[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.