A busy December — plus a mostly sickness-free Xmas — ploughed into a busy January, and February’s already shaping up to be equally packed. Not that I’m complaining.
This month I’m working on a feature that could well be my first print-published piece since my student days; it’s shaping up nicely and I’m looking forward to the finished article, which should appear sometime later in the spring. I should give it a code name or something, let me think about that… let’s call it Pole Star.
I’ve done a few interviews since my last weeknotes post, which I can honestly say has been an exciting experience and a great boost for the aul’ confidence. I’ve previously linked to my Q&As with Kurt Ballou of Converge and former Hüsker Dü man/current troubadour Grant Hart; since then I’ve also conversed with William Bennett of Cut Hands, who I must say was a gent.
Oh, and last week I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview my musical hero Mike Watt, which was a pretty big deal for me. He’s coming to Dublin next month with his new band Il Sogno Del Marinaio, and we spoke at length about his upcoming tours, his new projects, and of course the Minutemen and fIREHOSE days. I expect it will be online at some point later this month.
Health-wise, the pace has picked up. I put on three pounds over the Xmas period but dropped most of that by my second WeightWatchers weigh-in of the New Year and now I’m just a few pounds off the seven-stone mark. Not so much walking getting done with the cold and the early sunsets and all, not to mention having to break in a new pair of walking shoes, but the exercise bike is getting use most days, and it won’t be too long before the clocks go forward and that grand stretch in the evenings returns. And my diet’s back to normal, too, if you call ‘eating more vegetables in a month than the previous decade of my life’ normal.
Alas, I’m still behind on everything else. My reading blitz in the first half of January levelled off, but I’m not about to force myself to slog through another book I’m not really in the mood for. The passion will return, as it always does. Same with viewing material: we breezed through The Newsroom in two sittings (it’s alright; a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous) but now we’re stumped for what series to watch or finish next. Choice, argh!
Meanwhile, Bee and I are working our way through the Universal Classic Monsters box set: so far Dracula (with the Philip Glass score) and Frankenstein (by far the better of the two). Probably redundant to give this project a name, but for completion’s sake let’s call it Betelgeuse.