Dabysan’s Neighborhood

Here is my favorite Vic Chesnutt memory: The first time I ever saw Vic in concert, I was very surprised to notice that we were wearing identical shirts.  I'm not talking about the same R.E.M. concert tee or something like that; I'm talking about the same dark blue long-sleeved button-up collared shirt with thin white lines criss-crossing across it.  The chances of two people wearing that shirt on the same night at the same venue...well, I don't really know what the chances were.  I'd say very small.  Later on in the same evening, he sang "Gravity of the Situation" and I cried like a stupid fucking baby.

Vic died on Christmas.  Here's a link to the post I wrote the last time I saw him.  Here's another one where I said Vic's music made life worth living.

 

It's been a weird year. I put together my photo "yearbook" in iPhoto yesterday and titled it: The Waiting Area; 2009 never happened. Because that's what this year has felt like. Limbo. I don't know if this feeling is specific to the year - will things suddenly start moving again when I peel open this year's wall calendar from my uncle? Probably not. But that's what we always hope for, right? That the new year will change something, and we can simply leave behind the things we don't want.

Nothing reminds you of all your weird single-person-who-lives-alone quirks like having a guest for an extended period of time. Kelli's here for the holidays and I pity her having to deal with me. I sing. A lot.

Every once in awhile I remember that someone else is here and I feel like this:

And mostly when I notice I'm singing, I've been singing this:

I've got one of those stat counters hooked up to my Vox.  It allows me to see which posts are getting hits and where the viewers are located.  I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I assume that when it says someone in Spain is looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe, then there's actually someone in Spain looking at my picture of Scott McCaughey's shoe.  (For some unknown reason, his shoe is very popular throughout the world.)  I know you can get these things routed all over the place to hide your true location, but I don't get into that.  As far as I'm concerned, Spain = Spain and Oman = Oman.

As Valerae recently mentioned in a post covering similar territory, there seems to be a trend where people from Middle Eastern countries trawl Vox for titillation.  I've noticed over the last six months or so that about a fourth of my hits are coming from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and a mysterious place called Yemen.  From what I can tell, they're not here to read my opinions on books and music.  Instead, they seem to hit the same slightly suggestive images over and over again.  I'm not sure what the internet is like in that part of the world, but I'd assume that their access to smut is severely limited when compared to mine.  They're doing the best they can with what's available to them.

More to the point, I've decided to gather all my most popular titillating images together in one spot.  That way my friends on the other side of the world won't have to waste so much time going through the 2,800+ images in my library.  The attraction of some of the pictures is obvious.  The popularity of others only becomes apparent when you realize I've given them misleading names like "sexy results" and "big cock" (for the watermelon and the rooster sign, respectively).  But anyway, here they are all together for the first time ever.  Enjoy!

I decided to stay in Seattle for the holiday after much hemming and hawing and then more hemming and a little waffling. I feel bad about it. I would like to see most of my relatives, but not in conditions that are hostile to sanity. So I'll be spending a quiet week in (and out of) my quiet apartment. Here's what I plan to do:

• Catch up on laundry
• Read Proust, Rorty, and Murdoch
• Write my year/ decade - end lists, analyses, etc.
• Find some new music to listen to
• Clean the bird cage
• Vacuum
• Go to a movie (which one? dunno)
• Watch the 2 Netflix I've had for 6 weeks
• Re-order my Netfilx queue
• Send a holiday letter to my uncle Phil in Sweden
• Drink some brandy & eggnog
• Do yoga
• Sell some books
• Make a mix CD to give to friends
• Plan a quick trip to Portland next week
• Go to my ex-husband's xmas-eve punch party
• Go for a run or 3
• Make myself a nice meal
• Figure out what I'm doing with my life

Well, that last one may extend past this week...

I got a box of Christmas cookies in the mail today.  At least I think they were Christmas cookies.  The snowman is definitely Christmassy and the tiny gingerbread men probably count, but I think the pumpkin and the bunny might be leftovers from other holidays.  I'm not sure how the squirrel and the foot fit in either.  And that's to say nothing about the most disturbing cookie of all...the hand that appears to be giving me the finger.  I swear the cookie arrived with its fingers already broken.  I didn't break them as some sort of protest against rampant holiday consumerism.

Of course, I'm cool with unusual Christmas cookies.  I got one of my aunts in the family gift exchange and bought her a cookie cooling rack at Sur La Table.  I had a few dollars left over, so I bought a cookie cutter in the shape of a lobster.  I think it sort of looks like an angel, so I'm going to try to convince her it's the angel that heralded the birth of Jesus.  By the time we get around to opening our presents, she will probably have already downed a good half dozen glasses of my Uncle Tom's notorious punch.  She might just be drunk enough to believe me. [EDITOR'S NOTE: This post counts as my Christmas greetings to you and all my various online associates.  If this saddens you and you'd like more from me, go back and look at the cards I scanned for 2007 and 2008.  Happy Christmas.]

On June 6, 2010 it will be 20 years since I graduated high school. You know what that means, right? Yeah, yeah I'm old. I don't fucking care. It also means that this summer is my 20th High School Reunion an auspicious event rendered totally pointless and infinitely more annoying by the advent of Facebook.

Tonight I've put up with the incessant nagging of someone I don't even remember. Apparently this yahoo has scanned in our senior yearbook and was puzzled that he couldn't find my picture. I told him I was too busy designing the yearbook (nerd, I know) to get my picture taken. He was convinced I had a maiden name I was unwilling to reveal.

I never thought I'd be that person, but here I am. The person who has absolutely no desire at all to attend any of their high school reunions. People tell me I'll regret not going that I should totally go, it's so fun. Maybe I'm close-minded but I don't see how hanging out in some godforsaken bar in East Fucking Bethel, MN with people I don't know is going to be fun.

And really wasn't the whole point of the reunion to see who married whom, who got fat and how many kids they had? I know all that already, from Facebook. I like Facebook infinitely more than I liked high school. And thanks to Facebook I won't have to drive to East Fucking Bethel, MN to attend the reunion, I'll can just look at all the pictures and judge people from the comfort of my own home.

Even though I babysit the Tibbles every Friday, I rarely get to see my nephew Cade. He's at school by the time I get there and I leave before he gets home. I spend the time in between talking about bats with Nolan and listening to Liam tell me everything I say is boring and that he likes Katie Lou much better (this, of course, cracks me up and I argue with him incessantly about it).

Yesterday Cade and I passed briefly in the living room.

He stood in front of me wrapped in his snow gear, backpack still affixed to his back. "Did you want really want an electric pencil sharpener for Christmas?" He asked, looking up at me from under the Superman hat.
"Yes."
"Good!" He pointed at the Christmas tree. "That's what we got you."

Sweet!