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It has come to my attention that spring has sprung. So long, winter. Rear your hoary head no more. Spring is here to stay.

I've started walking places now. I was heading to a Happy Pirates show last night and decided that rather than driving, I would prefer to walk the ten or so blocks. It was a pleasant evening and I wanted to enjoy the breeze and the cool air. (I also wanted to enjoy the walk home with Genuine Draft, but we ended up taking a detour to the hospital cafe and drove home with Thirdmango. Ah well.) Part of the reason I wanted to walk had to do with a piece on NPR I was listening to about mass transit and protecting the environment, but I think that most of it had to do with the overwhelming pleasantness of the evening. Winter has definitely left us. If nothing else, you can see it in the trees. Blossoms are slowly peeking out of the skeletal trees lining the streets, adding a rainbow of color to the neighborhood. I was worried that the late snow we had last week was going to kill off the fledgling blossoms, but, almost phoenix-like, they came back and are now flourishing.

I'm wearing my sandals again. I reserve my sandals for the summer, usually, but I can make allowances for the spring. There's just something about the feeling of wind between your toes that makes you feel like a million bucks. It's liberating. It's the same feeling that I have when I wear shorts, but I don't think I plan on subjecting the world to my ivory legs for at least a month or so.

During the spring and summer, when I'm out of school, I make a point of going to the library and checking out dozens of books at a time to make an effort to culture myself. I went to the library for the first time this year yesterday (well, at least the first time this year to check out books; I checked out a couple of Rocky movies a few weeks ago) and picked up four books for myself. There's just something about reading that I adore. I love having a book and time to take for myself. That's part of the mystique of spring for me. I read close to fifty books last summer and felt great. With only four books, I still have a long way to go yet, but I'm off to a good start. Once I get out of classes and other obligations, I'll be able to read even more. It's going to be great. I'm starting with Voltaire's Candide, and it's been hilarious so far. Having never read it before yet talked about it all the time as a historian, I felt a need to take a look at it. I love it. If you haven't read it yet, you really ought to make a point of it.

The one drawback to the new season that I can think of is the overwhelming odor of flowers. A few flowers are nice. I like smelling flowers here and there. It's pleasant. What I don't care for is walking around feeling as though a burly Scotsman is ramming begonias into my nasal cavity. I don't need the overwhelming stench of spring to remind me that winter is over. I could tell, thank you. So long as I stay away from the cavalcade of flowers that parade about on campus, I'm fine. In fact, locked here inside my living room cell, I can hardly tell that it's spring at all. It could still be February, as far as I know. I really ought to get outside and enjoy the day. Maybe I'll take my library books and read in the grass somewhere.

Then again, maybe I'll just take a shower and watch Jeopardy!

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I had a dream last night in which I listened to a bunch of music, violating my Lenten vow. I felt awful when I woke up, thinking about what a horrible person I was for not carrying through on something so small.

Thank goodness it was just a dream.

Lent has been a really good thing for me this year. I feel like it's actually doing what it is supposed to do - bring me closer to Christ. Forsaking the use of written commas, while fun and excellent material for stories, wasn't especially useful to me in that regard. I'm finding myself more able to focus on things that really matter to me instead of playing a segment of an Arcade Fire song over and over in my head, trying to remember what that one lyric was. (It was "from my window to yours," in case you were wondering. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnel).") The biggest problem I've encountered, though, is that removing music from my life has created a fairly substantial vacuum in my brain. Anything and everything gets stuck in my head now that there's no music to push it out. I get things like ringtones in my head now (such as Robert Poste's ringtone, which is the Toreador March from Bizet's Carmen), as well as the theme music from NPR's Business Morning. It's a bit ridiculous, but I think a relatively clear mind is worth the cost of having random bits of music stuck in my head.

I made a conscious decision not to choose a "last song" before starting my Lenten silence, if only because it seems trite and cliche to do so. Actively choosing a last song also seems to defeat the purpose. I'm trying to reduce the importance of music in my life. Deciding that I want to enter Lent with Hot Chip or Sun Kil Moon in my head keeps me just as connected. It's like I'm trying to endure Lent rather than embrace it, and since I'm going into it willingly, it seems a bit ridiculous to try to keep a foot in both camps.

That's not to say that I don't miss my music, though. I do. I bought a new (well, new to me) Andrew Bird CD yesterday while I was out running errands. Would that I could have listened to it. Instead, I lent it to krebscout for the next couple of weeks so she can find out if it's worth my listening to or not. (Based on a conversation with her last night, it seems like it is.) I'm also going to pick up a couple of tickets to see him in concert so Genuine Draft and I can see him in Portland. I'm still just as much of a fan as ever. I just want to realign my priorities in my life, and I think Lent's as good a time as any to do just that.

Here's hoping it works.

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And now, a short list of surprises from the last few days.

• Playing on a jungle gym uses your abdominal muscles. A lot.
• When your abdominal muscles are sore, it hurts to do a lot of things (i.e., moving).
• A pith helmet, when worn correctly and by the right person, is pretty attractive.
• Even when life seems to be going really, really well, it can get better.
  

Who knew?

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It's Lent again, and unlike last year, I'm not making any sort of lexical vow. (You'll find two commas in that last sentence; two more than I wrote during the whole season of Lent last year.) This year, I've decided to give up something substantial - an actual vice. I'm abstaining from listening to my music until Easter, and I think it's going to be really good for me. I've worried for a long time that I'm unable to focus on anything that actually matters in life, and this seems like the perfect time to start.

The last two days haven't been without problems, though. I've had various songs stuck in my head, which makes me feel more than a little guilty. The Shins are a frequent visitor to my mind, as well as Radiohead and Andrew Bird. I do my best to kick them out when they come, but it's really, really difficult. I knew the first few days would be the hardest. The strangest thing, though, came when I woke up from my second nap at work today. (You know life is good when you have a job that allows you to take two naps.) As I opened my bleary eyes and stood up to return to work, I heard a tune playing in my mind. Almost instinctively, I tried to brush it away so I could remain true to my Lenten vow, but before I did, I realized that I didn't recognize the song. I let it play a little longer, trying to figure out what it was. It turned out to be a song that I'm pretty sure doesn't actually exist. It had some driving, feedback-heavy guitars holding down the bass line, with a warbling male voice mumbling the melody. It sounds like something that could have been out of a Radiohead song, but the overall feel was different enough that I was sure it wasn't them. Maybe I'm writing new music in my head.

Anyhow, it's going to be an exciting 47 days. I'm looking forward to it.

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(written from McCarran Airport in Las Vegas on Friday, February 16.)

I knew something was wrong as soon as I landed.

The entry into Las Vegas was pleasant enough. Every once in a while, my mind goes into stream-of-consciousness mode; thoughts and ideas came rushing into my head as we soared over the Vegas cityscape. It was all I could do to jot some of them down above my Daily Universe crossword. There were just too many of them.

The city looked like a giant Light Bright set, all laid out in perfect geometrical patterns. Even at only 7.00, the sun had already gone down, creating a stark contrast between the light and the darkness. It was almost as though the city was made of a million candles floating in a sea of darkness, adrift, yet staying in flawless formation. The Shins - whose concert I would have been at had I not been en route to your wedding, fine print - softly sang "Kissing the Lipless" in my ears over the insistent roar of the jet engines.

I wouldn't have had it any other way. It was beautiful, perfect and beautiful, and it fit in with the ridiculously good mood I'd been in for the past few days. (Anyone who knows me can guess why I've been so happy; those who know me well understand how long it's been since I've been happy at all.) I had a big grin on my face as I stepped off my plane and into the ironically yet aptly named McCarran Aiport.

It took seconds for my mood to turn on its head.

Welcoming me to Las Vegas was a gaudy, skin-deep and loud woman demanding that I look into getting a free souvenir T-shirt from her tawdry kiosk. Being a savvy traveler, I know better than to even approach people like this, but something about her commanded my attention. Her insistent demeanor and callous indifference to my fellow traveler who asked her for directions stood in sharp relief to the serene view I'd just had of the city. Everything here is loud. Everything here is superficial. I hate this city, and if I didn't know that I had to fly through it on my way back home, I'd swear right now that I'd never set foot in it again. (note, 2/18/07: I got to fly home through Phoenix, saints be praised.)

I walked past row after row of eager and seductive slot machines, their screens prostituting themselves, their brightly colored wheels spinning and creating a nauseating blur. Gambling has always struck me as a hopeless and bleak exercise. I've seen too many people lose their humanity to slot machines, sitting and pulling the lever until they become soulless automatons feeing in dollar after dollar. Seeing so many slot machines seemed to tug at my own soul, filling me with a misery that I've become all too familiar with over the last year.

I thought I'd left all of that behind. So help me, Las Vegas, if you steal my hard-earned happiness, I will never forgive you for it.

I sat down to eat something during my two-hour layover, still feeling ugly inside. I shook ketchup packets back and forth, driving their contents to the bottom and catching a fleeting image of myself doing the same thing the night before, sitting in a Taco Bell, safe, secure, and loved with Genuine Draft, krebscout, and Yellow. My heart hurt just a little bit more. I would have given anything for any of those three to have been there with me right then (and probably in that order, too, with my apologies to Yellow). I tried to think of someone I could call. Anyone. As I went through my list of phone numbers, though, I realized that anyone I would have wanted to call was either travelling somewhere or was famous for having her phone permanently set to "off."

It's just as well. It would have been an embarassing phone call, and writing all this down is cathartic, anyway.

So here I sit at gate B-10 in McCarran Airport, waiting for forty more minutes to go by so I can leave this awful place. I never want to come back. I'm just going to sit here and write, sheltered by my protective iPod bubble that shields me from the outside world. I've listened to My Bloody Valentine's "Sometimes" so many times tonight I've lost count. "Sometimes" is my song for when I feel alone in the midst of a throng of people; for when I want to feel lost, cast off in a black sea, and having seen that black sea covered by a million candles as I gently descended into this city, I should have expected it.

(note from 2/18/07: I realize this sounds really, really dark. I promise I had a good time. I'll temper this with my next post, honest.)

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From an actual essay that I graded today:

Social Security Act
Also known as the Old Age Pension act, the social security sets part of your money aside so you can eventually use it when your old. [Optimistic.] will be using this pretty soon because he is way old, like twenty-four or something. Not to mention he wears a suit and tie, which makes him age faster.

For the record, I've never actually worn a suit to class, though I make a point of nearly always wearing a tie. I like wearing a tie.

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You're all familiar with Ben Stein's role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? For those of you who aren't, he plays a high school economics teacher who delivers a famously boring lecture about the Great Depression, particularly about the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930.

I gave that same lecture today, since we've moved up to the 1930s in my U.S. history class. It took all of my self-restraint not to deliver it in a Ben Stein voice; even if I had, though, I doubt many (if any) of my students would have caught the reference, all of them having been born after 1990.

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I did something really nerdy at work today, but I'm really proud of it. I created an all-star basketball team composed entirely of dead presidents. What's more, I even assigned them positions. (I considered assigning them numbers based on their number of vetoes, but Jackson had over 400, so I gave up on that idea.)

Here they are.

Starters

C Johnson, L
PG Lincoln, A
SG Jackson, A
PF Polk, J
SF Washington, G

Reserves

G Ford, G
G Grant, U
C Jefferson, T
F Roosevelt, T
F Coolidge, C

Coach Roosevelt, F

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I have a few vignettes that wouldn't merit a blog post of their own, but they're interesting and on my mind enough that I want to share them with you. Thus, you get four of them in one go. Enjoy, dear readers.

1. Today at school, a kid in my student government class was writing random words and drawings on my whiteboard. I made sure he erased everything before he left for his next class, though. When I stood up to teach my next class of the day (which was actually two periods after student government, since I'm in a team teaching environment), I saw that he'd left one word on the board, tucked away behind the podium in tiny letters. There it was, waiting for me to discover it.

"Feces."

2. I was listening to Radiohead's "Karma Police" yesterday while at work, and I was wondering how many times I had heard it over the course of the last decade. Five hundred seemed like a good round number to me, so I decided that this time would be the 500th time. You'd think something like that would have been terribly significant to me, but it turned out that it was a fairly typical (albeit representative) experience for me. I was alone, walking through the lightly falling snow and looking at the last rays of sunlight desperately glimmering over the intersection of 900 N and Campus Drive. Most of my experiences with Radiohead have been like that. The music never gets old.

3. A girl in one of my classes turned in her WWI essay, which I was reading and grading during our current issues class. I forget what the sentence that she wrote was, but I do remember that she included a smiley face at the end of it. I never thought I'd see the day when emoticons became standard punctuation. Given the grade I gave her for it, I doubt I will, though.

4. I had the most terrifying night vision of my whole life last night. I dreamed that my younger brother was possessed. (It's funny how in dreams you rarely have information given to you explicitly. I never heard the words "your brother is possessed," but I knew. Somehow, I just knew.) He had the redeye look that people often get in pictures where the flash doesn't go off quite right. My dad and I were driving him somewhere, presumably to have him exorcised, when I looked at him in the rear view mirror. He was just gazing out the window with a deadened, haunted look on his face. I looked into his shiny red eyes and felt absolutely terrified. He was gone, and there wasn't any way to get him back. Even after I woke up, I was really worried that he was lost and gone to us.

It still scares me to think about it.

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I woke up to the insistent clanging of my twin-bell alarm clock at 6.45. I'd gone to bed late the night before - foolishly late. I always remember being tired in the morning, but somehow, it's hard to bring that to mind when I'm talking to friends at 2.30 AM. I'm never talking about things that are critically important, either. I just feel a need to keep talking and not go to bed. (Sometimes, I even dread going to bed, and I'm not quite sure why. Perhaps that's a topic for another day.)

I digress.

I woke up to the insistent clanging of my twin-bell alarm clock at 6.45. It looks like one of those clocks you see in old cartoons - the kind that you activate the snooze feature by smashing it with a rubber-tipped mallet. My mallet wasn't within reaching distance, so I had to settle for manually hitting the snooze button. I hit it several times, since I just wasn't ready for my day to start. I wasn't looking forward to going to school. The weekend felt like it had gone by too quickly, as though it had gone past at double speed. By the time I looked at the clock again, it was already 7.10. There wasn't going to be time for a shower, and that wasn't going to help things at all. This was going to be a rough day.

And then I remembered that it was Sunday. A contented smile creeping across my exhausted and sleep-disfigured face, I fell back into my bed and asleep.

When I woke up again at 9.45, I felt a certain uneasiness about getting out of bed. I didn't have anything to be worried about, but I felt that if I got out of bed, I'd set a chain of events in motion that would lead to pain, suffering, and general discontent on my part. E-mail was going to play a pivotal role in this crisis, and I knew it. I could just feel it. From the safety of my bed, I cast a glare at my computer, knowing that within its silical catacombs, it held the key to my undoing. I had a meeting at 10.30 and knew I had to get up to start preparing, but the portent of an evil e-mail kept me cornered in my bed.

By 10.15, I knew I couldn't avoid it any longer. I needed to get up, out of bed, and face the day. I flipped open my laptop and stared at the screen through bleary eyes, dreading my fate. The computer, sensing my trepidation, prolonged my agony by taking an extra long time to connect to the wireless network. Eventually, Google Talk vomited out the e-mail that was going to ruin my whole day. I squinted at it, so as to properly read my fate.

"1/1 - Slate Magazine: Today's papers: A Surge of Discontent - Slate Magazine today's papers A Surge of Disconte"

Not surprisingly, today was a mostly ho-hum, ordinary day. Looks like the morning e-mail sets the tone for the day, after all.

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Actual phrase on my frozen Freschetta Naturally Rising pepperoni pizza box, opened at 8.31 PM, MDT:

COOK BEFORE SERVING

What a ridiculous world I live in.

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I was crossing the street near my apartment the other night when I saw a car coming in the distance. I don't think of myself as a particularly morbid person, but my mind jumped to the possibility that this car was going to hit me, or at least steer toward me and try to hit me. Obviously, I needed to be prepared for this possibility. I imagined myself leaping toward the curb as the car smashed into the fence. My heart still pounding, I look through the shattered windshield to see what maniac would swerve so far out of their way to hit me. The door flies open, sending my heart rate back through the roof. The driver, his head bloodied by the impact, steps out of the car, pulling a handgun from within his jacket and aiming it directly at me. I hit the ground as a bullet flies past me. In an instant, I realize that I need to wrest this gun from the madman; he's clearly not going to stop at anything to kill me. I make my way toward him, dodging the hail of bullets he's firing at me. The police arrive to see me with his gun, insisting that I don't want to shoot, but I will if he tries anything funny. How am I going to explain this to the police?

All of this takes place in the five seconds it takes for me to step onto the sidewalk and start moving around the fence.

I excel at creating imaginary situations. I imagine I'm not the only one. However, I'm probably among the small minority that feels that I have to be prepared to deal with these same imaginary situations. I go to great lengths to plan out my reactions. I wouldn't want to be unprepared in case a hijacker wanted to kill me. These situations aren't limited to near-death experiences, though. I also have to prepare for women to walk up to me and profess their undying love. How do I let them down gently? Alternatively, if these are women I'm interested in, how do I respond in a way that's dashing and debonair?

Mine is a hard life, really. I have so many realities to deal with.

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Lavish just pointed out to me that "we're all growing up." I think I've realized that for a while subconsciously, but it's still a little strange to have it pointed out to me like that. I just turned 24 this last Saturday, which isn't all that old, I know, but it does mean that I'm moving along in life. I'll be out of school (well, college) in a few months. I'll be looking for a job soon. I'll probably end up in a high school teaching 15 year-olds about US history and why the sinking of the Lusitania may have been a British conspiracy, after all.

Student teaching has been particularly eye-opening in this respect. It's easy to forget how old you are when you associate primarily with people your own age. When you start to spend your days with high school sophomores, you realize what an age gap there really is. (I can only imagine how this is going to feel to me when I'm 40.) It's just a strange feeling to be perceived as an "old" person now. I wear a shirt and tie every day to school. Isn't that something adults do? Can't I just wear a nice polo shirt and call it even? And what happened to my first name? Losing my first name places me squarely in the adult camp.

It's not all bad, of course. I'd much prefer to be an adult than to be 15 again. I don't mind taking responsibility all that much, but the sense of my upcoming loss of freedom does get to me a little. I'm already working 13 hours a day with the jobs I have. I imagine myself living on my own, doing nothing but grading papers and watching SportsCenter with a single tear running down my cheek, looking back wistfully on the days when I had friends who would come over and watch Scrubs with me or play games. I'm really not ready to move away from here just yet, and I'm terrified that's what my future is going to bring me.

Wow, these last few posts have been pretty dark. I'll write something happy and upbeat next time, I promise.

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This is how Toothpaste for Dinner chooses to recognize my birthday. I'm flattered.

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I've turned into a walking cliche, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

For those of you not fully stepped in my life, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you that I started student teaching this week. It's the culmination of my undergraduate career, and I'm pretty excited about it. It's hard not to be excited about something that you've been looking forward to and working toward for the last four years. I've had countless hours of practice in my classes, and I finally get a chance to try things out in a real classroom setting.

As I suited up on Tuesday morning and headed to my school, though, a wave of uncertainty came over me. This is nothing new for me; every time I go through a major change in my life, I have nagging doubts telling me that maybe this isn't the right thing after all, and wouldn't I rather be at home in front of my switch-controlled fire with a cup of hot chocolate and my copy of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. (In case you're wondering, the answer to that question is always yes. It's true for nearly everything in my life, though.) I plugged along the snowy road to Timpview High, though, and marched resolutely into my class.

After two days, I'm starting to wonder if those nagging doubts didn't have a point, after all.

The classroom setting is completely different than anything I'd imagined it would be. I'd forgotten what it was like to be in a high school. There are things that I remember with fondness, like carrying around a planner with your school colors and mascot on the front and with pointless inspirational platitudes scattered within (like "be a safe haven for thosee in need of security. The return will be substantial," which I found by literally opening to a random page). I remember having classes that end at bizarre times (like 11.21 and 1.53) because classes last 52 minutes and your passing period is six, not five. I remember making a lunch every day and putting it in the fridge the night before so the sandwich wouldn't get all stale. What I didn't remember, though, was the fact that students try to dodge learning at every chance they get. Everyone told me that kids try to listen to iPods and send text messages during classes. I didn't realize that it was exactly as prevalent as they said it would be. I don't think I've been in a single class that didn't have a kid either surreptitiously (or so they thought) listening to an iPod by running the cord up their sleeve and putting their hand to their ear in what they clearly thought was an innocent manner or hiding their cell phone in their lap to send a clandestine text message or seven. I didn't realize how easy it is for a class or thirty students to get off track. I didn't realize that as a student teacher, the students immediately recognize that I'm not the same as their regular teacher and treat me as such.

I came home from school on Wednesday completely dejected and ready to quit. I'd been told that student teaching was hard, but after a day like that, I was ready to be done. Forget the last three and a half years. Forget all the work I put into this. Forget all of the education classes full of emotional and feel-good tripe that I endured. I was ready to switch majors and find something else that worked.

Yet that same day at work, I found myself thinking about my kids. I couldn't stop. I still have some of them pop into my head, and I haven't even been to class today. (Timpview had teacher inservices today, and they only lasted for about thirty minutes. Who knew teachers wanted to get out of school as much as students did?) I sat there, sweeping and mopping, thinking about all of the students I work with - even the ones that were driving me crazy by listening to iPods and playing on cell phones. Some of them were even playing StarCraft on the school computers. Whose idea was it to install StarCraft on school computers, anyway? It was just strange for me to be thinking about these kids, many of whom I'd only known for a couple of days. I've heard countless tales of teachers saying that their pay was awful and the school system was horrid but that they stuck with the profession because they loved their students so much.

And now here I am, doing and saying the exact same thing. I'm at a loss to explain it. I'm a cliche - something I've spent my whole life trying not to be. And strangely enough, I don't mind it at all.

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I know too much for my own good.

I know that sounds arrogant, but it's going to grab your attention, which is why I put it first. Based on certain recent events and conversations, I'm learning that I know a lot about what I want in life, and what a bad thing that is for me. I'm referring here to the arena of dating, something that's been on my mind increasingly over the last few months. As I date more and more women, I find more traits that I'd like to have in my future wife. One ex-girlfriend taught me the value of straightforwardness (two, actually). One taught me that I can't be around someone who thinks I'm smarter than she is. Another taught me how important sarcasm and wit are, and still another taught me just how much my emotions really matter to me. Every time I associate with a woman, I make a mental note as to what traits I am and am not looking for.

Clearly, this is what dating is all about. It's a trial run, of sorts. It's very similar to trying on different articles of clothing and seeing what fits. If you find a pair of straight-cut jeans that don't quite fit, you wouldn't go out of your way to buy another pair of them. (No pun intended.) If you don't quite like the way you look in a turtleneck sweater, you won't buy any in the future. To me, dating is the same way. The problem lies in the fact that I tend to reject women in my mind before giving them a fair shot because they don't match up with my list. I probably miss out on some great opportunities this way. I might meet an attractive woman with a nice smile, quick wit and keen intellect, but if she listens to Rascal Flats, she's done for. (No offense to those of you who listen to Rascal Flats - country music just has a negative place on my list. Indie rock, however, earns one a lot of points.) This might be the same as my refusing to wear jeans because I don't like the way one pair worked for me. Most might not work for me, but there might be one pair that would do wonders that I'm refusing to give a chance.

I don't wear jeans, in case you were wondering. I also don't date those who don't like my style of music.

I've found women, recently, who have met nearly every qualification I've got on my list. Both of them stomped all over my heart - one inadvertently and one unwittingly. Despite all the time I've spent creating this elaborate list of characteristics The One is going to have, it just doesn't seem to be working. The more I try to think things through, the worse my situation seems to get - and that's a statement I'm not restricting to the dating world.

It might be time I gave jeans another try. I am going to insist that they be straight-cut, though, and this time the pun is intended.

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More wisdom for you from The Arcade Fire, this time coming from "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnel)."

"And since there's no one else around,
We let our hair grow long
And forget all we used to know,
Then our skin gets thicker
From living out in the snow."

If there are more appropriate words to describe how you ought to spend your winter break, I can't think of them.

Happy finals week, everyone.

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If you only buy one CD this year (even though all my sources say you should buy at least five), you'd better make it Thom Yorke's The Eraser. In my opinion, this was hands-down the best album of the year. Yorke stays with his increasingly electronic theme with this album, only taking it a step further. This album was really creepy the first time I listened to it, if only because the disc burned improperly and skipped all the time. (It was also 1.30 AM when I first heard it.) Now, several months later, I can still listen to this album over and over again. Songs like "Black Swan" and "It Rained All Night" just never get old. It's such a clever sound that I can't help but recommend it to everyone I know. You can listen to snippets of it through iTunes or NPR's "All Songs Considered."

If you decide to buy two new CDs this year, though, you should consider picking up Beck's The Information. I was skeptical of this release, since I'd heard less than favorable reviews of it, but a friend of mine let me listen to it about a month ago and I was hooked. Beck uses really clever and innovative sounds in his music (like a dial tone in the opening "Elevator Music"), which makes it really intriguing in my mind. The album is really solid the whole way through. No problems here putting this as my number two album of the year. It's no Eraser, of course, but honestly, there aren't any musicians out there that can hold a candle to Thom Yorke (unless it's Radiohead, of course, but that's hardly any different).

If you decide to go out on a limb and buy three CDs this year, you might want to look into the Decemberists' new release, The Crane Wife. A lot of people found this release less accessible than their earlier albums (especially Picaresque), but I think it's very nearly their best. (Castaways and Cutouts still reigns supreme in my mind. Man, it's good.) The trick is that you can't listen to just one song at a time. For starters, some of the best songs on the album are over ten minutes each; "The Island," a three-part epic that conjures images of Led Zeppelin, is nearly twelve minutes long. Even better, the first and penultimate tracks are parts of the same song ("The Crane Wife 3" and "The Crane Wife 1 & 2," in that order). You have to listen to the album as a whole to really get the sense of it. It's been a long time since I've found an album that demands to be listened to as an album. It's worth the time. Don't be afraid to sit down for forty minutes and really appreciate it.

If you're willing to buy a fourth CD this year, you'd do well to make it Joanna Newsom's Ys. Nearly everyone I've introduced Joanna to has thought her music was creepy and strange. (Tolkien Boy, in particular, had a strong, bodily reaction to it.) That said, you really ought to give her a chance. You just aren't going to find a more innovative sound out there. What other recording artists play the harp? To make things better, she wrote an orchestral accompaniment to her music for this album - it's absolutely beautiful. This is another album that asks you to invest some time, however. There are only five tracks, despite it being a full-length album. (They average about twelve minutes in length. They're worth it.) This is easily the most original new release of the year. Do yourself a favor and try it out.

You're looking for more? If you're buying five CDs this year, you should take a look at Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas. We all know that Sufjan makes beautiful music; one only need look to his magnum opus, Come On Feel the Illinoise! from last year for proof. With this collection, though, he outdoes himself. Over the last five years, he has quietly been recording Christmas music, finally releasing an enormous five-album compilation this year. Don't be alarmed by the amount of music, however; he only released enough music to make an EP each year, so despite it being a five-disc set, the cost is still comparable to that of a regular LP. His penchant for amusing titles continues with songs like "Get Behind Me, Santa!" and "Did I Make You Cry on Christmast Day? (Well, You Deserved It)." His track record of making amazingly beautiful music continues as well, most notably with the ballad "Sister Winter," found on the fifth disc. It's not often that you find a Christmas song featuring the singer apologizing for his cold indifference, but it does the trick. Stevens has the album available for streaming at his label's website, so those who aren't sure they want to buy the album can listen to it before deciding that they really ought to buy it, after all.

There are plenty of other albums that you should probably look into purchasing this year, too. Sufjan Stevens' The Avalanche comes to mind, as well as Christopher O'Riley's Hold Me to This, both of which are beautiful. If you can only buy five CDs, though, this is a solid bunch. As one who has all five, though, you should buy them (or borrow them, or whatever) in the order I've listed. I didn't go to all the trouble of ordering them so you could just ignore it.

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Just a note to all of you loyal readers that Theodore t-shirts are going to be available starting now. I need to have your contact information, shirt size, and design so I can make a shirt for you to wear around, proudly proclaiming your affiliation with Theodore if you want one. They'll be ready for pickup starting January 4, 2007. I'd like to have all orders in by December 31 so I can create them all without too much rush on my part. All shirts will be sold at cost, so you're just reimbursing me for buying shirts for you.

Orders can be left at my email address (theboardoptimistic at gmail.com).

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I realize that a lot of you read my blog via RSS feed, so you don't actually visit the site. This is a shame, because I have a lot of really cool sites linked to my blog that you should be checking out. I've added a few recently, but since they're really easy to overlook, I'm going to sum them up for you. Add these to your list of places to check out when you need something to do.

• The 100 Hour Board. Your questions, our answers. 100 hours to the answer to any question you can think of. Most of you probably arrived at this blog from there, actually.
• Stuff on my cat. Picture of people putting stuff on their cats. I find this to be immensely entertaining.
• Create a snowflake. This is a page run by Popularfront that lets you create a Flash snowflake with just a few cuts here and there. It's really cool - I managed to spend nearly an hour playing with it a couple of days ago. As more and more snowflakes are made, the site managers donate increasingly more money to the Salvation Army.
• KEXP. 90.3 FM, Seattle. The best indie rock station out there. Love it.
• last.fm. Another really solid Internet radio station, though I must confess I haven't touched this one in months. I used to love it, though.
• Pandora Internet radio. I love this one. Pandora lets you enter bands and artists you like to listen to, then creates a radio station out of those and similar artists. It's fantastic, and all free. Enjoy.
• Pitchfork Media. News outlet for indie rock and the like. I like it, at least.
• 3hive. Same thing, but with music sharing.
• Subpop Records. One of the indie rock standards, featuring bands like Band of Horses, Wolf Parade, and the Postal Service.
• Uncyclopedia. Like Wikipedia, but full of humorous lies.
• Book-a-minute. Amusing and extremely brief summaries of famous books and films, usually to about a sentence or two.
• Theodore - friend to all. My webcomic. Love it.
• The encyclopedia of manliness. What could be more manly than a lumberjack punching Santa?
• Jews for bacon. This explains itself, I think.
• Look Around You. This is a BBC educational spoof that I find absolutely hysterical. They're a bunch of programs that purport to be factual, but are clearly full of lies. You'd be remiss if you didn't at least watch one.
• Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency. An overeducated online humor magazine. Just witty articles such as "Short, Imagined Monologues" and "Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond." I love them.
• Paint like Jackson Pollock. Drag a cursor around the page and splatter paint everywhere. It's a surprising amount of fun.
• Kingdom of Loathing. An online role-playing game that makes fun of real role-playing games. If I didn't have a near-constant amount of work to do, I'd play this game every day.
• Toothpaste for Dinner. The most addictive comic on the web (at least, until Theodore gets off the ground).
• Web sudoku. America's fastest-growing puzzle game. Great if you need to kill a few minutes.
• Samurai sudoku. For those of you who feel regular sudoku are too easy, why not try five grids at once?

Seriously, if you aren't paying attention to the sites I link on the sidebar, you're missing out.

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Since it looks unlikely McSweeney's will publish it, I'll go ahead and post this list I wrote for them here. Enjoy.

Increasingly Improbable Names for a Small British Village

• Chussex
• Scriveningdale
• Dumblingshire
• Slatherington
• Swarmingborough
• Gagglington
• Bickeringshire
• Chimpingmouth
• Crampingwood
• Porkham

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I think this speaks for itself.

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This semester has been really stressful for me, but for the first time in a while, the clouds of business opened up and let in a ray of freedom today.

Forgive the lame metaphors. There will probably be more as I go on.

Last night, I finished a draft of my senior capstone paper at about 11.00. It's not an especially solid paper yet, but it's only a draft, so I have time to revise it and make it solid. I was worried when I headed into class with it this morning, but after reading some other students' papers, I felt pretty good about what I'd put together. The day just kept getting better, too. I had a good time helping out at the high school today. I did a killer job on my unit presentation for my education class today. Walking out of class, I felt like I was on top of the world. I know I have a lot to do in the last month of the semester, but for today, everything's going my way.

Uffish Thought told me I had to celebrate having these two big projects done, so we headed to Taco Bell to get lunch. I stayed there through the first 20 minutes of class, so I decided it just wasn't in the cards. I walked home, feeling great.

For whatever reason, everything's going my way today. Man, life is good. And to think I was going to write a complaintive post as of this morning.

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Just a short announcement to apprise you all about the launch of the Theodore webcomic.

Tell your friends.

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And now, the requisite review of the concert.

We were going to go to the Guster concert last Friday, but one of the members of the band took ill at the last moment, so it ended up being cancelled. I was disappointed; I usually attend a concert a month to keep me sane, so I felt a little cheated at not being able to attend this one. I took a look at local concert listings to see if they had posted a reason for not coming, when I noticed that Joanna Newsom was coming to town only one week later.

Those of you not familiar with the music of Ms. Newsom are encouraged to view the video for "Sprout and the Bean," from her Milk-Eyed Mender LP. Those of you familiar with her will know that she's a bit...eccentric, to put it politely. (She has a publicity shot of her wearing a wolf skin on her head.) I was really excited for this concert - not only because of her music, which I adore, but to see what she was like in person. I expected some sort of bizarre antics from her.

None were forthcoming, and that was a really good thing, as it turns out.

To start, I need to provide you with a sense of the layout of the Depot. It's a converted railroad station; there's a stage in the front with tables and chairs scattered in front of it. Sitting down changes the whole dynamic of the concert. While previous concerts I've been to have been high-energy, this one was really calm and relaxed. Everyone sat down and listened politely to the opening act. (His name was Mark Fosson, and despite playing a fairly long set, he was pretty good.) What was interesting, though, was that despite the fact that most people were talking (albeit quietly) during the opening act, an almost reverential hush fell over the crowd when Joanna took the stage. I overheard two guys talking during her first song ("Bridges and Balloons"), and not ten seconds passed before two other guys yelled "shut the hell up!" at them. Nobody talks over Joanna Newsom.

What's interesting is that she wasn't an imposing stage presence at all. There was no reason at all these two guys should have been silencing rabblerousers. (In all honesty, there was no reason these guys should have been there at all, let alone the rabblerousers.) She's still a young woman, starry-eyed and genuinely pleased and surprised that people are paying money to see her play. She just looked cute on stage. She prefaced the show by telling us that this was the first time playing with a band. She then paused for a moment, adding, "Well, it's basically the first time I'm playing with a band." Who says "basically?" Who says that at age 25? Between that and her cuddling up against her harp, she was absolutely adorable. It was wonderful.

The music was tremendous. I love her CD, but I didn't realize one could rock that hard with a harp until I saw her play it live. "The Book of Right-On" had some serious energy live. Watching her hands fly across the strings was spectacular. I've only seen one other person play a harp, and it's a real treat to see if you haven't. (Petra plays a mean harp.) Her band was no less disappointing. They had a wide array of clever and unusual instruments. One man played a mandolin; another played the accordion, and occasionally the saw. Few things sound cooler than a saw. Gathering a band around her changed the sound of the music; it almost felt like I was sitting in a Renaissance festival. (The cover of her new album, Ys, certainly reflects that mood.)

After playing only eight songs, she and her band stood up and left. We clapped and cheered, hoping she'd come back and play more from her first record, but she didn't. I was surprised that she was done. Apparently the event staff were just as surprised - they probably thought she was playing an encore, too. Everyone stood up, unsure whether to stay or go. Even with a set of only eight songs, though, it was the best concert I've seen in a long time. Who would have thought it from a harpist with a bizarre, high-pitched voice?

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Uh-oh. They're on to me.

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I'm sure Wikipedia is going to see through this almost immediately, so I'm going to save it to the blog. Enjoy, friends.

Acceleration point

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An acceleration point, uncommon in English typography, is used to indicate an increase in the speed at which the reader reads text. The typographical character derives from the tailed script m (Mercury sign) from the Wingdings font.

Usage

Although rarely used in standard English, the acceleration point appears commonly in the Valley girl dialect found in southern California. In addition to commonly heard variations of words (such as "like," "duh," and "totally), speech will occasionally speed up, apropos of nothing. While the acceleration point is most commonly found in the Valley girl dialect, it has uses in standard English, as well. Speakers who are nervous tend to speak at a faster pace than normal, requiring an acceleration point in written text. Other speakers, such as auctioneers, who are known for speaking quickly, sometimes also require acceleration points.

History

The acceleration point was first conceived of by linguist Benjamin H. Chatterton, working out of Brigham Young University. Supervising a team of undergraduates, he isolated the times in which the acceleration point appears in common speech and devised the appearance of the mark. While it has yet to be approved by any linguistic governing body, a paper on the subject is forthcoming.

edit: wikipedia seems to have bought it, for the time being. the permanent link can be found here. please, tell your friends. see if you can find more articles to link to this one. the more publicity we can get for the acceleration point, the better.

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I go through fascinations with different bands, albums, artists, and the like. Lately, it's been Sigur Rós that has commanded my attention, even to the point of inspiring me to change the style in which I title my posts. They have this tremendously ethereal sound that washes over me whenever I listen to their music. My latest crush has been on their song "Sæglópur," from their latest album, Takk... . I listen to it whenever I have it on me and hum it to myself whenever I don't. Mostly, it's just the first minute and a half that gets me. It has a soft piano and bell intro to it, combined with Jon Thor Birgisson's beautiful falsetto in Icelandic. It makes me feel that wherever I am when I listen to it, it's snowing.

I have a lot of images that I associate strongly with various songs. Sarah Slean's marvelous LP Blue Parade immediately conjures up an image of a rainy winter in Portland to me. Sufjan Stevens' "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!" (from the eponymous album) makes me feel that I'm in love every time I hear it. Okkervil River's entire Black Sheep Boy Appendix EP brings to mind an image of a dark room with a misshapen creature huddled in it. At one point in high school, I tried to illustrate every song from Radiohead's Amnesiac LP. Really good music does this to me. The only trouble with this is that when I hear music that has an image attached to it, I tend to close my eyes in an effort to shut everything else out. I just want to enjoy my music and the image I've chosen to associate with it. This isn't such a bad thing when I'm at home or at the library listening to my music. The problem comes from the back that I just got an iPod (and I need to take the time here to mention how awesome dimmi is for getting it for me at zero cost), so I'm frequently listening to music as I walk around. Songs like "Sæglópur," then, cause me to shut my eyes as I'm walking through concourses of people on campus. I generally only make it a couple of seconds before I realize what I'm doing and open my eyes, sometimes microns away from running into someone.

Sigur Rós ought to put some sort of warning on their CDs cautioning people like myself against listening to their music while walking anywhere.

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I decided to be a rabid, anti-war bleeding heart liberal today.

Allow me to explain.

In my Japanese literature class, we started a unit on WWII era Japan today. We were discussing a story titled "Blind Chinese Soldiers" (a short excerpt of which you can read here) by renowned author Hirabayashi Taiko and how it related to the politics and society of 1940s Japan. It's a terribly interesting story - I highly recommend reading it if you get the chance. In the course of the discussion, however, we got on the topic of the atomic bomb and Hiroshima. My professor, having anticipated this coming up, brought a film titled Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) on that very subject. It portrays the bombing of Hiroshima in an anime format, which has a more powerful effect than you might think. Similar to Art Spiegelman's Maus, the abstraction of the characters involved provides the reader a window into their lives. A photorealistic depiction of a character means that only one person in the world can be that character. An abstract portrayal of a character opens the doors; any one of thousands of people could realistically be represented. (I'm trying to succinctly summarize Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art and not doing such a great job. Read the book - you'll enjoy it.)

The point I'm making here is that despite the cartoonish quality of the film, the depiction of the effects of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. The class was absolutely silent for a while afterward. It was intense. I didn't talk to anyone until I'd sat in the library, calmed down, and listened to Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Under the Sea. I just felt so strongly against war. I actually thought to myself as I watched the film, "How on earth could we have dropped two bombs on Japan?"

That said, I feel a strong need in my life to be an anti-war nut. Feel free to respond as you will.

(my apologies for the slew of links. it's like i'm channeling bawb or something.)

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No plot spoilers for you here (as I haven't read the book myself). I'm just writing to tell you all that if you haven't read the Lemony Snicket series yet, you really should. I've had Book the Thirteenth, titled The End, in my clutches for the past few hours, and the fact that I've only been able to read a few short chapters so far has been killing me.

Interestingly enough, this is the only book in the series to have fourteen chapters. The fourteenth chapter actually comprises its own book, titled, curiously enough, Chapter Fourteen. (The subtitle of the book is "Book the Last," which I find amusing.) I'm really excited.

Seriously, friends, you should read this. Reading Lemony Snicket will give you insights into my writing style that might not make sense otherwise. For instance, if you ever wondered why I title (or, rather, used to title) all of my posts in the format of "post the ______th", you needn't wonder any further.

I'm not even kidding. Go find the book. Go find the series. Read them. You won't be disappointed.

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For years, autumn has been my favorite season. While walking on campus today, I looked up from the damp, worm-ridden sidewalk to see two rows of golden trees, their leaves flopping - not fluttering - to the ground, soaked with the rain from the night before. It was absolutely beautiful, and in keeping with recent tradition, I wanted to know what made it so.

So I explored.

I grabbed the first piece of paper I could find (the Business Day section of today's New York Times, as pictured above) and started scrawling down any thoughts and feelings that came into my head. After a few minutes of writing, I found that it was the evanescent feeling that I enjoyed so particularly. Everything feels as though it's slowly falling apart. I love the feeling of disshevelment that pervades the outdoors. The trees are in a state of decollatage - not quite undressed for the winter, but still not quite fully clothed. Discarded leaves are strewn on the grass and sidewalk. There's no sense in cleaning them up; tomorrow, a fresh blanket of red and gold will be laid on the ground. Prints of fallen leaves graffiti the sidewalk. Footprints and tire tracks do the same to the manicured lawns. Even the sky looks untidy, as though a five year-old in the heavens were fingerpainting in gray.

People look untidy, too. The falling rain makes one want to bundle up, but not in anything pretty. Who wants to have their beautiful winter coat soaked and ruined in the rain and mud? Instead, everyone wears a nondescript hoodie, content to be warm, dry, and blend in. Beautiful, trim fashion is sacrificed for function. The drizzle of rain has its way with perfectly parted and set hair, giving everyone an equally frumpy appearance. Hair dissheveled, clothes baggy, faces wet, we all look exactly the same. Winter is on its way, planning to restore order with snowfall. Sidewalks will be delineated from lawns with straight, white edges. Everything will be a perfectly orderly white.

Me, I'm going to revel in transience while I can.

post the hundred and eighth

(As a preface, I need to remind all of you gentle readers that I do, believe it or not, experience happiness and joy in my life. I just don't write about it. Melancholy and gloom lend themselves much better to exploration than cheerfulness does. This happens to be a period in my life where I've been given many more opportunities to really experience melancholy, and I'm doing my best to understand it so you can get a real sense of it. You'll have a better idea of it when you can see what it's like through my senses; at least, that's how I am. Hopefully you're the same.)

Feel your chest until you find the spot where your rib cage meets your sternum. I'm serious here. You're not going to understand exactly what I'm feeling - which is my goal here - unless you take an active role in reading this essay. Go on, don't be bashful. There should be a small soft spot just below the bone. I'm feeling a near-constant pressure there of late - it abates temporarily, but vestiges of it still cling to me, refusing to leave me alone. It's an internal pressure, mind you; it feels as though something is squeezing me from within rather than pressing from without, where it could easily be brushed away.

I feel it in my throat, too. I find myself taking deep breaths a lot (they sound like wistful sighs; in fact, they are neither) in an effort to sate the discomfort in both my throat and chest. Breathing deeply briefly sooths the chest pressure while the air reaches high enough that my throat doesn't have the lump in it for a bit.

Yes, the grim spectre of melancholy has raised its hoary head in my life again. Don't just blow past that phrase, either. I spent a good twenty minutes making sure that was exactly what I wanted to say. I looked up melancholy in the thesaurus, scoured all of its synonyms, and finally looked it up in the OED until I settled on it. (I also intentionally spelled "spectre" in its British form.) Word choice is important to me. Please take note.

Anyway.

I had a really fun time last night, in case brooklyn is reading this. I really did. I've been busy, sure, but I was productive and even got a chance to relax, which doesn't happen terrifically often anymore. I was even having a good morning, listening to the Decemberists' The Crane Wife (especially "The Island," which hasn't left my head since I bought it yesterday morning). Around 1.30, however, I started to feel restless. I couldn't focus on anything. I just had a tremendous rush of energy and felt frustrated that I couldn't do anything with it. Curiously, the rush failed me some 45 minutes later when I completely crashed during one of my classes. I made it through the next few hours in an exhausted torpor, wishing only for a nap. (Instead, I watched the NL playoffs. Man, the Mets lok good.)


This lasted until about 6.30, when it all broke loose. While I wasn't quite happy, I was cheerful enough up until then. Almost instantly, melancholy swept over me like a morose tidal wave. (This is another case where my word choice is important. Take note.) I was surprised at how sudden and complete it was; Pepto-Bismol has nothing on emotion. Boy howdy. I just stood there, a bag of used paper towels and fast-food wrappers in hand, feeling like I wanted to cry (which I never do, no joke) for hours - and nothing had even happened. It was amazing.

(deep breaths.)

It's at times like these where I wish I had someone to love. And before some of you reading this get up in arms saying you love me and worry about me, I want you to understand that I'm not talking about you. I know you love me. I appreciate it. I really do. That's just not what I'm talking about. I need someone in love with me - someone who can come and hold me when life gets impossibly hard. I need someone who can come and rub my still-aching back and wipe away my non-existent tears. I need someone who will be there for me and only me, as selfish as that sounds.

The problem with this is that I'm in love with everyone at the same time, which only adds to my frustration. (How can you not be frustrated like that? It's bad enough when only one object of your fancy doesn't return your affection; try a thousand of them at once.) I know I want someone to love, but I don't know who, or even that it's such a good idea for me at the moment, still having been freshly wounded. To make matters worse, I know exactly the woman I'd like to have comfort me and hold me, but she only exists as a construct of my mind. I've met 90% of her. (The lacking 10% turned out to be a critical difference.)

sigh.

"go to sleep now, little ugly. go to sleep now, you little fool."




P.S.: I promise I'll start writing about cheerful things soon. This was such a startling insight into the world of melancholy that I couldn't resist writing about it. My apologies.

post the hundred and seventh

While looking through the library this morning for some sources on the early years of the Soviet Union, I came across The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, edited by Joseph L. Wieczynski. There are sixty volumes.

Sixty volumes.

If you know me personally, you can imagine the reaction this evoked in me, but in case you don't, I'll go ahead and describe it to you. I looked down from the row of books I was previously scanning to see two shelves of thin, forest green books, slightly tattered from use, but otherwise in good condition. My initial excitement upon realizing the books were all about Soviet Russia grew steadily as my eyes travelled from the first volume to the the sixtieth. My mouth fell open as I saw the five volumes of indices at the end of the second shelf. I felt a flutter in my heart - not unlike the flutter I feel when I see an attractive woman. These were sexy books, and I was completely enrapt. The feeling only intensified when I saw a bibliography of Lenin's speeches from 1905-1924. Oh man. It was incredible.

I'm going to quit blogging and get to work reading the whole thing right now. Oh boy oh boy.

post the hundred and sixth

Now that the ringing in my ears has died down, I can sit down and write about this concert. I've also calmed myself down by playing Sigur Rós, so you won't have to worry about me raving about the concert and throwing in unnecessary superlatives.

That said, the concert was tremendous. It started a little rocky, but it was really good on the whole. The opening act (Simon Lart, or something like that) played a couple of solid songs at the beginning of their set, but I was done with them after about five songs. That worked really well for us, since they only played the five. After twenty minutes of waiting for Band of Horses to come on, though, another opening act walked on the stage. This was a guy (who neglected to introduce himself, incidentally; we'll call him "Chad") who played most of his instruments by himself. Anything he couldn't play was provided for him via a backup track. His music was pretty solid, too, but I was ready to be done with him pretty quickly, if only because I wasn't expecting to have to wade through two opening acts. He made my wait almost worth my while, however, by describing a fight that he'd had with a friend of his who had joined him on tour. The two of them had just been traveling for long enough and got in a fight about bananas or something. I forget exactly. At any rate, this friend (we'll call him "Eric") was supposed to join Chad on stage to play drums for him, but due to this fight, he refused to come up on stage. Chad couldn't well play the songs by himself, so he ended up playing the first half of a lot of his songs and describing how they would have ended if Eric had been on stage with him. He described one song as having a "proto-homosexual" ending. I don't know what that means, but it seemed intriguing enough. Another song would have involved trumpeters muting their instruments with balloons and showering confetti all over the place. I was under the impression that Eric only played the drums, but apparently he does it all. It would have been amazing. Alas.

Finally, Band of Horses made their appearance. They didn't actually take the stage until about 9.15, which was interesting because the concert was scheduled to start at 7.00. (I later realized that the doors opened at 7.00. We were there at 6.00, only to find that the bands were only just arriving then.) Another band, the Kings of Leon, was supposed to play at 8.00 in the same place. I have no idea if or when they started playing. As it was, we were offered tickets to their show for free by one of the members of the band. It turned out that the Stills were opening for them, which would have been exciting to see. We seriously considered it; we probably would have stayed had the concert not ended at 10.15. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of waiting until 11.00 to start a show an hour away from home.

I digress.

Band of Horses was fantastic. They're from Canada, and they looked the part. They were dressed in neat flannel and had fairly impressive beards. It felt like a bevy of lumberjacks were performing for us. It was pretty cool. What made the experience even more fun was that the band seemed to feel that performing live was still a novelty for them. They were really excited. They brought up a painting of what turned out to be a dog smoking a pipe with a shotgun behind it and placed it on the drum set. "This is Mr. Awesome," they informed us. We were all duly impressed.

I was most excited for them to play "The Funeral," and I wasn't disappointed when they played it. It had all of the driving energy that I was hoping it would live. (Even seemingly innocuous songs like "Wicked Gil" were impressive live, though. It was a solid show.) You should really be clicking on the link that I provided for you here. You'll appreciate this post more if you're listening to Band of Horses while you read about them.

The reason everyone was there, of course, was to hear "The Great Salt Lake." They were just as excited to play it as we were to hear it. Few things in my life to this point can compare to hearing Band of Horses play "The Great Salt Lake" while in downtown Salt Lake City. It was fantastic. Everyone in the 200-person crowd knew the words to the song and sang along. (Now if you find yourself falling apart, I'm sure I can steer on the Great Salt Lake. mmmmmm.) We gave them such a tremendous response to that song that they told us that we were cooler than Mr. Awesome. I was so proud.

All told, it was a fantastic show. Alyssa even got touched by the drummer on the small of her back. If that doesn't make it an experience to be remembered, I don't know what will. Anyone for the Guster show next month?

post the hundred and fifth

Sufjan Stevens will be in Portland on October 13.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will be in Portland on October 7, along with Architecture in Helsinki and Takka Takka.

The Decemberists will be in Portland on October 17 and 18.



At least Band of Horses will be here on Thursday. I wish I was in Portland this month.

post the hundred and fourth

For those of you that have trouble with sudoku (the sport of kings), I present the following:

(thanks to Robert Poste for the graphic design. the concept, however, is all mine.)

post the hundred and third

This semester is going to be a busy one for me, I can already tell. I mentioned this earlier, but I have a lot of things going on in my life right now, and they're already starting to pile up on me. It's still September, for crying out loud. I can't imagine what December is going to feel like.

I felt optimistic (for lack of a better word) about this semester's prospects at first. I knew I was going to be busy, but that's not such a bad thing. I'm much better at organizing my time when I have a lot of things to do. This last summer drove that point home for me. I never felt any sense of urgency when the most pressing demands on my time were going to work and playing Kingdom of Loathing. I looked forward to a time in my life where I would be vastly more productive. It was going to be good.

In fact, it was good for the first day or so. I had three classes to attend and a lot of homework to do (mostly essays and reading - nothing too heavy), so I was planning on spending most of the day in the library. I spent the day bustling (I chose that word carefully, friends; "bustling" is the best word to describe what I was doing) from place to place, hurrying to get everything done. I felt a sense of fulfillment during the first part of the day, satisfied that I was being incredibly productive. As the day wore on, however, the feeling of fulfillment started to fade, gradually being replaced by a hollow, gnawing feeling in my chest. This wasn't something I was prepared for. I knew I was going to be busy, yes, but it was supposed to be a satisfying busy. I was supposed to feel gratified at the end of the day when I looked back and saw everything that I'd accomplished. No longer was I feeling good about what I was doing, but, just the opposite, I was feeling stressed. Harried. Frazzled (and that's another word that I chose carefully, dear readers). What was going on? What happened to my beautiful sense of accomplishment?

Within a few minutes, the gnawing feeling descended from my chest to my stomach, however, and I quickly figured out that it's difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment or self-worth when you're really hungry. I hadn't eaten hardly anything the whole day. No wonder I felt miserable. I think I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich or something and watched SportsCenter. Now there's fulfillment.

post the hundred and second

Fall started at about 4:12 PM MST, Friday, September 15, but I didn't notice it until about ten minutes later.

I know there are more than a few of you out there who are looking at your screens with a dumbfounded look on your face saying something to the effect of, "Why, Optimistic., fall doesn't technically start until the 21st of the month. Haven't you heard of the autumnal equinox?" Yes, dear readers, I am aware of the equinox. I know fall hasn't started yet according to the calendar. However, when I went outside yesterday, it felt like fall, and I'm far more inclined to trust my feelings than a calendar when it comes to my perception of the seasons. As of about 4:12 yesterday, it's officially fall for me.

Describing what I mean when I say it "felt like fall" is something far more difficult than just proclaiming it to be fall, though. Something fells very different than summer when it switches to fall. Part of it, I think is triggered by the change in temperature. It was cooler and breezy yesterday when I realized that it had become fall, but somehow, the cooler and breezy feeling was inside me as well as on the outside. I felt crisp and brisk. I felt like autumn.

I felt, now that I think of it, the combined force of the memories of twenty-three autumns all at once. While walking toward work, I was suddenly struck by a vision of myself going to a Halloween performance at night in first grade. I don't remember any of the particulars of the performance (although a video tape documents me wearing a bunny rabbit costume), I do remember walking to my elementary school in the cool dark of a late October night in California with the smell of candy corn and musty construction paper wet with glue on the air. I didn't smell that on my way to work yesterday, but the crisp feel of an autumn breeze triggers that memory (and thus that smell) in my mind. To me, fall is an orange construction paper pumpkin soaked with a little too much Elmer's Glue.

Unfortunately, fall only lasted until about 6:45, when winter took over with the onset of a persistent drizzling rain. That was fast.

post the hundred and first

Do you want to know what it feels like to be me?

Of course you do. Everyone does. Don't lie to yourself.

Find a hula hoop and a friend. Have the friend light the hula hoop on fire. Jump through the hoop several times, being sure that your friend kicks you each time. It might even help if your friend throws some clever insults in there, too.

I'm scheduled to graduate next April, and I've had to jump through an inordinate amount of hoops lately to get clearance to do so. (I'm still not all the way there, and I've been working on this for the better part of the last week.) I found out yesterday that I need the signature of my academic advisor from my college to graduate, so I headed up to his office at 9.15 this morning to get that taken care of. It was pretty clear that he really didn't want to be there, which had me a bit mystified. How hard can it be to look up a few things and sign my paper? Furthermore, how bad can it be if you're being paid to do so? Fortunately, I had enough cheer for the both of us, and I headed out with a signed form in my hand. Since I'm in the education program, however, I also needed the signature of my education advisor. I headed over to the education building to pick up that signature, confident that I was almost done with my work.

When I handed the form to my advisor, though, she looked a bit confused. She told me that I needed a similar form for my minor, which my history advisor should have given me. I've had problems with the history department before, so this was nothing out of the ordinary. I headed back to the history department, slightly irritated, but still glad that I was almost done. As you can imagine, though, I was far from it. The two secretaries at the desk seemed confused as to why they were even holding my minor form. They talked back and forth to each other about it for a while before they even realized that I was there to pick it up. Predictably, it was missing a signature that should have been on there months ago. Guess who got to go collect that?

So now I'm heading over to the Japanese department, more than a little irritated at the incompetence of the history department. Once there, I found out that I actually have one more class to take than I thought I did. I get to pile that on top of the classes I'm already taking, my licensure exam, preparations for student teaching, my senior thesis, and everything else I have to do right now. It's insane. I knew this year was going to be rough, but I had no idea just how nasty it was going to be. Assuming everything continues at the current pace (and I see no reason why it won't), I should finally get to breathe a little easy around December.

ick.

post the hundredth

I was going to post a picture in celebration of the event, but since I'm having some difficulty with Blogger (we're not on speaking terms right now), I'll just describe what I've found to you.

For those of you that are fans of sudoku as I am, this will be a special treat. I found something called a samurai sudoku, which is comprised of not just one 9x9 grid, but five of them. (Just imagine the beauty this implies. Or, if you don't want to imagine, just click here.) It's probably the coolest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen some pretty cool things.

Happy hundredth to me.

post the ninety-ninth

Have I mentioned how much I like this new apartment? It's a wonderful place to live. The location is excellent, too - campus is literally a three minute walk from my front door. Work is about the same distance. It's wonderful. Simply wonderful.

The only problem is that I feel really melancholy when I'm in my room, and I don't have the slightest idea why.

Before I get too far here, I want to remind all of my gentle readers that I'm really not as sad as you might think from reading my blog over the past week or so. Those not acquainted with me would probably think that I'm just a complete emotional wreck. Those who know me in real life know better. I'm still far from being chipper and smiley-happy, but I'm doing alright. (The eye twitch, shooting pains in my hips, and aching back might provide evidence to the contrary, however.) Seriously, though, I'm doing fine, and I appreciate all of the concern and comfort I've received from you. You're wonderful.

That said, my room does instill a sense of melancholy in me. I think this has to do with the positioning of my window. My window faces west, which allows for plenty of light to enter the room - especially when the sun is setting; it looks beautiful - which you'd think would provide a cheerful feeling. The problem, however, is that due to some factor beyond my control, almost no natural light come directly into my window. Maybe it's the tree slightly to the south of the window. Maybe I live in some sort of refractive vortex that prevents natural light from coming into my room. Whatever it is, though, the room always feels very dimly lit. There's light, of course, but it's dim enough that it reminds me of walking on an Oregon beach at about 6:30 in the morning. The sun is just coming up, yes, but it's from the east - away from the sea. The whole landscape has a cold, grey feel to it. The cold is literal - there's nothing warm about a beach that far north, and especially on the Pacific coast - but also figurative. Something about the grey gets inside you. You just feel chilly until the sun is properly up.

Now that I think about it, this makes an awful lot of sense. Of course I'm feeling melancholy if my room reminds me of the Oregon coast. I spent one year in Oregon before I came to school here, and I spent it miserably. While I made the best of it (I am an optimist, after all), it still wasn't pleasant. I was glad to have made it out of there when the time rolled around for me to come to school. Most of my Oregon memories involve me walking to school in the drizzly, misty rain, staring up into the cold, grey sky and listening to the Radiohead album that convinced me that I had something to keep me going, after all. (The song I most frequently listened to from that album? Why, "Optimistic," of course.) That year in Oregon felt - and still feels, to me - morose and downtrodden.

Wow, maybe I should just spend my time in the library instead. I'd just turn on a light, but I hate turning on the lights this early in the day. It's barely after 3:00 right now. Who turns on the lights at 3:00?

post the ninety-eighth

You're not going to get the full effect I want you to get out of this blog post unless you read it in the dark. I'm serious. Turn off the lights wherever you are. Get somewhere dark. Close the windowshades. Block out the light with something solid if you have to. It needs to be dark when you read this, or you're not going to fully appreciate what I have to say.

Is it dark yet? I'm not even kidding about this. Turn off the lights.

It's 1:15 on a Saturday night. It's been a good day for me. I've moved into my new apartment about a week ago, and now that all of my roommates are finally here, we've been able to start putting things away. At long last, the apartment is starting to come together. Robert Poste and I have been working on our room particuarly, and it finally looks like an actual room. We also attended a friend's birthday/housewarming party tonight. I got to see some people that I haven't seen for a long time. Some of them lived right near me for the last several months, but I rarely saw them because I was purposefully shutting myself away from society. (In retrospect, this was a poor idea. I really shouldn't have sacrificed other social connections in favor of a relationship. Lesson learned.) I got to enjoy the company of others and the experience of flirting again, which I haven't done in a long time. Fear not, gentle readers who were at this particular party. Although I was probably flirting with you if you were female and at this party, rest assured that it wasn't necessarily because I feel particularly romantically attracted to you. It's just been a while. I needed the practice. (If you happen to feel a particular romantic attraction to me, though, feel free to shoot me an email and we can discuss particulars.) We all got home at about 10:30, at which point we went back to unpacking things. All told, it was a successful evening for me. I felt good about how I'd spent my day. After watching an epsiode of The Simpsons with Robert Poste, I reached for the light switch from the top of our bunk beds and we both settled down to go to sleep.

Suddenly - and I mean this very literally, since most people use "suddenly" as a generic transition - a wave of terror swept over me. This is something that doesn't happen very regularly to me, as I'm not given to panic attacks, so I took particular note of this.

My room is neatly tidied and organized, with a few exceptions. I have most of my books that I need for my classes (which start on Tuesday). My roommates are all back in town. From that standpoint, you'd think that I'm completely prepared for the new school year. You'd be correct to think so. What you're not considering, though, and what I didn't consider, is that I'm completely unprepared for this new shift in my social life. While the new room is nicely organized, it's still new, and that's what scares me. I've made a huge transition in my life - one that I didn't think I was going to make until next year, when I graduate and head off to take a teaching job somewhere. (That scares me too. More on that later, perhaps.) I think the neat new room nicely symbolizes what the prospects of this year feel like for me. Everything's ready to go, but it's not familiar to me at all. I'm in a new social situation with new people I'm not familiar with (nor am I particularly excited to become familiar with, but that's just my prejudices running away with me). All of the people that I got to know so well this last summer are, for the most part, out of my life, and perhaps to stay. I've recognized that they're all leaving me over the last few months, but it's really been driven home for me lately. Everything's starting anew for me.

I have a hard time believing that there are people out there who actually like change. I hate it. I really don't like jumping into new situations. I've been a lot better about it lately, at least on the surface, but to be perfectly honest, I'd much prefer it if things stayed the same for me. I know that's not the way to grow, but it's the easy way, and I would prefer things to be easy rather than to be growing opportunities. (What human being wouldn't?) I'm sure this will help me develop into a better person, and, perhaps more importantly, help prepare me for what my life will be like in a year when I move somewhere else (regrettably, likely alone) and jump into a whole new phase of my life.

The fact of the matter, though, is that it's intimidating and more than a little scary to me. The dark does that. Everything is scarier in the dark, no matter what anyone else tells you. It might be childish to say that I'm afraid of the dark, but I am. I'm always the least emotionally stable when it's dark out. That's why I insisted on writing (and you reading) this post in the dark, so it would feel the same to me. I won't feel like this in the morning. No one ever does. Worries and anxieties like this disappear with the rising of the sun. The lack of familiarity that I feel, though, won't. It's going to take time to adjust to this, and until I do, nights in my perfectly organized room are going to be scary.

Feel free to turn the lights back on now.

post the ninety-seventh

Last night at about 1:00 I managed to inadvertently delete everything in my iTunes library from K on. Everything.

Fortunately, I have those 90 data discs that I mistakenly burned, so I should be able to get most of it back, but still, wow. I can't believe I did something that amazingly stupid. I may be contacting some of you to get back some of the music that I lost forever.

That, and my back is still killing me. When it rains, it pours.