teetering on the edge of another unemployed week!

Yes, but I still found it necessary to party my ass of all weekend. And now, in the afterglow of an incredibly fun weekend, I ran to central market to get a bottle of cheap Argentinian red and some pate and a baguette. Incredible feelings of pseudo-continental, pseudo-poverty-ridden style. Here's the weekend breakdown:

-Friday - 9ish pm - Many car-beers later, Jared and I emerged to go see The Shout Out Louds and The Rosebuds at the Parish, both of which were great. But most memorably, before even getting there, some morbidly obese homeless man re-christened us as 'The Twin Towers,' which I think is so fucking funny it's going to be our zany duo nickname forevermore (it's funny cuz we're both so tall, you see). I tried to make magic happen with people from the Rosebuds, all the while thinking 'just invite us to your afterparty, c'mon!' only to learn that they had to go to Houston the next day and everyone just wanted to sleep. Couldn't you have told me that before I adorned my arms with temporary tattoos with your bands' name on them?!

-Saturday - 7:00 p.m. - Went to Alamo Drafthouse (AKA HEAVEN!) with Jared for Diabolic, some crazy ass psychadelic Italian '60s comic book adaptation. Diabolic is a leather-catsuit-wearing-studmuffin-international-thief-mod-robinhood. It was funny and weird and beautiful and silly and gadget infested and just a great time. And we got in free thanks to some girl I actually used to think sucked, but now obviously she is my new best friend. Because of all the crazy funny kitschy shit going on there, I kind of almost want to live there. Examples: live wardrobe with coats and trees and fake snow and a lamp post for the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe premiere, doc about the Velvet Underground, Moulin Rouge singalong, weekly bad b-movies, trippy art films with live music, and SO MUCH MORE. I cannot emphasize how rad this place is and if it didn't I would have maybe paused before realizing I wanted to move here, instead of knowing without reservation that this is exactly where in the world I want to live right now.

-Saturday - MUCH LATER - Went out to scaldingly hotspot 'The Peacock' on the notorious east side - fantastic mix of drunks, druggies, hipsters, gays, partygirls, DJs, rock stars and hangers-on. It was awesome. Then scampered off to Club De Faulte for some wheelings and dealings and then...well, you get the idea.

Today is all about feeling the combined remorse of two pretty excessive days. Where my pate at?!

um, so, yeah

Not exactly the most family beginning to a terrrribly family holiday, I'll admit that. Obviously, we were unable to make it to the t-day party we had been invited to. I didn't even crash until 2 pm, and this was one of those tragically early dinner deals, which honestly I don't even see why people do that.

One thing I need to establish rightfuckingnow: I am not becoming a cokehead. Since I'm not blogging too much these days, it just looks like it. But twice in a month to me is not a huge deal. Not that I'm protesting too much. If anything, I just wanted to eradicate the memories of my last coked-out sexperience. Also, it was a fun opportunity to pick that brain of our wildman Venezuelan neighbor. And it's one of those experiences Jigga and I will be able to hold over the head of Josh.

Things that were terrible: everything being closed, dodging phonecalls, not having any weed to smoke or really anything to do. So, Jigga and I americanized it up and had dindin at Denny's. Not the holiday freakshow I'd been hoping for, honestly, and then I got humiliated in chess. So, all in all, a shitty holiday, especially compared to last year's amazing spread for my euro-loves in France. I'm rather terrified that shit was A YEAR AGO.

In other news, I am resisting the temptation to apply to go back to France next year. Partly so I can just focus on grad school and getting in, partly because I don't feel like doing the application. But partly? Because running away right after college was okay, but I feel like if I did that again, I would just have another excuse to not get my shit together upon returning. And I need to accept my destiny as an American in America and stop giving myself continental airs.

Speaking of grad school, I heaved a sigh of relief that three out of four of my choices have mid-February deadlines. Unfortunately, my absolute number one choice, UT, demands everything at the beginning of January. Ahhhh! Which is kind of a 'fuckfuckfuck!' but also a 'good' since forcing me to get my shit together sooner than later is key.

I just need to stop having this crisis of purpose. I need to stop running around unwilling to do anything and just get a job get an appartment get my own fucking life and find a little writing nook to get something meaningful done. Until then, I need to just use coffee shops and libraries and dirty-ass corners of the appartment and just DO IT. Fuck, I seriously make myself crazy with my ability to excuse and justify inaction out the bloody wazzoo.

Anyway, weekend is now here, and I need to pick up Shout Out Louds tix for me and Jigga / write an opus and beg for approval from professors who may or may not remember me.

ahhhhh

Okay, so the last time I blogged, I was describing being fucked up in a similar way to the fuck-up-edness I now feel, even though the book I am readihng (In the City of Shy Hunters, FUCKING READ IT, TOM SPANBAUER RULES) dictates NOT partaking in said subtance, but whatever is fundamentally whatever, and what is and has been done and shall heretofore be.

I dropped our beloved roomie 'Shua off at the airport yesterday afternoon, and ALREADY things are getting historically out of hand, not counting the heretofore undone yet planned for mushroomes.

Instead of continuing my tres a.m. t-day post, I'm going to post the excerpt that I wrote today and ENCOURAGE you to comment on its content and the possibilities it contins;. Keep in mind I was not on said substance at the time, just some weeeeeed, and it should be read as a more elegiac portrait of said times raathern than a romnatixcization thereof.

Read on, courageous ones, and check out a later incarnation in mothafucking here when I win that shit in a hot month, when I expect they wuill be announcing winners (opmigod, will I remember to post it at the end of this passage (omigod, isa it even good enough to post, let alone submitg (yes it is goddamnit, you fucking rule especially when you read your own shit on diette cokeaine))).

There are those, yes, those rather unfortunate steaming-manhole, unmarked construction, hole-in-the-entire-fucking-universe moments. And there will be no warning, and even more pressingly there will be no one to save you, no one to love you, no one to talk to, no gods to pray to, no any one thing you slaved away hours and days and years just to possess, and mothafucking most importantly, no one to listen to you.

You. You as you babble incomprehensibly, strung-out-edly, with all the despair and love and longing in your fractured-ass heart.

In the clammy deep of 4 a.m. I am you (you are also you) in these abandoned seconds, though at this hour I cannot even see the magic in the first second of a new minute. Usually, such small wonders can reaffirm me but at 4 a.m. nothing can really find you anymore and nor can you (me!) find any-goddamn-thing or any-fucking-one.

Okay, seriously fucking read and comment.

Blogging is fun. I need a cigarette, not that I have been uncontrollably chainsmoking for the last four hours.

make art out of it

So, yesterday was one of the best-spent Sundays I've had in a ridiculously long time. It also confirmed for me that the place I live is fucking awesome. My friend Mystima and I went to the EAST East Austin Studio Tour yesterday afternoon, getting free drinks nd rubbing elbows and talking with artists and checking out some pretty fucking amazing stuff. We probably went to twelve or fifteen different areas around the East Side, which is also notorious for being the poor/bohemian district. Lots of warehouses and barred windows and train tracks...definitely sparks the imagination.

What was awesome about this event was that it wasn't just limited to galleries. We're talking about a two-day all-day event, where you go into someone's private studio, have the experience of walking around in their brain, and it manages to eschew the 'opening art walk' feeling of obligation to buy - though that was obviously on the agenda, this event was created for people to meet and connect with artists and try to reach some understanding of what their work is about.

We ended up at the closing reception last night, and what I lovedlovedloved was being at an art event and finding that people were incredibly social, not bitterly pretentious or guarded or nose-in-the-air-to-the-point-of-cross-eyed-ness. I met and talked with loads of people very easily, both artists I had met in the day or other artlovahs.

Though all the fun I had does not make up for shitty short films that are basically designed to be a stupid yet arthouse video for a Modest Mouse song (complete with lyrics at the bottom of the screen(?!)).

I can't believe I managed to write something coherent this early in the am sans coffee, but I am about to rectify my caffeine situation.

long overdue!

Would have been blogging sooner, my little babies, but in spite of the apparently unstoppable power of my roomie's G5, I have been totally unable to post at home for some reason. So, there are a few matters of some importance that must be retroactively covered herein:

1.) Blatant irresponsibility: I had two extremely wild nights in a row this Thursday and Friday. My friend Mary from UM who is now randomly living here post Katrina-ishly (she moved from N'awlins) and I have been hanging out loads. So, she hit the town with the boys and I on Thursday nite, since our original plans of going to see Metric (interesting band featuring the Stars/Broken Social Scene girl) were shot down by the other one million people who live here and looked for an actual activity on Thursday night. So we hit the scene downtown, got our sauce on, threw tiny green berries at hipsters from a hillpoint vantage and ended up staying up until 5, with Mary screaming at the boys for how filthy the house was (she couldn't believe that women actually slept with men living in such squallor, I guess).

Friday: much, much less innocent. I met up with Mary again to check out Fabric, an incredibly cool local gay spot. And let me assure you that the amount of cute guys in this town is FUCKING STAGGERING. So, being in a cool spot in a new town, I took the initiative to throw away my reputation like so much garbage and spend the next couple of hours getting blatantly coked up and avoiding the advances of a much older fellow providing said coke. But pretty soon I was so spun there was only the end of the night and my pent-up sexual frustration, so I went back to his place.

Yikes, do you really want to know more? Anyway, I left and came home, totally unable to get to sleep until after 6.

After all that shite, I decided to gift myself with an excessively mellow Saturday, which was DEFINITELY in order.

2.) Revenge of responsibility: I believe I found a house to move into at the beginning of December, which is extremely exciting. I think I'm just going to break down and apply to work with my friend Jigga, who spends his days toiling before a call center cubicle. Whatever, it's $11/hr and will help me make sure I can actually pay to move into this place. Plus, it'll help me get the tickets for going to NYC in February, and then I can just quit before leaving and try and get another gig on the flip side.

3.) Miscellany: My last comment I tried to post was the day after the gay marriage ban passed here in Texas. Living here is definitely like living in Missoula; the young beautiful liberals try to strike down blatant legal hypocrisy and reel with shock and dismay as the other 90% of the population struggles to hold onto their fucking values. Is it absurdly frustrating and unfair? Um, yeah. But I gave up the ghost long ago on believing that we live in anything close to a perfect world. And besides, the institution of marriage exists to provide tangible proof of the invisible and the unprovable - it is my belief that marriage is something that exists to ritualize something, to create proof and promise - lovemeloveme FOREVER no,no please don't go!

Marriage doesn't fucking mean anything anymore, and if the moral majority fucking think that they're protecting a valuable and valid institution, then their next effort should be to convince alcohol-free beermakers that their product is a morally disgusting fluke that does not have the same rights and priveleges of your 6-7% 'normal beers' and should heretofore be referred to as a 'civil beverage.'

Whatever, that's my rant. In zany creative news, two nights ago I read to Josh, Jigga and Josh's lady K-Boz from One Hundred Years of Solitude, while throwing back some cocktails. It was fun, but it's kind of hard to believe how much longer it takes to read out loud - I love the language of it, so reading it aloud is great for me in processing that information in a different way, but the book is written in such lengthy, otherworldy sentances and with such little dialog it should be interesting to see if people can keep their attention up.

Today, I did some writing and research for another project. The flame lit neath my creative bunsen burner, you ask? Tom Spanbauer, of-fucking-course. I finally bought In the City of Shy Hunters, so I can reread it and attempt to force my writing to imitate all that is good about it. I just found out he has a fourth novel coming out in May, which thrills me beyond words because part of me was fucking freaked that he wouldn't live long enough to pen another work.

But, here's the exciting part: I stumbled across the 'Dangerous Writing' website, and found out that he teaches fucking classes in Portland. Portland, where I'm planning on living next summer. The coincidences are whizzing and whirring all around, but one thing is clear: I must meet and study under this man, because from what I've read of his interviews, he is as passionate and dynamic and unexpected in his teaching as he is in his writing.

Anyway, I'm at the local branch of the library, a mere block and a half from my currently crashing pad, so I'm going to trot home and grab some nourishment.

fucking fuck you blogger, you won't let me post

holycrap

Little tendrils of possibility are worming their way in and out of my little life right now, and I'm not even fucking TRYING to be my full dynamic self. I love this place. People are already trying to refer me to potential jobs and apartments and hangouts and d-rugs and whatnot. What a freaking delight.

I'm still reeling from Iron and Wine with Calexico (obviously!) but I just finally saw Dig, which is a film about Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols. And holy jesus was I musically titilated by the film and have subsequently been compulsively listening to BJM.

Went to Oilcan Harry's, a gay bar, for retro night last nite. Twas fucking dead, but I got my old Missoula friend Mary to come down. She is now mysteriously and post-Katrina-ishly relocated to Austin, and I suspect we will be spending a goodly amount of time together as I LOVE the bitch.

Though I have not actively begun searching for a job, I am helping my friend Trey, who does real estate photography, tonight and may be doing more of that in the future. I fucking even opened a bank account! My god, it's hard to believe I'm finding the capacity for responsibility in this thick smoky haze.

Will be working on pictures soon, for Zach and any other ole anyywho might care to see. I am on the prowl harder than ever, so watch out Austin blokes!