weary as water

every time i blink i have a tiny dream

Monthly Archives: February 2008

sleep is overrated

Emily had a long day – a 38 hour day, if you want to be specific – and she’s in bed now, asleep. I fully expected her to be asleep by the time I got home from work, but she was a wee bit manic and giggly and talking about how she was going to stay up for 50 hours straight! We got takeout from Surin’s and popped in last night’s episode of Lost…and it took her about thirty seconds to fall asleep after she finished her tofu coconut soup.

I’m watching the high school basketball tournament on tv. Soon the NCAA tourney will be here, and I’ve got tickets to the first round in Birmingham.

Things have been a little crazy around here lately. I’ve been sick, Emily’s been sick, everyone’s been sick. We’ve been having bad storms here; one knocked out our power for about 12 hours and knocked down a tree next door that took four cars with it. That was the last day I was sick; I went into work and got sent home (actually, my boss drove me home), and when I got home the power was still out so I couldn’t even pretend to be productive. It was kind of nice, to be honest. I sat by the window and read, and napped on the couch, and I’m sure getting some solid rest (I mean, there was nothing else TO do!) helped immensely.

I had lunch with Robyn last weekend; she was in town for some church conference thing. It was awesome to see her – I sure would like to get back out to Berkeley before she graduates from seminary. I literally came up with an absolutely fabulous idea for a book the night before we had lunch, and it was nice to solidify my ideas by talking with her about it. Now that I’ve put it out into the universe, I have to write it before someone else has a similar idea (as happened with the last book idea I had a brainstorm about, thanks Garrison).

I’ve been working on a side project that’s been keeping me up late, too. I should be completely done with it this weekend, though.

I’ll be getting another tattoo soon. (Emily was going to get me a skateboard for Valentine’s day, but I told her I’d rather have a tattoo.)

cynics anthem for a new tomorrow – hanalei

slither out of the butcher bars
of slobber and clenching fists
sputter through the sewers of commerce
where we can vomit and piss

there’s grand gestures and high fives and slurs
as the faces contort under the eyelit strobe
laughter rings out like acid on the ears
and all the blood and guts are exposed

bear witness to the accident
all the failures and our good intents
the scum and the sludge
and the ever breathing mud of this slow demise

and the core kids they’re all getting high on
kitten screams and dirty hair
froth in the mouth for the sex and fools good
of falsified despair

the baby boomer ex hippies and their overprivileged spawn
have rallied for complaints
too afraid to use bullets or fire
on the sidelines armed with cheap cords and paint

bear witness to the accident
all the failures and our good intents
the scum and the sludge
and the ever breathing mud of this slow demise

i was hungover in a massachusetts diner
where pillers of status took their vow
some ape sitting next to me
with soup in his beard was yelling
‘look at all those fuckers now’

maybe there is no progress only
the promise of our impending doom
so the last of hope wilts
and we’re all numb to the bone
we can sing together
“it will all be over soon”

bear witness to the accident
all the failures and our good intents
the scum and the sludge
and the ever breathing mud of this slow demise

play your part in the experiment
meaningless are all our sentiments
the scum and the sludge
and the ever breathing mud of this slow demise

sorry – no accompanying youtube video. this album is really really good, though, and you should check it out. Hanalei – parts and accessories.

40/366 – car

I had the weirdest conversation with a coworker today. Out of nowhere, she asked me if I had any cool Valentine’s Day plans. I said something to the effect of how we were just going to have dinner at home because Valentine’s Day & Mother’s Day are the absolute worst days to try to go out to eat. Plus, it’s on a Thursday night. And how about you? And she said – no lie – “Oh, I’m not celebrating, I’m getting a divorce.”

Indeed, I got absolutely nothing accomplished yesterday. It was beautiful out though – in the 70s – and today we had a high of 37 degrees. It wasn’t too bad of a bike ride home tonight as long as I kept moving.

I put on a Built to Spill record while I was cleaning up tonight. I’ve been trying to listen to more of my record collection lately, instead of having the tv on as background noise. I do believe that vinyl is the best way for me to really listen to a record, because it requires active listening. If I forget to flip the record when it ends, my listening experience ends as well. Although I am rediscovering that silence isn’t all bad, either.

I’m pretty sure Built to Spill is in my top five favorite bands. (The others are: Ani Difranco, B.B. King, the Bright Eyes, and oh-god-this-is-hard probably Neutral Milk Hotel).

Music won’t keep me warm, though. I’d better go turn on the heat.

feeling surreal

I have some contract work to catch up on, so I took a flex day today. But it’s so beautiful outside – could spring be here? – and I have new records to listen to, and a good book to read, and I might not get anything done.

From Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson:
It may be all very well in Dickens, but when you read Dickens you’re reading a long ballad from a vanished world, where everything has to come together in the end like an equation, where the balance of what was once disturbed must be restored so that the gods can smile again. A consolation, maybe, or a protest against a world gone off the rails, but it is not like that any more, my world is not like that, and I have never gone along with those who believe our lives are goverened by fate. They whine, they wash their hands and crave pity. I believe we shape our lives ourselves, at any rate I have shaped mine, for what it’s worth, and I take complete responsibility.

It’s funny that, after my mini rant a few weeks ago about people contacting me through social networking sites, I’ve made contact with a few of the people from college that I really think fondly of. I haven’t self-censored my profile (or this site, for that matter); I’m comfortable with the life I’ve made for myself.

leave the city – magnolia electric company

Broke my heart to leave the city
I mean it broke what wasn’t broken in there already
Thought of all my great reasons for leaving
Now I can’t think of any
I’s true it was a hard time that I’ve come through
It’s made me thankful for the blues

Half my life spent on a highway
Half my life I didn’t choose
And I have seen the North Star
Shining in the freight yard
And I knew it was a hard time that it’d come through
It’s made him thankful for the blues

It broke my heart to know you waited
I had so many things to do
It’s true as far as a lot of stuff
You could have had a little better luck
You just called and just hung it up
One of us has had enough

It’s true as far as a lot of stuff
You could have had a little better luck
You just called and just hung it up
Baby both of us have had enough

.

damn it, we lost another one.
.

While talking with Emily about Blake’s death – he was her friend, after all – she said something about how she couldn’t imagine being sad enough to take her own life. I’ve been down that never-ending well of darkness and I am deeply deeply sorry he got stuck there.

best drink of the week: 1/4 simply limeade, 1/4 simply lemonade, 1/4 vodka, 1/4 dark rum.

pretty pretty stars

Lately I’ve been spending my Saturday mornings at the coffeeshop, catching up on things. Today was spent updating the btc website, discovering my ascending sign (saggitarius), finding a new cell phone (nokia 6263), and watching youtube video of Barack Obama’s appearance in Birmingham last Sunday. He really is a great orator – that’s so refreshing – but I’m not convinced he’s really that different than any of the rest of them.

HOLY COW I JUST SAW THIS HUGH CORT FOR PRESIDENT COMMERCIAL ON TV AND I LAUGHED OUT LOUD. (Make sure to watch it all the way to the end). I bet he’s related to the “Lost Cat Magnet” kid.

I had an ‘oh shit’ moment when I went to his website and saw that he was a shrink, because he lives in a [swanky] Birmingham suburb and at work we JUST (as in, Friday) started doing IT support for the Psychiatry department. Luckily, he’s not on staff. I bet his computer password is ‘password’.