[and i won't back down]

today, while i was standing outside my office getting some fresh air, i saw an older gentleman with a large format film camera. it was a beautiful camera, and he was rocking an excellent fedora. he took some pictures of the abandoned bar that i'm obsessed with and we talked about cameras for ten minutes before he went on his way and i went back to drafting database specs.


i'm also obsessed with trolling the raleigh craigslist photo listings constantly. i'm looking for a cheapcheapcheap 50mm/f1.8 lens for boomer, my film SLR. i want to know what i can do with that lens on a film camera before i commit to either an f1.8 (cheap) or an f1.4 (beautiful) for six, the dslr.

also i am listening to tom petty and watching oregon/okstate, the pacific life bowl. thus far: no whales. tom petty and cameras, awesome; this game, less so.

[dreamed we were walking down the aisle]

sometimes i dream about photos i've never taken -- shots i missed, or shots i've never seen. i think maybe they should make me sad, these dreams, but mostly they just make me feel peaceful. i think about those photos more than i think about the ones i actually do take.

[from a pay phone in la]

just give me a beer and give me a bed
chase the demons out of my head
play me a song and sing me to sleep
and meet me in the middle of my dreams

[don't you know that's okay]

until someone loves you, i'll keep you safe

[one more shadow leans against the wall]

it is very, very quiet in the ch today, all the students gone for the holiday weekend a day early, and probably half the university employees, too. it seems like there's even less car traffic than usual, or maybe that was just the early morning feel of things. the sky is very blue.


my boss has failed to appear thus far today, which has relegated my day to a total useless waste; i would rather be home in sweatpants watching sportscenter than in the office, but in the office i am and in the office i will stay until at least 1 pm, because it's good to leave the house sometimes.

tomorrow my parents are putting my new nikon D60 into my hands, and i can't think about that too much or i start to tip over with barely restrained unabashed joy. instead i'm distracting myself by looking at old pentax 35mm cameras on ebay and reading photo blogs.

[is there sunlight on your bed]

street photography -- taking pictures of strangers -- is one of the photographic things that scares me most. that said, i may try this project after the new year, resolve to get better at doing the photographic things that freak me.


that, and also convince the american aquarium boys to let me shoot a series of promo photos that involve them wearing suits and standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool. and also have a real official photo show somewhere that strangers will look at my pictures.

[don't you know it's your disaster now?]

the south san gabriel/centro-matic show last night was so unbelievably good, so unbelievably exactly what i needed (will's huge cinematic noisy complex music thundering through my chest), that i can't even manage to put words to it. not the best show i've seen all year, but maybe the one that was the most necessary.


and then i had this conversation with will afterwards:

me: blah blah blah love the new album blah blah blah glad you came back because we missed you in june, we were out of town seeing someone else.
will: yeah? who?
me: jason isbell.
will: :D :D :D :D YOU SAW A BETTER SHOW, GOING TO SEE JASON.

will johnson, you are trufax my favorite this morning.

[adding up the cost of these dreams]

i've had wildly swinging moods all day, and it's so exhausting in so many ways. i woke up elated and energized -- OBAMA PRESIDENCY -- and then i swung back to panic attack and frustration and loneliness -- racist butthurt republicans at work, several systems not working the way they're supposed to, getting yelled at for something that wasn't my fault -- and then i told a. all the things that made me scared and sad, and i walked out of the office and it was suddenly sunny, rainy skies clearing like hope, and surprisingly warm, even for north carolina in november, and i feel peaceful and centered again.


i managed to bookend the election with a drive-by truckers show on the eve before -- patterson hood in a barack & roll t-shirt, a gut-punching version of "angels and fuselage" (and i'm scared shitless of what's coming next) -- and a mountain goats show the night after, john darnielle playing songs that make me cry in what's close enough to his current home to be the hometown show.

i keep feeling like something's about to break, be it good or bad, and i am just waiting. i have things to look forward to, i have things that make me sad and scared and angry. it's all a very delicate balance, and it takes all the energy i have to keep it hanging there. it's worth waiting, i think.

[you ain't playin' for free]

the weather here has gone from cool to crisp, and this morning when i was waiting for the bus the sky was clear but somehow washed out, the same color as cigarette smoke and my breath while i fiddled with my ipod and tried to figure out if it was the ipod or the headphones or user error that was causing the left channel not to play. now it's blue, and still clear, and still crisp outside, the sort of weather that tastes good to breathe. (it was the headphones, for the record.)


i have a lot to do today, interesting complex work before a few more weeks of necessary but boring and tedious work, and i am listening to a sun records three disc box set. tampa bay beat boston. i have a roll of 400ISO in the camera right now, and tomorrow i may go use it on the cemetery on campus, if it's sunny.

aside from the headphones, today is okay.

[won't somebody save us]

i think our little coffee maker is broken, because even though i plugged it in and loaded it with coffee and water this morning and then even actually remembered to turn it on, it refused to make me a pot even though i stood in the kitchen and stared balefully at it for ten minutes. eventually i put the still dry grounds and fresh water into the big coffee pot and called it good, but coffee pot. >:(


the little coffee pot's refusal to do its job is actually a fairly accurate metaphor for my professional life at the moment, right down to me staring balefully at all the people who are making my job harder rather than easier, and even though i should probably put real pants on and pick up my pay check sooner rather than later, for the moment i'm going to listen to centro-matic and drink spiked coffee and sit on the porch.

[making money you can't spend ain't what bein' dead's about]

i watched football and drank beer and texted a. about crazy truckers fans, and then mike cooley made me cry, but what else is new?


it's been more than a year, and he's moved on, and even though i ended it, i called it quits, i keep turning around and finding these scars on my heart and my head and my soul, scars that he left there because i was never good enough or pretty enough or presentable enough. i'm fucking lonely, and i don't trust anybody not to hurt me enough to even try being not lonely.

i'm trying to change my life, and i can't figure out how to do that when i can't stop being angry that he could tell me he loved me and that i wasn't good enough in the same breath.

i don't know how to move on from something i wanted to be over, and that sucks the hardest. i keep falling in love with men i can't have because it's safer than actually putting my heart on the line.

[i wouldn't even mind that war damn eagle is a dumb fucking fight call.]

games at auburn -- and i snicker every time they call auburn/lsu the tiger bowl -- make me wish i really had a sweet boy from alabama to fall in love with. he could be a 'bama fan or he could unironically chant war damn eagle, as long as he took me to the iron bowl. i'd even wear orange or crimson if i had someone to curl up with during the espn saturday night game.

frankly, i'd settle for a wake forest fan right about now, as long as he was sweet tempered and interested in kissing me.



i know a lot of you don't get it, but college football in the south makes my heart and my stomach flip over in that way that happens when you love something too much.

[may you one day carry me home]

oh the sweetest winds, they blow across the south


ryan adams is sort of (completely) the world's biggest douche, but sometimes he writes lines that dig right up under my rib cage, in that soft spot next to my heart.

[all the faces and the places just begin to look the same]

firewater's golden hour remains the best album of the year, no questions asked. why'd i go a month without listening to this?


because of course the line: i've been down so long that coming up is giving me the bends. which is so fucking brilliant i can't even talk about it.

(i think that the hold steady's stay positive is creeping into the second spot, slowly but surely. she's got boys on board and boys on deck: oh, craig finn, how'd you know what i was like in college?)

[as they do to you --]

a hummingbird just came up and hovered six inches from my laptop screen.


sometimes it's the little things that make the days worthwhile.

[is yesterday, tomorrow, today --]

today i made pasta salad and chicken salad (om nom nom nom, plus not having to use the stove in north carolina summers) and soon i'm going to go take a nap while the sky threatens to thunderstorm.


last night we went to see two local plus one almost-local-plus-they're-on-a-local-label bands play, tonight we might go see john darnielle do a solo set, and i feel happy. i like feeling happy.

['cause there's shit that i've done with this fuck of a --]

some days all you can do is put on your headphones and turn the my chemical romance albums up loud and remember that other people's problems are, in the end, just that: other people's problems.


and there's only so much you can do for someone who doesn't want to help themselves.

[she hands charlie a sandwich -- ]

i never, ever get tired of listening to musicians i adore talk about the musicians who inspired them.


rhett miller. *heart hands*

[you've got what's left of me to -- ]

i made a playlist that included all the songs whose lyrics -- partial or complete -- i've copied into my paper journal since january 1, and the two bands that turn up the most are the drive-by truckers and fall out boy. (followed closely by jason isbell solo and the mountain goats.)


i think this would appall both patterson hood and pete wentz, and that pleases me immensely.

[i am not afraid to keep on -- ]

every summer it seems like there's things that dominate my june, july, august. in 2005 i packed my entire life into boxes, smoked a lot of dope, and watched kids in the hall with emma. in 2006, i wrote and drank wild turkey. last year i watched baseball what seemed like eight hours a day, packed my entire life into boxes, and cried a lot. this summer i'm reading, anything and everything i can get my hands on, hours spent curled into the corner of the couch with my headphones and the words in front of me.


the chapel hill public library won't let me put more than eight books on hold, though.

[this town can hit itself]

i got a glass of wine. i got a cigarette.
i should be feeling fine, i ain't feeling nothing yet.


breaking up with him was the best thing i ever did.

[the highway is for gamblers -- ]

farscape, beer brewed in the nc, concerts at duke gardens, turkey subs with olives and cucumbers from subway, card tricks, jason covering dylan, early rolling stones albums, indie rock bands from baltimore, naps, minor league baseball, dreaming.

[rumors of a dragon -- ]

the thing about where i live -- about the exact spot in this exact town in this exact state -- is that i have the ease of living in an urban area, and the late night quiet and clear skies of a rural one.


if gas wasn't so expensive, i'd drive out 54 into alamance county with the windows down and the stereo up, songs about drinking and songs about rock and roll and songs about being in love, but as it is i can't afford the luxury of disturbing the silence with music, and so headphones on the porch it has to be.

[la ain't the place to rest -- ]

my restraint in not filling these entries with drive-by truckers lyrics is legendary, people. LEGEND -- WAIT FOR IT -- DARY.


a deer just busted out of the woods across from our apartment and shot across my parking lot while i was sitting on my porch listening to jason sing and an engine never needs to write its name. i'm tired and a little sad this morning, frustrated with work and with money and with all those things that make you a grown-up, and i drank all the coffee i made and now i think i may just go back to sleep.

[let the night air cool you off --]

i saw the boy who drives ITWZDADS again today, coming home from the library. the bumper is barely still attached to the truck -- and once again i fail to notice what kind of truck it is -- and there was what appeared to be a super tattered atlanta braves bumper sticker on it. i think he's a boy who grew up in the mountains somewhere, where sometimes TBS THE SUPERSTATION was the only channel that came in, for whatever reason, and he put the braves sticker on there when they won the world series in '95 and he took the truck to school when he moved down from cullowhee to go to carolina. i want to ask him why not western carolina, why not app state, why chapel hill, when he put the license plate on the car.


thinking about the mountains make me think of the story lewis grizzard told in one of his books, about one of his early crazy editors in athens, who wanted to move up to the georgia mountains and start a newspaper named the north georgia bee. i want weeks upon weeks to drive around the south taking pictures and listening to stories, and it frustrates me that i can't, sometimes.

[don't give it -- ]

sometimes -- and this actually has nothing to do with baseball; baseball is a symptom, not the disease -- i need to remember that it's okay to still be grieving, to still be angry. i need to remember that it's okay to be 28 and still need to sob on the phone to my mom sometimes.

[are you lightning? 'cause i'm waiting.]

and so i act like i'm 21,
wide eyed and drifting unto sun,
pay back is here my legs are numb.


dancing until you're dripping with sweat and every part of your body hurts, knowing the season stat lines for every starter on a college baseball team, boys who say JU-ly with that sweet north alabama accent, books about the call of the south as a home.

[rock me mama like a --]

the thing is, there are boys out there who appreciate the fact that we know when they're sound-checking with old crow medicine show and lynyrd skynyrd, and that we love their tom petty covers unironically and can name every song they reference in their covers, but then they play college-junior-martini-bars and i just don't have the patience for that.



but they're sweet and cute and not stupid, and that's something. that's progress.

[never get the blood stains off her -- ]

i want a guy who will understand without explanation why sometimes it's important to get drunk and lie on the floor listening to your complete rem discography in chronological order.

also the same guy could possibly be the sort i could call up and say to him, "honey, do i need to download all 28 discs of the stax/volt singles box set?", and if his answer was no, darling, you do not, it wouldn't be because i shouldn't have it, it'd be because he already owned it.

also possibly he could come over and eat all the blue freeze-pops in our freezer, and maybe buy me some 800ISO film on his way to our apartment.

[and i beg you to -- ]

too young to stand here, and too old to dance.



i have good friends. you guys, you know? you're awesome.

[another cog in the murder machine -- ]

playlist for driving to savannah: drive-by truckers, the dirty south; centro-matic, dual hawks; the mountain goats, get lonely; the rumble strips, girls and weather; the black keys, rubber factory; the hold steady, stay positive; jason isbell, live at the 40 watt, athens, ga -- 07.09.07.

playlist for driving home from savannah: my chemical romance, the black parade; drive-by truckers, decoration day; panic! at the disco, a fever you can't sweat out; fall out boy, infinity on high; the black crowes, shake your moneymaker; jason isbell, live at the 40 watt, athens, ga -- 07.09.07.



surprisingly, my chem segues really nicely into the truckers. and shake your moneymaker remains the best sweaty summer album of all time and space, true story.

[now i only waste it dreaming of -- ]

after buying the wrong kind of vacuum cleaner bags and thus failing to vacuum anything but succeeding in dumping kitty litter all over the porch while trying to remove the old bag, i'm now drinking crystal lite sugar free iced tea (i like my tea sweet, like any good southerner, but my teeth hate the sugar), watching the major league baseball draft ticker on my laptop, and listening to fall out boy.


anyone who would like to attempt to put my interests in a categorized box, please begin the line to the left, out of the way of my view of the supplemental round draft coverage.

[could it be you]

the punchline of the work story that's keeping me from accomplishing anything today is, "and then my boss actually made it worse than it was before," so i cleaned my bedroom and the living room and scrubbed three months of soap scum out of the bathtub, because i think the last time i cleaned it was in march when my dad was here, and now i'm going to put the violent femmes on my ipod and drive out to the mall with the windows down to have a randomly selected roll of film developed for nearly free, and then i'm going to buy vacuum cleaner bags and scrub down the kitchen.


this isn't what my boss means by "work from home", but it'll do for now.

[a tournament, a tournament, a tournament of -- ]

driving the back roads home from t.'s house tonight, i surprised myself by bursting into tears while listening to a cover of "it's the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine)" that features patterson hood harmonizing on the it's time i had some time alone line.


i'm pretty in control of my emotions lately -- other people's feelings have nothing to do with mine, i know what to do when i feel myself spiraling in a dangerous direction, etc, etc, blah blah fucking blah living with depression and anxiety is a full-time job -- but one minute i was listening to this joyous, enormous mess of a cover that featured about 20 people on stage, and the next minute, WHAM. SPONTANEOUS WEEPING.

in 1999, i sat on my ex-boyfriend TC's dorm room floor in binghamton, new york, and listened to the suny-binghamton radio station announce that bill berry was leaving r.e.m., and then they played that song. i'd never noticed that line, it's time i had some time alone, before that day. i can't listen to automatic for the people without thinking of TC, even ten years after we split up. i have a lot of ex-boyfriends, but the important ones are The Ex, with whom i broke up a year ago this july, and TC, who i still regret and still miss, every day.

it's time i had some time alone.

[its appropriate spot in the cosmos]

today, driving to the library, i was behind a (at least the back of his head was) cute dude, driving a vintage pick-up truck with the license plate ITWZDADS. he seemed like a dude i'd like to know, but he didn't turn off at the public library and i was on a quest for more carl hiassen-esque novels (tim dorsey's complete oeuvre), so i'll never hear the story behind that truck.


i may make one up, instead.

[but now i tolerate him all day long --]

what it comes down to: alabama accents, baseball games at twilight on june nights, old soul records, film canisters stacked on bookcases, paperback novels on the empty side of the bed.

[i've got your picture, she's got -- ]

we lucked out this year; we've had a long, rainy, beautifully green and cool spring down here, and haven't even bothered to switch our thermostat from heat to air yet, but today the heat started to settle in for the run up into october. i love southern heat more than i thought i could. i didn't expect to love it, but i do. (except when it keeps me from sleeping.)

i sat on the couch today after i finished my work and listened to elvis costello and read james lee burke mysteries, and the backs of my knees sweated. the first full summer i lived in north carolina, i spent most of the summer padding around my apartment in a tiny white slip, drinking wild turkey straight and reading margaret maron novels.

there's something about the quality of light in the south that makes for storytelling. i don't know. i'm teaching myself to tell stories again. i took some time off, and sometimes my ability to tell a story feels as thick and heavy as the southern summer heat.

elvis costello's album almost blue is really fucking amazing.

[tired of living in buttholeville]

i wake up tired and i wake up pissed
wonder how i ended up like this
i wonder why things happen like they do
but i don't wonder long --


i am tired and sad and frustrated and cranky and mean today.

[there's a fit about to get thrown.]

i am so currently obsessed with my wardrobe.


acquired today: several new tank tops in varying colors; a white with blue embroidery v-neck sundress (courtesy of my sister, she of rescuing from stuck-zipper fame); pink and green watermelon-colored shorts.

[lucky for him]

the devil is also
a southerner.

[it ain't rained in weeks but the weather sure feels damp.]

items of clothing acquired in the last month: a pair of men's board shorts that match my bikini; two pairs of pin-striped linen shorts; watermelon striped flip-flops; black dress with green polka dots; very tiny brown and orange madras skirt; very tiny blue and brown and white print skirt.


the longer i live here, the more i regress to the best parts of my southern roots. y'all is a perfectly good word for you plural.

[nearly old enough to vote for him.]

two halves, one whole -- i'm just a piece of you that you don't know is missing yet.

[this town can hit itself -- ]

when i was in college, i knew this guy -- i used to kiss this guy -- who had a pretty massive cd collection. one of those guys who prided himself on the depth and breadth of his musical knowledge. he was also a pretty decently talented guitar player with massive procrastination issues, but what i remember, what i think about these days, is that at one point he made me a list of all the albums in the world that i "should" own. i didn't expand my music collection much during college, at least not in the sense of albums -- single tracks downloaded from napster, yes, full albums, no. i don't like being told what i "should" do. or like. or listen to. so i never acquired a lot of those albums.

(i bought pavement's crooked rain, crooked rain the summer after i graduated. what a fucking great album.)

i have this new computer with a massive hard drive, and i'm downloading and importing cds, stealing music from friends, fleshing out my collection in a way that my previous space never gave me the ability to do. sometimes i add music -- the new portishead, gram parsons, the truckers covering wings, a box set retrospective of the band -- and i think about what this guy from college would think of it. i'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to get past the fall out boy, my chemical romance, panic! at the disco, and when it comes down to it, anybody who thinks i "should" own something and "should not" like something else probably doesn't have great taste anyway.

i was thinking about this because i was thinking about wooing boys with your itunes library.

[when you're gone, will they love you the same]

today is one of those rare perfect days when it's warm enough to have the windows open but still cool and breezy enough to be able to nap under a heap of blankets.

[all i know is -- ]

today i winked at an eighteen year old relief pitcher and he blushed so red i thought his face was going to spontaneously combust.


then the zipper on the dress i was wearing got stuck and i had to call my sister to come over and rescue me.

[your los angeles -- ]

i've kept score at baseball games for as long as i can remember. it keeps me in the game, and it's nice to be able to look back and remember the games i've seen. my daddy gave me my current scorebook for christmas six years ago, and i have kept more than 30 games in it since. games in camden yards, games at wrigley, games at boshamer stadium in chapel hill and the sky dome and durham athletic park. it lost its back cover last weekend during the carolina/boston college series. it's rain spattered and smeared and full of rosters and old all-star ballots, full of mediocre lines from future major leaguers and stellar lines from ballers who'll never play a day in the minors.

i love it more than almost anything else i own. the laptop and the camera and the cat and the paper journal are pretty much the only things that come first.


carolina's starting third baseman caught an inning at the game last wednesday, and it was pretty much the best thing ever, except for where they put up eleven runs in the eighth against florida state last night, which was also totally amazing.

[thank god for the tva]

today i bought myself a bright pink halter-neck sundress. i hung it in my closet and thought that it doesn't look like something i'd have ever worn when i was with the ex. it makes me happy to have it now.

i will never get tired of jason isbell singing "thank god for the tva".

[it's easier to let it all die a fairytale]

The hippies rode a wave putting smiles on faces
that the devil wouldn’t even put a shoe.
Caught between a generation dying from its habits,
and another thinking rock and roll was new.
Till the pawn shops were packed like a backstage party,
hanging full of pointy ugly cheap guitars
And the young'uns all turned to karaoke,
hanging all their wishes upon disregarded stars

-- Mike Cooley, "Self-Destructive Zones"