a different kind of pain

I had a great visit to Colorado (but Red sure was happy to see me!).

the silver muzzle club

It was real nice to hang with Tim and Stacey...it felt good to be around dear friends like them.  Me and Tim go way back, and he came out for several days shortly after Eileen passed away to help me out.  I hadn't seen Stacey for a while so it was great to catch up. The last time I was in CO was 2009, with Eileen, during a mega-roadtrip we were enjoying.  I kept my chin up during the tougher moments, like remembering relaxing on their deck with Eileen, and generally my mood was good while there.  I had a setback one night with an extremely vivid dream about Eileen....it was nice, really nice, but I woke up in the middle of it.  In my stupor of half-sleep, I was actually able to dive back into the dream a little bit...some bonus moments.  Once I really did wake up though I was pretty down.  Sometimes things go so well, and sometimes, BAM....I'm back in it.  Sigh...it's non-linear.  And recursive.  I'm doing ok though, all told.

One unwelcome aspect of the past several days was some extreme tooth pain that developed during the CO trip.  I was hoping it was somehow due to the altitude (Tim and Stacey live at 8000feet!) or sinus congestion, but alas it continued to ramp up even as I was back at sea level.  Had a quick trip to the dentist and the theory is that I was clenching my teeth (surprise, right?) and since the problem tooth contacts all others first (and happens to already have a crown) it was likely the cause.  My dentist did some  major grinding to adjust my bite a little more, and now we wait a while to see if it will resolve on its own.  Great news is that indeed it's feeling better!  What a relief!  Sadly, a mouthguard is in my future.   :(

During all my tooth pain episodes, I couldn't help but think about all the physical pain that Eileen put up with.  It'd be impossible to count how many times I've heard the phrase "on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the worst pain imaginable, where is your pain right now....."
and often Eileen would answer "7 or 8" as she was wincing... I know she was always sandbagging- her pain was always a couple ticks worse than she would let on.  My candy-ass toothache pain was reminding me of the bullshit she had to endure... what would my 7 be compared to hers?  Is this her 3?  I hated...HATED...to see her in pain.  And I've said it before, but I simply can't imagine how she could keep her shit together so well under such stress.  Eileen was such a BAD ASS!  Fuck cancer.

Anyway, back in CO; Tim and I spent a ton of time talking about our music and strategizing how we should move forward with our songs.  I'm very driven to get our music on the front burner after having it on the back burner for so long and naturally Tim is super keen on the idea as well.  His neighbor owns a recording studio (go figure) so we toddled over there for a tour of the place, the thought being that it might be a viable place to record vocals (if not a whole band).  We can pretty much record our guitar and bass parts remotely, but I don't own the multithousanddollar mics and preamps that a "real" studio has, not to mention a great vocal booth.  I was concerned about singing at that altitude (actually more concerned about passing out while singing at that altitude!) but we did some test tracking over at Tim's and I did ok.  I'd definitely need to be out there acclimating for a few days before trying anything too taxing.  And tea....lots and lots of tea drinking.  It's remarkably dry up there!

We spent a good amount of time jamming in Tim's little studio and it was super fun to actually be playing in the same room as him.  Typically, we just do our own parts in our own little studios, me in CA and he in CO, and then send files back and forth over the internet.  Moving forward, our hope is that we can carve out some more time, utilizing weekend trips, to finally get a leg up on our backlog of songs.  We both agree to aim for an EP at this point....3 to 5 of our best songs.  Here's a short clip of Tim working on some beautiful harmonics for one of our songs (working title "cat vomit").  Pretty nice setting for recording music- their view is incredible.  Note the snow- it was 18degrees!




Me and Red continue to get out in the hills often.  We did a good long hike last evening which was good for my head and good for his energy level.  Gonna have to start bringing a flashlight because it was DARK by the time we got back to the truck!