Not to be all maudlin, but...

I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to those of you reading this whom I have been neglecting or ignoring lately. I am never very good at the communication thing, and it is the very first thing to go when I am faced with difficulties in my life. The past several weeks have been a bit of an ordeal, forcing me to ask some really hard questions and face some uncomfortable truths, and I had to let something slip away. Unfortunately, that something was the connection I cling to in order to maintain my usual equilibrium. I am sorry. I cherish you and I love you, and I was not deliberately shutting you out. I just only had enough strength to do what needed to be done. Now I'm through it, and maybe things will be sort of back to normal. As normal as things ever are for me, anyway.

Sometimes the Universe gives us gifts, you know? And sometimes She gives us lessons. Occasionally, She hands us a pop quiz in order for us to appreciate what we have before us. I feel like I just came up on one of those quizzes. I have come very close in the past several weeks to ruining something glorious because I am insecure and gun shy. I keep throwing the door wide open so he can walk right out if he wants to: telling him flat out that I was keeping an open mind about what happened when I was out of town, telling him that I thought he didn't want me enough, telling him I am full of jealousy and irrationality. Then I needed him really badly and didn't know how to tell him, and somehow he knew anyway. The Universe handed me a giant platter of humility and told me to choke it down and understand that I have been graced with his love and respect. She is offering the both of us the chance to be better people with each other than we have ever been with anyone else, and it will behoove us not to fuck it up.

So thank you, ell and vee and S.F. and K.D. and Em and H. and Meemah and Roo and the other ones who read this and worry about me and love me and hold me up. The Universe is teaching me again and again and again that love is what keeps this incomprehensible rock spinning in space. Before I learned that lesson with him, I learned it with you, and I am unspeakably grateful for your presence in my life.

And thank you, Z., for standing up and standing next to me and being what I want and need. I can't believe it took something this huge and dramatic to convince me that you are being 100% honest when you tell me that you are in it to win it. I hear you. Finally. Stick around, okay? I have a feeling big things are in store for us.

The radio does play...

That fluff filled piece of cotton candy below was the post I wrote in place of this one, because this one was hard.

The world is a quieter and less fantastic place, because Steve is gone.

It's all such a fucking cliche: hug your kids, take your chances, learn to play the guitar, go to Dallas, you never know when it'll all change. The only thing that never changes is that we all mouth these platitudes to each other to soothe our own pain.

V. has said a couple of times that the worst thing was not knowing where he was. We only know he's not here, and he's not coming back. Damn it. God damn it.

So. Take your chances. Join a band. Make some noise. Leave a mark on this world. A big, dirty, loud, imperfect stain, a Rorschach to last the ages. Shout until you don't have a voice, strum until your hands bleed, stand up and dance. Be such a cool motherfucker that the shine of you is too bright for most people to look at head on.

The only video of Steve playing his guitar I can find has really bad audio, so here's the song he played that I liked the most.



dammit.

I promised the Mixtape Playlist

I had a nice evening last night. K.D. and E. and I went out for sushi and then drinks and deep discussion about - among other things - eyebrow maintenance and laser hair removal. It was pretty fun, except that it's winter break, and our favorite dank, dark imbibing joints were filled with 12 year olds playing Wii. (Okay, they weren't 12. They just seemed that way to me.) That of course led to me being a little dry-throated and stiff when I woke up today, so I decided to do what I always do on mornings like these - head to the corner store, buy a magazine, a LifeWater, and crackers, and hole up until I can't stand the smell of my own hair any longer.

When I looked out, though, it was snowing heavily and relentlessly, and I figured a bit of fresh air and exercise might do as much or more for my disposition than People magazine and Triscuits. I slammed a glass of water, grabbed fleece everything and my iPod, and went for a little jaunt in the snow.




I live fairly close to a lovely National Historical Park, but sometimes I forget that, and so on when I actually do make it down, I am always awed and delighted by it. Today was no different. The waves were breaking through a thin skim of snow and a crust of ice onto the dusted shore, and the cloud cover was so heavy, I couldn't see the islands that lie barely offshore. The second I hit the entrance for the park, I dialed up the mixtape playlist, now entitled Songs For Wooing, and this is what I saw while I listened:


Mahna Mahna, Cake
Dream a Little Dream of Me, The Beautiful South
I Found a New Baby, Squirrel Nut Zippers
This Can't Be Love, The Hot Club Quintet*
Bei Mir Bist Du Shoen (how do I make the umlaut?!?), The Puppini Sisters
I Love You, The Pipettes
That Great Love Sound, the Raveonettes
Robot Love, the Phenomenauts
Please Don't Touch, the Meteors*
Tokyo Storm Warning, Elvis Costello and the Attractions*
Heart Sized Crush, Devil Doll
Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken, Camera Obscura
Don't Get Me Wrong, The Pretenders
Call Me, Blondie
Oh!, Sleater-Kinney*
Pop In, Pop Out!, The Plascticines*
Looking At Me, The Vesties*
Rock and Roll Girl, The Muffs
Penny, The Dollyrots
Apply Some Pressure, Maximo Park
Pistol Grip, The Blakes
Kissy Baby, Heavy Trash
She Put the Hurt on Me, The Have Nots
Act Nice and Gentle, The Black Keys
Anti Love Song, Betty Davis*
Get Up Offa That Thing, James Brown
I Can't Get Next to You, Al Green
It's a Sin To Tell a Lie, Jimmy Smith*
Hope There's Someone, Antony and the Johnsons
Ruby Warbler, Myshkin's Ruby Warblers*
Looks Just Like the Sun, Broken Social Scene*
Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key, Billy Bragg and Wilco
Everyday, Buddy Holly and the Crickets
Passionate Kisses, Lucinda Williams
She's An Angel, They Might Be Giants
So In Love, (artist unknown)*
Pitter Patter Goes My Heart, Broken Social Scene*
In The Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra

*These are the ones that didn't make the time cut for the mix. It screws up the pacing a little in some places, a lot in others, but overall, the final list is pretty good. I'd date me, if someone gave me these songs. Actually, these songs, in this particular order, would make me think the person was psychic, or that Kismet had a hand in, and I would immediately claim that person as my own.

There were a few songs that didn't make the cut at all, because I couldn't quite figure out how to make them seamless. I did listen to them all, and, damn. You guys have good taste in music.

F**ck you very much.

John Cusack, you have a lot to answer for. I know everyone born between 1968 and 1978 has already taken you to task for this, but I just have to say it, too. Rob Gordon? Lane Meyer? Lloyd FUCKING Dobler? Do you realize how utterly you've ruined the women of my generation? Of course you do, because people keep telling you. People like Chuck Klosterman, whose book I opened mere hours after obsessively watching the special features for High Fidelity for the gazillionth time. People like my girlfriends, and all the men who regretfully shake their heads when picking up my girlfriends, saying, "I could NEVER imagine being able to live up to your image of Lloyd Dobler!" No one can live up to your particular brand of romantically flawed self-awareness. NOBODY WANTS TO TRY. So, thanks. Thanks a whole parking lot.

And you. Yeah, Klosterman, I'm talking to you. Did you have to go and out us? Because we are the sort of cynical girls who would rather keep that stuff on the d.l. We know. We get that you are intimidated by our understandable attraction to the sensitive slacker that is Mr. Cusack. Would you rather be intimidated by our mystifying attraction to, say, the androgynous King of the Goblins, as played by David Bowie? Isn't that a little lowering? He wears incomprehensible make-up! He wears very, very tight leather jodhpurs! HE'S A GOBLIN KING. There, now you've made me shout for the second time in a single blog post. Happy?

While we're on the subject - Elvis Costello. Umm, Alison? Veronica? You were the only fucking rock and roll star who ever made me want to change my name. You made it acceptable for mildly attractive and completely nerdy guys to go for girls who are patently out of their league. You know the type - you and Mr. Cusack up there conspired to create them, practically- the dangerously smart, stylish girls with careful, messy hair and giant shoulder bags instead of purses, full of Maybelline Great Lash in blackest black and mix tapes featuring Tokyo Storm Warning and You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Yes, you're sneaky enough to pass on your own music and that of Bob Dylan). Girls who sport quirky teeshirts and India cotton skirts and 21 hole Doc Martins. Girls who quote the Simpsons and Kant in equal measure. My point being, us mildly attractive and completely nerdy girls who were once in those guys' league are suddenly beneath them, and it's because of you. And John Cusack. And the guy who invented the tape recorder.


THIS, my friends, is why I only listen to rockabilly anymore.

Come and gone...

Once again the Stardust Ball has come and gone. The Rockabilly Circus was what one might term a success, if one were possessed of the habit of rating every experience meticulously. I would be lying if I said I was not one of those people. The truth is, I am cursed with the desire to relive and debrief every moment endlessly, much to the exhaustion of my friends. In any case, while I feel we could have amped the energy just a notch, we did respectably, and I got some heartwarming praise from a few people whose opinions I treasure. So there you are.

As everyone knows, it was also my birthday, and that made for an interesting evening. I got cake and kisses, as well as some marvelous presents. Princess Japonski went out of her way to make this a birthday worth something, and she outdid herself. First and foremost, flying cross country for three nights of debauched tomfoolery with her favorite rockstars, and some imported rockstars, was above and beyond the call of duty. Then she provided champagne and cake, style advice and many soothing words of encouragement, and a Johnny Cash DVD. Clearly, they broke the mold when they made her.

I have thanks to offer everyone who worked so hard to make these few days so astounding, including my mom and my ex (may he never get another mention in these pages) who made sure Miss Thing and Cap'n Jack were fed and clothed and kept out of traffic. Also every fan who turned up after the relentless barrage of promotion I subjected you all to. And the person who donated the coach for the stage, complete with skelly driver. And to my friends, who always know just what I want and how to bring it. And to the Dusty 45's, for being talented and handsome and accommodating, even if I may not let Billy stand on my bass again. And of course to my band, without whom the magic just could not happen.



Now I get to do it all again, without the bourbon, because it's Bea's birthday. There will be more pink things, if only marginally, and fewer people in costume, f only marginally, but I expect it will have the same general flavor of mayhem, because, after all, she is my very own.

Thank you note

So, just in case there is anyone out there who hasn't met me, or who has only the vaguest idea of who I am, let me clue you in on how I make my money. I am a barista, which is the single most cliche occupation in this country right now. But unlike the liberal arts majors making beer money with headset walkie-talkies at the Gap, I have done this job for a long time, and I intend on doing it for a while longer, and I really, really like it. One of the things I like so much about it is the customers. I have the best regulars in the whole world. I have watched as their children grew and graduated and went away, I have seen them sell houses and buy boats and get married and fall apart and heal. They are what keeps me serving coffee when I'm thinking, I could get a B.A. and temp in an anonymous corporate office for the rest of my life. Every once in a while they are so marvelously thoughtful that I could cry, or kiss them. Last week, when there was a convention, and my relief pitcher was out of the game, and I was seriously lambasting myself for not becoming a pediatric nurse like my mom secretly hoped, the men who come in every morning and share their views on the world and sometimes on my clothing took up a collection and tipped me very well. They handed it to me non-chalantly and said, "We wanted you to know we appreciate how hard you work." They wrote a little note on one of the bills, and they all filed out as if nothing happened. I could have cried, or kissed them. Instead, I gave them a little something to talk about. I made them this shirt.

All day long, I kept waiting for someone not in the know to smile slyly and say, "I drink coffee!" I was hoping it would be someone I could smile back at and flirt with, but I figured it would be some skeevy dude off a Holland America cruise ship, or a teenage boy who thinks that women half a decade younger than his mom are GROSS. Instead, it was another fabulous regular, whom I consider a friend. Thanks, Mr. B. You sure know how to boost a girl's self-esteem.