It will never ever, ever be the same. Ever. Ever.

Sunday Morning Sitting Down

Meghan's parents are enjoying a weekend in Asheville, so I find myself sitting in her den watching football, looking at the occasional wedding book, and now blogging. It has obviously been a very eventful few weeks. Let's work our way backward.

Last night, Meghan went to Athens for her SAI little sister's 21st. With my other normal gameday dates in Maine, I decided to go to Mom and Dad's in Cumming for the game. I hate the word "treasure" because, as I do many words, I think it is frequently used out of laziness. But I have learned to treasure the time I have with Mom and Dad. I have watched way too many people regret not simply spending time with people whose company is now inconvenient or totally unavailable. When the people I love are gone, I want to be sad that they're gone and not that I didn't enjoy them when they were here.

Wednesday through Friday, I worked, got wedding stuff started, and dealt with my back. At work, I just finished an arrangement that one of my client schools will perform at the NYC Veteran's Day Parade. I am also beginning my first concert commission for a middle school near Charleston, about which I can tell you more once everything is on paper. I'm still writing songs, and think I will put a couple of new songs online here in the next couple of weeks for you to hear. Wedding-wise, we have a date and venue in pencil, which we hope to announce early next week. Back-wise, I am now scheduled for an epidural steroid injection next week. I'm really hoping that takes care of this. I have a wedding for which I have to get in shape. This gut ain't losing itself.

Tuesday was also a big day. I will tell you one version of the story, and I will let you ask Meghan about the director's cut. I had been working toward this day since about February when I started saving for the ring, but it only began to really clear up when I asked for Russ's help in June. He agreed to do his best, and once I had the ring in hand he did so. Under the ruse of advancing a new program called "Dinner and a Show" (which would actually be a good idea, were it not completely made up), Russell invited Meghan and I to join Ellen and him for dinner at a nice midtown restaurant.

I picked Meghan up from school and headed to the Fox, where we were supposedly picking up Russell for the trial. When we arrived Russ met us at a side door, where he informed us that he still had a meeting to complete. He asked us to wait for him in the theater, which just happened to have a clear stage with all of the beautiful ceiling and house lights set to Proposal Level. Meghan and I walked on stage and looked around for a minute, before I asked her what color socks she would be giving me. Then, I tried to pull the ring out of my jacket pocket, though I know I first had to get my sunglasses and God-knows-what-else out of there first. I remember getting the ring out, making it down to one knee, and the words "Will you." Then everything gets foggy until Russell walked back in and asked, "Did anything happen while I was gone?" Afterward, we each called our folks and the internet exploded. What a night.

This week, will be more work, more planning, an epidural injection, and what I think could be our toughest game of the year until Tech.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........

So, for those of you just returning from the cave, Meghan and I got engaged tonight. Details to follow...

Rest in peace, Sid.

I'm not sure I would have been drum major if it weren't for you. And that means that a lot of really cool things that have happened to me may not have happened were it not for you.

I hope everything is right in the pocket up there.

Cockweek Update

My enthusiasm for blogging has evolved in such a way that I now usually post the two types of entries that I used to view as lazy: bullets and simple updates. I mention that, naturally, because this particular submission will be both of those things.

• As I woke up this morning, my back and leg were relatively comfortable in the bed. As I rose and began to move, a bit of pain returned, but nothing major. Gradually, of course, as the blood really began to flow the pain returned slightly worse than it was yesterday. And that, unfortunately, is pretty bad.

It seems like every morning I wake up expecting that day to be the day that the situation improves. And every morning I am disappointed. It finally hit me today that this is not getting better. In spite of my dreading the needles, the knives, or both, I am going to take it upon myself to speed up the treatment process, starting tomorrow morning.

• Now that football season is in full swing, it occurs doubly to me how dull life is when the sport is not in season. Saturdays in Athens, in and of themselves, have rarely been more fun*. In fact, in spite of the significant discomfort involved it seems to be rather therapeutic.

• My part-time football season gig in Athens has been pretty cool. The saddle is a bit different than it was before, but it's nice to sit in it every now and again.

• I hope to have some good news regarding my writing for young bands in the very near future.

• As soon as I don't have to take pain medication all day every day, I am really looking forward to trying Merlot and Cheez-Its. I know that sounds stupid, but I think it will be outstanding.

* - This season and the company are amazing. But it will be hard to ever top the Corley-Knight years in terms of total enjoyment.

In case you ever wanted to know...

Ever cared to know what Steve D0rff looks like? He is third from the right in this photo taken just last month in Nashville.

Gameday Math

I was reading a Georgia Southern message board the other day on which the participants were complaining (rightly) about fall weddings. One gentleman in particular is said to have reminded a pair of acquaintances contemplating marriage that there are usually fifty-two Saturdays in a given year and - since he only gets to spend six of those on Beautiful Eagle Creek - that they have around forty-six from which to choose when picking a wedding date. I find the expectation that your friends would extend you this courtesy to be perfectly reasonable.

As in past years, I am hyper-sentimental on the eve of the first game of Georgia's football season. But my return to affiliation with the band coupled with my relocation necessitates a 5:00am wake-up call tomorrow morning. So there will be no lengthy monologue (as Letterman used to say, "if that's still possible").

But I have been mindful lately of the scarcity of home football Saturdays in the context of one's entire life. If you're lucky, you live to be eighty years old. If you're really lucky you get to spend every home game Saturday in Athens. If you are truly blessed, you have grown up a college football fan and were - as the old phrase goes - Bulldog born. Thus, the best you really have any right to expect is have only 480 home Saturdays in Athens over the course of your entire life.

That ain't much. So we better make 'em count. We get another chance to do just that in a matter of hours.

I hope you're ready.

PS - Mizzou-rah.

Well, he looks like a Damn Good Dawg to me...

Bulldog born, Bulldog bred

I don't "do" sports here. But I loved this portion of the summary of Coach's Q and A with the Athens Touchdown Club (HT: Native Dawg, via DawgRun.com):

Q. Is AJ Green fun to coach?
A. Yes. For a couple reason. [sic] First, he committed to UGA as like a soph in HS, and he NEVER wavered. He and his HS guidance counselor said to UGA "Tell us what we have to do in the classroom to be eligible." Green had a lotta work to do. Our academic advisors set out a path for him, and AJ busted his tail getting the job done. He flat out wanted to be a Georgia Bulldog. During his final HS spring practice, Steve Spurrier came to his school... AJ skipped school that day! Later, Tommy Bowden came to the school to visit... and AJ skipped school again! That got a lotta laughter and applause. Second, it's always fun to coach a guy who is 6'5", with speed who catches everything thrown at him... (more laughter)

I love that, and I can't wait...

What I am going to blog about tonight

In an effort to calm the uproar of the part of my conscience responsible for my blogging regularity, I decided to sit and think this evening until I came up with something about which to write. I mentally combed the body of news events of the last few weeks, but found nothing about which I could shed any new light. I thought of things that have been going on in my life, but none have changed significantly enough since I last wrote about them to warrant a mention. I thought of elements of my world which I could romanticize, yet again to no avail.

Somehow, this evening I have no real complaints. My back hurts, but I have pills that dull that pain to the level of annoyance. I don't have a great deal of money, but I have enough to get me through the next several months and a great deal more than some. I have a nice job (several of them, in fact). I have an amazing girlfriend. I have a very nice apartment by third world standards, a car that runs quite well and gets forty miles to the gallon, wonderful friends, an understanding family, a great educational background, relatively good health, tv and internet, a place to belong, and something to do all the time.

Hopefully my blogging habits will one day return to the prolific level of a couple of years ago, sans the loneliness, the unhappiness, or the excessive alcohol intake. But tonight I am very happy.

That is all.

Why you shouldn't get older

Before I begin to complain about my back, let me acknowledge the fact that there are people with problems way worse than my own (including Ellen's now-resolved back thing, which makes mine look like a paper cut). My major organs are still working. I haven't been burned severely (other than multiple occasions in my romantic life that have long since passed). I can get from one place to another with little difficulty, I don't curse uncontrollably, I drool less than many people, and I generally have no problem controlling my body's waste disposal functions.

That said, this back thing has started to suck. Wednesday night, Meghan and I stood at Firehouse Subs and waited for our food. When our orders were filled, I reached to the counter to grab the sandwiches and head for the door. The bag slipped slightly from my hand as I grabbed it, and I flinched to catch it.

That's when I felt it - a seizing pain that reached down from my shoulder to my ass. I recognized it from last spring as something like a muscle strain. As before, it gradually became difficult to sit or walk throughout the course of the evening. I tried to sleep but had trouble doing so, as I knew I was in for a hell of time this when I woke.

When I finally developed the moxie to rise Thursday morning, it took about three minutes and ten utterances of the phrase "C'mon, Brett" to bring my body to the standing position. I walked to the kitchen leading with the genitals, as though I was being drawn in whatever direction I was moving by a piece of fishing twine sutured to my lower abdomen. As you can imagine, the process of making breakfast, showering, and collecting my belongings were labored at best and miserable at worst.

If you're still reading through the inevitable pity you must feel for me, then you may enjoy imagining the process of my putting on socks and shoes when I was alone and basically unable to bend at the waist. I had managed to kick my shorts far enough up my leg from a seated position that I could reach them with a bended knee well enough to lift them above what butt I have. After this, I laid carefully on the bed and managed to grab my shoes and socks and lay them on my chest. I began with one sock and thoughtfully placed it around the fingers of my right hand, oriented so that I could drag and pull the sock onto my foot with one hand. After putting the sock on - a process which took about ninety seconds - I moved to the shoe. I put the opposite foot flat on the bed with bended knee. I rotated the hip and bent the knee of the foot onto which the shoe was to go, placing the foot on top of the other knee. I gradually stretched the hamstring of the leg as the foot came down my angled thigh at a rate of about one inch per minute, until I could get the tip of my toes far enough into the shoe to keep the shoe on. Five minutes later I managed to stretch the hamstring far enough to painfully reach the shoe with my hands well enough to get it completely on my foot and tie it in the worst common bow knot I have tied since second grade.

I repeated the process for the other foot.

At this point, I was concerned that I would get to Winder (where my therapy sessions are) and be forced to call Big Oob for a ride home. He, of course, would get mad and assume that I was drunk, which I wouldn't be... though I couldn't fault him for thinking so. This did not happen, but needless to say the ride to Winder, Athens, and then home was not so great. Walking around downtown Athens like I had inflamed hemorrhoids was worse.

But the worst part was the frustration at being unable to care for myself. Though my issues were relatively minor, I really began to feel for those whose bodies have failed them. I dread any future day when I feel as helpless as I did on Thursday. And I can't wait to be able to bend at the waist, sit without grunting, or stand for five minutes without looking like I'm about to take a dump.

Some bullets, some news, and a brief farewell

• You may recall that I had some back pain last spring. Since early April it has gotten worse, and lately it has started to concern me. Last week I finally saw a doctor. I begin physical therapy tomorrow. I'm a little nervous, but the drugs are great.

• I have been skeptical since the release of the Gillette Mach 3 Power. It has seemed less like a more efficient razor, and more like a vibrator with blades. When Meghan and I went on vacation with my family, I left my non-shaky razor at home. Dad bought me a Mach 3 Power, and I tried it. I now prefer it.

• Somehow I have been missing the music of Pete Yorn all these years. Meghan and I heard some of his tunes in Walker's a few weeks ago, and she identified it immediately. I am now the satisfied owner of one album, and intend to purchase more.

• I get more than a little excited the first time each late summer when I hear the following on the radio for the first time:

"The station Atlanta turns to first for live team coverage of breaking news.... News Talk 750 WSB. Atlanta's News, Weather, Traffic, and Georgia Bulldogs Station. Depend on it." (I wish I could handle money like Clark Howard does).

• I have hesitated to mention the following on the blog, because there are lots of thoughts and feelings floating around out there as a result of the personnel carousel of the last few years. Now that I know I am involved, I feel more comfortable talking about it.

For the first time since leaving the university in 2005, I am working with the Redcoats once again. I have spent the last week at band camp, and will be traveling to Athens at least once a week along with attending most games. I am teaching in various capacities along with offering operational advice and institutional memory.

I experienced some combination of nervousness and guilt as this opportunity emerged. Having been back for a week, I am comfortable saying that I think the group is in for something good. And, no matter how cool I try to be about it, I am truthfully very excited to get to stand in front of the band once again.

• "When did we get so old that people stopped getting married and started dying?" This was a perfectly valid question asked by Russell upon hearing of Troy's passing last Friday. And I have to admit that I feel a little of the same thing.

I won't insult his memory by what would be an insufficient description of his selflessness and optimism. I will only say that I have and will continue to look back on my times with Troy with the most genuine fondness I know.

Well, and this... I believe that one of the strongest and purest sources of human motivation is the desire to matter. It was evident today, as the lobby and chapel were filled to capacity with people who had been touched by Troy, that he had done just that. We're obviously all sad to lose a dear friend. But I also hope that everyone who knew Troy is happy for him and the fact that he exits having changed his corner in the most positive of ways. I don't think I will ever forget the amount of admiration in that room today. In this way, among many others, Troy will be here for a long time to come.

Good bye, old friend. Very, very well done.

23 days and 6 bullets

• I began a post earlier today which railed on the people who have reacted negatively to the news of Meghan's hiring at a school with many challenges. The more I read it, the more I realized that I was just yelling from the shore, exactly like the people about whom I was complaining. So I'm simply going to say that I am very proud of her decision to get her hands dirty, endure the difficulties, and teach in a place where she has the opportunity to change something for the better.

• On that note, I think I have begun to realize that the terms "positive" and "negative" don't respectively mean "good" and "bad." I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to figure this out, but the realization has been quite meaningful.

• New releases on DVD suck right now (Hmmmm... is that positive or negative?). Except Charlie Bartlett. Charlie Bartlett was pretty good. All other new releases on DVD suck right now. Well, but then I haven't seen all of them. Hell, I have only seen one of them. But they don't look good. So, all new releases on DVD except Charlie Bartlett look like they suck, even though I don't really know that to be true. Wow. How many new DVD releases worldwide could there possibly have been in the last few weeks? Is it really possible that I have really given descriptions or reviews of even a significant fraction of them a fair shake? Probably not. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever piddly number of New Release DVD descriptions and reviews I have encountered lately seem to indicate that they suck. Except Charlie Bartlett. And it was only okay.

• I have been re-bitten by the marching band bug. I have been more or less uninvolved since leaving my job three years ago. I am looking forward to helping out in a few places this fall.

• Every time I write a song after a lengthy time away, I wonder why I took time away. Then I realize that I have to eat.

• Meghan has discovered a great formula for making a great Frozen Jack and Dr. Pepper at home. Get her to tell you about it. Better yet, get her to tell you about it, and then put a spoonful on a brownie. But make sure you have a will first.

I'm home from Br00kwood's Band Camp, and I am more or less in one piece. Things went as well as I remember them going. I just hope things continue to be as good as they were at camp. As we all know, that's a toss up with high school students.

I finally have my apartment set up. Considering the proximity of my apartment to Meghan's, mine will function less like a home and more like an office. With the exception of the DSL (tomorrow), I'm ready to roll. I have some very interesting projects lined up for the fall, including some last minute arrangements, a waiting line of songs to write, the creation of a composition portfolio for Midwest, and some band work in various capacities.

Oh... and if you can't hear it, the drumbeat of football season is present in the distance. And it's getting louder.

Also, I think this is awesome. (HT: Blutarsky)

Cullowheeeeee

The latest installment of My Life as a Thirty-Four Year-Old Band Geek finds us in beautiful Cullowhee, NC on the campus of Western Carolina University. We are surrounded by mountains on a small but modern campus with facilities that are adequate to allow us to do what we need to do.

This is all fine and good. What is great is the temperature. We broke 100 degrees several times over the last few years in Clinton, SC, - a situation that was dangerous and downright inconvenient (I don't know what it is about the border of South Carolina that makes anything in the state hotter than anything outside of it... except the women). So far today here in the mountains, we have been about ten degrees cooler than Atlanta. When I walked out of my dorm at 8am this morning, it was about 62 degrees.

Plus there is a Walmart three miles away which has a great stock of Red Bull, Gold Bond, Yuengling (no, I didn't) flushable wipes, ibuprofen, and sunscreen. So everything seems fine, except I swear I keep hearing distant banjos.

Die Walküre's

Ok, so I didn't exactly use that title correctly. But life has felt like an opera of late, and the drill-writing portion of it has felt like one big-ass, long, drawn out Wagner music drama - the kind that makes your ass so sore from sitting that you swear you'll never attend one again. Nevertheless, I finally find myself in Athens, at Walker's, on a Friday afternoon, at the convergence of eras.

Wow, I really wrote that.

Since last we talked, I have been to Florida and back on vacation with Meghan and my family, finished all but two of this summer's horn books (the rest should be done by Tuesday), packed all my belongings, moved to Marietta, and finished my lone drill book of the summer as my apartment sat packed in boxes. I sit in one of my favorite spots in the world, waiting for Meghan to arrive in Athens for a rehearsal and a wedding. After this, I will once again be at band camp. And finally, I'll be back in Marietta to start my fall, while Meghan begins school in earnest.

My one-year move to Athens has come to an end with no shortage of reminiscing about its events, doting on small pieces of real estate that hold significant personal meaning to my significant other and me, and general mourning of the necessity of moving on from my twice-adopted hometown to the location of Whatever Is Next. I have done a pretty good job of managing my little sadnesses, disguising the occasional unexpected lump in the throat as a cough, and subtly sweeping conversations of Athens off into the ether with timely changes of subject. I also twice managed to convince myself that this is not real: first by insisting that "the second we can move back, we are going back," and later by declaring myself a resident of the "Athens-Atlanta Area." Unfortunately, after being concerned earlier this week that Meghan was having a hard time with the move, I suddenly became a sobbing mess at the dinner table while simultaneously realizing that I was the one who wasn't handling it well.

She thought I was choking. And in a way she was right.

There are many times in which I have wished I could present myself as a true citizen of the world - wished that I could make myself out to be comfortable under any circumstances, willing to dive into new pools with no concern for what lies beneath, shaking the hands of total strangers, and lighting busy rooms with stories of foreign adventure and danger. I find myself mildly jealous of the adaptability of my friends who are from military families in that regard. They always seem to be able to walk into new situations and engage without hesitation. But if there is one truth about me, it is that I need familiarity in order to be happy.

I can hear all of my friends, having read the previous sentence, saying aloud, "Really? Shocker."

The bad news for people like me is that things are changing, regardless of whether or not I approve. The good news is that we adapt. Almost every time I move, things get like this. I run into every exposed sharp object in my new apartment. I encounter water leaking through my ceiling. I get confused about my actual location in the new Target which looks almost exactly like the one to which I am accustomed. But gradually, everything gets better because it too becomes familiar.

It's important for me to point out that I would move five hundred times and I would move five hundred more to be near the woman I love. And I know she would do the same for me. I choose to move because I choose permanent happiness over a discomfort that will remedy itself by simple repetition in a few weeks. Moreover, I am closer to the people I care about and enjoy the most than I have been at any point since college ended.

I really do recognize the necessity and benefits of change. Things end so other things can begin. Things change so we learn to appreciate moments when we are in them. Good things go away to make room for potentially better things. Cerebrally I get that. It is simply the way life works. There is no alternative.

But somewhere in the middle of my soul, there is a child that does not understand why people get sick, why relationships sour, why pets go away, and why we have to leave the places we love. And that, I suspect, isn't ever going to change.

Still Slammed

Just letting you know that I'm alive and that my stuff is in an apartment. As soon as we got everything in on Friday, I immediately picked up the laptop and resumed writing drill. I'm working as hard as I know how to work. It will be Friday before I am finished, at which point I hope to be writing a more detailed update from Ye Olde Walker's Coffee and Pub.

Yankees fans... truly the class of baseball.

I'm embarrassed by my virtual absence, but there isn't much I can do about it right now. On the home stretch of work for the season, and moving to Marietta on Thursday and Friday. But if you're looking for something to read, Groo reports a shocking potential move up to the east side for Georgia Football clientele.

If this turns out to be true, I will be tickled that I didn't donate my intended piddly $1000.00 per seat for tickets this year (I am not a season ticket holder). I will also be scared that Georgia Football is getting too expensive for me.