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.