when i'm not listening to the music...

georgian sludge-turned-boring-melodic-metal, baroness, played at the 013 last night. this band, hailing from the blue ridge mountains of my childhood, who i've seen in NC and VA, playing for a dutch audience.

i was already disappointed by the newest album when we rode towards berlin. steffan already had a place on the guest list as he was expecting me to be running around vienna rather than tilburg. we managed to get a free ticket while in line so we stood there in our free places bored and drinking our free beers.

the 1st time in richmond, i remember the topless butchies being carried over the teeming crusties. and in the nightlight in carrboro, NC, only being able to see anything because i stood on the couches by the books. they were large-statured, long-haired valkyrie-cowboy gods. i saw the swamp monster slowly rising out of the sulfurous silt of Montezuma's Revenge. green eyes glowing and scanning those in attendance. i understand this new artistic direction though i don't necessarily like it. they are good performers with clean, technical skill. they wanted more layers and more complexity so they ditched the sludged doom. i really think they could have taken the whole sludge-doom thing to a whole new level and make that more complex. but they didn't.

present baroness no longer produces horror stories. the intersections of geography, macrocultural attitudes, the ease of an identity purchased - the audience enraptured me. they bore a lot of the cultural symbols i found familiar. the red-and-black checked shirts donned by skater boys (@ least they present themselves in that way to me) with close-cropped hair and the ladies with flowered coiffures doing the rockabilly thing, etc.

maybe they were bored, too, but everyone remained crowded in the concert hall, politely quiet throughout the entirety of the show and politely clapping at the end of each song. some people bobbed their heads and throw up their hands to pose some symbol or another but they all stayed within their small circle of show-personal-space. no pushing. no excitement. no emotion at all. the front row was reserved for the professional photographers with their fancy equipment and not for the enthusiasts - my main WTF. the high stage became higher. preventing any sort of dynamic relationship between the band and the audience. why is this okay?

i miss DIY.

seeing baroness in tilburg, NL

i once couldn't stop thinking about the definition of health, relatively defined through different cultures, it's significance to differing cultural systems and its relationship with the physical, spiritual and social body. now i can't stop thinking about cultural consumerism, buying identities, local cultures and global sub-cultures. drunk and tired now but will expound on this later.

blogspot or tumbler? blogbler?

happy holidaze.

it's been over a year since my last update. wth.

since that time, i've endured my last semester of nursing school/university, graduated, got my nursing license, travelled a bit of europe, then moved to the netherlands and am living in domestic bliss with my current and primary partner, steffan.

if you want to find out about him. he has his own blog:

http://www.staplerfahrer.nl

crinkly glass unicorn fingernails.

attempts to brighten the day's mood has me wearing floral bows around my neck, donning white fingertips, and hanging a burgundy tassel hanging from the hole of my collar-coat. trudging through the front lawn got me a ride from a med-student/friend that i only see on dance floors every once in a while; his fresh face and curl befallen on his exhausted forehead warmed the pyloric curve beneath my diaphragm. staring too much at screens gives me smarting lemon-juice eyes.

last night a dj saved my life.//

dancing harder than i have in a while. i was fortunately wandering aimlessly behind the hospital looking for nonexistent street signs to direct me to the party when a lovely faced soared upon me via bicycle. we trek up to bustling crowds and the smell of beer with my stomach twisting itself into knots; how intestines have been the inspiration for labyrinths. the continued lack of power to lloyd st meant that i could have late-night pizzas and take a bath in goats milk with good company and energetic dog-friends post-crazy party. i still feel the residue of dejection but the load has lightened, for sure.

it circles back again.

the list of losses:
1) the power at my house (and my nights spent alone under 3 layers with the smell of old matches floating in the air above me)
2) my 3 weeks of sworn celibacy that dissolved with the upswing of the proper hormones
3) $77.25 for the reconnection - an astronomical feat that is taking me a few days to scrape it all together in order for it to slip through my fingers again
4) the cellular device that's maintained a sticky web between me and the rest of the world and now leaves a sometimes-easily-forgotten black hole in the pit of my stomach
5) the energy that's kept me afloat until now and has been recently replaced with dejectedness and hopelessness
6) the internet - my back up sticky web that is out with the power
7) my laptop - the juice dripping out the battery while i was away on campus watching women have orgasms while popping babies out their uterus

the list of vices:
1) getting lost in the landscapes spun by magical-realists while elderly women beg me to take them home and simultaneously neglecting finals that will burrow themselves into my shoulders until mid-december
2) pumpkin, chocolate, cinnamon, soymilk, spaghetti (always), fried egg on toasted panini or arugula, at least every 2 hours during my 14 hour days
3) maybe avoiding a certain sweetheart for no particular reason at all
4) spending too much time with a sweetheart despite my skin being riddled with uncertainty
5) hanging out with b.r.o.b. despite needing to be in work in less than an hour
6) needing at least 3 cups of coffee a day and shamelessly trying to get my friends to hook me up with free goodies

the good things:
1) drinking a pumpkin shake while watching 'the golden compass' while @ work
2) a house show happening down the road from work
3) the possibility of walking 2 miles in the rain BUT i still have my ipod
4) my ipod! with newly acquired slavic soul party, from brussels with love, mutant disco, 70s disco from nigeria, and more!
5) breaking my 3 weeks of sworn celibacy
6) going to disney world for christmas
7) only having 2 weeks left of class then i am 'free' for a month!
8) still eating the remnants of the box of chocolate dipped pretzels dug from the pit of lowe's trash in rural north carolina
9) the people that love me though i don't see them too often