this is crazy. sort of scary, too, i guess. being in a sophisticated and worldly american city can have its negatives. one of these being the expense, and especially the cost of renting or buying an apartment. but even NYC’s market cannot withstand the tides of the new recession. which is good news for me, since i may be moving from my east village cocoon soon. but this article is still kinda frightening:

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/106480/Rents-Drop-Nationwide-as

has more pressure ever been heaped on a man in all of history than what is being put on mr. obama right now? facebook, the news, the blogosphere, the hustle and bustle, all alive with buzzwords like “change” and “freedom” and “hope.” i am as much a supporter of obama’s being in office as the next person (well, the next person who’s not fucking braindead), but at the same time i wonder if people aren’t expecting too much too soon or being unrealistic. i am generally more the romantic/idealist than the pragmatist, but still. our country tis of thee hath been circling the proverbial drain for some years now, in many ways. this one man is not going to swoop down like some superhero and remedy all our ills in a fortnight. he’s even been saying this to everyone. but is no one listening? i just hope when the newness settles, and the struggle continues, people won’t be shattered. it will take time to heal. it will take time to change, and to change the perceptions of others, both here and abroad. miracles would be lovely. but they are not to be expected. but i do agree that either way it is a time to rejoice. a huge occasion, a symbol for all time and for future generations. the only thing that would complete it is if someone formally beat the shit out of dubya as he leaves the white house. but really, folks, we have him to thank for this. no dubya, no barack. that’s just the way it goes.

my, what a breath of fresh air to not have a buffoon as the spokeperson for our country. at least we don’t have to worry about that for a while.

yeah. so long as it keeps coming down, it’s actually kinda pretty out there. but as soon as it stops, there’s nothing actively burying the accumulating filth and whatnot, and it gets ugly again right quick. but right now it’s coming down and it feels all cozy and wintry and whatnot.

using my iphone and technology and shit. cool.

lovely as this fleeting moment of wintriness is, i still can’t help but want to live elsewhere at this time of year more than any other. LA or the south of france, maybe. my dreams of being bicoastal have not faded much over these past few years. you never know. though it’d be pretty odd–getting into improv and acting, thinking of LA. wait, who am i again? where are we? are we there yet? i wanna go home.

something like 23 days before i can have a drink but i’ve decided to quit talking about it. i did cheat the other night and had one beer, which i drank very slowly, sans incident. but i ain’t gonna push it. a friend brought it to me, so i somehow felt less guilty or less like i was hurting myself.

anyway. i have a ton of shit to do. i wonder if blogs were invented as procrastination tools, really. it all seems meaningful. but is it? how many other idiots are writing about the snow or other elements in their blogs right now instead of actually doing something? anyway, i’m gonna go do something, and stop writing about it. toodles.

twenty-five more days alcohol-free and counting. i really do feel like i’m in rehab or something but maybe that’s because i keep talking about it. it’s funny, though, how in some ways people never change. instinctive behavior is always the same. when we’re kids and our parents, guardians, teachers, other authority types tell us that we can’t have something or that we can’t DO something, generally we want to do it. and more. the forbidden always piques curiosity. and in adulthood i don’t think we are much different. perhaps we are even worse. because as adults we are technically “free” to do what we want. so imposed restrictions, i think, can be even harder to bear. i think it is human nature to want most that which is unavailable, forbidden, restricted, at least a good part of the time. and so here i am craving a drink. and probably other things i shan’t mention here.

all in all i guess that toward the end of this past week, regular life more or less resumed for me. i still feel a little uncomfortable, but i am trying to ignore all that. last night was the first real rehearsal back with the band and with our new bandmate, andrew. it will be slow-going for a little while, as it always is when a new person enters the picture and has to learn preexisting stuff, etc. but we are dividing the time between rehearsing old songs/getting andrew up to speed and working on brand-new stuff that none of us have worked on before, so that’s totally fresh for everyone and puts us all on the same page. last night was a lot of fun and i think things are going to be cool. we’re hoping to start playing shows again for april. later than i’d hoped, but then again i never thought i’d be saying i just had sinus surgery after being sick for like six months, either. i have a ton of writing to finish and high hopes for this year. most important i think there’s a new level of comfort and honesty within the band that wasn’t really possible before our lineup change and perhaps a bit of refocusing. and i am thankful for that. am hoping to stretch out and do some more acousticky/lo-fi solo stuff this year, too. a lot of ideas swimming around in my head right now. some of them have to be good, that’s just how it always is.

i also start my level 3 improv class at the UCB this coming week and i am so excited to dig back into that and have some fun with it. at least four friends are in that class with me, and three of them are part of my regular soon-to-be-performing group, so this should be really cool after the brutality of 201 with a certain teacher that kicks everyone’s ass. i am psyched.

and weirdly, because i’m not really busy enough already, i am applying to get into the atlantic acting school’s part-time program that starts in february. i don’t know that i’ll make it in, but i am hoping. i think improv is making me more interested in acting. let’s face it, i am much more, uh, smoldering(?) than i am funny. haha. but in all seriousness, one can only help the other, which will somehow probably feed into and inform music, and writing. i feel like it’s all kind of one and the same thing. or, i am being unfocused and distracting myself and wasting time. but i don’t think so.

it’s insanely cold here in the east village. this blog was in fact inspired by my not wanting to go run an errand i need to run before i meet a friend for sober hangout time. ugh. is there really such a thing? does there really have to be? just kidding.

gonna bundle up and run that errand now. to all the people in LA, puerto rico, africa, australia, and wherever else it’s warm: you suck!

equals 28. which is how many days before i am allowed to have a drink now. infectious disease guy decided to up the antibiotic duration to be sure we knock out whatever is still living in my face. i feel like i am in AA or something. hate to be all woe-is-me. but 28 days? that just sucks. just to be sure, i called the pharmacy yesterday, and asked the disease doc point-blank about booze this afternoon. he said if i had A drink over the course of taking this medication that’s not the end of the world, but generally it’s a bad idea as it can have serious liver effects. i can deal with not drinking and i don’t mean to sound like i am in a perpetual state of drunkenness or something. but this forced separation blows. TDoJB has a meeting tonight. and i think i’m gonna have my one drink. because it’s going to be a long four weeks or so.

so i’m now just a day over two weeks old in sinus surgery years. somewhere over the weekend i sort of turned another corner after a miserably uncomfortable week of hypersensitivity all through the cavities in my head, coupled with total stir craziness. i am finally breathing through my nose again which is a good thing, and i do feel a little different, though i am far from healed. in fact, the plot thickens, maybe.

cultures taken from whatever junk they pulled out of my sinuses during surgery finally came back and my ENT told me that she had to speak to an INFECTIOUS DISEASE DOCTOR to consult about what course of treatment i should have now. she looked at me and cleaned me out again yesterday and told me that she’s putting me on another course of new scary antibiotics for whatever bacteria the culture grew out. i was so freaked out for a bit, i can’t even describe it. but apparently this is nothing to freak about. so yeah, i’m on these awful antibiotics. one is a devilish red little pill that turns your piss bright orange and cannot mix with even a drop of alcohol if you don’t want to kill your liver. ten days of this stuff as of yesterday. so eight more days until i can drink again. right. so lingering infectious disease/plague. my eyes are also bugging the shit out of me. they have been since my 4th of july pinkeye episode (which may have started all this?) but now they seem worse. i don’t know what else. i am thankful that that’s about all, i guess.

you would think that hardly any alcohol in my system for like three weeks now would make me more lucid and clearheaded than i have been in years. but no, friends, i have been cranky and sensitive and pissing people off left and right. i attribute this mostly to my stir craziness. which is ending this week. i feel much better having engaged in a couple of social and band-related activities already. but still, i didn’t realize how raw this whole ordeal would make me. i think that i am a strong person, but being taken out of my element with having this crazy operation and then being homebound, etc., has been pretty hard on me. there is at least one person in my life i have totally alienated as a result of my antsy feeling sorry for myself-ness. and maybe more than one. hopefully people are understanding and damage is not permanent.

thank the stars that time marches on and that our bodies (usually) heal. and as my body heals and i am able to get back to my life and the things that i love again, the happier i will be. so i’m on the road to happiness again. and this is good. am staying optimistic that it was all worth it. hope you are, too, whoever you are.

as of yesterday i am allowed to blow my nose gently. and to sing without pushing myself too much. both are a godsend, if i believed in such things.

so tra la la.

hmm. i think i am over this. the not sleeping (i haven’t slept in my actual bed in over two weeks, favoring the couch and multiple pillows for elevating my still bleeding head) and the tiredness. the pressure in my head, worse the more active i am. the bloody gunk oozing down my throat, and out my nose when i wash it out. the exile from most of my usual activities. the not drinking (self-imposed, but wise)! the uncertainty as to whether or not this butchery i put myself through will help me. the monotony of it all. the fucking itching in my nose, as i suppose all the scabs and whatnot heal up and dry out. the inability to wash my face properly, because i can’t touch my nose. the not being allowed to BLOW my nose, goddammit! the stir-crazy boredom. i know i have to be patient. but these past few weeks have been a bit torturous, and i am getting antsy. let’s hope it’s smoother sailing soon. this past week has not been my favorite.

great article on the suicide death of david foster wallace, whom i’ve always thought of as the elliott smith of the literati:

http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/seven_false_starts_about_the_death_of_wallace/7833/

bob lefsetz’s recent meandering blog post about DFW, though, makes my brain bleed in its incoherentness. some of his recent postings about the music business are pretty awesome, though. very sad. but awesome.

busy here. trying to catch up after days of inactivity.

i am doing ok. recovery is uncomfortable still and probably will be for a while. irrigating and washing out my nose like a religious fanatic. last night, i dislodged a gob of dark bloody snot that had the consistency of a pudding, to the point where i had to pull it out of me. i really should have taken a picture. so gross. other than the constant bloody drainage and the pressure in my head i am doing alright, though. have half-resumed activity as of this week, but am still spending a lot of time laying low. no music or improv until next week really. plenty to work on at home. songs and lyrics. new year cleanup and organizing. getting the annoyances of 2008 out of my hair. it is all good. haven’t had a drink since xmas day, with the exception of a sip or two on new year’s eve. feels weird. i miss tequila. but i am really trying to be good and heal nicely so i can gleefully kill more brain cells in the future sans guilt (and hopefully sans constant sickness).

can’t wait to try and sing next week, wonder if my voice will sound different post-roto-rooting of the cavities in the ol’ noggin. can’t wait to start rehearsals again with our new bandmate and friend andrew. can’t wait to improv again. can’t wait for the taste of blood to not be in my mouth.

excited for a brilliant 2009. hope you are too, kids.

tomorrow marks a week since my sinus surgery. i will see my ENT in the am and she’ll probably clean out a lot of the junk that’s accumulated in my nose/head. not that i haven’t been cleaning it out religiously on my own, too. i am feeling ok today. i went out to get some supplies and it felt good to walk around and get some air. i almost didn’t want to go back inside.

i am stir crazy to say the least. this week has been kind of surreal–i’m not quite right enough to do anything serious or important, but not quite off enough to not feel like i should be doing more than just watching movies, irrigating my nose 5 or 6 times a day (as instructed), and trying to rest. i get the occasional twinge of pain here and there, and lots of weird sensations that other sinusy folks would understand but are hard to describe. it’s just been kind of a fog, and seems to worsen the longer i am up and about and puttering around. i am fully nocturnal as of today, too, which is not really where i want to be. the thing is that sleeping has been the true hell of this business so far. i am a shitty sleeper/sometime insomniac anyway. i figured being sickly and out of it would make me sleep better, as it normally does when i stay home sick or whatever. but no, my friends. no. it’s a combo of having to sleep half upright (i am traditionally a stomach/face sleeper) to keep my head elevated, the dryness and annoyance of having to essentially be a mouth breather, and i don’t know what else. maybe that’s just enough. but i can’t sleep and i can’t remember the last time i got quality rest. today i finally got a good few hours, but getting there was a trial. invariably i take a pain pill–not for pain but for sleep–at around 1:30am to try and pass out, say, around 2, so i can wake at some point midmorning. i take the pill and i start nodding off but remain in this state of druggy half sleep that never gets all the way there. then i am wide awake at like 5 or 6, going “what the fuck?” and i lie there watching movies or whatever until i pass out again. it’s bizarre. i know i have some bad sleep habits anyway–i believe that watching TV/movies in bed is one of them–so maybe it’s all aggravated by the general post-op chaos my body has been recovering from. but i don’t know. i am looking forward to faceplanting in my bed again and passing out for some blissful rest. the question is, when i can actually do this? i guess i’ll know more tomorrow. oh. my nose is PEELING, too. like i was in the sun. what’s up with that?

all in all, i feel i am on the mend. will know more tomorrow. tonight i am adding a beer to the pain pill and we’ll see if that’ll do the trick sleepwise, even though i have had barely a sip of booze since christmas day. i would like to be present in the daytime again.