The Moment Ends

The Moment Ends

Jamie

[	userinfo	\|	livejournal userinfo	]
[	archive	\|	journal archive	]

Chinchillas On Ice U.S. Tour Schedule

[Jan. 3rd, 2008|11:47 pm]

Jamie

[	music	\|	Some Beck 'n stuff	]
[	mood	\|	complacent	]
[	Current Location	\|	Home	]

I suck. I suck at personal discipline. I suck at being productive. I suck at peeling myself from my couch. And I'm totally okay with all of it. And now that I think about it, that probably kinda sucks too. It's not all really that bad. Honestly, it's not. I just need to motivate myself more and all of the suckie things will resume their non-suckie nature and fit themselves nicely back into their rightful place in my whirlwind, bordering on the insane, mind. In my defense, the second half of 2007 turned out to be a little out of control for me.

I became a great uncle and for whatever reason, I have become the go-to sibling when it comes to advice about crazy situations. I spent many days and nights engaged in super extendo conversations with almost all of my family members. I'm grateful that they want to hear my advice, but sometimes it can be a bit much. Couple that with having my gall bladder ripped from me, getting hit with an extremely pesky and nasty case of thrush that took THREE treatments to finally make it go away, going to Mexico for a week only to return to an extremely sick and dying 10-year-old cat who we immediately rushed to the animal hospital where we were confronted with the decision of spending 5 grand just to get him back to a stable condition with absolutely no guarantees of his future survival... Murphy was a diabetic cat and the diabetes got the best of him and we made the decision to put him down that night. What a horrible experience it was. He is missed greatly. We did, however, adopt two 3.5 month old brother kittens from the anti-cruelty society on October 29th... all black with gold eyes. they're CRAZY but extremely lovable and for the most part well-behaved. Piper and Wilson are their names... Pipes and Willie for short... and I call Wilson "Choopz" for whatever reason. On top of that, my job is OUT OF CONTROL and not getting any better and I regret not taking the offer from that other firm last year, but I don't think about that too often, because it is what it is.

On the flip side, Lee and I are getting along great as usual and it's so very comforting knowing that it's all working out so well. I feel extremely lucky to be in this relationship and I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

The friends I have, back home in Milwaukee, here in Chicago, spread across the country, from high school, from college, through work, and from random train-riding encounters here in the city, are all so freakin rockstar. I feel as though I've surrounded myself with people that have turned out to be the best anybody could ever want. Is it me? Do I attract these people? Do I search for these people? I don't know, but I certainly DO know that my life would not be the same without them, and for that I am truly and forever grateful. Of course there are those who I would like to see more often, but things happen... I know that... and I also know that I'm not a jackass, so I chalk it up to randomness that we have drifted apart. Not for good... just for now. And I'll leave it at that.

What else... Lee and I are in the midst of planning our big vacation for this year. We are considering heading south of the equator. It's something I've always wanted to do, and the most logical and convenient location is South America. We're not sure where yet... Argentina, Chile, Peru... they're all contenders at this point. Any input would be greatly appreciated... and I noticed that some friends of mine from this lovely site are also considering a trip to the same continent. So... maybe we should talk about this. Call me! *hair flip*

President's Day weekend will bring me to Toronto for a long overdue visit and stay with my friend Gordon. Lee can't make it so my good friend Derek from Milwaukee is going in his place. This will be a most fantastic trip... 1) i get to see gordon again and 2) i get to travel with derek again. it's been some time we've traveled together without the significant others and we're both very excited about it. Montreal will happen sometime this spring as well... mid April I believe. Then the wedding in mid-July for my favorite Cleveland residents. And maybe a trip to Bat Cave, N.C. just for kicks.

I'm beat. NYE kicked my ass with a party, then a band, then a club. I'm on hiatus from such antics for a bit. Becoming non-suckie doesn't come from little rest and mucho partying.

Pictures will come soon. Mostly of dust and sand, but whatever.

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Weekend Activities and such

[Sep. 23rd, 2007|10:32 pm]

Jamie

[	mood	\|	complacent	]
[	music	\|	some tribal house crap lee's streaming on his computer. it's quite delicious.	]
[	Current Location	\|	home	]

so yeah. we took the car to the shop friday night to fix whatever the hell is wrong with it. i've heard from many sources that we should plan on having the car in the shop a few times per year. it's one of the perks of owning an audi. i fully expected this going into the purchase so now we will find out how much it will cost. I'm banking on around 3000 bucks or so. maybe that's a bit dramatic, but when they come back with "that'll be $2000 please" i'll be all "sweet, comin in a grand under my estimate." the dealership provided us with a no-charge loaner which we weren't supposed to take out of the state of illinois. something about getting pulled over and receiving an a$$-fvcking ticket from some super duper full of him or herself cop. i guess we could have been cited for posing as a dealer or something. i think it was only because they didn't want us putting tons of miles on the car. but whatever. the loaner is an A4. I'm not very impressed to be honest, but maybe because it's a loaner and most likely one that is stripped down to it's basic parts. or maybe because i've been spoiled by the Allroad. we should get the call tomorrow with the results of the repairs.

we took off for beautiful milwaukee, wisconsin saturday morning around 10:30 or 11:00. i don't remember exactly. got up there, did some shopping for the party being thrown by our friend craig in honor of me beginning a new decade of livin. we dropped a few c-notes on grub and booze at the local pick 'n save and headed to craigs around 2:00. we set everything up and i sat in the sun for a MUCH NEEDED dose of good old vitamin D. being holed up in the house for a month at the end of summer does wonders for your overall appearance. pale, pale, pale. and skinny. losing 15 pounds in a month is quite the shock to people around you, but hey, i'm HEALTHY so i'm happy. people started showing up around 4 or 4:30 and i had my first taste of alcohol since the surgery. 3 cap'n and ginger ales later, i was feelin kind of buzzed. food good. nothing like a somewhat charred veggie burger on the grill with a hot slice of cheddar to make you feel good. it hit the spot and i was ready for action. a house on the next block started on fire... we heard today that there was about $40,000 worth of damage. ouch! the fire dept is pretty sure it was caused by something left on the stove or in the oven. HARSH. nobody was hurt or killed in the fire, but fires still suck. totally.

back to more festivities... high school friends stopped over and mingled with my super killer gay friends (the best, i tell ya... THE BEST) and a work friend even stopped by. later in the evening a really good friend i've known since 3rd grade popped in for a quickie visit and smoke and laugh and hug. some people left the party SUPER early.. but managed to come back around 1:30 or 2 am only to party and chat and laugh more until 3:30 or so. it was a GREAT time and i was surrounded by AMAZING friends. they're all seriously the best. a guy couldn't ask for better friends. there are, of course, friends who live far, far away who would have made the weekend PERFECT but i completely understand the issues with travel and such but knowing that they were thinking of me made it all super.

now i'm back home, the cat is full and now dreaming (he's running in his dreams i think) and i'm checking emails, updating this thing and getting ready to hit the sack as i will probably work a full day tomorrow.

we leave for Tulum, Mexico on October 5th for 5 days. Some friends are getting married there, so we're extending the vacation a bit. I suppose I should check if the hotel is still there after the stupid hurricanes. good idea. there's an outside chance that i'll hit montreal from the 12th thru the 14th of october... yes, right after mexico... but i'm not sure about that yet. lee already has his ticket and a hotel room and he wants me to go, but that might be too much. montreal is KILLER but it takes every ounce of energy out of me by the time sunday rolls around. the nightlife is second to none. there's nothing like after hours clubs opening at 2am and closing at 10am or noonish. yep. it's like that. and my god, it's fun. those french canadian are so very fun and unbelievably nice. Love it. but i'll most likely pass on this one.

i have a bunch of pictues that i should probably post from events of the past summer and spring and winter. i'll get on that sometime.

fersher.

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Alive? Sure. 40? mmHmmm.	[Sep. 20th, 2007\|01:28 am] Jamie
oy. i totally forgot this journal thing even existed. i turn 40 today. at 8:36pm to be exact. my mother was 40 when she had me. that's just nuts. i'm not bothered that i'm 40. i could care less, actually. but DAMN it takes a long time to recover from gall bladder surgery followed by a nice double dose of thrush. but i'm healthy... that's what's key. no underlying medical issues causing it. i'm going to bed now.
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wsp chicago

[Aug. 24th, 2006|01:26 am]

Jamie

[

mood

tired

]

Only a FEW pics from our WSP weekend in Chicago...
names later.. i'm tired

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Snakes On A Plane	[Jul. 11th, 2006\|08:16 am] Jamie
I woke up this morning after a long dream about snakes on a plane. After not remembering my dreams for what seems years, I've returned to remembering them in a big way. It's kind of weird, actually. I chalk it up to not owning a bong anymore.
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Sam Bush??? Who Knew?	[Jul. 8th, 2006\|11:19 pm] Jamie
So last night at the Cubby Bear here in Chicago, Hack 'N Wheeze put on a free show starting at 11 pm... Sam Bush was there at 8 for his show... for $16.50.. .and since i'm THAT broke, i showed up at 10:45ish... and Sam Bush ended up playing til almost midnight. Holy CRAP. I'm so glad he played that extra time... what a total treat it was to hear him play. FanTAStic bluegrass for sure.. and some mandolin player from Yonder Mountain sat in with him too... I can't remember his name right now... but three mandolins up on stage didn't suck at all. Hack 'N Wheeze is a local band who plays mostly phish covers... some dead.. some WSP. They jammed out a nice divided sky, antelope, rift, ummmmm.... too many Fat Tires to remember the rest right now... all in all it was nice to hear some phish. Clearly it wasn't NEARLY the same, but all in all it was still nice to hear. Big festival weekend in Chicago this weekend.. Irish Fest, Greek Fest, Art Festival down on Michigan Ave., a New Orleans festival, the Lakeview Summer Festival. I'm hitting the Irish Fest & Lakeview fests tomorrow.. The Big Wu takes the stage at 7:30. Perfect for some drinking, some other extra curriculars, and plenty of time to get home & crash in time to get plenty of beauty sleep for work. The end.
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my summerfest weekend

[Jul. 3rd, 2006|04:48 pm]

Jamie

[

music

Seven Below from Alpine, I believe

]

I didn't leave Milwaukee with that killer "summerfest rules" feeling that I normally do. I think it's because we didn't really spend much time there. Every second of time at Summerfest was spent in the amphitheater. We didn't get to cruise the grounds at all, and I think that's why I have an empty spot in my belly where Summerfest usually is this time of year.

We got up there Friday night in time to meet our friends and get our tickets to the Pearl Jam / Petty show. We got our seats, & Pearl Jam took the stage around 8ish. I was very unimpressed with their set. The sound wasn't really that good, and for some reason it just sounded like a bunch of noise to me. Now, my nephew would tell me that's because I'm just old and don't know any better. Ummmm, yeah, no. That's not it. I can't put my finger on it, but it just didn't do it for me. I guess I'm used to dancing around when I'm at a show, and this show certainly didn't allow for that. For me anyway. So, my Pearl Jam experience was a bad one.

Petty came on after a small break. From the first NOTE it was 1000 times better than PJ. Maybe it WAS the sound. I don't know, but there was a hell of a lot more sound coming from those speakers when Petty was on... although he did have about twice as many people on stage. Anyway, I was thoroughly impressed with his show as I always have been. I never expect much, and I always leave with a smile on my face. He played til 12:30 so the park was closed by that time, and we didn't feel like going out, or sleeping on a futon, so we drove back to Chicago getting in at 3. Not bad.

I woke Lee up at 4:30 saturday afternoon, we got ready, and we headed back up to summerfest for the Paul Simon show. Great show, as usual, but short in comparison. He had an opening band, they played bluegrassy kind of stuff, it was good, but there was no breeze where we were sitting so we cruised to where there was wind... which was outside of the theater... so we could kind of hear the band, just not see them. Good music, don't know who they are, and I'm a total loser for NOT knowing who they are. It started raining, and again, we were tired, and didn't want to sleep on a futon, so we drove back to Chicago, this time getting in at about 1ish. Not bad at all.

I slept most of Sunday away due to the travelling and such.

Lee had to work today, so I've been sitting around, doing laundry, listening to music, drinking tons of fluids (it's better to not be thirsty in the summertime), checking emails, random websites, talking on the phone to my family, etc..

Now I must continue my cleaning binge before Lee gets home, in about 40 minutes. This is when I love to clean the most... right before he gets home. It's a carry-over from my school days when I'd procrastinate so badly that I'd end up writing all of my papers the night before they were due... and I still got kick ass grades on them, so why change my ways?

Happy Independence Day to all. And say hi to GW the next time you're talking on your phone. He can hear you now.

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Summertime and food and travel and rockstars

[Jun. 29th, 2006|08:48 pm]

Jamie

[	music	\|	just what's in my head and that's Lizards	]
[	mood	\|	complacent	]

So it's summertime and i love eating outside especially when i'm in a foreign city and there are rockstars all around me. It happens a lot. More often than you'd think.

Last weekend was the Chicago Pride celebration, and it certainly was a celebration again. I only made it to the parade on Sunday... no crazy antics at the Halsted Street Saturday celebration thingy. I missed Irene Cara (whose website sucks, I might add) perform on Saturday night. I haven't heard anyone talking about it, so I'm thinking that it wasn't all that. I'm sure it was better than Ru Fucking Paul's performance last year. Talk about tragic. Yeouch. So the parade was nice and long and fun and parade-ish and as usual there were many many many drunk fools all over the place. I might have been one of them by the time the parade was over. Or I might not have been. I haven't decided and the people I was with were clearly way more super drunk than I was or I could have wanted to be. I had to work on Monday so I needed to kind of take it easy. I ran into a lot of folks that I hadn't seen in awhile... nobody from LJ as far as I know... some work people, some Milwaukee people, some old flames, some of Lee's old flames. Good times all in all. We popped into Circuit of all places at like 4 o'clock in the afternoon and the place was HOPPIN. I needed night vision goggles to see once I was in out of the sunlight, but my eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to not have to walk like a zombie to get thru the place. Everyone in there was so nice and kind and polite saying "excuse me" and "sorry" and things that I'm not used to hearing in big gay clubs. It was a nice change... for about an hour... and then we left.

We then headed to Hydrate to meet my friend and total rockstar chick Monica who had befriended a buttload of people. She's insane and that's why I like her. We drank and smoked and went to dance and I swear I was groped 25 times on the way to the dance floor, on the dance floor and on my way back to our table. I stayed away from the dance floor the rest of the time we were there. I just wasn't up for the typical after pride parade drunk groping club scene. I had had enough. So we left... and witnessed a sad sight; two men who were obviously a couple, wearing matching camouflage cargo shorts, flip flops and tshirts, stumbling down Roscoe, one with a bloody face, who was full on swinging at the other guy trying to bash his face in. He connected one time and the guy went down... and got up again and wrestled the bloody-faced guy into an SUV parked on the street and pushed him to the ground. It was a very sad display of drunken hatred for each other. As I was about to call the cops because getting involved was out of the question, a police car pulled up and the officer immediately put the non-bloodied guy in handcuffs. Happy Pride.

Summerfest started today in Milwaukee. It's what I look forward to MOST in Milwaukee. Lee & I are heading up tomorrow to catch the Petty/Pearl Jam show and then the Paul Simon show on Saturday. I haven't decided how long I'm staying up... Lee has to work Monday so he'll be coming home. I may stay up and hit the fest more, or I may come home and then head to Grant Park here in Chicago on the 4th for the free concert with Mike Doughty's Band, My Morning Jacket and Ray Davies. Tough decision... as moe. is playing at Summerfest on the 4th. But I'd have to drive back to Chicago after that show and that's not sounding very enticing at this point.

ACL Fest is coming up FAST... still no hotel, but my new thought is to suck it up, rent a car, get a nice room somewhere out of downtown (I'm thinking North for some reason) and then driving to the shuttle each day. Not out of the question, and we can totally hook ourselves up in a killer suite somewhere. All you ACL folks... let's talk about this and get it finalized.

Now I will fold some clothes and pack for my weekend in Milwaukee.

Rock & Roll

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Totally Freaked Out

[Jun. 14th, 2006|01:22 am]

Jamie

[

mood

distressed

]

so for the second time in about a week or so, the cops have been to the new condo complex because of phone calls by AWESOME neighbors that someone is trying, or has broken into the gated area in front of the complex. i mean, i know this neighborhood is still a bit on the sketchy side, and i fully expected weirdness to happen, but i assumed it would happen to our vehicles parked on the street rather than to our actual living quarters. i guess i've been a little naive. tonight, there were apparently two gentlemen who were jiggling the locked gate doors out in front trying to get in. this is so very unsettling.. so much so, that i do not want to fall asleep right now for fear that someone will seize the opportunity to break in once the lights are off and i'm not here to witness them breaking in. and to top it off, lee went to the cubs game with co-workers and is out somewhere having a ball. i'm not mad that he's not here to protect me, i'm worried for his safety on his way home. i already called and warned him about the situation and suggested that he take a cab home rather than risk walking here from the train stop.

it really pisses me off that i need to be aware of the fact that our personal space could be violated by some dumb respectless fuck. although i'm sure said respectless individual may be really nice under certain circumstances. maybe. or maybe not. but whatever... i'm freaked out. 100%.

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Oh Yeah.. ACL

[Jun. 7th, 2006|08:11 pm]

Jamie

[	music	\|	Elmore James - The Sky Is Crying	]
[	mood	\|	cheerful	]

We bought our plane tickets last night. Arrive in Austin at ll:45 pm or something on the 14th and leave to come back to chicago at 8 am Monday morning the 18th. I just had to check the site to make sure that was the correct weekend. good thing i checked now and not before we bought the tickets. anyway, we got them for just over 200/ticket which i think it awfully rockstar. every other airline was over 300/ticket... or thereabouts. i'm PUMPED to come back to Austin and see all of the wonderful people i met last year and hear some killer music and eat the best texmex i've ever had.

rock and roll for sure.

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