wildwood most definitely lived up to the first 50% of its name today. sheesh. it's been a while since i've been doing administrative stuff, but all those years working for eloise were not in vain, and i think i've really settled into the admin/personal assistant role at the wildwood. actually, josh did have me pretty well trained this past year. all i ever got from him was a fake check and a xerox of some euros, but it was good practice for what i'm doing now for tim.



i can't remember the last time i had to fax close to 70 pages. i'm surprised they went through. on a good note though, i did get to listen to annie quick/stickman jones's new cd "orange juice" coming out later this month. it's definitely my favorite cd so far from them. they'll be at the abbey pub on wednesday btw for the wluw benefit concert w/ a bunch of other bands. it's only $7.



seriously considering going to see katie todd at uncommon ground tomorrow night. i met her guitar player travis dow at beki hemingway's cd release party sunday night. he's also the lead singer for cal hallow, originally from san fran, whom i'd seen at uncommon ground back in february. i've heard such great things about katie i really need to check her out. she plays at uncommon ground every 1st, 3rd & 5th tuesday of the month. well, if i don't make it tomorrow, i'm sure i'll make it out there sometime soon in the near future.



p.s. i'm not in such a pissy mood anymore. but who knows when that'll change again.



today's soundtrack:

words for loss for words--beki hemingway

out of tune--mojave 3

orange juice--annie quick

other songs--ron sexsmith

bunch of mp3s including:

designs on you--old 97s; hold on to me & 'cause cheap is how i feel--cowboy junkies; bluebeard--cocteau twins; within your reach--the replacements; last goodbye & grace--jeff buckley; somebody & but not tonight--depeche mode; temptation--new order; i hope i don't fall in love w/ you--tom waits; you can't always get what you want--the rolling stones; words-wings & helplessly--erik brandt & the urban hillbilly quartet; summer on the west hill--kings of convenience; like dylan in the movies & the rollercoaster ride--belle & sebastian; like a radio--over the rhine; say yes & between the bars--elliott smith; brown eyes & have you forgotten--red house painters; like titanic--damien jurado; parking lot--damien; whole--pedro the lion; yesterday, tomorrow & breathe in this life--denison witmer; nothing like a train--bill mallonee & vol; long lost twin & bread--clem snide; there is a light that never goes out--the smiths; steadier footing--death cab for cutie; june on the west coast--bright eyes; pictures & prayer for the paranoid--mojave 3; red-eyed and blue & say you miss me--wilco; time has told me & fly & road--nick drake; walk on by--cake



why the hell am i listing all this? whatever. i suppose my daily soundtracks have some journalistic qualities to them.



oh, and josh was mentioning the other day that he noticed i was posting during normal waking hours for daytime working people in the central time zone instead of at like 2am like i used to do. i guess i'm finally adjusting to my own time zone. that and the fact that i've been getting up at 05:30 in the morning on workdays.

it is exactly one month from the moment i realized that my dad was on the last threads of life that morning i tried and failed to wake him up at the hospital. i can still remember that moment and what i felt as if it were right now. i know that what i experienced at that point in time is something i'll never experience again because i've lost my dad already, it's over and done, and nothing i will ever experience in this life will compare to that one. it's been a hard 48 hours or so...i don't understand how my dad could go an entire month without me. okay, i know that sounds stupid and self-centered and just plain idiotic, but really, i don't understand it. i suppose if i knew what heaven was really like, i'd get it, but as it is i'm clueless, so yeah, i'm wondering how my dad could go an entire month without me. i don't see how i've gone a whole month without him...or how i'm going to go the whole rest of my life without him...

ok. no swearing in today's post. coast is clear.



so i went to beki hemingway's cd release party tonight at schubas. i'd been listening to the cd for several weeks now since her manager mike cameron gave it to me when i sat in on his meeting w/ tim. mike had asked me to shoot photos at the show, which i was happy to do since he had given me some great cds of some of the artists he manages. jonathan rundman, another pastemusic.com artist played w/ the band on some of the songs. beki is great live; i thoroughly enjoyed the show. she's also very photogenic, i think. you guys should really go to pastemusic.com right now and buy her new cd (if you were at the paks for that birthday thing, i played her cd several times during that evening). and while you're at paste, you should pre-order the bill mallonee, eh?



so there i was enjoying beki's show, shooting away, when she sets up the intro to her last song called floating away which happens to be about dying. my spidey sense told me i might be in trouble and to brace my heart for the next few minutes. sure enough, beki told a story that her mom had told her about her (mom's) grandmother dying. i'm not going to tell it here (you can ask me if you want when you see me), but it was enough to plant a lump in my throat. then she sang the song, which really got my tear ducts irritated and that lump grew into a golf ball, and i could literally feel the still sore spots in my heart starting to throb again. i had to address the possibility that i might just break down in tears right there and then and had to breathe slowly. this was like a left hook out of nowhere. i mean, i don't go to concerts expecting to be reminded of my father and being forced to muster every ouce of socially conforming instinct in my being to maintain my composure in such a public place. sheesh. i can be so pathetic sometimes.



it's been exactly a month now since my dad died. maybe that's why i'm in such a pissy mood (cf. 6/1 post). i think i'm delving into the anger now. except i'm not really angry AT anybody. i'm not angry at god. i mean, really, he's been only really good to me and really accommodating. i suppose i struggle w/ being angry at myself because i was the last one to be w/ my dad that night before he slipped into his coma-like state, and sometimes i wonder if there was something i could've done, although i know it was his time for his suffering to be over. but i just can't help thinking sometimes that i should've noticed how hard his breathing was becoming and maybe told the nurse, or at least asked him if he was okay, but i didn't want to wake him, and little did i know that come morning, i wouldn't be ABLE to wake him. so yeah, i guess that's a bit of guilt i know isn't mine but nevertheless have been carrying around w/ me. and i suppose that could really piss a person off. i know part of it is that i want someone to blame, and i'm the closest person around so it might as well be me.



shouldn't this be getting easier by now?



soundtrack for today:

low resolution 1 & 2--zapruder point (appearing at the hideout this wednesday at 10pm part of chicago's finest hour thingie)

sunday's best--ticklepenny corner

when your heartstrings break--beulah

other songs--ron sexsmith

nobody knows this is everywhere--764-hero

warning. this post may be considered rated r for adult language. just an fyi for all you sensitive folk.



this was written earlier tonight at 21:35 cdt:



i am at palwaukee airport in the parking lot of the 94th aero squadron restaurant. i'm loitering i suppose. it's a beautiful night, i've got the windows rolled down, and 764-hero's latest cd is setting the mood for me. actually, the mood for the entire day was set this morning when i listened to my denison witmer comp cd. it was kind of downhill after his song yesterday, tomorrow which always makes me think of my dad. then i, being the genius that i am, put on damien's ghost of david, which contains what are to me the saddest songs on the planet. "forget him not, still he loves you/life is short, but love's eternal..." i am an idiot.



i have been in a funk all day. and today nothing seemed to help. everything i listened to depressed me. seeing the boys & keeko the dog--that was the highlight of my day, that and josh calling me. actually, josh calling me was the highlight and at the same time it depressed me even more because sometimes it's not enough to have your friend just a phone call away. i came to palwaukee cuz this is where i go when i miss josh. watching the planes land and take off & the soft glowing cobalt blue taxi lights and being at a little airport, the type of place where josh spends most of his time these days out in poughkeepsie--i guess it makes me feel a little closer to him. but sometimes it feels inadequate. it's rough. my life has changed in so many ways since josh left. and still he speaks truth into my life without even knowing it. when i talk to him it's like i've got wonderwoman's magic lasso around me, and i just tell it like it is. that's been one aspect of our friendship that i think is unique & why he's my best friend. i chose early on to be honest w/ him, even when it's self-incriminating or it hurts. being that honest w/ him is kind of a habit now & when i'm in denial or being selfdelusional, josh can see through it w/out even realizing it.



so here i am @ palwaukee. josh is in the air right now somewhere near the catskills. that's nice.



what a great 3 months i'm having. i lost my best friend to new york, my dad to cancer, and my husband to who knows. all in less than a fiscal quarter. and how do i feel about god & jesus & all that in the midst of this? well, i dunno. i feel ok i guess. at least i don't think god's out to hurt me or rip my heart to shreds. i don't care what other people say. god's alright in my book. other folks though--that's another issue altogether. the thought occurred to me today that it might not be a bad idea to build a barbed wire fence around my heart. some people might say that's not a good thing to do, to condemn my heart to barbed wire solitary confinement. well, ok, whatever. but i don't see anyone volunteering their own hearts when mine's being demanded for quartering and other forms of torture.



if it weren't for my splitting headache, i'd really be up for getting lit tonight. when i feel as shitty as i do right now, i just wanna get totally trashed to top it off & make my fucked up condition complete. oh, those of you not used to swear words...whatever. i'm not apologizing for anything tonight. i feel so fucking robbed right now...and i know the nice evangelical answer is , "but sarah, you have JESUS! =) what more could you ask for?" yeah, well you know what jesus is saying to me right now? he's saying NOTHING cuz he knows i don't want any b.s. canned answers right now. he ain't no dummy.



damn, i'm in a pissy mood. i'm not crying or anything. i'm too angry to cry. on a happier note, the 764-hero cd is really good. FUCKIN' A TO Z MY HEAD HURTS!!!!!!!! somebody just shoot me please. now. what the hell is wrong w/ me? i know it's not pms. shit, this is worse.



well, i'm staying at my mom's tonite. i was supposed to go back to my apt. but there's no way i'm going there until my a/c is hooked up. last time i was there, it was 88 at like 1am. i really do want to go to hyde park vcf tomorrow...rand always has a way of calming me down...but it's just so far...i miss evanston vcf. maybe i'll go there tomorrow. i dunno. alright. i need some drugs...



today's soundtrack--

s/t (i think)--stuart davis

low resolution--zapruder point

denison witmer mix cd

ghost of david--damien jurado

s/t--claire holley

nobody knows this is everywhere--764-hero

orange juice--annie quick (of stickman jones)

ok computer--radiohead

mp3s picked by tim

ok. no brmc cuz no babysitter for the boys. but i got a bunch of stuff done (or at least thought about doing them) at wildwood. then i had a lovely low-key relaxing photoshoot next door in the field outside the church building. i was kind of on a dandelion bender as you can see from tonite's posts. the light from the low hanging sun around 7:30pm was absolutely lovely. and all the tiny creatures that had disappeared for so long during our extra long winter were out in full buzz tonight. i love the warm months!



on my way over to wildwood, i had a talk w/ krysta carhart, and old old friend whom i've known since i was like 20. good god, that's like a whole DECADE ago!!! sheesh...anyways, krysta & i hadn't talked in about a zillion years, and so i had to fill her in on all the stuff going on in my life. we're actually going to try to meet for lunch on sunday. it's always a bit strange for me to have to explain everything going on in my life these days. i told krysta what i've told a lot of people lately, that except for my dad dying and except for going through a divorce at the same time, my life is actually pretty great. if it weren't for those two things, my life would be on a total upswing. i guess those two things just happen to be really major things though.



so it's friday night, and i'm home doing not much of anything. actually, i'm blogging. and in a little while i'm going to start working on my portfolio, if i can get the damn printer to print. oh, crap. that reminds me, i need black & white glossies of stickman jones & bill mallonee. i better email tim...ok. josh is calling me. gotta go.



soundrack since this morning--

low resolution disc one--zapruder point

amelia's boot--erik brandt & the urban hillbilly quartet (yet again)

a whole bunch of mp3s that tim picked out that all started w/ tom's diner

living in the city--urban hillbilly quartet

st. paul town--urban hillbilly quartet