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learned from recent experience working on that rock-n-romp thing i keep bringing up:
musicians are NOT definitive, decisive people.
and there are a few fairly, i dunno, renowned people that i'm dealing with here. one doesn't wanna hassle them but, you know, i gots to fill dem dates, spanky. i mean, think of the children.
and so i
h
a
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g
think if i hauled out the drugs and groupies people would move faster? heh.
John and Jackie Knill of Vancouver, British Columbia, pose at a resort in Khao Lak, Thailand, on December 12, 2004. The couple were killed when the December 26 tsunami struck the resort. Their digital camera was found, and though the camera was destroyed, searchers were able to recover photos of the tsunami from its memory card.
the last two photos of the series in particular give you a pretty spectacular and terrifying glimpse into what a monster this thing was.
via kottke
but really, you're all winners in my book. snort.
unfortunately, the numbers indicate that, well, one of you outscored the others in our oscars 2005 challenge, thus becoming the winningest winner, as it were.
and that person -- with a score a whole *one higher* than the 2nd runners up -- is: plaincake! yaaaay plaincake!!!
plaincake, you win a falafel dinner! (funnily enough, plaincake -- aka heather -- was just over here mere minutes ago partaking in said cuisine. see, if ya'll had come over and had dinner at our house you'd have won, too).
actually, plaincake gets a DVD of her choice as a prize (and plaincake, please don't try to shanghai me with some multi-disk set shizzle. homey don't play that). hit me email stylee, heather, so we can settle up.
2nd runners up were, in no particular order:
brian
Chelsea
Freja (<-- send me your blog URL if ya got one)
congrats to these fine folks for their nearly-good-enough efforts. heh.
and to everyone else who submitted an entry: deepest thanks for your time and participation. its a pity you all suck so hard, but then again, we can't all be plaincake, can we?
((((( plaincake!!!! )))))
those of you who've been following this blog (and, before that, my journal over at livejournal) know i've had some serious hardware issues over the past year. well, last night, my ibook died. AGAIN. i know -- can you believe it? i actually wept, such was my frustration. so we finally decided that -- having sent the thing back to apple to be “fixed” 4 times now -- this particular ibook was no more. i can't lose all my data YET AGAIN without undergoing some sort of psychological break.
so let me introduce my (new) wittle friend.
two awesome things about this: i added on an extra 512K of ram; it comes with ilife 05 (GARAGEBAND!!!).
[insert geek happy dance]
so anybody wanna buy a kinda fucked up but fixable g3 ibook?
edit: if anyone *is* actually interested in the G3: i can send it back to apple to have them fix it again (i just did this recently, so its still under warranty for that) before selling it; i'd still sell it at a much reduced used price (i could get it fixed and sell it on ebay for a good chunk, but i'd rather help a fellow blogger out). /end sales pitch
for all of you... some of whom i know have had not-so-great a week.
get this dude some medication, stat!
edit: dude pulled the page. what a wimp.
The Snowman
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
--Wallace Stevens
i don't know about the rest of you, but i'm salivating and chomping at the proverbial bit for sunday night's oscars, hosted by chris rock. the dude can do no wrong in my book. i mean, this is the man who was both funny enough and smart enough to joke “Gun control? We need bullet control! I think every bullet should cost 5,000 dollars. Because if a bullet cost five thousand dollars, we wouldn't have any innocent bystanders .”
true, dat.
oh yes (ahem), this also gives me the opportunity to mention that you now have only 3.5 days left to submit your entry in sweetney.com's oscar challenge 2005. this your final warning.
i've had a number of people ask me recently about the name “sweetney” and where it comes from. some of you know about this, but for those who don't: it is a term of endearment bandied about between my husband jamie, my daughter M_ (well, we call her it), and myself. as far as origins go, long story short: several years back there was a pretty decent georgetown basketball player whose name was Mike Sweetney (i believe he's since gone pro, but i'm not sure which team he's on), and during one televised college game i joked incessantly to jamie about how “cute” the name was -- sort of mocking the player/name (via the television screen) by chiding in a sickly-sweet baby-talk type voice: “awww, poor sweetney! he missed the wittle two-point shot! awwwwww!” etcetera etcetera, ad infinitum (imagine this mocking going on for the duration of the game). our daily use of it as a sort-of-mocking/joking-slash-loving/petnamish term of endearment followed quickly.
you may all go throw up now.
it hadn't even started snowing here yet today, and they'd already closed all the schools (note that this means M_ has no preschool today, which means i have no downtime today, which means I AM VERY DISPLEASED).
people, spend a winter in michigan and learn what real snow is about. they don't close schools there unless the school buses are so packed in place with snow that they can't physically be moved. 3-5 inches? ha! laughable! tis but a dusting!
grumble. anybody wanna come over and watch M_ this morning?
ebony and ivoreeee... perfectly timed in light of my last post, no? M_ + R_ = BFF!
and in perfect harmony... except when the possession of a toy stethoscope is involved. in that case, perfect harmony devolves into i'll-claw-your-eyes-out-if-you-don't-give-that-to-me-beeyatch disharmony.
ps: thanks to joel for the photo.
today at the grocery store i was standing at the checkout, crushed between people in line in front and behind me (i stupidly went at 6pm, just when all the 9-5ers are heading to the store to pick up dinner), when the rather girthful (that's a word, right?) black woman in front of me whipped her entire body violently around and glared at me, hissing: “you've bumped into me several times (with a snake-like sss on the s in several).”
now, any of you who have toddlers know precisely what i'm about to say. i barely knew this woman existed prior to her berating me -- she was but a vague, spectral smear of navy blue fabric ahead of me, registered only unconsciously as something positioned between me and getting the hell out of there. yes, i was quite consumed with trying to keep M_ 1) in the shopping basket, from which she was actively attempting to escape, 2) from opening a full bottle of mr. bubble and dumping it all over herself and our foodstuffs, 3) from hurtling herself onto the checkout counter in a vain attempt to grab the faux pen attached to the credit/debit card reader -- all of this while, of course, attempting to unload our cart and find my wallet. i had no idea i'd bumped her, nor did i realize that this would be symbolic of the historical oppression of all black people by whitey (me), which was clearly the subtext of her hissing and the attendant headshaking/voluminous sighing and the visible pissed-offness that followed. suddenly i felt as though i had become the man, who -- in my inherent privilege and blissful lack of awareness of said privilege -- was again, quite literally, pushing a minority around.
c'mon, i said “i'm sorry.” heh.
so she stomped off all in a huff, with looks of vague confusion/bemusement from those nearby trailing her. and while i feel for her on one level -- knowing full well that she's surely encountered white men and women throughout her life who, indeed, saw her as somehow a lesser being and treated her as such in both mild and extreme ways -- i am, to put it simply, not one of them. so let me say this once and only once for everyone out there, whatever color pigmentation your skin might hold: that harried-seeming lady in the grocery store struggling with a toddler (or toddlers) and her purchases? cut her some fucking slack, man. she doesn't mean to harsh your grocery store buzz, or to be annoying, or to bump you with her grocery cart. she's in survival-mode, just trying to get shit done before the ticking timebombs in her cart molded into the shapes of small children implode. she's not being rude, at least not intentionally, and anything she does relative to you isn't about you specifically, or your people's history of being oppressed generally, or whatever. its, at bottom, simply about the myopia necessary for a mother with a child in a public place to have in order that she might survive the trip unscathed, and with minimal embarrassment. really. promise.
i'm wearing *no makeup*, people. do i get a prize?
this post brought to you by self-portrait day.
this thread on chez miscarriage is going to make my head explode.
tick tick tick tick...
a guest post from jamie:
So, I took advantage of the long weekend to take a Papa and Child trip to NYC to see the Gates. It will only be up until the 27th -- and there was no way M_ was gonna miss it.
The trip part actually worked out great (note, no Mommy in sight; muy scary for me!). Definitely the most consecutive solo time I've spent with the little lady -- and the farthest she's EVER been from Mom. A playlist of her favorite songs in the car worked wonders (Elliot Smith, Shins, new Green Day -- then Norah Jones and Iron & Wine on the way back for sleepy time -- what can I say, she's a hip little mofo for her age) and getting there in great time helped, too.
Grabbed brunch with friends in an old NY-like place where she would only eat bananas but was amazingly well-behaved considering I'd left her color books back in Chelsea. And then off to the Gates, with my very good friend Raji -- NY native who would end up guiding me to the park, out of it, and to a subway -- as well as take a bunch of great pictures (and Video!) and generally be a second pair of eyes and potential search party for M_ (helped much with solo dad in the city anxieties!).
M_ loved it all, though I think it was much more loving the space to move around, all the people (and check out the video to see what she liked so much about the gates themselves)! She also got to see Strawberry Fields (indoctrinate the Beatles are _it_ little-lady /indoctrinate); the bandshell (which was gated off and she was upset that scaling the gates wasn't in her or my best interest); these really cool strange Japanese “breakdancers” that did this kinda slo-mo thing (1-part breakdancing; 1-part tai-chi; 1-part Kobuki theatre movement?) to what sounded like Japanese Dancehall and traditional Japanese music -- why didn't we get video or photos of that? it was fucking cool; and these guys that were doing really cool shit with a Frisbee. When we saw the roller-dancers (who weren't very good), I explained to M_ that it is always the 70s somewhere in NYC.
One of her big things now is roaring like a dinosaur, which I would get her to do as people approached her (it was crowded). She's awesome and will be my dependable partner-in-crime before long (your record is pretty much erased when you hit the age of majority, right?).
It's only up one more week -- don't sleep on it! The pics are great as a Dad, but the Gates are an experience that well, needs to be experienced. And as my friends noted -- its great to have a landmark-in-time that's all positive after the two most recent NY-based “where-were-you-whens" (9/11 and blackout).
a little movie from jamie and M_'s trip to the gates.
i weep at the cuteness.
anyway, more to come soon.
nothing much to say today. i've been making some headway on stuff over at rock-n-romp :: baltimore. jamie and M_ and i had coffee with thisisyoursignal and his lovely, very-pregnant-with-triplets wife (yes. triplets.). we're catching up on season two of the wire. i'm feeling tired in a pleasant way -- the tiredness that comes with a full life.
jamie's going to guest post shortly about his trip to NYC with M_ -- some great pictures from that to be shared as well.
i'm trying to firm up the schedule for rock-n-romp :: baltimore, and am still in need of bands that rock. are you in a band? do you know someone in a band? if so, head on over to the rock-n-romp :: baltimore page, and/or email me (sweetney at sweetney.com)!
suggestions regarding bands to snag for a show also most welcome. hep me to what's what, g.
right now jamie and M_ are in NY's central park viewing the gates and (according to jamie, who i just got off the phone with) “some sort of weird breakdancing -slash- frisbee thing people are doing here.” hmm.
so i had all day to myself, and what did i do? i cleaned, and organized our attic office/library.
i know. i hate my guts.
just a wee reminder that there's a mere week left before the oscars, so get your votes in pronto!
remember: there is a PRIZE, folks. chop-chop!
voting will be open until 5pm EST february 27th (the day of the oscars).
ps: crazy-mad props to defective yeti!!
pps: the voting page uses the term “pool”, when in reality this is more a simple contest. you aren't contributing anything; just voting and, hopefully, winning.
i've been told i'm now “it,” so here goes the Q&A:
Total number of music files on your computer?
1740 m4a files.
What was the last CD you bought?
that would be the fiery furnances' blueberry boat, which i still have yet to appreciate (at least to the degree that i'm told i should).
What was the last song you downloaded?
that would be about a week ago -- the theme song to the show 64 zoo lane, which you can hear M_ “singing” here (and yes, i use the term “singing” very, very loosely).
Name five songs you listen to often, depending on your mood.
1. elliott smith - independence day. this song never fails to make me happy, in a thoughtful sort of way.
2. the shins - gone for good. its one of M_'s favorites, and since i've listened to this album pretty much non-stop for the past year, that means it gets played pretty often. plus i'm a sucker for slide guitar.
3. neutral milk hotel - oh, comely. this would be a song i listen to when i'm in a pensive sort of mood. the lyrics are pretty fucking spectacularly poetic.
4. outkast - bombs over baghdad. if i'm wantin' some booty shakin'.
5. stevie wonder - my cherie amour. because for me its a song about M_, and it makes me weepy. and sometimes you just wanna weep, you know?
What are your three favorite songs from the 80s?
there is no way in hell i could narrow things down to three favorites, so here's three among many i like:
1. the pixies - isla de encanta. man, that thing will make me MOVE.
2. throwing muses - anything from their 1st (self-titled) album: hate my way; vicky's box; delicate cutters. jesus, that album is fucking brilliant, and was bible-like for me in high school.
3. galaxie 500 - tugboat. i mean, what can you say about that song? so simple, so resonant, so perfect.
What was the first album you ever bought?
uhh...it was a monkees 2-album set...sort of a greatest hits dealy, bought when i was in 1st or 2nd grade (i brought it to school for “show and tell”, so i know it was pretty early in my academic career).
What was the first CD you ever bought?
the smiths - hatful of hollow. i think that cd -- an import -- cost me like $26 at the time. god, i was looney.
What are the lyrics that float around your head?
right now it would be:
i don't wanna stay at your party
i don't wanna talk with your friends
i don't wanna vote for your president
i just wanna be your tugboat captain...
but a more representative sampling might be:
And secretly I want to bury in the yard
The grey remains of a friendship scarred
You told us of your new life there
You got someone comin' around
Gluing tinsel to your crown
He's got you talking pretty loud
You berate remember your ailing heart and your criM_l eyes
You say you're still in love
If it's true what can be done
It's hard to leave all those moments behind
now to each of you who are blogged i say: YOU'RE IT. go forth and answer these questions in your own blogdom. and rejoice.
it is M_'s current favorite. she even tries to sing along...which is strangely disconcerting.
i say this in advance, just so we're clear and upfront and everything: i like that new green day album.
its the p-rock tommy, kids. don't run away from the love.
thanks. i feel much better now.
one of the funniest bits on the daily show in some time. jon's cracking up helps achieve this.
just in case you missed it.
i hear tell there is a charm city blogger gathering in the works for march.
ya'll best sign up. don't make me come over there.
so i got my computer back from apple (they did a pretty amazing 2-day repair turn around), but in addition to replacing the offending part (the logic board), they also went ahead and gave me a new hard drive. while nice of them and all (its almost like having a new computer, albeit still a measly G3), this also completely destroyed a metric ton of data i had on that HD (i know, i should've backed up, but i had no idea they would completely gut my computer), including all of my email addresses. so, this is a long-winded and roundabout way of asking: if you read this, and you and i have communicated over email in the past (or might in the future! yay!), could you please take a moment and send me a blank email from your primary email address (to: sweetney at this url)? much obliged, spanky.
now to spend all day reconstructing...sigh.
i may be unable to access a computer regularly for a few days -- my ibook is exhibiting signs of serious badness, and i suspect it may have to make a visit to apple for repair.
bah. bah, i say!
just an fyi, should i suddenly seem to disappear.
exhibit a: why i love my husband:
in response to a tv ad announcing the coming oscars, jamie says “wouldn't it be cool if there was only one oscar? if every year they just gave out one statue -- best person in motion pictures. period. so some years like a set designer would win, others it would be make-up....at the bottom of the statue it would say 'you're the best...'”
what a freakin' dork.
in honor of the day, a few pictures of M_ and her best buddy R_, engaged in what can only be described as a “hug fight.”
and the aftermath:
all that lovin' takes a lot out of you, you know.
this morning i received a really gorgeous valentine's day bouquet of flowers from jamie. also, before i even woke up this morning, jamie emptied the dishwasher. and my life is such that i'm hard-pressed to say which of these was the better gift.
on the pestilence front, i am well, jamie is well. M_, however, developed a nasty ear infection in the wake of her bout with the plague, and all weekend was ABSOLUTELY UNBEARABLE TO BE AROUND. everything was cause for upset, whining, and endless screeching (and she's developed an all-new screech -- screech 2.0 -- that is so high-pitched and piercing that every animal within a square mile radius begins trembling and frothing at the mouth upon hearing it)... both jamie and i were walking on eggshells the entire weekend with her, afraid of what seemingly benign event would next send her spiraling off into hysterical crazydom. thankfully, the antibiotics appear to be finally kicking in, so i hope to soon reemerge from our quarantine and again walk among the healthy and living without fear.
i have been trapped in this house, pretty much non-stop (unless you count 1 visit to the grocery store and 1 visit to the vet's, which i don't, as they're discretely task-oriented), for well over a week. as a result, i'm starting to develop an internal dialogue that could best be described as *the isolation crazies*: what's a normal adult conversation like? and could i pull that off? i wonder what it would be like to go outside and, you know, talk to people... no no, maybe its better to just stay inside....inside, where its warm and safe.... yes, yes -- inside gooooood.... etcetera. i will soon need the jaws of life applied to my front door in order to pry my body from hibernation.
also, for those interested: i'm working on the schedule for Rock-n-Romp :: Baltimore, and hope to have the first show scheduled (if not more) very soonly, so check back with the RnR :: Bmore site for updates!
finally: you've probably already seen this. if not, it is my v-day gift for you. smooches!
for those of you as obsessed with -slash- befuddled by the show Lost as i am:
charlie's band DriveShaft has a website.
my attempt at annoying, semi real-time reportage. behold the greatness.
8:15: steven tyler is merely a well-preserved keith richards. which ain't sayin' much.
8:20: first shout-out to god (via los lonely boys).
aside: did ellen degeneres's t-shirt say "pussy patrol," or do my eyes deceive me?
8:35: prince couldn't be there to accept his grammy? bullshit. prince just couldn't be bothered with you puny earthlings.
8:40: U2. yawn.
8:45: well good for those green day kids. and their suits.
8:55: jlo & mark anthony. singing. in spanish. together. ON A FUCKING BED, PEOPLE. ...and i just threw up a little in my mouth.
9:03: oh my god. they're playing freebird. its like this grammys comes pre-mocked. my work is done for me here.
9:30: is there even the slightest chance that anything is going to be better than that green day performance? cuz i could probably just turn of the tv right about now... (note: i never thought the day would come when i would gush about green day, but there you have it).
9:45: if i was single, do you think pharrell would, you know, like me?
nope, ellen's shirt says iggy pop. dammit.
10:00: umm, is melissa etheridge going for some sort of telly savalas look*, or did someone slip me some crazy pills? [*apparently its, sadly enough, the big C, which is clearly much less fun than her just randomly deciding that kojak was rad and deserving of emulation. goddammit.]
10:15: wow, jack white is looking a little chunky-southern-rockeresque, no?
10:30: maybe its just me, but every single fucking song U2 has done for the past several years sounds to me precisely like that elevation song from the lara croft soundtrack. U2: lather, rinse, repeat.
10:40: even in the name of a noble, worthwhile cause, massacring the beatles like this should be fucking illegal, man.
10:45: okay, john mayer's getting some points for his shout-out to grandma and mom. i'm a sucker for mom PDA.
10:55: you're on your own from here on in. i don't think i can sit through usher's piss-poor michael jackson impersonation long enough to press on. nite-nite.
PS: oh no they didn't just drag james brown's cadaverous visage out on stage, did they!?!? OUCH.
but in the meantime, please join me in gasping in awe.
1. nagging
2. pernicious
3. phlegmtastic
4. residual
5. searing
6. grievous
7. hacking
8. beefy
9. rasping
10. mesmeric
i am officially done hearing about bloggers losing their jobs over content posted on their blog.
i mean, yes, we all love dooce, but she lost her job THREE YEARS AGO. catch the fuck up, dorks.
thank you for your attention.
love,
sweetney.
admittedly, i'm still a bit punchy from the plague, but The Hall of Douchebags gave me the chuckles.
healing power of laughter and all that, blah blah blah.
i just got hooked up with stumbleupon, and so have spent a good chunk of time this morning just randomly trolling the web. wow. what novel fun.
cough.
anyway, one of the sites i came across reminded me of my badly neglected geek love of all things spooky, creepy and scary. and we're not talking goth here -- i don't do goth, thanks. i'm speaking here of haunted houses, hidden portals into other dimensions, bizarre sightings of human-animal hybrids, ritualistic/serial psycho killers and the like. you know, the REAL stuff that REALLY happens in REAL life. heh.
i think this all goes back to my childhood fixation on that Choose Your Own Adventure book, *The Mystery of Chimney Rock. but that's another story for another time.
now of course i love a good horror flick and all that, just like any other kid raised in the 70s (aka the era of jamie lee curtis in Halloween, man), but what i really love are programs/books/stories that are supposedly reporting an actual happening. i want eyewitnesses and documentation, motherfuckers! i want detailed, yet poorly reinacted, narrative on the demonic history of the thing -- the dreaded indian burial ground the haunted house was supposedly built upon, and how its first owner was said to have hung puppies in the attic...at midnight...under a full moon...anyway, you get the idea. i want convincing, even if i ultimately can't be convinced. because, really, who believes this crap?
having said all that, please feel free to send me scary stories of your own real encounters with the less-than-living. i promise to ooh and ahh and be suitably jealous, since i have yet to experience anything worthy of an Unsolved Mysteries segment on the paranormal myself. because life is a cruel, unjust farce. basically.
unrelatedly: thanks to everyone for the well wishes in this time of our pestilence. i'm doing somewhat better, though the same can't be said for jamie and M_, who are both pretty well fucked right now. and, by the by, being the “well” one is almost as bad as being sick, since your relative health means you are, by default, officially in charge of TAKING CARE OF EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING. sigh.
*i just remembered the title; The Haunted House was a later CYOA i also had (and still have, actually), but i was never obsessed with it in the way i obsessed on Chimney Rock.
yeah, that just about covers it.
oh and ps: jamie's got it now, too.
so you may have been wondering, “how could things possibly get worse for poor, poor tracey?” well wonder no more!
M_ now has the flu.
i'm just trying to wrap my (foggy, flu-addled) brain around how i'm going to take care of her in my present semi-incapacitated state. i'm also going through fits of nausea-inducing worry because -- and please correct me if i'm wrong here -- the flu is pretty fucking serious for a 2.5 year old. i mean, we won't even give language to the possible worst-case outcomes, but you all understand my freaking out, right?
i've called the doctor, who is supposed to call me back. and so i wait.
i rarely use this as a platform for soliciting advice, but if any of you have suggestions on how to handle/treat M_ under the circumstances, i'd be most grateful. my ass is getting KICKED over here, people.
people, i haven't felt this bad in years. its the flu. and it is pure evil.
remember that one time you got the flu and were so sick you could barely walk? remember how every muscle in your body felt wrung out, and you shook and sweated uncontrollably? well, that's me right now.
i actually started crying yesterday simply because i felt so bad i didn't know what else to do.
will catch up with all of you as soon as i'm able. werd.
and just when you think it can't get any weirder, it does.
directed by spike jonze, natch.
oh so so sick. so congestiony. so mucusy. so sniffling sneezing coughing aching.
everything is wrong.
except Some Kind of Monster, which i watched last night and was much impressed with. metallica = not my thing of course, but you have to give those guys props for being brave enough to be that vulnerable on film considering, you know, their angry-tough-guys schtick. i even walked away with a different perspective on lars, who -- while still definitely an ass -- proves to be a more complex dick than i would've guessed. oh and also pretentious and arrogant...but then we knew that. anyway, highly recommended.
alright, back to my all-important lying-down-and-whining. sniff.
in our family, that would be my husband, jamie. he's reading tomorrow; it starts at 7pm. i may or may not be able to make it, depending on numerous factors...but you should. he'll be reading from a new series of poems by/about/for robots (he'll explain) -- its all very cool and exciting.
anyway, really consider going. jamie also happens to be one of the smartest, funniest, and genuinely nicest (unlike me, i'm a fucking BITCH) people i've ever known. hence the whole, you know, marrying him thing. so if you go, do say hello and introduce yourself, dammit!
my love song to baltimore.
driving through the city today, i realized how much i love baltimore. how i love its complexity and roughness. its black and blue, busted lip, hard-scrabble underdog stoicism. i've never felt so at home, so comfortable in a city...DC always felt to me like a suburban office park in some intangible way, so overrun with politicos and white collared suburbanites, all of them closed up in their little business tower mazes while the sun's out, then scurrying back to northern virginia at dusk in their SUVs. i'm generalizing, i know -- but what i'm addressing is more the overriding feeling i got from the city. baltimore, on the other hand, feels like rusted steel and brick and pavement; it feels elemental and unmoving. industry has come and gone from this city, and it and its population have taken a beating. and in a country that is essentially waging war on its underclass, i love that it is a city of people struggling to get by that refuses to be beaten into submission. and, yes, that love would extend to driving daily past the boys on the corner; them warily eyeing you, you warily eyeing them -- you know what they're up to and they know that you know, and it doesn't fucking matter because that's just how things are here. survival.
there's something beautiful in that, you know? in the strength, the pure force of will, behind survival in spite of it all.
so i drove around thinking all this, and i actually teared up at little. i was listening to, and singing along with, elliott smith, and i felt like i was singing the song to this city. and yeah, i know i'm romanticizing now, as i was then. but at the time, i just felt at home.
despite waking up at THREE THIRTY IN THE MORNING and remaining awake since, i almost immediately pronounced that today would be utterly worthless. it is now 11:30 and i have done nothing except peruse blogs, upgrade MT (and only because the dudes that host sweetney threatened to shut my shit down if i didn't upgrade, due to some security holes in MT 3.14), drink half a cup of coffee, and eat about 1/4 of a bag of sour cream & onion potato chips (and yes, i feel sick and disgusting, thanks). M_ will be back from preschool in 45 minutes, and i'll have totally wasted that precious downtime.
some days i really, really hate being a grown up.
i want to have a whole bunch of those ribbon car magnets made that say “god bless magnetism,” and then go around the city with them, replacing the ones people now have on their cars.
because, c'mon -- fucking magnetism, dude.
how long before people notice, you think?
broken down into bite-sized, easily digestible nuggets for your consumptive pleasure:
-- i do not yet grasp the supposed greatness of the fiery furnances' blueberry boat.
-- M_ + storytime at the local children's bookstore = anarchy.
-- related: it is virtually impossible for two adults to construct something resembling conversation with two toddlers present.
-- a day would come when i would be chomping at the bit to watch metallica. thanks to netflix, that day is today.
-- my geekiness will not be contained.
-- lollipops make everything better.
-- a day without stable, reliable access to email really backs my shit up. and by “shit” i mean “communication,” not, you know, shit.
-- cartoon character laden band-aids double as toddler jewelry.
-- the kids just love to sing about the bubonic plague.
-- wal-mart bad. (kidding -- you'd have to be a fucking moron to have just realized that.)
-- bullet-point-style lists can be deployed to create the illusion of substantive content when one is feeling too lazy to compose a genuine, thoughtful narrative.
one of the bands who'll be playing at RnR:bmore this summer, Secret Crush Society, is featured in this week's baltimore citypaper.
they're doin' it for the kids, people.
heh-heh. big bone lick. heh-heh-heh.
sorry. i couldn't help myself.
shamelessly swiped from scott bateman.
i posted something about this a long while back, but the time has come for action, my friends.
our across-the-street neighbors are selling their house. before this was all talk; now they're going to put it on the market as early as next week. definitely.
for obvious reasons i have a vested interest in who moves in there, and in the most ideal of worlds it would be a friend, or a friend of a friend... anyway, here's a picture of the house i took a few months back.
if someone were to act now, before it goes on the market, someone could probably get it for around, oh, $150k. it needs work, so that might be negotiable, actually. but i can vouch for the awesomeness of the neighbors (not just me, heh) and the neighborhood, where house values are skyrocketing.* its a big house -- a mirror-image of ours -- and with some work could really be spectacular.
interested? want more info? want me to hook you up? hit me email stylee at sweetney at this URL.
*duh, i live in NE baltimore, in lauraville, specifically.
i'm unusually silent, i know. i'm having problems with the interweb -- an epic battle resembling something from jason and the argonauts. okay, not really -- i just like bringing up jason and the argonauts whenever the opportunity presents itself.
but seriously folks, take my internet, please!
also: email is slow as molasses, and my server keeps rejecting my emails/passwords, sending email back to me with editorial comments like “trite!” and “capitalize!” and “evasive!” appended. goddamn artificial intelligence, why do you have to be so intelligent?
umm yeah, so problems abound, basically.
i also just found out that my treacle-drenched, blood-spitting, fire/brimstone-conjuringly evil ex-sister-in-law is attempting to completely remove my brother's visitation rights for their daughter. don't even get me started, as i may begin speaking in tongues, such is my anger. though i'm not one for violence, i'm presently having elaborate fantasies about flying to michigan, going to her house, knocking on the door, and when she opens it, just punching her in the face. no words, just punching.
can i go back to bed yet?
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I'm an imperfect Gen-X Parental Unit from Baltimore. I believe in early afternoon cocktails, the greatness of Jon Stewart, and that being a smartass is a virtue. More about me...
