the circle game

I think that there is a distinct possibility I am about to be disappointed in a big way. I don't really know why I continue to be surprised when people let me down.

today sucks.

I hate coming back from vacay.

Yesterday was fun though, even though I spent the majority of it at the airport. Drew and I just spent like 3 hours drinking coffee and playing cards. We also spent a lot of time demoralizing this toddler that was being really irritating near us. He kept yelling for no reason and throwing trash in our direction. Real mature.

austin. city. limits. tomorrow.

Sometimes I get embarrassed at my lack of knowledge in current musical trends. Because I'm in a band now I run across people almost daily who just assume that I will not only know about this and that obscure band/song, but I will also be able to maintain our conversation by suggesting an equally obscure band/song that they have perhaps not heard of and can now add to their arsenal of obscure bands/songs.

The actual truth is that I don't know any indie music beyond that to which I am forcefully introduced, and my preference is usually old-people country and/or whatever Rihanna song is heating up the Top 40. I can also usually name classical pieces that I hear, given that it is one of the 50 or so that I played while in GCYO.

My feelings about this are complex. Sometimes I want to expand my bank of knowledge so as not to appear so completely ignorant about a field in which I actively participate. Other times I want to scream at the person in question "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS TOTALLY AWESOME BAND "THE UNITARD COLLARS" THAT YOU HEARD AT SOME DIVE BAR WHILE YOU WERE IN CHICAGO, NOR DO I CARE THAT YOU MUCH PREFER THEIR EARLY STUFF AND THINK THAT THEY SOLD OUT WHEN THEY OVER-PRODUCED THEIR SECOND ALBUM." The latter reaction is normally saved for strangers. I like it when my actual friends give me music.

Anyway, the point of that tirade is that I'm going to Austin tomorrow, and don't even know who is playing, besides Patty Griffin. I'll probably just wander from tent to tent until I find someone whose sound I like. Maybe I'll buy a t-shirt if I like them a lot.

i just saw the most offensive thing

There was a yellow, full-sized military issue type Hummer driving down the street with a sticker on the back that was a smiley face with its tongue sticking out. Anyone who knows me understands why this offends me in at least three different ways.

wind tunnel

My hair was like a wild animal struggling to escape the suffocating confines of my head this morning. Normally it is fine and flat, but today it has a kind of life that I have never before witnessed. Maybe it is feeling the same way I am, that in its 24 years it hasn't achieved quite the things that it set out to, and is now taking great strides to make something of itself.

My condolences go out to Kelly on the passing of David Foster Wallace. I was sad for days when Madeline L'Engle died, and she was taken by old age, not tragic desperation.

obligatory birthday reflections

So I guess I'm in my mid-twenties now. It's not so bad. Kind of exactly like being in my early twenties. And my late teens. Which makes me wonder if I will ever actually feel like a grownup. When I asked my 83-year-old grandmother when she startd feeling like a grownup, she gave me the obligatory "Ha! I still don't know!" but then immediately followed it up with "Seriously though, it still hasn't happened for me."

Obviously I feel more adult. I officially pay all of my bills by myself (just got passed the car insurance baton last month), live in a place that my parents do not, and have a stable adult job. I even have a 401K, even though I'm still not really 100% sure what that means.

I'm not really afraid of becoming a grownup, but my worst fear is that I will someday have the paralyzingly boring adult life that I see people in all the time. Like what if I get married, and my husband is white and blond and a lawyer? What if I have a kid and have to get a minivan with a soccerball magnet over the gas tank? What if I have to join a country club because my husband likes to play golf with his colleagues and I have to sit around at the pool with a bunch of fully made up stay-at-home moms and their horrible children and talk about carpools and the hilarious perils of motherhood?

I'm not really sure how to wrap this up. It's just one of those things that I think about every time a birthday rolls around.

i love you, end of summer.

Today I walked outside and it was sunny and cool and there were people everywhere and someone was playing U2's Its A Beautiful Day over a loudspeaker and there were a million vendors selling kettle corn and hot dogs and ice cream. It was such a good day.