how soon is now?

I know, I know, I KNOW.

the longer you have to wait, the better it's going to be. the more you have to be the one watching everyone else get into their messy interpersonal entanglements, the more times you learn how not to make things work, the better you'll be able to avoid the bullshit when it's finally your turn, right.

high standards are a good thing, right. things happen for people who aren't you sometimes - not all the time - because they have different standards. be patient. something will happen. be patient. don't try too hard. it'll happen when you're least trying. (I don't even know how to gauge whether or not I'm "trying" anymore.)

I won't lie, I'm a little fucking sick of it. even as I comprehend it on a logical level...I'm sick of it. and at the same time, of course, I don't know how to do anything about it. honestly don't even know where to begin. help.

I don't know how to deal with people, really. I've developed a knack for being in love with places and athletic franchises and musicians. not real people, really.

random recollections from the inner harbor barnes and noble (of no interest to anyone, really)

A year and a half ago in Baltimore – the night of the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which I did not watch – I stood in front of the “classics” display in Barnes and Noble with a boy I was in love with, and decided I wasn’t well-read enough. He came to the same conclusion about himself around the same time. I ended up buying Slaughterhouse-Five in an attempt to remedy this, and he bought a book too, but I don’t remember what it was. I do remember singing a loud, ridiculous version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” with him later that night. But I never did read Slaughterhouse-Five.

Funny – two years before that I made a mad dash into the same Barnes and Noble to buy Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana before the bus back to Latrobe left without me. (It turned out I hadn’t really needed to rush, though, because nobody could find Lu Wu.) I did read that one. And if I’d never read that one, about 80% of everything I’ve written in the last three and a half years – outside of school assignments – may never have been written. I guess if I ever go back to Baltimore, I'm sort of obligated to go back to the music section and say thanks.

i asked you to go to the green day concert - you said you never heard of them

what I would LIKE Weezer to play when I see them for the second time on Monday:
- the lead singles from their last three albums, and no more from those albums (okay, "Perfect Situation" is allowed)
- the Blue Album, tracks 1-9
- Pinkerton in its entirety
- "Hash Pipe" because it's just fun.

what they will ACTUALLY play:
not that, of course. I know enough not to expect that. but I swear if I don't get at least "El Scorcho" I want my fucking money back.

shredding of this variety would also be acceptable.

the last one born and the first one to run

It’s pretty clear to me that Christian and Gloria live in a river town, and almost certainly one north of St. Louis. Maybe near Detroit, I don’t know. I like to think near Pittsburgh. But when I hear these songs, I hear Cheswick and Harmarville and Springdale and those worn-out little off-shoots of Pittsburgh, mill towns, steel towns, coal towns, river towns.

Maybe it’s only because that’s where I first heard it. Cheswick, Pennsylvania was the site of some gloriously epiphanatory moments for me in May and June of 2009 (not, incidentally, the one in which I invented the word “epiphanatory”), and it was indeed the first place I heard “See the Light,” an ending which brought some welcome hope to an album that had, at my first judgment, been a little short on that. (On later listens, I found a little more of it.)

But Christian and Gloria? There's no way they live in New York, or Chicago, or LA, or even the Bay. Their town was blind from something or other, busted up, rusted up, all the coal or oil or steel yanked up out of it and left it with just the bare bones. Skeletal, rickety. No place to grow up. But really, where is the right place to grow up? There isn’t one. There’s only the place you grew up.

home, home, HOME.

1. I never realized how fantastic it was to have Pens games in HD, on a TV, until I had them in grainy, crappy quality on my computer instead. <3

2. coming into Pittsburgh through the Fort Pitt tunnel will never, ever, ever get old. <33

3. it's not as weird as I thought it would be to be home; however, I swear the kitchen table is shorter than it previously was.

4. my brother is currently playing "Just Dance" on the guitar. I missed having COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS renditions of songs playing in the background of my life at all times.

5. it is good to be home. sort of have no idea what's going on, but am enjoying it nonetheless.

everybody knows this is nowhere

six days from today I'll be back home.

the fact that my definition of "home" is about to splinter is pretty strange and overwhelming; not that it feels like home here, really, but I know that soon, when I'm not here, I'll miss it, which to me is one of the more important characteristics of a home.

the more places you love, the more places you have to miss.

so it's not really a secret right now that I've fallen for Boston - for living in the city, running by the river, hearing the train going past fourteen floors below my window every night, public transportation, two hockey rinks within four blocks of each other, seeing Fenway from my window, Dunkin Donuts everywhere, being around people who for the most part are not from around here. I love it.

but. I still want to go everywhere. I want my car and I want to drive west. I have spent twenty days of my life west of Chicago, and while that's pretty damn good, and I know I've been lucky, it really just means that as much as I love it here in Red Sox Nation (because this is a baseball town even in the winter, the Bruins get no love compared to the Pens), of course I want to go back west. I spent a grand total of three days in New Mexico, yet I'm managing to miss it. New Mexico, Colorado, California, Oregon, I'm telling you, all I want next summer is to go back. and drive back so I can really see what's in between, and not just as neat little Midwestern squares as I fly over.

I've seen the Northeast. I've seen every blue state east of Illinois and north of Virginia (except, I think, Vermont), and I want a change of scenery. if only to make me miss home again (and whether I mean home in Boston or home in Greensburg I don't rightly know).

if i stay in one place i lose my mind, i'm a pretty impossible lady to be with

I keep thinking of things I should post and then not doing it. I guess I get distracted, or decide they're not worthy, or whatever.

there are some pretty awesome characters in my life here. this kid I hung out with last night, Sam - I met him the first week here - he's the spitting image of Kurt Cobain, with shorter hair. no actual similarities between the two, though, Sam is kind of obsessed with and in love with everything and everyone in the world all at once. when I randomly see him passing through Kenmore Square he stops and hugs me and everyone who's with me, which is quite amusing. the first night I met him was at a concert, the duration of which he spent staring openmouthed at the stage, as if they were absolutely blowing his mind. I've now seen him do this for three other bands and an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." and I honestly think it's genuine.

loads more. I live across the hall from a Jewish feminist from Cleveland who's letting me steal basically her entire iTunes library this weekend. I'm friends with a boy from the Bronx who loves Katy Perry and is wearing bright red jeans today (and is actually straight). and I've come to the conclusion that people from Kentucky apparently have more intense southern accents than people from Tennessee, even though Tennessee is farther south. the things you learn in college.

don't fuck this up, america.

reminder to self:

you didn't go to college so you could act like you were still in high school.

you didn't go 500 miles away so you could do the same stupid shit you did in Latrobe for eighteen years.

you didn't deliberately surround yourself with all new people so you could fade into the background and watch everyone else connect, again.

you didn't make a change like this happen because you didn't want to change with it.

so stop fucking sitting around waiting for what you want to come to you, because it never has before and there's no reason it's going to start now. make it happen. put on your Red Sox hat and be somebody else. be somebody better than you were. you didn't leave home for nothing.

the best of my phone (or the best i haven't accidentally deleted)

"...looking through past texts, someone would think we are all sexually charged and mad as a bag of squirrels."

"yeah, but would they be wrong?"

"no they'd be spot on."
- Lizz and myself, just now


"is he an INDIAN?"
- my mother, last week. this is better left out of context.


"WOW AN ALIEN!" [ridiculously triumphant music]
- Cara, August 2009


"SID LET OUT A VICTORY YODEL. THE FANDOMS WILL BE GOING CRAZY. I LOVE ALL OF THEM."
- Sam, June 2009


"WE TRADED WHITNEY TO ANAHEIM. FOR CHRIS KUNITZ AND A PROSPECT FORWARD. AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT, I JUST SENT THIS TEXT TO THE PENS MOBILE ORGANIZATION. WHY."
- Tom, February 2009


"wasn't it uplifting? and full of hope? AND DIDN'T U LOVE ARETHA'S HAT??? [clapping smiley]" - my mother, on Obama's inauguration, January 2009


"so I come out of the lincoln tunnel and the first thing i c in manhattan is a ginormous poster of tom cruise with an eyepatch"
-Eric, November 2008


"ah I see. hahaha they just played the immigrant song while showing malkin wandering around." - Tom, November 2008


"lawl, today dad told me that he believes the 3 things that are larger than life in our world (meaning yours and my world) are tyler durden, pav, and rick nash. we've taught him well :D" - Tom, September 2008


"Ha ha ha ha suffer midget" - Elana, July 2008


"It was made in 98 so he had to be but watching it now, i couldn't stop laughing as he like tried to infect some students" - Jack Denny, June 2008 (side note, I had no idea what this meant at the time and I still don't)


"talk to me again and i'll kick ur ass" - Eric, April 2008


"is number 9 one of the new guys???? hes a woos" - Shyloh, March 2008 (I believe she meant "wuss")


"dude someone tried to kill mick jager [sic]" - Marissa, March 2008


"grrr [fierce]" - Eric, February 2008

to riding your bike midday past the three-piece suits

is it strange that one of my life goals is still to sometime play Mark in a production of Rent? I REALIZE I AM A GIRL, I'm obviously fine with being a girl in real life...but any time I sing along with any of these songs I always take his part. without fail. and I would love to be in a production of that show at all, but can you really see me as any of the girls? I thought not.

sometimes I think I am tremendously weird.

I still can't believe it's fall again already.

love that dirty water (oh, boston you're my home)

(that's not from tonight, it's from last week. I tried to post it then and Blogger repeatedly lost its shit so I gave up.)

a glorious feeling -- walking down the street in the rain, soaking wet, in light shorts and a T-shirt, laughing at all the people huddled under umbrellas with their coats and hats, trying to get out of the way of nature.


there's something about a river - even if I'm in the middle of a city, which I am, I always have enough space if I can get near a river. "when you start separating the people from their rivers what have you got? bureaucracy!" - Jack Kerouac



and the flat and gray-blue Charles
leaves no doubt to where we are
city lights to the east and west
underneath this sky I'll rest

doesn't anybody drive brightly colored cars anymore?
I'm looking out the window onto the Massachusetts Turnpike and all I see is gray, black, white, gray, black, white, gray. and the occasional blue.
it's foggy and rainy as hell and I'd love to see a bright yellow car or two go by for once.

i put my itunes on shuffle and this is what happens

Mika, "Grace Kelly." summer. hanging out with my best friend. doing our best, most faaaabulous impressions of Mika doing his best impression of Freddie. dancing and shouting like absolute fools with the window open.

Joe Anderson and Jim Sturgess, "With a Little Help From My Friends". February. driving, parking, stopping, falling out of the car still singing, shambling across the parking lot shouting, falling over couches, throwing our arms around each other.

Joe Strummer, "Johnny Appleseed." June. driving from the Colorado mountains into the New Mexico desert, watching the horizon slowly flatten out, watching the land turn from gray to reddish brown, watching the road open up ahead of us.

The Clash, "Safe European Home." anytime. crashing out a song in the basement with my brother, my drummer, trying to strain and roughen my voice into an instrument capable of a respectable punk-rock shout, alternating lines at the end, stopping together in perfect unison.

Filter, "Take a Picture." February. a loss that meant a lot more to me than it logically should have, a boy from Edmonton getting on a plane to Atlanta, leaving his home in Pittsburgh forever.

Radiohead, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place." November. 6 AM, on the way in to school early for a journalism field trip, station 91.3 WYEP on the radio and a voice I only recognize as my beloved Thom Yorke as the song is fading out and my goosebumps are finally subsiding.

Smashing Pumpkins, "1979." October. the drive between Delmont, PA and Greensburg, PA, and a strange kind of peace that's eluded me for the last few weeks, somewhere between exhaustion and understanding (but closer to the former).

Green Day, "Jesus of Suburbia." February. a hotel room in Philadelphia with my new lyric booklet for American Idiot in front of me, studying, memorizing, absorbing, rewinding, replaying, turning up the volume, falling in love.

Simple Plan, "You Don't Mean Anything." September. saying "fuck self-consciousness" and enjoying the French Canadian boys I loved before I ever saw Max Talbot, rocking out like it's 2003 even though it's 2009 and I really should know better, except enjoying music should never be about knowing better.

U2, "Pride (in the Name of Love)". June. a mountain in Colorado with one of my best friends, a waterfall on the right, a cliff on the left, the most ridiculously perfect location for epic, echoing grandeur ever, looking down on the tops of tall trees.

Dropkick Murphys, "Fields of Athenry." July. the actual fields of Athenry, Ireland, on a fast train from Galway to Dublin, everyone around me either listening to or talking about U2, thinking about Oliver Cromwell and growing potatoes and rebellion and love.

seas would rise when I gave the word

I once heard somebody say they weren't sure why "Viva la Vida" was such a big hit song, because it was impossible to relate to.

in fact, I think it's the exact opposite. sure, literally, most of us probably haven't been removed from a throne where we once were king, but I know I heard it for the first time in my car last fall and was like "...fuck, really? Chris Martin is the one who gets me?" [not a Coldplay fan in general, sorry]

the song isn't about the monarchy in seventeenth-century France, for pete's sake. it's about being on top of the world and losing it. it's about thinking you know everything and realizing you don't. it's about losing something you'll never get back.

the best part is the bridge into the last chorus, the part that's not any actual words. because after you acknowledge everything you've just acknowledged in the rest of the song, you really need to just let it all out with one of those epic Bono-type wails. let it go.

i've got your letter, you've got my song.

the day I meet a boy who says Pinkerton is his favorite Weezer album - and that nothing after that was really that great - will be the day I fall completely and irrevocably in love.

seriously, I forgot how much I fucking love this album. I listened to it the whole way through at least once a week in junior high, and I could NOT be interrupted during that 34:32. I honestly feel like I'm violating tradition and propriety right now - it's light in this room and I'm doing something other than just listening to "Across the Sea". not okay.

Rivers, Rivers, Rivers. I will never understand how you can resign yourself to making this bullshit borderline-comedy..."music" you're putting out now. it's okay. I'll always love you anyway. (but you know why Pinkerton is so good? it's because he wasn't afraid to be vulnerable. it's because you can hear him pushing his voice on nearly every song, maybe a little afraid, but going ahead with it anyway. it's because he's being honest. and I don't think we've heard him do it again since.)

but seriously. if you've never heard this album, go and fucking buy it right now.

I miss being in a band.
intensely.
I remember in tenth grade, when I was in the same chemistry class with James and Matt and Aaron, and we all sat in the back on the first day and we were like a cool little gang, because we were in a fucking band together.
I was like, "this is what it felt like to be Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt in high school. fuck yes."
Friday night band practice was my salvation, no matter how shitty the week was.
and in tenth grade, there were a lot of shitty weeks.
we honestly thought we were going somewhere for a while.
James and Tom and I wanted to, so badly.
of course we didn't. nobody wanted to sing. we broke up.


and we got together senior year, again.
January. God knows, I needed some kind of salvation, some kind of escape in January. and it was perfect.
I never liked Blink-182 until this year. I still don't like them, per se, but they've been making me nostalgic in a weird way. nostalgic for hating them so much in junior high, I guess.
Matt Wagner stepped up to sing. he's not exactly a virtuoso but fuck, neither was Joe Strummer, you know?
I just remember playing "Dammit," which I had never played before, which I learned from James in about thirty seconds. bless you, Blink, for being terrible musicians.
it was exactly what I needed.
a year ago I'd have never admitted it but there's something true in a lot of music I used to write off. there's something true in that song, and it's so simple that I could absolutely let myself go and shout the words along with everyone and be completely absorbed in it.

debate my word choice here, I certainly won't blame you, but there's something about that, about punk music, that I'm addicted to. you can commit to it in a way I've never been able to with many other kinds of music, you don't have to think, you don't have to get tripped up in your brain like I always do, you just thrash out your three chords and let the catharsis happen.


naturally, the band mk. II lasted about three practices. we were all going to college anyway.

i have climbed the highest mountains, i have run through the fields

I underestimate Bono sometimes.
somehow, he manages to make music that makes pretty much any location seem ridiculously cinematic and beautiful.
(I tend to think early-ish, Joshua Tree stuff is meant for the desert and the mountains and the great outdoors in general, as I found last year when I was out West, while anything after 2000 was written specifically for walking through a city.)

messing around on picnik

took that driving around Latrobe a couple months ago. decided to mess around with photo editing today to see if I could do it better than Cara does. XD

what IS that. apocalyptic shit.


kinda like that one

the words might be a little hard to read unless you click/make bigger.
I feel easily amused, I might do this for hours.

this happened a couple months ago, but it keeps coming into my mind for one reason or another.

a bunch of my friends and I used to always talk about how we'd live in New York together after college. Kaitlin and I, being the only ones motivated enough to actually get jobs, would support ourselves and pay for Eric and Cara to not starve to death until they miraculously landed jobs in the film industry. I would presumably be a rock star in my spare time, that or write for the Colbert Report. Hannah would live across the hall and yell at us if we were too loud after 9 PM. I think we had Jayna in there somewhere as the Kramer-like neighbor who would burst into our apartment and shout ridiculous things from time to time, but I don't quite remember.

obviously, this wasn't meant to be realistic, but I kind of thought at least part of it might happen. I mean, a running theme with Eric and me since junior high has been New York, how much we love it, how we're going to go there and live in the city we've been in love with since we were kids. I knew I wanted to go there, at least. that's why I applied to NYU.

I'm not going into the whole process of how I ended up in Boston instead (it was by choice - let me make it clear for my own ridiculous pride's sake, I did get into NYU) because this post is already going to be too long. but on Easter Sunday this year, I told my family I was going to Boston. and by that point, everyone else had already committed to their respective schools in the greater Pittsburgh area. etc etc.

so we were talking in July, Kaitlin and Eric and I, who were always the main ones going "NEW YORKKKKKK I NEED TO GO TO THERE." we were talking about where we most want to live. and Eric was on about Miami and Honolulu and the Florida Keys because he wants to be a beach bum and have summer all the time. Kaitlin was saying she really wouldn't mind being in Pittsburgh for a while, or living anywhere between here and North Carolina, really. and I honestly haven't a clue where I want to end up - Boston's great, Pittsburgh's the motherland, but I want to see the whole damn country, and after I've seen it, I'll decide where I want to stay. (or maybe I'll go back to Ireland. which is indeed tempting.)

but - after we all discussed the pros and cons of these various cities - somebody, I think Kaitlin, was like, "I...don't really want to live in New York." and there was this sort of confused general agreement all around. and I was like...shit. when did THAT happen? and I still have no idea. it must have been sometime this year. a lot of things happened this year that I still am surprised by sometimes. the Pens traded Ryan Whitney. I graduated. my brother started high school. I didn't get into Northwestern. I went to London and Dublin. I decided somewhere in there that New York ranks below Boston on the "places I want to live list." I'd just love to know how and why that came to be.

I think I'm a know-it-all bitch about fandom sometimes. I really don't mean to be (usually), but I am. but I just think - if you're going to claim to be a massive fan of something, say, a particular professional hockey team based in Pittsburgh, then be a huge fan. know who we lost in free agency over the summer and why (well, as much as any of us know why. dsakfjaweoifs PETR SYKORA, COME BACK TO ME :( ). know who we signed and who we re-signed and who Bill Guerin is, for pete's sake. know when the season starts. don't continue happily under the impression that Sidney Crosby is the only guy on the team worth knowing about.

and I mean, it's fine if you want to ignore all that. I don't demand that everyone in the world care as much about NHL contract negotiations as I do, ffs, that would be unreasonable. but then don't SAY you do. SAY you're a casual fan. don't get offended, then, if I imply you don't know what the hell you're talking about, if you don't.

same goes for everything. casual fans of bands, etc kind of annoy me, because I can be an elitist bitch (who can't?) but not nearly so much as people who profess to absolutely love them/him/her/it and actually have no clue. and I don't expect that I'm saying anything controversial here, really, but I just have to rant sometimes.

"we're all tourists, sort of. life is tourism, sort of."

I wish it were socially acceptable to take pictures of everything, all the time. I was standing around waiting for the T today and there was a cloud in the sky over my dorm that I really wanted a picture of, and I had my camera, but I didn't want to look like a strange sort of tourist. so all I got was the cell phone picture you see above.

it's possible that I think too many things are noteworthy. I honestly think almost everything is noteworthy. but I don't think it's a bad way to be, really.

till the sun came up (or was it going down for the night?)

on the fantastic-things-to-do-in-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning list, I don't think anything will ever top watching A Hard Day's Night, then talking in British accents about university and Radiohead and Anderson Cooper until 5 AM. ever.

however, last night may have been a close second. I ended up sitting in the common room of somebody else's floor with a bunch of other people who didn't even live there, including a guy from Australia with THE MOST FANTASTIC ACCENT I HAVE EVER HEARD, I WANT HIM TO WALK AROUND WITH ME TALKING TO ME ALL THE TIME, and a kid who's lived in Vienna and Spain and I think perhaps Germany. and of course, upon hearing I was from Pittsburgh, both of them - who have NEVER LIVED IN THE US BEFORE - were like "ohhhh, the Steelers!" lord. Steeler Nation precedes me everywhere I go. hahaha.

but really. I haven't laughed that hard in weeks, for sure, maybe months. not at the Steelers thing in particular, just - watching people try to act out "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is a fantastic way to spend the hour between 2 and 3 AM. I guess I'll always be a dork; probably at least half of this university was out somewhere getting drunk, or at least at a party (which I was, earlier in the evening, and it wasn't nearly as fun); I was playing charades and having the time of my life. I am pretty damn pleased with that.

for boston.

(click this to make it bigger, it's pretty spectacular.)

it's hard not to look down the street
on an evening like this
and think "damn, I've made it.
I'm here.
this is where I've wanted to be for years
and I finally did it right."
on a related note, am I the only one who really loves the sight of traffic lights at night (or very early in the morning?) I think it's absolutely beautiful.

everytime I think about back home...

I am all over the place today.
woke up, and it was way too damn hot in here, despite the fact that I fell asleep fine under a sheet and a comforter.
it was also 5:55 AM, because some accursed fucking thing was beeping endlessly. I suspect it belongs to one of my roommates, but I forgot to interrogate her about it. later.
the fourth time I woke up it was 11 and then I decided to go get dressed, etc.

there's some sort of hurricane remnant blowing around town, so my shoes and socks got completely soaked on the way to pick up my books at Barnes and Noble, but that was fine. I just needed to be by myself. I needed to walk and listen to music and not have to talk to anyone. if I could, I bet I would spend the next couple days just walking or taking the T around town with my iPod.

I bought Wonder Boys (because I totally need to miss Pittsburgh more right now). read it while waiting for my laundry. fucking love it already and I'm only about 40 pages in. I think that was the happiest I've been all day, just sitting there going "GAH MICHAEL CHABON WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE."

so, yeah. all four roommates are here. it's raining. there's a nice breeze coming in the window, though, and for some reason it's making me feel like I'm going to cry. oh, emotionality. I'm not sure when I started using this blog this much, but, here it is. I'm far, far from home and I don't know where else I can talk about it.

"here we are in the center of the first world
it's laid out before us, who are we to break down?"

what a week.
I live in Boston now. this is where I live. in a place where every other person I pass on the street is wearing a Red Sox shirt. (seriously, this town is sports crazy, I think even more so than Pittsburgh because there are a) more people and b) more teams.)
twelve hours from anybody I feel comfortable around. it's sinking in now, sort of, that a) I am not an outgoing person and therefore b) the process of making all new friends and not being a total hermit (which I would probably be inclined to do if nobody stopped me) is going to be kind of exhausting. but worth it, right? worth it, after a month or a semester or two.

I met some good people this week.
refreshing and, again, exhausting all at once. I really am an introvert in the sense of the word in which it was used on that personality test we took in Euro; I like being around people, but eventually it tires me out and I have to have some time by myself to regroup.

today I hung out with this kid from Springfield, MA who eats/sleeps/breathes basketball. I told him I used to be that way. I miss basketball, sometimes - not playing on the school team, because that sucked, but just the game, because I love the mythology and the history and the aura of baseball, but when it comes down to it, if it's not hockey season I want to be on the basketball court. I could write a whole entry about that, but I guess I won't now.
anyway, he was an interesting kid. we had fun today even though we were sort of ineffective as coaches/counselors. we talked about the Beatles. the Beatles came up in conversation a lot in the last 24 hours, actually.

I spent a couple days being somewhat in love with this other kid; as soon as that passed, we actually started talking a little. good times. I really hope the way I relate to people in college can be at least slightly different than the way I did in high school. as in, I can actually TALK to people when I know we like all the same bands. wish me luck.

the highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive

just had my last drive through Latrobe, probably my last drive anywhere for a long time (GOD I AM GOING TO MISS MY CAR. Rain [that's his name] is one of my favorite things in the world, but all he would do in Boston is accumulate massive parking fees for me). I've developed this pastime of getting lost on purpose and seeing where I end up; today I found myself driving through cornfields out near Eric's. and since it's pretty nice out it was pretty fucking beautiful for Latrobe, PA.

I was pretty lost for a while, but when I finally came out onto a road I knew, "New York, New York" by Ryan Adams blasting, sun shining...made me happy to be alive.

48 hours needs 48 thrills

I leave Saturday for school. Saturday, three days from now. I remember going to see Star Trek the day after graduation, driving around with the windows down with everyone and dancing in the parking lot and trying to absorb the fact that it was summer, FINALLY, after the longest school year of my life. (it still hasn't really sunk in that it's summer. I think I'm whiter than I was in May.)

I feel like I should have done more. nearly every day this summer I wanted to get on Route 30 and just drive west. if you drive west on Route 30, you get to Oregon eventually. and I miss the West Coast like hell. on a somewhat smaller scale, I wanted to stay out all night somewhere, just accidentally end up spending the night at somebody else's house (not necessarily in the way that sounds, haha, just hanging out so late that it ends up being morning by the time you go home.) there were a lot of things I always sort of assumed would happen the summer after my senior year. a lot of them didn't. such is life.

and here I am, watching VH1 Classic's Greatest Songs of the 80s. last night I watched Anderson Cooper till midnight (this is an integral part of summer for me. I love that goofy little white-haired man). it does not feel like anything life-altering is going to transpire this weekend. but it is. I just saw the "Holiday" video, and I still love Billie Joe Armstrong as much as I did in 2005 when it came out. I guess I feel like I'm older than I was then, but not by much.

a mouse named Lady Gaga (of which I am the mother/co-owner)...an encounter with Cara Marrero at Barnes and Noble...a Ting Tings cover band called the Bling Blings...all in the space of a couple hours. I love my friends. this next week is going to be amazing. it had better be, anyway.

in other news, my brother is the new drummer of the Army of Cranes, and anybody who takes issue with this can see me personally. at which point I will destroy them. thanks, have a nice day!

still the bells of saint mary's were ringing.

"from the convent to the rectory and over in the sacristy,
I'm a goddamn travesty and that's just my luck"

this may be [at least a small part of] why I love the Dropkick Murphys so much right now. I fail at being Catholic. but then again, being Catholic is kind of about failing at being Catholic. (and then feeling guilty about it.) it's a fulfilling faith, this one.

I like to believe in God. sometimes this makes sense to me, sometimes it doesn't. sometimes thinking so much about eternal life somewhere on a cloud just irritates me, because it makes me feel like I shouldn't love the life I already have. and I do love the life I have. it's not a coincidence that some (not all, but some) of my darkest days this year were also my most God-fearing.

that's not fair, though. there was a day in January this year that I don't know if I'd have survived if I hadn't gone to St. Benedict Church. some days, you need something to believe, when everything else has given out on you.

now, though. I believe in my life (after all, it's the one thing that will last...my entire life. ;P this sounds retarded but actually means something to me) and the things that comprise it. when I try to write about it, it starts to make less sense, which is why I don't write about it much. but I believe in love and music and family and friends and hockey. I've had more "religious experiences" in hockey rinks than churches, to be quite honest.

I think this is also why I like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so much - James Joyce can be a bit dense to read, yeah, but the crux of the whole book is Stephen deciding between being an artist and being a Catholic (or a Christian at all). for him, his art is religion, and he can no more be a Catholic and an artist than he could be a Catholic and a Muslim. and I actually enjoyed writing a six-page research paper about this. (okay, it's possible I'm just a giant nerd.) but I remember telling my best friend years ago that as Hendrix once said, music virtually is religion for me. I'm a completely different person now than I was then, but maybe that hasn't changed. I'm not sure if I'd say it has or it hasn't.

maybe it's just an Irish thing. I'm Irish, so is James Joyce, so is Ken Casey. maybe we're just doomed to bicker back and forth with the Pope till the day we die.

send in your skeletons, sing as their bones come marching in

I still think this is the best mix I've ever made.

1. "Summertime" - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
2. "She's a Rebel" - Green Day
3. "Love You Madly" - Cake
4. "The Way We Get By" - Spoon
5. "In My Life" - the Beatles
6. "Live Forever" - Oasis
7. "Five Years" - David Bowie
8. "Karma Police" - Radiohead
9. "I'm Bound to Pack It Up" - the White Stripes
10. "It Ain't Easy" - David Bowie
11. "Life Wasted" - Pearl Jam
12. "The Sounds of Silence" - Simon and Garfunkel
13. "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" - Radiohead
14. "Wish You Were Here" - Pink Floyd
15. "What Became of the Likely Lads" - the Libertines
16. "Make You Feel Better" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
17. "Poprocks and Coke" - Green Day

then again, maybe it's not quite the same if you don't know the story.

the things you love become the things you'll miss.

I just realized that - in the last couple weeks - I've worn almost nothing but my Red Sox, Dropkick Murphys and Boston University shirts. I AM SO READY TO LIVE IN BOSTON.

you know what I missed when I was walking down the streets at orientation, though? I missed the city of Pittsburgh. which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because it's not like I live in town or even all that close. but I missed knowing where I was in relation to PNC Park, or the Mellon, or the South Side, or Pitt, or any one of the rivers or bridges. I missed seeing people in Lemieux and Crosby jerseys. hell, I even started feeling nostalgic for Steeler merchandise. good thing the Bruins wear black and gold too - small comfort.

I keep threatening that I'm going to come back with an obnoxious Boston accent, but really it's far more likely that I'll develop a Pittsburgh affectation I never even had here. just "yinz" all over the place to remind me of home a little. man, I'm going to have to explain so many times that no, I'm not from Philly, and you couldn't pay me to live in that hellhole. ;D

oy. I'm glad to be going far away to school, so very very glad. the change is gonna do me so much good, and I'm going to see the Dropkick Murphys on Saint Patrick's Day and live next to Fenway (seriously, the ballpark is literally a block from my dorm). but even as I'm typing this - home, in Greensburg - my heart's aching a little for Pittsburgh.

i'm done resenting you, you represented me so well

the main thing I'm going to miss about my friends next year - the few people I've managed to make it to the end of senior year with - is, I think, how comfortable I am with them. you wouldn't have known it from most of my friendships up until the last two years or so, but you're supposed to be able to randomly burst into song around your friends. you're supposed to be able to make weird noises for no real reason and have them reciprocate.

this takes time. I'm okay at being pleasant and somewhat sociable, but I'm not the kind of kid who has fifteen best friends and another twenty kids she's pretty close with. it takes me a long, long time to get comfortable with anyone, and it has to be the right person, too.

even the days when I can't stand my friends, I know I can despise them for a couple hours and come back, because that's what we do. I guess I already know what it's like starting over, burning the past and losing people who in retrospect didn't do much for me anyway, but I've never done it without Eric. out of everyone here, no matter how much he irritates me sometimes, I'm going to miss that boy the most of anyone outside my family.

one more chance to get it all wrong

this is a little bit random, a little bit pointless, but prompted by a song that keeps following me. like a lot of things in my life, I guess. Paul Westerberg won't let me forget it.

I don't think you read this (then again, I don't think anybody does) but if you do, I know you know who you are: and I'm sorry. I know I said it to you a long time ago, but I should have said it more. I fucked up. and I needed to, actually. but it could have ended better. a lot better. and that was up to me. and I'm so, so sorry. there's probably a better way to communicate this, but this is what I've got.

what was really unexpected

in a group consisting of my two best friends and me (or really, in any group), I never, ever expected to be the one who was actually okay with standing in front of a bunch of people and making a total ass of herself for a laugh.

I never expected to be the one who not only didn't have stage fright, but was comfortable up there, impatient when everybody else wasn't as comfortable. but I was.

I don't know when that happened. I'm really rather unaccustomed to feeling fearless.

Stephen's kind of my hero. I have a feeling he might approve.

"under the right circumstances, disco metal can make you cry. it can make you walk into walls."

dude.

I think I need to start updating from school. things worth writing come to me there and by the time I get home, staring at Quark XPress for two hours trying to send a magazine has basically beaten it out of me, and I just crash until whatever hockey game is on that night comes on. (on that note, this is late but WOOOOOO HAWKS! I knew they could do it all along, Luongo is basically the only thing Vancouver has going for them. and Pens v Caps tonight. the first Game 7 I've truly paid attention to in my life. I may die. whether of joy or frustration remains to be seen.)

however, staying after today did yield this:

"dude...I am NOT going to sit here and PDF this again just because you had to be Jack's smirking revenge."

Fight Club subterfuge ftw. makes the magazine work bearable at times.

you're never too old

now we sit atop monkey bars

we used to hang on

balance precariously

and wait out our last month here.

tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun

Every time the weather gets warmer it makes me want to watch a baseball game, listen to the Replacements (Hootenanny, specifically), and watch Anderson Cooper.

It's weird how one spring, one that wasn't even that long ago, somehow set the precedent for everything that would be warm weather and sunshine to me for probably the rest of my life. I don't understand it, but the first day I can go outside without a jacket always makes me want to read the same stories I read two years ago this spring, relive the same jokes, listen to "Pepper" by the Butthole Surfers, watch Jon and Stephen and Anderson (Keith doesn't come in till the summer, a little later) and write everything that really matters to me in a red notebook.


I also want to wear shorts, and am going to change into a pair after I finish this, but that's beside the point.

I just wonder, sometimes, why it was that spring - 2007, it was a good one, an awesome one even - that became my idea of What Spring Is, always.

i never have clever titles ready for my thoughts

Sometimes I wonder about the extra six hours that float around early spring when it isn't a leap year, and they don't get to go into making a day. They just kind of disappear, like the "o" in Czechoslovakia when it split in two (it was only really there to join them together in the first place). I wonder if they could ever be put to any kind of use - would you even know them from any other six hours?

I'll probably spend them sleeping and not even know it.

Then again, if February 29 last year is any indication, they'll probably make themselves known in some way. It really is a good thing Leap Day only comes once every four years. I don't think I could take it any more often than that.

*facepalm*

Some people need to stop pretending that they know anything about anything.

No, you don't know hockey. Miroslav Satan has been terrible this year, not because he "didn't get a chance" (you know, except the bit where he PLAYED ON CROSBY'S WING FOR THREE MONTHS) but because he was a horrible acquisition, a pathetic substitute for Marian Hossa. The Pens' problem this year was not that Matt Cooke didn't punch enough people, it was that our goaltending was inconsistent, Malkin had to carry the team some nights as far as scoring...well, they had a lot of problems, but you have failed to diagnose any of them correctly.

No, you don't know politics. I'm not going to pretend that I know them that well either, because I don't, but I know what makes sense, and I know that the government is not TRYING TO MAKE US A SOCIALIST STATE OMG IMPEACH OBAMA NOW BEFORE HE MAKES ME PUT UP A COMMUNIST FLAG IN MY HOUSE. God save us all. I also know that electing a racist, perpetually enraged talk show host to a government position would not be a good answer to anybody's problems. *facepalm*

I hate when people force me to talk politics. I am damn sick of politics, to tell you the truth, and all I wanted tonight was to watch a few episodes of Arrested Development. But alas, here I am, an hour after I said I'd put in the DVD, being ganged up on by a couple of goofballs who honestly think Rush Limbaugh makes sense.

because I'm a sheep

yeah, because the main thing I need in life is ANOTHER JOURNAL. I already have an old-school paper journal, a Livejournal, and assorted ramblings that get saved all over the place or written down all over my room...but, alas, now I has a blog as well. what I'll be writing about remains to be seen. Maybe creative rambling-type things with inconsistent capitalization? Maybe the Penguins? Who knows.

Anyway. The title of the blog is taken from a song from Rent, because despite not being a Broadway-type person, I adore Rent, and if I were any fictional character in the world it's pretty much indisputable that I would be Mark Cohen. Gender is irrelevant.

It's going to be an interesting experiment to see how long I can write in this blog without anybody knowing it exists. Ready, set, go.