White Line Fever...

So now that there seems to be a bit of a thaw in the air and my neighbors are staking claim to their painstakingly cleared parking spaces I'm looking forward to that extra few minutes of daylight each day as we crawl slowly toward spring.

I set a monthly budget for myself , like most people should. What I hadn't considered is that with the lower rent I'm paying in this apartment I'm so far ahead of my projections that I'm actually planning a spring vacation. The plan right now is to participate in Bike New York this year. I rode two years ago and it was an amazing experience; a unique way to get to see the sights of the Big Apple. It's only forty-two miles but you get a workout climbing the hills of upper Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. The ride across the Verazzano Narrows Bridge into Staten Island is worth the registration fee alone.

Thanks to the snowstorm I missed Cornmeal Saturday night. This and the Neko Case fiasco and the previous week could possibly be cosmic indicators that Michelle and I should not be seeing concerts together. But we'll keep trying, since the booze tends to flow freely when we get together.

I did catch two nights of "The Tango Show", an educational tango exhibition, at HotHouse. Very enjoyable and surprising turnouts for the two nights of hard snowfall. My one concern was the drastic makeup choices of female tango fans. Friday night felt like the Night of the Mary Kay Commandos in there.

It led me to thinking that someone should do a sociological study between goth girls and tango fans.

Called Mom yesterday and caught up on the family drama. My brother and his family are planning to move back to Chicago after they get their income tax checks. None of us get along with my sister-in-law: the term "white trash" is too fitting a term for her. She's slightly off-kilter, and that's being generous. So Mom's quietly hoping that their tax return is less than expected. She can tolerate my brother's family with some miles between them. So far the near nine-hundred miles between Wisconsin and Louisiana proves to be at times a bit too close, but sufficient.

My stepfather went in for his six-week post operative check-up. He had lung cancer surgery in November and was complaining about being sore and having shortness of breath. I don't know how this bit of information was lost upon him, but he didn't realize that his surgeon removed half of his right lung.

I wondered to mom when told of that how he could not know. "Well, sometimes we just put bad things we don't want to think about out of our heads," she said.

But losing half a lung isn't just a bad thing, I said.

"He still thinks he's invulnerable." Mom has a rosy outlook toward life that chafes me sometimes.