Marginalia

White Noise

2010-10-15T22:24:00.003-05:00

I started a new blog, because I felt like starting a new one. I may still write over here occasionally, but I don't anticipate it in the near future at least. This isn't going away, it's just gonna be quiet for a while. If you'd like to check out my new blog, feel free to pop over to Questionably Sincere, which will maybe be a more focused venture...then again, maybe not

- Jane

External Identification

2010-08-22T22:19:00.004-05:00

I said I was going to write a blog entry on my "list of things to get done this week", and while fully 2/3rd of that list remains unchallenged, it's time to tackle this one. This has been on my mind for a while, but I finally put it together in my head over the past couple weeks; anyway, I want to get back in here and write after two weeks on the road. I was going to try and do a travelogue, but it just never came together. And it's been a while since I've done a good "what being trans means" entry.

I recently spent some time traveling. I ended up having 7 days off of work, coupled with two weekends, to get out of Minnesota and find some of that stuff that is beyond the 10,000 lakes. I spent a few days in Iowa mostly with old friends from college, and then a few days in Colorado with a few friends that were even older as well as numerous people that I had never met before. It's always an interesting exercise to leave your comfort zone, and in this case, it was great to see people that I hadn't seen in some cases since I transitioned. But traveling also leads to the inevitable pronoun confusion.

You, you're lucky. Hopefully, you rarely experience it in your life. And if you do, well, if it's your given gender, you're lucky enough that people trip over themselves to correct their slip of the tongue. Certainly, you've done it to someone, and you know what I'm saying. Well, if you're trans, just throw that out. Instead, get people who occasionally need to be bludgeoned into submission. I'm pretty lucky to have a lot of great people around, and while there are slip-ups, I feel that almost every case is not one of malice, but just one of familiarity. Especially with old friends, I have people around me that have this image of who I am as Jeremy. It makes sense, and considering they may not have even seen me since I transitioned, there's really no experience to help shift that balance in their heads to Jane. The people I've known for years up here in the Twin Cities, they mostly don't screw up any more, but they see me once or twice a week, or whatever it may be, and they've had time to develop a different overlay. See old connections (especially my family) and it all goes crazy.

All of that, I get. People explain it to me, and I understand their viewpoint, it's a confusing thing to go through for me, and I've had years to think about it. So understandably, it takes time. But it also takes effort. After all, with almost anything in life, to change how you do it, you have to try. We all still make mistakes after we change our routines. But the mistakes become less frequent, and this isn't a different issue than change how you do your work flow for a process from a technical standpoint. Of course, how your work gets done doesn't have feelings. And I know people are trying, I know they are, but it always hurts just a little. That, however, isn't really the group that offends me or hurts me the most.

It could be arbitrary as a statement, but it tends to be that women screw up the pronouns less than men in my experience. I don't know what that is, but it feels true. I'll empirically study it for all you scientists out there someday. And that gets us neatly to the class of people who roundly make feel the worst about myself: men who did not know me until post-transition. Why is it that this group makes me feel the worst? I think it's that it feels like the most accurate reflection of how a stranger would view me and it reminds me of the inherent difficulties of properly projecting who it is that I am. But mostly, it's just a window into how people are seeing me, and when they have no idea who I was before, it seems unreasonable that they would keep using the wrong pronouns. There is no image to confuse me with. For the rational part of my brain, then, it appears the only reason that it's happening that way is because a lot of people out there don't view me as a woman.

We could debate the definition of what makes someone a woman, and I could find exceptions to any of them, so let's not get into that. Let's just say there's a relatively accepted idea of what constitutes a woman in our society, and I don't fit into those check marks as neatly as the next girl. But in plenty of ways I do, and certainly I do through my basic outward presentation. I know who I am and I reflect it, and I'm confident in that. Extremely confident in that. But it's deflating to constantly run into people who keep saying he or him when they are talking about me and I'm 2 feet away. Because I can hear you. And I always do, even when I don't correct you. After all, I have to decide how I want to deal with it every time, and sometimes, I just don't have the energy to be an educator. Sometimes I just plain feel like it's not my job to educate you on something you could just as easily figure out on your own. But I always notice it, and I file it away.

What does that mean to my self-identification? Not that much. I know who I am and for the first time that I can ever recall, I've had a 2+ year stretch of being happy with the idea of who I am. But I would really like to that to go beyond me. And it does in plenty of cases. But every time I run into someone who keeps using the wrong pronouns, it makes me realize who difficult it is to not just find people who respect me and who I am, but people who genuinely reflect back onto me who I am. I think about that and how hard it's going to be to find a partner who does that in a relationship and it's hard to think about. It's not fun to realize that it's not going to be easy.

It's tough to get to a point of self-identification. I know I've stated it before, but it's really powerful to look in the mirror and see me. Not who I thought I would be or who I thought I had to be, but who I actually am, and it took a long time to get there. Maybe you don't understand that because you've always looked in the mirror and seen you. If that's so, then that's great. I would never wish this kind of experience on anyone, even those I dislike the most, because for all the peaks and wonderful feelings that accompany them, there are many, many hours, days, months, years of lows. Even after I transitioned, I had doubts. Not about who I was, but just about whether I could actually do this and deal with all these feelings that I'd shut out for so long. And I'm there.

But there's not really a whole lot I can do about external identification of who I am but keep putting myself out there and keep educating. Even if it makes me tired, and sad, and annoyed, and disappointed. Because sometimes I see the bulb go off, I see the change, I see the people stop doing it and start to identify that this is who I am, and that's a great, powerful, wonderful feeling. I know that there were trans people who came before me and made it so that I could even transition and have this be the biggest problem I have to deal with, as opposed to having to find a new job, etc.. And it's my hope that by continuing to do this, the next generation of trans people won't even have to deal with those feelings that much because it'll just be that much more normal for all the people around them. Hopefully they won't be the first person who has to explain to most people they know what the basic concept of being trans even is. In the meantime, I'm going to keep fighting for that identification, keep being a real person that someone can ascribe to the concept of trans in their head, and I'm going to not because I always want to or even choose to, but because I need to.

Music For Other People

2010-08-01T18:33:00.003-05:00

Quite a while back now, Patrick asked me to help him put together the music for his wedding. Now, I'm nobody's fool, Patrick has provided probably as much help as he's had time for on this front (and he's provided quite a bit), but he's the groom, so the task more rightly falls on me. It's a nice compromise all things considered, as it gives me something to worry about and I feel like I'm doing something useful for his wedding, and he knows the tastes that he's leaving his music with. So after sending a few albums my way to make sure I fill some holes that are more to his (or Lisa's) liking, mostly I've been sitting here, listening to lots of Portishead and Junior Boys, MMW and other such things that he sent over and trying to figure out how I make that fit into a list. Or lists, as the case may be. It's an instructive experience for me as I don't do things for other people well.

That isn't to say I don't feel like I'm a helpful person. What I mean by that is I have a tendency to do what I like, read what I want, listen to what suits me, etc. If other people agree, go along, or care to discuss those things, all the better, but I don't necessarily suit the activities and tastes that I have to other people. And while making playlists for a wedding that are certainly going to have the stamp that says "Jane Natoli made this playlist" (which is how My Bloody Valentine ends up on it), these songs are for other people.

I'm very much the same way as a writer. I hope that what I put down on the paper or the screen works for someone else, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to explicitly make that a goal. Egotistically, I'm fine with that, but if life is a series of learning when to compromise, I should consider that sometimes I have to do things that I don't particularly want to in order to do the things I want to.

Normally, I don't expect other people to like what I like when it comes to music. This could be cynicism; it could be a deep-seated desire to have something to myself; it could just be that I like weird shit. But mostly, I think it's just me being an only child. I don't really like to share. As much as I lament how other people don't enjoy the music I listen to (at least, other people I know), I also like to be the girl that has one of the 300 copies of that limited edition 7". Certainly we are all unique in our tastes, but I want to be notably unique. Most likely, I am, but that means that I have no one to talk about the Tennis 7" with because I don't know anyone else who's heard of it, and I'm not exactly the most inviting when it comes to my taste.

I pondered this phenomenon, and it runs across other kinds of media that I own as well. Especially in my books, I've learned that I enjoy difficult things. I like the challenge of reading Huxley and figuring it out. Which is odd because in a lot of other aspects of my life, I've been known to shirk from challenges and take the easy path. But when it comes to my music and my books, I do not seek the lowest common denominator. I understand why people like those things. Consider them the Black-Eyed Peas of the world, or the Danielle Steeles. They shouldn't be disparaged by any means as they certainly serve a purpose for a lot of people. But they don't serve a purpose for me. This isn't to say I don't like pop, as I certainly own songs that a lot of people own that have sold millions of copies and I've read a best-seller or two in my time and contributed to putting it on the list in the first few weeks. There's nothing wrong with wanting something from music that doesn't make you work as hard, and I can respect that, but it's not what I want, and I have to honor that. All of which takes me back to what I'm doing for Patrick.

The goal is to find that middle ground. Certainly I'm still going to slot things that people have never heard of that I think do a good job of providing whatever I need. If that means I'm going to play a song like "Blind" by Hercules and Love Affair when it comes time to dance, well, tell me, who can't dance to that? It might not be what everyone (or anyone) else there has heard, but it'll certainly do the job. However, I have to rein in that impulse sometimes, and let things pass, and if I can't find a place for something, well, I can't find a place for it, because there's gotta be room for stuff that people can access, that they've heard of, and while the goal of the music is to be memorably forgettable (by which I mean people will say the music was good, but when pressed, won't be able to recall more than a couple songs) for something like a wedding, I want it to be remembered. But it's not my wedding. When it is my wedding, then I'll make sure that you hear "First Day Of My Life" by Bright Eyes. Unless my hypothetical future husband disagrees or a song significant to our relationship comes up, I don't see any other song as my first dance. That's my wedding. But this, this is Patrick's.

So sure, there will be some slyly hidden gems that are for me. Many of them, if Patrick even notices, he will also appreciate. I've got enough music here to compromise and make a good, danceable, fun playlist that will work for a wedding without having to resort to my Journey. But it's there if I need it and I would do well to remember that, because the order of needs in this should be Patrick and Lisa, guests, me. While I'm a guest, I can listen to my music whenever I want, which means I can sit here and play video games and blast out some Jimmy Eat World all on my lonesome. It's certainly not a natural state for me, but I'm trying to invite people in, not drive them out. Maybe I should try that a little more.

The Art Of Pessimism

2010-07-25T19:46:00.002-05:00

I've written several entries about how I am happy, and how I feel this is poorly defined. Consider this another attempt in that series. Eventually, I just write around the entire issue and have a definition. Albeit a long-winded one. Not that I'd have it any other way...

Over the past few years (and really, my entire life, but let's confine it to stuff that I remember better) I have had some wonderful experiences. Maybe you don't understand this because you haven't had to go through it, but getting to be yourself is a really empowering experience. It's certainly not trans-centric, and I would go so far as to argue that we all have phases of our lives where we aren't totally ourselves. These are for perfectly valid reasons. After all, the friend I am to my college friends is different than my high school friends is different than the friends I have up here. And those are just casual settings. Add in professional instances, such as work, school, etc, and you are looking at someone who has a lot of different facets. Personally, I think it's the aspects that truly shine through all of those facets that make us who we are, and irrelevant of what traits we ascribe to ourselves, it's the other traits that truly compose who we are. After all, there's quite a difference between how we think of ourselves and how others think of us, and that's only natural. Someone who only sees me at work, for example, might not understand how much music means to me; I am prone to make the same mistake about that same someone. Point being, there are parts of us that shine through all of that, and one of the parts of me that I never can (nor do I really want to) disguise is my natural pessimism.

I could call it a number of things. Another might consider it cynicism. I'm more inclined to believe my cynicism comes from the fact that I don't trust anything. Hell, it took me a long time to trust the image I see in the mirror, so it's no wonder I find it hard to trust other things. Certainly it's useful in a job where I'm looking for fraud. But it's equally counterproductive when I can't trust a co-worker enough to do something properly as I just think they are going to screw it up. For me, it just takes a while to build that trust with someone and shut off that part of me that is always planning for the worst. That part of me still does its job though.

This could be why I go to shows alone. It could be why I spend a lot of time alone. But I don't do everything alone. I've obviously learned how to let people in, and let that guard down. Mostly, I think my pessimism is just me protecting myself. In a professional setting, it means doing my job thoroughly. In a personal setting, it means not getting hurt. And yet, for all that pessimism, it still hurts when a friends says he or she is going to call me at a specific time and doesn't. I do that with people, I'm okay with that with people, that's part of having relationships.

Where I have a tougher time shutting down that pessimism is at work. That's probably well founded. As I'm fond of saying, I'm just a tiny, tiny cog in the giant wheel of capitalism. And they way I have been treated professionally shows it sometimes. Another instance just came up this week, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't see something like this around the corner. Not quite in the way I thought, but it's good that work still finds way to surprise me. After a few days of processing it, I can step back and appreciate the positive qualities of the experience. I realize it's another line on the resume and gives me just a little bit more experience. It would be mistaken to think it makes me more valuable, though. Value has a lot of components to an employer, and your skills aren't the only one.

Now, while I naturally feel pessimistic toward work, it doesn't mean I don't have the good sense to tone down that aspect of myself there. I may run everything that I experience through that filter but that doesn't mean I should let that show to much at work. After all, this is a positive society, where we are told the power of positive thinking, and we talk about our positive experiences and we're told to smile because that's the sign of a positive attitude which must mean we are happy. Pessimism is what I naturally tend towards, and it's how I filter my experiences. That doesn't mean I don't end up having a good experience, or even a positive one. It's not even a matter of expectation management. It's something I need to do because that's how I think about the world.

I'm sure there's some out there that think that this can or should change. I don't know if it can do either. While I'm certain that I could change in that aspect, I don't know if I'd be the same person. That person who's prepared for a number of things at any given moment. That person who maintains a sometimes cool demeanor in circumstances where everything else is falling down around me. That person who can give you directions a number of different ways without a GPS unit. It shapes my personality. It shapes my world view. Certainly transitioning has modified that filter by helping me realize that things I never thought possible are indeed possible, things I never thought could go well can go well, and so it's a more tempered pessimism. And it's a pessimism I can turn off, that I have to turn off every so often. After all, I have to keep believing you are going to call, going to visit, or going to show up when you say you are. That means getting hurt. I get that, but it also means having more meaningful relationships. Before I held that pessimism so tightly that no one could get it. I didn't want you in there, and thinking the worst certainly didn't hurt in helping to justify that behavior. Now I want people closer. But most of the time, things still have to go through that filter of pessimism. I just hope that it's a more balanced and humane filter now.

This Is The Day That You Life Will Surely Change

2010-07-11T19:58:00.003-05:00

A lot of my friends have been getting doctorates and law degrees recently, and they are receiving much deserved congratulations. It's not something that is entered into or completed lightly, and my congratulations to my friends have been most sincere. However, it provokes in me a moment that I think is best summed up as follows: "When am I going to see the sailboat?" After all, I share several traits with many of these illustrious fellows. I have had the benefit of a good education. I come from comfortable enough circumstances personally to take advantage of the opportunities that exist for most people out there. Looking at it that way, though, it makes me wonder where I erred. I have had a lot of opportunity. And the only obvious conclusion is that, thus far, I've squandered a lot of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, save me the times where I've said I went through what I went through because that's what I needed to do. I know I've said it before and I will surely will say it again in a different mood. But mostly what occupies me right now is the fact that I know people whom I considered peers at one time, and I don't feel like I'm necessarily worthy of being a peer anymore. I feel unaccomplished. Or more appropriately, half-accomplished.

I have always been a good standardized test taker. It's what got me into Jefferson. Certainly, it's a skill, but at some point, life stops being about taking tests and presumably I should have used all that momentum to create a better landing for myself. I was digging through my box of nostalgia the other day at the behest of someone else, and I stumbled upon something that I forgot was in there. My test scores from the Iowa Basic Test from 8th grade. It was a little depressing to look at and see that there was a time where I obviously was taking better advantage of the resources at my disposal. Almost everything was in the 99th percentile. Certainly, I haven't lost that skill. The last standardized test I took that I can recall (for the purposes of evaluating intelligence or aptitude) was the GREs, and while I certainly didn't knock it out of the park on every question, I did score a 1400 and a 6 on the writing, which is nothing to scoff at. So I still know how to do that. That wasn't with the most intense preparation either. The question is, what am I going to do with that skill?

That's the area that I believe I've let myself down. There are some things in life that I'm not really good with. Expressions of how I'm feeling. Knowing when something has run its course. Finishing things. I'm old enough now to know that those are weaknesses that I've had for a long time and that they don't just go away. Presumably, a lot of other people I know have managed to figure out what some of their weaknesses are along the way too, though I don't think that's necessarily something that everyone does. I know there are things I do well too, I'm well aware of those things, but I frequently do very little to cultivate them. Or I choose not to head in directions that I know I'm well suited for because of sundry reasons like lack of challenge or boredom.

This may be what's behind my recent desire to take become a Certified Fraud Examiner. In addition to being something that I actually enjoy doing (it's kinda like telling a story), getting that certificate would open up a lot of other opportunities for me. In addition to that, it would involve taking some sort of nasty standardized test. Which is all fine and well. I do nasty standardized tests well enough that this isn't a huge concern for me. I enjoy the challenge. While I certainly have honed my skills for taking them over the years, it's just something that I believe I came into the game with. Much the same way that I will probably always be better at Dr. Mario than you. And you may always be better at piano than me. Piano's a good example, too, because I've put a long time in just getting to a point where I'm competent. And that's probably the best I'll ever be. Oh, sure, I could be better if I devoted a slavish amount of my time to the instrument, but I've probably run my natural aptitude about as far as it'll go. It doesn't mean that I can't get incrementally better, but it is not a regard in which I came in with any particular natural aptitude near as I can tell.

Right now, the CFE is in the idea stage. I love the idea stage. It's where I shine. I'm a little more into that than I am in the implementation stage. I would like to think that it's because going from a concept to a reality is a different skill than coming up with a concept. And that's the skill I'm good at. I'm good at writing, but I don't enjoy the politicking of publishing particularly much, and I've never put in much work in navigating that field. But I need to. Christian and I used to sit around and incessantly spout on about concepts. Quite rightly, I think my true dream job would be to work for a house of ideas, a group of people who just come up with the ideas while the others put them into action. But that's not quite how it works, now is it?

So what do I do to ensure that I don't keep doing this again? Because I have plenty of examples of me not following up on things. I have half realized ideas scribbled all over notebooks, so sometimes I don't even get through that stage. Because I want to reach that potential I know I have. Maybe the simple act of doing something where I'm actualizing that has reinvigorated me. Or it could just be looking back at a lot of old poetry and stories and say, you know, 4, 5, 7 years later, these are still some things that I'm proud of. And certainly, developmentally speaking, I have chosen something that is personally meaningful that is doesn't work on a basic time line nearly as well as getting an advanced degree. But that's all making excuses.

There are, of course, too many things that I want to do. A large part of my time feels like it's spent just trying to figure out what I actually should be doing. After all, I love living in Lowertown, but that couldn't have happened unless I left Uptown. Which was sad. I miss Uptown sometimes, I miss living two blocks from Lunds and walking to Lake Calhoun. But I have a new set of things to explore that I never would have gotten the opportunity to explore had I not come over here, and I wanted to try it. I miss Uptown, but my time there, at least for the time, had run its course. I needed something different. And it was one of the first times I felt like I'd actually listened to that voice that I have that tells me when things have reached a point where I've gone as far as I'm going to go by doing that. Applying that beyond just where I live, what does that mean?

I'm going to have to take some chances and do some things that I'm uncomfortable with in my personal life. Be that going to a writing workshop just to try and meet some other creative people in my area or sending out things I've written that will get rejected over and over, it's what I need to do to take the next step. Just like, from a work perspective, I need to figure out how to broaden myself, and getting my CFE accomplishes that. If it also happens to be something that I enjoy and I'm good at and I have the potential to do well at, well, all the better.

Normally, this is the part of any sort of serious post where I would lean on what I've gone through personally and talk about the difficulties therein, but in this case, what I've gone through with all of the gender issues is actually what gives me the strength to deal with this. Additionally, we all go through lots of hardships, and they are real to us, irrelevant of how real they are to other people. There is no true arbiter to judge what is more difficult than next thing in the case of our own psychological neuroses that we deal with. Anyway, I feel it's what I do with that that counts. So sure, it's been a depressing few weeks for me, but I will always feel depression. Transitioning didn't make that go away, and I doubt that anything truly will. Paradoxically, I'm happy with all of this. But that doesn't mean I'm content, and that's what a lot of what's been happening recently has triggered. Many of us use content as a gradation on the happiness scale, and there's certainly something there in the sense that many define happiness as being satisfied with what they have, which makes them synonymous. Happiness, certainly at its root, means exactly what contentedness means. I derive happiness, though, just from being myself every day. Happiness, for me, is not what I have, but rather who I am. I'm pretty sure there's parts of me that will always want more, or I wouldn't have nearly as much music as I do. But it seems unhealthy to think that I cannot be happy while still wanting more. That's linguistic quibbling though. At the end of the day, what I've got to do is honor the thoughts that are kicking around in my head and write. And honor the actions that I don't want to take, like taking a class at the Loft. Most likely, as is the case with many things in life, this won't be any more important than the last entry or the next. But it could be...

My favorites from 2010 in not quite final but somewhat particular order

2010-07-01T14:11:00.001-05:00

Because good music should know better bounds than my Facebook friends...

Below is a list of my favorites from the year so far. No hip hop this year as I just haven't been listening to it, so let's stick to what I really know, and that is indie music. Some of these are interchangeable with other songs on the records they come from because that's just how good the records are (Beach House and Titus Andronicus), some of these are stellar examples of song craft from bands I'm not even a big fan of (Here We Go Magic) and some of these will just seep into your brain and making you go by the 7" immediately (Cults). Some have been lurking around the interwebs for a while now (Surfer Blood), others just made it up a few days ago (Aeroplane). Some are from sold out 7" releases (Cults again), others have yet to see the light of day physically (Tennis), and some don't even have albums or release dates yet (Primary 1, Shine 2009). But they're all good songs that have been burning my ears the past few days, weeks, or months depending on when they cam out. Returning artists responsible for things I loved are too many to be named, but certainly you can identify patterns with other lists of favorites that I've come up with and come to the conclusion that there are bands I love (here's looking at you, BSS). This list is merely meant as a guide. Explore music.

As for the actual mechanics of having a playlist, as some of you may know, Apple killed Lala, and I so far have not found anything close to that level of functionality on the web. So you can do this a couple ways. You could buy these too, but I certainly didn't buy them explicitly to make this playlist. Many I own physically (or will when they finally come out), but they can all be found digitally with some degree of diligence out there on the web. Most of my downloads come from Pitchfork, and failing that Hype Machine is your friend. Questions, comments, criticism on what the hell I was thinking, you know where to leave that stuff.

Enjoy. By the by, this is in order, but on a CD, it would be reversed. You're smart, I'll trust you to figure that out.

50) Say No To Love by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart from Say No To Love 7"
49) Albatross by The Besnard Lakes from The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
48) Stay Close by Delorean from Subiza
47) Bang Pop by Free Energy from Stuck On Nothing
46) Your Hands (Together) by The New Pornographers from Together
45) Heaven's On Fire by The Radio Dept. from Heaven's On Fire
44) Collector by Here We Go Magic from Pigeons
43) I Go Away by Mndr from E.P.E.
42) Month Of May by Arcade Fire from The Suburbs
41) You Can't Be Alone by All Saints Day from their eponymous release
40) Even If It Worked Out by Cloud Nothings from the Didn't You 7"
39) You and I by Washed Out feat. Caroline Polachek from the Adult Swim Singles Project
38) Swim by Surfer Blood from Astro Coast
37) 18 Hours (Of Love) by KXP from KXP
36) Come Home by Chappo from Plastique Universe EP
35) Round and Round by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti from Before Today
34) Sun Hands by Local Natives from Gorilla Manor
33) Excuses by The Morning Benders from Big Echo
32) Outer Limits by SLEEP ∞ OVER from Outer Limits 7"
31) I Hope You Die by Wye Oak from My Neighbor / My Creator
30) No Man's Land by Psychobuildings from the Portrait 7"
29) Marathon by Tennis from The Marathon 7"
28) Solitude Is Bliss by Tame Impala from Innerspeaker
27) No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future by Titus Andronicus from The Monitor
26) Night by Zola Jesus from the Stridulum EP
25) Journal of Ardency by Class Actress from Journal of Ardency
24) Dancing On My Own by Robyn from Body Talk Pt. 1
23) Celestica by Crystal Castles from Crystal Castles ( II )
22) Take It In by Hot Chip from One Life Stand
21) On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz from Plastic Beach
20) Bloodbuzz Ohio by The National from High Violet
19) USA BOYS by HEALTH from ::DISCO2
18) Tell 'Em by Sleigh Bells from Treats
17) Rocket (Richard X One Zero Remix) by Goldfrapp
16) Real Life by Tanlines from Settings
15) Forced to Love by Broken Social Scene from Forgiveness Rock Record
14) Younger Us by Japandroids from the Younger Us 7''
13) Chinatown by Wild Nothing from Gemini
12) The Gaudy Side of Town by Gayngs from Relayted
11) Boyfriend by Best Coast from Crazy For You
10) Norway by Beach House from Teen Dream
09) Year's Not Long by Male Bonding by Nothing Hurts
08) Returnal by Oneohtrix Point Never from Returnal
07) We Can't Fly (Radio Edit) by Aeroplane from We Can't Fly
06) Odessa by Caribou from Swim
05) The Blues ft. Nina Persson by Primary 1
04) New Rules by Shine 2009
03) Go Outside by Cults from Cults 7"
02) Come With Me by ceo from White Magic
01) King Night by Salem from King Night

Creative Uses of Rejection

2010-06-27T22:41:00.004-05:00

I have spent the past 5 days ruminating through the relative doldrums of the day to day when I haven't been distracted by the awesomeness that has been around it. It's been an odd state, going from having a wonderful time when I'm not at work with friends doing things I haven't done in ages (such as playing Die Siedler) to constantly wondering what the next step is for me professionally. Odd, and I'm about done with it, I feel, but not before I write about my thoughts and feelings on the subject of coming up just short. Because that's what I did at work. I was passed over for a promotion that I would have really liked, and narrowly at that.

Is it better to come up just short or to utterly fail? Which is more instructive? Do either feel better in any way? Needless to say, I'm disappointed that I didn't get a promotion. I know what my boss said to me was designed to assuage me, but it's taken me a couple days to get there. So yeah, it's great that I have someone who's going to continue to help me grow as an employee so that I have a good chance at another position the next time it comes along. At the same time, I still have to go into work and be a good employee, which was hard the past couple days. Maybe it isn't the most beneficial reaction, but I haven't wanted to deal with anything that is not my problem professionally the past few days. Because it's not my problem. Sure there's something to be said for being helpful and going "above and beyond", but I have to wonder if it's of any more use to me. After all, I get paid just the same for being mediocre as I do for being above average, and while it might affect my end of the year raise slightly, does it really affect it that much? I see plenty of people that make me feel like they are doing just enough to get by. Am I not able to do that?

I doubt I could if I wanted to. I don't think it's in my constitution. Yet it's not of any benefit to me to take on extra stress when it's hard to see the tangible benefits. I like what I am doing currently, but I don't see myself doing it forever, though. And I have to be a little selfish in the regard of figuring out what's best for me. I like my overall job. Though rare to actually find, dealing with fraud is actually pretty cool, and that's certainly a direction that I would like to go professionally. I know some of the steps therein. I should get my CFE. And I certainly work for a company that provides plenty of opportunities in the area of mortgage fraud. Failing that, there are plenty of opportunities in that industry as mortgage fraud isn't going away any time soon. Moreover (and don't tell ten year old me), I like it. It's interesting to dig through files and try and find fraudulent paystubs or escrow misrep. At least to me. But I'm not entirely sure how to go much further with that for a couple years as most of the positions simply require more experience, which I can't do anything about until I go through and get it.

So in the meantime, I keep looking for team lead positions. I'm more of a big picture kinda person when it comes to my work habits anyway, so I find this is something I'm well suited for. But in my specific area (Correspondent Ops if you're taking notes at home), those positions don't seem to come up all that often, and when they do, it seems that there's always someone just a little bit ahead of me in the queue. I am beginning to wonder how far afield I will have to go to move up. I don't think I'm being overly ambitious. More to the point, though, I think it's just how my brain works.

I started this job three years ago, and I did not like my first position. There are a number of reasons that it was important to have that job, but none of them had to do with wanting to identify if a flood cert is life of loan or not. 2 years after that, I found myself in a position that I actually enjoy, one where I can turn the analytical part of my brain back on after two years of keeping it in sleep mode professionally. But with more than 3 years of experience now, I guess the shine is off the star. It's easy to be a hotshot when you start, and I was. I may not have liked Mortgage Loan Acquisition, but I was good at it. Of course, there's always someone better than you, younger, faster, better looking, whatever is going to basically be your undoing. It's a tough reality to live with, but it's true. Besides that, though, I set the standard for my work, and if I continue to produce above average results, then above average becomes normal, and that becomes what's expected of me, perversely. Whereas it might be a point of celebration for someone else to get a 4 this year on his or her evaluation, it's going to be a disappointment for me if I don't.

So maybe I'm just not meeting my own standards by not getting a promotion when I think I should. I feel ready, and if what my boss told me is true (and I believe it is), she feels I'm basically ready too. Of course, none of that makes me feel any better as I sit there and look across the floor at the person who got the position and wonder. Not that he doesn't deserve it, or isn't qualified or anything like that. I think he'll be great at it, and I knew there was going to be a lot of great competition for this position. My ego demands that I feel this way, just a little, or else it feels like giving in, or worse yet, it feels like settling. I've spent quite a bit of my life settling, and in the past few years, I've finally gotten away from that. I have no intention of getting back to it. But right now, I have to accept the situation. The fact is I didn't get that position, and I'm just going to have to keep putting in work that I am happy with, which means continuing to go a little above and beyond, even if I wonder why I'm doing it sometimes. Hopefully the next time it's a tough decision, it comes out the way I want it to. Still, this time, it's rejection, and that always hurts a little. What I do with it, well, that's on me. I'll keep you posted, and until then, you can always look for more creative uses of rejection.

Thinking Backwards

2010-06-20T22:12:00.005-05:00

At some point this weekend, I'm sure I had a grand idea. It's been known to happen from time to time. I don't do the best job of recording those ideas, though, so frequently when I sit in front of a computer or open a notebook, it's an exercise in attempting to put together whatever thoughts motivated me to say I should sit down later and write. Which really is a poor way of doing things. I've made various attempts scattered across e-mail accounts, post-its, and notebooks to be less like that, but the reality is I find it only impairs my poetry, as I rarely have a perfect line that needs preserving unless it's poetic. Since I haven't been writing poetry (though I have been thinking about it) I haven't been in one of those modes where I just have to catch every thought that spills out of my head. The net affect is that my sieve-like memory probably lets too many good things through. Oh well. I'm not particularly worried. I don't see myself quitting my day job anytime soon.

Something I have been doing a lot more recently is reading. A few months ago, I went on a kick, poured though almost all the Vlad books and The Viscount of Adrihlanka and that kick started me a bit. For an English major, I can go unconscionable periods of time without cracking open a book. This coming from the girl who has the complete poetry of Elizabeth Bishop as bathroom reading even (the poems are a good length). I hadn't made much headway on reading, and for whatever inexorable reason, the activities of reading and writing still do go together. I think it's a call and response sort of affair. I read, and I react. The best way that I react is by writing. This isn't everyone's response by any means, but it is mine. So I finished going through about 15 books that I'd already read (but can't really ever read too many times...just look at my poor copy of Jhereg that feel apart) and I decided it's time to get some new stuff. Or not new, but stuff that I haven't read. And while I've still being tearing through the back issues of my graphic novels (started with Fables, working on Preacher right now), I'm also working on other novels and stories.

I just finished Double Star by Robert Heinlein. It's a part of my personal reading directive of tackling every Hugo and Nebula award winner. The only other Heinlein I've ever read is Stranger In A Strange Land, so I didn't have a lot of expectations going in. And the first half of the book didn't exactly qualify as a page turner in my opinion. I kept wondering where it was going to go exactly as I'd already figured out where The Great Lorenzo was generally heading in his life. Somewhere around the middle, the book just turned and grabbed me. I went to Caribou today, and I couldn't stop reading it. I went from wondering how it won a Hugo to wondering why so many Hugo winners can't be so concise and make a point. Maybe I just like short books that do their job well. Then again, I just prefer short books and I particularly love a well put together novella. Just enough time to get in, paint a colorful landscape without revealing too much, and get out with your point.

It made me reflect on the co-winners of one Hugo, Dune and This Immortal. While This Immortal certainly had some flawed aspects (and established the beginnings of Zelazny's love of flawed, but incredibly powerful characters in other novels as far as I could tell), I thought that he did a great job of establishing his point and he didn't really need more space to do it. Lord Of Light is certainly a better read, and also a Hugo winner, but I can see why This Immortal was as well. Dune I was a bit more conflicted about. First off, strangers and friends told me I would love it, so I didn't go in with lower expectations like I have with other novels. Second, I thought it took a little too long to get somewhere sometimes. That's my opinion, and it's my preference, and I certainly love books that take too long and were paid by the word (The Three Musketeers). Apparently I just don't want that from my sci-fi.

The other thing that is funny about reading these books is how much it makes me realize things that I love and thought were original were just stolen. Music makes me reflect on this a lot as well. I remember how powerfully original Gang Of Four's Entertainment! sounded the first time I heard it. Here was a record that was made in 1979 that pretty much scripted the formula for bands for 25 years. Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party certainly listened to that album, or some other derivative of that. You might think you're hearing something new only to realize that these bands you love are just reaching twenty years into the past. We are all influenced by the past after all. But it is disorienting to realize sometimes that the things you thought of as groundbreaking are just good retellings of older tales, modern takes on older sounds. The Matrix might not be influenced by Neuromancer but it sure seems like it is.

Of course it's impossible to tell what really laid that groundwork. The mental hopscotch we all do of connecting dots is fine and well, but an artist may have never read, watched, or heard what it is that we think they are influenced by. It's a nice feeling when writing. I certainly know that I'm influenced by all the things I see, hear, and do on a daily basis, and I may well end up sounding like a synthesis of those things, but these thoughts are wholly mine. Maybe it's all been said, but I haven't said it, so I'm gonna take a crack at it. It's for everyone else to judge whether it's divine or drivel.

What the author learned about herself while shopping this weekend

2010-06-13T22:29:00.002-05:00

My television stopped making sound last Tuesday. While it's not necessarily that important because I'm frequently listening to music while I'm playing video games, it is nice for things like watching DVDs. But it wasn't something that I had time to deal with immediately, so I pushed it off to this weekend.

I have never actually purchased a television. Sure, I've had several, but I didn't spend any of my money on them. While I could have continued the strong tradition of finding televisions other people didn't need or want anymore, I decided it was time to actually buy one. Why? Yes, I wanted an HDTV, and yes, I could afford one now, so both those factors helped. However, I also just wanted to purchase one instead of taking whatever was there. It just seemed like the adult thing to do.

This, however, did not mean that I intended to spend too much money. First off, you can throw all the flashy numbers about what the settings are on a television, but I think if you actually pulled people aside and covered the brand name and said one was 120 hertz and another was 240, they wouldn't know the difference. This could be cynicism speaking, but I think that's frequently the case. If someone tells you that it has a better picture, do you believe it? Is it even perceptible? Do we all need televisions that have those crazy numbers, or do those crazy numbers help companies sell more expensive televisions. I don't think it's quite a placebo effect, but honestly, I doubt I could tell the difference between many features on most televisions other than the size.

I didn't end up going above the bottom end of my price point. And I have an HDTV that I believe I will be perfectly happy with. Oh sure, it doesn't have a crazy refresh rate, and it can't show yellow and it's not 3D equipped. It's not even a flashy brand. It's just a television, and I couldn't see the difference between one that was the same size that cost twice as much.

To be contrapuntal, let's talk a bit about my music buying habits. It was the Fetus' anniversary sale. They do 3 sales a year where everything is 20% off. Which means there's 3 times a year where I tend to spend a couple hundred bucks there. Take those 3 sales and you already have just as much as I'd spend on a decent television. Take a deeper look at what I'm buying and it's enough to make another person apoplectic. First off, I only buy vinyl. You can call me a snob. You can call me an idiot. But it's a two year habit that's sticking, and if you look at my collection, it's definitely growing quite quickly. So I spent $100 on 5 full lengths, a 12", and a 7". If I had purchased the same quantity of music digitally, I could have acquired probably another 4 full length albums. Even cds are cheaper. But if I'm going to feed my tactile pleasure (and I am a tactile person) I'm going to buy vinyl. Why? Because I like it. Cds bring me no pleasure. But it's how we got music when I was growing up, and monetarily speaking, it made more sense. I'm older now, though. It's my money, and I may spend a few dollars more versus the exact same product in a different form, but I like having it. It could be peacockishness, it could be the same reason I own all those books, it could be that I just have a lot of trouble not accumulating crap. I enjoy the ritual of record listening, of getting up every 20 minutes to flip sides, the record cloth, the big liner notes, the larger cover of Pulp's This Is Hardcore being that much more disturbing. If physical music, much like books, is a dying art form that only appears to a hardcore base, then why not get it in the form that actually appeals to you?

The two attitudes I displayed aren't diametrically opposed, but they are different. I do fall for the trap when it comes to music. If something's only been pressed in a run of 500, well, you can bet that if I want it I'll find the money. But I don't care about the hertz or dynamic contrast ratio or anything like that. I just care that my television has a fair number of ports to hook up all of my video game systems. Not that a lack of constancy or consumer hypocrisy is uncommon in most of us. Just that it's more on my mind on a weekend where I blew through more cash than I thought I would, but not more than I can afford.

The Modern Friend

2010-06-08T22:24:00.004-05:00

This could be apocryphal, but I remember my father saying to me one day when I was in high school not to enjoy it for a lot of the normal reasons that are bandied about, but because it's one of the easiest times to meet new people and become friends with them. As he put it (possibly fictitiously, though it sounds good, so here's to you, Dad), it's all like a funnel after that. Of course, like many things that my parents and other elders said to me when I was younger, I am finally grasping that. But some things you just gotta learn.

I think about this because of the difficulty with making new friends. It's not that there aren't a lot of other good people out there. There certainly are, and some of us are better at letting them in than others for sure, but it's not just that. It's not just that I have slightly introverted tendencies on occasion. It's that I have to take my own life, with all of its scheduled activities and set aside sufficient time to sate my desires for whatever time I need, and then I have to fit that with one other person's schedule; now try that with a couple you just met that you think would be cool to hang out with. Or do it with 4 or 5 of your current friends, even the ones you're pretty close with. With some exceptions, it's difficult to even get two peoples' schedules, and this doesn't even exclude married people, as I sometimes wonder when some married people I know see each other.

Let's take an mostly real example w/ some changed names because I haven't asked anyone whether I could write about them in this context, and that's just impolite otherwise. Let's say I just met Julia at a friend's party, and we have some things in common, so we exchange digits or look each other up on Facebook and say, sure, we should get together and play some games sometime. Factor in that Julia has a spouse and that Brad, the person who organized, would like to get together for whatever we do, and Brad's spouse as well. Thank god I don't have a spouse right now, it makes all this fictional planning easier. So now we've gotta take 5 peoples' time and figure out how to make it work. Throw in that I work a lot of overtime and a couple people frequently work late, I've gotta come from Saint Paul, someone's in Minneapolis, and someone else is in the western burbs, and as you can see, what we've got here is a colossal clusterfuck.

So what does that mean? Does that mean I hide in my living room, throw my hands up in the air, and give up? Some nights. I have been a bit removed from finding people to go get 10 after 10 at the Herk for a while now, and frankly, I couldn't manage that quite like I once did. I'm forced to concede that my father had a point. But is that tantamount to surrender? Sure, it feels harder to get people to stick to plans now than it did ten years ago, and that's what I'd blame all this modern technology for. It's too easy to reschedule now, and too easy to overbook our own schedules knowing that rescheduling is just a button away on our phone, or a few short key strokes even. Instead of making plans and sticking to them, people are gradually holding out for the next best thing, always checking to see if that offer is coming in via text or e-mail or whatever. I'm sure if we could have done it efficiently with smoke signals, we would have. But you don't have to be there when you can just call and say you'll be late and more than you have to expect anyone to be on time as they go from one overstuffed day to the next. I've read a lot recently about what the proliferation of technology has done to our inability to focus on tasks, but I've only tangentially seen in the articles what it does to our relationships. And frankly, that's what bothers me more. It's the feeling that when I'm talking with someone, a good friend even, I do not have their full attention. And that feeling can't be helping us have more "friends", no matter how many people are in our phones and on our Facebook pages. People used to have to plan ahead, they used to have to wait to get the box scores in the morning, and they used to have to pay attention. These skills have been replaced by our phones, which gives us reminders as to when we need to be somewhere, or scores, or even lets us simply record that which we truly need to understand thoroughly for later in a small capacity.

So I continue to meet new people, and we continue to exchange numbers and e-mails until we've passively let each other into our lives and we can say what is on our minds based on the platitudes we choose to share with 400 others, or 136 in my case. While it's easier than ever to reach out to the people in our lives that do matter, it doesn't necessarily increase our communication with them. We continue to say things and hope that people continue to listen. At which point, I must admit that the entire idea of a blog is not much better in that regard. I am passively seeking an audience, putting something out there and hoping it finds people, whereas before I didn't have that option, but this, technically speaking, could reach anyone. It could reach someone in Sao Paulo or Nagasaki or Perth for all I know. But I don't do a good job of making sure it reaches anyone. Nor do I do an especially great job of following through on a lot of things. It's a lot of energy to constantly try to make plans that fall through, even if it's just an e-mail away, it's a lot of juggling, and there's always another game to play or book to read when I don't want to deal with the energy required by modern life.

None of this stops me from feeling disconnected with all the people around me. Even as I've tried harder to let people in, I find it harder. Hell, I can't even get my parents to call me back, let alone friends. And I know we're all busy. I don't know if we lost the ability to prioritize in this strange, fractured world we live in. But I do feel like we've lost the ability to make time. After all, there's always another show to go to, another article to read online, another funny link to pass on, another structured activity that makes it impossible to do this and that around it.

But what do I do? I keep trying to focus. I keep throwing the e-mails out there. I keep making the phone calls. I keep hoping this won't be the time I'm blown off because it was a long day. And yet I keep making plans precisely because I know people aren't going to answer the e-mails or return the phone calls, and I can tell just as assuredly as I will continue to overfill my time, so will others. So I guess the first solution is to stop that. I don't like being double booked when the airline does it to me, so why should my friends enjoy it when I do it to them. The next step is not getting stressed about those sorts of things. Sure, there are a lot of things going on June 19th. But I made plans, and I damn well intend to enjoy them, and Tame Impala be damned. It's just a show, and more will come along like it, but it's more infrequent that the good friends come around as I get older. And if manipulating enough schedules just to get half a dozen of us together without some specific reason other than my volition isn't enough reason to celebrate, then I don't know what cause is.

Think Of This As Practice

2010-06-02T21:58:00.002-05:00

I've been attempting, if I've been at home in front of my computer, to write every night at 10 pm. It doesn't have to be long, and it certainly doesn't have to make sense. But it's a good habit to get into for me. It moves up my natural writing time, but since midnight is no longer a viable option, well, other things have to naturally adjust. It's good for me, too, as I can't do anything loud after 10 and I highly doubt that my neighbors will complain about the furious tapping of my fingers, though they might complain if I went over and flicked on the SVT-200T.

But the matter of what to say? Some days I'm more inspired than others. Some, you might agree, I'm just more insipid. I've had occasion to learn that while one can find something to write about every day, it can be a bit of a challenge. Though, in hindsight, it certainly makes the time more memorable. Even in 2006, when I wrote a story a week, it's memorable in a different way than 2007 is, which just feels like it has holes. Of course, taking too much time cataloging the living gets in the way of doing the actual living, so there's a balance to be sure. And not every moment is clear about June 2nd, 2005, other than the fact that obviously nothing had happened to inspire me on that particular day, because it's not a temporal poem (unless we went to TI that night...I guess we could have). Or 2006, where I wrote a story based on the paradoxically anti-consumerism sybaritic artist (and where I wrote the main character from a female perspective). I read this things, and they inform me. I certainly see bits of me and that time frame that went into them. But it's hard to say what I'm just filling in based on what I think happened, what I recorded and believed to be true, and what I was just making up whole cloth. After all, there are probably false things in my writing that I'm convinced are true, little things, admittedly, but things I've read so much that I now believe them even though they were never true.

So if I'm recording this inaccurate account of my time, then what's it all for? Because an inaccurate account is better than none at all? Potentially. Because I like it, as Becky, the more like me than I cared to admit at the time character of "The Art Of Consumerism", would say? Or just because? However, the answer lies more in habit and desire than anything else. Once I get writing, I keep writing. And when I keep writing, occasionally strange and wonderful things come out of me. It's rare that I have "it" when I sit down, and while I certainly kicked off my poetry writing project with a conceived poem, most of them were found poems, and even after they came out and really worked. Or even when I write a prescient little bit in this blog, like 4 years ago about how no one cares about the World Cup...and I could still write that. For me, I have ideas, and some of them are good and should be developed, some have been developed and left to wallow in notebooks and doc files, but most good ideas that come out of me are just as much of a surprise to me as they hopefully are to you. So I know that even when I don't have much to say that something will come out. It may not be memorable, but it is something, and while this certainly is more of a turning over rocks until I find what I'm looking for approach, that could be said of many, many writers. We can't all be Elizabeth Bishop, and I know I've invoked her name in this regard before, but it's the truth. Just the same as I could be Harper Lee and only have one thing in me, but that one thing is great. But I doubt that's me. I have to keep kicking stones until I find what I'm looking for. And certainly, it's tough to conceptualize that which you don't yet know, be it in form, content, or even approach. But somehow, it works out. If, along the way, I happen to "remember" a little bit more about some of the times of my life because of that, well, so be it.

To Wish Impossible Things

2010-06-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

I did not intend to write about this until I sat in front of my computer today and mused on the fact, that, well, tomorrow's two years. Huh. I could expound the flow of time, have before, and don't really care to at this time anyway. Many people have said it better, so I suggest you go seek one of them to tell you about the funny nature of the passage of time. Or about the palpable difference between going forward, going through, and looking backwards, even though, ostensibly, they are all measured in the same overall base 60 units that we can thank the Babylonians for. So two years since what? That's another reason that time is funny. After all, it's not two years since I decided to transition, and that date is both past and in the rather tenebrous recesses of my mind. Nor is it two years from when I told many people. And it's probably not two years exactly since you saw me for the first time. Unless you work with me. I think about where I am tangibly (my entire wardrobe of everyday things since then is gone with the exception of a few quality t-shirts and pairs of shoes) and intangibly (my entire outlook). But mostly I don't think too much these days. I don't mean that in a bad way. If I want to get some thinking done, well, I've got a 50 minute commute each way to fill on my bike, and that's a good time to do it. But otherwise, one of the things I feel is different is that I spend less time stuck in my head. I don't think I tipped the E too far on Meyers-Briggs (ENTP forever), but certainly, it's more out there than it used to be. That, in it of itself, makes writing more difficult. While I'm still a relatively solitary person who respects my time, it's spent doing things, not thinking about doing things. At least in my opinion it is. There are many things I talked about for a long time that just kept piling up, and many of the more challenging ones are still out there. But just because they are daunting doesn't mean I don't intend to get around to them. Some might say that two years has been plenty of time to address those things, but it's a complex juggling act between balancing my own needs, wants, and outright pleasures in respect to the fact that I need to figure out a way to do that. That happens to be fighting fraud at this time. So I put in my 40 (or my 50) and do my best to address everything else in the rest of the time I've got. And slowly, I'm plowing through some things I meant to do. It's amazing how long it takes me just to do simple things that are right around the corner. For example, I grabbed a slice of pizza at Cosetta and in the 7 years I've lived here, I've never been there. Sure, I didn't live in St. Paul, but I certainly spent time down around W 7th. Never been there. So of course there's a long list of things that keep getting longer (you should see my burgeoning "To Buy" vinyl list...it's ugly). But instead of spending all my time worrying about how I can't do it all and not doing anything, I'm doing things. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with as many other misguided souls as I can round up. And if that means dragging you to Mickey's because you've never been there, well, you've been warned. Transitioning has taught me a lot of wonderful things, but one I gloss over mentally is that it's taught me how to target what's important for me and go after it. And while that process more legitimately started 3 years ago, not 2, it's a tangible point. It's a day to drink to or just generally enjoy. It's not another birthday; I've only got one of those, and besides, that should be more in honor of my mom anyway, as she did all the hard work, but we've got some twisted logic in this here world. But it's not that. It's another reminder to keep plowing forward. To get back to the list of Hugo award winners and start reading again. Or to get out the Minnesota map and put pins in the wall where there are parks I've been to so I know where to head next time. Or to look back on one of the first things I wrote that I felt like came from my true voice (that would be "My Next Boyfriend Will Have To Sign Waivers") where I wasn't worried about what anyone would think. It's a time to wish impossible things, and look back in a year or two and realize that I did them. There's no reason I can't start the next batch of things that feel that way to me right now.

Ownership

2010-05-31T20:49:00.003-05:00

So I made it through an entire week of bike riding and I'm none the worse for wear. I'm sure my body wouldn't totally agree, as the wake-up call is not one that I love, but getting my exercise in with my commute is pretty nice. I'm finally 95% done with this place. The other 5% is buying things that I don't need, but would compliment it nicely or I'll need eventually (2 bar stools, a vacuum, door-hanging iron board) and finally putting all of my toiletries in order in the bathroom and making it look like more than a pile of random pills, make-up, and jewelry. I'm sure this will happen eventually. Well, that and the MWL sign is still causing me problems. I don't know how to hang it in brick, but that's a problem for another time.

As it is, everything is together, and I can finally get back to whatever it is that I did before I put everything in a box. So what was everything that I was doing that I need to get back to? A good question. I have, for many years, been lugging around a number of possessions that I no longer use or need, and this move was no different. Why I do this could be debated for various reasons. I can travel light when I need to, as I used to when I was younger, and frankly, I could live with 50 lbs or less on my back and be happy. I was last summer for 6 days. So why don't more of us live like that? The actual amount of things required to live is not all that significant, so why do we accumulate so much stuff as people. I own way too much junk, and I am a bit of a collector (okay, maybe more than a bit), but why do we own the stuff that we do. I can go to the library to get books. Music is pretty well available wherever I have an Internet connection, and there are plenty of legal means for that. The same could be said of many other media, and as most of my stuff is media, I have to ask myself, is it worth it to have Mega Man 2 at my disposal at any time, or Phantasy Star II or all 9 volumes of Preacher. What about The Phoenix Guards by Steven Brust or Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley or the complete works of Robert Frost? For my part, I like tangible things. It is not a distrust of the electronic age. Nor is it some weird post-apocalyptic sort of hoarding. Hell, half my stuff wouldn't even work after any sort of major Earth changing disaster. Sure I could play Scrabble by candlelight, but in that kind of world, I don't think that would be my biggest priority. So why?

Because I like it. Not to be overly hedonistic about it, but we are all only here for so long, and so, to that end, shouldn't we surround ourselves with the things and people that we love and try to get the most out of them? I love the portability of today, the fact that with a tiny device or even a computer I have access to so many things that I "own" . But some days I need to come home after an awful day, I need to pull This Is Hardcore and listen to "Help The Aged" with all its crackly glory. Or look at my Dream statue as I clumsily work my way through chords on my guitar. So, no, I don't feel bad about the stuff I own. I am trying to do a better job of figuring out the positive use of some of these things, and if they don't have one, I'm trying to give them away, sell them, or outright get rid of them, and it's time consuming, but I'm trying to be smart about it. It's harder for me to do than I thought it would be, but I've learned how to let get rid of things whether I want to or not.

So now I've got all my stuff set up. Time to get the people here and enjoy it. Be that some M83 and board games or a couple beers and some Dr. Mario. Anyway, things to do before I finally drift off, so I better get on it.

Just Another Day

2010-05-26T21:55:00.002-05:00

Some days things just don't work right. Today, for example, I left home without enough clothes to change at work, so as soon as I got to the top of Grand, I had to turn right back around and pick up enough clothes that I could be decent at work, because as much as it's casual, I'm sure underwear is still encouraged, if not required (tell that to some people there...). So I hope back on my bike, about 20 minutes behind, and I make it to work, albeit a little later than I want, which means that I'm gonna have to stay a little later than I want or work less overtime or whatever the actual calculus works out to these days. I can't even do something simple like take my water bottles with me when I walk away from my bike, and I keep dropping things, and I know, yeah, it's just going to be one of those days. With all that in mind, there were no minor catastrophes until the zipper on my skirt broke. Which vexed me, but was at least solvable with safety pins. Then my evening plans were scuttled. I could continue if you'd like, but I think that illustrates the point I'm trying to make. And that point is? It was still a pretty good day. I suppose I could wallow in all of it, and maybe there was a time where I used to, but I don't really feel like that. Sure, I'm tired, and annoyed, and none of that was what I wanted to deal with. But how many days do we have to deal with things that we don't want to deal with? I would venture to say almost every day we bother to interact with anything beyond our home. And if you don't live by yourself, every day. I know I won't always keep a good attitude about it, but honestly, I've got bigger problems to deal with than a broken zipper, and that's worth remembering. I know in the context that it doesn't remove the fact that I spent far too long trying to deal with that when I should have been working. But what can you do but just sit back down and try to get back to it? Besides tomorrow will be better. Will it actually be? No way to know, but it's pointless to go into the day thinking it will be bad. That just creates a bad day. I don't claim to adhere to this policy too well, but that's how I'm feeling right now. There will be bad days ahead, no doubt, but there's no reason to make one that's a trifle into that.

Establishment

2010-05-25T22:29:00.003-05:00

The hardest day of any enterprise is never the first. It may take a long time to get to that point, but on the first day, there's the newness, the satisfaction of accomplishing or beginning or organizing whatever it may be, e.g. planning a get together in NE or doing a game night or organizing a hiking trip. I think of this because this morning on the bike was awful. I slept poorly. I took a slightly different route to see if it would be any better (Kellogg to John Ireland which becomes Summit right next to the Cathedral instead of Kellogg to W 7th to Grand). It was not better. At 6:15 there's not much traffic, but there are still lights and cars to navigate around, whereas Grand is just a smooth uphill ride. I don't even think the grade was different, I just believe it was the starting and stopping. Nonetheless, it had me wondering, what the hell am I doing riding my bike this early. There's a part of me that is still flirting with moving my work schedule since I know at some point life will intervene. For example, I'm curious to see how I feel to jump on the bike on Friday morning. That one could be interesting. Or it could be that the other things in my life will subtly shift. Maybe I'll get lucky and there will be more weekend shows instead of weekday shows. Or maybe I'll just become one of those people who enjoys getting up at awful times like 5:45 am. I doubt that one will happen, but I certainly can do it. Usually only in the presence of nothing else to do (for example, on a backpacking trip, where I got up about 6 am every day. Of course, I was asleep by 10 pm too) can I pull off a feat like that. But I want to keep doing it. So instead of making excuses for why I can't do it, maybe I just shift my work schedule around. Because I'm tired of making excuses for why I cannot do something. There's always a reason, but normally, there's a good solution at hand or it's something unnecessary that I can do without if I bother to think. I was going to pick up more Powerbars to have something to eat in the morning, but I forgot, so I just got a box of granola bars. Problem solved. That's my take away. Obviously I'm not going to bike to work every day for the rest of my life, or even the rest of the summer as I'm sure there will be occasions where it just doesn't make sense. What if I interview for a position? It would be difficult to ride to work. Sure, if I got some advanced notice I could make it work, but the last time they sprang an interview on me (literally, it was 1 or 2 days after they scheduled it, which I didn't expect). So I'm not going to make some foolish promise. But what I'm going to do is get some sleep because if I am tired. And hopefully, unlike last night, my body will go along with the program and I'll get more than 6 hours of sleep. And I will ride my bike. Now it's a novelty, but I hope to establish it as a fact some day.

I Wonder What The Happy Room Academy Will Give Me Tomorrow

2010-05-24T21:58:00.003-05:00

If I had been more enterprising, I would have taken pictures of my place as I was putting it together, so you can walk through some of the mental gymnastics with me. Alas, I didn't do that, and now I stand at a point where it's more together than not (I'd say about 70-30) and it's the touches that truly make it mine that are about to go up. Figuring out where to put the reference books, how best to organize my board games. Media has already been mostly taken care of, though if anyone has any suggestions for where I could find some bookends apropos to graphic novels, well, the suggestion is duly noted. Now it's time to start getting the pictures up, the world map circa 1988, and in its triumphant return to decoration, the MWL sign. And after many e many dollars at my local IKEA, I even have some quasi-wooden furniture to compliment it all. Which means that it's time to do some sort of open house. But that's a problem for another night. As is, I'm just happy that it's starting to take shape, and that all of my music stuff will be taken care of tonight, and soon, all my games, and then the final organization of the closet, and then I can just come home and lie on my bed for a while instead of always feeling like there's something that needs to be unpacked, re-arranged, or broken down. It's a good feeling. I love the feeling of opportunity that putting together a new place provides, but I'll be glad when I can say that I'm finally through that phase, at least for a little bit. I'm sure I'll re-arrange it soon enough. Besides, there's still more things that will help complete it. And it only occasionally looks like I'm trying to collect the modern set.

The New Normal

2010-05-23T21:46:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow morning I'm going to make yet another effort to bike to work consistently. This time, I think it'll stick. I could never manage it before because it was just to short. Sure, there are still benefits to biking two miles, but it's hard to talk myself out of it when I'm saving maybe a gallon of gas a week in addition to getting the flexibility of being able to leave without having to think about much if I need to. I put that to use over lunches occasionally when I had things to take care of, like visiting my friendly neighborhood Social Security office, but the reality is, I didn't do it all that much and I shouldn't miss anything like that. It was just hard to get worked up over 2 miles, which sounds ridiculous, I know, but it didn't trigger anything for me.

Now, it's more like 12 miles. And it starts out uphill for the first couple miles. Should be a blast. More to the point, though, it should give me the ability to guarantee getting riding time in, as if I do ride my bike every day during a work week, I'm looking at 120 miles per week not including any weekend riding or detours on the way home. So sure, it's an hour of my time on either side, but I'm not getting up much earlier than I would be if I were leaving from here anyway, and I'll still be getting home around the same time I would normally barring no overtime.

Maybe, though, I'm just ready to make something like this stick. I'm not out to save the world here, but it's something I enjoy that I've done a poor job of making time for the past couple weeks, and it will save me significantly on gas. At least that's the hope. I think I have the maturity and the wherewithal to follow through on goals now, which, while never being my strongest suit, has been something I've done much better the past few years. And sure it'll be weird for the first couple of days, but then it eventually becomes what I do, and that becomes the new normal. Whatever normal is. But that's something for another time. Anyway, I should try to get some more sleep if I'm going to make this happen the first week and to that end, I'll do something I probably should do more often. Go to bed instead of seeing what I can turn up on the various corners of the internets.

St Paul Girl

2010-05-22T23:31:00.002-05:00

A lot of people have asked me recently why I moved to St. Paul. Please hold that thought and keep reading.

For the first time in 2+ years, I have a reliable internet connection. What does that mean to you? Or me? I, for one, would like to use the opportunity to write more often online. It's hard when you don't know when you can actually get online, but that's not really a problem now. I can just leave it up like I used to and add to it as I go along. But what does that really mean?

I have several ideas for what it could mean. For reasons that probably deserve their own entry, my blogging will probably never be at the pace that it once was. Mostly, I think this has to do with Facebook, but there are other reasons. But I've had a couple ideas for creative projects recently that I've been mulling over, one that I might kick-start soon, and I always like to use the Internet to share those kinds of ideas. Certainly I could have done those things without an internet connection, as people have been doing that for thousands of years, but that isn't the only reason I haven't been terribly creative.

Blaming transitioning feels a bit lazy, but I think about the amount of energy that the past two years have consumed and I realize that probably plays into it. Someone once told me that I should be writing down everything that's happening to me because I'm not going to feel these feelings again; that used to be how I functioned, but this time, I didn't do that. Why not? I think a large function of the writing I did before I started living how I wanted to (at least from a gender identity perspective) helped me handle those inchoate feelings. Feelings of not being happy with who I was, feelings of never being able to be happy, feelings that I could never let anyone know what was going on inside me because obviously there was something wrong with me, etc. So it came out sometimes in veiled ways (mostly personal journal sorts of affairs or poetry in the Emily Dickinson tradition), efforts of subterfuge and misdirection (short stories and poems where I can't tell sometimes if I'm trying to convince you or me that's how I feel) or it didn't come out at all (most of my blog entries). That isn't to say that writing isn't heartfelt or true or didn't come from someplace meaningful. It's just that in every aspect of my life I deliberately omitted something that was obviously integral to who I am, and that's bound to have an effect. It doesn't mean that I have a problem with a lot of what I wrote before, though. There's some fine quasi-essay work in this blog, some damn fine poetry that I'm proud of and I'd publish under any name or gender identity (here's looking at you, Beauty Of The Fall), and some short stories that I really should have done something with other than write. I didn't, but you know, they're not going anywhere, and that's a problem for another day. Granted, some of the essayish writing got better post transition as I explored topics that I'd kicked around for a long time, but been afraid to write about, but that's neither here nor there. It has been at best sporadic for some time, though.

I feel that I have to find my auctorial again because while I'm still me, obviously I'm not the same. The past two years have shown me that. Occasionally, like last night, I'm reminded of that when someone I used to know orders a drink right next to me or walks by me. It's hard to pretend someone you know or used to know is a stranger. But I suppose to a lot of people that's what it's felt like getting to know me as Jane. I may not like it, but I do have to respect it. Hell, some of them might not even recognize me anymore, so it's possible that I am a stranger. As I stated before, I've had some trouble finding and sustaining my voice. So that's the first goal. The form that it takes on, whether in a blog entry, a poem, or something entirely else that never makes its way to the web, doesn't matter. Just that I do it. I know there's a part of me that will never feel like I stop transitioning (I never really do), but for all intents and purposes, come February 2011, I'm done. And I've mostly accomplished what I set out to do in the first place, which was to get my shit together and learn how to live more wholly than I had in the past. And if I turned a few heads along the way, then so be it.

All of which brings me back to the first question. Why move to St. Paul? Why did I transition? As I told many of you who asked, and some of you who didn't probably inferred, because I needed to. Now, I didn't have to leave 612 to get a working toilet and internet, but I chose to. It feels like the right decision for me at this time. So I sit in a studio with exposed brick and all the amenities I've been missing from a place and it's a camera crew away from feeling like the set to a post college kids growing up into actual adults sitcom. It's got a piped in stream across the street and a farmer's market a block away. The Mississippi has never been closer to my door. I've got a luxurious alley view. All of which may sound horrendous to you, though likely the most abhorrent thing to all the West siders out there is that I even chose to live in this city in the first place. But I needed a change of pace. I had lived in Minneapolis for almost 7 years (hard to imagine, but true) and some serious wanderlust had set in. I've already seen how the other half lives in a lot of regards, so what is it to do that one more time? Maybe I need change to function. Or maybe everything else in my life had finally calmed down enough that I could address some of the other feelings in my life. Because there's more to me than my gender identity, though it has certainly felt consuming of late. Now, it's just time to get out there and start expressing all those other things.

On Depression

2010-03-17T23:07:00.003-05:00

Do you suffer from depression? It's tough to describe if you don't, because it's one of those inenarrable aspects of living. I struggle with the same problem when it comes to simply talking about my gender identity, but I do believe that everyone has at least one inenarrable quality to their being, whether it is their belief in a higher power or something slightly less uplifting, like depression.

It's not news to me when I feel this way, I've felt this way for a long time, and while I've alleviated many aspects of the depression that is a hallmark of my life, it's just something that never really goes away. Sure, I feel a lot better about myself. I do, because there's an authenticity about who I am now that I've lacked for a long time, but it doesn't mean that I don't continue to have moments in life where there are thoughts, feelings, tasks weighing down on me. I can tell I don't want to deal with stuff as I look at how everything has piled up in my apartment.

But the key difference that I can at least say now is my ability to continue to function with this feeling. It's frustrating to have something there that could bubble up when you want it least, like in the middle of your workday, and it's even tougher to find that there's no really good way to deal with that or explain it to someone. It's not like I can say "Hey, look, I threw up, therefore I'm sick, and I am going home". Of course, it's not asymptomatic to feel depressed either (see the large stacks of crap piled around my apartment). On the other hand, I wouldn't have made it through three years at my job, and I wouldn't continue to get much of anything done if I just let this feeling, ineffable as it is, keep me from doing anything. And sure, there's more I wanted to get done this week or last week, but isn't there always more? Our lives by this point are full of too much and while we can keep making valiant efforts to try and do all that too much, it is impossible.

I know when I get this feeling that it's good for me to write, and I don't think I've been doing that enough. I can tell that it makes me feel better. It's almost like these thoughts are just something I have to get out of my system, and if I don't do it regularly, I definitely don't do myself any favors. As for whether or not I share them, well, that is of course a matter of opinion. For me, I don't want it building up when I feel this way. It built up for almost 27 years and that was no good for me. I am happy with myself now in the respect that I am me. But being happy doesn't mystically connote the ability to never feel depressed again, just like it doesn't make me smile all the time. Transitioning is the best decision I made, sure, but it also fucked some things up, and just because it was right for me doesn't mean it isn't hard and I don't get down about things. That's one of those places I'm at now, where I feel like I'm almost "done" (at least, with the constant costly medical bills and all the little processes such as rolling over my entire wardrobe) and I'm casting about trying to figure out what's next. That's a big thing; do I want to take a risk I haven't in a while and try to do something I care more about artistically since insurance will no longer be the most important thing about my employment? Do I need to get out of Minnesota for a bit because that's what would be best for me? How do I want to approach writing again? Do I even want to try? Would I like to try and do something like be in a band again? It's empowering to feel all these options in front of me again as I've felt a little chained the past couple years. Granted, it's what I've wanted to do, and certainly a bit part of who I am, but my gender identity is not all of who I am. It's been frustrating to put all these other things in my life on hold unless I can figure out a good way to fit them into the pre-existing facts of transitioning. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of money, and while I'm certainly making a living, both of those things are finite.

This may have been useless, but depression's just one of those things that you can't quite describe. I've read that it's supposed to help me critically think about a problem (an admittedly controversial viewpoint) to feel this way, and if that is the case, maybe it did. Maybe that shows. Or maybe this doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's the old dancing about architecture problem. For me, it's the torpor of it all that gets old. But it doesn't stop me from continuing to go to work every day, or getting on the bike, or going to see the bands I want to, or getting together with my friends (well, except for every once in a while, but not so much that it's problematic). Obviously the management of my depression has gone hand in hand with the management of who I am, and it's much easier to deal with now than it's ever been. And while that doesn't stop me from having the occasional existential crisis at my desk at work as I briefly feel very unimportant and wonder what the hell it all means, it also doesn't stop me from doing my job. For me, that's the importance of the writing and the music, whether it's as a listener, reader, player, or writer. I need those outlets to channel these feelings, to get them out before I go crazy...or maybe crazier.

A Reflection

2010-03-08T22:59:00.003-06:00

How do you see yourself? When you look in the mirror, is that you looking back, or someone you never thought you'd quite be? What about someone you don't want to be? These are all valid responses. The mirror may not speak, but it poses a lot of questions internally. Do you like what you see? Many of us, especially as we get older (and we're not even that old yet, are we?) see places where we would like to make changes when we look in the mirror. We remember how different we looked even 5 years ago, before we stopped having the time to work out as much, before two kids, before whatever events life throws at us, whether they were extemporaneous or carefully planned. Of course, the problems come up when there's dissonance between what we see and what we think we should see. When the mirror and your brain are in agreement, well, that's great. I mention this because it still brings a smile to my face when I look in the mirror in the morning when I dash off before work, or right before going to bed. It took a long time, but hey, that's me looking back, and while there are still things about myself that I would like to do something about, be it going back in for a touch up with the laser hair removal or getting rid of a touch of that stomach fat, I see me, and I accept what's there.

Of course, for a long time, I didn't view it that way. Now one of the aspects that I found particularly tough in embracing femininity was just how that would manifest itself. What is a woman? While that could be in it of itself a much longer post, it is simple to say that there is not a definite answer, and while Webster or OED might trick you, it's harder than you think. On a genetic level, there are people who have chromosomal oddities that are still "feminine" (such as androgen insensitivity syndrome). And there are plenty of women that can't have kids for a variety of reasons. There are women who wouldn't be caught dead in anything other than pants or shorts. Yet they probably all express some level of femininity (and masculinity); it could be minimal in one aspect, such as dress, but pronounced in other ways, such as expected societal behavior. So did you get all that? Have you ever thought about what makes you a man or a woman? It's a tough thing to define. So when thinking about that, and how there's not a solid answer, how does one generate a defined self-image that is feminine?

Certainly it's tricky. After all, there are maybe things that I thought I needed to do or show or accentuate to be more feminine, things that fairly or unfairly I did not feel I had. But I'm not going to rail against testosterone and what it did to my poor voice box or my shoulders because that's not the point. Nor am I going to bemoan a way that I feel I have to dress to get the point across. I dress the way I dress because I like to, frankly. I know people who've transitioned and still wear pants almost the entire time. I like skirts. That doesn't mean I expect every woman I know to. It's just something that works for me, it fits into my fashion sense, and therefore I choose to wear them a lot. But that doesn't mean that my boss isn't feminine because she only wears pants to work. Nor do I feel like I have to wear skirts or dresses more to compensate. While it's certainly more feminine to wear a summer dress, it does nothing to stop people from using the wrong pronouns because there's more to gender than how we dress.

So that's one element I had to figure out. What did I want to look like? Now I had to balance that against what I expected to look like. What kinds of gains I would get from being on estrogen or from exercising, how I always thought I would look in my head in a fantastical sense, etc. How I thought I should look is, of course, much tougher. After all, estrogen was going to solve all of my problems, right? Right? Um...not so much. It's a constant sense of revision, after all, and while I may still have some idealized views in my head of how I want to look for at least a couple events in my life (after all, who doesn't think about how she's gonna look on her wedding day?), I've realized through the process that it's pretty useless to try and be something unrealistic. I mean, I was never going to be any shorter than I am, so I have to embrace that. And while it may have been a nice fantasy to think of myself as shorter because it would make some aspects of transitioning a little easier in a fashion sense, that's just not in the cards. But when it's been a fantasy for so long, how do you assuage that and come to terms with what you have, what you don't, and what you can and can't change?

I don't know. I think I've learned there's a lot more about our identities that is fungible than I ever thought prior to transitioning. After all, I've made quite a few changes, and yet, I'm still me. All these swaps and little changes I've made in habits, dress, attitude, etc have all come together to truly make me. Before I transitioned, I certainly saw me in the mirror, but it was a me that I wasn't happy with because pieces didn't fit together quite right. And now, when I look in the mirror, I see a realized version of myself. Still one that I'm constantly working on, but one that I'm happy with. I live with the foibles just as much as I live with the great things about myself now. After all, it may have been hard to find a pair of 13W boots with 2 inch heels, but how else would I have seen the bag of M & Ms someone left on top of the snack machine the other day?

I leave with a question, though. I know how I see myself, and I'm happy with that. Just as much as I hope you are happy with yourself. But how do you see me?

Perseverance

2010-03-08T00:07:00.003-06:00

So I told myself I was going to write earlier, and I even remembered what it was at that time, but it must have flitted my brain. Thus the perils of spending my time in truly dorky fashion, like sorting my Magic cards to figure out what to sell.

It's weird, because I don't know if it's worth the time per se, but I'd much rather get the $2000 or so I can get for being patient than just sell it. And I don't know why that is. It could just be that I don't have a lot to do right now. Then again, I'll be spending many hours sorting through all this crap and getting it ready to go. Of course, I get better at navigating eBay, better at taking the pictures and writing the ads, better at using the post office, better at figuring out whether it's worth my time to send things overseas. But are these skills I really need? Really, is anything a skill I need?

I want to do something that requires skill in the sense that I have to persevere and still there might not be some great reward sitting there at the end. I could write my entire life and nothing could happen with it. In fact, death could be the best career move for me a writer. An unfortunate state, but nonetheless a true one. Not that I have any intention of dying just to become a famous author. It's cliche anyway. But anything creative, there's no guarantees. Then again, the reward is so much greater potentially. I put in a proportional amount of effort with selling my cards in regards to how much I get out of it monetarily. But that doesn't exist when I sit down at the piano or the keyboard. I used to be more bugged by the arbitrary nature, but I remember that Wallace Stevens worked in insurance his entire life and once got so discouraged he didn't write for a decade. Not that I'm Wallace Stevens by any means, but it points out two things that I think are important to realize. One, if you plan to write, that's great if you end up making a living that way, but don't count on it. Two, you will get discouraged and not want to keep at it all the time. I think creative people don't stick with anything their entire lives. But they keep coming back to it. Whether it's good for them or not.

I've never been known for my perseverance skills. Then again, I've made it much further than I ever thought I could in terms of being myself. When I look in the mirror, I see me, and that only took 28 years or so to figure out. But that is a topic for another time. The thing about writing is I just have to keep trying, and there's no template, and that's frustrating because I spend a lot of time in a world where there are too many templates. The solution, though, is not for me to try and overlay "logic" or what passes for it onto creativity. Sure I've gotta make my own lucky, but I've still gotta get lucky. That means being in the right position. I may have already passed up my best opportunity to get something published, at least poetically speaking, but another opportunity could happen tomorrow, could not happen for ten years, could not happen at all. It's a tough concept to embrace, especially as I sort lands that I can peg definite values to, and if I spend a couple minutes writing a little post, and taking a picture, and waiting, well, I'll get $3 or $30 or $300 or whatever from them. Then again, that reward is relatively fixed, and while pleasing because I'm getting money and getting rid of something I don't need anymore, it does not nearly match the pleasure one gets from crafting a piece of artwork that can potentially pay me millions of dollars. Though, it'll most likely pay me nothing. And sure, it's pleasurable for me to write. It helps me sort my thoughts, I feel much better when I do most of the time. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't want to be known for writing. I'd just be lying, and why do that? I've spent enough of my life lying about a variety of other things that I see no reason to bring that into my creative outlook. One would think that since I know have a more fully realized view of myself I can have more fully realized writing. I'm not sure if that's the case since I really just haven't been very disciplined in terms of writing since transitioning, but I do hope to find out if that's the case. In the meantime, I have to be a little bit pragmatic and realize that transitioning costs money and I have a lot of stuff I don't use anymore that I can get a bit of money out of. So I have to take that same skill, the perseverance again, and finish getting rid of that stuff, be it Magic cards, old comics, whatever. And while I'm at it, I better keep the fingers moving too. Since I remembered as I was writing, I'll try to talk about that next time. A more trans-centric post about self-image.

In Which The Author Realizes The Crucial Differences Between Giving Up And Accepting

2010-03-04T00:24:00.002-06:00

See, writing is like most other things. While anyone could pick this apart and name exceptions, in most cases, one has to do something, and do it repeatedly, to gain any proficiency. That is certainly true of playing an instrument. After all, I spent many hours just getting to a point where I'm passably able to play a piano, bass, or guitar, and for the most part, when I was most intently working with those, I definitely saw improvement. Especially from the first time I tried to play any given instrument to now. The problem is, it's a lot of work to maintain proficiency. Or maybe not work if one truly enjoys it, but a lot of time, and time, like most other things, is a finite resource. After all, there's only so many hours, and the skill I've learned as I've gotten older is how to juggle all those hours and still do some of those things, because a certain number have to go to personal health, be that sleep or simple relaxation, many of those hours have to go to provide one with a living, and then there's those hours that one has left that aren't allocated. I think about those hours because I have quite a few of them now, but I manage to fill them nonetheless. Sometimes it's just the work of maintaining a proficiency. I don't play piano every day, and I definitely don't play bass every day, but I at least play them enough to maintain my level of skill that I currently have, maybe if I'm really feeling it, I work a little harder for a week or two and get a little bit better. Guitar, I probably play the most, so I make the most strides. But at a certain point, it takes much more work to get much less "result" out. After all, it's not the simple work of just learning how to finger a chord or where all the notes are in a scale. So it becomes harder to get better at something unless one dedicates even more time, which, as I said before, is still finite.

I find this to be a salient point because I look around and I see a lot of stuff in my apartment that represents attempts at or actual past proficiencies. There's a rather larger collection of Magic cards I'm going through the process of painstakingly selling in small lots, because I know that'll get me more value, or the role-playing books that I've already sold. Part diversion, part skill in those hobbies. I never stopped liking those hobbies, and I highly doubt that I ever will. Don't expect me to be the kind of person who condemns people for "failing" to leave behind their childish pursuits. There's nothing childish about it. I simply do not choose to allocate time for those things any more, and I lost my proficiency.

We might not all speak more than one language, but we all speak many lexicons, jargons, whatever you care to call them, from past hobbies, skills, and there's a rote element to it. Once upon a time, you could name a specific card and I could tell you multiple details about it. Set it came out in, artist, flavor text, actual effect, etc. Somewhere in my head, I still have that information, but my actual access to that information is less precise because I failed to maintain that skill. So I still have that all there, somewhere, but what I don't have is the time to play, or people to play with, or the inclination to rearrange my schedule and sacrifice other things that I like to do. And my head is constantly being filled with new lexicons.

Selling my cards is a big deal because it's a tangible realization of the fact that I'm not going to get back to that hobby. Sure, I can use the money, but that's not all of it. It's just that adult knowledge of knowing, there's nothing wrong with this, but I can't juggle this and decide that I want to backpack more, or that I want to make transitioning work and do whatever that needs. Those things take time, they take money, and most of all, they take my mental energy. It is a step in saying, this needs to go because I don't need it any more and someone else can put it to better use.

So what do I need? And what does it have to do with that opening line 4 paragraphs ago? I need time to write. So I need to start creating that again. Which means probably losing out on sleep a little bit on occasion. Or taking a lunch break to put together an idea that I've been meaning to. Or just cracking open the journal. Or finishing "The Cutting Room Floor". It's all of those things. Because I want to get better at writing, and that means it'll take even more work now. The first step is to make it regular again. After all, I exercise 3-4 times a week, consistently, because I've been doing it consistently. It's just a good way to fill the time that I'm used to. Writing can be like that too. It can be insane projects where I write every day. Or it can manifest itself in more simple ways. It doesn't mean a blog entry every day, though it's certainly an outlet I've been intending to utilize more again. It might mean a poem, or a story, or just some journal entries for no one but me. I know I can write. I know it something that I'd rather do with my life than most other things I can think of. But I don't do the work to make it happen. Sure, it takes luck to get a bestseller, or even to get a steady following without bringing that kind of attention and money. Luck, though, is not looking through my hard drive to see what I've written. I've gotta write, I've gotta take it the next step and put it out there. And while this isn't that next step that I've been avoiding for quite some time, well, I just gotta get back into game shape.

99 or 346 Days

2010-02-21T22:03:00.002-06:00

It hasn't been a long time since I've had the urge to write. I experience that urge constantly. But it has been a long time since I've had the desire to follow up on it. Lately, it's been tough to make myself sit down and do something that doesn't take me away; I don't want to do something that is more work after 8 hours of work. Yet, there are things that need doing and time is finite. I think about this because I've already made my mind up that I'm moving out of this place and while 100 days may seem like a long time, it isn't. And while there are sundry tasks that go along with that (like boxing up things and looking for apartments), there are other things that I've been meaning to do in a while, like write. And that's just a matter of sitting down and making my fingers do the work. So...100 days. In fact, it's already 99 days, I realize, as it was 100 yesterday. So there's already one less.

There are things that I meant to do when I moved in here. I didn't. There's no use in beating myself up over things I may not have done in the past, because that's time that's gone and I can't do anything about that. I made a list of things to do during winter, and I've only done 3 of the 7 so far (snowshoe, downhill ski, crosscountry ski, watch pond hockey championships, ice skate, walk across a lake, and see Minnehaha frozen). Minnehaha was the most striking, but the point of the list was to guide me, not tell me what I had to do. But I would have thought that in almost 2 years I'd have more to show for my time in the heart of Uptown, as opposed to my time on the edges in neighborhoods like Whittier and Carag, ECCO and the Wedge. However, that's just thinking about it in a pessimistic way. After all, I have done a lot, and if I think about where I am now as opposed to where I was two years ago, well, it's hard to believe.

Two years ago I was marking time in 2703. At that point, I had already made my mind up about where I was going, but I don't think I had a good clue as to where I was actually going to go when I transitioned. It's pointless to project too much anyway, almost as pointless as it is to look back and wonder "how I didn't see things". But I didn't really have a concept of what I was doing, nor could I explain to you why I was transitioning any more than I can now. It feels right. But then, it was an inchoate thing, some of you knew because I'd told you, some of you knew because someone else had told you, but you did a good job of pretending when I finally got around to telling you, some of you I never explicitly told, and some of you I never even met before I was Jane. Now, as those of you who seen me since June of 2008 can attest, it's a tangible thing, this transitioning. I had all this energy and I was going to change not only the fact that I wasn't happy with who I was, I was gonna change how I lived me life.

Some days it doesn't feel like it. I sit on the couch and I pour through old comics because I just don't have the energy to do anything. Some days it doesn't feel like it because the one thing I did for myself that I desperately needed to do fucked up everything else. And I don't regret it. That's not the point. It's not even that I've never been happier, because I don't feel particularly happy all the time now. The joy one gets from transitioning full time is itself transitory, like the joy one gets from any new enterprise. And the fascination with being able to do things that I lacked the courage to do before wears off. I have settled back to my baseline feelings, and at my base, I'm a pessimistic person, and I don't mean that pejoratively. That's who I am, though maybe it is right to say that I am happy with myself. The major change that I would argue is that I now feel the potential to actually be happy in terms of my relationships with other people, whether friendly, professional, or romantic. It comes down to authenticity, and now, I am authentic.

The feeling that I haven't accomplished anything is not entirely accurate, anyway. Because obviously I have. I know that when I look at all my identification and it all finally says Jane . I know that when I look in a closet and I see things that I want to wear. I know that when I play piano or guitar just to pick an example that has nothing to do with transitioning. And while some aspects of transitioning have become a slog (hello, insurance!) and it occasionally feels like there's no end in sight, there is.

February 3rd, 2011 is an artificial deadline at best. It implies that there is an end, but I think I'll always be transitioning in some ways. On the other hand, SRS or GRS or whatever other acronym of you find out there in the ether puts me on the other side. I don't think that's just the case mentally for myself. I begin to see an end to what has felt for the past 33 months to be endless therapy. I see an end to the feeling that transitioning is a full time job and many things associated with it have required a lot of energy. I realize there are risks to the course of action I'm taking. I also realize that I may not even get there, or I may change my mind, or that I could be feeling the exact same way 346 days from now. I am open to all these potentialities, and moreover, I embrace the fact that I don't know what's going to happen. Besides, in the meantime, I've got 99 days to fill before I start worrying about 346.

I've always found it paradoxical that we have to live life both as if it were going to end at any time and as if it were going to go on forever. There's a balance between making long term plans and seizing the moment to do something impromptu. I know that surgery is right for me. I also know I am moving. And yet, both of those things could change. Maybe not in obvious ways, but in ways nonetheless. So what, then, do I take away from this?

I take away the feeling of knowing that I'm doing what's right for me. I take away the feeling that I now know how to access that part of me that says "hey, what you're doing is the right thing". I know how to listen to myself. I know how to hold up if I feel I'm making a mistake. I know that no matter how hard it is, I can do what's right of me. And I know that it's useless to count the 99 days or the 346 days, because there's more comics I want to read.

Top 50 of 2009 or Yes, I know I put 2 Animal Collective songs on

2009-12-28T22:11:00.001-06:00

After some amount of thought (but not too much), I somewhat codified my top 50 of 2009 and I think the order's set, but I probably forgot something that I'm going to regret later. I think that's the major point of lists anyway. Yes, I know I put 2 Animal Collective songs on here. Deal with it. I've gotten over it and you should too. Besides, if you don't like it, make your own list. That's the point of the internets anyway. At some point, I may try to sync this up with Lala, but that's going to take a bit longer, so by all means, read and seek on your own. If you would like a hard copy in the form of 3 cds, contact me and I can provide them

Song/Artist/Album

50. 11th Dimension by Julian Casablancas from Phrazes for the Young
49. Moth's Wings by Passion Pit from Manners
48. Dawn Lament by Fires Of Rome from You Kingdom You
47. Daylight by Matt & Kim from Grand
46. Helen of Troy by Telefon Tel Aviv from Immolate Yourself
45. Now We Can See by The Thermals from Now We Can See
44. Be My Girl by The Smith Westerns from their s/t debut
43. Reach Out by Music Go Music from Expressions
42. Desert Fun by The Mayfair Set from the Already Warm 7"
41. Seasun by Delorean from the Ayrton Senna EP
40. Gothstar by Pictureplane from Dark Rift
39. Deadbeat Summer by Neon Indian from Psychic Chasms
38. One Long Country Song by Deleted Scenes from Birdseed Shirt
37. Silver Trembling Hands by The Flaming Lips from Embryonic
36. Zero by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs from It's Blitz!
35. I Felt Stupid by The Drums from "Summertime!"
34. The Sea Is A Good Place To Think About The Future by Los Campesinos! from the forthcoming Romance Is Boring
33. Shine Blockas featuring Gucci Mane by Big Boi from the forthcoming (possibly in 2010?) Sir Luscious Left Foot: Son Of Chico Dusty
32. Die Slow by Health from Get Color
31. What Do I Want? Sky by Animal Collective from the Fall Be Kind EP
30. Empire State Of Mind featuring Alicia Keys by Jay-Z from The Blueprint 3
29. Stillness Is The Move by The Dirty Projectors from Bitte Orca
28. Digidesign by Joker from the Digidesign single
27. House Of Flying Daggers featuring Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, & GZA by Raekwon from Only Built For Cuban Linx, Pt. 2
26. When I'm With You by Best Coast from the When I'm With You 7"
25. Rollerskate (Radio Edit) by Matias Aguayo from Ay Ay Ay
24. French Navy by Camera Obscura from My Maudlin Career
23. Lust For Life by Girls from Album
22. Crystalized by The XX from their s/t debut
21. Don't Haunt This Place by The Rural Alberta Advantage from Hometowns
20. Lisztomania by Phoenix from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
19. Actor Out Of Work by St. Vincent from Actor
18. Hellhole Ratrace by Girls from Album
17. Daniel by Bat For Lashes from Two Suns
16. Blood Bank by Bon Iver from the Blood Bank EP
15. Higher Than The Stars by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart from the Higher Than The Stars 12"
14. Sylvia by The Antlers from Hospice
13. Feel It All Around by Washed Out from the Life Of Leisure EP
12. Lovesick Teenagers by Bear In Heaven from Beast Rest Forth Mouth
11. All Yr Songs by Diamond Rings from the Diamond Rings/PS I Love You 7"
10. Song Reminds Me Of You by Annie from Don't Stop
09. Young Adult Friction by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart from their s/t album
08. Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear from Veckatemist
07. My Girls by Animal Collective from Merriweather Post Pavilion
06. Dominos by The Big Pink from A Brief History Of Love
05. Ecstasy bj jj from jj n° 2
04. Young Hearts Spark Fire by Japandroids from Post-Nothing
03. Surf Solar (7" edit) by Fuck Buttons from the Surf Solar 7"
02. Keep It Goin' Louder featuring Nina Sky and Ricky Blaze by Major Lazer from Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do
01. 1901 by Phoenix from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

A Corollary

2009-12-13T21:36:00.000-06:00

A Corollary

I open the car door and step in the ankle deep
snow. A man rides by on his bike, covered
from head to toe and a woman strolls out into
the December night, remarking to her friend
that 9 degrees tonight feels "pretty nice out
here". I nod when I hear that because I didn't
even have to button the top button of my coat
and the past 10 winters in the Upper Midwest
have taught me, it's not the cold, it's the windchill.

The List

2009-12-07T22:39:00.004-06:00

Do you still get goosebumps when you listen to music? Did you ever? Does it hit you that way? Do your knees go weak when a song strikes you and makes you think of a particular moment in your life? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? I do not expect that music has quite the same level of response with everyone, but I do expect that there is some music out there that has the possibility to do this to you, as any good piece of art in any medium can do. Right place, right time, all that. Did you refuse to get out of your car until you heard the end of "One Big Holiday" the first time you heard it? Because I did. I had to know what that song was. Obviously, in this day and age, we have different technology to tell us these things, but in 2004, that technology was definitely not as good. And I had to know who wrote the best guitar solo of this decade. I just had to. Have you ever cried while listening to music? Because it's an emotional response that's sometimes unavoidable. It's associations. Do you think of better times or worse times when you hear "Goods (All In Your Head)" or "Jesus Etc" and does it sometimes make you wish that you were 5 years younger? What about remembering playing King's Quest V whenever you hear "Black" by Pearl Jam? It's memories, it's emotions, it's something that ties life together. Or maybe it isn't for you, but I think it could be. I think it's a question of finding the right stimuli.

To that end, I have tasked myself with the duty of making a list of 100 albums I think you should own. There are a couple parameters worth laying out. First, this is not my top 100 by any means, because I am restricting it to one an artist. Why, you ask? Because I want to give you as much exposure as possible to what I think you should explore out there in the world of music. Also, I would like to think of each as an entry point, and if you do like that artist, you can discover more. And while that leads to many heated internal debates as to what is the best Pavement experience (Slanted and Enchanted or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain), some artists are slam dunks and just make at least one record you should own (here's looking at you, Led Zeppelin IV or Zozo or untilted or whatever the hell you want to call it) though you could just as easily get it right if you buy anything they made (except for Presence or Coda...still 7 out of 9 is a pretty strong number). Second, I tend to favor the whole album as a work, which means that some pieces get graded more highly in my estimation and others are harder to figure out. Especially in the case where one song is far and away superior to the other songs on that record (Bows + Arrows by The Walkmen, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs' s/t exhibit that feature). That doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the album is just a throwaway, though, and I have to juggle that thought process with the superior albums in terms of overall construction that don't have weak points (Rumours (I'm just ignoring "Oh Daddy" from now on), The Moon And Antarctica, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to name a few) that are nearly as glaring. Third, would I actually recommend it? I own plenty of records that I like a lot that I just don't feel the need to highlight for whatever reason. There's something that goes beyond just me liking it. I enjoy listening to Death From Above 1979, but I'm not sure that I would endorse that to other people. It's very dated now, and hard for me to separate from when I got it. I would say the same about Tangiers. They lack that umph. Maybe on a top 500. The last cut, if you were curious, was INXS, so as a form of apology to them, go listen to Need You Tonight. This list may also be revised as I have already realized that I forgot stuff that I didn't mean to as I was putting this together. For example, my brain somehow glossed over the existence of John Coltrane. Really, just inexcusable, but I don't feel like reworking it right now or thinking about what is what. I even almost forgot Neutral Milk Hotel, so yeah, there might be a couple glaring omissions that just never crossed the surface of my brain.

Anyway, have at it. I'm sure you'll disagree with a number of decisions I made, but hey, it's my list. Let me know, and if it's a problem, make your own, and we can disagree with each other.

001) Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
002) The Antlers - Hospice
003) The Arcade Fire - Funeral
004) At The Drive In - Relationship Of Command
005) Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
006) The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
007) The Beatles - Revolver
008) Beck - Odelay
009) The Beta Band - the 3 E.P.s
010) Blur - Parklife
011) Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Rights To Children
012) David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust
013) Bright Eyes - Lifted...or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
014) Broken Social Scene - You Forget It In People
015) Built To Spill- Keep It Like A Secret
016) The Cars - s/t
017) The Clash - London Calling
018) Counting Crows - August And Everything After
019) The Cure - Disintegration
020) Cursive - The Ugly Organ
021) Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain
022) Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlantacism
023) The Decemberists - Picaresque
024) Depeche Mode - Violator
025) Dire Straits - s/t
026) The Dismemberment Plan - The Emergency & I
027) Drive-by Truckers - Southern Rock Opera
028) Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde
029) Evangelicals - So Gone
030) The Faint - Danse Macabre
031) The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
032) Fleet Foxes - s/t
033) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
034) Fountains Of Wayne - s/t
035) Franz Ferdinand - s/t
036) Peter Gabriel - So
037) Gang Of Four - Entertainment
038) The Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience
039) The Good Life - Album Of The Year
040) Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
041) The Grateful Dead - American Beauty
042) Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
043) Guns And Roses - Appetite For Destruction
044) The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
045) Iron & Wine - Woman King EP
046) Iron Maiden - The Number Of The Beast
047) Michael Jackson - Thriller
048) Jay-Z - The Blueprint
049) The Jesus And Mary Chain - Psychocandy
050) Jimmy Eat World - Clarity
051) Billy Joel - The Stranger
052) Led Zeppelin - IV
053) Low - The Great Destroyer
054) M83 - Saturdays = Youth
055) Metallica - Master Of Puppets
056) Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarcitca
057) The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas
058) My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
059) My Morning Jacket - At Dawn
060) The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
061) Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
062) Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
063) Nirvana - Nevermind
064) The Olivia Tremor Control - Music From The Unrealized Film Score Dusk At Cubist Castle
065) Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
066) Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
067) Pearl Jam - No Code
068) Pink Floyd - The Wall
069) The Pixies - Doolittle
070) Prince - Purple Rain
071) Pulp - This Is Hardcore
072) R.E.M. - Automatic For The People
073) Radiohead - OK Computer
074) The Replacements - Let It Be
075) The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
076) The Rosebuds - Birds Make Good Neighbors
077) The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns
078) Slint - Spiderland
079) Slowdive - Souvlaki
080) The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
081) Elliott Smith - Either/Or
082) The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
083) Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
084) Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space
085) Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
086) Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
087) Stars - Heart
088) The Stone Roses - s/t
089) The Streets - Original Pirate Material
090) Sufjan Stevens - Come On Feel The Illinoise
091) Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary
092) Television - Marquee Moon
093) U2 - War
094) Uncle Tupelo - No Depression
095) The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
096) The Verve - Urban Hymns
097) Weezer - Pinkerton
098) Kanye West - Graduation
099) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
100) Wire - Pink Flag

The Difference Between Current Events And History

2009-12-06T20:34:00.001-06:00

The Difference Between Current Events And History

A child points and asks about the explosion
on the wall. I look with some detachment
as the second plane hits, but there's always
a small part of me that is on that couch at
5213 at 9:03 am Eastern and I wonder how
anyone could ask that question, but that kid
can't be more than 5 or 6. His mother starts
to explain as I walk away, remembering that
someone probably looked at me the same
way as my father explained Pearl Harbor.

Pioneers

2009-11-30T22:18:00.001-06:00

I hate when I have an idea and I can't figure out how to make it work. Moving on...

Pioneers

The cold air hits me as I wait for the Light Rail,
as cold as it will probably get back in Virginia,
but here it's just a precursor to the negative days
yet to come when it's so cold even the sun doesn't
want to come out. I know I just spent a week
selling Minneapolis to people who never stopped
calling DC home. I button the top button of my
peacoat and wonder how pioneers felt looking east.

DC9

2009-11-25T23:44:00.000-06:00

DC9

Up the stairs into the live music section, with a barely
raised stage and beat up lights like the Turf or The Entry
but instead of Summit out of bottles, it's Yuengling, and
it's DC's hipsters and Pitchfork readers taking in Free Energy

The band ambles up, they don't number many more than
the crowd as they start turning on the instruments, though soon
about 40 people are around the small stage. I always think
they're be more people. Irrationally, I wonder if anyone I know
is here, but I don't even see familiar faces in Minneapolis.

The music begins, and my brain starts spinning together
comparisons. I think Thin Lizzy, Television; on second
thought, I stop thinking, just listen to the cowbell, the
chorus pedal, the kick drum. The lead singer asks do
you know where you are, and for a second, I wonder.

The Past 10 Years

2009-11-21T13:11:00.000-06:00

The Past 10 Years

I see the sign that says road construction ahead,
I just don't believe it, which I would like to attribute
to living in the Midwest the past 10 years, but it's
probably my natural skepticism just as much, so
as the cars slow to a crawl on 66 and people don't
so much attempt to merge as force their way into
whichever lanes seem most useful to them at the time,
I remember what it's like to be parked on 66 at midnight
because that's the only time they can do work, and
I remember how uninformative the road construction
signs are in the Commonwealth, but mostly, I remember
why I've been living in the Midwest the past 10 years.

Thanks For Coming Out

2009-11-17T00:37:00.000-06:00

Thanks For Coming Out

I sip my B-52 and spin the glass around on the table and
catch you staring for just a second, but I don't say anything.
It's not just how things were, it's how you remember them,
you continue. In our case, I'll never know why we stopped
exchanging phone calls anymore than you will, but we stopped
for long enough that this is the first time we've seen each other
in ten years, and yeah, I know we said at some point we'd
never change, in fact, I think I wrote that in the back of your
yearbook, but obviously you did because there's no way you would
have fit into this dress in high school. I smile politely, but someone
else has caught your eye, and you wave and don't know whether
to awkwardly shake my hand or awkwardly hug me as you leave,
but you do thank me for coming out while I do my best to not laugh.

Free Parking

2009-11-11T22:25:00.003-06:00

Free Parking

She pulls her Ford Escape up to the meter
only twenty minutes before the tailor closes,
nothing in the ash tray, so she opens her
purse, starts digging frantic, frantic, frantic
until she unearths 1, then 2 prized quarters
and she smiles to herself because she certainly
can't afford a 42 dollar ticket. She gets out,
not much time to spare, doesn't notice the
blinking red meters all around her, definitely
doesn't read the small list below the enforced
times, doesn't understand free parking in
Minneapolis any more than in Monopoly,
so she, like many others on this Veteran's
Day, donates 2 quarters too many to the city.

Can't Hardly Wait

2009-11-09T23:37:00.001-06:00

Can't Hardly Wait

I haven't quite pulled out the suitcase,
but I'm almost there, only another 11 days
until I touch down in the Commonwealth
again, to think back to a time when I identified
more with the teen romantic comedy than
the Replacements song, but I can't wait.
Sometimes those earlier versions of high school
selves seem atavistic, but I think they're a bit
closer than any of us would like to think.
If we fall into old habits, I hope it is four square
and not teenaged omnipotence that colors the
weekend, and if I have anything to show for the
last ten years, I would prefer to showcase how
little it is I know as opposed to how much I
think I know; hell, I couldn't even make up
my mind on my gender for 27 years, and
besides, I'm done grading myself against
those 400 folks, I think we all finally are
and if that is the case, I can't hardly wait.

I'll Always Be Him

2009-11-06T22:09:00.001-06:00

I'll Always Be Him

Someday it'll be one of my wedding pictures
in a 3x5 frame on my desk in a beautiful
wedding gown, and frankly that's always
the way I've pictured it; after all, you
(hopefully) only get married once and you
may as well do it right, and for my part,
I could never imagine doing it in a tuxedo,
even if it was just to fit in. Maybe that'll
be a tipping point for my coworkers, some
of whom have only know me as Jane,
who still can quite master pronouns, which
is silly to me, as there just aren't that many
choices, but I get the sense no matter how
nice my dress is, to them, I'll always be him.

Uptown's Just More Shoreline

2009-11-03T23:55:00.003-06:00

Uptown's Just More Shoreline

The first place I worked in Minneapolis
is gone, added onto a salon, and even
institutions from the halcyon days of Uptown are
shuttering their doors, with the Uptown Bar
closed for good, soon to be a Columbia. I shake
my head. There's definitely no chance of me
hearing the next Nirvana playing Uptown as I
cut down the alley to get to my place. These
houses, businesses, roads, they all ebb like the
city lakes they share their names with, and I'm
still constantly refining my map after six years.
I used to hear stories of the outdoor dining area
at McDonald's and now I tell stories of how there
was a Border's in Calhoun Square when I moved here.

Back Together Again

2009-11-01T22:53:00.002-06:00

It may be time for another month of writing. I'll see how the first few days go. Anyway, I need more practice at this entire "writing as who I actually am" thing as opposed to the "writing in abject terror that you will ever figure out there's a lot of crazy shit going on with me, and god forbid I ever touch on the one thing that has me really fucked up". I did a little of that before, but back to it, this time with all of me on the table for consideration at least.

Back Together Again

The shades are drawn, the lights are off
and I have no intention of changing that.
The martial beat of "One Hundred Years"
pounds out of the speakers as I sit under
a blanket staring at a blank television.
Some nights I just sit on the couch, crying
feeling like an idiot because all I'm doing
is sitting on this couch, but I just don't
have the energy to face anyone, much less
ask anyone for any help, so when my phone
beeps, I ignore it, but it's harder to ignore the
doorbell, so I pull my head under the covers
until 5 minutes later, there's a pounding on
the door, and I reluctantly get up, ask who it is,
and you reply that it's all the king's horses.
I smile a fragile smile, let you in, and the smile
quickly shatters. For your part, you say nothing,
just rub my back and we listen to Pornography,
You never even ask what's wrong, you just do
your best to help put me back together again.

Transetiquette 2

2009-10-14T00:37:00.002-05:00

As a transgendered woman living out in our society, I encounter a variety of unique circumstances every day surrounding my gender identity and presentation in society. Transetiquette seeks to explore some of those ideas and sift through the truths, myths, perceptions and realities that I encounter.

The Relation Between Happiness And Bravery

hap⋅pi⋅ness

[hap-ee-nis] Show IPA
–noun
1. the quality or state of being happy.
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

brav⋅er⋅y

[brey-vuh-ree, breyv-ree] Show IPA
–noun, plural -er⋅ies.
1. brave spirit or conduct; courage; valor.
2. showiness; splendor; magnificence.

Definitions courtesy of http://dictionary.reference.com

An old friend gave me a book for my high school graduation titled “The Art Of Happiness” by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. At the time, it seemed like a strange gift. Not that I dislike reading or had no interest in the subject; just an odd, thoughtful gift. I read most of it, though it’s not one of those books that you have to read cover to cover, or even all at once, and mostly I was struck by the simple approach that the Dalai Lama applied. When I was 18, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking of happiness as a choice, much less an art. It seemed like a state of being, and an elusive one at that. I don’t know if it’s honest to say that I was more or less happy than your average teenager out there, but I certainly did a poor job of trying to attain happiness because it just seemed so unrealistic to me. There was this inenarrable problem, after all, that really discounted my belief in being happy, and while I can obviously point to it now and say that it had to do with my inability to positively approach and embrace my gender identity, it was a lot more confusing then.

Children, these days, think of all the information they have at their disposal. Think of how much more information is out there, and how much easier it is to find. I am obviously from a generation that was on the cusp, and I certainly had access to a lot more information than a gender variant individual going through high school even 5 years before me. I had the internet in its nascent stages, and it still wasn’t until I was 17 that I encountered the word “transgender”. Now you can go look it up on Wikipedia(you should some time; it’s kinda funny). So I had to carry around this inchoate idea of who I was and what I was, and it was obviously very difficult to put a name on a concept that I not only didn’t understand but didn’t see around me. Aside from the obvious fear and social hurdles that transitioning involves, it's an even bigger problem to not even know who or what you are and what steps you can take to figure those sorts of aspects of yourself out.

Obviously, I managed to navigate that lack of knowledge as to who I was until I reached a point where I knew how I felt internally. I probably reached the point where I realized that I wanted to transition by 18 or 19, and then the second major obstacle kicked in; I had to actually pursue who I felt I was in day to day society. That hurdle took me much longer to overcome. Being the good, logical person that I am, I decided that it was just ludicrous for me to transition, and I had myriad reasons, some of which I'll share another time, but the biggest reason was that I lacked the confidence to be myself. Hell, I didn't go out "presenting" as we like to say in the business until I was 26. So it took me several years just to balance my image of how I saw myself with the expected reaction of how people were going to see me. Shortly after that, it definitely snowballed to the point that I'm at now; only a little more than 2 years after the first time I ever was out in public presenting as the person I felt I was, and that seems like a quaint memory now. I've known people now for over a year who have only ever known me as Jane, people that I've gotten to know decently well, so I've been at it long enough that it's not a new experience to be a transwoman in our society every day. Not that I still don't have new experiences, but they are less frequent than they were the first couple months.

One of those experiences that never quite goes away is the initial reaction. A lot of people have told me and probably will continue to tell me that I’m brave for transitioning, and I assure you that anyone else I know who’s transitioning at this time in society is probably hearing that a lot as well. The transgendered response is to demur, or outright call bullshit in a lot of cases. There is some degree of truth to saying that coming out, living full time, figuring out who you are, these are not matters of bravery. For some, it's the difference between taking too many pills or being who you are; for them, they are only pursuing the necessary choice to live. I can't say that I've ever felt that way. Depressed, certainly, but not suicidal at the thought of being unable to transition, however it is a real phenomenon. Frankly, it's an extreme, but it illustrates the point well that most transgendered people simply reach a point where the only action they can take is to try and unlock what the hell's going on with their gender identity. For me, it came down to simply wondering how I was going to live a fulfilling life if I wasn't being true to myself. It took me a long time to make that determination, but nonetheless, I saw either an extremely unfulfilling life faking my way through or a tough, but rewarding life where everything could go to shit but I was happy with myself.

It doesn't seem like a very courageous decision when I think that I was simply doing what I had to do. I don't feel as if I did anything uniquely brave. Everyone has to make brave decisions at some point in their life about the direction they are heading, and one could argue it's subjective as to how brave those decisions are. For my part, I believe that it is equally brave for anyone to make a tough decision that they know to be the right decision for them. We all make decisions that in retrospect are wrong for us, and the lists of things we thought we'd be doing with our lives ten years ago have obviously been revised constantly or entirely discarded in some cases. If I did anything brave in this entire affair, it was the simple decision to try and be happy with myself and go from there. It does take some courage to realize that I have to edit how I think of life. Not only can I be happy, but I am happy with who I am. I realize now that the Dalai Lama is right, that happiness is an art, and just as I get better if I practice playing piano, I get better if I practice being happy. It doesn't mean that I'm always going to be happy. It is, however, something that I can cultivate, and for 27 years, I chose to think of happiness as elusive instead of realizing that I took steps deliberately to make it elusive.

It doesn't seem like it should be a courageous decision to realize there's something wrong with your life that needs to be addressed; to me, that says more about our society that places a lot of pressure and expectations onto each of us. Not everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, yet there is certainly a great stress placed on us that says it means more to be that; for the people who truly get joy and purpose out of those career fields, that's great. I hope that's what any of us get out of what we choose to do with our lives. Now, I'll admit, it definitely does take some courage to transition, but I think the most courageous decision that I had to make through the entire process of coming out, living as Jane, etc was the simple realization that my happiness is in my own hands and that I do have control over it. Once I made the decision to be happy about who I was instead of ashamed, really, everything else fell into place. Bravery, after all, is best saved for battlefields and burning buildings. We shouldn't make happiness so hard. And looking back now, I think that's what the Dalai Lama meant.

Transetiquette 1

2009-10-05T21:37:00.002-05:00

I guess I felt like writing a column...

As a transgendered woman living out in our society, I encounter a variety of unique circumstances every day surrounding my gender identity and presentation in society. Transetiquette seeks to explore some of those ideas and sift through the truths, myths, perceptions and realities that I encounter.

When Jane Doesn't Make Sense

I am fond of noting that one does not transition in a vacuum. While it certainly would have made some aspects of the transition easier to deal with, it is simply not realistic to cease to be a part of society for me because I would be missing one key aspect that I desired through transitioning; I would not have the validation of society accepting me as a woman. My own point of view is important, of course, but I already had a consensus as to how I viewed myself at a certain point. The overwhelming response has been a positive one. This does, however, lead to certain dilemmas for my friends, family, and acquaintances, dilemmas that I do not have to deal with myself. A while back, a friend of mine asked me how to handle appellations and pronouns in regards to historical events in our shared past.

In a variety of books that I have read, from somewhat confessional biographies to more didactic accounts of transgenderism, the focus is mostly on the transgendered individual. I do not recall coming across statements about the tricky navigation of past versus present when it comes to all the other people who have to deal with it besides the transgendered individual. Maybe I’m not reading the right books, but it seems to be a subject there just isn’t a lot of information about. Older narratives and stories of transitioning feature less overall acceptance by people who may have once known the transgendered individual. In addition, the concept that a transitioning individual should not bury the past seems to be newer. Medical professionals actually encouraged people to make a clean break from their old life per older accounts, sometimes moving to new cities and states to start over in their chosen gender. I have trouble reconciling this with my personal experience, since I have felt none of those pressures while transitioning.

For my part, I do not encounter that. While my name may have changed from Jeremy to Jane, there is an innate nature to me accepting me. And that me has shifted certainly, in such a way that I think of myself as female. I do not ponder where to find what I’m looking for in a clothing store. Relearning which bathroom to go into didn’t end up being much of a production. When I speak of historical events, I speak with the understanding that the people I am talking to understand there was a point when I lived as a male in society and leave it at that. Often, there is little need for me to preface statements with phrases such as “when I was still living as Jeremy”, and frankly I prefer it that way. I do not want a split dichotomy of life before and after transition. Things have changed, certainly, but I hope that through all of this I am still me. The pronouns that I use are non-gendered, after all.

Unfortunately, others aren’t afforded quite the same luxury. You get the much trickier task of trying to figure out how exactly to tell a story that features Jane. There are multiple considerations to make and the way you go about it reveals a lot about your thought process on me in specific and gender identity in general. Some choose to go the route of avoiding it to the length of still calling me Jeremy in conversation with others. Others refer to me by Jane even in situations where my legal name is necessary and I still use Jeremy because I have not legally changed it yet. I am not advocating a right or wrong way. My desire is that people use female pronouns and refer to me as Jane, but I obviously have no control over that. That is also a simplistic view that doesn’t quite get at the crux of the matter.

Let’s say we met in college; I didn’t transition until 5 years after college. You’ve had plenty of time to know me and think of me as male. Taking this further, let’s say we now live in different states and don’t see each other all that much anymore. Obviously, in this intervening time, we have both made many new friends. I come up in a story. You have some interesting choices to make, don’t you? You could choose to say nothing at all about me or my gender identity and simply refer to me as Jane, which would work fine for a non-gendered story. Certainly people go to the bar with mixed company, or drive down to Des Moines, or do many other thing that we did in college with groups of people in such a way that gender does not matter to the story. So that's not so tough because obviously gendered activities didn't occur that much. Until you know that I lived on an all male floor my first two years of college. Of course, if that never came up, there would be no need to introduce anything of or relating to my gender identity.

But what if gender matters? Stated another way, what if gender is ascribed to the activity by the name? For example, you could say you went camping with Jane and that would be perfectly normal, but if you say you went on a Boy Scouts trip with Jane, well, that is much more confusing. There's obvious dissonance in the fact that a male would not be doing something in Boy Scouts with a female. It just doesn't make sense. If you know me, you would understand this dissonance, but if you don't know me, or I am just a tertiary character in the affair, well, it certainly throws things off to call me out in a story as Jane.

A simplistic view would be to consider an omission of the fact that I’m transgendered as some sort of slight. I would obviously prefer if I could get people to use female pronouns or Jane, but I have no control over that, nor is it totally realistic to expect that. A more nuanced view, on the other hand, allows me to consider two things that others should consider when telling stories: Who is your audience; what is the intent of the story? If one is speaking with an audience of people that know me and know what’s going on in my life, by all means, please use Jane. But what about groups of people who don’t have any idea who I am? Well, if the gender in the story is irrelevant, I would prefer if people continue to use Jane, as it doesn’t matter either way. However, as previously noted, it would be awkward to tell a story about Boy Scouts and talk about someone named Jane that you went camping with all the time. This is where the second component comes in. You probably are not telling a story just to prove the fact that you are open-minded or that you are friends with diverse people. It probably just came up because someone said something that reminded you, oh, there was this time…and thus, the story ensues. Is it important to note that I’ve got a transgendered friend, or does it detract? When you tell stories about the past, are you thinking about those characters in the present? In a sense, it’s a little too much to think about. I prefer to take a fairly common sense approach to all of this and implore you to use what makes sense in the individual instances where I come up.

Obviously, this doesn't untangle the issue for everyone. That wasn't entirely the point, though. I simply thought it would be useful to provide my perspective. In addition, it is useful for me to try and consider the issues that surround being transgendered from a viewpoint that isn't solely my perspective. Mistakes with pronouns are still going to occur. They still do, and they will continue to for a long time, probably. I'm sure my 10 year reunion will test my patience in ways that I can't even imagine since it'll be the first time I will actually encounter a large group of people who are still coming around to the idea of me as Jane, if they even have any idea that I transitioned in the first place. There will be different levels of acceptance, from people who don't screw up a pronoun or my name the entire time to people who never get pronouns or my name right the entire time. Certainly, if you use the wrong pronoun or name, I may take advantage to point it out, but just as I have transitioned, your concept of who I am has to transition, and that's a process. I do not expect perfection on the name or pronoun front and all I can really do is ask for your consideration of how you think of me. Let that consideration be your guide the next time you are trading stories, and it'll probably all work out.

In which the Author asks questions that may not be difficult but are potentially bothersome.

2009-07-05T22:27:00.004-05:00

I was totally set to finish up an entry that a friend suggested to me, but I apparently forgot to attach it when I sent to myself, so that's just gonna have to wait I guess. This is, however, in the same vein.

Do you think of yourself as gendered? Do you ever consciously think about your gender? Maybe more interesting than the other two, do you unconsciously think of yourself as gendered? I had a pretty crazy dream a little bit back, and as opposed to usual, I sat down in Facebook and wrote what I remembered immediately after waking up, and it led to comments, as it was somewhat bizarre. The most interesting question that was posed to me, though, was the following: Do you think of yourself as Jane in your dreams?

The answer is no, not really. But I can't say I ever really thought of myself as Jeremy either. I don't think about myself in the third person in my dreams. I think of myself as me. Me in these dreams, in my unconscious thoughts, does not seem to be inherently gendered one way or the other, and I do not seem to remember conducting any activities that might specifically demarcate my "dream gender". It seems strange that I don't have an inherently feminine dream self in a couple senses, but overall I'm pretty comfortable with the concept of being neutrally gendered in my dreams. It just seems odd that I've never had a memorable dream that featured me being inherently feminine, or how I would picture myself as a woman. It's something I've obviously thought about, but that seems like a natural sort of place for self-image to manifest itself. This is probably for the better, as it's enough of a trick for any gender variant person to reconcile the concept or idea of who they are and how they want to present with the obvious difficulties that life presents as obstacles. I don't know if I like the dream concept of how I should be interfering. That just seems to chaotic.

I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about gender, gender identities, and the various presentations therein. It's not only part of transitioning, but I think it's something that's just impossible to avoid as a transgendered individual even if he or she decides not to transition. But I don't really think about it the same way I did previously. I used to worry about whether or not I felt comfortable doing something that would distinctly mark me as feminine, which looking back is ridiculous, as we all have a variety of traits, interests, and desires that fall on either side of the societally ascribed gender boundaries. In addition, I obviously did want to do whatever it was, whether it be a simple sartorial decision or a more complex decision about how I want to be and to be viewed in a romantic relationship. It is, however, big and scary to do things that society shakes its big stick at and says no, so it took a while. Anyway, as one can obviously tell through talking with me or reading what I've written in the past couple years, it's hard for conscious thought of gender to not dominate the discourse of any serious exploration. Now, though, I have to concentrate a little bit more to make it happen. I never think about the bathroom I'm going in any more, for example. Just doesn't even cross my mind, but for a while, that took some sorting out in my head, because I had unconsciously been doing something for 27 years. That just doesn't go away. It is ebbing back to what seems like a more normal level; I'm not the greatest judge of normal, though.

Anyway, the curious part of me wonders how, you, the reader, thinks about yourself? I'm not a good normal base because before I did my best to not think about gender at all, and now it's something that's always kind of there as I move through each day. Are you you in your dreams, or he, or she, or do you switch, or does it even matter? Do you ever wonder about the things you are inherently given or inherently lack simply due to how some chromosomes lined up at birth? Or am I just forcing you to access a part of your brain that you never really bothered to visit before. I wonder. Feel free to let me know.

I Am An Indie Poster Child

2009-06-30T16:52:00.003-05:00

2008 was a bit of an off year for me musically. I can't exactly say I was musically charged after being kicked out of the band and being cut off from the people that I talked music with most of the time. However, I loved music before I was in a band, and I wasn't down on it because I stopped liking it. Slowly, I found some records to draw me back out of my shell, most notably Life Like by The Rosebuds and the reissues of Girls Can Tell and A Series of Sneaks by Spoon (thanks, Merge!), and all of a sudden, 2009 is on pace to be like 2006, except that I have a real job and too much overtime pay to support my collection. Plus, the internet's come a long way in a few years; it is much easier to hear so many things that I just wouldn't have had the exposure to due to the prevalence of streaming audio. Between Pitchfork and Lala's partnership, I've really had the chance to expose myself to whole records and bands that I might not have given a listen before because I get at least 1 chance for free, so I can make a decision about a band with at least some information again. No more jumping down the rabbit hole just to find out what a band like The Builders and The Butchers is like. As far as I'm concerned, that's progress. I have rewarded this progress by buying more vinyl than I've bothered to count, and a couple cds even when I'm feeling nostalgic. Tomorrow, I'm going to tack on a playlist, but initially I would like to present some superlatives for a number of the records that came out this year.

Best EP:

Blood Bank by Bon Iver

Clocking in at 4 songs and more money than I probably should have spent on wax, Bon Iver returned with this little effort that's not all about Wisconsin and a woman named Emma. Or maybe it is and I just don't know enough. EPs are a missing art form in this day, and I find myself saddened by this. If you only have 4 or 5 good songs at the time, why not just put out those 4 or 5 good songs instead of forcing several others and ending up with a mixed bag? I'm sure that external pressures beyond artist creativity lead to this, as well, but with the decline of the majors and the rise of indies who have always seemed more willing to support the concept of the EP, well, we get more awesome efforts. Of course, I didn't buy many EPs, so this was an easy win for Bon Iver, but if you don't have this and you were a fan of For Emma, Forever Ago, do yourself a favor and add this one to the collection as well. This EP should also be considered for best opening line of an album, but it's not an album, so I threw it out, but "I met you at the blood bank, you we're looking at the bags" is tough to beat.

Best 7":

Already Warm by The Mayfair Set

The art of the single is indeed not dead. In the iTunes age, it's more than alive and well, as Record Store Day proved with a number of quality 7" from a lot of very good bands. While I was pleased with my haul that day, none of those are the best actual single I've picked up this year. The Mayfair Set is a part of the whole lo-fi craze that started sweeping the nation again last year and is in full swing with bands like Wavves and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart representing somewhat opposite ends of that spectrum. The Mayfair Set is a super lo-fi band consisting of two people with their own bedroom products, and they come together to make some pretty catchy songs. I picked up the single because the b-side, "Desert Fun" is a catchy 3 minute blast of lo-fi 50s inspired pop that I could not live without. The a-side isn't bad either. Also receiving consideration: Velvet by The Big Pink

My Favourite Canadian Record:

Hometowns by The Rural Alberta Advantage

My first encounter with this band was reading one of the Pitchfork reviewer's SXSW daily reviews, and then I summarily forgot until it was suggested that I go to their Myspace and listen to "Don't Haunt This Place". So I did, and I could not stop listening to that song. And here I thought I'd already made my mind up about the best Canadian release of 2009. But Canada's a big place, full of a lot of excellent bands. So the Japandroids got knocked down a rung and it is this record that I cannot stop playing in my car currently. 3 piece band, with drums and a little guitar and keys. Excellent lyrics about the fine province of Alberta. Incessant fun. This record's really got it all. Nothing complex is going on on this record, just simple songs that aren't overproduced or overplayed by the band members. This might be on some really savvy peoples' 2008 lists, because it had a limited release in 2008, but Saddle Creek picked it up this year, so I think it's more fair to consider it a 2009 record because that is the year that most of you are hopefully also going to be introduced to this wonderful band. Also receiving consideration: Post-Nothing by Japandroids

Most likely to make you wish you owned a convertible:

Post-Nothing by Japandroids

There are records you listen to while you drive and there are driving records. Surely, you get the distinction, but if not, let me put it another way. Japandroids will have you using your steering wheel as a drum, pumping your fist in the air, and generally blowing out your speakers. That's what good driving records do. A two-piece out of Vancouver, they get in and out with 8 scorching songs that only seem to keep the volume knob inching up. Nothing crazy here, songs about drinking and girls mostly. I think it's finally coming out in the States soon, but it's fairly available digitally everywhere. Or you can buy vinyl from Insound like I do and help keep them in business. If you like repeated, but not tired, lyrics, lots of distortion, and drum parts that you think even you could play, then go no further. If you don't like "Young Hearts Spark Fires", then I don't know what to say. I'm sorry for you?

Best Neutral Milk Hotel impression or Best opening line that sets the tables for an absolutely devastating record (tie):

Hospice by The Antlers

I could probably write about this record for the length of this entire post, and then some. What was the last record you heard that hit you? For me, I can tell you the record that hit me this hard prior to this one: Funeral by The Arcade Fire, when I purchased it in November of 2004. It is not a pick me up record, and the very subject matter is tough enough to handle, but they somehow deftly manage to navigate that space. Hospice is a selfish record, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but at its core, the idea is that no matter how bad things are for someone else, you still have to do what's best for you. Fair? Definitely not. However, the feelings the record engenders have nothing to do with fairness. Fittingly, the opening track is without vocals, the musical equivalent of dipping your toe in before diving in for the next 45 minutes. And then you are off with the opening line of "Kettering", which is "I wish that I had known in that first minute we met the unpayable debt that I owed you". Maybe you've never cared for someone who's dying of cancer, but I think we've all had occasion to know that feeling. Maybe this record won't do it for you; maybe you should just come back to it when the time is right. The time was right for me.

Most likely to make you wish Modest Mouse still made records like this:

Why There Are Mountains by Cymbals Eat Guitar

So I lied a little talking about Japandroids. There are a few distinctions in the "driving record" category. This record falls into that category as well. Much like Modest Mouse's aptly named This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About or The Lonesome Crowded West, this is one of the records that you do interstate driving with. The songs all feel big and epic and perfect for flying along at 75 with 300 miles to go. Of course, I could be making the comparison because of the similar sonic composition between this Brooklyn band's debut and those first two Modest Mouse records. It's a record full of big spaces, big sounds, big ideas, perfect for driving through big places. It basically makes me want to get in my car and drive west on 94 until I'm in the Dakotas. And anything that would make me want to visit the Dakotas has obviously accomplished something.

Most likely to make indie kids dance:

Grand by Matt And Kim

I like the husband/wife band. Maybe you don't. Maybe you think it's played out, or you just watch for the heartbreak (see, The Wedding Present), or you just want to stab yourself in the eyeballs as David Malitz noted about Mates of State, but I like the husband/wife band. I don't know if that's entirely true of these two, but it is a guy and a girl in a relationship singing very cute songs. The twist comes from the fact that everything on this record seems to be moving at 180 bpm. 11 songs in 28 minutes fast. I've read that the shows these two put on are well worth it, and everyone is a sweaty mess when it's over. They must be doing something right to get the indie kids moving. The songs are nothing special structure wise, but everything on here gets stuck in your head and makes you want to dance in your cube. Also getting consideration: Manners by Passion Pit

Best 1950s prom soundtrack:

My Maudlin Career by Camera Obscura

Are you looking for a record to dance to with your squeeze? Do you have an irrational desire to wear a poodle skirt? Then you should be looking in Scotland. They've been especially backwards looking of late in their sound, and while the territory is nothing new, the results are quite extraordinary. It's a pretty basic formula. Dreamy vocals about missing people and heartbreak, and every once and a while, a nice harmony with some not seemingly but rather important guitar lines working their way under all of that. It's weird to say that it's a catchy melancholic record, but that's exactly the balance Camera Obscura managed yet again. As per usual, there are a couple stand-outs that are above the rest, "French Navy" and "James" being my favorites, but nonetheless all 11 songs are good for staring out your window with your head in your hands watching the rain and sighing. And if that doesn't work for you, maybe you'll just like Tracyanne's voice.

Best record you just haven't heard yet

Birdseed Shirt by Deleted Scenes

I don't know what to tell you because you haven't heard it. D.C. foursome put together an unassuming debut that is full of a bunch of really great songs that just work. As opposed to other records this year that seem a bit more thematically focused (intentionally or not), this is more in the mold of we have a number of good songs and we're going to put them together. So you get more straightforward rockers like "Turn To Sand" mixed with tinkering and subversive songs like "Got God" or the gentle meandering of "One Long Country Song". It's the kind of record that makes me remember D.C. does have a music scene and I probably should have paid more attention to it when I lived near there. I keep coming back to this one, and I keep thinking how much I'm going to be listening to "Get Your Shit Together For The Holidays" come Thanksgiving. Nothing new here, just a lot of really well done music that anyone with an appreciation for indie rock should enjoy. Also getting consideration: Probably too much stuff on my top 10 list.

Most indebted to the Big Muff:

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

The lo-fi thing might not work for you. It works for me. It comes in all shapes and sizes, though there seem to be two major schools, the truly bedroom projects, and the NYC standard bearers. These guys belong to the latter category. Songs with lots of woozy sounds get me. After all, I love Slowdive as much as the next shoegazing girl. Anytime you can do that and use melody, well, that's something that I'm always going to appreciate. This is another time capsule record, this time landing in the late 80s. To boot, "Young Adult Friction just has one of those classic one string 5-6 note bass lines in the Simon Gallup tradition. If none of that helps, think of it as a fuzzed out Belle And Sebastian, and if that doesn't help, think of it as a bunch of fuzzed out singles by The Cure from '87-'89.

Best record that doesn't deserve the backlash:

Veckatemist by Grizzly Bear

Look, I get it. There's always going to be one band or record or movie or book or whatever in pop culture that everyone buzzes about that gets shoved down our throats repeatedly until we reach a point where we are sick of it before we've even consumed whatever piece of media it actually is. In 2009, that's Veckatemist. Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to have had something to say about these guys, at least in music circles and it certainly spilled out into other media outlets. So nothing I'm saying is really any different and you've probably already made your mind up about Grizzly Bear. What I am trying to say is don't do it that way. Put aside all that crap and pick up this record; give it a listen; then tell me what you think. I, for one, happened to like Grizzly Bear before this record came out. They've moved from what sounds like a collection of songs you would play with your friends around a campfire on Horn Of Plenty to a series of more realized songs on this one. If you don't have enough time to get the whole album a try, then you should at least give "Two Weeks" a shot before you go making decisions about this. After that, feel free to say it puts you to sleep. I can't change your opinion. I can try, and I will try, but I can't do it for you. Also getting consideration: Wavvves by Wavves

Best record that does deserve the backlash:

Merriwether Post Pavilion by Animal Collective

One can easily get the sense that Animal Collective doesn't give a fuck what you think. I own two other records by Animal Collective, Sung Tongs and Feels, and they certainly don't contain any guideposts for you to figure out what the hell is going on. Saying this is their most accessible (which I have said) is therefore somewhat like stating Neptune is warmer than Pluto. That being said, if one record is going to change your mind about Animal Collective, this would be it, since it has songs that I would consider putting in mixes at least, which is more than I can say for their other two albums I own. Still, I would say at least give tracks like "My Girls" and "Summertime Clothes" a try. If you're not a whole album listener like me, you may still find that those are pretty good songs. Or maybe you just agree with Paul Shirley on this on.

Record that just doesn't do it for me but will be on most other peoples' year end lists:

Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors

I have nothing against this record. I just wasn't filled with this urge to go out and buy it upon hearing it. You can certainly do worse, and I could see why a lot of people would select this, but other than "Stillness Is A Move", there isn't much on here that's doing it for me. Yes, the video has a llama and some cheesy choreography, but that doesn't make me want to buy a record. It just doesn't hit the spot for me. That being said, I'm sure I'll eventually end up buying it, and possibly someday I'll wonder how it didn't make my top 10 this year, or I'll be feeling that way in December and put it in, or I'll never play it again after I open it. I really can't tell with this record how I'm going to feel about it, and right now, that lack of feeling keeps me from forging a connection. However, if it does it for you, more power to you. Also getting consideration: Two Suns by Bat For Lashes

Best 80s record:

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix by Phoenix

I'm glad that France discovered the 80s. M83's Hughesian exploits last year have paved the way for Phoenix to go back to the future as well. It may not be true, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. This record doesn't really outdo the first two songs; it more achieves this really great high and then coasts to the end. But "Lisztomania" and "1901" are pretty great places to start. It's kinda like Cut Copy last year, a guilt pleasure, sure, but a really danceable, listenable guilty pleasure. Quite honestly, a few more bands should aim for that goal. The results might end up better for them.

Best record I purchased that was reissued in 2009:

This Is Hardcore by Pulp

I would not have liked this record if I had gotten it when it came out. Sure, there's the prurient aspect of the cover (surprises me I didn't know anyone who bought it just for that) with the naked woman, but this is just a failing of the cd. On record, let me tell you, it's the same picture, but it seems more graphic for some reason. But I was just getting to an age when this came out ('98, I believe) where I could at least accept the existence of Brit Pop, but if it wasn't Oasis, I wasn't listening. Hell, I owned Urban Hymns by The Verve for years before I finally listened to it, and said, woah, this is pretty awesome actually. So here in 2009, I can get a record like this and I can understand it, and appreciate it musically, and I can amuse myself thinking about what it would have been like to get this at 17. It would have been a mindfuck for sure, but I just wasn't ready. Anyway, they put it out on vinyl, and that was my cue to act now. Now if only His 'n' Hers and Different Class were available on vinyl...

Most likely to soundtrack a post-apocalyptic film in which all that remains of the world are remote parts of Russia:

Face Control by The Handsome Furs

I don't think Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug sleep. There's not other way to explain their various musical outputs. Anyway, this is Dan Boeckner's other band when he's not doing the Wolf Parade thing, and it's a little more synth driven. He's also married to a Russian if I've got my facts straight, and that shows on this record. If the world were going to end, I might want something epic (like the Guillemots), but if I were living in the world after it ended and I could still find a way to listen to my music, this would be the soundtrack. It's from some post war future with synths, if only you can find power for them. This is a record that gets stronger as it goes, closing out with its two best numbers, "Thy Will Be Done" and "Radio Kaliningrad". The bleak future never sounded so dance-y.

My favorite song of 2009 so far:

"Sylvia" by The Antlers

I can't tell you anything about this song that listening to it won't just solve for you, but I will say this. As a culture, we will mine Sylvia Plath's death until we can no more. And if it yields results like this, then I say, keep mining. This is a goosebump inducing track, but more than that, it makes me stop what I am doing and listen to the song. It's just got a lot of gravity between the driving bass drum and the skittering key part and the fantastic lyrics.

My favorite line in a song:

"Remember when 21 years was old?" in "Countdown" by Phoenix

Every day I get further from the point that I turned 21 and thinking about a time when I used to think 21 was old makes me smile, because I'm not even that old, but it seems young now. It probably not that strange that 21-28 is so different than 14-21, considering any number of factors that make it that way. All I can do is smile ruefully when I think about that feeling of wondering how I could ever make it to 21 because as much as I have a memory of it, I'll never have that feeling again.

Preliminary Top 10 (subject to change both because I haven't heard half of what came out this year and I reserve my right to change my opinion as soon as this has been posted):

1) Hospice by The Antlers
2) Hometowns by The Rural Alberta Advantage
3) Birdseed Shirt by Deleted Scenes
4) Post-Nothing by Japandroids
5) The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
6) Actor by St. Vincent
7) My Maudlin Career by Camera Obscura
8) Why There Are Mountains by Cymbals Eat Guitar
9) Veckatemist by Grizzly Bear
10)Now We Can See by The Thermals

Check back tomorrow and I'll have a playlist of my favorite songs from 2009 so far.

One Week Only

2009-06-30T16:47:00.004-05:00

I have been working a lot in 2009. Sometimes, I've still had the urge to write, but in the case of the past month and change, I have not prioritized writing over, say, playing guitar or exercising. Now, however, I stand to only work 40 hours this week, which hasn't happened on a week that I haven't gone on PTO in...about 8 months, if my calculations are correct. So I'm going to try to seize on the fact that I will have enough time to exercise, poke my instruments, play video games, and write. One week only, because I've learned I can make no guarantees beyond that with the way my job goes. Could be 60 hour weeks right around the corner, or this could last. Anyway, I'll be back later with my 2009 mid-year music round up. Because I can.

The difference between being certain and knowing

2009-05-17T22:06:00.006-05:00

I've been a little distracted lately. Work has not exactly been the most fun it could be (and here I am only working 10 hours of overtime a week instead of 20), I seem to be doing quite a bit in the time I'm not there (which is good), but mostly I think it's the fact that there's an anniversary looming in my life. Or maybe a second birthday, but that seems like cheating. Anyway, while I've been getting promoted, working too much, getting back to live music, learning guitar, making milkshakes, and generally causing trouble out-state in Minnesota (St. Cloud and Mankato down, Duluth next), and trying to find time to play more than one game of Siedler in there, it's almost been a year since I've transitioned. I don't have anything new to add to the passage of time. It's a weird phenomenon and one could just as easily go to any of thousands upon thousands of authors for a better description. But it is odd to be looking at the calendar and see that it is May. I can distinctly remember a time when I thought that I could barely get through an hour presenting, and while I think it's fair to say that it's never quite passe to be transgendered in a lot of situations in our society, I don't think about it as much any more. And it's no longer coupled with things like paralyzing fear, lack of acceptance, or inability to function in society. It's coupled with a sometimes visible shrug. To put it another way, it's not as if I don't know how some of the people at the bar I was at last night were looking at me a second time as I walked past. I could say it's in my head, or I could say that it's somewhere more provincial than Minneapolis that caused this, but that's not really true. There are plenty of people in settings like bars that give me a second look because I'm not like everyone else. That's just the facts. People may be more acquainted with concepts such as transgenderism (and even use appropriate terms) in modern society, but by no means are that many people well acquainted with transgendered individuals. Set me aside. How many do you know? Certainly you could know a few more, but it's just not as common as a lot of other things in the world. Most people act with curiosity more than anything, but it is still the kind of thing that is going to get you more than a once over more often than not, and I would have to imagine that's either a feeling you get used to or not. For my part, it's something that I expect. Now nobody is anything other than polite about it most of the time, but all these sorts of things are still in play when I do something as simple as go to order a drink. If I choose to go to Mankato with my friends as I did last night, well, that's a situation that's not really any different than a lot of situations that I go through all the time. A lot of this fades with familiarity, but that initial weirdness of being trans in an overwhelmingly non-gender dysphoric society never goes away. It eases. Maybe it doesn't ease, though; it could just be that I am more comfortable with who I am, since that's all that matters. This is all my perception, after all. I live in a world that for the most part perceives me as a woman, for better or for worse. And I've lived that way long enough now that the overall level of bizarreness to gender identity is now something I have to consciously focus instead of being stuck in the front of my mind like it was in the weeks before my transition, where I wondered all sorts of quotidian things that have turned out to be non-issues. More to the point, I don't think I've particularly had any encounters specifically because I'm trans that have been overly negative, and I wondered how I could ever do anything that involved speaking, or showing my id (which still says Jeremy, because legally, that's what my name still is). As with everything, experience is the best teacher. And while I've certainly had some awkward encounters, I've had overwhelmingly good experiences in the past year. One year is not only a benchmark for me; from a therapy standpoint, it's very important. And while I may have been certain that I was making the right decision a year ago to embark on this journey, now I know. It's an important distinction. I may, from time to time, grumble about the gatekeepers that I have to visit every couple weeks at CSH or PHS, but they have an important role in ultimately verifying whether it's anyone other than me that thinks I've made the right decision. But now I know, and they believe me. Not that they didn't a year ago, but again, they may have been certain I could deal with what was coming (otherwise I don't think anyone would have cut me a prescription for estrogen), but now they know. I've found out a lot about my friends and family through this process. I would love to say that it's all been positive, but it hasn't. However, here I am one year later with a group of people who overwhelmingly support my decision. I'm sure it's been a little weirder for some of you than for others. Maybe it'll never go away. It's still a little weird for me too. I was certain I knew how this year would go, how some of you would react, how things would be different at work. I've been wrong on a lot of counts because almost everything has been much more positive than I ever thought it could be. If one reads about other transitioning experiences, specifically ones from 1-2 decades ago, it sounds like a horror story most of the time. Lost jobs, broken families, potentially dangerous personal situations all pop up way more than I would have liked to have seen in the stories. Then again, that's how it was, and I have a lot of those people to thank for how uneventful things have been for me. Reading those stories, though, made me wonder how truly progressive the company I work for is (answer, pretty damn progressive) and whether I would basically have to start my life over from scratch. I haven't had to do that, and it's been so wonderful to find that things have changed so much in the past few years in regard to society's acceptance of gender expression. This, though, this isn't about me, it's about all the wonderful people around me. I know who my friends are now, I know who the people are who accept me for who I am, and this is a thank you. A thank you to everyone for putting up with me when I'm batshit crazy, for all the fashion tips, for the little points on the decorum, for the acceptance, for understanding that I may not be 100% ladylike, for helping me feel like a fully realized individual for the first time in my life, for the shopping trips, for still having me over to have too many beers and play games, and for coming along for the ride with me, whether you think of me as Jane or you still can't quite shake Jeremy out of your head or your phone or wherever else you might have it written down. It's been a tough year, but a hugely rewarding one, and I couldn't have done this without the love and support of all of you. This I know.

April 2009 playlist

2009-05-07T13:24:00.000-05:00

April 2009

Of Estrogen and other things

2009-05-03T22:02:00.004-05:00

Don't get me wrong. I love winter. Snow and cold don't really bother me. I like skating, I love hockey, and I generally enjoy a good snowman. But I've been unwilling to purchase the gear to get out and ride in that weather, so I'm very happy that we're getting 60+ degree days again, you know, like it's spring here. It's nice that it finally caught up. Sometimes April seems a bit interminable, with a bizarre mix of really cold and really hot days (I believe it was 3 years ago we had the 98 degree day or whatever it was at the end of April. I lived at 2749 and it was hot, that's all I know) and that last gasp of snow that always seems to appear. But by May, all is forgotten, or in the cases of those who are strangely living in Minnesota but allergic to the cold, all is forgiven. People get back out to the lakes to do the summer things. Fish when there's no ice, walk dogs, rollerblade, bike, not watch where they are going on the bike path so that someone blows out an ACL crashing into them. Like I said, summer things. I, for one, look forward to getting out and seeing where some of these trails go that I've been a little apprehensive to follow since for once I'm in good biking shape once I can actually get out. I do say the free exercise bike on Craigslist has been one of the best things to happen to me. The ability to sit on a bike for an hour and play Star Ocean, well, that's a great combination. That right there is why I think an exercise bike is for me. And now I've got something to keep me going if we hit a rainy week or I have to put my bike in the shop to get new brakes (which I should). This weekend, I let my bike take me where it will, and I did the loop from my place out the Greenway to St. Paul, across on Summit, down through Lilydale and up into Mendota, across the Mendota bridge to Fort Snelling, up to Minnehaha, and along the creek to the lakes. I threw in Nokomis, Harriet, Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles just for good measure. It's a good ride, about 3 hours the way that I do it. Today, I took it the other direction, headed up along Cedar to Glenwood, took whatever trail Glenwood runs into by Schuller's out to Wayzata, walked around the Wood-Rill Big Woods area, and then came back around Medicine and wended my way back. About the same amount of riding. It's nice that Minnesota has all these resources that we take for granted. I know a lot of people say to me what do you do in Minnesota, like we spear fish and live in furs swaddling for warmth and the rest of the year we're just thankful we don't have to do that. But there are a lot of great things here, and I'm trying not to just say, oh yeah, they're great without seeing them. People may like a little more variation...we're not much for mountains here, but there's a ton of great trails and fantastic state parks along rivers, and an awful lot of variety when it comes to lakes. I've never really been disappointed by the trails, both hiking and biking, that abound. I don't remember as many good options for things like that in Virginia. Some of it may have been that I didn't look, but I just don't think there's as many trails, and there certainly aren't as many lakes. Sure, there's free museums in the District, something that I miss, and a lot of other cool things all around. I guess the way I feel is that no matter where you are there's probably something to do. We like to lament as people how boring our cities are, how there's nothing to do, and yet it is incontrovertible that there are things to do around us. We may not like them, we may like to romanticize what we do not have as readily anymore, but we cannot deny that there are plenty of things right outside our doors waiting to be done. That's just the facts. Now whether we choose to engage them, who's to say. For my part, I am going to get on my bike, and I'm going to take the Luce Line to Orono one of these days because I can. That may not be your thing, but I'd like to think somewhere not to far away, you can find it.

End statement on the fine natural resources of Minnesota.

In other news, not much doing. My doctor upped my estrogen, so if I've been a little different the past few days, well, that's likely the cause. It took me a little while to get used to the first time that my body chemistry settled down, and I don't see why this would be any different. I really don't know what else to say about that. If you have a lot of estrogen in your system, you surely understand what I'm saying when the levels change. And if you don't, you surely don't understand, as evidenced by the history of people. The main reason this is significant, though, is because that means my doctor thinks it's not as risky to up my estrogen, and she was keeping it lower because she was worried about my weight. So all this biking must be doing something.

I'm still thinking about going to Game 5. I haven't irrationally thought about blowing that much money on something ephemeral in a while. But the memories and the home red jersey would last forever, so I guess I shouldn't call a sporting event ephemeral. It isn't, especially these days when there are so many media outlets that the greatest sports moments last forever. There's still a mythology around events, but you can show any kid USA 4, USSR 3 with a couple clicks. Now it might take a few minutes to explain the greatest call in sports history by the one and only Al Michaels, at least from a social standpoint, but it's right there. Will future moments continue to have that salience, or will the over saturation do them in? I suppose time will just tell, but the point is, without a whole lot of looking, it's not to hard for anyone to find any great sporting moment that happened in the last 30 years. Before that, it's a craps shoot. None of that replaces the experience of being there for something special. And if Game 1 of Caps-Pens proved anything, it's that there's the potential for something special every night.

In an effort to broaden my musical horizons once more, I'm picking up the guitar again. I've managed to progress from sounding really awful to just sounding awful. In my head, I know what chords are, but chords on guitar and chords on piano are something of a different animal. So I'm mauling my way through some old classics in an effort to learn chords. Maybe someday I'll actually take a lesson for one of these instruments, but I'm not seeing that. I'm perfectly willing to sit in my living room and suck for hours until I can at least muddle my way through something passably in front of people. I need something to do while I type blog entries after all.

This week already filled up quickly. I wonder how it happened looking back, but all of a sudden I've got group like I do every other Monday or so, then the Vivian Girls on Cinco de Mayo, probably going to see Wolverine on Wed, Thursday a happy hour and poker, and Friday finally some free time that I may use to get together with my old boss for a drink. It's funny how that works. I don't feel like I have been up to a whole lot recently, but looking back, I've already been as many Twins games in April as I did all of last season, and I've somehow found time to keep biking and still get together with my friends. Mind you, I feel like I have all the time in the world now that I'm only working 50 hour weeks instead of 65 hour weeks. That could be the difference right there.

I owe two musically related things. One I'll do right now, the other I'll either do later tonight or tomorrow at work.

Music That I Own, vol. 3

I got a little sidetracked without my computer.

"I Of The Mourning" by The Smashing Pumpkins (from MACHINA/The Machines of Gods)

Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but I am something of a collector. If you couldn't tell from when I played Magic and you knew me and you can't tell by the fact that I own all of Huxley's novels, then you could certainly tell when you look at my somewhat sad and not quite ready for extinction cd shelf. At the start of my music listening, I tended to be an archivist of all my favorites, wanting all the singles, all the albums, and all the encyclopedic knowledge that went along with it. Oh, you've never heard "Alone" by Pearl Jam? What's wrong with you, it's a great song. There once was a secret pleasure to having those obscure songs that a lot of other people didn't. Some bands made good B-sides, and the 90s with its maxi singles was certainly a good time for them, but it was a streak of snobbery that led me to many of these things. I wanted to find the songs that not as many people had connected with because they felt more personal. You might think that's what I still do with some of the music that I listen to, but I assure you that is no longer the point. Before I wanted to hoard the oddities in the collection. Now I want nothing more than to share them with you. Anyway, back to the point, two factors have changed this, one externally and one internally. Externally, it's not that hard to find all the random songs in an artist's catalog using the various dark corners of the Internet if you're cheap or the somewhat brightly light "aisles" of iTunes and other such music sites if you are not so cheap. Internally, I've become much more interested in finding good music instead of owning every Depeche Mode single. Because some of them suck. It might be most accurate to call it a compulsion that I've shaken somewhat as I've gotten older. I will certainly get a lot of music by a band that I think put out a lot of good music, and I'll still take chances or getting something that is really cheap. Which brings us around to this tune on MACHINA.

I have probably listened to MACHINA in its entirety 5 times in my life, if that. I'm just not that interested in getting through it. As an artifact, it's interesting, but musically, I'd just as soon listen to MACHINA II, which is both free and better. There's nothing wrong with "I Of The Mourning". You've got Billy Corgin's distinctive whining, a lot of crazy swirling guitars, some awesome drumming, and a perfectly hidden bass line, so it's basically every other Smashing Pumpkins song you've ever heard. And as such, it's perfectly forgettable. I've listened to it 3 or 4 times on repeat now and I still can't say that anything really sticks out other than "Radio, play my favorite song", and that's because he says it so much that how could I not remember that? Nothing about hearing this makes me want to get out MACHINA. It's not skip to the next track bad, but it's not go back and find out if I misjudged it good. I believe I picked up MACHINA at Hastings for fairly cheap under the impulse that I for some reason had not picked up the record yet. Now, a few years older, I might still make that same purchase, or I might rather get a Peanut Buster Parfait than a used CD. I don't have any problem with used music, but it comes down to need. Do I need some music I'm not going to listen to just to have a nice complete looking catalog? Don't get me wrong, I get sucked into thinking new records are good only to find out they are not, especially by artists that I love And Smashing Pumpkins definitely get an all timer award. I've been listening to them for 16-17 years now, they are definitely a part of my life. But when I go to listen to Smashing Pumpkins, I tend to listen to Siamese Dream or Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness or the criminally under-appreciated The Aeroplane Flies High box set. Sometimes it's Adore or Gish, and even less frequently I dig out Pisces Iscariot or need to hear something from MACHINA II. I would say in the past year I've probably pulled out all of those albums at least once. And I remember songs off of them. But I don't know anything about MACHINA, and upon listening to this song, I don't feel like I'm missing anything that I can't just get from any of the other albums I mentioned. Now, I can say with certainty that it's not a very good record, and prove it if I have to, but is that necessary? No. But I still like having all those records. The completist in me will never quite die. Anyway if you don't believe me, see if you can tell me anything about this song after you're done with it.

I Of The Mourning - Smashing P...

From Russians With Love

2009-04-28T21:00:00.002-05:00

Sergei Federov! What more can I say? I did something I haven't done since the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals with playoff hockey, I listened to a radio broadcast. I've really gotten used to the guys that are usually piped through Federal News Radio, wherever they happen to be based, and it was even more tense to listen to a Game 7 than I thought. I literally found myself standing in my living room just listening to the game, with bated breath. I remember playing NHL '94 on the Super Nintendo when Dave would always select the Red Wings and I would just be in awe of all the Russians that the Red Wings rolled. And now the Caps rolling out that many Russians. This is very exciting! Sergei Federov comes through again. Simeon Varlamov, too. It's more than Alex Ovechkin, that's for sure, but it's exciting to see that actually come through in a game where it needed to. I'm beyond making sense, and mildly overcome at the mere thought of a Caps-Pens series. I think Gary Bettman called in that third goal from Jussi Jokinen. And that fourth goal. What happened? I look over to type a couple more lines, and all of a sudden the NHL has rigged it so there will be some Crosby-Ovechkin histrionics. I can't figure out how to do a screen shot, but on ESPN it says Devils oust Canes and they won 4-3 with 2 goals in the final 2 minutes on Martin Brodeur. Have I mentioned I love the playoffs? And the fact that the Washington Caps at least give me reason to believe they are not just the San Jose Sharks of the East?

This pretty much seals it. Personal goal by October to have an HDTV and NHL Center Ice ready to go in my apartment if it's possible. I need to research the costs and the possibility, but seriously, how can I not watch 82 games by this team? Here's hoping there's at least a dozen more in their future. And all told, the initial cost probably won't be much more than I spent on my computer. Hell, Wells Fargo might randomly raise my credit limit just in time for me to make those purchases. And now I get to contemplate other crazy things. Like the fact that I may try to get home for a game in this round. Last minute deals, be my friend. And if anyone in the Washington area gets a hint of some tickets, keep me in mind. Sure, it would be a little imprudent to fly back, buy a jersey (so that I can actually have a red home one), and go to a game, but it would also be awesome. Very much so. Round 2, I eagerly await your rigged match-up.

You're An Adult Now

2009-04-26T21:46:00.003-05:00

This weekend, I did one of those adult things and solved a problem by spending lots of money. It is unusual for me to spend a lot of money on a given item, especially since I've never purchased a car or a home or anything where I might need a loan. So it's still a little odd to look at the credit card receipt and see a four digit number. It's even odder to know that I have the money to back that up. Someday, I'll get the hang of being an adult. Until then, I'll continue to be amazed by the concept of credit.

The point being, on Friday, I purchased a new computer. It's a decision I've been mulling for quite a while, given that a computer may feel necessary, but actually isn't. I spend so much time in front of a computer at home that I'm amazed I ever want to look at one when I'm not at work. But you get used to the amenities that only high speed internet can provide easily, such as the inability to have to actually remember anything because the details have been e-mailed to you. I like those things, and while I don't need them, I certainly feel better connected if I can do many of the same things that my peers are doing, and while I am on the internet all day at work, it's mostly to do things like play with LexisNexus or Zillow. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but I do feel a little weird just reading the New York Times at work, and I sometimes like to be able to check on something at the moment I think of it, such as when a new record is coming out or whether tickets are on sale to something I want to go to. Granted, as I stated, this mostly comes down to the convenience of having a computer. It performs no necessary tasks for my personal life other than enabling me to be more connected and blog or check highlights or whatever it is I may want to do, and that makes me happier because I don't feel like I'm living in the stone age, so I guess one could argue that it is necessary, if only because I convince myself that it is. That same argument could be used for many modern conveniences, though, and is specious at best, delusional at worst. Suffice to say, I'm happy to simply say that I just enjoy having a computer and that while other things might not be worth the money or credit I currently have, a computer certainly is.

After thinking about all of this and deciding that even if my laptop starts working again, it's not worth the trouble, I began to look around at what kinds of deals I could get through work. Wells Fargo provides some substantial and unusual discounts. Maybe they aren't that weird since it's a big company, but I don't know how many people take advantage of the cheaper cell phone plans or electronics that a large company may provide. Wells has a discount account through Lifecare. I don't know if what they provide varies greatly by company (there is obviously some variance since there are a number of Des Moines specific), but for Wells, we are eligible for a discount through Dell and Apple, amongst others. So I began pricing out builds and considering what I want in my next computer.

My laptop and I never got along, if such a statement could be made about an electronic object. I've had previous computers from Dell that have given me no problems for years, and then there was that one. It just never seemed to work that well from the get go. The battery died rather quickly out of the gate, and I think I had to rebuild the thing three separate times when it stopped being able to open the Windows operating system, each time with a greater degree of difficulty. I attempted to remove a program from that system a few weeks ago, it restarted as a computer frequently does, and it never found Windows again. I couldn't get it to boot from the hard drive or cd, and I tried a lot of different combinations. I got stuck, and moreover, I got sick of it. I finally did some smart things to prevent the previous hardships, namely backing up all of my music and documents on an external hard drive. I wasn't quite finished putting my music back on, though, so I didn't manage to capture all of that with a back-up. Most of it, though, is better than none of it, which is what happened to me the past couple times. I'm sick of reloading Windows and finding everything I need to make that system work, but I actually got halfway decent at finding the stuff, so I considered just giving it a couple weeks and seeing if it had changed its mind about not working. It didn't. I'll check again in a month or two. If it just truly doesn't work, well, there's always computer recycling. If I can get it built back up, well, I can repeat the same process over and over. Which doesn't seem like fun. Through the process of dealing with all of those problems, I decided, maybe I'm just a desktop person. I'm perfectly happy being creative by writing in journals or on scraps of paper, and any time I go home, I can easily find a computer in my parents' house. If I'm not at home and I'm on vacation, what do I need a computer for? I can check my e-mail from my phone, and it's usually good enough to do the trick for most anything I would need from a computer while traveling, so why deal with the additional hassles of owning a laptop for no great reward? I am aware that others may not agree with or even see this line of logic, but for me, a laptop is nothing but an additional hassle most of the time. Then again, that could just be my personal experience with them.

I spent a lot of time crunching different Dell builds, thought about a lot of various features that I did or didn't need, and spent quite a while wondering whether I would just be happier with a Mac. Macs tend to take care of themselves, and when the don't, well, that's what AppleCare is for. I haven't had the greatest experiences with my long line of iPods, though more often than not, those were my own problems and not the actual technology. But AppleCare was always there to take care of problems. Extended warranties don't always make a lot of sense, I know, but in the case of a piece of technology that can easily break that the majority of people do not have the skills to handle, that's how they get you. I could never end up having a problem with the next computer that I buy, but at the same time, I know that service advantage exists. I'm sure Dell has good service people, but it's still something I like to deal with on a face-to-face basis, at least to learn what the problem is and what's going to be done about it. I've had good experiences with Apple on that front, even if I've had rotten luck with my iPods.

It's a big decision, switching from PC to Mac or vice versa. The only problem I could really find with getting a Mac came down to the entry price. It's a higher barrier, and I wasn't sure how much I was going to spend. As luck would have it, though, Micro Center had a $200 rebate on one of the new iMacs, and that pretty much sealed it for me. I could get what I wanted for the same price as a comparable PC. So I took the plunge on Friday. I can't say I've been staunchly PC as much as that was just what I was used to. I kept saying my next computer was going to be a Mac, and I still hesitated. Loyalty? Cost? Comfort? Who knows exactly which factors held me back? At the end of the day, it came down to what I wanted. And what I wanted was a computer that was not only functional, but beautiful to look at. For about the first hour after I got home I just looked at it more than I did anything with it. Maybe I'm just more comfortable doing what I want than just going with the flow now. After all, it's my money and I'm the one using it. It should be what I want. Or it could be the realization that while it's always prudent to look for the good deal, one sometimes has to spend more to get something that's of good quality. You do get what you pay for, as the dent in my IKEA coffee table can attest. It is my money, and my money should be going to things that make me happy. It might even be the realization that I can easily drop $1000 on something and still have it be responsible. I don't really know. All I do know is that when they are swiping your card and you are signing, it's an odd time to remember that you are an adult now. It certainly applies to many things in my life (and probably your life as well), but some days I can only smile and wonder how I got here.

I'm So Bored

2009-04-06T23:18:00.002-05:00

Wavves w/ Vampire Hands, 7th Street Entry, April 5th

Last night I went to the Entry to catch Wavves and see just how the lo-fi buzz would translate into a live show. I didn't sit anywhere where I could actually see by light to write, so don't consider this a well timed out running diary of events. Just consider it a diary of events.

One of the things that the 9:30 does that I've never noticed about any other venue is they publish set times on their website. I believe this would help make for happier customers more inclined to spend their money at your institution, since, as you get older, your desire to stand around and see stuff you don't care about doesn't seem to get any greater. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind seeing an opener and I was curious to see Vampire Hands. I was just left to guess when that would be. Clubs must think that this will make you stand around and drink more beers, but I fail to see this logic at an 18+ show where half the people there obviously can't drink. So they just must like to make you stand around. Then again, they probably get paid by the hour. I rolled up to First Ave about 9 pm and found some good street parking right next to the Entry. I was feeling pretty good as the ticket said doors were at 8 and the first band might be on "close to 9" (translated from Rock Time). Besides, it'd give me some time to kick around and drink a beer.

Little did I know that there would be a DJ there. I could never be a DJ. It has nothing to do with the fact that I don't have the equipment or the desire; I just own records people have heard of. I know, you're probably saying to yourself, Jane, I haven't even heard of either of these bands that you saw last night, but I'm not obscure to the point of being obscure. Maybe that's just the kinda DJ who shows up at an indie rock show, but the only record I even recognized by sight was by The Clean (they're from New Zealand, I'll check them out one of these days) and I recognized none by sound. While some of what he was spinning was mildly interesting, mostly I found my mind wandering, after some time found a seat, and was thankful that my phone had a good internet interface. And that's how I spent the first hour and a half there.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the Entry milking me for more money. Except I was only having one Fat Tire that night and nothing was changing that. Finally, at 10:30, Vampire Hands made their way to the stage. They're out of the Twin Cities, at least originally, and they're a four-piece. Guitar, bass, drums, and aux man, playing everything from a little keys to a little percussion. The aux man ostensibly played the part of front man, doing most of the speaking. He told an off color joke about it being the 15th anniversary of Courtney killing Kurt. That made me feel a little old since I remember hearing about that and I was a teenager. Just barely one, but a teenager nonetheless, and a lot of the crowd definitely weren't. I forget the colorful mishmash that First Avenue had on their site to describe Vampire Hands, but they mostly struck me as not all that memorable. I didn't walk away with a single song kicking in my head. I don't know how well they translate live, and I've never listened to them recorded, but that didn't seem like the problem. The problem was they didn't seem to do anything that distinctly set them apart. They seem to fall off the Tapes 'N Tapes tree, w/ a bit more mainstream 70s influence from the glam/Bowie end of things. But it's only a night later and I can't say anything else about their set. The kids seemed to like it alright, and the 7th Street Entry was full, which can be a magical thing, but in this case, it was just full.

After about 10 songs, they were done, and then after one of the shortest set changes I've seen in my life, Wavves was on. I guess when you only have a drum set and a guitar, there's not much to do, but a more experienced band would have set that up, and then just walked away. Then again, Wavves is kinda new to this whole indie rock thing, and it showed in ways good and bad. I walked away from the set feeling ambivalent. I can't make the same criticism of Wavves because I already know their music, so it's pretty easy for something I'm already familiar with to get stuck in my head, and the standouts were the songs I figured would be since I liked them most on the record. "Weed Demon" and "I'm So Bored" both rocked pretty well, and they pretty much ran through their first record with a track missing here or there. They made short work of it, then again, it's only 35 minutes, and that was that. I was actually out the door by midnight and they couldn't have started until 11:20 pm.

In the plus column, it was a short, fairly tight set that didn't feature much stage banter, but had enough to fill the inevitable tune or drum adjustment. In its live arrangement, it's just Nathan Williams on guitar and vocals and Ryan Ulsh on drums, and it moves pretty quick because every song seems to be at 180 bpm. They didn't seem too overwhelmed by this entire "I'm on a national tour" thing", then again, it's just a harmless town like Minneapolis. Still the Entry was pretty full for a Sunday night and they laid down the rock, and then they were done. So I can't complain about the businesslike nature of their set.

In the minus column, I have to say that it seemed like Nathan Williams tuned between every song. So even at 20-30 seconds at a time, it got old. Mostly, though, I was wishing he had a cool delay pedal like the Line 6 with 4 different programmable loops, essentially, so that he could actually fill the songs out like he does on record. On Wavvves, it's very full, even though it's just multiple guitar tracks and multiple vocal tracks, and upon listening to the recorded versions, they just felt emptier live. Vocal parts or additional guitar tracks really fill up some of those songs and make them less skeletal than they seemed live. Also, every song was at 180 bpm, which is true on the record too, but without the varied texture, it's easier to get lost in the fact that they all start to sound the same.

To get past that ambivalence a bit, though, it was really refreshing to see a couple people plowing through songs and looking like they were the happiest people in the world. I've seen bands look like that before, and it's a great experience, because no matter how cool it seems to us, being in a band is just like being a pro athlete or anything else we idolize. Once you do it a lot, it is just a job and as much as we like to chastise people for it, it's not always easy to get up for your job. Established bands don't look like that all the time, and even bands that are consistently great live will through some clunkers out there because it's hard to manufacture that sort of feeling. Think about how well you do it at your job, even one that you may like a lot, or think about how little you do it at the job you loathe. But back to the point, they were really soaking in the entire experience, it seemed, and that's something I appreciate seeing and being a part of. The other part of the show that was refreshing is seeing just how simple those songs are. I'm not saying anyone could do that, but it also requires that certain ability to stick yourself out there with songs that are just a lot of distortion and the same chords and beats that vary in subject matter from being about being bored to weed to being bored. And they just plowed through them with a sense of purpose, like they were made to write songs like that and bring them to you.

In my own estimation, the live experience does not beat the recorded one. It loses some of that lo-fi glory live, but I would still say that it's the kind of experience that's worth having, especially if you can catch Wavves on this current tour, while the indie fame is still cresting and he hasn't yet been burdened by the expectations of more music. It may not burden him and he may keeping making great music. I certainly hope so. But as history proves, as in everything else, it's easier to break out than it is to hold peoples' attention. There are intangibles about seeing that moment and hoping for your own moment like that one day. Then again, maybe you should just start by buying Daydream Nation.

Music I Own vol. 2 et al.

2009-03-30T22:19:00.004-05:00

Music I Own, vol. 2. Once again, I actually own this. Legitimately purchased or legally downloaded or freely given to me. You decide.

"Shake, Rattle, And Roll" by Elvis Presley

Contrary to popular opinion, I do own some Elvis. I have been asked for it more than once in that past when I had an iPod, and for whatever reason, it wasn't loaded on, or I just didn't own it then, I could never say, hey, here's some Elvis. Which is probably why I bought some. Not that there's anything wrong with it. This is Elvis at his finest. I purchased Elvis' rather iconic first record for RCA. You've seen the cover before, even if you don't realize it. You know the songs, even if you don't. It contains a bunch of great songs, and only one of them is even partially written by The King.

"Shake, Rattle, and Roll" isn't even on the actual record. It's a bonus track. And as great as I know Elvis is, I can't help but want to go forward to the artist he influenced or backwards to the artists he cribbed. It's so hard to separate all of that from any track that he sings, though. I know that he's important, and I know that he took music that was mostly written by black people and made it palatable for the white majority to digest. I know that he did what Eminem did forty years earlier, that he's sold millions of records and created an entire archetype to aspire towards or make fun of. I know he's cast a long shadow on the history of all the music I listen to. And yet, it's rarely what I want to listen to. I'd say every six months, I pull out this cd and give it a spin, and I'm good again. Someday I'm sure I'll get a couple other Elvis records. I try to imagine what it would be like to discover Elvis and not know everything that's just common knowledge in our society about him, but I just can't imagine that. Which speaks to his effect. At the same time, something so iconic and saturated probably gets enough play without my help or opinion. It firmly goes into the category of records I'm immensely glad I own even if I never listen to them. Someday I'll make a list of those records. And for now I'll have to say, if you don't own any Elvis, you should have some, but if you own some, you're probably good.

I've taken to playing video games when I ride the exercise bike. It's the perfect synthesis of activities, as I own enough games that I've played so much I don't need to think about them. The games provide a much needed distraction if I'm going to do an hour on the bike, and while Tetris and Dr Mario was a good starter, my Super Nintendo is not in the best shape, so I've switched over to the Playstation. I made my way through Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (only the second best side scrolling action game ever made. Think Samus being able to turn into a bat or a wolf) in just under 5 bike rides and I was trying to think of what to do next. Unfortunately I own lots of role-playing games, which aren't so good on the bike, but then I realized I do own a prefect compliment to the bike. A while back I picked up the Capcom collection. And it's full of fun and rewarding games like Final Fight, which is still impossible, but now has unlimited continues. Tonight, I played that for a bit, and then I got my ass handed to me repeatedly while playing Super Ghosts 'N Ghouls, I played some game I can't remember the name of right now, and I finished with Son Son. That's an classic arcade style game. It's basically the challenge stages of Galaga mixed with something like Bubble Bobble. I'm glad I didn't have to spend quarters on it because I was terrible. And to think I bought the collection just so I could play Street Fighter II occasionally (it actually has regular, Turbo Championship, and Hyper(I think?) editions on it, if you get really picky. I prefer Turbo). Point being, it's a lot easier to exercise when you are trying to beat M. Bison than it is to just sit there and wonder when you're gonna be done.

We made our big last push at work for the month. We had a goal for the month of March. It'd be nice if we actually hit it. And maybe now in April I won't work insane amounts of overtime. Ha! Just kidding. That's probably never ending. Then again, the more overtime I work, the more shoes I can buy and not feel bad about. Which is good. After four years, my Anjans are finally starting to show some wear. Just in time for me to purchase some Drift Cats. In the meantime, though, I'm trying to purchase "useful" footwear. I owned a lot of footwear for a guy, but I don't own nearly enough as a girl. Funny how that works.

I went shopping this weekend, and it was another useful trip. I keep having occasions come up that I need something for that isn't in my wardrobe. For example, the dress code at Hayes' wedding is not just formal, since it's at a beach, which means that I need something that's not fancy, but nice beach wear. Or beach semi-casual. Or Miami Vice as I put it. Anyway, I found an orange dress for that (yeah, that's right orange, what?) and now I have to pick up the other bits and pieces that go along with an orange dress. Should be fun. I also need a spring coat, and I've been putting this off, but I might have to get that before too long. I think by the end of this summer, I'll have finally put together a wardrobe full of enough stuff that I'm not filling in holes. I hope. It's one of the "hidden costs" of transitioning. Not that it's particularly hidden, but how much do you think about how much you spent to put together your wardrobe that you have and wear? Probably not that much. All things considered, I think I've done okay cost wise, but it's still quite a bit to basically go through and replace everything but a few t-shirts, a pair of athletic shorts, and socks. Granted, this process has been going on for a bit more than a year, but there's a difference between planning for

Interjection. Why so many cops on my street all the time? High speed chases, DUI arrests, just a couple cruisers rolling down the street near midnight. We have it all here on Holmes.

what you are going to wear, and actually realizing hey, I don't have this, or this shirt doesn't really work with these pants or this skirt like I thought it would. Anyway, I'll be glad when I can shop just for the sheer sartorial pleasure of shopping, though given my personality, I'm sure I'll constantly wonder if it's practical, and then still buy it anyway since I just buy things. I'm a born consumer. Anyone who's helped me move can attest to that.

Well, it's about that time where I should get in bed, do my 7 hours of sleep (if that) and get up and repeat this all again tomorrow. I can't wait until the overtime calms down and I just can't work. I'm going to just have so much time on my hands to play instruments or go for long bike rides or hang out or whatever. Of course, I'll miss the money, who doesn't? But right now, I've got pretty well caught up on some things I needed to with the extra money and it could be a good time to just slow down and start enjoying city living a little more again.

A Way You'll Never Be

2009-03-29T23:49:00.001-05:00

A Way You'll Never Be

Cathy's kid toddles up to me, smiling
and I smile back while a couple of women
discuss how their pregnancies are going
but I have nothing to add, so I sit alone
amongst my married friends, who never
wonder about their gender identity anymore
than Hemingway did and feel a bit like this
is an attempt to tip the scales. In a couple
of years, Cathy's kid may point at me and say
something about that man in the skirt that will
embarrass her parents who will assure her I am
just as female as her even though I never will be.

Minneapolis Is Full Of Ghosts

2009-03-29T22:06:00.000-05:00

I have not been at my best in the month of March. It hasn't exactly been the greatest month for me emotionally for whatever reason. Could just be that I need winter to be over, and it keeps holding on bit by bit, could be that I've been at transitioning long enough that I now take it for granted, or it could just be that I'm out of the emotional high of firsts that I was in for a long time and I'm possibly settling back down to where I was for a long time. So maybe it's not that I'm down as much as I'm not as happy as I was, feeling the joy that I felt at the new enterprise that one always feels. Which isn't to say that I'm not happy. I am. I feel a lot better about myself. I think the problem is just that Minneapolis is full of ghosts. Everywhere I look I see a bars and buildings that remind me of the people I don't speak with any more, whether it's by my choice or not.

Is this just a process of getting older? The dissolution, the inevitability that things fall apart and in some cases there's just nothing we can do? I have no friends any more that reside within the city limits, and it almost seems like hostile territory some nights. For some reason, I've spent too much time in the dark edges of my mind recently, which only foments this feeling. Is it weird to feel alone as one of 382,618? Or is it only too natural for too many of us in the city?

I am trying, by some means, to confront how I feel about myself and I think that is the natural explanation of how I feel. It's hard to spend a long time in your life not liking yourself and then just turn it off. I spent too many years feeling like a caricature of a person and there were a lot of things that I did not like about myself, the most obvious being my discomfort with my gender identity and just who I was. But it is both ludicrous and false to say that single item is the only thing I didn't like about me, and even more preposterous to think that solving that would make everything else just go away. I've at least gotten better about that, but at the beginning of my transition, I did think that transitioning was the keystone. More likely, though, it's the analogy that one of my group members uses: I got the really big rock off of me, and all of a sudden I'm noticing all these little rocks. I've created the skill set to deal with this...so, why haven't I?

First, many of the relationships in my life have been retarded due to the fact that I spent the first 27 years of my life refusing to let anyone in. Second, I can't say that emotional openness is exactly a trait that I picked up in my family life. All the better because I didn't want anyone in there, but now that I do want people who know me, I don't know what to do. Third, these are still things that I have a lot of trouble saying. Which is the point of this blog entry where I talk about things that are difficult for me in a medium that's incredibly comfortable for m

As for the fourth and final point, it is the simplest and truest of them all. I am a passive person. It may not seem like it, but I am. I am trying to change that and become a more assertive person because that's really the best way to get out there and do the things that I want to do instead of hoping that it happens. Writing is an inherently passive act, and quite sensibly the easiest way for me to express myself as it lets me put myself out there and it lets you, the reader, react. There is nothing assertive about my blog. Not that I'm going to give it up, not by any means. I still need my outlets. In this process of trying to be more assertive, there have been hiccups and there will be more. I apologize if, when you are dealing with me or reading, I sound like I have all the emotional sophistication of a adolescent girl, but that's kinda how I feel most days. Despite all of that, it's time to open my door and get out of my apartment. I am going to shows again, planning trips to bars in Minneapolis, trying to find ways to emotionally connect better with the people in my life that I would like to have more fulfilling emotional relationships with to dispel the ghosts. It could be later that I'll just have replaced one set of ghosts with another, but it is my hope by then that I realize Minneapolis is not full of ghosts.

Spring Cleaning

2009-03-22T20:20:00.003-05:00

Consider this attempt to clean up some of the old links that I have sitting in my Gmail account that I've been meaning to write about. So if you've already heard the news, well, that's my fault for waiting a month to write. Then again, none of this is the kind of stuff that needed to be disseminated in a quick fashion, so no matter. Chuck Klosterman did have a point in his last podcast as Simmon's guest about our newfound needs for immediacy. I guess I'll test out whether or not it matters. That is if you're reading at all. Because if you're not reading, well, it doesn't matter because this isn't how the news is getting to you anyway.

So by now we're all getting to process that poor hand that Conan has been dealt by NBC with this interminable space where there is no Conan. I, for one, have enjoyed him for a long time and I was watching a lot more Conan after I got my digital converter going. It could be the lack of cable, or it could just be that I was looking for some late night comedy in a format that I can trust, but I just haven't much enjoyed Letterman of late, and I've never really had any love for Leno, but I did enjoy watching Conan until he went off the air for his pre-Tonight Show break. And all I can really think is, gee, he is so screwed by the way NBC pushed Leno in front of him. Granted, there's no guarantee that Leno is going to succeed at 10/9 central as that's not necessarily something people are looking for before the news, but still, it seems like a crap deal. Anyway, I wonder how Conan's gonna deal with all of it, and maybe, just maybe, this is one of his secret weapons. Here's to hoping, at least.

Ed put together another fantastic meal for us, this time at Lurcat. More good food, better company, and all around good times. Who knew that apples, chives, and cheese could work so well together? Who? I don't know what's on tap for next month, but I already look forward to the opportunity. Epicureans of the world, unite. Plus, now's not even a bad time to do it, because a lot of nice restaurants want your business and are doing things to get you in the door. I would like to go back to Lurcat and try the bar food sometime, but on the cafe side, they did a tasting menu for $30, ostensibly because restaurant week was in March, but I would be surprised to see a few places hold onto their testing menus that are slightly discounted to keep people coming in. Plus, with nice restaurants, it's really a good amount of food that's well spaced as opposed to too much too quickly, which is not quite what I'm seeking. I am not the teenaged calorie devouring furnace I once was.

Um, the idea of humanities disappearing scares me. That could just be the English degree in me talking, but I really feel like it was a good degree path. Of course I could have gone with the sciences or finance or any number of things, but I'm beginning to think that what you get your degree in is a lot like where you go to school. It doesn't really matter that much past a certain point. In my case, I got a degree in English, did crappy food service, and then got into the financial sector, which I've been in for a couple years and have no intention of leaving for the next few. I have no necessarily applicable skills because of my degree, other than getting that b.s. taught me how to learn things and do them quickly, which is a skill that has benefited me at Wells Fargo. Being able to explicate paragraphs of Thoreau, or recite lines from Frost poems? Can't say those are life skills, but the skills of analysis, memorization, the tachydidactic nature of college education, those are skills that have served me well. Anyway, all I can think as I see the world around me is we need more literature, music, or art in our everyday lives, not less. Then again, it doesn't mean we need degrees in them. But I guess I'm just not cut out for the age of specialization.

The Handsome Furs record is really growing on me. A lot. I thought about getting tickets to see them this week, and I still might go, but I decided to pass on an actual ticket. I did pick up a ticket to see Grizzly Bear (at the Cedar Cultural Center!), as well as one for Wavves and one for Vivian Girls. It's time to start going to shows again. Even if that's by myself. Even if that means I'm going to potentially run into people that I have no real desire to see. I just don't know that many people in Minneapolis at present who would go. I know plenty of people that would go if I bought an extra ticket, but I don't know if they'd particularly appreciate it. Besides, there's nothing wrong with going by myself. It feels weird, but that's just because it's a social thing, and it's strange to go someplace with a crowd of people and be by yourself. Conversely, though, it would be a better way to meet people who are interested in seeing live music than just hoping I'll trip over them in the streets of Minneapolis. Anyway, April is as good a time as any to renew my love affair with the Entry.

This, on the other hand, just definitely isn't a good sign. Maybe I should scale back that overtime.

So yesterday I went through Facebook and cleaned up my friend list by dropping some people that I no longer felt the need to have on my friend list. It felt equal parts petty and relieving. On the one hand, I no longer feel any need for peacockishness and I'm not concerned about the number of friends I have on a social networking service as a sign of whether I truly have friends. So why does it matter? On the other, why don't I just filter through it the same way I filter through the wealth of information that I'm assaulted with every time I open a web browser, basically? I don't read every story in a newspaper; then again, I don't especially need to put information that I just don't want to see in front of me. I no longer saw the need to constantly put information about things that will always probably be a little painful such as my old band right in front of my face almost every time I signed on. So I took action. I'm not so young that I'm worried about the consequences of such actions anymore, and that is probably a good thing. There's only so much time in life to get over the petty things.

Speaking of friends, here's an intriguing article from the BBC Magazine (always a satisfying section of BBC irrelevant of what you think of their news otherwise) about the ideal number of friends. Not really anything new. The more people you know, the more successful you are because you network better. But there are only so many people that are truly close friends. It seems pretty obvious to me that there's only room for so many people in one's life. Of course, in this day and age, there's a lot more people competing for that space, so that explains some of the interest in the concept, but it does seem like one of those intuitive sorts of things. Of course, leave it to the British to fix a number to things.

Well, I've cleaned up the inbox quite a bit, but unless I want to write a 30 paragraph masterpiece in Blogger tonight, there's no way I'm touching on all of the various articles I've sent to myself to at least get my paragraph out into the world. In closing, I will note that I ordered some boots on Zappo's today, and they put a rush on my order without me asking for it or anything. Which translates to two things in my mind. One, they are taking care of me. Two, they are really trying to impress me with their customer service so I buy more shoes because they could use more money from people like me, that is, people who are still spending money. Anyway, it's one of the few places that I can actually find dress shoes, and I thank them greatly for their expedited service, as it leaves me with a positive feeling about the experience, and they, for the cost of not much more probably, now have someone who will spread the good word. Sadly, this probably also means they could use more people buying shoes, so it's nothing to get too excited about. Then again, I would have to imagine internet services like that are slightly better geared to deal with downturns, just because they can keep a lot less people on staff to fulfill their needs. But that could just be my lack of business sense.

First Impressions Of The Hazards Of Love, and other sundries

2009-03-17T23:07:00.003-05:00

I used to wonder how it is that women lose things in the depths of their purses. Uh...now I don't since I think I spend an average of five minutes digging through my purse trying to find whatever. It's not that big, even. And yet, whatever I need finds some inenarrable way to the bottom under things that haven't even moved. I could solve this problem by buying a wallet, of course, since most of what I need most of the time would end up in there and then I could pull that out and minimize my search, but if I ever questioned exactly why you were digging through your purse at some time in the past, I understand and promise not to do it again.

As I write this evening, I'm listening to The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists for the first time. The cheap bastards at Capitol didn't provide a digital download with it, which I suppose is their right, but if Merge or Jagjaguwar or a lot of other major indie labels do provide them with just about everything, you'd think a major would recognize the sentiment and suck it up. Instead they want more money from me. And while I'm someone who might pay a little bit extra, I'm not exactly tripping over myself for a digital copy, and plenty of people won't even pay for a digital copy in a first place, so it just seems like an odd thing to do from a p.r. standpoint. It's an easy thing to do that I think a lot of listeners appreciate. So now I can only listen to it at home, which is okay. It is their choice as a label not to provide such perks and a consequence I accept by purchasing vinyl.

While I was at the Fetus, I also picked up the new eps by Beirut/Realpeople. This isn't my first exposure to Beirut, but this is the first record I've picked up by Zach Condon. It's two eps, one of his Beirut stuff, this time with Band Jiminez, a band that he recorded with in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, and one as Realpeople, of sequenced synth-pop that he did in the past. Two disparate sounds for certain, but I listened to both and enjoyed both, and I had heard the Lon Gisland ep a few times in the past and enjoyed it. Definitely not quite like a lot of other stuff in my collection. And it came with a digital download, so huzzah. March of the Zapotec is diverse and strange in it of itself, and it comes with another disc that's totally unlike it. What an odd and diverse addition to the musical collection.

"The Rake's Song" is an opener...of side C. It really seemed like an album opener to me, but that goes to show what I know. I really want to crank it up, too, but it's 11:30, so that'll have to wait for another day. So far, the other stand out track has been "The Wanting Comes in Waves". It hasn't rocked too much yet, which isn't too odd, since it's a Decemberists record, but nonetheless, I was hoping for a little bit more rock from Colin Meloy this time around. The liner notes, on the other hand, are divided up by parts, so this record's obviously going to take a bit more listening and digesting, since it's a rock opera after all. Side C seems to be moving a little more in the rockin' direction.

I also picked up the new one by the Handsome Furs, Face Control. I've listened to that a couple times online. I really find the ability to do that makes me much more confident about my purchases. While I probably would have picked up all the records I did anyway, since I tend to be a consumer of things like music sound unheard in the past, it is nice to know what I'm getting into. It gave me to the leeway to say, you know what, The Chemistry of Common People by Fucked Up is good and all, but it's not what I'm looking for right now, so let it ride. But I've heard it, and it's in my mind, and on a list, so I'm not going to forget for the rest of time. The fine people at Sub-Pop like to make all their records look the same, in a classy old school way like they're Atlantic or something, and they respect the digital download, at least with all the Sub-Pop purchases I've picked up so far (Handsome Furs, Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper). It's kinda synth-poppy, and it's one of the guys from Wolf Parade, and it seems to be vaguely post-nuclear and Russian, all things that are okay in my book.

Yeah, definitely getting more rockin', in a "Is this a Yes record from the 70s?" sort of way. This is not a bad thing.

Since I was not paying a lot of attention, I missed the boat on a lot of "Best New Music" from last year per Pitchfork, but now that their site is beautifully redesigned and you can listen to most things with the built-in Lala players (provided it's in Lala, of course), it's really a lot easier to go back, see what they liked, and take a quick listen. That's how I came upon the Vivian Girls, and it's another one of those records that hit the spot right now. I've been able to finally identify to some degree that basis for my musical purchasing and curiosity. I'm into the lo-fi sound right now, so I pick up things with the lo-fi sound, or find myself listening to bands like Japandroids, who not only have a fantastic name, but make pretty rocking, dirty music just the way I'm liking it. It can't explain it all, because other things are jumping into the collection, but that at least seems to be a bent to things. I am also currently in love with shoegaze, and taking suggestions in either direction about bands.

I came up with a band idea the other day, so if anyone out there is interested in starting a twee band, let me know. I have know idea how being in a twee band works, other than I wanted to write songs about happy things like treehouses and I want to know twenty people who can sing. In other words, I'd like to form my own I'm From Barcelona, only I can't sing worth a damn. But hey, I can at least learn to play guitar.

And now we're at the part of the record with a what should be a children's choir, but I'm not sure if it actually is. Definitely going to take a couple more listens.

To get back to the lo-fi, I also grabbed the much buzzed Wavves record, confusingly not quite self-titled as Wavvves. What can I say, I'm a sucker for vinyl and I'm a sucker for things that sounds like they're being recorded on a boom box. This could all be John Darnielle's fault. I'm not entirely sure.

Tomorrow, I actually get to start my new job, as opposed to all the stuff that I've been doing in the meantime, so that's pretty exciting.

It is much discussed that Jenny Lewis was a childhood actor, but did you also know that Blake Sennett was a childhood actor? I didn't until I started investigating for somewhat random reasons. And not only did I find out that he was in 16 episodes of Boy Meets World, but I learned about some of the other fine things that Jenny Lewis was in before she finally put aside that acting thing to be a full time musician/sex symbol to indie boys the world over. Did you know she was in Pleasantville for example? But the gem of the collection is this two minute trailer for Foxfire. Seriously, go watch this, and if you're like me, you'll wonder why you've never seen it. Anything with Angelina Jolie and Jenny Lewis just has to be gold. That coupled with the sheer hilarity of anything with Peter Facinelli has to put it over the top. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. Good night.

Music I Own! and other thoughts

2009-03-13T23:58:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking that it's time for some regular features again, one of which I'll preview at the end of this blog entry that I'm going to call Music I Own. As you may know, I own quite a bit of music, and sometimes I get lost in the detritus of old cds that I never listen to, especially when I'm in a high new music consumption mood like I currently am. My goal, to broaden my understanding of what I have, and to give myself an excuse to have a semi-regular feature, is to put my music player on random and select a track at random to write about a little bit. They may be awful songs, from awful albums, but it's just important to remember one thing. That's music I own. Of course, some of it may be transcendent, or just eye-opening as the one I'll feature tonight from a disc that's never gotten a lot of spins in my rotation, because it's just never managed to break in. But first some other things.

I would also like to get back to writing well thought-out blog entries again. Not every time. I kinda like the quotidian nature of blogging, but I haven't done an entry where I've really gone and looked up things or put together some resources beyond what my opinion and one article I've read in quite a while, and I like doing those. It's a different kind of writing exercise, and I usually learn something. I wrote one about bike laws in Minneapolis quite a bit ago that still serves me well out on the paths and roads of the Twin Cities. Anyway, I have a couple ideas, and I'm sure they've been written about before, but really, what hasn't?

Bill Simmons has annoyed me recently in his podcasts and his columns. In the course of discussing Katelynn, the transgendered roommate on The Real World, he or his readership have referred to her as a tranny, which bugs me for a couple reasons. One, I can't say I'm a huge fan of the term. I do not think it has any positive connotations to it. I know I don't want people calling me that, and I don't really understand why it's been bandied about on ESPN. Certainly there are acceptable uses of the word that have nothing to do with transgendered individuals, such as the transmission of a vehicle, but it's not like it was being used in those contexts. It was being used in the slang context as a pejorative term for a transgendered individual, and I don't like that. So I wrote an e-mail to ESPN that has probably disappeared into the ether of the Internet. It's not even as if I want Bill Simmons to be punished particularly for this. What gets me about is just how people say something like that without even really thinking about the connotations of the words they're saying. Given that it's media designed for mass consumption, it doesn't seem well thought out. It's not like ESPN is known for tolerating slurs from its staff, so it seems like a weird one to just let through, but I suppose that says more about our society than anything else.

Careful with that mic, Bono. I understand the impetus to want to rework older things that seem unfinished. But it also seems like a callous bit of work, considering many of your fans already own a lot of that work. You are now sticking them in a position of either acquiring that other work or pissing them off because it all seems like a cash grab. It just seems like a subject where one should tread carefully. Culturally speaking, remakes and enhancements of "originals" do not seem to go over well in our society. Sure, one can take an old idea or an old story and bend it to modern times, but one can very quickly end up degrading his or her legacy (think George Lucas) with too much tinkering. Something about those original recordings that U2 might change is endearing to many of us, or we wouldn't have bought the records in the first place, and they may tarnish the very things that we like about whatever song they change. Do you really want to hear a 2009 version of "I Will Follow"? After what you've heard from the new record? Really? Let's just face facts and accept that not every band is Gang of Four and that making Return The Gift was still a little brazen on their part. Not that Bono's looking to my blog for advice or anything like that. Just my thoughts on the subject of constant revision.

And now for the first installment of Music I Own!

Tonight's track: Shut The Door by Fugazi

(two quick notes: This one was not selected randomly as I needed a good place to start and if I can embed it so you can listen, I will, but otherwise, I apologize for the lack of streaming media)

Shut The Door is the final track on Repeater, a 1990 release by Fugazi. I picked it up somewhere in my sea of digging through post-punk bands and it got lost in the mix. I was not familiar with the record beforehand, and the consensus seemed to be if I were to get a Fugazi album, I should get this or 13 Songs. It got a couple spins, and I filed it into my "I can see why this is important but I'm not into it" file that includes a number of other discs I own. So I put it away for a long time and listened to lots of other bands that obviously listened to Repeater more than me.

The track itself is driven mostly be a drum beat, and the song itself is fairly repetitive. It opens with a propulsive simple guitar part and then slowly morphs into one of those songs that doesn't sound too complex, but probably really is. The guitar part slides around for the verses and there's some pretty fantastic screaming by Ian MacKaye on the chorus. All in all a pretty simple song. What struck me about the track was what it made me think of. It might not be true, of course, but it really sounds like this is the song that Tim Kasher listened to form his Cursive style in the early days, from the sing-speak of the verses to the screaming to the simple vocal inflections used, I can see how this may have been a formative record. I still don't think I'm going to pull out Repeater that much, but it's nice to know what some of those emo bands were listening to when they decided "this is what we want to do".

The Times They Are A-Changin'

2009-03-10T22:49:00.005-05:00

I have no desire to spoil Watchmen for you. I saw it this evening with a few friends, and though it was quite long, I found myself pretty amused through the proceedings. Of course, I've read Watchmen three times, so I knew what I was getting into. On the flip side, that enabled me to watch for little touches, like the Tales of the Black Freighter poster along the side of the not oft shown newsstand. There was not much discussion of newsstand, and obviously if one storyline had to go, it was that one, but I'm glad it survived if tangentially. There was also a lot of placement for Under The Hood which was good to see. I was curious to find out how they handled the Minutemen stuff, and I thought they did a good job, but I was really curious why they chose to say something about all of them but Hooded Justice. He's the guy with the rope all over his body, and he does appear, but they say nothing about him. Everyone else is mentioned, and their fate in some cases is shown, but nothing about him. Strange. Also, I thought it was a little unusual, and maybe I'm just not remembering accurately, but I only remember Dr. Manhattan being referred to by his surname once in the film, toward the end. That seems like an odd time to bring it up. I also thought the New Frontiersman was conspicuously absent until the end, but again, maybe I just missed it.

The one thing they had to make up without any basis was the music, and I thought they did a good job of confining the soundtrack of songs that were in existence at the time in the film. I enjoyed the use of Dylan for the opening credits, but my favorite musical touch by far was the instrumental version of "Everyone Wants To Rule The World" that's playing as Adrian Vecht is talking with the car execs. That filled me with quite a bit of glee.

On the whole, it's definitely worth $5. And what else would I have done tonight other than watch blowing snow?

In closing, here's a good dose of bizarre automobile promotion. That's my cue to get out of here.

Some stuff I listened to in February

2009-03-09T13:42:00.003-05:00

1) Arcarsanel by At The Drive-In
2) Nowheres Nigh by Parts & Labor
3) When You Sleep by My Bloody Valentine
4) The Opera House by The Olivia Termor Control
5) The Rake's Song by The Decemberists
6) Impossible (edit) by The Shout Out Louds
7) Savion Glover by P.O.S.
8) Cutdown by Matt & Kim
9) Sunndal Song by The Apples In Stereo
10) Deep Sea Diver by Grizzly Bear
11) Porcelain by The Clientele
12) Young Adult Friction by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
13) Some Bullshit Escape by The Good Life
14) Calling And Not Calling My Ex by Okkervil River
15) Dawn Lament by Fires of Rome
16) The '59 Sound by Gaslight Anthem
17) A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley
18) Ride The Rails by The Besnard Lakes
19) A Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy by The Kinks
20) The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin

February 2009

To the hostess goes the spoiled food

2009-03-08T18:36:00.002-05:00

Dr. Mario came up in conversation the other day. It may just be arrogance, but I fancy myself the best Dr. Mario player I know after years of extensive testing, probably more than I should have conducted, during college. I have a knack for the game for whatever reason. This is in my top 5 "useless skills that I would love to be able to put on a resume" right up there with being able to beat Super Metroid in under an hour. I'm not sure what the others would be yet, but I'm sure one would involve Scrabble. Anyway, that made me think I haven't played Dr. Mario in a while and I would love the challenge of playing someone again, but just playing again is pretty fun, so I hooked the Super Nintendo up, and turned it on, and nothing happened. It took some finagling, but it appears to be working right now. I just can't play games that require start and select because those buttons don't work so much on those controls. All signs pointing to needing a new Super Nintendo, but that's neither here nor there. What does matter is that I can now sit on an exercise bike, ride for an hour, and play Dr. Mario. It's a workout for my mind and body.

I have had time the past few days, and I have done a little writing, but none of it in forms that are ready to go in here at this point. I'm working on a rewrite of a story which is something that I don't do much because I've been a lazy writer up to this point, and I'm beginning to realize in strong stories that there's still a lot missing, or a lot more that I can put in to add to the subtext of the story. Part of the confines of a project that involved writing a story every week, though, is that I didn't feel like writing anything too long, and everything was essentially a first draft. So I'm working on improving one, and I'm gonna get back to a couple other ones before the end of March. I've also started something from scratch, with no deadlines, so that I can write the zeroth draft without any pressure. It's an old idea, and it's about time I got back to it. They don't make Moleskines for nothing.

Officially, tomorrow is my first day as a Loan Documentation Specialist 4. Unofficially, I am doing the exact same thing tomorrow, only I get a new computer, a new work phone number, and more pay. It's not such a bad deal when you look at it that way.

I put together another playlist of music I was listening to in February, but I think I'll save that for the end of the entry.

Another successful and rewarding game night has come and gone. Dave, Smeeta, Patrick, Kara, and Katie came over, and we made tacos, and shakes, and there was homemade guac, the Back to the Future soundtrack was hit music, and Uno seemed like quite a contentious matter, but I sat it out to make shakes for people. 6 is actually a really good number, as it allowed us to play some of my larger, non-party type games. We played Rage a couple times, and there was a game of Hoity Toity in between, and lots of good food, better company, and shakes and malts made with whole milk as God intended. There'll be more games in April, and I may try a Saturday again and see what kind of response I get. I still haven't found a great time to do it, but right now the weekend seems to be a good time, so check back in late March and we'll do one in April, and it'll be a party like none other. The only real problem is I have too much taco stuff between shells, cheese, etc, so now I'm going to be eating tacos until the next game night. There are worse problems to have. After all, a week of mini-quesadillas isn't exactly going to kill me.

Did you know Goose Island makes root beer? And it's really good?

It rarely fails that the only time I can't get the internet connection to reliably work is when I'm trying to write a blog entry. I wonder how this works, what it knows, and whether I'm ever going to get so frustrated that I'll get a connection that's legitimately mine.

Since I haven't been in here since, thanks to Ed for putting together a fantastic dinner at Solera. Last week was Restaurant Week, so they had cheaper tasting menus at some of the nicer restaurants in town. I've never done the tasting menu way of eating, and it was very enjoyable. There were some things that we had that I don't know if I'd have them again, but it was a nice format to try a lot of different foods combined with other foods that I'd never think to try or put together myself, or even order if I saw it. Anyplace with sherry sorbet is okay in my books. And out of it comes renewed vigor for dining out in Minneapolis with friends again. Bring on the restaurants that are to come, and I'll keep working lots and lots of overtime to pay for it all.

I haven't picked up any new music in the past couple weeks, because I've been making a number of other random purchases for things I want or need. I picked up a 1 TB external hard drive, though, which is music related purchase, since it basically exists to back up my digital music so that I don't have to keep ripping it, over and over and over. I did pre-order the Wavves lp, and I'm sure I'll by other records when that comes in on St. Patrick's Day, and I think I'm going to buy a Port O'Brien record over the internets, but considering that there's still another big expense to get through in March, plus some other minor ones that will add up, it's no rush.

Modern music has a pretty clever way of distributing credits, since records don't come with booklets and downloads don't come with anything. Of course, directing people to your band/label's website is going to produce more hits, but I would imagine it is also some nice backdoor marketing. If I want to find how who did the beat for Goodbye, then I'll go there, and I'm sure I'll see something else Rhymesayers is doing, and then I'll want to buy that, and they'll have done their part. The interconnectivity of things today is neat. Of course, this would all be more clever if my connection weren't so sporadic tonight.

Given that I don't have access to the internet right now, I'll do a separate post tomorrow during lunch or something for the playlist. I can, however, keep blathering about all manner of things and just wait to post, and then you can read it, but what fun would that be?

I Don't Say Too Much Anymore

2009-02-27T00:42:00.004-06:00

Two disparate sources mentioned the phenomenon of me talking too much, and all that thinking led to this poem. I assure you, I still have my tongue.

I Don’t Say Too Much Anymore

I cut my tongue out tonight
because my boss and my
therapist told me I talked
too much. I pulled out an
old mason jar and a kitchen
knife and a bottle of scotch
and made quick work of the
affair after downing half the
bottle. I dumped the still
pulsing muscle in the jar,
covered it with saran wrap,
placed it on the corner of my
desk in case I need reminding.

One Woman Stimulus

2009-02-21T22:12:00.004-06:00

I've been doing my best to be a good citizen in this country and get back to the rampant consumerism that we're so often implored to go out and practice. Mostly it's because I've reached another one of those points where I need things that I do not have anything remotely like, or because I need something that I may have had, but have not had need for while living as a woman. A quick look, even without the numbers posted, shows that I spent a bit last weekend. One doesn't get 5 albums and 2 suits for nothing. This weekend, it was a bit more run of the mill stuff, replacing things that had gotten to a point that they needed replacing (here's looking at you, bath mat) or just picking up some things that I haven't in a long time. For example, I have the plates that I purchased, oh, about 8 years ago now in preparation for living in Hawthorne, the site of so many wonderful things such as watching deer cross S. 13th Street at 2 am and listening to the Ames High marching band when they had football games. However, to have not picked up any meaningful dishes to eat with in the meantime (or silverware for that matter) is something of a travesty, and while I didn't go out of my way to buy any amazing dishes, the next time I have people over and I get chili from Lucia's, I may actually have enough bowls. And other things, well, I just spend more on them now. Like my hair. Then again, someone might be offended by how much I spend on my hair now, so let's just move on.

There's an apartment to the left of my kitchen window when I'm sitting at the table, and they always are rocking out over there. Guitars, basses, pianos. I'd like to think that I'm stealing my internet connection from those cool musical folks just a building away. At least that's the hope.

I managed to not find two of the things I was looking for today (an old school cd player that I can hook up to my receiver and a file cabinet) that I'm being picky about, and continued to not be able to find someplace that sells chopsticks that isn't going to be Kitchen Window, which is going to gouge me for anything like that. So the economic windfall for nearby Minneapolis businesses may continue.

You might wonder how I pay for these things, but the reality is, I think that I do nothing but work anymore, and when you do that and still get paid overtime, well, the checks are nice, even if the 60-70 hour weeks aren't. I can't complain in the current environment. Things are just crazy at Wells, and thems the shakes. Of course, that could change tomorrow. I'm hoping it doesn't because, well, that wouldn't bode well for me right now.

I accepted a position in the Prefund department. So now I get to put a 4 after my job title instead of a 3. There are other differences, but they probably shouldn't even be put up here; suffice to say, I'm excited for the opportunity to start something new and continue to prove my awesomeness while getting an employee match in stock that may find a way to go negative because it's in the financial sector. It's the life.

It is worth wondering whether my potential employers would look this up, and then how much they would bother to even read. I suppose it could be damaging, but I've always tried to maintain some degree of competence when it comes to this blog, and I've also tried to not espouse too many things that I would be uncomfortable committing to the internet. Anyone can look at this, after all. Then again, there weren't a lot of hits for Jeremy Natoli before, and they lose all that stuff. I don't think there are that many for Jane Natoli either. At least, Jane Natolis that are me. Then again, 4 of the first 5 hits are me, so I must keep a more aggressive internet presence than the other Jane Natolis of the world. However, if a future employer were to dig through the detritus of this blog, well, kudos to them. That'd be a lot of reading.

They went most of the winter here without calling snow emergencies, and now they call one. I suppose that we did end up with a couple more inches than they thought, and it'd be nice if they cleaned up the curbs this time so we don't get ice shelves like we had through the entirety of January, but I would have liked some plowing then. Parking on 3 inches of ice isn't exactly a blast and the city really didn't do a thing about that. I'll figure out the logic behind snow emergencies someday yet.

Some of you out there may be doing something crazier with your Saturday night, and I thought about mounting an effort to make this Saturday night one of those crazy nights myself, but somewhere between all the shopping today and the fact that these cds just don't copy themselves, I became a homebody for the evening. It's okay, I'm getting things done that need to get done around here, and while I still don't have the technology to reliably listen to any of my cds, I can listen to the records. Now if I'd just get a better record player where I didn't have to perform magic tricks to make both speakers work, I'd be set. It's a future goal.

Oh, I forgot to mention, one of the board games I found at Savers for $2 is Channel Surfing. For those of you who may have forgot this awesome bit of cable exploitation that came into being in 1994. The basic idea is, split into a couple teams, and use a television to find the items on the cards. The back of the box even has a nice multi-racial grouping of people enjoying the game with their mouths open to various degrees. Apparently, it's not a game to enjoy without showing your teeth. Anyway, it could suck, but I've always been curious about the concept of this game. And for $2, I can find out myself. Sure, these games may go right back to Savers eventually, but in the meantime, I'm going to try and get some enjoyment out of games like Outburst, Adverteasing II, and the newest addition, Channel Surfing. It's too bad I don't have cable, but I'm sure I'll find an occasion to use it. Anyway, that's all for now.

Did you know?

2009-02-17T22:30:00.002-06:00

I am listening through my records, partially as an exercise to see how they work, and partially as an exercise what the hell I have. And sometimes an exercise such as a listen through can help you connect the dots in ways that you didn't previously. So as I put on side 4 of Steely Dan's Greatest Hits 1972-1978 (which is inexplicably missing Deacon Blues...I guess it wasn't a hit then) when I start saying to myself, why have I heard this part of "Kid Charlemange" recently? Then it all comes together. That's what Kanye sampled in "Champion". I never bothered to open the liner notes, but sure enough there in the credits a D. Fagen and W. Becker. I knew that song sounded familiar and never could place it, but it's hip-hop. There's always random samples. Anyway, if you would like to hear for yourself how you may have been listening all this time and missing, check it out. Unless you're Patrick, the resident Steely Dan expert, who know all along and is probably shaking his head right now.

Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan

Champion - Kanye West

In non-music discovery mode, ESPN's Streak For The Cash is fascinating. I'm terrible at it. I can't get much of a streak going either way, win or lose. Though I think there should be just as much of a reward for getting 27 coin flips wrong. I know the variables are a little different, but you could still be picking sure losers that find a way to pull one out and I don't see why that's any easier than picking sure winners that find a way to choke a game away to end your streak. I understand our culture puts a premium on picking winners, but isn't it just as impressive to put 27 together no matter which direction. In my albeit short empirical experience with it, I can't get any streak going. Just a thought.

The Suns scored 140 points tonight. They shot 62% from the field, and only managed to score 4 threes while racking up all those points. I know it's just the Clippers, but I'm not gonna lie. That kinda production definitely doesn't hurt my fantasy team. I've been waiting 21 weeks for Amare to be happy again.

The Fetus had its Valentine's Day sale. As luck would have it, I scored a win at poker the night before, so the money I spent and the money I won was something of a wash. However, I would have purchased the albums I picked up either way, so it was nice to do it with "free" money. I had a cd that I ordered that had come in (You Kingdom You by Fires Of Rome) and while I was there, I managed to find Grizzly Bear's Horn of Plenty on cd as well. I also got P.O.S.'s new one, Furr by Blitzen Trapper, The '59 Sound by Gaslight Anthem, and Receivers by Parts and Labor. I'm sure I could have found a few other things, and while I am back at a point where I'm rapidly digesting music again, I still only have so many hours in the day to listen, make judgments, and get some enjoyment out of the purchases. Plus, I have to listen to songs like "Babe" by Styx in that time, too, so I can laugh and think I own this. All of those records have been getting a fair number of spins wherever I have a device to play music, and thanks to Lala, they are getting a decent number of spins there. Of course, I'm also uploading my music collection and getting to some stuff that I just haven't dusted off in a while (mostly because of poorly placed compact disc players within my residence) like Reasonable Doubt. I think it's safe to say I've worked past whatever musical blocks I may have had several months ago.

I had an interview on Monday for a different position within Wells, and it was something of a hectic, whirlwind experience since I had the phone interview on Thursday, learned I was having a face-to-face interview on Friday, and had that interview on Monday. I feel like I did the best job of presenting myself as a qualified candidate, and after that it's out of my hands. But I was running around to get ready since I didn't have anything to wear that seemed appropriate. Heidi helped me find a couple good suits on Sunday, so I was good to go yesterday, and while I may have been a little overdressed, I always prefer that because it helps make me comfortable and that's a large part of being in an interview is just being comfortable.

A lot of little things flitted around in my mind through the whole process and how it's different to approach it now that I'm going through life as a woman. I think that it was more that I just cared more about how I looked, how I did, and what kind of impression I made this time around. That might not all be me being more comfortable with who I am, but it certainly plays into it. I obviously care more about how I look now as I spend more time dealing with it, and that's not just a function of being a woman, that's a function of me being more invested in my appearance because it matters more to me how I look. Because there are certainly aspects of personal grooming that I could have paid more attention to before that I just didn't because I really didn't care. If you're not who you want to be, then what's the point of trying too hard? And while I still think that objectively it's tougher to find womens' clothing that fits well, I am also more subjective about what I'm choosing to wear, how it looks, and what that says about me because I finally really feel like I'm being me. Just a bit of sartorially motivated personal revelations, that's all. Now if I could ever find shoes to go with anything...

One other tidbit about the records before I sign off. The copy of Furr that I picked up was mispressed off center. So the record didn't spin right and it had weird plastic slag hanging of the side. The Fetus took care of me, and while I didn't want to have to go back on Saturday because I figured it would be a zoo (and it was), they took care of me and now I can even listen to the record. So I just might.

Work through this

2009-02-11T23:12:00.002-06:00

Maybe you've known me long enough to know this, but I'm poor at finishing things. Transitioning so far has been an interesting exercising in overcoming some of those hurdles, in as much as I've done quite a bit, but it constantly reinforces my need to stay on top of things and finish them off, even on a small level. I speak of this because I got yet another bill from my friends at Healthpartners telling me that I owe them way more money than I should because this is covered and I should be paying a co-pay of 35-40 bucks at the most for the services I receive. Sometimes, they politely need reminding that they aren't doing things right. And the consequence for me? It's just money. But it's my money, and I've got better things to do with it, like buy more records at the Fetus or get a haircut, or pretty much anything I can imagine in existence other than fighting with my insurance company about the cost of things. So it's time to pick up the phone and dial a number that really should be on speed dial at this point if such a concept still exists. It's been a while since I've talked with them, and since I am still working with them on my epic first visit to Dr. Feldman (which is almost a year old now...I really should get that straightened out), I ought to put in the call anyway. Now just another piece to lay on top when I give them a ring tomorrow.

Maybe you've known me long enough to know I like difficult things as well. I like difficult books, I like difficult music, and I especially like difficult games. I don't know what it is that attracts me to that level of complexity, but it feels like a fairly ingrained thing at this point. I guess it's maybe more correct to say I appreciate deceptively difficult things, like Tetris, which looks and on a certain level is really simple. Though all levels of difficulty are welcome here. I don't know why I'm so attracted to things that frustrate me so often, but I am. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go play some more Civ.

Maybe you've known me long enough to know there's always been something a little off about me and you might think that it all had to do with the gender dysphoria, but it most certainly cannot all be attributed to that. I still have mornings where I don't want to get out of bed, and I'd like to think it's just because I don't like the tedium of facing another day of what my life could be like for the next 40 years if I don't do something to shake it up, but I doubt it's just that. It's just that it's hard to look in the mirror some mornings and realize that I'm somewhere in between and I'll always, at least in a few ways, be there, for the rest of my life. I don't know how many people I actually know who really understand that feeling, and I don't know how to adequately describe it to you if it doesn't make sense. I am comforted by the gender binary and yet I will never be wholly embraced by it. But all you can do when you are looking in the mirror and feeling that way is get back to figuring out what you are going to do with your hair that morning and go to work because otherwise, that's just giving up.

Maybe you've known me long enough to know that this is how I work through this and I thank all of you who lend a hand at the times when it may not seem like it's necessary but I need it most. I write to work out how I'm feeling, and I'm going to finish the process of becoming the more expressive person I've wanted to be, but was deathly afraid to be, for 27 years until I started to make this journey of embracing who I am. It may be something I don't bring up in my blog much because for a long time I didn't want to talk about it, and now I don't want transitioning to dominate my blog, but it seems that something should be said. I'm getting my feet wet with the blog again, and trying to figure out where it is going, so there may be some missteps while I work through this. I became used to utilizing writing as a shroud, and now I would like it to be a lens more often, and I just hope you're willing to take the journey with me.

When I remember skittering is one of my favorite words in the English Language

2009-02-08T22:03:00.003-06:00

My place has gotten a little out of control. Whether this is a function of my working all the time or my not wanting to deal with it is unknown. I could also solve this problem by owning more than 4 forks. However, I still haven't made that fateful trip to IKEA where I come home with too much kitchen shit, so for the time being, I have to live with my four forks and wash my dishes periodically. I don't know why I'm so averse to it, either. It takes 10 minutes at the most for me, because I don't own that much, and that's when I let stuff pile up. One day I'll figure out how I exactly build that into a Herculean task that I don't have time for, even when I get home from work at 8.

Time management might be to blame, but I've found myself getting quite a few things done, all things considered. I always found that I did more when I loaded up my schedule with things like class or work. For some reason, when I am at work for 60 hours a week, I make a more concerted effort to actually get together with my friends when I'm not at work. This is, of course, damaging to blog writing, as it's difficult to write blog entries when people are around since it's generally considered rude, and it would be mildly pointless to drive to Plymouth or Maple Grove to write a blog entry when I can do it right here. However, it's time to reclaim writing time.

As I've already mentioned, I'm putting together a backpacking trip for this summer. It's a lot of work to look into, and I am beginning to realize that our Scout leaders did a lot more than I ever appreciated to get some of these trips together. The ones through organized camps of course had supported infrastructure. Philmont was certainly a lot of planning, but frankly, they have people who do a lot of the work for you, and that's part of what you're paying for with a trip like that. But all the work-ups, that was just something that the three leaders who went with us had to put together, and they put several weekend trips together for us to get ready for the big one. It may be a 12 years belated thanks, but they did a good job with that stuff.

Of course, that prevailing attitude is true of a lot of things that we did as children. Stuff happened more because there were lots of adults making it happen, and now we are those adults who make things happen, for ourselves, and for those of us starting to have children, for our children as well. I wonder why it took my 28 years to coherently figure out some simple things in life like this, but it's probably just that I never thought about the level of work and the details of the things I did for a long time. I just did them.

I made it to Rush in the vinyl listen through. I'm ready for some woodblock solos.

Listening to all this vinyl has just made want to host another game night more and more so I can play all sorts of great things for them like Little Feat. Nothing quite says cards and dice like "Reminiscin'". But I have decided to postpone game night to the last Tuesday of the month so that Dave and Smeeta don't feel like I don't conspire to make game night something they can never make. So mark your calendars for the 26th, because that's when I'll do it, but March I'm going to try and get it back to its more normal time of the 2nd Tuesday of the month. It'll almost be too much game night to take, but I think we can manage.

Speaking of games, thanks to Katie for putting together a wonderful activity last Saturday. She whipped up a little activity she called the Game Decathlon. Basically, we were broken into two teams, we played Catchphrase, learned that Terra Cote is a kind of cheese, broke into smaller groups and played a variety of games such as Uno, Askew, and Scrabble, which discovered isn't a good four player game unless we start instituting a timer, and got back together for a game of Trivial Pursuit where we narrowed down lots of questions to a 50-50 guess and always guessed wrong. There's more actual specifics to it, but the main point is it was fun, and a great get-together, and I'm glad that Katie put that together for us and put out a great spread to keep us all stuffed from start to finish. It wasn't a part of the actual decathlon, but Patrick, Buck and I played a game of Siedler. I felt revitalized. I don't play that game enough. Now when I suck at poker more, though, we can probably get some games going.

Do I lose my indie cred if I say that I prefer Let It Die to The Reminder? Are there laws against that yet?

Harper Collins is doing a cool little thing they call 52 Short Stories that will probably end up being much better than the 52 I cranked out because they have people like Louise Erdrich writing stories for them. However, submissions are open, so I am going to send something in. To the end, I've decided it's time I got around to writing "The Cutting Room Floor" which has been creeping and crawling in my brain for a good 3 years now, and then I want to see how me writing right now stacks up against the stories I wrote that year. Right now, there are four from that year that for various reasons I think are of interest, either because of how I wrote them, or because I thought that I did something well, and though I did abandon you, my erstwhile reader, for quite a while, I am now soliciting your input. The four that I was leaning toward putting some more work into are The Lonesome Crowded West, In Our Dreams There Is No Fog, Hemophobia(definitely the strangest story I wrote that year), and Strength. These are all the original versions right now, but I'm going to try and make some revisions. I am not so attached to them anymore now that it's been three years, so it should be easier to get in there and make them work better as stories. The Lonesome Crowded West needs a better linking device, In Our Dreams There Is No Fog could definitely use some better dialogue, Hemophobia needs some additional length for starters, and Strength is probably one of the better ones in that form, but as everyone noted, the end is a bit obvious, so I need to word that section better. But I did use skittering. Thanks to Caro for pointing out the link to the 52 Short Stories page. Now to get my act in gear by March 1st. That's 2 things to have done by then. And with that, I bid you adieu.

The Dream Is A Chemical

2009-02-01T22:26:00.003-06:00

I had planned to sit down in front of my computer a little longer this evening to rip some more cds and type a bit more of a blog entry, but then I got distracted by the 8-track and its many wonders, and then I found myself playing with the bass and piano for a couple hours, and well...you know how it goes.

Thursday, I managed to swing by Hosner (one of the many libraries I knew was there, but never really knew was there, if you get what I'm saying) to pick up a book about the Superior Hiking Trail. I made it through the basic sections and I think I've decided on a portion of the trail that I'd like to focus on, but I want to flip through just to make sure. In the back of my mind, I'm beginning to target August for this trip, for a couple reasons, but mostly because that's what started to make sense. I think that'd give anyone enough time to get in relative shape and get whatever they need together, and I think it'll be easier on most peoples' schedules based on the preliminary discussions I've had, but by all means, feel free to weigh in.

This week does not look quite so crazy for me. Last week, that was a lot of work, but this week between group, poker, and board games, I'll probably only work 60 hours. I hope to reach a point someday soon where saying the phrase only 60 hours is ludicrous, but that's either going to require the cards to fall right for me to get another position or a lot less volume. One of those is good; the other is not so hot. Anyway, it should be peaceful and I can continue to play with the many toys I'm amassing in my place a little bit more again.

I've made it back to D in the never ending cataloging that I end up doing of my poor music collection (though, as I've stated, this time I'm solving the problem the right way) which means I can look forward to a day full of Desaparecidos and Depeche Mode tomorrow. And more synthesizers than I can probably stand.

Speaking of which, long ago and far away, I used to make a cd of stuff that I had recently purchased/been listening to more frequently for Patrick, and it eventually filtered to a couple other people over the years, but I had since stopped making it. I haven't entirely started again, but as I'm currently shilling for Lala because I think it's cool, I put one together in there. It's not necessarily new stuff, though a lot of it is. But moreover, it's just stuff that I've been listening to over the past month. It might fit on a cd. It might not. I didn't really test it for that criterion. And for the month of January, it looks something like this:

1) One Hundred Years - The Cure
2) Daylight - Matt & Kim
3) Nothing To Worry About - Peter, Bjorn, and John
4) Hearts On Fire - Cut Copy
5) Four Little Diamonds - Electric Light Orchestra
6) Ready For The Floor - Hot Chip
7) Blind - Hercules And Love Affair
8) We Own The Sky - M83
9) Metal Detektor - Spoon
10) Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer - A.C. Newman
11) Disaster - The Besnard Lakes
12) The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart - The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart
13) Microphone - Coconut Records
14) Half Asleep - School Of Seven Bells
15) Sea Of Doubts - Azure Ray
16) Title And Registration - Death Cab For Cutie
17) No One Does It Like You - Department Of Eagles
18) Lines In The Suit - Spoon
19) White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
20) Nothing Ever Happened - Deerhunter

I'm gonna keep trying to do a somewhat unique one each month. So I'm going to try not to repeat albums and artists overly much, of course, this varies based upon what I'm listening to from time to time. Going through my vinyl has popped some different things to the forefront of my mind, like how much I like Lynyrd Skynyrd, so you never know when that's going to make an appearance. It's been good for my somewhat dormant appreciation of classic rock, that I'll say. For example, di dyou know I own Reminiscing by Little Feat? I didn't until two weeks ago. Anyway, this is something I'm going to try and do every month for this year, and you can do with it what you will. I'm not going to say I'm some great tastemaker or anything, but there are occasional people who ask what I'm listening to, and rather than trying to reel off various bands from the top of my head (which is what I frequently end up doing, and somewhat failing to do well), I'm going to keep a list. I can always put together a mix for you, though I don't necessarily have mp3s of all the above songs, depending on the format I acquired them or listen to them most in, so content may vary. And like I said, it may not even fit on a cd. Also, I'm more of a whole album listener, so those are (excepting singles) on albums that I've found myself listening to a lot recently. If you're looking for any other musical mixes, I may be able to help there. As long as you are talking indie or regular rock and roll. Once we get outside of there, my collection gets much more scattershot.

This is the point where I take my leave. There are only so many hours in the day, and since so many of them consist of work right now, I need to take sleep where I can get it.

Strike while the connection is hot

2009-01-30T20:23:00.002-06:00

One of the drawbacks on free internet is that I do not control this free internet. Having wireless is great, and having someone a building over who doesn't mind leaving their network open is even better, but whenever there's a problem, it's not like I can ask them to reset the router or anything like that. And of course, it's fleeting the most at night. Which is odd. I don't know why I won't have any problems with it for 5 straight hours if it's during the day, but as soon as about 8 o'clock rolls around, I can't reliably connect worth a damn. It's an odd phenomenon, but if I were willing to simply pony up some cash, it wouldn't be much of an issue, now would it?

Of course, how this affects you, my loyal (extra loyal considering the fact that I abandoned my post here for 7 months) reader, is that I'm stymied in my traditionally creative time and space. I like to write at night, at the end of a day, really, so I suppose if I worked third shift, it'd be at some hour that'd be awful for that, but generally useful for lots of other things (like 1 pm). And so when I want to write most is when I have the least access to actually posting. And I want to get in here and get at least an entry or two in a week, just to keep this going, because like all things, I gotta keep doing it or it tend to collect dust. The solution I've come up with is to write entries when I have the volition and post when I have the ability. Sometimes those two things will be at the same time. Sometimes not.

It's been a good week, if a bit tiring. We're currently buried under loans at work, which is weird considering the general trend with both banks and the job market, but it keeps me busy and I rake in overtime on the side. I've been trying to get as much in so I can just get some money stashed. Frankly, you never know what's going to happen these days, and I'd rather be somewhat prepared at this point. I doubt I'm anywhere near losing a job, but I'm not going to just pretend that everything is alright and it's going to be like this forever. The mortgage industry, as I've come to learn over the past two years, is a fickle beast. While we may be seeing more files than I've ever seen right now, three months ago we were all working hard to make it look like we were working. So I'm not holding my breath, and if that's why you may not have seen or heard from me in a while, I assure you, I haven't forgot you are out there. 8-8 just doesn't leave a lot of extra time in the schedule though.

So we went to Moto-I, and while it wasn't the most fantastic dining experience I've ever had by any means, it was good. The sake was excellent. I wasn't bowled over by the food, though I enjoyed it. The overall experience was nice. Nothing like a little barhopping between the VFW, Moto-I, and the Herk to help enliven the evening. They forgot to call me back, which put a bit of a damper on it, but instead of having a pager, they simply took my phone number. I think that in an urban environment that's a pretty neat idea. Of course it doesn't hurt that the first bar you hit if you turn up the block to the north is the Herkimer, which the same guy also owns. Anyway, they forgot to call me back, but why did it take until 2009 for places to start doing this? It just seems like the natural thing to do these days.

Lately, since I've been making money and I have the record player working, I've found the record collection growing. Sometimes slowly, sometimes not. This week, since I got some cash for my birthday, it's not a big deal. I ordered a few records from the people at Jagjaguwar/Secretly Canadian/whatever else is rolled into that. While I didn't need a free 7" and a free cd from bands I've never heard of, I appreciate the sentiment. I am happy with Blood Bank, the new ep from Bon Iver. But mostly I'm in awe of the fact that Besnard Lakes somehow escaped my attention. They're a Canadian band that got a lot of help from other Canadian bands and artists on their last record, and it's really good. It reminds me of the same feeling that the Olivia Tremor Control evokes with that mix of 60s pop and psychedelic influences. It's hard not to think Beach Boys at parts, but it's certainly not a bunch of three minute pop songs, so it's not entirely that. I also got Wilderness' first record, which is three sides on LP. Quality. I don't know how to describe that, because I'm blanking on the obvious description. But there has to be one. It reminds me of something. In a few more spins, I'll have it. I also picked up a couple records from the Fetus with my own two hands: Grand by Matt & Kim, a dance punk/couple band explosion of fun, and Saturdays = Youth by M83, which could also serve as a soundtrack to a John Hughes film. If I'd blogged and listened to music in the last half of 2008, I'm sure I would have raved about it then, but suffice to say, if you feel like you want some new 80s music, it's hard to go wrong with that record.

I'm going to try and put together month end lists of what I've been listening to. And I've still got that Spoon sampler to get to Seth. It's done, but I need to put together a written tracklist so Seth isn't just guessing which is which. That leaves a lot on my plate tomorrow on top of another 8 hours of work (why not?), but I'm confident I can get it done if I don't get stuck in front of something mindless like my computer or my Playstation.

I have little projects for myself throughout the year. I'm not much of a resolution person, but there are things I'd like to do, and at a point, it's a lot like transitioning was. Either I do it, or I don't. Some of them, I'm sure you'll hear about, but there's not going to be a bullet point list. One of the big things I'm going to do this year is hike for 5-6 days on the Superior Hiking Trail. I've talked with some of you in person about this, but if you have interest in a backpacking trip of that length (probably looking at a minimum of 50 miles), let me know and I'll keep you in the loop as plans develop. It's a summer trip, and it's gonna require a week of your time, and I want everyone to know that anyone is welcome, but this is something people have to take seriously, so don't think you can buy a backpack the week before and you'll be good. I'm going to be putting together a more detailed e-mail by next Saturday, so let me know if that interests you, otherwise, I'll leave you alone about it.

Finally, I applied for a new position at Wells. I don't want to be the same level I am at the end of my third year of employment there, and that's just over a year away. It's an entry level job. I'd like to get past the entry. Since I have no plans of going anywhere for the next several years, at least.

The Great White North

2009-01-23T16:49:00.002-06:00

I've never been much in the business of New Year's Resolutions. I understand perfectly the motivation behind it, and given how our calendar functions, it makes sense that we as people would use whatever time it is that things "start over" to renew our goals, motivations, and desires. However, I'd rather just make them whenever, and if they happen to line up with the new year, then so be it. It's an arbitrary time, but it does help to have them.

Anyway, something that I would like to do more, and I've started to over the past few months, is see and do more in Minnesota. Given that I have lived here for over 5 years, I think that it's about time that I got around to doing things like seeing the Mill City Museum or getting back to the Science Museum. Today, since I had the day off, I checked out the U.S. Pond Hockey Championships. During this weekend in January, they clear out a lot of space on Lake Nokomis and set up about 30 rinks, though I think only 25 were being used for the actual hockey, and they have games throughout the day for a couple hundred teams. I'm assuming there are actual divisions and things such as that, but it appeared to just be men playing while I was there. I didn't see anything explaining it, but here's how it looked like it worked.

Pond hockey is 4-on-4 with two subs. They set up boards that are a foot high to define the rink and each team is trying to score on a goal. The goal is a wooden box about 4' wide that has 2 openings about 6" wide on each side of it. Level of play varied, but everyone out there could skate pretty well. Quality of uniforms varied from what looked like those cheap jerseys you used in gym, only for hockey to teams that obviously had spent a lot of money and time on custom jerseys for their group. Play consisted of two 10 minute halves with a 2 minute halftime. I walked around on Lake Nokomis, watched a few games for a few minutes each, and saw some plays that made me laugh as well as some plays that made me think these guys are pretty good. I saw a couple shots from mid ice that went in, but most of the time teams were lucky to stuff one in from 6 inches away. It looked like a lot of fun. Not that I have the talent to play in something like that, but it looked like a really enjoyable time if you do have the talent to do something like that. It was cold, but it's Minnesota in January, it's always cold. Besides, it beats last year when they weren't sure about the ice quality because it was a warm winter and they moved it to Lake Calhoun instead. I saw a couple pug mixes sliding around on the ice, a lot of hockey, a guy tumble over the boards, and two people tossing a block of snow or ice like a football. In other words, a pretty typical Minnesota afternoon in winter.

I've been working a lot, which is nice because it's good to have money to buy things like records, which I've started buying again. I picked up the new record by A.C. Newman, and it sounds like an A.C. Newman record. I don't know if this is the record that would sell you on him if you didn't like him before, but if you do like him and his New Pornographers output, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't like it. And I got the Department of Eagles record, In Ear Park. Buying records certainly costs a couple bucks more than buying mp3s or buying cds, but it's hard to remove the tactile satisfaction of vinyl. Since I've got the record player working, I've been trying to make my way through the records I have from my parents that I haven't listened to, and I don't have so many that it takes me too long. Bit I've still only made it about 2/3s of the way through. Of course, I've been buying new stuff like In Ghost Colours by Cut Copy or Girls Can Tell by Spoon and they've been getting a lot of spins. And I haven't been home that much since I've been working Benson-like hours. I'm now listening to Doug and Bob MacKenzie, which is ridiculous, but I own it.

There are some other things I should do before the evening ticks on, since I'm going out to Moto-I later. It's the only sake bar that brews its own sake outside of Japan. I'm more than curious. I mused about turning it into more of a crazy evening, but most people seem to be out of town, so it's going to be a smaller gathering. Here's to sake.

Before I go, I cannot neglect the other discovery I made today. If you don't live in Minneapolis, this paragraph doesn't apply. Of course, neither did the last one, and probably several others that I've written. Use your discretion. Since I was on the south side of town by Lake Nokomis, I popped into Fat Lorenzo's to see if they do pizza by the slice, and sure enough they do. I do have to say that as much as I like Luce, it's not always the kind of pizza I want. Sometimes I want a big, thick slice with way too much cheese and toppings and really thick crust, and that's the kind of pizza they do at Fat Lorenzo's and for $3.50, it's hard to beat the deal. I don't know how it took me so long to learn this, but some things just take time I guess.

Start and Stop

2009-01-19T23:28:00.000-06:00

I believe that I left you off with the right poem. Then I stopped writing poems and I think I've written one since, but again, yet another thing to start again. Like so many things out there, I've gotten away from it for who knows what? Star Ocean? Yeah, probably that a bit. Playing piano quite a bit? Still not as much as I should if I ever want to get better. Working? Um, yeah, that's definitely been a large part of my life recently. Though I'd like to think that a large lesson from my life in the past few months is that irrelevant of whatever is going on I have to keep plowing through to do what I want to in this life. I divested a lot of energy in transitioning, and now I'm at a point where I wouldn't say it's on auto-pilot, but I've gotten past the initial hump and it requires a lot less of my energies, frustrations, concerns, etc then it did before.

And what to do with that? For reasons that are not worth discussing right now, I've been rather musically disconnected for most of the past year. But I've been getting back to seeing live music, and listening to new things. In the process of trying to hear new stuff, I've stumbled across my favorite site in recent memory: Lala. I'm fairly fascinated with it for a couple reasons. One, I think the idea that there's a site that you can upload your music to and listen to streaming from any computer with a decent internet connection is a pretty cool idea. Second, I think it's a pretty slick spin on social networking. I like the concept of targeted social networking, and while I'm sure it's nothing new, it's the first site that I've stumbled across that pulls it off well. The site doesn't cost you anything, but you can only listen to any given unique song once. Of course, you can add streams for cheap, and like I said, there's the entire uploading feature. But I think that interest based social networking is a pretty good idea, and I like that I was actually able to listen to Lullaby for the Working Class while being stuck at work forever.

I would say it's life as usual, but I've not really defined what life as usual is these days, and I think that my life is fairly unusual. Or maybe it's not and I just feel that way. Anyway, I gotta keep ripping cds to my computer, hopefully for the last time since I think I've come up with a couple different solutions that should prevent this problem going forward. Having put a few words in, I will take my leave.

Starting differently

2009-01-13T00:09:00.003-06:00

I was just trying to find out if everything stills working here. And it does. I've been thinking about dusting this off, and I have an internet connection and a working computer...so here goes.

I wanted to write again and I could have just scrapped this blog and started over. But I'm not starting over, really. Starting differently, of course. There's no denying that things are different in my life and transitioning is a big part of that. But I would like to hope that a lot of the past several months since I wrote haven't changed the fact that whatever the name on the blog is, I'm still me. Whether it says Jane or Jeremy. Then again, the experiences and the changes therein are going to influence how I write and what I write about, so I'm just tilting at windmills hoping not to be different.

Anyway, it's time I got back to writing, and even if it's only a couple paragraphs, there's only one way to do it.

Changing

2008-05-21T21:50:00.001-05:00

Changing

Why do the buttons go the other way?
I know you explained the other night, but
that doesn’t reduce my frustrations as I’m
retraining my fingers because I’m certainly
not going to have a maid help dress me
unless I end up marrying someone really
rich, and by the way, I’ll have to learn how
to button myself into the shirts and dresses
so that I can impress that really rich guy.
In any case, it’s buttoned and I look at the
shirt in the mirror for far longer than I’m
used to still, but as opposed to before when
I just had to make sure there was nothing
on whatever I chose to wear this morning
(or at least that’s how everyone else acted)
now I have to look at it and decide that it
does fall a little funnier than I thought it
would off the rack, and while I used to
almost never try things on before and I
knew my sizes in all my shirts and jeans,
now I can’t even find anything that fits
and I spend all of my day changing.

Busywork

2008-05-21T21:49:00.002-05:00

Busywork

They say you only retain ten percent
of what you learn in school, and it’s
further proof that I can’t remember
who that they even is, though I imagine
that’s an apocryphal percentage because
you aren’t really supposed to retain much
the way that they taught us growing up.
Most of the time, they just handed us
sheaves of paper with multiplication tables
and maps that we could color and label.
Me, I was always a quick colorer and
a faster multiplier, and when I handed
my work to the person next to me, there
was never much on that busywork for them
the correct, but now I find that I’m back
to doing busywork and the people I hand
my work to aren’t as easy to impress, but
nonetheless, just as when I was in grade
school, the people I’m surrounded by
equate fast with smart, so I might make
a few more mistakes, but I expose myself
to a lot more ten percent to remember.

Overtime

2008-05-21T21:49:00.001-05:00

Overtime

Over time, I suppose my body
would get used to all the overtime
and I would just accept the fact
that there’s either time to do some
reading or get eight hours of sleep
but there will never be time to do
both, and while it’s highly recommended
by the powers that be here at Wells
that I stay an extra few hours during
the week, I put in enough last week
for them to accept that I need this
one to recharge, but moreover,
over time, I’ve come to realize
that all this overtime isn’t worth it.

This Call Means

2008-05-21T21:48:00.002-05:00

This Call Means

Every week, I pick up the phone
and I dial a number that I used
to call my own and we talk. I
think we talk about the same
things, our jobs, our bikes, our
local sports teams, and now
as I get older the details are
changing, what with more talk
about mortgages and workplaces
instead of school and girlfriends,
but I could still write a script
like a mad libs and we could
just fill in the nouns, adjectives,
and verbs, but the conversations
are anything but blank, and besides
that’s not really why we have them.
I have doctors who tell me that
I have trouble talking about my
feelings because my father didn’t
love me or my mother neglected me,
but my parents don’t have to tell
me those things every week for
me to know that asking if I’ve
figured out what’s going on with
my insurance is how they say it.

Eventually Everything Is Work

2008-05-21T21:48:00.001-05:00

Eventually Everything Is Work

If every day were like Saturday,
with us just sitting on our desks
talking about the newly opened
positions in our department while
we wait for the computer system
to recover, then I could probably
get more excited for every day
of work, and I wouldn’t even mind
being paid to play around on a
computer without someone telling
me wait to do, but I’m sure it’d
get boring pretty quick, because
it doesn’t matter what you do, most
cases, there’s a reason they have
to pay you to spend your time there.

The Going Trend

2008-05-21T21:47:00.001-05:00

The Going Trend

For now, it’s barn doors instead
of calling aces, and no, I don’t think
there’s anything wrong with Euchre,
but all it makes me want to do, and
it could just be the short deck, is
grab the sevens and eights and
some scratch paper so that I can
explain the strength of trump and
we can include the fifth person who’s
always stuck watching, because it’s
so rare that we play five player games
and so often there are five of us, and
I know Sheepshead was made for
moments like these, but thinking about
all those queens doesn’t work the same
in this game, but the jacks still do, so
you better pick up that ace of hearts
so we can finish this strong and you’ll
just have to wait for next game to get in

Post Play

2008-05-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Post Play

It’s a good thing there’s only four of us
because there’s no way I could run up
and down the court. It’s only been, oh
wait, it’s almost been eight years since
I did this regularly, playing basketball
five on five four nights a week, and I
didn’t do myself any favors afterwards
by getting a Big Bread with Steve and
Mike most of the time, and I certainly
didn’t do myself any favors by not playing
much of anything the past eight years, but
really, I didn’t expect to be this winded
after one game in the half court, but the
only solution is to check the ball in and
put a body on someone down in the post.

An Example

2008-05-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

An Example

My grandfather handed me two
quarters as we walked toward one
of those large change funnels for
cancer or cerebral palsy and he
nodded to it, so I stuck a quarter
into it, but he stayed my hand on
the second. Finally, as the spiral
got tighter and tighter, he told me
to put the second one in and he
pointed as it slowly rolled and
said, “That’s you” and we looked
at the almost finished one and he
said, “That’s me”. We watched
them until the both went down
and I tugged on his hand, “Grandpa,
aren’t you dizzy” and he smiled.

Checking In

2008-05-14T21:52:00.002-05:00

I was going to work some overtime today but I forgot to commit to it yesterday, so I wasn't on the books for it, and I said, you know what, I could use a few hours tonight to do what I want instead of making a little more money, and I got out of there. Of course, I could use the money because the poem about me finding my car broken into is no work of fiction, and I'm out a few hundred bucks for all of the trouble with that, but no matter. I think I needed the time more.

We've had so much overtime at Wells recently that I haven't been getting out on my bike nearly as much as I should, so I left and went for a good bike ride on my somewhat creaky bike. I think I need to take it into the shop and get a tune-up performed. Something doesn't seem right with it, I'm just not sure what that something is. Plus, I haven't gotten it tuned up in a couple years, since the free one that came with the purchase of my bike. Something to look into in the next couple weeks.

Lots of little thoughts have been flitting through my head, but I was doing some training at work and otherwise distracted by many ventures and phone calls at work to keep things straight, so I can't remember all of the little thoughts that I've had about the various humorous/bizarre/odd things that I see in loans, and the random little articles that I've found on the web. It's not like I haven't been capturing some of that in my poems, I have, and I know that when I take on a project like writing in one form it's going to reduce the amount of writing I do in another. I still do plenty of writing.

So I mentioned that my car was broken into. Someone stole my iPod because I forgot it in there overnight, though given my car was in a locked garage, I am thinking that's just dumb luck and my window would have been smashed in anyway. But since my computer melted down a few months ago, I had very little music on my computer, and when I hooked up my iPod for the first time (Huxley 5.0), I only ended up with 700+ songs, which is a bit low, so I'm sitting here, blogging, watching some basketball, thinking about a poem, and ripping my Beatles cds back onto my computer so they can go onto my iPod so I can listen to something other than artist that begin with A. It's going to take me several more evenings of sitting down and just putting songs back on, but thems the shakes. I at least own the music the I want to listen to and therefore I just have to go through the tedious task of putting it back on, which is better than not having it at all.

In a couple weeks, I'm moving, and I'll be in my own place right in the middle of Uptown, and for a while, I was making good progress on boxing my possessions, or at least throwing out things and making piles to give away. I've gotten sidetracked the past couple days with this and need to get back to it. It'll be the 31st before I know it. And I don't need all this stuff out all the time. I'm certainly not going to read any of those books right now other than a couple, so why keep them all out? I don't know. I always put things away and get random pangs to want to use those things. Like I wanted to watch Back To The Future two hours after I'd taped up the box with it. Such is the nature of these things.

Is anyone else scared that the new McDonald's Southern Chicken Biscuit is billed as having a "homemade-tasting biscuit"? I feel like Chick-Fil-A must be making some headway, because all of a sudden every place has southern style chicken sandwiches. And none of them are Chick-Fil-A. All imposters. Someday Chick-Fil-A will come and bring ruin upon those chicken sandwiches. At least, I hope. Since they are giving away a free biscuit tomorrow if you purchase a medium drink, I may have to try, so I can at least

Also, I recently purchased a digital camera because I want to try and sell some of this old junk, and I know it will sell better if I can take pictures of it. So that's something I need to do in the next week or so, because otherwise I'll have to wait until after I move. Unless, of course, you know anybody out there looking for a bunch of role-playing books, magic cards, and possibly some of my comics, by all means, direct them to me. Also, anyone who wants a desk, a couple bookshelves, or a mini-fridge. End advertisement.

You know, I know there's other things that are blog-worthy, but I'm just tired. I think it's just time to get through the Andrew Bird, and get some sleep. You take care of yourselves out there.

Things To Do With Andrew Jackson

2008-05-13T00:06:00.001-05:00

Things To Do With Andrew Jackson

I never set out to be deliberately misleading
but if I’ve accomplished anything in the past
twenty-seven years, it is most certainly that
I’ve become very good at deliberately misleading
people, and so I sit in a chair and I talk with
a man whose degree most certainly has a shinier
seal than mine, and we work on it for fifty minutes
and twenty dollars, or however many increments
of that it takes, and I try to not fall into that
pattern with him because if I’m going to be spending
my money here to make myself better, I may
as well not throw it away, and some would argue
that twenty dollars would be better spent on a
couple beers and a couple packs of cigarettes,
but I tried that for a few years in college and it
didn’t seem to work any better, so I’ll sit in this
chair, but I’m not going to talk about my relationship
with my father or anything like that, no, no, it’s
not like that, and no, it’s nothing like a good buzz,
but we all spend twenty dollars different ways to feel better.

At Least It's Spring

2008-05-13T00:04:00.003-05:00

At Least It’s Spring

From the moment I look in
the garage window, I know
something is amiss, because
I did not leave the door open
last night and sunlight is
shining in, and when I push
open the door, I see the glass
everywhere where there once
was a window and I realize
that it was probably the wrong
night to forget my iPod, which
I honestly haven’t done in a
couple months, but sure enough
I did and now it has been spirited
away like so many other objects
left in garages in Minneapolis.
I call the non-emergency number
to file a report, and I don’t think
anything is going to happen with
it, and no, it’s not something
I was looking forward to dealing
with this mother’s day, but honestly
I’ve beaten out quite some long
odds by making it this far without
anything happening and for the
moment, it’s not snowing anymore.

It's Not My Fault I Wasn't A Teenager In 1967

2008-05-13T00:04:00.002-05:00

It’s Not My Fault I Wasn’t A Teenager In 1967

That’s a really good book,
says the unsolicited voice
coming out of the doctor’s
office, and I peek over Dune
and I wonder why this woman
thought that I needed to know
that, but I decide that it would
be more practical to respond
than to scowl, so I say that
I’ve had some trouble getting
into it, but it’s starting to pick
up now, and she implores
me to keep at it and read the
entire trilogy and I think maybe
it meant more to her in her
teens than it means to me
in mine not because the book
got any worse, but because I’ve
already read so many diluted
versions of Frank Herbert’s
masterpiece, and I can’t force
the image of Sting with a knife
popping out of his stomach
out of my head as I read.

Anniverisimilitude

2008-05-13T00:03:00.002-05:00

Anniverisimilitude

It’s been a year, though I could be
off by a day or two, I’ve never been
one for anniversaries of the good
things that happened in my life, so
why should I mark this break up
any differently? But I don’t think
anniversary is the right word any
way, not that it get used properly
anymore anyway, but shouldn’t
there be a separate word that properly
connotes the negativity of some
anniversaries, or do we really all
want to use anniversary because no
matter how bad whatever it was that
happened, it’s a subtle reminder
we’ve managed to make it another year?

Says I

2008-05-13T00:03:00.001-05:00

Says I

When you die, certainly it’s hard
on everyone that didn’t, but the
weight of the bad news does not
squarely rest on your shoulders,
not that you’re skipping out on
blame, but it’s really the only major
piece of life news you don’t have
any excuse not to share with your
friends and family, and no, I didn’t
die, it’s taking me a minute to work
up the right words here, so we talk
about the new record by Portishead
for a bit until I interrupt the flow
of the conversation by simply and
truthfully saying I have something to
say, and for a brief second, you stop
and everything is just hanging in the
air, and I almost drop my phone or
click the end button to make it stop, but
instead I start the next sentence with I.

On Cleverness

2008-05-08T18:03:00.002-05:00

On Cleverness

I apologize for my lack of celerity
I was searching for something to say
and not feeling so clever, but it's
hard to find the right thing to say
and even harder to find the words to
be clever when I think too much, so
I will just say that it would be a
pleasure to go for a walk, where I'll
have less concern with being clever because
walking is not a clever activity, though
the talking can be, but I assure you
I am up to the task - Jeremy

A Little Space

2008-05-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

A Little Space

I don’t know why Honeywell
paid to have the terrain shaped
with terraces like they did, but
as I toss the pallino up a hill and
we all lose sight of it, I can’t
help but think there were a couple
bocce ball players on the staff,
how else to explain that expertly
placed tree and its deceptively
complex root system that makes
it so hard to get a leaner, or that
vertex of the hills that no ball
can quite rest in as we all take
turns throwing. Maybe no one
at Honeywell played bocce and
that’s why Wells Fargo bought
this building. I look up at the
fifth floor window of my department
waiting to throw my second red
ball as close as I can, and
whatever the reason, I’m glad
someone had the foresight to
leave a little space for bocce ball.

Nothing To Hide

2008-05-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

Nothing To Hide

The pumps just sit on the floor now
instead of on the bottom of the foot
locker my parents bought me as a
freshman at Iowa State, and though
it probably could use a good dry
cleaning, the dress is on a hanger
these days and I find myself staring
at the other minutiae that filled
that foot locker for so long now
sitting in dressers and on bathroom
shelves, and I know I could probably
start keeping something in there
again, maybe some extra linens, but
I don’t think I’ll have any need for
a foot locker at my new place.

Marketing Opportunity

2008-05-06T00:53:00.000-05:00

Marketing Opportunity

Eating Chipotle on
Cinco De Mayo
as if our Mexican
cuisine will also
confer knowledge
that this isn’t
independence
day in Mexico
probably won’t do
it, but maybe if
work provided a
Corona with this,
I’d be a bit more
amenable to learning
what Cinco De Mayo
is actually all about.

Pimpf

2008-05-06T00:49:00.001-05:00

Pimpf

I’m not sure if it came after
drink five or drink fifteen,
but you certainly had a few
when you texted to tell me
how much of a pimpf I was
for heading home with Holly,
but it’s not really magic. I
just had a few less drinks
and when I saw the cute girl
with the short red hair, I
put one foot in front of the
other until I was in front of
her and I said hello while
you put down two drinks in
ten minutes, and you spent
a goodly amount of that night
kneeling over a toilet while
we talked on the couch, so
if that makes me a pimpf,
well, then I guess I’m a pimpf,
but I bet you could be one too
if you bought a few more drinks
for the brunette over there instead.

Pimpf

2008-05-06T00:48:00.000-05:00

Nothing

I hate watching the cursor
blink, taunting me to find
what’s past it, prodding me
to keep typing, and that
may be enough to drive me
back to paper instead of
this infuriating flickering
line, which is always
proceeded by thoughts,
but followed by nothing.

To Have And To Hold

2008-05-06T00:47:00.000-05:00

To Have And To Hold

As I look out at the dance floor
and take a sip of champagne,
I smile, because I’m honestly
happy that you found someone
and it was an honor standing
next to you as we both cried
a little, you more than me, but
of course this is your day, so
that’s only right, but there’s
always that little nagging thought
in the back of my mind, will I
ever have someone to have
and to hold for me, but then
that environment lawyer Dave
went to school with is walking
this way, and just because it
is your special day doesn’t mean
it can’t be my special day as
well, so I’ll take the outstretched
hand and follow it to the dance floor.

I Want You Now

2008-05-02T00:53:00.000-05:00

I Want You Now

The rain falls outside my window,
making me think that it would be
fun to go for a walk past midnight
since for the first time it doesn’t
feel like cold rain, and the lightning
and thunder signal that maybe May
is here. It would be fun to go for
that walk if I weren’t by myself, and
tomorrow won't do when we finally get
in touch, there won’t even be puddles,
either your phone is off or you’re not
answering, so I’ll just look out
my window and watch it rain.

Behind The Wheel

2008-04-30T22:47:00.002-05:00

To you the reader, I apologize for ending the month on a weak note. This is a bad poem, and I don't need you to tell me. I didn't have the energy for it tonight. But projects like this aren't about energy. Some days you have it and some days you don't. Today, I did not have it, whatever it is, and I do feel like I won't have it for a few days. It really hasn't been a good 10 days. The first 20 were pretty good, but the last 10 of April, I could have done without, but I don't really feel like getting into it now, because I'd rather not write a long wallowing blog entry. I'll keep it to a short one.

Behind The Wheel

The lights of Minneapolis
are too far a way to flicker
as I am looking in my rear
view mirror, but they are
still there. I grip the wheel
hard, and I’ve made it to
the fourth track on Kiss Me,
Kiss Me, Kiss Me. I wonder
which exit I will get off,
but not too much, I will just
pick one, and though this
would have cost me less
five years ago, or even a
year ago, it’s still what I do
whenever I get the urge
to run, and tonight I had
it, tonight I don’t know how
I could sit there any longer
because all I felt like doing
was crying, and really, this
isn’t any cheaper than
going and getting a few beers
but I won’t feel like hell in
the morning, but none of
that matters now as I drive
past farms instead of subdivisions
looking for something from
behind the wheel, something
new to distract me until I’m
centered enough to give up
and go get some sleep before
I have to go to work tomorrow.

Little Fifteen

2008-04-30T00:48:00.000-05:00

Being drunk is no good excuse for not writing.

Little Fifteen

119 to 120 and you smile a little
like my grandfather did as I deal
the cards, and I pick up my hand
knowing I’m in the better position
as long as these cards don’t totally
miss working with yours. Two fives,
a king, a nine, a four, and a two,
and I know there’s no way you’d
keep a ten in your hand unless I
dealt you nothing but tens, so I keep
king, nine, four, two, and dump
my two fives down in the crib,
hoping for heels, but alas, no jack
on the top of the deck for me, so
I wait to see what it is you will
put down from your hand, and you
hem and haw until you finally put
down a six and I smile like my
grandfather did and say fifteen
while moving my peg to 121.

Sacred

2008-04-28T23:42:00.002-05:00

Sacred

No, there’s nothing special about today
for a lot of other people, it’s probably
just another day at the end of April,
with little fanfare and a few flurries if
you happen to be here in Minneapolis,
but on this day 45 years ago in a hospital
in Troy, my grandmother gave birth
to my mother, and though it’s only a guess
17 years after that day is close to the
time of my conception, if I do the math,
and while the Catholics I’m sure have
a feast day for this, as they have many
red-letter days, I have no need for any
office to mark this day as sacred with
any words other than happy birthday.

Strangelove

2008-04-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

Strangelove

What is Dave Gahan singing about?
I always wonder as I’m listening,
and when I look at the words to
Strangelove just sitting on the page,
they look as plain and boring as a
small town in Iowa, but when
coupled with music, they always
make this driving beat that makes
me tap my fingers on my desk and
want to get up and dance in the
middle of all those cubes, besides
it would be a sin for me to consider
the words to Strangelove without the
music since I like to practice what I
preach and I hope no one would do
that to any of the lyrics I write, but
I know that people will and that bad
lyrics can sink a song, but the words
are just there to get you to listen.

The Things You Said

2008-04-26T23:16:00.001-05:00

Well, that was forced...

The Things You Said

I wish I could adjust the volume
on my ears, so they didn’t hear
so well all the time, and I suppose
time will take care of that because
ears aren’t like radios that can
just be adjusted at the whim of
the user, as much as I’ve tried to
learn how to do that, and I can’t
help but here what you said
across the room whenever the
person I’m talking with is quiet.
Should I still be hurt when I wasn’t
supposed to hear how bad you
think my new haircut is or how
much you don’t like my new glasses?
I prefer to just file away those
comments in my mind since I wasn’t
there and I think of you like
a tree in the forest instead of an ex.

Never Let Me Down Again

2008-04-25T22:57:00.000-05:00

Never Let Me Down Again

The only time I could say this
and have it be true is when
I’m laying flowers down on
your memorial, though I
suppose the reverse could
be true because at that point
you won’t be able to correct
whatever it is that you did,
but this time, you are still
here, and no, I don’t think
you should have to work
too hard, though you are
going to have to sleep
in the guest bed for a
couple days, I’ll get over
it and I’ll make you promise
to never let me down again
and you will say you won’t,
but there will still be nights
when I stay at my sister’s and
you sleep on your old bed.

Music For The Masses

2008-04-24T17:55:00.000-05:00

Music For The Masses

I know, I know, you want to make music for the masses
no, no, not Music for the Masses, you never liked dance music
much, even though you want to make the kids dance
I don’t think you’ll have as many singles as Depeche Mode
I don’t think these are the songs that are going
to fill the Rose Bowl, besides, music isn’t like that anymore
with the advent of the Internet, music might be for
the masses, but everything is a niche these days, so you
might end up getting a few kids moving in the Twin Cities
when they hear this and you might fill the Entry, but
you are never going to fill up the Target Center or even be on a
bill there, besides, you may want to focus on selling out
your cd release before you worry about that world tour.

A Gallon Of Gas

2008-04-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

A Gallon Of Gas

I’ve started riding my bike to work
even if it’s only a mile away,
it’s something small I can do and
maybe on the weekends, I can
ride to Rainbow or the Fetus
instead of hopping in my car
when I need bananas or vinyl,
after all, if I manage to
save a gallon of gas, that’s
an extra $3.41 I can spend on
those bananas or the Vampire Weekend
LP. It may only be a bunch
of bananas, or an extra coffee or
beer for you; maybe my friends
will be inspired to walk or bike
a little more though, and while
it may just be a few more
gallons of gas for you, I hope
it’s actually a few less gallons used.

Long Live The Patrick Division

2008-04-23T15:33:00.000-05:00

My life is full of, how shall I say, a lot of unusual things at the moment. Not in a bad way, but I have a lot going on, and I'm not particularly interested in blogging about all the minutiae of my day to day existence any more than you are interested in reading it, but I feel that I should continue to write blog entries, because a blog entry is different than a poem is different than a story is different than talking with you on the phone. Now it's just a matter of finding those things in life that are blogable.

Like the Caps loss in overtime last night. I knew it was coming. I could just tell again. It's disappointing because I'm never going to let go of the 2nd Flyers goal where I know it was Morrison who hit Huet, but I do believe that Morrison was hit into Huet, and there was no call in one of the most important plays in the game where I feel as a hockey fan there should have been a call. Set aside my bias for the local team, and I think it should have been a call. If the same thing had happened at the other end to Biron, it wouldn't have been any more fair. But they didn't blow the whistle, they didn't go upstairs (because at that point, there was nothing to go upstairs for), and to their credit after a minute, the Caps played through it and no one seems to be blaming the loss on that, but I am going to go ahead and be the one who blames the loss on that. Sure, Ovechkin could have taken that shot in OT instead of passing to Sergei Federov, but if Federov had gotten his stick on it and the Caps had one the game, we'd all be talking about how brilliant the fake shot-pass by Ovechkin was. That's sports, leaving the door eternally open for debate. At least the Caps have a good young core of players, many of whom are under contract for a couple seasons, and there are even defensemen worth talking about on the team, which hasn't happened in a while. So if they can figure out the goaltending situation, I think they are in good shape. I would like to see Huet stay, I think that he was a great pick-up, but he is an unrestricted free agent and I just don't know if they are going to be able to make it work. Then again, maybe he likes what he saw from playing with Ovechkin and co. in the past handful of games and he wants to be along for the ride of a team on the rise in the Eastern Conference.

In another Caps related note, it appears that Olie Kolzig is done, which saddens me on the level of seeing an old friend leave town. He has been great for the franchise on and off the ice, and really was one of the few stalwarts through a time when the Caps just had nothing going for them. I always liked him as a goalie, and even when he dipped this season, it was hard for me to go with the same logic that Bruce Bodreau went with and say we need to make a change in goal, because he was so ingrained in my consciousness of what the Caps have been about the past 10+ seasons. He will be missed, but I think he just doesn't have enough left in the tank to play at that level of hockey, which is too bad, but the time comes for all of us, whether we want it to or not.

Leave it to Wisconsin to be #1 in something that they'd rather not be #1 in. Of course, it's kinda bizarre how there's a cluster of states right here that lead the nation in drunken driving. I wonder what factors go into leading the nation in drunken driving, other than the fact that Miller's there, and anyone who chooses to drink Miller Lite is already pre-disposed to making bad decisions. Enough digs on Wisconsin, though, I do wonder what factors make it more likely in the Upper Midwest as opposed to other regions of the country. I understand why Utah is the lowest, but I don't understand why Wisconsin is the highest. Anyone with any valuable (or not valuable) insight, I'd appreciate it.

So I spent the past week learning a new file type at work, which has been fine, though I could do without it on one hand, it looks better on my resume, and I would like to not be processing files for the rest of my life. Or at least not processing files like this. It's somewhat tedious. I just happen to be pretty good at it, and it gives me an opportunity to listen to music and learn how much you can make as a forest ranger or what people name their children born on Christmas. All very educational things. The nice thing about training is I get put back on the training curve for a couple weeks, so I have more time to get things done even though everything takes me just as long as it did before. It's a nice exchange. I am coming to the point where I can finally look at other internal Wells jobs and move to them. But I don't know if that's what I'd like to do right at this second. I think I should at least wait a couple months until I am done moving, etc. That's also actually much closer to when I'll have been here a "year". I say that like that because I spent time here as a temp, but as anyone else who's gone through the temping world knows, that doesn't count as service time for Wells Fargo. I wasn't a temp that long, so it's not a huge deal, but if I'm going to be here a while (which I plan to be here for at least the next couple years), it's nice to get the ticker rolling so that it's closer to all those things you get from being someplace longer. Like more pins for my banner.

Other than work, I've been...riding my bike? Yes, there's been some of that. The weather finally decided to get warm (though it appears to be reminding us that April is not a warm month the next couple days), and I've been trying to get out on my bike more anyway. Sunday, I went for a more lengthy ride than usual, went down to Fort Snelling, thus why it was on my mind and why I wrote about it, and otherwise rode around for a good bit that day. I probably put 25 miles in that day, which is the most I've done in a single day in a while. I'm usually good for 10-16 miles when I go riding, but then I want to do other things with my time off of work. But I don't think I've ridden that much at a single time since I was in Boy Scouts and we did the bike trip along the C & O Canal, which was a pretty fun trip, but if I could do 40 mile days with packs on the bike, certainly I can do a couple 25 mile days on the weekend. It's just a time thing. I enjoy getting out, but it's hard to do other things while biking, unless I'm riding my bike somewhere to do an errand. I have been riding my bike more to just do other things as well recently. I figure it'd do both my body and my pocketbook a world of good if I ended up using 1 gallon of gas less a week. That's not all that much money or distance, but it'd add up over, say, a year. Especially when you consider that gas is only getting more expensive.

I'm illiterate. Someday I'll start reading again, and then I'll take about literature like a good English major. I'm going to go dress in black and smoke foreign cigarettes to show disdain for my homeland.

I know this isn't entire rational and doesn't have a point, but I feel like more places should just have musical instruments that people could play. I mean, what good does a stagecoach do me in the lobby? None. I don't care about the history, I don't need to look at a stagecoach every day. I wonder if the piano rooms at Central were ever finished, but it's been a while since I've been to Central. Something to look into in the next few days, I suppose.

Basically, all I've learned is that Jeff and I are awesome at Euchre. That's actually all I learned this week. Go team Awesome! I'm going to get back to work and all that now.

Late

2008-04-23T00:18:00.000-05:00

Late

I knew it was coming, the night when
I wouldn’t find the time in front of
the computer, and I didn’t think that
when I called at 10 we’d talk till midnight
so I sit down a few minutes later than
usual to compose tonight because while
it is certainly noble and productive to
try and write a poem every day, it is more
important to explain how my last round
of shoe-shopping went, to hear what
your engagement ring for your girlfriend
is going t look like, and to just remember
a time when we both didn’t have jobs
that had us getting in at 8 am and we
would stay up late and have 3 and a half
hour conversations about Agents of Good
Roots sets and state schools, so I apologize,
about the poetry, promises are made to
be broken, but friendships are not.

Prairie Grass

2008-04-21T22:45:00.003-05:00

Prairie Grass

The prairie grass around the walls of Fort Snelling is trampled, not just by curious onlookers, but machines designed to keep it down so that people can see the fort, not the grass, but I wonder what it must have been like in the 19th century, grass as tall as men growing everywhere, and though America The Beautiful assures me there were amber waves of grain, I have never seen them, nor will I ever unless I survive the end of the world, except in these little patches at state parks, old forts, little outdoor museums like we had outside of Science I at Iowa State, and then it's only those little patches, but if I survive the end of the world and I am left to roam the amber waves of grain, then I'll get to see it, probably too much of it, because I'll never see the tiger coming through all that prairie grass and that would be that, so it's probably for the best that we've cut down all the tall grass and now everyone is told what length to keep it.

Fort Snelling

2008-04-20T22:52:00.001-05:00

Fort Snelling

The walls used to be commanding,
but the only things that still are
at Fort Snelling are the little brown
signs reminding me that trespassers
will be prosecuted, and the view of
the Mississippi. I know they built
this fort at a time when holding
such an important river seemed
important, when there were still
natives on the land who we had
reservations against, not reservations
for, but I can only look at the
slits in the wall like old crossbow
slits and think of this as our
quaint form of an American castle.
The nearest border is hundreds of
miles away, and all it protects now
are people walking dogs, kids
riding bikes, and condos on bluffs.