Well, everyone else is doing these 2012 recap posts so I suppose I'll give one a shot as well. The last year was full of ups and downs for me but overall it was a pretty excellent one.
January was a rough month, I was having some band and relationship issues and business at the restaurant I worked at was incredibly slow. I did get a few nice pictures of us playing at the Broken Neck, however.
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| Photo by Dave Creaney |
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In February I got the chance to take a weekend trip to Tucson with my sweet friend Zaaki and his buddies TJ and Joey. We had an amazing time. We couch surfed with a beautiful dancer lady who let me play her accordion, we hiked a peak in the national forest, we camped out under the stars and played music (Joey tap danced on a board!), we skinny dipped in a freezing cold river!
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| The coldest water |
Now that I think about it, March, April, and May are a little bit blurry. I know in March, the Susquehanna Hat Company played a couple of house shows during SXSW and did some busking. My sweet friend Gary was in town and I got to hang with him a little bit. In April I got my beautiful Joshua Tree tattoo from the extremely talented Scott Spencer of The Inkery here in Austin. This was inspired by all the amazing memories I have of being out in the California desert and seeing forests of these bizarre cacti. They're so incredible when you get up close and so eerie from a distance. They all have different numbers of arms and come in all shapes as well. This tattoo means a lot to me and I'm really glad to be able to wear it for the rest of my life. This is not the best picture but it will have to suffice.
In June I had my birthday which was awesome. I started it off with a tarot reading from the lovely Angeliska, which left me motivated, calm, and inspired. a bunch of folks came over to the house and we ate good food and drank and my buddies Z and Derek played some killer digs on accordion and bass balalaika. Later that month I packed up the car with my dear friend and roommate Judy and our buddy Joel and we went on an absolutely mind-blowing two-week road trip. We drove through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and all of California to get to Portland, and on the way back we passed through Idaho and Utah as well. We did tons of camping and hiking, drank way too much coffee and whiskey, met the most amazing people and dogs,and saw some incredible scenery. There are hundreds of pictures from that trip but here are a select few.
We came back in July and I spent the month swimming and planning my next journey. It was on that trip that I decided that I wanted to move to Humboldt, and the last few months have been rife with brainstorming. August was really rough, I dislocated my knee in the early part of the month and spent the rest of it recovering (or trying to). In September I started spending time with a wonderful man named Sanford, he is an accordionist who shares my love of music, travel and adventure (not to mention, him and Seamus were instant best friends). We have many amazing plans together for the future, including but not limited to driving our VW Westfalia camper van on an epic trip to northern California to stay in the summer. So excited! In October we went on a little weekend voyage to the hill country west of Austin. We camped at Enchanted Rock and visited a couple of ghost towns that we located out there.
Right after we came back, my beautiful family came to visit! My mom and both my sisters were in town for several days and it was so great to see them again and show them around Austin. I showed them what it meant to be a Texan which entailed taking them two-stepping at the Broken Spoke. Such fun there.
Right after my family left, the awful restaurant I worked at fired me! Thanks, assholes! I spent all of November looking for work and finally landed a job right after Thanksgiving.
December came and went so fast, I can't believe it's over already. I really, intensely dislike the holidays so I just sort of holed up and acted like they weren't happening. I didn't go home to California, nor did I do anything particularly celebratory. My dear sweet friend Sean (who I wrote about in an earlier post) came to visit on the 15th. It was so unbelievably good to see him. He was supposed to be here for five days but somehow it turned into nine due to missing not one but two 6 am flights! I tried to be responsible, but what can ya do when a handsome fella bats his eyes at you and asks you to stay up late drinking wine with him? Eventually Sean caught a train back to California on Christmas Eve. Secretly I hoped something was going to derail the train or there would be no seats so he'd be forced to stay longer. I was so sad putting him on the train but at the same time so happy we got to spend time together. I've known this man for several years and I don't think we'd ever spent nine solid days together, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Cheers to all of you in 2013.
