NP: Various Artists, Nu Afrobeat Experience (MP3)

I don't know what possessed me to download this album, and another based almost entirely on one of the drum beats contained therein, back when I still had my EMusic subscription, but I'm glad I did. Good stuff.

Speaking of good stuff, "Hey Ya" once again absolutely killed at Vaughan's last night. I almost got the timing of the breakdown right, too.

Speaking of Vaughan's, no New Year's Eve gig, so now I've got to decide between a couple of options at the last minute. I was kind of hoping the gig would come through, as the sense of bigness around the evening and the money involved were both dragging me down psychologically. I'm inclined to just go to The Note by myself and act like it was a normal rock show, only with open bar.

Outside of the travel notes I've already mentioned, the big take-home message from my week in New Jersey is that my parents somehow found the absolute most uncomfortable combination of mattress and pillow in the history of the world. I think they may be in collusion with my chiropractor, because the degree of pain I'd wake up with was astounding, and a week of that has altered my sleep patterns to the point where I'm getting up earlier this week. That may be beneficial in the long run, but we'll get to that later.

I was a little apprehensive about this year's holiday, as my older brother and my younger sister were both bringing significant others. On the one hand, I don't feel any sort of pressure to be in a relationship, but part of that is because of the current circumstances of my life. I don't feel like I can put my best psychological and emotional foot forward until I find some stability, and while that doesn't preclude anything (I've found it best to jump into situations before I think I'm completely ready for them most of the time), it does become a bit of a beacon for all the shit that's less than ideal right now.

Long story short, it wasn't a problem. Although it did lead to a bit of an epiphany. For someone who asks questions of people for a living, I don't ask many questions of people in my actual real life. With new people in the fold, there was a lot of back and forth about family and history and all that. I was a part of it, but my tendency was to sit back and watch. True to my education, I think I tend to watch how people behave and base my impressions on that rather than direct prodding. This spans an awful lot of situations, and my roommate has aptly pointed out some where it might make me come across as a bit more uncaring. I guess that's not surprising, when I think about it. Maybe another resolution? We'll see. I've already got quite a few, but that's not for now.

One other fun observation while I was home is that, good God, my parents talk a lot. Not even to each other. They just narrate what they're doing. Among other things, it makes it very difficult to, say, read in a more public space in the house. The obvious root cause would be to fill up the void where noisy kids used to be. This might push me to get slightly more involved in the design of their new house, in that I think it's imperative that there be private spaces for things like reading. And ethernet cable, but my brother laid down the law on that.

It was a pleasant break, all in all. Part of me was exhausted from trying to pretend that my life is somehow normal during the more social parts, which is to say most of the duration, and that the last year and a half is the bump, and not the road. And it may well be, although I need to guard against the typical paralysis of my cautious optimism and keep pushing. The broken-up week makes that tough, but if I can hit the ground running on Monday, it could go a long way.

It's, of course, possible, that the last year and half is not so much the road, but, to extend the metaphor, the on-ramp. While I haven't tended to every iron in the fire (namely the voiceover stuff and solo acoustic gigs), most of them are still at least warm.