i ate truffles last night

for the first time

swoon

andrew and i take on The Nature

yeah, i'm a hopeless romantic

so what?

true love will find you in the end - beck cover of daniel johnston

waste your time

music map

now if only i could stop wasting mine.

a few weeks ago i was out getting my morning cup of coffee when a homeless woman collapsed in my path. i asked if she was ok, but she clearly wasn't. she was having some sort of seizure - shaking, moaning and drooling. i stayed with her until the ambulance came, trying to keep her conscious and talking - but i don't think she even realized i was there. the paramedics whisked her away, and i continued on, somewhat unsettled. all of this happened in a matter of minutes.

i've since wondered what had happened to her. how sick was she? did she die? if she died, was i the last face she saw? was she a drug addict? if she lived, was she able to get some help - to get off the street? did she want to get off the street?

i saw her again today, back in her spot by the post office. her cart was full and her hair was in a fully picked out afro. as with so many things, i'm at a loss.

rain+friday+6pm=

things that grow near me

i am sitting in class right now

and this head. this head is sitting in front of me. it's enormous.

it's perfectly blocking my view of the board. i have to crane my neck to see around it.

oooooo....if i had a rubber band right now, it would be in so much trouble.

or a scythe. that would work too.

last night

i dreamt that hedonism had taken over as the dominant political and social philosophy of our time. it wasn't the huge party you'd expect, though.
it was chaos.

i awoke at 5:30 in the morning to the sound of the garbage men rumbling past my door.
i generally curse them (every tuesday, like clockwork).
but this morning i was suddenly grateful for their presence, and for the beauracratic, sloppy, inefficient, unjust government they represent.

it just needed to get out of the house for a while

Harris: Ideological labels don't stick too well to you.

Jacobs: You try, if you can, to get people to look at the specific thing that is happening and not try to generalize it as an ideology. Ideologies, no matter what kind, are one of the greatest afflictions, because they blind us to seeing what is going on, or to what is being done.

from a jane jacobs interview with bill harris

it's snowing there

i'm jealous.

this is what it looks like here.

my talented friends

so i happen to be an amazingly lucky girl with a number of friends who inspire me on a regular basis. here are two of them.


cara


cara has a radio show in cambridge on from 8-9pm on thursday nights (thats 12-1pm for those of us on the west coast). she plays old swing, blues and jazz. you can tune in, or check out the archives, here.

here's a little sample from last night's smutty selection.

if i can't sell it, i'll keep sittin' on it - ruth brown

handyman - alberta hunter

that first one might be the best song i've ever heard.
cara's taste in music is exquisite.


sarah


sarah was my roommate once upon a time, and her creative influence shaped my life.

she is currently travelling around asia with her adorable husband, gabe. here are some of their shots.




i miss them both dearly.

when i'm left to my own devices

omg

my friend christine just told me the secret to walking in heels without prancing like a show pony.

this is going to change my life.

seriously.

my thoughts were so loud

i remember the weeks after 9/11, when i finally had to return to work. i was so, so scared. i jumped everytime a train rumbled beneath me or a car backfired. and so i listened to the moon and antarctica over and over on my silly cd walkman, every single time i left my house.

there's something about isaac brock's voice that i can't quite put my finger on.
there's something about it that holds my hand.

the world at large - modest mouse

tomorrowland today

check out this opinion piece on the transportation crisis that ray bradbury wrote for the LA times. his suggestion? a monorail! now I'm no transportation planner, but i think the idea has possibility.

lead us into the future, mr. bradbury. i put myself in your capable hands.

p.s. this post is dated from last night, even though i'm posting it in the morning, because i fell asleep while writing it. or actually, while waiting for my thready internet connection to publish it. good times.

sunrise from perloff hall

my mind is still swimming.

it's time for sleep.

flicking your computer screen because you're unhappy about it's content does not *actually* affect the content.

just your computer screen.

my stomach is distended like a small ethiopian child's

but for the opposite reason

call me a luddite

"Film photography is rapidly becoming a special-interest niche."

not to me, new york times, not to me.

110 St. Marks

this is my old doorway. this is the ledge that i sat on. smoked cigarettes and talked on my cell phone. drank fresh margaritas from plastic cups. sipped warm beers when the power went out. welcomed people in. ushered people out. where i was attacked. where i sat for hours with friends and watched the world go by. where strangers stopped to ask for a light, ask for directions, or claim some connection. where friends walked by unexpectedly. where i waded through 4 feet of snow in the name of brunch. this is the doorway to the apartment i lived in twice as long as i've lived here. this is the doorway i walked out of to go dancing, sparkling. this is the the doorway i returned to as the sun was coming up. this doorway changed colors on a monthly basis. this is the doorway i hauled heavy bags through, after trips to far-away places. where thoughtful vivian stopped to take a picture, on her last trip back. where my mail arrived. where out-of-town friends arrived. where i arrived home, so many times.

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.