from last week

this is the other post i wrote before i left last wednesday:

i keep it real. but i change the look of my blogspot from time to time because i get bored easily. i like this font a lot. i think it's called verdana.

so i am supposed to be in new york right now but i am stuck in michigan. why, you ask? nevermind the flight delays or the fact that there are 3 inches of hail/slush on the ground. no, i am still here because my mother's connecting flight was delayed for a completely separate reason, and we can't go without her because the rental car is in her name. what was the reason for the flight delay? they forgot to schedule a pilot. i'm not joking. there was no pilot. they were stuck in dulles airport in dc for FOUR hours because the airline fucked up some guy's work schedule. hah. and then they lost her bag. hah.

i'm leaving tomorrow morning--ok, this morning--ok, in like four hours. i need to go to sleep. but i just felt like breaking in the new digs.

vanilla thunder: in response to your awesome question, i compiled a short list of answers to the bands you listed. what follows is about as close to showing off (unless you count blogging) as i'll ever get.

The Cure: i gotta admit, i know very little about these guys. i have a collection of singles that rocks a lot, but as far as actual albums go, i'm not the expert. but! if you like the cure, you should also check out siouxie and the banshees, and pj harvey "stories from the city, stories from the sea". actually, check that album out regardless, as soon as possible.

The Who: "Live at Leeds" is one of the better live albums of the last 50 years. although again, this isn't really my kind of music. but i dig them anyway.

The Clash: you must must must go out and purchase "London Calling". it is quintessential. it is fucking nourishing. it makes you want to get drunk and break things and deepen your understanding of humanity and dance on top of your car and get lost in a supermarket and learn spanish and move to london. and that's only the A side.

TP and the Heartbreakers: i love them out of nostalgia. i have their Greatest Hits (which is a really really good collection). although their recent album, "Room at the Top" is quite good, and a big step forward for them. you will like them if you like the Who, but wish that the guitar parts didn't overshadow the pop songwriting.

Elvis Costello: real name: Duclan McManus. not sure if that's the correct spelling. it's something very dorky and british. you can understand why he changed his name for rock and roll. albums you should own: "My Aim Is True" (a good starter), "Imperial Bedroom" (also a good starter, but with less radio hit value), "This Year's Model" (some repeats from My Aim Is True but worth it just for radio radio, little triggers, pump it up...hmm, this one is actually quite fabulous), "Armed Forces" (great tracks: Oliver's Army and (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding, a song that should be heralded as one of the greatest pop songs ever written--thank you nick lowe). those are all i believe recorded with his backup band the Attractions. his latest release, "The Delivery Man", which is great if you love alt country music, is recorded with the Imposters. Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris both sing on tracks. it's a good album, i recommend it. but it's very different than the other ones i recommended so you should probably start with one or the other before you try to go mixing. i mean Armed Forces was recorded in 1978, so it's a big leap. (incidentally, a good place to check out cool alt country bands is at the label that put out elvis's new record, and that place is Lost Highway Records. google them. they also sign Willie Nelson and Ryan Adams, among many other cool cats.) (can you tell i love elvis costello?)

White Stripes: don't know what to say about these guys, a lot has been said lately. i've seen them live four or five times. they rock my face. get their first album (self titled) or de stijl before you worry about White Blood Cells or Elephant (their two most recent records). their early stuff is so good. each song is like a shot of fantastic whiskey--by the end, you are drunk, your voice is hoarse, and you want to give birth to jack's children.

**side note: i met them!!!! i went to the magic stick (indie club in detroit) to see blanche and the kills and my friends' band the all-night push. and jack and meg were there, just walking around like it ain't no thing. jack is so frigging huge it's unbelievable. and meg is very tiny. i was standing watching blanche (who are awesome) and i turned and looked left for a second--then did a triple-take because it was jack standing right there!!! i was like, oh my god. i go, "hi!" he sort of nods at me. i go, "do you like this band?" he nods again. i watch the band for a second, collecting my thoughts and trying desperately to get enough oxygen without gasping which is what i feel like doing. i go, "so, want to go do it?" but he is gone. i see him across the room a few more times but that's it. that was my interaction with a rock star. oh thank heaven for knowing people in minor rock bands--they are gateway drugs to the bigtime. (i heart the all-night push)**

The Ramones: hmm. loving the clash and elvis as much as i do, i really should know more about the Ramones but i don't. i like the following songs: "the kkk took my baby away", "blitzkrieg bop", "beat on the brat", "sheena is a punk rocker" and the classic "wanna be sedated". i like most of their stuff. don't own anything though.

David Bowie: he is my next project. i need to get into him, and soon.

Beck:mellow gold is probably one of my favorite records. you should get it. he reminds me of joe hero and steve dannemiller.

Jimi Hendrix: an icon, but i can only listen to him for so long. favorite songs: "little wing", red house", and "hey joe".

Otis Redding: oh my god i love this man. i've had a tough time finding anything but compilations and greatest hits by him, so that's all i own, but boy oh boy..."these arms of mine", "try a little tenderness", "satisfaction", "can't turn you loose", i've been loving you too long (to stop now)", "that;s how strong my love is", and the classic "sittin' on the dock of the bay" are all GREAT. did you know he wrote and recorded "respect" before aretha ever heard of it? and i think his version is just as good if not better.

Roy Orbison: hands down, the most beautiful male voice of the 20th century. "running scared" is a gem.and "in dreams." plus he's just a badass. those ray-bans? that coiffed bouffant? he was a real looker. you will like johnny cash if you like his voice.

hope that helps--or at least suffices until we can actually sit down and listen to all of those songs...

tryptoriffic

hello dear readers. it's been a long strange weekend. between casting the vag mons (malinsk, you should appreciate that) and being sad about my grandmother....ups and downs if you know what i mean. i wrote this huge long post before i left but it wouldn't let me put it up so i guess it's sort of dated now. instead i will post this email i just wrote to susie. the other one is basically just a long diatribe about music in response to an awesome email. maybe i'll just email him back. hmm.

so how was your thanksgiving? mine was dreadful. we were supposed to go to new jersey on wednesday night. my mother was coming back from a 10-day trip to venice (with michael her boyfriend....still feels weird to call him her boyfriend....ugh anyway) and her flight was going to get in right before our flight out to la guardia but it got delayed at the DC airport where she ahd her layover because they--wait for it--forgot to schedule a pilot.

...

i'll just let you think about that for a minute. ok so then we decided we were going to fly out on thursday (thanksgiving) morning but of course all the flights are packed so the earliest we can fly out is at noon. well. my mother thinks it would be a great idea to get tot he airport at 8 am because there's a chance we can fly standby because since she flies so much she is a world-elite member or some shit and can hop flights whenever she pleases. supposedly. yeah, that didn't work. so we sat at the airport till noon, boarded the flight finally, and sat awaiting departure. then the captain comes on and informs us, in a very tired voice, that the plane will not be taking off as scheduled because one of the baggage handlers (he said "trained gorillas") threw a bag a little too hard into the plane and broke a plastic wall, so they needed to get a mechanic to come out and fix it and it was going to take 45 minutes, but we had to stay in our seats. why exactly it was necessary to get a mechanic to fix a plastic wall that wasn't actually involved in the functioning of the airplane was completely beyond me. and why a roll of duct tape and some sharp incisors couldn't do the trick also escaped me. anyway the point is we didn't get jersey until 5 pm, even though we should have been there at 2. everyone was depressed because of my grandma, so they all went to bed around 8 or 9 and my family was kind of like, um, i guess we'll just go back to the hotel. so we did. the funeral was at 8 am the next morning, we went to my aunt's house in westchester for a quick lunch, and were back at la guardia by 4pm.

completely awful and ridiculous 23 hour journey. but the good part was, as we were driving back from the airport we realized that we weren't going to get to eat any thanksgiving leftovers because there had been no thanksgiving at our house. so then we were like, well....let's just make a thanksgiving dinner on saturday! which was today. and we did. and it was so delicious. really, you can't eat thanksgiving dinner at anyone's house but your own. their food never lives up to your standards. i spent the day in true thanksgiving fashion--plunked in front of the tv eating expensive cheese and crackers with my siblings while my mom did all the work. i saw catch me if you can--it was MUCH better than i expected. mostly because i've decided leonardo dicaprio is an awesome actor. i don't care what anyone says. also everything that happens in the movie is true. (most of it--well it's based on a true story.) and christopher walken rocks my face.

in other news, i am very sleepy. the tryptophan is kicking in bigtime. hope you all had warm and happy holidays.

if not a parentheses, what the hell is death then?

i'm exhausted, let's just start there. after 26 and a half grueling hours of auditions, i now hold in my hand (ok, not really in my hand at the moment) 107 audition sheets filled with names, numbers, wishes, hopes, dreams, and requests from 107 amazing women. the 2005 Vagina Monologues auditions have drawn to a close (except for one more i had to reschedule for tomorrow, but let's just for the moment and the sake of my sanity pretend i'm all done). it was absolutely one of the most inspiring weekends of my life. i have never seen so many girls so passionate about getting their voices out there. half of the girls that came in were totally inexperienced. 95% of those had never even been to an audition before. but they came. and they put themselves out there in ways so beautiful i thought they were only possible in idealist fantasies of what the world could be like if only women knew they had a strong voice inside them. well, i am here to testify that most of them do! and are NOT afraid to put it out there. i just wanted to be friends with everyone who walked through the door. on the back of the audition sheets, i told people to draw what they thought a vagina warrior should look like. i didn't do this to intimidate anyone, or to test their creative abilities, i just wanted to give people something fun to do while they waited. and of course, i was curious to see what they would draw. i love throwing random tasks at people and telling them to create something spontaneously. honestly, the work i am most proud of artistically is the stuff i did on the spot, without overthinking it. well, these drawings the auditionees did--are so amazing!! each one was totally different--and that's saying a lot. i mean it's pretty easy to knock off a stick figure wearing a "i heart michigan vaginas" t shirt. but these were not just that. one girl drew a silhouette of a woman smiling and stretching out her arms, and inside her body she wrote a poem. another girl drew thousands of people dancing on a flower that looked like a vagina. another girl drew a militant mohawked girl flicking off the viewer with the caption "nice girls do whatever." i mean these drawings really covered all the bases. one girl wrote a paragraph about how she didn't feel that vagina warriors should be confined to the back of a page and that it was "too limiting" to depict what a warrior "should" look like. more power to her for writing that. i am utterly and totally inspired by each and every woman that auditioned.

i walked out of the parker room feeling great, planning a night at conor o'neill's with my trivia team to try and beat our record of fifth place. when i called luke, they were in third. they needed me for my musical knowledge (of which i have a lot, don't fuck with that). i was like, i'll be right over--oh wait, i have another call. i click over the my brother. before he says anything, i'm like, look i can't give you a ride, i'm busy, i'm exhausted, this had better be good. he says, are you coming home? i say, well no, not right away, why, what do you need? (i'm exasperated.) he says, mommy didn't call you? in this terible, small, scared voice. i stop in my tracks. what happened?

gigo died this afternoon, he said.

gigo is my father's mother, the matriarch of my new york family. she has been sick for a long time, in a home for about five years. lately she's been in and out of the hospital on a weekly basis. the last time i saw her, we played scrabble and ate crappy popcorn. she's 88 and extremely opinionated and New Yorkian and just being in her presence demands all your attention. she is a queen among queens. every woman on that side of the family is extremely proud of their family--there are two aunts and they both have four children, and each of those children has children, and both my aunts preen and prance around their broods like peacocks. so you can imagine where they got it from.

gigo was never very close to us. i mean, my whole dad's family lives out in new york, and even when my dad was alive we only went out there once a year. my dad was sort of the black sheep--everyone else went to U of M, but then went back to NY where they belonged. my dad met my mom and stayed. so i grew up closer to my mom's mom, Nonna, who we live with and if this had happened to her, i would not be able to form words right now, let alone compose whole sentences. honestly, i'm not that affected by gigo's death. but it's making me nervous to go to NY for thanksgiving. it's going to be a lot of crawling on glass. everyone tiptoing around trying to be normal. i hate how death makes people so nervous. if anything it should make dialogue possible, it should bring out the best in people. it should bond bonds tighter; instead it only alienates. the last thing i want is to go to a room full of people who won't know how to talk to me because a) i'm still Dealing With The Loss Of My Father and b) i didn't really know gigo that well.

so...to bring this full circle, i'm exhausted. i don't know if this was very much fun to read. please don't leave any comments that say things like, "gee carol, i'm so sorry. i don't know what to say. call me anytime." i know i can call you anytime. if you are reading this, i know that you are sorry and that you love me. somehow i can't stand hearing those things anymore. i heard them too much i guess. the point is, i'm fine. i know this post is long but it made me feel a lot better to write it. it's like what i was talking about before, about closing my eyes and just pressing "publish post" and not having to answer any questions, or get any answers to my questions. it feels safe and also like a cop-out, so eventually i suppose i'll have to give in and call some of you and talk this out for real. for life is not a paragraph.

taking it back

woke up this morning to a doorbell. flowers--for me!? who are they from? i'll give you three guesses. funny that the first time he sends me flowers is AFTER we are broken up. not that that was ever an argument we had or anything. well, maybe i pointed it out once or twice. hey, i'm a traditionalist romantic at heart. i love the candelight dinners and the dozen roses. i'm not trying to say he wasn't romantic. he is the most romantic. but it's true, flowers are not his weapon of choice. well, these are beautiful. but now i don' tknow what to do. i don't know how to be broken up and still say thank you and mean it. this is such an intimate gesture, that's all. hmm.

i just called him. he wasn't awake yet. i said, "thank you thank you for the beautiful flowers. they are beautiful. i already said that. uhmmm.....thank you. the flowers are just so....beautiful, thank you. um. thanks. seriously. beautiful. i gotta go." i am a genius.

we'll see how that pans out. in other news, the high school play i am directing opens tonight!!! Miss Temptation. should be terrific. i want to get the kids some stuff. you know, like little cards with their names on them or something, and flowers. hey...i have some flowers to give them! that would be weird though. maybe some hershey's kisses? but chocolate is bad for the voice. *sigh* maybe for closing night, no time now. this is a pointless post. sorry. i have to go to work now. my life is boring.

oh! one little update. i saw two movies this week for the first time in months and months. "the motorcycle diaries" (a movie about a road trip ernesto "che" guevara took with his buddy when he was 24, and how that shaped his vision for a unified south america) which absolutely changed me and i loved it and want to see it again and have the poster hanging above my bed, and "i heart huckabees" which i wasn't that impressed with as a human being with a soul. as a movie appreciater it was great and all, but i left it the same way i came in, and i want movies--ok, all art--to CHANGE me, to make me care, to make me feel new. not so much the case here. oh well. i saw it for free.

okay i really have to go.

guess where i am!?

at my DESK!

for the first time since moving back home, i am actually moved back home.

my room is so clean. well, except for the clothes all helter skelter in a corner. but at least they are off the floor. and my bed and chair are clear which means i can sleep and type without crunching down on old papers or bills or socks. i am so happy. this is sublime. i pu tup a bunch of posters and pictures too. let's see:

on the back of my door is a strokes poster that i stole out of an NME magazine at border's, next to this is a cutout of julian casablacas in profile looking dishearteningly at my lightswitch. under my lightswitch is a bumper sticker that says eminem. above that is a matisse postcard and a poster of david barringer's "we were ugly, so we made beautiful things" short story collection. then the vagina monolgues poster from last year. then a motorcycle diaries poster (right above the head of my bed). then some wilco postcards, a marilyn monroe postcard, and a postcard that says "Am Sonntage küsse ich dich mündlich." -A. Einstein. then my lamp, bookshelf, and closets. above my dresser (in my closet) is a poster of ryan adams from Gold looking drunk and sexy. then there is a watercolor that a german guy did for me in my friend Vince's kitchen in five minutes and it is beautiful. then my mirror, a photo of my aunt and uncle's house in Voghera, Italy, above that a painting of some japanese people running over a bridge in pouring rain (by Hiroshige), above that a poster which says Kein Krieg. then my window. then the last wall--a poster i stole from a Ryan Adams concert in Germany, a collection of photographs of my fun times in europe in an ugly plastic frame, a gorgeous turquoise etching by Janie Paul, and a giant poster of the Berliner Ensemble's production of Midsummer Night's Dream.

i am so happy and at home now! i'm also exhausted. hmm, I still have to hang my Mumford painting and my Whistler etching. wait--i'm moving out of here in a month and a half. ah...........................shit.

moving on

bananarama. think about it.

thought that would be a good title for the post to follow my last post, which is whiny and ridiculous. sorry about that. thanks for your comment, malinsk. holler back atcha.

i am saturated in vagina monologues at the moment. my computer has been, as they say, wigging out on me, and i haven't been able to post the audition monologues until today, and the auditions are THIS weekend!!! i am so nervous. what if i can't find an assistant director! what if i ruin the show! all these thoughts and more and racing through my head like something that races really fast....i'm just jittery i guess.

so...yep. i'm moving on. mowing upwards and onwards toward justice. i have to stop being so self-indulgent. started to clean my room last night. that's a good thing. when i was unpacking a few boxes last night (left over from my move in AUGUST....and you thought YOU were lazy...) i remembered a lot of things about myself. it is so easy to forget yourself when you're not at home, surrounded by your things--and i'm not advocating materialism here--but maybe i am! i mean, i've spent the past two months in a drunken stupor, pretty much, trying to figure out how to get over my father's death. and i've broken hearts and friendships (and fortified some) but mostly i've not felt like myself, except in a few rare cases. and last night i discovered why. i am so dependent on my books and my memories and my photographs and colors and posters and NONE of that has seen the light of day since i moved out of the jefferson house. maybe that's wrong, but i feel naked and lonely without being able to look around my room and see things that are familiar. i like my space colorful and busy, and my room right now is just boxes, junk, dirty clothes, and ugly brown walls. and it's cold. so last night i started putting my books away and realized i hadn't read any of my books for a long time. i treat my books like i treat old friends--you gotta tend to them, reread them, memorize details, be able to quote at all times, recognize their strengths and weaknesses, notice them on display in the store window (ok maybe not the last part). and i realized, i have been a bad friend to my old friends for the past few months, too. it's taken me until last week to even write to susie! so i started pulling all these books out and i found my diary, that i hadn't written in since AUGUST 2003. so much has happened since then. granted, i was writing buzz journals all last year so i didn't feel like keeping a diary, but i feel like so much was lost. so i started writing in it last night. i wrote until 3 in the morning. i filled ten pages. what is it about having a diary that makes everything safer? for someone as forgetful as i am, i guess it's like a bank that i can always draw upon. last night, reading it reminded me who i was and who i want to be. nothing else has been able to do that this entire past two months. so does this mean i'm finally learning to rely on myself? it's not very forward-thinking of me, i suppose. but it seemed to work. and so maybe i haven't learned how to deal with his death. and maybe i will never figure it out. but grief is funny like that. you have to let it out when it needs to come out, and almost relish the fact that you can feel that deeply abut something. grief is not a bad thing. but you also have to remember that you are bigger than it. it is wonderful to be able to crawl into your bed and sob, where it's warm and dark and safe, but when the time comes to take a deep breath and come out from under your blanket, then you have to accept it and just go. oh my god this is the worst metaphor ever. i don't really care, i guess. who am i trying to impress, anyway? (no offense, dear reader(s))

i feel so productive right now! i'm going to take a shower, go to the bank, pick up some props at fantasy attic for the high school show that opens this weekend, and go to work. then i'm going to go hang out with aaron and work on his portfolio at maxey. then i'm going to kick ass at trivia at conor o'neill's. then i'm coming straight home to this and my diary and my room.

life goes on.

love,
carol

all gussied up and nowhere to go

sometimes i wonder why i go to all the trouble. i went through three different outfits and two coats before i was late to the play anyway, and then after paying for everyone's pizza and having one beer, everyone decided to go their separate ways. i just want to go hang out somewhere. we wouldn't even have to drink. i don't care. this is stupid. i just drove around for half an hour after leaving leopold's and called everyone in my phone book who lives around here. they are all out or not interested or not picking up. i bet everyone is out having a great time and they are all probably glad that i am not there. dammit. whine whine whine

i guess i'll go to sleep?? but it's so early! am i tired? i can't tell.

currently spinning: somebody told me, the killers

choked up

today i am feeling a little better. i feel like the only way i can communicate is through writing sometimes. like, these thoughts are all in my head, and i know there are people who would like to hear them, but i can't speak. i am seriously considering becoming a mute. is that weird? somehow it just feels safer to write things down. for example. last night i went over to 609 ann street around 1 am because i was feeling quiet and sad from the midnight vigil for soldiers in iraq, and despite the fact that everyone there likes me and i like them, i had nothing to say. i was a terrible conversationalist. i think i offered up about two original thoughts the entire night. i asked three questions. that's about all i said, quite literally. for anyone who knows me well (better than the 609 crew), this is unusual. the same thing happened on election night--went over there and had nothing to say. the thing is, i have a LOT to say, but i pull into myself if i get even a whiff of a sensation that people aren't going to be on the same page as me. i hate being put on the spot without a safety net. i should really get over that, huh. i have been on the other side of the coin before--i have yelled at people for silencing themselves, i think it's the worst thing you can do. there is no way anything will happen for you if you don't raise your voice, literally and figuratively. i am an activist for voices more than anything else. so why can't i speak?

i think this too shall pass, i know it will, and i'm not afraid that things won't turn out all right. in fact that's one of the only things i have faith in. *shrug* if i need to be silent for awhile, i will. eventually i'll speak up again.

maybe i'm alone too much. i bet that's what it is. i'm so used to having a boyfriend right there beside me, all the time; being able to say the first thing that pops into my head without checking it first. constant communication. even when we were silent, max and i were still talking to each other. i guess it's pretty natural that i would feel a little shy about throwing myself back into the world of normal, frightened, insecure people. it just seems like sometimes everyone has it all figured out, and i'm just missing something, or i have it figured out but no one wants to hear it. at least i can still write whatever i want, shut my eyes and hit "publish post" and hide in my safe house without fear of anyone answering any of my questions, or god forbid asking some of their own.

don't ever listen to "dear chicago" by ryan adams on a rainy day, alone in front of your keyboard. it makes your heart feel like a broken egg.

spinning: in the aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel

my heart isn't in this

god, if i felt stagnant before....i feel like this is an elaborate joke, and i'm supposed to start laughing with everyone else in a minute, but no one's quite gotten it yet and so it's just hanging there in the air like a fart no one wants to own up to. four more years. my generation will be able to say we lived through the bush era. age 18-26 spent under a red cloud of sexism, homophobia, and blind fear and sticktoitiveness that is killing people and will contnue to kill people. if you're reading this and you voted for bush, i would love to talk to you. i want to figure this out. i mean, am i missing something? sure, kerry sucked but wasn't he at least better than bush? i just want to know what happened. i mean all these new voters, young voters--everyone predicted they were all coming out for kerry. why didn't they? i hate to say it but i suspect foul play, sort of. how else is this possible? voter suppression tactics were showing up all over the place yesterday, and i just wonder if we are now reaping the spoils of others' bigotry. i am disgusted and depressed and i need a vacation. but now i feel like i can't leave. i know i said i was moving to canada, but i can't really justify leaving this country now, when there's so much work to be done. maybe i am a headstrong liberal and i'm way out of my league. but when a state that i live in and love so much and believe in does something like pass an amendment to the state constitution depriving half my friends the right to live together, love each other, and feel secure in any way, then i would be irresponsible if i didn't say i was up to that challenge. bring it on, america. life is too short to spend it being repressed. now i'm going to go lock myself in my bathroom, draw a hot bubble bath, put on some pete seeger, and try to find something to have faith in.

at least the pistons won....

noooooooooooooooooooo

i'm moving to canada.

it's one of those days again. hungover, vaguely hungry, lonely, forgetful. i find metaphors for my life in the empty grey sky and the black birds floating up from leafless trees in a cloud. if life is a highway, i feel like i literally did just drive all night long and now the cold dawn is breaking and i realize i've forgotten where i'm driving. and somewhere along the road, my ambition jumped out of the bed of my beat-up blue pickup truck and rolled down into a ditch. and the radio only plays commercials and white noise. this metaphor is getting out of hand.

i guess i'm just sick of sitting around...on porches, in bars, in my room, at work...the same places, the same people, even if they're new people, they all seem the same. and it's not because they ARE actually all the same, it's because i'm the same, and i hate that. i want so badly to be able to believe that my dreams are attainable, that i can actually overcome this helpless feeling that threatens to overshadow my life forever and really go somewhere, and be someone great, and make a difference and have children and a house and good food and a beautiful life and die happy and have people miss me and....sheesh. i don't know what's gotten into me today but it ain't pretty. ah well. i know everything will eventually be great. and it is my absolute faith in that that somehow makes me more apathetic. someone pinch me, i need to wake up.