Well I had a great weekend with my brother. He hadn't been here to visit for 4 years, since before I got off opiates, split with my ex, and started playing music. Basically, my life is entirely different since he had been here last. I've of course seen him various times since then, but on his terms, back in Illinois. It was really amazing to get to show him my life firsthand. Basically the whole weekend involved music and friends, which is an accurate representation of my life. He's a serious lover and appreciator of music though he doesn't play, so he enjoyed every minute of it. He came to band practice, met all of my friends but one, saw us play a show, and we went out to see a show too. And we played Magic (the gathering), which is something I taught him and got him into when he was like 6 and I was 13. I kinda just stopped being into it although I still love the game and think it's one of the greatest games ever created, but it's his primary creative outlet to this day. The only time I ever play anymore is with him, and it was really fun, we stayed up til 5am like the old days last night and just played and talked. It's so cool we can still have the same relationship as adults that we had as kids, growing up I taught him everything I knew, we were always super close despite the age difference. And it's the same now. I'm really happy that he got to meet my friends and they got to meet him and he got to see what it's like for me here, it really means a lot to me.
But we partied hard and it's time to relax with a little bowl and go to bed now.
There are wildfires all over around here right now, which is really unusual for the appalachians, but it's barely rained at all for quite a while and we're in a severe drought (also unusual). I guess they suspect arson, some of the fires started from other causes but they have reports of a black truck driving around starting fires. Now it's a pretty serious situation, it's not likely to reach where I live but there is a lot of smoke, the air is hazy and it smells like smoke. I drove my brother to the Charlotte airport and for about an hour while driving back from the east, the smoke was so intense that it started to scare me. It was getting uncomfortable to breathe and my eyes were getting irritated, you couldn't see very far at all. The sun was a big blood red ball in the sky, you could stare at it and it wasn't even very bright. 7 years ago there was a forest fire around here and I remember it was a big deal and it smelled like smoke for days, but this is far more intense than that was.
I hope they catch the asshole who purposely started fires, what a fucker... Some areas are actually in "code purple", which means they recommend wearing gas masks to go outside.