Now I'm Here

Coming to you live from my new home with The Girlfriend, where I've been blogging from for the last three months. But now it's Official.
Got all moved-in on Monday and Tuesday, getting all the furniture and endless boxes transferred on Monday, and going back for the cleanup and leftovers on Tuesday. Woke up on Wednesday with aches in places I didn't know I HAD, but was happy I got it all done. Took longer than I thought, and it was messier than I expected, but. Now I'm here. And this is where I want to be.
The worst part was the books. Yeezus -- 19 big boxes of books (and clothes and etc). Awhile back my Old Roommate asked me why I had SO MANY goddamned books. And on Monday I told him that RIGHT THEN I didn't KNOW why I had so many goddamned books.... And I meant it.
Good thing I'd already moved a good-sized pile of them over here.... Good thing all the CD's were already here....
Right now all my stuff is sitting in The Girlfriend's garage, and I'll slowly be moving it into the house -- once we figure out where to put it all, and once I make sure all my body-parts still work like I thought they were supposed to. Luckily, the garage is pretty dry -- even with the fall-starting rain we got in the last few days. I don't think it will hurt stuff TOO much to sit in the garage for a couple days. Besides, we're supposed to have a stretch of 70-degree sunshine here for the next week....
It's a lot quieter here. More time for me to mull things over or play music or read, or blog at my leisure. Who knows -- I might even have time to finish another book, since I haven't gotten anything new out there in the last 18 months, not that my worldwide legion of fans is screaming for more RIGHT NOW or anything like that.
The Girlfriend and I are happy. We've been talking about me moving in since June. And Ghod knows her house is quieter than the Old Roommate's. We sit and cuddle and talk and laugh like loons, and because of our sometimes clashing work schedules, we spend a lot of time wishing we had more time together. But we cherish the time we have.
With the move and all, I haven't had much time to listen to music, though I'm slowly taking in that batch of new stuff I grabbed in Portland (see last installment).
Am almost finished with YES IS THE ANSWER, and I recommend it. I've read all but a couple of the essays, laughing all the way. Only a couple pieces don't quite seem to fit the concept of the book -- one is about how a Prog fan immediately converted to Punk after seeing a Styx concert. Seems like a totally legit reason to me.
A couple other pieces are either personal reminiscences or are more into Metal than Prog. But they're still enjoyable. There are even -- shocker! -- WOMEN Prog fans in the book! Amazing! And all the writers have such affection for progressive rock that it makes the book a helluva lotta fun to read.
Just got in Will Romano's PROG ROCK FAQ (2014), part of that FAQ series I've become hooked on -- I reviewed their volumes on Pink Floyd and The Who back around April, I think. Romano wrote the solid Prog history MOUNTAINS COME OUT OF THE SKY a few years back, and I'm glad to see someone wanted him to write more about the subject. Though I gotta tell ya -- just browsing through FAQ, I think the book is less about What Else You Need To Know About Prog than it is a platform for introducing you to overlooked Prog artists. And I'm OK with that.
There's also a recommended list of LONG Prog compositions ("Close to the Edge," "Gates of Delirium," "Echoes," etc.), and a long look at Prog concept albums. So I can see this book is gonna take awhile to digest. And that's OK. I got nothin' but time....