Pride Festival.

I hate parades. Not a big fan of social events either. I'd prefer spending time with my dog than with most people. And even the ones I will spend time with, it still isn't as much time as I like to spend with my dog. All of that being said, we went downtown to the Gay Pride Festival where G Play, the band my wife is now in, played for the fest. It was awesome. Hot and sweaty, but really cool to watch them all play, and especially to see her back doing the very thing that really drew us together.

When we first met she was finishing up her senior year of college and playing out quite a bit for school, both her flute and bass. It is one of the things I loved about her and was a basis for our initial relationship.

I feel like we have grown accustomed to hyperbole in our everyday speech: everything is so wonderfully great, it makes us incredibly happy, there's no better feeling. But her getting back into playing music, it's strange how happy this makes me. It's easy to lose touch with things, even things we love dearly, in the daily grind. You have bills to pay, obligations to fulfill, work to get through. And we push something to the back burner for awhile, not realizing how easy it is to let that become the status quo. It's great, actually a really NICE feeling to see her getting back into the very thing that helped make me fall in love with her at the beginning. Here she is being the quintessential bass player.

LGBT Pride Festival 2010

And, as usual, once I actually got out and past my initial prickly reluctance at socialization, I had fun.

Another attempt to start posting more regularly. Again.

I've been back in school and swamped with the amount of work I have. All of my classes are science and math and it's both exhilarating and overwhelming jumping back in full time after being out of a classroom environment for 15 years. It's been 18 years since I took any mathematics, and unlike a great many subjects, that has been a use it or lose it subject for me. Other than basic math skills and some algebra and geometry, I haven't used any trig or calculus since the early or mid 90's. Let me just say, it isn't all coming back to me either.

Life has required some adjustments. I am definitely more stressed and I'm certain it makes me a less enjoyable person to be around for my wife. We have been working on our own version of the modern relationship. Less time together than before, but we communicate and it helps that my wife really is my best friend. I tend to forget about things like human contact and she really keeps me grounded. It isn't always an easy or pleasant job for her, I know, and I'm always a bit dumbstruck at how she really does make me a better person in concrete ways. I'm fortunate to have found a great woman who's intelligent, super hot and interested in genuine nerds. I still find myself humming that opening stanza to Once In A Lifetime,

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?

I honestly don't know.

Surfacing briefly...

to post this. Too cool not to help spread it, and since I've gone off FB to figure out if that's a route I want to continue on, thought this would be as good a place as any to share. Here you go, might see you all in another 12 months!

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.