your wants make me nervous

The tiredness has kicked in, attempting to extricate oneself from plans, because it's Monday and I'm exhausted already. This weekend was diner food and helping a friend move, an amble through a hipster craft fair full of stuff that all looks mostly the same and artisan ethnic food where the dudes were walking around wearing giant vintage cameras around their necks like Flava Flav does clocks, and there was so much seeing and being seen and general overpriced tchotchkes that we left relatively quickly for sportsballing and snarking far from tiaras and way-too-expensive trust fund home furnishings.

I gave props to all the ladies of my life, am super-hyped about seeing Failure in Detroit in a couple of weeks, worked in the garden and had a laundry night with Neighbor up the street at the laundromat where we washed loads of work clothes and black band t-shirts, ate junk food and sang Dead Milkmen songs and made up blues songs and loitered in the parking lot as the machines spun around. Something about the laundromat makes you feel like you're not all that well off even if you're doing reasonably okay given the circumstances.

All the caffeination took awhile to wear off and I woke up sleepy this morning, thinking about how I'd rather be out in the garden than getting a stiff neck, wondering why I commit to things at all, and being all the more relieved that my life is not tied to some goofball even though I don't want to live alone in an apartment forever and the concept of solo homeownership is profoundly intimidating. I just need the brain to slow down, and to plant my peppers and eggplants, and read some more books and remember to slow down. 

solar dip

There are redacted thoughts, that may have been spilled ten years ago but discretion says not so much. Strange what crossed signals are sent, that is all, and nothing too major. I will answer the phone for anyone at 3am if they're in a jam, I've learned, and it's nice when someone buys you breakfast as a thank you, and it feels good to be making art again with acquaintances turning into friends.

 Neighbor came over and told me that the chandelier lighting ceremony was stupid, as we knew it would be. Because nothing says provincial-as-heck like having a "World's Largest" something. We drank High Lifes and ate egg rolls and laughed, and I can't remember what genius ideas we came up with now but they were genius, for sure. 

Meanwhile an art gallery got raided the same night for not having a booze permit. I don't know enough to comment either way but it's all ridiculous.

Sportsball was rained out, but some good folks had us over for a cookout and we listened to bluesy whiteboy music of the best kind (Zeppelin maaaan) and then there was frisbee-throwing at the park and me and Tangerine took off because she wasn't feeling good and chilled by the beach for a bit because the sunset was gorgeous and talked about the general confusion of growing up and getting older, and realizing that our tendencies aren't always healthy. I guess it's good to know these things though I would have thought we'd have more figured out by now.

And some friends from church got married yesterday and asked me to take photos of their wedding which filled me with trepidation because usually I shoot things that are outside that don't move and this is kind of a big deal. But the light was good enough, and I got some beautiful shots of everyone mingling together and the ceremony.

I got all sappy watching everyone laugh and eat good potluck food together, because we all come from such different places and are together here with God and mutual friendship in common. Some of us had normal suburban existences and others grew up in crackhouses and shelters but we're all eating together, celebrating together, laughing together, everyone's kids are running around together and it feels so beautiful and right.

Neighbor and I wandered down to the lake and up the street for pizza and coffee, sat at tables outside overlooking the street and realizing we look like a pair of damn hipsters with our lattes and band shirts, before wandering back down to the lake to watch the sunset and snarking about overly earnest causes that seek to remedy the inevitability of human nature. Life is strange and beautiful.

novocaine for the soul

A couple of routine cavities turned into a root canal, and I rode my bike home with the entire side of my face feeling slack from the novocaine, with my smile crooked and my lips unable to suck through a straw. The surgeon likes listening to Brian Eno and Explosions in the Sky so I'm laying there and now my weird brain associates oral surgery with post-rock.

But it's the first warm day of the year, and I overdose on feelings of summer. Stubby pigtails and cut-offs and an old Clash t-shirt and a kite bungee-corded to the back of my bicycle, as the sand swirls off the beach and I'm thankful for the sunglasses that keep it out of my eyes as it saturates my hair. The kite spins and dives and rises again, I am the only one even trying to fly one on the beach that's still half-frozen. Everyone's outside, we're all euphoric, people are smiling and saying hello to each other, couples are selfieing and kissing on the rocks and smoking weed.

I cut through the park up through the old almost-hood, and get invited to some vegan potluck outreach where I'm sure the food is good but I'd feel like I was taking advantage and it's too beautiful out to be in a basement watching a movie about factory farming, so me and Neighbor wander back down, where the dropping sun makes us really cold, and we hang out at the apartment listening to surf records and I think about how amazing it is that we can be poor and have such beauty surrounding us.

where two or three are gathered

One of my near and dear Kentinistas is moving to California to pursue heavy metal dreams. I don't remember exactly how we started talking but I was friends with one of his dorm neighbors and while I lost touch with them, he became part of my circle, became roommates with my friends, and there were countless nights of hanging out on my front porch eating vegan chili and laughing and talking about music and going to shows. When I moved and he got evicted we lost touch for years and reconnected via zuckerbook. 

He's one of the nicest people I've ever known and an incredible cook and when I say I want to hang out before he leaves I don't want to take advantage of that, but he shows up with homemade sweet potato gnocchi and in the meantime me and my roommate catch up on girl stuff that we don't want to bore him with saute up some vegetables with garlic, lemon juice and almonds and throw together a cobbler with the frozen fruit in the freezer that ends up being accidentally foodie since I'm almost out of oatmeal and have a stash of quinoa in the pantry.

We're older now, with less to prove, joking about how we've rediscovered our teenage music as we're listening to all manner of Chino Moreno projects while feasting and reminiscing and talking about what's been going on with us, plotting west coast trips to visit, the time evaporates, it's midnight and we part ways and my heart is warmed at how we've all ended up where we are. 

now it's over and I'm coming home

so I've been back almost a week from Californistan. It's amazing how fifteen years go by and yet there's some people that you reconnect with instantly. I haven't seen the girls since they were preschoolers and by the end of the five days I felt like I had younger cousins or somesuch because we got along so well.

They picked me up at the airport where the warmth felt almost unreal on my Decembered skin, and we got Mexican food and then drove to Los Angeles (how weird is it to have the girls you used to babysit driving you through one of the biggest cities in the country while rocking out to Bikini Kill?) where we had a heck of a time finding parking in Hollywood and watched their cousin's one-woman show that was really, really good and then stayed at her house in Santa Monica where I promptly fell asleep given my body being accustomed to a different time zone.

Her cousin cooked us amazing breakfast and then we walked down through Santa Monica, which I fell in love with, with its beautiful pastel buildings, palm trees, and flowers everywhere even though I know I couldn't afford to live there, and I finally got to dip my feet in the cold Pacific ocean and we walked around eating fresh mandarin oranges and pomegranates which were a whole new kind of delicious before driving back inland, making a stop at the Cabazon dinosaurs for giggling tourist trap purposes.

We went to Joshua Tree the next day, and while I would have loved to get up there earlier than we did, it was incredible to see, those iconic trees, the rocks everywhere that are a completely different landscape, the cactus garden beneath the sunset sky, with the moon rising over the mountains on the other side. We were only here about four hours but I could spend four days here. We drove back through the dark mountains with the luminous moon as jackrabbits darted across the road and I felt damn near euphoric surrounded by all this stark beauty. This was the soundtrack theme for pretty much the entire trip.

The next morning we took awhile to wake up but me and the oldest went out to Whitewater to hike around because I am a Kyuss fangirl and wanted to see the landscape documented in one of my favorite songs. Of course it was desolate and beautiful, with the mountains rising up on either side, the stream running through, the scrubby terrain and the dead century plants. Of course I could have spent longer here too. I don't know why this landscape has such a hold on me even though I could only live near lots of water.

The last day we spent in downtown Palm Springs before heading to the airport and I understand Coupland's generational rage so much more after seeing a town full of rich retirees spending their childrens' inheritance on $20 salads, golf courses in the desert, crystal healings, and cubic zirconia pins spelling out titles like "Queen Bitch" "Pageant Mom," and "Cosmetics Lady." Most of the women had obviously gone through Botox injections and various plastic surgeries and it's surreal to see this other part of America that's so different from your hometown where people eat lots of stick-to-yer-ribs food and it shows.

The plane ride back was full of golf guys coming from some convention, I was still happy to be home even though it was cold and icy, because the hearts in my city are still warm. My body still hasn't adjusted to the time change, my holidays went by in a blur, but now there's a week off and possible new musical opportunities on the horizon with some friends who dig Bad Brains and Faith No More, and the snow makes all things quiet and beautiful. 

so this is the aftermath

I was so tensed up the other night that I thought I would cry upon entering the sanctuary of my apartment, but instead I took a nap, and then remembered I was supposed to have a coffeeshop night with one of my favorite ladies, which turned into dinner instead, devouring vegetarian burritos and instead of talking about Calvino or Chechnya we're talking about the male species, and feeling a little intellectually slummy for it, and how we sometimes feel like the stronger ones, the more assertive ones in these dynamics, which is funny given that we've been pushovers for so long, and it's like we discovered this part of us that's strong and tough after all we've been through. Nothing like black bean and sweet potato goodness to restore the equilibrium, that and the wonderful and productive distraction of music lessons.

I feel like I'm reaching back ten years in memory to the last time I took all this theory, and it's strange and I find myself nervy and hitting the wrong strings even though I do practice, but he's a gentle teacher. I feel bad when the people greet me in Ukrainian and I don't speak it, but people overall seem friendly. I get some homework done at the coffeeshop and crash, feeling lame for wondering if I've made anyone upset and remembering that there's a whole lot of other life going on even if that does happen.

The next morning things are back to where they were, if not better, with more clarity and honesty, and I'm so used to others cutting and running in times of friction and that doesn't happen here. And that night there are other moments of dealing with the interpersonals of personalities and musicianship and trying to get beyond the theoreticals of culture and economics to what the core issues are.

I find that for all our talk about rich and poor and black and white and whatever, it really comes down to just how well individuals get along and get over themselves, how willing we are to meet in the middle, and some will do that across any boundary and others will refuse to for whatever reason. Humility and being able to listen and understand where someone's coming from goes a long way no matter who you are, and letting go of all your hangups about yourself and others to see the soul underneath. sometimes I feel like a lot of us went to school too long and are so full of jargon we forget to do the basics of just learning to exist with each other.

Last night I ended up through a series of unforeseen circumstances, meeting up with a friend of mine from high school that I haven't had a real conversation with in about ten years. We did punkass things together, wrote a zine together with her sister and a couple other folks when she was in high school and I was in college, I made her lots of punk rock mixtapes of bands she never did get into, except for the Dead Milkmen, who her dad maybe liked even more than her, and then she moved out of her folks' house and stopped talking to any of us who were still crazy enough to be into organized religion and we lost touch for a long time.

I show up at her apartment with a bag of food for a friend of hers who got her food stamps cut, she invites me in, we catch up, and find the conversation flows, she cooks me dinner, we are in such different places now, with her married and me living alone, and so many reconciliations along the way. She laughs when she finds out I've been arrested, we reminisce on our teenage absurdities, and ponder all the strangeness. Somehow those lost years cease to matter, and it's beautiful to be back again in a place better than where we were.

of shoegaze, landladies, and cups of tea.

I knew I'd be tired this morning, fatigue haunted me all weekend. No amount of tea and coffee sufficed, and sleep was hard to come by.

I went to see Alcest and enjoyed them even more than last time, the songs I didn't get to hear live this time around I got to hear the last, Neige made some comment about how the last time they were here no one was there, which was probably true, since it was right around the time Ecailles de Lune came out and I didn't know they existed until Randal's end of the year list.

It was nice to go to a show and soak in the atmosphere without gazing at it through an iPhone being held aloft in front of me. This crop of kids and older prog rockers were rapt around me, no one had their phone out to text or post on instagram. A little surreal to watch a bunch of blastbeat loving dudes getting all blissed out to some of the most sublime shoegaze being created now. Songs I was kind of ambivalent about on the last album had a lot of gorgeous crunch live and it was beautiful to see them coming into their own even more.

The rain was pouring down and I ran into a girl I knew from class so we hung out in the doorway, because I didn't want to cut across that giant parking lot alone and Anathema sounded all right but I wasn't in the mood to stand there alone in that crowd of people and the volume was perfect where we were.

I came back to my friends' apartment, where the cats greeted me ambivalently, slept, made goodness for a cookout, stayed up late, stayed up even late because I couldn't fall asleep, realized I completely started doing my take-home midterm wrong, attempted to remedy, went to sleep early.

I have yet to fail an exam that wasn't written, but I can tell I'm not doing my best work here. I wonder how much of this is just that I've been taking slacker classes for so long, or have had actual textbooks, or if it's just that I've been doing a million other things. I'm so good at regurgitating, or I was, or I'm overthinking it, and it's just taking longer to coalesce into anything coherent.

And with four days to finish two more pages and put some flesh on the skeletal outline, it made perfect sense last night to do some initiatory noise-making. I cooked dinner this time, he sliced up garden tomatoes and walnuts as the spaghetti squash roasted in the toaster oven and I cooked down spices on the skillet.

My landlady was having some junk in her basement hauled away and the dudes were creepy so I was glad I had someone else there.There's some disingenuousness afoot with her as far as how the place is zoned, that bothers me, I'm not sure how much it should, since property owners with tenants don't always seem to be the most scrupulous, but I don't like being pressured to aid in lying to anyone, I can't do that.

But we played music last night and it sounded good, and it's the first time in awhile where I've felt like I had creative freedom and we clicked so much, building off each other's notes and chords, scrawling them in a notebook as I tried not to make it too noisy with all the pedals since I didn't know when she was coming home, but we're on the same musical trajectory and it sounds good, I'm almost surprised at how good it sounds since we've never played together before, and I can only imagine it'll sound amazing with another guitar and drums in the mix.  We shall see...

 

once upon a time

Way back in the day, I was taking an AP history test junior year at the other high school and saw a girl wearing purple converse all-stars and had an instinctive feeling for some reason that I wanted to be her friend. A year later, we are seniors taking community college classes and learn that we have mutual friends from the punk-metal-hardcore contingent in our hometown. I was an elitist jerk about music back then and probably could have torpedoed anything right then and there but we ended up working at the zoo together for a summer, bonding over literature and rock and roll and a similar enjoyment of humanity's foibles.

We had long long-distance conversations, and long late night drives around the city that have already been chronicled. I enjoyed her so much that I introduced her to my friends, and she got close to them too. My friend who played in pop punk bands who came out later on (and probably broke many a punk rock girl's heart if the anecdotal evidence is to be believed), my roommate, a guy I knew who turned out to be a huge huge creep (the only time I've ever wanted to inflict serious harm on another human was some things he did).

In 2005, a bunch of us went to see some punk rock together, she met the guy she married this past Saturday there for the first time, though he has no memory of this. A few years later they met again, and the sparks kindled, and it was kind of crazy to be there to celebrate with her family and my old crew of friends from the Kent days, seeing where we all are now, in various stages of employment and love lives, less scruffy than we once were, more confident than we once were. 

My roommate was in her wedding party, the park was beautiful, the music good, no one made me dance. We talked and ate and set off those floaty glowy balloons, and then I sipped cheap beer on the patio of the punk rock bar with my homie who's now in Chicago until I just got too tired and had little to contribute as it was by that time. I don't find weddings stressful anymore, I celebrate them like birthdays and with ones like these, there's ample time to laugh.

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons

The second night in a short while, of staying in another's house with another's pets, a neighborhood to the south of where I live, this holiday weekend is drawing to a close. I saw family and hung out with friends, talked about books and made faces with the nephew and laughed and for all that is wrong with the world, his smile is so beautiful and his baby dinosaur laughter so amazing that I can forget sometimes.

There were so many beautiful interactions, and I got so little sleep, with all the midnight dinner, the drinking of coffee and fitful tossing on the couch as the cats ran around, the 4am conversations verging on the beautiful incoherent, knowing that there are no obligations to wake up to for a change. Because there are new friendships being forged, that I hope will lead to future adventures, of more late nights and explorations.

I wonder if it's weird that I get such visceral pleasure out of these interactions, of hanging out and having it feel so simple, of meals shared and cups of coffee drank, of conversations of compassion rather than overcompensation, of not having to try too hard and just exist in these crystallized moments that now at least are so free from complication.

never a dull moment

There are evils local and large and further out, interesting to watch my skeptic friends become convinced of hearts of darkness and the existence of hell to deal as a local creep justifies the unjustifiable, while meanwhile other abuse is justified higher up without the attendant outrage. I guess the one is closer to home, I couldn't bring myself to watch the proceedings.

And the night before I met up with a girl I went to school with in 7th grade who I ran into again this summer. She was two years older than me and one of the few people that year who wasn't mean. I guess she had an awful time of it too there, and we briefly touch on the past, having nothing there to be nostalgic for, and move onto other things. She majored in anthropology and is also eternally curious and up for random adventures so we go down to YuppieLandia to dance to Afro-Peruvian swank courtesy of Novalima.

There were some African and Puerto Rican girls with great moves, a Peruvian family waving their flags, and the white guy who was trying to get into everyone's personal space, and the usual hippies and hipsters, and I remember being at a party dancing to this stuff with a guy who worked at the kitchen at a mansion of some friends of friends, he was the only person who talked to me there, and the 4/4 time kept my feet from tripping over and it felt good to move and not care.

Too much mirth led to introversion the next two nights, of reading books on the porch and general slacking around. We lost our softball game but I singled in a run and caught a popup so it felt like a personal victory. My dad was home alone that night so I went over there and we had dinner together, listened to garage rock on the radio, and talked about stuff. He was talking about how bad he feels for the people stuck working at the walmart he delivers to and keeps trying to get them hooked up with better jobs. City life and racism and rock and roll, and things I never knew about their early married life, I'm glad I get this time with him because I'm always amazed at what an incredible person he is.

And then one of my friends is departing for out west, in hopes that things will work out better there, and there are so many things we want to say, because the guy she's married to seems unhappy anywhere and unwilling to try or deal with things not being perfect. You take who you are everywhere no matter how idyllic or not it is. I wish I could say I was happy for them, but I'm not convinced that it's the answer.

Thankfully I don't have to ponder this the whole day, because one of my fellow girl geeks who digs weird tunes invites me out to her parents' place so we can go hiking and explore her old stomping grounds, a state park with some abandoned buildings from the canal days, ample amounts of ravine, rivers, and woods, and all sorts of spooky haunting tales of Salem, Ohio, which had a witch trial of its own, as well as eccentric millionaires with dubious attentions and such. As she appreciates the true nature of darkthroning, that is indeed what we did.

After getting some fantastic Mexican food (since it's farmland out here, mostly owned by Monsanto subsidaries where the land isn't being fracked, there's migrant workers, which seems to correlate with good and cheap south of the border food in the outskirts of Ohiostan), we drove down Egypt Road, well known in local lore for having both a "crybaby bridge" and a grisly murder in the past couple years, and other tales mostly involving delinquent teens getting witchy or gangsta in the woods.

I'm an agnostic when it comes to tales of hauntings, but at dusk, with the desolation, the abandoned houses, it was pretty spooky.

in every place

I ended up in the exurbs the other night, strange to be among immaculate lawns and corporate parks and long roads. One of my friends plays bass at a church out there and invited me to come out and hang with them, it's one of those groups for older young people which isn't called a singles group but could function as such.

I'm a little skittish around large groups of clean-cut people, I joke, but no one here seems to mind my black t-shirts and strange sense of humor. I'm so used to being around working-classers and underemployed liberal arts graduates that I go into a little bit of culture shock in a world where the girls are way more dressed up, and have accessories of affluence, really nice watches and whatnot, the cars in the parking lot make my beater with the broken fender look out of place, the guys are wearing things I never see in the city like the occasional chinos and topsiders and polos in pastel colors.

But everyone I talked to seemed very nice, and it was kind of refreshing to be somewhere full of people my age who aren't sporting any ironic affectation. You know you're sick of hipster accoutrements when you find a strange comfort in middle American normality. But it was the friendliness that got me, and the message that night wasn't intellectually vapid, so I might come back. If anything, meeting some nice girls and not running into anyone that seemed like future soulmate material made it easier. And I also talked to homie's roommate and we might be starting a band soon, since we like the same music and live near each other.

It's funny, we dress exactly alike, he says. And we do. Jeans and converse sneakers and t-shirts of bands we like. I'm way more girly than I once was, but I'm conscious of the lack of difference still. I drive home through the hot summer night listening to Nothing's Shocking and wonder how all the social anxiety I used to feel completely seemed to dissolve itself. There's still social situations that turn me into mush, but fewer and fewer do.

And yet last night I was driving home and feeling stupid for other things, for feeling things that are normal and human, of unrequition, of cynical sour grapes (it wouldn't work out anyway), of what-could-have-beens and it-was-never-meant-to-bes. The feelings of deep affection for my friends both male and female are probably more intense than some, but that's different than this. Absence maybe doesn't make the heart grow fonder, but it masks the inconvenience of seeing those day to day things that would render someone more human and less attractive, and sometimes it's worse to see them again and feel all of those emotions shuttered so carefully away bubble to the surface once more.  I could blame the hormones, and maybe that's all it is, but it's a terrible feeling.

things I never thought would happen

As mentioned in the previous post, there were two awesome shows going on in Fair Clevelandia on Wednesday night. As such, I went over to the gallery in Chinatown because my friend putting on the Evens show said he might need some help getting everything ready. So it doesn't seem so weird and awkward when I'm shaking hands with one of my early-adulthood heroes, because we're moving a wrought-iron canopy thing to the side, figuring out the logistics of the stage, and loading equipment and merch up a freight elevator.

I felt a little embarrassed when it was disclosed that I might be seeing someone else play that night but I ended up sticking around, sent his sister down the street to my favorite source of pad thai, watched the soundcheck, drinking cans of coconut water instead of eating dinner, working the door, taking money and distributing wristbands and then watching the show.

The fans were almost all my age or older, a few straightedge kids, a couple of families, people wearing t-shirts of 80's punk and hardcore and metal bands. I got to watch the show, sang along with the songs I knew, songs that were tightly wound on record and full of intensity live and relevant to the troubled times that we find ourselves in, of increased paranoia and surveillance and instability.

We were encouraged to sing along though I think a lot of us are way more familiar with the old bands, but everyone knew better than to say so. And he went on a digression about how awful drones are and how awful our powers that be are for continuing to use them to traumatize Pakistanis so mad props for that. He gave shoutouts to Charles and me and I'm glad no one knows who I am, because I'm pretty sure I blushed because this is something I never imagined would happen, ever.

Afterwards, I ended up running into a fellow congregant from church, of all people, the guy who is 75 and a former southern baptist minister from Alabama whose son is friends with a bunch of Dischordians and who invited him to the show. I always wondered why he liked my Billy Bragg take on the trad hymns and it makes way more sense now. The smallness of the world is kind of mind-blowing.

We marvel at this, and trade stories of DC and Cleveland with Ian's sister while I watched a line of kids take pictures and get their albums signed. I picked up the records too, but felt too shy there but got a parting shot in the parking lot because I want to remember this. We helped them load up at the end of the night, exchanged goodbyes, and hugs and I drove home too euphoric to sleep, so I hung Christmas lights on my balcony and talked on the phone because it was so beautiful out.

And then I wake up, clean the apartment, hang out with the family, and head over to the neighbors across the border to watch the fireworks, which I missed because my beater was turned away at their nice apartment building, so I missed most of the pyrotechnics but got to watch 'The Warriors' and talk tuneage so all was good. Eight hours of sleep in the past two days. It's a good thing it's dead at work today, though I think I'm still running off of afterglow and caffeine. 

pierce me

I got my ear repierced this afternoon, going over to the tattoo parlor on the west side that a friend of mine recommended. Looking a little more clean cut than usual, no band shirt, no grotty jeans, I listened to people waiting daring each other to pierce their nipples as I perused the seemingly infinite combinations of tribal tattoos, gothic lettering, dragons, well-endowed women, and various edhardyisms. It felt a little culture-shockish I guess, more of the ghetto neck tattoo crowd than the hipsters with obscure musical references and art nouveau motifs inked on their shoulders. It was short and relatively painless, it's been five years since I took the gauges out and I now have a little hoop in my left ear that goes with nothing in my jewelry box, but I feel like I accomplished something as I hear the guy doing mine say he's not going to pierce that other girl "down there."

but this weekend, I decided to stay home Friday night and drink tea and be all spinster with Armenian comedies from the library and books, woke up early and went to the community garden meeting with my neighbor and hung out with people from other neighborhoods where there's otherwise very little cultural exchange and while I tend to avoid ascribing too much to "community," I felt a sense of what that might be like.

And then I took a couple college radio folks and the Queen of the Bondo on an epic east side jaunt through Slavic Village, the hood, a fabulous bookstore, a nice record store where I came home with two Pentangle records, and Heart and Mott the Hoople for a dollar each. My compadres found more esoteric material and the Queen of the Bondo and I chortled over old copies of Hit Parader explaining how to be punk before heading back west to non-foodie mecca Parmastan for damn good Indian food and sundry tale-telling. Not too shabby, I guess.

weekendity: rock and roll and plants and museums

I've been banging out this paper, and it's now up to six pages, half cited, just needing a little more flesh on the bare bones, a few visuals to get some points across. People ask me at the coffeeshop what I'm working on and their eyes glaze over when I start talking about eleven thousand virgins getting martyred by Huns and reliquary trade in the Middle Ages, but that's okay. The place I get the best work done in is now devoid of ukulele-praising boomers, and thankful the music is better than the one near me. I forget how much I can't deal with twee indie when I'm away from it for so long.

So me and College Radio Homie and a friend of his ended up watching another mutual friend play Friday night. I wasn't planning on this, but I'd heard some good things about the headliner and figured why not.  The bar was packed, I didn't want to drink, so we stood by the stage and ended up watching a Liturgy side project that was pretty swank on the instrumental end (being neither a kvltist or appropriating hipster, I was more disinterested than anything else), but it was really good and riffy and unpretentious for a bunch of PitchforkianBrooklynistas. I described them to CRH as sounding to my strange ears like Kyuss playing afropop and surf music and then just being Kyussy. Would've picked up a demo if they had any, but no merch.

 And a then a local band with gear that we drooled over including a ton of pedals brought the shoegaze with a little extra sludge on the side.

I was sleepy by this point and so I ducked out maybe 2/3rds of the way through the set and went home, because I'm getting old and knew I wanted to save my energy for the rest of the tuneage to come.

Successful in our pursuit of good riffs and hanging out, we met up the next night since I told him he'd probably like Royal Thunder given our musical common ground. I had gone to a college radio shindig at a darkroom where I hung out with DJs from the other station and made more phantograms, and we talked about weird arcane Clevelandia lore before I headed out. I was also told for the first time that I'm "well-preserved" which makes me feel old though it's probably some combination of clean living and general attire than anything else.

I hate that I get skittish walking down the street from my car when I see a guy coming the other way who starts the whole 'hey baby why won't you talk to me come on baby' and I know there's the inevitable racial politics here, as I step off the sidewalk and walk in the street to give me a little more room for movement.  One fellow Clevelandian pointed out to me once  that "hookers in other cities wear hot pants and in Cleveland they wear sweatpants," but I'd still assume given the look of the regular clientele of Now That's Class what with the leather jacket and the band t-shirt, that it's pretty damn obvious I'm on my way to get my fix of tuneage rather than working the corner.

 A local punk band was playing when I got there and I'm just not big into the whole Misfits/horror punk thing, never have been. I think you need tattoos to like that stuff. Ancient VVisdom played an almost similar set minus the one song of theirs I kind of liked, I'd probably dig it more if it wasn't for the vocals and lyrics, given my lack of affinity for the Lord of the Underworld and the nu-metalish stylings that didn't mesh well with the dirgy doom-folk thing for me.

Royal Thunder made converts out of my comrades and either that night in Pittsburgh was an off night or their live show has really tightened up because they played a great long set full of big riffs and drum fills and that voice that made me happy to see other ladies who can bring the rock and or roll with raw power who don't need the gimmicks of politics or excess skin. It's nice to get steamrolled by some serious live goodness, and they were nice to talk to afterwards. All my pictures turned out badly but I didn't take too many, because we were immersed in that beautiful cathartic sound.

I went to the art museum for a homework assignment, but detoured at the Greenhouse to get my fill of beauty and lushness and the smells of jasmine and citrus and I forget how awesome the cacti are.

listened to a talk about illuminated manuscripts, rolled my eyes with my classmates at some stupid audience questions, and wandered around  looking at armor, Impressionist paintings, and the newly-reopened medieval section full of relics and rock crystal and beautifully carved wood. No pictures since I didn't want to get kicked out. Still, it's awesome that such a place is free.

viscous time

Some weekends fly by, and the others are mercifully long-feeling, amazing what that extra day can do. I forgot my camera so I have no pictures to post but there were a lot of photos taken this weekend, of the interior of my favorite glass studio in Clevelandia, where the Queen of the Bondo got a freelance journalist interview gig that I tagged along for, and most things interacted are redacted to protect the innocent, but any chance to hang out in a space where there's ample creativity is welcome. Here's some old shots of the place, my newer ones on the swanky camera are a little better.

 And then there was the family gathering, where I got to hold babies and argue politics with the family. It's reassuring to hear anxiety about drones and the lack of humanity and due process from my relateds, both with the geopolitical and the local. It seems that the seamless-garment-Catholics and the Kucinichistas might have more common ground than some would think. Though I'm evidently in the minority at my dismay at LAPD business-as-usual. I still have some weird belief that no matter how big of an awful scumbag person you are, you should still be treated with humanity and not burned alive. Then again, I don't watch much in the way of action movies except for kung fu and I don't have much in the way of revenge fantasies and have turned into a bit of a freako peacenik.

I was invited out to this winter festival thing but the roads were awful, and I spun out on a Parmastan sidestreet mercifully free of parked cars, and my friend who extended the invitation texted me to say not to bother coming down.The streets were slick, but the slow going was soundtracked by swank stoner rock so all was well.

Came home after church and slept awhile, felt kind of gross, weird stuff coming out of my nose sent me to the bibliotheque to self-diagnose and concluded that death wasn't imminent. Watched an Iranian movie about footie that was good.

Got all super domestic, cleaned most of the apartment, cooked a bunch of really good food, went up to the radio station to guest on a friend's show. Played lots of noisy music, took advantage of the almost-balmy temperature to walk down to the beach where there were a bunch of Cleveland cops on the shore, who knows what was going on but I was trying not to chortle too much watching the cruiser spin its wheels in the sand and resist the urge to break out the camera.

dead trees and dirty riffs

The relative thaw that leaves the streets less icy and yours truly fighting cabin fever had me out at the art studio glazing old projects and working on new ones, driving out to see some live local free tuneage and ended up hanging out with some of my favorite Clevelandian metalheads who I don't get to see nearly enough. Conversations involving Dave Mustaine, general fundieism, and yours truly suggesting road trips to the Ernest Angley Wax Museum south of Heaven Cleveland and making the distinction between televangelist/political dumbassery and That Jesus Guy's words.

Anyways, Megachurch for the uninitiated is mostly instrumental low-end riffage that would be called sludge or stoner rock by some but a little more anthemic, two basses and a drummer who are technically excellent and super-tight without resorting to Dream Theater wankery. The added dash of sampled audio of faith healers and televangelists works without being too overwrought.

One of my homies is an excellent bass player and loved this song in particular, though we're all oldsters now and hang out in the back and watch The Kids do their moshing thing. Most of them cleared off by the time Keelhaul hit the stage and we felt like the crowd was actually our age for a change even though I don't stand for hours nearly as comfortably as I once did, but I loved the complicated riffery and time signatures and whatnot.

Drove home, slept in late, woke up for a text from a friend asking me if I could make a run out to grab a Christmas gift for their daughter at Justice, which I've heard about and never been to and I think I went a little bit into shock with the candy-colored glitter sequin feather Bieber general aesthetic, having rolled out of bed to drive over in all black concertgoing clothes from the night before, still bleary eyed and the caffeine having not kicked in. A gift card and a pink fiber optic lamp later (because I'm not going to buy this kid anything that says DIVA or PRINCESS or a tweeny Victoria's Secret-stylee lacy bra), the salesgirl says "you probably don't need to be on our mailing list, do you?"

A quick stop at the sister's to hang out with nephew, check email at the bibliotheque, a wander down to the lake with the neighbors and a drive out to the suburban wasteland of the whiteflighted eastern lands for bar food and catching up with old friends, avoiding politics for absurdity. I don't eat out much, don't go to chain restaurants hardly ever, and so generalized American culture always seems vaguely absurd and that sense was reprised the next afternoon with some others. It's more about the conversation than the food as it is. I got a text from the Queen of the Bondo that our beloved Half Price Books is closing (this particular branch lost its lease) so we heard the laments of Clevelandia readers as we trawled through the dollar paperbacks looking for gems.

Came home with a bagful of goodness that won't fit on the bookshelf, Czech magic realism, possibly Azeri love story, sundry fantasy I loved as a child that I wanted to re-read and share with the nephew who already wants me to read him books, Ursula Le Guin, Lloyd Alexander's Westmark trilogy that probably influenced the way I look at the world now more than I ever knew, other bits and pieces.

There's already a pile from the public library and a pile from the academic at home. Books piled up in front of the TV I haven't turned on in over a year, books on the dining room table, books in the kitchen, books in the bathroom. Not in a messy way, just that the eternally curious brain has a certain level of comfort here, and I end the weekend wrapped in blankets, drinking herbal tea with the cat on the lap, thumbing through paperbacks about the Middle East and Central Asia. It makes coming back to the daily grind infinitely easier to have a trove of paperbacks for the wheelie bus, and a semester of learning to look forward to.

wintering

No jaunts across the pond, heck, no major trips through Ohiostan, the generous snow that I haven't seen in two years made me unmotivated to drive too far, except to go to the Metroparks and hang out in the woods multiple times and skiing along the old canal with my friend's dog hooked to a belt loop, letting me glide along the trail. When I force myself outside, I feel invigorated in a way that summer doesn't do and the quiet of this world of water, trees, and sky recalibrates my soul to praise and meditate. When did I fall in love with evergreens so much?

 

So many pots of tea were consumed this week, with the exception of half a glass of wine on Christmas, no booze at all. So many good books read, good conversations had, and listening to tuneage and returning to the art room to make a first attempt at mosaic (which came out awesome, even if part of it fell off when I pulled it out of the mold).

I was almost asleep by the time the year changed over, but my landlady called me back on jetlag time and communication regarding the giant pile of debris in front of the garage being tantamount, somehow I mumbled incoherently through a conversation. She didn't recognize me when she came home, demanded to know what I was doing in her yard, which was awkward, because I have a key to her part of the house too, and I've lived there for a year now. I've been a good tenant though, and despite the occasional minor vexation it's been a good place.
 
It's been a year since I bailed from the almost-hood for the new digs, and it still feels liberating to walk somewhat freely after dark, to shed the fortress mentality that living within walking distance of several psych wards engenders. I survived election season with all friendships intact, and I like everyone a little better now that the whole business is over. Played some good games of softball, met new folks, feel like I live somewhere where I know and like my neighbors, and saw a lot of great live music. Getting old could be so much worse.

deluded interluded

Flying down to Georgia, the land of peaches, Outkast, confederate laser light shows, REM, and Flannery O'Connor at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning for a few days with some good friends with whom I share a love of people-watching, punk rock, Norse mythology, and pondering the questions of the universe. They live in the foothills so I'll be flying into Atlanta, taking a bus to Athens, and then hanging out in the mountains for a few days getting my hiking metal punk on. Trips to further places are warranting panic right now so at least this will be happening. Expect pictures and tales in a few days, kids. It's about damn time I had a vacation.

de-comaed

Filled in on a homie's metal show, despite aspersions cast upon yours trvely's hesher credentials, I got a lot of phone calls wanting to know more about said jams, some of which have graced the airwaves prior due to their general rockitude and since no one else plays this stuff and I love giving my fellow lady-doomsters airtime. Played requested Testament and St. Vitus, doomed it up for the most part. It's archived til Wednesday here. 

Spent Thanksgiving morning with some friends I haven't seen since matrimony, drinking coffee and walking beneath trees still yellow in this late November. A good amount of cousins and relatives came in, and feasting was done, everything else too delicious to bother with turkey. 

Black Friday consumerism involved acquiring a new (but used and very cheap) turntable at the Best Record Store Ever and then hanging out at the station for open house dispensing college radio swag and hanging out with good folk and indulgence in reminisces of the Parmastani kind, lunch with my aunt, and then downtown to meet up with the Queen of the Bondo for Nostalgia Today (whatever that means) holiday festivities courtesy of the City of Clevelandia. 

It was more crowded down there than I ever remember it being, and while one could say that downtown for at least one weekend night feels "alive" again, it felt more Potterville than It's a Wonderful Life to me. Everything felt so made-in-China and consumer rat race. The LED lights had no warmth, the music was free of any meaning besides Santa and presents and sugar-plum fairies and not even The Nutcracker,  just that business of synthesizers and panpipes. It reminded me of why every year I spiritual detox and go to midnight mass if only to sit somewhere dark and quiet so that I can ponder the spiritual significance lost in the maelstrom. 

Still, it was not without entertainment if only for the trashy absurdity that is 21st century America in a dying city. 

 Some of my older friends don't believe that Bronies exist. This, and the accompanying fitted baseball caps and plush blankets also sold at the record store (who the hell shops here anymore?) seem to prove otherwise. I also realized how out of touch I am with pop culture, videogame, and boyband references, such arcana is not so much in my interest I guess, and I'm around less teenagers and little kids than I once was. Also, the phrase "Cray Cray" to describe craaaazy needs to die right now. Other dregs from the pop culture morass below:

Seriously, the photo from the store above is simply called GLITTER and is full of general dollar bling tackiness.Came home, did some tea and reading, went to the art museum for my birthday, looked at cool ancient stuff, went out for dinner with the folks and returned here for the daily grind. There was some exhibit of Peruvian coastal ancient art that included these super heavy-looking plugs for one's lobes. 

Somehow all that well-restedness turns into the usual need for caffeine and lighthearted crankiness that we've grown so used to.