it's that time of day

it's that time of day.

(it's always that time of day)

post prandial stupor, don't want to do my work. tired of writing about belgium and xiamen. ticker finished, newsletter hell making my head hurt in the strangest crevices. bumbershoot application in the mail, receipt for confirmed delivery in my pocket, invitation for a floor to crash on if i make it. feeling fit only to explore ebay and compare notes with biscuit (and, of course, hoping that nobody dares bid on the earrings i'm coveting). desiring chocolate, wanting the tips of my fingers to stop hurting. amused that certain opinions and impressions seem to be universal. wondering what the evening holds. wondering what kind of content i need to provide for the guy who's going to put me on the radio. feeling badass as hell in my black cowboy boots and comfortable in my ancient jeans low on hardware wearing the east wind around my neck and still cold tired cold. in a good mood.

two hours, twenty-four minutes to go.

help me send my various applications good vibes?

to life!

i was getting to the point where i wouldn't have believed it possible, but i think that spring is on its way! oh, it's not outwardly apparent, no no. but it's starting to sneak around the corner. open your eyes wide enough and you'll see it pouring itself back into the shadows--it doesn't want to be recognized. but it's there, in the way the wind smells (when it rips through you at fifty miles an hour). in the fact that in the span of three blocks yesterday i got two whistles and a marriage proposal (unheard of in the death of dead winter). in the fact that i'm looking at one or two situations with new eyes.

which is always fun.

i think it's time to come back to life...and not a second too soon.

bumbershoot!

someone planted a very good, very dangerous idea in my head.

this little monkey's applying to bumbershoot.

not that i have a way to get to seattle. not that i have a real hope of being accepted. not that i have the vacation time or the money for plane fare.

all i've got is got seven says to file my app. and three bags full of determination.

the big problem: as part of the application, i need to "use 3 words to best describe my performance/piece." i'm at a complete loss. suggestions, mein lieblings?

and with that, i must dash. i've got half an hour left in this hellacious, hellacious day of evil work hell, and then it's off to the producer's to digest the million pages of notes he distilled at last night's show.

tra la!

p.s. i still hate my newsletter more than i've ever hated anything else in the history of the world

topic of capricorn

the topic is always the same, the conversation always follows the same path. it starts with a laugh and ends with me staring at my feet.

why does it always end like that?

why doesn't this ever change?

when is winter going to end?

goddamn fucking newsletter of hell.

i should not be allowed anywhere near technology. not now, not ever, not nohow.

i just got back from vacation. it's far too early for me to be having another nervous breakdown.

maelstrom

i'm weathering an emotional maelstrom right now.

it's strange.

i'm thrilled because i got a great mix from a really wonderful long-lost friend only recently located.

i miss her.

i'm creeped out because i made her a mix as well, and the amount of obscure overlap is just mind-blowing. i guess we still have the same taste in music after all these years.

i have butterflies in my stomach in a way i can't remember having. my limbs are dancing and i am feeling the whole wide world through my fingertips. i wonder why. i don't recall ever being this nervous before a show before.

they say pisces are intuitive. perhaps something thrilling is going to happen tonight. my viscera tend to pick up on these things before i do.

or maybe i'm just super-caffeinated. which means it took my coffee eight hours to kick in.

i feel like i'm on fire. and i'm freezing at the same time. so, either i'm hopped up, having an episode or coming down with the flu.

in a good way. assuming i don't throw up or pass out.

but i still can't write a damn introduction. (though i do, it seems, have the power to make one of the company's servers eat itself. hurrah for me!)

rob brezsny rocks my face.

This week:

The average Pisces catches 147 colds in a lifetime, endures a serious case of hurt feelings three times a month, and fantasizes about the end of the world once every 6.2 days. I predict, however, that you will experience none of the above during the coming weeks. That's because you're slipping into a grace period that may shock you with its ease, beauty, and abundance. It will be a time when your innocence regenerates and your wisdom freshens; a seed time when your determination to feel good will trump your habitual tendencies to expect the worst; a time of awakening when your perceptions will deepen and expand even as the world is created anew right in front of your eyes.

to which i say: about fucking time!

the other half

all right. who here is familiar with the television chatfest, "the other half?" it's best described as "the view," but hosted by men.

and who are these men, i hear you ask?

well.

danny bonaduce (aka the youngest member of the partridge family)

mario lopez (aka A.C. slater of saved by the bell fame)

dick clark (aka the oldest man alive; aka the man whose career just won't die)

and who was the special guest today?

snoop dogg.

snoop motherfuckin doggy dogg

remember what i said about things looking up?

when i saw that lineup, i damn near fell off the elliptical trainer laughing. people were looking at me strangely. i was sweaty and giggling. snoop was wearing sunglasses and a hat. mario lopez was being chipper.

it was beautiful, i tells ya.

ten things that would rock my face right now

1. a scandalously large mocha

2. an extra hour of daylight

3. four extra hours of sleep

4. a plethora of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

5. teleportation

6. to have my roots miraculously touch themselves up with no assistance from me

7. the appearance of all the rogues who promised their presence at the show tomorrow night (bar b, 188 allen st between stanton and houston, 8pm)

8. a new pair of shoes. something horrendously girly. with ribbons.

9. about eight pairs of new, squishy, marvelous hiking socks.

10. violin lessons (which, i suspect would also rock the roommate's face)

11. for everyone to read this now, because i'm really excited about it.

12. true confessions from my lovely readers, as to what their favorite summer songs are. and i'm not talking songs about summer, just songs that you associate with it.

caroline

somewhere, in the cold bright dead of winter, i think i've found my first summersong: caroline, by david gray.

who'd have thought that a maudlin brit would bring me my sunshine?

things are looking up.

eye hell

newsletter admin has got to be the dullest thing ever in the history of mankind. i believe this strongly. i don't like it, any more than i like the zit on the inside of my eyelid.

at least i know why the eye's been hurting the last couple of days. send me good vibes that it doesn't explode or become giant, red and face-distending before tomorrow. come thursday, i don't care. whatever. i've got time. but tomorrow, i've got a show. and it simply will not to to be disfigured for a show. vain, but true.

he is the wreck that wrecks me.

in other news, i think that the most infamous of all spectres from the past has gotten himself a girlfriend. a little blonde thing.

it rather stings.

why does it seem that so many of those who have earned the spectral title only end up with the little, pretty tiny blonde ones? what's wrong with us tall, cynical redheads? eh?

mix this

sweet chewbacca, i'd almost forgotten my mad mix skills.

i make mixes.

i make REALLY GOOD fucking mixes when the mood is right.

the one i'm listening to right now is for my friend N down in dc.

and i'm really pleased with it.

on the hit list:

red alert-basement jaxx/our love-rhett miller/dancing undercover-john cale/wendy-jesse malin/3x5-john mayer/cock mobster-MC paul barman/new york, new york-ryan adams/i tried to rock you but you only roll-leona naess/she fell into my arms-ed harcourt/push it-garbage/mr. e's beautiful blues-eels/get out of touch-the navigators/save if for later-harvey danger/eden-hooverphonic/hallelujah-martin sexton/alright, alright-sahara hotnights/this is the day-ivy/pounding-doves/like a friend-pulp

i'm very pleased. it's like rediscovering an old friend. which, incidentally, i've also done this week. along with news of an old 'person i'd like to snap in two over my knee.'

ah, nostalgia!

peeling!

old man winter has finally exacted some revenge on me: my hands are peeling. it's really gross.

now, off to get my ass kicked at the gym. more later

jack and ginger

i took a piece of paper to write down the particulars. i wrote right in the middle, with a heavy slant rising to the right.

"that's a very odd way to write."

"is it?"

"but you're an odd girl. you are."

"thank you."

i'm so glad that i was that happy to see that boy. now i don't have to worry about boycotting my favorite bar on thursdays.

i'll take what's behind door number two, kent.

we're having a discussion here in the office right now about familial obligations...someone has to tell her grandmother that she's moved in with her boyfriend, and isn't sure how it's going to go down...she's considering making up a story to spare grandma's heart...and as all this is going on, i'm thinking "i've never felt the need to lie to my parents about my life that way." lie about smoking, yes. infantile response. but they knew when i started having sex. they knew when i moved in with my boyfriend. they knew when i was freaking out about a certain blood test. they knew, all of it, and didn't give me any shit about it at all.

and what i'm wondering is...is this hands-off approach to my life a sign that they trust me implicitly, that they think that i will learn lessons better if i mess up on my own, or that they're simply not interested.

hm. food for thought.

dreamboat

i have been plagued, of late by a rather stiff spate of lucid dreams. i thought i'd been inheriting them from roos (who is a chronic imbiber of the stuff) while we shared a room in mexico...but i've been having them myself since my return.

i can only recall them in their full technicolor plumage for a few moments after i've woken--which is why i couldn't really tell you what they're about right now....but while they last...wow. it's like having an entire other life.

like i'm in another world.

sometimes i think that that's what all dreams are, inward passage to another place. though ostensibly i know that they are process overflow, the snippets and gristle of daytime that my subconscious mind has chosen not to digest, i feel that they're more. i feel, sometimes, that there is literal vortex hiding inside my brain, and when night falls it twists me inside out, pulling me through the whirlpool into the shadowlands.

i'm not expressing myself very well, am i?

suffice it to say that sometimes i really, literally feel that i'm leading a double life.

dreamy.

oh, and double points for anyone who can reveal to me the accepted meaning of "the fix is in," outside of political pundicizing. unless that's the only correct context in which it can be taken...

fucking wmp

windows media player is the root of all evil. remember that.

fashion/iraq

"fashion week proceeds as iraq war looms"

actual title of article.

i don't know whether to laugh uncontrollably or weep inconsolably.

both feel like the right thing to do.

concentration!!

so, i'm having a devil of a time concentrating (case in point: i initially just typed "conferencing")...my producer wants to get together for a drink. which might very well mean that he has something big to tell me. big enough to not talk about over the phone.

could this have something to do with the rave reviews that the remix is ostensibly garnering?

stay tuned, i'll keep y'all posted...

musing

have you ever noticed that of all sensations we as humans are capable of experiencing, only embarrassment remains as vibrant, poignant and painful upon reflection, even years later?

home sweet snowdrift

i am back. with a tan and with a vengeance.

woooo!

amazing how vacation can just kind of push a little wind back into your sails, eh?

and this blizzard here is trying very hard to suck that right back out, but I SHALL NOT SUCCUMB! for at least 48 more hours.

but let me tell you, it made the journey home quite the little adventure. i think our little puddle jumper was one of the last vehicles to leave the ground in boston and actually make it to JFK. which is just fine with me--much as i love vacation, i was definitely ready to come home, even if it took eight vehicles, twelve hours, and a sideways cab ride to get me there.

some thoughts:

1. roos, i was absolutely siphoning lucid dreams from you. i have been dreamless since our return!

2. asinine places to get sunburned:

*backs of hands

*tops of feet

*forehead (but not the rest of the face)

*between the bosoms.

and yes, i did get a little too much color on all of those places.

3. sunshine is a miraculous curative. for body and spirit.

4. so is alcohol.

5. living in new york, which is essentially its own sovereign state, i sometimes forget how very much of the population of this country is just horrible, particularly when thrust into a foreign environment.

6. kareoke, while fun, is not the answer. though i tried. i certainly tried.

and with that, all other stories will have to come out in little sniblets.

happy post-v-day, all! it's good to be home.

viva mexico!

see you in a week, y'all.

something better~

work is virtually impossible to concentrate on when you'be found something much better to read.

yep.

two minutes in new york

new york moment number one: 1:30 pm. second avenue deli. waitress named diane. black hair. sixty if she was a day. the master of dinerspeak. cheese blintzes. a turkey sandwich larger than my head. "you're the richer, i'm the pourer." potato soup and pierogis. pictures of jerry seinfeld and dustin hoffman.

so fucking new york i could cry. and i loved every second of it.

new york moment number two: 12:30 am. W train back to the hood. i'm getting chatted up by a kid with an apple powerbook, and the conversation turned to christina aguilera (as conversations do).

me: aaaaah! she's narsty! i mean, one hell of a singer, great voice, but of the uber-skank! gross!

...two stops later...

guy who had been sitting across from me: you know, christina aguilera is my cousin. and i don't think she's gross.

me: she's got one hell of a set of pipes.

him: thanks.

right?

i am going to go look at pretty pink coats now.

kisses!

six things i (don't really) hate about...

number one: i have decided that i am going to take up the violin. i have borrowed one from a friend and have both warned the roommate and resolved to find myself some sort of instructional tome to teach myself the basics. it's very strange. i was messing with it last night, just to see if i could get noises out of it, and it felt so completely alien in my arms. and i spent the entire time trying to remember: did the guitar feel this weird when i first picked it up? i wish i could remember.

number two adjectives that describe my prowess at laser tag: abysmal. horrid. horrendous. awful. embarrassing. tragic. God, i love that game.

number three did you know that judd nelson is narrating a program on the learning channel about sleight of hand? my, how the mighty have fallen.

number four i find it hard to have sympathy for the malaise and other dysfunctions of someone who doesn't appear to be speaking to me, even when i speak first.

number five in six days, my ass is going to be on a plane to cancun to escape the nasty assness that is poised and ready to eat this city after today's little spate of gorgeousness disappears.

number six on distilling your vision of the future using television characters as role models: sydney bristow+lorelai gilmore=shivery when she grows up. it's all very simiple, really.

happy monday, if such a thing is possible.

i think i'm still caffeinated from yesterday.

wheeeeee! beep.