April fools. Or, the third anniversary of my driver’s license. I’ve been tearing up the roads for three years now; thankfully so, driving is a theme of my life now that I spend every other weekend in a different state.
And different states indeed, mood swings are the second-most themes of my life.
Yeah, i haven’t done much today, missed a class, procrastinated everything including sleep.
I did take some impressive pictures of my Sims2 version (impression?) of myself.
This video is one of my current favorites; the mellotron makes the song.
I’m (finally) in Boone now. It’s been a relaxing evening in the mountains. A neighbor in the meadows behind the apartment complex called us over to watch a space station pass through the sky. He had a gyroscope-looking compass, and said the other night he saw it pass clear over Wal-Mart.
I had a moment today with my iPod and a distinct memory of last April. Dancing at the Green Dolphin.
Yes there will be another 8th of November.
E. taught me the trick to telling a fake smile: a small muscle underneath your right eye will only twitch in a certain way when your smile is sincere. This is one of those secrets that has only made the world a slightly sadder place for me.
Exhausted is not the right word for how I feel, but apparently my body is in some sort of betrayal. I can never sleep anymore. I miss my blankets in Baltimore.
I keep watching friends and friends and friends of friends with the same smile, no eye muscles involved.
This week is too long.
2001: A Space Odyssey left me with the same empty, slightly disturbed feeling as A Clockwork Orange once did.
Kubrick makes beautiful and awful films (though awful as in the way I am left feeling, nothing to discredit the importance or craft of the film itself.)
Bad television always cures everything. That and a long phone call.
(Tonight’s recommendation: songerize The Avett Brothers – Living of Love)
Every time I visit home it becomes harder to leave.
There are new places to visit, new sights, new plans made (the visionary arts museum, the antique stores in Ellicott City, the museum of industry, education classes at ccbc.)
And all these different lives I could have lived.
God, I got the sudden emo urge to songerize Black by Pearl Jam. What a mistake. I found the cover I used to listen to obsessively too. Don’t judge me, but if you songerize “Black” by “Staind” you’ll get a particularly depressing version as covered by frontman Aaron something-or-another.
I know, I know. It meant something to me in my ~angsty teenage years~. And by that I mean I played it repetitively and did emo things like consider the hopelessness of it all. Ok, I wasn’t that depressing, but I didn’t have too many friends in high school.
I can’t get to sleep; I really feel the need to write poetry but it’s not flowing freely. The subjects are again too close, love, longing, loss, glimpses of those moving on (and though you have too, onwards and upwards, it’s always weird, isn’t it?)
The best thing, I think, is sleep at this point, despite my stomach’s urging for a second helping of dad’s spicy szechuan (sleepily spelled horribly wrong?) noodles.
Six days until I see my boyfriend again, this is the longest we’ve gone (26 days I think at the end of it). It sucks, but so does money. I’ve never wished away a week faster.
I am being wholly lax here, but to be honest nothing has happened this week. That’s right, I’ve slept until noon every day and enjoyed it. I’ve played The Sims, I’ve caught up on my Stewart/Colbert viewing, I’ve picked my brother up from school every day. Tomorrow I am going to an Easter thing at my parents’ church. Perhaps I’ll have more to say tomorrow, every visit to St. John’s is worth writing about. The pastor, Drew Phoenix, is a mtf transgender, which raised a bunch of issues in the United Methodist Board. Ann Gordon used to be the pastor at our old church, and then when she moved to this one, decided to have the surgery. This church is really cool, it’s half owned by Red Emma’s the communist cafe down town. It’s also a homeless shelter during the winter months. I’ll have more to say tomorrow, I feel really tired today, mostly because I’ve done next to nothing.
I can tell you, however, that there is an interesting ambient/post-rock band called Gregor Samsa.
Guess what I’m working on… (I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with shmomework)
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Edit (7:52 PM) – I am officially a moron.
Also, Dove milk chocolate is some form of heaven.
Plus, prompt two to come tomorrow, with the willing participation of my younger-brother subject, E. It will be photographic in nature, I think.
Finally, time for some pimping of my recent musical tastes:
Deer Tick, Alexi Murdoch, Okkervil River,
Today has been a blast-from-the-past kind of day, as are many days spent back here in Baltimore.
We went to Mt. Washington (Mom, Dad, and I) and had bagels and coffee by the Jones Falls. Then we took a long country drive, trading iPod cuts on the car speakers, chatting. I mainly watched the Park Heights mansions drift by our windows. At Goodwill, Dad got me a lovely set-of-drawers, a steal at 5$, for jewelry. We got a few other minor things, but it was nice to have an outing with the family. Later this evening Mom & I ventured out to the liquor store and picked up some Irish Creme for some minor monday celebration; we spent an hour deliberating over groceries at the supermarket. I picked up some different things for a present I’m compiling for the boyfriend, as he is forced to spend the Easter weekend alone 
.
Mom and I discovered this site: musicovery which is amazing, you basically pick your mood (a graph of sorts, allowing for moods such as “Dark, Energetic” or “Positive, Calm”), the era of music you’re interested in (I stayed mainly towards 1960-1979), and the genres you like. It then gives you a map of embedded flash songs that fit the description, and as you click on a song to listen to, five-fifteen more songs map out like spiderwebs from the song you are listening to. I relived some childhood with the Beatles and CCR.
This put me in the mood to find some old music, and that I did, settling on Billboard’s collection of Top 100 songs for 1965. Here is where I found maybe the best thing I have come upon all day: The Vogues – You’re The One (linked for download on sendspace). This, as simple as it is, could probably be considered one of my most favorite songs. It was my favorite song in the universe circa ages 2-7. I have many fond memories of dancing around in our then-1970’s wood-paneled basement (since redone in an unfortunate shade of white), toes all curled in the shag carpeting as I bopped around to the spinning vinyl. I used to think, in the way that the world makes sense to 5 year olds, that one of my dad’s friends was the actual singer of the song. I remember asking him to sing it to me, and he politely declined; now that I look back on the incident, I don’t think the man can sing a note. It must be embarrassing, but somewhat cute, to have your friend’s little daughter insisting that you are the actual singer of a 60’s hit, and tantrum when you won’t sing it for her.
Tomorrow I plan to try to capture my brother for a photoshoot-interpretation of prompt number two; if he doesn’t comply, well, I certainly can gush enough about my boyfriend to fill the specifications. My brother is so odd though, and I mean that in a complimentary way (lest he catches wind of this blog); he is who I initially thought of for this project because of his sheer photogenic nature, and the volumes I could go into about his eccentricities. I also never see him, even when I’m home he’s at a friend’s house 95% of the time. We’re an odd pair in that siblings aren’t usually as close as he and I, but I truly consider him one of my best friends.
And with that said, it’s time for another sleep-induced abrupt ending, because I don’t want to spill too much about my brother before I possibly profile him tomorrow.
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