Awesome-weather friends (hey, it's Florida!)

This past week has been great for me. And I'm not just talking about the three killer shows I've just played with Classic Albums Live. (My accounts of the second and third shows are on my other blog, LedZeppelinNews.com.) It's also been cool just getting established in other ways here in Florida and with my girlfriend.

Dessie has this group of friends, basically some girls who all went to high school together. She didn't go to the same school and didn't even live around here when she was in high school, but she's been absorbed into their little group nonetheless. So they have these parties, and people show up and have a good time, and whatever.

Dessie asked me to come to their Christmas party after I was done with my Saturday night gig. And that show, by the way, happened to be the best concert I've played in my life. So I'm coming from that, I'm heading out on 595 to get from Hollywood to Coral Springs, and the mood is right. I just can't wait to see Dessie and tell her about the gig. At that point, I don't even care about meeting her friends.

So I get to the party, and what do they have on the stereo system inside? Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy. Well, good choice in music. But it's precisely the album I had just played onstage three nights in a row and was practicing for a month before that. I thought, Who's the wiseguy who put this on to annoy me as I arrived? But no, it was just by sheer coincidence that that's what one of the hosts picked! Like I say, good taste in music. And I got to turn up "The Ocean" at 1:38 and point out the phone ringing in the background. I had to play that part twice for the two guys listening with me because neither heard it the first time!

Anyway, I gladly accepted the co-host's invitation to take over the music selections for the rest of the festivity. So, we shifted forward two decades and listened to Cake's Fashion Nugget, Lenny Kravitz's 5, Beck's Odelay and Mogwai's Ten Rapid. These are classic albums of the future.

It was great interacting with all the folks at the party. Dessie's friends are now my friends. And it's a pleasure being able to say that. It's something I lacked in previous relationships. I always had those friends who looked at me funny as if they were suspicious of me. Not so with these folks. I think they can tell how genuinely happy Dessie has been the whole time we've been together, a marked improvement over the neutral status quo of the past few years. I'm glad I can make her happy, and I'm glad these friends like me. So I'm looking forward to more parties like that, and just hanging out in general.

Cranium is a great game, but cheaters never prevail. This means you, Heather!

While I'm on the topic of my new friends, I did have a few friends for a while that I knew only from the Internet that I have now met in person since I've been down here. And then I ran into one by accident the day after meeting him! Had I not met him in person the day before, that chance meeting would have happened but would not have been known to either of us. And one friend and I are talking about launching a band. We'll see!

More later... I want to write about Dessie's kids! They're the absolute best.