LaurieWrites

Rock

Me: "If you want some new music, I'm sure he'd be happy to send you some mp3s."

A: "Yeah, but it wouldn't be the ambient metal bands that I really want to hear. It'd be some emotional singer-songwriter shit. It's everywhere. (Sings) 'I want a relationship...' I don't give a fuck. I need to rock."

I totally want to move in with this person because we will have so much fun together.

"As a private homeowner, I have specific requirements that are within my right to lease... WARNING: anyone contacting me from outside of the US will have their email address forwarded to INS and the FBI. As I said - you must reside in the US currently."

Why I love Safeway Better Than Giant

I went to Giant (large, local, chain grocery store) to buy pasta and marshmallows, because that's a totally normal combination, right? I'm teaching a summer orientation/class, and since tomorrow is Friday and these poor souls have been looking at me for the past four days with that mix of detached amusement and occasional confusion commonly espoused in Zen Buddhism, I figured I'd let them build marshmallow and pasta towers for a teamwork activity. You know, since it's Friday, and it's summer, and they decided to come to school early. I don't know what I was doing the summer before my first semester, but it wasn't going to school early, that's for sure. Maybe plotting ways to go late, which is why I was such a blindingly unsuccessful college freshman.

So in the first place, Giant was out of big marshmallows, which is a total joke. How can you be out of marshmallows of any size, even though they were on sale, when it's not a major holiday? More to the point, when it's not Thanksgiving or Christmas? It's been a thousand degrees here for two months. Who is baking? Who is using them for anything other than craft projects? They should be spilling out into the aisle. But lo, there were no big marshmallows. So I bought a couple bags of the little ones, and briefly wondered what kind of tower one could make with just little ones holding the pasta noodles together.

Rapidly concluding that it would be the shittiest pasta tower in the history of said edifices, I resigned myself to going over to Safeway, although my tiredness was such that one grocery store trip was already more than enough. And besides, our Safeway is not nice. The one I used to live by was lovely, but this one is not, and I'm not even really a grocery store snob. Walking down the aisle where the marshmallows are, I saw the display, and all the little sale cards on them too. "Oh, no," I thought. "There is no way that both of these stores could be out of the big marshmallows." And indeed, I bought what may be the last remaining four bags of them in my county. I'm left to wonder, what is with the stockpiling of these things? Again, not a holiday. Maybe s'mores while camping? Certainly not bonfires.

Checking out was fun, too:
Cashier: (mumbling, as I arrived.) "I gotta handle all this stuff...my insurance, all that shit."

Me: Hello. I hear ya.

C: Yeah, girl. I need...you know, I need a sugar daddy. But I ain't a gold digger.

M: (Struggling not to go all Kanye up in heah) Haha, yeah. Me neither. That's my problem.

C: Yeah? You know how it is.

M: Right, I've started to require a job. And a vehicle.

C: And a house, too, girl! You gotta have a house.

M: Right, good point. I'll keep that in mind.

C: Seriously.

M: Gotta have some standards - otherwise it's better to be alone.

C: You said it. Have a good night.

These are from another Safeway, yesterday. I hadn't taken photos in the grocery for a while - not since I moved from G'town. It seemed an opportune time:

First, a card for "patriotic remembrances." Okay.

This chicken just looks wrong.

I bought this card once and never gave it to the person I bought it for. Then I thought it was wryly funny. Now I'm really sort of glad I didn't give it out.

(nb: the inside says something to the effect of "I don' know about puppets. People might not be ready for puppets." In the moment it seemed really cute. Hm.)

Also, side note at the grocery: anything called a "loaf cake" cannot also be "light".

A Mighty Thin Line

Occasionally I read what I've written and I want to throw up on my shoes. And when something is really puke-inducing AND includes typos at the crescendo and I leave them there, I want to hit myself in the face with a metal object until I die. And then I want to take it away. So I do. I'm strange right now. So strange. (Incidentally, I've typed "strange" with an "ai" THRICE, now, because I just did it again in this parenthetical comment. Strain=Freudian?)

Natalie Maines drove to work with me this morning, and when she said that "There's a thin line, baby, between wrong and right, between black and white," I totally agreed with her, because she's right. Then she sat herself back in my passenger seat, took another drag on her American Spirit, and said, "Besides, it's much more empowering to be pissed off than it is to be all fuckin' crazy and shit."

Hey, she said it.

"Did I give you one of my George W. Bush countdown keychains?" she said. "I mean, you can totally have extras. And by the way, you're probably going to still feel like shit today, but eventually you're going to be okay because that's the way it works for - you know - chicks like you and me." And then she was gone.

Alice put it very well today, also, about her own recent emotional post:

"First of all, I apologize for writing a post like that, which captured my feelings at that exact moment, feelings which changed fifteen minutes later and why don’t I wait an hour or so before posting something? It’s lovely, the way I puke all over the Internet, and all you nice people come rushing to clean me up."

She's exaggerating, because hers was just really an expression of a feeling - not at all irrational or unwarranted, and nothing I would consider "puking". I don't really want to do that, anymore or often. The truth is that there are experiences and feelings that are better placed in a bathtub, with a magazine and a glass of, er, something soothing. ; )  It's just that I find some kind of solace behind the keyboard that I don't really find much of anywhere right now. I used to be a person who bludgeoned people verbally with my "problems." I complained and whined and bitched, and there are probaby some people who would say, "used to?" to that, and totally mean it, and they can really all just go to hell, I say while smiling sweetly. But the things that I...give SOMETIMES INFLAMMATORY COMMENTARY on now, are usually much less personal. The more I've experienced things over the years that upset me and changed me in some fundamental ways, the more choosy I became about how and where and with whom I discussed them. Because you learn over time that unless you're doing it with some distinct purpose in mind, it doesn't really help.

I haven't had a significant significant other for a while, and I kind of fumble around on the outskirts of a variety of wonderful friends, and a workplace that is mostly supportive. But I do spend lots of time on my own, which is actually perfectly fine the vast majority of the time. It was out of this solitude that most of my online life was born, and probably this site, too. But the deal is now that when things go sideways like they have lately, I maybe come here first when I shouldn't. I don't know. I don't even really e-mail that much anymore. It's weird.

The Natalie Maines thing is really kind of true, also, because one thing I do find connection and solace in is music, still. And although yesterday was a throwback "Swamp Ophelia" Day, most days have been Dixie Chicks (or, you know, Audioslave) days lately. Her voice is so big and strong and warm, and I listen to their new cd every morning on my way to work lately. It's one of those records that came along at a perfect time in my life, which doesn't happen very often anymore either. I consume a lot of music, as in, I listen to new bands and new cds by old favorites, and I have enough friends who are into music that we share a lot of it amongst ourselves. But rarely am I excessively moved by a record, or do I enjoy it so much that I talk about it alot, or that I want to hear it all the time. I do feel that way about the new Dixie Chicks album. The songs feel very personal to me, even though I know they're both very specific to the ladies and could be construed as universal to many situations and people. That's really a sign of a truly meaningful work of...music, actually....or a story, or a poem or an article or a photo. If it doesn't matter if you've really understood what something was supposed to apply to, but you can coopt a piece of it for yourself - to motivate you, or to soothe your soul, or to make you laugh, or pick up the phone and call someone you haven't spoken to in a while (which I am dreadful at doing. It's become pathological.) and say, "Hey, I really think you would like this," or "Hey, remember that time?..." - that's pretty great.

I've been listening since I got it and that's not so revolutionary, considering that I've been a fan since "Wide Open Spaces" and indeed own not only a "Free Natalie" t-shirt but also an "Earl's in the trunk" bumper sticker (AND know all the words to Joe Diffie's "John Deere Green" and that crazy tune "Watermelon Crawl, so could be accused of being down with the coun-TRAY at one point.) Still, this album is a little different. I loved watching them take more charge of their songs, with some incredible help, of course, from Dan Wilson of Semisonic, no less and some others (even my boyfriend Pete Yorn.) I liked hearing them speak their minds about the shaft they got for the criticism of GWB, although my most conservative uncle was heard to say recently, "That idiot needs to go," at which point I passed out from shock.  I wrote a paper about the group and the mixing of politics and their music for my English class this summer, the first class I've EVER received an A+ in in college, much less the University of Maryland. An A+. I giggled like a little girl for a whole day. So yeah, I'm a fan.

So I don't really know what all that is to say, except that "Thin Line" is a great song. And I'm glad sometimes for the voices in my head that don't mean I'm crazy - they just actually help me get it together just a little bit, especially when they take the form of famous not-specifically country music stars who dare to speak their minds.

Thin Line

Some days rock and some days roll
And some seem to last forever
Some days it's all you want
And some days it's never never
Won't you tell me why
Things couldn't be a little easier
Some days everything is cool
And some days I can't get it together

'Cause there's a thin line, yeah,
Between wrong and right, between black and white
It's been a long time, yeah,
Since I could close my eyes and see the light
And there's some sunshine, baby,
Shining down on me and it's all I need
To see the thin line, between me and you and you and me

How do things get so messed up
And seem so out of control
It's time to wake up, make our minds up
Time to get out of this hole

Won't you tell me why
It's as easy as you let it be
It's so hard to see the other side
When you won't let go of what you think you know

Cause there's a thin line, yeah,
Between wrong and right, between black and white
It's been a long time, yeah,
Since I could close my eyes and see the light
And there's some sunshine, baby,
Shining down on me and it's all I need to see
The thin line between me and you and you and me

Don't look so sad
Let's see if we can find
A way to make things right between us
And while we can't change each other's minds
We'll pick each other up again every time

And there's a thin line, yeah,
Between wrong and right, between black and white
It's been a long time, yeah,
Since I could close my eyes and see the light
There's some sunshine, baby,
Shining down on me and it's all I need
To see the thin line between me and you and you and me

'Cause it's a thin line, yeah,
Between wrong and right, between black and white
It's been a long time, yeah,
Since I could close my eyes and see the light
There's some sunshine, baby,
Shining down on me and it's all I need
To see the thin line between me and you and you and me

Because it's a mighty thin line

Carpe Diem Baby

Latest reason why I am schizophrenic (like I - or maybe even y'all - need proof):

I realized last night on the car ride home that I can code switch on the radio between Alice in Chains' "Rooster" and "All Out of Love" by Air Supply with nary a skip on my mental record. One second, I'm all "snuff the roossssssssstttttttttaaaaaaahhhhh, yeah-eah-ah...And the next it's "believing for SO long" in this twee Australian accent with glass tinkling in the background.

"HUH? WHAT ARE YA THINKIN' OF??????? BAHBAH. WHAT ARE YA THINKIN' UH=UH=OF??????????????????????? WHAT ARE YA THINKIN' OF?????BAHBAH. WHAT ARE YOU THINKIN' UHUHUHUHOF?????????????????????"

Sorry. It's just so easy. I also realized that any time a post-Black album Metallica song comes on the radio, I die a little bit inside. There is no "For Whom the Bell Tolls" on these records, friend. It's important to adjust to that fact if you're still going to listen. But when the song is "Hero of the Day", with the lamest line ever: (even in this context. I understand how weird this is, but can't help it. Welcome to my college years.), "and now, deservingly, this easy chair." It's like that song with the "cake in the rain" lyric, that always gets mentioned in "worst song ever" compilations. (RIGHT! "I Am, I Said," by Neal Diamond. Rock.)

And speaking of the boyzzzzzzzz, dude, Metalocalypse!!!! Akeelah couldn't spell that without checking, for serious.

By the way, mtv.com reduced Layne Staley to "scowling, tortured, frontman."  I just called him grungy love, baby. And the fact that "Tones of Home" is almost 15 years old is almost insane to me. Sorry that the only option for these guys is postumous collections. Fucking heroin.

Stealing from Sweetney

This article needs to be read by a lot of people.

(Thanks to Tracey.)

Comfort Food

Today I got a really strange request. I was asked to do something very difficult - in some ways one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do - and also something that I didn't really want to do at all. It's something I'm going to have to dig very deep for in the near future, and I know that it is going to make me cry, and I'm so, so sick of things that make me cry. I'm sick of being a crier, actually, in general. (How does anyone learn to spell if they aren't naturally down with spelling? How would you know to change that from a y to an i if you spoke Vietnamese, for instance? It's amazing.)

I also think it's remarkable that I'm still being asked to handle things, considering that currently, I got nothin'. Really. It would seem to be obvious that it's taking everything I have to meet the requirements of my life, with little left to spare. It is true, right? There are times where we just don't have much of a reserve - where work or life or whatever else is just taking up all available resources. This sounds pitiful, but it really is just true. I'm very tired, and in need of restoration, but I don't seem able to find it these days, even in things that I think will do the trick. So I did what any practicing fat girl would do. I went to Chicken Out and got some chicken to justify my macaroni and cheese, and a vanilla latte (skim, but still) next door, and then I sat in my car and stared at the cars through the trees for a while. And then I made some phone calls that I had to make, and got predictably pissed off in some of the spaces I knew I would, and had to breathe deeply in some other spaces, but phase one of my task was done. And then I went back to work, and ate my lunch, and spent the afternoon answering questions that needed answering. I also stopped eating at that point, which was good, because it's possible that I could have eaten my way to Argentina and still had room for some of that excellent South American meat and potatoes-type fare.

And tonight one of my best friends made me a drink called a kir royale, which was actually really good, and some chicken salad you only wish you could make (if you're into chicken salad, that is) and some corn, and I sat and ate some more and blabbed out my freaked out reaction to the events of the day, and fell in love with Mary Louise Parker all over again in Weeds. (Hello, girl crush from "Fried Green Tomatoes".)

When you don't know where to start, or even to explain, and you maybe even feel stupid or guilty about what you're feeling or how you're reacting to something, it's very important to be with a person who lets you go with that. And also who makes you laugh in spite of and sometimes because of whatever it is that's happening.

I read on someone smart's blog the other day that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, and that kind of put a name to a philosophy that I've been trying to put into practice this year. I do really wish that things weren't quite so heavy, though. Some lightness would be nice, because I like that much better, and I think it suits me too.

Dewey Donations

So you can likely surmise that I think books are cool. Pamie is also cool. I don't read her as often as I should (I really need to update the old blogroll, and the design. I know, I know. Are you going to offer to support me so I can quit my job and blog fulltime? Didn't think so. But do think about it, will you? ; )) However, I was directed to her site from another link today. All the talk about community assistance blogging at the conference got me excited about the concept of blogs as a way of getting good news and volunteer opportunities out there, and she has a great opportunity to do so.

The Dewey Donation System is the coolest thing I've heard about in a while. In previous years, the project has supported tsunami relief and losses to wildfire in San Diego. This year, the post-Katrina library situation is bad, and this project is helping to restock Mississippi libraries (in the hard-hit Gulf Coast, i.e., Biloxi/Harrison County) with books. Several of them lost entire children's collections, and you know how important that is.

Check it out, and maybe tack a dvd or a book onto an amazon.com order and send it their way.

California

Okay. California shots are up on flickr. They're in sets - Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Blogher (San Jose.) If you see yourself, add a note, so I know you're out there.

A photograph of the audio team made it on Kirk's flickr stream and also got a shoutout from Elisa in this special Blogher post. (That sounded like an afterschool special. Or a "very special episode" where something tragic befalls the most fragILE character. Sorry.) Can't wait to work with these awesome people again - in Chicago, no less, one of the best cities in the country. I'm thinking of doing a cross-country drive next year, so maybe I can smack the conference in the middle. Crazy idea? Sure - like stupid looks, they're free around here...every day, but especially on Sunday.

Not your alchemist

Today blew, and that's all I really need to say about it, and I do really need to say something about it. I could talk about the woman in the test I proctored who set up a little campsite replete with trail mix and THREE graphing calculators (you know, in case all of her generic batteries failed in the original AND the wingman calculator) on the desk next to her. And then I could talk about how she went krazyloca on me when I told her she had to take it down. And then how in that beauteous way that the mob mentality takes hold, the woman in the desk in front of her needed to get up in my grill too, so she was all, "Can't I put my ADMISSION TICKET on the desk next to me? It IS a VERY LIMITED WORKSPACE."

Last I heard, a 4x6 PIECE OF PAPER can lay flat on a desk, underneath a test book. Without a helping of avoidable drama. At 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday. That ended with me saying to what had to have been at least a 50-year old woman, "Ma'am, if you continue to talk, I will need to dismiss you." I said I would DISMISS someone. JUST SAYIN'.

That story's a drag though, so maybe we should just focus on the fact that I bought a new pair of pajamas, which I never wear, but for some reason swaddling myself seemed like a good idea at the time. The top even has a hood, which means that I can hide with just a turn of the head when things get too off the chain. And they're actually a nice turquoise shade, too - fashionable, even - so on days that I'm too damned lazy to get dressed, I can still pretend I'm wearing like, a jogging suit instead of pajamas, and wear them outdoors. I also acquired a new forest green bag at Nordstrom, where I never shop. But there were sales. Sales, I say. And it's new for fall! That took the pain of the crazies away just a little bit.

The heat has also broken some, which is nice. We went to the pool at my sister's place and I only felt like screaming "I'M MELTING, I'M MELTING" like the tool that I am about fifty times, as opposed to the hundred fifty or so of last week.

I've surpassed tired into frenetic insomnia because I think I'm afraid that if I ever enter REM sleep again I won't wake up. I'm listening to Elton John to cope. Since getting back from California, I've been in some kind of existential...thing. I avoid the words "slump" and "funk", generally, so until I come up with something more specific, let's call it a thing. Today I would have stepped out of this skin into another one, if I could think of one, or if that kind of shapeshifting was possible. It's not, without going to a lot of trouble, anyway.

On one small happy note, I went back to the spot last night where I could take a photo of this sign I referenced a couple weeks back:

This puts me in a better mood every time I see it. I'm going to make everyone tape it on their foreheads tomorrow, just so I'll be smiling like an ass all day long. Seriously. If they don't want to deal with my shit, they'll do it. I totally would, just not to have to deal with my shit.