Mostly Certain

2010-10-05T10:35:00.005-05:00

INTERNET! I am too many places right now. Mostly I am at my unthemed blog and my semi-professional one. Semi-professional! What what what what. All signs point to Texas, Summer 2012, MFA or no MFA. I will be 25 years old then. What is that.

2010-08-16T22:08:00.002-05:00

Most folks find their way here via "twee bands". Funny how that worked out.

Pop songs your boyfriend's too stupid to know about, basically, is what I am into, of course, of course.

2010-07-01T19:23:00.003-05:00

I just remembered the time I saw Jarvis Cocker at Pitchfork with a friend from college. This blog is reeeedundant.

2010-05-07T22:10:00.007-05:00

Moving again. Packing up books. Thinking about things. Learned that nice isn't that nice, it is just boring when I think it's boring and if I ask, "What are you thinking?" and the answer was that, then that was that. Another attempt at being happy and not just content. Seeing the wide, wide expanse again. Trying to. Feeling productive (sort of, there is always, always more), feeling good, feeling antsy, feeling ill because of a cold and allergies and nerves. I'm excited for my commute to double. It's not by much, but it's a good thing.

2010-04-25T13:31:00.001-05:00

Cults - Go Outside

2010-03-27T20:49:00.004-05:00

To keep with theme, things are pretty. I may be coming down with a cold, again, but things are pretty. And nice. Nice is nice. Turned a wall in my living room into a calender. A stark reminder of things planned, things to come. So, life goals are no in a notebook in my bag and in my apartment. Nice, fine instead of flair, fizz. What a revelation.

I'm compiling my Summer Ready Jams. It's turning out to be a lot of gentle, snoozy, lay on the beach, find sand in bed stuff. Cults is on that list. You can download their 7" on the website.

2010-03-01T22:12:00.003-06:00

Pretttttty.

I am trying to figure out the best way to make bats. Not actual bats but bat puppets, I guess. I think I'm going to knit them, maybe. I'm really excited about it. It's not just for fun, though, it is in a way. I have this camera now and I need a tripod and some patience. I cross off goals on a calender. It's been working out, for the most part, but I'll slip in things like "PUNCH THROUGH TO THE NEXT DIMENSION WITH YOUR FISTS" and it's like, come on, Monica, cool out, listen to some new music and it'll work out. I might make bat cakes, though.

2010-02-10T19:20:00.003-06:00

My knowledge of terrible but wonderful music won us free beers last night. Last night, I drank more beers than I wanted to. I lost a glove in the snow. As I was taking off my boot, I realized this and went back outside to retrieve it because fuck me if I'm going to lose nice winter cycling gloves that I've only had for a few weeks. Maria had snacks. I like my life a lot, repeat that like some well-intentioned mantra. Instruction. Like your life. Repeat it enough and then it happens, as if by magic. Magic and work.

2010-01-22T19:06:00.003-06:00

I take living in Chicago for granted. Tonight, I had planned to go home, eat some crappy take out, watch a sappy movie populated by beautiful people, and go to bed early. Instead, I'm going to (probably) see Cap'n Jazz. Cap'n motherfucking Jazz.

I listened to them when I was a teenager and it's been some time since. It is the soundtrack of being 16 and reading Don Delillo and Salinger for the first time. It is being awkward and unsure of who I was, who I would become.

The other option tonight was the Chicago Metaphysical Circus's Psych Fest at the Hideout. Nostalgia won out. I am really, really excited. I can't begin to say. Some day. I am doing this for teenage me. It'll be great.

2010-01-08T18:45:00.002-06:00

New-ish Converge listened to finally.

It is so good. So, so good.

BEST BLOG

2009-12-20T17:12:00.000-06:00

http://www.imstartingaband.blogspot.com/
http://www.imstartingaband.blogspot.com/
http://www.imstartingaband.blogspot.com/
http://www.imstartingaband.blogspot.com/
http://www.imstartingaband.blogspot.com/

THAT'S ALL.

2009-11-30T15:07:00.004-06:00

JUST SAYING THAT'S WHAT'S UP.

"Life gets so good, sometimes I want to throw up."

2009-11-24T19:09:00.005-06:00

I am terrible with e-mails but phone calls are hard to avoid. Phone calls from great distances away are my favorite. I love putting my life down for an hour at a time, go for a walk, and tell stories to friends who are genuinely interested in the mild, mostly pleasant happenings of my life.

I was speaking to a pal recently about the everyday shit, the this and this and that and that how I really like a bunch of bands right now, I'm really stoked on music and seeing music live and dancing to good records with whoever happens to be there, and hell, I can sort of keep time now, that's nice. I learned how to play an easy Velvet Underground song on the ukulele but I can't sing for shit.

We, as always, talked a good deal about where I'll be after Chicago. We talked about surprises. A year, even four months ago I couldn't see myself finally in a place that I don't feel ashamed of or sad or always so angry. It seemed like I had gotten stuck. Started drinking too much (sorry, Mom) and being more reckless than usual. Than I moved into an apartment alone and my life just started to happen. Magically, it seems.

I have met a lot of really great people in the last few months. I have had old friends from what felt like a different lifetime be friends again, and it's great. I have been lucky to randomly meet some amazing people to ride bikes with, to cook dinner with, to listen to music with, to dance with, to be with, that I can say that I'm happy with. I am young and I am stupid and I just want to have fun for a while. It's simple. I still have my days but those days are so few and far between, it's kind of nuts. There are other things, besides this, the most important, the people. There are things like, um, a second job. A part-time gig. Don't ask me about it, I won't find out for sure until a while from now. I'm really excited and I think it's silly that someone's willing to hire me to build shit, but that's fine. I'm fine with that. I am so excited! To spend! Lots of time! Around things! That I! Actually! Want!

Guys, I'm so stoked. I want to call all of my friends all of the time now.

2009-11-16T11:05:00.001-06:00

Today I learned that Téléphone once opened up for Television.

Safe to say my life is getting brighter every day.

2009-11-06T10:44:00.002-06:00

Confession time? I don't like Wilco and I don't like the Bad Plus. Two perfectly likable bands with tremendously talented folks, but I don't know if I'm just not old enough or NPR enough or mature enough to LIKE them. Wilco reminds me that I'm not a native Chicagoan (oops?) and the Bad Plus reminds me of a friend who would put on one of their albums, lean back in his chair ever so slightly, and close his eyes. There would be an occasional smile flirting at the corners of his mouth and eyelids. It was great.

New Years Eve?

2009-11-05T20:58:00.001-06:00

There are a lot of bands playing in Chicago on New Years Eve. There's only one I want to see, really, but that's already sold out. Jens Lekman. So I can swoon and stuff? I don't know. But seeing a band on New Years Eve is sort of not my style at all.

VEXED, I am.

But I am seeing Melt-Banana soon.

STOKED, I am.

Crazy.

2009-10-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

Craziness has been going on. I've been keeping busier than normal and last night, one of the first relatively slow, quiet nights I've had in a long time, my friend got punched in the head when we were riding our bikes in the direction of my apartment. It was random and made me incredibly angry. I don't like getting heated because I always just end up being sad. No injuries or anything but still. Why the fuck would a dude just come up and punch someone in the head.

Kids, be safe. I love you. I forever want to bump into my friends at shows and bars, to say hello and dance awkwardly to terrible music, friends to ride bikes with, to learn ukulele with, to be friends with. Be safe.

"I can't even tell if it's actually 12-hours of sunlight."

2009-09-22T17:38:00.003-05:00

It's the first day of autumn but if you've been outside in Chicago, it's humid. And the sun came out! I'm pretty stoked, in general. Philly won't be closing its libraries. I'm hoping to dominate a Scrabble game tonight. Testing out a new bike soon. Buying records, because Times New Viking's new LP came out today. YESSSSSSSSS.

music's cool but books are, too.

2009-09-15T17:27:00.004-05:00

Philadelphia's planning to close all of its public libraries on October 2. I don't know why it's not a bigger deal in national media. I don't care about the latest Kanye West outburst or Lady Gaga stunt when, holy shit, guys, a whole city's public library system may no longer exist in a matter of weeks.

In the short eleven or so years I lived in the city, I frequented the South Philadelphia and formerly-named Southwark branches more often than my friends' homes. There was the time Kelly and I tried to borrow out the movie Splash, but you can't at 8 because god forbid we saw mermaid tits. One year, I went to maybe a day and a half of summer art camp there. My love for books wouldn't exist if these libraries weren't there.

I have been thinking a lot about where I stand on certain things, how gray it all is, how I've increasingly become someone who no longer worries about this or that, if maybe I'm just swapping out a short fuse for apathy. I haven't been able to react viscerally to anything in a long time. These library closing? This made my guts hurt for the first time in months.

old news

2009-09-07T16:42:00.002-05:00

US Open Quarter-final is a rematch of the Federer and Söderling French Open final. I know two other people who care.

Foals is a band I listen to when I get ready in the morning.

Duh.

2009-08-21T17:50:00.003-05:00

I like the new Pissed Jeans album.

naming pets after androids

2009-08-01T02:59:00.005-05:00

I've not been listening to much music. Partial to talky podcasts about boring stuff like fiction and science or streaming an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while I bustle around the kitchen, baking up a storm.

I did put on the Margo Guryan LP the other day because one of my baby kits, Data, kept on pawing at my records that are still resting up against a wall in my living room. In a barely mild fit of "I'll show you"-ism, I took the reissue from her wee tiny paws and played the record. She was mesmerized! I giggled like an idiot for at least a solid 30-odd seconds because kittens make me laugh pretty much always.

Life's pretty cute. I wish my vacation would last a couple of days longer so I got to see folks instead of the pounds and pounds of frosting. I am learning a lot, though, about baking. Oh! I'm on vacation in Philadelphia, and I mention this because I always seem to mention this on the blog when it comes around, and by vacation, this time, I mean I spent the past week baking and frosting and decorating the biggest cake I have ever made. A wedding cake. Yikes. To be honest, I'm really curious what the music's going to be at the reception. I was sort of crossing my fingers for a Cambodian cover band. Maybe it'll be DJ playing top-40. I could always ask one of the planners but that'll ruin the surprise.

Desmond.

2009-07-03T19:36:00.001-05:00

Kind of obsessed lately.

who says bum? this bum.

2009-05-28T21:02:00.004-05:00

The dumbest things make me so sad. Like the internet. Sometimes, the internet just bums me out. All of these avenues of communication are available to me and it's great, really. This blog, all of the other social networking things, Skype, iChat, you know, all of it. It's great to see the faces of the people I miss most, to read everything my friends have to say, to actually talk and communicate and share. Sometimes, though, it illustrates the disconnect I have with so many of the people I have known, want to know. Bums me out.

Young Marble Giants - Radio Silents

Listening to music by myself is like the internet. It is awesome but sometimes, I can't even begin to describe how sad I get when I'm sitting on my floor, legs crossed underneath of me, and I am there but not there. Here but not here. I am not lost in the music or some other cliche. I am fully aware of my existence, of the record, or CD, or whatever doing its thing, and all of the sound, the sound of my own breathing, of a car driving by, of a neighbor opening and closing a door, and it all just feels alien.

I don't know. This is how I am feeling about my life right now. It will probably change tomorrow.

moving moving moving

2009-04-21T19:12:00.006-05:00

Bobby Birdman - Moving On/Up

I'm currently in the process of packing up three years of my apartment life to move five blocks away into a one bedroom sublet a lovely lady is letting me have for dirt cheap for the month of May. After that, I'm off to a two-bedroom in Humboldt Park all by my lonesome. My landlords are awesome. We've spoken of tomato plants. I am at the south end, across from the quiet part of a huuuuge park and you have no idea how often I'm going to be sitting outside on all of that grass. My fridge is in the pantry. I get a pantry! I'm really excited! Now I have space for all of the different flours I like to have on hand. Bonus: some of the best people I know live (near) there so it'll be nice to walk to potlucks with my cakes and ice creams instead of praying, i.e. hoping really hard, that no one bumps into me on the CTA and I trip over my own feet and disaster, disaster, disaster! Cake disaster.

Excited and scared and sad and happy and adult as whoa. I've never NOT had roommates. It's time. I feel like a grown-up, though I'm far from being one. Somebody buy me a couch! Peace out, Ukrainian Village! Well, sort of. :)