On Saturday I humored Dan, going to a couple of different guitar shops that he never gets to go to, since they tend to be closed when we are in the area. He has been lusting over the Taylor Solid body guitar’s and it just makes me nervous. Great instruments for sure, but how many to we really need.

I feel guilty for my bass contribution to the problem because I don’t play well, or that often. I have my dream bass, a MusicMan Sterling in a gorgeous blue. I also have an American Fender P-bass that I got at a great deal used, a total surprise, but too good a deal to turn away from. Dan and I also share a Vertigo that we had custom painted, cause it’s cool and rare in the states. And I have a Nomad, a travel bass with a built-in speaker, which is short scale. I loved the nomad at first, because of the short scale, but because I have an aversion to playing bass loud enough for anyone but me to hear, I never use the speaker, and it doesn’t “fit” my body that well.

So I was kinda happy that Dan didn’t fall in love with the Taylor’s that he saw in the first guitar shop. When he asked to stop in the other shop, I was a bit worried, but agreed. I actually played with my iPhone in the acoustic room while he looked around. He came back and said that there was some basses he wanted me to see. I followed him and saw the great stick-style upright basses. They were cool and so out my ability and price range. I looked over and saw some cute metallic flake guitars in with some basses, but they looked odd. And then it hit me, they were basses. Adorable basses. I picked up the blue one and Dan quipped “Way to say I’m a girl bassist and proud of it.” They were obviously made for the Hannah Montana set, but I love it. I made Dan play it, because even though it felt good to me, I didn’t want to miss an obvious flaw. Dan plugged it in and tried it. It sounded really good, and it was extra surprising since it was on sale for $159. Insanely cheap.

So, it’s mine. And it’s replacing the Nomad, that will soon be on ebay or some such place. The nice thing is the Nomad isn’t made anymore so it should more than cost the cost of the new bass. Here is a link to Dan’s blog, since he already wrote up all the techy info on the bass. I have already spend quite a bit of time playing it, and it feels really good.

2008-08-18 21:59:55 -0700, originally uploaded by katrinauch.

Somebody posted this photo on facebook of Dan and I with our friend Greg in the summer of our sophmore year of Ithaca College. Dan’s Hair is almost as long as mine, and mine is the original color.  We are in one of the audio studios that we spent so much of our four years in.  I have a feeling we were recording a project for  class— I know it’s not Edge of Darkness, because of the shirt I am wearing.  Goodness we were cute, all thoses years ago.

In an earlier post I mentioned Bryn turning me on to the Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series of books. The final one, Breaking Dawn came out during my hell work period, and since I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it down until I finished it and I didn’t want to wait ’til my work was done, I got the book on CD. I like listening to books while I work and have pretty much memorized the Harry Potter series as read by Jim Dale. Of course the book came out on Saturday August 2, the day that Fast Times, my husband’s 80’s band had a gig at the Black Oak Casino which is a 3-4 hour drive away. So I drove up to the casino listening to the book on the car stereo, hoping that Dan wasn’t listening, because she isn’t a good writer, and he is hyper-critical of everything. He listened to his own thing on the way up, but on the way back, he said he was going to sleep, but what he actually did was bitch about the book. And I don’t actually blame him, that much.

After finishing the book, it’s just not great. Meyer seems so intent on making everyone happy that the story suffered. At this point I am going to warn that the rest contains spoilers, so don’t read it if you plan to read the book and want to be surprised.

I am glad that she went through with the wedding and the wedding night, many readers would have been very upset if that hadn’t happened. The freaky half-vampire pregnancy I could have really done without. I will even say that her explanation for it made sense within the world she created. I am glad that Meyer did finally make Bella a vampire, and I did expect that she would have an easier time than most newborns, but please, some suffering would have been nice. No one dies, except a very sideline character that no one cares about, honestly. Everything is tied up, everyone is happy and Bella has more than she could ever dream of. Excuse me while I puke in the corner. I am not really behind the people screaming that Meyer is saying get married at 18 and have a baby and lief will be perfect, but I can see where they are coming from. I am just disappointed.

I will still see the movie, but I don’t hold out high hopes, and maybe that is better anyway.

The last three weeks have been almost nothing but work. During that time I have worked on 4 magazines—one regular issue and three specials. I was in house for nearly all of that time, so the house has been slowly going down hill. Of the specials, I was helping on 2 and the only designer on 1. The only that I did myself was 112 pages, 106 of them edit. Anyone in magazines knows that this is bat-shit crazy. Usually a magazine will have a 40/60 ad-edit ratio, sometimes 50/50. It’s really insane when you have signed off on 99 pages and know that you still have 7 pages left to ship.

On one of the specials I was helping with the freelancer that wrote the 12 page strategy I was designing was over a week late—it came in Thursday morning after the Friday when the pages were due to the printer. And it was impossibly long. The editor had other pages drop out, so he extended the story to 18 pages, but it was still so long that there is almost no art and he had to cut out entire sections of the story.

During this time, Dangerous Curves—the burlesque group I founded—had a show in Oakland, where we debuted two new group pieces. My good friend Bryn had her first appearance with us, and our guest artist Ruby Lippz. It went really well, although we had to rework the numbers at the last minute because one of the girls hurt her back. Complete bummer. I really am looking forward to having all the girls healthy and in a show together.

I decided that I needed a bit of pampering, so Thursday I had a wonderful massage by Bryn. So heavenly!

Now I am getting ready for my brother Ian’s wedding. That seems so low stress now.

Something happened last Friday that I haven’t really had the time to process yet. I was working in house at Maximum PC magazine after just completely a week at a sister publication that sits down the hall. The editor-in-chief and art director of the other magazine were both colleagues from my past. Last September two weeks after giving birth to a baby girl, the EIC had a severe stroke. It looked bad for a little while, but she has recovered beautifully. She returned to work, but has been back for a couple of months.

So on Friday, while I am sitting there working, there is a call for anyone who knows CPR. The EIC who had a stroke, has had a seizure and has stopped breathing. I went over to help with Gordon, who also knew CPR, even though we are both rusty. Everyone in her area was completely frozen, staring at her lying under her desk. She was on her back, her face gray and her lips turning blue, and she wasn’t breathing at all. Gordon tried to give her mouth to mouth, but her jaw was clamped shut, bitting into her lips. I sat by her head, and was getting ready to try and blow into her nose while he was trying to find a pulse. She had stopped breathing for about a minute and a half now, and we were seriously concerned, then suddenly she started breathing raggedly, blowing bubbles. We turned her on to her side and counted her breaths within a time period for the 911 operator. She slowly started to pink up, even though she was still unconscious and her eye were rolled back in her head. Gordon and I kept talking to her, and I used some reiki on her while we waited for the EMTs. She came too while they were working on her, and had no memory of the event.

I was really proud that I was able to take action and be calm and supportive while others were freaking out. I knew the EIC would be horribly embarrassed about the whole thing, and I feel for her. She was only in the hospital for a short while, and was back at work on Monday. But I really hope that office does something about first aid training, and it has really inspired me to get my first aid certification back in date. It was a very scary feeling, and I don’t know what I would have felt if I didn’t have my old training to make me feel like I knew what to do.

There is nothing more awful that seeing someone you know lying there not breathing. I dearly hope that it near happens again, but if it does, I will know what to do.