talk - action = shit

"i honestly don't know what would happen to him if he were successful and stopped having things to battle against."

i just watched this great documentary, dig, on hulu (you can watch it here if you are interested) about the dandy warhols and the brian jonestown massacre. these two bands started out as friends, ended up as enemies. the dandy warhols ultimately succeeded, but the brian jonestown massacre has constantly been falling apart because of the singer, anton, and his self-destructive nature. anton is so crazy, it makes parts of the film really hard to swallow...but the reality of it all is mind boggling. it is really easy for us, the listeners, to assume that everything is this perfect ideal behind the scenes with musicians...or to assume that maybe people writing revolutionary music are doing mind-opening drugs from time to time (maybe even habitually)...but to see them strung out, kicking audience members in the head and burning every bridge they ever are able to construct...it is really hard to take. does writing a good album or building up your own ego ever compensate for not being able to see your own son?

it is also interesting to see how chance and fortune brought two bands together and through a few simple choices, led them down two very different paths. what role do we really play in our own lives?


any one with potential can identify with anton, and i think that is what is so powerful about this documentary - it is a lesson in unfulfilled potential. what could we really be if we weren't holding ourselves back?

on interconnectedness

i'm in the midst of writing my roman legacy paper, well past due, and i shouldn't be writing anything except stitching together my sources (especially considering it is 2:25)...but here i am. my mind needs a break from discussing the characterization of janus and how his multiple and evolving iterations can analogously be applied to roman character and even to the christian trinity. my brain may melt out my ears if i go at this too long...or else my paper will sound like absolute rubbish - it is a give and take, i suppose.

i was facebook-surfing/stalking/what have you and i guess my thoughts are fixed into a certain analytical mindset currently. it is really interesting to see how you can boil down the characterization (en! there is that word characterization again. and yes, i just used a latin exclamatory in colloquial "discussion"...so sue me) of an individual or a group of friends by their facebook pages. i was reading a note a certain individual from my past had tagged a mutual friend in (on a creepy note, i am not facebook friends with this person from my past, yet if he tags one of our mutual friends in a note i suddenly have access to all of his notes and all of the ones he has been tagged in) and saw a familiar list of his friends and some of his new ones from school. and what did they all have in common? all of this pictures that appeal to their "spiritual" lifestyle and don't conform to the typical, egocentric composition of the typical default picture. inadvertantly, however, they are conforming by not conforming and you can instantly see why these new individuals are becoming a part of the circle - because they all cherish the same ideals!

it is as easy as that! in a few brief moments i was able to generalize that these individuals will have the exact same underlying philosophical views and lifestyle or perspective as the rest of the individuals in this group - it is their common thread, all unraveled through a simple glance at thumbnails next to a note on facebook that i shouldn't be able to read in the first place. the speed with which technology allows us to further our understanding, overgeneralize individuals or concepts, and even speculate on the interconnectedness of separate entities, whether those entities are individuals or even ideas, is mind-boggling.

03.04.2009

driving back from umphrey's mcgee was beyond surreal. chris was an asshole, mitch was nicer than i expected, but you could feel the tension with the inhalation of every bated breath. the show went on forever, and it would have been fun if i weren't calculating every tap of my foot, every sway from left to right knowing he was right behind me. it didnt help that of my two allies in the situation, the ones who were encouraging me to come, were too busy not speaking to one another to acknowledge my existence. i wish the set hadn't been as long, or i had known more of the material, or i had been able to keep the right state of mind for the duration. production wise, it was fantastic - good mix, good sound, fantastic lighting. i wish i had my real camera and knowing how awful the photos my meager little point and shoot would have yielded in comparison was enough to stop me from taking any shots. i regret it a bit now, but oh well.

we had been planning on staying in birmingham, but i had to get back for class and sam and i didn't really see the need to perpetuate the awkwardness. the ride back was long, awful, and then it was over before you knew it. sam drove the first half, and somehow i roused myself enough to finish the second leg. i drifted off during sam's shift listening to the vines - for some reason i never quite give their music the attention it deserves. then we busted out fall out boy, like we do. favorite fall out boy song?

hands down, the patron saint of liars and fakes. sam doesn't really know take this to your grave as well as i do, so we just listened to my favorite tracks. it was oddly ironic to hone in on this track in a swift overview of the album. in my mind, the perspective between myself "singing" the song to someone, and then having someone sing it to me kind of shifts, but it is all horribly fitting, even back then.

I'm holding out and I'm holding on to every letter and every song. I pulled myself out of the day we ever had to meet.
Are you through with me?

So..

And when it all goes to hell,
will you be able to tell
me you're sorry with a straight face.
I'm all ears and I'm all scars
to hear you tell me "Boy's like you, you try too hard
to look not quite as desperate". I'm hanging on.
But I still know the way to make your makeup run.

So..

And when it all goes to hell,
will you be able to tell
me you're sorry with a straight face.
And when it all goes to hell, (Take this to your grave) will you be able to tell me you're sorry with a straight face. (I'll take it to mine)

And when it all goes to hell
And when it all goes.

then we went to infinity on high, thinking that i really didn't know it. i haven't listened to it since it came out, really, but i still know almost every word to every song. it is an album i don't really appreciate, but it has stuck with me for a reason. it's been a while since i've overviewed an entire album, but here we go.

I found the safest place to keep all our old mistakes
Every dot com's refreshing for a journal update
So long live the car crash hearts
Cry on the couch all the poets come to life - fix me in 45
. . . The only thing I haven't done yet is die
And it's me and my plus one at the afterlife
Crowds are won and lost and won again
But our hearts beat for the diehards

Baby, seasons change but people don't.
And I'll always be waiting in the back room.
I'm boring but overcompensate with
Headlines and flash, flash, flash photography.
But don't pretend you ever forgot about me.
. . .They say your head can be a prison.
Then these are just conjugal visits.
. . .We do it in the dark with smiles on our faces.
We're dropped and well concealed in secret places, woah.

And the lies I weave are oh so intricate,
Oh so intricate
I wrote the gospel on giving up
(You look pretty sinking)
. . .Sing, until your lungs give out

Last year's wishes
Are this year's apologies
Every last time I come home
I take my last chance
. . .We're the new face of failure
Prettier and younger but not any better off
Bullet proof loneliness
At best, at best
. . .The best way
To make it through
With hearts and wrists intact
Is to realize
Two out of three ain't bad

It's all a game of this or that, now versus then
better off against worse for wear
And you’re someone who knows someone who knows someone I once knew
And I just want to be a part of this
You are the dreamer and we are the dream.
I could write it better than you ever felt it.
So hum hallelujah,
Just off the key of reason
I thought I loved you
It was just how you looked in the light.
A teenage vow in a parking lot
"Till tonight do us part"
I sing the blues and swallow them too
Sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills.
I could write it better than you ever felt it.

And I want these words to make things right
But it's the wrongs that make the words come to life
. . .One night, yeah, and one more time
Thanks for the memories. . .
Been looking forward to the future
But my eyesight is going bad
And this crystal ball it's always cloudy except for
When you look into the past

A penny for your thoughts but a dollar for your insides
Or a fortune for your disaster
I'm just a painter and I'm drawing a blank
Broken down on memory lane
Alone together, we're alone

I'm a stitch away from making it
And a scar away from falling apart

Of sinking with the melody of the cliffs of eternity
Got postcards from my former selves saying: "How've you been?"
We might've said goodbyes just a little soon

Come hell or high water
Well I'm feeling hot and wet
I can't commit to a thing
Be it heart or hospital
. . .i’m addicted to the way I feel when I think of you, woah
"There's too much green to feel blue"
. . .Signing off "I’m alright in bed but I’m better with a pen"

The truth hurts worse than anything I could bring myself to do to you
This way so many times
I could close my eyes

there is this insistence of brevity and alll these time implications, as well as social and emotional ramifications. . .pete still has it sometimes, i have to admit.

sam insisted that i use cruise control while i was driving. i don't like using cruise control. i like being in control, and even that tiny little conceit, letting the engine run for itself...it is too much. every time i get into a routine, i find myself careening forward unknowingly, never quite aware of when i need to slow down, and not having that edge over when i will slowly inch forard or back in progress.

there is a storm coming in, and the road has been windy all night. when we get into the greater jackson area, the commercial neon lights served as the perfect foreground to a perfectly contrasting sky. all these layers of blacks and grays were painted onto the backdrop, looking more painterly and formed into the sky, it was hard to believe that they were moving at the same speed as us, in the same realm. all of the black added depth to the anxiety i feel in this city, yet its awe is hard to ignore, regardless.

'cause you are not alive when i need you

dirt in the ground is what i need
i got another one to tell you
and another one to make you believe
pity in the grass tried to be
the one you needed when i told you
that you wanted something bigger than me

i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay
isaid that i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay

'cause you are not alive
when i need you
ineed it quickly
in case you never know

i can't play where i'm not supposed to anyway

dirt in the ground is what I see
i need another reason why
i need another reason, tell me to breathe
the dirtier the sound, the best I breathe
I tried to do it all for you
it didn't do anything for me

i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay
isaid that i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay

and you and i will find
that when i need you
i need it quickly
in fact, you'll never know

i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay
isaid that i've got friends in all the right places
i know what they want
and i know they don't want me to stay

but do i have friends when i need them, or here with me? that is really the problem. be here now...right?

Manchester Orchestra - "I've Got Friends"


this whole album leaked last week, and it was the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. i love it and i wish i had time to sit down with this record and enjoy its company the way that i should. maybe this weekend - i'll be spending easter all alone, so why not?

a beginning

so, i have to start writing this before my memory fades. when i get too caught up in a moment, i have a hard time recording it. this blog was meant for me to catalog and admit my faults, my feats, my successes...but if i skim over the high and low points, i am not really succeeding.

i tried to start 2009 off better than 2008. there were way too many horrible things weighing on my chest that i really had to step away. writing them down is very cathartic, or at least trying to come to terms with them. i realized that the greatest fault was my own, and that letting this anxiety build was only compounding itself further and further.

right now, my life lacks continuity. i'm too afraid, or too disinterested, to really follow through with anything. i have options, i always do...but i don't feel like my life affords me the same opportunities. it is speckled with all of these strange, absurd, surreal experiences, but nothing that really makes it cohesive. it is this lack of continuity...this absence of cohesiveness...that really causes me to sink further. i want something to hold it together - im too scattered to ever do it myself - and i want a companion or a purpose to push me from one moment into the next. thats all i need...a companion. there are all these arcane, useless expectations on relationships and i really don't want or need any of them. all i want is someone i am interested in, who is equally interested in me - not more or less so- who can be there by my side. that can experience things with me and understand the beauty i see in certain moments, whether or not they find them to be as beautiful.

this understanding of transience is so important to me...and i know there are other people out there who agree - i have met them. now all i need is for one of them to be on a journey (which they tend to be on, which i consider myself to be on) that can coincide with my own, or one that wont lead them away from me. ive tried to establish a relationship with people i wasnt invested in...and it just doesnt work. it is so ironic that nick just called me in the middle of typing this out...your intentions are great, but i just don't like you the same way you like me. i can't like you that way...you could never fill this role for me. tom, on the other hand, would be a perfect companion, but he is somewhere near tulum today, and who knows where he will be tomorrow, a week, a month, a year. it is great that he doesnt have to worry about that kind of thing, and i wish i had that kind of carelessness....but i don't. i need some kind of underlying structure to my madness, or else it all falls apart in vain.

i was walking back from lunch and i ran into phoebe. we talked about mgmt, bonnaroo, memphis in may, the avett brothers at sxsw...the typical musical common ground we share. it is so silly (and now this sounds vain for me to relay what she said...but it is important to the story) but she said that she was "jealous of me" and that i had such a "cool life." far from it. my response is always something like "i wouldn't wish my life on anyone..." but people don't understand. yes, i saw the avett brothers...but i stood alone by myself, waiting for their set...building up the nerve to even get out of bed and face the day myself. yes, i talk to andrew. but that doesn't mean he can ever be a shoulder for me to cry on. yes, i am going to bonnaroo with my best friend, but that means that i will have to spend countless nights at work, anxious as hell about how customers and my coworkers will view me. yes, i know of people who work at memphis in may and who organize it...but no, that doesn't mean that i would ever want to be in their shoes or even want to talk to them right now, or establish those connections.

these stories or great, but they don't replace the fact that i live an empty life, mostly alone, horribly miserable. just because i enjoy these things for a moment or people envy the experience...that doesn't make it worthwhile. all i want is to not be alone, or to have someone to share this with. to sit on my bed next to me and watch tv with me while we read. someone that can span the distance between who i am and who i want to be...and be there with me. not permanently, not long term...but someone to be that for me.

---

it is storming outside now. all i want is to be in the arms of someone else at a moment like this.

---

updates on south by southwest, coming soon.

and in your eyes. . .

on recent habits

so, i haven't actually been writing a lot. apparently we are skipping forward an hour tonight (news to me until a couple of hours ago) so being proactive, i started the post before the l juchange. consequently, a blog that will take me about an hour to write, as long as the inspiration lasts that is, will show up two hours later.

work tonight. still just as nervous going in as before, and it haunted me all day.

i woke up, laid around for a bit, stalking tumblrs and flickrs (i guess all the cool sites leave out the -e in the -er(s) endings) and watched the neverending story, or a lot of it, online. i hate fake or dead links, but ultimately i got around to a functioning site. i really want to see good will hunting and xanadu in the near future. maybe i should start a netflix account.

i finally finished eggers, so now on to some c.s. lewis and maybe some albee - i'm not sure if i'm up for that though. i need something uplifting, not horribly depressing exploration of human nature at the moment. it is bad enough exploring the inside of my thoughts.

ray came into work last night. i didn't see him, and then i saw him left and right. that, plus webb, is too much. i have to quit. i can't work there anymore. it isn't a matter of failing, but a matter of my sanity. i am still failing, and it will seem that way to everyone, but i'm quitting before i go crazy. i can't knowingly bring more panic attacks into my daily life. andrew is really cool about everything, but he really tries so hard to keep me around. i just don't think i can do it.

on loving maggie

in opposition to my own

47::365, originally uploaded by {machel spence}.

in opposition to in bloom. falling, detached, separated.

on tattoos

wallscavedinonme: okay, so here goes nothing

wallscavedinonme: my first tattoo was five black stars on my hip

wallscavedinonme: just outlines

wallscavedinonme: perfectly symmetrical

wallscavedinonme: i had always had a fascination with stars

wallscavedinonme: you know...attainment, perfection, transience, adoration

wallscavedinonme: and then i got more stars, still just outlines, added up to my side (still just on the front, they didn't wrap around yet)

wallscavedinonme: my artist drew up a bunch of designs

wallscavedinonme: and basically, they become less perfect, more assymetrical, more randomly spaced, more spread out and less patterned

wallscavedinonme: then, i continued them around my ribs and onto my back, with the same thought

wallscavedinonme: even more random spacing, etc.

wallscavedinonme: basically, my stars mirror entropy

wallscavedinonme: you know...the whole world favoring chaos

wallscavedinonme: unless you work for order

wallscavedinonme: and ironically, when i got the first five, the perfect ones, was when i was on top of the world - just out of school, spending a summer going to shows, not a care in the world...or at least ones that i could put aside without much heartache

wallscavedinonme: then, the next two sessions were spread out over about six months between each

wallscavedinonme: and the chaos had grown in my life, and so did my tattoos

wallscavedinonme: and the way i depicted my view of the world and the universe on my body

weseenoshadows: That's so amazing

weseenoshadows: You're so poetic about this

weseenoshadows: And so sure of it

weseenoshadows: And I think that's kind of amazing

wallscavedinonme: i mean, it is a rule in chemistry

wallscavedinonme: the universe favors chaos

wallscavedinonme: it is an established fact

wallscavedinonme: the 'dirty room effect'

weseenoshadows: oh I know

weseenoshadows: but just that you thought of it

weseenoshadows: it would never have crossed my mind

wallscavedinonme: unless you fight to stay organized, your room will inherently become more disordered over time. that is applicable in all of life

weseenoshadows: That's so fantastic that it showcased itself on your body though

weseenoshadows: Most people, I think, would fight for order there too

weseenoshadows: Instead of just giving in to the natural effect

wallscavedinonme: but what is the beauty in perfection?

wallscavedinonme: why would i want stars all the same size, same design on my body?

wallscavedinonme: even looking at the sky, you know that isn't how it is

weseenoshadows: well, exactly

weseenoshadows: But that wouldn't occur to most people

weseenoshadows: People are generally fighting to obtain perfection

weseenoshadows: Without seeing the fact that perfection is impossible

weseenoshadows: And that nothing in the world is perfect, so nothing perfect is beautiful

wallscavedinonme: exactly

wallscavedinonme: i'm so glad you see that....

wallscavedinonme: i have tried to explain my reasoning to other people

wallscavedinonme: and they have just laughed it off

wallscavedinonme: saying i was trying to impose some greater idea onto a simple bit of ink

wallscavedinonme: but really, it is so so so much more than that

weseenoshadows: You wouldn't have gotten it done if it was just to have a bunch of stars

weseenoshadows: every one collaborates to mean something

weseenoshadows: It's the same as if you ask someone what they love about someone... they are going to say the little quirks along with the "perfect qualities", and it's the quirks that really mean something.

wallscavedinonme: yup

weseenoshadows: I'm tired and am not articulating well, but I mean that people don't fall in love with perfection, they fall in love with unique imperfections

wallscavedinonme: exactly

wallscavedinonme: and the imperfections that you share

wallscavedinonme: that is what makes love go round

in bloom.

an afternoon of tranquility

somehow greek doesn't seem as daunting when completed in this environment. the sun was out a good bit of the day, it was warm yet windy, and the flowers started blooming this morning. i gauge the time of year, and my hope, on this one tree in the bowl. right as you walk past sullivan harrell, coming out of the caf, there is one tree right off the sidewalk. when it blooms, it is time for change. today was the day.

sleep, i need it so bad

i can't sleep. i just finished the devil wears prada, which was a nice, fun book to read. sometimes it is nice to enjoy a book that basically reads itself. nothing insightful to pull from it, but hey - maybe that is for the best.

so, i just burned through the last fifty pages despite telling chris i was going to sleep, and now i am stuck with nothing to do. no excuse for me to put up blogging, i suppose. the rain is still falling outside, not in a steady downpour or a light trickle, but a deliberately intermittent pattern against my window. it will fall silent for a moment, only to come back again just at the moment i thought it was gone. i like the consistency of rain fall, the cleansing, but for some reason it is coming in waves tonight. maybe it is fitting, since my happiness and despair are ebbing in equal waves tonight.

today was completely free, with the exception of a doctor's appointment this morning. nothing too serious, and i cancelled my echo i was supposed to have tomorrow despite my doctor's plea. i think it is unneccesary, and anything that it would reveal would simply be a deep-rooted, untreatable or horribly pessimistic illness if it were anything at all. i'll come back when there is more proof or something more substantial to believe...maybe things are fine, but, if they aren't i would just rather not know.

i feel really distant. on days like today, with no structure, i feel myself slipping further into my own mind which creates one of two opposing, all-encompassing feelings - either a completely euphoric sense of happiness and being, or a blindingly, sick-to-my-stomach fear or despair. today, it is both. my happiness is lined with defeat and failure and a bit of disappointment, but my utter unhappiness is lined with a sense of hope. they can't quite exist in equilibrium because the pull is to strong from either pole, but hopefully i will find that center soon enough.

i think i'm going to try and start another book. maybe that will help prevent my mind from racing.

we are opening ourselves to what is

may their joy touch all beings

i've told myself that as my spiritual life deepened, drinking and drugs wouldn't be a problem anymore.

i kept telling myself i was going to get it together in my own way, that some magical event like rock stardom or enlightenment would save me. of course, it didn't.

until we explore the difficult side of our nature, our spiritual work will always lack depth and integrity.

over my life, there have been far too many mornings filled with remorse and no memory.

my spiritual life never became fully integrated; it remained only a sort of pleasant compartment in my life.

transcending - that's what i wanted to do with life; get over, get out, avoid. . .in other words, i wanted magic.

the buddha was emphatic on the point that we are responsible moment to moment for our words and actions, not just victims of destiny or hidden forces; we have an element of free will.

he realized clear understanding and acceptance was the key to letting go of that suffering.

if the external world wasn't going to be perfect, maybe he could find perfection in the inner world. . .perhaps then you can begin to forgive yourself and your failures.

but the buddha saw that even in our moments of triumph and joy there remains a grasping toward more. my favorite example of this is the traditional commercial at the end of the super bowl, where the newly chosedn mvp is asked, " what are you going to do now?" and this man, who has just reached the pinnacle of his profession, turns to the camera and says, "i'm going to disneyland." for me, this sums up dukkha: you've got it all but you want more, and since you've got everything possible in the real world, the only place left to go is to a fantasty world, a place where dreams are made.

if you stop chasing after the things you want, you will find the thing you want. . .what causes our suffering isn't a lack of material things or emotional experiences, but rather the craving, the desire itself, the energy that keeps driving us to engage in the chase.

each moment is completely unique, completely unpredictable. who knows what the next breath, the next sound, the next thought will bring?

instead of being present for life's challenges, i had done a shadow dance with reality, never really moving forward. when i went on the road, i had an alternative escape - a geographic escape

it was clear that i could try to get into college, but i couldn't control the results of that, and seeing that did bring serenity.

dukkha is the aspect of life that keeps us restlessly searching for comfort.

i am just made up of thse ever-changing processes.

a critical point, since we are often drawn to ideas that fit with our own preferences, whether accurate or not.

i felt oddly disconnected, as though i were watching a movie with a blaring soundtrack

intention acts as the driving force behind our spiritual growth, a constant reminder of what to let go of and where to point our minds.

it means striving for perfection of heart and mind while bowing to the truth of who we are, with all our imperfections and failings.

i was 'turning my will and my lfie over' in a new way

with too much wisdom, the hindrance of doubt comes to dominate the mind

to pretend that our existence doesn't affect others is to deny karma, to deny that every action has a reaction, to pretend that cause and effect aren't constantly in play. this careful parsing of our past forces us to become more cognizant of karma. . .when we see our destructive patterns of thought, speech, and behavior, we begin to change, to unravel thse habits, to act in ways that won't require more inventory writing.

during those years it seemd that he'd largely given up on lie, withdrawing into depression and isolation.

form is emptiness, emptiness is form. you could also say, ' form is form, and emptiness ie emptiness,' meaning tha teverything has its reality, however transitory. form must be respected.

with meditation we seek a balance of energy

when we repress disturbing thoughts, sometimes the mind becomes sluggish, trying to drain us of the ability to look clearly at what's happening because it's painful. keeping the attention on the sluggishness may allow the difficult thought to come through and be processed.

whether a monk or a layperson, we all live in bodies, we all have minds and hearts that hunger for contact, for purpose, for meaning. if we take away one thing, another craving arises in its place. our practice is to keep seeking after balance.

it's helpful to notice when you are using something to numb yourself from life. this, in fact, takes us back to the first precept, of not killing. when we numb ourselves we are cutting ourselves off from life itself, a not-so-subtle form of killing ourselves.

it's amazing how a small moment of kindness can reverberate.

if you don't notice moods, they can lurk in the back of the mind and control the tone of thoughts.

your failings are common. your hame, unnecessary.

i felt like i was pushing against something heavy, barely movable.

with nothing to hide, i could share without trepidation. . .and this acceptance from others grew into self-acceptance.

and with this easing of attachent, new possibilities began to arise.

quick wit, penetrating intelligence.

the layers of self-deception are manifold.

central difference in orientation

no one's that nice, and if they try to be they are paving over their emotional truth, creating a false veneer that will eventually cause them and others suffering. . .if we are'nt willing to speak honestly, to speak our joy and our sorrow, we stunt our emotional and spiritual lives and leave ourselves isolated in a cocoon of false niceness.

why do i get so lost, and how can i find my way back?

however, if there isn't sufficient strength of mind - of mindfulness and concentration - this pradtice can backfie in the way brad was describing: every time you try to bring in an element of metta, the fierce, destructive aspects of mind throw back more venom, and instead of reducing the strength of negative thoughts, you actually increase them as they feed of the weak efforts at positivity

kornfield suggests making a top ten list of such thoughts a a way of beginning to come to grips with these demons.

whatever is happening in our lives will reverberae when we sit down to practice.

this judging is not only painful and unproductive, but is, in fact, another trick of the mind to keep us from being present with what is.

'no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. we are not saints. the point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.'

i can begin to deconstruct the elements of this solid identity, at the same time, breaking apart the solid opinions i have about myself.

this was a particularly powerful strain of denial.

for months i swung on this pendulum from drunken dleusion to dperessive self-hatred, never reaching a middle ground from which i might address the truth of what was happening.

if i can stop at the visceral level, without labeling or analyzing, the feeling can just be there. there's no need to do anything about it, to solve it or cure it.

setting off an addictive pattern of craving, bingeing ,and eventual revulsion

we don't move toward or away from them [our emotions]; we just let them be.

there is a continuous process of letting go.

the stress and anxiety of the musician's life had been miserable, and only now, working this generic, uncool office job, did i see how painful it had been. i felt a great sense of freedom and comfort in being an office worker.

any time we try to nail down who we are, we miss something. we are a process; we are possibilities; and we constantly change

we don't let go because there is some rule or commandment that says we must; we let go because we see how our clinging is causing us pain.

it's a completely new life, one that can't be imagined until you are there. and it is both appealing and frightening.

we see that we don't have to suffer through eternal emptiness. . .we learn to stop looking outside ourselves for happiness, for affirmation, for comfort. as we reach out for thse supports less, we begin to let go more.

i saw how difficult it is to be spiritually honest, to really shed my conditioned thoughts and actions and make decisions from a place of true freedom.
because of your perfectionism, you keep putting off doing anything, which leads to procrastination; after a while, you can't function: paralysis. the three p's. . .my ego didn't like it. i didn't want ot be humble. i wanted to be perfect. or at least close to perfect.

letting go of perfection may be one of the most difficult forms of surrender. my tendency was always to quit if i couldn't do something just the way i wanted.

i can start again, a fresh b reath, a fresh kindness, in this moment . . .when we come out of the dream, that's when we have the opportunity to begin again fresh.

the deepest veins of emotion start to reveal themselves in our heart.

when we spend years drinking and using, holding in our feelings, covering over our feelings, wreaking havoc in the lives of everyone we know, running, always running, never coming home to our true self, we bury some essential part of ourselves; we bury it alive.

this fundamenal insight is the basis for forgiveness: i am the one who suffers for my lack of forgiveness, and i am the one who benefits from my forgiveness. the buddhist teaching on equanimity says, ' all beings are the owners of their karma. their happiness and unhappiness depend on their actions, not on my wishes for them.'

the buddha said we could search the whole world and not find a person more deserving of love than ourselves. is it possible to see yourself in this way? as equally precious as anyone else on earth? seeing ourselves as worth of love can take some work.

what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

i wasn't to blame; it was the natural order of things. they would come back again when the conditions were right.

to me, my spiritual life is meant to be a support, not an intellectual exercise, so, ' god as i understand him; can, and should, be whatever i need it to be at any given time. i don't have to answer to some logic or some rule-making body, just respond to what my heart is calling for in this moment.

this, to me, is magical thinking - the idea that some special power is singling you out for special treatment.

beings are numberless, i vow to save them.

the mind state of clarity and alertness. there's a dynamic quality to this awakeness, being on the edge of what is happening right now, not lodged in a role or posture but paying sharp attention to everything as it unfolds, responding in the moment.

in a sense, we have abused ourselves, and in order to recover our hearts - our compassion, our conscience - we must continually show up for ourselves until we begin to heal.

i dedicate the merit of my work on this book to the awakening of all beings; may all beings be free from alcoholism and drug addiction and from the harm that addition causes; may all beings be happy joyous, and free from suffering.

the sun breaks

the sun breaks, originally uploaded by some idealistic future.

i falter as the music stops

originally started on november 6th. i didn't have the strength to get past the first three sentences.

nausea. nerves spreading from my heart down to very my fingertips. all it takes is a little reminder and i am over the edge. birthday, acquaintances, conversations on silly social networking forums. a certain song, the way the light hits my eyes or the hesitation of my heart as your name starts to form on my lips. thank god you were one in a million. i still see you in the passing crowds, hoping you will be there the next time i turn around. i gave you everything, you gave me everything. it was instant from the moment our eyes locked. understood. old souls crossing paths. synchronicity. i can try and blame it on a series of events that led me to that fateful day, but the fact that you were there, looking for change at the same instant i was looking for nothing, it means there is a greater underlying, undulating force bringing us to our next peak or trough. unfortunately our lives were out of phase with one another. one period of overlap, perfect resonance and overtones that still haunt me to this day. your love still rings in my ears barely buzzing behind the glass wall separating me from everything i really feel. mind and body irreconcilably disconnected, overlapping only in the eclipse of what i felt that day. right place, wrong time. no going back. you have no regrets, i have mine. yes, it was the closest i felt to be alive, to being human, to being normal. we seeped our love from every pore and it was undeniable. infectious. you were my heaven on earth. i was yours. minds following the same loops and twists through reason and irrationality, bringing us one step closer to that which we truly desire in the next life - because we had it here. intellectual to the point of challenging one another but not to the edge of pretense. i miss you. you still own my heart and soul. and my mind. my sanity. my peace and sanctity of reason. no matter the distance you put between us, you will always haunt my dreams. bodies in line with our minds. every touch as spiritual as the words that roll off our tongues. your warms eyes will always pierce the veil of security i try to envelop myself in. . .and i am forever exposed.

this is the last night in my body, yeah.

we built too many walls, yeah, we built too many walls

one hundred posts...i feel like i am obligated to make this extra special or something. i have become so inconsistent, with fluctuating periods of increased enthusiasm. i do not feel creative or particularly inspired, kind of being pulled down by the anticipation of what is coming next in my life. i am ready to turn the page, start anew. i love the sensation of writing in a journal or on a spiral for the first time - one more chance to start again.

how long will it take you to wake up?

. . .before you go will you wake me?
or i'll sleep all day
miss everything

i'm so bad at this updating thing now. i feel like my life is so busy and the only way to keep my sanity is to spend hours not doing anything, or filling my spare time with sleep instead of trying to document my rambling mind. kirt and i had our first real fight on monday, mostly because i was tired and had no way to call him or get in touch with him to let him know that i really just wanted to spend the day alone. everything ended up working out in the end, but it was upsetting to say the least.

all of my health stuff came through, once and for all monday morning. i am completely healthy. clean slate. start again. if i were atlas, i have finally shrugged off the weight i was forced to carry and i can finally breathe free again. all i wanted to do was sit in reverie, have coffee, watch the sun shine, feel unafraid to let people in - but to just be alone. and i couldn't have that, which led to my mini-meltdown. nothing that a few hours at a record store could not solve.

i don't remember what i did tuesday. wednesday, i worked from 5 to close, had coffee with jess, watched bones with my mom, ate some homemade chili, then headed to kasbah. i got there at 1130, had a beer, and then casey and thomas took me down to hole in the wall for my first legal drink. maya was pulling up as we were walking out, so she joined us. shots that were supposed to put hair on my chest, dos equis pitchers, and a song (aptly named grain alcohol. . .?) dedicated to me by the live jug band and i was drunk. i got a little ill and made kirt drive me back to his apartment - there was no way i was making it down the street, nonetheless back to cedar park.

woke up at 730, went back up to cedar park and tried to sleep for a little more than the three or four hours of drunk slumber i had from the night before. my mom got home at noon from work and took me to the olive garden for lunch. it is always a trip to go back there after working there as long as i did. soup, salad, and breadsticks galore, followed by a strawberry bellini. my mom is so absurd when it comes to alcohol. went and got my hair cut then waited a few minutes for chris to get home to do presents and cake. went and got coffee, then headed down to kirts to go to dinner. i was not hungry at all, however, so we just smoked some hookah at his place, then went to cuatros for drinks. longhorn iced tea, a hesitant sip of kirt's snakebite, a pitcher of woodchuck amber, and some mystery tequila shot from the bar, then over to kasbah. i sobered up and then went over to true blue for my tattoo a couple hours later.

i was also being a bit demanding, and forced kirt to play the beatles instead of country. i guess i was abusing my birthday privileges. i was at true blue for quite a bit, simply because i was not in a rush and neither was my artist. mike wasn't working, but jon reed did it for me. if i'm not lazy, i will take a picture of it tomorrow. short, simple, sweet - i love it. i can't wait to get my next piece done, i just haven't put the time into planning the exact execution of the design yet. went back to kasbah and nic, zoe, liz, kyle, austin, gary, and kadie were all there. it was cold as hell, so i kind of rotated groups, but i was so so tired, i went back to kirts place at around 1230. fell asleep around 1, and woke up at 2 to go back and pick him up. i felt great before i went to sleep, completely sobered up, and then when i woke up i felt like hell. i couldn't throw up, but i would have felt better if i could have and i could not go to sleep either - i was miserable and shaking. i guess that is what i get for a getting a tattoo on an empty stomach. ultimately, that is the only explanation that is in any way rational.

woke up at 1030 the next day, went home, read harry potter for a few hours, then went to work at 5, still not feeling great. i had a lot of fun working with kait and jess, and then we all headed to trudy's after work. we got there and there was a bit of a wait, so we just went to chili's for some girly drinks instead. it was better off that way after all, considering jess and i were with liz and kait who are both clearly under age. i just had a strawberry daquiri, then got suckered into this huge margarita that our cute waiter convinced me would be a good idea to have. way bigger in real life than it was in the picture - and i'm not one for tequila, particularly on the rocks. everything i drank, including some kick ass whiskey later that night still tasted of tequila. went up to kasbah and just chilled - it was super crowded because everyone and their mom decided to come into town.

i left at about half past one to drive home and get some rest before i had to open in the morning. there was stupid construction on the toll road that stopped traffic dead for twenty minutes (i was being paranoid and thought it was a road block for a little while) and finally i had to go five miles out of the way to get back to my house since they closed exits without any kind of notice.

work was kind of busy and went by pretty fast. ian brought me coffee, which pepped me up substantially, and i had a nice, hearty serving of breakfast pizza that morning (crescent roll crust, no sauce, eggs, sausage, and cheese for those of you not well-versed in the awesome buckler family tradition) and got my last, and best, present from my dad since he finally made it back down from dallas. i have my own gps now, which is the amazing - i get lost every where i go if i am going off memory or gut instinct. i'm so stoked about it :)

i came home from work and tried to dig through my winter clothes to find something acceptable to wear in this crazy, freakishly cold weather that has recently invaded central texas. took a shower, then went to outback with my family. ate way too much, like always, came home and took a forty five minute nap, then headed to kasbah to meet up with jamey and casey and head downtown. we ended up heading out around midnight after chilling and smoking for a while. again, it was packed with people and there wasn't anywhere to sit. i was definitely the odd one out - the only girl in a room of at least a dozen guys, and it wasn't much different when we headed out. we took two cars, listened to nofx as casey drove and i snooped through his cds - a favorite pastime of mine in anyone's car. we started off at maggie mae's which was pretty cool. i am definitely not into the bar scene by any means, so it was different but fun. thomas and everyone he was with took a bit longer to get there, so they played catch up and then we headed over to fuel.

fuel was an experience. i was a little tipsy by the time we got there, but the guys knew someone who works there from kasbah, who let us in and got us drinks. fuel is kind of a seedy, ghetto, predominantly hispanic hangout and what was playing when we walked in? lil wayne of course. everyone in this place would have fit in perfectly with the crowd at voodoo. i braved the bathroom, which was an experience, and then we headed to the blind pig. we only stayed for a little while, waited for everyone else to meet up with us, then headed to the aquarium to grab a drink before last call. i ran into alexis neal of all people there, which was a trip. we took a picture together, which hopefully will surface at some point.

i refused about half the beer and shots that i was offered during the night, did not pay for a thing, and was still sufficiently intoxicated. went back to kasbah, hung out for what little time was left before close and just acted a fool. i had some good conversation, though brief in most cases, with sam, michelle, and cody during the night which definitely brightened my day. definitely a great night all and all though - and way more fun than i expected my first downtown experience to be.

jamey and his roommate came back to kirts place afterwards, and we had a great time hanging out, listening to music, chatting, and drawing on the couch. they smoked, i didn't, and we had a good time all and all. really interesting conversation about religion and particularly about the finer points of synchronicity versus fate, which made me very happy. . i can't help but smile thinking about jamey following my train of though differentiating between the two. that conversation was in and of itself one of the greater moments where things just click, and it was a great way to pass the time. if you want to hear about this conversation, let me know and i will type up what i remember of it tomorrow - i think it is riveting stuff, but i am not going to spend the time if you aren't interested.

we ended the night with some quality eurovision videos, which was definitely a new experience for jamey, and then went to bed some time between 6 and 7 or so. we started napoleon dynamite, but i fell asleep almost instantly. i woke up at around 10 of my own accord and decided to leave shortly thereafter. i talked to arthur on msn most of the way home, which was especially not wise considering the fog *cough*reignofdementorsdescendinguponaustin*cough* that was hanging in the air, but i enjoyed it.

read a bit, watched tv, slept a tiny bit, then went to lunch at chili's near the outlet mall. i got very ill from the food i ate, and i think i must have been allergic to something in the food i had. went and saw twilight with my sister sarah, and then barely made it home without getting sick again. i spent the rest of the evening trying unsuccessfully to recover from my nausea, slipping in and out of awareness and falling asleep off and on. watched the two hour 24 event, had some pizza, read some more, and here i am. it is time for a shower though, so that's the end of the update for now.

all and all - amazing, amazing, amazing birthday weekend. every night has been phenomenal. i could only ask that i had been able to spend some of that time with my good friends who aren't here in austin. some other time though, soon hopefully. oh, and thank you to the three people who donated money to invisible children for my birthday - $63 just for putting a little application on my page - i highly recommend each of you do the same thing for your own respective birthdays :) good night, and peace.

heart is in the right place, brain is in the dirt.

austin city limits day two

so in my haste and uncertainty of meeting up with sarah on friday, i didn't really bring a whole lot of things with me for the weekend. i didn't really want to bring a huge bag of clothes and then just leave it in the car...so i brought the bare minimum when i headed down yesterday. i really regretted not bringing a swimsuit top to wear to beat the mid-afternoon heat, and i saw a ton of people with regular wristbands who brought their DSLRs, so i thought hell - i might as well drive back up to cedar park.

it kind of defeated the purpose of staying down with sarah, which was intended to prevent me from getting up early and going back and forth between north austin and downtown, but it wasn't that bad. i grabbed breakfast and then picked up a few things from my house. i also took another shower because i still felt really grimy. stopped by randalls, saw kevin, and then headed back downtown. my chest was so congested and i felt like my lungs were starving for air from all of the dirt inhalation.

so what other phenomena occured this weekend? ut game against arkansas that was rescheduled after gustav. so little did i know that i should have accounted for all of the extra traffic heading south...so my drive back too way longer than i expected. met up with sarah and jimmy, who only had a saturday pass, and got our things together to head out - late again.

we were hoping to see the fratellis, but again, we were just a bit too late. one of jimmy's friends works a couple of blocks away from zilker, so we had a special pass to park in their garage and got to bypass the whole shuttle/public transportation thing today. driving down to zilker, we could see this horrible haze hanging all around the city.

apparently, between the acl traffic and the ut traffic, the ozone level was bumped up to orange overnight. crazy. i felt like i was in birmingham, or sulphur, or some other industrial or perpetually hazy town. i can't imagine what the traffic would be like without public transportation. for all of you who do not believe in global warming, i don't have to believe one way or another to physically see the damage that one day of heavy transportation can do in a concentrated area - nonetheless over time.

apparently kaitlin got coffee before work and saw kevin, and gave me words of encouragement. despite forming my own opinions about kevin, it is nice for other people to see the nicer side of him. it is funny how my friends are becoming more supportive and i myself am finding a growing distance...i guess it happens.

when we got there, we stopped by the bar and the merch tent, where i got a sweet festival shirt. we caught the end of sharon jones and the dap-kings' set at amd waiting for css to perform over at at&t blue room. i got hassled a bit about my camera - the security guard even asked me if it was a removable lense, but i lied, said it wasn't, and she let me go with a suspicious look but without any further investigation. i was worried there for a bit.

css was really cool, but the singer felt the need to scream unnecessarily between songs and was wearing a very strange outfit. i would venture to say that she could only look up to flea for fashion advice. who else wears a spandex onesie with an over the top print?

robert earl keen was up next at amd, and sara caught up with sarah, jimmy, and myself. we smoked, got some food from the salt lick, and decided to head up for mgmt to actually be in the crowd. there were already a good deal of people camping out, so we tried to find zoe.

it was impossible to track down colin's blanket, however, so we just headed up into the front of the crowd instead. we sat for a bit, and who did i see? ryan hoff and sara of all people. since when does ryan listen to mgmt or come to acl? weird.

eventually, when we stood back up, sara started to feel ill. so, before the set even started, we headed back out of the crowd. we ended up in the back to the left. sara bummed a water bottle off some stranger, and after sitting down she started to feel better. turns out she was really dehydrated, hence the sudden change in her vision when she stood up, leading to the nausea and light-headedness. smoking probably did not help the cause, but not being hydrated was the big issue..

i was really frustrated...because i really, really wanted to be surrounded by people for mgmt, but we ended up next to a cool couple in the end and all was good. i got wayyyyy too carried away, and by the end of the set i was barely standing.

but, mgmt did not disappoint, and i was glad that i finally got the chance to see them live after missing them in memphis and at bonnaroo. sara ended up bailing at the end of their set. i can't imagine not sticking around all day...you miss so much! but she had to do what was best for her.

next, i headed over to iron and wine and caught the last couple of songs from conor oberst and the mystic valley band's set over at at&t. i will tell you what, when you are almost out of your mind, barely standing, and then have to walk all the way across the site to the other main stage...while dodging people left and right, some of whom are more messed up than you are...it is quite the experience. iron and wine was great and chill...exactly what i needed to finally come down.

love and some verses you hear
say what you can say
love to say this in your ear
i'll love you that way
from your changing contentments
what will you choose for to share?
someday drawing you different,
may i be weaved in your hair?

hundred years, hundred more
someday we may see
a woman king
wristwatch time
slowin' as she goes to sleep

wolves by the road
and a bike wheel spinning on a pawn shop wall
she’ll wring out her colored hair
like a butterfly beaten in a summer rainfall. .
she’ll wave to the butcher’s boy
with the parking lot music everybody believes
and then dive like a dying bird

got some more sweet tea and listened to the rest of the black keys while we walked back and found a spot for robert plant & alison krauss. unfortunately, the acoustics over on the amd stage were god awful. i don't know what the deal was, but you could barely hear a thing despite the crowd being unusually quiet. jimmy's theory was that the wind was messing with the equipment and the sound projection, but it was still a conundrum.

i finally felt back to normal and we were talking to kristi about when we wanted to head over to beck when it dawned on me....wait! i wonder if janet is here....janet is a tri delta alum that i worked with at jubilee jam last year and who worked with josh groban and beck on tour doing their books. i still had her number in my phone, so i sent her a text telling her i was thinking of her since i was about to catch beck's set. lo and behold...she was at acl too! apparently she was still on tour with beck, and she told me she would let me backstage if i got over there. at this point, i was still at amd so i booked it all the way to the far end of the site to at&t, through the thousands of people who were already waiting for beck, and met up with her stage left.

she took me backstage, hooked me up with an artist sticky, and i proceeded to trip and almost rip off my toenail on some mulch. smooth brandi, smooth. luckily, she tripped as well and suffered the same fate. she brought me up on stage and i stood at the sound board for a couple songs. i met her boy of the moment, whose name escapes me, and was completely blown away by the fact that i was maybe 15 feet from beck...on stage in fronts of tens of thousands of people. i wasn't even with the rest of the VIPs who forked out lord knows how much money to sit on stage - they were up on the balcony above the stage on either side. i was actually on stage, on the level with all the performers. mind blowing.

stretched to the limit attention spans
snap back retract collapse into laugh tracks
noise response applause and hand claps
floodgates open to the sound of the rainbow
breaking points on the verge of pointless
fools anointed to the followers fanfare
look for the common not superficial
code red cola war conformity crisis
perfunctory idols rewriting their bibles
with magic markers running out of their ink
lives in white out
turn the lights out
fax machine anthems get your damn hands up
hell yes I'm movin this way I'm doin this thing

then, we headed back to the bus to chat, and i watched the food network while she wrote out cards for band members and settled out the runner. and who did the runner work for? c3. guys, let me tell you. i have very limited, very minimal connections in the music industry. and c3...is a god among men of production companies. completely on a different level, something i could only aspire to acheive. never in a million years would i have imagined i would be able to mingle backstage at a c3 event. i was in shock to say the least.
backstage at honda civic tour or on the list at emo's is not nearly the same as being personally brought on stage at austin city limits.

went with janet to go drop off some pizzas (let's keep in mind that i'm wearing my grey and white h&m skirt, a black spaghetti strap shirt, a bright blue bikini top and some cheap black flip flops) and waited for janet outside the bus. and who was i standing next to, besides beck's band? oh, just conor oberst. holy. fucking. shit. i was completely mortified to be but two feet away from this man i adore...in a bikini top. also, understand that i was not privy to vip treatment all day or the luxuries of an air-conditioned, temperature-controlled tour bus all day like everyone else around me - i had be slumming it, if you will, all day with the masses...and here i was surrounded by a handful of famous people who have not. i was so embarassed.

my phone service was still really sporadic, so by the time i got all of the messages sarah and jimmy tried to send me, they were already gone. and so was my ride. so i had to go wait for an hour and a half in line to get a taxi back to sarah's apartment. i was surrounded by lots of entertaining drunk people, however, which kept things interesting...when the woman behind me wasn't puking. i also encountered the hispanic equivalent of tiffany grimes, except with the most annoying laugh i have ever heard....and she found everything a lot funnier than it really was. i was about to ask her to just keep her mouth shut for the last five minutes, i was that fed up.

finally got a taxi, and then the driver didn't know where he was going. thank god i was sober and knew the way well enough to be able to find it in a reasonable amount of time. eileen and sarah were still at the apartment getting ready to go out, so they let me in, thank goodness.

then, i got a call from kevin - they were down at kasbah, so i changed and headed back downtown. stayed there for an hour and a half or so, but it was pretty lame. a bunch of guys, who were all deadset on getting drunk and with no means to get any alcohol. as much fun as the sausage fest was, i ended up leaving, exhausted, around 2.

i was still on cloud nine on the way over to kasbah, but it was really such a dull night for all of them, it kinda brought me down. i also hate being around people who feel the need to get drunk. i mean, you will live another day without a drink, and young people really do not realize when their seemingly innocent habits really will lead them down a very precarious road...toeing the line with alcoholism. drinking does not make you cool, so interacting socially without alcohol should not feel like some kind of horrible substitute. and saturday night does not necessitate getting shit faced. drinking is fun, but it has it's time and place, and it is infuriating to see people who feel like it is the end of the world because they aren't going to drink on one particular night.

my computer is dead, pictures will be added to these posts when i can access them again.

and i hear him every night, in every pore

austin city limits day one.

i was so excited, i couldn't really go to sleep thursday night. i stayed up way too late doing everything but being productive. i woke up around 1030 and did not get out of bed until 11. i called sarah a million and a half times and she never answered. we were supposed to meet up for lunch, and considering that it takes about half an hour to get down to her apartment, i was worried that maybe she had already left. i went ahead and started to head down, taking my time in case i heard from her, but expecting to go by myself.

then, right as i'm pulling onto 183 and i make one last attempt to reach her, she answers. "you're killing me smalls." she was still asleep. so i stopped at randalls to get some coffee and saw kevin. he tried to make me stay and hang out with him, but i was already running late. i also saw dustin, which was ironic since one of the older baristas asked if i knew him the day before. random chain of events. we had class together in elementary school and then completely lost touch for years and years. then we were in the same group for senior project presentations, which was random as hell. oh man....senior projects. makes me think of lois brantmeyer and his fascination with the fact that i was aware of existentialism....because apparently that's weird? wait...i wrote a twelve page thesis on it? crazy. apparently he doesn't listen to enough straylight run either. then he would realize that existentialism isn't this completely hidden, off the map concept. i could write for days about the arguments i got into with lois in heritage, and all of our disagreements, but maybe some other time.

after coffee, i ran by target to pick up a purse. i mean, i have a million and a half purses, but i felt like i needed to find the bag for ACL. and my brown coach bag was just not going to do. i found a fun yellow and white striped diaper bag with a couple pockets, and it worked out brilliantly. stuck on an 11:11 am pin and it was instantly my bag.

i drove through wendy's down near 6th and picked up lunch for sarah and myself. then i finally made it to her apartment around 1:00. then we had some preparation to do. after we ate and finally got everything together, we smoked and headed downtown to find some parking near the shuttle. we ended up parking at 8th and west and walked the few blocks to 4th and guadalupe. the sheer magnitude of the people waiting for the bus was shocking. it is hard to imagine tens of thousands of people, nonetheless thousands in line waiting for shuttles.

we finally got to zilker and walked around to the entrance. sarah and i had to go through separate entrances since she just had day passes and i had a wristband, and i was kind of concerned about losing her when we got through the gate. oh, i guess i should mention at this point that this is my first time ever going to acl. i never really had the money to go until i started school, and both freshman and sophomore year girl's bid day was on the same weekend as the festival. luckily, if i had been at school this year, they pushed the festival back two weeks so it didn't line up with girl's bid day regardless.

for those of you outside the greek community, rush and bid day are the only sacred events that you can absolutely not get out of unless by some act of god. it is just one of those things you can't avoid....even if you disaffiliate, you have to be around for all of that.

we got there around 4, which felt like an eternity, but it was when a vast majority of the people were showing up. we missed what made milwaukee famous and vampire weekend, both of whom i was really excited about, but there was too much to look forward to to really dwell on the fact.

we sat down to camp out for patty griffin since not much was playing early in the day after vampire weekend, and watched the end of del the funky homosapien. we ran into david, sarah's brother, not too long after we sat down. he had an amazing sequined mardi gras flag that somehow we missed even though he was sitting right in front of us. we sat and watched a good bit of patty griffin's set (yes, i survived somehow - she was actually quite good) and saw the beginning of gogol bordello as we walked over for mates of state.

then the next couple of hours we just bounced around from stage to stage, with about 30-45 minutes at each set. mates of state to hot chip to jenny lewis. we got some food from stubb's, my favorite sweet leaf tea, and sat down to watch the eli young band. let's just say that whoever thought to sell amy's ice cream and a bunch of other munchies to a festival full of stoners was a genius. i love austin and it's infatuation with supporting local businesses. it is the little things in life, the little things about austin such as this that really make me love it more and more. after we finished eating, we headed over to catch the tail end of n.e.r.d.

let's take a minute to pause and acknowledge my infatuation with pharrell williams. i have had a crush on him....forever. it was really cool to finally see him perform with n.e.r.d.

then, the moment n.e.r.d. was over, we headed up to get a good spot to camp out for the mars volta. we decided to not go see g love so that we could stake out a good place, and it was totally worth it. we got to listen to the swell season from where we were sitting. i had no idea that the swell season were the artists who did the music for once...and it was so cool to hear them. very unexpected.

we were sitting next to some pretty strange girl who kept twitching and staring at us. kinda creepy. everyone was freaking out a little bit, but nothing crazy. then the mars volta. ahhhhh so good :) i wished they had played less from goliath...but what can you do. so sexual. so amazing. words really can't describe what it was like. i know it wasn't their best show or their best set by any means - but it was still my first tmv experience. and it was earth shattering.

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please note:
i want someone to do to me in bed what the mars volta did to me when they were on stage. maybe this is why i love musicians so much
k. thanks :)
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she's crawling, she's still crawling
on your burial ground
she's falling, she's still falling
but no one wants to come


and i hear him every night
on every street
the scales that do slither
deliver me from…
freeze without an answer
free from all the shame
then i'll hide
cause i'll never
never sleep alone
oh lord
said i'm bloodshot for sure
pale runs the ghost
swollen on the shore
every night
in every pore


don't let me, don't let me go
there is a venom in numerical lies


the ocean floor is hidden
from your viewing lens
a depth perception
languished in the night
all my life, i’ve been
sowing the wounds . . .
she took a drink
those nicotine stains
on his every word
my scavenger quilt
will only hide the truth
bring me
bring me this plague
i count the days to find
what was left behind
only these names I clutch
will lead me to my home
Somehow this river marks
A wrinkle hand in mine
And everyday that parts
The water into two
Mothers and feathers start
To drown the living proof

we had tried to find sara and taylor to catch the set with them, but it was impossible. i also tried to find kyle, but he was on the other side of the stage, so again - impossible. we ran into adam, austin, and kyle near the sound booth after the show but were a bit distracted. and it took waaaay too much effort to find them. so we headed back to meet up with jimmy who was already on the way to pick us up so we did not have to wait for the shuttle. a layer of dirt covering every inch of my body, adrenaline rushing through my veins, and my contacts tearing at the edges of my bloodshot eyes. and i never felt so amazing :)

jimmy dropped me off at my car and i followed him back to the apartment. they went off to meet up with some of jimmy's friends out on west 6th, and i stayed home since i am under age :(. only like...51 days until i am 21. hell yes :) it is frustrating not having a fake, but this close to my birthday it is absolutely pointless and an obscene waste of money to invest in a decent one. i guess i will just have to wait.

took a shower, drank a beer, and listened to some music on sarah's itunes. i put on cold war kids, which i had recently changed my text message ring to after the jonas brothers' incident, and put it on random. and then as i was talking to jimmy (they hadn't left yet) i received a text message just as we used to vacation came on. i thought i was hallucinating because they were echoing each other. it was crazy :) what are the odds that i got a text at the exact same time the song came on when the album was on shuffle?

speaking of texts, my service was all kinds of fucked up out on the festival site. i would not receive texts for 30 minutes, and then all of the sudden have 15. or i would get upset about someone not answering me, only to go check my outbox and see that what i thought i had sent was still queued up.

the number of people at this event was mind boggling, so it understandable (to a point) that the phone service might go crazy. sarah and i were also victims of extreme smoke and dust inhalation...resulting in brown boogers and lots of coughing and chest congestion. grooooss.

i then went and picked up some food at whataburger and finally registered for south by southwest. i got the okay from kent and ongeleigh to align myself with quiddity,so yay for networking and not just being some random nobody!

i thought of him all day. this is exactly the kind of day that would be perfect for us. the kind of day i would love to share with him. and the juxtaposition of sunday with kevin at the festival just made it worse. but he was on my mind every minute of every day. it is so hard sometimes, and anything that brings me closer to him and the bond we shared makes it that much harder. unfortunately, anything that makes me really happy is inevitably shared with him as well...we are so much alike. too much alike, i know. but i can't help but feel that i am incomplete without him there with me. i miss you. i don't know what else to say...

when jimmy was driving us back, we saw an accident. an suv hit a biker leaving zilker and i felt so hopeless. there was nothing anyone could do to help the poor girl except stand near her and tell her that help was coming, that everything was going to be okay. i feel so helpless, so useless, so.... i don't know. there is a distance between myself and everything i feel and experience now, it is hard to pinpoint exactly how or why. but for some reason, i felt more in line with that girl lying there on the ground than with anyone else i know. i feel like all my friends are spitting useless, superficial words trying to comfort me, but i am a lost cause. stuck there, waiting for the inevitable...wishing i could bring it about just a bit faster. going along, hindered by my means of transportation - the only means i have left to me in this condition, and i am plowed down by someone else that is better equipped, more prepared, on a different level. i need to find a way to peel myself off the cement, pick myself up again - but all i am left with is a broken, wobbly bicycle that was already inept before this catastrophe.