The fun started on Friday morning, since I didn't have to work. I got to spend six glorious hours in the darkroom developing prints. The community here rents out the empty rooms in the church as studio space to local artists, and Jon has generously offered to let me to use his darkroom and his chemicals any time I want!! None of my work ended up being terribly remarkable, but I don't even care. I just love doing it.

So then my friend John Wilson Browning IV came down to visit. We got dinner at Kaldi's and then met everybody from my house at the Taft Theatre for the Over the Rhine show. Karin and Linford gave tickets to everybody in our house. Susan Enon from Ireland opened, and then Pedro the Lion played. When Over the Rhine came out, the stage was filled with candles and flowers. And they were amazing, as always. Basically, I just feel sorry for people that haven't discovered their music yet. We had backstage passes for after the show, but that turned out to be a little anti-climactic. So we all headed home and hung out for a while.

Yesterday morning, Ryan, Wilson, and I walked over to Allison Elementary School for a holiday party that was being put on for the neighborhood by Vineyard Community Church. (check out the pictures!) As a volunteer, my first task was wrapping a massive quantity of hot dogs in aluminum foil. It turned out that the woman I was working with was actually the school's principal, so I talked to her about the possibility of working as a substitute at her school. I think that's my plan for January. We'll see. I did a lot of face painting and sand art with some pretty fun kids and their parents. Being at a school is a really great way to get connected to a community. Hopefully, I'll end up spending more time there later.

In the afternoon, the three of us watched "Waking Life". Still good, even after the third viewing. Then we got cheap dinner at Taco Bell and had great conversation about our dreams of combining community and travel. It was very exciting. We got coffee at Pleasant Perk, and then headed home for some late night Speed Scrabble.

I woke up this morning to discover about 2-3 inches of snow on the ground! And now its time for breakfast with my friends.