Positivity.

Positivity.

There's a number of positive events that have just passed or coming up that have served to recharge my mental / emotional batteries. I apologize for redundancy.

• Not completely sucking at our first show. With the benefit of hindsight, and by reading between people's impressions, I can see that there we came off kind of rough at times, but people still liked us. My biggest surprise is that people favorite songs were two of the newest, "So Make It A Good One" and Drunken Sweethearts."
• Taking a week off band practice but still playing drums at home. I don't think my body could have taken a full band practice so soon after the show. I was actually feeling kind of like a wuss until $in confessed to me that he too was pretty sore from playing Saturday night. In practice you play, but it's pretty obvious you hold back. When there's a crowd you throw you're all into it. I'll have to remember that next time so I can pull back a bit; it's kind of like a tattoo artists reminding you that you need to breath while their inking you. You forget the basic things.
• Sarah has a great interview with BATTLE appearing on Chicagoist today (link forthcoming when the scheduled piece goes live).
• I preview the new Bill Plympton screening tonight. I hadn't planned on going, but after writing about it I really want to go! Wonder if I can score some passes ... (link forthcoming when the scheduled piece goes live)
• We head to Michigan this weekend and it's too cold to really do yardwork anymore. That means that my pile of The New Yorker magazines that has been piling up may finally get read. It's amazing how much reading I can get done when there's no internet access. In fact, it's amazing how much writing I get done too!
• I was told yesterday that my Time Out Chicago piece on local clubs has proven relatively popular, with quite a few readers, and this make me happy. The only gripe I've gotten about the piece, that totally surprises me, is the fact I didn't include Karma. I find this funny because I thought I was one of the few to actually go to Karma while it was open, but now I'm realizing that it's one of those clubs that meant a particular thing to a particular group of people. That's cool.
• I'm going to an off-site conference for work tomorrow which means a) the possibility of learning new things to help me approach my job in new ways is high and b) the workweek will seem shorter because I'm out of the office doing something new for a day. Both of these things make me very happy.
• Even though I'm DJing solo, and before, between, and after bands at Liar's Club tomorrow -- which is usually something I'm not to fond of since I usually have never heard of the bands and have no idea what to expect -- I'm at least familiar with and enjoy one of the bands playing, The Goldstars, so it should be a fun night.
• I'm about to have my first cup of coffee.
• And this image of Dan looking hot, Amy looking bemused, Gina looking goofy and Scott, well, um, looking about as sweaty as I do behind the kit.