Another rainy day here in New England. It's so uninspiring, but how much inspiration is required for hanging and cabling a bunch of speaker cabinets? Yeah, we're still putting the plot in the air, which involves several ladders, catwalks, and an incredibly cool Genie that ways a ton. The Genie is nothing like the piece of shit that I used to ride in undergrad: it has little padded feet instead of outriggers (not that we ever had the outriggers on in school---safety is for sissies!), and a scissors type thing that allows you to extend the reach of the genie horizontally, even while in the air. It's wicked, but I doubt that I'll spend much time in it. I haven't miraculously recovered from my fear of heights, but then, I didn't expect to. Actually, it's more of a fear of ladders. I don't trust myself not to fall. It's a bit of a professional handicap, though I suppose that a fear of falling fromm great heights is a function of survival instinct.
So, I'm sitting in fluorescent lit office listening to a little Dave Brubeck. I want to expand my jazz collection, and Brubeck seems to do no wrong. High on my list are the following albums: Jazz goes to College, Time In, Jazz Impressions of Japan, and Jazz Impressions of New York. I may be able to pick them up at a tiny old man record store in a neighboring town run out of an old Victorian house. I'd like to avoid amazon.com, in any case. In the meantime, I'm partaking of a little Time Out.

?Who Knew?
I discovered yesterday that the older minidisc decks, such as the MDS-JE510, don't or can't read anything written in MDLP format. I had encountered this problem before on tour, but it was with a Denon deck, which I assumed was a proprietary problem. Nope. Seems the decks around here, and a lot of theaters, are pre-MDLP era devices. So, I can only play three of my minidiscs on the decks in the studio, because I'm stingy with my disc space and always write in MDLP. They are as follows: Cat Power, The Cover Album; Tori Amos, Scarlet's Walk; and a promotional minidisc from Rolling Stone magazine. It's labelled volume one. I wonder when they plan to release another one. haha.
I called Full Compass yesterday to price out a new compressor. The hold music was Michael Nyman's score to The Piano. Tasteful, but an odd choice.
I lost one of my needles. In a size that I use all the time. Out of a project that I'm trying to finish (but not trying very hard). Of course, I would lose a cream colored needle in a room with ecru linoleum (Can lino be referred to as having a color as classy as ecru or beige?). I tore the place apart looking for it, to no avail. I'll just have to order another set, I guess, since this is the second needle I've lost out of a five needle set. Oh well.

I've finished my days of driving and am now attempting to settle into the area. More on that subject later.
A few observations:
People who drive pick up trucks are very aggressive drivers.
I-90 is a much better route than I-80. 80 spends too much time in the mountains.
It is possible to listen to Canadian radio stations in New York. They're not better, they're just different.
I understand all the Funzo jokes on the Simpsons now that I've travelled with a Furby. I put it in the trunk so that I wouldn't have to listen to it the entire trip. Fifteen minutes later, I could still hear its muffled singing as I said good-bye to my mother. It was behaving erratically when I unpacked it, so I though it was time for a battery change. Fresh AAs made no difference. I guess erratic is subjective.
Sunscreen does unkind things to your skin, but not wearing does even worse things.
What do all those no HC signs in Ohio mean? I had plenty of time to think about it, and still haven't come up with a driving related HC.

My cousin gave me a furby over the weekend, without the booklet. I am still trying to figure out some of the oddities of its behavior. Still, it is an amazing little doll, what with its having more processors than the lunar landing module.
In other news, my packing has stepped up to another level. I have most of the cds that I want to take crated. Laundry is planned before further packing can commence. I went to my storage locker this morning, which was not as fruitful as I had hoped. Still, my long missing tabletop fan was discovered hiding behind pieces of the frame of my futon. I have a great fondness for that fan. I also found several lighting fixtures. Bad lighting is just not acceptable to me, so I must bring some small lamps and my strand of lanterns to liven the place up a bit.
Other than that, not much going on. My social calendar is quite full these days. I'm going to go through withdrawal next week! Still, I am proud of myself for not having a smoking relapse while out with a beloved smoking friend who was responsible for a big relapse in the past. Being an ex-smoker is sort of like being a recovering alcoholic. You think one won't hurt you, then you're back to smoking a pack a day. I've been quit over a month now, at which point it allegedly gets easier. I'm not sure that that is true.

My car was towed this morning. Talk about an unexpected reversal! It turned out, after a call to Streets & Sanitation, that it had just been relocated, not taken to the dreaded impound lot. So my friend and I trotted over to the lot in Lincoln Park (the park, not the neighborhood) to get it. I've never been so relieved to see my car!
I finished my Rowan sweater yesterday. It's too big. A nice problem to have, but still undesirable. I knit it in the round, so I can't just take it in at the seams. I'll have to cut into it and make new side seams. This scares me. A lot. The idea of cutting into the product of all that work is daunting, to say the least. But maybe if I do that, I can cheat some shaping into it. Right now, the sweater is basically a tube up to the armhole decreases. Oh well. It is very cute.

My mother came home unexpectedly early from her weekend away with friends. I didn't have any sort of present for her, which I understood to be incredibly bad. So I stayed up all night rewiring and hanging a ceiling lamp for her in the living room. Well, I passed out afterwards and overslept. This lead to a very unpleasant phone call with the production manager from my former production. I don't need that kind of negative energy in my life; it gave the day a very bad start. So, I'm completely finished with my Chicago show and can focus on getting everything ready to go to Massachusetts. Luckily, I had a very good talk with their company manager and feel confident that I'm not walking into another evil ballet situation. The fact that they even have a company manager is a step up.
I've almost finished my rowan all season cotton sweater. My mother and grandmother find the idea of a sleeveless sweater with a turtleneck quite strange, but it's not designed for warmth. It wasn't designed with a turtleneck, for that matter. I modified the neckline, after consulting a few books. I'm not sure that I realized what a pain it would be to pick up all of those neckline stitches to start the turtleneck, but it's going along quite well now. I hope to have it finished in order to wear it tonight, but if I don't, it won't be the end of the world.