We’re all just fumbling in the dark — for a heart of hearts
December 2009
The Archives
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12.22.09gingerbread hoopla + ichat pigmentgasm
Gingerbread house is mostly done, just without the tower (I ran out of frosting, got to pick some up at the Michael’s in the upper west side tomorrow.
Also, I pretty much finished this painting I’d been working on for a while. I need to wait for it to dry and paint in the white parts.
After what, 24 years, I’m finally getting the hang of oils. The key is to have a brush for each primarycolor because it’s absolutely impossible to get every trace of something out of a brush, gamsol be damned. I’ve been doing this series of Mac OS icons that I’m hoping to hang in a grid behind my computer desk alongside an impressionist rendition of a row of the original Macintosh icons designed by Susan Kare.
I love being on break because I at least have some time for my hobbies when I’m not working, rather than having all my free time outside of school taken up by work.
My sleep schedule is a whirlwind of crazy—I didn’t feel tired last night, so I got up and put together the rest of the gingerbread house until I ran out of frosting. Then I cleaned up the kitchen, read my Economist for a while, then fell asleep on the couch until 6 p.m. I’m going to try to at least lie in bed until the morning, because I have a ton of last-minute holiday shopping to do.
Derek, as you may know, got me the amazing Beard Head hat for Christmas, but I got a letter in the mail today saying that they were backordered and that I would get it whenever they had it. Le sad!
However, as far as I know I’m getting a table easel and my Chrome bag, which is just fine for me. I’m in so much credit card debt that I really don’t need anything. Well, I should flip over to my work user account and get started. I’ve only got three weeks to get this beta site in tip-top shape.
Also, I don’t know why I don’t have a list of the blogs I read on my sidebar. I’m so behind in redesigning this site—it’s always the last thing on my priority list, but I like the current design. Clean minimalism is my thing these days.
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12.22.09xmas antics
Today my cousins and I decorated gingerbread men and I put together the sides of the gingerbread house:
It’s 6 a.m. and I still can’t sleep, even after lying in bed for hours. I may go and walk around Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning. But probably not, since it’s bitter cold. Also, my cousin should be awake soon.
I want to go to the gym, but the one at my college is closed and it would probably be very expensive to re-join the gym across the street just for one month (classes start again the 19th).
I also need to change my sleep schedule. It’s absolutely ass-backwards. I think I’m going to stay up today. Maybe paint. Something like that. My wrists are killing me, so I can’t really type. I don’t know what to do ever since it snowed. The outside is like an alien realm. I need to conquer the snow.
I need to do something different today, I’m falling into this habit of endless work. The new site is nearly complete, but I’m running out of creative steam. I need some change of scenery.
Marvin left for LA on Sunday, so I don’t have a Jersey BFF any more.
I only know a few of the bands with upcoming shows. I think the solution to my doldrums is to finish my two half-done paintings. And if that doesn’t work, to go wander around in the city for a while. Maybe go see a movie. I’m going to go upstairs and make some tea.
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12.20.09xmas, insomnia, web design, and new friends
The most amazing store in the Village:
A few nights ago, I stayed up all night with Marvin. We did French Roast, drinks on Bedford Ave., then a freezing ride on the ferry, and back to French Roast for breakfast.
Last night my mom and made a gingerbread house. I built the design out of posterboard and then we used it as the pattern.
Tonight, I decorated all the pieces. It was so fun.
Today was an intense blizzard—we had to shovel out the driveway and everything.
In between all this, I’ve been working feverishly on the new version of my magazine’s website. It will be epic.
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12.18.09Top 10 Albums of 2009
With so many shitty “Best of ‘09″ lists floating around the web, heavy with bands that don’t make what human beings consider music *cough* AnCo *cough* I thought I’d roll my own. Sound off in the comments.
This is based on when I added them to iTunes, regardless of release date.
1. Peaches – I Feel Cream
Hands down the best album of the year. I was rocking these jams for months, and am still rocking them. “I Feel Cream” is the jam of the century.
you caught
my eye
but I
did shy
your hand
across
my thigh2. Amadou & Mariam – Welcome To Mali
I absolutely love this album. I listened to it almost nonstop for a month after I downloaded it, if I put on one song I always listen to it all the way through. I also saw them at Webster Hall this year, and it was a wonderful show.3. Röyksopp – Junior
I felt like this album was trying too hard, but it was catchy and had great replayability. “Girl and the Robot” is a fantastic jam. Also got to see them live, which rocked my cock.4. Kelley Polar – Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens / I Need You to Hold On While the Sky is Falling
Okay, this is a double-disc best of, because Kelley Polar is the best artist I discovered this year. His songs bounce between the crisp sheen of immaculately produced space disco and intricately crafted love songs. Who can’t identify with the whispered refrain of Tyurangalila: “I can’t wait ’till you’re back here in the dark with me.”
5. Junior Boys – Begone Dull Care
Okay, I admit it, I hated this album on first listen. It just wasn’t Last Exit-ey enough. However, the songs performed live take on a life of their own.6. Bent – Intercept!
I don’t really know anything about this band, it was an iTunes Genius recommendation, but this album is just great. It’s a tin-foil-wrapped ball of electro and chk-chk-chk-esque improvisation. Tons of replayability.7. Fujiya & Miyagi – Lightbulbs
I don’t remember when I started to get into Fujiya & Miyagi, but they have this perfect economy of sound that makes those signature riffs just stick right in your head, and the almost dada lyrics stay with you:Rows and rows of lightbulbs illuminated in speech bubbles
Alternating off and on every time i hit the button
Sprinkling hundreds and thousands on a knickerbocker glory
I saw the ghost of lena zavaroni8. Miss Kittin and the Hacker – Two
I never, never, never thought Miss Kittin and the Hacker would release another album, so it’s like a wonderful electro dream from Grenoble. While it doesn’t have the same kind of sparse, crackly programming that made First Album an instant classic, it has a more mature kind of self-awareness to it.9. St. Vincent – Actor
I’ll admit, once I saw that both Pitchfork and the New Yorker shat bricks about this album, I expected it to be a cliche indie clusterfuck. However, after a few listens this one really grew on me, especially “The Party,” which always makes me think of the last time I saw Andrew.Honey, the party, you went away quickly
But oh, that’s the trouble with ticking and tocking [...]Oh, but I’d pay anything to keep my conscience clean
Keeping my eye on the exits, I’m steady nowHow did we get here with creaks in these chairs
Oh there aren’t enough hands to point all the fingersBut I sit transfixed by a hole in your t-shirt
Oh I’ve said much too much and they’re trying to sweep up10. Psapp – Only Thing I Ever Wanted
This album was just so adorable. This band uses toy instruments, and all the songs have this kind of dark levity to them. I had “The Hill of our Home” stuck in my head for weeks.11. (take that, predictability!) Zoot Woman – Things Are What They Used To Be
Zoot Woman was another band that I thought would never release another album, so I was very excited when this one made its debut. Unfortunately, they didn’t tour the US. I must have listened to “Lonely by Your Side” for about a month.Now it’s 7 a.m.—I guess I should try to get some sleep.
Also, my expensive voice-recognition headset broke (after only buying it in the summer, isn’t that bullshit?) so I need to go through the warranty bullshit (just another thing to do, ugh). So yeah, my wrists hurt. And it’s time for sleep.
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12.18.09looking everywhere, and I see nothing but people
You know you’re in a bad place in life when you find the songs that most resonate with you are from Black Cherry. Especially when “Tiptoe” becomes an impromptu anthem (especially 1:35-ish).
I’ve been feeling uneasy about the declining ability of music to make me feel better during these dark winter months. Today started out well, I trekked up the hill to the post office, then picked up some more Christmas lights at Target before I went home to start work. I wanted to go out today and do something, but I had work to do.
And before I know it it’s dark, and I’m here at 5 a.m.
I wanted this winter to be one of fantastic discoveries, of warm hot chocolates in all-night cafés, of feeling one’s warmth against the cold. However, all I feel is a deep permafrost of loneliness, especially at night. I tried to go to sleep early, at 3:30 a.m.
I existed there, under the covers, as galaxies of those I’d loved floated by in the dark. Despite being ensconced in my bedspread (I wanted to take my old one from Sacramento for sentimental reasons, but didn’t) I bought the exact some one again once I arrived. I hope that possibly I’ll wake mid-dream and for a moment think that I’ll roll over and it’ll be him. Or him. Or anyone, really.
My grandpa died in the house last year in his favorite chair. We joke that “poltergeist papa” is around, and that almost makes the house feel like less of a tomb when I’m the only one awake. I was reading a friend’s blog and couldn’t agree more:
As winter approaches the desire to have a warm body next to you becomes a whole lot stronger. Right now I am not sure if it’s really a lover I am seeking more than just a full sized electric blanket that you can hold and cuddle.
It may snow on Saturday, though, which will make this so much better. I love snow. It’s the solution for everything that’s wrong with the world. What’s the difference between Norway and Uganda? Snow, that’s what. We need to send snow to these impoverished regions so they can go sledding and have fun, instead of shooting each other.
If anything, my insomnia is worse than it’s been in a long time. I used to be able to concentrate really hard and go to sleep if I was tired, but these days I’ll lie there for an hour tired, but still unable to drift off. I’ll think about all my decisions, all the things I have to do, where I’m going in my life, my mistakes in every relationship, dissatisfactions with existence.
I suppose I made a mistake tonight in reading half of this book that Taggart lent me ages ago, The Wasp Factory. I had made up my mind to read it after the semester was over, mainly because I was angry he never finished reading my favorite book at the time, Crash. It’s not really the book itself but having him in the back of my mind for a few hours as I read it that made me miss him intensely, to rack my brain for each detail of every kiss, to try and remember what we would talk about in the back room of the Depot for hours. To try to remember both of our increasingly ridiculous excuses for not being in love with each other simultaneously. Or, if we were, for not being able to understand it or act on it.
I’ve had a difficult time focusing on the positive aspects of existence. Did I mention my mother is dating for the first time in like eight years? She’s latched onto this guy from West Virginia and is floating around the idea of marriage. Which means that the roles have reversed—instead of me going to the city all the time to see who I was dating she’s on the phone with her best friend from high school that lives a few blocks away gossiping up a storm.
She needs to have her own social life, but still, it seems like we never see each other any more. I guess that’s the difference between visiting a place on vacation and actually living here. She and Grandma really loved the lights I put up in the front of the house. I got the timer and programmed it. I’m just having a hard time not thinking about how much I miss Christen and Sam and the whole gang out there.
Was considering taking a trip to Boston to distract myself. I’ve always wanted to go to Boston, since it’s a city with so much history (both real history and Dresden Dolls history), and I like walking around strange cities—capturing the poetry of the streets, the intersection of each angle and corner creating a unique calculus of status and consumer goods. However, the Acela is $99 one-way and the non-bullet train is $60 one-way. I would take the bus, but I hate being crammed into buses, reminds me of all the times I would take Greyhound to see Kelly.
If only my 17-year-old self could see me now. I wonder what I’d think. I don’t really have the money for a mini-vacation. I’m going to Mondo tomorrow if I’m in the mood and I’m going to force myself to get drunk and have a good time. I feel lately as if I’m doling out fun like trying to get a meth addict to eat. I’m at that stage of complete pleasure receptor atrophy that I’ll forget that I have porn on and be distracted reading something on Reddit.
I think it was writing out Christmas cards to everyone that made me realize how lonely I was and how it felt like it would be a million years until I saw any of them again.
I suppose I should abbreviate all this sentimental nonsense and get into some regular nonsense, like the top five albums of 2009! (see post above)