hello hello,

i am terribly sleepy but i finally have internet access and am seizing the opportunity to write about the most recent adventures in frenzyland.

let's see. working backwards because that's the way my mind is operating at the moment, today was a delicious day of exploring my birthplace, seattle. it's a strange and wonderful thing to look at the place one formed one's earliest memories in and have formerly inexplicable idiosyncrasies suddenly make sense. i feel like a camera that's taken fuzzy pictures for years only to discover the packing film still covering the lens. not that i've been half-functioning my whole life or anything like that, but i've had this rich inner life filled with forests, farmhouses, lakes, birds, golden meadows and rain and an outer life largely lived in sunny, plastic, palm tree-heavy, sparklingly seedy los angeles (i have come to adore LA, by the way, but only by finding secret spots to treasure and making deeply beloved friends). i thought perhaps my roots had something to do with it, but i never realized how much until yesterday. what a feeling! i love the market, the thousand flower fragrances that greet you as you walk in, the colorful stalls filled with organic peaches, tomatoes, lavendar, honey, garlic and whatever else you could possibly need to fill your kitchen and/or belly, the crowds surrounding the fishmongers and the view of the sound from nearly every step. the people here are kind and artsy without being pretentious. i bought a fantastic painting/collage from a place near the hotel called "nancy"; it was full to the brim with owl statues and animal art. to say i was enthused would be an understatement. i was positively uncool and quite happy about it. stephen, daxx and craig, our newest addition to the team (he's helping us with tour stuff) went to a baseball game and came back pink and happy. i love them so much. they are the brothers i never had.

driving up here was definitely an adventure. we are all beyond excited to have a bus, though it does pose the difficult task of finding showers... but that's rock and roll, baby. the guys watch baseball in the back and i fumble around on the guitar in the front. we have an agreement- i don't watch sports, they don't make me :) the first night we watched spinal tap together and it was pretty much as fun as fun gets. the bunks are quite cozy and the whole thing has a distinct summer camp kind of vibe. hooray for that!

before we left, life was nutty. it's tough to take everything that makes up your everyday life and smush it into a moving vehicle, albeit a very large one. i was still pretty worn out from shooting the season premiere of csi ny, which was an incredible experience. for me, acting was pretty much the most terrifying thing i could possibly get myself into career-wise, but the opportunity to play a musician on such a great show on such a spectacular episode (oh, just you wait and see! i hate blood and scary things but the script was so fantastic i found myself tearing through it like it was jane austen... or harry potter ;) was something i couldn't turn down. they were very kind and patient with me and helped ease the goldfish that fell out of the bowl feeling tremendously. gary, carmine, melina and eddie were all darlings and the entire crew was pretty stellar. i was lucky to be a part of such a great show.

ok. if i don't sleep now i'll be in trouble tomorrow. night night, ali