October 2008 Archives

It is all, in fact, Happening. For real this time.

Calendars, photo-graphics, and all things Seattle here.

Watch for me as a contributor here. Starting like, tomorrow.

And of course, copious and ample updates here. Weekly, if not sooner. New sets are always first-est.

I'll come back and we'll all "remember when?" and laugh about how it was when it all first started out... because I think this just might be the beginning of everything. Like, my life figured out how to get good, right this last week.

As Lady Dottie put it today, "Peace and love, peace and love!" She also reminded us that the Good Lord™ makes everything possible, you know, that everything was *His* doing, when Cheryl asked her how she got from gospel to blues to San Diego.

Now, go on and spread that good word, kids.

PS: Pablo Trucker is your new favorite everything.

xx
imaginary viva

On the heels of a late-night kitchen conversation about masturbatory blogging, I've decided to take my online writing life off the public viewer for a bit. This will be hereafter known as the "Do you really need to blog, or just to type?" experiment. I've got to tell you - I love science projects. Where I get to be all fascinated watching myself react to something, emotionally or physically or what have you. I'm also pretty excited that I've cut so much proverbial fat out of my life (you don't need more hangers! you need less stuff!) that I am able to fine tune these little points of my character. Well, this might be a big one. But you know what I mean.

So, for my four loyal readers - fret not. In the interest of doing things that further What I Want To Be When I Grow Up (which I am still not completely committed to, for various reasons), I'm starting a mailing list for anyone interested in reading it. This is not because I'm so important that I think people want to subscribe to like, reading about my life, or something, it's because - well, it's for several reasons: One, Deb and Janet and I are perpetually emailing each other about shows, what our schedules are, what we're going to, how much it costs, and trying to coordinate - via "reply alls" all back and forth. It's just not efficient. And you all know how we love efficiency... Two, there are a handful of people who get excited for me, who follow my blog in a non-masturbatory blogging kind of way, who want to see pictures I've taken, and who generally just kind of cheer me on - friends, ex-lovers, favorite ex-girlfriends... just kidding. But for those six people who catch up once a month - on top of the four regular readers, and Deb and Janet - well, I think that dirty dozen (we'll make that a baker's dozen, with me thrown in the mix) has a right to stay informed.

I've been told I'm in the middle of extraordinary events. And so on the chance that that's true, that I will want to look back and remember when, all amazed by the movie my life has become - and on the chance that you want to read about that chance - shoot me an email. I'll keep you posted on everything that's fit to print. Well, no - mostly on everything that's fit to see in Seattle, as well as the metered, baby-steps progress of my somewhat music oriented career.

In the words of a guy I met on movie sidewalk night:

I don't really grok what you do. It has something to do with music and pictures and blogging and wonderment... kexp is involved somehow... what's fall tour?

I don't know either. And as a matter of fact, that's a pretty good start. Here's to music, and pictures, and blogging, and wonderment. I am a flawed, chunky-dialouged, blissful rough draft. And I'll send you love letters on Monday mornings about it if you want. You can find me here:

victoria [at] hot avocados [dot] com

and we'll take it from, well, there. Who knows... if it gets bigger than all of us, we might have to like, start a blog. Or something.

kiss kiss, bang bang, Viva! Sea-Tac!
~Victoria (with a flourish)

[I walked you home, 10.20.08, 7:00 a.m., Broadway QFC]

These are some flowers from a dream I had.

:*
~VvB

And yes I said yes I will yes.

If I could, I would superimpose myself over the dog in this photo, because it's how I feel. I woke up in the middle of the night, beaming. I could hardly sleep.

I am *totally* glowing in the dark right now. Kudos to KRDO for the original post, for Beaming Pups(TM), and here's to Ballard. Of all places.

Viva Sea-Tac, indeed.

VIVA (Sea-Tac!)

I'd like, whip around in my code, changing the titles of stuff all the time.

KRDO, are you out there? I wanted to put this above the calendar.

Kisses,
VIVA

A lot of things were different in 1994. Getting wasted was still fun, most of the time. I weighed about 30 pounds less than I do now - I was barely 18. I had a lot of choices in front of me still to make, although sometimes I feel like in the last 14 years nothing has happened - even though I know a lot has.

And my parents were still alive.

We always had storybook holidays, even well into the past-Santa stages, where we would wake up to presents my parents still took the time to purchase in secret, and hide, and make up stories about not having. To stuffed stockings, overflowing with treats from CVS instead of candies. And those years that we were all smoking, cigarettes, partly as a joke, but still there. Commercial misgivings aside, there was hope, and family, and abundant dinners, and traditions. The same things in the same spots in the house. The homemade potpourri on the stove. The same dishes my mom and aunt got up to make, dishes my grandmother once made.

This year is going to be much, much different.

I came out of a daydream today and I thought that Thanksgiving was next weekend, instead of Halloween in two. I've been writing a letter to Dan Savage in my head, after the article he wrote in the Stranger about his mother dying. About how there was so much denial, and I how I used to think denial was purposeful, the way it was in relationships, instead of a tool almost to help you function through the tragedy of whatever you are slaloming through at that moment, when you look back and wonder how you made it, like a crystal vase that just went across the country in a wooden box. Denial wraps you in bubbles, and blankets, and tapes you up securely so that you survive the ride.

The last Christmas my mother was alive, she knew she was dying and she hadn't told anyone besides my aunt (and not her sister, I'm talking about my father's sister, the strangest choice, like telling someone you did something crazy that's not involved in your life - just because you have to tell someone) and I think about that Christmas morning when I see this ornament I have, it's just the word "hope" all hung on a string, in lowercase, I actually think about a picture I have of her from that morning. Where we're all doing our thing, and she's in the background with a faraway look - she knew it would be her last holiday with us. We knew too, but not really. I often say to myself in my head that she started dying a little bit at a time after my father died. They had pushed through the hard parts and made it work and picked between bread and coffee when they grocery shopped, and had entered into their time. They put off their lives to raise us, because they were supposed to. I've stopped trying to figure out the why of all of it. In those moments, there is all Universe and absolutely nothing, simultaneously. And if I stay on it too long, I'll flatten out under the couch and never come out. There is nothing that brings you back from that, nothing that heals, no treats to lure you out into the sunlight. It just has to change. And change only happens with time. It's like AA, how there's no guarantee that things will get better. They just guarantee that things will get different.

The funny thing is, the person who made me realize how amazing and selfless my mom was was Raf. I just saw her like that, the parents that would have coffee with my friends once I got sober, the surrogate mom, the open door policy, the open arm policy. I'd always say, no, come borrow my parents, they'll drink coffee and like, smoke butts. Because as much as I learned in therapy about damage, I also learned that they did the best they could, and had a lot of hard calls to make - harder than figuring out which vice they could afford, and how sandwiches won over coffee, and how coffee and cigarettes went neck and neck sometimes - and succeeded in raising two daughters in the vein of the American Dream, with dogs and photographs for good measure. With the whole world laid out before them, me and my sister, I mean. And Raf took that an extra step, in an email he wrote to me on the first anniversary of her death last February - how amazing it was, that she just knew how to love, and how much we struggle to just love other people and to learn how to be good to each other - it really was well done. The note. Donna always said people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Raf had an extended season. Kristin's a lifer. Megan said that when you feel shitty, to dress pretty. George had medical advice. And so on, and so on. I'm glad it's all gone the way it has, death and throwing dishes across the room notwithstanding.

Things are going to be different. My sister will undoubtedly make the holiday about her being alone, passive aggressively at that. It would be different if she just called it what it was, but she won't. I don't think she knows how. In the meantime, I'm going to start looking around to try and find where I can volunteer on Thanksgiving. I'm going to take it one holiday at a time. I'm going to. Going. With occasional resting, but mostly going. I always hated it, when people would chronically be "going to" be doing whatever, but aside from some grandiose plans I get into from time to time, what I'm going to do and what I wind up doing seem to coincide more often than not.

Sometimes you have to work on Christmas, sometimes... I am going to actively not participate in the consumption aspect of the holidays this year. I think I'll take some pictures, and like, make stuff - but that's about as far as I can go. The year before last year, I did all of my accessory shopping at the dollar store in East Haven - I found Lamby Banks (instead of Piggy Banks) and votive holders shaped like stars, and votives shaped like stars. Nobody had any idea. I'm sure small children were tortured for the doing so, but still.

Jesus I had a lot of words to get out. I had no idea. I'm fucking exhausted.

From the depths of the Zymo system,
Viva (! SeaTac!)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As self-consciously hip Yale students have been known to lament, rock gets lost amidst an onslaught of classical and a cappella music. "The predicament of New Haven in rock history," Bob Bannister, SY '82, founder of the Desperate Bellboys, one of Yale's first punk bands, said, "is that it's principally a place you end up on your way to, or from, doing something more significant elsewhere."

(!!!)
VvB

The title to this entry is one of the following:

(a) the balance in my checking account,
(b) a band I'm going to go see on Saturday night,
(c) a and b,
(d) none of the above.

Well, yes. At this moment, my checking account is about four dollars overdrafted, and (the?) Minus 5 will be at the Tractor on Saturday in Ballard. Of all places. Payday is tomorrow. Phew.

I'm all achy and happy, still. I'm suprised when it stays like this, like, every day, I expect it to go away somehow. My tattoo consultation is today at 6. Showbox time is at 7. I had all these important things to write down, but they seem to escape me now... the crunch of fall, the rush of shows, chocolate, the urge for hearty soups, photographs, and how I can feel Mercury retrograde leaving the stratosphere. Reading the paper this morning, making new friends. Architect Homework: A Course in Magic Shadow Drawing. Bliss. Glittery things. The way Kristin looks on her scooter, how I'm tired but in a good way, how I need more coffee lately it seems (well, maybe just today for that last one).

Cowboy coffee: mud, and sunsets, and daydreams. Carrying big half-stiff leaves around in the grocery store, the super-specific images I have for rock stars and their photographs, and how I wish my mom could have died more comfortably, and how I've got to send that letter to Dan Savage about his article. Pumpkin flavored everything. Buttons. Catherine Wheel discoveries. The silence of the night, up in the fort, surrounded by photographs, spooning, when I should be asleep, too excited to be, so excited to be alive. How Seattle is ours when it's still dark out in the morning. The rustle of silver tassles as she pulls away. The grace of motivation. The gift of sleeping in, but only on some days (Sundays). You love the brush. You love the gym. The week after next and how there's a show almost every single fucking day, between in-studios and the venues and the record stores.

Everything. All the time.

Love and rockets, eyes pulled from sockets, Halloween descends and I've got nothing to wear. Knee socks, how I changed my shoes to go to work today, paper cutout sunburst hearts and horoscopes left behind on the countertop. Framing the days. How sometimes I can't get through a simple pile of work, and how funny it is who keeps in touch. The radio on the radio. Anniversaries, coincidences that are anything but, a million more the minute I give up. Old wallpaper. The Space Needle.

The Space Needle.

Full and clean, how much easier it would be to be a small dog some days, where I could walk up to people with a face that spelled out all the love in the world that I needed right in that moment, and how I'd get pet, and curl up all warm to the touch, content, reassured. I need someone to brush my hair. I don't think I even own a hairbrush. It didn't make that last part of the packing, when I realized about a third of what I was trying to bring was all that was going to fit. Red plastic music crates. DeVotchka on New Year's. I already feel quite different.

Are you in New York? Near New York? Go to CMJ. Please. Go down to Gibson Studios and hang out with the station. Because the lineup looks so, so good, and because - well, because I can't. If I start saving $20.00 a week now, I'll be able to justify plane fares and a week off from work for next year.

Kiss kiss, bang bang -
VvB

Hello Victoria,

Here's your 2 day reminder:

Please call 206-xxx-xxxx if you cannot make your confirmed time.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Confirmed: Events - Seattle
Venue: Showbox
Subject: Pinback (7:00-11:30pm, All Ages)
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2008
Time: 7:00pm to 11:30pm

omg.

:*
VvB

so I will have to revisit this moment later, when the stack of papers is not chasing the clock and chasing me out the door.

but I'm having such a *moment* that I had to stop and tell you...

go here. put in today's date (the 15th of rOctober, 2008 if you happen to be catching this on archive) and 8:00 am for the time. I think it starts happening around five after.

after the talk-break, I had this little second of my life being so good and so enough in this moment, right during "dogging my step" when there's an instant and a note change that made me laugh and clasp my hands to my chest and brought on the new tears all at once.

and then some copies had to get made. and so I had to swallow it down. but the timing couldn't be any better.

I am, today, angela and not rayanne - but only for a second - giggling into my coffee cup, laughing when things aren't funny, blissed out beyond the blissing out of it all.

here's to all things red.

xx
VvB

All writing in my head all day...

You used to be someone / who meant something / to me - and talking to George about the timeshare paperwork a couple of weeks ago - it was so strange, because there was nothing there. Nothing. Like talking to a stranger in the grocery store about the peanut butter machine, only even less than that, because I talk to strangers in the grocery store sometimes, and it's kind of fun. But this was like, nothing. Nothing at all. The laminate countertop of this desk at my job. But even that like, holds stuff up.

Like like like. Side effects of watching MSCL compulsively.

So, on to more important things - there's this picture Kristin has of us [note, this entry is being transcribed from a pre-scan scrawl in the receptionist notebook earlier this morning] and we're all bursting at the seams, a time Ugly came and played back in New Haven in the nineties. All Barney sheet pillowcases at the Space. All laying around, all high, all beaming. Screaming, "I am glowing in the dark right now!" out of our faces without even having to say anything. We're all fuzzy and out of focus. And, again, absent consupmtion of said substances, it's possible to feel that good all the time... it's happening to me constantly. To want for nothing, besides maybe like, some tights or something. To be ever-present, full and beaming and alive.

I should know. (I'm a medical doctor. You should quit...)

Has anyone ever taken space to write about how the headlines on the Gmail spam folders give you spam recipies? Spam Primavera. Spam Bake. I think we should discuss that sometime. They've left me alone at work again, and I've got to get this letter off to Dan Savage. But maybe after that.

:*
VvB
[Keeping the goodness going since 1976.™]

It's my four year anniversary of being KEXP-bound. I only know this because Ray Lamontagne had an in-studio in New York this morning, which I knew was coming, and heard John referencing when I got out of Caffe Vita (because I live here now) and got back in my car this morning to go to work (DOWN THE STREET BECAUSE I LIVE IN SEATTLE). And so, here, in my office, at my Seattle job, where I like, live and work and everything now, I looked up Ray's old in-studio, the one I constantly reference, that started everything.

It was like, literally, four years ago. October 8th. Go listen. Like, now. It's amazing.

A lot can happen in four years. Like, a real lot. I'm so excited all the time about just... being alive, and being here, that I can barely sit still. I almost don't need coffee in the morning.

Almost.

And I was this way *before* Sean Nelson emailed me back.

You can imagine how my day is going today, as a result.

kisses and shiny gold records,
VvB

See? It's all happening so fast.

:*

as I sit here, open slates, almost too many possibilities, and I get stuck trying to figure out where to start. almost every morning lately I get stuck, standing in the living room, with a big grin on my face. should I go to the gym? to go write? both? do I want to bring anything to read? should I write love letters? watch the sun come up?

7:13 a.m., Pacific Standard Time.

I was just writing back to will, and what I wound up saying was that as I listen to myself describing my life to other people, I start to grin and burst at the seams on the inside... and it's like, everyone here gets it. well, not everyone everyone literally I'm sure, but more people than other places I've been, where you can just start chatting with the person next to you and everyone seems so much more open and kind of mentally aroused... maybe a big part of it is because I am and so I'm more open to it, but still. I think it's different here, like there's something in the water or something. or maybe you don't come here until you like, know. but it's just... I can't even come up with all the right words for it right now. I think part of me is totally overwhelmed (in a good like, orgasm-machine way) that there's so much open and available to me at this very moment, and that it's like that every day. I feel like I need to channel all of this energy someplace, that I need to like, make a Plan.

I think a part of it too that I had all this stuff in my head holding me back - Shelving Issues. And as that starts to subside, as I don't want for anything to be okay - I get all this real estate back up in my head. Big, calm expanses of grass in the breeze, like, bluegrass, and sunshine filmed shots - and that seems to be paving the way for more possibilities. I feel like I don't have anything to write about in the mornings these last few days, but the reality is that all the anxiety and panic about major life decisions has either begun or is well into subsiding, and... and and and so there's all this like, room. like a cluttered house shifted into a clean, empty creaky charming bungalow. so empty that it gets all brimming over with possibilities.

kristin wrote a while back, after she got here, when she wrote for TIG and hit these goals and was like, well, now what?

well. now what?

I want to know what's up with my job, and they know I want to know, and so I'm letting them kind of chew on it, there's been some closed-door conference calls, and a lot of important people will be here from san diego this week (omg I'm on the west coast!!!) and hopefully I'll hear soon. and if not, since right now is officially the end of my temp assignment, I can start pawing around, and what have you. really, I can't see them not keeping me. but okay, so that's like, kind of a concern, but I have the resources and technology to handle however that one goes. so I've thought about it, and figured it out, and it's just like, there.

I need some tights, and I want to make a photo album. I've got to get some salad stuff at the store before I get to work today. um... oh, right, I want to be a photographer, so I'm taking a class, and I fixed my flash situation (read: charged a new one), and I check the KEXP shiftboard as well as all the calendars pretty much daily to see if there's stuff to shoot. I'm up writing practically every day, keeping the slate clean. I've got a stack of books I'm slowly, slowly chipping away at. I'm making big payments on all my bills, and once I have Permanent Employment I can get a consolidation loan and stop throwing away my money. I live in a place, in an environment both in the apartment and in the city that fosters my creative growth, with unlimited cost-effective resources at my fingertips to do pretty much anything I want. and stuff happens like yesterday, where I'm listening to an in-studio and so floored by it that I can get in my car and go there to hear the end of the set and wind up meeting the band and hanging out there for my lunch break. I'm eating better, at a minimum I'm measuring the things that aren't good for me and not eating too much of them. I have like, no items to manage. I should probably get my oil changed. but like, this is my life. these are the most pressing things. I have little art projects I want to do in secret, but I can tell you guys because you're not here and you can't like, steal it from me - I want to do the Monday Morning Photobooth Project, to make Monday Morning Drudgery obsolete. and we're knocking at the door of november, and it's going to be time to start the book. then it will be the holidays, and then the new year.

what else... get rubber cement. send photo cds to stacey. buy cinnamon. send my friends disposable cameras so they can take pictures of cats. it's like, bit by bit, baby step by baby step, I'm re-entering the stream of life. I'm participating. quietly, and in these little ways at first - trying things on. I am This. I am Not That. you know.

I am. I have. I want. I feel like a ballerina today. I am going to start capitalizing my entries, unless I'm like, writing-writing, because I'm tired of thinking about it.

Another gorgeous, perfect Tuesday. I took the title of this entry from the woman here, it's what she said after she fell off a chair pretty dramatically cleaning off posters from the bulletin board, and when she came by and I asked her if she was okay, and she assured me she was, and I told her we were coming out of Mercury retrograde, and the ends and beginnings are harder than the middle. And about how I had like, broken a bunch of glasses and set the parsley on fire and stuff. And as she walked away she was like, "That sounds good. I'm going to blame it on the stars."

That sounds good.

I'm going to blame it on the stars.

xx
VvB

top 903 albums, ever, chosen from a limited list of course - I wonder what would have happened if they allowed write-ins. which I managed to do. because there were no frames albums.

you can see the whole list here.

1 Radiohead - OK Computer
2 Clash - London Calling
3 Arcade Fire - Funeral
4 Nirvana - Nevermind
5 Pixies - Doolittle
6 Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
7 Beatles - White Album
8 U2 - The Joshua Tree
9 Radiohead - The Bends
10 Pixies - Surfer Rosa
11 Radiohead - Kid A
12 Beatles - Abbey Road
13 Jeff Buckley - Grace
14 Beatles - Revolver
15 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
16 The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
17 Pearl Jam - Ten
18 David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
19 Beatles - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
20 Radiohead - In Rainbows
21 The Cure - Disintegration
22 Elliott Smith - Either/Or
23 Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
24 Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
25 Beastie Boys - Pauls Boutique
26 Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
27 Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
28 Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St.
29 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
30 Postal Service - Give Up
31 Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica
32 Built To Spill - Perfect From Now On
33 Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
34 Weezer - Weezer
35 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
36 Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
37 Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
38 Replacements - Let it Be
39 Velvet Undergound & Nico - Velvet Underground & Nico
40 Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
41 Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
42 Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
44 Elliott Smith - XO
45 Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
46 Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
47 The National - Boxer
48 A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
49 Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
50 Band of Horses - Everything All The Time

hi. I LIVE HERE. and not here, with the rest of the free world, so before you complain about the top ten or twenty or that it's boxer instead of alligator (I mean, come on people, really, they may as well have called it "alligator vol. II" or something). toni braxton. ace of base. what the fuck.

really.

VvB

It's the invariable water cooler talk on Monday mornings, not to get ahead of the fact that it's 11:00 on a gorgeous sunbeams-sliced-through Sunday morning, and the whole big, beautiful day is looming ahead of me. I don't know what to do with myself. I've been up since 9 and I can't quite tell you what's happened since then - I know. I showered, and put the bathroom back together from cleaning it. I got dressed. I stripped the bed and hung everything out on the railing outside so that it could get new air, and put the sheets and floormats in the wash. I taped leaves up onto the windows, and washed last night's dishes. And I've been all kinds of derailed. I woke up this morning and it took me a half an hour to physically get out of bed, which I only did because the cats were screaming at the tops of their little cat-lungs. I couldn't not get up because it was hard, or because I wanted to sleep more - I woke up so excited that I didn't know where to start. And the possibilities, while technically endless, weren't overwhelming or anything: straighten up, go get fresh herbs for sauce... read. Write. Coffee, maybe here, or Ladro, or the new Vivace. Gym? Nah. Tomorrow. Go pick up the flash at Glazer's. Cut strawberries. Take a walk down Broadway. Get a movie for Super Sunday Slackfest (our new weekly installment here at the Aloha Cabana). Start thinking seriously about Halloween. Put the Tom Brosseau stuff up on the walls someplace, maybe up over the fridge in the kitchen.

So, here I am. This is the writing part. Glossy cats napping all over the place. Wrens t-shirt. Hi.

And I don't even know what to say. Well, I do, I mean, I just did - and it's still a continuation of the thing that kicked in last week that hasn't left, where the voltage meters swelled and the Universe started throwing me hearts - it hasn't ended. Every day I try to stay tuned into all these little intuitions, and it's working. And it just gets better, and better, and better. It's "awesome", and by "awesome", I don't mean the band "Awesome", I mean "totally fucking amazing and righteous and it seems like awesome has become my new favorite word" time. Resting state of completely psyched has been achieved. And I'm sure as the Sunday morning stretches out languidly into early afternoon that dips and lows will come eventually, but - what if it pretty much stayed like this? Like that cutout Kristin has, if the best day of my life just kept repeating itself over and over? It seems like my job might be the only forced-in jigsaw puzzle piece, but I'm boomeranging that back out into the Universe so It can take care of things. I'm working, and funding this great crusade called My Life. And I'm trying to listen.

So Wednesday... the pledge drive was amazing. It's so amazing to be such a part of a community, to be making a difference, to be just doing what I love and having it be part of this big, amazing whole - it was just tremendous. The pledge drive, in and of itself, was always a drag to listen to - but this time... it just was different. I was hanging on to the daytime shows, running to the bathroom and back in time to hear the countdown (which I think is what really turned it into a pleasurable event moreso even) and spending the in-between cheering them on. Next time, I'm going to do like, three shifts instead of just one. It was such a privilege. So, that bled into Thursday morning, and driving Kristin to the airport, and then getting out the door to work late, working... coming home and feeling like a cat that had been let out into a different room. It was fine, and good even, but - I explained it to Kristin like when you take acid (literally), and the end comes, and the walls aren't melting anymore as much, and you can have full thoughts again without losing them, and you're like, okay. I can like, go to the grocery store - and you go, and it's like, not good. You are definitely not done tripping. So, absent the consumption of actual hallucenogene, that's how it was until... sometime yesterday, I think. I didn't realize how much Kristin's disciplines and realities ground me, and keep me in check, like a sunrise and sunset, or coffee in the morning and herbal tea at night, or... just - a meter, I suppose, to put it, I mean, on top of all the encouragement and love and warm arms all folding around - what I found out is that she helps me in ways I don't even know, just by like, being around. I call that science experiment time, all watching my subconscious unfold and react and stuff. Petrie dish, Seattle style.

So Thursday night - cripes. I was up until like, almost one in the morning, watching ten episodes of MSCL in a row, eating cake frosting from the cookies I made for the pledge drive (because I didn't have any money left, but I had like, gingerbread cake mix and stuff), and I didn't like the way they came out, and I didn't like how I felt from eating poorly, and at the same time, I was like, you're just like, having one of those times. It's okay. You're okay. Put the frosting away, but just like, let this happen. And I did. And it did.

Friday found me writing notes to myself in my email, like "radio free Seattle" and taking ibuprofen just because I was hung over from like, a big purge-y gorgeous late night just getting all spun out (in a good way) over everything and nothing in particular. Oh, and I did do a basic card reading on myself, because the episode came on where Amber lends Angela her cards - and I'll just say that things are as they should be. I have beautiful things at my disposal, a warm and encouraging environment, a looming period of welcome solitude, and big sweeping predictions and blowout future cards, just like I always get. Are they major arcana or something? I don't know. But my last future card is always the Wheel of Fortune or something, all huge and looming. And this case was no exception, asking about love, boy-girl love, just like, kind of making sure I wasn't going to be a cat lady or anything.

So, all hungover like that on Friday, impossible to stay focused, hanging on to every minute of the countdown, cheering on the djs, who wound up breaking - breaking, in like, the biggest most hugest recession ever - the overall goal, which they had metered and figured out to come within 10 - 20% of to still call it a success. Broke it. Blew through. It was fucking crazy. No joke, and don't make fun of me or anything, I was right on the edge of crying. I did, in fact, feel the sharp hint of new tears, I paused for effect because the moment just called for it, and it - it was amazing. Cheryl was emailing me frantically back and forth - I'm like, you go girl! and she's like, don't send any more money! Because they know, how hard it is not to. You get all caught up and go, I could just like, send them my whole credit card! Yes! And it makes sense in that instant - and it's so funny that she can plug into that and call for me to not respond. So funny.

And I went down to the meeting that night soon after, covered in buttons, wild eyed, in my dad's cold-weather military issue coat and a scarf and boots. A chill had settled down, and I decided to embrace it with layers and all on foot. The meeting was great, and a few people invited me out for coffee afterwards, so we walked up Broadway (down Broadway?) to the Vivace stand and sat out on the plastic chairs that were less cold and laughed and drank white velvets. It was divine. I just felt so - in my element, so home, so complete. Laughing, fake smoking, lattes all late at night - it's getting to the point where I recognize people and I even remember their names sometimes. It's awesome. So, with Jeff I think? And Gavin, and Sarah, and soy white velvets, and the nighttime - I left them after about an hour and walked up to Neumo's, because I had left my credit card there during JITMAN buying Red Bulls at the upstairs bar. Turns out the kid working there is another person I know from Mondays (because we're like, everywhere, literally) and after I get my card he gives me a ticket to go in. And I'm like, can you do that? And he's like, poof, making this big funny motion with his hands, and gives me a ticket. He wears this great hat all the time, and has a great dismount from his bicycle. I think Black Kids were playing, but not until later on, closer to midnight, so I stood around for a song or two and then headed back out.

People like, talk to you here. The gay guys walking a few blocks with me for real-time directions, talking about the East, and Vermont. The British kid outside Neumo's, who was about to have something big happen, all smoking and excited. People all spilling out of and into clubs, gathered in groups on corners at intersections, some smoking, some not, lots of headphones, lots of smiling. I walked the wrong way and cut around a few loops going between Pike and Pine to orient myself, and then finally figured out I had been like, a block from Broadway the whole time and headed back up (down? Up.) towards home. I stopped in Everyday Music, which is open until midnight like, every night, literally - and managed to get The Crane Wife and Putting the Days to Bed for $4.00 each - score! - and took my time all ambling back up the sidewalks.

There's this art installation (which you saw, the thing I posted on YouTube about the TVs) in a couple of the storefronts as you get to Dick's, across the street - the most notable of which are these garish ballerina-esque dresses, all poofed out and on a system of pulleys with shoes hanging down, that dance around the empty space. Some go up and down, ballet slippers briefly brushing against the ground for a moment, and some go side to side, and they just all do this endless metered dance, so much gentle movement all at once - and it just makes you pause, and I always love catching it when I'm over there. It looks better at night, just like a lot of other stuff does. But I saw the kids from earlier across the street, and I thought, I could just like, do that thing I do, and go over there and eat french fries and get validated by some testicular hormonal level of whatever, or I could not, and let these guys like, bond, and do whatever it is they're doing - so I stayed. And in the next instant there was a huge pile of trophies and disco balls, all stacked up huge in the littlest window, and past the doorway there was about 8-10 televisions of varying quality and size in the next storefront. So I stood there and leaned on a lamppost and taped it with my little camera. I kind of felt like the kid that taped the plastic bag in the wind in American Beauty, but I just - I had to get it, and it didn't even do it justice, because it was so amazing and so beautiful - and it just turned my head inside out, trying to watch them all at once, because they were all traveling and moving, all a different scene - one from the side of a boat, all ocean super early in the morning, all faded; a few from the window of a train: one getting the train and the people looking out, one going through what looked like parts of Manhattan kind of, or just a city - one all early seventies looking focused far away in the distance, one from the back of a rickshaw... it was amazing. And so you can't see all that in the video, but I think I must have sat there for about five or ten minutes, just standing there, watching.

And so it all circles back to the intuition thing, and all the amazing stuff that's there that I get to see if I am open to it, the gifts I only get if I make myself ready for them - and I thought it was about arranging things just so, that I had to have a clothesline of postcards clipped to it and have read certain books to be okay - and those are good things, and I want to do them, but that's not the It, you know? So I kept doing it, all the way home, and kept getting little rewards like yesses in my bananas, like the pictures I shot walking back, and standing watching the drag burlesque show through the window of Julia's, and stars, and words scratched into the sidewalk, and the warming of inanimate objects through knitting. It may sound like a pile of - I don't know what, to anyone else, but - it was all so beautiful. I almost couldn't stand it. I haven't read The Unbearable Lightness of Being or whatever it's called, but those are the words that rang through thinking about it just now. It was so great I almost couldn't take it, and not in the psychobabble fear of success way.

It was just so totally awesome.

And then yesterday, and and and... stepwork, all under a blanket on Gloria's couch, eating the greatest zucchini bread (oh yeah, I made bread until like, one in the morning, and watched more MSCL episodes, and had a good kind of late night, because it was Friday) after sleeping in a little too late. Coffee. Always all this coffee all over the place. I haven't eaten yet today, whoops - side effects of Perpetual Excitement(TM). Occupational hazard. So Gloria, all understanding and great, and real, and telling me John Roderick looks like my dad from pictures in the mid-seventies, and talking about blowing guys in bands in the backs of vans and wondering why we were the other ones and not the girlfriends... she's fucking fantastic. Lists. Listening to the Long Winters, just because I hadn't rolled around in this album just yet. So good! I have it on again now. I feel like I'm writing a letter to someone all of a sudden, but nobody in particular comes to mind. So I came back here and cleaned, and was Extremely Satisfied by doing so, and got my laundry going, and made the Executive Decision to have popcorn for dinner and to watch some more episodes of MSCL that night (it's the running theme this weekend, all heart catching when Angela puts her hands out on the bike going downhill, talking about life being enough in those moments, and how I do that on the back of the scooter with Kristin; and about Rayanne in rehearsals for the school play, about missing the important parts from not paying attention to life happening, and like, almost being in tears)... all these long sentences. Editing pictures of Sean Nelson and sending them to him, giggling on the couch and on emails with Kristin, who was suddenly a few thousand miles away and then back again so quickly - and then that's now.

That's the last like, few days. Of my life.

How am I supposed to answer when they ask about my weekend without saying all of that?

I know. I'll just tell them it was awesome, and that I did some stuff around the house, and got some new albums, and fell in love with my neighborhood. And white velvets. And candids of boys in bands.

I kind of feel like this right now, all ending the entry. That's a window you're pressed against - did you say what you wanted said? Tall orders from small shoulders, invitations on blue paper... leaves in the window from back East. Kisses.

VvB

new "hi, I live here." set up on flickr. I think I'm just going to have to keep them by month, otherwise I'll wind up with eight million sets. so, pending major events warranting their own set, that's where things will like, be.

now, that's what I call getting a "yes" in your banana.

kiss kiss,
VvB

have I mentioned how much I [heart] our neighborhood?

:*
VvB

have I taken blog-space to relate just how much sr. roderick looks like pictures of my dad from when I was a baby? I smell a scanning project.

I. Almost. Died. watching this. Literally. Like when the cats are screaming for food - it was like, Killing Me.

omg.

VvB

I love the internet. I love the KEXP blog.

I love being derailed by hot, delicious bass players during my lunch break.

and I love having it all on archive.

ngk.

VvB

if I could stick my pen in my heart and spill it all over the stage, would it satisfy you? would it slide on by you? would you think the boy is strange? ...if I could win you, if I could sing you a love song so divine, would it be enough for your cheating heart if I broke down and cried? ...I know it's only rock 'n roll, but I like it... can't you see that this old boy has been lonely? if I could stick a knife in my heart, suicide right on stage - would it be enough for your teenage lust - would it help to ease the pain? ease your brain? if I could dig down deep in my heart, feelings would flood on the page - would it satisfy you? would it slide on by you? would you think the boy's insane? (he's insane) ...I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it... can't you see that this old boy has been lonely? and do you think that you're the only girl around? I bet you think that you're the only woman in town... I know it's only rock 'n roll, but I like it (yes, I do).

omgomgomg.

I can has blogging.

omg.

vvb

more details on the pledge drive to follow, including abundant buttons and stories about cupcakes and control freaks, as well as some ghetto scanned polaroids up on flickr. back to work. or a nap under my desk, I can't quite decide right now. I'm just really happy, and I'm so tired I can't really see too well, and I'm *so* glad that pinback is next thursday (phew) and I might be in bed around 8. pm. this evening. not kidding.

xx
vvb

I wrote about how I felt like a poet, all under the trees at the park?

and how I felt like Wonder Woman, all changing my wipers by myself?

and how we sat in the driveway, and wrung every last little drop of summer out of September?

and how awesome the fort is, and how everything I own fits in it?

most recent Seattle pictures, up on flickr. I'm going to back-file everything from hotavocados, so I can put together a proper portfolio. so flickr will occasionally have sets called "hi, I live here" with date, and the archives will include "hi, I drove here" and "hi, I used to live here" and "hi, I was on vacation here once" and so forth.

bedtime. I'm so excited for tomorrow. I get to drink coffee, and write, and bake stuff, and probably clean the bathroom. and it's going to be awesome.

xx
VvB

I think the stats are wrong:

I never dreamed you'd leave in summer
I thought you would go then come back home
I thought the cold would leave by summer
But my quiet nights will be spent alone

You said there would be warm love in springtime
That is when you started to be cold
I never dreamed you'd leave in summer
But now I find myself all alone

You said then you'd be the life in autumn
Said you'd be the one to see the way
You know I never dreamed you'd leave in summer
But now I find my love has gone away

Why didn't you stay?

I didn't see it until last night, I mean, I think it had crossed my mind before, but last night it hit me like a baseball bat.

I leave at the end of summer.
I spend early fall indulging in unrequited love.
I cocoon and regenerate, alone from boys, in the company of friends, through the winter and springtime.
I emerge triumphant in the following summer.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

No more.

So this is the New Year, and I resolve to feel *much* different. I have many resolutions. I will not surrender the keys. I also like spiral bound notebooks, black Sharpie(tm) pens, scrolly patterned comforter covers... these are my consistencies. Let's keep adding to the plus-side of the ledger, shall we?

xx
VvB

sundays at home are The Best.

long, luxurious weekends are also The Best.

pictures of tea for julie from last weekend are up, in all their large detachable flash-assisted glory.

I'm writing tons and tons, it's just that lots of it is in my notebook. I was talking about that with kristin tonight, about how sometimes it's blogging and sometimes it's notebooking. I hate any hesitation, editing, or reserve of any kind, and it's not even like I have some deep desire to post things because I need someone else to read them - it's just sometimes I'm scrawling away in my notebook and it won't work, and then I type and it does. and other times I'm typing and I can't get the words to shape up right, and I grab my notebook and it all just flows out without trying. I call stuff like that science experiment time. I find it so strange.

my life, forming words, in a petrie dish that's really a fort.

speaking of, the fort's been all shoned-up purty. OrGanIzed. thankfully k-digs started to downsize, and I inherited some bookshelves on a payment plan. it spawned a giant chunk of motivation and now there's all this technical shit off my list. it's been replaced by new, open acres of free space in my head kinds of things, like make a photo album, and get a bunch of rubber cement.

rubber cement, I must take space to note, is also The Best. Ever.

death cab, decemberists, ed harcourt, eels. framed magazine articles about tom brosseau that I took pictures in, torn gently from a magazine, facing a full-page ad for elliott brood, only it's from like, a few years ago. no joke. rouge and tiny lights rewired and wishes on abandoned scraps of paper stuffed in the backs of notebooks, one in particular about watching the stars while driving to be getting somewhere and lost all at once.

I am so excited for new notebook time tomorrow. I couldn't wait for bedtime time to come tonight. and now it's upon us.

sleep carefully, kids.

xx
vvb
(currently in search of a shortened professional name)

I emailed Kristin earlier, about having a hard time working today. In a good way. I've gotten up to write every day this week (I think, or at least the last 4) and I'm a little tired and a little excited and ready for another Week End. Tonight especially, because it's John In The Morning, At Night. John in the Morning actually being on in the morning is enough, to have the theme song play at 6:00 am in real time is enough (when I'm up for it, another benefit of being up this week in time to hear it most of the days), and hearing the Friday song on a Friday - well, that happened at home too, but every Friday, I hear the Friday song, and I'm like, OMFG. I'm in Seattle. It's Friday. It's John in the Morning, in the morning. And tonight it's John In The Morning At Night. In the morning. At night.

You see how easily I am floored by such things. Like Delia getting stuck on chew or groom, a record player that needs a nudge to get to the next groove.

I'm particularly excited about Harvey Danger playing an acoustic set, because I love how Sean Nelson belts it out (at the very least he's quite the showman, all hands flagellating circa Jack Black, actually circa John Cusack imitating Jack Black is what's in my mind right now, thanks to a late-night feature of High Fidelity last night) and also because if Senor Roderick is in town, the possibilites of him being around / maybe on stage even are Good.

4:54. Home stretch.

So what else... so today, like I said before, was rough to get through until all the espresso kicked in and got me to clear off my desk for the last hour and a half. And now there's new stuff, but I'm going to leave it for Monday - because it's new, and I can - and keep today all fresh and clean desk-y. I spent most of the morning all wrapped up in a chenille throw in my head, napping in a pile of cats, stuck on a letter Gloria had me write this morning for stepwork tomorrow afternoon. Mix tapes, moments, a series of fortunate events, open hands, unfolded everything. A perfect day for a good show... I can't wait.

I have not called any Boys in days. No exes. Nothing that even smells like exes. I took Will's advice and now have two entries under "TROUBLE" in my phone, which helps for both incoming and outgoing calls. It's nice. I learned yesterday that Manny Ramirez got traded to the Dodgers this summer, and I had *no* idea. I was floored by this. And wanted very badly to discuss it with several boys. But instead I called my friend Kevin from back in Connecticut to find out that the Red Sox, the Dodgers, and both Chicago teams are apparently doing quite well for themselves as we start October. I'll have to make a point of checking things out on this big Interwebranet I've got at my fingertips... people were floored that I didn't know. It was like the time my sponsee was all excited that I didn't know package stores closed at 9 (it was 8 like, forever, and how the hell would I know) and she spent like, two months talking about it. Funny. Manny. You asshole. Whatever.

The things that happen when I focus on Goals and Unfolding are so much better than anything I'm capable of Planning. Although I'm learning more and more how to Get Better At Planning - it's nice to fire like, eight things off a list in one day. Who knew. Kristin knew. Well, and a lot of people I'm sure. But still.

Red Sox, no ex, KRDO and lambda, work is work, shows are abundant. I've already got about 1/3 of this month booked up on my calendar, with Wants and Needs and Have-tos. But they're almost all fun things. I can't wait.

Welcome, rOctober. Welcome.

With love from your favorite ex-girlfriend,
VvB

stop.

do not pass go.

do not collect $200.00.

go here, and have my friend eric (yes, I actually know this guy) take your pictures. weddings. engagements. boudiors! omg. he is A. Ma. Zing. give him all your money. he'll make you happy. I promise.

xx
VvB

I *love* when they play Flight of the Conchords. Add to "must see" list for Kristin.

I FUCKING MISSED MARK GEARY LAST NIGHT. At the Sunset. What the F!!! I like, met him, when he opened for the Frames a million years ago. (What do you have? A top 20 list from Pitchfork and a Frames ticket? Fuck you! I saw the Femmes in 1992! And I have the receipt to prove it!)

Alright. I'm going to go bookmark ten local calendar pages right now, and check them twice a day. Fuck.

Fuck.

VvB

there's no embedding link. but still. I just heard this on KEXP and I almost started to cry.

by the way, go donate. so we can get back to the music already. ten grand would be great. I'll be happy to be your +1 at the triple door next week.

kiss kiss, bang bang, daft punk is not playing at my house,
VvB

I can has "flip horizontal". thanks, everybody.

xx
v.

will's not an asshole. he's not. (you're not a jerk. you're not, american mary dot com).

from his bio:

Will Mix lives and writes in New England.

how could he be an asshole?

plus, he wrote a book. really. and he makes a hell of a mix tape. and he... well, I don't think I can publicly print details about that. seeing as he's almost a married man and all.

:*
v.

I'm glad so many of you are paying such close mind, both reading and to details. you all get an A+. to reply:

the photobooth option on my mac, and maybe on all of them, for all I know, flips photos backwards. I have no idea why, but when you look at the earlier fort photos, the text on the posters is backwards (as is the "blood on the streets" new haven poster in the back of my self-portrait, although it's a bit dark and much brighter and more legible at home than it is here at work). and so, no, I am not wearing a wedding band. that's a silver band on my right hand, as is the piercing on the right side of my nose.

true love does, in fact, wait.

xx
VvB

three little letters - bye.

a text message, of all things, to mark the end of an era. like gloria says to me, it doesn't have to be a reset button, or a new book - it's just another chapter. a part of the painting where there's a bumpy, heavy spot from all the layers. new chapter. new month.

new girl. live from seattle. with the buttons to prove it.

I feel like this should be more cathartic, like I should have something more important to say... it's like I'm putting it to bed almost, and the time to wax poetic on it has passed, save for copy and fodder for notebooks and how it was like car wrecks in slow motion and such. I suppose really loving and believing in people isn't my problem, it's the length to which I take it, the layers I involve myself in with boys - that seems to be where it all breaks apart. and not in the good way.

who knows. five years from now I will look back at every second and kiss the ground raf walks on for the proverbial kick in the pants that got the car headed out west. who knows.

and lastly, but firstly, and not leastly (or gamey or mealy in any way, shape or form), my new guest column: I like to call it "nuggets from will". to wit:

OK two re: your latest entry: The sooner you cut all ties with Raf the better off you will be. This means sucking it up and paying off the bills and stop expecting him to contribute. I know you may think something like this is easier for me because I still have money even though I've seen 1/3 of my portfolio fly out the window to credit-crisis-fuck-you-fucking-greedy-Wall-Street-fuckholes-and-with-no-thanks-to-fucking-dickhead-Bush land, and perhaps you would be somewhat right in thinking so, it does not change what I would perceive to be in his mind - which is that you're a million miles away and the debt isn't in his name anyway. I mean, I don't know the cat but I do know people and people even with the best intentions aren't worth shit unless they act. My fear is that all you will get from him going forward is excuses, which will drag this out longer and stave off any REAL healing you need to start to do. And if you do get him to pony up some dough, realize that you have accomplished something seldom if only few people accomplish. To quote Bob Dylan, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." Just own it, literally and figuratively. And then never, ever, do it again.

and

OK four: "It's because they're not you." I have a friend Kristine who frequently wonders and is perplexed why people do or do not do the things they do, which would be the things she would or would not do given any particular situation. The only answer I give her at this point is that "it's because they're not you." To put your own ideations into people and expect them to actually come to fruition will usually only lead you to frustration and disappointment. This is even more important for you now because you are seeing through new eyes. My point here is that you need to focus on you - and only you - if you really want to start to really heal, regardless if he's self-medicating his relationship loss (to distract him obviously, and ease the pain) with a dead-end girl. He wouldn't be the first person to lie to himself. And he does the things you're not doing because he's not you. His life is his choice, as yours is yours. It's his business and none of yours, despite any caring you still feel (and will always on one level or another) for him. Don't focus on what you think he needs to learn, focus on what you need to learn.

and

OK five: ...Put him in your caller ID as "Trouble" so you know not to pick up the phone when he calls for whatever reason. DO NOT go to his freakin' MySpace page! I mean, what the fuck are you thinking you masochistic, self-flagellating idiot? The sooner you do all of this the better off you will be, although much easier said than done. Unlike a gay cowboy, YOU MUST quit him. Now.

way to be direct! keep it coming, kids. I never really mastered distinterest, or subtlety, for that matter.

and the cutest series of email signature quotes:

"A thought is a behavior to be treated the same as any other behavior." ~ Dr. Phil

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement." ~ Jim Horning

"Just do it." ~ Nike

we secretly *heart* dr. phil. sometimes. a woman at a meeting told me to pick up the book that the guy that wrote "he's just not that into you" wrote, called "you broke up because it's broken", although that makes me feel like it's too much energy focusing on something that should have long since been departed. I'd rather be working my way up to the zen of __________, some juicy life-altering deliciousness kristin has left for me to randomly stumble upon. at this rate, I'm going to have to start eating books like bananas if I want to keep up.

I am not going to go on myspace for 30 days. if I'm using myspace for bands, I can go on band sites to hear music without logging in. 'nuff said. day one, half over. it only hurts for a second, I've heard them say.

I think.

kiss kiss, door slam in the silent grey afternoon, an engine starting and fading out down the street -
VvB