a history of me

That's right, I am at ease. I sleep as late as I want, spend some time by a pool (not the pool, a pool) or don't, and leisurely eat lunch and dinner with my mother and her husband Mike. The weather down here is wonderful, it's around 80 during the day (no humidity, for the record) and about 65 at night. No rain in sight.

I haven't been completely inert, of course. We did go to the Thomas Edison & Henry Ford Winter Estates, a rather pleasant compound where Edison and Ford lived and worked together in during the winter. The homes are quite modest by today's standards; considering the wealth of the two men you would imagine they would have lived more extravagantly.

If you'll excuse me I'd like to eat some pretzels now.

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I finally saw Sideways this afternoon after months of hype. Not bad, but like Alexander Payne's previous film About Schmidt, I felt a lot of the themes were totally alien to me. Still, great acting all around.

Anyway, I'm off for warmer climates. Tomorrow I'm flying to sunny SW Florida to visit my mother and, for a change, get a little sun. Those of you who are used to seeing me without my shirt on (and there are a surprising number of you, aren't there?) know that I am so pale that I'm practically incandescent. Staring at my chest is like looking at a full moon. So I'm going to do something about and enjoy a little Florida sunshine. When (not if) I burn myself I'll be sure to tell you all about it.

I'll try to post updates during my week's vacation from my vacation. I doubt it will be daily because I'm planning on taking it very easy down there. I fully expect to take a nap at one point.

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Normally I avoid terms like "grumpy" because of the negative connotation, but I don't know how else to classify my mood today. Nothing really went wrong per se, but I'm not feeling very pleasant at all. I suppose it might be the rain, but it didn't start raining until late.

I slept comfortably and Dad and I had a tasty lunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant, and then we spontaneously ran out and saw Kinsey, the new film about Alfred Kinsey. I enjoyed it, although I feel the movie may have dwelled a bit on the more sensational elements of his life such as his (alleged) polygamous bisexuality. But perhaps the point of the movie is that no aspect of sexuality is truly sensational since our societal concept of sexuality is artificially conservative.

Dad and I went to his gym for a while and then I ate dinner alone (he wasn't hungry). I've been trying to call my Mom in Florida all day without success, and my latest calls result in a "All circuits are busy" message. What up with that? I suspect the frustration of being unable to call her may be contributing to my sour mood. I hope I reach her tomorrow; I land on Wednesday afternoon!

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I hope everyone had this weekend, because I did. Firstly, I saw
The Life Aquatic on Thursday and really enjoyed it. If you've enjoyed Wes Anderson's other films, then you should enjoy this one. I saw the film at the Village East Cinemas, a very ornate old theater that now serves as a kind of mini-multiplex at 12th Street and 2nd Avenue.

Friday night was New Year's Eve and (nearly) all my friends and I were at Mike's home in Brooklyn to party. Aside from a little champagne at midnight, I spent the evening drinking beer to avoid a repeat of my Boxing Day debacle. Consequently, I wasn't quite as social but I still had fun, thanks to my own little vanity moment. I made arrangements with Mike in advance to sing "New York, New York" after midnight because I enjoyed singing it so much at Dani's party last week. We didn't have a karaoke machine but we downloaded an appropriate background track and Mike simply played it on his iPod over the speakers and hooked up a microphone. Mike's business is sound, so his home is full of handy equipment like that (more on that later). I had fun singing it and the party enjoyed hearing it, in fact, most everyone knew all the words and sang along.

A few of us spend the night at Mike's place but only a handful of us stayed for breakfast. After eating we began earnest work on recording some music. Jason went first, as his fiancee was looking to leave before it got dark. They left around 5PM, and then Ben, Mike and myself spent hours in Mike's studio working on our debut track, "Beef Injection." Yes, it's as dirty as it sounds. I'm very proud to have written lyrics for the first time in my life, more proud than I am for performing said lyrics. If you've never written lyrics before I highly recommend using a rhyming dictionary; it helped me tremendously. Ben and Mike have a lot more experience with writing rhymes so their work is a lot more exciting, but they used the dictionary for support as well. In any case, our song is sure to break new group in the rap/hip-hop world.

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