am i really at a loss of words?

it's taken me a few days to put everything into perspective. tuesday night's news keeps ringing in my head like an alarm clock on snooze. i'll get to the point where i am comfortable, forgetting what's happened and then BUZZ here it comes again.

my kansas friends (minus jess and brynn) don't get it. my sf friends don't get it. but luckily my dmb friends do. it's hard to describe why i am so emotional over the death of someone whom i didn't really know. a man who has been a part of my life for the past 13 years; and yet the only contact i've ever had with him is saying "happy birthday" in the parking lot of sandstone at his birthday show in 2005, as he passed by on his segway.

this band is my solace. other than my friends and family, they've been the only constant staple in my life throughout the past 13 years. 13 YEARS. people don't even stay married that long anymore. it's also the reason for so many relationships i currently have. i never would have moved to kansas if not for the band. i surely wouldn't be married to the love of my life if not for the band. and lastly, i wouldn't have the close friends i've made over the past 10 years if it weren't for the band.

as more of the story begins to surface, i'd rather not know that roi had checked himself out of the hospital against doctors orders in early july. i wish i hadn't read the details of what transpired last tuesday in roi's last hours. but as most people, i thought i did. so many questions are running through my head right now. was the band with him? did they know how bad off he was? did they say anything to him? in reality, it's none of my business but in this day and age, you can find out anything. and sometimes it's not the best thing for me.

last night we honored roi in a memorial dinner/celebration with jess and brynn. john put together a playlist of roi's greatest moments and i listened, in a way i never had before. focusing solely on the sax. on the flute. on the penny whistle. or any other instrument he picked up.

at the end of the night, john had 4 songs he had saved for just to listen to. he was pretty drunk so i didn't think much of the song choices until he started to bring "our" stories and mixing them into the songs.

like the first time i came to visit john, he played me the benchwarmers show from 1994, specifically "one sweet world". his brother had been at benchwarmers that day and was asked to buy "the violin dude" new strings. or when we went to champaign on a whim in 2002 because uncle mikey had sent us tickets and they played "loving wings" which i chose to walk down the aisle to at our wedding. and of course, our wedding where our first dance was to "lover lay down".

this band, as others have said, has been the soundtrack to my life. it won't be the same without roi and his amazing solos and bashful smile, but somewhere, he's looking down thinking that he did good in his short life.

thank you for everything, roi. you will be missed terribly.

goodbye, friend...

you will be missed.

it's been a while...

it's been pretty busy round these parts.

i started my new job on july 14th and it's been nothing but chaos. the first week was AWFUL. we stayed in our old building from monday until thursday afternoon. on friday we showed up to our new "office" and nothing was set up. no network connections. nothing. we spent 6 hours of the day working with IT to ensure our network connection as well as making sure our applications were all in tact. the second week was absolute hell. i don't even want to discuss it, it was THAT bad. last week, things got better, and i am beginning to feel comfortable with what i am doing and producing quality work.

having said all of that; we have had some bad news as well. john's dad was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in the beginning of july. last wednesday, he underwent surgery to remove the mass, a layer of lymph nodes and 70-80% of the underneath of his tongue. at this point, there is no prognosis but the doctors are confident that they got all of the cancer. he was moved out of icu yesterday and is improving on a daily basis. once he's released from the hospital, he will have to undergo chemo and radiation as precautionary measures. the surgeons indicated a 50% chance of reoccurance and they want to do everything possible to ensure that it doesn't come back.

as you can tell, it's been a long month. i will try to update more regularly within the next few weeks.

please keep john's dad in your thoughts and prayers.