Brideshead

After texting your parents and releasing the new video on your birthday today, little sweetheart, I haven't really known what to do with myself. I certainly have a lot of work to do - writing our book and working on the next BPX album. 

Tonight, after a while, I've found myself beginning to watch one of our "stories". 

How well I remember that that's what you called movies and premium serial television in our wonderful days in tandem. In those pre-streaming times, we would procure DVDs from Netflix (arriving in the mail most days in their iconic red envelopes) or one of our favorite video stores in NYC, SF or Davis. You told me that it was important to you to "end the day watching a story with my partner". I was so grateful to called yours! 

One of our favorites was a BBC series we stumbled upon at that great old video store here in NYC, in Chelsea, Alan's Alley. I think he fell half in love with you the very first time we visited the story! He always wanted to suggest something he thought we might like and one night he pointed us to "Brideshead Revisited"  - the 1981 BBC mini-series based on Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel, starring Jeremy Irons (one of your favorite actors). We took the first disc home and loved it! So, I ran down every day or two to return it and get another. I loved how much you liked it and I loved watching it with you. 

I bought the box set a few years ago and tonight seemed right to watch it again. As usual, you gave me the answer! 

Thank you, my little sweetheart! Thinking of you now and always. Happy Birthday! Love you forever. 

Hold My Soul

Here's the new video we released today in honor of your birthday, little sweetheart. It's for "Hold My Soul" from our 12th album, Memories of the Sky. Happy Birthday! Love you forever. 

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, my little sweetheart! Thinking of you, as always, and remembering the wonderful times we had together on three of your birthdays:

The first in Boston when you were doing Rock n Roll at The Huntington. The next in San Francisco when I spent the week gathering presents for you including your main gift (surprising you with a pair of long feathered earrings we'd seen together at Needles & Pens, in The Mission) and in 2010 when I took you to the hot springs in Calistoga (picture from our dinner there that night below!). 

I stayed up late last night working on a new Bipolar Explorer video that we released this morning in your honor. It's on our YouTube channel. 

I love you with all my heart. Happy Birthday, little sweetheart! 

Always Something There to Remind Me

Little sweetheart, I think you were always rolling your eyes over how sentimental I could be about things, especially movies that made me think of you, of us. 

Tonight, again, MGM+ is airing "Almost Famous", which I often associate with you, even though I'm not sure we ever watched it together! What I most recall was those several months when I was living out in Marin with Chris & Sheri - so close to you but so far away, too. We saw each other often and spoke each day but I longed for you every night we were apart - only across the bay for once instead of across a continent, but still! 

Often, in the little guest room where I slept, I would watch episodes of The West Wing - you'd lent me the Serafin family DVD set of Season 1-4 from the family DVD collection in Davis - but I'd often end the night watching clips of "Almost Famous" in particular the one where they all sing on the bus. Where William says to Penny, what I knew so deeply in my heart.

W: I have to go home.

P: You are home. 

You are my treasure. And I love you forever.

Those Cookies We Like!

Remember those cookies we liked so much, little sweetheart? We used to get a package of them at Safeway, over by the Marina, and then drive over to a lookout point, maybe near Ocean Beach and watch the surf and eat the cookies in the front seat of your car. 

They're almost like little pieces of white layer cake-  soft and chewy, and the frosting is always decorative for whatever holiday is near. Sometimes we'd get them in pink and red for Valentines Day or in green with shamrocks for St Paddy's. 

Well, I've got some and am having one (or two) for lunch dessert with my coffee right now and thinking of you! D'agostino's is a little NYC grocery chain and they do a few things like Safeway, incredibly. They have that charming little "thunderstorm" effect in the produce section that periodically waters the vegetables adding a little SFX of a thunderclap (in SF, Safeway also had a little flashing white light approximating lightning, too). And they have these cookies on some holidays. These ones are for Halloween, of course and have orange frosting with yellow and white sprinkles. Saving one for you! 

With all my love...

Halloween Eve

I've been working all night, little sweetheart, but just settling in to watch one of our favorite movies - "Let The Right One In", just now. It's a vampire movie and so kinda a Halloween one - your second favorite holiday after Christmas, I think - and I know few people agree with me but I also think of it as being a love story. Partly because you and I saw it for the first time together on your bed and also because it underlines my own journey - being found and saved by you. I'll be thinking of you tonight as I am always. I love you so and forever.

700 pages

Little sweetheart, I know it's taking forever and that I've terribly remiss in keeping up this page but the book is still coming along. I'm far from done but I'm about to hit page 700 and I think I'm going to print what I have (and still continue, of course) because it seems like an important milestone. It 's coming, baby. And you are always in my every thought and prayers, my heart and soul. Love you forever.