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!