The fog has lifted.

Cloud Atlas
Thumbsucker
St. Elmo's Fire
Over the Hedge
Shopgirl
Being There

Just picture me blowing the collected dust off the keyboard right now, cracking knuckles and preparing for a triumphant return to the blogverse. Not really. Things have been pretty low key at Rancho Graftonero lately, and I've been sub-inspired to log the events, or the lack of them. A number of contributing factors exist - but here is a slipshod, out of order, top of my head style recollection:

Yesterday I went to the wedding of Dave Wu (a good friend and teammate of mine from Polaroid) and Mary Tibbetts (the sister of another Former Polaroid teammate of mine, Mike Tibbetts, who has been sucked away from the world of Ultimate by the more demanding and legally required world of fathering). Rather I went to the reception, as I got there late because of work at the Nut. In typical me fashion, as I walked up to the church and saw Dave, I walked up and said hey, congratulations. Then I noticed the long line leading up to Dave. Yep, my wedding entrance involved cutting in the receiving line. I rock. I took my respective place among the Roid brethren and sisthren, and said my proper congrats a few minutes later. The wedding, incidentally, was in Arlington, a couple of blocks from our old house, and the reception was over by the Arlington library. Nice little trip down 2001-03 memory lane. I miss Arlington fiercely, seriously. Anyhoo, nice touches of Asian and Aryan culture at the reception, complete with Asian tea ceremonies and cheesy DJs. Jerrel, in a shocking move, dominated the dance floor. He also dominated the open bar, ordering everything from mojitos to tequila sunrises to something he claimed was called a "Wu-wu." Fun times

I raced home from the wedding in an effort to get Beck to a dinner with her Vet school "friends" who lamely neglected to give her a ride. I was too late, so we went out to dinner in Worcester at the Rhino Cafe where I may have had the best cheesesteak sandwich I've ever had. My arteries actually arranged their fatty deposits in smiley faces; it was that good. We also got to hang out with an older couple that may or my not have been on a date at the next table, and we got to see a lot of locals who were drunk and/or on motorcycles. Plus there were a couple of scantily clad womenfolk who were either being stood up by dates or streetwalking; I did not perform a litmus test. Love me the Worcester, yes. We headed home after a great meal and watched a little Robot Chicken, a rather LSD-influenced stop-animation show by Buffy-vet (or maybe the Buffy cast member who required a vet) Seth Green. The episodes are 11 minute blitzes perfectly attuned to modern attention spans, and among the highlight jokes was a PSA by Optimus Prime of Transformers fame about prostate cancer (we transformers are robots and therefore have no organic inner organs, so we cannot get cancer. But you do, and you can, so get your ass checked!). I also have to give, I don't know if "props" is the ride word, maybe, stunned adulation, to the "Zombie Idol" parody of American Idol where dead rock stars performed as Zombies. In the end, the zombies went eat-brains crazy, and Ving Rhames showed up with a shotgun to finish them off appropriately, which any zombie fan knows is only accomplished by destroying their head. The transcendentally tasteless joke involved Rhames deciding not to shoot Kurt Cobain, but rather just handing him the shotgun and watching him shoot himself in the head. This was approximately 1000 times less morbid when displayed in claymation.

So yeah, on that note, we went to bed, ending a day that started at 5 AM for me. I've been driving vans for the Walnut Hill camps this summer, a job that only makes me feel moderately pointless, so that's nice. Kids are nice for the most part, but I've spent more time at Logan than I ever thought I would like to. Yesterday wasn't too bad: two trips, but then things like last weekend involved 7 trips to and from starting at 6 AM and ending at 9:30 PM. It passes the time, and the camp director Charlie and the RAs (Rachel, Becca, Jon, Anna, Lillian) are all cool people, so it's been a reasonable way to spend a few hours out of each week this summer.

What else have I been doing, damn? Well, I couldn't resist the new deal on the Tacoma DM-10 at Mr. C's Music. So I effectively traded up from my Sigma, which was a little bit of a bummer because I just had a pickup put in it - but they were nice enough to give me a break on transferring the pickup over to the Tacoma, so that was cool. Sad to see MyFirstAcoustic (TM) go, but happy to have an American handmade gorgeous acoustic guitar in my possession. Sounds magnificent, plays excellently - they don't actually make this guitar any more, and it's in mint condition despite being a few years used. Acoustic guitars theoretically sound better and better as they age, and this one is starting from a very, very high point. Pscyhed, and don't worry sportsfans, eventually there will be some sound files put up here.

So I've been running my way through some guitar basics books lately in an effort to re-establish a more technically correct foundation for whatever it is that I'm setting out to do here. I'm making slow progress, and I get frustrated very easily, which is lame - I've found that relaxing myself before I play and only going in 45 minute spurts or so has been more effective than tension-building hours-long marathons. So I've been doing a lot of play for 45, read for 30, play for 45, watch part of a movie, etc. It's working. Again, recorded results on the horizon. (Speaking of, I have finally gotten my computer rigged for recording and for some electronic music-making. I have truckloads to keep me busy through the next year out here in the South Grafton barren wasteland).

Oh, the ol' SG isn't that barren - we went out to eat at Vinny T's with Ben & Ali the other night, and headed back to their place for scrabble and cobbler. And we actually hit the Post Office Pub the other night with some of the vet-friends for some beers and ear-piercing karaoke. And on July 4th we went to Jessica's (aka, the Brooke Shields Denise Richards love-child) for a rainy, moist, mosquito-laden barbeque, complete with s'mores and sparklers. And we watched Italy qualify for the World Cup finals in true patriotic fashion. So yeah, some solid socializing going down - and this morning, Jill (of med school fame) is headed out our way and we've got dinner scheduled with our terrorist friends the Ben Alis. Nothing's gonna stop us, now.

World Cup - tres exciting. Finals today. I've probably mentioned this, but the soothing crowd chants, the hours of tension, the monumental effort for the chance at something that will likely prove futile - there's a lot going on that's drastically romantic and beyond American general comprehension. The flopping is, por supuesto, total crap, and if it weren't for that I'd be completely sold. It's too bad American pro soccer is effectively the minor leagues of the world - otherwise, I might tune in, a lot.

Time to tune out? Okay, yeah. But I'll pick up the entry level here. More blogging, more reviews, try to get my head wrapped around some writing. Should have some fuel for the fire after the Jill Ben Ali experience. We'll see. Until then, get your prostates checked. If you have them.