Had a nice quiet birthday at Dave and Cheryl's last night. Got a sweater, a nice gig case for my trumpet (with lots of room for my stand and mutes), a Jamey Abersold book/CD and Geoff Ryman's Air, which I can't wait to read. And cake. Lots of cake.

Just finished listening to Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. It's the first Palahniuk I've read/listened to and I liked a lot of it. I really wanted to like more of it, but the ending felt very rushed. I'll definitely read some of his other works. Maybe Diary was not the best choice for my first taste of Palahniuk's writing.

So far, Stephen King's The Colorado Kid is also not a great choice. About one-fourth of the way thorough this short book (which so far moves at a snail's pace), I'm pretty much bored. (And I consider myself a pretty patient reader.)

On the writing side, I've got a short story that's about two-thirds finished, but just can't seem to get that last third ironed out. So what did I do? Start a new story, of course. The funny thing is when I got back to the first story, I had a pretty good idea where it needed to go.

Now Playing = Night Train – Oscar Peterson
Now Reading = House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski (in print)
The Colorado Kid – Stephen King (on CD in the car)