No. 187: last beat

Okay, so I slacked a little in the whole blogging area.

Without the playlist, here are the songs from the past weeks. I've been moving back into my apartment, settling myself, kirking out about books, working at Carma's, getting out of my Ecology class and getting into Intro to Cog Psych, which I've heard is amazing. Catching up on House.
Anyway, here. The explanations are short for the first one, mostly b/c I didn't write any down when I wrote down the songs, but yeah...

1. Rain by Patty Griffin: It was kind of gross in San Diego. Made me feel like listening to sad girl music.
   
2. Santeria by Sublime: Nick and I sang along to this whilst it blared through the speakers of the GIANT SUV we had in Santa Barbara. It was a good moment.
   
3. Build Me Up, Buttercup by The Foundations: This played on the radio in California about every 10 minutes one day. It was sort of eerie.
   
4. Iron Man by Black Sabbath: Nick wanted to watch the movie in Santa Barbara and then Dad, when I got to San Diego. Having already seen it twice and being utterly exhausted, I fell asleep almost instantly both times.
   
5. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel: Someone was talking about it before I got on the plane home. We didn't technically cross over the sea, but there was that aeroplane.
   
6. Evil by Interpol: Whenever I put my Ipod on shuffle last week, this song would come up. The beginning is so pretty, though, the harmony and all.
   
7. Never Gonna Give You Up by Cake: Matt tried to teach me how to drive the GTI while we were listening to Cake's Rarities and B-Sides. I stalled out a lot to this song, much to my frustration. I've been assured it's a difficult car to learn on.
   

Today I'm going to get paint with Carlos (red) for our walls. I'm painting an accent wall in my dinning area, he's doing his whole apartment. First, Jenny's coming over and we're going to get my books. It is a rainy, gross day and we've both decided to dress like slobs. So if you see me today, just know that I look that way on purpose. ;) I also have to go over to my father's at some point today and get my rent check, since he's being a five year old and refusing to just send it to me. Because I reallly want to make a half hour drive over to Dundalk to pick up a damn check. But I'm relaxing about it, b/c as my mother and Matt both reminded me: it doesn't do a lot to drop to his level and get angry about it. He hasn't changed in 40 years, he's not likely to now just b/c I'm mad at him. And so, I wooooo-saaaahh.

Tomorrow: While I eat breakfast I'll post this week's 7, with the playlist included.

Cheers,
H.

P.S. Finally saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind last night. SOOOO good. I now have a near overpowering desire to sculpt mashed potatos. Silly.

no. 132: we own... a horribly written script

Meredith, Geof and I went up to Baltimore for the St.Patty's day parade and Dad's big shindig. It was most excellent. Lots of food, lots of people, lots of people dressed up in ridiculous green clothing. Glad we made the trip.
Meredith and I watched We Own the Night last night and OH BOY was it awful. It's just hopelessly boring, and it tries to hard to be suspenseful, which just makes it annoying. Dunno. I felt bad for Marky Mark and Jaoquin Phoenix, b/c I like both of them. Eva Mendez is so gorgeous, but her character in that movie is sort of strange and not thought out very well. All in all: disappointing.

A while ago, Carlos introduced me to this guy, and his show, which is AMAZING. I highly recommend wiki-ing him and then beginning to watch all the episodes. Geof, Meredith and I killed about an hour and a half yesterday watching him. 7/31/06 is particularly excellent, in my opinion.

This morning, iGoogle ("Google is our dear and glorious leader") music brought me this Rolling Stone article about Obama. It's pretty well written and actually pretty interesting. I don't really know that I'm for Obama yet. I mean, I'm more for him than any of the other candidates, but I don't know enough about any of them to be gung-ho about it. I used to be really excited about the vote and about this campaign. Not I care in as much as I hope Hilary doesn't win b/c she terrifies me. And she has no idea what to do about war-- which is sort of my big issue anyway. I feel like Obama is a great campaigner, and really accomplished at speaking and being personable. I just have no idea if he'll do anything with the Presidency. Not that I think there's going to be a drastic change either way. This Congress has YET to pass the Farm Bill after two extensions. Meanwhile farmers are being gypped out of money and time and lobbyists, the ones who aren't crooked, are having their souls sucked out of them by maneuvering and in-fighting. Lord love the U.S. government, they take their sweet time.

Anyway-- I forgot to do the 7 yesterday, but it was a busy day so even if I hadn't forgotten, I probably wouldn't have gotten 'round to it anyway.
Today is a BIT slower: reading, writing, watching season 2 of West Wing and possibly hanging out with Nick. I really want to go see the Bank Job or In Bruges, but I don't know if that's going to happen. We'll see. I still have to figure out how Kendall and I are getting to the airport on Wednesday. Rah.

1. "My Lover's Prayer" by Otis Redding: This was featured on the two episodes of Season 2 of the Sopranos were Christopher gets shot and is in ICU. I love Adrianna sitting beside him holding his hand while this plays, especially b/c of their problems in the past few episodes. Very touching, but just a generally gorgeous song.
   
2. "Guns and Cigarettes" by Atmosphere: Uhm, so I know I've already done an Atmosphere song on this playlist, but I was listening to him the other day and realized he's awesome (although Michael likes Sage Francis better-- to each his own). It's the lines "I need ot start writing rhymes about other peoples' problems/ cause the strangers are starting to get worried" that bring this song to List level.
   
3. "Christina" by Patty Griffin: So sad, but SO gorgeous. "Liars can say it all just as well." Patty Griffin's voice is unparalleled and so worth it. I made a great mix of her songs @ Jenny's once and have been listening to it with regularity for the past few weeks. She's great. Also check out "Rain" and "Peter Pan".
   
4. "Fresh Feeling" by Eels: Talked about this song already, last blog. From the Scrubs soundtrack, and really excellent. I'm partial to Eels anyway, though they sometimes tend to be crass, but the musical production is great and his voice is incredibly soothing.
   
5. "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffet: I have a great memory of this song from Beach Week, about three or four years ago. Chris Pittman, me, Beth Powell, Brian, Casey Grey (who I randomly saw in the Denver airport when I was there over X-mas break but did not say hi to b/c he intimidates me by being so gorgeous) on the bus coming back from the last beach day. Chris had his acoustic out and we were all singing this song. When we were done we kind of looked at each other Chris says, "That's probably not the best song for church camp." I just laughed and concurred. Man, I miss that kid. Anyway-- this song is great. "He Went to Paris" is another great one, though tragically sad.
   
6. "Books from Boxes" by Maximo Park: I found Maximo initially on the Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack, when "Going Missing" was on there (another great song-- also good is "Girls Who Play Guitars"). This song is the perfect mix of great music and story telling in lyrics. It makes me happy b/c it's got a great driving beat, but his voice and the general gist of the story is kind of melancholy.
   
7. "Sleep Tonight [Junior Boys Remix]" by Stars: Uhhhm, if you haven't heard of either the Junior Boys or Stars, you need to get on that immediately. I've loved the Stars for a LONG time, and was maxi excited when In Our Bedroom After the War came out. I found this remix on hype.com a while back and listened to it again today. Turns out it's off an album called Do You Trust Your Friends, in which the premise is Stars turned over Set Yourself on Fire to their rockstar friends and told them to remake the album. It's amazing. This is my favorite though.
   

That's all for today, kids, unless something fun and exciting happens.
This is the palindrome, inanely blogging so you don't have to.

H.

PS. Apparently my roommates hate me. This came as sort of a discomforting shock. Makes me even more centered that I'm living in the Marylander next year by myself. Apparently I cannot keep friends I live with.

No. 60B

Another quick thing:

I think there's a general blissful joy at young age, barring some extraneous negative circumstances, about one's parents. Even if they're divorced, one sort of maintains a safe feeling-- that there are people who are morally obligated to love you. And for parents, I think there's a feeling that there are people who are morally obligated to listen to what you have to say and respect it.
Then there's that earth shattering (or maybe delayed explosives) moment when those feelings are blown apart. It comes earlier for parents-- the first few times your kid talks back to you, I imagine. But for kids, for teens, for twentysomethings, for those 30 year olds-- it's later. And I think it hurts more. You realize that they're not obligated to love you more than themselves, or to value what you say, or even to listen when you speak. There's no guarantee that they're not going to irreparably damage your life.
For me, this happened with my mother when I was seven, but about 4 years ago, the scared feelings went away and she started making me feel safe again. In regards to my father, the dynamite just keeps on coming.
Someone once told me that I probably have daddy issues affecting my trust in and acceptance of and from the opposite sex.
Hang on, I'm pretty sure Captain Obvious is calling, I should get this.
H.