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Last Updated: 6/20/2009

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June 17, 2008 - Tuesday 4:13 AM

Current mood:  awake
    [this is just a small and silly note, but since i haven't written in so long i guess all i needed was the beach and a few paragraphs to unlock the urge to write small and silly notes.]
    i never really wanted or needed music to fall asleep. i only did it on planes. i listened to in a safe place by album leaf whenever i needed to pass out when i flew over the ocean. in fact, i never listened to it if i wasn't flying over an ocean. when i moved to portland i found that it wasn't quite working like it used to, so i switched to for emma, forever ago by bon iver. it worked for a little while, but then it would just make my brain loud with wistfulness and romance (i know, what a drag when you're trying to sleep.) so last night, i switched again to iron and wine, shuffling up shephard's dog and creek drank the cradle.
    it totally worked. i thought it might keep me up because it's so awesome but i was out in two tracks. THANK YOU SAM BEAM.
    what else is good sleepy music? i'm open to suggestion here.
Currently listening:
Brain Thrust Mastery
By We Are Scientists
Release date: 2008-05-13
 
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June 17, 2008 - Tuesday 1:22 AM
    this weekend i met the oregon coast.
    the drive out was sunny and mild and i waved as we broke through the city limits saying, "bye portland, see you later!" we twisted and curved through the clear sky and endless forests until the alpine turned to rocks and dunes and then a million miles of ocean. it was spectacular, beautiful, perfect. i felt light and happy and couldn't stop saying things like, "this is bullshit, look at this fucking shit," because somehow saying, "wow, this is beautiful," seemed trite and i was mad at myself for not having good words.
    we stopped at a crab festival near wheeler, oregon. there was a reggae band playing and we ate crab at a big picnic table and watched little kids dance. then we kept heading south until we reached our campground, found a spot, pitched our tent and started a fire. we took our beer down to the beach and although it was unbelievably windy and had turned cold, it was awesome.
    all up and down the beach there were these crazy lean-tos built from sand-smoothed logs. we crawled inside them and buried our toes in the sand. the sun went down over the pacific and we watched from the car. grilled about a hundred pounds of food, sat by the fire, hung out, drank, laughed, felt relaxed and far away. went to sleep and stayed that way too long. drank hot chocolate in the morning and packed up the car, stopping for breakfast and a walk around hug point and then sadly mt. hood reappeared and portland surrounded us.
    hope you had a great weekend, too.
 
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May 23, 2008 - Friday 5:00 PM

Current mood:  electric
    this weekend, i saw an incredible movie called "once." a songwriter meets a czech pianist and over a week they write and record a demo. what i loved about it... the moments of connection. the spark of creation. the way he taught her a song and she started to sing along right away and then later in the studio when he's telling the band their parts, he turns to her and says, "you know what you're doing." a moment of beauty that they extend as long as they can and then let go of, because they have to, because it's the right choice, because that moment of beauty isn't enough, but by itself is lovely and valuable. the way they open each other up, maybe forever.
    when i was little, i thought that if you listened to a piece of music closely enough and understood it well enough, you could conjecture the lyrics. i thought that music and words were so closely tied that there was only one set of right words for any given song, and if you listened with your whole heart you could guess them. or the other way around. if you had the words and were smart enough, you could write the melody that was supposed to go with it. i tried explaining that to a musician friend, and he didn't get it. he just said music didn't work like that. he is a musician, so maybe he knows better. but i still like my theory.


Currently listening:
Once
By Original Soundtrack
Release date: 22 May, 2007
 
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May 20, 2008 - Tuesday 8:10 PM
    i wake up this morning, and go through the routine: climb out of bed, pour a bowl of fruity pebbles, settle onto the couch with my laptop, open up this week's savage love podcast, check my email, and check out salon. i see this:



    oh. god. come. on. ethiopia. i thought we talked about this - children starving (comma) again?! UGH, we are so sick of your BULLSHIT! quit starving already.
    this headline sounds like an exasperated scolding. honey, the dog shit on the carpet, again.

UPDATE:

    a few hours later, this headline:



    that's more like it.
 
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May 19, 2008 - Monday 8:20 AM
    if you want to know how to turn 75,000 doughy liberals into 75,000 fired up rednecks (literally, our necks turned red), have them sit in the sun for four hours on the bank of the willametter river waiting to hear barack obama speak.
    for reference purposes, here's how huge the crowd was:



and this is roughly where i was, as denoted by, um, the yellow x:



    i went by myself today and left with an intense sunburn, a few new friends (hi megan and brendan!) and surreal sense of feeling sure that i'd seen the future president of the united states.
    not a bad sunday in portland.
    "we shouldn't focus on winning," he said, "but on why we should."

Currently listening:
A Series of Sneaks [US Bonus Tracks]
By Spoon
Release date: 2002-06-04
 
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May 14, 2008 - Wednesday 10:05 PM

 
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May 14, 2008 - Wednesday 7:39 AM
    my walk to work is approximately three to four songs long. i almost never feel as self-contained and full-to-the-brim as when i walk home at night listening to music and singing along because there aren't many people out. i sing and hum and sometimes whistle and i walk to the beat, and if it's a fast song, i'm going at a pretty decent clip, and i think to myself that maybe everything i've done in life has been getting me here. this city. this age. this selection of circumstances.
    when i made the decision to move here, i made the scary choice because when i asked myself what the person i wanted to be would do, well - she would sell her car, stuff as much as she could in three suitcases, and buy a one-way plane ticket. and since then i try to frame all of my choices the same way. this means i've been makng a series of brave, blunt, transparent, whimsical, adventurous, sure-why-the-fuck-not choices. the results of this are most apparent when i'm in stranger's houses late at night: playing with their bichon puppies, wearing their sweatshirts, taking the mike and singing the blues in a late-night jam session, reading aloud my favorite parts from my favorite books, drinking wine from plastic bottles, etc.
    and i make choices this way - big crosscountry choices and small singing in front of people choices - in hopes that someday i can stop acting like the person i want to be, and just be that person.
    i'll try to write more and be more anecdotal. i've been totally body focused - coming going moving dancing doing. i endeavor to get back to my words. or more precisely, i endeavor to put more words out there. i've got just as many words as ever, it's just these days, there are more people to dispense them to in real-time.
    on that note, harlan and i are collaborating on my upcoming real-person, grown-up, look-at-me-i-have-a-dot-com blog. stay tuned.
 
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May 7, 2008 - Wednesday 10:56 PM

 
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May 2, 2008 - Friday 12:01 AM
   today i was on my lunch break from lit arts. i was at whole foods, eating salmon chowder and a baguette, reading, listening to tunes, thinking about how daryl saw me a few weeks ago and said i looked like portland, and wondered to myself how long it would take me to get over the fact that i. live. here. but then i remembered, i lived in dc for six months and never really accepted that i lived in washington dc. i still got exhilirated driving to a show and passing the monuments that i visited when i was a little girl and it took a lot of effort to not continually be pointing out the window going, "LOOK! LOOK!" so i think i'll be pretty sprung on portland for many many months to come.
    but speaking of dc...
    for awhile now, i've been a big fan of jukebox the ghost, a dc band. they played a ton of gigs in the district while i lived there but despite my efforts i never managed to see them live. today, i was directed to this video - a performance for woxy (really really great internet radio, go listen) and it's just amazing. great quality, great song, really fun performance. i miss you dc. hugs and kisses. enjoy the vid.




 
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April 30, 2008 - Wednesday 8:54 AM
    delirious on lit arts summits and not very much sleep. for the past 48 hours or so i've been extremely adult, taking notes during a panel discussion about nonprofit funding techniques, keeping on top of john about receipts for the budget report, setting up and tearing down and running around town.
    then, tonight, referencing the smell of sardines from harlan's dinner:

me: "it smells terrible in here. it's like fish farts."
dave: "good luck with that."
me: "fish farts ... say it out loud ... say fish farts."
dave: "i will not."
me: "do it."
dave: "okay, i did."
me: "did you laugh?"
dave: "i shook my head."
me: "DID YOU LAUGH?"
dave: "I CHORTLED, OKAY?"

    to do: get. a. full. night's. sleep. i hope, as i age and wrinkle, i get laugh lines first.


 
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