you don't have to deal with the dealers

it only gets inconvenient when you want to go home alone.

[be still please]

i realized today that there are people in the world who i couldn't seduce with the judicious application of portastatic songs. i even lust after at least one of them! this was a very startling and upsetting realization to have on the bus whilst sitting next to a rather aromatic undergrad, internets. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NOT EVERYONE THINKS MAC MCCAUGHAN IS ROMANTIC. >:(


then i listened to mandy moore for a while, so i suppose i can't really talk. my favorite thing about her marriage to ryan adams is that, man, she's going to make a really bitter amazing break-up album when that whole thing collapses. and i love mandy moore way more than i love ryan adams, no lie. so i will be sorry for her pain but i am also looking forward to hearing mandy moore's personal version of "don't use my broken heart".

[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.

[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.

[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?)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[lucky for him]

the devil is also
a southerner.

[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.

[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".