greetings from the emerald city
it's november already, and my surprised tone is indebted to the central contradiction of time that has been a theme for me lately: it seems like so much has time has passed (i have done so many things, so much has happened), but then again it seems like i moved here such a short time ago (four months ago i was still travelling in europe).

i'll try to sum it all up here: life is good. i am grateful to have such wonderful friends. and my job has been getting steadily better as i form stronger friendships with the people i work with. i have read more books in the past few months than i read throughout my last 2 years of school. and - perhaps most important for me - i'm finally writing interesting music, music that i'm excited about and interested in.

a couple of saturdays from now, my friend jason and i will play a house show with our band, elska. and i'm super excited about it. a group of friends volunteered their house as a setting for the evening's festivities, which was fortunate because i don't think i can fit that many people comfortably into my apartment. there's so much to think about.. jason and i have been working on songs for a couple of months now. a while back, we decided we wanted to have a show because it would give us a goal, a push to get a set of songs in a performable state. it's worked pretty well so far. i'm nervous because we haven't had tons of time to practice, and some of the songs are still unfinished (and probably will be when we play them), but it feels great to be doing this.

even better than having a show, i'm making music on a regular basis. jason is a great person to collaborate with. i think we're good for each other musically. he is (fortunately for him, not as fortunately for me) moving (back) to san francisco in a couple of months, but i think we'll keep collaborating on songs. which makes me happy. and i want to keep making music, to try new things and different things and to have some record of the sounds and songs i write. it's a wonderful thing, this making music thing.

tomorrow, i'm heading off to san francisco to visit justin and steven et al. we're seeing keith jarrett sunday night at the san francisco jazz fest, which was the excuse for me to come down and visit. i'm really looking forward to seeing him and sharing our experiences away from michigan. we still talk on the phone pretty often, thanks to free nights/weekends. i'll probably be heading down there for new year's as well, which is an exciting thought.

soundtracks to recent days/weeks/months: both shins albums, rachel's "systems/layers", yo la tengo's penultimate album and the preceding one, books "lemon of pink", slowdive "souvlaki." and i finally got "greetings from michigan," though i had to special order it.

i just finished reading "lolita" today and it crushed me. and "the station agent" is a good movie.

erm. rather than turn this into a catalogue of things i've seen, heard, and read lately, i think i'll cut it off here. i am thinking a lot about michigan and the people that i no longer see but still want to keep in touch with. i put together a little thing to send to people, and left some at wcbn a while back, but i haven't sent them to people. i'll do so soon, perhaps putting together a little holiday package for people far away from me. yes, that seems like a good idea.

goodnight.

love
dave