minus 5

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