[i got songs that make you cry]

sometimes you reach a point where you stop telling the stories because they don't make sense outside of the moment, jokes about bowls of pad thai and AWEsome and think sexy and tom selleck naked, because you look up and you realize that you're happier to be in the moment than you would be telling the stories about the moment that just passed.


in other news, some boys i love have recently, unprompted, taken to calling me a nickname i haven't heard from anyone since before The Ex and i split up. it's a nickname i associate strongly with a particular set of guys i went to college with, and it's sort of startling but mostly just comforting to hear it from the mouths of other people, unconnected people, new people who love me how i am now.

[a real soft girl who's having real hard times]

woke up with craig finn singing there's always other boys, there's always other boyfriends (and you can make them like you) in my head this morning, and have proceeded to listen to my hold steady albums in chronological order, once i back-listened to my podcasts.


there's something fascinating and sad about their music; i think it's the kind of music i needed when i was in college. back then, a friend once called me "a hot mess", which was pretty accurate at the time -- i liked drama for drama's sake, the rush of causing a scene just because i could. these days i mostly don't feel either, but i'd rather lose the messy part with the hot than keep both.

i defined myself by being a mess for most of my life, i was crazy in that strange desperate attractive sort of way, the way that makes men want to fix you and then go crazy themselves when they can't, and it still sometimes startles me when -- even if i can't figure out how to talk to guys like a normal human being, even if i still sometimes cry over stupid things without provocation -- it startles me when i look at my life and realize i'm not so much of a mess anymore. it isn't what defines me. i don't know what does, or if anything needs to. but that's okay.

[you're the shit and i'm knee deep in it]

i had the most lovely, relaxing, happy weekend, but tonight i can't stop listening to frightened rabbit's "my backwards walk" and it's making me inexplicably bone-tired and sad.


sometimes even all the happiness and contentment with my life can't combat the fact that i wish i had someone to keep me warm at night.

[he said i love you and i'm proud of you both]

i had this moment tonight, where i was backreading the geeky funny blog of a local band i love, where i was just completely bowled over by how lucky i am to live where i live, and to have a job that pays the bills and doesn't suck my whole soul out and allows me to see as much live music as i do, and to have a passion that consumes me.


i live in this place that isn't a city like a lot of people think of cities, but we have this music scene where all these amazing people are making this totally transcendent music, music of all noisy happy folky indie bluegrass country rap metal punk rock varieties. we have all these smart funny interesting talented people, and when they're not making music they go out and they drink shitty beer and they sing neil young covers with their friends' bands and they wear ugly shirts and they kiss their wives, and they post stupid shit to their blogs and they take pictures of their cats and their bandmates making faces and they put them on flickr, and their days jobs are cooler than mine but they are just people like i am, and the things they do, the music they play in our venues and the music they try to make in studios, all of that inspires me to make the best photos that i can make with my camera and my slightly off-center tilted framing and my ironic fondness for pbr and the way i smell when i come home from a great night at the pour house (like beer and cigarettes and like i got hugged by sweaty musicians).

it inspires me to be as kick-ass of a human being as they are.

it was this moment of complete power, of total happiness, where i felt like i could do anything. climb mountains. get out of debt. shoot an eight piece band lit only by a single red light at the 506. fall in love.

[you alone were meant for me]

i am desperately ready for spring to happen, which, while it happens earlier in the nc than it does in many other places, is still at least six weeks off. spring means the following things: national tour schedules ramping back up at local venues; college baseball in the tar heels' beautiful new renovated stadium that is not in cary and therefore five minutes away in bad traffic, not forty five; things that are green. last week at least the cold was tempered by brilliant sunshine and blue skies, but today is grey and sad looking. it makes me want to sleep.


the following things are good about this upcoming week: several excellent shows; the fact that it is the first week of 2009 that will not start with a carolina basketball loss; president-elect barack obama becomes president barack obama. also, i have tomorrow off, which is bad in terms of paycheck but good in terms of going out to take photos, if it's warmed up at all.

sam cooke and i are just going to try and get through this gloomy sunday, first.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.