amplified to rock
Interminable.
That's probably the best way to describe today. I've been here for seven and a half hours and I've had no appointments. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Spending an eight-hour workday doing nothing might seem like a really good thing, but it's not. I really wish I would have had at least one appointment just to break the monotony a little bit.
I got a bunch of my reading done, though. Next week's reading is already finished, and I've started on the reading for the following week. It feels good to be caught up with everything, although technically I'm not caught up with everything--I've got heaps of thesis work to be done. Thinking about all that stuff is really exhausting, though, and I don't need to be any more exhausted.
I'm hoping that I get my second wind tonight for the party. I don't want to be a total pill. Maybe I should just drink another mocha cappucino...that seemed to do the trick last night.
So once I leave here, I'm going to run home, drop some stuff off, throw my crap in an overnight bag, grab my Hulk pillow and my blanket, and head out. I'm going to pick up a 6-pack of beer for Dan, and maybe a little somethin'-somethin' for myself, and I'll probably stop and put gas in the car as well. Then I dash into the city, pick up Tim (that's the name of the boy I've been going out with lately...I have decided that maybe it would be nice to refer to him by name like all the other poor people I talk about here), pick up Matty, get some dinner, go to the party, drink a lot, get silly, and crash on Matty's couch at the end of the night. It should be a smashing good time.
Note to self: Do NOT drink cappucino mocha after 8 PM unless you want to be up all night rolling around trying to sleep!
Damn, I'm tired. I know it's my own fault, if I hadn't had that cappucino mocha I would have fallen asleep the second I went to bed, and I would have had a decent six hours of sleep. But no...I had to do the cappucino thing, and here I am still part-cranked up on caffeine. I'm going to try my best to harness this energy into something useful, like doing my homework. We'll see what happens with that.
Did you know that I changed my shirt three times before I left the house tonight? I started with the black sweater, I didn't like the way that looked, so I put on the orange sweater. Then I realized that I wore an orange t-shirt when I went out last week, so I switched to a white button-down shirt. I worried that I looked too much like a movie theatre usher with my white shirt and black pants, but I tried not to sweat it too much.
So we went to a poetry slam, which was heaps of fun and made me want to write poetry, which is something that I haven't done in ages. I want to participate in the open mic, which seems really really cool. We were both judges for the slam, that was kinda neat. The two performers were both really incredible--they're two of the best in Chicago right now--so we gave a lot of high scores. A couple of times we gave the same score, and I don't think we were looking on each other's little scoreboards, so we must have something in common.
Post-poetry slam, we went to Earwax, where I proceeded to drink a mocha with caramel and get really talky. When I drink a lot of caffeine, I get really talky. So I talked his ear off. I do not think that he minded. I hope that he did not mind. This boy is nice, and I like him, so if he minded, then that's a problem. I did let him get some words in edgewise, though. We are going out again tomorrow night--he's going to Dan's party with Matty and I--and we have plans again for Sunday--going to the poetry slam at the Green Mill.
I'm doing a little dance about the normalcy of this whole thing. I met him IN PERSON, not online. (This is not to belittle meeting people online, but I haven't dated someone I met for the first time in person in years.) He lives IN CHICAGO, not somewhere a long way from here. This is all very, very cool. I likes it.
I need to go take a shower to remove this ashtray smell from my person, and then I need to find some way to calm myself down enough so I can sleep. Damn caffeine...
I leave in approximately half an hour to go out to that poetry slam, and I'm all dressed and ready so I figured I'd update. I haven't given you anything to read today, so here goes:
It was a day of errand-running, and I got a lot done. I cashed my work check from last week (actually, I put most of it in the bank and got a little bit of cash) and found out that the branch of the credit union that I usually go to is closing at the end of March. Very inconvenient and a real pisser, that is. Then I got the oil changed in my lovely car, and they washed it too, so now my lovely car is sparkly inside and out. Then I drove up to IUN, arranged for transcripts to be sent to two grant programs, and returned the two overdue library books. Then I paid my car insurance! Don't you wish that your day had been as exciting as mine?
I had to do laundry because the pants I wanted to wear tonight were dirty. I'm doing the all-black thing: black pants and black sweater. And if you were around on AIM at approximately 5:30 CST, I probably asked you whether I should wear the black boots, the red boots, or the silver boots. Mike said black, Colin said red. My gut instinct is to go with the red boots, so I think I'm going to wear the red boots. Fashion is exciting!
The boy from last Sunday night emailed me today. It turns out he was out of town for the past couple of days, and that explains why he didn't respond to my email. From what he said, I think he was a little peeved at me about this, which I do not understand. He was nice, I enjoyed going out with him, I'd go out with him again...but like I said, I'm not willing to chase him to the ends of the earth. This isn't a dis--there are very few people I would chase to the ends of the earth, and even fewer who I would pursue with fervor after a first date. It seems like every time I get persistent with a boy the boy ends up bitching about it, so I tend to just back off, throw the ball in their court, and just sit back and try not to sweat it if/when they don't respond. If I let every little thing get to me, I'd be an enormous bag of issues. I'd rather be a small-to-medium size bag of issues, thank you very much.
It's time for me to put on my red boots and go out. It should be a good time! Then tomorrow night...Dan's party! Fun weekend!
Weblog Cliche #3214: The Haiku Entry
Vignettes is back up
Nanette is a fool for love
His ex is a nut
That's about the summary of that entire month worth of entries. Seriously, though...I wear the drama queen tiara so well in Vignettes. I just re-read all of it, and god damn is it overwrought sometimes. But now you can read it if you missed it. Enjoy...
Someone managed to get to my site while searching for the name of one of my ex-boyfriends. This gives me an idea: I'll search for my ex-boyfriends with
Google and see if I can find some of them. Fun!
Tom Kowalski was the first boy I ever kissed, and the person who got me into punk rock when I was an impressionable 14-year old. If any one of my exes were to have an internet presence, I would suspect it would be him. I remember that he used to play "Stroker" on the Amiga and I would act all embarassed by the 8-bit penis graphics but secretly I thought it was kinda funny. I doubt that he's a realtor, a sports journalist, or a curriculum supervisor. I figured he'd be doing something in computers, but none of the computer people named Tom Kowalski could be him. Oh well.
Kevin Mulford probably wouldn't be considered a boyfriend, but he was a good friend who I fooled around with on a couple of occasions, and he's one of those people I'd love to catch up with. I found him! I found him! After four or so years of looking, I found him! I'm so happy that I am practically crying, people. This is probably the coolest thing that's happened in a long time. I am going to email him. The dead giveaway was this article, which mentions the fact that he studied in Germany. I know a number of crude German phrases thanks to Kevin...I can say "until I piss on your cat again" like a real German.
Glenn Dehmer used to call me in the middle of the night during my junior year in college. I have a couple of videotapes of him acting like a jackass. I haven't seen him since 1996, I was at a club and I saw him there, he was with his girlfriend and he ignored me when I said hi. (Insert meow + whipcrack sound.) He called me the night he thought of his DJ name and I think I told him that it sounded stupid. The site looks nice, but my god, that awful text..."Throughout the Midwest and beyond, dj puLz-8 takes the musically starved and feeds them the proper amount of phat beats and minerals." Ew. The mention of Off the Alley, which is where I met him back in the day, made me smile, though.
Oh my. This is amusing. I certainly know a couple of other "interests" that this guy had...bwahahahahahaaha...and they weren't caffeine and nicotine, either. I want to know when he started liking the Replacements. He never liked anything that cool when I dated him back in 1991-92. He actually ruined U2's Achtung Baby forever for me. I can't listen to that album, or any of the songs from it, without thinking of him and cringing. And he did have a very memorable Saved by the Bell fetish. But that is only one of several very memorable fetishes that he had. Heh.
I lived with this guy. He broke my Missouri State Highway Patrol coffee mug and made me totally fucking miserable for several months. I assure you that he did not have that frightening facial hair when I was involved with him. Please believe me. He had frightening nappy white-boy dreadlocks when I lived with him. You can stop laughing now, I'd appreciate it. He was, without a doubt, the shortest, hairiest person I have ever been involved with, and he also had the poorest hygiene habits.
David McCarty was a southern boy and a very good kisser. All I could find was his email address, but I'm tempted to email him to see if he remembers me. 1994, San Antonio, Texas, the Hyatt Hotel, his friend was being stalked, we saw Pulp Fiction together and stayed up all night. He sent me a postcard a week or so later, I still have it somewhere in my room. I kept in in my backpack for months because I didn't want Don to see it. Oooh, that accent. I should email him.
I'm going home now. My long day is over!
Midterm mission: accomplished. It took me about an hour. The professor gave us a "make up your own question" option, so I wrote some blabber about the nature of genius. Exciting. The other question I answered involved drawing parallels between Gertrude Stein's writing and modernist painting. Easy, easy, easy.
I should be getting that back next week.
I've got a couple of hours off, so I'm going to make good use of them by going to the library and doing a bit of research. I had *three* appointment cancellations today. I think I have one appointment this evening, and that's it. I kind of wish things would pick up around here...
Some of the best news ever, via
Dear 23: Season 3 of
Sifl and Olly will be released on video! It will be available through
sifl-n-olly.com. Even better...if this one does well, MTV may release seasons 1 and 2! ROCK!
Matty and I think that MTV should have a comedy channel. We both watched a bunch of old Beavis and Butthead episodes last weekend. That show really was genius. Can you imagine how cool MTV Comedy could potentially be? Reruns of The State, Sifl and Olly, Beavis and Butthead, Daria, Remote Control...
I made a list of things I need to do tomorrow during the day, and it's fairly extensive. I found two overdue library books this morning while I was searching for the books I need for my midterm (which is at 1:30, so send some good thoughts my way). IUN has some new policy where the fine is $5 *immediately* when the book is overdue. Which means that I now have ten dollars worth of overdue book sitting on my bed. I'm going to take them back tomorrow, but I'm going to make sure I get ten dollars worth of information out of them first.
I rented movies last night. I haven't rented movies in a while, mainly because I always have such a hard time devoting the time to watching movies. That sounds so lame, but it's true. So last night, I watched the movie Loser. (I am a sucker for cheesy teen comedies.) I was shocked to realize that I find Jason Biggs (or, as Matty and I call him, "pie fucker") cute in that movie. I think it's his mid-90s haircut. When he cuts his hair at the end of the movie, he is not so cute. It was total fluff, but I enjoyed it. I also rented Bring it On (hey, some people whose tastes I really respect liked it!) and Jesus' Son (I've heard good things about it). I think I'm going to force Matty to watch Bring it On with me this weekend. I think he needs to see it.
I haven't heard from the boy I was supposed to be going out with tomorrow during the day, so that's pretty much cancelled, which is a good thing as I have about a million items on the aforementioned List of Things to Do. I do have a date tomorrow night, however. I'm going to a poetry slam. I am culturally deprived, I have never been to a poetry slam, so I am looking forward to this. On Friday night, I'm headed to a goodbye party for Dan, who is moving back to New York. Last time I went to one of his parties, I met Maura and I watched Matty's roommate (whose name is also Matt) eat a donut smothered in mayonnaise. I also drank a lot of gin and kissed Aaron for the first time that night. Wow, that was an eventful evening...
If you've emailed me in the past few days, I should be getting back to you within the next day or so. I've been trying to get better about responding to email, and I'm going through and answering everything. Eventually, my goal is to respond to all email within a day or two, but we'll see about that. Heh. And if you've never emailed me, what are you waiting for?
Makeoutclub Follies: Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that I am 0 for 2 when it comes to dates with people I have met through the
Makeoutclub. However, this doesn't mean that I don't search the damn profiles just to check out the boys. Don't get me wrong: I've never messaged or emailed or contacted anyone from the Makeoutclub. Seriously. I'm not forward like that. But today I caught myself leering at a particularly cute 18-year old and I felt kind of gross. There also seems to be an influx of pretentious art students from Chicago. They're probably looking for Stereolab types with "nice shoes" and some sort of exotic foreign accent who are willing to be photographed in vintage clothing for their "art shows".
Best yet: I found a profile put up by someone who was a friend of an ex-boyfriend. He's about the ditziest man I've ever met--he managed to lock his keys in a car that was still running. Now, I've locked my keys in my car before, but *never* while it was running. I hadn't thought of him in forever, so it was kind of amusing to see his picture up on the ol' MOC.
So about this 0 for 2 business. The first date wasn't all that bad. The guy was nice and friendly and all that, and I had a good time, but it wasn't what you would call "a love connection." I could see myself talking to him if I ran into him at a show, but I could not see myself getting hot 'n heavy with him. You know what I'm saying? And then the second date, well, we were supposed to go out again on Thursday during the day, but he hasn't emailed me back yet, so I don't know if that's happening or not. He was cute and all, but not so mind-blowing that I feel compelled to chase him to the ends of the earth to get a response to my email. I did my part, I threw the ball into his court...if he chooses not to return it to me, well...we know whose loss that is, don't we? Heh.
A new poll for you to vote in:
What color should I dye my hair? The poll will stay open until February 28, I get my hair cut/colored on March 1. If you've got any reasons why you picked the color you picked, or if you'd like to vote for "other," let me know. The stipulations? No blonde, no black. I guess I'm just not one for extremes.
Share the love, people: Everyone's favorite
indie/emo meat market now has
postcards. Some of them are extremely clever, some of them are extremely cheesy. The Hulk one is clever, so is the "you suck in bed" one. The one with the flower makes me want to throw up. If there's one thing I hate, it's cheesy lines.
(This is probably because I am a sucker for cheesy lines, and I'm embarassed about it. Seriously. I have fallen for some of the cheesiest lines in the book, and I'm trying to be more aware of it. This means that trying to lure me back to your apartment for a night of action by using the line "Hey, you want to see my MP3 player?" probably is not going to work, tempting though it is. Heh.)
...twiddling thumbs...
So, anyone see that Behind the Music about Journey last night?
Two weblogs that make me laugh:
--
Champainful, a new member of the
indieblogs family. I find the exchange about the Sea and Cake to be extremely funny for some odd reason.
and
--Dodongo Dislikes Smoke, which can be so incredibly juvenile sometimes, but that's the charm of it. For example, this adventure in plumbing made me laugh out loud. Besides, Jody is also a fan of Ween, which gives him some cool points.
After re-reading the Indie Rock Girl's Guide to Dating Classic Rock Boys, Matty decided to call and remind me that "Free Will" appears on the Rush album
Permanent Waves and not on
2112. I've already been told this by a few others, but I think I'll be adding a brief errata section at the bottom of the entry just so you all don't think I'm misinformed when it comes to my knowledge of the music of Rush.
So I had three appointments this evening, and two of them cancelled, thus leaving me with nothing to do. Well, nothing except work on the paper that's due tomorrow evening. Bleh. I guess I'm going to do some research now...
Kill Rock Stars is having a 10-year anniversary sale. All items are $10, even items that normally cost less than $10. There's some bargains out there, though. I picked up a few things I had been eyeing for a while, mostly double CDs. (Most KRS single CDs normally cost $10 if you buy them mail-order anyhow.) Thanks to
Teddy for the heads-up on that.
NYLPM links to an interview with Gail from Chickfactor zine, which is one of those zines that I read even though it often makes me cringe with all its cutesy questions and affectations. I can't quite put my finger on what about this interview annoys me so, but it does. Maybe it's Gail's constant asskissing of Stephin Merritt...I mean, how many times can she drop his name in that interview? She likes the Magnetic Fields. We get it. And I've got to agree with Tom's comment over at NYLPM regarding the odd distinction she makes between print zines and online music criticism.
More search string madness: a Yahoo! search for
"indie girl sex" will take you to this
gem from the archives. People have also reached my site by searching for "REO Speedwagon pictures" and "boyfriend's ex-girlfriend wrote me a letter." I apologize for talking about something as ungodly dull and stereotypically webloggy as weird search strings. I promise that it will not lead to pictures of my cat and extensive quotes from AIM conversations featuring a bizillion inside jokes.
My foot is asleep, and there's a fucking Deftones video on M2. It's on mute. And just when I thought it could not possibly get worse than the Deftones*, now there's some video for yet another mask-wearing band with a misspelled name. Mudvayne. Will this mask-wearing band madness ever end? It's like hair metal for the early 2000s. When the junior high boys who listen to this shit grow up and their tastes become (hopefully) better, they'll still have their Mudvayne and ICP and Linkin Park and Slipknot albums in the back of their closets, and every so often they'll take them out and get nostalgic the way boys my age get nostalgic over their Whitesnake and Motley Crue albums.
It is now after noon and I have not done anything at all. I work at 3 today, so I should probably make some sort of effort in the direction of getting dressed and doing something with my day. I have a paper to write tonight, but knowing me, I won't get to it until after I get home from work. It's not going to require too much effort so I'm not all that concerned with it.
----
*I don't expect to hear any crap from you Deftones fans out there. I think they should be indicted for crimes against music for that awful Smiths cover they did a while back.
First of all, I find it incredibly funny that a Google search for "cute indie rock boys" turns up
three results, and two of them are written by me.
So I'm back from Decatur. It was a fun, though peaceful, trip. I didn't sleep much, and I didn't drink as much as I had suspected I would. Last night we went to Springfield to eat at the Olive Garden, which was a good time. The food didn't suck as bad as usual, and guess what? I tried something new. I ate a black olive. It was kind of salty but not bad. I would consider eating a black olive again some time.
Last night was one of those nights where I remember doing things but I am not quite sure what they were. I know we watched some Mr. Show. I know Matt and Andy and Colin downloaded some old-school rap off of Napster. I know that Aaron and I made a late-night run out for pop (I wanted some pop, and I dragged him along with me) and we saw some sort of weird, surreal scene at the Mobil station on the corner of Eldorado and Oakland. I know we looked at old photographs of Colin and Andy and Aaron, photos from high school, and we were amazed at how young everyone looked. I know that Matty was sleeping on the couch and snoring rather loudly at 5-something in the morning, and I know that Aaron suggested that we go out for breakfast because it was such a weird combination of late and early. I know that I was wearing my blanket around my shoulders cape-style, and that, when asked, I couldn't say what type of superhero I would be.
But really, the night was kind of a blur. Things happened, but I have a hard time placing them appropriately. Had I known that Matty has tomorrow off work, I would have suggested that we stay an extra night down there. I suspect I'll be back down there in a month for St. Patrick's Day weekend, because Matty will be in Atlanta and I probably won't be able to find anything better to do.
We made the drive home in record time--two hours, forty-five minutes from Decatur to Matty's door, with one ten-minute stop in Rantoul for gas and pop. Not bad.
When I got into the city, I had the date I mentioned here. Said date was a little truncated, but I knew it was going to be a quick one anyhow. I ate some falafel at one of those 'spensive Wicker Park restaurants full of people who don't turn their damn cell phones off when they're eating. It was a nice time, the food was tasty and the company was pleasant. Best yet, he doesn't have a personal webpage, so I don't have to sit here sweating it out waiting for him to post what he thought of the date! We are going out again on Thursday, heading to the Art Insititute. It should be nice.
