georgia on my mind? forgive me, it's my last week of class

While contemplating my possible future in an all-girl Beatles cover band (where I would, of course, be George - I've even been told I play guitar like him, which is not exactly the highest compliment a guitarist can be paid, but I'll take it), I realized that my name could totally be shortened to Georgia if I so desired. I tried to go by Georgie for about a week once in first grade, and I seem to remember that this was because of a girl in the Nancy Drew books I was reading named George. It didn't take.

It's kind of weird that I never, ever think of myself by my given name, and I don't think anybody else does either. I don't even think about it, aside from when I'm preparing on the first day of a new class to say "I go by Annie." I still have to take my time signing my full name on checks because that big unwieldy cursive G just doesn't come naturally. I have an A-name. I've always had an A-name. I kind of forget I'm Georgianne most of the time. But if I ever need a pen name or a clever alter ego I might just fall back on Georgia.

because my roommates are doing important things and I can't turn on the Sox game and interrupt them.

a brief list of mostly-semi-epic things I want to do in my life, in no particular order:

1. run the Boston Marathon (which is going on outside my window, zooomg)
2. go to Base Camp of Mount Everest
3. go to a Yankees-Sox game in New York in Sox stuff (I'd need someone to go with me, as I like being alive)
4. go to an NHL playoff game
5. play an actual gig with a band/play songs I/my band has written in said gig
6. meet Chuck Klosterman
7. party with Max Talbot
8. drive from an East Coast state to a West Coast state
9. go to Australia
10. live in Ireland for at least a few months
11. go to Spain and the Czech Republic and maybe France if I can be bothered
12. go to Montreal
13. write and publish a book
14. drive to somewhere I've never been before and sleep there for the night, unplanned
15. become fluent in another language.

america.

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."
- Uncle Walt

yeah, sorry for being insufferable.

every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

the sky is
seamlessly blue-gray
rippling over dark Cambridge
splashing down into the Charles
where it meets the highway

I am
on a fifth floor that feels more like a basement
parsing the writings
of a sweaty-toothed madman
and his heirs
willing or unwilling

I remember
clouds overseas, over seas
that broke up against the easternmost wall of my continent
and an island at the end of the world
where kids with soccer nets in their damp front yards
grew food in walled-off Cromwellian soil
and went to the mainland when they needed the twentieth century.

this sky is
heavy and low as in Ireland
as at the foggy tip of the English emperor's reign
old New England in muted color
and Dickensian quiet beauty
miles away.

and when i say devil, i mean the manifestation of doubt.

yeah I know, I have a renewed musical obsession and won't shut up, I'M SORRY. but:

words in Ted Leo songs I have had to look up in the dictionary:
- ossify (to become rigid or inflexible in habits, attitudes, opinions, etc.)
- apostasy (a total desertion of or departure from one's religion, principles, party, cause, etc.)
- fungible (being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.)
- abjure (to renounce or give up under oath)

...and others I can't remember right now. question: do you know what is more awesome/hotter than a punk boy with a good vocabulary? answer: NOTHING. nnnghgadsjfajskdfasdf.

cambridge common, 2 PM, 4/14/10

Old red brick and new gray stone
monuments and cherry trees stand alone
Christmas lights still wink in the trees
tangled in winter, now set free
by the midday sun, the Cambridge breeze
the miracles in the new green leaves

As I walk on to Harvard Square
The clash of years, it meets me there
the Oxford streets, the anytown stores
the singer standing in the door

and seven nations pass me by
underneath a perfect sky
If I should stay here for the night
I think I'd wake to see the light

everything loosened by the sun
I move easily on along
through wide streets and blue skies
through the people's town with the sun in my eyes

if I should stay here for tonight
I think I'd wake to see the light


[it's stupid how pretty Boston is sometimes. what a city. also, cheers to Ted Leo for inspiration for the "Harvard Square" line - he writes the best songs about Boston, I'm just trying to catch up.]

so I asked a Mr. Mellor how to get to where one's going...

it turns out most of the musicians I love dearly have tremendous hero-worship crushes on Joe Strummer, the most notable one right now being Mr. Ted Leo. guys, if you don't listen to him, you SHOULD. and if you have never seen him live, YOU REALLY SHOULD. dude has so much energy, it's essentially impossible not to dance and jump and basically have a fantastic time while he's playing. I saw him by himself at this teeny little venue at my school in September and fell in love (and met him! he's wicked nice and apologized for being all sweaty when my friend and I sort of hugged him, ahaha). saw him again on Saturday night with his full band and had a big stupid grin on my face the entire time.

I'm not going to ramble on about songs and setlists because nobody but me listens to him anyway. but I attempted to post videos because this man is a) talented, b) hilarious, c) brilliant and d) adorable, to be quite honest, and it really comes across best when you see him sing, but alas, my internet connection starts going berserk every time I try to upload videos, so, FAIL. you'll just have to take my word for it.

also, during "Ballad of the Sin Eater," which I did not get a decent video of because I'm an idiot, he did a legitimately awesome Joe Strummer/Johnny Rotten-crazy-spastic-mad-frontman...thing. he put down the guitar and was just all over the place with the mike stand going crazy. it was awesome. my words do not do Ted Leo justice. GO SEE HIM. LOVE HIM.

some fragments

last night I had a dream that I was feeling so self-conscious about being fat that I felt physically compelled to buy a cupcake to make myself feel better even though it made me sick. I can't make this shit up. apparently my subconscious is...quite self-conscious.


unrelatedly, drinking coffee wakes up my writing brain. I LIKE IT. I also like Walt Whitman. he was the man.

i'm worried, i'm always in love.

I go a week between updates a lot.

I miss hockey intensely. playing, that is. I went to the women's hockey banquet today - the coach invited us sportswriters, he is the nicest human in the world - and I miss my team. It's kind of surprised me how many of them have said they miss me too. Love those bitches.

I watched most of two baseball games last night. I think I love the Oakland A's, for a variety of mostly stupid and mostly personal/interpersonal reasons. I'm also certain that I love the Boston Red Sox, but that isn't news. Dustin Pedroia stole my heart two years ago at Fenway.

I want to live in Northern California for at least a year. It's been decided. I think I might work for the San Jose Sharks. Or the A's. Or freelance write for whoever wants me to.

I might be going to Minneapolis this summer. It's hard to articulate how fucking excited I am about that.

I am seeing Ted Leo in three to four hours. I have a huge musical crush on him and kind of just want to sit and talk to him about the Clash and living in Boston and Bruce Springsteen.

I don't know why I never listened to Wilco before this point but I kind of love them.

Pens' last regular-season game is tomorrow night. I hope so hard that they're still playing when I get home in May, that's all I'm saying.

I can't wait for it to be May, and to be home with my car and my favorite people and my TV and my bed, and my couch. There is a serious lack of couches in my life at school.

I also think this last month in Boston-town could potentially be really great. I've sort of found a home at the newspaper office, which I really should have known would happen all along. I'm still in transition, still in progress, but I'm eighteen and that's how I'm supposed to be.

I'm listening to a lot of old, and new, Green Day lately. Comfort music, but also The Greatest Music.

do you believe in something beautiful? then get up and be it.

"Me and Johnny sittin' in the green grass -
I don't remember too much from that far back in the past,
But man, oh man, was Johnathan a laugh
In those days.
Apparently he was my very best friend -
We spent warm summer days wishing they would never end -
But I only know from photographs I look at
Every now and again.

And J-J-Johnny -
Ooh, ooh, all he left us was an apple tree,
And ooh, where'd he go, and ooh, why'd he leave,
And ooh, why do I grieve?

Now I don't ever see Johnathan no more,
But my life rolls on just like it did before,
And I only wonder what it is
That I even miss him for.

Me and Timory holdin' hands -
I was shakin' hers, cause she said she was a fan,
There was an awkward pause, and something that should've began
Just passed us by.
But I watched her sing along with every word,
In the prettiest voice that I never heard,
And I still see her dancing, wearin' my shirt:
Right there.

And t-t-timorous me -
All Timory left me was a memory.
And ooh, I was blind, and ooh, now I find
That I can't see.

Now me and Jodi spend a lot of our time
Just sittin' in silence, driving late at night,
And maybe even wonderin' what's on each other's mind
This time.
But I know she's like me, so I let it ride -
She's dwelling in that quiet space left behind,
Where only peace can answer why,
And you abide
The birds must fly."

- "Timorous Me," Ted Leo & the Pharmacists

going to see Ted Leo again next weekend. CAN'T WAAAAIT :D

do you dream too much? do you think what you need is a crutch?

so I decided to just write while I listened to "Homecoming," since it always seems to inspire a whole lot in me...this is what happened:

Oakland. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of…what? The loudest guitar chords you can manage and the most honest punk-rock shout you’ve got, it seems.

“you taught me how to live” – breaks my fucking heart. Billie Joe, the lost boy, for just a second before this army of stomping boots comes in behind him – Billie, vulnerable, show me how to live, tell me you know something more than I do.

The Northern California rain, desperate at the far end of the continent, intensified and blazing the way everything seems to be out there. Saint Jimmy frantic and wavering, going up in one last towering inferno (I don’t mean to foreshadow) for all to see and marvel over. He may not have been right but he was honest, for a brief flashing second he was beautifully, violently honest about what he believed was the truth.

Lost without that furious driving force, now, where to go where to go? Onward, of course, always onward. Does anyone care if nobody cares? This generation, you hear it all the time, no cause to rally around, like every other group of kids who came before lived and breathed worthy causes.

Such a wonderful image – “Jesus filling out paperwork.” Fucking literary, Billie. And the underbelly, that loose confederation of shady characters we all think we could hang out with, if maybe we were just a little cooler.

ANYBODY GET ME OUT OF HERE.

Picking up the pace, raging and stumbling onward through the cracked streets (and the broken homes?). Four chords and then all of a sudden we slow, and stop. It’s Sunday morning coming down and the church bells are singing out over a deserted town; our hero wakes up on the couch, disoriented, sore, hopeful for a second till he sees, “you’re still not here…and you can’t tell anyone, cause no one’s here.” What a gray, dismal morning, should have stayed home after all, and what in the world are you doing here? The loneliest, most pathetic way to wake up, in yesterday’s clothes and yesterday’s hopes.

WHERE’D YOU GO?

…Jeez. Get over it, man, we’ve got places to go shows to see things to do all over the place, a ROCK AND ROLL LIFE TO LIVE. If you can play the shit out the drums, the guitar, you’ll be fine after all, kid, let go. Get on the wagon with me and we’ll make it just fine.

You can feel the change here; you can feel the streets shake and the key change upward one more time. Upward, higher, pure musical hope (the Ramones might do it best) like the desperation murmur of a heartbeat. Nobody ever said that life was fair, hey, but we’re not through yet. We’re fucked up, we’re not the same, but in the end we’re still here, and we’re the ones going home.

Home, what a thought, after all you’ve been through, to go back to the place where you used to be so different. What a thought, and what is this that happens when you think about it – you started fucking running as soon as your feet touched ground, hey, something in you wants to be there. In the end, you come back. You come full circle. Home, we’re coming home again, and you don’t have to be told to know where that is. You can see it. Maybe you’ve got this rambunctious punk-rock army you can hear behind you, maybe you’re all alone but you’re just fine either way – you are going home.

bittersweet migraine in my head

my school just did its own little "post secret" thing; I submitted a secret and then, upon reading the others, realized I had several more I wanted to get out there in some way:

- I just don’t get as happy when Evgeni Malkin scores as I do when anybody else on the Penguins scores. Even Gonchar.

- I haven’t been to church yet in Boston, and I feel less guilty about that than about the fact that I don’t really want to go.

- I don’t think the kid I’ve most recently referred to as my best friend is honest with me most of the time, and that makes me really angry. I don't think it'll ever be resolved.

- I want to live in Allston and wear worn-out old clothes and be cool and go to cafes in the morning, and have friends who are in a band with me and make excellent, transcendent music and keep ridiculous hours. The whole experience would give me quite a lot of interesting things to write about.

- I also really want to cover the BU men’s hockey team for the Freep by my junior year. I feel like this and the previous desire are sort of incompatible.

- I don’t want to smoke weed -or anything - at all, but a lot of the people I want to hang out with do.

- Knowing that other people are sad makes me sadder than almost anything.

- I always assume that at least 65% of the world has its shit more together than I do, and that the other 35% are absolute messes.

- I don’t want to live in New York at all anymore. I had thought this might happen upon moving to Boston.

- Even though the year has been an absolute roller coaster so far and I’m still in transition, I think I made a good choice in coming to BU.

- The thought of getting married terrifies the shit out of me. It’s so final. To say nothing of having kids.

- I want to start following baseball intensely this year, but I’m seriously afraid of being exposed by die-hard Sox Nation people as a relative noob.

- I have dreamed about being in Prague on more than one occasion, despite the fact that I’ve never been there. It’s always a little run-down but heartbreakingly beautiful in my dreams. It also rains a lot.

- I hate wearing high heels so much that the thought of it actually makes me angry. And I hate when girls are like “you’re just trying to be overly tomboyish/stubborn/whatever,” no, I am being LOGICAL and pragmatic. They fucking hurt. I do not advocate pain in the name of fashion.

- I could never be a hipster because I love the following things (among others) too much: sports, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, the Dropkick Murphys, Dunkin Donuts, The Office.

- However, I could probably be mistaken for a hipster due to my love for the following things: Jack Kerouac, cardigans, writing, writing in long rambling sentences with way too many adjectives, vinyl records, big headphones.