhattan from the B train on the way home. 

Family

Met up with Amy and kids in Waterbury for lunch on Wednesday.

Powder!

Day one was mostly frozen granular and packed powder. Wednesday night a huge snowstorm dumped over a foot of powder on the mountains so we woke up to fantastic conditions Thursday morning.

Taking A Break

Nam in the Gondola

in the gondola

day 1 in the gondola going to the top of Mt. Mansfield.

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Stowe

Our flight to Vermont was cancelled last night so we drove up here. Got in around midnight, just ahead of a snowstorm. Woke up to what looks like great conditions. We are very excited!

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Forgive Me Readers

It's been more than a week since my last post. The show last weekend went well but the long hours of rehearsal, sound-check, more rehearsal and then the late show really knocked us out. The night we got home Nam started to get violently ill with a nasty stomach virus. I got it a few days later and we both spent the better part of last week resting and trying to recover. We're 100% better now and are looking forward to hitting the slopes in Vermont this week at Stowe. I'm going to try to take my phone with me at least once so I can try mobile blogging from the mountain.