Our friend Eddie is leaving shortly for a Jesuit seminary, and he is allowed to bring ten books and ten CDs (and an ipod, but that’s beside the point). Since he told us this last week I’ve been fixated on my ten. I can’t even fathom ten books, because really, if you tell me I can have only ten books you’re really saying “you can choose three.”

But ten CDs – that I can do. Because it’s not forever. He can switch them out whenever he wants. So let’s just pretend. Pretend I’m going to be a Jesuit, because truly, if I had the required parts and was called to be a priest SURELY, if there is some rational god, I’d be a Jesuit (but not he icky conservative kind – I’d be the kind that gets arrested like it’s a bodily function).

Here are my ten. Right now. On the brink of autumn. These are not necessarily my ten most important or favorite albums of all time, just Ten For Now. For pretend seminary. Peace be with you.

Iron & Wine – The Creek Drank the Cradle
Paul Simon – Graceland
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Gillian Welch – (Time) The Revelator
Neil Young – Live at Massey Hall
Nick Drake – Five Leaves Left
Joanna Newsom – Milk-Eyed Mender
The Avett Brothers – The Gleam EP
Ryan Adams – Cold Roses
Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska

What are your ten?

The Makery is a super-awesome little shop run by our friend Melissa. She has done such a good job with this place & it’s jam packed with treasures made by her and many, many other talented folks. Stay tuned for a photo of my gal in some goods from here when our tshirt weather returns in the next couple of days. When we walked into the store Melissa was playing country roads, just for us even though she didn’t know were coming.

WHY Louisville, another awesome shop full of their own screenprinted shirts, stickers, jewelry, and all kinds of stuff. We made Andy pose at his desk and pretend to be working. Notice the poptarts. This store makes me feel the need to restock my tshirt collection, starting with this one.

There is also this awesome record store, but I didn’t take any photos there.

Now I must go cook a delicious, nutritious, post-roadtrip-weekend supper of… veggie burgers and tater tots. Typo: poptarts. I’m not THAT tired.

1.) Maggie and I went thrifting – joy! I bought the $9.00 school desk I’ve been thinking about buying for two weeks. Also found: icons and oldtime music books for Mikey, some yum fabric, a Billie Holiday record, and two glass canisters for treasures. A morning well-spent.

2.) My mom came over so that Mikey and I could simultaneously leave Hazel for the first time. He played a show – it was a must. I’m sure it would have happened sooner than 17 months old if Hazel had spent her first 13 months around her grandparents more than once every few months, and if she hadn’t spent her last three snowed in away from them all the time, but here it is – 17 months old and we’d never been out together alone. Not that we never went out – we just took her everywhere. I don’t know how she would have fared at one month old or five or ten or thirteen… but at seventeen months old she didn’t shed a tear and went to sleep on her Grandma’s shoulder without a fuss. Liberating! The show was really good – lots of people that I love and have missed were there. Who cares if my eyeballs and throat still hurt from the cigarette smoke (3.5 years of smoke-free bars, I’m not used to this).

3.) Lots and lots of time outside in the beautiful weather with my pretty little Bitty.

Listening: Iron & Wine
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
(Hazel is) Reading: The Peace Book
Working on: spotted box; bunnies; custom jewels

I quit my job today. I offered a two weeks notice but he said “you can just go now, I don’t care… we’re cool”. He’s nervous that I’m going to tell his wife about all the dirty secrets he’s been making me keep. I know it. He wants me gone as much as I don’t want to be there.

No more crying every day, no more getting sick all the time because I’m so stressed that my immune system is shot, no more being forced lie to his wife & kids.

But now what?

When I left work – for the last time – the first randomly selected song on my ipod was a Modest Mouse song.

it all will fall
fall right into place

I don’t now if I’ve ever gotten so many heartfelt congratulations. This move was probably second to GETTING MARRIED in the “congratulations” book.

Today it:
1.) was the ugly-not-refreshing kind of rainy, dark at 4:30 p.m.
and I:
2.) had the day off so I
3.) made some necklaces while I listened to Nick Drake
which is:
4.) the best / worst music for this kind of day.

Ace is mine. The rest are for sale on Etsy, even though they are still less than smooth-edged.

On Sunday my dad bought an old rifle – “you know, the cowboy kind” – and later at home sat in his rocking chair and loaded three shells into it while my mom talked on the phone. When she passed the phone off to him, she started examining the gun – not checking the action and unaware of what he’d been doing – aimed at the ceiling, and fired a round through the roof. My dad retells the story last night on the phone, gasping for air, laughing hysterically, as if delightfully unaware of his own mortality.

Arms are for hugging, kids.

and all the friends that you once knew are left behind
they kept you safe and so secure
amongst the books and
all the records of your lifetime
what will happen in the morning
when the world it gets so crowded that you can’t
look out the window in the morning?

Oh also, last night I had a dream that I ran into Ian Keplinger in a barn at a fair and one of his arms had been medically or otherwise amputated. I had to stop for a moment and think, “did he have this arm the last time I saw him? Would I look stupid if I asked what happened because I should know because he’s been this way for awhile and I’ve just forgotten?”…… I hate feeling stupid in dreams. Especially over something so obvious as Ian having his left arm or not having his left arm the last time I saw him. So in the dream I started thinking about the real-life last time I hung out with him, and I remembered that it was the night that Doug, Chad, and Ian found a bunch of half-inch wooden dowel rods in Mikey’s room as we moved him out, and then spent a good half an hour beating each other with them in the kitchen. I was finally forced to take them away (in real life) when Chad and Doug backed Ian into a corner and he was begging for mercy. I decided, in the dream, that Ian could not have dowel-rod-sword-fought two other grown men with only one arm, so he must have had both, and so I should ask him what happened. But then I woke up. When I woke up I thought about the dream and remembered my first memory of Ian (and Stefan)… they were in a barn stall at the fair, chillin’ with one of their grandpa’s hogs.

How’d a memory from 20 years ago and a memory from two years ago fuse themselves with the weird book I’m reading (involving teleportation and not making it back home with all of your molecules intact and thus having a weird deformity or missing limb) and make it into last night’s dream? I want to be a neurologist.

I ran some errands for awhile this afternoon and discovered a good fabric store in the underground about four minutes from my work. Woo! I bought a few things to make earrings and put them together when I got home & uploaded them to Etsy.

Penguins, as well as sailboats and some bluegray shell earrings.

I also spied these backpacks in a luggage store window while I was down there, and of course I want the little one:

I’ve never listened to this Snow Patrol band, but I downloaded this song because Rufus Wainwright’s sister sings on it. At least I think it’s his sister, but maybe I’m making that up. It’s so pretty. Now I want the rest of the album.

I find the map and draw a straight line
over rivers, farms, and state lines
the distance from A to where you’d B
it’s only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I’d find your face
my fingers in creases of distant dark places
I hang my coat up in the first bar
there is no peace that I’ve felt so far…

listening: Snow Patrol – Set the Fire to the Third Bar

Saw Billy Bragg tonight. He’s an enigma… a genius musician who is NOT a good guitar player. His stage banter is excessive and comic gold. The altered lyrics about Bush being gone soon are just what this sad little american needs to hear.

On the way to the show we walked by this spectacle that I have passed at least ten times since it was arranged a couple of weeks ago and never really paid attention to. There are always people crowded around taking photos, and I still did not feel the need to observe more closely. Today, for some reason, I looked harder, and then had to take a photo for myself. It’s a huge granite table on the sidewalk, set for twelve or so people with china and silverware and champagne flutes. In the middle is a lime green Lamborghini. There’s always a security guard with a clipboard standing inside the red rope enclosure. I just thought it was some strange Wedgewood china vs. fancy car sales scheme, and it sort of is.

It’s being held up by four teacups. One under each tire. I suppose that’s not as impressive as the cohesive/adhesive abilites of water molecules and the way THAT can hold up a car, but it was at least photo worthy.

Maybe I will find a job this week. Kathy’s theory is that she’s not going to find a job until she wins a game. If this is true, I should definitely find a job this week because Mikey and I kick ASS at games. And we won last night. Again. I haven’t won anything by myself, but we are in the lead as a pair. Does this mean I’m inferior as an individual?

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them
but they were only satellites
is it wrong to wish on space hardware?
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care…

I will never understand how I can stand at the feet of a man who just looks like some short, balding fedex driver that I’d never think twice about if I passed him on the street and CRY when he sings.

You would think that such a brilliant, talented person would emit some kind of obvious glow or aura or pleasant smell but he doesn’t.

And my image of him has totally changed. I’ve always had this idea in my head that he wears his wedding band even though his wife left him and that’s where all of his sad bastard my-woman-left me music comes from, but I am wrong. I also thought that he never smiled and was always grumpy, but I am wrong.

And there’s another detail.

The last song they played was a new one that included the line “from Chicago to West Virginia”, and is not the first song of theirs to mention WV. Mikey said something to the bass player about it after the show, and he said “oh yeah, Jason was born in West Virginia”…picked up a 12″ of Songs:ohia’s first ever album from ’95 or ’96, flipping it over and pointing to the song titles. Most of them are named after places in WV. It’s out of print and I’ve never listened to nor payed any attention to it. Of course I had to buy it.

Mikey asked if I wanted to go talk to him and ask him where he was born and I said no, too scared of him. “Come on, there he is”. I trailed along like a little dog, stared at my feet for awhile. They chatted. He was born in Beckley. He talked about what he wants to dress up as for their Halloween show in Pittsburgh and said “but I don’t know where to get hay on the road” when discussing details. I said, “you could go to a craft store… Michael’s or somewhere”. He pointed right at my face and said “that’s a GREAT idea! I was just there the other day actually, my wife and I bought a bunch of shit… I bought this cutting mat an exacto knives and…. this is nerdy, why am I talking about this?” I’m glad it was a dark bar. I was probably blushing horribly. One of my favorite musicians EVER and we are discussing self-healing cutting mats.

So he’s NOT super depressed. He does smile. He laughs, he’s chatty with his fans. He doesn’t hate Morgantown (he said he wants to go back). He still has a wife and they shop at Michael’s.

My world is vastly altered. But that was the best possible first-Toronto-show, and it was the best I’ve ever seen them play. He’s a genius. No longer dark and tortured and on the verge of jumping from the top of a building, but a genius no less.

Now. I was up until 5:30 this morning watching Lost, and awake for another hour thinking about it. Then I had dreams about it for a few hours, woke up at noon and tossed around in bed, thinking about Lost, then I finally got out of bed at 1pm and went straight to the couch. There I remained until the last possible second before I HAD to shower & get ready for the show. I didn’t even eat any dinner. I need to eat something now.

And then go back to the couch. I expect to be there until sunup.

Today Michael John and I went to the Vegetarian Food Fair, successfully navigating both the subway & streetcar systems to get there (technically they are the same system, but it was still scary). It was way bigger than we’d expected and we hung around for a few hours trying to absorb everything. I bought a tiny little hydroponic sprouting contraption to grow bean sprouts (or whatever – eventually start some vegetables for the balcony-farm) in our kitchen. Apparently bean sprouts contain all known vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and proteins. A couple handfuls a day is all it takes, and they are very yummy. Maybe it will cleanse my body of all the coke and candy that I put into it. I bought two bags of mung beans from the hairy chested old man who was demonstrating and passing out spoonfuls to eat, but lentils and garbanzo beans are also good candidates. You can literally grow anything in it, but for now it’ll just be bean sprouts for eatin’. I already started a crop. It took three minutes and they’ll be ready to eat in two days…. or five days if we want taller, leafier sprouts.

Downside: the way the dome fits onto the base reminds me of the large sized panera catering bowls for salads. I will never be able to escape this when I’m working with it. It’ll always be a panera salad bowl.

I also talked to some people from Annex Cat Rescue about fostering. My only concern is that Dorothy can be a raging psychopath and I don’t want her traumatizing whatever other creatures we might want to welcome into our home. I think that if we started with some middle aged or older cat who doesn’t take shit from young kids we might be okay. She might be a terror with kittens, and besides, would I ever be able to actually give up a kitten that I loved and nurtured? Not likely. On another cat note: Dorothy is constantly begging for people food and today I found out something that she loves and that makes her go vocally nuts. Until today, that list only consisted of cheese, but now we can add tapioca pudding to the list.

On the way home we stopped on Queen Street, which is the place that we will be spending all of our money until we leave this city. Every book and music store that we could hope for, in addition to two or three city blocks with bead and fabric stores lining both sides of the street. I wrote down a few books to add to my Amazon wishlist because I will NEVER buy a new book in this country. They are so expensive. And alcohol is so expensive. Alcohol prices are all government regulated, so there’s no cheap place to buy beer. Today we were laughing at some sleek, rich suit buying a sixpack of bud. It figures that I moved here with someone who only spends his money on three things, two of which are books and beer.

We bought the new Magnolia Electric Co. album and it’s AWESOME. More like Songs:ohia than the older Magnolia stuff, which is good for me. I prefer his slower, more depressing stuff. We’re going to see them play on Tuesday night and now I’m even more excited for the show. Jason Molina writes the most beautiful/depressing lyrics and I’ve never seen him smile and he’s probably the saddest person ever, and I will never be able to utter a single word to him even though Mikey knows the bass player and will likely talk to them at the show. I will stare at the tops of my feet. I am so intimidated by musicians.

turn your lamp down low my love, goodbye
I hear the whistle singing now to the lonesome pine
I know that we faded out
but oh, did’t we shine
didn’t we shine

Listening: Magnolia Electric Co. : Fading Trails and M Iafrate, live from the couch
Reading: Dominion by Matthew Scully

Hardest weekend ever is over. I did nothing but say goodbye to people and cry. My three year old cousin wrapping her skinny arms around my neck, saying “don’t move” over and over about did me in. I’m sure most of my heart is still broken into one million pieces all over my Grandparents’ driveway.

At least I can stop panicking about it now that it’s done, I guess.

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