Liner Notes For A Later Date

19 Days In Your Room
Various Artists


1. Shelby Sifers - Are You Devo (The Spirituals Remix)
2. Gomez - Mix
3. Sleater-Kinney - Modern Girl
4. Ingrid Michaelson - The Way I Am
5. Brett Dennen - The One Who Loves You Most
6. Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me
7. Beirut - Scenic World
8. The XX - Heart Skipped A Beat
9. Lacrosse - You're On My Fighting Side
10. She & Him - I Was Made For You
11. MiniBoone - Rosalina Must Dance Alone
12. Yo La Tengo - Our Way To Fall


I wish I could commit to making these liner notes all at the same time and putting them in the case, but I got too excited to give you my present and I had to do it this way. I won't be hiding it in your gate this time, but I'll probably do something else shy to hand over the goods. This mix follows the same rules as before: twelve tracks, no repeated artists, one theme. I tried to get the same kind of songs, the same kind of beat, with a flow to move to. The first time I made one of these, I was falling hard for you. This time, I'm in deep, and I guess this is a story about that.


1. I came across this last and unexpectedly. The original title of the mix was to be 6 days in your room for the six days of summer blackout, but the lyrics called for 19, and so I did. The song is about waiting to and finally getting let in.


And like a big bad wolf I will
Eat your heart right out of your chest.
I would hug you so hard you bleed.
Oh what big eyes I have,
Oh what big teeth I have,
Oh what big feelings have,
Oh what big love I have. 


2. I don't really know what this song means because honestly it's kind of confusing, but I think it's about not knowing what the most important thing in life is because you're too busy with work or school or whatever, but I've got the answer. Be happy, and be honest if you're not.


3. I don't think this needs explaining. My baby loves me.


4. You know when I sing this, every time I sing it, I'm singing to you. This was the song I wanted to build around because I think it says everything I need to say. Whatever you need, I'll find it for you. Whatever you want, I'll get it for you. Whatever. Because you take me the way I am and I love it.


5. This song is what I want to be to you.


6. This song tells a little story about two people going to the shore and the mishap that gets in the way because they're screwing around. I just like the imagery of coming up from behind and putting my arms around you in some unexpected manner.


7. I feel like everything is beautiful when we're together. It is.


8. And this song is about the opposite of what I want to be. The thought of finding anything better than this in the whole big world is so alien and impossible to me that the notion horrifies me. And I think it's good to balance the sappy songs out.


9. Enough of the sad notes. You're on my fighting side, and I'm on you're fighting side too. That's where I'll keep on being. 


10. And, I think this might be true.


11. This song was written for people much younger than us, but I'm still familiar with the ideas it expresses, about being convinced about love at last. My knees will do anything you please, let's dance.


12. Please just read the lyrics to this. This, and all the others, but this most especially.


<3 

Playing Catch-up

So, I don't even know where to begin. I haven't written in a while. That has something to do with how exciting my life is - not in the good way - and something to do with how amazing it can get sometimes. I guess I'll give it a whirl. This is likely to be highly disjointed. 

My folks got me a used car last week, so that's been pretty neat. It's a silver 99 Honda Accord, I'm thinking of calling her the Queen Anne's Revenge II. After my last Honda, the Queen Anne's Revenge I. I already thought it was stolen once because I forgot where I parked in Old City - that was exciting. It's a bit of a mature car for me, but maybe it will cause people to underestimate me when I drag race them on Broad Street. I've been looking for excuses to go for a drive since then, but now I'm out of gas. It's better that way, I want to keep being the girl that bikes everywhere, so someday in the distant future I can get in shape and also I like that visage. 


Speaking of which, I got a new bike. And I had to ask Jude if he minded if we had the same bike, because somehow the only bike in town available in my size and price range and that I liked was the same one as his. So that's really dorky. But they'll be easy to find and besides, the seats are different! I haven't got it yet, but I'm gonna have to name it and everything when I pick it up tomorrow. I almost got my first fixie today, but then it was too small and they didn't have any more in the world.  So I won't get my hipster wings just yet. EDIT: Jude says it might be a fixed gear after all. Word.

But now I'm home making mix tapes, so that's not a concern at the moment. As for home, the power's been off for like a week. Something happened with the bill, and PECO shut us down, and apparently they close on weekends and it takes three days to turn power back on because people in this town are either so underpaid that their only goal in life is to stick it to the fuckin' man OR they're all morons. And I hate them. We came up here a couple of times in the dark to get my necessities and my food, and it was like a scene from a horror movie and I'm pretty sure I almost died. But I didn't. So I've been living with Jude basically for almost a week, and he's been really wonderful and welcoming and I hope not too annoyed with having me around all the time. I just went home today, and I feel like I just got home from a vacation. He says every day is an adventure with me. I think that might be the highest honor in the world. I do love - pride myself - on being adventurous. And he and I have fun in ways I find unbelievable sometimes. We can turn a dull day into something. And a something into something amazing. I have exactly what I want. A fellow adventurer, attractive and smart and interesting and fun. My greatest fear in love is the promise of boredom, but I don't think boredom is coming anytime soon or maybe at all. We'll see. 

But anyway, I'm home now. The house is somewhat in tact. The cats are alive, they're actually sitting on me now. I'm sitting in my living room with my laptop and the animals in my lap, watching Mullholland Drive and contemplating a joint. My sleep schedule has now fully synced with Jude's, so I'll be up pretty much all night I imagine. Perfect time to get something done. Or waste all the time in the world. I haven't decided yet. Blogging is an accomplishment as far as I'm concerned. 

I decided there are words I want to bring back into common usage, such as: wicked, rad, neat, keen, bangarang, bitchin' and introducing ... Shaqtastic. Will update with progress on that. 

The Way I Am

I've realized on a number of separate occasions recently that I've become one of those people I hated, the ones so happy and drunk with love and life that it's all they think about and all they want to talk about and you just want to take all that saccharine sop and shove it down their throats until they choke.I'm not talking about it blah blah blah twenty-four-seven. I'm writing this, sure, but this is precisely what I started blogging for. At the least I know I should be more tolerant of those people, now that I know what it is - I realized it when I was talking to Bobby today, when it came out by accident - it's happiness. He said, yeah, you're one of those happy people. I'm happy. I'm so happy.

But look, I have this thing that someone special taught to me a long, long time ago. I say what I'm feeling, I say it with absolute earnest, and the person that I love will somehow know it every day, but I don't say the same thing every day. Those are special words that have to be used with utmost care so they won't lose their value. They have to be protected. And so, in order to protect them, I show how I feel. I do. And the ones I love the most at the ones that do back. A photograph. A keepsake. A trip to your favorite cafe in the city. I'd do anything for you. So tonight instead of words, I'm sharing a little of myself with you. And for the sake of the sanity of all the people who haven't yet come to my same realizations, I'll stop just there for now, and now for something completely different. 

Jude said I should do a little experiment while I blog tonight, to start smoking in the beginning and just see what turns out. I see it a social experiment to determine definitively whether or not people under the influence create more beautiful art, or at least as beautiful as it is to them. Jude said once that they don't, but for my part, I'm willing to wager it depends on the person. Because the mind wants to create. It just needs a push. And so I wanted to see the progression of sober to high on paper in the morning.

First things first is the revelation that food is better when you cook it, followed by a consideration of the absurdity of wanting to write about food. I'm watching a movie called Adam, about a man with Asperger's, and truth and lies and love. It's touching, but the soundtrack is patchy, and you know how I feel about soundtracks and mixtapes. When I gave Jude a mixtape, he told me I should do soundtracks for indie movies, and I said something dumb like I have to save the world, and he lamented for Zach Braff. I do suspect he was being nice. He's always being nice. He's the nicest boy I've ever met. See, here I go again, the happy is coming through, unannounced. I understand, lovers of the world! The movie ended, it was supposed to be happy I think, but it was awful sad, because Adam's only character development was therapeutic process for his disease, not emotional. He'll never find what the girl could have gave him. Stupid writers and producers. That's not a happy ending. I only had five matches, so I've hit a wall now where I can't light this anymore, so this post will start going downhill, flicker or die ...


In conclusion, Jude is right, or I just don't have a beautiful enough mind.

Stars And The Mountain

I'm sitting alone at my desk tonight, eating noodles and painting my nails and watching an incurably cute movie and just being a girl for the evening. The movie is Paper Heart. It's about discovering what love is scientifically, and discovering it accidentally. In the movie, Michael and Charlyne eat in diners and play pranks on one another and see cheap concerts and throw frisbees and smile, and the people around them are in love, or they're not, but they're just the background noise. The only story you want to hear - the only one that matters - is Michael and Charlyne. There's a scene where they're walking in the grocery store holding hands and he's complaining that he doesn't know what to make her because she doesn't eat meat that really made me smile. I wonder what it's like to live your life behind a camera. Will it still be real? Do those people ever feel the feelings they want us to believe they do? I think, no matter how incredible a story the movies can come up with, real life can be and is infinitely better.

I had another one of those weekends where everything just feels right. Jude took me to the movies, even though he doesn't really care for the movies, because he promised we would. It was one of those neat things he gets to go to because he just knows people. I feel like people know I don't quite fit in - I didn't go to art school, and I don't talk and dress quite right - but I get a sense of paternalistic tolerance, and I'll take that. We biked home together in the rain and it smelled like summer when I was a kid.

We woke up together in the morning, groggy and fumbling, for a big day. I don't remember what we wasted away our night on, maybe TV and maybe just hanging out, but I know I sleep better beside him. We were going camping! I met a bunch of his friends and we drove into the wilderness, holding hands and tickling across a cooler in the back seat. Karim and Becky are passing a j, and the ride feels like nothing. I mean, until we get up there, and get lost, and drive in circles for a while. Eventually we make it to the top of the mountain and pull out into this beautiful open field, and a chalet with a view down into the valley and the lake and town. Jude is already taking pictures. He has this big ridiculous antique polaroid you have to order film off eBay for that makes me smile every time I see him pick it up. And he's good at taking pictures, I want him to teach me too. Anyway, I meet all these crazy nice people, and they're all sitting around a ready-lit fire drinking as it starts to downpour. I mean, really rain, with thunder and lightning and whipping wind. We huddle together beneath the pavilion and watch our fire struggle bravely on. Somehow, I made it inside and passed out watching the storm, and woke after dark, dinner missed, tummy angry. But Jude just puts his arms around me, and it's all right. All right to suck at camping games. All right to be a little silly. All right to curl up together and sleep to the storm.

In the morning, the sun comes out. We all make breakfast, and we all clean up, like we all know each other. Jude and I play frisbee with Karim, and even though I rarely make a good pass, no one makes me feel silly for it. We're going hiking today. On the road, we pick up two wayward campers, and I try - and fail - to catch a milk snake. The place we're going is called Thousand Steps - really it's like 1,021, which is bullshit - a few of us turn back, the others struggle painfully up. Jude says we're in a happy medium between those that want to run up the mountain and those that are going to throw up, and that seems about right. It's the roughest constant climb I've done since that temple in Japan. My legs feel like butter and shake like jell-o. But at the top, the feeling of victory is a beautiful high. We climb, we play, we take pictures, and kiss. We conquered the mountain. We searched for treasures - didn't find any. And ran back down before the rain. We found a snake in the fire pit, and I tried to pick him up a few times, got bit, screwed around and eventually someone took him away. Party poopers. While I help James build a fire, the others discuss how we're going to hurt ourselves. Someone brought bb guns - it's really downhill from here. We shoot targets a little while before someone introduces a slip 'n slide, soap, and drinking into the mix. I hurt myself on the slide, so I call it slip in bleed. Everyone ends up soapy and soaked in PBR. We make burgers and kebabs and I run around in the rain a bit before it lets up. We all go out to the gazebo to smoke and look at the stars, and then thoroughly blazed, Jude and I take a blanket out to the field. I forget there's other people as we lay looking up, warm beside him, barely able to think or speak. The stars were brilliant and clear. I felt so alive.

But of course, like all good things, it had to end. We left this morning, after a hundred photographs, and drove home in fair quiet. I slept in his lap, and he with an arm around me. We sprawled out on the carpet at his house, and then I had to get up to go home. And now here I am, thinking about how much fun I had and how many people I met and being sad that it's over. We didn't kill each other. I don't know about Jude, but I didn't get tired of each other either. I have about a hundred little anecdotes of things that got said over the weekend, but to try and get them all out on paper might be impossible. It might take away their magic. Just know, they happened. It's like, we don't have to try to have fun, we just do. We just are. It's easy.