Archive for September, 2005
September 30, 2005
Due to bandwith issues and a general over-population in my /music folder, I’m going to start doing Friday Tunes, leaving the Soundblox with a few songs, updating not quite as frequently [or as prolifically] as before. Friday Tunes will typically up to ten songs that I’ve been enjoying the past week, a la Mark [who, by the way, happens to be a cutie. A married cutie.] complete with links to purchase if you are so inclined.
This week’s tunes are sort of all over the place. I hope you enjoy. Slow download speed? If you’re one of my pals, I’ll email a song to you.
Euphone is Ryan Rapsys, a dude who never fails to make me think “How the hell is that even possible?” when I listen to him play. Euphone is percussion-driven instrumental music that makes you want to dance, sing, and ogle. Rapsys’ resume finds him included in such projects as Gauge and Joan of Arc, but his talent far surpasses any of those unions. To get a true feel for his talent, one has to listen to Euphone’s first, self-titled album, uninterrupted. Then imagine one man on stage performing the songs. Then imagine he gets Tim Kinsella to play guitar. Then imagine him behind a drum set again, performing with such precision and clarity that you honestly can’t believe there isn’t anything in life that you are even remotely as talented at. You won’t cry, though, it’s that good.
Purchase the beginning: Euphone: Self-Titled
Here’s what else I’m listening to this week:
Akron Family is immensely listen-able, and this song makes me smile.
Before there was Blink 182 or Yellow Card, there was a little band in Little Rock called Red Forty. Pop punk from back when pop punk meant something. Like, back when Jawbreaker’s Unfun was hot.
“If you like your pop music a bit psychedelic and quirky, but you still like to be able to whistle along, Demon is the album of 2005 for you.” info
Stereogum shared Matt Pond’s version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” from The O.C. this week, and I have to admit I’ve been enjoying it. Hey, it’s not the original (by a long shot), but Matt has a pretty sweet voice. I don’t mean sweet in the Bill and Ted sense, either.
I don’t remember where I found this track, but it’s been playing all week. I get made fun of for listening to sad, quiet music, but you know I Wear Black on the Outside Because Black is How I Feel on the Inside so shut up.
Songs will be available for about a week [until next Friday’s installment]
September 29, 2005
Or does Martha Stewart look pretty damn good for her age?
I wonder if she’s had any work done.
September 28, 2005
I’ve always loved the fact that my birthday falls right in the middle of the best part of fall. Each year, the anticipation for October overwhelms me. It isn’t just because my birthday slaps me in the face [trust me, my birthdays are usually really low-key and uninteresting, and who needs another year, anyway?], it’s because the turning leaves and the rest of winter’s quiet seduction make me happy.
Each year, around this time, my husband starts asking me what I want for my birthday. Last year, I got a really sweet pair of Diesel sneakers. I asked for them, too. No, I begged for them. I love those shoes. Anyway, the problem for me and Mike when it comes to gifts is that he needs to know exactly what I want, and he doesn’t want to guess. Usually I’m ok with that, because his guesses can sort of suck. It’s not that he gets me things I don’t want, it’s that he gets me things that I sort of want but wouldn’t in a million years think of getting for myself.
The perfect [physical, wrapped] gift is two things.
- Something that I want but would never indulge myself in.
- Something I wouldn’t think of on my own but ends up being one of the best gifts possible.
Most women don’t hold out hope that their boyfriend or husband [or girlfriend or whatever] would be capable of the second option there. Nothing against you guys, but that’s a hard trick to pull off. In fact, I don’t even try that option when I’m shopping for my husband - I go get exactly what he has mentioned he’d like to have, but usually deprives himself of so Dash and I can dress nicely and eat well. An example of the second type of gift up there would be the sapphire earrings and necklace that my grandmother gave me shortly before she passed away. I didn’t even know they existed, much less want them or anything like them [I’m not really a jewelry type of gal], but when she gave them to me, they immediately became one of my most treasured possessions. So you can see that type of gift is difficult.
What could he give me that would end up being that kind of special? Some sperm, obviously. I wouldn’t even need a card that explains how amazing and perfect I am [hee] if I could wake up on the 14th and discover that I am pregnant. I’m really not hard to please, I’m just aching, and anticipating moving back home, spending the better part of next year away from him, and not having a chance for a while to conceive again. I’d like nothing more than to go home and inform everyone that we are expecting.
That would be amazing. That, and another World Series with the Red Sox. Oh, and a dinner date with Kevin Millar. And some tickets to one of the games versus the Yankees coming up. Oh, and a plane ticket to get there.
Nah, I’m not hard to please. Seriously honey, if you’re reading this, just give me a hug and remind me how lucky I am to have you, and I’m set.
Indefinitely.
September 27, 2005
If you’ve been checking my Flickr account, you’ve probably noticed that Dash has found his nose.
This is fine, though asking him to please stop digging in his nose like it’s sheltering a valuable treasure has already become tiresome. I can honestly say that if he was just picking his nose, I wouldn’t really mind. It’s the fact that he’s pulling out gargantuan sized boogers and eating them that drives me insane.
The other day, he soaked in a bubble bath for a good 45 minutes after an intense playground session. The steam from the tub drained his head clean, and when he got out, he had a long snot stream stationed precariously on the top of his upper lip. Quickly, I darted over to the toilet paper roll and grabbed some back up. As I turned back to my son, I watched in horror as he simply sucked the snot right out of his nose like a human nasal aspirator. I sat helpless as snot was vacuumed out of my child’s head by his own mouth, listening to the psfssssip of the goo as it left his sinuses.
It was like watching your child take a fall off a toy, or in my case, like watching him jump fearlessly off the back of the couch into the hutch with no concept whatsoever of how much the landing is going to hurt. Time slows down and all you can do is watch in horror. And so I watched in horror, choking back bile, as my son happily sucked his own snot out of his nose and swallowed it.
“All gone!” He proudly wiped his hands clean as if they had some part in his nasal excavation.
I looked at the wad of toilet paper in my hands for a second, feeling sorry for its uselessness. “Here,” I said, handing it to him. “Wipe off your nose.”
He looked at me curiously, probably wondering what exactly my problem was. Can’t she see I’ve already solved the problem? Like an OCD mom in a overrun day care center, I wiped his face and brushed his teeth and procured a real aspirator to remove what might be left (not much) in there. Realizing (slowly) that a) kids eat boogers, it’s a fact of life and b) it’s too late lady, let it go, I got up and got him his pajamas.
It’s not that big of a deal, I told myself as I paired some socks. Sure, I think it’s gross but I’m sure I ate some boogers when I was little and I turned out fine. Besides, it’s not nearly as gross as some of the things he’s done. As I searched for the Spongebob underwear he prefers to sleep in, I smiled knowing that my son had survived much more in terms of bile-invoking activities. He’s smeared shit on the walls, and “cleaned” it out from under his fingernails by eating it, I’ve watched in horror as he’s shoved handfuls of sand into his mouth, and I have calmly set him in a warm tub after realizing the pool of “water” he’s been splashing in on the kitchen floor is his own urine. Shit happens, after all. Kids do gross things because they don’t know any better. I can’t stop him from ever doing gross things. He’s a boy. My job is to clean it up.
Resolved and prepared to hold myself to this new standard of calm, I walked back into the bathroom where I had left Dash to finish brushing his teeth. I smiled as I realized my son was on his tip-toes on his step-stool, smiling and talking to himself in the mirror. How can you possibly think this kid is gross, woman?, I asked myself as I picked up his towel.
Curious as to what he was telling himself, I halted my inner dialogue and focused on his face in the mirror to listen. On the mirror were several boogers, stationed in such a way that they represented a rhombus of some sort. Dash was smiling and reaching as high as he could to inch one closer to another. More boogers? Where are they coming from? Does he have a stash?
“Circle time, circle time, …indecipherable… and then I eat them!”
My child is disgusting.
September 26, 2005
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