re-entry
holy crap
I don't even understand the passing of time anymore, so I can't really relate how it feels like it's been so long since I last updated. I know it really has been a long time, like three years, and remembering this journal the other day just made me feel like coming back. it was refreshing to read old entries and see how far I've come as a person...
It's a Tuesday morning, my first day off every week. a day I usually spend sitting high on the couch, drinking too much coffee and trying to set a plan for what I do with myself during my time off. right now my schedule makes me look like a maniac. really, my life is so action-packed I can't help but have a shitload of fun. for instance, today we (rebel base) are practicing with ben miner to perform as Iggy and the Stooges at a Halloween party in Brattleboro on Thursday. TOMORROW we are practicing with his wife, Ilene, to do a klezmerized rendition of N.I.B. that we will be performing on FRIDAY at the academy of music in Northampton. Saturday is going to be a crazy day as usual, and on Sunday it will be my birthday. I've set up a "party" of sorts at the restaurant on sunday, and I'm intending to cook my butt off for everyone as a way of "celebrating"? I guess that's what I've become now.
Looking back and seeing who I was in 2002, when I started this journal, and who I became over the years:
-2002: high school, dating Ashbury and doing Rob is 3/5 Robot, the start of my removal from the bullshit reality of highschool;
-2003: ending high school, being super serious, even detrimentally so, in a relationship with Gina that seriously shaped who I was to become over the next couple years. Thanks to her I was able to maintain my inner sense of 'weirdness'. we had seriously rough times but overall I was devoted to her and our relationship.
-2004: college, nonsense. I think it was here I became really apathetic and hardened, working in a system that really did not make me happy, though I seemed so naturally good at it I should have embraced it? at least that was my struggle.
-2005: the beginning of the end. I started smoking pot, welcomed partying with arms wide open and took it way too far. dropped out of college and started working at the blue onion (MAYBE THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE). I was vegetarian at this time as well, and the constant working, partying, and self inflicted malnourishment took its toll on my body AND MY MIND. gina and I broke up for the first, second, and maybe third and last time by the end of the year. began stage 1 of epic bleakness and
-2006: started and obsessed with NORTHPOLETAPES for the beginning of the year, met Lindsey in march and dropped off the face of my life previous to that. a welcome escape and my introduction to new England. ridiculous!
-2007: living in Texas and miserable that Lindsey was so far away in Italy, I followed her there, teaching myself Italian to make the move more comfortable, as we were living on farms and working our butts off in the field and the kitchen. a legendary time, for sure!
-2008: moved to greenfield previous fall after an Italian adventure and cross country trip that included a week long stay with d_castle. sick and starving as I was as a vegan on the way to vegetarianism, I was having the time of my life! in a weird way Lindsey and I were still getting along though I think we both started to accept we weren't "in love" like we talked about. I became more removed and isolated, especially when I entered another January bleak mode that led to our breakup.
-2009-2011: REALLY. I have to lump these years together because I am starting to realize since I've dropped into this greenfield scene, I've kept up such a busy schedule days fly by like minutes, excrutiating minutes! ups and downs, I lived sadly in several tiny rooms and recorded bleak semi-industrial metal songs to keep myself away from people when I wasn't working at breakneck speed at h&o, trying to be the best of the best. bleakness for three years, punctuated with lots of wonderful: a great friendship with Veronica that helped me overcome wanting to move away several times, several beautiful Christmas mornings with her family in Shelburne Falls and countless adventures that introduced me to this beautiful place we live in. Epic bro-friendships with Justin Dudley and Jeremy Brockett; we were inseperable! and completely obsessed with drinking coffee, smoking weed, and making noise music. of course, with Jeremy we shared the same fucking intense love of food and cooking. Because I loved the guy so damned much, I insisted on taking him to NYC for a foodventure with Rachel
ouch. we really really liked eachother, but I was an ass, she was weirdly aloof; it all fizzled in a weird way. We had a lot of really great adventures. I admired her sense of taste - her apartment in Shelburne Falls, the memory image I have of it is just a shimmering, glowing, magical place where we gently came to a fondness for eachother, awkward as we both were. we hug now. I gave her a jar of kimchi last time I saw her.
in late 2010, early 2011 I thought I had had enough. I had completely disowned (and still maintain my position) my former friend Vanessa, with whom I had a great though sometimes shaky relationship as a friend and dedicated roommate. I moved into "my" first place, an awkward apartment, a 4th floor walkup. most people told me I was crazy, I told them THEY were the crazy ones. I was wrong. appropriately, after kicking out my sniveling wimp of a roommate the legendary Sarah Nelson Riley and I became roomies. it was a great pairing, which I remember was adorably punctuated with a scene one extremely late night in which sarah and I were snuggled up in a makeshift bed on the dining/living room floor, cozy and warm with a huge pile of pillows, falling asleep to Anchorman when I said, "Sarah, I'm really glad we're roommates." because I could want nothing better than that at that point in my life! enter
ANIKA
who just changed everything. it's almost not worth chronicling right now because I'm still living it. between Rebel Base and The Brass Buckle is a huge ocean of love. there, I said it. OCEAN OF LOVE.
-2012: opened the Brass Buckle. (keep it simple)
-2013:
This has been a really cool year. I'm coming up on my birthday, but it's hardly a concern for me. I've done so much this year: having a full and capable staff has allowed me & anika plenty of time to get away from the restaurant and relax. this is good not only because we can continue having crazy adventures but we're constantly rethinking and learning lessons from the restaurants we go to about how we can make ours the best we can. It brings me immeasurable joy to constantly try to refine what we do at the Buckle; I hope that some day I can be satisfied by these efforts, but at the given rate it seems unlikely.
I don't even understand the passing of time anymore, so I can't really relate how it feels like it's been so long since I last updated. I know it really has been a long time, like three years, and remembering this journal the other day just made me feel like coming back. it was refreshing to read old entries and see how far I've come as a person...
It's a Tuesday morning, my first day off every week. a day I usually spend sitting high on the couch, drinking too much coffee and trying to set a plan for what I do with myself during my time off. right now my schedule makes me look like a maniac. really, my life is so action-packed I can't help but have a shitload of fun. for instance, today we (rebel base) are practicing with ben miner to perform as Iggy and the Stooges at a Halloween party in Brattleboro on Thursday. TOMORROW we are practicing with his wife, Ilene, to do a klezmerized rendition of N.I.B. that we will be performing on FRIDAY at the academy of music in Northampton. Saturday is going to be a crazy day as usual, and on Sunday it will be my birthday. I've set up a "party" of sorts at the restaurant on sunday, and I'm intending to cook my butt off for everyone as a way of "celebrating"? I guess that's what I've become now.
Looking back and seeing who I was in 2002, when I started this journal, and who I became over the years:
-2002: high school, dating Ashbury and doing Rob is 3/5 Robot, the start of my removal from the bullshit reality of highschool;
-2003: ending high school, being super serious, even detrimentally so, in a relationship with Gina that seriously shaped who I was to become over the next couple years. Thanks to her I was able to maintain my inner sense of 'weirdness'. we had seriously rough times but overall I was devoted to her and our relationship.
-2004: college, nonsense. I think it was here I became really apathetic and hardened, working in a system that really did not make me happy, though I seemed so naturally good at it I should have embraced it? at least that was my struggle.
-2005: the beginning of the end. I started smoking pot, welcomed partying with arms wide open and took it way too far. dropped out of college and started working at the blue onion (MAYBE THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE). I was vegetarian at this time as well, and the constant working, partying, and self inflicted malnourishment took its toll on my body AND MY MIND. gina and I broke up for the first, second, and maybe third and last time by the end of the year. began stage 1 of epic bleakness and
-2006: started and obsessed with NORTHPOLETAPES for the beginning of the year, met Lindsey in march and dropped off the face of my life previous to that. a welcome escape and my introduction to new England. ridiculous!
-2007: living in Texas and miserable that Lindsey was so far away in Italy, I followed her there, teaching myself Italian to make the move more comfortable, as we were living on farms and working our butts off in the field and the kitchen. a legendary time, for sure!
-2008: moved to greenfield previous fall after an Italian adventure and cross country trip that included a week long stay with d_castle. sick and starving as I was as a vegan on the way to vegetarianism, I was having the time of my life! in a weird way Lindsey and I were still getting along though I think we both started to accept we weren't "in love" like we talked about. I became more removed and isolated, especially when I entered another January bleak mode that led to our breakup.
-2009-2011: REALLY. I have to lump these years together because I am starting to realize since I've dropped into this greenfield scene, I've kept up such a busy schedule days fly by like minutes, excrutiating minutes! ups and downs, I lived sadly in several tiny rooms and recorded bleak semi-industrial metal songs to keep myself away from people when I wasn't working at breakneck speed at h&o, trying to be the best of the best. bleakness for three years, punctuated with lots of wonderful: a great friendship with Veronica that helped me overcome wanting to move away several times, several beautiful Christmas mornings with her family in Shelburne Falls and countless adventures that introduced me to this beautiful place we live in. Epic bro-friendships with Justin Dudley and Jeremy Brockett; we were inseperable! and completely obsessed with drinking coffee, smoking weed, and making noise music. of course, with Jeremy we shared the same fucking intense love of food and cooking. Because I loved the guy so damned much, I insisted on taking him to NYC for a foodventure with Rachel
ouch. we really really liked eachother, but I was an ass, she was weirdly aloof; it all fizzled in a weird way. We had a lot of really great adventures. I admired her sense of taste - her apartment in Shelburne Falls, the memory image I have of it is just a shimmering, glowing, magical place where we gently came to a fondness for eachother, awkward as we both were. we hug now. I gave her a jar of kimchi last time I saw her.
in late 2010, early 2011 I thought I had had enough. I had completely disowned (and still maintain my position) my former friend Vanessa, with whom I had a great though sometimes shaky relationship as a friend and dedicated roommate. I moved into "my" first place, an awkward apartment, a 4th floor walkup. most people told me I was crazy, I told them THEY were the crazy ones. I was wrong. appropriately, after kicking out my sniveling wimp of a roommate the legendary Sarah Nelson Riley and I became roomies. it was a great pairing, which I remember was adorably punctuated with a scene one extremely late night in which sarah and I were snuggled up in a makeshift bed on the dining/living room floor, cozy and warm with a huge pile of pillows, falling asleep to Anchorman when I said, "Sarah, I'm really glad we're roommates." because I could want nothing better than that at that point in my life! enter
ANIKA
who just changed everything. it's almost not worth chronicling right now because I'm still living it. between Rebel Base and The Brass Buckle is a huge ocean of love. there, I said it. OCEAN OF LOVE.
-2012: opened the Brass Buckle. (keep it simple)
-2013:
This has been a really cool year. I'm coming up on my birthday, but it's hardly a concern for me. I've done so much this year: having a full and capable staff has allowed me & anika plenty of time to get away from the restaurant and relax. this is good not only because we can continue having crazy adventures but we're constantly rethinking and learning lessons from the restaurants we go to about how we can make ours the best we can. It brings me immeasurable joy to constantly try to refine what we do at the Buckle; I hope that some day I can be satisfied by these efforts, but at the given rate it seems unlikely.