swimming in place

have been invited, significant expenses paid, to the land of oz for a few days in june. have also subsequently been half-shredded in an evaluation by the kids who invited me to the party. weeks before receiving this particular (d)evaluation document, i figured i might as well tack on some holiday time since i'll be down there anyway, so luckily i'll have 3 weeks of 100% decompression time in NZ after the workshop.

i don't get out much anymore. these rolling assignments have me ducking under each breaking wave before i resurface to see the next one coming at me. so it seems i tread water for months at a time here behind the blue desk. happily, i don't even have to go anywhere and the art comes to me. my roommate V hosts a sunday night jam session with a group of improvisational jazz musicians, some of whom have played together for over 20 years. they are mind-blowing. one drummer (there used to be two), V on flutes and sax of various sorts, a guy on sparse electric guitar, a tuba. and last week, the roommate who replaced me across the hall had a duo-duo performance – two cellos and two saxes, also improvisational and also pretty amazing. miss J came with me and afterwards we kidnapped flatman and forced him to drink beer at lucky 13.

there have also been the occasional expeditions to the outside world to see miss J and her hip-hop dance group perform at a big club near union square, and to see dos equis play bass at a fun bar where you can escape downstairs and play pool if the seattle opening band plays so loud that plaster starts crumbling off the walls. there has also been tango, some really good milongas where i hardly walk off the floor before someone else asks me to dance and i find myself dripping in sweat mid-evening. i need more of that. my back has been killing because for more than a year i've been spending my sometimes-16-hour work days in a plastic folding chair and i haven't been running. last week, things got ugly when my spine took me hostage after i creaked into a kinked sitting position in the cheap plastic torture seating – so i paid the ransom: a sensible, sturdy, yet kookily-shaped green office chair from my friendly neighborhood scandinavian warehouse. why was i too cheap to shell out the cash for this before? oh yeah, because i'm a cheap cheapskate.

almost done with one more wave of edits and then me and the swede (the vehicle, not the boy) are heading down to southern california for my little brother's MBA-gettin' ceremony (i almost spelled that "ceremoney," which makes sense, since that is the point of going to business school) and for one of my bestest friends' art opening in SB. we need to find her a better gallery up here so she'll be required to visit more often. but on my visit south, i plan to prowl around los feliz with filmschoolgirl, have a nice graduation dinner with the family, and feed chickens and collect dropped avocados and possibly capsize a sea kayak with the artist.

god, i can't wait to swim away from this desk. better get to work on my dog paddle.

y'all have a good week.

xo