bootstrapping

or: the notes i took while reading "moneyball" as influenced by an absurd love of baseball, a bottle of wine, 2 boxes of crackers, edamame hummus and a smores ice cream sammich...

- how many times do the top 200 songs mention the word: love, money, girl/woman, blue, heart. you vs. i - average
- how many of these songs are in: C, G, E, etc. - average
- how many are sung by women vs. men
- how many are written by women vs. men
- how many are performed by men vs. women
- age of performers
- song length - radio edits?
- how many are one writer vs. a collaboration
- average song length
- how many songs are performed by those who didn't write it => warts
- what's the difference in the $$ made between songs performed by the songwriter vs. the song performed by another artist who didn't write the song
- what single is the hit for the artist? 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
- on what album is the hit? 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
- if there are multiple hits, how long and what happened in their lives between "hits"? marriage, kids, deaths, religion, losing religion?
- "harvard" is an idea/concept that people NOT from boston or the north east have regarding intelligence and/or success of which harvard reaps the financial and marketing benefits - how many students who attend harvard are actually from boston or the north east?
- trader joe's edamame hummus = explosively fantastic
- make a word cloud for lyrics in top songs
- **shrinks are on the field** people who are inherent counselors in the intrinsic parts of the process
- potential!! potential is what to see
- personality is necessary for performance
- moyers is my baseball boyfriend - he distorted the perception of the hitters => artists need to distort the perception of the listeners
- keep doing as you did before success - why should you change what works?
- when they KNOW they always hit the spot, when they HOPE they never do
- should i learn to play an instrument so i can use that and my physical stature to intimidate?
- buy "moneyball" for future reference
criteria for research:
- artist has been in the industry for a certain amount of time - 5 years?
- "in industry" begins with first recorded song = intent
- performer (whether songwriter as well or not) - plays instrument as well?
- is the songwriter also the performer?

snippets i tagged in the book:
- "since we're outsiders, since the players are going to put up walls to keep us out here, let us use our position as outsiders to what advantage we can."
- hypothesis about literature: if you write well enough about a single subject, even a subject as seemingly trivial as baseball statistics, you needn't write about anything else
- life with no money is filled with embarrassing little trade-offs
- the oakland a's are baseball's answer to the island of misfit toys
- he was one of those people whose personality was inextricable from his performance. no: whose personality was NECESSARY for his performance. the funny thing is that pro baseball took one look at that personality and decided it needed to be beaten out of him
- shopping spree rules:
1. no matter how successful you are, change is always good. there can never be a status quo. when you have no money you can't afford long-term solutions, only short-term ones. you have to always be upgrading [innovating]. otherwise you're fucked.
2. the day you say you have to do something, you're screwed. because you are going to make a bad deal. you can always recover from the player you didn't sign. you may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price.
3. know exactly what every player in baseball [in our chosen field] is worth to you. you can put a dollar figure on it.
4. know exactly who you want and go after him. [never mind who they say they want to trade.]
5. every deal you do will be publicly scrutinized by subjective opinion... to do this well, you have to ignore the newspapers.

lover

you make me feel so clean.
inside
and
out

your flavor dances troika
as feverishly on my tongue
as in my nose -
so distinct, so...
you.

the ways you nourish me
are countless:
vitamins
nutrients
antioxidants
for my body
and
soul
in the deliciousness
of your skin
your heart.

my muse
i sit here
writing this missive
eating of your fruit,
as i should be dedicating this
inspiration
to other
more funereal endeavors.
but my heart
cannot continue
until my love
is shouted
from the
socialnetworktops.

je t'aime
ma (not so) petite chou

an ode to cabbage

waxing portlandy

tonight i went out to drink for a few reasons:
1. it's my last weekend as a free woman for the next 12 weeks
2. i was hoping to get an eyeful (maybe a lipful) of cute-as-pie bartender andy meat
3. today i was yearning for some "standardness" and, for some reason, drinking on a friday night = "standard"
4. the non-"standard" part of me felt like observing

and this is the conclusion that the non-"standard" part of me (98% of me, it feels like) came to:

portland, for all the people who told me i'd love it here, is just like everywhere else. except with beards. and a lot of rain. and a lot of preciousness. and lots of "birds on things". for real.
granted, they do have an INCREDIBLE book store (now chain in the most "portlandy" of ways) and lots of fun things, but those things are fun for people who don't have a day job as everything here rolls up at about 7pm.
what, i'm assuming, all these people didn't realize is, what draws me to a new city is the people there, not everything else that's going on. and, unfortunately, the people here are the same as anywhere else. only with beards. even the ladies have beards. i just saw one today.
i'd even go so far as to say that portland might just be the capital of apathy: where the royal "they" go to gauge the apathy of the rest of the country when it comes to certain ideas. they're at the cutting edge of apathy here. the ideas or causes that it's cool to be associated with or help out with without even the slightest knowledge of a deeper meaning for the cause or idea start here or, even if they don't START here, they develop here and, when it comes down to it, the voting constitutencies in most urban areas in this country have pockets (or whole holes) of preciousness that aspire to portlandyness without even realizing it.
so the royal "they" who come here to gauge apathy are SMART AS FUCK.
i realized this as i sat in my dive bar with my $5 jameson and art on the walls and $1 ice cream sammiches and a pinball machine where a table of 4 dudes (2 married, 3 with beards) and 1 girl talked about their european adventures and all 4 dudes were trying to impress the 1 girl with their tales of the most despondent part of europe. trying to impress with their cultural prowess.

i don't really mind portland at all. i know i could be somewhere SO MUCH worse and the weather i could do without but, it's serving it's purpose for me right now and i am confident that it will continue to do so but i refuse to perpetuate the myth that it's some crazy retired youngster's holyland.

retired young people: here in portland it's just like everywhere else. if you REALLY want to be different, form a commune in some out-of-the-way place and let that be hipster heaven, because here, it's just a petri dish for the powers that be.

drunkenly yours,

p

thoughts

i was blessed with strategically placed walls this evening.

how dumb am i? really?

i hate that something makes me not as excited as i once was.

if i turn it off, will i be able to turn it back on? that's what i'm scared of: it is very easy to turn it off, but much harder to turn it on.

i want to turn it off very badly. keeping it on "just in case" and knowing the reality, that hurts.

if i could turn it off and not care about turning it back on, i could be a stripper and make lots of money so i wouldn't have to work in mortgage anymore. that woudld be rad... right?

how is it that 3 double shots of jameson for $20 temporarily cures my own dumbness? me being dumb to me?

how many more times am i going to be dumb in this vein? it is stupid. and it costs $20 for a temporary cure. that, in itself, is dumb.

how is it that i have overcome my dumbness to KNOW that precisely 3 double jamesons are the temporary cure for my overall dumbness?
i dazzled myself with my brilliance on that one.

i would very much like to stop being dumb.

i would very much like to stop being someone's, anyone's, secret. or their trash.

i want to hold someone's hand - besides my own - in public.

L.A.M.E.

where i totally talk about poo

i have seriously been holding this (but not that) in for the past month, but i'm still so amazed by it that i have to say something!

last month i read this STUPID (read: awesomely informative) book and i stopped eating meat. i'm not stringent about it (if i'm eating vegetable soup and i find out there's a chicken broth base, i don't purge for 3 days and cry about the "thing with a face" that i ate the juice of) and i refuse to call myself one of those "v" words because if i do, i won't want to do it anymore. i'm not eating eggs either and i'm minimizing the dairy, but haven't (and probably won't) eliminated it.
yes, i feel awesome. yes, i'm experimenting with food. yes, i'm going to get skinnypants, but not that skinny because that's just not how my body is set-up. no, i still can't get to sleep in my own bed at night. yes, i'm eating a shit-ton of beets.

but the most amazing thing to me is the sheer volume of poo that is coming out of me on a daily basis! i thought that it would let up after about a week or so - i'm not eating more food or anything, just different food. and i'm freakin' pooing ALL. THE. TIME. and not a little, but LOTS. i'm sure my body is detoxing a little and whatnot, but this is getting hilariously ridiculous. as someone who has juice fasted a few times before and had to help that elimination along and see what that looks like, i'm flabbergasted by all of this.

will i ever stop pooing in this volume?! crazy!

ps - POO!

flashback: los angeles

word of mouth parade - gus
almost everything about the day i first heard this album was exceptional. i've been thinking about that day, the minutae of that day, all week since the itunes just couldn't stop playing tracks off the album.

this album is 100% la to me and always will be. even the manner in which i procured it was "la":
eleven years ago, i walked into this scene from a movie: the sketchy apartment - dark. mid-afternoon sunlight fighting it's way through miniblinds giving the room that burnt orange look. a shaggy dude wearing sunglasses and an accent - the producer - was sitting on a shaggy couch with a twitchy friend who came in from the kitchen. tim, being the overexcited puppy he was, started talking a mile a mintue as soon as the door opened. i saw the eyes behind the shades rolling.
tim never knew how to gauge a room - i hope he's learned by now.
i wasn't introduced so i don't remember the guy's name. while tim is babbling away, shaggy, dubious producer sees me inspecting this cd on the coffee table with just the word "gus" written in sharpie on it and nods to me to take it. then he does what he can to get this poncey little shit out of his apartment, tout suite baby.
i immediately popped that cd into the player in the truck and this album is what came out.

i still haven't stopped listening to it.

unfortunately, tim got the original score in the breakup proceedings. wah wah.

a few observations:

1. the IT guy here is magical. he just sent me 200GB of music that's stored on the server. there's so much... everything! on there... stuff i wouldn't get myself but would gladly be given (INXS? Ah-Ha? LAMB OF GOD??! yes please!) i like it when geeky dudes like me.

2. what is so fuckin' special about couches? why can i ALWAYS get to sleep on a couch? i don't understand it. so, for the next three sunday and monday nights, i will be sleeping on the couch.

3. there is seriously nothing like small asian hands massaging your hands and feet. my feet have been missing pedicures for the past few months and now they're all pretty! why do i feel so girly when i've gotten a pedicure. the pedicure, manicure, eyebrow wax combo for $50 (including tip) is MORE than worth it in so many ways.

4. i've been having headaches for the past week and everything tastes like pennies. that's not right, right? it's totally a TOOMAH, right?

dear mamas and daddies:

i know there are a lot of you out there. this is just a reminder that your grown-up problems aren't shit compared to the responsibility that you have to your babies. please bring the rememberance to the front of your mind that the babies don't have the vocabulary to tell you when something is really wrong or bad - they don't know that the word "innocence" or "spirit" is what describes their special magic or how to tell you that someone or something is trying to take it away, so they act out. they scream that different scream for you (the scream you hope to never hear) to protect their magic because that is YOUR ONLY JOB and they make themselves physically sick so they can leave the place they know is bad, so please please listen to them.
so if your babies are being assholes when they usually aren't, THERE IS TOTALLY A REASON.

i know it's random and i know you all know this already, but i needed to get that out.

well, DUH!

today i had a meeting with my advisor for my big girl school. he basically said, "you can have you bachelors by december 2012 EASY. you're awesome and on top of it." to which i answered "DUH! i don't have the time to NOT be on top of it."
he really liked that response.

AND i found out that i'm essentially going to be writing the same paper for the next 2-4 years starting this fall: 1st quarter - outline; 2nd quarter - 25 page "primer"; 3rd and 4th quarters - 50 page senior paper/graduate school application; quarters 6 + - 75-100 page master's thesis.
i think i'm gonna have to bone a writer to get that much writing mojo in me.

finally, the only bummer about the morning was financial aid. i qualify for $4146/term. my tuition ALONE is $4908/term and that's only if i do the bare minimum of 12 units (which is SO not going to happen) and that's not inclusive of books or supplies or LIVING or anything, so i have to pray to the credit gods that someone will give me a private loan for the rest of the bits. i don't want ALL of my living expenses paid for, i fully intend to be employed... part-time... but part-time ain't gonna pay for me to live and buy textbooks and pay the deficit in my tuition. financial aid blows. anyone have a part-time job where i can NET at least $1500/mo? because that's what i need to live.
those credit gods are aholes. they don't even take a bj for collateral anymore these days! GAH!

eff you portland!

E.P.I.C. weather fail brah. you couldn't even be summery for 10 days before you had to go all cold and rainy again.

are you for serious?! i'm ready to roshambo your ass.

gosh, i hate your face sometimes.

bsg, i bid you adieu

you were... good enough. EJO is officially the #2 badassedest dad on tv, with jack from alias (victor garber) being #1. you did good, it's going to be VERY difficult to match and exceed the daddy badassery of jack.
admittedly, i got a litle bored after sam became a head case and went all baldy so he could become a hybrid. i totally saw that coming, by the way. and that was around the time that they just kind of stopped writing for chief too, so, yeah, i got a little disinterested. and that's also the time when they started giving EJO's kidlet a little more plot line and he kind of looks like a blank slate to me - bodie. what kind of name is BODIE? but good on him for knowing someone who can pull strings.
i do like that "all along the watchtower" was actually written 155,000 years ago as coordinates, but it makes me wonder, bob dylan: cylon? lord of kobol? why'd he get to write it this much later? THAT would have been an awesome transition to present day.
i also like that they weren't afraid to show old people making out and having sex. AND old cancer-y people having sex. that stuff's not pretty and tv pretty much avoids that because it's not pretty. kudos to you!
finally, i admit i was happily surprised to find out about ellen. if she hadn't been what she was, i would have questioned her whole existence in the series because, before then, she was nothing but a pointless asshole.

so, bsg, i'm done with you and i bid you a fond farewell. so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good night!

dear bsg season 2:

i would like to thank you for a few things:

1. thank you THANK YOU for providing some legit eye-candy for the ladies in anders. he's not PERFECT and he's pretty jerry o'connell-looking but he distracts me from what has to be one totally gay, now commander, adama whom i've never found to be that attractive.

2. thank you for keeping the chief around. i love him lots. like a big cuddly bear brother. AW CHIEF!

3. thank you for bringing al from "quantum leap" (dean stockwell) in as, not only the most bitchin' preacher ever, but also a cylon. i think i have 7 of 12 models counted now.

4. xena is a cylon?! what? you just made a whole lot of lesbians very happy.

5. thank you for making me VERY excited about the impending "cowboys vs. aliens". i don't know why i'm so excited about seeing it now, but i am.

6. EJO should not try to work the 'stache. it makes him look like a mix between col. sanders and a vato. although, he prolly is and he would rock that too.

7. gaeta is gay data from stat trek: the next generation, right?

8. every episode, i want to punch baltar in the nuts. EVERY. EPISODE. he's such a whiny little bitch.

9. again, thank you for anders.

kisses!

p

theory

i've just finished episode 11 of season 1 of battlestar galactica and here is my theory on the cylon's plan:

they're helping the peeps get to kobol so they can show the cylons (unintentionally) how to get to earth so the can take over earth too. cylon boomer and helo (RAWR!!) on caprica are meant to propagate a species of human/cylon while the cylons deplete earth so they'll have somewhere to go back to. and they just bounce back and forth between the two whenever one is depleted.

can cylons even have babies? i don't know yet.

ok. geek talk done.

sorry!

your level of D.U.M.B. has been exceeded for the day.

please turn off your phone and e-mail for the rest of the day.

this means you. and you too.

***

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ERROR. your level of D.U.M.B. has been exceeded for the day. ERROR.

dear sangria...

this week... this week about killed me. and it wasn't even school. that was the EASY part! it was the idiots i work for. i'm fairly certain that the fates realize that i'm on my final lap there - what? only two and a half months left? - and they're going to make that time absolute hell. today i realized i would have actually accepted hard drugs if they had been offered to me. if i knew where to score some heroin, i would have spent every last dime i had to get some because i just want to be a limp doll. that's how my brain and my psyche and my everything feels. not that i know from first-hand experience that limp doll is the result of getting high on heroin, that's just what the movies tell me.

instead, i choose sangria. because i know where to get that fix. i do not regret spending all of my food money for next week on your supplies sangria, i know you're worth it.
you just keep on chillin', marinating and getting generally awesome in my fridge...

sangria, i have a question for you: can your favorite hug, imagined hard enough, actually take the place of the real thing and squeeze all the shit from the week out of you?
i think that happened just a tiny bit today when i was walking home from the train.
tiny bit of imagined hug, tiny bit of shit gone.

i'm so exhausted sangria. the truly incoherent prattling in this post should show you that. please just let me be blissed out in your awesome this weekend.

uhngha bungha,

captain cave(woah!)man.

things i'm happy and excited to worry about:

1. going back to the nervous breakdown after a two week hiatus because i don't think i'll ever be able to catch up with all the reading i've missed. is there a sum up? a "best week ever" of tnb?
2. applying to a big-girl school on friday... i'm only eight weeks away from getting out of the community college pond and i'm a little jittery about this new adventure.
3. having to set a "last day in mortgage". (!!) i'll only miss three people here.
4. finding some seemingly frivolous and menial part-time job to work while going back to school full-time.
5. going to belize in december wherein i can worry about potentially getting skin cancer because i won't be able to get enough of that warm orange ball of awesome in the sky. (!!!)
6. what i'm going to do with part of my mid-august and all of my mid-september paychecks since i'll have paid everyone off by then (touch wood). what?!
7. touching wood.

dear dorothy parker:

a-fuckin'-men!!

RHYME OF AN INVOLUNTARY VIOLET

when i ponder lovely ladies
slipping sweetly down to hades,
hung and draped with glittering booty -
am i distant, cold and snooty?
though i know the price their pearls are
am i holier than the girls are?
though they're lavish with their "yes's,"
do i point and shake my tresses?
no! i'm filled with awe and wonder.
i review my every blunder....
do i have the skill to tease a
guy for an hispano-suiza?
i can't even get me taxis
off to sydney, abes and maxies!
do the pretty things i utter
to the kings of eggs and butter
gain me pearls as big as boulders,
clattering, clanking round my shoulders,
advertising, thus, their full worth?
no, my dear. mine come from woolworth.
does my smile across a table
win a cloak of russian sable?
bab, no. i'd have to kill a
man to get a near-chinchila.
men that come on for conventions
show me brotherly attentions;
though my glance be fond and melting,
do they ever start unbelting
with the gifts they give the others?
no! they tell me of their mothers,
to the baby's pictures treat me,
say they want the wife to meet me!
gladly i'd be led to slaughter
where the ermine flows like water,
where the gay white globes are lighted;
but i've never been invited!
so my summary, in fact, is
what an awful flop my act is!

i'm tired (and complainy - WARNING)

i'm tired of this veil that has been hanging on me for the past few months. it's heavy. it skews my vision. it slows me down in every way. it's physical and emotional and mental and i feel like it's draining me of every last ounce of anything i have.
it started out mentally, just not wanting to be at work because i work for assholes in a soul-sucking profession. and it's not like i even make a lot of money. who would WANT to go to work?

and now it's getting physical and emotional all at the same time... i haven't been able to make my body do anything outside of it's normal routine for about a month and a half now. and i'm getting really freaking tired of it. i'm so tired of being tired. i finally kicked my own ass this afternoon and made myself do an hour of yoga and it was all i could do to stay awake. i've been eating minorly badly for a while now and i can't get myself out of it. because hot chocolate from a pouch just sounds so much better than anything else right now. i haven't been able to get warm. i'm in three layers of clothes and i have the heater on all the time. and i'm still cold. i've been fading in and out of mental consciousness and it makes me physically dizzy. here's some TMI: i drink more than a gallon of water a day and, at the end of the day, my pee is still pretty yellow. after a gallon of water, there shouldn't be a lick of canary in there.
i have an appointment for a physical and a full lab workup this week, but i'm pretty sure they're going to tell me that i'm healthy as an ox and want to put me on anti-depressants. those will just make me a raging asshole. i'd much rather be eeyore than angry, ragy tigger.

and then there's the emotional stuff. i know i do this to myself: physically distancing myself from all the people that i love so that i don't have an outlet. i want so bad to have actual arms here that i can wrap myself in and just relax for a little bit because i know that there's someone there to share it, even if it is just for five minutes, ten minutes, an hour. i'm so tired of being the one that has to see or find my light. i want so badly right now to see it reflected back at me from someone else. physically. i know it's there, it's just this shroud dims it so much and i'm looking so hard for it sometimes that it makes me have terrible vision, trying to see it through everything else. that makes my eyes tired.

and i don't want to be that asshole that keeps complaining about the weather. i refuse to believe that the weather is the sole cause of my feeling this way.

so, i'm not even lilli von schtupp tired, i'm just fuckin' done. dammit.

in the philosophy class

there is a young buck.
he encompasses everything a young buck could be descriptive of: strapping, dark, young, trying to figure out who he wants to be when he grows up and all full of that "fake it 'til you make it" that comes with being a young dude. example: he's from toronto, but describes himself as european. what? he wants to be a crooked accountant. he has a lot of growing up to do.
he's french-canadian. and charming. with crooked teeth. but i'm really turned off by his youngness.
and he's... intrigued by? enamored with? fascinated by? me, which confounds me to no end. he won't let me listen to the class most of the time, as he keeps trying to get my attention. and then he asks questions that i don't really want to answer, so i give some vague answer that is true, in the meta sense, and now he has to "figure me out." i don't mean for that to happen. is that what flirting is?

my bets are on that he's going to try and find a way to ask me to "hang out" before the class is over. i've done young before. i don't like it because they need guidance and don't want to teach or guide in that way, i want to be taught. and they're totally lazy in the sack which should really be the only thing they're good for.
i have a scarce few weeks to figure out how to say no to him gently.
maybe my movie recommendation will freak him out. here's hoping.

dear adam cohen:

being the SXSW enthusiast that i am, and being that i couldn't attend this year's festival, a co-worker of mine let me know about this interview you gave to npr just after the festival. i listened. and then i wanted to viscously box your ears like a victorian-era governess.

you moan about how "there's nothing. there's no more gold bullion. there's no more — unless you're lady gaga — you're trying to make a fast buck in the slow lane." no shit sherlock! have you not been paying attention? what's left of the "music industry" isn't giving out contracts - "gold bullion" - anymore unless you've already done all the hard work yourself. do you think stefani germanotta walked into interscope and said, "hey, i have this crazy idea that others have done before - ya know, like kiss meets madonna - wanna gimme a contract?" and they did it? i think not.
you, with the three major labels you've been on - the three major labels you've released material for - are complaining about what ISN'T at sxsw anymore? whether you took advantage of it or not, you had/have so many more opportunities for success than a vast majority of artists out there. with your father being who he is (leonard cohen), you not only get a top quality education in lyricism that NO ONE ELSE on this planet has access to, but you also have access to the people who's sole job it is to "make" a congenial, yet cool, outside image: presumably a team of professional marketers, promoters, agents, etc. to whom you (i assume) could go to and ask for advice on how to best promote this, or how to make that more palatable to a large audience instead of having to flounder like everyone else does.
what exactly were you expecting to find at sxsw that you don't have or haven't already had? little leprechauns wearing cowboy hats and carrying pots of gold and fans, handing them out willy-nilly? unicorns that poo elves who will give you money and make you feel good about "just being you"?

let's say you were expecting to get a contract with a label at sxsw. what exactly does that mean anymore? labels don't want to give you money for promotion, so, while you may have an advance with which to make a record, who's going to promote it for you? who's going to print posters and man your facebook page and send out newsletters and keep you interactive and relevant with your fans on a daily basis? not your label. YOU.
in exchange only for the money to make your album, you get to deal with a label, a conglomerate of people and boards, who are going to tell you that 4 of your 13 songs aren't acceptable and track 5 is ok, but it needs a little more zip and can't you get me one really obvious song that we can MAYBE get the radios to play so it looks like we're trying to promote you? is that the kind of artistic freedom you were looking for at sxsw?

you know adam, there are a lot of technologies and "movements" out there these days where you can live comfortably (not a favorite word of mine) and still do what you love through the kindness and generosity of fans. sites like kickstarter.com can help you raise the money on your own to fund your record, promotion and maybe even a tour.
for example: matt the electrician, an austin-based artist that i've become friends with over the years, just recently used this platform with screaming success. he initially set up the drive for 30 days with a goal of $8,000, only enough to get the bones of his record off the ground. after a small amount of promotion and THREE days, he had the $8,000. after the 30 day drive period, he had more than $25,000 donated by friends, family and fans to get his record made and do whatever he needed to do to get it promoted. and he gets all this without the strings and demands that traditional labels would put on him.
interesting, no? i guess this is what happens when you work hard and put a little pride in yourself and what you've decided to do for a living instead of leaving it up to others who have only a tiny fraction of the vested interest that YOU have in, oh i don't know, your life - your success.

yes, $25,000 is no pot o' gold, but matt's no lady gaga either. you must have some inkling of how uncomfortable she is ALL THE TIME. those crazy shoes she wears? she wears them all the time. she's the equivalent of christian bale's twins and the chinese magician in "the prestige": she lives her illusion. if you want to give up your essence, your self, for total and complete public consumption as lady gaga has, then do it, and watch the money roll in. but, until then, realize there are sacrifices and hard work that come with creating and having fans and, therefore, creating and having success in the music industry.

so, adam cohen, i'm curious what kind of experience you were expecting, what experience would have made you happy with sxsw.

sincerely,

an avid music fan who hates whiners.

backyard

lying on our backs in the soft grass looking up at the stars. the night is warm and sultry, the grass cool and refreshing. the cicadas click and whirl and fill up the night. you take my hand and we just breathe.



"what are you thinking?"

what am i thinking? do you really want to know? because it's crowded in there.

squeezing my hand gently, "tell me."

ok... i'm thinking about how i can smell the warm scent of your skin and how it blends with the smell of the grass and the earth, making me feel safe and snug. how i want to curl up in that smell and live the rest of my life from it. how you make me feel safe without even realizing. i'm thinking of how it scares my heart that anyone, besides me, has the tiniest amount of power to make me feel safe. i'm thinking how it scares my brain more that my (perhaps unfounded) trust and confidence in you trumps my heart's fear of you making me feel safe, making me ok with and able to look objectively at that fear.
i'm thinking about how i would give you anything you ask of me. how i'd probably give it to you even if you didn't ask. how i want to give you only the best me, which is a me that doesn't exist yet, but will when i have a master's degree in my hand. i'm thinking about how you're going to ask for me before the best me is here. i'm thinking about how i'm going to explain to you that the me that i want to give to you isn't here yet in a way that you'll understand.

i'm thinking about that house on five acres with a guest house and outbuildings and a chicken coop and a wet weather creek and lots of trees and pretty slopes with tiny bluebonnets. i'm thinking about how it's just far away enough to be away, but close enough that it doesn't feel like a burden to go to town. i'm thinking about the hammock on the trees upwind from the chicken coop. about swinging lazily on it with you at dusk, watching the fireflies come out to light up the indigo sky. about having horses and dogs and any random animal that comes to live on the "farm". about growing our own vegetables and having lemon, almond, fig, apple and orange trees so we don't ever have to leave that blissful corner. about how avocado trees might not be worth the trouble. avocado smoothies, mmmmmm... ok, they might be worth the trouble.

i'm thinking about where my nest is. or where it will be. and where the sticks and straw are so i can see the materials i'm working with.

i'm thinking about how both feeling the world move underneath my back and feeling your blood pump through your hand makes me dizzy in the most delicious way.

boo!

the mean queens go to the pool at night! BUMMER.

tonight was my first time back in the pool in four months and... i didn't die. this is the first time, though, that i didn't feel AWESOME times 100 about 4 laps in. i think that means i really needed it.

but man, oh man! those queens are MEAN who are at the pool! DAMN! i hope they're not there everyday.

there's this woman...

i want to shake her. she sits in the office next to me. i'm not really in an office, more of an open space, but she's in an office and our desks share a wall.

she's always yelling about something. it's her normal tone of voice, to yell. like she was raised in an environment of exploding bombs: literal ones.

after a week, i started to tune her out because she was only yelling at me about 28% of the time.

but, isn't it lazy and supremely rude to yell at people all the time? it's starting to feel like it.

i know she has an inside voice, i've heard her use it on VERY rare occasions.

maybe a good rap on her throat would shut her up.

hint fiction

this morning on the bus, i read all of the book hint fiction and loved it. these were my favorites:

"before perseus"
Medusa heaves his rigid stone form off herself and cries granite tears. The hat wasn't enough, she thinks. I need some blindfolds.

"chaste"
I always thought it would hurt more but I kind of liked it. He hoped I would. And technically, I'm still a virgin. Amen.

"jermaine's postscript to his seventh-grade poem assignment:
Ms. Tyler, the girl part was about Shantell. Please don't tell anyone.

"free enterprise"
Retail. Thirty-nine hours a week for eighteen years, she says, proud. Like she's a survivor of rape and she knows it.

"ransom"
Broke and desperate, I kidnapped myself.
Ransom notes were sent to interested parties. Later, I sent hair and fingernails, too.
They insisted on an ear.

"breaking labor news"
Our job was to lubricate the time machine and keep it oiled, but man, we just now found out we're being paid by the hour.

how is it?

that it took me 30 years to make my first apple pipe?? ha!

and how is it that i can recite all the words of "blazing saddles" now even better than when i'm not baked?

to all the office husbands: past, present and future

i have known you for two months. we have a light, casual friendship on a professional level because (since "office" is in your title) you don't get to see me drunk. we have lunch once every couple of weeks. you give advice on dude stuff that some always single girls don't know or don't have the patience for or care to learn about: selling cars, fixing macinery like washing machines, putting together stereo components, etc.
in exchange, i am awesome, smart, funny and i actually listen to - and am usually interested in - what you want to talk about, which is generally the stuff you like the most. all of this AND i'm not that hard on the eyes. what more could an office mate want?

so, office husband, when you tell me that you and your REAL wife are splitting up, please don't be offended when i do not accept your invitations to "hang out" outside of work hours. i am really not interested in you physically and am only marginally interested in you otherwise because you are able to hold a conversation that doesn't revolve solely around your car or your phancypants condo. as a matter of fact, your increase attentions toward me in this short period of time now make me uncomfortable. VERY uncomfortable. because i know that there is more than a little part of you hoping to get me drunk enough to let my defenses down... as evidenced that one time that you got drunk over lunch and told me so.

this is not the first time this has happened. or the second. so, believe me when i say this: our friendship needs to be put on hold until you get a girlfriend. a girlfriend who is not me.

i'm totally not sorry that i am so awesome. but you don't get to dip your wick in this company pot.

kisses!

shannon

sometimes

i'm such an asshole to myself. ha!

so until we meet again, i suppose we're just friends

my arm tucked tightly in the crook of your elbow, my hand wrapped up around your arm. i feel tall walking next to you, as though i'm a match for you tonight, even though you tower a head over me. you squeeze me closer to you as you walk me to my car - in step, in silence.

it's drizzling but not enough to notice, not enough to get wet.

when we get to the car, we hold onto each other as though we are the last things we will ever hold. it's not urgent, it's not binding, it's not gripping. it's not fraught with need, only with want - newly realized want. this is what holding should be. we envelop each other equally; my face buried in your chest, your face buried in my hair.
after a long while, we look at each other, smile and say "hi", seeing one another through a new pair of eyes. six years of curiosity, wonder, unspoken and undefinable feelings and inexplicable kinship come to a head as lips meet. tentatively at first, neither truly expecting to find that they are magnets willing themselves together; spinning around each other's surface trying to find the most sticky spot, only to find that they are all sticky in vastly different ways. furtive exploration of mouths and cheeks and tongues and chins ensues: wordlessly, breathlessly.
you pull away abruptly, sighing forcefully, saying "we shouldn't have done that." i stumble over the usual words - the wrong words - for what feels like hours when, in the heat of the moment, you exclaim - proclaim - that my wrong words are right for you, my wrong words are what you want.
confirmation that the heat of the moment is the truest of moments.
it was so unexpected that i didn't ask for clarification. i didn't ask the questions that later popped into my head, into my "right" mind. that was probably for the best.
i rest my forehead on your chest, neither of us want to let go, nor do we know how to proceed. we catch our breath and look at each other again, navigating eyes and faces to find out where we are, forgetting the magnets that live in our lips as they meet again - the only natural course, the only natural response. we give in and let them guide us, pausing for breath but no more words.

your pocket buzzes: the herald reminding us that time continues on and ours is coming to a close. our lips meet again in what we silently tell each other is a farewell kiss, foolishly thinking we have a modicum of control where out mouths are concerned. when they've had their momentary fill, we breathe and unexpected words of intimacy and consolation spill forth from the unknown: whispered softly, heard loudly.
we kiss once more - this time, more in control of our faculties - and say good bye with admonishments to take care of ourselves: take care of ourselves in exactly the way we know we can't right now.
we detach our bodies
gripping arms
sliding down to hands
as we back away from each other, not wanting to break the connection.

it's only after you're standing on the sidewalk and i've opened the car door do i realize that it's raining. really raining. and it has been the whole time, evidenced only by my hand plastering my hair to my face as i try to pry my mind from the fog.

***

this is a first time. this is a moment in time. perhaps it will be another year - another six years - before it happens again for the second time. but now i finally know what all those fairy tale kisses are about: those princesses are being awakened from an old habit, an old notion, an old feeling and seeing the world with new eyes - no more terrible vision. there is an energy within now; not nervous or anxious or scared, but an energy that requires attention: a whirlwind in the heart that finally started spinning the right way.