i think it's hot when men sing as women

what are you - matt sweeney and bonnie 'prince' billy

duluth - mason jennings

or should i say hott.

old lady dogs

are the best.

don't be sad, little fork

you may be all flattened out, but i'll take you home with me.

i'd rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery

i think this whole song is beautiful, and so i wanted to share.

but that line, that's the line for me.

this is the first day of my life - bright eyes

different strokes

dork out:

vhs or beta

rock out:

vhs or beta

a few days ago

the tree outside my house exploded, leaving little pink badminton birdies everywhere


as it turns out, little pink birdies are also parrot food.
and now a flock of wild parrots is feeding at my house every morning.

not so long ago

the cafe where i sip coffee was a hotel.


there were more canals, and wider. they've since filled most of them in.


there were over 300 oil towers, just down the street.

what to wear what to wear

lately it's been a bit chilly (relatively) in these parts to wear anything but jeans and boots.

but today. today the air is soft and warm.

i believe i'll wear a dress.

live music

rocks me to sleep

sing it, boys

amour fou - vetiver

old friend

new hairdo

thanks again.

rainer maria rilke once said:

if your daily life seems poor, do not blame it;
blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.

modest mouse put it this way:

so much beauty in dirt

i like them both.

god, the sky really was blue that day

come in

keep out

the hippies were right!

the financial times published an article yesterday about the relationship between money and happiness. they found that happiness and wealth have a direct linear relationship from $0 in earnings per year through $16,000 in earnings. that is, people's happiness levels rise at a constant rate as their wage levels increase from $0/year through $16,000/year. after that the relationship begins to disintegrate, and becomes much more statistically complex. but basically they found that above that level, increased wealth does not necessarily lead to increased happiness. in fact, people in some countries (i.e. women in the United States) have become less happy despite the vast economic growth of the last 100 years.

we discussed this in my economic development class because, well, economics has been focused thus far on the creation of wealth, based on the underlying assumption that increased wealth leads to increased utility, or happiness. and now economists are beginning to question that assumption. the implications are immense.

and endlessly exciting to a little hippie economist like myself.

unfortunately you have to subscribe to FT to read the whole article (the hippies were right all along about happiness) but you can read part of it here.

i still haven't seen the chronicles of narnia

but i have seen this

i'm not even sure that i still need to see the movie.

i just got pooped on

but that's ok. it's good luck.

...

should i be worried about bird flu?

The interstellar dust collector is scheduled to return to earth tonight - filled with 45 teeny tiny particles of galactic stardust. How cool is that?

And NASA is recruiting internet volunteers to help them locate the bits (so small that even though they're contained in a single square foot, locating the particles is akin to searching for 45 ants on a football field).

And if you manage to find one, you get to name it! I was thinking Cynthia, maybe.

i love waking up

to the sound of the rain. it's like a direct order to stay in bed.

on my way

a beautiful comment

through altavista's translator:

It is as if each light hoped that somebody went at dawn to its hug of cold light.
Or as if each light wanted to embrace to the light that never will find exactly opposite.
A crestfallen hug.

truth

i have far more regrets about the things i never said in my life, than those that i did.

i'm done with regrets.

sleep eludes me

and yet i just can't seem to wake up.

what am i going to do?

this explains so much

cells that read minds

panda panda panda

in honor of butterstick's first half-birthday:

panda panda panda - deerhoof (live)

although somewhat repetitive, i really do think it captures a certain...joie de panda.

sleepy sundays

i slept my sunday away, which explains why i'm wide awake right now.

i dreamt that i sang a duet to this song:

handle with care - jenny lewis and the watson twins

it's jenny lewis, bright eyes and ben gibbard covering the travelling wilburys (thanks samuel!).
i sang the ben gibbard part. but i don't remember with whom.

i'm going to have to break my new years resolution already. we have no coffee in the house, so i'm going out. maybe i'll catch some of the sunrise.

ah well, first day of school! i've got to pack up my lunchbox and dust off my mary janes.

the holiday twinkle

it's so pretty where i live

i revel in the imperfections.

my tree broke

and now my shadows are gone.

fears

1) choking to death. i have this irrational fear of choking on my food. sometimes i'll be eating and i'll forget how to swallow. and the bite will stop in my throat and and i'll have to concentrate on breathing around it until i can manage to get it down. and the fear in that moment is paralyzing. sometimes i have to stop eating to make it go away, because the same thing will happen with every bite i take. this happens fairly regularly.

2) standing on small objects. this isn't a death fear, more of a concern that i will fall off or break it. i can't stand on chairs. i once made my roommate paint our entire ceiling because i couldn't get on a ladder. she got a nasty crick in her neck. and even though the fear is of minor injury at worst, it still makes me shake and tremble.

3) turbulence. this one is new. i had some nasty turbulence on a flight a couple of weeks ago. things hit the ceiling. and for a moment i knew just what it would feel like for a plane to go down. on the flight home tonight we had your normal bumps and dips, but i almost lost it. my toes curled. my knuckles whitened. and my heart started beating so fast i thought it would never slow down.

cloudy

my thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy.

i think i swallowed a pint of saltwater

actually, it's more like i had it shoved up my nose.

i want it that way

awesome.

i'm a gemini

maybe that's why i feel the dichotomies so deeply.

modern romance - the yeah yeah yeahs

you have to listen to the whole thing.