my laptop has been resurrected from the dead! actually, it was in a coma for a month in the care of my personal network techie @ pca. i finally called dell sunday nite to see about getting a dell technician to my house. the phone tech had me go through stuff i'd gone through about a zillion times previously, and when she told me there was probably something wrong w/ my cdrw/dvd drive and that she'd send me a new one of those and we'd chat again, i almost lost it. i told her, why the hell did i purchase an in-home service warranty if dell was going to make ME do all the work? i told her there was nothing wrong w/ the cdrw drive, that what i needed was a new motherboard and new memory, that she was wasting her time and my time if she didn't believe me. she quickly changed her mind (wise choice) and told me a techie w/ a new motherboard & memory would be visiting my home soon. crimeny! like she should have said that in the first place.



anyways, this is the first blogger post made on my laptop in almost a month & a half. the motherboard transplant apparently has done it good. and i didn't have to reformat my hard drive, which is sweet because i didn't want to lose my files, even though i got my techie to image most of my files onto the company network so i could copy it to my work laptop.



for those of you who missed the drama last may 16th when my computer inexplicably decided to crash and burn (literally, i think the motherboard fried itself due to a faulty fan...i won't say how that fan managed to break...), i can't even tell you the panic i was in because i had not backed up one file, and ALL my photos from the previous 3 months were on here. like several thousand photos. at least a dozen bands i'd taken pictures of but had never posted....bands like 764-hero and swearing @ motorists and clem snide and guided by voices... i was pretty bummed to say the least.



so it's good to have my own computer back, but i think i still need to free up some space on the hard drive. i've only got 4 gigs free out of 30. all those photos , ya know. not to mention almost my entire cd collection is stored on here as well since my laptop is my jukebox.



recent listenings--

being there 1&2--wilco (someone told me he thinks this is a jambandish collection, but i don't get that...)

a.m. --wilco

read music/speak spanish--desaperecidos

fevers & mirrors--bright eyes

keep it like a secret--built to spill

poses--rufus wainwright

the photo album--death cab 4 cutie

get here and stay--764-hero

fetal position--bill mallonee

s/t-september 67

i'm out on the deck in the back. it's 10pmish as i scribble in the darkness into my notebook. it's a barefoot sleeveless kind of night, and i'm staring up, waiting for the stars to come out of hiding. the nite air is comfortable, not too muggy, not at all cold. that's the great thing about summer nites in chicago. no matter how suffocatingly hot and hairspray despisingly muggy the day is, the night always returns sanity to the thermometer and it's lovely lovely lovely. actually, that's not really true always, but let's not ruin the moment here, shall we?



i am listening to my new built to spill cd keep it like a secret (thanks to my music guide john roberts for introducing me to them this weekend). this cd is a perfect background to an already lovely night.



man, i love the night. sometimes i think that the only time i can go to that place inside me where "i" really reside is when i'm alone in the dark under a night sky. the night just feels so much more forgiving sometimes than the day...it's like he understands all my weaknesses and doesn't pass judgment. and the night hands out the courage to do the things that would seem insane or unadviseable during the light of day yet perfect for the forgiving protective covering darkness of the night. skinny-dipping. dancing naked. crying silently. grinning sheepishly...not that I'VE ever done these things...oh no, not me....



i think even god is more real to me at nite. don't ask me why. i don't know. maybe it's cuz as this world dims to barely visible, the otherworldly becomes more apparent. during the day, there's a lot of distractions to the senses. at night, however, alone on a backporch--well, there's not much to stimulate the senses except the sky above me and the caverns of my own heart. and sometimes while i'm examining either, i happen to run into god...



today, i was thinking about something my dad used to tell me since i was a little girl as i was growing up in a society that looked to supermodels and movie stars for its definition of beauty. my dad told me that having inner beauty was far better than having outer beauty. i don't know how convinced i was at the time, but i think what he said took some kind of root in my heart because lately, i feel like i've come face to face w/ my own mortality and the brevity of this dance called life, and now i have the need to strip away the artificial society-built nutrasweet outfit and just be naked. raw. real. true. and i'm looking for that inner beauty my dad was talking about because it's becoming all too real to me that that's what counts in the long run.



as i drove to work today, i was thinking about what my dad had told me and then i wondered about what is meant by the word "beauty." it's different from something that's "pretty." when i think of the word "pretty", i think of something that is aesthetically pleasing to the senses. but beauty--beauty can be visually disturbing, aurally discordant and physically painful. beauty can be ugly, profane, melancholic, asymetric...i think that's the type of beauty i've been experiencing lately. now i can take the fucked up mess of my life & take a flying leap into the abyss of self-pity & self-loathing. or i can recognize the beauty in it all--the beauty of being able to FEEL, even if it's a lot of pain and confusion that i'm feeling these days. i can call this beautiful too. beauty gets all fucked up and covered in shit sometimes. and yet, i just know that someday, i'm gonna look back on these past few months and i won't want to trade them for something merely "pretty." even my dad dying...i was looking back through my april posts & early may stuff trying to find a passage from douglas coupland that i'd written down...i hadn't read the stuff i'd written in a while, and it all came back to me...what i'd gone through...and this may sound twisted or masochistic or whatever, but the last few weeks of my dad's life and the time immediately following, as i experienced death about as firsthand as you can without actually dying yourself, for some reason, i can't but help thinking that the whole experience was soaked in beauty, allbeit a painful, agonizing kind. it wasn't a "pretty" experience, hell, no, but, somehow, being there with my dad until that moment when he could no longer draw another breath...it was beautiful...



alright, i can no longer ignore these flying buzzing buggers sucking the blood out of me. must seek shelter.



p.s. tonight, i saw the first firefly of summer...



journaling soundtrack:

built to spill--keep it like a secret

saves the day--stay what you are

alright, so where were we...ok. it's been a busy several days, and it's only going to get busier...



well, let's see...the highlights from the past few earthly rotations...oh, yeah. mobfest acoustic showcase @ uncommon ground. my friend jane & i made it just in time as the hear diagonally showcase started. and the very first song i heard as i took my seat was my all-time favorite joni mitchell song "a case of you" covered by tommi zender (of trinkets of joy) on guitar and some blonde dude singing. tommi uses almost the same toe nail polish color as i do. he's got good taste.



after tommi and the blondie, i got to see eric z perform for my very first time. he has a rather interesting way of playing the guitar (or banjo)--he lays it flat on his lap. yeah, like in the photo--he's not just taking a break there; he's actually playing. i've actually played my guitar in a cello position (between the knees) so it wasn't all that strange to me. actually, eric's method is closer to the traditional eastern methods for playing a stringed instrument, i think. i really liked his songs, and he kept making these faces that reminded me of the faces my best friend josh makes when he's about to take advantage of my gullibility.



after eric, mike merz who came from minneapolis performed. he goes by the moniker sinner-songwriter and writes some of the most intelligent songs i've heard in a while. i found out he's played w/ my st.paul area faves erik brandt & the urban hillbilly quartet sometime in the past. he also drinks interesting looking beer that i've never heard of (that's his weird beer next to my sierra nevada).



the last act of the night was justin roberts, well-known for his kids' songs but who also has a grown-up album out too. i only got to stay for his first song so i could drive jane home so i guess i'll have to catch another one of his shows later. he's playing schuba's by the way sunday 6/30 at like 3 in the afternoon. it's a kid's show but should be great for adults as well. his music comes highly recommended, so if you're into recommendations and stuff like that and you're like a parent or a grownup who likes good songs, check him out.



i ran into mike cameron at uncommon ground, and he told me that katie todd & her band were playing the next day at a street fest at st. somethingoranother so i went to that sat. afternoon. i'd been wanting to see katie play for like over a month now so i'm glad mike told me about the show, esp. since i most likely will not make summerfest in milwaukee next saturday when she gets to play as the winner of the battle of the bands big break competition. i had a chance to talk to katie before the show, and she is SO sweet. she told me she went to high school at new trier in winnetka where she grew up, and i asked her when she graduated cuz i had friends who went there, and she's like "1996" and inside i just felt old. katie's got a very radio friendly sound, but it's not saccharine either. it's pure innocent pop, and the audience including the kids loved it. her upcoming album changing faces will be released w/ festivities @ martyr's on 7/27 w/ stuart davis playing as well. i think it'll be sold on cdbaby when it comes out if you miss the cd release party.



saturday nite was jenn & john's joint bday festivities. i think i was the only non-kenyon college/ohian or theatre/crossmediaservices colleague there. i did get to meet eric z & mike merz from the previous nite's mobfest performance, as well as a whole slew of interesting folks. i had brought my liquor collection which of courses included a bottle of midori. the girls really liked the midori sour which jenn concocted. that is one deadly drink because you can just keep drinking it and drinking it and drinking it and before you realize what you've done, you start turning the color of the drink itself (a rather greenish hue). another deadly element to the evening was jenn's cake, a mix of devil's food & angel food cakes & razberry liquer soaked something or another frosted w/ a thick layer of pure chocolate. i bet if jenn ever decided she wanted to go into science, she'd be a whiz in the chemistry lab because baking is all chemistry from what i hear. of course i wouldn't know as i seldom bake or do any type of cooking these days. i leave that to folks like jenn who know what they're doing and do it extremely well. kinda like outsourcing, i guess. i've outsourced cooking to other people and to trader joe's so i can focus on my core competencies.



at around 1 am, jenn decided to bring out her stash of sparklers because this event was deemed worthy of lighting those magic sticks. so we went outside and waved our flaming wands and it was simply lovely. i just wished those things lasted longer than 10 seconds. it was around this time that the big "K" was brought up, namely KARAOKE. you see, jenn & john live several blocks away from one of the few watering holes in chicago that have free karaoke 7 nights a week. karaoke is one of the few guilty pleasures that i will indulge in with very little convincing necessary. i've got an entire body of veins pumping 100% korean blood. that's what it is, ya know. (yeah, blame it on your race, sarah.)



so at around 1:30amish the remaining 7 partyers including our hosts jenn & john and yours truly moseyed on over to the infamous hidden cove where karaoke's free and the liquor's cheap. it was crowded this time of nite, and the folks getting up to sing were often pretty drunk. the crowd would get rowdy at times, and when one woman got up and did "i love rock & roll" folks were on their feet, singing, stomping and dancing. well, after over an hour of being bystanders to general barcrowd rowdiness and still not getting a turn for any of us at the mic, late nite mexican at garcia's was brought up. so we headed over there and ended the evening/predawn festivities w/ tacos and burritos and other good mexican food that really shouldn't be consumed at 3:30 in the morning. i have to say, though, i'm hoping we reschedule the karaoke night because i was really looking forward to witnessing dan phillips of my favorite local band zapruder point doing the big "K." maybe next time. and i think i need to come up w/ a better song than "i think we're alone now."

i have been feeling these past few days that there's a lot of loss going on in my life right now. and it's not like i'm misplacing things or anything like that. it's more like i'm being robbed. i don't claim to know what god's got up that eternal sleeve of his, but for a mere mortal such as myself, it's all quite difficult to understand right now.



it's been a hard week...actually, it's been a hard 3 months...this tunnel is so topsy turvy, there's no way to see a light that would indicate the end actually exists and that i won't be stuck here in this claustraphobia-inducing thick darkness for much longer. somewhere somehow i've got to find even just a tiny shred of hope...



recent soundtrack--



from the next of idea--scientific

get here and stay--764-hero

when your heartstrings break--beulah

s/t ep--the trouble with sweeney

out of tune--mojave3

old blood--mayday

black out--good life

fetal position--bill mallonee

the limitations of the source tape--zapruder point

low resolution--zp

so i was late to church yesterday (again), and i hate being late cuz they do this thing at the very beginning of the service called LITURG-MA which i have no idea what that means, something to do with liturgy i suppose, and i don't like missing it cuz it often involves a cool multimedia presentation. so i was making record time to church when i got caught at a railroad crossing by a really really long cargo train. what scared me was the load it was carrying. there was a long line of these military vehicles that reminded me that we weren't living in peaceful times. all i can say is dona nobis pacem cuz we really could use some pax in this world that's for sure. it was kind of a downer to see all those vehicles speeding by me like dutiful soldiers being transported to fulfill some miliatry mission. war and rumors of wars bring me down...can't we all just get along? no, i suppose not...



alright, so there are some really cool shows coming up. mobfest (music over business festival) starts this thursday. i've been invited to like 3 different shows going on at the same time that are all part of mobfest. for some really jamming kickass alt-country whiskey soaked music, check out old no. 8 @ the beat kitchen friday nite 10pm. or check out electric @ the lyon's den for some rock 'n' roll @ 10pm. but if you want something acoustic, there's always the mobfest acoustic showcases @ uncommon ground starting @ 7:30 i think. dolly varden who toured w/ bill mallonee in the u.k. are doing an acoustic early show @ schubas this saturday. denison witmer and rosie thomas (rosie sings parking lot on damien jurado's ghost of david) are coming to schuba's on sat. 6/29 for a cheap early show. or if you're in the milwaukee area, katie todd & her band will be playing summerfest that late afternoon on 6/29. katie and her band are the winners of the 2002 summerfest big break competition (kind of like a battle of the bands). travis dow (frontman for cal hollow) who opened up for bill on friday nite is her guitar player. then miranda stone (it was her concert @ the garden lounge that got me into the whole indie music scene through pastemusic.com) is coming to reba place in evanston on sunday 6/30. miranda tells the best stories, and just her & her guitar are absolutely amazing. if you're going to be in town 4th of july weekend, the show you won't want to miss is bill mallonee and vigilantes of love w/ erik brandt & the urban hillbilly quartet playing saturday 7/6 @ schubas @ 9pm. it's a double cd release party!!! and y'all know how much i love both fetal position (bill's new one) and amelia's boot (uhq's latest). go to my concert calendar to see all the shows i'm currently interested in (the ones w/ an asterisk * are ones i'm planning on going to).



that's it. i listened to the trouble w/ sweeney's dear life cd all day. we were recently reunited when i dropped by my apartment on saturday night to get my summer clothes & some cds i was missing, and top of that list was my ttw/s collection (all 1 cd & 1 cdep). i love joey sweeney!!! if you like wilco, you might like ttw/s. but i don't know. i mean, joey kinda sounds like jeff tweedy, but i get in trouble when i compare artists to each other so i'm not gonna say that he really does even though i think he does. but if you DO like wilco (or if you don't know who wilco is) go download some mp3s off ttw/s's website and check them out. then if you like them, go visit burnttoastvinyl and get the whole cd.