Obviously Your Beauty Is Overwhelming

Lol, I hurt. From rejection. Twofold. I can't just not write about it, what good is it if it's not typed down in my blog? For everyone to read? And to make things really awkward between parties involved and myself? (Parties involved, sorry.) I won't go into the first much. It's all still too confusing... but Gab is another animal.

Gab works at the Butcher but I first saw Gab getting picked up from lacrosse practice in the eighth grade.

"Mimi, who is that?"
"Gabby. She's really pretty isn't she?"
"Heckzyeah."
"We call her Gabripan."

She started her tenure as cashier sometime last spring and it was funny because she's shy. So you try to talk to her and she laughs at everything because she's so new to actual conversation that any damn'd think sounds ridiculous to her. It's really, gah, cute, and the first straw... straw like her blond hair! (This shit is so shiny-beautiful, you'll cry just maybe.) And I started to be interested in her because she was the kind of girl I would see at one of my sister's soccer games. Someone I didn't go to school with but was immediately surrendered to for an hour so. Except now I worked with her and she was practically a distraction because I go out of my way to talk to her just because I know it either gets on her nerves or makes her happy. Either way, I like her reaction. Sorry, I'm switching tense mid-sentence but that's the way it works. For like, the last while or so I've just been like so obvious about my "want" all the while trying to just spit out a question. Will you go to dinner or something with me. But her mom always works Thursdays and when she's not there, Mallory is busy talking to her and I get...jealous. Haha. It's so ridiculous. Wednesday I worked though, unusual, and Gab worked and she somehow ended up in the deli alone and I was alone and this is an impossibility so I was just like, listen. Do this with me. And she said maybe and I said OK, and she went back to the bakery and I spent the rest of the night doing dishes and annoying her periodically.

"This isn't something you can just expect me to forget and then you'll be off the hook you know."
"I know."
"Do you want to see There Will Be Blood?"
"Maybe."
"You know, oil, muckrakers and stuff... Upton Sinclair."
"Yeah we were just talking about that in history."
"U.S.? I really liked that era, Progressivism was cool and it takes you right up to FDR..." [historical discussion ensues and this moment becomes the farthest I have been with Gab.]

Well tonight was different because mom was there and Mallory was there and Gab made it obvious she wanted nothing to do with me or a date because she still hadn't given anyone an answer so I told her fuck it, you are off the hook because you probably would have just said no anyway. And she didn't say anything to refute that, I don't know if that was out of shyness or what. But it just got me thinking that this girl knows how beautiful she is and thinks she can just, I dunno, do whatever she wants. Like not give people straight answers or just be misleading in general because she can keep them coming back no matter what. I didn't say goodbye to her tonight, just gave her a look and left. But I know next Wednesday I will once again try to woo her like a bumbling idiot to absolutely no avail. And I will kick more walls and listen to more Tigermilk and do more self-pitying. Put more blame on the largeness of my lips.

C'est la vie! Ah, petty heartbreak and the beauty of youth... it's sorry but great.

Thank you for listening and I'm sorry that sometimes I am a hack.

Open Letter to the Weatherlight

So there's this band from Delaware, the Weatherlight, that have kind of been pissing me off. Check out their Myspace. I mean, being like "shallow" I guess, looking at that you'd think wow that must be some hot shit new band. But like, too bad they've only posted one song ever, right? I'm talking they've had this thing up since the summer with one song. Banners, cool HTML trickery, a fucking SPONSOR (?! how do you sell out with barely a name?!). Like, is it wrong of me to hate on a band's Myspace? If it is, I don't think their music is so hot either. The parts seem like the were copied and pasted over and over in pro-tools and because they have a girl singer, they'll never ever be able to live down comparisons to Paramore. They're a pop punk band with a girl vocalist, what would you expect? I knew Mike (er "Michael" as I guess he's known now) for a little while from hanging out around the gayrange...yeah. He's a tool. He's got the snake-bite to prove it. Dude's fucking Myspace display name used to be "I'm a Male Model." I'm an ego-maniac but at least I'm pretty sure I have substance... Anyway, I took it upon myself to tell me how I felt. Here it is, complete with grammatical errors typical of a Myspace message...

Subject:

your band

Body:
is soulless. you guys are to real music as big industry capitalist monopolizers were to workers in the early 1920s. first, you've been trying to be the next big thing without having any THING. you've had one song up ever yet your myspace is covered with crap that suggests otherwise (i.e. professional photographs, dropdown menus, references to your "fans", clothing sponsorships)...you guys have sold out before even getting off the fucking ground! "join us!" join what? what kind of movement are you going to start with fucking remedial pop punk redundancies? it's all been done before...oh wait, your lead singer is a girl. i guess thats diffe...nevermind, you guys will never ever be able to live down comparisons to paramore. good luck with that. i don't hear any "heart" in your music, just the same-old thing that is destined to be popular because delaware teenagers are sheep that gravitate to one fucking sound and one fucking scene. the success you gain with your fake music will be just that: fake.

Let me know if I am out of line...

p.s. Real update later...

Oh my!

Pitchfork: You've been making music for 15 years. As I get older, I've found-- and this is a little depressing...

Harvey: How old are you? You can't be more than 15!

Pitchfork: I'm 27, and I think this is endemic of my generation, in a way, but I don't require music in the same desperate ways that I did when I was 15. Have you found that your relationship with music has changed over time?

-Interview by Pitchfork's Amanda Petrusich with PJ Harvey

Ah, that scares me. I hope I never feel like that. Fucking, growing up! No, not me. Sorry, I give this spiel a lot but...I just thought that quote was notable and applicable. Also, my friend Allison, I lent her the Basic Eight initially thinking she would love it. I forgot she's now a twenty year old young lady, college and all. So she isn't really liking it, but she might have were this her senior year. I guess that makes sense but it was still revealing and interesting and saddening kind of. But then again it wasn't really my life so I don't think I was actually that saddened.

Farmer's Almanac

Yes, the following has been said will have been said many, many times. I want it to be spring, I want my warm weather. This is the twilight of my fucking youth, April brings adulthood and the cold is keeping me inside. I need to be taking people out to fields to lay and read. The same people need to come with me to sit and chat by the river side. Then lay and nap by the river side. I'm digging a hole with expressing my emotions. I shouldn't have to. Random: I saw the Shins in 2003 before Chutes and Garden State. They were opening for Guided by Voices (who I'm listening to this second) at the Magnet Magazine 10th Anniversary show. This was probably one of the trendiest moments of my life, seeing a soon to be lauded charttopping delight of a band, opening for underdog lo-fi greats at a show organized by and for a just as great independent rock and roll bi-monthly. I love Magnet, I love Philadelphia. I'm wondering if Magnet takes interns just out of high school. If so, I'm doing it, I can't wait. I don't want to bore you with hopes for my future because I know how I feel when people do that...not good, sorry if I offended you, reader. Also, I love popular musical brilliance, such as the kind found in people like Robert Pollard, Britt Daniel and Jeff Tweedy (except for that bullshit new album of his, fuck!).

I've discovered in me this out of control fire that is a love of life and with that pain and...haha I'll stop because it really doesn't matter. It's not even anything new. It's just that things have been really fun lately outside of school except now I work with this girl who may or may not smoke crack and definitely has STDs and sexual relationships with men twice her age. It makes me feel dirtier and I find myself telling her to leave early, there's nothing to do. She's a few months younger than me by the way, and she doesn't go to school anymore. But yeah, work and school aside (well even work is great, Matt Anderson is sticking around. Matt is three years older than me and I've known him since I was in kindergarten at St. Patrick. His sister's used to babysit), I have fun with a core group of friends that are often mixed or separated. Everyone listens to really good music, feels the same way about life and does things that are worthy of putting down in writing.

Can't You Feel the Knife? Or, Not Knowing What To Do: Wherein I Say Something and You React

"I've been dusted in the dark up in Penetration Park/And I've been plastered. I've been shaking hard/and searching in a dirty storefront church."
-The Hold Steady: "Your Little Hoodrat Friend"

Sometimes, I think it'd be really cool if my life were a little more like a Hold Steady song. I think that it's not probably because I don't drink enough or do any drugs. I mean I drink, but Craig Finn's characters drink.

Haha, I find myself in this absurd amount of unrequited love. I think I took the whole F. Scott Fitzgerald thing way too far. So I'm writing about it in an actual notebook to maybe exhume some of these lingering ladies. Like, it's just ridiculous. Maybe I'll let you read it. All names will probably be changed, of course.

This evening was a dual celebration of sisterly birthdays. The Kalmbach Girls', Kara and Alexa, birthdays are sometime around now. It was a cleverly executed surprise. I'm broke, so I burned Alexa Boys and Girls in America by the aforementioned Hold Steady (which admittedly I'm incredibly late on the train for) and constructed a mix for Kara (something I find myself doing a lot lately for people and myself.) I hope she listens close, it goes something like this:

1. Panda Bear-Comfy In Nautica
2. The Clash-1977
3. Spank Rock-Bump (ft. Amanda Blank)
4. 12 Rods-Make Out Music
5. Patrick Wolf-Accident & Emergency
6. Yo La Tengo-Don't Have To Be So Sad
7. Stephen Malkmus and Jicks-(Do Not Feed The) Oyster
8. The Wrens-Faster Gun
9. Be Your Own PET-We Will Vacation, You Can Be My Parasol
10. The Hold Steady-Your Little Hoodrat Friend
11. Belle and Sebastian-You're Just A Baby
12. The Streets-Hotel Expressionism
13. Pinback-Fortress
14. X-The World's A Mess, It's In My Kiss
15. Grizzly Bear-Knife
16. Liz Phair-May Queen

The evening was full of dancing, cake, sweat, my cold nipples, boys in boxers in a hot tub (myself not included), Unionville shadesters, a kid who looks like the bassist/singer from one of this year's faves Tokyo Police Club, at least one conversation that left me embarassed with tail between legs and so much more. My knees and shins are killing me from all the robot-ecstasy-IDM-b-boy moves executed to the likes of Daft Punk, The Thermals, M.I.A., Justice, Rihanna, Pixeltan... Oh, how we are hip!

I Am Comment Hear Me Roar

I think in the big picture what I've been almost constantly angry with is high school. I could go into greater detail and then I could talk about how contradicting it is that I don't want to grow up but I can't wait to graduate but you know all of that. Instead, I will talk about how I like to release my anger sometimes.

The Fucking Animal Collective.



It begins. Their name will just pop into my head. I then go on Pitchfork and read about how much they love them. Then, I go to YouTube and watch the video for "Peacebone." I start commenting. "Fuck this fucking band, why are they such critical darlings!" "It grows on me, until that fuck Avey Tare (wtf name?!?!?!) starts having a seizure over that stupid squelching synth loop!" "What kind of drugs do I need to take before I enjoy this bullshit?" "Why don't I like this band? Three things right off the bat: their stupid fucking names, their stupid fucking lyrics and their bad taste in clothing." "Who's that jackass with the headlamp? GEOLOGIST?! Fuck that!!" And on and on and on...until they are snubbed six times by overzealous AC fans protecting their lil critters. I hate this band so much. I hate this band so much. I hate this band so much. They don't make any sense. To me.

A Conflict Of Posthumous Interest

Are we ignorant for making an actor's death into headlines and tears? Mimi and I didn't even come close to knowing the person that was Heath Ledger and yet tonight we found ourselves consoling each other in front of Ten Things I Hate About You. We were doing this while people lose actual loved ones or are still dwelling on those that have passed. I felt bad, briefly, until I realized the death of a person of note like Ledger kind of creates this collective mourning that accounts for all the times one hasn't mourned for someone else. So, maybe, Mimi and I were also one with some Californian who lost their sibling in a car accident. Something like that. We all mourn as individuals, but as a unit when it comes to something like this. Princess Diana's death was especially collective, observed on a global scale. Celebrity drama might seem trivial to some but to the majority I guess it's something we find solace in when there are no other kinds of people.

Like I said I watched Ten Things tonight and it's still one of those great teen movies that managed to transcend teen movies. You should watch it, he's so cool in it. It's this rugged Australian thing...urbane and gentlemanly while remaining a true badass. :/

At Least Ten People Will Miss You,

Heath Ledger. Why do people do these things? Heath was found dead earlier today in an NYC apartment. It's kind of weird to think about. I love the movie Ten Things I Hate About You and his former flame Michelle Williams (with whom he had one daughter.) :(

Disservice

I'm going to bed feeling like the average bad American citizen. Today was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I didn't do anything about it. He was awesome, yeah, everyone knows that. He did more than any of us will ever accomplish collectively. Today, we are kind of regressing, losing his gains. But I can't say why that is or what exactly it was that King did in his lifetime. I feel really bad about this. Like, why can't we learn more about the Civil Rights movement in school? Then again I do go to school with primarily upper middle class white playboys, but that's another story. Sorry, MLK. You worked wonders, apparently, and I will make it a project to learn more about you. Perhaps if you were born in spring I'd be more ready to go out and do something for the community/human race. The warm weather just gets the activist-juices flowing. Once again, sorry MLK. :(



"I did a lot more than just have dreams, Joe Gallagher! Shame! Shame on YOU!"

Summerholidays Vs. Punkroutine

Wow! Let me tell you a little about my weekend. Some of it will be in the vein of "I did this, then that." Some of it will be more interesting to outside parties. And I have no pictures of it. So bear with me.

As usual, I worked until 7 on Friday night. My work schedule is unwavering unless I take off. Tuesday after school-6, Wednesday off, Thursday after school-6, Friday after school-7, Saturday 9:30ish-4. Sundays, Mondays closed. Just in case you wanted to know. I'm really bad at slicing cold-cuts, too. Alex Tack came to the butcher shortly before closing time as this was the plan. My mom picked he, my sister and I up and we drove directly to the movies to see Juno. It would be Alex and I's second time. We got there and it was chaotic. My mom waited in line for the traditional booth-method of purchasing tickets, while we the young and initiated waited in line for the compukioskticketmachine that can be tricked into giving us inexpensive tickets. The idea was that, having two groups in two places, we would minimize waiting by effectively being in two different places at once. Wow. It was our turn at the kiosk, we got to the tickets before mom, but Juno, amazingly, was sold out. So in an effort to further subvert the system, I elected to buy four children's tickets to 27 Dresses. We would later proceed from the ticket collector to the Juno auditorium and enjoy the movie from the comfort of the floor. It had been done before (Ratatouille.) Mom my though, waiting in line now for concessions, was thinking sensibly and told us that they probably would catch us, so we left Regal Shitheaters and went to Grotto to take out a fucking delicious pizza. I ate a lot of it. We watched Grand Theft Parsons as a family-unit even though dad was absent (No Country for Old Men for the second time) and Alex was a welcome edition. I took him home after that and a cup of coffee (so as not to fall asleep at the wheel) and on a whim and after leaving a very quiet Gabby P. (how do you spell my coworker's last name?) a long, meandering, typically coherently incoherent voicemail, I went to Robert Ohman's to join him, Miles Fricker and Matt Foulk. My planned five minute stay turned into over an hour. It was true delight - sitting in a turned-off automobile and bullshitting. Plus a comfy chair and Swedish electronica. Home, for Soulseeking, then to bed after reading all of half a page from Orthodoxy.

Saturday was less of an event. After work, I didn't take a nap like I promised myself. Instead, I showered, sat around for a long time in my boxers (becoming more of a habit. I think it has to do with the soulsucking of winter.) and began working on a new mix for Miss Morris. I called Kara Kalmbach to invite her along to that evening's night of one-act plays at my school. She obliged, so I dropped my sister off to babysit in north Wilmington and headed to Golgotha. When we pulled into a parking spot, I turned up "He War" really loud and we kind of danced in our seats, in the heat. A kid pulls into a spot kind of in front of ours, steps out of his car, then hears our loud music. Thinking he would be doing something cool (but lacking our spontaneity), he went back into his car and started blaring what I describe as an edgier, heavier Nickelback, maybe in some kind of form of one-upping us. I didn't really get it and it kind of made me sad. We snuck into the auditorium, saving us a collective ten dollars, and caught the last few minutes of something silly. This kid Greg Fleming was in it and I like him. He's a junior and is in my journalism class. One time, Harrison Fertig and I were at the SATs and because of the alphabet, he was in our testing room. We tried to socialize with him at break but um, he just wasn't having it, leaving us wondering if it really was the Phlegm. Kara and I spoke briefly to Nick Bradley before heading to our seats, on the way saying hello to the principal and picking up Eddie Dillon. The next play was also something silly, but slightly rewarding for the cutie narrator in a polka-dot dress and a funny watered down sex scene. The next was called Having No Words and was a really clever, almost adult play written by a student from a sister school. I really would like to meet her. It was kind of Dave Eggers with a vagina, so Miranda July-ish with a twist of the ethereal. It was my favorite of the night. The worst was next, Smoker's Hill, written by Eric Austin who is my opposite and I find myself hollering at him in class. He's one of those smarmy atheists GK Chesterton and I infuriate and are infuriated by. The kind who have no imagination and to them life just "is" and there are no great mysteries. The play started off kind of good actually. The scenario was a nerdy kid and a badass girl, who was, surprise, smoking. She was kind of giving him a hard time but she is suddenly intrigued when he blurts out that he is sure he's Jesus. She then asks him all these questions which made her really likable but he kind of got annoying. Especially since he was a product of Eric's head, so he was eschewing all this really obvious symbolism/parallels (he got chained naked to a goalpost by seven tough guys). He was like the reverse of Eric in a way: Jesus trapped inside a scientist instead of the science minded asshat trapped inside a Catholic school. After that kind of cute q and a, Eric comes in and acts a hard-ass which was LAUGHABLE, especially when he "pushed the boundaries" by calling "Jesus" a faggot. It was SO OBVIOUSLY a vehicle for Eric to LITERALLY "BEAT UP JESUS." Wow.

I went to bed late and finished Anna's mix and AIMed it up with her. I slept in. Mimi woke me up at 12:30 and I told her right away to turn on my radio so I could catch the end of This American Life. My mom came in and was all like come on, let's clean! She thrust me right into this frustrating, impossible job of downsizing my shit. I called it off after five minutes. "Look, mom, you can't just do this! I just woke up!" I sat, dejected, in my boxers on my chair, surrounded by piles of clothes. Finally I got up and headed downstairs. I dicked around for awhile with the fam, still boxered, before finally showering and getting myself pysched to play and write music. All the while, I felt like my face was drowning in my own mucus. Trey came over! Made me feel better. We worked out an arrangement for a TV Dinner song, wrote lyrics for a forgotten Mediocre Egg Yolks song ("Adam Air"), tightened up our Cat Power cover, reworked "Apples"... it was all very productive. I went back to cleaning my room with Trey until Anna arrived, 6:45 on the dot! I was glad to see her. We all went to get Mexican at the new place in Kennett (across from Wawa on Cypress, GO!!!!!), picked up Trey's girlfriend, dropped them off in Somerset and then headed to the Ohaman's. Matt was there again too. We watched Ninja Warrior and listened to Swedish electronica before heading back to my abode to watch a movie. We got back, made more coffee, and decided on Final Destination. Holy shit, goddamn! It was so awesomely intense teen drorror and I loved it and it was great fun watching it with friends in a dark room with lots of blankets. Now I'm having fun making up ridiculous scenarios to die in. Next week, Final Destination 2! Not Devin Sawa!! Seann William Scott, get out of the fucking car!!! Kerr Smith is awesome!!!!

So, it's been a good weekend.

Don't you think Refused took the loud/quiet/loud concept to a whole new level?

Little point to this.

"Wild, wild horses couldn't drag me away/wild wild horses, we'll ride them someday."

Such sadness in sexual uncertainty and an unrequited love of Gram Parsons! Well, it turned out to be alright, didn't it Mick?

Tell Him To Run Faster, Tell Him To Jump Higher

"I learn my name/I write with a number two pencil/I work up to my potential"
-Liz Phair, "Canary"

This week, I love Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville. Maybe it's because listening to it is a more personal gender-crossing relationship than anything else I have on a daily basis. So that kind of means that when I have my headphones in and I listen to this record, I pretend that my uber-hip, quick-tongued (and I mean in more than one way lawlzlawlz), respectful-of-me-as-I-am-her and deeply personal girlfriend didn't hang out with me for two days and made Guyville instead. And it's her address to me about our relationship from start to finish and how I stack up with the other guys she's been with. It's kind of a fucked up thing to do but, haha, I hope that one day I have the dubious honor of _______ or _______ or ________ (if I really luck out) doing something similar.

Guyville is a great listen. Like, it really is one of the best albums of the 1990s/one of the best albums ever produced by a female for a reason. It's more than just her singing so bluntly about essing dees till they're blue, which she does so mundanely it's like cock is a staple of her afternoon snacking. It's that she, to me anyway, is like the first girl just to put herself out there in song. Earlier, female singer-songwriters hid behind too much poetry (that's not to say they didn't fucking rule. I love Joni Mitchell and Carole King!!!). Or like, were pop-sluts. Or there were some that weren't. But what I'm getting at is that in the early 1990s, girls were kind of extreme in music. Riot Grrrl bands are awesome, but the well-read ladies of those groups seem to be convinced that I just want to subjugate them for labor and head. And PJ Harvey, whom I also love love love dearly (especially Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea), tried to commission me to lick her injuries. Liz didn't put on a facade. She said, in song: "What's up? I'm kind of curious about you. Do you want to hang out? The Lemonheads are playing at the Metro Thursday. We could go and then maybe head back to my place. I would like to get to know you. We can take it from there." She gave rock snobs a chance! She was not on the attack! She can read our minds. All girls can. But what she did was tell us how she felt, too, so we weren't left wondering and killing ourselves with about 600 questions an hour, new ones surfacing more than constantly until you were choked with self-consciousness and doubt. She's accessible to me because it's obvious she doesn't want that. She doesn't take pleasure out of knowing that I am uncertain of her feelings and that to me is awesome.

Too bad she made two phenomenal records (one which is so underrated it should be punishable by law), one pretty damn'd good one and two really really shit ones that she will never be able to shake off. Why, Liz?

The closest you can get with teenage girls are mix CDs and Anna just gave me three of them. I have officially listened to all three; one with complete focus. I'll leave the other two for tomorrow, but the one that I have listened to with focus, the "normal" one (as opposed to the depressed one and the old skool one), is amazing and like most of the best mixes that I receive from another important female it exposes me to lots of new things and gives me a feeling almost like the one I get when I listen to that Liz Phair record. So that totally rules and snaps for Anna!

Anna if you are reading this, I am part of the school that makes short, album-length mixes. That is 12-14 songs, 39-55 minutes. So I felt kind of bad when you gave me three dazzlingly huge and amazingly sprawling mixes. I fear that you may feel cheated by my weak, 14 song 50 minute showing. So if that's the case, will you let me know in some way?

Today, I wore these pants. Now, invariably, whenever I wear these pants, Gap khakis of purest white, they are covered in coffee stains by the time I get to school. This isn't the case with any of my other khakis, all of which are darker. What does this mean?

Do you want to borrow a book?

My sister has come to blogger! The title of her blog makes me lol. It is called Oatmeal Empowerment and is located here.

What do I do when a sophomore picks a fight with me?

have a wonderfullll day or evening or afternoon or lunch and please, stay hydrated+warm.

Photoverdose...lol, here is what I did today.

stumbled upon an enormous field






ran, gloriously, down a slope to a marsh.

wandered up a long drive way to this modern monstrosity owned by a porno mogul (apparently.)

met up with friends and Sunday family at the brandywine river.

that included kelly g and sarah burchell

and kit ramsey







(i get the feeling that everyone has been underneath this bridge. dunno why.)

we went to wawa. the straggler on the upper right is kelly's friend kurt from unionville.

we feasted in the back of my mom's car

"bye, kit!"

Let The Ocean Dissolve Away My Mask!

It has been. A good weekend! I guess the biggest news is that I got into Drexel University.

What's not news is that I want to go to school in Philadelphia because over the last few years I have grown to truly love that place. Also, it isn't news that I only applied to two schools, Temple and Drexel, out of lack of necessity to apply anywhere else. I made it easy, obviously narrowed the field down to schools in the city. The LaSalle rep was a jackass. Penn was an impossible dream. St. Joseph's is as bumblefuck as you can get within the city limits. Initially, I loved Drexel and West Philly but I found by fall that Temple was really more the shit. Less pretentious I guess, more welcoming. More engaging. Not to mention like, almost thirty-thousand dollars less. I applied to both schools at the same time, but with Drexel I did the online thing so it made sense that I heard first. I really wasn't expecting to get in; I felt like I kind of half-assed the whole thing, recycling my Temple essay and all (which was knockout by the way). So at least I'm somewhere, but I figure if I got into Drexel that easy, than why not Temple? Hot times!

That was this afternoon. Yesterday, though, was Friday and in school I could only look forward to work (for whatever reason). I guess it was just something different. Anna picked me up and we went to Borders. It was adventurous. I picked up Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. It's about looking at the world with curiosity and wonder and just like, loving being here without questioning why. It was a Mr. Kane recommendation. I also got a Ray Davies autobiography, a Scandinavian cookbook (bargain bin 1.99!) and the new issue of Filter. Afterward, we hung out with Mimi and two people we went to pre-school with, Brooke and Joe Francheshini at their enormous digs. Joe F. is an entertaining motherfucker. Our parents were out to dinner and came back very drunk and so dancing ensued. Typically fun. Anna lent me a book (Miranda July short stories) and gave me three (!) mixes which, so far, are awesome and loaded with really wonderful nuggets that I otherwise never would have stumbled upon. Thank you, Anna! I got Cat Power tickets too.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to Philadelphia to get on some Matador street team shit. I hope they aren't waiting for me saying things like "That motherfucker just wanted free goods." I mean, kind of, but Matador, I wasn't trying to rip you off! I just don't actually live in Philadelphia and I realized that no one in Kennett gives a shit that the Teenagers played Making Time last night (plus it was 21/over) and that Vampire Weekend are coming in February. I hope I make you proud. I hope no one got to AKA Music before this kid. I hope I get free Stephen Malkmus tickets and an advance copy of Real Emotional Trash!!!!

I found this quote in the Sun, an interesting literary magazine, that made me not feel like such an asshole: "The consensus was that I was an 'elitist,' a right-wing term for someone smarter than you." I think I lol'ed.

Lately, I've revisited two bands: The Shins and Pearl Jam. I mean they're always constants, they're always there, but in the musically dry territory of mid-Winter, they enter my rotation. With the Shins, I went back to Wincing the Night Away. Originally I kind of just stopped at "Sea Legs," whose proggy-synth jamminess at the end didn't really strike me as particularly Shins-y or enjoyable at all. It dawned on me recently that there was half an album after that so I chanced it and dove in and found one of the most underrated records of 2007. Chutes Too Narrow is, obviously, better, but this is good. It's bigger, it suits their stature. Pearl Jam are my favorite ever musical group, the kind you hardly listen to but still love so much. But I've been listening to albums like Yield and Vitalogy, the ones that grabbed me first and took me from there. They're both very cool records and before you write-off Pearl Jam as a band that must have been a shadow of themselves since 1993 or one that just always sucked, give them a listen. Those albums have an almost Clash-like depth to them; sprawling yet stacked and focused, remaining fresh over the course.

So back to my reading...70ish pages of What is the What left...then those Miranda July stories and the Chesterton simultaneously, and somehow I have to find room for Anna Karenina and Tender is the Night...both started but not nearly finished. Magazines, a shitty Piers Anthony book for the novel...daunting!! But you know what? I probably won't read that Piers Anthony book because it sounds just that shitty. It's not like I read for that class anyway.

Hope your weekend has fucking ruuuuuuled!

Wtfsuckers

You know what was weird? There was this big trend in the late fall among football players of eating lollipops. They would position them in their mouths so that one of their cheeks would be bulging and the stick would come out a an angle in an effort to make the sucker a more natural extension of their mouths. So during this one early-November week, there was an influx of second, third and fourth string football players with this weird lollipop infatuation. I saw them in study hall, but most often after school. I went to the mall actually and saw another kid I know only in passing with one. Each time was definitely a wtf moment. Just thought that you should know.

Does My Breath Stink?

The answer is, well yeah. It stinks to low-hell but who the fuck is counting? I am home.

But I didn't get there right away. After work, I went to the post office to mail my voter registration papers (public service announcement: Pennsylvania voters, you need to have your voter registration thirty days in advance of the April 22nd primary...and if you'll be 18 by then, you can register a.s.a.p. Wow!). I then had to go make a delivery to a family friend, Mrs. R. Conti. Nothing illicit, just jewelry. A few days ago, I made a mix for Dana who works at Genaurdi's and since I've been debating whether or not to give it to her because I am just that full of self-doubt and am a total over-analyzer! But I had it with me and would be passing the grocery, so I made a turn into the lot, ejected it from the compact disc player (it's that good that I have been listening to it constantly) and brought it inside where I very nonchalantly wandered up to the customer service desk (to where she was recently transfered) and acted like that is something I do all the time. This is the track list:

1. Panda Bear-Comfy in Nautica (the only song from that record that didn't leave me cold)
2. Amy Winehouse-Me and Mr. Jones (why do I like this record a lot?)
3. The Kinks-Sunny Afternoon
4. Belle and Sebastian-Dear Catastrophe Waitress
5. The Kooks-She Moves In Her Own Way (love this band, hate the Fratellis. Go figure.)
6. Broken Social Scene-Stars and Sons
7. Sons and Daughters-Taste The Last Girl
8. Belle and Sebastian-If She Wants Me
9. Of Montreal-She's a Rejector
10. Radiohead-Reckoner (has become my favorite ever Radiohead song. Must-hear.)
11. Spoon-Finer Feelings (you know my feelings on this little jewel)
12. X-I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
13. Sex Pistols-EMI (a finale that kind of destroys everything else this mix was working toward.)

Do you want to see a some of my school day? Great!





that kid is all over the place!


christian inside the security of his car, Suge Knight


somewhere i didn't excel


a really nice guy who no longer throws away my plastic bottles because he knows that i recycle them.


we had a really funny relationship last year. not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter.

I feel like this post was a waste of time. I wanted to say so much more! So I want you to tell me: what have you been listening to, reading, doing, thinking about lately?

Let's avoid talking about that place. We'll call it "skull."

Well I guess I need to say one thing. The main thing I hate is the overpriviliged males I'm surrounded by. It sucks listening in on their conversations in math class and not being able to discuss a book in English because they're too busy yammering on about sports...and the teacher isn't cool enough to hunker them down and make them want to pick up a novel and read. But anyway.

It was one sunny fucking afternoon! I wish I had taken pictures, but my fingers were a little oily. I put on the soul compilation that came with the issue of Mojo and fixed up my bike. I put my tread onto my new rim (yesssssss), pumped up my tires, tuned my breaks, took the rust off of and oiled my chain... It was so so therapeutic.

So do I blog so much to fulfill a need? Did I not post on message boards enough growing up?

Oh I also did record this song today, kind of a cover of "Where Is My Mind?". Listen?


Does anyone know good places to hang promotional materials around Kennett and West Chester? I joined Matador Records' street team and they sent me like four CDs (three being the as yet unreleased Mountain Goats, Cat Power and Jack Penate records. The other is the St. Vincent record which I have had...) and all these posters and stickers i have to distribute/hang in prominent places. I hope I don't let them down! Haha, stupid, but I fucking love Matador. Just go, listen to Matador at Fifteen. It's like, the best unsung compilation. Christian tells me What's Up Matador? is good too.

So we got this great The Office calendar, one of those rip the piece of paper off every day things... It has a quote on every day...kind of obvious. Today: "Ah, this is our receptionist Pam... Pam has been with us...forever...If you think she's cute now you should have seen her a couple of years ago. Meow."- Michael.

I love it like I love breathing.

Golden State

I did, I had a great day today. I certainly maximized last day of break potential.

See, on the last day of any given break, it's good to do something. This something cannot be over the top, but it can't suck either. So on the last day of break, you would not want to go to Philadelphia or New York with your best friend(s) and have a great time. Save that for the day before last. You also wouldn't want to try to cram your homework in and end up wasting all your precious fucking daylight hours wallowing over penmanship in your kitchen/room/study.

What I did was this. I woke up without too much trouble (unlike yesterday's terrible arousal) and went to church with the fam. It was surprisingly engaging and the priest, unfamiliar to me, delivered a pretty welcoming homily. Ok, not bad. Then, to Wawa, for my first coffee since the teeth. I was avoiding things that were too temperature intensive. Actually, just hot things because I was (and still am) going crazy crazy crazy for ice cream. I waited to drink it, for fear that the small hole you have to drink through would require me doing some kind of sucking, something I'm totally supposed to (and willing to) avoid. When I arrived home, I poured it into one of my favorite mugs (we have three or four of the same kind) and enjoyed it. It was great to drink coffee again! I love coffee! Have I told you that? Mimi made eggs for everyone and even though I didn't want any (full from the night before) I had some and I made them comfortable atop an English muffin. I was given an assignment: clean mom's car. Then, I would be allowed to "do as I please."

It was noon, so This American Life was on. I listened as I cleaned. Surfaces were dusted back to their original black matte with Windex while I heard a sorry and upsetting story of a Muslim girl and her troubles at elementary school. When Car Talk came on, I vacuumed over the din that originates in the entertaining yammering of the brothers Tapitt (sp?). Needless to say, NPR is delightful on Sundays. Every day.



Assignment completed and Dad asked me to collect firewood with him. But sometime between then and the night before I decided that my privileged week of freedom where I am at liberty to take a trip, usually the coast, let's call it "senior week" would be this: a week of camping on Ocracoke Island, far down the coastal anomaly we call the Outer Banks. I love it there. I figured that it would be a symbolic way to put high school behind me... I pretend I hate saying it that way, but truthfully that's how I feel. (All interested parties, do apply! 18 dollars a night is unbeatable. Also, where is your sense of adventure? Do this, plz?) Segue to this: I'm not ready to say goodbye to childhood, but high school has gone too far. I can feel this way because high school, well my high school, infringes on my childishness and innocence and gets me down. Though, it does provide for lots of great frustration, ideas, emotion etc. that could fuel writing...something that a dear friend, Allison Berger, pointed out to me today. So how should I feel about high school? Fuck it.

Anyway.

We got firewood, I watched twenty minutes of a Johnny Knoxville movie (Grand Theft Parsons. I love Johnny, I love Gram Parsons. I loved GTP.) Deodorized, left. Drove, to Wayne, 926 listening to X. I got to Wayne, actually the corner of Wayne Ave. and Lancaster Ave. known to local youth as "the corner" (that shit rules.) Oh, why.

That's right, Allison and I were going to do the talking face to face thing which is something we get to do when we have time and she's home from college. Background: Allison and I met at the Hanson concert and began a neat friendship. She likes to write and is best described as totally awesome and a real flower of a human being (I mean that in the most positive way. She really does make me think of flowers.)

So we had a good conversation like usual and went our separate ways. She gave me her mix (something we do) which is great and made me want to cry. Afterward, I went to my Aunt Sheila's because she's so nearby and helped her prepare dinner. Cousin Sean came home and we sat around and spat words which is great. Dinner was delicious. Borders (bought LOL, the Rivers Cuomo demos cd [amazingly personal, only one dud] and the new issue of Mojo), sped home. I missed the place, I really really did. I love my family, they help me out. I wrote some thank you notes complete with drawings that obviously pined for a quirkiness that I do not have. (Begs the question, and do answer: if you received a thank you note, would you appreciate it if someone doodled a cute, applicable drawing on the white part?) But I tried to go there because I convinced myself yes, I was quirky enough to doodle on thank you notes to my relatives in an effort to seem "special" (?). Sometimes, I wonder. It was fun, writing the thank-yous, and kind of therapeutic.



That's my moody-face and I. That's me not wanting to go to school tomorrow and taking a stereotypically moody shot to prove it to you on my blog. That's me exhibiting my grievances in a photograph so I didn't have to write it out. But I wrote it anyway. It wouldn't be so bad if the year was over with the semester in two weeks, leaving me with four months to be alive, but it's not at all. It's four and a half months of broken windows discipline, shape-ups, bad outfits, phonies, Mr. Longo, terrible taste, unhealthy lunches, overbearing girlfriends and oversexed relationships, late or never turned in assignments, lack of attention in class, not meeting potential, keeping my ride waiting, being clean-shaven and ready for the fucking grind baby because it's cominatchya over the course of seven soul-sucking hours and six mind-numbing class periods, letting you know who's boss and it's just that inevitable.

I don't want to have to say things like that! But a little bit of me does, the schooled part, the one that doesn't want to face that day anymore. The one ready to make a move because the rest of me outright refuses to. I hate school. I never do homework. Where is this going? Wrap it up: Maybe this week I'll find out if I got into Temple and hopefully I'll be totally pleased.

The last two weeks in summation: despite working hard for a few days and getting my wisdom teeth out, break was delightful. Even the teeth and the dry socket, which for some reason I think is really really funny. It was all growing up, it was all fun, learning, all so soothing.

Wow, if you got this far I owe you at least a dollar. Goodnight, it'z keep ya head up Mondizzle!

I Love Updating This Blog

This girl makes me want to do a dance and then some unmentionable things (to her.) :)



What makes me think that I could ever get a girl like Cheyenne Kimball? Am I fucking crazy? Watch this video, she rules. (I'm planning this huge entry of women I'm totally in love with.)

I hope my child's first words are "Ga ga ga ga ga."

Lol.

Random Notes

First: Where are you, beautiful spring day? I am ready for winter to be over. Call me when it will be a steady 65 degrees+. I will be in my dark room hibernating/reading/avoiding my life. But seriously, all I really want to do is take long adventurous walks with people that I know. Not just the usual walk around my neighborhood or the orchard, but hiking in the Lehigh Valley, maybe a portion of the Appalachian Trail. Along the Brandywine river, perhaps. How about navigating Philadelphia on a warm, sunny-but-not-too-sunny-that-I-squint-excessively kind of day? Fu-u-u-ck cold, fuck winter. I believe the bears and the squirrels have the right idea: stuff your face and sleep sleep sleep.

Second: Oh how my mind loves to wallow in anguish over my, weird, weird, bipolar and totally naive past relationship! Increasingly, all I can do is ugh and then guffaw at how the fuck I spent seven months of my life. To you, if you reading this, which I doubt you are because you told me you don't care, I am sorry if this pisses you off, but I really really need to be expressive right now. Where new feelings become suppressed, old feelings need to be screamed at in sans-serif font...on a blog...for people to read. I usually try to avoid the bitching about an ex or females in general, especially on the internet, but I am in a state of great inner turmoil. I am afraid of getting myself into anything like that again! But obviously there's hope. Something like 3.5 billion fish in the sea. Right? Or I could play it like Stuart Murdoch who is a very wonderful and cool human being.

Third: Sons and Daughters are a great Scottish folky/punky/minimal-rock-n-rolly outfit that I love love love dearly. Their lyrics are mysterious, their guy/girl harmonies evoke John Doe and Exene Cerevenka of X (whom I also love dearly), and they keep. it. simple. Their music has held me tight since the beginning of junior year and they are coming out with a new record in a few weeks. It's bound to be awesome. Too bad their stateside tour brings them to Johnny Fucking Brenda's, oh my goddddd. What happened to the good old all ages show?

I'm in a state of flux but despite the mess I'm incredibly happy and I like where things are heading with everything, aside from the path toward school. So you too be happy, please, even though it's winter and deep down, you know it sucks.

Before Bed

Bug was fucking so sick!

My dad rented it and I had been meaning to watch it. I got to tonight, you know, because of the whole movie kick thing. I don't often watch horror movies but the ones that I do I usually become really enthusiastic about. This was no exception. It also had that really messed up love story element that I go crazy for.

Barack won Iowa. I also find myself getting really enthusiastic about him. If he ever comes up in conversation and you want me to stfu because honestly you don't really care and might not ever care until maybe November, just tell me. Because I will understand.

It made me really sad to see Deal or No Deal and The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition on NBC tonight in place of reruns of The Office and 30 Rock. Why can't the writers call it a day and save us from that mind cooking nonsense? Actually I'm all for what they're after, I just wish the whole shit could be fixed so I can drool at Tina Fey again and people don't have to be subjected to a very bald loser asking a really stupid question of a long line of assholes and a very successful businessman with a bad toupee insulting C-listers.

<3

Who's Excited For The Caucus?

I am. Tomorrow is kind of like the future. It is, actually, but it's also the beginning of the future of our country...you can turn on any news station and they will tell you that. I will be 18 for the Pennsylvania primary and the national election and I've been paying attention. Like most young and optimistic pinko-as-fuck liberals, I'm pulling for Barack. He's close to us, you know? Listen to my logic. It's actually not mine, it's sort of a logic I paraphrased from the December Atlantic Monthly. Barack was born in 1961, after the baby-boom, and he was too young to fight in Vietnam. That means he's not going to treat the war in Iraq like 'Nam and domestically, he cares about us, like you and I, people our age. He's not tied to some tired baby-boomer agenda, he will actually fucking push things forward. He might not be as experienced as other candidates, but isn't that what we need? Someone who hasn't been jaded or corrupted by Washington's bullshit and can bring something new to the job. Fuck the haters.

This morning, they yanked the ribbon of medicine out of my bloody and dry socket. It felt really weirdly neat. But that means I'm done. This whole tooth thing is over and thank you to the several who wished me the best. I hope you have as much fun as I did if you have to get it done. Lol. Speaking of that mess. I am on this huge movie watching kick because that's all I've really done the last week. I watched I Heart Huckabees, Trainspotting, Being John Malkovich, Rushmore, Lost in Translation...again. Also: Thumbsucker, SherryBaby, From Dusk Til Dawn, The Matador, Juno (albeit in theaters instead of the numb comfort of my couch.) In addition to: some doses of Ricky Gervais via BBC's The Office (likely on the same level as NBC's The Office but not as...catchy for us Yanks,) and Extras. Among: a few others I probably forgot but would feel cooler if I could mention them.

As a sort of celebration I cleaned the house because I could once more be useful. I did some laundry too, pretty much everything I wore over break. Which is still not over, I do not go back to fuckingschool until Monday. I'm like, totally looking forward to it! Not, but it's only a matter of a week or two before I suppose I will hear back from Temple.

So, the last few days:










Goodbye Christmas tree/season, bring on the rest of my life.

P.S. Ugh, COLD!
P.P.S. Elite few who read my blog, would it be ok if I post loads of photos like I just did in the future? It's kind of a personal thing.