It’s a strange phenomenon of punk rock adolescence. You get into something that few people are into. Something that, in the pre-Internet age, takes a bit of digging around and commitment to find out about. Then other people find it. Maybe they’re your friends, maybe not. This thing that you’ve desperately wanted to share with other people becomes turf, something that you have to defend with the tenacity of a mother bear.

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I’ve never been terribly happy with my body. I always felt that I had a diamond in the rough; The polishing never happened, though. Around 30, I started to feel the physical effects of my sedentary lifestyle. Over the last month I’ve been working out more, but for the last five days I’ve been striving regularly toward personal fitness goals.

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I’ve been pretty quiet for the last week. I didn’t even post my weekly music roundup, which is as close as I have to a religion. This is because I moved. Goodbye, Hollywood. Hello, Silver Lake.

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When I was 16 years old I came back from New York City with my first tattoo — on Mother’s Day. Mom cried a lot and I spent the next day walking around with my sleeve rolled up “to let it get some air.” It was a glorified stick-and-poke done in a Brooklyn loft back when Brooklyn was still Brooklyn. After getting inked, I celebrated with a night of underage drinking in Sweetwater Tavern, then came home with my host’s keys in the middle of the afternoon, long after his errands for the day had to be done.

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My blogging has been getting a little a spotty. As I’ve stated before, I feel sort of dirty even using the word “blogging.” But there’s a better reason for my lack of updates: I just haven’t had anything I want to say that I also want to share with the world.

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