BelovedMania's Friends [entries|friends|calendar] BelovedMania [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

(3 Raspberry berets | Define love) Call to Prayer: Car Talk [16 May 2008|04:34am] erdbeermund So, the summer after my "rehabilitation" (two years ago) I was walking one day--I did a lot of walking then--and I decided that my great trouble had always been an inability to focus. It was a rare moment in my life where I felt focused. I thought it was something I would be able to hold on to. When I found myself distracted by some stupid little drama or annoyance or something I ended up thinking in these car metaphors... When my mother was teaching me how to drive I had trouble staying centered in the lane and she told me it was because I was fixated on the lane markers, that I was looking too close in front of me. Her advice was that I needed to keep my eyes on the horizon, where I wanted to go, and I'd just kind of get there, as though I were on autopilot essentially. A few years later I was driving one day and someone remarked that my windshield was so dirty he didn't know how I could drive that way. (Yay for road salt!) My response was something else I learned from my mother, that it was simply a question of paying attention to the road or the grime on the window. Looking at the dirty window or through it. These are hardly brilliant or greatly insightful metaphors but I remember back to stressful days where I'd hold my hand vertically against my face and push it out to point at the horizon. Onward. I had so much hope then. And I had courage and I had good deal of faith in myself as well. It's clear that I kind of lost myself that fall. I guess I didn't quite have the life skills, the "coping skills" I kept hearing about in the counseling I had to complete. Especially during the hard process where I quit smoking. I guess I was drinking too much for a while as well. I think I function best when I'm not really drinking much. I feel like I've lost myself in all these little distractions. I was thinking about that bit in The Orchid Thief (also Adaptation) where Susan Orlean decides the point of these little passions is that they whittle the world down to manageable size. And maybe that's it. It takes a lot of courage and a good deal of strength to face the world head on. And maybe I've drifted off into mannerism. Lost confidence, self-assurance. I was at work today, thinking about some of the reasons I hold back from direct engagement with the world. I guess part of it is that I've always been very comfortable with the outsider status I was assigned at a very young age. Shy. Introverted. Poor. And then you have all the mystical kind of reading I did during my teens where I really lost any taste I might have had for the obscenities of capitalism. Maybe some theorists are right and my appreciation for asceticism is simply the product of millennia of poor people sanctifying their injustices. I'm not sure. I'd say it has more to do with the years in my childhood spent in a remote area of the Great North Woods. (I guess it might be redundant to say it was remote...) I've always found materialism and consumerism as distasteful as the class inequities woven into our way of life. I don't know, always, when I've heard people talking about "getting ahead" or "making it" I've tended to either sneer or feel a little sad. I mean, I guess there is pathos there that people have been warped by their consumer culture. That they've bought the myth of the American Dream. That they really believe in the myth of Upward Mobility. But then you have to hold yourself and others accountable for their value systems. And there is where I run up against Ayn Rand, with all due respect to Brangelina and the rest of the objectivist armies. I understand that there needs to be a Golden Mean between Walden and Atlas Shrugged but there is something distasteful I've always seen in the marketplace where people auction off their own lives. And I guess the dream is to get paid for something you're good at and enjoy doing. To be driven not by a desire for consumer products but a drive to be productive. I guess my problem is that I look at the more than six billion people on the planet clamoring like so many ant armies and can't help but feeling that there's too much production going on already. It's a glut and though I feel no desire to piss on it, I should often like to spit on it. But now here I am feeling like the grasshopper who suddenly realizes it's winter and I'm not prepared. That is, the economic situation is volatile. And I'm feeling vulnerable and caged. I guess without going too much further into all of this, the moral is that I need to find a way to make peace in the world within which I am living. Because I've dreamed away the better part of two decades and, well, perhaps there is something better if I'll only step out of dreamland and fathom a fresh, more direct engagement with the swamp of human aspiration. *"courage, confidence, creativity," one reminds oneself.*

(Define love) Mr. White > Mr. Pink. [15 May 2008|10:10pm] ross183 Did anybody watch the ER finale? He isn't credited anywhere, but it sure looked like Harvey Keitel was looking on as Steve Buscemi got loaded into the ambulance at the end. YAY RESERVOIR DOGS!

(3 Raspberry berets | Define love) [14 May 2008|09:07pm] bodyart [cbathyy] I'm starting my half sleeve the 24th and my arm's not in tip top shape like I'd hoped it would be when I made my appt weeks ago. I'm assuming she'll just do the outlining on Saturday and the color/shading in other sessions. So my question is: should I put off starting it until my arm is just how I want it or is it okay to start outlining and work out before my other sessions? My arms aren't huge, they're just not as defined as I'd like them to be. I've got some teacher's flab but nothing crazy. Will the tattoo distort terribly if I lose the fat and tone my arm? thx in advance xposted to tattooed

(Define love) a-band-a-day #1 [14 May 2008|07:26pm] reject [ music | Farms in trouble - 666 ] So I'm going to start doing this every day, telling you jerks about local bands I think are rad. Sometimes I will write lots about them, sometimes (like today) I will be lazy and not really progress much further hyperbole. I will do this (more or less) every day and then post a collected list at the end of every week. Or so. Today's entry: Farms in Trouble. They are really, really good. Really really good. Featuring a rotating cast including various members of the Candliers, Trusty Knife, Scrimshaw and other local bands, Farms in Trouble seems to be mostly the weirdo bedroom recording project of Riles Walsh (Candliers) and Zack Pieper (Trusty Knife). Can-almost-hear-the-grind-of-the-wheels 4 track songs that have a similar feel to Olivia Tremor Control (only even more lo-fi) or Sebadoh, but really it's more like if some dude pulled out all his Folkways records, got stoned on cough syrup, set the records on fire, and tried to recreate them from memory. And failed miserably in the most fabulous way. "666" is my favorite of the bunch so far.

(1 Raspberry beret | Define love) how to fake a six pack abs [14 May 2008|08:27am] holydischarge this is for anyone who hasn't seen it. this is totally serious.

(6 Raspberry berets | Define love) Young @ Heart [14 May 2008|07:12am] erdbeermund I saw this movie yesterday on my 30th birthday and it was so beautiful I cried and cried and cried. I really loved it. My brain kept saying it was all little bit cliché but it was just so lovely I couldn't help being won over by all of it. You get the sense that this is an amazing bunch of people without anyone being patronized. It was great. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I also had a massage for the first time by this healer lady and it was better than just about any drug experience I ever had in my life. I also had dinner at this excellent little restaurant in the far reaches of deepest Brookfield: Cafe Manna. it was a great little vegetarian joy fest. And it's all thanks to Anastasia loves me on my berfday. Thanks for all the love, kids.

(5 Raspberry berets | Define love) i am a giddy little schoolgirl. [13 May 2008|09:37am] cathead27 so, i'm playing with a band now, and they asked me if they could link my myspace on their page, so (shut up) i broke down and made a myspace and added a bunch of bands. one of those bands was the blue meanies. who are alternately my favorite band, or at least always in the top 3. they sent me this message last night - "Hey, are you the same guy who posted a link to a Blue Meanies-esque cover of 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite' on the Thick Records message board a few years ago? That shit was cool." i can finally check "impress blue meanies" off my bucket list now. if you never heard it or don't remember, the shit which was cool that they speak of is HERE -tim.

(4 Raspberry berets | Define love) sky burial & the reversal of condiment justice [11 May 2008|06:51pm] reject [ music | Nirvana - Bleach - Floyd The Barber ] Shows coming up that I am planning on attending (or playing, and thus will be there whether I like it or not): MAY 14 Victims, Malachi, High on Crime @ Borg Ward 18 Afgrund, Skarp, Protestant, Half Gorilla, Abaddon @ Borg Ward 20 Holy Shit!, Invasion, Pyramid Scheme, The Butts @ The Vault 23 Endless Blockade, North Lincoln, SFN, Prohibition @ Death Mountain 24 Astro, TV Pow, Mouths, Peter J Woods, Nummy @ Borg Ward 24 Candliers @ Stonefly 27 Truthdealer, We March, Pigs on Ice @ Mint Mint 30 A Silver Mt. Zion @ Turner Hall JUNE 01 Pigs on Ice, Dear Astronaut @ Club Timbuktu 07 Dear Astronaut, Ladybicorboxcutter, Perry H Matthews, Pigs on Ice @ Borg Ward JULY 08 Catacombs of Rome, The Mae Shi, Terrior Brute @ Borg Ward 17 Health @ Borg Ward 18 Dear Astronaut, Teenage Strangler @ Borg Ward 19 Boris, Torche @ Turner Hall Holy fuck that's a lot. And I'll keep updating this as need be. It's not very realistic that I'll actually make it to all these. Fuck, if I make it to half of them, it'll be more than I went to all winter. SRSLY.

(15 Raspberry berets | Define love) Question [10 May 2008|11:42pm] bodyart [robinu] I have a project planned, but I need to ask one thing... ( Read more... )

(2 Raspberry berets | Define love) Reviews / Zune Wins -- anyone with ANY other MP3 player is a joker [08 May 2008|08:37pm] ross183 --Brief summary-- Amazing: Zune, Idiocracy, Suspicion Decent: Wii Mario Kart, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, The Departed, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Bad: iPod, Comcast DVR, Ned Yost, work, lack of sleep To Be Determined: GTA IV ( Read more... )

(Define love) [08 May 2008|06:49pm] ross183 "This was not a 'shakeup,' Brewers manager Ned Yost said on Thursday, when he rested his three regular players with the highest on-base percentages." Yeah. That's very logical. "We haven't been scoring runs or getting hitters... I think I should bench the guys who HAVE been reliable." When will this guy get fired? I would rather have a coach that loses all of the time, but makes smart decisions than a lucky coach who doesn't make sense 95% of the time. With the undeniable talent that the Brewers have, I'm pretty sure the worst coach in the league could get us some wins. Punish guys for doing crappy...don't be patient with them at the expense of your good players. That's for grade school. I'm taking a nap. I haven't felt like doing anything except being mean today. I don't like it.

(8 Raspberry berets | Define love) Replica Tattoo [07 May 2008|03:59am] bodyart [ice_fairy13] [ mood | artistic ] I have a question that may seem slightly off. But here we go. My Dad passed away in December. He had just recently gotten a dream catcher tattoo on his neck. I am thinking about going to the same artist and having a similiar dream catcher placed on my side. Now the question I have is how much should I change the piece? My Dad had a thing about every one of his tattoos being a complete orginial and never duplicated. But I want to ensure that I have the main pieces of his tattoo in tact.

(4 Raspberry berets | Define love) [06 May 2008|01:15pm] cathead27 stuff i've been doing more of lately: 1. reading. especially since i started the dark tower books over again. i hadn't read fiction in so long that now it's amazing to me how easy some things read, and it's making me look forward to reading other stuff when the dark tower is over. just over 3 more books to go. 2. playing video games. i hadn't had time - or rather hadn't made the time to - for a long while. but i've been making sure to play for at least like a half hour or so every other day. it's my job, i really need to keep up on stuff. i have to get back into bioshock, still haven't played halo3, mario kart wii was awesome, and i just got gtaIV today. so i have a stack of stuff to catch up on, but i'm working on it. boy this is a nerdy list so far. 3. binge drinking. there that makes it better. it's not so much because of the amount of drinking on some nights, but more the lack of drinking other nights. for a while after i moved here, it was normal for me to have a drink or 3 most nights of the week. cause what else was there to do? but now it's down to like...thursdays and saturdays. which is good, kind of. also, since i lost weight i've been able to bounce back from a night of drinking way faster. that's opposite of how it's supposed to work, i think, but hey, neat. 4. playing sax. i've started practicing at least 2 hours on weekends. i think i missed it. it'd been a long time since i played, and i wasn't bad, and it's something not everyone can do (where everyone in the world plays guitar out here. most better than me). it's gotten me all into reading about reeds and mouthpieces and various sax accessories that are out there. i need new plugs. 5. listening to rocket from the crypt. i first heard of them years and years back cause joanie got a free cd from some kind of scholastics competition thing, and she picked rftc just cause of the scorpion on the cover. their live album came out this year, and that made me realize that live from camp x-ray wasn't their live album but their last studio album, and it's really awesome. invisible is my favorite song lately. i also picked up their 10" record, and one side of it plays at 33rpm and the other side is at 45. that's cool. -tim.

(1 Raspberry beret | Define love) home [05 May 2008|11:05pm] erdbeermund I guess most of my childhood I was kind of handled like what I was: the illegitimate child of a previous relationship, though my mother would surely not like to hear me say that. I guess I could go into the details of the many situations in which I have lived and which were the few I felt at home in. Most recently it was living with Jesse. But the point of this was to be that I do not feel at home now at all. I've been spending weekends in Chicago with Zac. I guess it once in a while feels like home. Or the coming into being of one. I guess it's the way you're at home in a dream. I don't know. I should have more concrete goals. I should be above, past, and beyond correcting the deficits of my youth. But I'm not one of those goal-oriented people. I don't want a condo. I feel like I should be worried about a retirement plan but saving for retirement strikes me as kind of naïvely optimistic. I don't need expensive clothing or jewelry or whatever else it is that people manage to spend so much money on. I guess I'd like to be able to travel and I know I'd like to have a job that's not quite as embarrassing or, at least, novel. What's worth selling myself for is what I want to know. I guess a piece of home. And I saw this couple on the red line the other day. The girl looked like a student, Chinese perhaps, and the boy was thin and pointy featured and dark-haired and possibly of eastern european extraction. And there was something about their grace that I found so alluring. And as soon as I figure out what that is, I guess that's what I might wish to want, as it were...

(6 Raspberry berets | Define love) my grandma just said... [05 May 2008|07:32pm] cathead27 "if it weren't for the zombies, life would be boring." -tim.

(Define love) [05 May 2008|04:25pm] marlas_singer HELP SEND ME TO ROLLERCON!!! http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/e437f45e7bdc3d58

(4 Raspberry berets | Define love) [05 May 2008|12:52pm] paraplegic GLITTER & DOOM

(2 Raspberry berets | Define love) RIP G-Ma [04 May 2008|11:36am] molly_sigh [ mood | crushed ] RIP Grandma Rosemarie Bechtold March 27th, 1934 - May 3rd, 2008 <3

(3 Raspberry berets | Define love) last night was glorious [03 May 2008|03:05pm] reject http://www.flickr.com/photos/marinatina/sets/72157604859797798/

(7 Raspberry berets | Define love) backpiece [02 May 2008|11:45pm] bodyart [cheshirebunny] [ mood | nervous ] okay ...so...i have an appointment to start my backpiece on monday. my artist is amazing and awesome and i love him. i already had him work on my leg, and told him i was artist shopping- if i liked his work- he'd get my backpiece. i luuuuurve the design he came up w/for my leg, it was pretty much painless, WAY quicker than i thought, and less $$ than i anticipated. love. so for my back, i kept bugging him to draw something up for me, gave him notes/reference pics and the basics of what i had in mind and told him to have fun w/it cause i'm a TERRIBLE artist (i have no idea when i lost all drawing ability, but i did) and can't even sketch smthin to save my life. after a couple months, he still hadn't come up w/anything...so a few weeks ago i brought him cookies and sat w/a friend who was getting work...and he turned to me and said 'so when are we doing your back?' i told him 'OMG NOW'- he told me he's a lazy bum and to grab his calendar n pick a day for my appointment so he'd have a deadline for drawing up my piece. so my appointment is on MONDAY. i stopped by the shop sunday nite, and he said he still hadn't gotten around to it- that he'd probably do something this weekend. basically...i've wanted this piece for over 10yrs...i'm super excited to get started on it...but at the same time...i'm like 'crap! what if i HATE the design he comes up with!?' what would be a polite way to tell him it sucks if it's nothing like what i was hoping for??...i mean...i know he's amazing and will more than likely pull something incredible directly out of his ass 20min before my appointment...but still...*nervous wiggles* would i be a massive pain in the ass if i stopped in sunday? ...and really...what do i do if it sucks :/ also- painwise: how bad is a full backpiece? how long did yours take if you have one? how many sessions of how many hours? my guy works FAST- the design on my leg takes up most of the inside of my calf (couple inches above ankle to couple inches below knee) is shaded in fine linework, and took him under an hour O.o ...but i'm still looking for a ballpark range.

navigation [ viewing | most recent entries ] [ go | earlier ]