Very bummed about Jam Master Jay's murder, his stupid fucking senseless murder.

Run DMC first said a DJ could be a band
Stand on its feet, get you out your seat

Barry White is sick, too.

A lot of knitters seem to be coming here looking for legwarming patterns. So here's how to knit legwarmers. My craft store stopped carrying my yarn midway through an enormous wool wrap I'm knitting right now and I'm so peeved over it. I didn't really want to buy 70 dollars worth of yarn at once, so sue me. And I don't remember what brand it was. London somethingorother.

In other log referral news, the Germans continue their search for teeny porn. Also have been getting a lot of "I want to fuck my mom" searches. For the love of all that is good and holy, folks.

Also, there's a mildly amusing column over at kuro5hin about the different types of bloggers...caught my eye only because the first one is 'Teenie Blogger.' I have a secret fascination with the blogs of private school girls. This might make me a little sick, I realize. Maybe I'll dig up some examples later.

Oh shitshitshit I forgot the blog.

Shit.

Today is a perfect soup day. I work in a basement with no windows and thus no awareness of the outside world, and even I can feel the innate soupyness of the day soaking through. So I'm going to try to go home early and make a big soup full of all the things I love. Potatoes in cream for sure, and maybe corn or mushrooms, and cheese. And onions. And a little garlic and bay leaf and nutmeg.

You want my soup, don't you? Yeah, it's going to kick ass.

The soup is all for me because the boyfriend doesn't like soup. Categorically, he doesn't like soup, and specifically, he doesn't like anything that goes in soup. He doesn't like any sort of hot liquid, including coffee and tea. He will tolerate hot chocolate if he's really cold. He doesn't like vegetables or condiments or dressing or honey or anything with soy. He doesn't like bread with seeds or tapioca or tomatoes or beans or mushrooms or hot sauce. He doesn't like onions or garlic or leeks or chiles or sour cream or cottage cheese. He doesn't like avacado or granola or hummous.

Hummous, I say!

I forgot to mention that another reason I wouldn't want to have a kid is because I wouldn't be very keen on not drinking for nine months.

I forgot to mention this because I was drunk.

So I suck and didn't go to either concert. I'm starting to have a hangup about going out. I was so tired and in such a cruddy mood on Friday that I just couldn't handle the thought of talking to anyone, or even avoiding talking to anyone. Making any effort at all seemed extremely unreasonable. I hate that my job makes me like this at the end of the day. I was really trying to last until ten and I just physically couldn't do it.

I had to get up the next morning and work more anyway. I took a nap Saturday afternoon and everything and was getting ready to go out when a friend from far away called and said he was in town, so I went with the boyfriend to see him instead.

Everyone's got babies now. Not our friend from far away, but he was about the only one. A bunch of us from the college days got back together, and two of them who married each other walked through the door and the one who was the girl was enormous.

I was not aware that this girl was pregnant and it scared the shit out of me. I swear I jumped when I saw her, like she had said boo.

And then the friends with two kids came in. And our host's kid was there too. The total kid count was only three, plus a fetus, and one of the three kids was only a few months old, so there's only two of them that are mobile, but they're chasing each other around and around and even though we, the adults, far outnumbered the kids, I was getting a little nervous.

The reasons why I even consider having kids are really really bad reasons. Here are some of them:
*I'm an only child and my parents would probably dig having a grandkid.
*It would be super cute to see the boyfriend in minature form. Like having a shrink ray or something.
*People give you shit. (Actually, I take that back, as I hate baby-oriented shit, so it would just be annoying to receive the BitsyWitsy SuperRock 8000 cradle when I fully intend for the kid to sleep in a dresser drawer.)
*I don't know what the hell else I could do if I moved.
*You can dress them funny.
*Maybe I would gain enough weight to fit into the Seven Jeans which I now realize are a size too large.

All these mothers really puzzle me, like a dog trying to figure out the doorknob. It's like they're speaking a different language. We're in the same universe but they're on a completely different layer of it. They huddle together on one side of the room, and I sit on the couch with the men, chiding them for drinking diet soda instead of the cheap beer I've brought. We are, believe it or not, all watching football.

I think the parents are a little scandalized that I'm drinking beer in front of the kids. I could just be oversensitive, though. The boyfriend and I are, it must be noted, the decadent, crazy couple of the bunch. They're just a little straight.

Which is wonderful and very grounding, I must admit. It was a lot more interesting but also a lot more exhausting when we took up with a relentessly bisexual group of goths when we were in our early 20s.

The reasons I don't want to have kids are really scary and good ones, I think:
*Don't want my body ripped apart by a little alien.

I guess that's just one big one, although I've also got the other ones that you're not really allowed to say, like you think the baby would eventually end up dead. On purpose.

This is really depressing.

I know if the boyfriend wanted one, he could talk me into it, and it would all end up just fine. I'm really afraid, though, that I'm considering it because I don't really know what to do with my life, and that's no way to make a decision. There's one percent of me that thinks it might be a good idea to do the baby thing at some point, and I really wish it would just shut up.

Shut up already.

Yo, this person being gone really sucks. I'm taking up a lot of the slack and there is no time. Tonight, though, I'm going to a concert, a really kickass one. My cute DJ employee's band is opening up the show. And I'm going to another concert tomorrow night. Beer will be drunk. Fun will be had. Unless I drop dead of exhaustion first. When did staying up until ten to go to a show become such a formidable obstacle?

I haven't blogged about the city in a long time. I had a dream about going to the Met last night, except it had relocated somewhere in Long Island or something. It was a little weird. Maybe it was actually the new MoMA in Queens instead and I just didn't realize it.

I miss New York.

The universe is slowly swiveling back into place.

I still have no time. One of my major support staff people is gone, and I'm scrambling to keep up.

So here is a name-dropping entry that I can dash off without thought:

When Bobcat Goldthwait came by the radio station, he was really cool and soft-spoken off the air. I offered to give him some CDs and he was quite appreciative. So what kind of music do you like, I asked.

"Um, you know...like the Replacements."

He was also very excited about the Elvis Costello album I gave him, and a Graham Parker best-of. Or maybe it was a Marshall Crenshaw best-of. Either way, I was pretty impressed. I offered him the Ryan Adams album but he already had it.

Bobcat Goldthwait has great taste in music. That'll give you faith in the world.

God. Did I forget yesterday? Not just think, I'll blog later, or, I simply don't have the time today, but just forgot?

Monday's entries were faux-lighthearted. I actually spent an hour crying in my boss's office for no real good reason. Lucky for me my boss is ridiculously tolerant of this kind of behavior, and we worked everything out. The insurance check did save the day from being a disaster, though.

Yesterday a lot of stuff happened. It was all pretty good stuff, but it was all pretty intense too. All this morning I felt like I had been crying for hours the night before, even though I hadn't. Then I finally got my period and I was so relieved because that means the beginning of the end of all this hormonal nonsense.

Being a girl is so fucking weird. If you can detach yourself from it a little bit, it's kind of interesting, but sometimes there is no detachment to be had. Sometimes it's very cosmic and magical and you feel very in tune with everything. Right now it kinda feels cosmic, and I feel like I'm in touch with the universe, but the universe is all wrong; it's gone all askew and is screwing with everyone.

I am not a hippie, by the way. I'm not even vaguely spiritual or religious or superstitious. Well, not as I see it, anyway. I do tend to believe in karma, and in telling the truth and all that good stuff. But I'm not going to deny the girl-magic when I feel it, either.

A lot of it is that I'm all scronked up about the boyfriend coming into his own and the Plans For The Future. I'm feeling horribly guilty for considering leaving my amazing boss, even though I know he'd understand and be happy for me. It would also mean leaving my little radio family, my staff and all the listeners.

The boyfriend said last night that he's getting a reputation, that more people know his name without him knowing theirs. He's finding that he's really good at what he does. He is pretty brilliant. I kinda giggled and said, see how I feel. I was out last night and someone recognized me, someone who's been listening for seven years. That's pretty awesome. But also I'd had two pints of beer and it was past my bedtime and I was shivering in line and I didn't really want to talk about all the shit that I do wrong. It's still cool, though. It's just that I don't go out a whole lot, and it's always weird to be reminded that I'm never off the job.

You're not going to believe this. I just got a message from the car insurance people and they said that their estimator said that there was 950-something dollars' worth of damage to my car. No shit. They said my bumper needed to be replaced, which my guys at the shop didn't say anything about, so I'll have them double-check on that. I'm not out of the frugality woods yet, but I can see the new boots from here....

I cheated a little on the frugality this weekend, but made up for it. Cheat: ordering pizza. Disclaimer: it was for the boyfriend, who is quitting smoking and writing a big paper. Cheat: going to the movies. Disclaimer: It was The Notorious C.H.O., so I didn't really have a choice, did I? (It was great, and absolutely filthy.) Redemption for $20 spent: cut my own hair, thus saving $30. Fully expected it to turn out bad, but it actually looks pretty nice. I know, I'm lucky.

The theme of this post is shoes. Over there to the left is the sexiest pair of boots ever. They're $780 and I don't even know if I could walk in them. I won't be buying them because I'm spending $600+ on my car repairs today. I probably wouldn't be buying them anyway, truth be told. I've owned cars that were worth less. Car repairs usually inspire a good, soul-redeeming frugality binge and this one may be no different.

Frugality binges involve a complete cessation of clothes buying. Actually, nothing gets bought except food, and no fancy food. Rice and beans are cooked. No pizzas are ordered. No dining out. The thermostat goes down two degrees at least. No wine. Pre-existing cheap beer is rationed, and when it runs out, inappropriate mixed drinks are made using whatever is on hand. Frugality binges usually last a month, with normal brie-buying habits creeping back gradually.

But man, I really wanted a good pair of boots for fall. My Doc Martens just look silly with my Seven jeans. Maybe if I wore the 20-hole docs.

Last night I had a dream that I was shopping for shoes. (My subconscious has some stuff to work out, y'know.) The person in the store presented a confection of shoe leather to me. "Would you like to try on these Manolo Bl---"

And my alarm clock rings. I'm serious.

So of course I hit the snooze so I can finish the dream. Pathetic.

"Hi teeny, this is Main Street Automotive. We've got your car, but when your husband came by, he forgot to leave the keys."

Whenever someone calls the boyfriend my husband, it completely destroys my ability to process information.

The other night, we were talking about the Future (highly unusual) and the pros and cons of moving to a bigger city. One of the pros of the current city, I mentioned, is the big-fish-in-a-little pond factor.

"Yeah," he said, "A famous DJ married to a high-powered lawyer...we'd rule this town!"

Married, he said.

And I didn't let him slide on it either.

I jumped up and down on the bed and said ha ha ha ha ha you said married. And I threw pillows at him.

"Shut up!" He was really flustered and trying not to show it. He grabbed me and tickled me. "I'm just trying to decide whether to knock you up first."

ha ha ha ha ha I said.

The closest we ever come to talking about marriage is when someone brings it up and I say we don't talk about it. It's not that I have anything against the institution, and we've been dating for nine years and living together for the majority of that, it's just....

Freaky.

Outta time again today, but I did come up with a name for tranny camp:

Camp Wanatukit.

Naturally.

Yesterday I ran out of time for la blog. I thought I was going to be able to do one very short lame one, but then I got into a big deep philosophical thing with my boss. The boss is quite cool like that. Anyway, this was going to be my lame entry yesterday:

NASTY TRANNY SLUTS!
NASTY TRANNY SLUTS! NASTY TRANNY SLUTS!

Best spam from Tuesday. I can't help but giggle when I read it. It came from the domain name trannycamp.com.

Woudn't tranny camp be fun? What with the s'mores and everything. If I was more creative and had some time, I might be able to come up with a faux-Indian Tranny Camp name. I'll work on that.

This site I Used To Believe is making the rounds, and combined with the great New Yorker essay (it's not online, but you can read about it here and here) on imaginary friends I read recently, I'm feeling inspired to remember mine for, um, I don't know, posterity or something.

Their names were Oplik and Blipley, and they were from another planet, probably Mars or Venus. (I was pretty obsessed with astronomy when I was little, and remember streaking around the trailer saying things like "Pluto is the smallest planet in the solar system!" as I ran by my parents, so they could get the Doppler-effect.) I think they lasted from the time I was three to five. I think they looked like people. They would only visit occasionally, because they were busy traveling everywhere. But they would tell me stories about all the other planets and places they'd been.

In retrospect, that's kind of what my dad did too, at least in comparison to my mom, who stayed at home with me until I was in school. He had to go out into the alien desert for the whole day with all his crazy tools and instruments, and he'd come home soaked in sweat and tell us where he'd been. He was a telephone lineman, climbing poles and installing phones, back in the day when the phone belonged to the phone company, not you. Once he installed a phone at Clint Eastwood's home, and that was pretty exciting. Well, it was when I grew up and knew who Clint Eastwood was. More exciting were the tools and supplies he would show me and let me play with. Insulated wire was fun to bend into shapes and make into bracelets. He showed me how his voltmeter worked, and the big gloves that would shield him from high voltage. He showed me how he could tap right into a phone line on the pole and test the line.

Parents are from outer space. At least when you're a kid they are.

And now that I'm an adult, all the kids are from outer space.

Sorry no blog yesterday. I was being jobshadowed by a ninth-grader. I guess that makes her 14. She's the niece of a friend of mine and she's interested in broadcasting. Radio stations are always popular on job-shadow days, and we have to limit the number of kids who do it to the first few who ask. She seemed like a pretty sharp kid. I'd only met her once before. She was very 14, though, and it was cool. Over there to the left is a picture I took of her notebook while she was out of the room. If you can't read it, it says "(girl's best friend) + (girl's) Secret Projects shhh!" and then it has words cut out from magazines pasted all over it: "nice girls play HARD" "sophisticated" "Seriously" "center of ATTENTION" "lighten up" etc.

This is so awesome, isn't it?

I kept all my notebooks from junior high and high school. After I'd used all the paper, I stuck the cardboard exoskeletons in my bookcase. I don't remember pasting words on them, though. Band names, of course, but mostly lyrics that I liked, written out in teenage script. Sometimes drawings, too. I have a notebook now, too, that I plaster with band stickers I get in the mail and that I use to record all the calls that record label people make to me.

I didn't look in the 14 year-old's notebook, in case you're curious. That would have been seriously bad.

There were about half a dozen job shadowers, and of course they have all kinds of questions. They think you're cool but don't want you to know that, but I'm sure they also think you're old. They asked, of course, if you like the music you play. The answer is yes, mostly, and even if you don't like a particular song, you know that someone else really likes it, and that makes you happy.

I told them, I know you're not going to belive this, but when I was your age, I was a little punk rocker, with the colored hair and the boots and everything, and I hated all the music on the radio. And then I learned not to take everything so seriously, and to respect other people's passion for music no matter what it was. And yeah, the Britney Spears song is stupid, but it's fun, and it's not the end of the world to dance and enjoy life.

Total side note: It delights me to a shameful degree when someone agrees with me on ILM.

Time suck, via Metafilter.

The chiropractor, as always, rocked.

I would like this shirt please. When I was last in Saks Fifth Avenue (I mean the real one, on Fifth Avenue), I saw this beautiful dress shirt that was even on sale, but it wasn't in my size, and I refuse to buy things that don't fit me. (You would think that this is a non-decision, but I have way too many things that I bought on sale that almost fit. Mostly though they are thrift store finds and thus excusable.) I think it was a Philosophy shirt. It was white and a normal, very well-tailored shirt from the front, but the back was gone. It was held together by the collar, sleeves, and waistband. Sounds like it wouldn't work, but it did, and it was sexy. I don't know how I'd wear a white shirt without a bra, though, come to think of it.

Ah yes, teeny's blog, where you come to slake your neverending thirst for shopping stories. Jeez, I'm lame.

Just a brief note today, since I've got another chiropractor appointment that's messing up my day. My back went and got all knotted up this weekend, so I spent a lot of time reading. I'm nearly done with Richard Neer's FM now. As you can probably see, I have a few books always in rotation. They tend to be the following: one music-related book, one history/social-science book, and one comfort-food sort of book (either a total beach novel or something I've read before). I pick them up according to my mood. Also I read 87 magazines every month. That's a small exaggeration.

I subscribe to the following weeklies:
Newsweek
The New Yorker
New York Magazine

and the following monthlies:
Vanity Fair
Jane
Vogue

I could swear I'm forgetting one. I read five newspapers a day in their paper editions (or at least I try; sometimes I only get through two or three), and the NY Times and the NY Post online. I'm thinking of starting to read the Chicago Sun-Times online, too. Then there are three or four trade magazines I get at work, and I also get Rolling Stone, Spin, Time, US News & World Report, Details, and some others.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm bragging. I'm just kind of a media junkie. And it's for work, really. Kinda. And I'm certainly not saying I retain any of this information. In fact, I'm shockingly ignorant, considering the smorgasbord of information I tuck into every day.

I'm gonna go get my back popped now.

I've had the same email addy for about six years now. It's been posted on the radio station website for all that time, naked and shivering and waiting for nasty spambots to come get it over and over and over.

I get a lot of spam. Lately I've been getting something advertising a 'FREE Original 1968 Star Trek Card Set.' Whee. I just got five of them. In the last five minutes.

Also lately I've been getting barnyard porn spam from the domain horsiefuckers.com. Because I'm sure horsefuckers was taken, like, in 1994. Pardon me, I'm doing my WHOISes now. Hm, for some reason it wouldn't work. Probably fake anyway, and I'm not even going to the website to find out.

Oops, there's another Star Trek card set.

Monday tends to be the day when I get the most records in the mail. There's the weekend mail to go through, and the record labels tend to send a lot of stuff to arrive on Monday because then we have the whole week to listen to it before we make our decisions on what to add to the playlist the following week. Today I only got about 20 or so records...kind of light for a Monday, really. And none of it was worthwhile, except for a mysterious second copy of Hem's Rabbit Songs, which I like. Also I got the new Apples in Stereo album, but I don't really like them. Getting no good records is actually surprising to no one, is it? I guess I don't know why I even bothered to mention it.

Radio heaven = my DJ segueing "Karma Police" into "Lovecats." I am easily pleased.

I had a weird bit of synchronicity that I took as a sign that I should write about the issue. Last night I was walking downtown with the boyfriend and a truck drove by and someone yelled, "Yeah, nice ass!" out the window. I'm assuming it was at me because I didn't see any other people around, but they were traveling fast, so maybe they just had slow reflexes. I said something to the boyfriend like, yeah, I paid a hundred dollars for these jeans, you bet my ass looks nice. Then I remarked that it was weird that I got yelled at when walking with someone, especially a very tall, muscular man-type someone.

The boyfriend, of course, said, "I thought they were yelling at me."

Then this morning I check out Metafilter and find a link to a site talking about just this sort of thing, and the accompanying discussion was kind of interesting. I don't really know what to say about it. I mentioned the incident last night to one of my (male) co-workers, and mentioned that that sort of thing happens fairly frequently to me when I walk alone. I don't know if I'd say nearly every time, but way more than half the time. I don't know because I try so hard to ignore it. Anyway, he was shocked. And I was shocked that he was shocked. I guess it just reminded me that all of us have our own experience and world-view, or something like that. I wish we could all take care of each other a little better. It's hard to confront those losers, especially when they're in a vehicle and you're on foot, or if you're the only two people in sight, and you worry that paying any attention to them at all is just giving them what they want. And you worry that having already violated one societal norm, they might feel free to violate a few more. Blah. How depressing.

Here is a better spot for the Madonna single. Don't even bother with the link below. Also here is one of my new favorite sites, Gabba.net. Go to the Amp section and check out all of the strange and wonderful music. Yay.

HOLY SHIT THE NEW MADONNA SINGLE!

Do whatever it takes to hear this now. It's so amazing. This site has three mirrors for it if you want a kind of crappy copy, but I almost hesitate to send you there because you need to hear it in real big stereo sound. Radio has it now (and the version they have is different and better than that site), so call it up and request it. You must hear it now. NOW.

The chiropractor said things look pretty good, but I'll have to wait a couple weeks to know for sure. He couldn't pop my fourth vertebra because I was too stiff, but he got all the others, and man, does it feel great. I looooove the chiropractor. I still feel a little achey in spots, and my neck feels weak somehow, but I'm feeling positive about things. The headache I had did go away after he made adjustments.

Oh, I've permalinked the Missy Elliot lyrics to "Work It" (above) since, like, 75% of my hits are coming from searches for it and it's about to slip off the page. The knowledge just wants to be free, man. Babompbabompbomp.

So I was in a traffic accident yesterday. I'm okay, the car is even more okay, and I think everyone involved is okay although the ambulance came for one woman who might have had a neck injury, so I hope she's okay. Okay. I got rear-ended by a woman who was rear-ended...a chain-reaction sort of thing, you know? The woman who caused the accident was really super, totally responsible and concerned. So that gives you faith in the universe. Just hope the lady with the possible neck injury is as nice and honest. I feel bad for doubting human goodness, but you know how it is. I just got a bad vibe off her. That's awful. What if she's dead?

Nothing like a little car wreck to throw your life into reflexive over-examination.

The funny thing is, I never take that route home precisely because I'm always afraid I'll get in an accident. The street needs to be two lanes in either direction, but it's only one. I suppose the rich folks that live on that street couldn't give up fifteen feet of their hundred-foot front lawns. But I dropped off a bill downtown, and that's the most direct route to take from downtown to my place. Also, I was going to run another errand while I was downtown, but I didn't.

Again, nothing like a little car wreck to make you start pondering the ramifications of the butterfly flapping its wings in Japan or China or South America or wherever sort of thing.

Oh, my chiropractor just called me back to make an appointment for this afternoon. He said that if anything's wrong with my neck, I'll really know in about ten days or so. Weird. I'm a little stiff this morning (and my neck did feel weird last evening as well), but not much more than if I'd slept on it funny. But he'll be able to tell some things this afternoon. I also have a little tiny headache, but I might be oversensitive about things, you know? Sorry, this isn't the place where I'd normally take note of these sorts of things, but it's handy, and I want to keep a record in case the insurance people or the doctors ask me something I've forgotten about. I've never been in an accident where the cops came, let alone an ambulance.