Jalopy Heart.

Referenced in my earlier post- this is one of the pieces performed by David Wax Museum. One of the lovelier things I've heard in recent recollection. This musician sounds like someone who's felt his share of life, with truly soulful qualities in his voice and a somewhat Dylan-y feel.

Jalopy Heart

What could you want with my jalopy heart
what could you want with my jalopy heart
it's rusty and battered and falling apart
you're probably wasting your time trying to get it to start
my jalopy heart

though I still may know how to love
I still may know how to love
I still may know

what could you want with my rattlesnake skin
what could you want with my rattlesnake skin
I've shed it before and I'll shed it again
be it useless and gray as an old man's chin
my rattlesnake skin

though I still may know how to feel
I still may know how to feel
I still may know

what could you want with my antique music box voice
what could you want with my antique music box voice
it'll play you a song, a faintly audible noise
now a dirge but once a song of rejoice
my antique music box voice

though I still may know how to sing
I still may know how to sing
I still may know

though I still may know how to love
I still may know how to love
I still may know.

Waltzing Mathilda

So last night, my roommate and her boyfriend pulled me out to one of our favorite watering holes for some live music. Apparently, her favorite band was performing- David Wax Museum, I heartily recommend them. They play something that sounds acoustic-y with Mexican influence, and some folk/bluegrass.

At some point, my roommate starts getting hit on by somebody who is clearly not getting the hint that he ought to back off so I stuck myself in between them. wrong decision. This guy didn't even blink at the switch up and I quickly realized my error (with horror). But, I was saved. A guy from across the room has been watching my roommate and her friend dance with her boyfriend, and introduces himself as a transplant from Texas who is studying economics, and is desperately missing the dance halls, and would we mind terribly granting him the favor of a dance or two when the second set started?

I used to love dancing (with the exception of crappy club dancing, I don't consider that dancing, I consider it- well... let's leave that alone), not that I did much formally, but I went out and tried to learn salsa a few times in college (we'll discount the customary pre-teen ballet and tap dancing) and spent an inordinate amount of time when I was tiny standing on my mom's feet while she two stepped around the kitchen (and loved it). Anyway, haven't been dancing much in years. I stopped in college when my partner took a few toe nails off because he thought dancing was for sissies- made another attempt a couple of years ago with my subsequent boyfriend and it rapidly turned into one of the worst ideas ever, second only to the prior attempt with the prior partner.

Given my prior experiences, I was graceful and tried my damnedest to deflect to my roommate and her friend. He seemed to take it. I mean there was nothing conspicuously wrong with the guy, I was just already being rudely pawed by some neanderthal who insisted "I'll look cuter if you let me buy you a beer", I like my toenails where they are, and don't like dancing with strangers (even though, obviously, I've had such great luck with people I actually know.)... As you can tell, I was a veritable cornucopia of good will. But he was real polite, and when the freak show next to me started getting physical and I was running out of ideas (that didn't involve me breaking a few knuckles) to dissuade him, he seemed to take the cue and came over and offered a hand (which I practically lunged at, taking it as the rope of salvation that nobody can appreciate quite like a stupid girl cornered in a bar like the fox in a fox hunt). But so I didn't look desperate said "Oh, I guess I can manage just one."

This is no exaggeration when I say that I had the dance of my life and walked out of the bar feeling like a woman (and a badass). Does that even make any sense? because it surely doesn't to me. Compounded by the fact that this gentleman was my current acting savior, he was a phenomenal dancer. There was some two stepping, some jitter bug, and after we caught our breaths and downed a lot of water (bowing to the fact that we were obviously getting old and out of shape from the inactivity of graduate school) he taught me the cotton eyed joe and, bless his heart, to waltz. He said I followed really well, picked up the movements quickly, and had a great sense of rhythm. His friend said he saw the guy dance frequently, but scarcely with women who could keep up (insert unabashed self boasting here). We both love dancing, he doesn't sketch me out, and we're both quite clearly not interested in dating, so we're keeping in touch on the offhand chance that we both have free time.

Anyway, overall it was spectacular- My roommate's boyfriend at some point bought a band t-shirt, whipped off the one that he was wearing, slung it over his head, and pulled on the paraphernalia only to discover that it was a women's medium. That was a highlight along with my dancing excursion.

surprise.

It's been a good long while since I posted last. Funny story (except not really): turns out I've had Lyme disease for the last few months and only just finished the necessary antibiotics to get rid of it. It's still sort of hanging around in a residual-symptom-sort-of-way, but certainly better.

Terror.

I just had a brush with death- my roommate and I tried to bring the cats to the vet clinic and it was, hands down, the most terrifying experience of my life. The female cat doesn't genearlly meow much, but she does a really convincing impression of a bear that's been kicked in the middle of a snow storm during hibernation. MRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWW. Boy cat was really reasonable and only presented moderate resistance (spread eagle across the door like a flying squirrel that didn't notice a window). After using the arm of the couch I had the carrier propped against as a monorail track a few times, I got him in and he didn't offer to punch holes in me which I appreciated- but girl cat was just having none of it. Letting her figure out that the carrier was where she was destined to go in the first time I tried to just pick her up and put her in sparked a reaction that was something akin to what happens to Edward Norton in the Incredible Hulk. After some negotiation that she was not at all interested in, we were asking the question: How many graduate students does it take to get an obviously angry cat armed with exacto knives into a carrier (without losing something vital, like most of the blood in your circulatory system after she gets done with you)? When I gathered the nerve to try and catch her as she ran past, I missed, and then caught her in the hallway, halfway up the wall (the WALL)- I really don't know how this happened, but like Houdini, girl cat apparently flies. By this point, I had on long sleeves and gloves and had to pick her up with a towel. I thought she was going to kill me! But we made it to the clinic on time, and the vet says it's not particularly uncommon for cats to show up in things like laundry hampers so I didn't feel so bad about the fact that the only thing we had big enough to get the cat into without getting killed was the kitchen garbage bin. When the vet asked her to after the exam, she dutifully walked into the carrier. It's safe to say that I lost a fair amount (all) of my dignity in the affair.

FIX YOU

I'm listening to the kind of music nobody in their right mind admits to listening to. It's rock music performed by a cello ensemble. While I love the rendition of Journey "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Sympathy for the Devil" what got me the most was this song I'd never heard the name of- Fix You. It turns out that it's by some band called Coldplay (yes, I live in a vacuum and had no idea). But this song... It rises in this subtle way from a rather unremarkable melody to an incredible chorus of harmonized voices. It's as though you can feel the resonance building in your skin, and then it breaks and something that you didn't know was in you is drawn to the surface. Depending on the time of day, it brings with it joy or weeping to the surface.

Cats + Sponges = fungus.

Sometimes when you do stupid things like clean your dishes with the same sponge you use to clean your counters, you boost your immune system. Other times, you unwittingly give yourself fungal infections. I wish I was joking.

So my rent-a-cats like going on every flat surface in my house, including my counters and table. I recently discovered that they were still doing this, and that the funny marks I'd been wiping up were pawprints. What I'd like to know is how the bleeding hell did I make it out of the jungle without bringing home something living on me and that was mildly parasitic, but come back to Cambridge and get a cat or two and suddenly there it is, it's a critter that just popped up like a daisy in spring. It's hanging out on my arm. I'm almost positive it's a fungus. I'm more than a little horrified. I've had a few spots for awhile now but.... eee........... this one in particular is making me unhappy. I mentioned it to a friend last night and they didn't look terribly impressed. What can I say, I'm a classy sort of dame.

I Hate Shopping of Any Kind so I Act Like a Jerk to Amuse Myself

I inherited a behavior from my mother. I talk at people at random. and at length. Also, I embarass my sister in public. I mean, I don't go so far as to sing opera (oh yes, my mother SINGS OPERA if you get pissy in the store) but I do use underwear as ammunition and make fun of ugly clothing. I believe there's a picture from my friend's bachelorette party when we're in Foxwoods and I'm making faces at a silicone bra stuffer- but that's another story.

On this particular occassion, my roommate succeeded in getting me out of the house to have a few beers with her and friends at one of my favorite watering holes. It was a lot of fun, the girls are such great people- and as usual, the evening was punctuated by some of my bad decisions. Bad decision (or awesome depends on how you look at it) number 1, having 5 Guinnesses (Guinni?) in 2 hours. Bad decision number 2, but possibly not bad, deciding that the 24 hour Shaws is the next stop. We needed frozen pizza and creamscicles.

Having already prefaced this story by outlining my random talking and inclination towards embarrasing behavior in public spaces, I guess we can get straight into it. The last time I picked up a frozen pizza was a similar occassion with my summer roommate whom I love. She made it clear to me, at the time, that the delux pizza had not only the most crap on it, but was the cheapest and therefore the best bang for your buck. I decided that this wisdom should be shared, not only with my current roommate on our current excursion, but the poor man sharing the frozen food isle with us at 1 o'clock in the morning. He had already made the unfortunate mistake of suggesting his usual pizza. Of course, I had to tell him that thank you for your suggestion, but my decision is made, and also better, and here's why. This was followed by a comparison of price, size, etc, and that, ok, so I usually institute a rule of not eating things that have more than 5 ingredients or things I can't pronounce, but in this case it's acceptable. My roommate went and got some margarine, which I also made a show of berating, because I was in "I hate stores" mode and told her that there was real butter in the freezer, and in droves, and proved my point as to why the margarine was bad by attempting to read off the ingredients that I couldn't pronounce. However, the guy in the isle, who was by now invested in the conversation/ordeal he'd unwittingly sucked himself into, turned out to be a nutrition and something something food healthy whatever grad student, and read the ingredients and said that actually, it was okay to eat this. You may or may not know that I have a really terrible obsession with I Can't Believe it's Not Butter but when I'm in this mood, it doesn't matter if I'm being hypocritical and also inappropriate. I swiped the margarine and told him to stop encouraging this behavior. My roommate eventually realized that this wasn't going to stop by my accord, and encouraged heading for the check out line with "I'm tired and I need to eat this pizza, we're going home." Probably a wise move because I wasn't going to stop being embarrasing unless somebody else said something. I mean, it looked like he had a thing for her, so my reasoning at the time was that if we stuck around, something would happen.