Dispatch from the field

GREETINGS STOP DROWNING IN TEXT STOP PLEASE SEND FUNNY JOKES AND NARRATIVE SENSE STOP BACK JUNE 30ISH STOP WISH YOU WERE HERE STOP

I thought I'd sound more like Lauren Bacall

So, some of you may know that I was invited last week to write, record, and submit a 60-second movie review for the NPR show The Takeaway. I did it--seriously, one of the most excruciating writing experiences of my life, plus the joy of recording what amounts to the world's most harrowing answering-machine message--and guess what?

I got on!

You can hear part of my review here (I'm the first voice after they say people had specific problems with the story--I start with something about the movie lacking a heart), and they'll be linking to my complete vocal review, as well as to Cinema Hype, later in the day. I'll let you know when that happens.

I am totally the next Sarah Vowell. This is so exciting.

Update: The full review and the CH link are now posted.

Update #2:: The streaming audio doesn't seem to be working; this may be a download situation. Sorry about that.

12 of 12: June

Happy June 12, all. For explanation of the 12 of 12 Project and an index of other twelves, see Chad Darnell's blog.



7:05 - GOOD. MORNING.



Kidding. (This is how rumors get started.)




7:05 - For reals, waking up. Why 7:05 is so much more feasible of a wake-up time than 7:00 is beyond me.




7:52 - Too hot for pants; too bad I have ghost legs. Really, folks, this is about as good as it gets.




7:55 - A beautiful day in the neighborhood.




10:53 - It looks like I'm down to two piles of work, but that's an act. If there are only two piles, I can't possibly be that busy. Right? Right?




5:05 - Running errands...so thirsty...blenders and nutrition powders call.




5:30 - Traffic sucks, but at least there's frozen pomegranate juice.




5:40 - Fun mail! Wedding invitation! (If you're reading this, Tamah, I'll be there.)




6:40 - People are coming over. This is me, trying (with limited success) to make it look like my apartment hasn't been taken over by frat boys or wild dogs.




6:50 - Confetti salad. I got so jealous of the mangoes in the original chef's picture that I added strawberries. Super-delicious, raw onions and all.




7:01 - Obviously, "salad" = "vehicle for chips."




7:40 - My super-awesome church group.




7:41 - Luke and Stephen making short work of confetti salad leftovers. (Boys. They're like trash compactors.)




7:42 - The other side of the room. (Susan REALLY loves her Bible.)




9:50 - Elsa-Jennie is awesome for many reasons, not least because she stays after small group and lets me relive the first season of Lost.




10:55 - Ugh, so hot. And tired. But at least I'm reading Pamie's's book.


Good night, and good luck. See you in July.

Citizen Playlist

Tonight is Tuesday night, the only really free night of my week. I've already finished Cinema Hype for tomorrow and taken some time with the book I'm reading, with all of the windows open and the ceiling fan on and the sun finally, finally sinking behind the house across the street. Later, I might watch a little 30 Rock and try to write some fiction. Tuesday night is a long, good night.

It's also the day where all good things come to iTunes. It's new release day. It's free-music day. (Why don't I ever take advantage of iTunes free singles? Only an absurd creature of habit turns down this kind of deal.) It's the day where they update the celebrity playlists. Do you know the iTunes Celebrity Playlist page? Go to the iTunes Store and choose Music from the menu on the left. Scroll down a little, and you'll see it, again on the left. There you go: pages and pages and pages of celebrities' favorite songs, complete with little summaries and comments. Just in the last week or two, they've added the Sex and the City cast(!) and Alton Brown (who listens to exactly the kind of music you'd think. Heh). How great is this? Hours and hours of entertainment (and possibly some new music), I'm telling you.

There are really two kinds of celebrity playlist: the ultra-pretentious kind where the celebrity in question writes a whole paragraph on each song you don't know by each band you've never heard of, and the disappointingly/awesomely vapid kind where each song gets three words and an exclamation point [see Garner, Jennifer]. Okay, so maybe there are a few in the middle, people who listen to the same songs everybody else listens to, but I never remember much about those. Unless they're by America Ferrara, who is kind of my music twin.

In response to the celebrity playlist phenomenon, my friend Avery came up with the Citizen Playlist: the celebrity playlist for the rest of us. This is a playlist for today and not for forever, simply because "forever" playlists are far too much pressure. I would be here for days. Weeks. Months. And then new music would come out, and I'd have to revise the whole thing, wouldn't I?

So here is my citizen playlist for June 10, 2008.

"More Adventurous" - Rilo Kiley
Picking a favorite Rilo Kiley song is kind of Sophie's Choice, so I had to include two. This song is lovely, singable, and packed with mostly good advice about risk and love and accidental pregnancy. So, all the things I like in a good pop song.

"Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel" - Barenaked Ladies
I have spent basically a decade trying to decide on a favorite BNL song, and I think I've finally settled on this one. (Because it totally matters in the long run.) It's about exactly what you'd think it's about. I always get this one phrase in my head, "in all the confusion, there's something serene--I'm just a posthumous part of the scene," and then there's this little instrumental thing, maybe an oboe?, that goes boop! boop!--I can't really explain it, but once that starts looping around in there, it's all over.

"This Modern Love" - Bloc Party
This song is super-rhythmic and super-catchy, with super-jangly guitars, and I like singing, "This modern looove....BREAKS ME!" just like the guys in the band.

"Somewhere North" - Caedmon's Call
This is from the only album of the only Christian band I have left over from my early days of DC Talk and the like. It is wonderful and sounds like driving at night with the windows rolled down.

"The One I Love" - David Gray
I don't really think I understand the details of this song--she's telling the repo man she's the one he loves? And yet. I always play it twice in a row.

"I Will Always Love You" - Dolly Parton
And don't even think about substituting Whitney or anybody else. It's got to be Dolly, or it wouldn't be the saddest song in the entire world. Complete with monologue of acceptance in the middle.

"You Are What You Love" - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
The Jenny Lewis album Rabbit Fur Coat is probably my most favorite album this year so far; I listen to it FAR more than is really normal, and am not even a little embarrassed about it, because it is catchy and lyrical and wonderful every single time. And this song speaks the truth: you are what you love, not what loves you back. I feel that this is a Life Lesson. (Fun fact: Jenny Lewis is the frontwoman for Rilo Kiley, so this is almost like choosing a third RK song. Scandal!)

"The Bleeding Heart Show" - The New Pornographers
This is, by far, not the New Pornographers song I listen to the most--it's not even on my favorite album of theirs--but it has the infamous "hey la hey la" segment at the end, which I can never get enough of. I love the NPs for sounding like they're in a high school rock musical 100% of the time.

"Feeling Good" - Nina Simone
My brother got me into this song, and let's just say that I'm saving it up for a particular day that I hope will arrive any day now. (No, not THAT day. You'll know, trust me.) It is exactly, exactly right.

"Sunday Smile" - Beirut
I've just discovered these guys and know practically nothing about them, but they use a lot of accordion and a lot of harmony, and I am fully convinced that they have handlebar mustaches. Listen and you'll see what I mean.

"Walkin' After Midnight" - Patsy Cline
I went on a major Patsy Cline thing earlier this year, and this is my favorite, favorite song from her Greatest Hits (except maybe "If You've Got Leaving On Your Mind," but whatever). Imagine living in a place where you can walk around after midnight (in search of your lost love, which kind of makes the whole thing less fun)! I think I'd be afraid of being mugged, but that's just me.

"Heart of Mine" - Peter Salett
This is a perfectly ordinary pop song that I love more than it could ever deserve. It plays in the movie Keeping the Faith, and that is basically all that is special about it, except that it SPEAKS TO MY SOUL. I don't know why. This is another back-to-back song.

"The Angels Hung Around" - Rilo Kiley
Rilo Kiley's most recent album is kind of a concept album about the sex trade in L.A.--just a little light listening, right? But it's actually fantastic and only minimally depressing, and I love the things Jenny Lewis sings here about her (long) life in L.A. She has a relationship with that city. Plus, I like singing along with the bridge.

"Walk Away Renee" - Vonda Shepherd
Yes, I could also go for the original by the Four Tops--it's a great song either way--but this is the version I have. It's Vonda Shepherd, and it's from the Ally McBeal soundtrack, and I do not appreciate all that snickering over in the corner, you.

"Hotel Yorba" - The White Stripes
I once saw this song on a sample playlist of songs about monogamy, which made me smile, even though it's accurate. Mostly I just like singing/shouting along.

"Pressed in a Book" - The Shins
Choosing just one Shins song is another hopeless cause, so I picked this one because I love it. I know it so well, I don't even really hear it, but then I sometimes play it twice in a row. And it melts into the song that follows it, "The Past and Pending," which is incredibly comforting. But, you know, that could be any Shins song. They're just that much a part of the woodwork of me.

So that's the soundtrack of me, circa now. Go forth and sample music!

The quiet house

This week has been awfully quiet at my place. Last Thursday was the official end of my 2007-2008 TV schedule, and now...summer.

My Tivo is basically full--I sacrificed almost everything else in order to keep the full season of Lost intact, because that's what you do when you're scatterbrained and compulsive about the most complicated show on the planet--but it's okay, because there's nothing on the Season Pass horizon until September. (When that day comes, though, watch out. Did you know that both Joss Whedon [Buffy, Firefly] and J.J. Abrams [Alias, Lost] have new shows premiering next season? And not a single one of my current shows has been cancelled. OY.)

It's nice, kind of. I can write. Read. Knit. Enjoy the psychic space of my quiet apartment. Listen to the guy across the street with the outlandishly loud voice when he talks on the phone. But I'll admit that after awhile, psychic space gets kind of dull (same with the neighbor; he sounds like Louis Armstrong on HGH, but I can't actually understand what he's saying), and I know I'm going to be trolling the universe for something to occupy that part of me that's always hunting for a good story.

I've declared this hiatus the Summer of Battlestar Galactica, which I think will be a Thing when I get there, but I'm still too close to the Lost finale to even think about something so brain-intensive (to say nothing of the aforementioned full Tivo, which I will eventually need to watch through and/or delete--it's a closure thing, since we won't see the island again until January). In the interim, I've got Freaks and Geeks coming up on Netflix, which is supposedly brilliant and not too long, and I'm trying to figure out whether I can find and finish the first season of Mad Men before the second season premieres in July. (The DVDs come out July 1. Why do they do this, not give us catch-up time between DVD releases and premieres? Maddening.) And then there are the other, smaller shows just starting to tap at my consciousness--How I Met Your Mother and, secretly, Dr. Who--which I probably won't get to anytime soon, but am sort of wondering whether I should. Right now I'm taking it easy with old episodes of Gilmore Girls--the first season is just like perfect old pajamas, I've seen them so many times--and random run-ins with What Not to Wear. Which is nice, and doesn't tax the brain too much, but at some point I will have recovered from 2007-2008 and be ready for sucking-in. And when that time comes, I want to be ready. What to watch, what to watch?

London calling TO MY SOUL

Today, right at the end of work, I suddenly couldn't believe I was in Emeryville and not in England. I'm not sure what brought on the sudden bout of Anglophilia; it might have been the realization that it's been almost a year since I visited, or the sight of Heather, who just got back from Scotland. Maybe it was the English "summer" weather we're having. Anyway, I suddenly wanted to be in London, at this one pub Christine and I went to, or in the Lake Country, where I didn't even get to the other side of Windermere, and can't believe I didn't go to Beatrix Potter's house (though I did hit up both of Wordsworth's, and I don't even like Wordsworth all that much).

As a compromise, to make myself feel better, I felt like going home to watch Pride and Prejudice, listen to the Clash, read Cold Comfort Farm, and drink tea, all at the same time. (Instead, I went home to watch the 5:00 ABCFamily rerun of Gilmore Girls, knit on the baby blanket, and eat Ginger Cats, all at the same time.) I did manage to track down some pub food for dinner, sausages and mash and cider at Kensington Circus Pub, though who makes sausages and mash with a) no gravy, and b) a side of black beans and salsa? (Oh, California. You kill me.) It did in a pinch, I guess. It was cheaper than a plane ticket to Heathrow, anyway, as well as practically everything else of the British/travel/money-related persuasion. I guess, once the price of gas goes down enough that I can afford to go anywhere farther than Walnut Creek, I'll have to go back. After all, I may have been to the lame faux Jane Austen Centre in Bath, but I totally missed the real Jane Austen house in some out-of-the-way Home Counties place, and I didn't even buy any yarn when I was there. Or books. Clearly, this must be remedied. What kind of tourist was I?

Anyway, until then, I'll be in my corner with some Blackthorn and, I don't know, some Bronte or another? I'll let you know how it turns out. (Hint: Crazy wife in the attic. Duh.)

Everyone's a critic

I went to the library after work the other day. I'm in the middle of something thick and fairly engrossing these days (Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl), so I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I don't even think I was looking for anything in general, really. I just like going to the library, especially the tiny branch by the lake, and especially when it's a sunny day and I can park a few blocks away and walk.

Anyway, I was in the fiction section, trying to balance my own instinct to loiter with the librarian's instinct to close the library and go home, feeling pressured to choose something fast, even though I knew I didn't really need anything to read. I sort of panicked and shifted into search-for-interesting-cover-colors mode, pulling the prettiest books off the shelf as I waited for "last call." And then I opened up a certain book--I don't even remember what, exactly--and a little piece of paper fluttered out of it and onto the floor. I picked it up. It was a note written in blue ink on a little square of plain note paper. "This book is terrible," it said. "Don't bother."

I love this. I mean, I'm not sure how I feel about the unsolicited non-recommendation--it makes me feel like the person who wrote it had just a tiny bit too much time on his or her hands, or is kind of judgmental, or maybe it just really was that bad--but it's like some kind of literary vigilante justice! Zorro for the Oakland Public Library! I wonder, if I were to pick up and shake out all of the other books in the OPL system, how many more notes of this kind (and others, I suppose) I'd find. And are there recommendation notes? If I were to open a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany, one of those books that pretty much everybody agrees is wonderful and brilliant, would I find a little sheaf of notes telling me I'd made the right choice? Who is that Post-Itted man (or woman)?

Anyway, I put the book back, but now I kind of wish I'd brought it home with me.

Come on, baby, you drive me crazy

Goodness gracious! Great balls of yarn!

(I'm sorry; it had to be said.)



This came for me in the mail yesterday. At work. I think you really have to be a knitter to understand the joy of unwrapping this kind of volume of yarn, and I wish you could all see these particular skeins in person. These are the skeins that ate New York. They are each the size of a newborn, or a loaf of bread, and although they are not what you'd call super-portable ("What's that under your arm? A small sleeping bag?"), I somehow find myself unperturbed about the possibility of running out of the dye lot I need.

I have to admit: it's not mine, technically. Didn't I tell you? I'm going to be a professional knitter! Somebody I know from work made me an offer I couldn't refuse: I knit her a pair of baby blankets, and she gives me money. (Knitting as income! What a fine world we live in!) I even got to pick the pattern--I'm adapting the Mason-Dixon ballband dishcloth to blanket size. Basically, if I were using cotton (my patroness bought the yarn--all acrylic, which I feel we need to have a chat about), you could soak up half a swimming pool with this sucker. It's going to be awesome (she says, before she casts on).

Grateful

You know, I'm discontented with a lot of areas of my life right now. My career isn't going where I want it to; I'm shy and flaky and frustrated about dating; I keep waiting for change, striving for it, and it doesn't happen.

But sometimes, like this weekend at Lake Tahoe, I can't help but look at my life and think, this is amazing. I couldn't have made this up: this place, these people, cruiser bikes and grilling on the beach at sunset and poker late into the night and having people around who care one way or the other about me. I can't complain about any of this, or about anything else. This is good.

Dear Bones,

I apologize for thinking briefly but with enthusiasm today about the extra writing time I would have during your summer hiatus. I didn't mean it! Thank you for all the singing this week! And one more thing: Please do not kill Agent Booth, because I think that I, not to mention one Dr. Temperance Brennan, would miss him terribly, and we don't want that, do we?

To recap, I will not gloat over additional writing time if you will keep my favorite striped-socks-wearing dork of an FBI agent alive.

With remorse,

A loyal viewer

12 of 12: May

Happy 12th to all, and to all a good night! For background info on the 12 of 12 guru, Chad Darnell, and to see other people's 12s, click here.

Getting on with it:


6:55 - Bed. Pondering whether a good hair day is worth ten fewer minutes' sleep. (It totally was.)




8:02 - Corner of Lake Park and Grand. Nancy Pelosi's hiding due to her own failure to protect the constitution? Hokay.




8:12 - Returning The Life of Emile Zola, the 1937 Best Picture, which I reviewed over the weekend.




8:25 - Part of my Monday-morning routine: copying my Entourage calendar for the week to the weird, low-budget Little Prince calendar I bought for $3.




11:01 - Break! Saltine crackers and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress to ward off pre-lunch crankiness.




11: 27 - The Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast, savior of many a long day of edit entry. I'm starting as far back as iTunes will let me and working my way forward, even the ones I've already heard, which should see me through for awhile (supplemented by Ira Glass and the This American Life team, obviously).




4:55 - Free! Waiting for the light at San Pablo and whatever street puts me on 580.




5:30 - Chatting with my mom. (Yes, I called her yesterday, too. I even took her out for gelato. What kind of kid do you think I am?)




6:55 - Christine being awfully nice and giving me a ride to our end-of-season choir BBQ. We must have been talking about pianos here (apartment-dwellers: traditional or electric?). You know, as you do.




8:26 - Super-secret shot of choir folks eating dessert and talking about the hopes and dreams of choir-dom.




9:20 - Alto section, second row, of whom I hope to see plenty over the summer break. I like these girls an awful lot (plus, they totally keep me in tune).




10:02 - Bones! How are you so crazy and adorkable all the time, and then BAM! Random violence!? Why do you play with our emotions like this? (Not like Agent Booth's going to die, or anything. What is this, Lost?)

Happy 12, all. See you in June. (JUNE! How did that happen?)

Wonders

The many astonishing sights of Maker Faire:


Twenty-foot musical, ear-wiggling, robotic giraffe; responds kindly to petting ("That feels good!"); answers to name of Russell: check.








Bona fide knitting celebrity the Yarn Harlot. Stop laughing, you.












Life-sized Mousetrap, fantasy of geeky children everywhere




Why yes, since you ask, that is the face of Nikola Tesla etched into a tortilla by a laser. How did you know? (Million-dollar scheme: calibrate this machine for the Virgin Mary. Seriously, people.)

To get to the other side

Is my life a Pee-Wee Herman movie?

I was driving up my street this morning, muttering to myself about Monday and morning and sleep and work, when I had to stop. And wait. For a chicken--a rooster, actually--to cross the road.

But...WHY?

Excuses, excuses

Ooh, I'm a bad blogger. A week between posts! Leaving a gap like this makes me feel like I deserve a lecture, like when I visit the dentist and he tells me I need to floss more. I'm not sure exactly what kind of build-up I accumulate when I forget to post, but I'm sure it's something bad. Resentment, maybe? A sense of neglect?

The truth is, I'm trying to write. Elsewhere. Much to my dismay, I'm not one of those fancy-pants book-deal bloggers, and until that day comes, I have to pretend like I have some kind of writerly priority system. Cinema Hype comes first, because of the whole contract-and-money thing, and then any necessary real-life-type writing (mostly to try and attract more contract-and-money situations), and then finally the creative work that's been percolating all day, unless crew or choir or small group or my own delirious need for sleep intervenes. They often do.

I like to listen to the Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast during long afternoons at work--it's all very "I'm a waitress but really I'm an actress," this entering edits and updating databases while listening to long interviews with working screenwriters. If I time it right, I can finish a podcast just as it's time to go, and rush home to get something down before the inspiration of the day fades or I have to eat dinner and leave the house, whichever comes first. I was listening to the Michael Arndt/Little Miss Sunshine episode recently, and Arndt described his time of holding down a day job and writing in his spare time as one of the hardest things he's ever done. I can't express how much relief that brought me. People do this, apparently. Those half-hours add up, and eventually become finished pieces, however slowly. Piling up enough of those pieces might mean, someday, not having to squeeze it all in around the margins. I'm trying to establish a more consistent writing habit to make the most of that time, to have a little faith, to create a little hope for myself. I do think it's going to work, this keeping on keeping on. Though if somebody wanted to offer me a book deal now, that would be all right too.

Noony noony noony

I feel bad for the people in this world who don't know the joy of a good late-night putter. You know the putter: it's that time of night when there's nothing to do, and so doing nothing--or at least a very mindless something--is the whole point. I mean, I have movies to watch and plenty of writing to do, but then I wouldn't be puttering, would I? I could go to bed, but then when would I organize my sock drawer, take on ill-advised baking projects, and catch up on my Mythbusters? You know what I mean, Vern? (Ooh, now there's a late-night cable movie.)

I'm not talking a quiet evening at home, here. Contrast is key to successful puttering. I went out tonight, had a good time, met some new people, ate a lot of things I might regret tomorrow. Then I came home, ran through the shower, and here we are, with all the windows open and Park Boulevard relatively quiet for once. That's how it goes: social, social, social, then putter.

Bedsheet-changing is a great puttering activity, especially because there are so many obvious benefits when sleep does finally catch up. Did that. Also folded laundry while watching Grey's Anatomy, which I never ever watch, but which saved me from both the Christopher Walken Saturday Night Live episode I'd already seen and from the disappointment of TBS's sudden refusal to be my personal cable station. From there I was prepared to move on to Love Comes Softly (I know, right?) until ABCFamily and One Fine Day stepped in. And did you know that Baby George Clooney doing a puppet show is mind-blowingly cute? Or that Amanda Peet has an unfortunate run-in with some nude lipstick? Think of all the things I would never know if I slept through all of this! KEY INFORMATION, I'm telling you.

And with that, my clean sheets are calling.

Let the record reflect

Tonight at the very end of church, Mark Labberton followed up a sermon on unity in Christ by asking the congregation to hold hands with their neighbors. Oh, we were so close, I thought. Next to me, Christine looked out of the choir loft at her friend Brooke, a visitor, and mouthed, "Sorry!" We grabbed hands and prayed, and afterwards, we confirmed: the Universal Law of Church Visitors had struck again.

You do know the Universal Law, right? I have yet to find it in the Bible (probably buried somewhere in the Minor Prophets, or maybe Leviticus, sandwiched into the kooky wandering-in-the desert laws), but I swear it's there somewhere, and someday I'm going to find it. The Universal Law of Church Visitors states that in the presence of a non-regular attender, church will get weird. The pastor will spontaneously preach on homosexuality or tithing, or will be absent entirely. He or she will be replaced by a drama troupe, missionaries either to or from Africa specializing in sign-language ministries, liturgical dancers in leotards, and/or a church business meeting. It will be Youth Sunday, and (I'm sorry to say) none of the musicians will actually know how to play their instruments. All of the music will be in Portuguese and accompanied only by an accordion and a rhythm gourd. There will be random hand-holding, possibly while singing or chanting. On Christine's first Sunday at First Pres, a man in the front row occasionally took a bite from a bouquet of daisies he held behind his back. Bringing a friend to church is a risky venture.

Maybe the Universal Law should be the least of our worries. Maybe it's some kind of secret vetting process: virgin birth and empty tombs don't go over so well with those who can't hack Sandi Patti and baton-twirling during the offertory. And, to be fair, maybe it's just getting them ready for life in a church community, letting them know that sometimes, church is full of things that are weird or unintentionally funny, because people are weird and unintentionally funny. Church is a place of earnestness, and sometimes earnestness is uncool. Probably best to get it all out in the open. Maybe God's just trying to keep things on the up and up, which is why things always get just a little unusual when you're wishing for the usuality you love so much.

And, frankly, it's probably more an issue of social oversensitivity than anything else. Church gets mocked enough as it is; we can't always help the assumption that newcomers are horrified when things deviate from the schedule. We seem to apologize a lot, even for things that don't bother us. Maybe we should stop that, and trust people's resilience in the face of things that make us cringe, or even the power of God to work through/despite our strangest efforts. I know that. I should try to keep that in mind. And if only the Song of Solomon laser show would tone things down just a little, we might be able to relax.

"Absurd degree" rhymes with "verdigris"

The other day, I caved and bought the Wicked soundtrack. For all my love of musicals and show tune geekery, I have not previously kept a single Broadway soundtrack on my iPod--they clash with the rest of my music, you see. People with Shuffle fixations like mine have to keep an eye on these things. But I came home from L.A. on Sunday with a heavy nostalgia for my long weekend away and the songs from Wicked running circles in my brain. So I bought it. And now I can't stop. Over and over, Wicked, Wicked, Wicked.

People who know me shouldn't be surprised at my Rain Man music habits. I know my friend Brydon remembers the day, years ago, that he came over and found me listening to "Tears in Heaven" on repeat; this is also the way the Eastmountainsouth song "So Are You to Me" found its way to the top of my iTunes Top 25, ahead of the runner-up by a good thirty listens. I do this mostly when I'm sad, or when I'd rather be someplace other than where I am, though sometimes it's just a particular note or phrase capturing my frame of mind in a way that I can't quite articulate. I always wonder if it isn't something like the neural loops obsessive-compulsive people find themselves stuck in, though it doesn't feel like something that needs to be diagnosed. It's more like scratching some kind of aural-emotional itch.

Anyway, no need to worry. The cycle will break eventually; it always does (and I caught myself humming Rilo Kiley after rowing tonight). Until then, lather, rinse, repeat.

12 of 12: April

Aha! I bet you thought, what with being on vacation and all, that I'd skip 12 of 12 this month. Not so! This is 12 of 12: Vacation Edition, wherein I chronicle my last day visiting my friend Kendra in Southern California. It is, frankly, way better than weekday 12s, for obvious reasons. (For more on the 12 of 12 internet art project, including other people's 12s, check out Chad Darnell's blog.)


10:07 - Waking up at a reasonable hour after arriving home from Disneyland at a not-so-reasonable (in the best possible way) hour.



11:10 - How great a hostess is Kendra? She made us Mickey Mouse pancakes, with chocolate chips and/or blueberries, that's how great.



1:40 - A trip to the Agoura Hills Library's weekly book sale, where I didn't buy anything, though I thought long and hard about a copy of H.L. Mencken's notebooks. (I...am a nerd.)



2:35 - Winter feet + two full amusement-park days in flip-flops = time to call in a professional. (Public service announcement, though: Judgemental pedicure ladies are untoward. I know my feet are gross. If they were as soft and fresh as spring lilies, I would take care of them myself. FOR FREE.)



4:00 - Much better. This will last approximately 2.4 minutes.



4:52 - On the 101, driving to put our names in for the Wicked last-minute front-row ticket lottery, or find something else to do if we don't get in.



6:03 - We won! We won!



6:04 - See?



6:32 - Killing time at Hollywood and Highland before the show. Ice cream and elephants! Two of my favorite things!



7:29 - Found embedded in the sidewalk on Argyle St. in Hollywood



7:45 - Clandestine pre-show non-flash photography from the front row of the Pantages. That's the dragon above the proscenium arch, sort of.



11:10 - Somebody finally volunteered to take Kendra's and my picture after several failed attempts at doing it ourselves. Thanks, guy!

What a good day, right? I could totally get used to this. I can't believe there's, like, work on Monday.