On my mind

Here is some stuff I've been thinking about.

I rarely get nervous, and so I don't handle being nervous well AT ALL. I am very nervous for the solo set of original songs I'm playing on Friday night at the opening party of Molly & company's new loft apartment/performance space. Still shaken by a string of criticisms I received one week over the summer, feeling embarrassed about my songs and my guitar skills.

The main way I deal with my nervousness is through productive procrastination of practicing & preparing. (How's that for alliteration!) The more nervous I am, the more productive my procrastination must be in order to be justified. A week ago I cleaned my closet and donated tons of stuff I never wear. This Tuesday I cleaned out ALL of my junk spaces: desk drawers, bedside drawers, boxes in the closet in the music room, under the piano, the bookshelf, under the table. It took hours and hours but I am thrilled to report that I have less junk than you. I'm becoming obsessed with owning less stuff. It is hard because I am cheap, crafty, and nostalgic. But I have been inspired by two sources. 1) This paragraph by Natalie Dee in response to a question about being cleaner:

If you are not certain something (anything) is 100% important, get rid of it. There is no BUT WHAT ABOUT LATER? Later already came, and you didn't need it. If something happens in the distant future that makes you need junk from years ago, there are bigger problems going on aside from where all your clutter went. I have been on my "Don't Bring Anything In The House And Get Rid Of Anything That Looks At Me Crosseyed" kick for a while now, and the only thing that has resulted is a clean house. I have yet to be like OH SHIT, I ACCIDENTLY THREW THAT THING AWAY. You know what you need, and what you don't. You just have to be honest with yourself, and pitch the crap in the same way you'd rip off a bandaid.

2) Friends who are moving. Thank God I'm not moving right now. But I'm jealous of the part of moving where everything gets cleaned out and everything is assigned a place and placed there. I went to my friend Liz's new clean, beautiful apartment and it was soooooooo nice that I abandoned all other plans and spent the rest of the day with a huge garbage bag and drawers all over the floor.

Liz is my old friend from SMB's that I ran into at the Hopleaf last Friday when I was there with Ben, Erica and Kevin to celebrate Kevin's birthday even though he threw his back out and was on fancy pain meds and couldn't drink. Let alone move. But Liz! I ran into Liz. She had moved away and is back in town and invited me over for breakfast on Tuesday. As I stood there next to her stove in the bright kitchen of her single Sunnyside Ave apartment, coffee cup in hand, talking about jobs and goals and relationships and creativity while she cooked me food, mix CDs on the stereo, I realized: Liz is the new Emily. I never realized how similar my two friends are, or how our friendships function in almost the exact same way. I became friends with Emily when Liz moved away, and now that Emily has moved away Liz is back... It was a funny realization. And then it made me happy, because I really love them both!

It has occurred to me that I dress like a clown. Today, for example, I am wearing a pink hoodie, a blue t-shirt with a picture of an umbrella on it, jeans rolled up to my knees, striped pink and gray and white socks, and Chuck Taylors. I biked this morning in my red windbreaker on my red and yellow and green bike with my blue helmet and purple headscarf and pink sunglasses, carrying my backpack guitar with my bright red Sigg bottle, bearing its giant green heart sticker, strapped to its side. Sometimes I even wear ridiculous pigtails. They are so long that I'm nervous they make me look like an Irish Setter.

Yesterday I was at Vella with Meredith and noticed that I had the longest hair of anyone in the restaurant. It is long like a real girl.

Ben and I are becoming no-handed biking EXPERTS. (This does not help the clown issue.) On Saturday night we basically biked all the way home from Andersonville (7 miles) with no hands, using them only at stoplights and for turns. Daamn! The biking home was an excellent end to a long and very excellent night that included seeing the Sea and Cake and the Lonesome Organist at Symphony Hall for free, a super burrito at La Pasadita, and the 90's-est movie ever at Natasha and Dan's housewarming party.

Sarah Palin. What's to say? How can you.... sigh. This is a really good article and I wholeheartedly agree. And this is funny. And this is brilliant and maddening. I am reading columns and watching videos. I am enjoying jokes. I am nervous. I am flabbergasted. I am hopeful. I am made so uneasy by McCain's apparent obsession with war. I am frustrated that living in Chicago means I have no access to more widespread American opinion. Based on the environment here there's no doubt Obama's gonna win. But this is only Chicago.

Our neighbors need to change the battery in their smoke alarm. It beeps every 36 seconds and has been doing so for three days.

I'm medium-obsessed with the song How Did the Feeling Feel To You by Karen Dalton.

I'm having lots of fun rehearsing with It's A Girl. It's silly and pretty and energetic and fun.

Cat.

That's all.