foods, note.

I really need to start using Fresh Direct again. Their ice cream is $3.00 cheaper than at the grocery stores around me!

Amazing.

(Yes, this was a necessary mention.)

foods.

The fuckers at Edy’s have reduced the size of their ice cream containers. They’re now selling a 1.5 quart at a 1.75 quart price. What. The. Fuck?

Bastards.

Also, I think I have a peanut butter addiction. This is in addition to the existing ice cream, diet coke, and cheese addictions.

Good morning everyone!

Cause there ain't nobody who needs nobody

CMT Unplugged / Lori McKenna, Your Next Lover

So beautiful and sad.

Well, she lives a few doors down
Says she wants you to take her out
Have some coffee somewhere - just some coffee
You saw her out in the parking lot
And any plans you had you can break so wash your face - let yourself go

Everybody is a sinner
Everybody makes mistakes
And there ain't nobody - who needs nobody
Don't forget to look her in the eye
Laugh and show your smile
There's not much more to lonely than being less lonely

I stood and watched (all) the stars fade right there - from your eyes
Baby, I think I know just what your next lover will be like

You hate cigarettes so she won't smoke
But she don't mind this bar you're in
She sits right up there on that stool - puts her pocketbook down and smiles at you
You think she's about five foot three
That makes her taller than me
But you're not thinking about that now, no -it ain't right to think about that now

I stood and watched (all) the stars fade right there - from your eyes
Baby, I think I know just what your next lover will be like

And I hope she can fix you
I hope she's someone who will never let you down
I hope she reminds you nothing of me and - as crazy as crazy as it sounds I hope she's beautiful

I stood and watched (all) the stars fade right there - from your eyes
Baby, I think I know just what your next lover will be like

Cause there ain't nobody who needs nobody
There ain't nobody who needs nobody

—Lori McKenna / Your Next Lover

My, how time travels.

Since getting to work (an hour late), I have:

1. Checked out all the blogs (see list on right).
2. Checked my personal email (every 5 minutes).
3. Looked for and bought my Godmother's birthday gift (shipping from India to Scotland is a bit of a financial bitch, FYI).
4. Fucked up my blog, while updating my links, and had to reformat the damn thing. **shakes fist at blogger**
5. Jumped into email-chain with two lovely friends.
6. Followed through on two work-related email requests.
7. Solidified lunch plans -- eating outside, as it's gorgeous.
8. Written this UNBELIEVABLY ENTERTAINING blog post.

I might just be the busiest person in the world. That's right . . . the world.

we generate our own light to compensate for the lack of light from above.

growing up, it was just me and my mom against the world.
and all my sympathies were with her when i was a little girl
and i've seen both my parents play out the hands that they were dealt
as each year goes by, i know more about how my father must have felt.

i just want you to understand that i know what all the fighting
was for, and i just want you to understand that i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

she taught me how to wage cold war with quiet charm
but i just want to walk through my life unarmed.
to accept, and just get by like my father learned to do,
but without all the acceptance of getting by that got my father through

i just want you to understand that i know what all the fighting was for
and i just want you to understand that i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

night falls like people into love
we generate our own light to compensate
for the lack of light from above.
every time we fight a cold wind blows our way,
we can learn like the trees, how to bend,
how to sway and say

i, i think i understand
what all this fighting is for,
and i just want you to understand
i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

—ani difranco / angry anymore


I actually used the quite lovely banjo intro to this song in a multimedia presentation I gave in college . . . on HVAC systems. That's right. I might just be the coolest person ever. Well-rounded, too. Totally well-rounded. And I'm not just talking about my caboose! . . . da da ching!

Look, it's the end of the day, I'm tired . . . I'm hungry . . . I have no excuse.

How could I ever believe 10,000 stones would save the fool in me

My days are filled with mistakes
Some that I didn't make
I carry them around
Some people don't feel a thing
Some kind of blissful dream
Wish I could live that now
oh I wish I could live that now

10,000 stones are hanging
deep in my heart
no I don't know how they
don't tear me apart
how could I ever believe
10,000 stones would build
the best of me.

I've seen a lot in my life
I've seen two wrongs make a right
When everything was crashing
I know that you got your plans
You're always taking your stand
But I was only asking
I was never asking for

10,000 stones are hanging
deep in my heart
no I don't know how they
don't tear me apart
how could I ever believe
10,000 stones would build
the best of me.

Who knows what you think of me now
knowing sooner or later
the truth would come out
but I don't want to look back
don't want to look back to

10,000 stones hanging deep in my heart
no I don't know how they don't tear me apart
how could I ever believe
10,000 stones would save the fool in me
10,000 stones would be a strange blessing
10,000 stones would build the best of me

—Adrianne / 10,000 Stones

Um, Cris . . . Ben again. Benjamin. I'm skeered.

Sweet Jesus, this looks terrifying.

I've gathered these pages of words left unspoken

Oh, there you are,
it's so good to see you,
it's so good to see you,
standing right at my door,
I wish you could stay.

Well, how's your girlfriend?
How's that going?
She never liked me,
oh I wish you could stay.

It might be an ordinary day,
but it seems like more than that to me...

Lines of my forehead,
from trying to thread the needle of this idea,
without letting you know it.

If you said I could
I'd throw the maps right out the window,
take the longest way home.

So I change the subject
and I put on my best smile,
so you won't notice,
so you won't notice what's wrong.

So don't you ask me,
no please don't ask me,
'cause I don't dare tell you,
exactly what's on my mind.

It might be an ordinary day,
but it seems like more than that to me...

I've gathered these pages
of words left unspoken,
letters I didn't send you
would fall right from my fingers.

If you said I could
put my hands where I want to,
set fire to the bedroom.

If you said I could
put it all out on the table,
throw the maps right out the window...

Oh there you are,
it's so good to see you,
it's so good to see you,
I wish you could stay.

—Chris Pureka, These Pages

Cristina! Benjamin!! It's BENJAAAAMMIIIIINNNNN!

Willem Dafoe AND Scott Speedman?? I think my heart just stopped.

Must. Go. See.

I put our snowflake under a microscope

Strange
Thought I knew you well
Thought I had read the sky
Thought I had read a change
in your eyes
so strange
Woke up to a world
that I am not a part
except when I can play
its stranger

After all
what were you really
looking for
and I wonder
when will I learn
Blue isn't red
everybody knows this
and I wonder
when will I learn
when will I learn
guess I was in Deeper than
I thought I was
if I have enough love
for the both of us

"just stay" you say
"we'll build a nest"
so I left my Life
Tried on your friends
Tried on your opinions
So when the Bridges froze
and you did not come home
I put our snowflake under a microscope

After all
what was I really
looking for
and I wonder
when will I learn
Maybe my wish knew better
than I did
and I wonder
when will I learn
when will I learn
guess I was in Deeper than
I thought I was
if I have enough love
for the both of us

so strange
now I'm finally in
the Party has begun
it's not like I can't
feel you still
but strange
what I will leave behind
you call me one more time
but now I must be leaving

—Tori Amos / Strange


I love this song. It's so clear.

Because there is nothing any sadder than losing yourself in love.

Leaves were falling, just like embers,
In colors red and gold, they set us on fire
Burning just like moonbeams in our eyes.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

Now I'm guilty of something...
I hope you never do
Because there is nothing
Any sadder than losing yourself in love.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

And then you've ask me... just to leave you
To set out on my own
And get what I needed.
You want me to find what I've already had.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

—Rowland Salley, Killing the Blues


FYI: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss do a lovely cover of this song on the Raising Sand album.

This. Would. Blow.

Excerpt from New Yorker piece:
UP AND THEN DOWN: The lives of elevators.
by Nick Paumgarten

The longest smoke break of Nicholas White’s life began at around eleven o’clock on a Friday night in October, 1999. White, a thirty-four-year-old production manager at Business Week, working late on a special supplement, had just watched the Braves beat the Mets on a television in the office pantry. Now he wanted a cigarette. He told a colleague he’d be right back and, leaving behind his jacket, headed downstairs.

The magazine’s offices were on the forty-third floor of the McGraw-Hill Building, an unadorned tower added to Rockefeller Center in 1972. When White finished his cigarette, he returned to the lobby and, waved along by a janitor buffing the terrazzo floors, got into Car No. 30 and pressed the button marked 43. The car accelerated. It was an express elevator, with no stops below the thirty-ninth floor, and the building was deserted. But after a moment White felt a jolt. The lights went out and immediately flashed on again. And then the elevator stopped.

The control panel made a beep, and White waited a moment, expecting a voice to offer information or instructions. None came. He pressed the intercom button, but there was no response. He hit it again, and then began pacing around the elevator. After a time, he pressed the emergency button, setting off an alarm bell, mounted on the roof of the elevator car, but he could tell that its range was limited. Still, he rang it a few more times and eventually pulled the button out, so that the alarm was continuous. Some time passed, although he was not sure how much, because he had no watch or cell phone. He occupied himself with thoughts of remaining calm and decided that he’d better not do anything drastic, because, whatever the malfunction, he thought it unwise to jostle the car, and because he wanted to be (as he thought, chuckling to himself) a model trapped employee. He hoped, once someone came to get him, to appear calm and collected. He did not want to be scolded for endangering himself or harming company property. Nor did he want to be caught smoking, should the doors suddenly open, so he didn’t touch his cigarettes. He still had three, plus two Rolaids, which he worried might dehydrate him, so he left them alone. As the emergency bell rang and rang, he began to fear that it might somehow—electricity? friction? heat?—start a fire. Recently, there had been a small fire in the building, rendering the elevators unusable. The Business Week staff had walked down forty-three stories. He also began hearing unlikely oscillations in the ringing: aural hallucinations. Before long, he began to contemplate death.


Nicholas White opened the doors to urinate. As he did so, he hoped, in vain, that a trace of this violation might get the attention of someone in the lobby. He considered lighting matches and dropping them down the shaft, to attract notice, but still had the presence of mind to suspect that this might not be wise. The alarm bell kept ringing. He paced and waved at the overhead camera. He couldn’t tell whether it was night or day. To pass the time, he opened his wallet and compared an old twenty-dollar bill with a new one, and read the fine print on the back of a pair of tickets to a Jets game on Sunday afternoon, which he would never get to use. He imagined himself as Steve McQueen in “The Great Escape,” throwing the baseball against the wall.

Eventually, he lay down on the floor, intent on sleep. The carpet was like coarse AstroTurf, and was lousy with nail trimmings and other detritus. It was amazing to him how much people could shed in such a short trip. He used his shoes for a pillow and laid his wallet, unfolded, over his eyes to keep out the light. It wasn’t hot, yet he was sweating. His wallet was damp. Maybe a day had passed. He drifted in and out of sleep, awakening each time to the grim recognition that his elevator confinement had not been a dream. His thirst was overpowering. The alarm was playing more aural tricks on him, so he decided to turn it off. Then he tried doing some Morse code with it. He yelled some more. He tried to pick away at the cinder-block wall.

At a certain point, he decided to go for the escape hatch in the ceiling. He thought of Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” climbing up and down the shaft. He knew it was a dangerous and desperate thing to do, but he didn’t care. He had to get out of the elevator. The height of the handrail in the car made it hard for him to get a leg up. It took him a while to figure out and then execute the maneuver that would allow him to spring up to the escape hatch. Finally, he swung himself up. The hatch was locked.


At a certain point, Nicholas White ran out of ideas. Anger and vindictiveness took root. He began to think, They, whoever they were, shouldn’t be able to get away with this, that he deserved some compensation for the ordeal. He cast about for blame. He wondered where his colleague was, why she hadn’t been alarmed enough by his failure to return, jacketless, from smoking a cigarette to call security. Whose fault is this? he wondered. Who’s going to pay? He decided that there was no way he was going to work the following week.

And then he gave up. The time passed in a kind of degraded fever dream. On the videotape, he lies motionless for hours at a time, face down on the floor.
A voice woke him up: “Is there someone in there?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing in there?”

White tried to explain; the voice in the intercom seemed to assume that he was an intruder. “Get me the fuck out of here!” White shrieked. Duly persuaded, the guard asked him if he wanted anything. White, who had been planning to join a few friends at a bar on Friday evening, asked for a beer.

Before long, an elevator-maintenance team arrived and, over the intercom, coached him through a set of maneuvers with the buttons. White asked what day it was, and, when they told him it was Sunday at 4 P.M., he was shocked. He had been trapped for forty-one hours. He felt a change in the breeze, which suggested that the elevator was moving. When he felt it slow again, he wrenched the door open, and there was the lobby. In his memory, he had to climb up onto the landing, but the video does not corroborate this. When he emerged from the elevator, he saw his friends, with a couple of security guards, and a maintenance man, waiting, with an empty chair. His friends turned to see him and were appalled at the sight; he looked like a ghost, one of them said later. The security guard handed him an open Heineken. He took one sip but found the beer repellent, like Hans Castorp with his Maria Mancini cigar. White told a guard, “Somebody could’ve died in there.”

“I know,” the guard said.

White had to go upstairs to get his jacket. He demanded that the guards come with him, and so they rode together on the service elevator, with the elevator operator. The presence of others with radios put him at ease. In his office he found that his co-worker, in a fit of pique over his disappearance, had written an angry screed, and taped it to his computer screen, for all their colleagues to see. He went home, and then headed to a bar. He woke up to a reel of phone messages and a horde of reporters colonizing his stoop. He barely left his apartment in the ensuing days, deputizing his friends to talk to reporters through a crack in the door.

White never went back to work at the magazine. Caught up in media attention (which he shunned but thrilled to), prodded by friends, and perhaps provoked by overly solicitous overtures from McGraw-Hill, White fell under the sway of renown and grievance, and then that of the legal establishment. He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures. He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he’d held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed.

Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape, and emerged from it with his life in another. Still, he now sees that it wasn’t so much the elevator that changed him as his reaction to it. He has come to terms with the trauma of the experience but not with his decision to pursue a lawsuit instead of returning to work. If anything, it prolonged the entrapment. He won’t blame the elevator.

Tonight! In concert! 7:30! Yay!

Such a crime
I don’t remember being taken
This love was meant for
Wandering eyes and fakin’
So hot the way you looking
And when he’s on it, man he’s running and he’s booking

Didn’t know what to think in the beginning
But you got me so wet
And then you left me swimming
Keep it coming with the love I can’t resist
I’m so tired but don’t you dare quit

Cause it’s a lie, it’s a crime and it’s just something
That I can’t deny but
You know it looks so good from the outside
It’s a mistake that I’m willing to make
And a promise that I just might break but
Gotta find out how much my heart can take

From the moment I met you
I knew this love was bound to get you
Well I know I know I know you’re weak that way
Looking out the window and it’s only the beginning
People are talking
And my ears start ringing
But I don’t care what they say
Cause they’ll never know me anyway

Cause it’s a lie, it’s a crime and it’s just something
That I can’t deny but
You know it looks so good from the outside
It’s a mistake that I’m willing to make
And a promise that I just might break
Gotta find out how much my heart can take

And I know what he wants
And I know what he needs
I got the type of love
That’s gonna bring you right down to your knees

Bring you right down to your knees
I’m begging you oh please
I want to be the lover
For your cover
How could you deny
This love so great
Love so grand
If you don’t understand
That this love will take you make you
It’ll mess you maybe break you
But it’ll leave you stronger in the end
And I guess it all depends

Cause it’s a lie, it’s a crime, and it’s just something that I can’t deny
You know it looks so good from the outside
It’s a mistake that I’m willing to make
And a promise that I just might break but
Gotta find out how much my heart can take
Now I’m beggin ya please . . .

—Tristan Prettyman / Please

mmmmmm

Your laughter's still ringing in my ears

I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that's far away
And when I'm done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say
I don't want you thinking I'm unhappy
What is closer to the truth
That if I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
I'm no longer moved to drink strong whisky
'Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years
But I don't want you thinking I don't get asked to dinner
'Cause I'm here to say that I sometimes do
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love
I just don't think I'll ever get over you
If I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you

—Colin Hay / I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

Adore. This. Song.

great songs, great artists, strange videos . . .

Dammit.

You know how music has the ability to take you back in time? You know how you can mark certain moments, situations, period of times with a song, musician, album?

Well, fuck fuck fuckity fuck that.

So, yeah . . . that sometimes blows.

Only things worth living for are Innocence and magic, amen

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own
Sweet head
And shine it when the night is
Burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold, cold ground
Shine it till these walls
Come tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Step into the silence
Take it in your own
Two hands
And scatter it like diamonds
All across these lands
Blaze it in the morning
Wear it like an iron skin
Only things worth living for are
Innocence and magic, amen

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the talk so cheap
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
Know that the light don't sleep

Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
Know that the light don't sleep

—David Gray / Silver Lining

Yum in my Tum.

I'm pretty sure this isn't part of the Must-Lose-10-Pounds-By-UK-Trip BUT in it goes . . .

Muggins' Tummy = Happy Little Pudgy Camper

And I have all of my things that I shouldn't do over again

It's Monday afternoon and I'm drinking again
And I know I promised you that the Lord would be my friend
But the Lord and I don't get along so very good
He doesn't speak a word out to me
Like you promised that he would
And I'm telling you
I wish I was a better person

When the clouds roll in and the sky promises rain
You just accept the way she is and you don't even complain
Though you wish that it was sunny and the sky would stay blue
You don't accept a thing about me
And wish that I was just like you
But I'm telling you
I wish I was a better person

I don't want to work at it
It should come naturally
It shouldn't be so difficult
Should be more like honey to the bee

Well the bee has his sting and the sky has her rain
And I have all of my things that I shouldn't do over again
But if I just say the words and I look you in the eye
That I am promising you, I promise
I wish I was a better person

I don't want to work at it
It should come naturally
It shouldn't be so difficult
Should be more like honey to the bee

Well it's Monday afternoon and I'm drinking again
And I know I promised you that the Lord would be my friend
But the Lord and I don't get along so very good
He doesn't speak a word out to me
Like you promised that he would
And I'm telling you
I am telling you
I am telling you
I wish I was a better person
A better person
A better person
A better person

—Lori McKenna, Monday Afternoon

Lovely.

This is the nicest website I've seen in a long time. It's really beautifully done. I'm emailing the Webmaster and letting him/her know that they rock.

KathleenEdwards.com

you were never anything but beautiful to me . . . which means i've been thinking of you all along

some crazy fucker carved a sculpture out of butter
and propped it up in the middle of the bonanza breakfast bar
and i am stuffing toast and sausage into my pockets
under a sign that says grand opening
while my dog is waiting in the car

i wake up, i check out
i fill the tank and wash the windshield clean
then i'm back out on the highway
and BANG that's when i remember my dream:

we were standing in a garden
and i had a machine that made silence
it just sucked up the whole opinionated din
and there were no people on the payroll
and there were no monkeys on our backs
and i said, show me what you look like
without skin

science chases money
and money chases its tail
and the best minds of my generation
can't make bail
but the bacteria are coming to take us down
that's my prediction
it's the answer to this culture
of the quick fix prescription

but in the garden of simple
where all of us are nameless
you were never anything but beautiful to me
they never really owned you
you just carried them around you
and then one day you put 'em down
and found your hands were free

so now it's early in the morning
at the longitude of memphis
and the sun is setting sweetly on hong kong
and the big plan is just to keep spinning
cuz the big bang is only just beginning
and sometimes it's all that we can do just to hang on

and what i meant to say is muah which means i'm thinking of ya
which means i've been thinking of you
all along

—ani difranco / garden of simple

Dumplings and beer.

I had a pretty vivid dream last night. I was with my older sister and we were at the beach. We were told a tsunami was coming. There were HUGE waves. We scrambled to leave and on the way to safer ground, Sarah insisted we stop to get:
1. Dumplings
2. Beer
3. Ice cream
4. A couple books

I was pretty worried that there wasn’t time to stop, but we did. I dropped a beer on the way out and had to run towards the waves to collect it. I grabbed it and ran back to her. We crossed a NYC street, on our way to my apartment. And we were happy and laughing.

What in the HELL does any of that mean?

(I’m pretty sure I’ve only had dumplings once in my life.)

Interesting.

What Makes Annie Shoot?