be there or be square. there may be bowling or the independent in between.
UNRELATED: this morning my ipod played the following songs in this order 1.) so what - miles davis - kind of blue - 9:26 2.) "beethoven classical piano" (acc to the track tag...) - beethoven - 9:43 3.) happy segovia - the f&%*ing champs - v - 2:18
if you know the champs, you will find that incredibly amusing.
posted by renee 9:31 AM
Thursday, April 27, 2006
today they took away my extra chair, my file cabinet, and everything i like about my job.
but last night i had a gin & tonic, an amaretto sour, a rousing game of darts and a LOT of popcorn. that makes it a little better, but i still kind of want to cry.
posted by renee 2:50 PM
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
i think some things are very serious i think other things aren't very serious at all
i wonder if I am serious.
p.s. boys are nuts. i like some of them, dislike some of them, am confused about some of them and confuse the rest of them. i guess that means i'm nuts, too.
posted by renee 3:39 PM
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
i have changed
i think i may be learning to listen better. i realize more than ever that i have a lot to learn. i know that i've gotten tired of trying to be convincing. i am getting better at deciding what i think is important.
but i am not smaller in passion or conviction or intellect.
and i still dream of painting in a pool of sunshine in my loft apartment and setting down my brush to take a bite of stir-fried broccoli with chopsticks. i'm not sure if that's from my imagination or the movies.
posted by renee 10:34 AM
Sunday, April 23, 2006
friday night, and i am not kidding, two people i know from another country accompanied me to st johns college in the middle of nowhere.
beer there was one dollar and was served in a paper pepsi cup. but it was not served at a bar, because there aren't any bars in the middle of nowhere. because of television and the internet, kids there looked just like kids everywhere else. and lyndsey was in her element and allan and i loved it. and lots of keys were locked in the things to which they would normally enable entrance. but because we were in the middle of nowhere, people helped for free.
and lyndsey said "excuse me sir, we're not from these parts" in a british accent...
and we LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LISTENED to this band and somebody else that i can't remember the name.
i am totally not kidding. it was awesome.
posted by renee 11:45 AM
Friday, April 21, 2006
lyndsey scrounged up some $20 last minute tickets to the death cab/franz ferdinand show at northrup last night.
observations: 1.) death cab, after nearly a decade of traipsing around the country, has now begun using elaborate sets, including two warped cardboard "houses" from which a light show is released. i am used to seeing them just play some music at first ave.
2.) franz ferdinand is the kind of band that you see with thousands of people. although i must admit that i haven't followed them for long enough to have any clue where those thousands of people all came from and what kind of people they are. this is the confusion of going to see two bands at once. it's hard to tell who's there for who. franz ferdinand tours with a giant curtain emblazoned with twenty-foot 3/4 profiles of each band member in black and white. they wear very very tight pants and sometimes three people play the drums at the same time. this is the only time i have seen them.
3.) and somehow this was reminiscent of the faint/bright eyes tour of '05. the faint comes out, rocks your fricking face off and then you sit there wondering what conor's going to pull to top it. and what he pulls is a bunch of weird showy antics and it sort of works, but comes off strangely when in your mind, he belongs in sokol.
4.) last night, during death cab, the seventeen year old girls in front of us hugged, screamed, and sang all the words to every post-transatlanticism song and they sat down for everything older. i will make no editorial comment about that situation.
5.) i AM becoming more spontaneous! (and i walked 13,729 steps yesterday)
posted by renee 9:11 AM
Thursday, April 20, 2006
last night i put a piece of paper on the floor that said:
CHEESECAKE!
to remind myself to bring it to the potluck at work today. this morning i walked past it and it said
DON'T TAKE CHEESECAKE!
it almost worked. sorry sammy. AND: I AM OBSESSED WITH how women look and what they think about it beautiful women who don't think they are beautiful women who know full well that they are ugly women who wish they weren't and try to change it ugly women who don't care women who don't eat at all because they hope it will make them beautiful women who don't eat at all because they hope it will make them ugly women who eat too much because they hope it will make them happy eating food that is good for me eating food that tastes good cooking food that is good for me cooking food that tastes good cooking food that looks good knitting scarves that look good (sometimes during) america's next top model understanding people who watch television all day instead of wanting a job understanding people who keep trying to have a job and failing understanding people who go to jail because it's easier than having a job making it work for people who did those things and now want to get a job making it work for their kids if they never come around helping their girl kids understand and take care of and love their bodies
all these things go together. can that obsession make me money?
posted by renee 1:16 PM
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
i guess i never learned how to take eyeliner off.
yesterday i walked, worked, cooked, trimmed, glazed, played music and attempted to get myself asked on a date. i think it might have worked.
do you ever say something and even as it's coming out of your mouth, you wish you weren't saying it? i am not very gracious. i need to work on that.
so far this morning, one (1) person has showed up to her appointment and seven (7) people have not. if zero (0) people show up in the next six (6) minutes, that will make a total of nine (9) no-shows. and it's not even eleven (11).
i can't explain how crucial music is to my feeling connected to the world around me and to myself. without it, life would be a total drag.
since i can't explain it in flat text, come to the nomad tonight at 9:30 and let me show you.
this is a song in poem form:
translucent and unattainable you could reach right through me sometimes i am reticent sometimes i speak
my mind is oh so far from here my spirit bold and bright i wake up speaking other languages i dance with unfamiliar men and unfamiliar confidence
this is someone else’s house i have the key to this is someone else’s body i’ve been walking around in these are someone else’s covers i’ve been sleeping under this is someone else’s life i’ve been living
my eyes are so much deeper here because their source is elsewhere my bookcase is full of familiar spines but i have never read them and i am spineless
this is someone else’s house i have the key to this is someone else’s body i’ve been walking around in these are someone else’s covers i’ve been sleeping under this is someone else’s life i’ve been living
and i am bald under this mask of hair and my lashes are not so black and my cheeks are not so rosy and i was born naked, just like you just like you
translucent and unattainable you could reach right through me often i will be reticent but sometimes i will speak
this is someone else’s house i have the key to this is someone else’s body i’ve been walking around in these are someone else’s covers i’ve been sleeping under this is someone else’s life i’ve been living
posted by renee 10:32 AM
everybody dies friends are very important and family is even more important family of friends are very nice on holidays but really, in the end, it's likely that everyone will die
and i believe that it is a fact that there was a man and he was also God and he died just like everyone else but unlike everyone else he didn't stay dead
and there is much historical documentation to back this up more documentation of that than of many other things that people take for granted
and if it is the truth it is something very important to think about
posted by renee 10:41 PM
Thursday, April 13, 2006
and - i sent an email to the nomad complaining about them not having our show on their website yet (since it's in 6 days...)
they sent me one back that says "yep. we'll get it on there"
my trait snapshot is: "expressive, open, self revealing, loves large parties, loud, social, outgoing, does not like social isolation, assertive, social chameleon, positive, always busy, likes to fit in, likes to stand out, enjoys leadership, brutally honest, trusting, optimistic, desires attention, dominant, aggressive, attachment prone, wants to be understood, realistic"
my favorite is "likes to fit in, likes to stand out" right next to each other. i want to be just like everyone else, but a little more like them than they are so they notice me.... what?
these tests always come out to say that i'm unstable. i guess i'm okay with that, but it seems like i should probably work on it...
posted by renee 8:51 AM
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
my pottery teacher is coming to our show next tuesday. are you? c'mon. be irresponsible. stay up late on a random weeknight. DO IT.
also: there are two local phone numbers that have been showing up on my caller ID on my cell phone multiple times a day for close to a week now. i have no idea who they belong to and neither ever leaves a message. i can't call them back from my cell or work phones - i get the disconnected message... WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
posted by renee 2:19 PM
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
to be perfectly honest, i'm feeling torn about the immigration reform bill. i know what i'm supposed to think about it. i know that there does need to be reform. but i'm just not ready to commit to this being the right way to go about it.
sometimes it seems like the economy rests so delicately on a thousand different things and could tumble if we, as a society, got healthier overall.
i.e. americans spend $26 billion on beauty products every year. if we all just suddenly started feeling okay about our naked faces, this would mean tremendous loss of jobs, a minor stock market crisis and who knows about the long term consequences. luckily, there is a -19.7% chance of this happening, in my rough estimate.
so we've got all these undocumented workers and we have two problems: 1.) we don't want to reward people for breaking the law, especially because this particular bill seems as if it would reward people who broke the law the BEST, since others who faltered or who couldn't figure out how to fake it as well have already been deported. 2.) our economy is dependent on having a large workforce that is willing to earn low wages. we could not easily sustain losing the illegal immigrant portion of that workforce. "cracking down" harder on undocumented workers has many potential negative results.
also: there was a decidedly liberal spin on the cover story in the pioneer press today about it. i only know this because it is being delivered for free to my front porch every morning. i do not know why.
posted by renee 9:08 AM
Monday, April 10, 2006
my hair is very long but as long as i occasionally happen to see a girl with hair that's longer i will long to keep my own growing longer longer
posted by renee 3:50 PM
Friday, April 07, 2006
pet peeve: towns that are completely inside another town. that doesn't make any sense.
medicine lake is silly. hilltop is silly. centerville is silly. waconia, conogne, and rogers are silly. lesotho might be the silliest. (because it's a COUNTRY inside another country!)
posted by renee 3:45 PM
well, i should feel a little silly, but she deserves it. you can't go around saying things like that and expect people to all know you're playing a practical joke.
i actually think i'm a little disappointed.
posted by renee 10:39 AM
when it rains, it pours.
but sometimes, you go back and forth so quickly from cowering under an overhang to dancing around in it, it's hard to tell whether or not you care.
i'm an ENF/TJ. on the extrovert (vs. introvert) and intuitive (vs. sensing) measures, i was 100% on each... meaning that i'm not even a little bit introverted and not even a little bit sensing. i think and feel almost equally (which i think is a good thing) and i come to conclusions quickly and sometimes without all the information (which i'm trying to improve on, but it makes me, in general, a good leader). ah, staff retreats. the best part is that they help you to realize that you really like the people you work with (at least most of the time). plus, you get free lunch.
apparently i'm feeling paranthetical.
posted by renee 9:11 AM
Thursday, April 06, 2006
at 1:00 am
i said "rosie thomas, come here." she did. i said "i've been hearing rumors about you." she said "oh no! do you think they're true? i hope not!" and ran away
when i cornered her again i said "i know it's true, but i want to hear it from your own mouth." she said "i'm not ready!! email me! will you email me?" i laughed
that's going to be the most freak talented kid of all time.
posted by renee 7:45 AM
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
ENOUGH.
i want 1) someone to take care of me 2) someone to take care of
ideally, that could be wrapped up into one person. i don't care so much about it when everything else is going right, but when it isn't, it looms in front of me mocking how worthless everything seems.
the problem is that it takes a long time to get to the point with anyone where you let them really take care of you or they let you take care of them. i wish i could just skip the whole beginning part. my roommate's mom pointed out that what she really wants is to be one person with someone else - no friction or difficulty or unknowns. unfortunately, it takes 30 years of being married to even have a chance at that.
i don't think the three decade mark is really what i'm hungry for... but it's definitely something.
(and this happens because, as far as items i am responsible for at work, i'm feeling somewhat demoted. my time is valuable. i have good ideas. i'm motivated to improve when, if i accomplish what i have in front of me, i will have time to address new, interesting, and rewarding projects. at the moment, if i'm done with everything, i get to file. not much motivation there...........)
feeling like ice cream and rosie thomas might make it better, at least temporarily.
posted by renee 4:52 PM
so, i'm pretty sure i need to get a minnesota driver's license. so much for my cute picture.
maybe i should be more worried about passing the written test than about my head shot.
i also need to get a car loan, a money market account at a credit union and keep reading the money book i bought that tells me all about what to do and not do in order to ensure that my retirement is enjoyable. yesterday i read a section on how the three-legged stool of retirement (pension, investments and social security) may be becoming a chair (add employment). as opposed to what you may think, this has little to do with money. it has much more to do with getting bored. people used to only live a few years after retirement. now you can expect decades. there's only so much structurelessness a person can handle. plus, working is a lot more fun when it's not required.
posted by renee 10:07 AM
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
it finally happened. the inevitable first time that i would give my telephone number (at work, don't worry) to some guy at a bus stop (because he wanted more information about some things we had somehow started talking about that i have a general political/moral interest in... i.e. helping ex-felons at the business he owns)
and then he called, asked for the information and asked me out.
i actually deflected his offer much more smoothly than i anticipated. he was a little embarrassed, but not offended.... and, more importantly, i'm pretty sure he won't call back.
for a girl who, in all honesty, would enjoy dates, i sure make it impossible for myself to ever actually go on one.
posted by renee 12:30 PM
there is no discomfort or frustration that cannot be melted away by an hour of yoga, a warm shower, and singing in the car at the top of my lungs with the window open to the blue blue sky.
i only make sense to myself. it's time to buck up. going for a bike ride now.
posted by renee 5:18 PM
