unrelatedly,

i am in desperate, desperate need of new music. i know i say this every year, but this year it's a terrible situation. so, to remedy this, i am running a little bit of circular bribery.

I'm making a Smokin' Hot Summer Mix, which i will distribute to the first five people who send me mixes in return (or, really, who just express interest!). and as a SPECIAL prize, the FIRST person to send a mix will get not only the summer mix, but the last three years' worth of the Holiday Hoedown (my year-end musical wrapup) AND the work-in-progress that is the holiday hoedown 2007. AND, if you're really lucky, a copy of the band's spankin' new disc.

sound intriguing? are you interested? if so, send a note to me: shivery (at) gmail (dot) com

let the games begin!

(this will, of course, be most embarrassing as an endeavor if nobody steps forward. but we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it, yes?)

memorial

and like clockwork, it hits. memorial day weekend, the heat of summer drops upon the city like an anvil, enclosing us all in its sticky embrace. it's close, and sweaty, and more than a little bit uncomfortable.

and i love it.

i don't know how to explain it, really, the way one's perception of the world changes as the tar-like warmth of the season appears. i think it has something to do with hope, or with community. we take to the streets here, hanging out on stoops and street corners in a vain attempt to cut the weight of the air; after months of isolation born of the bone-chilling cold, and the terrifying notion that one will never be warm again, we seek the camaraderie of our fellow city-dwellers, reminding ourselves in the scant weeks of the season that it doesn't always have to be so hard. that for a short period, we're allowed to be human.

it certainly doesn't hurt that new york city comes alive in the summer, resplendent in a shimmering coat of concerts and plays, beer on the patio and
brunch outdoors, picnics in the park and late nights and all the majesty that entails.

i used to hate the summer here, with its wicked embrace and endless threat of sleeplessness. i would curse the dampness that hangs in the air perpetually from june 1 through early september; now, however, i welcome and adore it. i don't know if it's a backlash against winter's steely clutches and the chill that winter settles in my bones for longer stretches each year, but i suddenly and strangely find myself in love with this demonic season.

summer is sweat and sunblock, cold beer and humid nights; torrid romances and wonderful friendships; swollen feet and dextrous fingers. it is laughter and staying up far too late on schoolnights, of frisbee in the park and barbecues. it is a feeling of certain abandon. it is arrested adolescence in the face of the stern warnings of all other seasons. it is everything i need to remind myself why the fuck i put up with living in this complex, wonderful, impossible place. it's a reprieve from our staid reality.

...i took friday off work; the last day that i'm likely to be granted before the end of june. i spent it lurking in the park with a new friend, drinking vast quantities of iced coffee and getting my nails done, window shopping; a man on the street let me use his telescope to look at saturn. i passed through a film set right outside my front door. my feet are filthy from walking barefoot in prospect park, and my skin feels heavy from all the sunlight it absorbed.

it was a day full of the useless pursuits that make life worth living. and my god, how i needed it.

summer changes everything.

nothing particularly catchy to say.

but what a perfect day.

pedicure, leisurely coffee, excellent hangout time in the park, sushi, cherries, and a view of saturn from a friendly stranger.

if it weren't ten billion degrees in my room, i'd say today was nigh on perfect.

the home stretch.

sweet merciful heavens, we're ALMOST DONE. one more two hour session of mixing, and we have our first EP finished!

that's right.

FINISHED. an ACTUAL RECORDING.

and oh, oh oh is it hot. melting my very soul.

and after fifteen hours in the studio on saturday, there are times when i thought it was melting my skin, my hair and my brains as well, but only the giddy, fiery glee remains.

i can't even talk about it, i'm so excited. we are two hours away from finishing something i've dreamed about my entire life.

stay tuned.

frothing

last night i finally sent you the pictures that you'd taken with my camera; it was the only message i could think to send that would let you know that i'm ready to talk to you again, that i miss you, without coming across as desperate or depraved.

(well, depraved i may be; desperate--no)

it's so hard to admit that i'm frightened that you won't respond, because as long as we're at stalemate there is hope that we might actually speak again someday. fact is the only thing that can truly wound hope; and i could use a little hope from time to time.

of course, part of me is equally concerned that you will. because what is there left to say, really?

quarantine.

holy cats, am i bored.

i have left the house exactly once in the last two days. i have taken my medicine, i have gone to bed at 10:30 and woken up at 9. i have worked from home, drunk plenty of water, taken my vitamins and not had a drop of liquor (and fucking hell, what a week to not be able to drink). in short, i have behaved exquisitely.

and i am nearly distraught with boredom. i do, however, have exquisitely nice hair, for some completely unfathomable reason. go figure.

however, what this means is that i've been thinking too much. it needs to stop, because i am traversing dangerously close to a feedback loop. any suggestions on how to do this?

house arrest: update.

you know, i shouldn't have said anything about needing to be healthy. because now i have whatever it was that krissa had last week--my fourth bacterial throat infection in six months.

ha ha ha.

i mean, what the FUCK. is wrong. with me. why am i so sick all the time?

kill me now.

house arrest.

so, i've been grounded.

this means no leaving the house except for work or rehearsal for the entirety of this week.

in all honesty, this is not a bad idea. we're back in the studio on saturday, and the boys in the band have made it patently clear that if i'm not 100% fit and fighting, they will stab me repeatedly with a variety of forks and other pointy objects. and while i'm as game for a good bloodletting as the next girl, i'd rather not be on the receiving end of such an onslaught if given a choice. this means something very simple for this week: i sleep. i rest. i don't drink (much). i stay in. i rehearse. i behave. i make it through saturday, after which i bring out a bottle of premium tequila and get the boys celebratorily bombed.

i'm particularly keen to be in fine fettle at the studio this week because since our last visit, we've clocked up no less than twenty additional hours working these four songs to the bone--brushing up on vocals, laying down guitars, that sort of thing. most of these hours have come in the form of marathon sessions in the back room: 6 hours last saturday, 7 hours last sunday, and 11 hours yesterday. i have been pretty much useless for most of these hours, as it has been determined that i will not be taking the lead on the guitar front for this recording, doing little else than throwing in the occasional two cents and arranging idea; the hardest work of all has been done by my lovely boys. really interesting, wonderful things are happening as a result of all this incredibly hard work, and i'll be damned if i'm going to let them down with a repeat of last session's deplorable vocalization.

the boys, however, know and love me well enough to know that sometimes i need a little outside impetus if i'm going to stick to guns that involve me taking care of myself. ergo, the order for my house arrest.

the mandate came at about half past 11 last night, when we were so delirious and crazed from the ten previous hours of banging our heads against a wall that we were not just loopy, but struggling hard to keep our spirits up--yesterday's session was hard. ultimately, we got some good stuff out of it, but by hour eight, it was an ordeal. i was in particularly good form, having just come off a very busy set of days (barbecue on saturday afternoon, party saturday night that saw me crashing at a friend's place in manhattan as the sun rose, frisbee and coffee in the park on sunday morning [and we won't even mention the ten thousand miles i had to walk through the fulton street station in my endeavors to get back to the hood from avenue D]), was wearing saturday's clothes and practically insane with exhaustion. this, as i'm sure you can imagine, made me particularly fun.

the state i was in prompted a few joking comments from the assembled company, which then turned into slightly more serious messages of "so, you're not going to be sick on saturday, right*?" which then became the very serious "no really, you're not going to be sick on saturday, right? no late nights? no hot dates? you're going to do things like sleep and eat vegetables?" i waffled a bit at this point, as my overscheduling tendencies don't appear to be abating with the advent of spring (too! much! to do!); in the moment that i waffled, it was decided: in the best interests of the band, i was grounded. no ifs, ands, or buts.

so i look now down the barrel of a week wherein i do nothing but rehearse and watch tv and go to bed early. it seems so alien to me.

i cannot fucking wait.

* you may recall, i've been sick pretty much constantly since my bout with strep in january; it's transcended being a running joke and actually hit exasperation point.

an open letter.

it has come to my attention that the men in this city no longer have any comprehension of body language. is it a failing in the schools? the streets? frankly, i might have to blame the parents.

one thing i DO know is that the behavior of this new generation of young turks (see also: men between the ages of 25 and 30) has not quite clocked that when a woman crosses her legs so that she's turning away from you, crosses her arms over the bar, and won't look up from her drink to deliver the terse answers she is giving to your stupid questions, she probably doesn't want to talk to you. and that she almost CERTAINLY doesn't want to talk to your friends. or be touched by any of you. at all.

i'm sure you can see where this is going.

as the tempest that was last week wound to a close, i found myself at one of my favorite old haunts, the ever-delightful swift's hibernian. back in the day, you could find me there every thursday, getting absolutely destroyed with a rotating cast of my best and brightest. it seemed like a good week to resurrect the tradition. and a good week it was, initially! it started with the incredibly handsome bartender buying me a drink, and it felt good to be back.

and then the frat pack walked in. and much like a flock of vultures, descended on an object that really, if given a choice, would prefer not to be covered in their digestive juices (metaphorically speaking, of course).

here's how it broke down:

frat pack number one - presumably the alpha of the crew, he took first crack at me, talking my ear off with a tenacity that would be admirable if it hadn't been so fucking annoying. not wanting to be completely impolite (at least not immediately), i used body language (as detailed above) to try and give him a hint which flew completely over his head rather than telling him just to fuck off. which, in retrospect, i really wish i'd done, because then i might have been spared my encounter with...

...frat pack number two - when he arrived, for one delightful second, i thought they might go off to their corner and leave me alone at this point. no such luck. fp1 introduces me to fp2, who seals the introduction by sliding his arm around me and settling his hand on that wonderful hinterland between the bone of the hip and the top of the ass. i visibly recoil from this action, and while he didn't quite seem to get the connection between the two, i was saved at this point by a female companion of theirs, who was clearly irked that i was monopolizing the attention of her friends. yeah.

which brings us to:

frat pack number three: he was the quiet one, and the last one to the party. his attempt ot chat me up was simply to bring his beer over to the empty spot beside me at the bar and stare at me, finishing off his round by calling to fp1 and 2 that i was hitting on the bartender, and then, mercifully, walking away.

later, both fp1 and 2 made second attempts to get favorable attention, with fp1 following me out as i smoked (and later telling me i was being a bitch) and fp2 continuing with the inappropriate touching until i flat out told him that he needed to stop immediately.

gentlemen of the lower east side: it is not charming or cute to continue chatting up a girl when she clearly doesn't want to talk to you. i mean it. don't do it.

fortunately, the evening wasn't a total loss. hot bartender did ask for my number before i left.