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Luke Melia

11/30/2001, 9:52 am

Goodbye to George Harrison, George Harrison whose time on earth ended last night.

A memory of his music: I’m sick with typhoid in India in 1999. My mom’s freaking out in New York, talking about coming to get me. Meeta’s nursing me with courage, love and tylenol. The song I most enjoyed hearing was “Here Comes the Sun”. The song’s faith in the future helped me know I’d get through it.

Thanks, man. You’ll be missed.

11/30/2001, 1:03 am

It’s almost December. I’m shocked. Where did my November go? Hmm….

It went to an indian summer, an endless fall. Got swallowed by the sorrow of a city rebuilding. 2001’s eleventh month was bandaged up and the year was given crutches and told to stay off the hurt month. It’s length was stolen by the bombs dropping on a faraway land where it was a long November. It evaporated into PHP, into an improved journaling tool. It beat a hasty retreat as I pelted it with my problems, worries and concerns. It fell asleep in the arms of mother October and grandmother September, pregnant with December.

11/29/2001, 3:03 am

Good connections today. A few good meetings with Ilio. A great lunch with Mary in the back of Zia Tonia. Volleyball strategizing with Anthony. (Looks like partial sponsorship is a possibility again for next season!) Talking shop with James on templating, and with Michael and Keith on CSS.

After work, headed uptown and had dinner with Elbert. It’s great getting to know him. I realized tonight how little we knew each other before deciding to do this trip together. It just felt right. Nice to see that after hanging out some, I still have a good feeling about it. After dinner, we worked on playing Hold On, by Sarah McLachlan. He’s a very talented musician and has a pretty slick home studio set up at his apartment. A studio in a studio, heh.

Then it was a few rounds of boggle with Will and Dad. Will won the first game and I took the second one. Youth prevails! Just kidding, dad.

There’s currently a photo in the rotation above of Liz spiking at our volleyball clinic last night. I watched and took pictures during the clinic, and it seemed to be helpful for people. I think we should try to do it again when we have some specific problems to solve or things to improve.

11/27/2001, 4:23 am

My camera arrived today. If it could take an infrared picture of my life, you’d see clearly a hurricane pattern of emotion swirl-hopping along on crutches towards an blurry area of Southeast Asia and the new year.

11/26/2001, 2:35 am

Saw “Spy Games”, starring Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. Not a bad flick. It was improved by the gambling. In lieu of playing tennis (on account of my foot), my one-time tennis partner Shannon suggested that placing bets on a movie would be a sort of athletic substitution. Entertaining, and she won two out of three categories.

Saw the coming attractions to Black Hawk Down. Anthony recommended it, and although I had decided it was too intense, maybe I’ll read it after all; it looks like reading it would make the movie really interesting.

Before the movie, I saw Shannon’s brother, Baxter Clement, and Bill Britelle play acoustic at the Gaslight. It was their first time playing out non-electric, and I thought they did pretty well. Dad and Will and Uncle Tommy and his FDNY batallion chief came out to the show, too. Good to see Uncle Tom.

I’m thinking about sending out holiday cards. Seems like a kind of daunting task, but probably would be a good thing.

Willie and Dad are here through the week. On the down side, I’m sharing my space. On the up side, I’ve got them to pal around with. They’re both already sleeping. Which is exactly where I should be. Good night.

11/25/2001, very late

11/25/2001, very late

Lots of guitar today. I’m finding that playing is very emotionally soothing, which I can really use right now.

This blog has now been converted to an XML back-end. It’s necessary groundwork for more interesting features.

11/24/2001, 12:27 am

Strawberry Fields.

That’s the new color of my hair. It’s not Strawberry Fields…Forever. The tube says it “lasts up to 40 washes”.

All part of Family Fun Day.

That’s about all I’m going to say about the day here. That, and I can’t wait to get off these friggin’ crutches!

11/23/2001, 2:00 am

A nice Thanksgiving. Hope you had one. I had one.

We went to my cousins’ place. They live on the same block as I do on the east side of the city. And yet, we basically see them once a year. And we really enjoy it. It’s a little odd, I suppose, but that’s what it is.

My cousin Anthony (who now lives in San Fran) and I speak more frequently than that and see each other in his city or mine a few times a year. I had touched base with him last week to check in and all was well. Between then and today, though, he was laid off from his job at a big video game company. Bummer. But, as he noted, it’s becoming something of a rite of passage for our generation.

This Thanksgiving, he brought his girlfriend Sasha home with him. I wasn’t sure what to expect of a woman Anthony would bring home, but now I know: a very cool girl. She grew up in Hawaii and it turns out that she knows our family friend Craig Couglar’s son Gulliver. I asked her because I dimly remember Gully from my visit to the big island in third grade, and figured that big island kids around the same age have probably met. Max’s girlfriend seems great, too. She’s pitching a show to MTV and seems pretty optimistic about her chances of getting it produced.

Several people have asked recently what a vegetarian like me eats on Thanksgiving, so I’ll try to recount this evening’s bounteous plate: sweet potato, broccoli rabe, vegan stuffing, portobello mushroom, cranberry sauce and seitan with peppers and onions. Dessert was (this is all made without refined sugar or dairy) two pieces of pumpkin pie, a piece of chocolate tofu creme pie, a bit of chocolate walnut pie, and a jelly drop cookie. Wow, I feel full again just writing that.

Before Thanksgiving, we visited my mom’s dad on the upper east side, who we don’t have a very close relationship with. We don’t see him much. so Mom makes it a point to pay a visit every Thanksgiving while everyone’s together. While there, we talked a bunch about our experiences on September 11th. People are going to be thinking and talking about that for years to come. I think WhereWereYou.org is a cool idea.

Closed out the night on Long Island playing some guitar with Willie and Monica singing along to Tangled Up In Blue, Mom doing vocals on Long Black Veil and Isabella and Jessie making up new words to Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie’s Against The Law. Good motivation to learn some more tunes.

Now it’s time to rest up for a big brunch tomorrow. The music is stacked high and the food plays on…

Thanksgiving 2001, 2:06 am

Thanksgiving 2001, 2:06 am

This Thanksgiving, I’m most grateful for passion, health, sincerity, fun, joy, laughing, smiling, good friends, girlfriends, computers, volleyball, being paid to do a job I enjoy, inline skates, art, delicious food, the people that dedicate their lives to helping others (including our firefighters and police), foot doctors, water, natural medicine, frequent flyer miles, photography, language, eyes, family and free will.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving full of appreciation and joy!

11/20/2001, 10:06 am

It’s just like the NY Times said: “Monday has become the new Thursday, which replaced the old Friday, but now often resembles the current Saturday.”

It’s especially true when your beleagured volleyball team wins 3 outta 3 games on a Monday night. What else are you to do but travel 10 blocks on your crutches to celebrate at an Irish pub? Early Tuesday morning was reminiscent of early Friday mornings I have known, with Rich sending a stream of not-quite-straight-thinkin’ emails (Taylor called them Faulknerian!) between and 2 and 4 am. Of course, he’s on vacation starting today. Me, on the other hand, I have a long busy day ahead. As soon as my Dad returns with a new rubber tip for the bottom of my crutch (along with Rich’s email self-discipline, another casualty of the evening), I’ll begin it.

Had some good talks last night with Anthony and with Cher, and then later with my Dad. Helped me put some things in perspective on the romantic side of things.

Dad’s back in town. He’s thinking of moving to NYC. It would be great to have him close by. He’s a very centering element in my life in his own peripatetic way.

LukeMelia.com created 1999. ··· Luke Melia created 1976. ··· Live With Passion!
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