so ! this weekend ! on friday i went to the green line after work, where i am permanently installed until this semester is over, and drank like, one metric cornholio of soy lattes. i barely got any reading done (of course), but my friend gavin (who is cool and GENERALLY has good taste in everything) recommended that i listen to the pj harvey album that came out in 2000. i've sort of pretended that nothing came out after to bring you my love, but i figured i'd give it a shot.
welllllllllllll i fucking love it. it has some low points, and lacks uh, some of her balls? how do i express this without using male genitalia as a sign of courage? and the whole thing is new york city themed which i don't care about, but it's is a great album. the first time i heard pj harvey i could tell that everything she was talking about was feelings i didn't understand yet and like, i guess she's still doing that. i figured i would've acquired some emotional depth by now, but here we are. fart !
after that, i decided to go be the person i pretend i am and went to fiume (the bar above abyssinia) BY MYSELF and sipped scotch while reading:
the bartender was very helpful in windbagging me about scotch, and i ended up trying something that was the best of all the scotches i've had. i don't remember the name though and every name i make up is actually something from LOTR? wait, christina took a picture of it and sexted it to me so i'd remember !
i'll be honest, it still tastes like shit, but it's the best i've tried so far ! for some reason, people keep telling me that different scotches taste like honey or caramel and like... they all taste like poison? it's like no one wants to be the first to admit that scotch is gross. i'm brave though- emperor, u naked. i'm still going to drink it though ! oh, but, yeah, after the first couple of scotches i was totally trashed and called christina to come keep me company and she came down and we talked about farts and got pizza fries and went to cvs and bought a bunch of candy and i woke up to see i'd sent my friend a 2000 word IM to the aforementioned friend gavin about what makes the average hulk TRULY incredible and how one pj harvey song reminds me strongly of blood-queen lana'thel ("and i draw a line / to your heart today / to your heart from mine"). so much for adult roxy.
on saturday, i did a minimal amount of reading again ! i got a car to run errands and was going to go get a bouquet of fake lilies so i could be a WIDOW, but i got stuck in traffic for 45 minutes and just came home. and then jeanne came to west philly and christina put makeup on me ! i don't wear makeup, and she really put a minimal amount on, but i felt like i was painted like a clown. the overall effect was pretty fucking cool though:
it's weird, though- i got an overwhelmingly positive reaction to me wearing makeup and a thousand different people told me that i looked pretty, and it was a total mindfuck ! i was like MAYBE I SHOULD WEAR MAKEUP ALL THE TIME !!!!! and even looked at makeup at cvs (and was like, 'what is all this shit?' and realized that i have tried very hard in life to NOT know that) and then remembered that i think makeup sucks. i understand a lot of women choose to wear makeup and what could be more feminist than a woman making a choice !!!!, butttttt i am too creeped out by the beauty industry and uncomfortable with the idea of giving my money and time to an industry whose function is to undermine womens' self-worth and manipulate them into thinking they 1) need to be "beautiful" and 2) need to buy all this shit to be "beautiful". i don't know ! it's fun for a costume but like, a colossal bummer for me for every day life. like, the sheer power that people calling me pretty had on me even at this age with this level of self-awareness was INSANE.
anyway, we went to the west philly coverband show and met up with mouse, but we missed the pj harvey band (boooooooooooooooooooooooooo) and dk band, saw the wipers, and then went upstairs and sulked on a couch and then left early ! there was a neutral milk hotel cover band and we got caught in like, an aching pit of sincerity where people were earnestly singing along, and like... that + bell peppers is the portrait of hell for jeanne and i. we stopped on the way home to get cookies, and then came to my house to pet the kitten and eat cookies. i made a grave mistake and got oatmeal dark chocolate cherry almond cookies which sound delicious but they were all cinnamon-y :(
on sunnnnnnday i mostly slept and went to green line again to try to finish reading. i read like... 25% of the stalin book. basically it's a long essay arguing that stalin's mass killings are genocide- in general, they are widely believed to NOT be genocide, largely because of soviet pressure during the genocide convention to exclude political and social groups from the definition of genocide. i'm excited for this week in class, though i have a lot of work to do- i talked to my professor after class last week (because i realized that, despite hearing about the holocaust my whole life, i never ever once heard anything about sexual violence during the holocaust, and it's such a huge factor in almost every other genocide) and she told me my papers were some of the best in class and we had a great conversation- she really is like, one of the fucking coolest people i've ever met? i'm so psyched to be in this class, even if the work is killing me a little.
why are the hot ones always jerks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
okay ! two last things ! that grand army messenger was a good buy- it fits all my school books and my laptop, the strap is really comfortable, and it looks cool.
also, last night while i was trying not to study or sleep, i dug out a mixtape that my friend shannon made me like ten years ago:
this is the most romantic thing i've ever gotten from a dude who wasn't in love with me. the front of it has a termite squished to it, under packing tape, with the caption, "termites. devour my heart."
side A:
swans, "live through me"
the black heart procession, "on waterfront"
electric wizard, "funeralopolis"
eyehategod, "thirty dollar bag"
supermachiner, "flight of vultures"
supermachiner, "i am legend"
neurosis, "belief"
the black heart procession, "til we have to say goodbye"
harvey milk, "brown water"
swans, "secret friends"
side B:
harvey milk, "one of us cannot be wrong"
converge, "disintegration"
today is the day, "ripped off"
eyehategod, "methamphetamine"
boards of canada, "the color of the fire"
mogwai, "stanley kubrick"
the black heart procession, "a light so dim"
swans, "the sound"
slowdive, "here she comes"
this is one of the only things i brought with me from florida and i've unpacked it at every single house i've lived in. of course it is dorky as shit, but it was significant for me because shannon is my first friend who i ever realized was cooler than me. of course, lots of my friends were cooler than me (erica was a feminist in like, ninth grade ! natalie introduced me to pj harvey in middle school !), but he was the first time i REALIZED it. he is the most incredible gifted maniac weirdo and ever since i met him i have been committed to only being friends with people who are cooler than i am (or at least equally as cool) and this has enriched my life beyond belief.
okay ! this is a windbaggy entry and i forgot a lot of stuff ! but i have to do some work now ! bleh !
