in 3 minutes my brother's gonna drive me to the airport...i can't wait to get to my seat on the plane...all i wanna do is sleep...



i think i made the big mistake of leaving slowdive's souvlaki at home...it's my bedtime cd...well, mojave3 will do i suppose...maybe i have just for a day with me...



connolly and olarn are going to new york w/ me, but they're flying united, and don't tell my friends who work at united, but i'm flying american. i get a good discount through work, w/ american, ya know. hopefully the 3 of us will land at laguardia at approximately the same time...thank goodness for cell phones cuz i forget what i was supposed to do once i land...well, here goes. i'm off to the big apple. going to see my best friend josh and my music guru/spiritual adviser caleb and the lovely boys of idlewild. god bless scotland forever, even if they are a bunch of calvinists.



next post will be from beacon, ny, near POUGHKEEPSIE.



today all i listened to was the judybats and goner.

well, keeping with the tradition of not sleeping the night before flying, i didn't spend any time with my pillow last night...i don't normally drink coffee, but i did this morning. i am SOOOO looking forward to that plane ride...you see how this works now? normally i would hate getting on a plane bigger than a cessna 182, but if i don't sleep for 36 hours before a flight, i'm so grateful for having two hours to do nothing that i don't mind the flight at all.



i am going to attempt to carry on josh's guitar with me onto the plane. the airline said as long as it's under 39 inches, it should be okay. i don't know how tall it is exactly, but i think it's right around 39 inches. i saw ian carry on a guitar when we dropped him off at the airport in austin, so i'm pretty sure it'll be okay...i just don't want to have to ship a guitar, ya know? the shipping cost would be more than the original cost of the guitar.



ok. time to rock 'n' roll. whatever that means. i'm at work for heaven's sakes...

i spent a quite a bit of time in glenview today...i stopped by my mom's house to pick up my shipment of cds for the week and misc. mail. my brother was in his room playing guitar and singing...he was singing this song called 'there must be more' that we used to do at church...it brought tears to my eyes, esp. as i looked around at all the pictures of my dad that my mom's got everywhere. sometimes my dad's presence is so thick in that house...i guess it's all the memories that still live there...i just remember how happy my dad was whenever i would stop by...eating dinner together, listening to his stories, how excited he would get about stuff...sunday will be six months since the day i watched my dad die...i wonder what he's up to these days...



i really needed to do a photoshoot, not a paid gig kind but one just for my own pleasure...if i never had to worry about money or paying bills or anything like that, i'd just take photos like all the time. it's the only way i know how to capture a single moment and bottle it up so i can carry it around with me. since i can't make time stand still, i can at least make everything else stand still in a photo. so yeah, i was itchin' for a shoot, and luckily as i was driving from my mom's house, i noticed a little park in the new development on what used to be the glenview naval air station. i stopped by and spent some alone time w/ me and my camera...it was a cool little park...kinda in the middle of nowhere since the area is still under construction and totally empty. there were all these wooden swings attached to a wooden trellisway that stretched circularly around a round patch of lawn. i love circular structures. i love swings. i love the color of wood soaked in the warm orange of streetlights.



i gotta say it was freakin' cold tonight...i don't have a winter coat, which i think is kinda weird when i think about it...for most chicagoans, it's an essential part of their wardrobe for 6 months out of the year. i think i must have made a decision somewhere along the line that i'd have a better chance of moving to less frigid regions if i didn't wear a winter coat when the weather called for it...i thought last winter was going to be my last here in chicago, but here i still am...hopefully next year about this time, i won't be the only one operating on pacific standard time in my immediate vicinity...



even though i nearly froze to death, it was really satisfying to just sit in a swing, staring up at a cold cloud-covered night sky. i love being in beautifully deserted areas all by myself. i enunciate my thoughts more clearly in those kinds of places...well...time to pack fo new york...



recent listenings--

100 broken windows--idlewild

american english single-idlewild

old man in the arms of the new--kind of like spitting

under the same stars--the prom

pain makes you beautiful--the judybats

down in the shack where the satellite dishes grow--the judybats

satellite rides--old 97s

s/t--all-time quarterback

s/t--hidari mae

dollar movie--goner

it's definitely getting a bit nippy out there...i can't believe summer's over...i've been through quite a few season changeovers in my lifetime, but every year, i'm still shocked when the warm lazy days and evenings of summer bow to the cold sternness of a fall that thinks it's a big badass chicago winter.



in less than 48 hours, i will be boarding a plane headed northeast to new york city...it's been over 7 months since i last saw my best friend josh...i was a different person when he left chicago...he left just in time as the shit hit the fan in my life...we're both different now...he's an east coaster...i'm a pacific northwester wannabe...vacation for me and josh is to just wander around with no agenda and no map and no reservations as we get lost together in a city where we can be alone and lonely amongst an obscenely large throng of people. i wonder if we'll always end up at central park, just like we kept ending up @ fisherman's warf back in san fran...



thinking about vacationing w/ josh makes me wanna take a nap...josh has the gift of napping...i've seen him nap just about anywhere...city parks...oceanfront...bayside...in a car...side of the road...on rooftops...



we'll see what this weekend's like...i'm actually going to see caleb on friday for the idlewild concert...i hope we see the danielson famile too. i mean, we wouldn't even have to leave the building cuz they're playing the same venue as idlewild the same night...



new york city in november...wasn't that like a movie or something? whatever...i just wanna see josh & lielle & caleb and come home...



the one bummer about this trip is that i'll be missing bill mallonee & kevin heuer (of vigilantes of love) on thursday night. kevin emailed me a couple days ago wondering if i'll be at the show so we could catch up. this is the one bill show i'll be missing this year. i really miss bill...but i feel kinda guilty too cuz i STILL haven't been taking his advice to get more sleep!! oh well...i'm going to try to see them tomorrow before i leave for new york to just say hi...

some days i get songs in my head out of the blue and i can't get 'em outta there. this morning it was via chicago by wilco. something about the lines "i dreamed about killing you again last night/ and it felt alright to me/ dying on the banks of embarcadero skies/ i sat and watched you bleed..." it's just so woefully pretty...



i've dreamt about my dad every night this weekend...sometimes he's sick and sometimes he's not...but always he's alive...in one of the dreams there was a forest fire that encroached on the building we were living in, and my dad was there to get our family out...i really haven't dreamt about my dad much since he died, so it's kind of weird to be having these dreams now...



i'm not gonna say that all my life's problems are due to my dad dying, but ya gotta understand how losing your main man who loved you unconditionally and adored you for the past x number of decades whether you were a good girl or not--you can understand how that can throw a tsunami on what was otherwise smooth sailing, eh? my dad was a lovely lovely human being...my mom told me i'll never find anyone who'll love me like my dad did...i suppose she's right...i guess i'd better learn to be happy on my own...and really though, i haven't dealt with a lot of loneliness since i've been by myself these past 7+ months...i like being on my own...



here's something i read (in the liner notes for the weakerthans cd fallow, of all places) today that's kinda like how i'm feeling:



"being born is the easy part, yes

it is this staying here that's difficult

this walking for the heart without being certain

exactly why, threading a path through the city

as though i could gather these streets

and bridges to me, hold them in this moment

shining, unassailable"

--catherine hunter (canadian poet)



recent listenings:

what came before after--sonic boom

dollar movie--goner

a stable reference--labradford

telephono--spoon

you can play these songs w/ chords--death cab for cutie

in aeroplanes over the sea--neutral milk hotel

fallow--the weakerthans

xo--elliott smith

excuses for travellers--mojave 3

misc. summerteeth & being there songs--wilco

straightaways--son volt

s/t--hidari mae