obfuscated girl

in which this webjournal turns a year old. happy fucking birthday to me.

I could use various completely obnoxious anthropomorphizing techniques like commanding you to buy it a drink or a cake or a digital camera or Prada, but that would be totally obnoxious. Instead, I will say that I'm kind of shocked and pleased that I stuck with something this long. Previously the only thing in my life that was stuck with for longer than a year was smoking.
Of course, if anyone feels like buying it/me presents....
Today also marks the first and possibly only time that I am or will ever be jealous of people who live in Madison. Did I ever tell you about my secret, fervent love for Bruce Springsteen? The Love That Dares Not Speak Its Name? The Love That Went Down To The River? Now you know.
Of course, it's not without its share of controversy. And I'm not sure that I do agree with keeping the polls open after the rally. What I am sure of is that my hometown newspaper is a bunch of partisan bastards.
work now.

edit: fraud the vote?

From the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
I had heard a version of this on NPR this morning, but it was through a fog of sleep, as is everything communicated to me at 6:30 in the goddamn morning. I'm completely disgusted.

in which i become increasingly nervous about november 2.

I wish it were as simple as good triumphing over evil. Every time I turn around another poll is saying that Bush is one point ahead in this or that swing state and there seems to be five Bush television commercials on for one Kerry commercial and the wolves! the wolves! and it's just inconceivable to me how so many people could be forthis man when it keeps becoming repeatedly and alarmingly obvious that he is dangerously incompetent and why, people? Why?
I am scared. I am scared that it's going to go down like 2000, only worse. My boy Jon Stewart predicted it thusly at the end of America: The Book: [a paraphrase:] GWB will lose, yet ascend to the presidency, then declare hisself emperor in 2008. This prediction becomes increasingly less comical to me the more I pay attention to the media.
Here are some people who are much more eloquent on the topic than I:
1.Triumph The Insult Comic Dog
2.You'd be surprised at the parallels between Ashlee Simpson and Bush II
3. Eminem. Eminem!
4.On a not-entirely-unrelated note, Margaret Cho.
5.Okay, not so much (via Hissyfit, which is so good that I'm adding it to the permanent links section as soon as I get the energy to.
Of which I have none.
Please vote. Please please please please.
And not for the monkey.

argh: monday morning haiku.

breathing through nose is
not as underrated as
some might claim it is.

tea isn't helping
ginseng doesn't clear my head
o where is my zen?

weekend was okay
ashlee simpson is a joke
(but you weren't surprised)

fall is gorgeous. i'm
not as sexy as i'd like
BECAUSE I CAN'T BREATHE.

picture. thousand. etc.

more

another diet fed by crippling defeat

A friend of mine recently lent me a little film from 1996 called Foxfire, mostly because of one Miss Jenny Lewis. Added bonuses: Angelina Jolie and Jenny Shinzu (sp?) who inexplicably played a character named Goldie Goldman and later went on to be the New Top Model It Girl for approximately three seconds. So I watched it last night, and really, nothing could have prepared me for little tiny Jenny Lewis to say "If you ever touch me again, I will cut your little balls off with my toenail clippers!" It was like "The Breakfast Club"+"Thelma And Louise"+"Set It Off", and not in a good way, but it was fascinating in its own way. Plus, Angelina Jolie + topless scenes with lesbian overtones = awesome.Perhaps I should have taken a cue from the package, which called it "Rebelina Without A Cause." (arg.) It was adapted from a Joyce Carol Oates novel, and I have never read nor trusted Joyce Carol Oates because she puts out a book per fucking month and I can't imagine that there's any sort of consistent quality to them.
But the best part? The best part is the song that Jenny Lewis sings in the grocery store, which sounds like a very early Rilo Kiley song but is incredibly disconcerting because she looks about fifteen: "Do you wanna come inside my house? Do you wanna show me things I've never seen before? I don't want to tie you down, I just wanna tie you up. Do you wanna come inside my house?"
Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. It's no wonder you're pining after married men!
That was your Rilo Kiley trivia for the day. Here is your picture of the day which I think is really funny but I would probably think was funnier if I was following this whole Sox/Yankees thing.
(Source: Lockhart Steele)
Today also marks the first day in three weeks that I haven't cried while listening to the title track to Transatlanticism. Great strides are being made, people. Great strides.

she's too open to suggestion, she's searching for belief

(rejected title: Taking Self Absorption to Impossible New Heights)
I didn't feel like moving much on my lunch hour, and I stumbled across this handwriting analysis website through my usual jumble of following hyperlinks. As I always am when a machine seems to know everything about me (or at least on the surface) I'm really stunned. I don't know what to say, other than to present bits of the analysis (it was an ENTIRE PAGE), the ones that I felt were absolutely right, and let y'all judge what type of person I am.
For a graphologist, the spacing on the page reflects the writer's attitude toward their own world and relationship to things in his or her own space. If the inputted data was correct Sarah has left lots of white space on the right side of the paper. Sarah fills up the rest of the page in a normal fashion. If this is true, then Sarah has an unhealthy relationship to the past and has a fear of moving forward. The right side of the page represents the future and Sarah seems unwilling to face the fear of getting started living now and planning for the future. Sarah seems to be clinging to past events and spending lots of time thinking about what happened. It would be best to leave the past behind and move on. Stop crowding that left margin.
[...] Sarah has a tendency to put things off, Sarah procrastinates. She sometimes pretends to be busy, so she will not have to do whatever she is putting off. She is often late to appointments or deadlines. This usually leads to a great amount of effort at the last minute to meet the deadline. Procrastination is an important factor as it relates to her output on the job or at school. Remember, Sarah will put it off until later. Procrastination is easily overcome through a simple stroke adjustment in the handwriting.
One way Sarah punishes herself is self directed sarcasm. She is a very sarcastic person. Often this sarcasm and "sharp tongued" behavior is directed at herself.
Sarah is a practial person[...] She has enough self-confidence to leave a bad situation, yet, she will not take great risks, as they relate to her goals. A good esteem is one key to a happy life. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence catagery, her self-perception is better than average.
In reference to Sarah's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Sarah slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project. She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Sarah can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

Sarah will be candid and direct when expressing her opinion. She will tell them what she thinks if they ask for it, whether they like it or not. So, if they don't really want her opinion, don't ask for it!
Note: this part is so wrong it's laughable, so I left it in.
Sarah uses judgment to make decisions. She is ruled by her head, not her heart. She is a cool, collected person who is usually unexpressive emotionally. Some may see her as unemotional. She does have emotions but has no need to express them. She is withdrawn into herself and enjoys being alone. The circumstances when Sarah does express emotions include: extreme anger, extreme passion, and tremendous stress. If someone gets her mad enough to tell her off, she will not be sorry about it later. She puts a mark in her mind when someone angers her. She keeps track of these marks and when she hits that last mark she will let them know they have gone too far. She is ruled somewhat by self-interest. All her conclusions are made without outside emotional influence. She is very level-headed and will remain calm in an emergency situation. In a situation where other people might get hysterical, she has poise. Sarah will work more efficiently if given space and time to be alone. She would rather not be surrounded by people constantly. In a relationship, she will show her love by the things she does rather than by the things she says. Saying "I love you" is not a needed routine because she feels her mate should already know. The only exception to this is if she has logically concluded that it is best for her mate to hear her express her love verbally. Sarah is not subject to emotional appeals. If someone is selling a product to her, they will need to present only the facts. They should present them from a standpoint of her sound judgment. She will not be taken in by an emotional story about someone else. She will meet emergencies without getting hysterical and she will always ask "Is this best for me?"
People that write their letters in an average height and average size are moderate in their ability to interact socially. According to the data input, Sarah doesn't write too large or too small, indicating a balanced ability to be social and interact with others.
As opposed as part of me is to letting a website tell me what kind of person I am by filling out a fucking questionaire, the part that doesn't really have answers to that question and never has is hanging on every word. I would probably make an excellent cult member. So the question is: how much stock do you put in handwriting analysis, O Reader? Is it revealing! and true! and uncanny! or is it the new numerology?

you pray for rain, i pray for blindness

Rocktober is back in full effect, y'all.
Last night turned out to be dominated once again by my neuroses. I got nervous/upset/letting things spiral/not sure why, exactly, because there were gaggles of exceedingly attractive young girl-children (and boy-children, but I wasn't comparing myself to them) looking at the picture of me in Nicole's exhibit. At some point I made plans to meet the boy, who was freshly back in town, later. (Digression: If I had a camera I would post a picture of the stuffed polar bear which is totally native to Oklahoma that he brought back from his trip. Also: It has an American flag on its paw. Alas: I don't.) So we met after my sister and I had art-ed ourselves out. Walking back to the car, I had one of those wow-Milwaukee-really-isn't-all-that-bad moments, watching the groups of people go from gallery to gallery, galleries which probably had wine left and hadn't run out because underage MIAD students had come and drank it all within the first hour. I was both adrift and wanting to stay very badly. I sort of wanted to believe that I actually fit with these people, I wanted to see what the other galleries had to offer, and mostly I wanted to drink more. Ever since the debacle that was the wedding I have kind of developed a taste for Cabernet Sauvignon, and I managed to have a sip of it because that was all they had left by the time we got there. [/snottiest thing I've ever said ever] Instead, I met Matthew at the Landmark By The Airport (may not denote actual title) and shit done got fucked up from there.
Unlike the few other times when this has happened I didn't actually notice that I was abnormally quiet. Conversations were going on around me about scripts and computer things and I was half-listening, half-wanting to be back with people who I knew, half-watching the girls in the bar who were pretty in a very much conventional sort of way (I realize that this is way too many halves...). When we left, I started crying in the car (fucking females) and didn't admit what I was really upset about until a good ten minutes into the conversation--that I am so self-absorbed that what people might possibly be thinking derisively about my picture and that when I am around really pretty people I let myself get extremely upset-- drove me into a panic, drove me to shut down completely.
Here is the list of the things that are totally and completely wrong with that:
1. If I let myself be affected this badly by what other people may think about me it's a wonder I can leave the house.
2. This train of thinking leads me to categorize my flaws obsessively--is there back fat? can they see it? ohmigod where's my neck? am i growing a double chin??? and it just gets really, really tiresome, as people who are around me can attest to.
3. NO ONE CARES.
4. If anyone actually told me that I had a double chin or back fat, I would punch them in the face.
So why do I do it? Why do I let myself care so fucking much? Why am I so quick to find narcissism in others and don't focus on curing my own? If I were in a different body, would it make anything easier?
I can't answer any of these questions and I doubt I ever will. If anyone has the answers, all my contact information is listed on the sidebar over there.
Awkward Transitionary Trendy Bandwagon Jumping Ending: You know how all your friends and all the music websites you go to and all the magazines you read and the kids behind the counter at the coffeehouse/music store can't shut up about the Arcade Fire?
Holy fucking Jesus, they're right.

last-minute pointless shameless self-promotion!

whee.
If y'all who live here are stuck for something to do tonight and want to see pictures of me in an arrrrrt shoooooow (something I read recently: "fuck your life." something else I read: people who keep online journals are fame whores who are upset because they have never been on reality shows so they go ahead and create their own versions of reality shows), it is Gallery Night up in MKE and you can see, among other peoples' work, my lovely friend Nicole's, who came to my house one night and told me to sit on the bed and no go over here okay try sitting on that chair and keep talking pretend I'm not here and it was all very strange but fun, in a narcisstic sort of way.
the address of the gallery where Nicole's shit is located is: ahem: 120 E. Menomonee, in Bayview, the Jeff Block apartments. There will be a keg. And a DJ. And I assume other attempts to make us seem like a real live cultural hub and shit.
Overheard bitchy conversation between a coworker/temp who hates the other temp here, who is coincidentally (I Think Not) not in the room at the moment: "Some women have women's issues and they don't know how to talk about them[...]now I KNOW about aggression." This is another entry, really, so I'll just leave it at the fact that I am so sick of all of this pettiness and I don't want to have this to look forward to when I'm 40.

and the rest will follow

Writing from the library because my laptop is doing strange things. And by "strange things" I mean "not letting me on the internet no matter how much I verbally threaten to throw it out the window."
Frustration has been the theme of this week. Frustration, insomnia, discovering that hateful anonymous comments on blogs of people who write things like "I'm not voting for Bush, I'm voting for Cheney," is a fabulous, random-hate-releasing pastime, recieving a UPS notice last night, happy happy joy joying (how long has it been since y'all seen anyone reference Ren and Stimpy?) because I thought that at long last it was my camera, discovering today that no, it is the review copy of the new And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead CD complete with death threats printed on the CD if I am ever to fileshare it. And, see, Trail Of Dead is not too shabby, but it's like...it's like getting a Hershey Bar when you were really hoping for an elephant. They are both awesome but on different scales and for completely different reasons.
Also, I have no idea how I'm going to approach reviewing it. I like it, a lot, but I've been so fucking frustrated wiith my writing lately that I don't really want to touch this one just yet. My coworker offered the unsolicited opinion that it sounds like "one of those bands in the seventies that never made it," but a) no it doesn't, and b) she's an idiot in many respects, so no. However, here is a sample lyric, from the title track: "Look at these cunts on MTV/ Cars and 'Cribs' and rings and shit/ Is that what being a celebrity means?"
Yeah, um.
Because this computer is sending me threatening messages about how it is reserved at 6 p.m. for someone else, I will close here before I get any deeper into this nonsense further refining my craft. ("Craft." Snerk. One of the reasons why Matthew will never leave me for some blonde girl from Rockford is that I'm so FUNNY.)

if i make it through today

I didn't get to sleep until four in the morning. I can't begin to tell you what went through my brain all night. Needless to say, there will be no Wednesday entry beyond this short one.
I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me.

and now i'm out on the veranda when i should have gone to school

I can't sleep.
We didn't go to the show. My friend was tired and I convinced her to come out and get coffee ( I got herbal tea because I ANTICIPATED THIS) because I didn't feel like coming home and watching Wifeswap or whatever goddamn thing they are offering up as television these days, and it is one thing to go to an all-ages show when you are 26, but to go to an all-ages show alone when you are 26? No.
So we hung out and discussed boys and hidden meanings of mix CDs and defaced the UWM Post because we found a column wherein the Post asked six college students if they could choose who would be president right now out of anyone who it would be and two of them said REAGAN, and one of them said A MIXTURE OF NIXON AND CLINTON, and oh Jesus people, this is our future,and it was too much. We then looked at the Halloween costume offerings at Walgreens for much longer than we had intended to, because Walgreens at Halloween is kind of hypnotizing. I feel so...lame. It was a really good time regardless, and I only blame my friend a little bit, but where is my Rocktober? What the fuck happened? How many days is it until Christmas?
If anyone has any insomnia cures out there (or just really good drugs), please share them. I have already tried counting backwards from a hundred and counting sheep and concentrating on relaxing each individual muscle and shit, and this is ridiculous, and I am TIRED.

you will most assuredly drown tomorrow

"I want my old friends. I want my old face. I want my old mind. Fuck this time and place."-Ani DiFranco
Not really much to say today. I'm still trying to work through the events of the past 72 hours. The Sunday Night Insomnia Soul Train, which has stopped here the past three weeks now, was back in full force last night and recovering from that is my primary goal at the moment. Because I am an old, old woman who gets terribly emotional when she is deprived of sleep, I am going to the 5:00 all-ages Q and Not U show tomorrow rather than the 10:00 drinking one. Were I in any other sort of state right now I would be a lot more excited about this. However, I very much am looking forward to dancing like a gotdamn fool for two hours because it will most likely put me to sleep straightaway afterwards. Because, see, when you're old? Sleep's important. I miss the days where I could run around until two in the morning in the middle of the week. You may be cocking your head right now and asking yourself how someone who is 26 can feel old. Let me assure you: It can be done. And I think sometimes about how I'm going to feel when I actually am old, and it terrifies me because I can't picture it at all.
My one accomplishment today was buying groceries that will get me through the next week, maybe a little longer. Y'all who know me may be aware of the fact that this is a rare thing indeed, that once I run out of groceries it takes me several days in a row of feeling guilty about buying low-fat scones and coffee for breakfast before I buy my own foodses. I am especially proud of myself because lately my food-purchasing trends are moving away from buying five boxes of macaroni and cheese and calling it a day (although that and smoking half a pack a day got me really, really skinny) (diet book forthcoming).
Re: the smoking: I have a new tome to turn to/calm me down when I want to smoke (ironically, for those who have read it, it's sort of like a 12-step): "A Million Little Pieces." Nothing like visuals of vomiting chunks of your own stomach and having a cigarette afterwards to make you go "WHAT THE FUCK WAS I DOING?!?" However, it works conversely sometimes, in that you go "Dude sniffed glue, crack, heroin, and huffed gasoline on a regular basis and I can't smoke one cigarette? Just one? Pshaw. Pfuit, even." also: random fact: The author has "FTBSITTTD" tattooed on his left arm, which stands for "FUCK THE BULLSHIT IT'S TIME TO THROW DOWN."
...i am so not a badass.
I will feel like even less of a badass after I get this book from the library, which I just found out is ready for pickup, which is wonderful because I'm a sucker for that sort of writing and am sick of everything in my library.
To emphasize how much of a badass I'm not, though, I'm going to go do laundry.

all business.

there are two new links, one snarky change of link title, and one new picture.
Why the hell are you reading this? It's gorgeous outside.

i'm a monster, but i'm a good monster.

Previously, on the Shut The Fuck Up Chronicles:
our heroine, upon learning that the boy who she had recently/unofficially/silently vowed to stay with for Ever and Ever and Ever was considering taking a job 85 miles away in motherfucking Bensenville, Illinois, became chronically sad for several days in a row and drank wine in Riverwest for one of them and posted an incredibly cryptic entry on her webpage about journeys and going crazy and leaving. She tried her best to put on her game face and be happy for him, with whatever decision he made, but she kept coming back to the idea of how much him leaving would hurt. And she knew that his work mattered a lot more to him than hers did. And she knew that things were going to change sooner or later, and she even knew that, hey, she was the bestest girlfriend ever and there was no fucking way he was ever going to find anyone like her, and the worst thing that was going to happen would be that she'd spend more time in Illinois than she had originally planned to when she embarked on this relationship. So she stewed with that and turned it over in her head. And it hurt. Every time. Typical.

So last night I went to his house a little before he did and can't remember why I called him, but I did, and the news--that he had taken the job--was communicated over the phone because I'm notoriously impatient. And GUESS WHAT, PEOPLE--I was sad. He is moving permanently in about two months.
But at the same time, I'm elated. Not only because he's going to be happy, but because I was able to shout down the part of myself that gets convinced of these things, because I have decided to see it as an adventure. I'm not going to lose him at all. It is part egotism and bravada when I call myself the best thing that ever happened to him, but I'm going to keep on thinking it and being happy for him and being excited about everything. Because it's the only thing I can do, really. We only have a future together if both of us honestly believe we do(clap your hands if you believe in fairies, children!). I am scared. I freely admit that. But now isn't the time to dwell.
Other aspects of last night included drinking (ginger and Jack) (lots of it), wandering off and hiding and crying a couple times because there is still some Working Through This I need to do, and passing out (the sleeping kind, not the drunk kind) on a chair in someone's apartment at one in the morning, and finding myself in the very interesting position of learning that I am despised. As I am universally Cute and Lovable, this was rather hard to stomach. And it just exemplified the part of me that I hate, that part that needs everyone everywhere to like me and going off and despairing when it is found that--hey, guess what, not so much. Frankly, guess what, kind of impossible. I really wish that I didn't care so much about what others thought of me. I don't think I'll ever be able to shake that. That experience, combined with a website I've been reading at work (shh) makes me despair of the fact that life is ever going to feel like anything but high school.
Other things:
1. There are more pictures in the girls on film section.
2.I would like to introduce you to Natalie Dee. She rules all y'all.
3. I spent entirely too much time today making this: , which I blame on my obsession with reading other peoples' LiveJournals.(Not yours.)
4. P.S. If LiveJournal were any more freaking emo, it would have a constant soundtrack of sobbing.
5. The new pictures, while I approve of them, were not taken with my camera, because I STILL DON'T HAVE IT. I seriously should have just asked for one for Christmas.
6. The boy is a tropical storm, but he is weakening. Which is too bad. I still advise all of you and anyone in the Illinois area who may or may not meet him in the upcoming months (see his website, also, for pictures of him) to scream "HERE I AM! ROCK YOU LIKE A HURR-IH-CAYEEEN!" at him upon meeting/seeing him.
And God is 7.

etiology

This person is (pick one):
1. on a perilous journey from which we can learn much when he or she returns,
2. possessed by (pick one):
a) the gods,
b)God (that is, a prophet),
c) some bad spirits, demons, or devils,
d) the Devil;
3. a witch;
4. bewitched (variant of 2);
5. bad, and must be isolated and punished;
6. ill, and must be isolated and treated by (pick one):
a) purging and leeches,
b) removing the uterus if the person has one,
c)electric shock to the brain,
d) cold sheets wrapped tight around the body,
e) Thorazine or Stelazine;
7. ill, and must spend the next seven years talking about it;
8.a victim of society's low tolerance for deviant behavior;
9. sane in an insane world;
10. on a perilous journey from which he or she may never return.
(from Girl, Interrupted)

keep yourself alive

The top ten has changed. Again. Question to Matthew/observers of this site's sartorial elegance/or not: Should I get an update function?

today was a day of things breaking. Insomnia seems to be my new Sunday night best friend/guest star on my sitcom of my life (WB drama might be more accurate). I have no idea what time I got to bed last night. I do remember being convinced that I could hear someone breaking into my apartment and lying wide awake for at least a half hour as a result. It's a bit late for me to be developing irrational dark-related fears. Perhaps this is because I was reading The Coldest Winter Ever, a book which I have read before and sincerely love, right before I went to sleep. Motherfuckers be gettin JACKED in that book. stumbled through today, have no idea how I made it, came home to a nonfunctioning answering machine, whose troubleshooting instructions say to "replace the aaa batteries, and/but I CAN'T FIND ANYPLACE WHERE BATTERIES WOULD GO. So either a) I am missing something really obvious in my exhaustion or b) since it cost like $30 from Sears four years ago, it has bought the Farm That Answering Machines Buy. If it is the latter I will be pissed, because this saving every last penny thing has just been running into more and more obstacles. True, most of them were unnecessary obstacles, but come on now, I needed a Halloween costume, goddamnit. And Rilo Kiley tickets. And a camera, which I STILL DON'T HAVE.
I spent this weekend shopping for aforementioned Halloween costume (which may or may not be slutty enough to show up at certain people's parties) and spending time being the only non-tall, blonde, rail-thin one out of the boy and his two sisters, who had come for the weekend to visit. Surprisingly, although I did have "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other" in my head most of Saturday night, I was not sullen and/or shy and/or frightened. This is partly because I've met them before and when I asked Matt about forty thousand times "didtheylikemedotheyhateme ohmygodtheyhatemedontheybehonest" he still yelled "NO. THEY DON'T HATE YOU." And we have a very honest relationship (snerk, paging Dr. Phil) so I totally believe him and stuff. Plus, if ever there is ice to be broken with me, it is very easily broken by getting drunk and discussing the presidential debates loudly in a bar in West Allis. Um, unless you're voting for Bush or Nader. Which they weren't, so all systems were go.
And again. Preacher, choir, etc. but this is the way my friend Amy put it: "I shouldn't be laughing, I should be scared as hell." The way I choose to put it: Vote, fuckers.
I can hardly see straight, I'm so tired. To demonstrate how tired I am, I am going tol leave this sentencve free of fixing mnym typos. I
I go now.

i cannot fall in love. you'll never see my eyes. i will not call you back. i cannot do the smurf.

I am running on about three hours' sleep for the second time this week. Rilo Kiley (swoon) started at 11:00, meaning that they did not actually end until 1:00 a.m, and then we drove an hour and a half to get back to Milwaukee, my sister crashed on my floor and the alarm went off three hours and thirty five minutes later.
It was so worth it.
Highlights included:
"I Never," which I was kind of getting sick of, but it completely blew me away live
Speculating endlessly about the ratio of boys who were there because Jenny Lewis is hott-with-two-ts versus those who were there because they like the music versus those who were influenced to like their music because of her hottness
The group of boys in front of us who were having a heated, honest-to-goodness-real conversation about whether or not they would join the Dark Side, prompting us to refer to them as the Dark Side for the rest of the night (ex. "The Dark Side is throwing the devil horns again." "Boy, I wish the Dark Side would shut up; they are clearly not going to play 'The Frug.'")
The half-assed cover of "Such Great Heights," which...see, it was funny because Jenny Lewis is in the Postal Service too, right? and she sings the same part that she did in the Postal Service in this version, and...
Having beer poured directly ON MY ASS by the girl behind me who poured it out whilst scrambling for her cell phone (actually, that was not a highlight, so much)
My sister's giddy reaction when I informed her that Blake Sennet was in Salute Your Shorts
"The Good That Won't Come Out"-- I really can't adequately describe how gorgeous and powerful it was, cause I'm actually a terrible writer
For those of you who have not heard of the Rilo Kiley or have heard of them and care even a tiny bit, they are going to perform on Conan O'Brien on October 6th. Hilary Duff will also be on that night. Maybe they will sing a duet. That would rule.
This morning? While I'm still incredibly tired, I was buoyed by the sun and the fact that it's Friday and the two middle-aged men holding "Honk For Kerry/Edwards" signs on Water & Wisconsin and there were lots of people honking. (Snippet of conversation between sign-holder and passing Bush supporter who was debating with them [Sign Holder Guy]: "I don't make $200,000 a year..." And the fact that the girl who I've been getting my coffee from occasionally since I started this job was dressed up in horrible 80s clothing along with the rest of the staff of Stone Creek because it was her birthday, and they were playing the Jackson Five. The Jackson Five is an excellent thing to hear if you are walking around wishing for things to elevate your mood because you have had three hours' sleep.
And I got a little teary, because when you have had three hours' sleep and are also probably premenstrual and are, well, me, you get sentimental when you kind of see signs of people being happy and the world kind of coming together. Kind of.
Things are okay right now.