India nite was October 19th. It went well.
This year, Anup and I made some lineup changes. We had Zack Clark return on bass and my long-time friend and badass musician Thomas on drums. I played the piano while Thomas's friend John played guitar. Emily, a friend of Zack's, played the flute.
We kicked ass this year. Having 6 people this year instead of the usual 5 helped fill out the sound. We also had a little more time to rehearse compared to previous years, which made us feel extra confident.
Finally, Zack, Thomas, and John just have a ton of experience playing music that grooves. Most musical efforts I've been involved in for the last 25 years often feel like we're trying to create a whirlpool in a pool. But playing with them is like I'm surfing some tidal wave. I'm just happy to be there, really.
Big news...
My roommate and I decided to start letting Sophie, the cat, go outside.
She was an indoor/outdoor cat when we got her, but we kept her inside for the first few months. It took every minute of that time to convince me that she wouldn't run away as soon as we let her out.
In the weeks leading up to this, I felt she had made progress calling this place home. She had started not to get upset when you scratched her anywhere besides her head. And earlier this month, she had begun sitting on laps when someone was on the couch.
Despite this, I still hesitated when we removed the plate, preventing access to the doggie door for the first time. Sophie, however, did not. She immediately perked up from her comfortable pose in the living room, obviously curious, and walked towards the flap and wasted no time hitting it with her paw to test if it was going to move. Once it budged, she jumped through.
After that, there wasn't much we could do except cross our fingers and hope she returned. Luckily, she did.
I have no evidence to support it, but she seems more content now. She was a prisoner before, but now she's a roommate. And every time I see her pop back through that door, it reminds me that she wants to be here.
I graduated from Vienna High School in 2008. We had a 5-year reunion in 2013, but I wasn't able to attend because I was either in Alaska or Germany at the time. I was really excited to attend the one in 2018, but it never materialized.
Thankfully, a friend and former classmate spoke up in our private Facebook group, saying that although it was too late to have a 10-year reunion, we could schedule a night to all hang out at the Eagles (a place to grab food in Vienna on the weekends).
That's what ended up happening last week. There were 9 of us there, 2 of which I hadn't really seen at all in the last 10 years. We ate dinner and hung out and then went to the local bar in Argyle. It was a good time!
Reconnecting with the community and old friends in Vienna that night was surreal. Usually, when I come home, I only go to my parent's house and am consequently isolated from the whole experience I used to be immersed in every day 10+ years ago. I feel so detached from my previous life that it almost seems like I didn't live it; thinking about memories gives me the same feeling as reading a book about someone else's life. But I like that feeling and hope that it only becomes more prominent as my life continues.
Without revealing too many details, our last album will probably be our most diverse album yet: everything from synthpop to something that sounds like a Warcraft intro. We'll have some traditional Sizable stuff on there too.
From the inside, it doesn't really feel like we "have a sound." Anything is possible. If someone comes in with a crazy idea, we'll probably just do it even if it doesn't "fit."
We've always had trouble defining what we are. We settled on "Acoustic Rock." While true, it's vague at best. We've dabbled in rock, country, blues, jazz, folk, etc., but our core is playing acoustic instruments with a rock energy. However, for better or worse, that's not a restriction that we impose on ourselves. Really, we're just 4 friends making music. That's good enough for now.