birds and both blackness

supposedly it was/is hotter in chicago than here in detroit, but even after spending two full days outside in the beating-the-fuck-out-of-you chicago summer sun, my house is decidedly more unbearable. even with a box fan in close proximity blowing full-blast. absolutely miserable, no contest. big misery. and you know, misery hates company. speaking of hate, i suffered from a big-time spell of it this weekend, so much hate. so much so perhaps it elicited misery [and hate..?] for my traveling companions. a day in chicago and my love for even its street names wiped away my hate like a much-needed talking-to. or perhaps it was the bartender at the secret squirrel. damn. truly the sweetest, most friendly and sincere woman--let alone bartender at neighborhood hidden dive--i've encountered. that helps. the festival was hot and oscillated between bearable and unbearable. two days of using the porta-pottie with more frequency than ever. two days marked most certainly by social observances. big-time.

after i finished this post, i lost a bunch of it. misery, again. hey, misery hates company. ok? all i remember is that i wrote something about being far too self-indulgent writing here, having hate and losing it. making some new friends and getting drunk, over and again. something about bringing out the fall music commencing on august first. about loving the hideout and being way-excited about the touch and go party in september. and something about thinking about switching back to high-school-style: paper, pencil and privacy.

does misery love the company of the miserable? probably not.

you and your autumn sweater

today we leave. lansing tonight, complete with hotel. aiming for sobriety. gotta get up early, drive it over to chicago. i've only done the lansing-chicago one other time before [cursive and trail of the dead for max's bday, man.. long ago before i was even 21, funny], i think it's probably even more of a boring drive than detroit-chicago. gotta catch chin up chin up, early early.

what am i supposed to be saying in here lately? who am i writing to? someone? a bunch of someones? i'm having trouble with this.

i'm thinking about fall music.

sleeping with the tv on

it feels more like fall even though we have a weighty chunk of summer left to cut through. like sticking your finger in butter. doing water aerobics at the y with a broken arm. archer prewitt's quintessential end-of-summer album, white sky, is soon to follow as obsession. but for now, it's easy to become obsessed with estate sales. the one we'll go to today promises to be one of the best of the summer.

so, some songs. josh rouse is some perfect fall music. so listen [sorry it's an m4a; but ya know, like in project runway, you're either "in," or you're "out," right? ..something like that]:

josh rouse |> my love has gone

three new songs off the new jeremy enigk. this album must have leaked somewhere. i would LOVE you if you'd point it in my direction. for now:

jeremy enigk |>
a new beginning
been here before
damien dreams

feeling ineffectual

everything's the same all over again. or--everything's all the same, again. over and again. scrambling eggs for one. same recurring dreams. same songs and lyrics to fuel days. same everythings to fuel nights. same fears, secrets, obsessions. only the seasons have changed.

perhaps add in a bit more strength.

lately all i can think about is cooking with rosemary and hanging shelves. and maybe actually finishing a crochet project. thinking more of seasonal flowers rather than seasonal vegetables.

and thinking mostly of dotting the country, subletting in cities for a month at a time.

licking ice cream and arguing about hpv

the days run smooth. four certifiable estate sales attended in two or so hours. bargaining that turned to near arguing for the perfect michigan piece for s: the best beer sign i've yet to see. precious tiny bottles of sweet extracts for making [or now for displaying]: vanilla, hot cross buns, nutmeg, clove, sweet cherry and at least a half-dozen i've never heard of. new dress at the mall, fueling an additiction. something also "perhaps inappropriate," just a little. late afternoon held chicken marsala leftovers and feet soaked in epson salt at mom's. after, a funeral. after, ice cream. after, an ambien [hallucinatory? i'm starting to think so] kicked my ass. that shit is ________.

today: a wedding and funeral--but in the other order. today is a funeral and a wedding and all i can think of is the anticipation of the rush that takes over upon entering the city of chicago where we will be fully engaged next weekend. without fail, i get into loads of trouble in that city.

berlitz

the more i'm alone, the more i come back to writing again. it's the alone-ness, right? maybe it's not having yet another person to tell all the things i tell everyone in my life everyday. maybe it's being withdrawn; wishing to not speak and only to write.

i left myself without car for isolation. i didn't get the hair dye. but i did go to the royal oak garage sale with angela, which for the most part was overpriced, and which for the whole part was hot. complain-worthy hot. the service at beruit palace was also complain-worthy, and their limited selection of hot sauce [only tabasco, meh] was totally worthy of the-exclamation-of-the-day, "what the fuck?!" [also donned by shirtless man at the sale, pregnant/overweight woman in spandex, &tc.] the superfalafel [one word, for sure] was mediocre. there were actually a couple booths at the sale with reasonably priced items, and i picked up a small vintage planter in the shape of a shiny blue calf, complete with rosey cheeks and already bearing a plant. i'd provide a photo if the camera i was using was still here. and also one of the very old plastic santa riding a tin-toy 3-wheeler. i can't figure out why, but his arms are not attached to his body but to each other by a cord that threads through his torso, causing them to flail freely, almost too freely. he's part of my new semi-new endeavor to collect fabulous xmas pieces from the 40s/50s/60s. as if brimming the house with miniature xmas trees this year wasn't enough.

the rest of the day has been spent pretending to work but not working much at all. tonight holds no movies, no bar, no television, no crocheting. just more pretending to work. the feeling of nothing sometimes feels good. nothing feels good. whoa. so that's where they got it? and listening to seam are you driving me crazy?. just makes sense.

"i remain sorta sick now that i know what is written in stone"

jeanne says, "do you ever really love? or just pretend?"

spent few daylight hours at home yesterday. shuffled around the southeastern bit of the state like i was tracing something. covering the bases of something, for something. even the bases were unclear. bought a handle-less teacup and saucer covered in entirety by a miniature town in dark, inky green, complete with many tiny trees, sparse clouds in the sky and ships in the harbor, all in high contrast. surely it's a simulacrum, but what perfection of what town is a limited edition piece from sweden trying to capture? perhaps if i could figure that out, it would help. maybe i need to be high. you think? like that catherine wheel song that goes, "it's how high you are and the time it takes to heal." perhaps that's the answer. went shopping for hours past the late afternoon into early evening. new clothes help, right? new sheets? those must help for sure. i'm going to cover my hair today in deep chocolate brown. change, it helps, right?

i guess i'm floating posted info this morning about the new jeremy enigk album coming out in october [!!!], tour, &tc. "burn" is a live version of the track from the forthcoming world waits, and it has that same slow, driving piano that characterized "shade and the black hat," but it builds up to nothing. no pleading, no immediacy, no "won't you stay tonight?"s. it's a slow, deep pain more like getting tattooed instead of whacked repeatedly with a baseball bat. you following?

just listen:

jeremy enigk new track
burn [live from forthcoming album]

i hope you enjoy it. it really kills.

now that makes it a little better, right?

these are the tracks from the united states of leland soundtrack i posted a whole ago. they make more sense to me now.

--->ballroom
--->set it on fire

chaos is yours, and chaos is mine

i'm hungover. i hate drinking too much [with the inevitable inability to drive home], especially when i hadn't planned on downing more than one. and drinking a straight mix of an upper and downer adds unwanted height to the hangover. or is it depth? it's something exponential. it's confusing, something familiar. yesterday was my mother and angela's bdays. we celebrated: brunching at toast, making dinner, feasting on the 48-layer mille crêpe cake my sister constructed [complete with cloudy with a chance of meatballs reminders--anyone notice?], going to the bar, which was surprisingly alive. today's friday, and i couldn't ask for a better day to face on the take-the-days-one-at-a-time plan.

there was a full moon on monday; blinding, and i fear i've come down with a fever.

something about nursery rhymes

my mother just moved last week, and while there wasn't a gazebo or a garden in the back yard as the landlord had promised, there is a mulberry tree. we had never had mulberries before, but they are super yummy, somewhat sweeter and less tart than raspberries or blackberries. the tree is chock-full, and i stood on the recycling bin, trying to pick all that i could reach. if i were another inch taller, i probably would have gotten away with double the amount. supposedly the best way to pick them is to lay out a sheet on the ground and shake the branches. we unsuccessfully tried to shake the branches and catch them in a bowl. didn't catch even one little mulberry. my sister wants to use them in a pie when she's home next week. in muffins. on cereal. i bought fancy vanilla ice cream to eat them on. what a holiday sunday.

here's pictures. sorry they're backlit. i am a truly horrendous photographer.


little babies for all the shelves i plan on hanging


also to be hung, one of my favorite finds so far this year


i caught the salt & pepper shaker bug recently, also for the soon-to-be-erected shelves


i paid too much for these, but they're quite impeccable given their age [1940s?]


do you think anyone ever actually used these babies as reference guides?

thoughts on cock rings

it's so humid the cereal will barely pour out of the box. or if it does, it comes in unexpected chunks: o's missing the bowl, missing the counter, littering the kitchen floor like casualties. out of kindness or perhaps out of laziness, i often leave them on the floor for the dog upstairs, but sometimes he doesn't visit my kitchen for days, and the little o's inevitably get smashed underfoot. the spacebar on my keyboard the other day had an no-spill-occurred meltown and eventual total malfunction that i blame on the humidity. it's so humid i rarely wake to find t still in the bed with me, as he often defers to cooler climates, preferring to sprawl out uncomfortably in his underwear on the couch. [this is especially after recently realizing my respiratory system's mild/major/ugh intolerance to fans.]

there's been some whining about my blogging infrequency. it has been noted. in my mind, i'm soon snapping photos of the bags and bags of old shit i bring in this house every weekend from estate sales, and i'm capturing my knitting and crocheting projects, following their progress and rare finished states. i wanted to take a picture this morning of the three xmas angels with magenta feathers from the 1940s i got a sale just a block away, but t's camera seems to not be accepting batteries this morning. or the use of the on button. my camera has made it from a state of waiting-around-post-accident [flung {accidentally!} on floor of himayan restaurant in the winter] to taken-to-the-camera-store and soon-to-be-fixed! state. so soon, it will be awaiting bail of 200$, the cost of its freedom in a newly near-impeccable condition. then, i will take photos.

recently there was the constantines, josé gonzález, thunderbirds are now!, cat power yesterday at the tastefest. is the tastefest always like a high school reunion [minus the high school of course] or something? do you think people dress up for it? judging from the outrageous outfits [like costumes!], it certainly seems that way. strong winds blew us away from the miniature meals of the festival a few miles north to hamtramck to dine on hearty portions of dill pickle soup, pierogis, city chicken at a polish restuarant. recently there have been lots of bbqs. shrimps, chicken boneless, chicken bone-in, zuccini, portabellas, potatoes, steak, hot dogs, &tc. the funniest part is when a little veggie slice jumps ship while being flipped by t's fingers [complete with singed arm hair, of course], plummeting straight into the fire, death by incineration. laughter ensues.

have you seen the sony bravia commericial? you should. it's like some new therapy. it has bouncy balls, josé gonzález's heartbeats and a city i pretend is san francisco [but it's not, it's clearly some place in europe].

----------->>>>>>> take a minute and watch it