if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all

GUEST BLOGGER
KEVIN, "I AM NIGHTLIGHTS" - THE ROOMMATE
STEPS IN TO COMPILE I AM DAYLIGHTS
END-OF-YEAR TOP TEN ALBUMS LIST

Since Peg’s combination of a temporary bad mood and permanent memory loss have rendered her incapable of making her year-end favorite album list, I find myself in the enviable position as I Am Daylights’ first guest blogger. I suppose it’s for the best, because usually while these songs are slipping into Marge’s unconscious without her knowledge, I am actively trying to sleep.

I must admit, however, that my musical preferences are a bit different than hers. I’m an ignorant, snot-nosed bastard who listens to nothing but Nirvana and Mudhoney. So, keep this in mind.

As for the criteria, I ranked the albums by the frequency from which they came blaring from Peg’s computer at ungodly hours of the morning. The more hours of sleep I lost to a particular album, the higher up the list it went. Also, I am aware that some of these albums came out in 2004. But, since Peg spent a good portion of 2005 listening to them, I’ve decided that they count.

On to the list . . .


10. Feist: Let it Die – I am unaware when Peg started listening to lounge music, but this album is decent enough.

9. Songs of Green Pheasant: Songs of Green Pheasant – Peg says she likes this band because they sound like Slowdive, her all-time favorite. That’s fine and dandy as long as I can get a little more reverb on the vocals.

8. Minus Story: The Captain Is Dead, Let the Drum Corpse Dance – Although Peg swears that this was a favorite before I moved into the house, I’m not sure if I’ve actually ever heard this album. Maybe I just thought it was a Flaming Lips record.

7. Chin Up Chin Up: We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers – Whatever.

6. American Analog Set: Set Free – Peg feels that this is her favorite band of the moment. All I feel is myself starting to doze off.

5. Bound Stems: The Logic of Building the Body Plan EP – There was a good three weeks of freakout about the greatness of this album before it went back to Margot. I am undecided as to whether or not the “Bound Stems” actually exist.

4. Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene – Marge underestimates the number of times her computer spit out “7/4 (Shoreline)” in the last few months. Listening to this band must be akin to traveling at light speed for her and I think this is a good thing.

3. Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary – “I’ll Believe in Anything” is another mid-morning Marge staple. Once, I swear I heard someone sing a “Ram-a-lang-a-ding-dong” on this song.

2. Constantines: Tournament of Hearts – Although their singer is in desperate need of a cough drop, this band is by far the best on this list. Then again, everything that comes from Canada is hot these days, isn’t it?

1. Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s: The Dust of Retreat – This band is pretty good as far as sad bastard bands go. But, if I wake up to “Talking in Code” one more time, I might need shock therapy.

sebaceous cystworthy

barely forming sentences today, it's arrows like bled white
[sense?]

in honor of my newest [fresh jivest?!] internet word/grammar fixation/obsession/FIND, the rhymeZONE [something really early 90s r&b about the name], the list gist, i insist.

→ party last night: kinda arty, saw marty and mccarty, really hearty.

→ on spin.com, bound stems, what gems!

→ don't fool me for a predator, but should i be a copy editor [when i grow up?]?


oh man. apologies for the worst [cursed! unrehearsed!] entry ever. it's over now. hopefully kevin's done with his year-end lists for me, and then we can all read something good [understood?!].

+++++++++++++

also - is anyone sitting in front of a computer working today but me? internet desert today.

also ↓
thunderbirds are now! at the lager house new year's eve! you live in detroit, the promised land where you can party on nye for less than 10$ cover, so do it! there's a dance party, some other bands AND it's mr. mike durgan's LAST show ever with tan! you'll have major regrets about not ushering that guy onto bigger and better things.

tune of the year

the sky's asthma-blanket-grey for days and on; how-long how-long has eclipsed the point of messy finger-counting, even past the point of hashmarks dug into the bedpost. what did you think you were keeping track of? how many times you nearly died inside another?

bought another plant yesterday and started a new knitting project. like a hollywood girl [exactly who i scowled at in the mall the other day], i not only gravitate toward the niceties of knitting, any less is nearly unacceptable. total absence from the yarn stores in berkley [not cali] and detroit, just ones in birmingham -- chic, saturated, shamelessly-overpriced birmingham. i've fallen in love with rowan patterns and yarn. here's the hat angela and i are starting. she bought me the yarn for it for xmas, and we're both really pumped about it because we get to learn new! stitches like the M1, s1, K2tog tbl, &tc. it's a nutsnuts thing because the hat's primarily knitted on these massive needles [size 17], which make you feel like a fumbling child, a handicapped knitter, like some fucking fool trying to knit with those miniature baseball bats won at cedar point when the minimum-wager couldn't guess your weight correctly.



there's already too much work stacked up on the ftp site for today. we're going to a party tonight at one of the many houses of the myriad of people who live in ferndale. you can't beat nearly anything less than a mile away. metro-detroit-wise, i think our fair town--"fashionable" ferndale--it's nearly passed up the city of detroit as the "jam place to live." okay, it's CLOSE.

can't stop thinking about how crazy new year's eve is going to be.

is your life story about you, cuz i just can't relate

haven't gone back to a "grind" yet, and i imagine i won't until after new year's blowout, recovery, &tc. only moderate amounts of work this week, a massive amount of cleaning/organizing/overwhelming, minuscule amounts of motivation. the presence of xmas trees and ornaments, gift boxes, houseplants, ham and homemade chocolates has swelled quite exponentially in the last week.

let's play catch up. my birthday was friday, and it was one of those birthdays that makes you feel whiskey-shot fuzzy in realizing truly how priceless, how truly remarkable and truly how tender your friends and family are. my sister made me a hybrid cake -- a birthday bouche de noel, and, as always, she outdid her previous outings in the realm of birthday cakes, bouche de noels, baking in general. and presents! i never got so many great presents from friends before. i'm having trouble sounding like a pre-teen here, but i think that's real excitement and appreciation coming out. a bunch of us went up to los galanes in mexicantown where the salsa was hot and yummy, and the mariachi guys who sang happy birthday to me were hotter and yummier. then to the holiday variety show upstairs at the magic stick, which was both overwhelming and fun, in oscillating order. scott and i headed to a party at a mansion near eastern market for the afterparty where afterparty-type things took place and afterparty fun was had. we came home after six.

xmas went very well, especially considering how this was the first one held not in "the house." no hitch, no problem, all good, too many presents, too much food. very good.

my roommate, kevin, is going to have a couple "guest blogger" entries in the next couple of days, and i'm looking forward to it with much anticipation. since i'm not really in the mood to make any end-of-the-year lists, he's going to make mine for me. who knows your favorite albums of the year better than the person who sleeps in the next room? and there's a rumor about another list, a list of guys in my life over the course of the past year. so. there's that. i feel a bit less anticipatory about that one.

the purse i made jeanne for xmas, my first "real," non-scarf project


i don't think i'll take the lights down, ever



sorry, i'll say something intelligent tomorrow. now = couch + knitting + tv

a new sentiment; a new hope; new

slept with much punctuation on the couch after unwrapping some gifts and preparing some xmas snacks and cookies [i burnt half of them to the point of inedibility], rose before eight am like a child to an undeniably empty house, but not lonely. the holiday is different this year, yes. but i can't stop thinking of friends [and family] of mine passing a night and day like this with remarkable, enduring loss. like the food network blaring in the background of my overly-xmas-tree-studded living room in attempt to sleep, this haunted me. it feels again, like a spiritual thanksgiving, and i hope, like no other strength or breadth or depth of sentiment, that those "celebrating" "without" enjoy some bit of settling, some semblance of joy.

we'll call it broken; who will know?

so it's my birthday, and in absolutely-me fashion, i shed a few tears this morning. i can't exactly put my finger on why, but part of it has to do with truly having a highly inflamed sense of event. nothing occurs or passes without really feeling it. maybe it's the fact that i threw up in the bathroom of the bronx after downing one and a quarter whiskey and diets last night. maybe it's the persistent headache. maybe it's because i can't decide whether i'd trade this year for the last. maybe because everything feels so unsettled. but, but - the holidays, and certainly having my birthday surrounding them so closely, they feel some sort of spiritual thanksgiving. i'm thankful for my amazing family and priceless friends, we who all hold each other so close, sometimes too close, too tightly. but i wouldn't wish for it any other way. i went from not passing any classes last fall to finally graduating college in may. that's something to be thankful for, or rather, to be proud of. i moved into a really great living situation with four of the most stellar and most human humans i know in a great town, in a great area.

from the files of the xmas tree project:



kevin's "pi" tree




scott's "tree of democracy"


my mother's, which i'll call a "womb" tree


my sister's "cookie" tree with glue and cinamon ornaments and REAL popcorn garland

hello from the 10th dimension of busy-ness

i just got out of the suburban oasis up on orchard lake in farmington. it's probably one of the most overwhelming places ever and now especially [next to of course somerset mall now] - every chain store in creation and existence ever and now [feels like it], THERE, on that fucking road. old navy rubs shoulders with the gap. tj maxx nestled near marshall's. trader joe's across the street from whole foods. brother, sister, parent, cousin stores know no distance as boundary. they're all just stuffed right on that road, lining up that fucking thing.

so if you send a person to the suburban oasis, they're gonna return a little crazy.

two questions:

1) are internet crushes real crushes? if they're at least semi-plausible, should we act upon them?

2) ever know anyone who got sticks and coal for xmas? my cousin jimmy did when we were little. i can't imagine him every doing anything that atrocious. totally totally heartless.

ps. my two favorite xmas songs for your pleasure/leisure/loving coming up tomorrow and friday!

and on the shiny side

i think i've been too busy to write. or is it too busy to think of something to write? instead, time's filled with working blahblah, eating out since i have money, partying way late on friday, waiting in line at the royal oak post office, wishing i was in chicago, buying bathroom tile at home depot, digesting documentaries, succeeding at knitting projects, failing at knitting projects, finishing my xmas cards, projects, projects, sleeping on the couch, thinking about posting a missed connection, missing those far away, finding the patience for somerset mall the week before xmas, planning what to do for my birthday friday, planning how to reconcile xmas given a new family situation, planning, projects, planning.

i have more to say tomorrow.

"hussy"

movies are the new black, but they are not the new snow. snow is still the new snow last time i checked. last night was tarnation, which enlivened my innate fright of shock therapy. it's a documentary compiled by jonathan caouette [so many vowels] who began filming his life beginning around age eleven. his family is grade A fucked-up, and the insanity takes no pain to spare his own life, especially as a teenager. one part disturbing, one part jaw-dropping-disturbing, a quarter-part heartwarming, one part humbling.

also watched être et avoir, a french film documenting and one-room school in the farmlands of france. i thought it was good, though not as good as it was touted to be. the patience, kindness and tolerance exacted by the teacher must be unmatched in another human.

i really needed a band like this right now. ume. houston, blonde redhead meets gritty chaos. jam wake. come shake that whole holed-up-listening-to-iron-and-wine-on-repeat thing with me. let's wake the fuck up.

today was inn season lunch, shopping with my sister. tonight is drinking and invariably dancing at an establishment so ridiculous it shall remain unnamed.

is it still a beer belly if you don't drink beer?

lots of things are changing, too many, maybe, many. maybe.

a lot of people have been laughing at my pajamas. i wear them continuously unless i have to leave the house. if i don't leave the house for a day or two or three, i don't take them off. i'm not sure what's so funny about them. they're a loud blue/purple paisley, too big for me, flannel and from sears. what's so funny about that?

darling it's sin, we're two of a kin

today i had my roommate pick me up smokes while he was out, and, on the lookout for a deal, he picked me up some brand-spankin' new camels that were the always-coveted buy-one-get-one-free. lately the camel cigarette special has been turkish royals, but apparently those gave way to a whole new animal, camel ninety nines. no longer must i writhe in jealousy over the marlboro smokers puffing away for those three extra minutes on their 100s. i got my own fucking long cigarettes [regular size, for you nonsmokers, is an 80], and i don't have to sacrifice flavor or the desert or the pyramids or even the subliminal-message-laden dromedary. he suggested, and i thoroughly concurred, that actively and officially switching to the 99s is the best decision i could possibly make at this point in my life. add "smokes-long-cigarettes" to the "wears-oversized-sunglasses" and "carries-assorted-hard-candies-in-pocket" [a new venture] aspects of my old-cat-lady [cats! i need more cats!] personality.

the nutcraker prefers to fall down

from birds of america, lorrie moore:

"To know the narrative in advance is to turn yourself into a machine," the Manager continues. "What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discoverey, and--let's be frank--fun, fun, fun! There might be things people get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's efforts bring you. The mystery is all."

come hear about me

all i do lately is take great care in trying to be GOOD and NICE and RESPONSIBLE. too many people are failing at this.

let's try a little harder, alright?

"if there was a gun to your head, what song would you sing?"

so i'm making these xmas cards. in reality, this shouldn't be a hefty undertaking, at least as i have done it before, but in the spirit of this-is-one-of-my-flaws-kids, i have to fashion the project as a huge mountain, ridden with trip-ups, potholes and "almost-impossible!"-spots. one aspect of the "vision of the xmas card" [fitting, yes; it came to me when in pre-nap twilight one sunday evening] includes a photo [internet theft] of winter trees on rather-heavy, twilight-hued, semi-iridescent-sheen-ed cardstock. two weeks of inactivity have resulted because i've been unable to begin mounting the mt. everest that is getting this photo on this paper. while constructing the scrimmage/pilot card, i opened the photo in photoshop, tweaked the contrast for visibility on dark paper, resized it and printed it. my printer, while quite the multi-tasker with its fax, copy and scan abilities, proved to be far from a printing ox. decidedly not a printing cash cow. it fell victim to my pleading: "pick it up! pick the paper up! eat it! you can! sure it's heavy, but just eat the paper! i know you can do it, i think i've seen you do this before!" failure. then my scolding: "motherfucker! i always knew you were a piece of shit printer! you're shit as a fax and your ADF feeder or whatever the fuck you call it never worked! no scanning! eat the fucking paper!" it yielded to my motherfucks, scooped up the paper and offered me the image in the middle of the page, ink not dry because of the paper's sheen. but this was acceptable; i had a lot of motherfucks left in me [like the time the fax refused to ever function in my west dearborn apartment], and the ink did eventually dry. so what i wanted to do was measure out to the quarter-of-an-inch where i wanted to place the image on the paper four times so i could maximize my paper use [50 cents a sheet!]. and hell if i can figure that out. my photoshop skills quickly would be rivaled by a pterodactyl putzing around with the program for fifteen minutes. additionally, i'm admittedly "not spacial," so the whole idea of measuring something and then measuring something inside of it and placing it within specific measurements makes me feel like my head is being held under water. i spent more than a week of fretting and bitching about not being able to do it myself, not having anyone to do it for me, and finally, i was resigned. i yesterday i was all ready to take it old-school and use a tree rubberstamp on the cardstock, throwing out the photo [the subject of much of my adoration lately] idea entirely. then, while sipping a water alone at the belmont last night, i realized what a complete dunce i had been. not only a dunce-dunce but a flat-out thinking-in-a-21st-century-tenchological-box-DUNCE. how did we make flyers back in the day? how did were get all those different images on a sheet of paper? WE FUCKING CUT THEM OUT AND TAPED THEM ON THERE AND MADE A FUCKING COPY. fuck. dumb. dumb.

i'm going to go sit in the corner now and think about the terms of my grounding from technology.

the sweetest things are taking so long

yesterday was a good egg. picked up my mom and headed to home depot for the white bathroom tiles for my xmas cards and polyurethane for her. as we were both in good spirits and just minorly suffering from our physical ailments [ankle, hip, laziness], our spirits were in high form, acutely perceptive to every crazy person, each nuts situation, all the "pleasantly confused" old people who fill in the empty recesses of society. like the gas station employee who looked and me and started doing some little dancing to the english-language indian dance music over the loudspeaker. the boy working at the sub shop in royal oak was one of those types who thinks that everything he says is not only supremely interesting and witty, he is also the first to have said and thought such astute observations. "i haven't watched mtv since the 90s. not since they stopped playing music on there." okay, i get it, DUDE. how long has mtv had this format? so long i can't even remember! and since then, how many dufuses [sp?] like yourself have made the very same comment? so many, so many i can't even remember. so so many my ears throb hot and hard every time i must hear it again. the boy also couldn't talk and make a sub at the same time. somehow, my usually-perceptive mother was decidedly unperceptive to this or chose to ignore it or wished to humor him, participating in a full-on conversation with the dufus. as i have an absolutely low tolerance for people like him, i left those two babbling [like making those spit-bubbles i was perhaps a little too fond of as a child] back and forth and picked up my thai food.

all this talk of "back and forth" reminds me of miranda july's movie me and you and everyone we know that i watched friday. "you poop into my butt hole and i poop into your butt hole... back and forth... forever." man that kid! if you know me, you know i very rarely laugh out loud at entertainment. you should have seen me knitting alone to the movie, laughing like a fool at that little kid. people have been saying lately that i don't like children [i prefer it to be an issue of favorability, but nonetheless a true statement frequently followed also by animals, foreigners, old people and mentally handicapped], but if you can whip up THAT kid for me, i would be happy.

lots of knitting means lots of movies. yesterday was capturing the friedmans, which was perhaps way too much for me to consider writing about it. it's a documentary about a father and son charged with pedophilia, but it's so nuts. the family's INSANE. one of friedman brothers is new york's #1 birthday clown. you should probably watch it.

so that too-expensive [20$!] iron and wine/calexico show was last night, and at the last minute, s procured us a way onto the guest list. the show was way sold out and way packed and a total reunion where it's more like a big party with your friends than a show where people arrive independent of each other and pay admission. it's nights like those that tug your heart in favor of detroit, in favor of the city you grew up in. there's some sense of ownership involved in the relationship between city and fully-raised-there person, but i'm unsure who's on top.

perhaps the very best part of the night came at the end when we went for late-night eats in mexicantown, wishing for los galanes to be open but having already mentally resigned and accepted our fate of dining late-night-style at one of the suburbanite-packed sub-par mexican establishments still open and serving after the bar. but oh! los galanes was totally totally open, mexican-band-with-strobe-light-and-dance-party in full effect, ready and almost seemingly waiting and almost EXCITED to serve us our favorite high-caliber mexican foods. 2am and the patrons were twirling and spinning and whipping each other around with so much fervor it made me tired just to watch. after praying for a chair and shifting your weight from one shoe from sears to another for an entire iron and wine show, you can imagine that such exhaustion is almost compulsory.

quelle logique!

my mother types the transcription for a doctor who evaluates patients for their ability/inability to work, function in society, receive social security, etc. he has this list of questions like the ones below, and the answers are quite often humorous and interesting. the following patient is especially curious because she answers the first questions with considerable cleverness and the other, well, not so cleverly.

When asked to compare an orange and a banana, she indicated they are similar because "they're vitamins," and they are different because "one has potassium and vitamin C." When asked to compare a car and a bicycle, she indicated that they are similar because "they're transportation," and they are different because "one doesn't have to have gas."

When asked the meaning of "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence," she replied, "'Cause if you get a cow that's hungry, it will try to go through the fence."


the sky today's like gray-ed, thinning milk, and we're supposed to get a few inches of snow tonight. i couldn't care less about either, as i can't stop fantasizing about not having a car payment. i apologize; i'm showing my true capricorn colors - the pressure of the cusp, like a palm firmly pressing down on my forehead, it's so inconstant. i shouldn't think this much of money.

sounds more like a death sentence than a means

ushered in thursday reading the suicide memorial wall. i don't really know why. real tears.

kinda like monopoly, right?

the reimbursement check from my car accident finally came, and i'm totally paying off my car a year early!! silly me, yesterday i was on the phone with them pleading with no avail to defer december's payment to buy xmas gifts. what really, really good news.

...he's gonna want a glass of milk

a phone call i had three minutes ago on the topic of yeast infections ended like this:

me: "well you can get thrush of the MOUTH."
her: "oh." ... "is that the end of the conversation?"

[and invariably whenever i mention thrush that belle & sebastian "lazy line painter jane" lyric always comes to mind: tossing a coin to decide whether you should tell your folks about a dose of thrush you got while you were licking railings.]


my ipod's gone a little haywire again, so i've begrudgingly traveled back to the dinosaur age, popping in cds to sleep to every night, which got me listening to the dirty three, which got me thinking about the dirty three, which got me thinking about the dirty three live, which got me thinking about the dirty three playing "sue's last ride" live, which got me poking around the internet. it's a if you give a mouse a cookie [the children's book that provides the BEST metaphor for so many things in life] kinda thing. ya know?

dirty three
sue's last ride [or "it really fucking sucks that you're fucking dead"]
live at boston's museum of fine arts
24 october 2005


found out the other day that there are three! yarn stores in birmingham, michigan. hampton mills up on old woodward is stunning with tons of rowan yarns, project kits and a clean, white, not overwhelming [important!] setup. there's also the knitting room and right off the sheep, which i believe have both been around much longer than hampton mills [surfing the wave of today's knitting craze, right?], who have only been around for seven months. seven months! my favorite yarn store is definitely still cityknits in detroit's new center area in the fisher building. have you any wool? in berkley has my favorite name, but not my heart, as they have what i call too many "flashy" yarns there. after last night's killer [as in KILL] working spree, i'm lazy today, having not set an alarm, having breakfasted on knibs of molasses cookies, having not typed one report yet and soon feasting on the red coat tavern's french onion soup and scooping up some yarn at hampton mills for an xmas project/gift/determined-to-finished-item.

secret for the winter months

it's at times like these when i'm up working, watching the clock yield to one am that i dream of having a real nine to five job. not in detroit.

last night i dreamt of a boy with whom i'm only vaguely acquainted, but after hanging out for some time in dream-land, i've passed the day feeling like i know him. familiarity with a stranger, it's fake-fuzzy, fake-nice.

same time, next year

pictures from this time, last year. because i don't take any/many pictures anymore. i'm sentimental today, like a cancer. because i can't worry about money anymore, like a capricorn.

ate pancakes in greektown


went to a lot of shows


had my heart broken, drove for a few hours, ended up back at the 2500 club


fed the ducks in new york


with my sister


and ate there at l'école, the french culinary institute restaurant


almost owned this sign


took this photo, we were losing our minds that night


had many nuts nights, full of wonder, delusion

"hot as in warm?" "no."

riding in the car with nick and andrea to chicago was great because they listen to a bunch of good music i don't know. jams i've heard of but never heard. stuff i should know. pinback, jim o'rourke, the radio dept. the radio dept. is like someone timewarped back to my personal year of age sixteen [1997] and rolled all of my obsessively-favorite, compulsively-favorite bands [i did obsess over things before xmas decorations] together like a tight wad of super-smooth, super-shiny silly putty. it made sense when i found out they were on labrador. i always need little anchors like that about music; i need my tunes situated.

the radio dept. = one part boo radleys
plus one part entire shoegaze genre
plus one part sarah records twee
plus one part sweden

this jam's off their newest ep, which came out in october on labrador.
pulling our weight


i hung miniature plastic babies from a red xmas tree last night while watching nanny 911. writing that down, i see perhaps how unconsciously related those two things were. i rarely watch nanny 911, and i've never tethered tiny babies to an xmas tree from their necks, a little arm, a foot, both feet. if you've ever watched that fucking show, you'd understand why this happened. the insanity of children and parents on that show is one unmatched on network television. if you watched too many episodes of it, invariably it would drive you to tie off the balls of any male in sight.

margot and the nuclear so and so's [i really have an internal battle about using that apostrophe] signed to artemis records. they're totally labelmates with BOSTON and KITTIE. hehe.

i'm worrying about money like the rest of us. i haven't showered since saturday, left my pajamas or the house in thirty hours. perhaps i should! i gotta get some dirt to repot my plant after its fabled suicide attempt yesterday, and paper towels are getting mighty tired of acting as coffee filters for the last week.

something too dry and side-heavy

it was pretty funny, or it was really something. right after i told my roommate earlier that i was thinking about in some/many months eventually moving to a city larger than detroit with my best friend, one of my philodendrons hit the floor, jumping ship from its buddies on the plant stand. certainly, it was some sort of sign. opposed to interpreting it otherwise, i guess it means i'll have to leave the plant here.

today is a woozy-head, whining one. i'm sore and questioning whether or not my spirit's cracked at least just slightly from abandoning my sober streak this weekend in chicago. the xmas trees are taking over; the newest is angela's purple tree with small plastic orange monks dangling from it upside-down with a blue monk in the star-spot. i wonder if she realizes its connection to one of my favorite books, the monk. though i doubt for some reason that ambrosio looked all conventional monk like the little plastic replicas, with his rapes, homosexuality, his sinning. i'm running out of spots for the trees, and i fear the place is looking increasingly like a looney bin. i feel a basket weaving analogy coming on. i would maul for some thai food right now.

also, i bought these flannel pajamas the other day at jc penney of all places, and i can't help but chuckle a little on the inside whenever i catch how oversized and ugly and paisley they are. and since i wear pajamas nearly all day, every day, we're talking about a lot of internal chuckling. oo, but they are comfy and warm.