the baby jesus

Putting old family VHS vids onto my computer to edit them together. So far, my favorite part may be my dad sitting and telling extraordinarily dirty jokes to the camera and his friends. I figured I must have been asleep by then. But here is part of the transcript:

Dad: So, there was this young couple, innocent to say the least, wondering what to do on their wedding night. They asked around and...
Me: ...Daddy! Daddy, look!
Dad: [annoyed] Yes, sweetie?
Me: Look Daddy, the baby Jesus!
Dad: You have the baby Jesus there? OK. So anyway, they go on and get to their wedding night and they decided they were going to try something called "giving head"!

And so on. Hilariously inappropriate.

Mozart the dog didn't seem to like stairs when I first got him. I had to carry him up three stories to my apartment the first night. Eventually I got him to go up one flight and rewarded him with his favorite thing--hugs and kisses. So he started going up the stairs one section at a time, coming to a landing and turning around to beam at me, waiting for his favorite thing. I started weaning him off the positive reinforcement by only giving him hugs at each floor, rather than the in-between landings. I would say "one more! One more!" at the halfway point. But sometimes we would just stay at the landing and look over the edge for a while. Or he would put his little paws up on my legs and smile at me.

Dogs are stupid. But lovable.

This was going to be a metaphor for something, but I realize it doesn't really work. But being in New Orleans kind of feels like being at that landing...there's this residual feeling I have like I'm about to get my favorite thing, and it doesn't even matter that all I end up doing is vaguely looking over the edge. It's always a waypoint for me when I'm here, now more so than other times, since I'm indefinitely unemployed. And employment could lead me anyway (this is one way in which the metaphor doesn't work--Mozart always ended up at my apartment at the end of the exercise). Well, I've ruled out a few places I want the next leg of the journey to take me:

• Anywhere in Texas but Austin
• The Eastern seaboard of the USA
• Anywhere in Louisiana but New Orleans

Things I can do with my unemployment:

• Learn to play saxophone
• Hang out with K--
• Paint a picture
• Write a song
• Read a book (gotta start small)
• Sell all my belongings

Things I can do in New Orleans:

• Work on Illyria costume
• Work on home videos and photos digitizing project
• Center myself
• Try not to watch a lot of TV
• But do watch Dollhouse because my parents recorded the two episodes I haven't seen yet
• Review CDs (some for KOOP and some for KVRX)
• Stain all the towels with my red hair
• Take the cats for walks in the backyard. They are so good.
  

When you touched a friend of mine
I thought I would lose my mind
But I found out with time that
Really I was not ready

I've had a new resolution lately, to not let any reference I don't understand go unGoogled. There is no reason not to remain ignorant when there is Wikipedia at the ready.

I've learned so much! I hope I can remember it enough to casually mention some factoids at a party. Some things I've learned about that you might already have known.

• Lemuria, a mythical Atlantis-like continent that was supposedly in the Indian Ocean, partly inspired the Pixies' song Velouria.
• Vic Chesnutt, singer of my new favorite song "Flirted With You All My Life" is a paraplegic (cool bio, paraplegia not a focal point). And also that I only discovered this song 3 days after he came to Austin on tour. I would have loved that.
• The Akashic records, describes mystical knowledge and is encoded in a non-material plane. I invented this when I was 10--a written book of fate, but written in multiple dimensions, so that if something changes a timeline, it was fated to do that, rather than makes an alternate and parallel timeline. It was complicated. I lost those notebooks in the move to uptown.
  
• The backup/female singer from my new favoritest Canadian band, Immaculate Machine, is also the singer that has more or less replaced Neko Case in the New Pornographers, and is AC Newman's niece. AC stands for Allan Carl.
• Australia has compulsory voting for state and federal elections.
  

Vic Chesnutt, Flirted With You All My Life

This isn't real
But I just want to feel

I know. I know. Sorry.

There's an inflatable tacky Santa that always scares the hell out of me as I'm walking to my car. But more than half the time, it's deflated because they forgot to turn it on.

This is how I feel. It's like I'm doing all these things to re-inflate, but there's a puncture somewhere, so it's all just pointless until I can find where I'm broken and fix it.

Radio show tonight. On death and Christmas.

• Where Do We Go From Here, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  

sometimes

Sometimes when you're going down
You're going down no matter what

Have been plagued by a persistent need to NOT document my life lately. Well, there was the massive DH experience email that went out to many of you. But besides that, I am so dissatisfied with my psyche right now, it makes me to want to vomit to even think of writing in my personal journal.

Problematic for keeping a blog.

I am borrowing a saxophone, but I have only successfully made it sound one note. I cleaned my house last night, at long last. I succeeded in putting all my bills, unpaid for months, into a pile, but have not yet succeeded in going online and paying them. I have a $550 therapy bill. Luckily, I have 3 paychecks from 3 different jobs ready to be deposited. I hooked up my central heat because it snowed in Austin (I didn't see it, but so the story goes). I'm almost done with school. I left my cats in New Orleans at Thanksgiving, but I am kind of regretting it--my time at home is painfully lonely, making me resort to Craigslist dates to get me out of the house, but I have minimal standards, so I end up regretting those, too, not to mention I get stood up more than half the time, which shockingly hasn't taken a toll on my self esteem. Yet. I got 2 free cupcakes today, and ate them both (along with the one I paid for). I'm selling a large proportion of my stuff on Craigslist; I need to make room for my January houseguest. I have gotten to round two of a job interview series, as well as to the training portion of an SAT tutoring job. This week, almost every hour of my time is accounted for, much of which will be getting me out of the house. I think I'm going to foster a schnauzer, though, for the 12 days before I go home for Christmas.

There was so much I could have done today, but I just had a ridiculously unproductive day. All I accomplished was getting a refill of Relpax (for the migraine) and getting those cupcakes (for the self-pity). And now, holy crap, it's 2am, and I have work tomorrow. For the week:

Monday: Work, hang with C, see Ziggy Stardust at Alamo Ritz
Tuesday: Work, job interview, go to KOOP to start first day of volunteering, doctor's appointment, 5 hours of tutoring training and/or meeting L for dinner.
Wednesday: Work, lunch "date" (with friend), 5 hours tutoring training and/or candlelit yoga with J1
Thursday: Crafting day with M and J2, Blue Genie Christmas bazaar with E et al.
Friday: Work, yoga+pizza with D, radio show (2 hours)
Saturday: Hang with C and her cat, F's birthday party and/or D&D
Sunday: Should take today to work on final class project, review CDs, work on Christmas presents, but I get the feeling I will take a pajama day.

Oh.

• Immaculate Machine, Blinding Light (from a great album that I can't stop listening to)
  

have baby migraine, and no reason to leave the house. think i'm going to throw up, but can't tell if it's from the headache or from boredom. i guess going to get migraine medication is a reason to leave the house. i guess the issue is i have no energy to leave the house. nor to capitalize letters.