Page From My Notebook: I Love Jesus (Lizard), and America too.

This is a new "feature" of this blog (if you will humor me enough to allow for such a concept) where I type up a page from the "paper blog" I carry around with me everywhere I go in my dorky L-Magazine messenger bag.

July 4th, 2009

I did not bring my Ipod to The Shore. Sometimes it's refreshing to hear the world, especially when the world sounds like waves crashing against a boat and hair whipping against my face. That is not to say that music takes away from experiencing the world. In fact, I believe that music can only enhance experience, which is why I normally choose to listen to it nearly every second of the day.  

My beloved ITouch, which I lost in a cab on my last night abroad, walked with me along The Seine to peruse the book stands of nude postcards, toured East London looking for Space Invaders, and orchestrated the chaos that is Amsterdam after a "special" cupcake.  Some people, like my mother, I think, believe that this takes away from the organic experience of encountering theses places, but I disagree.  Music makes my insides bleed out into my surroundings. I feel like I become what I am seeing, whether it is a painting of a beautiful woman or a littered street in a pseudo-ghetto of Paris. Also, I sometimes feel like a disconnected alien/robot viewing the world from afar when there is no music playing.

Music also facilitates human connection at a level we can't even describe. I friend I met in Amsterdam understood this completely. After laughing at the tourists who traveled from painting to painting with their art museum audio tours, we created our own synchronized Audio Tour Playlist from songs we both had on our Ipods (mostly Radiohead and String Cheese Incident, strangely--even stranger that this combination turned out to be brilliant). It was one of the most intensely connected series of moments I have ever had with a stranger I will (in all probability) never see again. And, yeah, we were ridiculously and appropriately stoned, because weed and music, and beer and music, and art museums and music, and every human emotion and music, combine well.

If I did bring my Ipod, my Independence Day Playlist would sound something like this:

1. "She grew up in an Indiana town, had a good lookin' mom that never was around"

2. "Got your mother in a whirl, She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl"

3. " I saw her today at the reception..."

4. "Where are you going, I don't mind, I've killed my world and I've killed my time"

5. "Let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together"

6. "I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul"

7. "Clouds so swift, the rain falling in..." 

8. "Busted flat in Baton Rouge..."

9. "Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring"

10. "Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..." (DP version)

I'm apparently very cliche about my Patriotism. This list lacks Weezer though. Weezer makes me feel insanely patriotic. 

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Jessica took this last night. I realize I like the beach the best at 7-10 p.m.

It must be said that after drinking Bourbon at the racetrack, listening to Springsteen in the car, and eating pie with ice cream, I feel exponentially more American. Also, as Jessica noted when we left the racetrack, we are exponentially closer to our dream of becoming Hemingway. The next logical step is obviously to replace our X-chromosomes with whiskey. Happy Independence Day, America (you slut).

Dream a Little Dream.

Woah. FREEwilliamsburg just spoke about both of the magazines I write for in two sentences, and also posted this video:

I was feeling sick from insomnia/drinking Sugar Free Redbull and not getting wings and then drinking more Sugar Free Redbull and still not getting wings, but then I ate sushi off of a conveyor belt and I feel better. 

It's a good thing I'm not rich, cause you bet your ass I would have a sushi conveyor belt in my living room. Also, I want Wiley Wiggins to be my sushi chef.  In cartoon form. 

Woody Allen, so not down.

For the first time in years, I read (if you can even call it reading) Star this morning: the celebrity-gossip-ass-wipe of a magazine with the "52 Best and Worst BEACH BODIES!"  It's much more hilarious than I remember. The "best bodies" happen to be striking a favorable pose. The "worst bodies" are slouching, or bending down to pick something up (the fat fucks!).

I don't think gossip magazines will be hit too hard by the "print media tragedy."  There will always be a market of people interested in the fact that Mary Kate drank vodka on a plane without (gasp!) eating anything, a market of people that need to be reassured that "Celebrities" are "Just Like Us," which basically means that they eat Cheese Doodles. 

On the contrary, I prefer to think that celebrities are alien creatures that never eat Cheese Doodles, sleep, defecate, or form thoughts: they simply have 6-year-long publicized love triangles and occasionally appear in motion pictures. 

My favorite quote in the entire magazine:

"He's...the Silm-Fast, Diet Coke of vampires." -Stephen Moyer of True Blood on Robert Pattinson. Hells yes.

After submerging my brain in goo, I decided to redeem myself by reading The Onion. You should read about The 12 Things Woody Allen Just Doesn't Get.  I also found a great article yesterday that is totally on point about the difference between Pixar and Dreamworks.

Oh, and end note: two six-year-old black kids on the 6 train told me I'm cute. Their lesbian parent's proceeded to cute-call me as I exited.  My day is officially made.

Cleaning, life.

Last semester, after failing to finish an assignment, I sent this email to my journalism professor, G. Morris:

Overwhelmed Student Seeks Sympathy

“I really didn’t think it would come to this,” said Hannah Levine, 21, an English major who was working at the writing center this Wednesday morning. “I thought I could finish my research assignment.  I didn’t think I needed an extension.”

 Levine stared at her MacBook, which now has a broken “k” key.  According to Levine, it broke while she was furiously typing the word “kryptonite.”  Dressed in wrinkled jeans as she chugged a king-sized Redbull, Levine said that she took on too much this week.  “I have fifteen articles to edit for the school paper, a political science paper to write, a presentation to prepare for English class and a poetry reading to cover,” she said.  “I hate to do this, but I have to ask Professor Morris for an extension.”

When this reporter asked why she didn’t ask for an extension earlier, Levine let out an exasperated sigh and continued staring at her Macbook.  “I thought that I could handle it all. Sometimes I think I’m Superwoman.”

Levine said that, at this point, her only hope is that Professor Morris will give her an extension of a few days so she can follow-up with some officers from student government, and not have to “half ass” it.  “I don’t even know how to half ass it,” she said.  “I’m like a dysfunctional type-A personality, or something.”

I'm a flag waving Type A personality. But I didn't always wave my flag so high. In fact, for many years, I did everything I could to stifle the intensely motivated side of me (hello, Mary Jane) in order to keep the same pace with people around me (however cocky that may sound) and never have to worry that I might FAIL miserably at something I poured my heart into.

I'm not so afraid of failure anymore.  

The downside of my work-until-I-pass-out side is that I feel empty when I'm not doing anything. Even when I'm working at an internship I love, writing a memoir, taking side gigs, and doing A&R for a friends play at The Fring (in August), I still feel deflated because I don't have a "real job" and am usually not getting "paid" for my writing.  And I revert back to that person who tries to distract herself.

I just woke up to my empty beer bottled filled room and wonder where I've been this month. This isn't an "oh, I'm an alcy" post, and I'm not attempting sobriety. This is more of a declaration to clean my room and my life. I'm going to stop preventing myself from success. And I'm going to lose ten pounds this summer. Yup, you heard it here first.

MGMT in Prospect Park was not so fun, but felt like it should have been. Jessica and Suh were the reason it was  good night. MGMT, swarms of high school groupies, new songs I couldn't make out the lyrics to because the mic was so low...not so much.

Endnote, from BV:

DIVORCE.

Listen, I was only drinking light beer because I plan on spending the entire weekend in a bikini (weather permitting). But every time I drink light beer, it fizzes over and nearly kills my computer. Maybe this means I should stop drinking as I write, but I don't care. Screw you, light beer. You're unfulfilling and I've given up.

I'm in love with this band The Rural Alberta Advantage that Mike Conklin gave me to review. I keep thinking I should write about Michael Jackson here, and smaller things like the new Regina album I sort of love despite myself (and her other, arguably more awesome albums). It's weird that I think of this blog as an obligation and feel bad neglecting it for other, more legitimate, obligations. I only started it to remember shit, and occasionally broadcast the ridiculousness that is my life (apparently, a bunch of people are into this, FML). So, meh. 

Youtube Scholar.

Some things I have been watching lately:

I should probably warn you that a half eaten Twinkie is fed to a blow up doll before you proceed to this one, by Diagonals:

A video by The Blow I have not yet posted here!

"Marvel at the fact this dude wrote the lines "I'm sick and tired of the way that I feel / I'm always dreaming and it's never for real / I'm all alone with my deep thoughts / I'm all alone with my heartache and my good intentions" without sounding like an idiot, but, you know... the opposite of an idiot."

Ava Luna moment of Zen:

I don't care if you're sick of this. It's awesome. In a much different way, however, than this:

I think it's time we steal Tristen away from Nashville:

The 3, 367th Reason why I love Jessica Caldwell

"“Save it for your therapist.” Tina was a bitch. If I wasn’t related to her we wouldn’t be friends. Tina was the girl in high school who gave blowjobs for breakfast. I was the girl that drowned her sorrows in Yoo-hoos and Bit-O-Honey bars. Anything with a hyphen."
-From a story she just sent me

(And I'm still too busy bangin' your mom to write anything else. She's ridiculously tenacious.)

"I usually liked two weeks notice before going on a date, so I could lose five pounds, buy a new shirt, and get my Brazil waxed. Then again I hadn’t been on a date since Jerry stole nine months of my life. (Nine months that could have spent making a baby, if I was that kind of girl, which I’m not, or learning a new hobby like sudoku, which still makes no fucking sense to me.)"