Shutterbug Mama

and here's an interesting observation...

teddy's & my schedules have not been meshing much lately, so he's been pretty absent around here, and guess what? i have no dirty dishes in my sink! i realized that when teddy's not around and i'm home alone, i live totally on luna bars and triscuits, neither of which require plates or utensils of any kind...

ok...i should really jump in the shower now cuz i gots to catch the damen bus to meet teddy @ trader joe's and then it's off to the detholz! show!

p.s. happy birthday to robert pollard and thax douglas! keep rawkin'!

...well, i made it out to the mojave3 show last night...unfortunately, autumn defense cancelled and another band called grumble grumble opened up...autumn defense is john stiratt's other band (wilco's bassist) and i was really looking forward to hearing them play, so i was bummed, not to mention bored for two hours until mojave 3 finally took the stage close to 11pm...there were 7 of them up on stage...neil on guitar/keys/vox and rachel on bass/vox and ian on drums plus dudes on keys, lap steel, guitar (he looked like moby) and misc percussions/ambient sounds/techie...i stood right beneath rachel for most of the set...it was really crowded...you could just feel the love there wafting amongst the audience...

...they opened w/ bluebird of happiness off their new album, which has neil playing a lot more keys...they played a lot of songs off the new album (spoon and rafter)...and they played a lot of the old stuff...the first old song they played was 'yer feet' which i've heard ian cover a few times and which i love dearly...to hear the whole band do it live was a real treat...

...i said neil was gonna put a smile on my face, didn't i? well, i pretty much didn't stop smiling for the 75 minute set...and the best part? they closed their encore with 'sarah', which was a total bonus for me cuz that's my favorite 'sarah' song...all in all, 'twas a lovely show...yeah, there were some rough patches here and there but who cares ya know? they keep it real...

...and tonight is gonna be the detholz! @ the bottom lounge...always a pleasure to see those boys...let's see what the lights are like in that venue...i haven't actually attended a show there yet, although i've been inside the place...

been listening to--
spoon and rafter--mojave 3
recovered--denison witmer
disintegration--the cure

so my cousin ike down in good ol' austin, tx put a sample of my blogger in the gender genie which you can access here and he said that based on my writing, the genie says i'm DEFINITELY FEMALE...like WOOHOO!!! now i know!! i'm mathematically a female!

in other news, it turns out that the apartment below me is NOT empty! this girl i ran into as she was seeing the apartment on tuesday evening ended up moving in yesterday! that was quick...she seems nice though, a lot more friendly than my previous neighbor, who was hardly ever home to her credit...

warning: if you are feeling sad, DON'T LISTEN TO DENISON WITMER'S RECOVERED ALBUM...

...just kidding...denison's album of covers of the 70's loveliest songs by the likes of jackson browne and graham nash and neil young are a perfect way to start the day, which is how i started mine this morning...my downstairs apartment is currently empty, so i can turn up my music as loud as i want at 6:30 am and sing along if i like...which i do like esp. for denison's version of graham nash's 'simple man' or fleetwood mac's 'songbird'...

...i dreamed last night that i was in seattle and that i was going to have an entire weekend of no plans and i was thrilled because i was going to spend it entirely with ryan and jesse...who by the way are coming to town in about 3 weeks...i dreamed that i was walking in a park in seattle, and it was autumn, and everything was golden...the grass was covered in red and orange and gold leaves...and i walked by a party of folks, and a young man was holding a little boy in his arms singing...and i said to myself, 'his voice sounds just like jesse...' but it wasn't jesse...he looked like jesse, kinda, but more like this guy i see on the metra every morning and evening who reminds me of a combination of jesse & tom hulce (amadeus)...i think of jesse every time i see this guy...

...last night i went to see alien--the director's cut @ the big theatre in AMC's river east 21 w/ teddy, his brothers jason & david, and david's girlfriend ellen...i started having an allergy attack during the first quarter of the movie...i felt like someone had stuffed my head with lead which was slowly turning into molten lava, and i started getting really claustrophobic in that dark theatre, and so i bolted to the ladies room right after the alien emerges from kane's chest...29384 kleenexes later (god bless amc for putting REAL tissue in their restrooms) and haunting the halls of the AMC for an hour, i went back in to the movie when there was 5 minutes left before the ship was gonna self-destruct...by this time, my nose felt like someone had been scraping it with industrial guage sandpaper, and my head still felt like it had its own alien wanting to burst out of it...i was so pissed off from my miserable hour out in the halls and in the ladies room that i, who usually watches any movie w/ any type of violence or gore through 3/4 closed eyes w/ fingers stuffed in ears, just sat numbly in my seat, staring at the enourmous screen, oblivious to the potential gore i was about to witness in front of me...the worst part was over anyway...but by this point, i was like 'bring it on!' and didn't care if they cut up sigourney weaver into a million pieces with blood and guts flying in a thousand directions...i really think that wouldn't have phazed me one bit....

...today, i look like rudolph (and i don't mean the former mayor of NYC)...and i just realized that i'm wearing a red turtleneck, which must really accentuate the color of my nose nicely...

...i will pump my body with drugs so that i don't repeat last night's sinus nightmare...i hear sudafed will solve all problems related to blocked nasal passages...i heard it on the radio, you know...neil halstead is gonna put a smile on my face tonight and i will forget all my worries and sadness for 3 hours in a crowded abbey pub tonight, much like he did in april of 2002, when i stalked him w/ my camera as he sat at the merch table smoking a cigarette and enjoying andrew bird who was opening up for him...

...and then on halloween i get to see the detholz! @ the bottom lounge @ their annual halloween spectacular...i don't know if i'll ever get over my awe of the on-stage jim c...i don't think so...even though i know he really likes the photography i've done of his band's live shows, and even though i am flattered that he actually uses one of my photos from a show on his profile for that online network thingie that denison calls hipster nose candy which rhymes with hipster but which i won't name by name here, and even though jim c's always been nothing but polite to me, i still stand intimidated by this man with an electric guitar...i bet if i were walking in the park w/ jonny & ben from the detholz! and i saw jim from a distance, i'd probably start pointing at him and yelling, 'there's that guy from the detholz!' forgetthing that i was already WITH the guys from the detholz!...i'm stupid that way...like the time i yelled out 'there's the guy from poor old lu!!' @ the bumbershoot festival when i saw nick barber the bassist, and jesse & megan, whom i'd been with the past 24 hours are like, 'sarah, you're WITH the guy from poor old lu...' silly me...

...i need to go to more shows...i just need to get out more in general...i wish i got home before 6:30pm...

...so josh sends me, olarn & connolly an email that we need to get on yahoo IM so we'll stay in contact more, and i tell him to get on AIM instead, and so he does, and we IM like the good old days and he sends me poughkeepsie's weather forecast for the next day and asks me if he should fly...i remember when he was in oakland and i would sign on to the weather service and tell him whether he'd be able to fly VFR (visual flight rules) or not...i loved learning weather from josh...he'd come up w/ the best acronyms...like EAT SHIT for the indicators of convective activity...

...i just hope josh remembers that i was his first student, and that i painstakingly proofread his lesson plans (not really), and now his flight school wants to make him assistant chief pilot, which means he'd have the authority to license pilots...and it seems like just yesterday, i was waiting for josh to get home from passing his commercial license checkride and we were off to fake-berkeley to celebrate with melon balls...heeheehee...and look at us now...josh is all grown up and married and almost a chief pilot at a flight school, and me--well, i'm still same old sarah here in chicago...actually, compared to josh, i've probably been digressing...but who's comparing who to whom, eh?

been listening to--
recovered--denison witmer
the moon & antarctica--modest mouse
now you know--doug martsch
execution of all things--rilo kiley
s/t--owen

...well, i bought my mojave3 ticket for tomorrow night @ the abbey pub...this is a show i'm NOT gonna miss, come hell or high water...just thinking about seeing these guys live is gonna make me cry...neil's and rachel's voices transport me to a dreamworld where i am dancing in an endless meadow of wild grass and flowers in late afternoon sun, alone and unseen by the world, yet content to simply be...it would mean a lot to have ian go to this show w/ me...my first words to ian were a comment on his cover of neil's 'yer feet' at the first show i met him at last july @ schubas...we argued about who could sing better, and finally agreed that neil's voice was in a class of his own...and thus was our friendship forged...

...listening to mojave 3 or slowdive or neil's solo stuff makes me think of ian and denison and jesse...all these guys have a way of making me feel beautifully sad with their songs...

...and i am feeling rather sad lately...it's something i have to go through...sometimes the sadness comes unannounced and uninvited and unrelenting...

...i am feeling a need for god in my life...sometimes you just know what you need, even if you don't want to admit it...

...i think douglas coupland put it best at the end of life after god...so here is that passage that pierces my heart like a dagger:

"now--here is my secret: i tell it to you with an openness of heart that i doubt i shall ever achieve again, so i pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. my secret is that i need god--that i am sick and can no longer make it alone. i need god to help me give, because i no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as i no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as i seem beyond being able to love.

i walk deeper and deeper into the rushing water. my testicles pull up into myself. the water enters my belly button and it freezes my chest, my arms, my neck. it reaches my nouth, my nose, my ears and the roar is so loud--this roar, this clapping of hands.

these hands--the hands that heal; the hands that hold; the hands we desire because they are better than desire.

i submerge myself in the pool completely. i grab my knees and i forget gravity and i float within the pool and yet, even here, i hear the roar of water, the roar of clapping hands.

these hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole..."

...yes, i know...it's been awhile...

...but if you only knew what i've been through the past few days, you would take pity on me for sure...

...i spent most of last week in a Total Rewards Management class downtown @ U of C's Gleacher center...this was class #2 in a series of 9 classes that i have to take and pass exams on as part of becoming a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) which will be a pretty nice meal ticket combined with the compensation experience that my boss is overjoyed to give me...Total Rewards Management is the current HR philosophy in remuneration of employees...it basically has to do with finding the right combination of compensation, benefits and work experience to attract, retain and motivate the right employees...fascinating stuff really...

...then there was the weekend...which was just work work work for me, making up for the work i should've done had i not been in class last week...normally, i wouldn't have to make up any work not done because of a class, but this week was special...it's my annual crazy time of the year when i generate dozens of spreadsheets for paying our company's merit increases & bonuses, and since i'm the only one who knows how to do it and we have a strict schedule to abide by, i didn't have much of a choice but to work this weekend...my boss had made special provisions to allow me to take that class because i needed to get it out of the way to take the other classes, and i'd promised her i'd still get my work done, so i was just making good on my word...

...working the weekend wouldn't have been so horrible had i not had unforseen technical difficulties...apparently, when i got a new laptop the beginning of this year and then upgraded to windows2000, it didn't have everything i needed to be running a VB application in excel that i use for generating the spreadsheets...i got stuck on one line of code and there was nothing i knew to fix it...i finally dug up my old laptop, which happened to have been collecting dust in my apartment all these months, and i ended up getting it to work on there...i eneded up digging up my old external cd-rom burner cuz my old laptop doesn't have a burner on it, and managed to do some semblance of my work on that old geezer of a machine and burned a cdrom to see if it would work off my machine @ work...

...i had three computers going in my apartment sunday...it was nuts...

...and now, i've got three machines going in my office at work...it's still nuts...

...and what's more, i was bedridden for 14 hours last night w/ a migraine you wouldn't believe...the pain made me throw up everything i'd eaten in the previous 24 hours, which included an odd medley of food groups...

...that's it for now...

been listening to--
s/t--hidari mae
turn on the bright lights--interpol
a brief history of amazing letdowns--lilys
excuses for travelers--mojave 3
ask me tomorrow--mojave 3
tallahasee--the mountain goats
souvlaki--slowdive
harmacy--sebadoh
in the presence of nothing--lilys
our constant concern--mates of state
team boo--mates of state
start here--the gloria record
purely evil--the rogers sisters
when we were small--rosie thomas
burning my travels clean--rocky votolato
bossanova--the pixies
i break chairs--damien jurado
either-or--elliott smith
mutilate us--am/fm

oh elliott...

...there is no way for me to know the suffering another person endures that results in his extinguishing his own still-young life...i don't know what was going through elliott smith's head if in fact he did commit suicide...i know he's suffered for a long time, struggling with his addictions...it just makes me really really sad that he is no longer on this earth...

ok i realize i have been derelict in my duty here to give a play-by-play of life as sarah knows it, but it can't be helped for a few more days...

...i start class wednesday morning downtown @ the UofC's gleacher center for another class as part of becoming a certified compensation professional...class goes through thursday and then exam friday...that means no internet access all day long for 3 days...

...right now i am having an allergy attack all by my lonesome in my apartment (which is the way i prefer it if i'm gonna have one of these attacks)...i've got snot exploding from what feels like every orifice above my neck...my body is full of drugs right now...allegra, singular, sudofed, nasonex...i get so desperate whenever i get one of these allergy attacks that i start snarfing the drugs before i can think straight...and then once you've consumed those little pills or sprayed those nasal sprays, there's not much you can do to take it back, ya know...

...ugh...

i have a lot to say but i don't have the time to type it all just now...

but i do have photos from the ian moore show on friday night...more on that later too...here are the photos...

...well, i made it back from new york...it was an adventure i'm gonna need lots of time to recover from...teddy & i left early friday morning to catch the blue line from damen to o'hare, but apparently we didn't leave early enough...i initially dropped teddy and all our luggage off @ half & half right by the damen 'L' stop...i drove back to my apartment and dropped off my car, and as i'm walking back to meet teddy, he calls to inform me that he forgot his ties...i run back to the apt, grab the ties, run back out, and a block later i realize i forgot my cell phone...i run back to the apt, grab my cell phone, and make it back to the 'L' station...we're running approximately 20 minutes behind schedule, and unfortunately, i hadn't figured in any extra time for emergencies...we make it to o'hare and run as fast as we can to an AA self-service check-in machine...unfortunately, we get an error that you have to check in at least 40 minutes prior to departure, and, well, we only had 23 minutes to departure...so we bug a ticket couter person, and she tells us we have 20 minutes left and to rush to gate H6...we somehow get through security and of course i fail in sneaking my lap top through, and so they open my suitcase, etc etc etc, and we run to our gate and are the 3rd to the last people to get on a very full flight to NYC...

...we make it to new york laguardia, but there's a bit of a traffic jam on the runways, and we're 12 minutes late getting off the plane...we have a 12:04 train north to beacon, ny that leaves from 125th & harlem, and it is now 11:18...it's only 6 miles from LGA to the train station, so you'd think 40 minutes is plenty of time to go 6 miles, but i obviously know nothing about NYC traffic cuz i get a call from lielle's voice teacher lynne who is in a cab on her way to catch the same train...she tells me i'm not gonna make the train with traffic the way it was and to just take the next train at 1:04 and that she & lielle would wait for us in beacon...teddy & i rush to a cab, and now it's 11:25...we tell the cab driver that we have a train to catch, and how long does he think it'll take to get to 125th & harlem and he says, 'well, it took me over an hour to get here from manhattan, but let me see what i can do...' and teddy tells him, 'you can do it...we've heard about you...' and the cabby takes side streets and what not and boy oh boy is it crowded but we make it to the train station by 12:00 and i manage to prebuy tickets and we have 2 minutes to breathe before our train gets there...lynne was flabbergasted to see me cuz she was so sure we'd never make it on time...

...and now we can breathe...it's a relaxing hour 15 minute train ride up to beacon, the stop before poughkeepsie, ny...josh & lielle are there to meet us...we go and grab a quick lunch before we go to the marriott in newburgh, ny where the rehearsal is to be that afternoon...we meet all of lielle's family when we get there, and olarn & connolly are already checked into the room we're all sharing, and they've got a car and everything so we're set...

we breeze throught the rehearsal, led by lielle & lynne...it's a jewish wedding which is news to me, and there's gonna be a rabbi who sings blessings and stuff and we in the wedding party translate what he sings in hebrew...

after the rehearsal, we get ready for the rehearsal dinner which is 15 minutes away in fishkill, ny...lielle's brother alex & his jazz trio are set up to play for the evening...they're really good...alex plays an electric upright bass, and he's so TIGHT...his best friend matt plays electric guitar with him...matt is in a band that just signed to kindercore and will be playing w/ dressy bessy @ cmj...they're all quite talented musicians...

the dinner is lovely, if a bit crowded in that room...there's like 40 people there, which is more than a third of the wedding guests...it's lovely, like a pre-wedding reception...food is yummy and the dessert is delectable...

...when we get back to the hotel that night, i tackle the tough issue of what to do about my dress...i hadn't had time to have it pressed, and it's got these crazy pleats on the bodice, and it's floor length, and it's been stuffed in a garment bag for the past 1000 miles...and did i mention i don't know how to iron? lucky for me, teddy is an expert ironman cuz his momma taught him well, and he volunteers to do it for me...we get it done pretty much except for the pleats which drive me crazy, and finally i send teddy away to watch the cubs game w/ the others and i lock myself in the bathroom, stuff a towel inbetween the dress and my bare flesh, and begin to iron my chest (on the dress i mean)...of course, i don't know what i'm doing so i end up creating pleats that weren't there, and i finally give up...by this time, what has become even more distressing to me than the wrinkles is that the top of my dress is rather big on me, and my chest is in danger of hanging out...i have no idea what to do about this but am determined to come up with something...by this time it's 1am, and so i retire, fed up and frustrated over a silly piece of floor-length black satin...i lie awake that night and it hits me...i know what i'm gonna do to keep all my body parts where they belong...DUCT TAPE!!!

...so i wake up at 6am and can't go back to sleep, and i lie there thinking about everything josh & i have been through, and yes, the emotions finally hit me and i cry...i cry cuz i'm so proud of this boy...that he had the courage to pursue the one he loved and to win her over...that he hasn't given up on his dream of flying, and now look at him...he's graduated more students at his flight school than any other flight instructor, and he's gonna be married that day to a beautiful girl who sings like an angel and is as smart as they come...a girl who's taught him how to love and to be loved...a girl whose family has taken him in as one of their own...

...i cry for about an hour, and by this time, connolly has woken up and gotten up and left the room...i get online to look for directions to the walmart so i can get some duct tape, and when connolly returns i get him to drive me there...while we're driving, connolly asks me why we're going to walmart...i tell him cuz i need duct tape...he asks me why i need duct tape...i say cuz my dress is too big on top...connolly's silent...it takes several attempts to explain to connolly what exactly i plan on doing w/ the duct tape before it finally sinks in with him...anyways, i get duct tape, a little sewing kit and some safety pins...we get back to the hotel room and i get to work...the duct tape could possibly work, but when teddy wakes up and finds out what i'm about to do, he gently insists we find another method...i finally decide to use safety pins, and these work lovely...i just have to keep my arms glued to my sides for the ceremony...

...so that being solved, i meet the girls for our hair & makeup appointments...now i guess i might as well mention that before i left chicago, i'd gotten my hair trimmed to get all the dead ends off so it would be easier to do an updo for the wedding...well, the stylist decided that the appropriate amount of hair to cut off was about 10 inches...so my hair is now the shortest it's been in YEARS...anyways, i get throughtthe hair and makeup and meet all the men @ a pizza place in a nearby town...

...by this time, i've mislocated my camera and i basically never find it again until after the wedding, which explains why i have no photos of the wedding posted here...

anyways, somehow we all make it out to chester, ny where the wedding is on the grounds of glenmere, a mansion, and it's beautiful...we've had quite a late start with the entire string quartet stuck in traffic on the way up from manhattan, but the photographer insists that we still do the photos while there's light (much to my relief)...and so the wedding doesn't start for probably an hour behind schedule...it's an absolutely lovely ceremony w/ beautiful music and flowers, and everyone looks so lovely...especially lielle the bride...josh looks like he's half awake but that's nothing new...

there's an open bar, great food, dancing beneath the stars & moon, etc etc and it's just absolutely lovely and we're all pretty much exhausted by the time it's all over...did i mention my feet are KILLING ME??!!

we survived...i just wish i had a picture...i'll have to wait for connolly to develop his...i think i nearly developed a twitch by the end of the night cuz i couldn't take any photos, and connolly knowing my need to shoot gave me his camera to take some photos...

so that's the wedding, and i think i must take a breather now...more later...

i was listening to ben gibbard's (death cab for cutie frontman) all-time quarterback project yesterday...that's the tape he'd made years ago before death cab got big of himself playing these instruments that he'd found at garage sales or were broken or were toys or whatnot...it's really a lovely recording...i got really nostalgic listening to it because i think he uses this mini casio keyboard in some of the songs, and i used to have one of those...if you wanna see what one looks like, go here to homestarrunner and click on characters...you'll see strong bad pop up w/ his head replaced by one of those casios and you'll hear the canned rock 'n' roll beat...it's called the casio vl-tone and it's also a calculator...like how whole brained is that? you can record your original musical compositions AND do your arithmetic homework on it!

anyways, me & my brother (and my dad) played that casio until the keys stuck...it had these canned beats that were really cheesy, but they fascinated me...

ben gibbard and the rest of death cab will be in town playing two shows this weekend...i won't be there...i'll be standing up in my best friend's wedding in chester, ny...that's ok...i'm gonna be in new york in autumn!

last saturday, a mere 5 days ago, teddy, dave & i were driving somewhere, and i noticed a maple tree whose leaves had all turned a bright red...it was the first tree we'd seen so far this fall that had changed colors...and now, this morning, as i was riding the shuttle bus to work from the metra station in lake forest, i was surprised at how so many trees have donned their autumnal robes...it's become fall overnight, although it's warm again in chicago...but not for long...

and the cubs won yesterday...no, they didn't just WIN...they TRIUMPHED! they TROUNCED those fish from florida!

and all of chicago (at least the northside) is high on a combination of cubs fever and the odor of rotting garbage piled up uncollected by striking teamsters...

been listening to--
little honda--yo la tango
s/t--all time quarterback
no good for no one now--owen (mike kinsella)
s/t--owen
surfa rosa/come on pilgrim--the pixies

so as of right now (thursday 9:30 am central time), here's the weather forcast for chester, ny for saturday:

partly cloudy, high of 71, winds from the NE @ 7mph (~6 knots), chance of precipitation 10%...

MUCH BETTER...thank you...

oh, and weather forecast for new york city next wednesday? SHOWERS...

I NEED GOOD WEATHER IN CHESTER, NY FOR THIS SATURDAY!!! preferably, partly cloudy with big puffy simpsons intro clouds like w/ a 5000' ceiling, high in the low 70s, gentle winds, around 5 knots or so...

i am gonna be in a partially outdoor wedding that early evening, and i don't need weather worries on top of my other worries...

things ain't looking good right now...

dear god, please...40% chance of rain is a bit more risk than i'm comfortable with...let it rain in new york next wednesday, when i'm outta there...pleeze???

so i went on a photo shoot today...it was a lovely lovely day...sunny...warmer than most of last week...i've added a bunch of photos to my wicker park page, which you can go see right here...it was nice to spend some time outdoors for a change...i love watching people in the neighborhood when there's a sudden break in the weather after a string of cold days...the park was crowded, even though it wasn't exactly short sleeve weather...nevertheless, it was still pretty balmy in the sun...

...i had a celebrity sighting in wicker park...i saw james, the filmmaker who made afropunk, sitting by the fountain with i think one of the chicagoans he interviewed in that documentary...i was wondering what he was doing in chicago, and then i remembered that there was a screening for afropunk on friday night that i'd totally forgotten about...i should've gone up to him and said hi, but you know me...i'm way too shy...i just shoot photos and leave...

holy cow...a cubby just hit a home run in game 5 of the playoffs w/ the braves...it's 4 nothing, chicago...top of the 6th...wow...we might actually win this series...what happens if we win? i know we have to play the florida marlins...i don't remember the last time we were this close to the world series...it's almost surreal...this is one of the few times that i find baseball actually interesting...am i gonna get my hopes up? no way...

been listening to--
now you know--doug martsch
i can hear the heart beating as one--yo la tango
V.O.L.--VoL
man am i brad--everybody uh oh

...i have been sorting through old photos that i never sifted through cuz my hard drive is maxing out...i think that it will take me the equivalent of an entire work week to go through all my files...i am hopelessly disorganized...

the GOOD news is that i found a bunch of photos i'd forgotten about, like over the rhine's sept show @ schubas last year, where karin looks absolutely like a doll in pigtails (she's beautiful, isn't she?)...alejandro escovedo's show w/ alan on guitar & andy on bass...drive by truckers...the gloria record (dreamy...) damien jurado...and more...

...last night, teddy & i went to jenny choi's cd release party @ gunther murphy's...mike felumlee, the former drummer for alkaline trio/the smoking popes/duvall, opened w/ his new project called this is me smiling...they were pretty tight, considering they probably haven't rehearsed too much...the other opener was everybody uh oh...i love that name...i love SAYING that name...and they play just like their name sounds...absolutely adorably...and there are TWO asians in that band...it's a 3 guitar band too, which is rather unusual this far north...

jenny was totally lovely...she had on the cutest little outfit, which unfortunately kept trying to fall off of her, since she ain't got much meat on her bones to hold up things like clothing...she really does have a big ass keyboard...i don't think i've ever seen such a LONG keyboard at a show before...it was cool to hear her play w/ her full band...she's got such a surprising voice...there was a good turnout, i thought, and people were very receptive...

so that was last night...

...so i see my coworker eating these things that look like candy corn but are shaped and colored suspiciously like chili peppers...he's eating them out of a plastic baggie, just munching on them, ya know? so i think to myself, well, it can't be that bad if he's eating 'em straight up like that...and they sure are pretty...so i take one and bite off the tip (notice the missing tip in the photo)...that was my first mistake...i immediately started choking as the little tiny seeds that burned like acid slid down my throat before i even had a chance to chew...my tear ducts started swelling with moisture, and my entire tongue and roof of my mouth wanted to jump out of my body and find the closest bucket of ice to jump into...i ended up finding relief in a bag of animal crackers...now my boss, who loves spicy food, was undetered by my hacking reaction to the chili pepper, and she pops one in her mouth, and not only does she take a little bite, but she bites off the ENTIRE RED SECTION of the pepper...and she smiles like she's totally fine, and there i was thinking i'm not worthy to identify myself as a korean if i can't handle a teensy-weensy bit of a chili pepper...then two minutes later, my boss's mouth suddenly caught fire, and boy oh boy was she regretting biting off that entire pepper now! i felt much better then...

i have to say though, that little chili pepper was yummy! i know it sounds crazy, but through the overpowering heat, i could really taste that this was a very flavorful little pepper...they were grown by another coworker in her garden, and i think i'm gonna get me some to cook some chili...it's getting to be chili weather, ya know?

tonight i'm gonna go see jenny choi's cd release party...it's gonna be a full band show and that should sound totally different from last saturday when it was just her and her keyboard...everybody uh-oh and mike felumlee (ex smoking popes drummer) are opening...

tomorrow i'm going to my friend john berton's solar apt...he's part of the national tour of solar homes...i've seen the tour already, but i think this is something teddy & his family may be interested in seeing...i haven't seen john in ages so that should be good...

i can't believe i leave for new york in a week! that's like nuts!!!

it'll be good to see josh & lielle & alex again...and CALEB!! yes! and if i'm extra lucky, i'll get to see pierre & todd & audrey & anyone else who happens to be around...i have this wish...a dream you may call it...that all those guys (caleb, pierre, todd, audrey) will move back to chicago...then my guitar will be happy again...and there will be music! music! music! bill's shows would be so fun w/ caleb & audrey...

anyways....

been listening to--
the green fury--matt pond pa
summer sun--yo la tango
my solo project--mates of state
loveless--my bloody valentine
wrecking ball--emmylou harris
when we were small--rosie thomas
celebratory arm gesture--summer hymns
hearts of oak--ted leo & the pharmacists
the best of--the flying burrito brothers

ok...more concert photos...you can see the detholz! pics from the abbey right here...and bill mallonee & the tiny silver hearts from sunday night @ schubas are right here...this is my first black & white page for bill...the lights were rather dim @ schubas on sunday night...teddy tells me to use the flash, but i can't bring myself to do it...not yet at any rate...

i can't wait to sleep tonight...is that a sad wish or what? yes, it's true...i'm gonna skip the mogwai show so i can get me some shut-eye...

so it turns out that water really truly is necessary to the human body...i know this now cuz working hard on monday moving 3 people without much of a water break (as in no water until a gatorade break at around 7pm) my lips cracked overnight and in two days i've lost an entire layer of skin over my lips...it hurts and looks and feels awful...i just hope i grow a new layer in time for the wedding next weekend...

been listening to--
kids in philly--marah
execution of all things--rilo kiley
the moon & antarctica--modest mouse
yours, mine and ours--pernice brothers
s/t--rocky votolato
what came before after--sonic boom

...12 hour days are so hard...i don't know how rue barb the tangled does it multiple times in one week...once a week is quite plenty for me, thank you...

so i've got a new idea for really cheap xmas presents...i found these 2X3 acrylic magnetic photo frames @ target last night...they're perfect for slipping in my photos and voila! xmas presents! i made a few for my boss and gave them to her today cuz i missed her bday party on monday and she told me i should be a professional photographer, which she took back right away cuz she doesn't want to give me any ideas about quitting my day job...

i'm also toying with the idea of SELLING my photos maybe in a format such as this...any feedback would be appreciated...i mean, i gots to start somewhere if i'm ever going to realize my dream of actually paying bills by doing what i love which would be taking photos...

been listening to--
different--q and not u
sin--poor old lu