I'm here again.

First, a remarkably huge thanks to the delightful, talented and mega-entertaining Hannah for making sure no one was bored while I was gone. And thanks to Matthew for helping her with the technologicals because she couldn't figure them out while working 900 hours per day, bless her heart. I hope to have her back again soon. As for me, I'm getting reacclimated to non-super-frying-hot climes and digging through (counting) a grand total of 298 emails between my three accounts. Sitting back in front of my computer right now makes me realize that, from last Thursday to right now, I was not only independent of my Powerbook, but also, for the most part, music. Music that I personally seek out, that is. You see, an average day is graced by it in some form or another, and it's mostly due to my own moxie re: searchiness. But I made a concerted effort to, well, not really do anything related to music or the Internet for a week, and it was mucho relaxo. But it didn't mean that music didn't still make itself known to me, and it's kind of fun (for me, perhaps only) to see what sticks when I'm not trying to stick it myself. It's good to be back on the horse (to coin a phrase), don't get me wrong, but a bit of drying out every once in a moon is good for the soul.

With that in mind, I kept a (part napkin, part-mental) diary of the musical encounters I had over the past week or so, completely untriggered by me in the typical sense (in no real order)

• A dream where I somehow got to interview Thom Yorke in a dorm on some Midwestern college campus somewhere. At first, I kept trying to talk, but my mouth wouldn't let me form words, but more like broken, old-man grunts and wheezes. Once I got past that, he wanted a room with better sound because for some reason it was now being taped. So we walked through a progression of weird, highly individualized and colorful locations before settling on something that I think reminded me of the Coach's office from the scene in Big where Josh tells his friend something and they sing that double-dutch song. Then, my second question ("so, I hear you were a fighter in your youth," or something to that effect) pissed him off and he stormed out. I think I probably woke up at that point.
• Another dream (this one was more recent, on Monday night) where Nelly Furtado and I stole some shit, Sopranos-style, and then I guess got caught, because we were getting the kind of lie-detector tests that hook you up to chest patches and whatnot. I failed my test with flying colors, and my dream logic made me rip everything off my chest and take off running, Nelly in tow naturally. Then, like a Gondry video, the scene changed and we're running down a 1970s New York alleyway and are all of a sudden wearing Santa Claus suits for disguises. This is where I think I woke up, because I couldn't remember any more when writing this by the pool later in the morning.
• The pretty good reggae covers band that played one afternoon by the pool. Earlier in the day, they sort of accosted my girlfriend's very cute-but-totally-like-sixteen sister in the elevator, laughing uncontrollably and calling her a "sexy lady" or something. They played mostly Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and I felt like yelling for a Desmond Dekker cover but forgot because I was kind of drunk. Then, I swear to god, they bust into a pretty slinky version of "Shanty Town 007" as the sun was setting. It was great.
  
• The really bad Jimmy Buffett that was fucking ubiquitous despite its complete over-obviousness and just sheer badness.
  
• The shuttle bus back from the wedding reception, with my girlfriend's extended family (her mother, whose wedding we were receptioning, has like 17 sisters and they have husbands) on board, only had an FM radio. The driver tuned it to an oldies station and we heard the tail end of the Four Tops' "Ain't No Woman Like the One I Got" and Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight," which was great in a weird Almost Famous kind of way.
• This really cool, dry-humored and 6'11" Dutchman named Martijn (actually the husband of my girlfriend's new step-dad's daughter) telling me over dinner and several beers how much he fucking loves both Appetite for Destruction and OK Computer. I think Metallica may have been mentioned somewhere in there, too. The other sister asked me if I'd heard of Keane. I said no.
  
• The fact that, every time I was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, for some reason I kept getting Sonic Youth's "The Diamond Sea" stuck in my head. I could only remember the basic riff and some of the lyrics, but oh, yeah, there was another cool thing about floating in the ocean. My girlfriend's kinda-gothy, kinda KMFDM-y and definitely pierc-y and tattoo-y sister floated around there for hours with this big black umbrella the entire time, because she burns really easily. At times, she looked like Mary Poppins, but like dark and floating in the ocean.