[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.