This is no ordinary love

Being in love is fun. I don't know how we're going to make it work but I know there is a happy ending for us.




I spent the past four days in New Orleans with my brother, James, and my dad. It was a trip for the ages, practically every moment just felt soaked in fate. I had the best talks with my brother of my life thus far, and my dad was so happy the whole time. Bourbon St. in full revelry was scary and exciting. Seeing the French Quarter in an alcohol haze, walking to the swung beats of dixieland bands, eating beignets with James at midnight at Cafe Du Monde, talking in our rooftop hot tub til well after sunrise, the roar of the superdome, and the thick swampy fog of lake ponchetrain... all of these memories I will hold close for as long as I'm able. My beloved Hogs lost a close and hard fought game, but I'm still proud of them and my fellow statesmen for taking New Orleans by storm and turning The Big Easy into The Pig Easy for a week. We may have lost the game, but we sure as hell won the party.

A video my brother took right before The Sugar Bowl.

"If you don't fuck wit' me, then I don't fuck witchu"

I'm seeing a girl in Little Rock. I met her because she's in a play with my littlest sister, Julia. I asked her to dinner and its been really intense every day since. She's so pretty and sweet, and we believe the same things mostly which is really significant to me. She's more simple than I am, and I don't mean that in a dismissive or condescending way, I admire it a lot. We couldn't be more different in a lot of ways; she is so southern, has probably never heard a quarter of the music that I love, she was a cheerleader in high school and I was punk, she was in a sorority and stuff, I've toured around the country in creepy vans and slept in cat piss soaked squats. Maybe that's not getting the point across, I'm just trying to say that to me its an unlikely pairing of people. There are a lot of mixed emotions involved because neither of us wants to do a long distance thing. I really want to go back to Seattle, she really wants me to stay. Plus she's moving to Manhattan in July to do more theatre.

I have only known her for a week, but its complicating my plans a lot. I have a ticket back to Seattle for Jan 6th. I could delay the flight to a later date, and then what? She would just end up in New York before either of us know it. I don't want it to just fizzle out, I seriously don't like anyone ever and this is special to me. I feel differently about it a bunch of times every day. What should I do? I just can't say...

Smog

I think I relate to the lyrics of this song more than anything I've heard in the last, say, 5 years. There is a steady rain outside, I hear it against the windows when the wind picks up. I hear our drainpipes gurgling. Autumn leaves are almost all gone. I just turned out all the lights, and Lucy is snoring at my feet. My jacket smells like smoke from the fireplace. Posting in the hopes that this will jog my memory, this specific one, some day in the distant future



Winter weather is not my soul

But the biding for spring...

Why's everybody lookin' at me

Like there's something fundamentally wrong?

Like I'm a Southern bird

That stayed North too long.

Winter exposes the nest

And I'm gone.

Alanis Morrisette's album, Jagged Little Pill, is so incredibly good. It was the first pop album I bought with my own money. I still think about those songs almost daily. I was sort of in love with her as an 11 year old, her and Gwen Stefani. I should make a post about Tragic Kingdom, but I digress...

1995 was a big year for me, we got cable and I watched MTV obsessively, back when all they played was music videos (besides Beavis and Butthead, The State, The Real World and The Max). Pretty much everything on MTV in that era was amazing. 120 minutes, headbangers ball, even Yo! Mtv Raps. No, ESPECIALLY Yo! Mtv Raps.

The music video for Ironic is one of my all time Fav's, it takes me to a really happy place. Here is the link to the official video, I can't embed it, thanks WMG!


The song itself is so well written, and the vocals have a strong Cocteu Twins vibe on the "Life has a funny way" bridge. The lyrics are dumb, whatever, I don't care about lyrics though.



Here is a Weird Al spoof which is made up of about 3/4 the original video. I was obsessed with Weird Al from age 9 to 17. If I'm ever famous or rich I really want to hang out with him.

You don't have to be a baby to cry

My friend Eric just broke me off, I can't say how much I enjoy this song.



It's so cold today! I walked to Fremont, had the most unpleasant time with the wind and my runny nose, its a miracle I ever leave the house at all these days. My big thing recently is listening to audio books while I walk. Right now it is The Once And Future King by T.H. White, an all time favorite of mine. I think I have never related to a character more than I did to Lancelot as a kid. Of course I wasn't freakishly strong or handsome, but the whole self loathing, unloved, fatal flaw thing was something I could understand, even in my pre-pubescent state. I dream of one day finding love, but like Lancelot I think its always going to be the bad kind, I just don't like hardly anyone. People that like me are generally suspicious/absurd or genius. People who don't are either idiots or immensely attractive. At least I haven't knocked anyone up like he did, or slept with a married woman.

2 days until I go home. I'm basically killing time until then. I really have only a handful of friends. I know these things go in cycles, its low tide though and I'm a little bit frightened. One day you pull your mind out of that all pervading self obsession and realize everyone else has moved on while you're still childish and alone as ever.

I will end on my favorite recent phrase that I listened to (read?) today on my walk. "seraphic smile". That is all.

If this doesn't give you goosebumps, you're just dead.

2 things

I've come to post two things. The first thing is that I went to sleep at midnight and woke up at 6:30 a.m. the past two nights, and I feel so much better than I usually do. I've talked with Danielle about starting a sleep log, maybe this is the beginning of that. To the handful of people that have somehow chanced up upon this "blog", I'm sorry, it doesn't get more inane than this.

The second thing is that I love country music, and I really wish I were back in Dixie. In one week from today I will be back home, I am just trying to fast forward each day until then. I wish I could ride my old horse, Blue. He was a good boy, we had some really good times. I miss the way he would meet me at the gate every day, the way he smelled, the way it felt when he ate carrots and sugar out of my hand.

Sub point to my second thing:
This song made me cry today. I am a little emotional this morning and I guess it just set me over the edge, but the sentiment is so powerful and relevant for me and for all of us. Who's gonna fill their shoes? Who today can tear my heart out when they sing? Who today has a direct tie (not imagined like a lot of terrific and mediocre artists i.e. the white stripes, the sadies, all the saddle creek junk, Ryan Adams) to the rich history of the south as it once was, the grand ole opry, the wabash cannonball, etc? What singer is larger than life in the force of nature way Johnny Cash was? Crickets... That just makes me want to cry, and so I let myself do just that for a brief moment. First time I've had tears on my cheeks in I don't know how long. Also, the chord progression is really moving, that was definitely part of it.