Archive
Fiona Apple--Get Gone
Some of these songs and their presence here are more pointed than others. That's all I'm saying.
In other news (Good News For People Who Are Normally Used To Bad News From Me), starting Thursday I am once again gainfully employed. Hooray.
Conversely, tonight could go something like this:
Dismemberment Plan--Gyroscope
or so I have read.
NEW TEEN GIRL SQUAD I AM SO HAPPY.
Incidentally, this contains some of the most astute commentary on the music industry I've seen in a while.
The Futureheads--Hounds Of Love (Windows Media)
(Real Player version)
I have but one word: DOGGIES.
In other news, the Thermals show is tomorrow (for real this time), my drinking of red wine with various friends has not slowed down or abated in the least and I do not particularly feel bad about it (and I'm TAKING THEM ALL DOWN WITH ME HA HA HA HA) , but if I could pick something different to do about it I don't so much think that I would drink the homemade wine next time, because (although?) for some reason homemade Pinot Noir inspires me to finish cleaning closets. OMG YOU CAN SEE MY CLOSET FLOOR. AND THE DOOR CLOSES AND STAYS CLOSED. AND IT SMELLS PRETTY. OMG.
The lake effect snow that has been falling since seven this morning is gorgeous, and there is at least one attempt to capture it at the photojournal, among some other new pictures.
And I really really really want these. However, I would be hard-pressed to find a person who would appreciate the ball sweat one. Not that that's particularly a bad thing.
In general, to wit, &c. et al, I am really happy. And I can say that emphatically and unguardedly to anyone who asks.
Merry weekend, y'all.
Admonitions To A Special Person
Watch out for power,
for its avalanche can bury you,
snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain.
Watch out for hate,
it can open its mouth and you'll fling yourself out
to eat off your leg, an instant leper.
Watch out for friends,
because when you betray them,
as you will,
they will bury their heads in the toilet
and flush themselves away.
Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.
Watch out for games, the actor's part,
the speech planned, known, given,
for they will give you away
and you will stand like a naked little boy,
pissing on your own child-bed.
Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes),
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.
Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.
Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.
Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon.
--Anne Sexton
Le Tigre--Tell You Now
Take notes if you need to:
5 PM + 2 soy mochas + 1 cup black coffee(general giddiness)=extremely fitful sleep for Sarahs. I have discovered that I inexplicably (or at least inexplicable to people who can't explain satellite patterns without sounding like total knobs) get a blurry version of M2 on my television, so I am doing something I haven't for a long time now: at least excepting the times the notable exceptions are on: watching television. Eminem Ashanti Green Day is my friend right now. It's exciting. I know this.
Expect another lengthyish update to the photojournal sometime this week, perhaps today or tomorrow. In the meantime, just trust the fact that I'm giddy, and and no I can't tell you why.
I may never tell you why.
Also, listen to this:
Jeff Buckley, New Year's Prayer
a note about the mp3s on this site: I am taking down all of the ones that are more than three weeks old so as not to clog the server too badly. If you haven't been paying attention to the rest of them, TOO BAD FOR YOU.
an additional note: there are two new links up on the Links page, and the top ten changed a couple days ago.
ps. According to this dude over here today is the most depressing day of the year.
The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ
M x NA
The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.
Hooray?...I guess?
Something in my brain wasn't working very well last night; the Thermals show is, in fact, next week. It took a 411 call (sorry M) plus a whooooole bunch of hipster boys staring disdainfully at me before it sunk in that I Was Wrong.
I hate being wrong.
However there are a whole bunch of pictures from what went on last night. Here is one of them:
I TOOK THAT! YEAH, I KNOW! I CAN SCARCELY BELIEVE IT MYSELF!
Lord, why dost thou maketh the Thermals show on the same night as the Huge Fucking Snowstorm? Sometimes I wonder if you are even dizown with the rizock.
Today was good. Tonight will be better, as I am nothing if not tenacious stubborn stupid when I want to be, and am planning to venture out into Alaska 2005 for this show and AND for Gallery Night, because you know what? I CAN. I am tired of staying in. I want to be freeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I want to take pictures of boys with guitars! I don't have one of them thar cameraphones or Moblogs or Blackberries or whatever and cannot send/post pictures of me buried under snowdrifts or being eaten by a polar bear , so if I know you and you read this and there is no new post by, say, Tuesday...call my mom, please, kthxbye.
I really don't have anything else to add, so here is your Song For The Weekend Which Does Not Actually Reflect My State Of Mind But This Has Become A Fucking Breakup Journal Anyway And The Song Is Gorgeous So I'ma Run With It:
Counting Crows--Colorblind
Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach--"God Give Me Strength"
Yet entirely necessary.
Or, Why I Cannot Stop Listening To Kanye West
Or, South Side, South Side, We Gon Set This Party Off Right
Or, The Prettiest People Do The Ugliest Things
Seriously, just listen.
(I admit that I came extraordinarily late to this one. However, it has gone from being played three times in a row [no exaggeration. for real] on a particularly long bus ride to my CD player twice in a row to back in my headphones. That snare drum in "Jesus Walks"alone drives me crazy. I CANNOT STOP. THIS IS NOT FUNNY. WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME?)
Further musical snippets of this weekend involve me admitting to myself a secret love for URRRSHER( notable exception: "Yeah") (Are you high?) after hearing Confessions in a clothing store and watching this salesgirl who was like seventeen dance around to it and sing to herself in the aisles. because you know what? fuck you, I don't have to justify myself to anyone. Also there was when I went to breakfast with my girl and ended up writing down the addresses of some MP3 blogs when she admitted that she wanted to know more about music and I was going on about how MP3 blogs are the new older brother and I had read that somewhere and I think I actually had an out-of-body experience wherein I stepped outside of myself, shook my head and thought "you fucking moron."
In other news: I'm famous, sort of. (I have named my camera Lalitree because of this post.)
Today has mostly been spent glowering at computer screens because I still can't bring myself to start watching daytime television and feeling cold and wishing that I had some sort of controlled substance stronger than coffee or milk that is close to expiring. I have also been inactive today because it's COLD, bitch. Other than that I am doing surprisingly well. This whole going through and reading embarrassing things (actually, it's not so much that this is embarrassing as it is that I just wish it were better) and taking embarrassing music to the gym and restraining the urge to dance around on the treadmill to "Stronger" and EMBRACING IT FULLY WITHOUT HAVING TO TELL YOU OR ANYONE SHIT is one of the only things that I can cling to right now. And so I am. And it's great. This weekend and the previous two weeks were so tumultous that the fact that I am still waiting to hear about various applications/temp assignments doesn't bother me as much as it would have previously. I need time, and I feel like I'm just now coming into legitimate quiet time. Except last night, in which there was more drinking and yelling about the stupidity of air travel and boys in general. But repeating that experience with friends feels necessary as well right now. I feel like a dilletante rather than an unemployed poverty stricken fuck. I mean that in a good way. I do hope that I get a new job before I have time to change my mind.
In conclusion, I feel a WHOO coming on, cuz. (WHOO!) There it was.
There are two photos from this weekend up at the photojournal. More coming soon.
EDIT, hours later: Here be monsters. Er, that is, here is a Venn diagram of how I spent my Saturday night.
"Lately I just can't seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now it's just a matter of grace"
For those of you who are too lazy/attention deficit disordered to go to the links section, the motherfucking photojournal is finally finally FINALLY GOD FINALLY up.
At what cost, though, she wondered melodramatically.
There is also a new Top Ten.
That is all.
--Adam's Rib
And I haven't done this in a while, and circumstances being what they are (I was caught in a fucking rainstorm of epic proportions on the way to the weekly Lost viewing and it was gorgeous and cinematic and melodramatic and lots of atics) this feels appropriate:
"The rain on my car is a baptism. The new me. Iceman. Power Lloyd. My assault on the world begins now. Believe in myself. Answer to no one."
---Lloyd Dobler, Say Anything.
Bjork--"5 Years"
There's really nothing else I have to add. Except it's 1:30 in the morning, I am not drunk, this is not pointed or small or petty, and oh yes, THE FTP IS BACK BITCHES.
The FTP still won't let me in, and I haven't heard back from the keeper of the FTP so I have no idea what to tell ye vast and teeming masses hungry for music and me actually changing some of the shit around here other than I'll keep trying.
Last night was red wine in Riverwest (in keeping with the self-medication/wine monster that he created), The Bachelorette (We love Ben. We LOVE HIM. OH MY GOD) and feeling ridiculous for admitting the healing powers that terrible television has. I mean, it was so wonderful and terrifying to see these 25 guys with looks on their faces like they wished they could strip down to their underwears and claw the shit out of each other already. It was primal and a spectacle and quite frightening. Discussions were also had that you are obviously not going to be privy to, but one of the most important things discussed was the importance of when you are out dancing with your girl it is crucial to give her her space rather than dancing all up on her ass every five minutes and practically pissing on her leg what with the territory marking and all. If you didn't come to play nice, go home. Apparently I was never the only female with this problem, a fact that is heartening. The discussion culminated with me screaming (we were well into the wine by this point) "BEAT IT!!" a la Pharrell. Also there were "art" photos taken of Angelique's new kitten, who I think hates me because I was all sticking flash photography all up in his grill every five minutes. Being a cat, all he wanted to do was hide beneath the Christmas tree.
The other fact that was revealed last night was this: The thing that scares me most about temping is best described by that episode of Six Feet Under where the temp dies and her body isn't found for three weeks and there are ants crawling on it and shit. That was the nice thing about having someone--there would be an immediate person who was concerned if i turned up missing for any reason. And I know that's ridiculous and there are ten million other people in my life who would be equally responsive and concerned, but I can't stop it from being a fear. Angelique duly reassured me that if I was lying dead in my apartment and didn't contact her for a couple of days she would, in fact, be concerned and act accordingly. So that was nice.
In other pointedly euphemistic news, The Tool Shed has opened, and I think I may be out of...circular...saws.
Also when I went outside this morning I got "Nothing Compares 2 U" in my head.
I have no idea where that leaves me.
but I think even my word of the day subscription knows what is happening to me:
"Word of the Day for Sunday January 9, 2005
impervious \im-PUR-vee-uhs\, adjective:
1. Not admitting of entrance or passage through; impenetrable.
2. Not capable of being harmed or damaged.
3. Not capable of being affected."
The planned song I was going to insert here has been scrapped because there's something fucked up with the FTP. The scheduled debut of the flickr.com photojournal has been scrapped for the moment because I'm missing a cable and the replacement thingy I bought to correct it is not unconfusing, and yesterday I was on so much goddamn caffeine, no food and wretchedness that I could barely see without going crosseyed. Last night was a bottle of red wine, a good friend, a whole lot of music and still holding back crying. I'm not going to lie about that. I don't know when it's ever going to stop. I have discovered that it is possible to be angry and devastated and sometimes bordering on okay yet want to mourn the loss of the person you're angry at all at the same time. Also yesterday I bought Album Of The Year by The Good Life and walked around the city listening to it and nothing else for the rest of the day, because I decided that listening to a gentleman who has made a career out of writing about a failed relationship was exactly what the situation called for, and this is not wallowing. Tim Kasher, if you are reading this please call me, because you must know at least something about me to have wrote "You're Not You" and I am actually concerned that you are spying on me.
I have no idea where today is going to take me. I hope it's someplace good.
I just didn't think that I was going to be here again, is all. I didn't for one second think that I was going to be left without any idea of who I am. I didn't want to have to pick up the pieces. I wanted the fairytale. So much for that.
more to follow when I can actually put a cohesive thought together without wanting to cry....
The Mountain Goats--"No Children"
"And I hope when you think of me years down the line,
you can't find one good thing to say.
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out,
you'd stay the hell out of my way."
yesterday I was in a bad way. My first instinct when I am sad and hurt and dying inside is to call or otherwise talk to as many people as humanly possible, to keep the threads alive, to talk as much as I can. This is what I was doing yesterday at about noon, when most of the world was still sleeping off their hangovers or commiserating over huge greasy breakfasts. I was on my cell phone, on a bus, in West Allis, trying to keep from falling apart and failing miserably every step of the way. There was a man just out of my field of vision who started waving at me when I was in the middle of one of these conversations, holding my chest in the place where it hurt when I cried, the place where it felt like it had been torn from my body. I ignored him at first, because I am not very open to strangers on buses in general. Finally he got my attention and asked me if I was okay. I half-smiled at him, realizing how strange and out of control I must look to the rest of the bus--not that it mattered, but at the time it was important to me. I told him "I will be." He looked back at me and launched into a long speech about how it was so incredibly important to be okay now, not let the actions of other people bring you down, not to become affected by things that you can't control, that "you're too pretty to be this sad" (not that it helped anything really now, did it? When I was younger I thought that if I could just be prettier than I was everything would be okay. Now that I'm older and, allegedly apparently, pretty, let me tell you that it does nothing at all to shield you from pain.) This man on the bus's final parting words of wisdom were the following: "You know what I like to do in these situations? I like to just sit back, get a Miller Lite, and chill." He then quickly added that he wasn't advocating that I go out and get drunk or anything, but just that I, you know, chill.
So far I haven't been able to follow his advice. But what he taught me was important nonetheless--even when your heart is breaking there is still kindness in the world, there are still things that are able to make you laugh, even if it comes from complete strangers.
I wish that I could say that I've slept or ate anything worth a damn in the past 24 hours. I wish I could say that I wasn't still crying when I woke up this morning. I wish I could say that I got up and moved on like I hadn't had my heart and trust in people in general crushed, that I was stronger than that, that I danced around like Britney Spears, narrowed my eyes coyly, shrugged and said "...Whatevs," because that would just be the most irritatingly insouciant and juvenile thing to say about the situation.
But I can't say any of that, so I'm just going to repeat what I told the man on the bus and add some bits for clarification:
No, I'm not okay. I probably won't be for a very long time. But eventually? Yeah. I will be.
