Personal Perestróĭka

I’m having a good day so far. K’s left on her trip, which is a grey area because I like having the house to myself, but I don’t like not having her here. It’s beautiful in Nashville. I had coffee with my neighbor this morning, whom I adore. Then I had a couple good phone calls with friends here. I’m still waiting hear on the dream job, but it looks like my neighbor hooked me up with a couple nights a week hostessing at an awesome restaurant up the street, so if I have that and the dream job, I’m all set. (The restaurant is also an EXCELLENT place to meet music people and other people and is sort of community in and un to itself, so it’s not just restaurant work, it’s an odd sort of opportunity and it’s the kind of job you have to inherit, you can’t apply for.) Tonight I’m going to see Lucero with some people I love and despite the current painfully desperate financial situation, the future seems hopeful and bright! It’s warm enough out that I’m sitting around in my underwear and a tank in MARCH! Oh Tennessee, you continue to woo me ways I never thought possible.

Well, it’s been nearly a year since I was doing the inane updates about what clothes I wore every day, but maybe it’s time to start again. I had a job interview today, for a job I very much want. Hopefully if I tell you now what I wore it will spin into an actual job and we can get back to our regularly scheduled pointless clothing updates. So what does one wear to an interview at an energy conservation non-profit? Soft, chocolately brown slacks, dark brown ankle strap pumps, a pale leaf green sweater and a long cream colored jacket with a pale green floral design all over it (just like this one).

Anyway, they seemed impressed with me. I should find out Friday, so keep your fingers crossed.

There was a deluge of apocalyptic rain when I drove to the interview, but it was clearing up as I was coming back and the dogwoods are in bloom. Plus all the trees seem to burst forth in a soft green froth of leaves while I was out of town. I had to sleep with the fan on last night and I still woke up too hot. God, I love Tennessee.

For those who loved the last one, here’s more: Americans in Corduroys – Jeffrey Foucault (click to download)

Home.

Home! Home! Home!

Seriously, even getting off the plane, Tennessee just smelled like home. As much as I love Seattle, and it will always be the baseline for home. TN is my home now and I’m so unbearably, unbelievably glad to be here now.

Also 70°F at 2 am? vs. 48°F all day? Love you, Tennessee!!!

Much to say about my trip home. Or maybe not. Depends on my laziness level.

Do you ever those days? Not THOSE days, but the more surrealist ones?

So bassgrrl got married today. I know because not only did I wear pantyhose I also signed some papers witnessing her love for her man and her permanent commitment. Except the epic flooding it was a lovely wedding and I’m so so so glad I came up for it. In addition to standing up with her at the ceremony I saw lots of people I haven’t seen in forever and ate cake and had very good time. The only downside, I couldn’t get up the gumption to give a toast, because seriously, there have never been two people more perfect for each other in the world and I should have taken the opportunity to comment on it publicly. High points of the day include, the groom going to change (in closet) and someone walking into the church and announcing, “we can’t start until the groom comes out of the closet.” And during the little rehearsal to make sure we all knew where to walk, the minister said, “and then you’ll turn to everyone and I’ll declare you Mr. & Mrs. Robinson,” and my mom declared loudly from a back pew, “You’re going to be Mrs. Robinson?” Hehehe… Here’s to you, indeed.

After my mom and I took leisurely drive home down back highways in the rain. Then my mom randomly offered to take me shopping. I got shoes (red) and pants and maybe an awesome hoodie (we got it for my sister, who might not like it, so I’m supposed to, on mom’s instructions, show it to her and if she’s jealous and likes it I have to give it to her, if she’s fairly indifferent I get to keep it).

Then we came home and my dad had said my cousin Joe was coming over, because he was in town for Navy ROTC competition. Well Joe came over. With SIX of his ROTC buddies. They stopped by, just to say ‘hi.’ But my family being what they are, my mom was looking out the front window as they all piled out of the van. Normal people would be all WTF? My mom’s first response? “I hope we have enough liquor.” Yeah. So they came by to say ‘hi,’ but instead my mom made them all dinner, served them high-end scotch and Bombay Sapphire g&ts and let them all hang out all night. They were all cute and smart too. So I spent my evening drinking heavily in mom’s living room while having a great conversation with a bunch hot Navy guys. Yeah. I took a picture with my phone for posterity

As smart and as educated as I am, why do boys remain a complete mystery to me?

The jewelry website is updated. It’s funny how I feel sort of conflicted about it sometimes. Like I’m oddly dissapointed when the things that are my favorites don’t sell and yet loathe to part with the pieces I love the most. I surely have some previously unknown disorder where I have a crow-like affection for shiny objects.

We had lovely days of sun, but we are in a holding pattern of grey and pouring rain or driving wind. Alas it means I’m not listening to cheery summer music I’d like. I have to save it for actually sunny weather, lest it loose it’s sunny associations. So instead I give you the beautiful One for Sorrow (Two for Joy) – Jeffrey Foucault (click to download) in honor of bassgrrl’s Big Day coming up.

Seattle people, what should I pack? Jeans and sweaters? Jeans and t-shirts? Skirts, boots and sweaters? How’s the weather? Pouring? Or just the usual mid 40s-50s springy dampness?

I had some other things to say but they are lost in the increasingly huge to-do list building up in my head.

Link from daft: Okay, seriously, who is making me at least a throw pillow from this fabric??

We had a party this weekend. I wish again that we had a our own reality show because then you could SEE it. And let me tell you that explaining 20 drunk bluegrass pickin’ hillbillies descending on your house sounds funny, but it was more like locusts from a nature show. They arrived in a cloud, fluttered around, played, and wandered off in single group (dragging us along in their wake). It was really like a bizarre natural phenomenon (involving lots of beer).

I need to start packing and getting ready for Seattle. People who asked about getting together, I’m sorry I haven’t responded, I was trying to make the necessary plans first (wedding and family). As it stands I’m booked Friday, Saturday and Sunday but free for coffee, lunch or what have you Monday (unless I drive to Olympia, but that’s looking unlikely at this point).

My computer is ailing with the evil power cord problem of doom. It seems okay as long as I don’t move it at all, which since it’s a laptop is kind of problematic. My mom has graciously loaned me her’s until I can afford to get mine fixed (and keep your fingers crossed that it’s fixable). I love the loaner computer, even though it was clearly made for small fairytale characters: baby computer

I went with harlot red.

So any feedback on the songs posted? I know I’ve been erractic about posting, but are people still downloading or should I give it up?

I’m tired in a lovely, day spent outside kind of way. Oh spring, never leave me again. I love you so much.

So I got fired from my job. It was jackassery. Basically saying that I was going to be out of town for a two days a month in the future was unacceptable. The whole thing was pretty much a fiasco all around (the job itself included). This morning, at a temp agency, the recruiter was going over the details of a job I hope to get and I mentioned that I’d be out of town at the end of the month and she said, “I’m sure it’s fine, I mean, it’s a part-time job and a wedding,” her tone implying that everyone would understand where the importance was in that situation. Which, yeah, sums up how I feel. Giant events in loved one’s lives or shitty-ass easily replaceable job? Hmm…

But job hunting is the suck and money is an absolute necessity, so I do need to find me some of that and fast. Keep your fingers crossed for this job, or I’ll be here trying to guilt y’all into buying jewelry for everyone you know so K and I can continue to have electricty and, you know, eat.

Speaking of K, her new book comes out April 3, so you better go pre-order in case the world gets wise to her genius immediately and it sells out all fast.

Also, it’s spring, there’s no denying it.

Spent a lovely weekend in K-town with Rhi and Mr. Rhi, Jed, Pun and Sir Pun, and Rhi’s delightful pixiebabygirl. It was lovely and the food and company were good. What more could anyone want? Well, I got my first sunburn of the season too, which is excellent, as, you know, SPRING!

In other news…wait, there is no other news. So instead a song! David Wells – Keep Breaking Hearts (click to download) if you don’t like it, well, then I guess you don’t, but I think you should because I sure do like it.

Dear hot men of my current or future acquaintance,

Please always be dressed in these clothes. We’ll discuss footwear later. For now it’s nearly summer so you can be barefoot in your worn jeans and cowboy shirt.

Thanks ever so,

jj

—

Dear trees,

Thank you for lovely, brilliant, bright, colorful flower buds. I very much look forward to meeting the blossoms they will produce in the next few days. You have all made me very very very happy.

All the love in my heart,

your spring baby, jj

—

Dear universe,

I know you like shake things up sometimes. Put up things that look like walls but are actually paths. Rock the boat without pointing out just how close to shore we are. And all your other tricks. I appreciate the hard shove in the right direction, but could please try not bruise me when you push me?

Thanks,

jj

—

Dear books,

Please be around for ever and ever and ever. I will never stop loving you.

love,

yer li’l bookworm, jj

—

Dear body,

I know you’re female, and I like that, I do, but perhaps the monthly blood demonstrations of feminity could be foreshortened to a couple odd days a year and entirely without pain? ‘Cause that’s be really swell.

crampily,

miss jj

Tonight is not only the full moon but a total lunar eclipse. You should be able to see it on the east coast around 6 pm EST, and see maybe the last half of it (but not the full eclipse) in the central states around 6 pm CST (unless you’re with me in Tennessee where it just started getting cloudy). The rest of of you in the States are pretty much out of luck, as I think it’s over before moonrise. UKers and my French and Spanish friends, should get a pretty spectacular show if it’s clear where you are.

There is some bird in my yard that sounds like a rusty gate opening and closing in the wind. It’s very disconcerting. It’s like a creepy horror movie noise. And there’s no gates or anything close enough that I could actually hear them, so when you’re laying in bed in the early morning, it’s like having a haunted swing-set in your yard or something. Next thing you know tree branches will start tapping at my window and there’s no trees outside my window. *shudder*

I was just reading through the recent entries here (it’s part of a game I like to call “how much can I procrastinate”) and I realize I haven’t said anything of substance in weeks. I’m even falling down on song postings, mostly because I’ve been listening to the same few things over and over and over again.

In honor of my impending trip back to the Great North, here’s a song: It Can’t Be Nashville Every Night – The Tragically Hip (click to download)

It’s raining in Tennessee. The lightning woke me around 6 am and I think that’s pretty crazy. In Seattle we almost never have thunderstorms. When we do they are usually in the evening. I’ve lived other places, like Denver, where certain times of year there’s daily thunderstorms which you can almost set your watch by the times they roll in and roll out again. Here, though, there are storms all the time. Not so much in the dead of winter, but indiscriminately the rest of the year and at times that I find odd (like early in the morning). But as unusual as I still find the strangely timed storms, I never get sick of them. Much like the sound of the trains, they are tied to happiness for me. Even if it’s a brief, fleeting, 6 am wave of happiness before I fall back asleep to the sound of the rumbling thunder (which at first I thought was REALLY LOUD garbage trucks, heh).

I had such strange dreams last night. Mostly about people I haven’t seen in years or people I haven’t yet met. In them I shopped in stores that don’t exist, built clocks with small doll house rooms full of minature furniture in front of the clock faces. I lectured my sister about packing too much to take to Spain, I made up a spare bed for my mom in house I’ve never lived in. I walked through giant forests, and then against the flow of parade traffic, celebrating a revolution in city I’ve never been to, holding hands with a man I’ve only seen in my dreams. I slept WAY too much last night and it was almost like dreams with out stories at all, just pieces, snapshots, of the past and the possible futures. I wish I could remember more than flashes of them, more than just the emotional feeling of them. I want enough to tell the actual stories in them, to make up stories for characters who appear in them.