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.

we were lucky

Your body may be gone, I'm gonna carry you in.
In my head, in my heart, in my soul.
And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both live again.
Well I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

(click the video below to have the soundtrack to this entry while you read)



We were lucky we got to say goodbye. We were lucky we got to tell him the things we always wanted to. I am lucky I wrote him that letter, and copied him that poem. We were lucky his students wrote him testimonials in time for him to read them. We were lucky he knew we loved him and he was loved by others. We were lucky we knew he loved us. We were lucky he didn't deteriorate over years and years, but rather faded away over a few weeks and then days. We were lucky he died gently, at home, with his family near him. We were lucky it happened Thanksgiving week because we were already together. We were lucky we were together because it was easier to reabsorb the love into the family network we already have.

It doesn't mean we won't miss him for every holiday and every visit to my grandmother's for the rest of our lives.

• Sun Kil Moon, Ocean Breathes Salty
  

paw

How do we cope, with the days after a death?
Empty days, nothing happens, not even a funeral.

Listening to Jed the Humanoid. How can a song be so silly and so sad?

My grandfather died this morning. It's very sad. He's been sick a while, but it suddenly took a turn for the worse in the last few days. My mom had collected testimonials from his students and he read the ones she had so far Sunday night. I wrote him a letter of all the memories of him and my grandmother that I will keep for forever. We are lucky we could give him these things.

• Cracks in the Canvas, PJ Harvey

freude (no schaden)

why I felt so alive I might never determine
There might be a word to describe it in German

Been busy today. Transcribed the DH full interview, and reworked my statement of purpose for the Russian Fellowship I want to do. And signed a lot of contracts for a freelance transcription job. Transcribing is very satisfying for me. I hope I can do this one within the parameters I quoted.

Home. New Orleans. Martinis. Jeopardy. Work. Impending...bad things. But no sense of forboding just sadness. I'm glad for DH songs to buoy my spirits. I wrote him a note that his songs have saved my life on a number of occasions. Radiohead I should charge with attempted murder.

DH inspires in me a desire to write again. He writes so much. And I could write that much, and maybe find something salvageable and good, and I could remember my moments better. The blog is a forum for certain things, according to my theory, but not for the types of things I wish I better recorded. He also inspires in me a desire to write music again. Or at least play some music, which usually inspires in me a song or two. I was thinking of seeing if my brother would collaborate on a song with me, or if my dad would record me singing one in his studio. Mom has a top of the line ukulele I could use.

Full, full to bursting things, all.

• Darren Hanlon, Elbows (video directed by Natalie van den Dungen)
  

made it home to new orleans. transcribing interview. will be doing a lot of work while i'm here. got a freelance transcription job, have to keep up with regular work, have to keep up with schoolwork. ugh.

why am i still up? i'm so close to finished with the interview, but i have to give up now.

still riding the high.

glad to see there's part of you
reserved for me

I haven't blogged this week, nor did I sleep (till last night; I just woke up). My favorite musician (I'll go ahead and say he's my favorite, after the last few days) came into town Wednesday, and by a series of very fortunate events, I got to hang out with him and his documentation a lot.

I have to tell you that Darren and Natalie are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Ever. I just needed to make a blog update to say that in public.

I don't have time to go through the highlights of their stay. But here are 3:

• Playing pinball tournaments with them
• Getting a song (one of my favorites) dedicated to me and a friend during the last set.
• Interviewing them for almost 2 hours about all the questions I've always wanted to ask about his songs and videos.

Cast of Thousands, Darren Hanlon

more ad reponses

If a dude says "lol" once, I immediately suspect he is either a) used to talking to 13 year old girls or b) a 13 year old girl. If he uses it multiple times, and inappropriatley (eg "saw your ad want to lol do unspeakable things to you lol") I assume he is mentally unstable.

I talked at length to my therapist about the CL exploits and her face was a mask of horror for the entire 45 minutes I was with her. She didn't find these things amusing at all.

Incidentally am at Sherlocks waiting for a dude and freezing my toes and fingers off. The doorman gave me his jacket is I guess how pathetic I look.

OH!! Rufus Wainwright is phenomenal live! What a great bunch of concerts I've been to in the last month! To be topped off by giving a ride to the last concert of the month's performer, the darling Aussie, Darren Hanlon.