|oystershell|

TOP 50 OF 06

according to itunes, here are the fifty songs i played most in 2006:

50. happy - jenny lewis and the watson twins
49. how to save a life - the fray
48. ride - cary brothers
47. star witness - neko case
46. mushaboom - feist
45. the maid needs a maid - emily haines
44. summer in the city - regina spektor
43. heart - stars
42. somewhere a clock is ticking - snow patrol
41. beautiful - goldfrapp
40. reason why - rachael yamagata
39. maybe you can owe me - architecture in helsinki
38. sweet thing - van morrison
37. the charging sky - jenny lewis and the watson twins
36. lived in bars - cat power
35. hypnotized - ani difranco
34. fools in love - inara george
33. goodnight and go - imogen heap
32. shelter - ray lamontagne
31. be be your love - rachael yamagata
30. congratulations - blue october and imogen heap
29. turn into - yeah yeah yeahs
28. willie - cat power
27. anthems for a seventeen year old girl - broken social scene
26. worn me down - rachael yamagata
25. you never know - goldfrapp
24. born secular - jenny lewis and the watson twins
23. far away - martha wainwright
22. free - kate earl
21. headlock - imogen heap
20. cheated hearts - yeah yeah yeahs
19. satin chic - goldfrapp
18. breathe (2 am) - anna nalick
17. by heart - sylvie lewis
16. it wasn't me - jenny lewis and the watson twins
15. honey and the moon - joseph arthur
14. good woman - cat power
13. hide and seek - imogen heap
12. hitched! - maria taylor
11. love & communication - cat power
10. sunny road - emiliana torrini
9. big guns - jenny lewis and the watson twins
8. the greatest - cat power
7. fidelity - regina spektor
6. peach, plum, pear - joanna newsom
5. on the radio - regina spektor
4. number 1 - goldfrapp
3. melt your heart - jenny lewis and the watson twins
2. song beneath the song - maria taylor w/ bright eyes
1. rise up with fists!! - jenny lewis and the watson twins

A MOMENT IN BETWEEN

at any given moment there's a car passing an intersection which someone happens to be crossing.  on their way to somewhere.  from somewhere else.  where someone is spending their hard earned money on a cup of coffee.  or a lap dance.  or their first and last meal until they can scrape up the change to do it again.  the change we choose to give or not give.  as we're walking past.  to work.  to the bar.  to accidentally meet someone we may someday love.  and above, the stars are twinkling, like the scars we're wearing.  like the shoes we're wearing out, walking all over each other.  on our ways to work.  to the bar.  to accidentally meet someone we may someday love.

and i am here.  laying on my bedroom floor, staring at the dim light on the ceiling.  i'm on the same side as you.  i'm just somewhere else.  someone else.  a foreign face in the crowd, weaving in and out of itself.  on its way to work. or the bar.  lost amongst the severe happenstance of all those other foreign faces. 

my foreign face is growing more and more so everyday.  it's not that it's bad.  it's not that it's anything at all.  it's just light and matter.  and it doesn't even matter.  because we're all just foreign faces, casting shadows and reflecting light.  under the stars.  wearing our scars.  and wearing ourselves out.  out into the streets.  into our offices.  into the bars.  accidentally into someone we may someday love.   

and i love.  and i am here, under the dim light of my ceiling. sprawled out like an accident, on my bedroom floor.  considering the little things that change the universe.  that change our lives.  that change our minds.  that change the way our faces grow.  yawns and maps and passing cars.

sprawled out on the floor like an accident.  a perfect little secret.  waiting.  foreign for a moment in between.  all those passing cars.  on their ways to work.  to the bars.  to accidentally meet someone they may someday love.  under the stars, twinkling like the scars we're wearing.  like the shoes we're wearing out.

RUBBER BANDS AND PAPER CLIPS

we're not getting any younger.  the trees, they hang around.  and we hang around and watch the traffic.  and our eyes will occasionally twinkle.  and sometimes we'll even say the right thing.  on porches and in coffee shops.  in cars and in bars.  we're barely getting by.  but we're getting by all the same.  and it's always the same thing. 

watch the sun dive into the pavement.  climb the walls that surround you.  catch yourself in the middle of the crescendo of this orchestra you've thrown together with rubber bands and paper clips.  watch the sun dive into the pavement, under pink skies, and catch yourself counting your steps.

we're not getting any younger.  and we're only getting further and further away from every place we've ever been.  everything feels so removed sometimes.  i look at old photographs and wonder where those lives went.  wonder who i was when i was living them.  wonder what's happening in them now.  as we're getting older and further apart and more removed.  and as we're hanging around, watching the trees just hang around.  the traffic all around.  the traffic we have found in our tiny hands, with which we try to climb the walls that surround us. 

the trains come barrelling down so quickly.  and i am not who i've known before.  the roots, they grow with age and fuse together and we're slowly transforming without a sound.  without a sound.

A THOUSAND TINY PIECES

we are all self destructive in one way or another.  i care too much.  i care so much, i can't even let it show.  otherwise i'm a sofia coppola movie, all lights and colors and sad glam rock dripping down dim walls in long hallways.  it's overwhelming.  if you knew how much i cared, it would overwhelm you.  i do stupid things in the name of care.  this is how i make my meals.  and this is how i fall in love.  and this is how i get so anxious, so often.  and it all explodes into a thousand tiny pieces, fluttering down through the air, waiting for a place to rest.  at your feet.  in the streets.  under the cars your driving by. 

we could meet just once.  you could send me an email i never respond to.  i might not even like you.  but i care.  i care about what you think before you fall asleep.  i care about how you'll spend your christmas.  i care about how your family is doing.  and i hope with all that's in me that you are happy there, wherever there may be.  and when these answers aren't tangible to me, it twists me up in knots.  and when you are unable or unwilling to untie those knots, i just don't know how to get myself around.

we are heavy hearted.  and we are self destructive.  all in our own ways.  our families exhaust us.  and our families love us.  even if they don't know how to show it.  and i am blessed because my family is here with me now.  and i am sad because there are so many other people i wish could be here with us.  and i am lonely, because love doesn't come easy when you don't know how to let it or others in.  for fear you might explode into a thousand tiny pieces.  just fluttering through. 

the rain has come back in.  i stand on my porch and watch it fall into the streets.  the black asphalt shining up at me.  the puddles and the leaves we'll muddle through.  trying to get to the people we love.  trying to get around the get around.  i can never seem to get around the get around.  i don't know the rules anymore.  i don't know the right things to say or when to say them.  the cynical idealist.  the idealistic cynic.  the cold nostalgic.  it's funny how our most endearing qualities are usually the one's we're most afriad to share. the ones we spend so much time trying to hide from. 

it's christmas now.  i hope you all have somewhere great to go.  i hope you all have someone great to go to.  i wish you love.  a thousand tiny pieces fluttering around you.

WHISKEY NEVER HAS YOUR BACK

in the aalto, drinking whiskey, i have found myself recovering from both the revelling and reckoning of being somewhere new, of being someone slightly changed, of being totally broke and entirely overwhelmed by everything around me. 

in my office in the studio, i have found the perfect welcome mat for all the new doors i've been opening.  in my office in the studio, where i have found myself making things happen.  reconciling shipping, marketing to boutiques in barely there towns, designing and copywriting catalogs and bags, telling clients we can't customize a "cunt" glass right now, but that we have plenty of "sluts" and "dirty little whores" in the studio.  i like my job.  i can bring my dog to work.  i'm more than likely going to a trade show in chicago in 4 weeks.  i forward youtube videos to my boss, when we're not talking about blowjobs and barfing on bad dates.  i get to walk to and from work every day.

at home, i kick off my shoes.  we cook pasta.  and now we even buy the wine we've been waiting for, because we can finally afford it.  kinda.  not really, but we make do and do what we can. 

on the streets, i walk belmont and hawthorne.  i look into cafes and bars and shops and i wonder how it can all be so easy and difficult simultaneously.  and how even in its difficulty, i can love it so much.  sometimes it rains.  sometimes it shines.  and sometimes it even snows.  and we qualify the beautiful days by counting the number of layers we don't have to wear.  55 becomes warm, and everything rounds down around us.  when 55 is warm, it's hard to resent much of anything. 

the family is 3 hours away by car.  the friends are 3 weeks away by plane.  my christmas card from the boss lady said, "i didn't know what to get you for a 'gift', so i thought i'd just give you a raise - hope that's ok."  it is.  it's, much like everything else, just fine.

in the aalto, drinking whiskey, i have found myself.  sitting across the table from the people who are no longer strangers but still feel so strange.  sitting across the table from people who are no longer strangers, wondering how the whole world just changed.  wondering what's across the welcome mats the line the new streets i find myself walking upon. 

whiskey never has your back.  not even his.  and we make do.  and we do it just fine.  and when the rain stops, i catch myself smiling.  still.  i catch myself smiling.  even when the phone doesn't ring.  even when i wake up feeling lonely.  even when he reminds me of the cynical idealist that i am.  or idealist cynic that i am.  whiskey never has your back, even when the only two men in the world are all of them and then me.  all the he's i'm trying to reconcile.  all the he's stalking in the eyes of strangers.  and me- jeans rolled up, boots up low, hands in pockets, smiling at the leaves and the passers-by.  because that's how we do up here.  that's how we do.

I. AM. BACK

sorry.  someone was too poor to pay his typepad bill.  someone has a job now and is working on being a normal human being with a life and black lettering in his bank account.  more on all of this when it's not 1:45am.