much afoot

I've been spending quite a bit of time on craigslist recently; it's an addictive habit, as I'm sure many of you can attest to. So far I've found two tennis partners (played for the first time in over a year on Thursday, and I'm playing again on Sunday); an ultimate Frisbee game (tomorrow morning, yeah!); and a poker game (Sunday evening, TX hold'em tourney). So I'm defining activities I want to participate in and finding people and groups to do them with. So far, so good...

Work is also going really well, on all fronts; we finally found a viable replacement for me for my caretaker gig, I am going to do a training shift on Wednesday and then (god willing) I'm done. I will most likely pick up a couple shifts in December since a lot of people are going to be gone during the holidays, but I am finished with the regularly scheduled shifts.

This is a good transition for me; Aurora (the woman I work for) and I have become good friends over the past six months I've worked with her, and I think it will be a lot easier for us to develop our friendship if we're not in an employer/employee relationship. The dynamic has already shifted, in the last few shifts I worked.

As a result, I'm going to pick up an extra shift at the tutoring job and be able to get insurance again as a result. So positive changes all around.

Tutoring is going well, I like the kids, I like the company, I like my coworkers, I like my schedule... all in all it's the perfect gig for me right now.

I'm right at the beginning of a very busy, social month and a half, and I couldn't be more excited about it. My bff Vanessa visited last weekend, we had a blast and explored my new neighborhood a lot more. She helped me clean out a bunch of unnecessary crap from my room, too. It looks and feels a lot better now. We also saw The Darjeeling Lmt., which is very good; I definitely need to see it again, as it's a scientifically proven fact that Wes Anderson movies get better and better the more times you see them. But I did like it. And now "No Country for Old Men" has come out, to outstanding reviews... I'm almost too excited. It can't possibly be as good as I've built it up to be... can it?

Next up is Thanksgiving in Spokompton with my favorite family, the Tubbs... flying out on turkey day proper (six days? Really?), coming home on Sunday. Then, Glenn comes to town on December 14^th for four days (I convinced him he needed to check out the Cornell Box exhibit at SF MOMA, we're both pretty geeked about it), and then I'm going home for xmas. I'm flying on the holiday proper again, and staying through January 3^rd. It's the perfect mix of visitors and visiting. Good times.

Oh yeah, and keep your eye out for issue 2 of Conscious Dancer! It will be coming out in late November/early December. I have an article about a really cool and interesting Bay Area band called Gamelan X in this issue. Please visit our website at consciousdancer.com for more information...