Stay Tuned... It's Almost 2011

 

(This image in no way is meant to reflect 2010, even if sometimes I felt like it could easily be its mascot, as far as my world was concerned, that is.  OK.  Maybe I mean it just a teensy, weensy bit.)

I'm about to hit the hay, but I feel compelled to announce that I fully intend to write up a little something about this past year.  Not a top 10, or anything--or even bottom 10, though this has been the kind of year where I'm pretty certain I could easily come up with one--but just some important turning points.  It's been a doozy.

Oooooo... such a tease...

Gross

My dear mother is visiting me this week.  Except for today, I have been or will be working everyday that she's here, which is unfortunate.  Thursday morning, while working the day job, my phone rings and I answer it when I see it's Mommy calling.  (Typically, the ringer is off on my phone while I'm working but because she's visiting and she may have--will have--various geographical or household questions, I left it on.)  Anyhoo.  The phone rings.  It's Mommy.

"Hello?"
"Hi.  I was just wondering if you have any raisins?"
Pause.
Considering a reply.
Pause.
"Are you seriously asking me this question?"
Pause.
"Oh, yeah, that's right.  I guess you wouldn't have any.  I just wanted some raisins to go in my hot cereal."
"Uh-huh.  Well, I still don't like 'em so I'm not going to have them around, but if you want I can stop at the store and buy some for you."
"No, that's alright."

This was all done with good natured chuckling though I really was taken aback that she actually thought I would have those disgusting, shriveled little bug parts in my home when I have never liked them and studioulsy picked them out of many an oatmeal cookie and steaming bowls of cream of wheat, oatmeal and malt-o-meal.  Blech.

I love my mother.  And I love her even more because she called to ask such an innocent question.  Really.

Do I have any raisins.  Sheesh.

Cocoa and Boingo

Ahem.

Still here; I know it's hard to believe.  Still navigating the post-graduation is this really where I'm headed and is it alright that I'm not bothered by it windy road.  (Also, enjoying one of my favorite fall/winter dinners lacking much nutritional value... hot cocoa and buttered toast.  Oat bran gazillion grain toast, at least.)  But that's boring.  Not the toast.  That's delicious, dunked in the not too sweet cocoa--a pinch of salt really is a must to bring out the fullness of the chocolate.  Boring is the I've gotten that higher higher education and am essentially where I was before, career-wise topic.  Therefore, at least for the time being, I'll leave that off the discussion board.  Yawn.

Instead, let's talk about how funny it is to be sitting at your favorite coffee shop, drinking an Americano, reading a New Yorker and a record you used to listen to all of the time and haven't heard in, quite possibly, 15 years or more is put on and it's as though you never took it out of rotation.  Everything about it is so familiar and ingrained in your brain that you know exactly what song comes next, all of the words and even when side 1 ends and side 2 begins.  I don't even own a copy, in any format, of this album anymore, though I might need to remedy that.  (Oingo Boingo, Deadman's Party, by the way.)

On the rare occasions that I hear something of Boingo's, I always think about the time my friends and I went to see them at, of all places, the Maricopa County Fair (was that what it was called?).  A mosh pit had formed and I was trying to get out of the fray but managed to get knocked down anyway, and as one of my friends was attempting to help me up he was thrown out by a security guard who mistakenly assumed that he was the one who shoved me.  No protestations from either him or me could convince the guard otherwise and Dave (what was his last name?) had to miss the bulk of the show.  I suppose we were seeing Boingo at the end of their career but we were still so excited.  The band was as relevant to me--us--then as they had been when I was given a copy of Good for Your Soul  while at the U. of Utah's Theatre School For Youth in 1985.

Nostalgia can be sweet.

Master of What?

I think my diploma came in the mail on Saturday.  Haven't opened it. I don't want.  Somehow the prospect is... well, it's a little depressing since I'm doing nothing remotely related to what I just spent the past 2 1/2 years, not to mention what feels like a gazillion dollars, studying.  I'm not too upset, I think, about how my career--really lack of a career--has shaped up thus far.  I'm working at two places I really like; one is a great social outlet and fun and the other has the potential to turn into some very marketable skills.  I certainly won't be the first body to go into something unrelated to all of the schoolin' I've been doin'.  Still... this 8 1/2 x 11 cardboard envelope, sent first class mail and hand stamped "DO NOT CRUSH"... I'd rather not open it just now.


o dear.

Besides, I totally recognize that my unwillingness to move from the city of Seattle has hampered my ability to get work in my field.  It's a failing that I have.  Not wanting to move.  For work.  For a career.  I know this and I accept it.  Not that I'm absolutely against uprooting myself, but if I don't have to I don't want to.  I like it here.  I like being able to live in an affordable (so far) city that still offers a great amount of culture and people and food and a temperate climate.  Even if it gets a bit unbearable every few years... this past spring was a doozy.  And how.

Ok.  I opened it.  Pretty vellum diploma.  Official transcripts, too.  3.898 GPA.  (Darn that B in Cataloging and Classification.)  Ugh.  Kinda wish I'd left it unopened for a few more days.  I wasn't ready to see that.

Yeah.  Definitely not ready.

Master Babysitter

In case any few who peek at these musings were wondering about my post graduate accomplishments let me sum up:

I have been babysitting a few hours a week.

I start training at a neighborhood restaurant tomorrow--that'll be a few nights a week.

I applied for umpteen receptionist/secretary/administrative assistant jobs and heard nary a peep from any of them.  

Overqualified?  Not using enough "key words" in my cover letter/resume?  It's a very different world, this job hunting job, than it was a decade ago when I was looking for work.  Before, you called a place, you mailed or faxed or dropped off your resume.  You called back a week later to check on the status.  Now, you email or upload or copy/paste your materials to a website.  And you can't call.  And you can't check the status.  It's unsettling.  It's as impersonal as impersonal can be.

Besides, it was discouraging to know that I was applying for jobs that were very much NOT what I want to be doing and trying to convince myself that this would be a way to move up in the company.  And maybe it would.  But maybe it wouldn't.  I don't want to answer phones, make coffee and fill soda refrigerators or office supply cabinets for a living.  I prefer to get back into restaurant work, volunteer at my old internship and network within the library/archives community.  

I may be the most foolish unemployed adult with looming student loan payments walking the earth... guess we'll just have to see how it all turns out.

Rain, Cold, Sera Cahoone

Walked into my fave coffee shop for my late afternoon dose and the barista was playing Sera Cahoone.  I'd chosen The Jam for my bus ride up the hill (see title for reasons why I opted for the bus over my usual walk) but had removed the headphones to place my coffee order.  "Oh.  Sera Cahoone is perfect for a day like today."  "Yeah, really comforting, isn't she?"  "Yeah."  Out the door, hot coffee in one hand, spinning the iPod list to Cahoone, "play all" as I walked the rest of the way home.  In the door, turn on iTunes laptop, choose Cahoone catalog--two albums--and select the repeat function.  Six hours later... still listening.

Melancholy, a little twang (some songs include harmonica and banjo!), slightly reedy alto voice mixed with some smokiness, bit o minor keys (I think), plaintive, achy.

Totally fitting for the weather, my mood.

Yawn...

So, the first book that I pick up to read as a free, newly minted Master (this is never going to get old.  I'm going to irritate friends and family to no end with this one...), was a book recommended to me by a woman that I met during my internship.  She had recently graduated from the archives program at Western Washington University and is volunteering while she looks for a job.  She is interested in history.  She is interested in archives.  She reads.  She, as of a few weeks ago, was reading a book called The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.  She suggested that if I like history, archives, reading and vampires that I would almost certainly love this page turner of a debut novel.  Anticipating my approaching academic freedom, I put a hold on this book at the library.  It arrives just as I am finishing my last week of school.  (Ha.  Last week.  Last week was last week.  Still can hardly believe it so I have to keep reminding myself.)

I start this 600 and something page book a couple of days ago.  By the end of the first paragraph I am already irritated.  You know that forced, or put on pseudo-European sounding formality of speech that writers use when they want to convey a sense of old world in a relatively contemporary character?  An American raised mostly in a diplomatic/academic environment, based in some quaint Western European village and traveling to cities, large and small, throughout her formative years?  Well, that's the tone of this book.  And it doesn't change as the voice of the narrator changes.  This worldly--but naturally shy, bright, attractive and resourceful--young woman is supposedly retelling stories that her father told her.  His stories are supposedly told in his voice and then shift to her account of how, when and why he recounts the events of his life... his mysterious and foreboding life.  I guess.  But it all just sounds like that fake, arch, I'm writing like a scholar would speak narration/description/tone/voice.  BIG YAWN.  Plus, it constantly reminds me of that other supremely irritating novel that caused such a big flurry of conspiracy theories, spin offs, History Channel/Secrets of the insert religious sect/secret society here shows.  O, and a movie and another book/movie.  (I read it to see what the big hubbub was all about.  I felt like I was constantly being patronized as the reader, like I was not cultured enough or smart enough to truly appreciate that author's breadth of world history/art/travel/experiential knowledge.  O, brother.)

After 75 pages of "GET ON WITH IT, ALREADY!", knowing that there were more than 500 to go, I realized that I was going to have to do a little interwebs research to see if this was going to be worth the slogging.  First review I read was the trusted New York Times.  Janet Maslin pretty much summed up my feelings and, by way of her concise prose, gave me permission to just put the thing down and move onto the other book that I got from the library that I've wanted to read since it was published, last year--T. C. Boyle's The Women.  I am going to open the cover on that as soon as I finish up this post.  Others, however, adored this book and simply couldn't put it down.  Even Maslin acknowledges that there are, occasionally, some jolts of excitement within the story.  I'll never know what they are, however, because I don't want to spend the next week trudging through various creaky, Eastern European villages in search of this Dracula character for one or two "BOO!" rewards.

Now that I don't have homework, I can also go back to listening to the good ole' turntable in a nice, pay attention type way.  This afternoon's listening pleasures:
The Human League--Dare (ahem, gate fold cover.)
Prince--Purple Rain

There were tears.

I'm still in a little bit of shock.  Maybe denial?  I just turned in my last assignment, ever, as an MLIS grad student.  I keep staring at the computer screen as if I expect something to happen--say, for instance, a hand to reach out with a roll of paper tied with red velvet ribbon and a computer recorded voice exclaiming only as a computer-generated voice can, "Congratulations.  You have completed your degree requirements."  Or maybe no hand, no diploma (because I assume the rolled up paper was a diploma) and just a voice saying "You still owe UWM 0.40 cents and until we have that, you cannot graduate."  I do, apparently, owe 40 cents, and in order to pay that I have to also pay a $6.00 service fee if I use an electronic payment.  I am not paying this.  I don't even know how it's possible to owe 40 cents.  Tomorrow I am calling the Bursar's office and either getting it removed or telling them that I'll send a check for the amount in order to avoid this so called convenience fee.  (Hold it.  Is there somewhere in here that I can blame Ticketmaster for this?  Were there "convenience fees" before Ticketripoff got in the game?  I wonder...)

But the denial.  I can't believe that starting tomorrow--heck, starting right now--I won't have any assignments due, readings to complete, discussions to participate in... nothin'.  Sunday morning, when I wake up, start the water for coffee and head downstairs to retrieve my Times I'll be able to read the entire paper if I want to.  No need to impose a time limit on myself in order to ensure that I get started on the week's class readings.  I CAN EVEN DO THE CROSSWORD!!!!

This will take some getting used to.

(Notice I said "as an MLIS grad student;" one never knows if I may return for some more o' that expensive book learnin' at a later date.  A much later date.)

Ticketmaster is the d-E-V-I-L!!!!

This is not news.  Anyone who has ever had to purchase a ticket from the grossness that is Ticketmaster knows how frustrating it is to not know the real total of your purchase until you've hit the "confirm purchase" button.  Knows how infuriating it is to pay a "convenience charge," and that by the time the transaction is completed you've paid 1/2 the cost of the original ticket price in Ticketmaster's web of profit that has nothing to do with anything other than greed.  AND, the venues that you think are above using this corporation as the producer/vendor/dEVIL are not and you're at their mercy unless you decide to never ever see some bands play again.  AND, AND, AND it's more pervasive than just huge arena shows.  Some of these venues are the smaller kind.  The kind that I am much more likely to frequent.  Stinkerheads.

So this morning I caved and bought my The National/Okkervil River ticket for a September show at Marymoor Park, despite not really having the money for it.  But, like Yeasayer, I know that if I don't go to this show I will forever be kicking myself and be haunted by thoughts of having Cheap Tricked me out of seeing this fantastic band again.  (I don't care that they are getting more and more popular.  I am happy for them.)  And who needs that kind of regret?

Have I explained this Cheap Trick thing yet?  I feel like maybe I have.  But just as a refresher:

Main Entry: Cheap Trick

Pronunciation\ˈchēp\ \ˈtrik\

Function: verb

Etymology: Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1974. The band consists of members Robin Zander (lead vocals,rhythm guitar), Rick Nielsen (lead guitar, backing vocals), Tom Petersson (electric bass, backing vocals), and Bun E. Carlos (drums,percussion).  On more than one occasion, Shawn (former boyfriend and current friend of Linnet) and Linnet (former girlfriend and current friend of Shawn) noticed that Cheap Trick would be playing at a local music venue and put off buying tickets on the assumption that they'd just get them day of show.  They were wrong.  

1: To miss out on an event or purchase of a desired object due to laziness, reluctance/waffling, or the assumption that said event will not sell out or said object will be of no interest to anyone else thus affording you all the time in the world to buy the object or a ticket to the event in question only to find out that the event/object is sold out.

Damn!  I Cheap Tricked Yeasayer at Neumos because I waited until February to get my ticket for their April show.

Sure wish I hadn't Cheap Tricked that used Replacements album at Wall of Sound.  I just didn't have the money and I thought I'd find it again. (I didn't really.  I would never Cheap Trick a used Replacements album.  They are so rare...)

Stream This

Positively buzzing with longing--and I don't know what for--but the National just brings it out in me.

Listen to this.  Listen every day.

Teen Bedroom/Adult Bedroom

One of the round table discussions that I went to during the EMP Pop Conference, last weekend, was about girls and their bedrooms pre-Interwebs, or as it was officially called, In the Girls' Room: Pre-Internet Teen Girl Bedroom Culture.   So, we're talking the early 90s, and while I'm sure some enterprising early adopters had the means and funds to have some sort of Internet connection, the point of the panel was to discuss life before we were all so technologically linked.

While the entire conversation was fascinating--Riot Grrrl, Sassy Magazine (and I am honored to say that I did get this magazine when it was first published back in 1988.  It was revelatory.), Alanis Morrisette (ugh) and boys in the bedroom or not--the one comment I made in the margin of my conference guide was "Is my apartment an extension of my teenage bedroom because I am single?"  Why did I ask myself this question?  Because the moderator asked at what point does a teen girl abandon her teen bedroom and move into an adult bedroom?  One spectator noted that it happens when she moves into her college dorm and no longer needs to manifest the search for her identity all over her bedroom because at this point she is starting to "find" herself and come into her own.  I don't know if I agree with this statement.  Admittedly, I never lived in a dorm but I saw a lot of them and what I observed was a lot of bland conformity.  Ubiquitous Monet Waterlilies or Klimt's, The Kiss.  (There's a funny Buffy episode where a jaded college campus vamp makes fun of this trend.)  Not to mention the same-o, same-o mini-fridge/microwave combo.  I get the practicality of those appliances, but it did add to an air of sameness. You're sharing a room with someone so there has to be a negotiation, to some degree, of visual representation.  Perhaps the only time you really get to splatter the walls with your developing expressive self is when you're a teenager.  Provided you have your own room and you are able to do whatever you like, within reason, to the walls and shelf space.

I didn't get my own room until I was... hmmmm... how old was I?  Definitely in high school.  (Sometimes I wish I had a scanner because I could scan some photos I took of my teen girl bedroom... I was very proud of my wall collage.  Very proud.)  There is no doubt in my mind that my room was a definitive expression of what I wanted the world to know about me.  Though I no longer have a wall collage of my favorite singers and bands carefully composed and constructed from Spin, Rolling Stone (back when I thought it was sort of cool, though I preferred Spin), NME and random music mags I may have stumbled upon, I sometimes wish I did.  And I most assuredly have composed my studio apartment into a space that says "Hey!  You can learn a lot about me just by looking at all the books, Cd's and records, and wickety-whack knick-knacks lovingly curated all around in nooks and crannies."

Really.  You can.  It's like an adult version of a teenager's bedroom.  It's very different than the bedroom--or any other room, for that matter--that I shared with T. G.; that was less Linnet and more T.  More what I believed expressed "mature adult couple"--mature adult couple that would be acceptable to T.  (yawn)

So, I go back to disagreeing with the woman who thought that the dorm room didn't have to have all that "me"--but not "me" because, like I said, I never lived in the dorms--stuff because this was the point at which the girl is becoming a woman and no longer needed to prove her individuality.  She just is.

I think that when you share a space you have the potential to fall into a trap of suppressing yourself in your own home and though this won't happen to everyone, it's possible.  Of course it's not always true, Ready Made has a feature in every issue that entices the reader to salivate all over the envy-inducing creative power of expression as realized by couples and single folks in their amazing homes.

Credit Card Getaway

As I type this entry, Yeasayer is playing a show at Neumo's, here in Seattle.  I would have gladly gotten a ticket and seen them play in my hometown, but waaaay back in early February, when I tried to purchase a ticket, the show was already sold out.  What else could I do but try to see them in Portlandia?  So I took myself out on an overnight date to Stumptown (not the coffee shop, though that's the reason it's called Stumptown, because it comes from Portland--though it is now taking over the world, literally.)  Despite having dear friends who live in that lovely little city--and were super close to the venue--I told no one I was coming.  Sometimes you need a little solo time, away from your own day to day world.

Knowing what I know now, I would have been musically devastated had I not made the effort to see Yeasayer play live in a small venue.  (I know, I could have seen them every other time they passed through Seattle, but I didn't love their first album and I LOVE the latest album, Odd Blood.  LOVE it.)  They're the type of band that could explode any minute and the next time they breeze through town they may be at the Moore, or the Paramount.  Not too big, but big enough to not be intimate.  O, my.

Record Store Day!!!!!

Saturday is Record Store Day, and anyone who lives in a town that supports independent record stores MUST participate by showing up at the record store and purchasing something; even if it is a used something.  Though I'll be attending the EMP Pop Conference, I will definitely find time to drop into Sonic Boom--my favorite independent record store in Seattle--and buy... buy... I'm not sure, yet, what I want to buy.  But you can bet that I'll spend my hard earned government student loan money on a great record.  And yes, I do mean the vinyl kind.  I promise to let y'all know what it is.

Within the last week I have had two different people tell me about manifesting what you want simply by writing it down or even sending the fully formed declaration out into the universe.  While I am loathe to believe in astral plane, hippy-dippy mumbo-jumbo I concede that there is something to this.  The first person told me of the Intention List that a mutual friend of ours had and how he (the friend sharing the information) needed to start one of those.  The other friend explained the notion of thought forms-- like clouds that you send up into the astral (?) plane; these you just have to visualize and don't need to write down.

I am going to do both.  You can't see the clouds, but here is the list:

1. I will get a job at the Microsoft Library/Archives in one month.
2. I will move into a two bedroom apartment at the Panorama where my friend's mom lives in two months.  (The two bedrooms cost what most one bedrooms in the area cost.  Aiming high, here.)
3. I will have a great big party after I move into my new pad.
4. I will wear Jill Sander suits and look a-maze-ing.
5. I will help my mother, financially, live a care-free life.

Not bad, huh?   This is what will happen.

G'night!

Happy Pending Graduation to Me

Saturn Rising

Today is my baby sister's 27th birthday.  (27?  Hmmm... is that right?  Yeah.  27.  I'm goin' with it.)  It's a bit sobering to realize that the youngest child in the family is older than some of my friends, and also getting too old to called "the baby."  I don't actually call her "the baby," nor do I think does anyone else in the family; I do call her "my baby sister."  I suppose that's essentially the same thing and perhaps has been outgrown.

27 was a pretty big year for me.  I began my new life at 27 and have never regretted one moment.  O. K., maybe there have been some regrets, like not going to see Cheap Trick in 2000 (or was that 2001?), or getting rid of a couple of vintage dresses I thought I was over... but for the most part, it's been a good life.  I was told that this was a great year, 27, ideal for big changes and something about Saturn rising.  Whatever that means.  All that has happened since then would not have been possible without some gigantic risks that may have been shocking to the unsuspecting, but made perfect sense to me.  Looking at me now, I doubt anyone who thought they'd just seen pigs fly would disagree.  At least, I would hope so.  What else would they have wanted for me?  Soccer mom in the 'burbs?  Wearing pleated khakis and twin sets?  (No offense to all you soccer moms and dads living in the 'burbs, but you understand that's just not my style.)

The baby sis is going through a lot of life changes, too, and though they may be difficult and seemingly out of character to many, I know it's going to be good.  Feels like she's grown up a lot in the past six or so months.  So much so that using the baby monikor just doesn't have the same weight it used to.  Youngest sister is probably much more appropriate.  Or, just sister.  OR, my personal favorite, Paigerella.

Happy birthday, love!

I Authored an Electronic Finding Aid!

Look at me!!!  My finding aid for the Public Information Officer Records of the Seattle Fire Department is an EAD (Encoded Archival Description) on the Northwest Digital Archives website!  See for yourself, kids.  Naturally, as I look at it I see all kinds of things that probably could have been done better (and it was the first big collection that I processed) but the City Archivist has to OK all EADs and he wouldn't have given the go ahead if it weren't SMA (Seattle Municipal Archives) worthy.

Last few days have been a severe Ryan Adams kick.  Over and over and over again with the tunes.  He's prolific, so it took me a couple of  days to get through everything that I have uploaded to iTunes. The whole of today, since getting home from my internship and after my run, I've been listening to these gems in various shuffled order:

Anybody Wanna Take Me Home
Crossed Out Name
Two
Harder Now That It's Over
How Do You Keep Love Alive
Blue Hotel
Dear John (Live in Studio)
My Winding Wheel
Hard Way to Fall
When Will You Come Back Home?
Sweet Illusions
Please Do Not Let Me Go
Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.
If I am a Stranger (Live in Studio)
Magnolia Mountain
The Hardest Part
Monday Night
My Heart is Broken
Friends
Oh My Sweet Carolina
These Girls
Starlite Diner
Down in a Hole
Born into a Light
If I am a Stranger
La Cienga Just Smiled
When the Stars go Blue
Let it Ride
Cold Roses
Come Pick Me Up
Dear John
Now that You're Gone

I sense a theme... (sweet melancholy, slightly to very lonely, longing, etc., in case you're unfamiliar with the R. A. catalogue.)  Can't wait for the metal album.  Seriously.

Furniture and The National?

The National have a new album coming out in May, and there was a free download of one song a couple of weeks ago.  This is a band that for whatever magical reason when I hear them my chest tightens and I feel a sort of panicky need or urgency to bury myself in the the music, to cover myself, to roll into the fetal position and stay there until I've reached saturation.  I'm not explaining it well, and it is such a strange feeling.  I am so disappointed that their spring tour will take them not to Seattle, but to the Sasquatch Music Festival out at the Gorge.  I don't want to go to the Gorge (and as of this morning, I guess the whole weekend is sold out because the line up is SO DAMN GOOD!) because it's 1) a looooong drive and I don't have a car, 2) a festival type atmosphere with lots of sweaty, drunken, annoying bodies bumping into me and standing taller than i am so I can't see anything anyway, 3) difficult to arrange a sleeping situation because you have to get a permit to camp or pay for a hotel somewhere in the vicinity and 4) I just don't like those kind of big crowd shows.  I don't even go to Bumbershoot anymore because it's so claustrophobic crowded feeling.  Still, I am eagerly awaiting the new release and recently made a discovery regarding a possible influence even though it may not be connected, at all, to this band.

A Connection?  I've been watching Some Kind of Wonderful--a favorite since it's release waaaaay back in 1987--late at night as I fall asleep.  (It takes me weeks to get through a movie because I generally only am awake for about 10 minutes before it is snooze city, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...  I love the "sleep" function on my t.v. remote...sigh...) I used to have the soundtrack, which I loved and listened to over and over again when I was in Jr. High School.  One song, in particular, has stuck out as sounding very National-like, though it would be more appropriate to say that The National sounds very Furniture-like as can be heard in their song "Brilliant Mind."  Who knows if there really is a connection, but sonically speaking it sure seems like one exists.

I went.  It was chill.  I sat upstairs where the dj spun his magic and read.  I liked.

Solo

There are many activities that I truly enjoy indulging in solo.

1. Live Music
2. Movies
3. Shopping
4. Library Visits
5. Bookstore Browsing
6. Coffee Shop Sitting
7. Eating Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Out
8. Record Shopping
9. Going to a Museum/Gallery

There are some activites that I don't mind participating in solo, even though a buddy would be a great addition.  (Some of these activities may appear on more than one list..)

1. Eating Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Out
2. Movies
3. An Evening Cocktail at a Cozy Watering Hole
4. Going to a Party

And some activities are rarely done without at least one friend accompanying me.

1. Going Dancing (This one absolutely requires a buddy.)
2. Going to a Party-- Especially When I Don't Know Anyone
3. Going to Some Watering Holes

I am contemplating going to a gallery/bar tonight that has started hosting djs on Sunday evenings who just spin records.  No dancing, no raucous crowds.  A barista pal suggested I go sometime (he is one of the djs next month) because it's just a big, chill listening party and very fun.  I was thinking about taking my Records Management reading and heading over there after I eat some dinner... but I feel a little like this is the kind of activity that would be better with a friend.  Only I don't have a friend that I can ask to go with me.  I have friends, for heaven's sake!  It's just that they're mostly attached and it's a school night and they're not likely to want to wend their way over to the Hill just to sit at a gallery/bar to listen to records with me.  Should I stay or should I go?  I will probably go, or at least do a walk-by.  A part of me feels like this is precisely the kind of activity that I should be indulging in if only, potentially, to make the acquaintance of some other folks who like to stay out past 10pm.  Maybe I'd even see people I kind of know already... maybe my barista pal.

A few weekends ago, I met some girlfriends for a little Emerald City Soul Club festivities (after the opera and in high heels and a late 50's vintage cocktail dress no less!!) and ran into (danced into?) a friend of mine on the dance floor.  He came alone!!  To a dance club!!  I was very impressed, maybe a little in awe, too, and told him so.  He said that he always winds up seeing people he knows so he doesn't feel like he's there alone.  Wow.  I wouldn't have that confidence.  I don't.  No way.

The shield of reading material is always helpful in solo situations, and that's a big reason why the activities that I enjoy on my own never feel awkward.  (Yes.  I am that girl at the bar, trying to read in poor lighting.  But I don't mind...)  It's the new territory that makes me nervous.  Last night I really wanted to attend another soul night, but couldn't find anyone who wanted to go with me.  It just wouldn't do to bring my New Yorker with me on the dance floor.  And at a club, even one where the majority of folks are really there to dance there asses off and just have good ole' fashioned fun, having a buddy is, to me, smart.

So.  Will I go to the gallery and see what's what?  Yes.  I've decided to brave the unknown.  Will I stick around?  Hard to say.  All depends on the vibe.  If it feels like the sort of place that I can easily pull up a chair or cushion or bar stool, open my book, order my beer/tea/soda/whatever and relax, then I'll stay.  If it's too crazy and I feel completely out of place, I'm leaving--after I look at the art.

On the turn table: The Honey Drippers: Volume One ($1.00, rummage sale in the market.)

Tomorrow I have to return a book, Catching Fire, to the library that I'd forgotten I'd even put myself on the waitlist for and there is still a long line so it won't be renewable and it's just mean to keep a book you know someone else is waiting for.  (That was even a question/answer in the Sunday Times Magazine ethicist column.)  I only started reading it once my break had begun, which conicided with the last few days before its due date and if it were a better book I'd have already finished it.  Not that it is a bad book--it's the sequal to The Hunger Games, a book I read for my YA Lit class last fall--it's just not nearly as compelling.  90 pages to go and it has only now begun to get interesting.  The first 300 pages were a frustrating, repetative and plodding journey, however.  I found myself internally yelling, "Come on, already!  I get it; let's get this show on the road."  (Perhaps my readers feel the same when reading my prose... but I'm not being paid by a publishing company or charging others to read my possibly plodding text.)  I don't care who your target audience is, repeating information that has already been well-established can be an exasperating experience for the reader.  I GET IT!!!!  Despite thoroughly enjoying the first book of this trilogy (the final book is supposed to come out in August), I would never claim that Suzanne Collins is a great or even an original writer.  The Hunger Games had a good sense of pacing, character development and was an exciting dystopic novel for YAs easily enjoyed by older readers and mature younger kids.  (I haven't read the sci-fi books that have a similar plot, but I know that her book has been compared to several...)  But this second book... a little too much remember when and not enough what's going on NOW!  Still, like I said, it's now getting more interesting... 3/4 of the way through the book.   Le sigh.  Guess I'll be finishing that tonight when I'm done blah blah blahgging about how it's been a bit of a let down.

At least I can enjoy listening to Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs!  Marty Robbins just washes over a body in warm, dulcet tones, you know?  I've got to remember this when I'm feeling irritable, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed... spin a little "Big Iron" or "In the Valley" and all will be viewed in a less tense light.

Last Spring Break (Unless I failed Comps)

Still waiting on that whole pass/fail comps thing. Yup. Stiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllllllllllllllll waiting...

Regardless, in honor of this, probably my last, spring break I took the Sunday bus to the Goodwill with high hopes for some 99 cent LP buying fun. 99 cents is an intensely satisfying price to pay for crazy, sentimental, omygoshican'tbelieveifoundthis, sowhatifthere'salittlescratchit'sonly99cents, ireallyonlywantitforthisonesong, mayaswellgiveitatry finds. Not that I had the extra funds for this little trip, but I took the 35 minute bus ride and threw caution to the wind, even ixnayed some of my choices in an effort to be financially responsible. $18 (not including tax) later, and 18 LPs--including three multiple record sets: Bach's Mass in B Minor and a set of Brandenburg Concertos, as well as Beethoven's Complete String Quartets, Vol. II. (At Lifelong, nee, Chicken Soup, they charge for each album, part of a set or no. sheesh.) Favorite find? Peter Schilling's U.S. release, Error in the System. One of those, omygoshican'tbelieveifoundthis coupled with ireallyonlywantitforthisonesong finds. Yes, the Hollister Elementary 4th, 5th and 6th grades combined ski strip to Pomerelle return bus journey remains a vivid, wonderful memory: all 30, or so, of us singing along to "Major Tom (Coming Home)" at the tops of our lungs. Every single kid on that bus. It was glorious. 14 additional fantastic finds, too, but the Schilling album was just random and something I thought I'd never run into for such a deal. I could see thumbing through a record store's inventory and paying at least $6 for it, but certainly not VG+ condition and 99 cents!!!! Now, if I could only be so lucky with some Replacements albums...

Ok, and I admit I bought a couple of records yesterday at the Value Village ($1.99/ea., unless otherwise marked) but I couldn't pass these up. Came home with Rick Springfield's first album, Working Class Dog, because it has "Jessie's Girl" on it, and Bryan Adam's Reckless. Just about every song on that one was a hit single. Holy cow, he was popular. Holy cow, I love pop songs. I like to think that I have a discerning palette and can tell the difference between a great, well-crafted pop song and schlock. Don't we all? But come on!!! Jessie's Girl?!!!! Omigosh it is good. I mentioned my find to an acquaintance and not only did he concur, but he also noted its ideal placement in that lofty tradition of rock/pop songs whose subject matter is longing for your best friend's girl.

This used record buying thing is a bit of a disease. Or an addiction. Both, I guess. I can talk myself out of looking for weeks at a time and then I'll be innocently passing the Village (note that this is said with an arch, pseudo French accent and not to be confused with any neighborhood in that eastern city where the bohemians used to live.) and think, I'll just take a look. Can't hurt. Mostly, it's the same albums I've gone through 50 times. But then there is something new. Something I haven't seen before. Something desirable and in non-scratched condition. Once I am reminded of the thrill of buying a used record, then I want to go around to all the G'wills and Villages and any other second hand store I can think of. Record stores, too, but they tend to be a bit pricier and though I do not begrudge them their price points, it's more fun to pay less for the whoohooican'twaittogethomeandputthison discoveries.

***The links are to You Tube videos of the songs mentioned, but I'm not 100% sure they'll stay active. If not, just search 'em out in that crazy You Tube universe yourself.

This is just a big tease, writing more than ONCE in a month.  Don't get used to it...

I took some duplicate records to Sonic Boom before going to yoga, this evening (Sonic Boom has moved down the hill to a much more convenient location for me.  Thank you, Sonic Boom!!) thinking I would sell them for some in store credit.  Ha.  They were even good titles and not scratched, but the exchange was not worth it and even though they weren't rejecting them I still had that moment of vulnerable embarrassment that my musical tastes were awful and the paltry sum offered was in direct proportion to their dislike for my likes.  This is not true.  I know this.  But it's a familiar feeling when selling clothes or music to resale shops.  (I have a friend who has a record player and two albums.  I'll donate these duplicates to him.  He needs them more than SB, obviously.)

KEXP had their 90.3 best albums of the decade--as voted on by their loyal listeners--today.  I caught most of it and had a swell time during the last two hours as I just lay down with the lights off (this matters in Seattle what with darkness closing in around 4:30 during the early part of winter) and had moment after moment of "O!  I love that record.  I haven't listened to that in ages."  Or, "Yup.  Definitely should at least be in the top 20."  

The usual suspects showed up: Arcade Fire (#1 with Funeral), Radiohead (4 times and I couldn't agree more), Wilco, The Shins, Death Cab, Built to Spill, Beirut, Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Beck, White Stripes, Spoon, Interpol, Modest Mouse... no real surprises.  There was definitely some local pride going on, too.  Many, many NW bands were acknowledged for their excellent contribution to the decade's music riches.  It was a very satsifying decade in music, that is for sure.

I have no truck with any of the bands that made it onto the whole 90.3 list... ok, that's not entirely true.  There is one band on the countdown that I do not care for, at all, and another that I can take in very small doses.  And I may not have agreed that some bands should have every album that they produced on the list, thereby knocking off other very deserving albums, but that's alright.  I don't know if I could come up with a list that actually qualifies as "the best" albums of the first decade in the 21st Century, either.  They'd just be albums that I think are the best.  

So Far, So Good...

Three days into 2010 and all is well.  Mostly.  Hm.  Perhaps I've spoken too soon?  Pshaw.  Let us be realistic, other than some emotional instability, a concern regarding rent $$ and a missing favored bracelet, I stand by the previous statement.  All is well.  And as far as the emotional instability, it's not actually unstable; on the contrary, it has been very stable.  Too stable.  I'm pretty much ready for it to evolve into a new emotion and/or a less melancholy one.  (Though I have made it a rule not to speak of anything too personal on this blog, I think it's safe to allude to this particular episode--as if any two people who might read this blog don't already know... this blabber about emotional stability/instability is in regard to my semi-recent evolution from long-term relationshipdom into singledom.)  

2010.  The year of Single Linnet.  I can dig that.  Been a long, long while so it's certainly a novelty and it could be fun.  Now, anyway.  Leading up to this point, "fun" would be an inaccurate description of the last few months of 2009.  Though fun moments were experienced, "fun" was decidedly not the overall tenor of this past fall.  Big sigh.  Hey!  But let's stop this fussin' and cryin', 'cause it's a new year and I've already detangled and separated out my jewelry!  Next thing you know, I'll be tidying up that scary closet and maybe even chucking out those things that I really and truly am not going to wear again.  Whoa, Nelly!  I'm gettin' crazy.

In case you're wondering, today's turntable listening consisted of:

Carmina Burana

Suites for Cello Unaccompanied, Nos. 3 & 4 (Played by Pablo Casals)

Saint Saens & Tchaikovsky cello and orchestra pieces, Paul Tortelier was the cellist.  (Side 1 had three Saint Saens pieces and Side 2 had to Tchaikovsky pieces.)

Pippin (Original Broadway Cast)

Godspell (Original Broadway Cast)