Keep Tahoe Blue

This is the blue, blue water of Lake Tahoe, California's greatest vacation destination.

And this is Molly imitating Maisie (RIP), her Springer Spaniel.

Music is my boyfriend

I have been toying with the idea of doing a little writing exercise/experiment wherein I post in the style of my favorite blogs. I could do a Go Fug Yourself homage, recap a show à la TWoP, or impersonate a pretentious music critic using a Pitchfork thesaurus. Maybe it will be a once in a while thing, just to stretch and for god's sake talk about something other than my own goddamned life. Or! I could experiment with style and tone while talking about my own goddamned life!

I thought I'd start out with a concert review, but there really isn't much to say about the

Coldplay concert. They played against backing tracks. Can anything more be said? I am as big a fan of indie electronica/dance/new new wave whathaveyou as the next hipster-lite but when every performer on stage is waiting for the string solo that is coming out of the speakers to be over before playing their instruments again then I have a problem. If you are going to write sweeping, romantic über-anthems, Mr Gwyneth, then you need to tour with a couple violinists, yea?

That said, when the crowd swelled with the "waaaaooooo oh oh" on "Viva La Vida" I was definitely singing along. Indeed, I sang along with all the songs I knew. And when Chris introduced "The Scientist" with a little self-effacement ("Thanks for coming out to see an aging British pop rock band when there's lots of good TV on and strip clubs to go to. This is what we call, ahem, a ballad.") I could somewhat forgive the use of Liberty Leading the People (projected on an enormous screen) as their backdrop. What does that even mean??

In my fantasy future life in New York I'm going to see live music all the time. I'm getting out of the house every night, at least until Winter gets into full swing. I'm going to trivia nights, and laptop wars-type stuff, and obscure film festivals, and free nights at the museum, and good and weird theatre of all kinds. I'm also going to cook more and join a team (it will not involve frisbee or kickball) and really nest and plug in and have my whole life in one place.

All this happy excitement starts with the household. Wish Xin luck with the apartment-hunting this weekend!

Can I embed?

Liveblogging the Land of Enchantment

I'm here in lovely Taos, NM with the fam plus Emma, still catching up on my lost hours of sleep from last week. The mesa silence and world's most comfortable bed help.

We hiked to Williams Lake yesterday. I am sad to report that, despite all the aerobicizing and muscle-building I've been doing lately, the 2 mile uphill climb had me pretty winded. I'm comfortable blaming the altitude, however.

The days ahead promise chile rellenos, Never Have I Ever with 18 year olds, rolling black outs, Rio Grande swims, and bighorn sheep sightings. What I'd really like to do is head North.

Stay tuned for a Coldplay run-down once I get home. I wouldn't say they rocked, but boy does Chris Martin put on the charm. I would even call him winning.

I want to live in a wooden house

I guess I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm also blogging it so I must not actually be embarrassed. I'm going to a Coldplay concert tonight. This makes me somewhere between standard level and advanced level white. I did review Parachutes for the Yale Daily News when it came out, so, you know, I am kind of obligated to see them live to have a fully formed critical perspective. (?) Also, ok, yes, "The Scientist" has been soundtrack to some emotional moments. But really it's just that my Dad has tickets. And I'm chaperoning Caroline. That's it.

The pelican poops anyway

If you've spent as much time as I have researching on IMDb then you are probably familiar with a certain gem from Elijiah Wood's oeuvre, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. If you watch any of the lesser Encore or Starz! channels available on Comcast Premium Movies package then you may even have seen it. Maybe, like me, you encountered the mysteriously-titled film while browsing at a non-virtual Blockbuster store (so 2003, am I right?) and you had to know "who are the ad wizards who came up with this one??" The plot summary asks "what if, like the bumblebee, who flies not knowing its wings are too small to allow flight, the impossible might be possible?" Turns out the "impossible" is surviving terminal cancer, which becomes "possible" when Janeane Garofalo does a Clockwork Orange on Elijiah's brain so that he forgets to die. Hilaarious.

I think Molly was present for that moment at Blockbuster, though she may have missed out on an 11am showing on Encore Drama a few years later. Hence, the movie (as well as EJ and his gay hobbit sex appeal, which predates being cast as Frodo) has become a running gag between us. 

Last weekend we accidentally drove to Hayward and on our way back over the bridge we noticed a triad of pelicans doing the bird hover, wherein their wing-flapping is equal to the headwind so that they fly in place (brainwave! "Treadmill in the Sky" has just become the first single Obviously Incarcerated will release off their debut LP Objectively Cuter). Molly, in earnest Hollywood copywriter cadence, observed that "the pelican poops, too," an adorable Freudian mash-up of our favorite worst movie title ever and the syntax of Everyone Poops. 

Yea yea, this is a total had-to-be-there story but I nearly died of laughter. If I had been driving we would have crashed. I laughed harder than when Mr Longyear made a "back when submarines had screen doors" joke in 9th grade bio. I convulsed for a solid two minutes. It felt so good.

It's good that Molly is coming with me (yes, I know, it's more like I am following her) to New York. Not only is she an endless source of a specific and priceless form of entertainment - best friend inside jokes - but she's pretty essential to my mental stability. Xin, my other future roommate and sure to feature prominently in many upcoming posts, is also good for that. I am looking forward to my future household with unconditional joy.

You know how I'm saying no to nostalgia? (And it's not even nostalgia when you see the person every day.) Sometimes nostalgia is the greatest thing ever. My 14ish years of friendship with Molly means we have a shared history that is long and deep and irreplaceable. I can't know what my stepmother is going through but I am deeply afraid of it. Losing a long-term best friend is a catastrophe. You can't make a new one. It's worse than divorce. 

Molly, on the serious, you are not allowed to die.

Wall-E Redux

Jesus, I need to stop watching this movie. But Molly hadn't seen it and it's worth another 10 dollars and so I was done in again - what with the robot courting and the triumph of community and connectedness and whatnot. So of course it takes me back to what I have been thinking of not thinking about. All this romantic ritual, the falling in love that looks so familiar, is happening to someone else.

I think the hardest part of the end-for-real is letting go of the version of yourself that you loved when you were loved by that person. Because it's like giving up a real part of you, a part you liked. Letting go of believing you were the kind of person who had found their match - who would only truly love once, who was sacred to one person - sucks. It's stupid and insane and young and largely influenced by all your many friends who are marrying their college boyfriends, but still. It's sad when best friends become people who used to know each other. And this is where Elliott Smith takes over, folks, so I better jump tracks.

I read some blog snark today blaming the generation of self-obsessed faux writers clogging up the internets on a certain female overshare-blogger. But that is bullshit. It's the fault of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, obvs.

Blog clog. Log.

What kind of day has it been?

Sometimes it doesn't matter. No matter what the reality, the facts on the ground so to speak, mood is still like surfing a wave. It takes its own shape. I've been trying to find a pattern, but I think there is none.

My Buddhist former boss told me the three essences of being - physical, emotional and mental - balance and influence each other in equal measure. Exercising makes your heart lighter, thinking positive speeds healing, feeling content aids in decision-making, etc. It's the theory behind meditation and probably some kinds of yoga, too. It's almost scary how much it's true. In Cambodia I'd come home from work feeling hot and awkward and lonely and I'd listen to music on my little speakers and not even remember feeling bad 20 minutes later. Even if I was listening to sadbastard music! Thinking about sucking it up, rationalizing the pros and cons of my situation, even trying to think happy thoughts wouldn't improve my mood. But distracting my brain through my ears turned my frown upside down. I'd still be alone and hot, but I wouldn't feel bothered. Of course, there's always a danger of the inverse, which is why Sigur Ros should come with a warning label.

Working around whatever is bugging you by targeting another "essence" is a good strategy, but it's also so frustrating! Why isn't happiness just a little more rational, or based on actual events? Why can't I convince myself to get in a better mood? Why can't the runner's high (from running, or sometimes from social activity) extend to buffer your mood for the day? Why doesn't talking to a friend work? I want to do good things and feel good, feel better when things are better and only feel worse when something goes wrong. That my mood is often beholden to caprice makes me feel crazy, or like a child.

I'm thinking about this now because a few months ago I was at home, without a real job, without much figured out, without much of a social network and feeling bent out of shape about it. Now I'm still at home, unemployed and 3000 miles from most of my friends, but I just don't worry as much. It could be because I'm moving to New York or just, uh, maturing generally, but Big Life Things - dream job, love, future goals - are still unknown and unsatisfied. And I'm OK with that? Weird.

City mouse, country mouse

Is that the story where one of them drowns in a bucket of cream and the other makes butter and escapes, or something? Or is that a different mouse parable altogether? Whatever it is, it's also the beta title for the blog I'm convincing Agronomist Paige (of the Ecuador trip, not to be confused with Aljazeera Paige of the Bangkok trip) to write with me.

Paige is an agronomist, which is like being a farmer except it's so much more. Also, it translates into Spanish better so the Ecuadorians we met could understand that Paige is into growing food, and not actually a peasant. She grows healthy food of the plant and animal variety in upstate New York and I especially recommend the carrots. Paige is one of the few young people I know to have some shit really figured out, like what she loves and what she is good at. She didn't learn it in a classroom or have it handed down to her by her parents. She followed her interests, tried things, and found a calling. Wow, do I envy that. So she is the country mouse.

I'm about to move to New York City. I have no job (yet!) and there's no particular opportunity or dream I'm chasing. I've always had a deep ambivalence about New York. I reject the idea that "The City" is the only city worth living in, or that it's somehow the A-Team American city (except for weather! they will never claim superior weather!). But I'm also drawn to the energy, the constant activity and the prospect of running into Conan O'Brien. I used to have a fair amount of trepidation about the A-Team aspect - would I just feel not cool enough all the time? Would my suburban roots belie my hipster affectations? Of course! But I don't care anymore. Everyone will be cooler, prettier and more interesting than me. Except actually I am more interesting. Fuck it. So I'm the city mouse.

What do we have to learn from each other? I plan to join Zip-Car, drive to Essex, NY and find out, hopefully in time for the Harvest. Which is in October-ish? Earlier? When do the lambs get slaughtered? I'll just come before then.

No one should ever question my patriotism

Fourth of July, Santa Cruz, CA with best boarding school buds Amanda and Beth Ann. Thanks to Katie Simpkins for art direction and photography.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories

A few weeks ago my stepmother's best friend was killed in a car accident - a freak injury sustained when a Kia ran a red and broadsided her sturdy, German-built station wagon on a bright afternoon - the kind of accident that seems crazy, that makes a joke of the precautions we take to make ourselves safe. Out of nowhere. Dumb luck.

I was scared to get in my car for a few days, and sad for my stepmom, and, predictably, morbidly meditative.

We can comfort ourselves knowing she lived well, made a difference in people's lives, was loved, and went quickly without pain. This kind of death teaches us to cherish each day, settle old arguments, be kind. Everyone's time comes and everyone will lose loved ones. But there is no absolute value as to the how of life or death; all deaths are not equal. So how are they relative?

If we trust Six Feet Under, then "death exists to give life meaning." That's too much a platitude to feel true. What about murder victims? What about friendly fire? What about 7-year-olds with leukemia? What's the difference between a car accident, cancer, and dying of starvation in a prison cell or refugee camp? What if there's no lesson in death? What if there is no one around to appreciate life more deeply now that someone has died?

I worry sometimes that grieving is just a process by which we convince ourselves of life's meaning, despite there being no evidence as such, so that we don't go to each day in fear of our own oblivion. I worry that every adjustment we make to tolerate pain is just a way of acquiring ignorance, to position new blinders to block realities we are too weak to accept. If whatever doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, when there are no lessons, then suffering is meaningless, too. And, if that's all true, can you conceive of mortality in a way that is both comforting and authentic?

I am so full of shit.