feeling normal

After six or seven weeks of up-and-down migraine, I've been lucky enough to have a good week. Aside from some mild, residual aches, I have felt pretty good for the past seven days. Feeling like an old man starts to get kind of tiresome, so I've been happy to re-introduce normal, healthy, reasonably youthful things back into my life.

Last Saturday, Nicole and I headed downtown to see the Gories reunion show at the Majestic Theater. The show was billed as "sold out," and approaching the venue, there was a palpable "wow, a Majestic show sold out?!" vibe. Sure enough, we got inside and it was wall-to-wall. A raised area off to the left caught our attention and we staked out some good spots. Opportunity to lean against the wall. Decent view of stage (drum riser somewhat obstructed). Close. We speculated that the area was some kind of pseudo-VIP area.

As expected, the Gories put on a wang dang doodle, unearthing many of the great tracks from their three late-80s/early 90s records (missing was my favorite of theirs, "There But for the Grace of God Go I" but I won't complain). "Nitroglycerine." Show opener "Hey Hey We're the Gories." "Thunderbird ESQ." We stood next to Meg White for much of the show and I almost asked her to take a picture with us but couldn't bring myself to bug her mid-show (she was clearly down with the tunes).

Continuing with the downtown theme, my parents visited my sister and I in the motor city and we all took my nieces and nephews down to ride the people mover, stroll the new Riverwalk (very nice), and eat in Greektown. Nice to do the tourist thing every now and again. Riverwalk...highly recommended. Lovely view of the water and Windsor. Lots of folks out and about. Lunch in Greektown was a chance to re-introduce notorious migraine trigger cheese into my diet. Still taking it easy on all the triggers, but I'm happy to report: no side effects.

Last night, Nicole and I headed down to City Fest, formerly known as Tastefest. Always nice to walk the New Center Area and lots of good, though overpriced food, and listen to free live music. Last summer you couldn't get anywhere near the George Clinton show, so we ended up rocking out to SSM. This year, we listened to part of the Handsome Furs' set. I hadn't heard their stuff before but liked their fuzzy and electronic (yet melodic) sounds. Shout out to Ann Delisi's Essential Music show, who hosted its facebook fans in a swanky tent near the main stage and provided good eats. EM is an outstanding show and what with free shrimp last night, my admiration has only grown.

Oh yeah, and back to work too. I'm on deadline for a book review essay, have a big stack of papers to grade, and need to submit my Summer I grades in a few days. Time to get to it.