shotgun inter-wedding

bye my beagle

2007-07-04T20:41:00.001-04:00

i got my first dog as a christmas present my freshman year of highschool, after at least 5 years of "can i pleeeeease have a dog dad." they gave him to me in a basket and he fell asleep in my lap. i named him dawson, because i thought that the guy with the creek had a nice name for a dog. he had the sweetest face and when he'd wag his tail the whole back half of his body wiggled in sync. he ate my cell phone once and my dad's glasses another time, and i think he ate at least 3 remote controls for various tv's, but he had the kind of eyes that always said "i love you so much and i can't help that i'm a dog" that no one stayed mad at him and we bought new cell phones and glasses and kept loving the dog. he also had a gallbladder that clogged and a liver that failed. he died this morning.

i can't believe how much it hurts to lose my only friend who could never talk to me, except when i realize that he was my only friend who ever loved me unconditionally.

when we tucked him in at night (and we always tucked in the dog--he wouldn't go to sleep otherwise), we'd talk to him like a baby. "go sleepy night-night." my mom started that. go sleepy night-night, dawson.

some things that i've discovered over the past week:

2007-06-16T12:01:00.000-04:00

1. i can make a badass cheesecake if i want to. graham cracker crust and everything. it's the type of dessert that makes grown-ass men swoon, and i like that.

2. i am easily one of the most stubborn humans. but i guess i'd already explored that facet of myself. as heather and i have discussed, i make bad decisions and stick with them. that, or i insist on doing everything on my own no matter what. (read: if i can't fit the giant ikea box inside my car, why don't i strap it to the outside? makes perfect sense. that's what twine is for.)

3. people (like my dad) need to leave me the hell alone about what i'm doing with my life. i'm not grossly fucking anything up, so you should be proud. i'm happy right now and i'll go to grad school whenever and IF ever i fucking well feel like it. sing it, bon jovi: it's my life.

4. i'm dating someone amazing. it remains strange and exciting.

5. i am really lucky.

one of the nicest things i think i've ever heard:

2007-06-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

"if you made me a mixtape, i'd go out and buy a walkman."

in memoriam

2007-05-07T09:23:00.000-04:00

6 years after the idea first got stuck in my brain, i finally did it:

it's perfect and i can't stop staring at it yet. i woke up this morning and saw it and got excited all over again. thank you to daniel, my artist, on account of you did a fantastic job.

this past weekend was really strange and amazing. if it weren't for these new bruises and letters on my body, i seriously think i'd be convinced that i dreamt the whole thing. either way, it's monday and i have to go to work in 20 minutes and i feel oddly terrific given the immediate circumstances. holy shit i think i might even be happy.

a sound like someone trying not to make a sound

2007-05-01T08:40:00.000-04:00

for the first time in a good little while, things seem to be coming up milhouse. despite the occasional booze-fueled rant at the bar or mild panic attack provoked by the dipshit parade that files through the coffee shop in ever increasing numbers as the weather gets warmer, for the most part i'm feelin' fine. i have new hair, a new house, a new bike, the beginnings of a new body, (hopefully) a new tattoo, and a better fucking attitude (for the most part) than i've had for the majority of this last year.

but naturally, something has to rise up and kick me in the ass. once again, my brain is conspiring against me. this time, it's jacked my circadian rhythm into something unprecedented that makes no sense. every goddamn morning, no matter how late i go to sleep, every single fucking morning i wake up at 7. now i get that this isn't a big deal for a lot of people, like you commuting 9to5ers that probably have to be up and at 'em by 6, or even my coworkers at the coffee shop who are starting the workday at 7, but shit, my day starts at 3 pm. generally i go to bed around 3 or 4. so this (in case the skills of basic math escape you) amounts to approximately 3-4 hours of fitful sleep a night. yeah, it'd be different if i slept soundly during those hours, but instead i get that kind of sleep that's peppered with really vivid dreams so that when you wake up you feel like you've been awake having bizarre adventures the entire time anyway.

so sarah, you might say, why don't you try not going to sleep at 4 in the morning? to which i say to you, fuck you, i'm an adult and i'll stay up past my bedtime and eat ice cream for breakfast if i want. also, i've tried. oh, how i've tried. but the 4-hour rule is suspended in time, doomed to enact itself no matter where i start the timer. if i try to be a grownup and go to bed at midnight, i will inevitably wake up at 4 with no hopes of getting back to sleep and lots of pointless myspacing and ceiling-staring until the sun comes up.

i realize none of you give a shit. i'm writing this because i'm cranky. i haven't gotten a good night's sleep in like 3 weeks and i'm pissed and i'm going to complain so take that, internets.

self-propelled summer: part 2

2007-04-26T13:31:00.000-04:00

i am absolutely delighted to present to you (and by you i mean taylor, who i think is the only person who reads this) my new best friend:

it's basically the hottest thing i've ever owned, and it's undoubtedly the best bike i've ever had (i'm really, really sorry, spalding blade, but we both secretly knew you were a rusted steel safety hazard). i keep pointing it out to people who i'm sure couldn't give less of a shit and making them humor me. i can't help being giddy. i fucking love my bike. also, nothing beats the novelty of a brand new toy, even when yr 23.

addendum: i completely forgot to thank the devastatingly charming & handsome bike shop manager who introduced me and my new love. yr terrific, dre.

god bless you, mr. vonnegut

2007-04-14T14:19:00.000-04:00

so it goes.

thanks for all that.

goodnight, sweet prince

2007-04-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

i'm here today to bid a very reluctant and untimely farewell to one of the few great loves of my life.

it seems he never really recovered from "the dog incident" of feb '06. after a winter of regretful neglect, i took the blade down to dre, my friendly neighborhood bike specialist, for a general inspection. apparently, i have stress fractures in the fork and it's due to break any day now. that, and for all its many wonderful merits, it's still basically a rusty piece of shit i bought for $15 at the salvation army. dre seemed a little concerned that i was riding it all, and recommended that i stop doing that.

one bonus: i get to buy a shiny new set of twowheels. thank you tax refund.

it's pretty pointless to develop emotional attachments to inanimate objects, but i have a lot of shit attached to that bicycle. i remember being with tom at the thrift store and seeing it, thinking that it couldn't possibly be more perfect, riding it around the parking lot, falling in love immediately, and carefully packing it in the back of the pathfinder so it could come live with us forever. i remember riding around to parties and bars and finally home, my right pant leg rolled up, and maybe it was the fact that i was drunk but i felt sexy as shit on that bike. i loved riding with tom back to germania street at the end of night, and i loved how having a road bike made me faster to the point where i could almost keep up with his competitive ass. i remember being able to get back on it after my shoulder surgery and how amazing that felt. then i remember crashing it into a dog.

sigh.

goodbye, spalding blade. sure am gonna miss you.

just thinking:

2007-04-01T12:55:00.000-04:00

i want to do a poetry slam again. problem is, i guess i'd have to write something first.

i'm glad march is over. for some reason i routinely make more bad decisions in march as opposed to the rest of the year. or maybe it's just the bipolar weather that brings out my deepest levels of crazy. but i feel good about april. spring in fredericksburg is something i really love to stew in. i wish i had a porch.

announcements

2007-03-19T21:14:00.000-04:00

first of all, a very happy birthday to cap'n guthrie. welcome to yr mid-twenties.

secondly, i'd like to use this forum to apologize to the arcade fire. i've been pissed at you for 4 years i believe, and refused to give yr last jab at musicmaking, funeral, a decent chance. i can't remember why that was, but i'm sure it had something to do with the irritating amount of hype you got (and continue to get). superfluous hype has the same connotations to me as smallpox, so i tend to avoid the source. and then i forgot about you so everything was cool. however, recently you went and put out a new album, the single from which i heard on many a night listening to satellite radio while scrubbing down the espresso machine and doling out unnecessary orders to my closing crew. i liked it, surprisinlgly, and yesterday while feeling particularly frivolous i went ahead and bought the album. i listened through once on the way home and was entranced. really. and entranced isn't generally a way that i feel about things; especially things that i so vocally hated. subsequently, i decided that i should go ahead and give that first album another go. i love it. love it so much. thank you for teaching me a valuable lesson, arcade fire, and that lesson is to quit being a dipshit. and once again i'm sorry.

third, speaking of entrancing things, i finally went to that explosions in the sky show i've been yammering on about for the past three posts and as many months. i'm not going to bother describing it because it would a) not do it justice and b) sound like i was trying too hard. i'll just leave my review at this: best live show ever.

fourth, it's march and i am mad. ncaa basketball is where it's at, which is interesting considering i don't even really know how a game of basketball is played. nevertheless, i filled out a bracket which is awesome, i have espn.com added to my bookmarks, and sometimes you might see me shouting things like "oh come ON! what the fuck was that?! don't blow it, kansas!" at television sets in bars. it's very exciting.

andrew bird and run-on sentences

2007-03-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

having money is awesome because it means i can pay for things like shows and not have to worry about sacrificing meals for it. i had been holding off on buying my ticket to see andrew bird in may because when all was said and done it was going to end up costing me somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 (how can it possibly cost $4 to print a ticket, put it in an envelope, and mail it? and what exactly is the "service" that charges me $3.75?) and i wasn't sure how ready i was to part with that. and then i remembered that i spend that much money in 2 nights at j. brians, and also that money is for spending and not for looking at, and also that tax refunds are coming, so i said fuck it. i bought the overpriced ticket and i'm stoked.

that being said, i have a few things to accompany that thing that i said:
1. the new andrew bird album is terrific as all creation.
1a. the phrase "terrific as all creation" is my new favorite combination of words until it loses its novelty. thank you random movie poster at hard times.
2. the show is may 20th, which is delightfully close to my birthday which i kind of don't care about because really, who cares about birthdays after 21?
3. if yr my friend, you should probably also buy a ticket to this show and hang out with me. mostly because andrew bird is awesome but additionally because i am awesome and also because you are awesome. i only make friends with the awesomest. duh.

on why joe lennon is my personal hero this week

2007-03-03T12:02:00.000-05:00

so i found out only 2 days ago that the dismemberment plan is getting back together to play ONE SHOW in april. i love d-plan, not to mention they're one of those bands from my freshman year of college that when i listen to now, i'm essentially paralyzed with nostalgia. in a good way. and i missed every easy opportunity to see them when they were still together, justifying it by sayingto m'self, "oh whatever, you can always see them again later." dumbass. don't ever tell yrself that.

anyway, i really wanted to go to this show. tickets went on sale at 5 pm yesterday and i figured they'd sell like those proverbial hotcakes, if i can ever figure out why people buy hotcakes in such a rapid and desperate manner. i was working and went on my dinner break at 6, speeding home listening to "gyroscope" and running to my computer, only to find out--o surprise!--the show had already been listed as sold out. this is a fucking HOUR after tickets went on sale. you'd think this was justin timberlake or something.

bigh disappointed sigh. oh well. once again, i console myself with thought of the explosions in the sky show in just less than 2 weeks (which, suckers, is also sold out in charlottesville AND dc) and move on in the world.

except! later that night i see joe. we'd been talking re: this d-plan show the night before, so i ask him if he managed to get tickets at all. he said yes as casually as if i'd asked him if he enjoyed breathing. but then he followed up with "i got you one, too," as if i was honestly expecting that. and then i find out that alex, randall, and heather are also on board for this delightful evening. high fives are appropriately dispersed.

happiness is such hard work.

metal as fuck

2007-02-02T10:01:00.000-05:00

so converge and mastodon are on tour together right now. fucking a, right? maybe you didn't know this about me, but i've been trying to see converge since i was like 16. and mastodon is just sweet metal icing on the already metal-est of cakes.

i found out a good while ago that they were playing a show at the 930 club, on feb. 17. sounded promising, but it's a saturday and i never don't work saturday night, not to mention the hunter st. boys are having their much hyped cocktail party sequel that night. it just didn't seem to really be in the cards. i sighed that familiar sigh of disappointment i've been practicing for 6 years and went back to distracting myself with thoughts of the explosions in the sky show in march.

then last night, i received some news. apparently, they're playing the next night--sunday night, my night off--at the norva. a bit of a drive, but another of my friends has already said he'd do it so i'm all about shots of whisky in the backseat to norfolk. however, it only gets better. someone else was recently added to the lineup. who could this be?

mother. fucking. slayer.

remember when i said that thing about the metal icing on the metal-est of cakes? well this is like, fucking, metal jimmies all over that shit, and when you eat this cake you taste only destruction and then bleed from yr eyes. holy shit i am pumped. fucking SLAYER dude!

pathetic? you decide.

2007-01-27T02:16:00.000-05:00

the things that currently govern my day-to-day, in order of importance:

1. alcohol
2. the coffee shop
3. drugs
4. nostalgia

hot damn.

also, the most infuriating sound in the world has become that of my cat licking himself. anyone want an old cat who pukes only on the one rug in yr otherwise entirely hardwood-floored house? i'd love to give you one.

hm.

2007-01-24T02:11:00.000-05:00

i met a guy at the bar tonight who told me i look "very williamsburg, new york."

i don't know whether i should feel offended or optimistic about this. either way, he was a little cute and i was a little buzzed so no harm done.

ugh.

2007-01-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

my body finally decided to call it quits. a week after i joined the gym and made a half-hearted pledge to myself to repair my waning health, i caught a fucking awful stomach virus thing. i woke up at 5 this morning, commenced puking out my insides, and kept doing that for a while. here i am, 14 hours later, sore and weak and nauseous still. i'm only writing this because i needed to sit up and busy my hands for a second to be sure i still function somewhat properly.

that's all i've got. on the plus side, it was nice to take my very first sick day from work.

given the occasion, i fall in line.

2006-12-31T01:10:00.000-05:00

top 10 noises of 2006:

10. junior boys - "teach me how to fight"
this was my jam in 2k6. most memorably, i listened to it while walking uphill cobblestones streets alone in edinburgh, and also when i bike-crashed into a dog and broke my face open.

9. the polyphonic version of the pixies' "here comes yr man"
my cell phone ring. being the socially maladjusted person i am, every time i hear this song i get nervous about who's on the other end of the flip-open tiny talkbox. but i've grown so used to the call-response reaction that i recently got a new phone that can play real music tones and i think maybe also turn water into wine, and the first thing i did was download some midi pixies.

8. the almost inaudible clunk of a pint glass of stella hitting the bar
all of my tip money helps keep j. brian's alive.

7. "pretty good"
remains the catchphrase of my life, when delivered by one or all of my favorites with the perfect kind of intonation that always suggests hanging out pretty good. if that doesn't make sense, it's okay.

6. joanna newsom - ys
consult the blog a few entries back, or pull cap'n guthrie's string and listen to him attribute brilliance and miracles to newsom. this album didn't settle into my life really until november, which is why it's not higher up, but it's too fucking great to not be a top 10 noise.

5. economy-sized car engines
this year i reluctantly relinquished posession of my '94 saturn to my brother and inherited a brand new 2007 toyota yaris. my saturn boxed in all my adolescent frustration in highschool, all my secret cigarettes, all the times i had to cry and didn't want anyone to know, all the outloud monologues delivered to someone i could never find the right words to say to in real life. my yaris (beatrice is her name) is poised to take over the title of "most emotionally precious inatimate object in sarah's world." i've already cried on the shiny new dash and taken her for long long drives to nowhere at 3 in the morning.

4. the lack of ambulance sirens coming for me
2006 was the year of only one(!) ER visit. no dislocated shoulders for me!

3. mogwai - "friend of the night" & "2 rights make 1 wrong"
these rank high for a couple of reasons: they're the highest played songs on my itunes, i discovered them years too late because i was being a closed-minded dump for no reason and i feel like i need to redeem myself somehow, and having heard these songs this year i've concluded that they may be the only songs in existence that rival explosions in the sky's "yr hand in mine" as being the most heart-meltingly amazing song i've ever heard.

2. thump thump thump whirrrrrr clank twist click beepbeepbeep shhhhhhhh clink... &c.
this is what my life sounds like. these are the noises of my livelihood being a barista at hyperion espresso, and my job, whatever i might think about it, has been one of the most important things i've had this past year.

1. hearing my name read off a card on may 13
i graduated college. i'm still terrified. it was a lot bigger of a deal that i want to admit.

christmastime

2006-12-26T01:08:00.000-05:00

over the past 48 hours, i've consumed approximately 10 cups of coffee, a litre of baileys (in various cups of the coffee), a bottle of wine, and more food than i've had in fucking forever. i've also seen a christmas story at least 5 times through and watched maybe 8 hours of law & order: criminal intent. there was also a low moment around 2am last night when, glassy-eyed and fucked, i stumbled upon a local cable access channel playing a film loop of a roaring fireplace, which maybe i watched for more than 5 minutes in an involuntary hypnosis.

i got some delightful christmas gifts which continues to prove that technology is smarter than i am (motorola razr: 1, sarah: 0) and gave myself the gift of doing absolutely nothing today. there's a deep impression of my body that runs the length of my parents' couch, and i feel pretty good about it. i'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. i'd love to sit around more coffee shops with more ridiculous dudes, or on a big comfy sofa watching vincent d'onofrio solving every mystery ever because he's fucking brilliant. but i guess i'll be back tomorrow, making fredericksburg its coffee and puttering with some new toys.

merry christmas, y'all. hope it was good for everyone.

haywire

2006-12-22T02:00:00.000-05:00

i have this feeling, and i only half attribute it to the shot of tequila and 2 pints of stella i hastily chugged to beat the 2 am cutoff. it's a good feeling, which is strange because it's been so long since i've had a good feeling that i'm surprised i remember what it's like. it's a feeling like, "okay, today, i'm starting my slow process of learning how to grab life by the balls." it's a feeling of latent selfishness, which makes me really excited. selfishness isn't always a negative thing; when it's self-motivation or self-preservation, it's downright commendable.

this isn't to say that i've figured anything out yet, but i can feel it squirming around inside my loopy head trying to congeal into an actual thought. as someone who's dealt with depression for years and motherfucking too many years, i know that eventually one reaches a breaking point where you just can't continue being sad. it's physically impossible to bleed and cry any more without dying. that's when you know that something big has to change. i'm right at that cusp. it's weird to not be able to put this into more understandable words. it's just, you know, a feeling. it also might be alcohol. i haven't decided yet, as i'm not completely sober on this end of correspondance.

also, all of a sudden i miss everyone, explosions in the sky's newest bit of brilliance, is just fucking incredible. it seems to pick up right where the earth... left off, which is fine by me. this band seems to be the soundtrack to personal revelation, and the thing to which i say, "if you died, you couldn't listen to this any more." and that keeps me breathing sometimes.

also, i have this crush on this guy. it's been a while since i've had an actual crush. i've had irresponsible emotional attachments, awkward interactions, and disasterous bouts versus insecurities, but no harmless infatuation just for the sake of it. there's something really exciting about having a crush, especially one that yr pretty sure will never come to any sort of fruition. it's pleasant to imagine, and it's also pleasant to feel those stupid stomach-butterflies when i make him smile. it's regular shit like that that reminds me that i'm not a total trainwreck of a human being.

my insides are warm and busy. totally fucking haywire.

pretty new internet box

2006-12-19T02:06:00.000-05:00

i'm writing this from my sleek new black macbook, which is just gorgeous but a little weird because i haven't really gotten used to the new keyboard and the mac-type-no-right-clicky thing. the ol' gateway laptop broke yesterday and is now giving me alarming error messages and flashing DOS prompts instead of blogs and porn and more internets. being impulsive and a little stupid, i decided i couldn't modify my hi-tech typetype lifestyle for more than 12 hours so i ran to the nearest apple computer store and bought this thing i've been thinking about for a while. i'm happy as a web-clam, but here's the problem; i may have lost everything on the ex-'puter. i actually don't care about a lot of it; in fact, there's a lot of shit that is probably better off being involuntarily deleted. however, i sure would like to keep the roughly 7 fucking days worth of music i had on there, not to mention my entire creative writing portfolio that's been more or less in development since i was 19, and also not to mention all 3 of my zines. god dammit. i don't have a whole lot of hope for recovering things from the old machine on account of it was making grinding sounds when i tried to turn it on today. grinding. yeah. the opposite of good computer sounds. but we'll see.

here, you (3?) readers, is where i need yr help. my itunes is empty, and needs yr generosity-juice to fill 'er up. if you find yrself bored over the holidays, maybe throw some of yr favorite albums on an mp3 cd and send them my way. if you need an address, i'd be happy to disclose the house to which you can mail such a delightful xmas gift. or whatever. i just need music. and if you can pull my portfolio out of the ether, i'll take that too.

also, i'm going to try and be better about updating this thing. i think i need to be writing more. look for progress updates on shotgunwedding #4, which i'm planning to start puttering at circa christmastime.

impulse, revised.

2006-12-16T04:56:00.000-05:00

if you were fortunate enough to catch this blog over the last 6 hours, you have my blessing to laugh in my face the next time you see me. some people shouldn't use cell phones when drunk; i shouldn't blog.

fuck the pain away, part 2

2006-12-08T14:28:00.000-05:00

i should know better than to devise pre-emptive blog posts, because if i wait longer than 15 minutes to muse on a topic then i will certainly lose interest. the other day in the car, i imagined up a pretty good dissertation re: joanna newsom and why me and her should move to narnia and get down with mr. tumnus for life. it made me happier than most things do these days. then i got bored and days passed and i burned my hands off at work and i can't get the musicbloggery to come out of my charred fingers any more. basically, the gist is that her new album, ys (italics for album titles, anyone? quotation marks? damned if i know. someone get out yr mla stylebook and help a dump), moves me in a way i haven't been moved since explosion in the sky's the earth is not a cold dead place. if you know me, i guess you might know that that's kind of a big aural deal. if you don't know me (or don't care about how i get down to post-rock), i mean, the best way to explain my love for the earth...is that the album is 3 years old and i still get shivers when i listen to it. every time. which is often. also, i silently wept when i saw them live, and i sure as fuck am not the silently weeping type.

so yeah, joanna newsom, pretty much every bit as good as cap'n guthrie might lead you to believe. so i'll let my review stand at "fucking great" and let the cap'n hammer the point into the ground.

and then there was the thing about peaches. i saw her live nearly 2 weeks ago now, mostly on a total whim, and i got so pumped about being a girl that i wanted to write the most pro-vag piece i could muster. then, same deal, days passed, and then unfortunately i got kicked in the guts by the monthly cycle. now my ovaries hurt and being a girl sucks. so much for that. but for a time there, i really wanted to believe that i could make men do whatever i wanted. there was absolutely no existing evidence for that, and quite a bit to the contrary, but dammit i felt like i could. thanks for that, peaches.

so now i'm off to the nyc to hang out with some people (guthrie, gorgeous, and papa parcell) that i'm half convinced now exist only inside computers. 00101011, dudes.

fuck the pain away.

2006-11-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

this is not a music blog. it will never be a music blog and i hate music blogs. however, i have some things to say re: music i've been listening to as of late.

first of all, i'm usually the last person jump aboard any new hip music thing. i get overwhelmed by so much pretention and buzzwords and internets, so i generally just wait for my friends to bring it to me. then i listen to it on repeat, usually in the car on the way to richmond (a perfect drive for getting a real feel for an album) and decide whether or not i'm gonna buy in.

this begins a multipart series on sounds that are pleasant.

1) jeremy enigk
here's a perfect example of me being the last person to know about anything. apparently this is the guy from sunny day real estate. i listened to diary a good bit back in my weepy emokid days, but i was too busy fronting like i really listened to blood for blood and punched things to pay attention to the names of people who sing in pussy bands. anyway, so after hearing this name dropped peripherally around me for a while and hearing him spring out of my speakers from a friend's myspace page, i decided to rip him out of the blogspaceweb and put him in my car. i bought the album "world waits" and took off southways.
this album makes me think of 2 things. no. 1: it's a makeout album. something about the tempo and his ethereal voice and the gently noodling guitars and a smattering of pretty piano music makes me want to go to second base, especially in "cannons". i feel like this is the music i'm supposed to kiss other twentysomethings to, after prince has become hilariously predictable and long after the heyday of the getup kids in the backseat of yr mom's car ("don't worry... i'll catch you"), but long before i go on dates with guys who put on marvin gaye and are serious. there's something very comfortable and sweet about the noise this guy makes. bringing me to no. 2: it borders on the "adult contemporary" genre. i know that sounds like an incredibly disparaging remark, but it isn't meant to be. it's like jeremy was with me in the car with my mom; it's 1994 and i'm 10 years old on the way to school and listening to the inoffensive pop station in the minivan. he took all my favorite little guilty pleasures from all those songs, mixed them together, added some actual talent, and then said "by the way, lest we forget, i was in a legit indie band in the mid 90s." the result is something that, eversoslightly, harkens back to the brilliant balladry of bryan adams and his contemporaries (check out that organ solo in "been here before," or the falsetto at the beginning of "burn" and tell me otherwise). that said, i loved bryan adams when i was 10. remember that song he did for robin hood? the duet with rod stewart? epic. jeremy enigk just made it okay for me to be 22 and sorta hip and like it openly.

coming up:
the spectrum of femininity: joanna newsom, peaches, and why i want to be them.

also coming:
why drinking a bottle of red wine alone at midnight is rarely a good idea.

maybe i should learn the harp.

2006-11-18T14:19:00.000-05:00

i think growing up is hardest when you realize you've done it and you weren't paying attention. like, when you look yr old self in the face in a sweaty room full of drunk kids wriggling around to ironic 80s music desperately trying to impress someone and you hate hate hate it. you know yr not better than it; you just don't get it any more. i don't know when that happened, but i feel like a pompous shithead in most social gatherings these days.

also, i feel a little like a teenager these days. i can't remember having such an identity crisis since i was 14, shedding my black eyeliner and marilyn manson t-shirts and asking my mom to take me to the mall so i could get $80 khakipants at abercrombie and fitch. man, i sure didn't belong on either side of that spectrum. thank god for the the indierock kids. but i mean, c'mon, i'm 22; i've psychoanalyzed every aspect of my dumb ass every day since i was 12. i've been to 3 seperate rounds of counseling. how much more can there possibly be to figure out? why can't i sit myself down and say, "here, do this thing because it'll make you happy"? i feel like it should be a lot easier than this. too bad i can't just drain my brain of all the catastrophic thinkjuices in there and just do something. i need to logically explain to myself that not everything needs a logical explanation.

shit.

2006-10-30T00:47:00.000-05:00

listen:

i'm bored. i'm excruciatingly unhappy. i think i have a stomach ulcer from depression or booze or maybe both. i believe in the validity of retail therapy, but soon i'm going to run out of money and room in my closet for sweaters and hats and completely impractical but unbelievably hot shoes.

i need someone. i mean, i don't need a shoulder to cry on (or maybe i do?) because i'm a very serious self-proclaimed badass, but i need someone to remind me what it is that i do. tell me to write a poem about something. give me a project. tell me a story or ask me a question. write me a letter and i'll write you back on my typewriter. send me a text. call me for lunch or buy me a drink and talk to me about something you like. let me take you for a ride in my new [!!!] car; i bought the new justin timberlake cd for us to listen to and shit is hot. you know, whatever.

i just need help standing up a little.

homesick.

2006-09-25T00:48:00.000-04:00

sigh.
god damn i miss them.

lists

2006-09-06T00:31:00.000-04:00

some things that make me feel pretty alright:
-snakes on a plane.
-"eat me from yr face. i'll be 10 minutes late". i guess you had to be there.
-riding dirty.
-instrumental post-rock and nick lachey.
-project runway.
-richmond.
-fall weather and sweaters!
-amazing, amazing, fucking amazing friends.

some things that make me feel much less than awesome:
-fredericksburg.
-feeling lonely.
-lessthanamazing friends.
-working and subsequently being very tired. barista-ing is hard.
-being an unproductive dump.
-drinking too much.
-smoking too much.
-my bad attitude.
-the fact that i can make a bulleted list of shitty things, and that originally that was going to be the entire content of this entry, but then i decided i needed to make a counterbalancing list to remind myself that not everything was bad so i don't fall asleep all teary and depressed.

hot damn!

2006-08-17T23:46:00.000-04:00

so finally, after a year and a half and all kinds of bullshit, shotgunwedding #3 now exists in glorious paper form. i'm fucking pumped. it's all kinds of personal; way more so than my last issue. i feel like this time around i'm a little less mopey and way more unapologetic. i'm pretty proud of it.

so if anyone's interested, holler.

parentheses and semi-colons abound

2006-07-27T12:14:00.000-04:00

sorry i haven't been in touch, readers. i love you but i just don't want to be with you. plus i'm busy and up to my ears in coffee and the occasional drrrrrrama.

in experiencing my first post-collegiate summer, i keep unconsciously comparing it to past collegiate summers, particularly that glorious one between sophomore and junior year where i lived in my beat-up little house on parcell street with three dudes i couldn't get enough of. we'd drink 40s on the back porch and talk about literary theory (back before our brains were so full of that shit that we could easily talk deconstructionism and postmodernism and other literary bullshitism while drunk and high and half-asleep). we'd stay up nights trying to beat prince of persia, and then push each other to the max when we realized it was due back at blockbuster at midnight and we have 15 MINUTES LEFT AND OMG WE'RE SO CLOSE TO BEATING THE BOSS COME ON SARAH WE HAVE TO SEE HOW THIS ENDS! taco nights were the best nights; holy shit we ate so many tacos. that summer was the apex of hanging out pretty good. i knew what was coming up at the end of it--no surprises, back to school.

this summer i live in a house that looks a lot like that beat up house on parcell street, except the walls are painted and taylor doesn't live in the living room. and here, we have an ant problem instead of a rodentia infestation. i once again live with three dudes i can't get enough of, except one of them is a cat. my other three dudes have scattered along the coast; my best and his loveable sidekick have been enveloped by brooklyn, and my favorite roommate ever has slipped quietly down south, possibly to the beach. i'm still here, in the little black dot of fredericksburg somewhere in the middle stretch of I-95, with my dudes and my ants and my cat and my high-falutin' barista job (which, i was told yesterday, is on the list of 100 bullshit jobs. i'm hardly surprised). i'm leaving this little house soon for a different little house that i'll share with one of my favorite ladies and hopefully no ants. i have no idea what to expect from the end of the summer except more of the same. i don't have to go back to school, ever, but unfortunately without that i seem to have no direction. i don't know what i want to do. ask me what makes me happy; i can't give you an answer. i'm not depressed, i'm just sadly complacent. i haven't written anything in months, and i think i have lots of things to write about. i just have no motivation to do anything except go through the motions at work, come home and pour beer down my throat, watch a lot of vh1, and sometimes cry. that's embarrassing. i wake up every morning alone with a phlegmy sore throat and a bitter taste on my tongue. ew.

i need to unpack my boxes in my own house and go from there. go... somewhere? goddammit.

also, i had a motherfucking root canal. that cost me over a grand because i don't have health insurance. i'm an adult.

big city sounds

2006-06-19T12:48:00.000-04:00

i'm writing this from a tiny room in brooklyn. it's hot, and i want to take off all my clothes and spread out on the air mattress in the living room and concentrate only on breathing through the sweaty air. maybe someone could dump ice on me. that would be refreshing. instead i'll continue wearing sweatpants, drinking hot coffee, and feeling the perspiration collect in the creases of my eyelids.

all night i listened to street sweepers and shouting and a symphony of sirens. how poetic. i slept in 10 mintute intervals, having a mini-series of dreams involving a romantic tryst with someone who i could never have a romantic tryst with, but who was a great kisser in my unconscious narrative.

i just fell in love with a bartender. he was wearing a dungen t-shirt and had scrappy facial hair and fell perfectly into a Romantic new york city hypothetical situation where we smiled at each other and i liked the looks of him and his bar and his borough so much that moved to brooklyn. he had a nice smile and i can tell he probably liked to cuddle. but i'm exhausted by dudes. i deserve a lot better than what i've been getting, and i don't deserve too much.

this city is completely overwhelming but there's something about it that makes me want to feel really happy again. i think it pours out of the open fire hydrants on the streets and winds around the bars on the first-floor windows and hides behind graffiti on my best friend's front door. this shit doesn't feel real. but i like it a lot and it's not so familiar that i'm stunned into complacency the way i am at home.

things are so strange for me right now. i know it's not unusual to feel confused after you graduate, but i feel like i'm moving through a haze and the only things i can clearly make out are hyperion and my friends, and even they're starting to fade as i start inching away from their stability.

sigh. stupid pensive entry.

it's a quiet morning with folk music.

2006-05-25T10:44:00.000-04:00

i'm incessantly emailing people i find on craigslist. eventually, someone will have to give me a place to live.

i've applied for jobs at the richmond spca and the post office. i want to be a rural mail carrier, maybe. apart from the inticement of driving a mailtruck and reading people's postcards (i'm hoping for lewd ones from the mediterranean) and the occasional gift for yr friendly courier at christmastime, i'm thinking mostly about things like those sweet, sweet government benefits. i know; i've been milking them for 22 years. the prescription plan is unbeatable.

about that: i turn 22 in 4 days, the health insurance ends, and i move out of my last college house. am i an adult? i mean, i am considering things like square-footage, sofa purchases, where to put my office, and retirement options. sheesh.

i can't be an adult. i still have half a drawer at my parent's house full of black t-shirts with shitty hardcore band names scraped across the front. i went to see thursday a few weeks ago! i am still 17! leave me alone, future.

?

2006-05-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

the whole time that i was in college, when stress was tearing into my insides, i kept telling myself that things would be better once it was over and all i had to do was go to work. then work could be work and i'd come home and not worry about a damn thing--there's no homework for a job. no stress. pretty good.

then it actually happened. except now i have two jobs, and work consistently throughout the week. i have ample money to spare for the first time that i can remember, except i don't really have any time to spend it. i don't see my friends except in passing moments over the counter at hyperion. sometimes we make plans to hang out later, but by the time i get off i'm too tired to want to go out and i have to be back at work the next morning anyway so why bother? i hate turning into one of those people that complains about work all the time, and i shouldn't complain because my jobs are actually pretty great, for jobs. they're just draining everything out of me.

and in those free moments where i'm not wearing a black apron and thinking about lattes or bussing tables (depending on which corner of william street i'm on), i'm thinking about what the fuck i'm supposed to do now. i've promised myself to move to richmond, which i'm legitimately excited for, but then what? i'll go from 2 jobs to none, and my ample money will disappear right quick. then all of these new things keep popping up and punching me in the face and i have to reconcile them with the existing shit. i just want to be quiet somewhere and read a book. i'm so tired.

then there's my friends that are leaving/have left. dudes that i've secretly relied on to stand me up for 4 years are moving away, and i'm stumbling hard. granted, they're not dying, and everyone knows how i'm always up for a roadtrip, but the idea of not being able to bike to the other side of town for some cigarettes and some crucial porch-sitting really breaks my heart. i don't know what i'm going to do without these dudes, and i'm trying not to think about it so i don't cry. that seems to be the name of this post-collegiate game: escapism. we'll see how it pans out.

as exhausted as i am, though, things aren't bad. my life is actually pretty good if i'd just stop for a second and breathe and not let myself get overwhelmed by things that i can really just brush off. i'm on the cusp of new opportunities, and while scary, that's really fucking exciting. i'm moving to a new city with my cat and maybe some terrific friends, and i have no obligations to anyone but me. maybe i'll be a real writer or something. and then there's this kid that i know, who spells his name phonetically (which i appreciate as a bachelor of english), who sometimes spends my (and his) rare days off with me and has me addicted to text messaging at 4 in the morning. that kind of stuff reminds me that shit is alright. i'm still optimistic, even though i desperately miss hanging out and pretty good.

most days i smell like espresso and tomato sauce. i forget to shower a lot.

holy toledo.

2006-05-04T14:18:00.000-04:00

dear college,

take that!

fondly,
sarah

done. fucking done. hello, summer, and the rest of my life as a grown-up. tomorrow, as my first action as a non-student, i'll be in the 'mond with 'sen, where we may eat some 'zza or perhaps some 'chos, definitely buy a lotta records, drink abundantly in celebration of my completed 4 years of half-assed acheivement, and take a good serious look at where maybe our lives will happen in a few short months.

practicing the creation of situations.

2006-04-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

the third issue of the real shotgunwedding paper-blog has been in its conception stages for closing in on a year now. now that i'm a week away from dedicating substantial time to it, i've been glancing over the stuff i've written for it. i've written 3 different introductions, one failed poem, 2 short short stories, a handful of drawn-out anecdotes, and taken 27 zine-specific pictures. i don't think i'm going to use any of it. but it's strange to look over the things that i chose to document and the themes i wanted to focus on. last summer, i think i was way too happy to want to publish sw #3. there were too many fun, sweaty things happening and for once, i didn't think about how they would translate onto a page. by winter i was confused and miserable and injured. the idea of working on my zine with my right arm strapped into an orthopedic brace seemed like more of a chore, so even though i was all full of thoughts i wasn't interested in writing them down. not to mention the idea of cutting and pasting with one hand (and my left one at that) seemed like the most implausible thing ever.

now here i am, and the weather is warm again. i've taken my last class ever. by friday i will have taken my last exam ever, written my last collegiate paper ever, smoked my last cigarette on the porch of combs, eaten at seacobeck for the last time, biked recklessly and helmet-less one final time down campus walk, among other lasts. and then what do i do? i have no place to live after june and no real desire to stay here any more. however, i have a great job, wonderful friends, and my love for the only little town i've ever really made mine. westminster was just where my parents lived; fredericksburg was my home because i wanted it to be. so i'm here, placeless and confused, my whole body wanting to drift but finding that i have one stubborn hand that won't let go. i should be careful; i'm prone to dislocating shoulders.

i can't make decisions for myself very well, but i will say that in the midst of my life's-next-chapter ruminations, i'm publishing #3 for real this time. i've got stories and the right attitude to tell them this time. so around june, look for my zine on parcellpress.com. look for my body to be stumbling around awkwardly and slightly drunk somewhere in the world, just hanging out and pretty good.

a personally applicable french propaganda slogan

2006-04-19T14:35:00.000-04:00

je prends mes désires pour la réalité car je crois en la réalité de mes désires.

(i take my desires for reality because i believe in the reality of my desires)

-graffiti on the wall of the occupied sorbonne, may '68

a positive note

2006-04-16T02:56:00.000-04:00

in this time of great stress and transition, sometimes i need to be reminded of the things that make me happy. here are a few, in no particular order:

1. beer/alcohol in general (maybe it's not real happiness, but it's good enough)

2. having some of the most awesome friends in the world.

3. the weather.

4. long messages and mixtapes from a new friend.

5. remembering some great times over my last four years in this town.

6. sid

7. carbohydrates of all kinds.

8. sexy new shoes. apparently, i'm the impulsive shoe-buying type.

9. summer being only a few weeks away.

10. slither

from the new face at hyperion espresso

2006-04-09T21:05:00.000-04:00

sweeping dried leaves from the curb of william st before the sun rises is surreal. there aren't any cars on the road and the lights at the intersection of william and princess anne still blink red red and yellow yellow. when i'm walking in, i hear the church clock chime six times. i can kind of see the sun starting to come up down by the river; the sky turns that hazy blue while i'm setting up the tables outside.

i scatter some ashtrays on tabletops, set out water for the downtown dogs, and think about how everyone i know is still sleeping, or stumbling drunk with some boy or some girl to bed finally to play out a long night of smiling and innuendo.

the sun comes up about 20 minutes before 7, and by the time the morning commuters line up for their drinks (tall skim latte to go, venti mocca java, grande organic mocha no whipped cream extra shot of espresso and a shot of sugar free caramel, poppy seed bagel with no cream cheese and can you warm that up? and so on etc.) it comes through the top 2nd left pane in the window in a straight beam directly at my eyes. sorry i'm squinting. hi, i'm sarah. i'm new. i'm still trying to learn how to be a barista-robot.

the hardest part about working at the coffee shop in town is feeling like you're entering a secret club. everyone already knows everyone else on both sides of the counter, and for my first week, it was jarring for both parties when a new face same sidling up to the register in the morning.

oh, that's so-and-so, jerry says. she always gets a grande wet cappucino. don't bother writing it down, i've already got it.

hi so-and-so. i'm sarah. i'll have forgotten yr face by the time yr milk's done steaming. also, i haven't seen the business side of 6 am since... perhaps ever. let's all cut each other some slack.

there are so many things to remember at work that one must distill everything into repetitive motions. i'm too busy to know how tired i am. once i stop, i feel like a zombie. i drag my sore exhausted body to my car (i'm sorry, i'm not used to this hour of the morning enough to bike yet), sit down, and wonder how i didn't collapse 2 hours ago. then i come home and crash and have tortured dreams about writing tickets for complicated drinks. i truly believe that i was murmuring drink orders during my nap this afternoon. i wouldn't be surprised; i've been told that i talk in my sleep sometimes. i wish someone could hear me.

sure, venti sumatra. would you like room for cream?
alright, short mocha. do you want whipped cream on that?
snore.

it's 9:30 pm and i think i'm going to go to bed soon. i kind of like it.

surprise!

2006-04-05T23:29:00.000-04:00

i just won $100 for 1st place in the underground's poetry slam.

hot damn. i'm really excited.

also, ghostface killah's fishscale is probably one of the best overall albums i've heard in a very long time. every track is hot, and it's almost too good.

the final installment

2006-04-02T22:16:00.000-04:00

this shit happened almost a month ago; it's about time to let my memories just be things that swim around in my brain while i'm falling asleep or dazed on benches during awesome fredericksburg spring days.

i wish i didn't have such a solid memory for insignificant little things. those are the things that i miss the most.

here's a bulleted list of my final weekend in edinburgh:
-the edinburgh zoo. they have the uk's only koala bears, a plethora of penguins, and some generally sweet animals across the board.
-pubs on weekends are stupid and expensive, but it helps to have good company and a decent buzz on.
-hanging out and pretty good in a different latitude.
-my camera battery died.
-i went to edinburgh castle in the bitter cold and snow. there was a point where i stopped being able to feel my extremities. it cost way too much, but was pretty impressive. the scenery was gorgeous and i almost had a heart attack when they fired the one o'clock cannon right behind me when i wasn't paying attention.
-i ate fish & chips and drank a a few more pints.
-went to the movies again and saw the proposition (nick cave's new movie). it was nice and bloody; unfortunately i missed the establishment of the plotline on account of i fell asleep in for the first 15 minutes.
-i spent one more day walking around alone feeding my music into my ears (scotland walking playlist: junior boys - last exit, and the velvet teen - elysium) and taking in all the stuff i could. i bought a coaster featuring a man's bare ass, exposed by the wind blowing under his kilt.
-we watched a lot of arrested development on tom's computer while laying around being lazy and hedonistic. we're pretty good at that.
-i kissed it all goodbye and got on a plane back to the states. when i landed in baltimore, it was 82 degrees. i peeled off all my cold-weather layers and ran back to fredericksburg in the sun.

i've been infected by the need to travel constantly. i'm sitting still and twitching from excitement at wondering what i'm missing in the world. i have a passport and a bohemian ambition and i have to go.

i shouldn't stay attached to anything for too long.

part five in the multi-part series: anyone still interested?

2006-03-29T03:17:00.000-05:00

it's 3:15 in the morning and i'm completely wired on more coffee than i've had in a long time. i can't believe i used to live like this regularly. ah, the days of parcell street and the truckstop. i don't forsee myself being academically productive at all for the rest of the night (although i ought to be), but i also don't see sleep happening on account of i'm not really blinking and my hands are shaking, so let's continue on my adventure that i'm sure all three people who read my blog are quite bored of. whatever. i like to remember.

thursday in scotland i recall being really cranky most of the day. i think the dismal weather started to grate on me--eventually, you really start to miss the sun--and i was also pissed because i didn't have any cigarettes. i suppose all of that was coupled with a hangover that made my brain fuzzy and uncooperative. we slept late and got to walking about the city, eventually ending up at the sir walter scott monument. that's the wonky-looking building in the sunset picture from my last entry. it cost 3 pounds per person to go in, so we left dejected, but then the nice scottish men at the ticket booth shouted after us that we could go 2 for 1. we counted out the change from our pockets and accepted the discount. there are 287 steep, narrow stone steps that spiral up a tall gothic-style tower in a staircase that could easily be a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. about halfway up there's a mini-museum where you can learn a few pertinent facts about sir walter. i think it's pretty cool that the scots have a monument in the middle of the city that was built to honor a writer and historian.

at the top, there was a whole lotta wind and another view of the tops of ed's buildings. there was also a few attempts at self-portraiture in breath-consuming gusts; above you'll see the only one where both of our heads are fully included. not particularly flattering (i think the wind is making me teary and snotty), but here's the pictoral evidence that i was actually there.

from there, we walked to the modern art gallery and met this cat along the way. he was just really fat and hanging out and adorable, and tom interacting with cats is always really endearing. the modern art gallery was surprisingly impressive; i wasn't expecting much having been to the moma and the nat'l gallery and the hirshorn in d.c. i saw my favorite roy lichtenstein painting, in the car, which was a complete surprise to see on account of i had no idea it was in edinburgh. there were a lot of other pretty awesome pieces (some cindy sherman photos, an awesome damien hirst piece, some dada posters) but i'll be honest, i don't feel like elaborating and i don't think that you care to read my garbled pseudo-art-talk bullshit. understand that it was all, you know, pretty good.

so whatever, et cetera, we ate some food and drank more beers and hanging out and pretty good. it took me most of the day to snap out of the stupid mood i was in, but if there was one guaranteed cure to my funk, it was the promise of a strip club that night. walking through the area commonly known as "the pubic triangle" that day, we'd communally made the decision that we needed some tits, and since i'd vetoed the grime show that we were thinking about going to, we figured tonight was the night for a titty bar. so we bought a bottle of vodka and hung out with some of his friends, getting good and wasted for the naked lady show.

being a strip club virgin, the place itself was pretty much exactly what i expected; lots of sketchy middle-aged dudes hanging out around a pole. me and tom's friends were the only girls in there who were fully dressed, and i was getting some creepy eyes from across the stage. but i wasn't there for dudes, obviously. i was really impressed with the strippers; bitches are athletes! i mean, it has to take talent to climb up a pole with yr legs like they do. i admired their moves. and their boobs. obviously. tom tried to give one of the strippers an american dollar bill, but she took it from him, put it in his mouth, then grabbed his face and rubbed it in her cleavage. then she took the dollar. it was amazing. we later tried to get the same stripper to give us a lap dance for half price (she wanted 20 quid for it, and refused to be bargained down to 10). she did, however, tell tom that he looked like nick lachey, which kept me laughing for a good 10 minutes, and then again every time after that when i would think about it. even now, i'm giggling a little.

surprise! we're wasted again! upon the suggestions of his friends, we end up going to a sketchy club called stereo, which was fine by me on account of i wanted to go to at least one sketchy club while i was there. it was completely packed but it was okay because i was completely drunk. i threw all my shit down on the floor, chugged a vodka tonic, and proceeded to dance with anyone mildly in the vicinity. i'd been aching for a dance party for so long. this was close enough, and bitches know i've got some surrrrious moves. the club was, indeed, absolutely sketchy, but it seemed appropriate given the night we'd been having. i felt dirty in the best possible way.

we'd made tentative plans to take a train to st. andrews the next morning. we'd already set the alarm for 9 am. as we teetered home around 3 (and i think stopping for falafel along the way), we both secretly pretty much knew that wasn't going to happen.

(next [the final installment]: the weekend! penguins, more booze (gasp!), touristy things, and i leave some of my heart in edinburgh's streets.)

(current events addendum: i've got a new job and a new place to live next year and the weather is beautiful. everything's coming up sapple. except for the whole academia thing.)

#4

2006-03-27T13:34:00.000-05:00

i'd say that most days i was in scotland, i was hungover in the morning and drunk again by early evening. i wonder how i managed to not die, or at least not resort to crawling through the streets at night and puking on the sidewalk. at least i wouldn't be alone if i had.

wednesday we went to the national museum of scotland (i think?), which was sweet because there were skeletons.
there were other things, like old pottery and jewelry and weapons from the ancient celtic period, and a lot of descriptions based on assumptions since apparently no one actually knows anything about these people, but the best part was obviously the skeletons. i also saw robert the bruce's sword, which i forgot to take a picture of, but which was so badass that i don't think the picture would have truly done it justice. it was massive and would have killed you if you looked at it the wrong way. there was a lot more stuff, but once i got past ancient tribal warfare and medeival torture, i got bored and wanted to hang out on the roof instead. once you got up on the roof you found yet another place for a beautiful panoramic view of edinburgh. i guess that's what happens when you have tall buildings and a city on a hill. the first picture i posted in my first entry was taken from that rooftop terrace. also, we saw dolly the cloned sheep, who was cloned at the university of edinburgh. she's stuffed and illuminated and spinning in a glass case in the royal museum.

after meeting the day's quota for culture, we decided it was time to go on a pub crawl, since clearly we hadn't been doing enough drinking here already. tom took me to rose street, and the entire time i thought he was saying "rowe street" which made me homesick for my hood but also seemed fitting that i should be pub-crawling there. we started at the bad ass (pictured above), which was nice but decidedly less badass than perhaps the name suggests. when i go into a pub with such a name, i don't expect posh leather sofas and coffee tables and trinkets on the walls and cocktail waitresses that politely bring me my pint while i read the paper.

we went to about seven different pubs, getting different beers every time. at one place tom suggested we try tenents ember, which neither of us had tried before, which tasted a little like what i imagine filtered diarrhea might be like. we finished, in the spirit of the crawl, but quickly moved on having learned our lesson. to be fair, tom guided me most of the week in my decisions on ales and this was the only time he steered me wrong.

at some point, we ended up in front of a pub called filthy mcnasty's. i was well into drunk and at that point where people shouldn't be seen in public with me, and upon reading the name i doubled over into my drunk cackle in the middle of the street. you all know the sapple drunk laugh; it's loud and it carries. so of course we had to drink there, and i giggled the entire time. then tom started talking about chicken sandwiches, which sounded totally sweet at the time so we went to burger king. yeah. i don't eat at burger king in the states, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. we sat in front of the window and made fun of everyone who walked by behind the safety of the glass.

by the time the sun went down we were legitimately stumbling. a day well spent. walking back, tom found a little ID photo of a blank-faced asian man on the ground, which we both greatly appreciated. i think he kept it, but i wish i had it. we got back to his dorm, fell asleep drunk at about 7 and woke up again around 11, just in time to mix more substances into my addled brains and go to a flat party nearby. i was socially and mentally retarded on account of things, so i sat in a chair and stared at everyone and talked to tom's hall mates whenever i could pull together some coherent sentences. good to know that college parties are awkward (or maybe, i'm awkward at college parties) no matter where in the world i am. stupid cunts are still stupid cunts, drunk girls are still embarrassing and hilarious, and i still don't know how to respond to being hit on other than pouring more alcohol down my throat and thinking of a reason why i need to go over there.

(tomorrow: titty bar!)

shotgunwedding does the scots: part 3

2006-03-25T12:26:00.000-05:00

tuesday was the first day i really got immersed in scotland weather. the first couple of days were sunny and mild and deceptive. i was told not to expect it much longer. sure enough, tuesday morning i walked out into an obnoxious mist. arthur's seat was swirled with fog and haze and looked like mordor. i can't say it was raining; this precipitation was far more irritating. it was the kind of mist where you don't take an umbrella because you'll look like a pussy and you don't think you'll get wet anyway, but after about 20 minutes yr soaked through on account of persistent tiny droplets. and for me, being a nerdy four-eyes, my glasses got all wet and i couldn't see and of course i don't have one dry article of clothing with which to dry them off. this kind of weather went on for the rest of the trip, and having experienced it for a week i admire the scots so much more now. it takes the right kind of mindset to be able to live somewhere where the sun is a novelty and yr always wet.

we went to holyrood palace that afternoon and took the audio tour. holyrood palace is the queen's residence in edinburgh. mostly, very stuffy and british and historic. prince charles gave the pre-recorded welcoming address on the audio tour. the best part was holyrood abbey. it's a ruin attached to the palace.
i was really excited to be there, mostly on account of the nostalgia. when i was little and living in england, my dad and i would go on excursions to ruins every weekend. we'd get the red vw golf and comb the uk looking for something that i could climb on. ruins of castles were my jungle gyms. and while i was climbing and looking, my dad would be following me telling me the history, which i was legitimately fascinated by. i'd reconstruct the building in my head and daydream a scenario where it was 1100 a.d. and i was there. apparently fourteen years later, if you put me in ruin, i'll still play medieval make-believe in my head and want to climb on all the slippery stones. i think tom was worried that i was going to hurt myself, and given my track record he was justified.
there are about a dozen slabs on the ground marking graves, and i felt very solemn and quietly excited to be walking over so many bodies. it'd be a great place for a scene in a zombie movie; i'd love to see the decomposed corpses of old scottish nobility rise up from the ruins to feast on fat american tourists and their children.

on the way home, it was deemed necessary to stop for chocolate. so tom takes me to this place that we'd walked by a few times. they had the most absurdly delicious-looking baked goods in the window; cakes and things made out of candy bars and such. inside there were so many sweet things hanging from the walls and piled up places that you could only walk single file in a narrow aisle, and if you were tall you probably needed to stoop a little. tom got this muffin. a fucking cadbury cream egg muffin.

yeah, that's a cracked open cream egg. look closer...

it was magical. take the best muffin you've ever eaten and multiply it by 100 and then fuck it because it's still not as good as this one. i mean come on, look at it. imagine a pile of those in a window next to mars bar cakes. it was too rich to eat in one go, even between the both of us, which was fine because we got to eat it again later before we went to go play beer pong.

yep. i paid $600 and flew for 9 hours across the sea to watch people play beer pong, solo cups and all. there were pint cans of tenents instead of natty light and intense german competitors instead of issac and connor, but all the moves were the same. apparently it was something of a tuesday night tradition to play pong at this flat. it was actually really enjoyable. i'm really awkward in social situations and it's only amplified in strange surroundings, but it was really comfortable to be in a familiar setting. so i leaned against the wall and watched the games and talked to everyone (most of the kids i met were really friendly and great to hang out with) and explained to everyone how i don't play because i'm awful and how that rule transcends national borders. later i quietly rescinded, on account of i met this kid who's also from (the periphery of) baltimore and also terrible at pong who needed a partner. i was 2 tenents into the night and buzzed enough that i agreed, and as soon as i stepped onto the table i got called out by everyone in the room.

i actually started pretty well, making two cups in a row which is a record for me. the guy i was playing with (who was every bit as terrible as he said he was) started to doubt me and i think, for a minute, suspected me of being a liar and something of a pong shark. but i relapsed; i'm actually still as awful as i was last time i played. i know that we all hoped for a "rookie of the year"-style return to beer pong after my surgery, but clearly my pitching arm just continues to suck. however, even though we lost the game (which was fine because i get really bored after just one), most of the cups that team baltimore made were mine. owned(!), kind of.

after pong we went across the street to a bar that was really crowded. tom was approached by a german girl - who was obviously coked out of her skull - who wanted to know if he was interested in buying pot from spain. she talked for a good 10 minutes about the merits of such a transaction. when she left i almost fell off my stool from laughing. i mean, this is his life.

(next installment: we get real drunk and end up at burger king.)

scotland: part 2

2006-03-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

i'm as of yet undecided as to how many parts this will stretch into. i suppose it all hinges on my skill/patience as a writer, my academic burdens, and whether or not my health holds out. as it is, none of the above are looking good. i've spent the better part of the past two days breathing out of my mouth and coughing into wadded up tissues that i carry around with me. it snowed today. where is spring?

monday in scotland saw me once again thrust into the uphill streets of edinburgh alone. my friend, ever the darling, gave me a compass (which i accidentally stole) and a city map and pointed me in some direction after we had to part ways so that he could go to school. i almost went to a lecture, but then remembered that it was fucking SPRINGBREAK 06 WOOOOO and i don't do no book learnin'. so i went to play in the hypercapitalist city with my new credit card and no concept of exchange rates.

this is princes st., as photographed from the top of the scott monument (more on that in thursday's account). basically it's all the spending allure and prestige of georgetown fit enticingly into old european stone buildings; there were 2 h&m's within 3 blocks, not to mention fancy stores i'd never heard of but adored. for the most part i was impressed by uk fashion and really wanted to pass for edinburgh eurotrash, mostly on account of the straightleg jeans and tunic tops with polkadots (less for the mini-mini-denim-skirts always worn with black leggings and uggs, or some furry boot variant). so i spent hours shopping, at least one of those trying to figure out european and uk sizing, which are different from the us as well as different from each other. thank god for h&m, which puts all the international sizes on the tag. then once i'd figured out the conversion, i spent the rest of the day elated in front of dressing room mirrors as i discovered i'm now 2 sizes smaller than i was in january. regardless of if that's true or uk sizes are just generous with the cuts, i felt hot and terrific for an afternoon and straight strutted down the sidewalk with mad sway in my hips.

scotland, don't even front like you didn't want this.

before committing ourselves to nighttime, we ate baked potatos at a little take-away place that only serves baked potatos. potatos are about the closest thing you can get to a vegetable in scotland, which is fine by me on account of i love them in all their delicious forms. so this place gave you an extensive list of potato toppings, you picked one or some or whatever, and they made you a giant tasty potato. i got vegan chili on mine. fucking a. it was an experience.

so then we commenced to drinkin'. we started at this bar called rush, which was apparently voted the best backpackers bar in the city, presumably because it's pretty cheap. it was early, and the place was pretty empty and pretty dive-y, which is how i like bars. i like to be able to just sit and drink and talk and gesture with cigarettes in my fingers. we threw back more than one, smoked the last of my american cigarettes (seriously, i'm a dumbass), and moved on to the jazz bar where i threw down 10 pounds to see ravi coltrane.

i loved the space. it was pretty much exactly what i imagined a place called "the jazz bar" would look like: a little brick basement with b&w photos on the wall, tables and chairs for hanging out, an intimate stage, and a smoky haze. however, at this point i was quite drunk and wouldn't have cared much where you put me; i was hanging out and pretty good. we got there early so we had a table, which was great. the place filled up to standing room only pretty quick, but the whole time we got to sit there and look hip (well, not so much me; apparently camera flash and alcohol turns me into a crazy looking albino) and drink gin & tonics while listening to jazz. while ravi was playing, i was the happiest kind of drunk i could have possibly been at that moment; i was so content with where i was and what i was doing and every noise in the air. i had my eyes closed for half the set, but i was actually awake and so warm and happily aware of everything. the music was beautiful, and was probably the first time i've actually really appreciated listening to jazz. i'd love to tell you more about it, but i don't know how to talk about jazz.

after stumbling to the surface, i turned from calm, relaxed drunk to super high-octane drunk and started challenging tom to races down city blocks. something about our dynamic necessitates that most things be competitions. he always wins, unless it's about the date of the battle of hastings. i would have won the races if i had my running shoes and i wasn't wearing my messenger bag and my legs were as long as his stupid tall limbs. i remember feeling so excited that night, and like i was the only person in the city who really knew how good it was.

(next update: the best muffin you've never eaten, and beerpong goes global)

scotland: part 1

2006-03-19T17:06:00.000-05:00

at noon on the day i left, at my dad's retirement luncheon, continental airlines called me and told me my plane from baltimore was cancelled. get to the airport now, they said, we have to put you on a train to new jersey.

immediately i lost all semblance of cool, the way i do when i have everything properly planned out in my head and it goes to shit at the last minute. i should learn to expect this more often, obviously. i fought with my parents the entire way to the airport, eventually having to run after my mom down the concourse to apologize for being an asshole. wrapping up our problems real quick, a la full house, i rode the amtrak to newark airport, where i boarded a plane for edinburgh, where i flew all night long, not sleeping on account of i can't sleep on planes. i watched "walk the line" and when that was done, i watched the graphic of the plane creep its way across the GPS system. i had a window seat and watched the sun rise in the sky over ireland while eating a croissant. flying over scotland was beautiful; apparently it had snowed the day before and all the fields were white.

the customs lady in edinburgh was very suspicious of me. not only did she want to know how long i was staying, but where i'd be staying, who i'd be staying with, my relationship to that person, what he was doing in scotland, how long he'd be there, what he was studying, what i was studying, where i was studying, when i planned to graduate, and what i planned to do after graduation. i earned my stamp.

seeing this guy waiting for me at the airport was delightful. i sure did miss his smile. in a truly expected fashion, he whisked me into town and bought me a pint at 9 am at the scotsman's lounge, where we talked and smoked cigarettes and drank beers on a barrel in a pub that opened at 6.

i was disoriented and overwhelmed by my surroundings, so i spent a lot of that first day walking uphill quietly, jerking my head around to make sure i wasn't missing anything. the entire fucking city goes uphill all the time, which i got used to, but didn't please me so much when i had 2 bags of shit on my back. i also quickly realized that it was stupid of me not to have bought a carton of american cigarettes before i left virginia. first: they don't have camel lights in the uk. they're camel blues and not quite the same. second, and most importantly: they're fucking 5 quid a pack. that's like $9. bollocks, huh?

we went to see capote that night after a long nap. my critical two cents: fucking brilliant. hoffman deserved that oscar. perhaps the best part about the moviegoing experience (aside from the terrific movie, of course) was the bar in the theatre, and the fact that they'd make you a drink in a plastic cup to take into the movie. i bit my lip and tried not to be an obnoxious american about it; obviously everyone was used to it, but i just wanted to point and shout "look! i'm drinking alcohol in the theatre! and it's not a 6-pack of PBR that i snuck in with my messenger bag!" so i watched truman capote drink a bunch of gin and tonics while sipping on one of my own; too bad you can't smoke in movie theatres any more. also, too bad the shots are smaller (fucking millilitres) in the uk. better to order a double.

on sunday, tom had papers to write. he had to be a student so i had to be a tourist. his dorm is right at the base of arthur's seat, so i hiked up it on account of i thought i oughtta. it was an unusually sunny day and not as cold as it would be later in the week. i wore terrible shoes for hiking; kids, don't plan an extended trip to edinburgh wearing vans slip-ons. nevertheless, i put my face against the wind and climbed that fucker.

the views on the ascent were incredible. being a dump who smokes, i had to stop a time or two to catch my breath, which was fine because everything was gorgeous on the way up. and once you got to the top, yr payoff was gale-force winds taking yr breath away, a beautiful (my camera doesn't do it very much justice) panoramic view of edinbugh and the firth of forth, and tourists asking you, the solitary girl with an ipod and a camera and an unassuming face, to take pictures for them. seriously, the wind was so intense, and i love it when you have to be conscious about breathing, especially when the air is so cold and cutting.

i came down exhilerated and with very chapped lips. i decided to go exploring the strange city, so i picked a street and went straight on it until i felt like turning, then got lost on purpose and tried to find my way back. it was pretty easy (i just looked for arthurs seat; you can pretty much see that and/or the castle from anywhere in town), although i learned that you can't really rely on street names to help much since those change about every block. i fell in love with the city pretty quickly. i love it's walkability; i had my ipod on and fed everything important directly to my ears and eyes, walking up and down streets and taking everything in. the architecture is gorgeous, and in places it's such an urban pastiche. there's kebab shops on fucking every street, and pubs on every other. there's fliers pasted everywhere and vomit on the streets sometimes. i saw a man in a leopard print dress walking down the street shouting, and i saw an english dandy in a 3 piece suit and an ascot on a bicycle with his umbrella and briefcase strapped to the back. i saw grizzly scottish construction workers in their truck singing along to bohemian rhapsody. tom called it a very 3 dimensional city, and i have to agree. the streets wind around each other, up and down hills and over bridges, and it's really interesting to see it all relate once you know where yr going and where you've been.

i think that night we just smoked some pot with his friends and went to sleep early. oh, right, we got pizza, and on our way to get it we ran into a scottish friend of his who told him to "take her to domino's, man. treat her right." fucking mint.

(more to come. digest this for a few days.)

shotgunwedding jumps the pond

2006-03-02T00:34:00.000-05:00

in a little more than 48 hours, i'll be with feet planted in the united kingdom, immersed in new european things and attractive accents and a projected average temperature of 40 degrees (i don't know what that is in celcius; perhaps i should brush up on metric conversion real quick). i can't wait to get my dirty american hands in everything scottish.

i've been trying to go back to the uk since 1992. so hot fucking damn. hey edinburgh, i'll see you on saturday morning. i hope yr as stoked for me as i am for you. and i'll see you again in 10 days, virginia. i'll bring back stories and plaid.

always wear a helmet

2006-02-21T20:11:00.000-05:00

so today, my life takes another unexpected turn towards the tragic.

me and blade were riding home from school today, as we tend to do on days, and as we come down the hill by seacobeck i see this dog running in my path, chasing a squirrel. i'm going too fast to stop and the dog is obviously on a mission; it was one of those accidents that everyone could see coming but no one can stop.

so i hit the dog.

she yelps, and i go ass-over-elbow off blade's handebars and crack my head open on the pavement, breaking the hell out of my glasses (and anyone who knows me knows how scared i am of breaking my glasses). i sit up and there's blood everywhere and it's pouring down my face and pooling on the ground. i'm terrified and shaken and don't know what to do. fortunately, kids at this school are really nice and some really great girl held my scarf on my head to stop the fountain of blood. my white scarf is pretty much ruined, but will make the greatest prop ever at my zombie theme party.

i shouldn't have spoken so soon 2 posts ago about not being the one in the back of the ambulance. i climbed aboard again today for round 3. different EMTs this time, but no less of an abysmal ER experience.

after they cleaned the blood off my face (which i really wish i'd seen; i bet i looked like death) and left me alone, i stopped being hard and started crying for my mom, and then anyone. i couldn't see on account of no glasses and my head was pounding and i had blood caked in my hair and the television was stuck on the home shopping network and my nurse was cranky and i really wish someone had been there with me.

i have a headache, but i'm fine. and so is the dog. and i'm getting a new pair of glasses out of it. and i'm a badass killer who left a pool of blood outside seacobeck.

tits!

2006-02-19T09:54:00.000-05:00

i woke up this morning fully dressed with a raging hangover. upon undressing, i remembered i had a rack full of autographs.

drunk kids, sharpies, and boobs. everyone's a rockstar.
i fucking love college.

dramatic pause

2006-02-17T02:36:00.000-05:00

riding my bike home from last call at j. brian's, i saw a kid fall off his bike and topple 8 or 10 ft from his path on a hill above the road, falling headfirst onto the asphalt. coincidence, and the fact that it was 2 am, made me the only witness. the kid was unconscious, and i had to call an ambulance.

first of all: pretty good that i wasn't the one in the back of the ambulance for a change. although, i did see the same EMT who saw me naked the first time and couldn't find a vein to give me morphine the second.

second: secretly, i was terrified. i'd never seen someone breathe like that. everything in the world slowed down while my drunkish brains churned the notion that i was the one who had to do something. and maybe i saved this kid's life a little.

third: today has been the strangest, most bi-polar rollercoaster of a day.

to my love for valentine's day.

2006-02-13T13:49:00.000-05:00

when i let you go months ago, my heart sank. it was hard to adjust to life without you. i felt like we'd just been introduced and all of a sudden we'd be apart for so long. sleeping was hard, and i dreamed about you often.

there had been others--only one that mattered--but none like you. you challenged me more and took me farther than i ever anticipated. when no one else listened or cared, there was always you. you and me and our favorite music at nighttime; we didn't need words. i held you tight and that was all you wanted. i'd ride you until i couldn't move or breathe, and then we'd go again. fast or slow, we were always amazing together, although you know i always liked it better faster.

it's so good to be back on top again.

i love you, spalding blade.

=
2gether 4ever
(now i got 2 arms for holding you, baby)

a timely farewell to january

2006-01-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

you have, habitually, been the worst month. you have, habitually, decided to take everything that makes sense to me and rip it away. always, you take the things that make so much sense to me that i don't even consider life without them until you fuck them up, like the collected demeanor of my mother or the invaluable trust of my best friend or the range of motion in my dominant arm or the casual stability of having someone i think gets what i'm about or my perception of myself. don't think you can win me over with yr exceptional weather, either. i'm done with you, january.

i'm anxious for february. last year, it was pleasantly peculiar. i want it again this year. i want to have no expectations and have them surpassed times 10. but i guess that won't work; wanting to have no expectations is inherently an expectation i suppose. so i guess this is when i stop thinking and amplify the drinking and hope that i wake up with everything in order. by the summer, i'd like to do the same thing i did last year; i want to take stock of everything in my life and smile because i'm fucking happy. i want to be a college graduate with shit moderately figured out.

then, i'd like to write a post where i'm not cranky.

i quit.

2006-01-19T19:59:00.000-05:00

sometimes when it rains, it pours, and you can't even hold an umbrella with yr right hand.

i'm so tired. being positive can eat a dick.

hot sex on heels

2006-01-14T14:26:00.000-05:00

my feet stick to the kitchen floor, i'm dizzy, and i'm still wearing pajama pants at 2:30 pm. yep, post-stafford ave-party day. welcome back to school, motherfuckers, where this bitch will go drink for drink and mix it with painkillers. WHAT! how you gonna act?

(o jesus)

i don't feel like myself these days. it's been almost a month since my surgery and i know i should really be able to get over the wedge and the soreness and the fuzzy drug-brains and i'm trying but i still feel tilted and off-balance. physical ailments wreck mental perceptions, i'm convinced. but last night was nice and normal, with the faces that keep me steadied and the booze that keeps me social. i put on a hot outfit and high heels and earrings and almost forgot all about the wedge. it felt less like an unsightly tumor and more like a slightly awkward accessory.

so back to school, back to normal. beer pong until 4 am, cans and cups in the living room, hot pockets in the freezer, and some new pens. pretty good.

i write poetry with one hand medically stabilized.

2006-01-11T02:20:00.000-05:00

When I Started Sleeping On My Left Side

Crushed sentiments and inhibitions
like cans in the sink, I took down my hair
in the dark and laid my glasses beside
your anonymous bed. I woke up addicted
to cigarettes again and left to breathe
in the cusp of spring.

I nursed an excited knot of butterflies
that still stirs at smiles from the other
side of the pillow and bicycle tires
in the gravel of my driveway.

[i guess you know that this is for you. so now someone's written about you. welcome to literary immortality, champ.]

shotgunwedding secretly shows emotion

2006-01-03T01:30:00.000-05:00

i know i can do this. i've pulled through worse bullshit than this and always emerged better for it.

so maybe i fell in love. maybe i think he's wonderful.
now i just need to be able to love him enough to let go.

jesus. really didn't see this coming out of that drunken night last february.

approximately 10 words/min

2005-12-28T00:39:00.000-05:00

i really want to break in my new blog with a substantial post. i've tried a couple of times. but one-handed left-handed typing sucks real hard. one-handed left-handed everything sucks hard. i hate focusing exclusively on the unpleasantness of my convalescence period, but it's exceptionally frustrating when getting dressed is the biggest challenge of the day with going to the bathroom following close on its heels.

all this unproductive sitting gives me lots of time for thinkin' big thoughts. dammit, my creativity demands two hands!

a cautious restep

2005-12-25T13:22:00.000-05:00

merry christmas, y'all.

pumped full of painkillers and with one functional arm (regrettably, my left), i'm comin' atcha real slow, blogspot. maybe i got bored with livejournal. let's see what happens.