You want a coke? Maybe some fries?

I'd like to start off by saying that becoming a regular at the McDonald's weekend-morning drive-thru is never a good thing, and I think that just happened to me. Truthfully, we have been going more often than we usually do, but still, this is disconcerting. When I pulled around to the first window this morning to pay, I breathed a sigh of relief to see a stranger in place of the girl who's been there the past three* times I've paid for our usual order, but when I proceeded to the second window, said girl I thought I'd avoided seeing greeted me with the kind of cheerful hello you only give out to valued customers and people you feel sorry for. That's what I've become. So we may have to back off for a while and eat normal breakfast things, like cereal and toast. I'll miss the morning drive, the anticipation, the $5 well spent on such a satisfactory, albeit unhealthy, start to the day. I'll just keep in mind the bitterness I felt today when I opened the bag to find they'd given me Spicy Buffalo Sauce for my pancakes.

This same morning, the one that's happening right now - the one when I reached platinum level status at McDonald's, I was sitting outside on our rusty veranda reading Tina Fey's "Bossypants" while Matt finished up the last of his McMuffin and flipped a page in "1861," which details the early days of the Civil War and is the exact opposite of "Bossypants." I'm just wrapping up the chapter where Tina describes the momentous day in which she taped the episode of 30 Rock with Oprah and then proceeded to tape her first ever episode of SNL as Sarah Palin, all while planning her daughter's third birthday party. She included Seth Meyers' script from the Palin sketch, and while reading it, I felt this twinge of nostalgia mixed with sadness over the font, the structure, the cross-outs and rewrites. And I realized I really miss writing sketches.

More than that, I miss having a reason to write sketches - I miss the urgency of churning out the last two pages during my lunch break at work and sneaking over to the printer to grab them before someone else does. I miss the rapture felt when your work is met with laughter, and the crickets that accompany a really sorry effort. I could keep writing sketches for my own amusement, but then again, I've never been a fan of pointlessness. Why put my clothes in a drawer when I'm going to wear them sometime in the next month or two? Why make instant oatmeal when McDonald's is just ten short blocks and a few dollars away? Exactly. That being said, if a good reason comes along, I'll jump on it. I have lots of ideas brewing... like one about Ke$ha presenting her PhD dissertation on the effect of whisky and glitter on house pets... or something.

Lastly, and speaking of Ke$ha, Dana and I went to see Ben Folds on Friday night. The 19-year-old in me - the one wearing baggy corduroys and some now-closed middle school's field day t-shirt, will always carry a torch for Ben Folds Five. I used to work at Creighton's on-campus coffee shop, and we'd wipe down the counters and steal bottles of Sobe to The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. I know every word to every song on Whatever and Ever Amen. Ben Folds sings to dorky people like Michael Buble sings to that one lady you work with. I haven't really listened to anything he's released since Songs for Silverman, so I spent a good part of the show watching moths land on the back of the guy in front of me. But when he did play the familiar stuff, it was awesome. I teared up when he sang "Still Fighting It," but maybe that's because I'm a grownup now and better understand what it's about.


How does Ke$ha figure in, you ask? This was perhaps my favorite part of the entire show (video is from PA because the Iowa version had bad sound and a guy in a Chiefs hat bobbing up and down in front of the camera).


*The low end of a very rough estimate.

January Hymn

This is funny, at least until it devolves into paper eating nonsense.


The past two weekends have been shiny spots of warmth in an otherwise snow-crusted January. We saw Country Strong three times in a row, pausing in between viewings to split granola bars and nap on the floor of the theater lobby. We dug tunnels in the snow and filled them with old throw pillows and Little Golden Books. We fed Pringles to slow-moving sparrows.*

Actually, last weekend brought us to St. Louis, where Matt and I met up with Nerinx friends on Saturday afternoon, family that evening, and I've-known-you-my-entire-life friends late Saturday night. Mimosas, trivia, yearbooks, delicious pasta, wine and a lot of babbling, which came back in glimmers and fragments the next day. There was talk of Andy Garcia, I think. The rest of the weekend was more subdued. I spent Sunday afternoon helping my mom take down the brittle but beautiful Christmas tree, while MC, Paul and I debated what we'd do to the house we grew up in, if money was no object and only the sky (or the asbestos in our basement floor) was the limit. My vote was for a panic room; something simple, sturdy and windowless in the middle of the house.

Joe didn't get to join us in St. Louis, so he made a last-minute visit to Omaha this weekend instead. We spent the evening at the Dell on Friday night, and again on Saturday night, and in between I made him accompany me on my regular weekend trip to Target, where I wander aimlessly, spilling coffee on sale items and reading the backs of shampoo bottles. We also exchanged Christmas presents. Joe gave Matt "Road House" on Blu-ray and a fifth of whiskey. We gave Joe this poster:

...with the requirement that it be displayed in his classroom. He agreed.

On Sunday, we said our goodbyes, and I settled back into my normal Sunday routine of pretending to put things away. It's only almost February, but I'm already dreaming of dinners on the patio, open windows and sunshine on my kneecaps and the curly top part of my pasty ears.

One last thing, completely unrelated, but last week I bought the new Decemberists CD, The King is Dead. I'd kind of gotten tired of the mariners, the man-eating whales and 10-minute-long songs, but this is totally different. I wholeheartedly recommend it.


You can listen to the whole album here.

*Lies

I move in water, shore to shore

We are back from a wonderful trip, and I am officially dead weight – just today. Tomorrow I will be better… energized, awake, able to focus on things besides sleep and the TV I missed while out of the country (where I only had access to CNN International’s ceaseless four-story loop and a few poorly dubbed episodes of The Hills). Before we left, I slapped a few songs together for an Italy playlist, but I actually only listened to my iPod once – on the train ride from Rome to Venice. The books were too good. The in-flight movies too… there. Just to give it a second life, here is said playlist. May it act as inspiration for things to listen to, or not listen to. As you can tell, I’m a recent fan of Phosphorescent. And Peter Gabriel covers Bon Iver! And then there’s that song Tune-Yards from the Blackberry Torch commercial. Anyway, here you go. A tiny, tiny list because I'm too tired to figure out how to make it bigger.

Cover letter

I've written about covers before, but I thought I'd revisit the topic, as I've encountered two stellar covers as of late. Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness" is one of my go-to songs for those times when you're going a lazy eight on the elliptical, back peddling slowly and watching a fuzzy episode of "Angel" in between swigs of water. But then my brother showed me a video of a singer named Lissie covering the song at one of her shows, and it's awesome. But switch out the elliptical for a nylon camping chair and the water bottle for a warm jug of margarita mix.



And then I think at one point I wrote about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and included the trailer that featured Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle's "Don't Kiss Me Goodbye." Turns out iTunes won't let you buy that song on its own, so in a last-ditch effort to include the song on a mix, I found this cover by Max Hirtz and Andrea Brooks.



So, sure there are some really distasteful covers like all of those "Big Yellow Taxi" re-dos, or my cover of Jodeci's "Forever My Lady." But kudos to those who can do it well.

Things to listen to, read, watch... IMHO.

Truth be told, I do have an iPod (see previous post). I guess I lied for effect, but in my defense, what I own is more like ¾ of an iPod, if that. If Apple is the parent, the iPod Shuffle is its red-headed stepchild’s MP3 player – small, screenless, pathetic, useful only if you are running and/or blind. But you work with what you have, and I recently went on a rare downloading jag, refilling the old Shuffle with new music for an upcoming bus ride home.

Yawns – Frightened Rabbit
We Own the Sky – M83
Quelqu’un m’a dit – Carla Bruni
Shove It (feat. Spank Rock) - Santigold
Re: Stacks – Bon Iver
Lisztomania – Phoenix

Frightened Rabbit makes this summer feel like last summer. Phoenix makes me recall being in Omaha, stuck in hot rush hour traffic. Listening to the French first lady sing makes me think of pastries. All of these songs come with my recommendation (and my $.99).

I just finished reading The Forever War by embedded NYT reporter Dexter Filkins, purchased in haste from the Phoenix airport and relished on a number of recent rainy days. Regardless of your stance on our involvement in Iraq, Filkins’ story takes it out of the news and into someone’s head (his own). Every single thing he sees and hears is jarring and unforgettable. I feel a heightened sense of awareness regarding this war just for having read his relatively short book. Needless to say, this is another recommendation.

For the ladies: DoubleX is a new blog from the folks that brought you Slate.

And one more - happy Thursday!