honest is easy, fiction's where genius lies

I just remembered no one actually looks at this, so I could post all that ridiculously personal stuff if I really wanted, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

Jesus....

... it's been a long time.

To follow up my last post, 2008 held several more firsts for me and altogether was a most excellent year. 2009 opened with a whopper of a first and has started pretty craptasticly. But as "they" say, it can only get better, right? (Please someone tell me it can only get better.)

Almost odd how things have seemed to come full circle in this here blog. One of my last posts was about seeing the National at Messiah College, and I was THISCLOSE to seeing Josh Ritter at Messiah this coming weekend.... until I found he was playing just minutes down the road from my house only a few days later! Hooray! I'm insanely excited. But once again, I'll be going it alone. ...hooray...







ps. Josh, I know nothing about you as a person, but if you would be so kind as to fall in love with me immediatly, that'd be super. Thanks.

Bare. Today. 10. Dead. Mandarin. Star. Buddha.

So far this year has been full of "firsts" … at least 7 come immediately to mind. (The title of this post is comprised of cryptic references to each of those "firsts". You can try to decipher them. But you won't. Actually... go ahead and try, this might be fun!) Some might impress you, some might make you laugh because maybe you've done them a million times… but they've all meant something significant to me. I'm pretty interested in seeing what the second half of the year holds.

This is all so uplifty!

When ya gotta go, you gotta go...

...to a concert alone, that is.
I attended a National show this past weekend. I was all set to write a nice blog about it, but then I lost... well, let's just say I lost steam. So here are a few of the highlights. or at least I think they were. I only wish they'd done Geese of Beverly Road, or perhaps Lucky You, but that's okay... they played almost all my favorites otherwise. The videos aren't the best, but they ain't bad either!


They opened with Start a War

Apartment Story

Squalor Victoria, which I never really liked until I heard it live.

And they ended their second set with About Today... the perfect ending...



*Sigh* Happiness. Yeh, you people who bailed on me, you missed a good time. Especially when I knocked over a section of seats. I rock.

I'm in Like Flynn! (or something!)

Dear Emmy,

Thank you for applying to the 5th Annual Art Star Craft Bazaar. We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to participate!
[...blah blah blah...]

In case you didn't pick up on it, I've been accepted to participate in my very first juried arts/crafts fair! (Okay! My first arts/crafts fair, period!) I'm so excited! Yay!

So if you were wondering what I was going to be doing May 31st and June 1st (and I know you were!) that's where I'll be! So stop by! and I demand you spend money! not necessarily on me, but at least on someone's stuff... And there will be bands there, too... like this one.

Today was just good in general... from the amazing weather (spring is finally here, thank heavens!)... to the nice thing my very first customer of the day said to me (I felt all warm and fuzzy)... to the amazing photos I printed this afternoon of someone's trip to India... It was just good all around.

Happy sigh... and junk.

and i can't sleep.

Seriously, I'm in love with the National.









And I can't sleep.

Why did the chicken and the satan worshiper cross the corn field?

I have a slightly over-active imagination. It has its positives (I'm very rarely bored) and negatives (quite a few sleepless nights and the occasional mild case of hypochondria). Regardless, it makes life interesting.

Let me take you back to one sleepless night that occurred during the summer of 1999...

Two important things to know: That summer, rather than 100 huge and characterless houses, there still was a cornfield behind my parent's house. And the neighbors still had chickens living in their coop. It certainly was far from living in the country, but it was still pretty rural. Most of my friends would get freaked out driving down my road at night. I didn't have any serious issues most of the time, but late at night in bed my over-active imagination would always conjure up men with knives coming to butcher me in my sleep. (Of course they also would conveniently be carrying ladders so they could reach my window. But nonetheless! They were after me!)

So anyway, back to the aforementioned pleasant summer evening of 1999... around 3 AM I was woken by the sudden sound of the neighbors' chickens (for lack of a better term) freaking out. The chickens were being attacked! What could it be? As it continued for several more minutes, my mind began to put the pieces together.

It was so obvious. CLEARLY a group a satanists were preparing for the upcoming new millennium. (Yeh, yeh, I knew technically the millennium didn't change until 2001, but those silly satanists didn't.) So there they were, stealing my neighbors' chickens in order to sacrifice them in the cornfield during one of their wacky satanic rituals honoring the new millennium. It was terrifying! So I turned on my light to help calm my nerves.

Oh God! Bad move! What the hell was I thinking! Now the satanists knew I was awake and was on to their game! So now I couldn't turn out my light because that's when they'd come and get me... so they could sacrifice ME instead of the chickens! Satan and the millennium gods would be so excited about the upgrade from poultry to human flesh!

(My favorite "satanists.")

However, eventually the chickens did quiet down, and I fell asleep.

The next morning when I woke up (still alive and unsacrificed) I went out to explore the corn field to find evidence of the horrible ceremony.

Man, let me tell you, those satanists are really good at covering their trail....