Daydream on Autopilot—the band that my little sister heads up—won their category in the Hollywood Music Awards last night. I don’t know much, but I know there were 30,000 entries and Em says red carpet photos are coming soon. Dude! How about that!?

They were nominated for “Better Off Alone”, which is an amazing song—here’s my favorite old video of the acoustic version (I go running to the album version and it’s freaking awesome):

Their website is here (careful, it’s autoplay): Daydream on Autopilot. I can’t point you to the Hollywood Music Awards, because apparently they exceeded their bandwidth…

I’ll post more when I know more. Very pleased!

This is the first project I can remember for which I didn’t particularly care about receiving credit. It resonated with me, needed to be done, and I stepped up to do whatever I could be useful doing. It felt really good to work this way. As a consequence of that, I didn’t add a lot of actual writing to the book—organizing, proofing, little pieces of much longer answers, that’s all. I don’t mind that a bit, because it’s really fulfilling to work on a project like this one that speaks powerfully to me.

But I have to admit, it gives me a lot of glee to see someone I don’t know quoting one teeny tiny piece of text that I know I wrote.

Care. Your tribe knows if you care about them—if you care about what happens to them, what inspires them, what affects them, what improves their lives, and what brings them joy. Likewise, your tribe knows if you do not care—they can smell a fake a mile away and if it is not apparent now, it will be soon. It makes all the difference in the world between a tribe stuck together with paper and string and a tribe whose members are strongly, organically connected to their leader and to one another.

So I’m just going to take a second and be proud of me.

Yeah. Dude. That feels awesome.

Okay.

Second over. Back to work! ;}

[Edit: It happened AGAIN! Same kooky thing, different clip.

Selling goods (such as concert tickets, albums, or T-shirts) is NOT what makes you a living. Connecting people and giving them a place in the world IS. There is a huge difference between focusing on one and focusing on the other. Making a living—making money—is only a pleasant side effect of doing this right. But it is a side effect that happens all the time.

Okay, so I took TWO seconds. I’m sure this is happening to everyone else, I just recognize my own clips. It’s still freaky and awesome!]

Images from Multicolr. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Today I’m taking it easy. I’m about halfway through my mandatory tasklist, but the most important things aren’t on the tasklist. Those accomplishments include Shiva Nata, and plenty of sitting outside on the porch… doing nothing.

Feels really good.

You may have noticed that the post I made earlier has been irrevocably altered by entertaining zombie drawings. That’s because Marty is gloriously funny (and twisted), and he illustrated my story about joining a CSA. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should take a look.

I think we might do this more often.

...said the Unicorn in the Balloon Factory!

Bolofeesh makes me super happy, and Paul is an awesome dude. (He’s also a fellow Triiibesman!)

Also? I can’t help but link to his Halloween comic(s), it being Halloween and all. ;}

[Edit: Nope, you’re not crazy—this did post yesterday. I had some weird impulse that there were thirty days in October… Ha! So, sorry about that folks! Here are your feesh. USE THEM WISELY!)

I’ve had a sinus infection for the last week or so. I’m very close to being healthy again—I am still easily exhausted and have to be careful about how hardcore I work, and my sinuses still feel very tight, but most of my other symptoms are gone and I feel fine otherwise.

I am 95% certain that cheese caused this sinus infection.

As such, I am 95% certain that dairy in general is responsible for the unending string of sinus infections—exact same symptoms, exact same progression, every single time—that I’ve experienced over the last ten years. Ten?? TEN. I know, it sounds crazy, but I remember this same problem in high school and college. Then it was about the dust; if I had a staged performance where I had my face near the floor for any length of time (Hansel and Gretel, for instance), or if I accidently breathed a gust of dust particles on a windy day in the city, I’d find myself fighting one off. But recently, it’s also about a growing sensitivity to dairy—and dairy might have been part of the problem all along. In the last few months I’ve stopped eating anything cheese-like, or milk-like, as an experiment. And then I had some rice pizza with cheese on it, and a nice man at a coffee shop unknowingly gave me regular milk instead of soy in my chai, and then I had this delicious creamy soup… and the rest is history. Because my sinuses were feeling great before that happened.

There’s still plenty of possibility that I’m wrong. Hell, I could be making it all up! But we’ll find out soon enough, when I stop eating dairy for the rest of my life and never again have a freaking sinus infection!!

Now that’s battle cry worthy.

Last night I had a dream that I was devouring a huge cheese pizza with a bunch of friends. I got halfway through and looked down at all the pizza and felt my full stomach and shrieked, Aaaaa! What am I doing!?

It was funny.

Maybe you had to be there.

The neighbors downstairs are thinking, wow, how about that huge poundy rock they keep dropping on the floor up there over and over again? But no, it’s just Marty, cracking open another coconut.

For me.

With his machete.

Am I wrong to suspect this is too much fun for him?

Filing this under “things that don’t fit in Twitter”...

I visited my parents in Youngstown at the beginning of October, and practiced Shiva Nata every day on the huge porch surrounded by gorgeous living trees and bugs and birds and cool, crisp air. There was a huge rainstorm the first few days, and it was amazing to practice on the porch with rain falling all around me. I didn’t use the DVD while I was there, but I made so much progress and got so much peace of mind.

I played with the dogs outside while Dad did his daily walk, and Otto—who last visit had a boot—now had a bucket. A really mangled, chewed-on bucket. It was a freaking riot. “Otto and his boot,” Marty says. “Otto and his myriad things that he has. Otto and his bucket. Otto and his mail-order bride.” Yes. Any day now.

I got a great raw “cook”-book (Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People) and made awesome raw recipes for my family most of the time I was there. Guacamole and romaine wraps and chard salad and raw chocolate cake and fresh vegetable lasagne, crazy! It was so delicious. Mom gave me a Christmas present—a great looking book on food that I had to leave there for now because it wouldn’t fit in my bag to come home!

I launched the fabulous blog of Pace and Kyeli. It was really exciting! (The Usual Error Project has launched, too. I talked about it all in my project blog!)

I sang a great program for the Niles Gymanfa Ganu Association and hugely enjoyed seeing my friendly Welsh people again! The sun attacked my eyes, but I adjusted and all was well. (Geraint Wilkes was fabulous as ever, and the Shenango Valley Chorale sang fantastically!)

I successfully managed to videochat with Marty using iChat (we haven’t tried since he bought his new laptop!), but not until the last day of my trip. (Silly!) I had a revelation about parents and mindful purpose. I decided that I don’t want to fly anymore if I can avoid it (though I’m sure there will be exceptions).

And then I came home to my comfy red chair.

I finally have a printer that connects wirelessly to my network and prints when I’m in a completely different part of the house. The print quality is great. Plus, it scans — to USB stick, email, or FTP (dude). It’s got a document feeder. It’s huge. And it was insanely easy to set up. And the whole deal only cost me $200, which I originally expected would buy me a pretty mediocre machine.

It’s a Brother MFC-6490CW wide format all-in-one; the link is Amazon, because the OfficeMax price has gone up since I bought mine and Amazon is now less expensive. We’ll see how it holds up, but damn, I’m impressed so far.

I am one happy camper, I’ll tell you.