Radio Silence

I am procrastinating. I've been doing a mix of easy errands/jobs and procrastination all morning long. At the moment my two choices are: work on some wiring stuff so that Jeannie and I can start putting up drywall in the middle bedroom this weekend OR go sit in the bathtub and read a DFW short story that I started while taking a shit and that I remember not liking that much when I first read it but I was getting somewhat interested in while shitting. Or I guess there's an unspoken third option that I'm currently taking advantage of: write in the fucking blog, which you (I) haven't done in a million yrs.

The Jeanners and I bought a new used car last night, after a relatively unstressful but still stressful search. I mean, it felt stressful, but I'm sure it could've been a whole helleva lot worse. We ended up buying a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid that we got a too-fucking-good-to-be-true deal on. So either the car is stolen or it's going to conk out in about 15 minutes. I'm hoping for stolen. Anyway, we weren't looking for a hybrid, but like I said, it was sitting there with this too-fucking-good-to-be-true price and it's a Honda and it was within the mileage range and price range that we were looking at, so we said "why the fuck not?" So I guess now we are officially capital 'L' Liberals, which I feel uncomfortable about because I don't like to identify myself with any sort of camp or tribe. I feel about politics the same way I feel about fraternities or the military: if I spent any amount of time with anybody who's supposedly on "my team," I would probably want to punch them in the face and then go join the opposition. Where the process would repeat itself. So anyway, in order to balance the potentially political statement of our car purchase, I'm going to start sending a weekly turd to our local NPR station, and start throwing away mass quantities of plastic bags at work. If I can round up any endangered animals I will grind them up into felafel balls and have a big vegetarian dinner party.

Hey, it's 2011! We did not make contact in 2010, as was previously advertised. Balls. There were a few decent albums that came out, though. Here's some of my favorites:

1. Beach House, Teen Dream. Yes, they are hipster darlings, but I really love this album. I can listen to it all the way through, I can't understand the words which means it takes longer for me to get sick of it, it's kind of lush but kind of lo-fi, and I like the lady's voice.

2. Laura Viers, July Flame. I think she's kind of like a female Josh Rouse. Great weird songwriting, nice instrumentation, good stuff.

3. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs. I'm usually pretty hit-and-miss with the ol' Arcade Fire, but this album is definitely my favorite of theirs. I don't like every song, but I like enough of them that I consider this album to be a winner. The whole thing hangs together well, it conjures a mood without having every song sound the same, and it's got a few lines that reach out like diamonds.

"Now you're knocking at my door
Saying please come out with us tonight
But I would rather be alone
Than pretend I feel alright"

I think those are my 3 favorites for the year. In semi-related news, I got The Very Best of the Staple Singers on Stax awhile ago, and I've really been enjoying it. I think that I would rate Mavis Staples as my #2 favorite female singer, behind Emmylou.

That's all I got for right now, I guess. I'm gonna go poke around.