thursday, 30 december 2004
it's my birthday and i'll whisper if i want to
some poking around my counters brings me to a mention of my blog on three rivers online. does it really sound like i'm whispering? hmmm. if so, maybe it's cause i'm usually at work, where it's very very very very quiet. also, to me, writing is like having a conversation in my head, and i'm paying attention, so there's no need to yell. anyway, it's a nice thing to get a shout out, so thanks.
it really is my birthday today! the big 32. i'm going to buy jeans to celebrate. then i will eat a meal specially prepared just for me and probably have a few cocktails and do a little dancing. eddie vedder's birthday party was a rootin-tootin good time, as it always is. christmas eve i got to eat soup made out of kielbasi and saurkraut juice with my brother's girlfriend's family. jim and mel got me the special edition of mary poppins on DVD! score! (i'm like the girliest geek ever, an odd hybrid of shirley temple and the comic book guy from the simpsons.)
christmas day i got to spend with my family in ohio, eating ham and watching my little brother jake play with his new poloroid. since then it's just been a lot of hanging out with people, watching bad tv, eating too much -- the generally mellow pleasures of late december.
i'm going to new york for a week on monday, but i'll have my computer so i hope i'll get to post about what fun i am having. whisper at you then.
friday, 17 december 2004
warning: extreme gushing ahead
last night was another swoon-worthy evening with my boy. it was his 22nd birthday and to celebrate, we ate gorgeous sushi at umi, got denied drinks at kelly's (although "last call" only seemed to apply to us), and chowed down on pittsburgh's finest cake (from paddy cake bakery in bloomfield) at the squirrel cage. all this was intermixed with exotic things like apple-tinis and white russians and mid-snowstorm kissing and walking down the street with hands in each others' pockets. just like i ordered it up!
i admit i was a little nervous to meet a bunch of his friends. i mean, i am 10 years older than all of them, and what if they think i'm a big ol' uncool fuddy duddy? hell, do people in their early 20s even know what a fuddy duddy is? or am i making myself into one by even using the expression? as it turned out, my fears were pointless -- they were all pretty nice kids who didnt hold my advanced age against me and even helped me with my walker. i also learned that freaks of every generation love the pixies.
towards the end of the night, i thought i might die from adorableness overload when the (inebriated) birthday boy looked up from his umpteenth slice of cake with an evil grin. "it's my birthday!" he declared. "i can do anything i want!" then he forcibly pulled my chair as close to him as possible, wrapped me up in his arms, and passed out in my lap. ok, honey, time to go home!
yes, i am still a ridiculously happy girl with happy thoughts of this sweet boy filling my head and spilling out into everything i say. if you happen to know me in real life, i apologize for the one-tracked-ness of my mind over the last month or so. (ok, so i'm not really sorry ... i'm just sorry you have to listen to it.)
why do i feel compelled to talk about him all the time, i wonder? maybe it's because of the sheer novelty of it all. i mean, if i saw a peacock walking down the street, i'd be talking about that too, and this is every bit as rare, at least in my life.
monday, 13 december 2004
good thing it's monday cause i feel like singing
the first real snow of the year is piling up outside the window behind my cube. it's my favorite kind of snow, too -- the fat fluffy kind that stacks up taller than you think it should, cause the snowflakes are so big and bizarrely shaped. i'm off in a few minutes to mail some christmas packages on my lunch hour, which seems the proper thing to do on a snowy cold day. i only wish i'd brought a hat, because although i love the way my short haircut looks, it is freakin cold to be so shorn.
so, yes, things are good in madgeworld. i'm a little tired from an emotional and sleep-deprived weekend, but the emotions were good and so was the sleep deprivation (heh heh) so i can't really complain. things with this sweet boy are still sweet. although i do have a problem with the halflife of my good feelings, which seem to be approximately the same as those of untreated produce.
see, after i see him, i'm completely smitten and positive he is too and look at the trees shivering in the wind and isn't the world such a freakin beautiful place? but after a few days, my security starts to decay into wigdom. the good news is, i'm starting to recognize this for what it is -- just a bizarre thing which happens entirely in my own brain and has little or nothing to do with reality. the bad news is ... well, i'll spare you the exact verbiage of what a wigged out girl might say to herself in this situation. i'm sure you can imagine.
there's another factor which compounds the drama as well -- this boy is quite a bit younger than me. 10 years, in fact. and if an almost-32 year old allows her heart to get broken by an almost-22 year old, how pathetic is that? i mean, more so than your average break up, even. to get played by someone too young to remember fingerless lace gloves or the day john lennon died?
if i do end up in that situation, though, i don't see how it could be any worse than any of the other humiliating shit i've done or had happen to me over my densely packed, frequently embarrassing 32 years. and i believe it would be worse to never have known him at all. he is too freakin cute to punk out.
so, i take a deep breath and rush out into the wind. wish me luck, kids.
thursday, 2 december 2004
don't speak cause that'll make it harder to fit you in
so, we just put out a new louie and the humans CD. i've been thinking a lot lately about one song that's on it, called "fit you in." it starts:
hold still, hold still for a minute cause i
got a picture and i wanna fit you in it, i have
seen this picture on the walls of my mind, i have
traced my finger over it a million times and i can fit you in
i can fit you in
the basic idea is that, in relationships, most of us have a habit of trying to fit whoever we're seeing into our own fantasies of how we think things should be. as soon as i meet someone and like him, i immediately try to jam him into that picture, the one i've been drawing my whole life, the one that means everything to me. it might not be a perfect fit, but, hey, i am the great and all-powerful madge! my ideas about how life should be lived are obviously correct, and i got mad skillz in the persuasion department, so if anyone can make it work, it's me, right? yeah. right.
why do we do this? i think it's a combination of (1) over-attachment to our own delusions, and (2) chronic, deep insecurity. the song is sort of a tongue-in-cheek description of the hysteria that comes out of thinking that every person you date is the only person you are going to find who wants to date you, ever again...
my heart is sittin the bench
and you may be my only chance
... but it's not entirely comical. put another way, it's only funny cause it's true. the reason i try so hard to fit these poor men into my worldview is cause i don't think i'll ever find another one who will let me. of course, the twisted part is that trying to fit them in makes everything fall apart anyway. hence, the loud, slightly angry feeling of the song.
doesn't matter if i have to change some details
doesn't matter if i'm payin more than retail
doesn't matter if we're veering toward the guardrails
i can fit you in
when i wrote it, i was pissed at myself for falling into this pattern again, and i thought yelling at myself might help. when i saw pearl jam play in glasgow a few years ago (an amazing show, even though i almost died), eddie vedder prefaced "present tense" by saying that sometimes you write a song as a reminder to yourself, like a wish or a prayer. if you sing something 100,000 times, it's bound to sink in sooner or later, right?
well i'm here to tell you that, to my utter amazement, the song-as-mantra thing does seem to work. i don't want to announce that i'm cured just yet -- that would be tempting the fates. but i am doing the research, and my working hypothesis is that things work a lot better when i let that picture in my mind just be a picture in my mind, not the yardstick by which i constantly measure everything. it's a tricky balance to go with it and not be a doormat at the same time, but for the first time in my life, i think it might be possible.
the key seems to be not giving in to the craziness of thinking this is my only shot at ever being happy. that's a ledge every girl has to learn how to talk herself down from.
monday, 29 november 2004
you got me sprung and i dont care who sees
okay, can i just say that getting to sing and dance around in a silly outfit and glitter on a big stage under swirling lights is about the funnest thing in the world? the CD release party went great. many members of my posse showed up and gave us much love, and we even got phat mandee to take her shirt off, though honestly i dont know how hard that is!
the CD is called "the cruel tutelage of louie" and the cover shows louie mauling a mouse and makes me laugh. it looks and sounds great (at least to me). if you want one, email me and i'll get it to you. only $5! you can't beat it! oh yeah, and my friend the great dan buczynski took a bunch of pictures. you can see some of them here, here, here, and here.
the only harsh thing was that, lately, working with this particular venue has felt a bit like dating someone who doesn't like me (something i have been known to do, but am trying to avoid now that i am over 30). things get a little bit worse every day and no one says anything in hopes that things will improve on their own, but they never do. so tonight is the night to either get it straightened out, or end it. how can i work with people who say everything is great when they're talking to me, and basically call me a baby killer when i'm not around?
i had a whole week off work last week, but between getting ready for the CD release and preparing for thanksgiving, i didn't actually get a day off until friday when my friend rich engel (who runs the iron city weblog) and i saw the incredibles (which was great) and went to urban outfitters (which was only OK though i did hook up with an amazing pair of hot pink metallic shoes). that new south side works is so bizarrely upscale, though. i guess after you pay $10 to park and get your $200 kenneth cole blazer, you can walk across the street to the goodwill and get a pair of acid wash tapered leg jeans to go with.
so, yeah, life is still good, but uncertain as ever. the boy i've been seeing went away for a few days, so of course i'm convinced i'll never hear from him again. sigh. got me lookin so crazy right now.
friday, 19 november 2004
tmi?
i'm always sort of at a loss when i try to decide what to write about and, more importantly, what not to write about on my blog. on one hand, the point of this blog is to say hi and let you know what's up in my world. on the other hand, i feel a little apprehensive about saying too much. i understand that folks may just be here looking for a purse, and they may not want to read about the details of my personal life.
but my conclusion today is this: why bother with blogging at all if i'm not going to say what's really on my mind? the fact of the matter is, what's up in madgeworld these days is wicked good. there is a boy. yes, there have been boys before, but none worth writing about, at least not for a while. i don't want to say too much and jinx it. but i honestly couldn't think of one other thing to say today so here goes.
it's totally excellent to be me right now ... but it's a little embarrassing as well. about a hundred times a day, i alternate between giggling like a little girl with a funny secret, and freaking totally the hell out. is he thinking about me? did he have as much fun as i did? do i get to see him again soon? all signs point straight to yes, girl, stop worrying, yes! but old habits die hard, and i have a bit of a gift for overthinking such matters.
and i'd be lying if i didn't admit that the wigging is part of the fun. it's exciting anyhow, and you know what a sucker i am for that. hopefully it doesn't get me into trouble. at this point, it doesn't look like it will, but i can only see about 5 minutes into the future. nothing to do but keep on truckin and see how it goes.
in the ACTUAL NEWS department, our CD is done! it's being duplicated as we speak. and we are having our CD release party next wednesday at the rex theatre, along with tim sedwick and leon who are also releasing their records that night. the party starts at 10 -- we go on around 11 -- and there's no cover. so please come down and see us! we solemnly swear to rock!
tuesday, 9 november 2004
this election made me sick
literally. within 2 hours of kerry's concession, i had a raging fever and glands the size of texas. almost a week later, i'm still not up to snuff. i can only hope this sickness will die off sometime within the next 4 years. no guarantee, though. the divide between intellectually superior kerry states and morally superior bush states is depressing, but it's not nearly as deep as the ubiquitous red/blue map would lead you to believe. here is a more colorful version of the truth. turns out most of us are purple.
so i did end up having a killer costume for halloween -- i put on a sparkly white 60s-ish dress, a long crazy-patterned coat, and my giant sunglasses and voila! jackie o! we had a great time -- me, marty, rene, and matty drinking our way through many different parties on pittsburgh's historic south side. met some great new folks at open mike last week, too. i called off sick last night, though, which i hate to do, but it just wasn't happening. i know that sometimes drinking heavily can work as a sort of antibiotic on an ill system, but last night i could barely even speak, let alone sing and/or be entertaining. so instead i stayed home and moaned.
i'm feeling a little better today, and good thing, cause i have a lot to do this week to prepare for the handmade arcade this weekend at construction junction. i'm hoping to debut some new beaded paper jewelry designs. we shall see. if nothing else, i will be selling off the remainders of my 3 rivers arts festival stock at heavily reduced prices -- this means i will be selling album cover purses cheaper than you will ever see them again! so come on down and check it out. me and jolene will be there drinking tea and no doubt spending every dime i bring in on cute locally made bizarre handcrafted goodies.
wednesday, 27 october 2004
it's all right
PJ harvey and "oh my lover" are fueling me through the last little bit of the workday. i am still so in love with my ipod, cause, see, this is the perfect song for me to be listening to right now, but i would have never thought of it, gone through my CDs, pulled it out, and played it. instead, i let the ipod take me on a guided tour of my music collection, blowing me hither and thither between the beatles and the cramps, from bach to rufus wainwright to nusrat fateh ali khan. so very cool.
our camping trip was really fun, though i hesitate to call it "camping" because we stayed in really nice cabins that had satellite tv and everything. it was beautiful most of the time we were there and i got to spend a lot of quality time reading, doing jello shots, and watching ladybugs crawl all over everything. not much sleeping, but i can sleep when i'm dead.
i only wish (1) we hadn't had a tv cause some of the boys just watched football all day and what's the point of going to the woods just to watch football? and (2) we all had more similar taste in music. no one else was as enamoured of my ipod's groundbreaking mix as i was. ah well. it was still a good time, even if i did have to endure hours of metallica and motley crue.
so here it is october 27th and i still havent decided what, if anything, to be for halloween. i spose i could always drag out my schoolgirl skirt and my mace from last year and be gogo yubari again -- but i don't have the hair for it anymore, and it's sorta lame to be the same thing 2 years in a row.
i always have lame halloween costumes, cause i don't think about it until, say, october 27th. also, i guess i feel like i dress crazily enough in my everyday life that halloween isnt much of a stretch. maybe i'll dole out thigh-high sweater socks and miniskirts to all my friends and get them to dress up like me. heh heh. that'd be neat.
thursday, 21 october 2004
into the woods
so tomorrow i'm off to the woods for a weekend. a bunch of friends and coworkers -- about 12 of us i think? -- rented some cabins up in cook's forest and we plan to drink and play guitar and have epic euchre battles all weekend. i am so excited for fall to be here. not only do i get to look at gorgeous foliage and jump in crunchy piles of leaves, i also get to bust out my flannels and cords and sweater socks, which is perhaps a superficial thing to be excited about, but what can you do?
right now i'm listening to this crazy record i got called night train to nashville, which is ostensibly R&B music out of nashville between 1945 and 1970, but has so much wild stuff on it, i can't even really describe it. right now, we got "monkey doin woman" by shy guy douglas, which i am digging. there's also little richard talking about royal crown hairdressing, a live cut of etta james letting it rip on "what'd i say," and an amazing, sly, devastating song by christine kittrell called "sittin' here drinking." i highly recommend this CD for late nights and road trips. it's pretty great.
got some really great shitkicker boots in the mail today and i keep taking laps around the office trying to break them in and feeling like a badass, which really i'm not, but it's fun to pretend. have a fun weekend, y'all -- i'll eat some smores for you.
wednesday, 13 october 2004
yum yum yum
i gotta say, the last few weeks, life has been swell. pearl jam was amazing both friday in reading and saturday in toledo (with neil young no less!!), and roadtripping with jolene is a blast -- she is sweet like marzipan, and her little car scooter is quite zippy! plus i got an ipod and one of those things that transmits your tunes into any nearby radio, which is so freakin cool it made me yell "this is so freakin cool!" and jump up and down the first time i tried it and heard my music coming out of the radio. technology rules!
yeah, that whole weekend felt charmed ... the pilgrimage with jolene, the concerts themselves, the amazing spinach and bacon salad i had in reading (we'll steer clear of discussion of the seafood bisque -- i should have known better). it cleared the dry rot off my brain, shook the cobwebs off of some higher ideas that i tend to ignore on a day to day basis. it sounds totally goofy, i know, but pearl jam always restores my tenuous faith in humanity. yes, people drive like idiots and vote for idiots and actually quite often are total blithering idiots -- we are all of us totally lame. but not always. every once in a while we can get together and hold our hands up in streams of violet light and sing and feel like we're among friends. and that's so valuable, i can't really even put words on it.
anyway, since then, everyday life has seemed way more exciting. i'm falling out of my routines, switching things up, drinking with my grandma at brunch and staying up all night in the middle of the week, and i like it. i know habits are supposed to be the best way to achieve your goals and blah blah blah, but when my days and nights all start to look and feel the same, i get bored. and pearl jam doesn't tour enough to be my sole source of relief -- so a girl's gotta do what she can to keep her world feeling new and bizarre enough.
wednesday, 29 september 2004
anticipation
such a meek-sounding word to describe the tornado of excitement whirling in me this week. i get to see pearl jam live and in the flesh friday night in reading, pa, then i get to drive to toledo and see them again on saturday. me and jolene are taking a roadtrip! woo hoo! i seriously can't wait. it's gonna be so, so, so much fun. jolene thinks the best part will be the hours between floating out of friday's concert and floating into saturday's, and i'm inclined to agree.
why am i telling you all this? not to gloat, honestly. i just don't want you ask me any important questions this week, cause more likely than not i'll answer them all with "did you know i'm going to see pearl jam twice this weekend? how f-in cool is that?"
open stage was a blast monday. we had lots of rocking out and sitting in with each other and, even better, lots and lots of neil young songs. i branched out into a new drink instead of my customary jack and coke, and found that i like jack and ginger every bit as much (the jack seems to be the important part). also, if there's anything better than getting kissed on a streetcorner in the rain at 3 in the morning, someone's gonna have to let me know what that is. yowza!
tonight -- band practice. tomorrow -- taking jolene's car in for an oil change. friday -- pleasure for which words can do no justice.
thursday, 23 september 2004
where the h#%& have i been?
tough to say. i think i've been working a lot, but i'm not sure, it's all sort of a blur.
actually, i just got back from chicago, where my company was courting another company and i had to demo the system i helped build but haven't worked on for a few years. i was concerned cause i hadn't used it in so long, but thankfully, i apparently still got it, cause the presentation went really well. also, i wore an almost completely normal outfit (all except the purple shoes) and think i pretty much had everyone fooled into thinking i am an actual grownup. bwahahahahahahahaha.
yeah -- it was crazy. we flew out there at 5 am on tuesday, worked till the wee hours getting ready, then got up wednesday and gave the all day presentation, then raced to o'hare to make our flight home last night. no, i didn't hurl. in fact, i was a little scared of riding on a puddle jumper, but i think i like it better than a big plane. if i'm flying, i like feeling like i'm flying. and only 1 or 2 people in a row means i never get trapped against the window with 2 people between me and free space. aisle seats are a must.
anyway, it was a hardworking and intense and exhausting trip, but it was pretty fun too. to me, the whole warroom rush is a good time, as long as it's a place i visit, not the place i live.
tuesday, 31 august 2004
the stars at night are big and bright
so guess what, i'm in san antonio! which is a place i've never been before. actually, all i've seen of it so far is the airport, a few miles of sprawl-highway-nightmare, and a printing plant, so maybe i still haven't really been here. but tonight we're going to the alamo and i am going to find the goddam basement!!!
getting here was a bit of an ordeal. we flew from pittsburgh to chicago, and the flight was crowded, and i puked. i puked! i have never ever puked on an airplane my entire life. it was really gross too -- so forceful that it came out my nose. i felt worse for the kids who were sitting in my row than i did for myself. they are probably telling all their friends "man it was so nasty i was sitting next to this lady on the airplane and she HURLED!"
the flight from chicago to san anton was not nearly as crowded, and i felt fine. i dont know what it is that makes me nauseous on some flights and not on others. maybe it has to do with how many people are breathing my air or something.
so yeah, we had a good day of workflow analysis and information gathering and picture taking and interviews and what have you. i wonder, though, if the people we talked to thought we were kind of weird for studying the stuff they just do every day. i imagined if someone followed me around asking me questions about why i was writing things down on my todo list, i'd be weirded out too. but they were troopers and so am i. and i REFUSE to puke on the way home.
monday, 23 august 2004
testing one two three
i am so excited for you all to hear the forthcoming louie and the humans CD. we got a couple really good takes done over the weekend and hope to bang out the rest over the next week or so. i'm not sure what we're gonna call it yet, but there are a few proposals on the table. email any suggestions to me if you have 'em.
when we're recording, we actually end up dicking around about the same amount of time that we work. but there's something super exhausting about playing and and listening to and analyzing the same song over and over again, and we just seem to need lots of breaks. so, not only did we get some good recording done ... we also caught up on our south park viewing, dined al fresco on marty's excellent deck, and cycled through about 50 million possible names for marty and stacy's new kitten. i'm partial to "skeeter" but no one had my back on that. ah well.
in other news, i come to work at 8 am every day now and i haven't died yet! it's actually really fun (in a tremendously geeky way, granted) to work on proposals for new systems. i get to read about lots of new things, install new software, and scribble lots of pictures on whiteboards. it almost feels like back to school, which is great, cause, geek that i am, it was always my favorite time of year.
tuesday, 17 august 2004
ow
i'm such a good girl. saturday i went to the gym and picked up some heavy stuff and put it down and picked it back up again a bunch of times. it was the first time i had done such a thing in months, and so i spent the weekend moving at about the same pace as my grandma. things are better today than they have been, but going down steps is still rough. my knees are like "whoa buddy, take it easy there!" what else can i do besides go back to the gym again today, eh?
open mike was fun last night. we played pretty well, i got to ogle some cute boys, and everyone got drunk and had fun. or, at least i did, so i figure everyone else must have, too. we made it down the street to club cafe to see the sleaze and i was personally blown away by how good 3 drunk guys can sing harmony together at 2 am. (be careful going to that link ... there's an audio surprise a few seconds in.)
so yeah i'm dragging a little bit today but if i can just make it through the gym, i can go to bed as early as i want and no one can stop me! yeah! being an adult rocks!!
here's a fun link for you. w.t.f. mate?
friday, 13 august 2004
whats to become of me
we had such a great rehearsal last night. turns out, no one thinks i'm a dick when i have an opinion -- they actually like it. who knew? we worked on one song only, "unsolved mystery," so it's been stuck in my head something fierce all day. but, yeah, we came a long way with it in just a few hours. this weekend marty is going away with his wife (happy birthday stutchie!) so me and ren can practice on our own as well.
it was so great having lunch with my friend carl yesterday. he's working on a very cool documentary for which he traveled to india and china, and i learned a lot about how such things are done by picking his brain over an omelet. (that sounds gross, but wasn't at all.)
you may not know this, but about 100 years ago, carl made a movie about when i was in the ms. pittsburgh pageant called keep him happy. (you can read a little about it by clicking on the Documentaries link, then choosing it from the list at the bottom of the page). it was the very first film kitchen film, and a bunch of us rented a limo and got drunk and rolled up to pittsburgh filmmakers like the freakin rolling stones. it was one of those never-forget-it type nights. i even got to wear my tiara (won by singing "angel of the morning" and rolling around a garbage heap in my nightgown). good times.
anyway, back in 2004, i have mockups to make and a weekend to enjoy. hasta luego.
thursday, 12 august 2004
a new woman
boy did i feel abnormal yesterday. and as the day wore on, i just felt worse and worse. from the outside, it must have been obvious that what i needed was just to go to freakin bed, but i couldn't deduce that much for myself.
so after wandering around all day feeling woozy and acting a fool, i basically just passed out around 8:30 last night and didn't wake up till 8 this morning. now i am a new woman, and thank god, cause i don't know if i could have taken another day of feeling as thin-skinned and weird as i did yesterday.
today i got a lot to do -- work, lunch with my old friend carl, dinner with kathy jo's family, and band practice after. time to try some new methods and see if we can do a makeover on one of our songs.
wednesday, 11 august 2004
i'm remembering my old donnie darko
well kids i saw the director's cut of donnie darko last night at the oaks and really enjoyed it. for the most part. it was fun to see a new version of one of my favorite movies, and some of the changes were really cool. i loved seeing more of donnie and his dad together, and there's a weird bit during jim cunningham's assembly at school that wasn't there before which sorta tickled me.
but there were some bad changes, too, like the eye that kept appearing whenever donnie would experience something wacky. honestly, it's enough that the wacky thing happens, you know? no need to underline it with a huge blinking bloodshot eye that has computer text scrolling in front of it. that was sorta lame.
i also REALLY missed echo and the bunnymen's "the killing moon" which is the soundtrack for the beginning of the original cut. the new cut uses INXS's "never tear us apart," which works fine and actually fits the situation better lyrically. but "the killing moon" has this ridiculously menacing first phrase that rings out as donnie rides his bike down the mountain and through suburbia, and it sets the halloween-y tone just right. plus, i mean, "bunnymen" ... the whole freakin movie is about a bunnyman. it was too good to change, really.
the new cut does use this song later, during the party scene when donnie sees into gretchen's portal (heh heh). but the song they used in the original cut -- the church's "under the milky way" -- was way sweeter, i think.
the movie still cracked me up and choked me up. it's not like the director's cut sucks or anything. i'm just a complete wacko who practically memorized the first one. you should totally go see it if you can.
tuesday, 10 august 2004
he's got the magic hands
last night at the rex, bob the fiddler (and self-described "jam whore") showed up and played with us all night. it was superfantastic, and more than a bit like being at IHOP, where pancakes come with everything from eggs to chicken fried steak. fiddle with "sweet caroline." fiddle with "heart of gold." fiddle with "magic man" (my personal favorite, of course). rock on, bob!
i'm happy to report that we had a really excellent turnout again -- lots of new blood, lots of familiar people getting better and more confident every week. i also had an excellent discussion with my very knowledgeable and talented friend, about how to get out of the rut i feel we have been in musically.
don't get me wrong -- over the last year or so that we've been playing every week at the rex, we have gotten a lot better and more relaxed on stage. but now we're at the point where we really aren't growing anymore, and none of us knows how to get by it, and it's frustrating as hell. somehow i keep waiting around for someone to come along and show us what we have to do, but last night i realized that ain't gonna happen. as this site says, If your plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
for some reason, i'm able to be both creative and analytical with madgeworld, with work, with my house and the systems i set up for my life. but the analytical part has been severely missing from my music. i treat the musical part of myself like a little hunchback idiot savant locked up in the basement. i throw it a bunch of straw and expect it to come back gold with little if any intervention on my part.
but it doesn't work that way. if our music is going to be as great as i know it can be, someone has to break it down and figure it out. and since no one knows or cares about my songs as much as i do, that someone has to be me, even though i have very little idea of how to approach it. i tell myself, hey, i've sorted out lots of unfamiliar things, so i should be able to do this, too, right? but somehow music is more intimidating. probably because i love it more. we'll see how it goes.
monday, 9 august 2004
pity my neighbors
so i finally learned that loretta lynn song, and it's so much fun to sing it that once i got started, i couldn't stop. hence, everyone on suncrest street probably knows the song as well as i do now. they don't complain, though. i guess compared to the family who screams at each other for 14 hours a day, and the guy who's up at 8:00 am on a sunday mowing his lawn, a little singing isn't that bad.
yes it was a quiet and sleepy and productive weekend. i made a bunch of purses i'd been slacking on, played a lot of guitar, got a haircut, did my laundry, etc. kathy jo and rene went to the wedding of a guy here at work and had fun tromping around the next day in the finger lakes region of new york. they had a much more exciting time than i did, but seeing as how i slept for 11 hours straight, i don't know if they enjoyed themselves more.
it was jolene's birthday sunday, and she had a party friday night, at which an adorably lovely time was had by all. we had beer cheese dip, veggies, strawberries with chocolate fondue, and bubble tea (but not all at the same time). and jolene is now the same age i was when she and i met -- now, instead of me being her 24-year-old best friend, she's mine. how bout that!
wednesday, 4 august 2004
oh how you loved on me
loretta lynn's van lear rose is the soundtrack today, and as soon as i get 2 hours to rub together, i have decided to learn "miss bein missus." i reckon when a song makes me tear up every time i hear it, i probably should learn how to play it.
last night i slept like a happy, gurgling baby, and this morning i got up early with the bizarre but very insistent idea of giving myself a pedicure before work. speaking of which, it's moving along ok i spose. i switch to a new project next week, and i'm getting a new computer, which is always fun. the parrot in my last flintstones-era laptop finally gave up the ghost last week.
dunno what you're doing tonight, but jolene and i are going to see my buddy tim sedwick (the comic dr. awkward) record his live comedy CD at the rex starting around 7 pm. so if you want to see a couple of so-in-love-it's-disgusting girls swooning over each other and giggling, you know where to be.
tuesday, 3 august 2004
where'd everyone come from?
everyone came out of the woodwork and showed up at the rex last night, and there were so many cute boys there that frankly i didn't know what to do with them all. it was sort of like when you're in the laundry detergent aisle at target and 10,000 neon colored bottles are staring down at you and your eyes go glassy and you end up wandering out of the store 2 hours later with DVDs and dishtowels and new underwear but no detergent. i go somewhat catatonic when there are too many options.
honestly, i had been feeling a little burnt out on open mike, so the great turnout last night was most welcome. i'm ready to host for like another 25 years now.
unfortunately, my health on tuesday is inversely proportional to the amount of fun had on monday, so you can guess how i'm feeling. nevertheless, here are some things i'm grateful for today:
1. air conditioning (still).
2. coffee (always).
3. ibuprofen (today of all days).
4. body shop peppermint foot lotion.
5. hot boys who like to cuddle, even if they are gay.
6. the mind-bogglingly wonderful concept of sleep, and the manifestation of said concept, and the anticipation of the manifestation.
monday, 2 august 2004
me and the boys are playin and we just can't find the sound
recording is fun! and exhausting! and very frustrating sometimes, especially if you're like me and have a limited tolerance for monkeying around with levels and such. however, all the hard work seems to be paying off, and not only do we have a decent take of a couple songs, we also seem to be ironing out lots of little issues along the way. keeping a steady tempo is freakin hard, especially on songs that change tempo a bunch. and, of course, we have a bunch of those.
yeah, so my voice is a little tired and my nerves feel a little ragged but i got some new makeup at M.A.C. so it all balances out. yesterday was melanie's birthday so there was food and festivity at gypsy cafe last night in her honor. i ate a lot of carbs and enjoyed every single last one of 'em.
tonight, the rex. tomorrow, purses. every day this week, gratitude for air conditioning.
friday, 30 july 2004
the edge of the world
anyone ever read the chronicles of narnia? i've been listening to my very favorite of the series, the voyage of the dawn treader on CD and keep dreaming of floating out in a tiny little boat on a sea of sweet water to the edge of the world like reepicheep the talking mouse does. i love revisiting my favorite books from when i was a kid. well, except the danielle steele ones.
this week at work was funny. i was in our quarterly product management meetings and had to actually pay attention to everything for once cause i was taking the notes. half the time people were using so many acronyms that i had no idea what the sam hill they were talking about. if only i had the kind of brain that could turn bizarre life situations into 22-minute-long teleplays, i'd make a million dollars off the material i get here.
last night i hung out with jolene. we went to barnes & noble in squirrel hill and painted the place red! i mean, we just read. we also danced around her apartment and attempted some yoga stretches and laid on the rug talking and it was real fun. i sure love that girl.
came home around 11 pm and immediately got a brainstorm for a new kind of lamp made not out of album covers, but out of the scraps i generate during the album-cover-purse-making process. prototyping to ensue this weekend, along with band practice and recording. that's right, we really, truly are recording a new CD throughout the month of august. six new songs for your listening pleasure. stay tuned for more details.
tuesday, 20 july 2004
easy like tuesday morning
hey y'all, it's a tuesday morning in madgeworld and you know what that means: vague nausea from drinking every beer in the hoegaarden last night at the rex, and a wicked craving for a tex-mex omelet from pamela's. and how are you?
things have been pretty mellow around here of late. i got a new, gorgeous coffee table and rearranged my living room around it. also got me some new bedding which i had been coveting for months and which makes going to bed something like curling up inside a pink marshmallow. i've been into all the home improvement shows ever since i got cable (clean sweep is my favorite), but instead of making me feel like my house isn't cute enough, they sort of make me feel superior, cause my place is already awesome. seems like it gets nicer and nicer the more crap i get rid of, too.
ma is doing well. she has her library card and is making friends and influencing people in the neighborhood already. gypsy cafe is doing great. my brother is a genius in the kitchen (and, come to think of it, other places too. he passed the test to get on jeopardy, you know). sunday morning i had a tony soprano omelet (like a pizza on eggs) and almost keeled over it was so freakin good. if you haven't been yet, well i just don't even know what to say to you.
it's gorgeous today in da burgh, which makes it a bit hard to sit in my cube and design interfaces like a good girl. but i get to go out at lunch, and i have new stuff to work on, which is my favorite. tonight is my night off from carousing, practicing, etc., and my plan is to go home, watch a movie, maybe take a bath, and climb inside my lavender-scented marshmallow bed. i love tuesdays.
tuesday, 6 july 2004
whaaa?
i ordered cable last week, but i almost didn't get it. when the cable guy showed up, he stomped into my apartment, demanding "where's your cable line?" um, i don't have one, dude. i don't have cable. that would be why i called you!
this is apparently too much for the guy to process, cause he repeats, "you mean you don't have cable already?" no, i don't have cable already. if i had cable already, why would i ask the cable company to come and install it for me?
so, okay, after a few more minutes of this fascinating repartee, we establish that i do not, in fact, have a cable line into my apartment. once this sinks in, the guy wigs. "well, i can't do this today -- i have too many other orders to do." at this point, i'm about to wig, too, from the sheer bizarreness of the situation. how does it work that a cable guy comes to install cable, then says that he has too many other cables to install so he can't install mine?
instead of wigging, though, i turn my big brown eyes to him and pout a little. why is everyone else's cable more important than mine, huh? this has the intended effect, and he takes out the biggest freakin drill bit i ever saw, and literally drills a hole through my wall, through the brick, to the outside.
then he throws a remote on the table, drops my cable box on the floor, jams a cord into the back of my TV, and leaves before i can test it out and ensure that everything works. it doesn't -- on demand will not come up for me. so, someone has to come back and fix it on wednesday. it's a little perverse, but i almost hope it's the same guy. at least this time, i will have the cable already, so he'll be a little less confused.
ma is here and we bought her a whole apartment full of furniture and everything she needs to set up housekeeping all in 2 days (thank god for furniture emeritus). amazing, ain't it? we're moving her in wednesday and thursday, and thursday night we'll each be sleeping in our own beds again. i love ma, and it's great having her in town, but my place is wicked small for 2 people, and frank doesn't even know where to sleep, he's so confused. wish us luck with the big transition.
friday, 25 june 2004
a strange cat in the middle of the night
this morning at around 4 am, frank started freaking out. usually when i come home from work, he meows the whole time from when i open the front door until i'm petting him, and he likes to talk to me while i'm cleaning, but in the middle of the night, he usually leaves me alone. so when i heard him yowling at 4 am, i woke right up.
funny thing, though, was that it wasn't him yowling. he was sitting up alert, right by the door to my apartment, but he wasn't meowing. it was a cat i didn't know! and i wigged right the heck out. at noon or even at 10 pm, a strange cat in your house is no big deal. you just pick it up and take it outside. if you're a big marshmallow, maybe you give it a can of tuna and a cup of water, too, and go about your business.
but somehow, at 4 am, it's downright terrifying. who is this crazy animal? how did it get into my house? does it have rabies? is it a trained killer attack kitty who's casing the joint for burglars who want to steal my purses?
eventually, i figured it was just a normal cat, and went back to sleep. this morning, i went down to the basement to find our cellar door standing wide open. well, the mystery of how the kitty got in is solved -- and we're lucky that nothing worse than a cat crawled in.
at lunchtime, i saw her sunning herself outside and petted her a while. she's a cute but skinny black and calico swirled girl ... and she purred like a champ when i scratched her neck. but i was still a little freaked, i gotta admit, and i'm so not taking her in. if her goal was to move into my house, she shouldn't have gone all "pet sematary" on me in the middle of the night.
tuesday, 15 june 2004
trouble on the line
i'm back at work, and the quiet tapping of computer keyboards and the whoosh of air conditioning is making me a little woozy. or maybe it's all the hell-raisin i did last night. it was the first regular open stage in a few weeks and it was a good one.
and hey, i got all my hair chopped off! fifteen inches of pristine chocolate brown hair gone (but not lost -- i donated it to locks of love). i was going for amelie ... ended up with maybe a little that girl mixed in as well. but it's cool. the best part is that i have recently developed a newfound love of extremely long earrings, and they look cool with short hair.
so, yes, children, the arts festival was a good time but i'm glad to get back to my everyday routine of work, music, home, and kitty. i took a few days last week to do nothing but putter and watch bad daytime tv and it was glorious. now i have a pile of stuff to get done by the end of the week, but i'm not too concerned. what needs to get done will get done. it almost always does, anyway.
saturday, 12 june 2004
whew that was a good one
the arts festival was lucrative, exhausting, and wicked good fun. a nice man named lamont jones from the post-gazette also mentioned my stuff in an article today which is cool. thanks, lamont!
i'll be back at work monday -- more then!
thursday, 3 june 2004
i'm a fiend
well, i got 95 purses done for the arts festival, so you better come buy one, or at least come say "hey girl."
i'm in booth 61, but i'm not sure what that means. i have a feeling i'll be listening to the shaft soundtrack a lot, so keep an ear out for that and you'll find me.
xxoo madgey
tuesday, 25 may 2004
tuesday = friday
... for me, anyway. starting tomorrow, i'm off from work till june 10th! i'm psyched to not have to come here, but it's not like it'll be a proper vacation or anything -- i'll mostly just be making stuff, then selling it. but, still. i get to stay home and listen to CDs and pet frank. not much to argue with there.
last night's open mike was a fun one -- probably the funnest we've had in a while. dunno why, but the last month or so, we haven't been getting a good turnout, and i guess my enthusiasm hasn't been that great either. but last night rocked. one guy played a song about how much of a bitch his girlfriend was and how he wanted her to die and stuff. when he was done, i went onstage to introduce the next act and was like "ok, dude, so what i want to know is -- what did you do to your girlfriend to make her act like that?!?!@?!"
gotta say, i've never understood the "i loved her, so i had to kill her" genre of popular music, but everyone seems to go there eventually. last week i sang one of my country songs, a very over-the-top, funny in a pathetic kinda way ditty that goes "i told him i loved him, and he changed the subject / i fell on my knees and he clipped his nails" ... and asked my friend what he thought of it. he was like "well i thought you were going to be like i told him i loved him and he changed the subject so i had to kill him." i pointed out that girls don't often write songs like that ... but maybe i can be a trailblazer.
got the new loretta lynn CD last night and listened to a few songs and they rock! loretta's voice sounds amazing, like she hasn't aged a day, and she's so pretty in her blue dress on the cover it makes me wanna go to a hoedown.
fun stuff going on this week!
1. on thursday at 9 pm, me, marty, and rene are playing a show with jack at the quiet storm. jack is an excellent folk/bluegrass band with good melodies and tight 3 part harmonies, and of course, you know louie rocks. so come see us ya bum!
2. on friday, the almighty nudebutcher plays at the smiling moose on southside (between 12th and 13th on carson, i think). these guys are good friends and they rock so freakin hard, sometimes i actually can't take it. also, the moose has extremely cheap drinks.
3. on saturday, we are playing salt journal's new issue release party at eons bar and grille in homestead at the foot of the high level bridge (106 e. 8th ave, 412 462-9129). lots of other cool bands such as the hope harveys are playing as well, some come on dahn.
whew.
friday, 21 may 2004
i dont give a damn bout my bad reputation
HUGE thunderstorms this morning in pittsburgh! ginormous and house-shaking! poor frank was so freaked out, he hid somewhere where i couldn't even find him. i like thunderstorms, though. ever since a cloudburst opened on a camping trip last summer, and we were able to make it under a nearby shelter in time, every intense weather happening tends to make me feel very very grateful that human beings know how to do things like build houses and keep warm.
now it's gorgeous and sunny and everything smells delicious in our back yard. i'm pretty much on track for the arts festival. i have 30 purses made and will get 70 more done in the next two weeks, come rain or sleet or snow or dark of night. i'm off work next week, which will make this possible.
i've just been feeling a little distracted, though, like i need to read a bunch of books and write a bunch of stuff down in my journal and figure some things out. i mean, you can never get everything sorted out in your brain, right? but you gotta go through the boxes and reorganize every now and then or else you'll be overrun in no time. my kingdom for a month off work to contemplate life and paint my living room!
hope you have a fun weekend. i'm going to see the supersuckers tonight, i think. maybe i'll see you there!
hey i forgot to tell you -- there was an article about me in last weeks magazine section of the mckeesport daily news. i haven't seen the print version yet, which has a bunch of pictures of me looking inside my purses and making queer faces. if you see a copy, let me know how much of a dork i look like!
friday, 14 may 2004
freak, or geek?
at the end of a long, hard shopping trip wednesday night in which i stocked up on purse supplies, i went to target and bought the freaks and geeks DVD box set, and i've been watching it while making purses for the last few nights.
i am loving this show -- it's so funny and so close to the actual experience of high school, sometimes i catch myself cringing like i haven't done since i was 15 and following mark funkhouser around ravenna high school like a pathetic neglected puppy. and i totally identify with the lead character, lindsay, whose old friends (the academic decathlon team) think she's ruining her life by hanging out with her new friends (the kids who hang out in the smoking patio and drive around town on halloween knocking over mailboxes). my own goody-goody to bad-seed transformation didn't really start till college, but being on the receiving end of questions like "why are you throwing your life away?" is a memorable experience, no matter when it happens.
pursemaking and coffeedrinking activities continue at a frenzied pace. today, in addition to my madonna true blue messenger bag, i am sporting another madgeworld product -- an armband i made by laminating a piece of a KISS catalog (found inside a copy of dynasty) and adding a snap. it's pretty groovy.
i have a big trip to the library and the post office planned for the weekend -- very exciting! i'm also waiting for an extremely important shipment of grommets. please come to the rex tomorrow night and keep me and marty company at a rare saturday open stage event.
bye for now!
tuesday, 11 may 2004
take it
OK, so no more foolin. it is full on prepare for the arts festival mode. i spent the whole weekend making purses and drinking coffee, and i got a lot done. they all turned out really nice, and some of them are amazing, especially the vixen-y ones i make for my shop in toronto, boudoir. you never really know how well all the colors, shapes, and images will work together till each bag is finished, so it makes the process pretty fun. listening to books on CD helps too. it's a very nice and peaceful way to spend my time, and good thing, cause it's how i'm going to spend every waking hour between now and june 4th.
onto other news -- my coffee addiction has taken complete hold of me. after only a week and a half with the french press, i'm up to 3 giant cups a day and i just keep ramping up. i keep telling myself, i'll quit after the arts festival, but who am i kidding? one cup is too many and a thousand isn't enough. do they have 12-step programs for caffeine addicts?
work is going well. open mike was fun last night. marty and i are playing at the rex again on saturday, as part of a big weekend open stage, so please come see us. if you don't, it'll just be our two pathetic mugs sitting at the bar drinking all night and that's just sad.
monday, 3 may 2004
in my design and contruction i was made to be free
i got a french press coffee maker over the weekend, and it might be end of me. one gorgeously delicious mug of coffee at like 9 am today, and i'm still zinging from it now at 4 pm. my hands aren't actually shaking, i don't think -- they just feel like they are.
yes, kids, i am one extremely stressed madge today, giant strong cup of coffee or not. between getting the release ready to go out the door at work, preparing for the arts festival, playing with louie & the humans, trying to have a social life, and everything else, i'm going kind of nuts. i did sort out a few things today, though. i found someone to rent a tent from for the arts festival, and i found a place for my grandma to live. slow and steady wins the race, right?
so how was your weekend? mine was fun. i did some cleaning, some partying, some crafting, and some sleeping. frank has a boo-boo but it's clearing up. i need a haircut. looking forward to blowing off some steam at the rex tonight. for now, i'm listening to a great band named shesus, and dreaming about my next dark and lovely cuppa joe.
friday, 30 april 2004
unsolved mystery
just had another excellent lunch at the gypsy cafe with my girl jami. i hadn't seen her since like january which is just sad, but she had a belated birthday present for me -- a silver guitar strap with little kitties on it! they are cute freakin kitties too, like out of an old-school little golden book. can't wait to strap it on my bass and rock out with some kitties hanging out in a basket.
last night was a very fun band practice for me and marty (poor ren was ill). we practiced our new song, "unsolved mystery," and i think we got it down pretty good. now it's stuck in my head. but i don't mind - it's actually pretty fun to have your own song zinging around your head and making you tap your foot for no apparent reason.
it's been a busy week, as it always is, and looks to be a busy weekend, but i get to stay in my house a lot. i even stocked up on audio books from the library -- somehow the whole purse making process goes faster and better when you have a good story to listen to. usually i listen to harry potter, but this time i got the lovely bones, which i think might be an eensy bit more intense. we'll see.
only like 35 days till the arts festival. will i ever be able to make enough stuff in time? stay tuned ...
tuesday, 27 april 2004
today is one of those days...
the kind where every action requires me to scrape the bottom of the barrel of my will. in a completely fair universe, i would be on my couch, wrapped in my silver chenille blanket with frank on my belly, watching kill bill and drinking tea. in this universe, though, i'm at work, and it's INSANELY cold out, and i didn't wear a coat, it being almost may and all. foiled again!
i did have a tremendous lunch today, though, at gypsy cafe, the new southside restaurant where my awesome brother jim is the chef and my brother's awesome girlfriend melanie is the manager. you can stop down for lunch this week -- dinner will start next week. i had the curry chicken salad wrapped in lettuce and, like i said, it totally rocked. to get to gypsy, get thee to the corner of 14th and bingham. it's just around the corner from the beehive and up the street from the city theater.
the rex last night was wicked fun -- there were lots of great musicians, as always, and lots of general merriment and revelry in celebration of tim's birthday. after the rex i went down to zythos for a while and somehow ended up playing guitar and belting out "sweet caroline" with everyone in the bar. put me in a room with someone who loves neil diamond like i do, and it's bound to happen.
later, i found myself standing beneath a huge white lilac tree, watching its petals swirling around silently in the wind before settling on the sidewalk like a layer of sweet-smelling snow. not a bad way to end an evening, all in all.
tuesday, 20 april 2004
crazy on you
so in my last entry i whined a bit about how i wanted to write a song and guess what -- later that afternoon, one totally came to me. so thanks for that, brain.
last weekend was my second nostalgia-soaked weekend in the month of april -- ten year college reunion time! these are people who never even knew me as madge, and it was darn funny to be "megan" again for awhile. it was also hilarious to note that, although i am totally the goody-goody of my current peer group, i was the black sheep of the crew back then and still am now. it was fun to see everyone, though, especially paul, stacy, and katarina. none of us had really changed that much except paul who has short hair now instead of his unruly collegiate mop (he looks a lot better with a haircut).
last night was a really good and slightly anarchic open mike. we had a new guy named ricardo show up and he was incredible -- reminded me of marvin gaye with an acoustic guitar. i got a little crazy jumping around to the rockin strains of nudebutcher, and we got to do "magic man" for the first time in awhile. the jack daniels was flowing like a fragrant amber river, so i'm hurting a little today, but it's nothing that a giant triple-shot latte couldn't fix. the weather is perfect, and i have on a purple polka-dotted skirt, so i suppose things could be a lot worse.
tonight i get to throw out $100 worth of organic meat which went bad when my refrigerator just stopped working for no reason. i unplugged it and plugged it back in and it started working again, but my beautiful whole foods animal flesh is now worthless. other than that, i'm looking forward to a mellow evening of puttering and cleaning and listening to music way too loud with my windows open and early evening sunshine streaming in. how i love the springtime!
tuesday, 13 april 2004
i'm a lazy bum
i have a lot of balls in the air, or plates spinning on sticks, or irons in the fire, or however you want to put it. full time job ... band ... company ... friends ... family ... life ... these are all the here and now, nuts and bolts things that i have to keep going every day. but i'm finding that i seem to be pretty much incapable of keeping all of them going at the same time.
there's another thing i need to keep going as well, that i've been doing quite pathetically lately, and that is writing. it shames me to admit it, but i haven't written a new song in months. i go to work, play the open mike, make some purses on the weekend, go out drinking, watch the apprentice ... but somehow it's been impossible for me to find a few hours to take a walk and clear my mind so a song can bubble up without interference.
and my active lifestyle won't be slowing down any time soon, and, honestly, i don't really want it to. i would just like to wake up in the morning with a song in my head, ok?
yes, life has been busy, crazy, bizarre, confusing, and fun lately. i guess that's as it should be. this weekend is my 10th year college reunion. i'm not going to any of the events, but some of my old friends are coming to town and i think we'll probably go to CMU's carnival and drink beer and marvel at how young all the students look.
tomorrow i'm going to pick up my friend paul at the airport -- and i can't wait to see him. he's a lot of fun, and an incredible musician, so hopefully we'll get to rock out when he's around. we were in a horrible and hilarious band called bootskootin in school -- our set consisted of originals about dancing around in your pajamas on childhood saturday mornings, old chili pepper covers, and a rap version of "stayin alive" -- years before wyclef thought of it.
i was the singer, along with my friend ed, and it had always been my dream to be in a band so i was really psyched about it ... but unfortunately, i totally sucked. up till then, all the singing i'd done was in musicals and art songs and arias, so when it came time to rock, i had no idea. thankfully, i've sorted that problem out now.
tuesday, 6 april 2004
fell in love with a dog
for the first time in my life, i am head over heels for a doggie. he's a pug named pig and he lives with my friends michelle and mark in brooklyn and i swear if i could have smuggled him outta there without breaking their hearts, i would've done it. he doesn't stink or run around yapping, just sits contentedly in your lap chewing a bone and licking your fingers when you let him. what a good boy! anyone got a pug they wanna get rid of? lemme know.
yes, my visit to the big apple was very whirlwind-y and very fun. i only wish i could've stayed longer to spend more time with my peeps. friday michelle and mark took me to a ribbon store that made me feel like i'd won a golden ticket -- never saw such amazing ribbon and trim all in one spot. i also placed some purses at mod world on 1st avenue and wrote orders for a few more shops, so my complete domination of the city is imminent -- prepare ye.
saturday i spent laughing with dear james and nora, eating and drinking and listening to "(i've had) the time of my life" on the jukebox at a dive in greenpoint, and indulging in about as much nostalgia as any of us could handle. saturday night was a reunion party for the meadow, a little house in the middle of the east williamsburg warehouse district where i used to live with about a thousand crazy boys. well it was really only just the three -- timmy, mike, and james -- but sometimes it felt like a lot more.
as the night went on, i felt more and more like the loaf of bread on the sesame street version of "this is your life" -- everyone showed up and remembered some great story i had forgotten. we read poems and sang and drank and wandered out into the street to smoke cigarettes (as required by law -- very strange for a pittsburgh girl like me who has finally made her peace with the fact that going to a bar means i will reek of smoke within moments of arriving). i guess we all ended up crashing around 5 am. i hadn't seen most of these people in like 7 years, and it was hilarious to see how much and how very little we had all changed.
sunday i hooked up with a pair of rhinestone blingy earrings which spell "kawaii" and the cutest cotton candy pink shoes ever. i also spent some time mourning the fact that red leather boots with cherry blossoms on them do not seem to be available in size 10. i made it down to pearl river and bought more adorable little rice bowls than i will probably ever need. stayed up too late enjoying the company of michelle and mark and pig, then got up before dawn to get the train back here for the open mike last night, which was, as always, a good and exhausting time.
to tell you the truth, i'm stunned that i'm still standing, let alone walking around with such a skip in my step. but i guess a weekend spent reuniting with people you love refreshes the spirit at least as much as a good night's sleep. and i can sleep when i'm dead.
monday, 29 march 2004
oh canadia
our trip up north was a great success. we got to visit millions of butterflies, eat dinner in a revolving dining room, and carouse in our luxury fallsview suite. we never wanted to come back. i mean, it's so pretty up there and canada has nationalized health care, so why bother with the U.S.?
only kidding, of course, but all of us found that we could stare contentedly into the falls for hours. the mist was bitter cold, but we toughed it out, cause the the very best spot to stand is also the coldest. it's so very cool to stand right up against the railing at the point where the water rushes by, just before falling down.
there's something weirdly hypnotic about the falls that made me want to jump in, or at least dip a toe. not to be totally morbid, but it would be a pretty fun way to go. the craziest bit of all the stories of daredevils going over the falls is that they all thought surviving the trip would make them rich and famous, from the first person to go over in a barrel to the latest guy who went over in nothing but his clothes. i can understand the attraction, sure, but how exactly would a person get rich from it? i just don't understand the mechanics.
in other news, i ate so much over the weekend that i don't think i'll ever need to eat again.
see you tonight at the rexy.
friday, 26 march 2004
fallsview
well any moment now i'm heading off to niagara falls for the weekend. it's kathy jo's birthday next week, so we rented a car and big hotel room and i spose we will do stuff like ride the maid of the mist and eat fudge and order room service and watch all the colors changing on the falls when they light them up at night. right now, i mostly am looking forward to the ride out there. today's the kind of day you just want to roll down the windows, blast the pearl jam, and drive.
this was a pretty good week. it saw the slow decline of my sickness from nasty to just annoying. i just had lunch with jolene, and on the way back, ran into bill from the rex. he and chris were going to get a beer so i joined them and got to hear about lots of fun plans they have for my very favorite bar.
got to see eternal sunshine again last night and enjoyed it a lot. poor marty, though, got a little ill cause i made him sit too close to the screen. see, i like being enveloped in the world of the movie. but it apparently gives martin pixel-sickness. too bad. at least we got to say bye to bill. happy trails and have fun in italia, matey.
me, i'm off to collect my barrel and suspenders and head off to the nearest wonder of the world. see you when i get back.
tuesday, 23 march 2004
nothing left to proclaim
remember the proclaimers? they had a big hit a while ago with "500 miles," from the benny and joon soundtrack. and they opened for us last night at the rex!
only kidding -- there was a big proclaimers show, then a smaller open mike afterwards. i made a bit of a faux pas, though, when i asked the crowd if the proclaimers had played "that five thousand miles" song. ooopsie! somehow, i can remember all the words to "every which way but loose," but can't recall how many miles the proclaimers would walk. ah well.
i'm feeling a lot better, thanks. i still am going to the doctor today, though, cause my throat is all swelled up. i'll spare you the details -- i'm just hoping for a strong antibiotic/throat-declogging cocktail to make it all go away.
last night i also saw eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and totally loved it, though i also agree with stephanie zacharek's review in salon. (come to think of it, i almost always agree with her reviews. she must be pretty smart!) jim and kate's story is beautiful, devastatingly so, while the real-world stuff is somehow not quite as real. but i've never seen the everyday boredom and beauty of relationships portrayed onscreen so accurately. i thought it was the saddest movie i ever saw until the last 15 minutes.
friday, 19 march 2004
blech.
i been a sickie this week, kids. gross white patches on my tonsils and feverish dreams and the whole disgusting 9 yards. i'm feeling a bit better today, but don't get too close or i might accidentally give you the pox.
so this week has been spent in a very limbo-ish state. monday's open mike was the best attendedest ever, which was cool, but i couldn't really sing that well. tuesday and wednesday we had our quarterly steering committee meetings at work, but i had to blow off the 2nd day cause i was too ill. i haven't been able to make purses or go to the gym or practice or any of the things that make me feel happily madgey ... but i did get to read some good books and watch a hilariously dark movie called freeway which you should totally see if you can find it. (it's reese witherspoon back before she was boring.)
sorry i don't have very many entertaining things to report today. hopefully i'll suck down a few gallons of OJ and be all better soon.
monday, 15 march 2004
try try try to understand
ah, the st. patrick's day parade in downtown pittsburgh: men in kilts playing bagpipes ... toddlers shaking their big diaper butts in time ... marching bands and shriners on little gold glitter cars and dudes dressed up like walking shamrocks ... a bottle of champagne in my hand and 4 crazy girls at my side. yes, indeed, good times were had by all.
after the parade, we went to jack's and then to the rex, but i think my most favoritest part of the day was blasting heart tunes as we drove from venue to venue. of course, my voice is completely blown out now from singing along -- i'm hoping for a miraculous recovery before open mike tonight -- but it was worth it. how often do you get to start partying at 9 am and keep going all day? maybe on st. patrick's day and your birthday, and that's about it.
so that was my saturday. sunday, i made some purses and a very cool lamp, and tried to keep my surroundings as quiet and low-key as possible. the post-gazette had an article on pittsburgh blogging which quotes me, and i don't even sound that stupid! if you're here because of that article, then HI! welcome to my world. won't you buy a purse?
tuesday, 9 march 2004
wanted dead or alive
i brought my beloved black cowboy hat last night to liven up an already lively monday night at the rex. the best thing about my cowboy hat is the completely transformative effect it has on some (but not all) people. my brother jim, for instance, is not a cowboy hat kinda guy. nor is martin. just doesn't suit them.
my friend bill, on the other hand, went from mild-mannered web designer to full-on outlaw in the instant he put it on. add the cigarette dangling from his lip and we had josey wales on our hands. that guy definitely needs to get a cowboy hat of his own and wear it, like, all the time.
so yeah that was a good night. and, miraculously, i'm not even all that tired today. at least i wasn't till i had a peppi's sub for lunch. that stuff is like a nap on a plate, but it's so very yummy. i'm pretty much powerless against it.
i moved my cube at work last week, and i'm settling into my new space OK. this one is by a window, where my old one was tucked in the space behind a fire door, so my work environment no longer resembles a hobbit hole, and i don't have to ask anyone what the weather is like. now, the poor non-window-having cube farmers ask me. (for the record, it's cold.)
sunday i'm going to be in the post-gazette because of this here blog. actually, i think my friend rich (who does a great blog himself) was mocking me to the post-gazette reporter, as in, "most people write relevant blogs but some people talk about their cats, like madge." this of course made the reporter want to talk to me, cause everyone knows that puppies and kitties (frank, for instance) are way more fun to read about than, say, politics. bottom line is there's room for all kinds of blogs in this crazy realm of zeroes and ones zinging their way around the planet, and i for one am glad to provide your daily requirement of cat talk, ridiculous drunken stories, and rock and roll.
ps: we played "magic man" last night and it rocked!
friday, 5 march 2004
hi ho!
hola chicitos. it's friday, which is good. it's like 60 degrees out there, which is great. and i have on my favorite cowgirl shirt, which is fantastic. good times all around.
this has been a knuckle down week here at work. we have a release getting ready to head out the door so i've been testing like a fool and writing up so many defects that my fingers are sore. on the way home every day i can't stop yawning those huge yawns where your jaw comes unhinged and your face feels like it's going to split at the sides, and i don't think i've been up past 11 even one day this week. (except open mike monday, of course, which was another loud, crowded, and crazy one.) i was so beat that i skipped the gym wednesday, too, but i'm going back today so i shouldn't be too squishy.
people have been saying it for years, but i'm just now figuring it out: the whole exercise thing is incredibly satisfying. when you're squatting with a big heavy bar on your back, it's impossible to think about deadlines or marketing plans or orders that you need to fill. you just feel your heels digging into the floor, your muscles burning as you stand up, and there's nothing else in the universe except you and your quivering limbs. the Y downtown is an excellently down to earth place, too -- i haven't seen any thong leotards, anyway.
saturday at 7 pm, jolene and i will be attending a party at the blue ruin gallery for their breast cancer benefit show. i hope someone buys my bra! other than that, i will be making purses and reading books about how much of a tightwad you have to be in order to become a millionaire. unfortunately, it seems i have a ways to go.
monday, 1 march 2004
some girls like cigarettes
... and some girls just like the record some girls like cigarettes by the karl hendricks trio. of course the songs on this 10" record are fantastic, but half the fun of the record is the beautiful sleeve, designed by pittsburgh artist wayno. i was lucky enough to meet him yesterday at the zongo's sale and emporium event where i was selling my purses, and he is as funny and sweet as his artwork. go check out his site!
and while you're out there surfing, you may as well go read this article about me! i am this month's feisty female in mosaic minds, a magazine about following your dreams, and i couldn't be happier about it (though i do look a little scary in one of the pictures but it's my own darn fault). am i feisty enough for the honor? you tell me.
it was a beautiful weekend here. saturday i made art for the first time since like 11th grade. the blue ruin gallery asked me to donate an art bra to their breast cancer benefit show, so i did, and lo and behold -- sitting at a table with scissors and glue and ribbons and markers and making something is just as fun as it was when i was 15. i was concerned at first, but all in all i'm happy with how it turned out -- it's pink and blue and made out of paper so you can't wear it, even though it's pretty cute so you might want to. the opening is saturday night at 7 pm.
in other news, i'd like to thank the academy for finally doing the right thing and awarding every oscar in christendom to the lord of the rings. it's bizarre to me how happy i am about it -- why should i care? dunno, but i do! i also loved getting to see fran walsh, peter jackson's partner and the feminine creative force behind the LOTR saga. with those flowers in her hair she was just about the cutest thing going.
see you at open mike tonight, i hope. if not, well, when you have to sit here tomorrow and read about how fun it was without you, don't come crying to me.
wednesday, 25 february 2004
what a little sunlight can do
it's really amazing how much more laughter i've heard in the office today. a couple of days of sunshine and suddenly we're all giggling like teletubbies.
i myself am quite happy today because i got my new (used) guitar! it's an epiphone riviera, sheer red and very beautiful. i played it a little at lunch and it sounds really lovely -- crunchy or smooth depending on how you like it. you can feel the neck resonating as you play, too, almost like when you're humming and your lips buzz and get all ticklish. i can't wait to bust her out at open mike, although it's allegedly an acoustic open mike and both the hosts now play electric guitars.
speaking of open mike, it was awesome this week. we've been getting some really excellent people showing up, and there's been a lot of cross-pollination and folks sitting in with each other and what have you. the rex is doing some heavy duty renovation so they can open a lounge upstairs in the balcony and it's gonna be darn cool.
what else is going on? i can't really say. i'm blinded by the sunshine and incapable of kvetching as i normally would. work is very busy, and madgeworld business is picking up as well. i may be selling my wares at a store in new orleans soon which might necessitate a trip down to that beautiful city at some point. oh, how i love having my own business!
monday, 23 february 2004
long time no see
i heard from one of my old college buddies today -- if you're reading, hey kat! it was great to get email from her, but it's so funny that i'm old enough to be saying "old college buddies." i am 31 people -- 31!!! inside i feel perpetually 17.
so a few things happened this weekend:
(1) i found a good guitar for much less money than i thought i'd have to spend. i want to check out a few more places before i get it, but it's a darn nice guitar, bright red hollow body epiphone with a big E on it so i'll have to start thinking of E names for it. hmmm ... who is a musician i admire whose name starts with an E? hmmm ...
(2) ralph is running again. i have very mixed feelings about it, cause as much as i share his disgust with the two major parties and what they've allowed corporate power to do to our democracy, i just don't know what ralph's candidacy will accomplish. he remains my hero, though, no matter what happens.
(3) the sex and the city finale aired and wasn't that great. maybe the hour long "farewell" before it put a bad taste in my mouth, but i was expecting some sort of plot twist or crazy gag. all we got was a bunch of very predictable, "very special episode"-type loose-end-tying. and the clothes weren't even that great. despite the disappointing swan song, though, i will miss the show -- charlotte most of all.
tonight is the rex open mike, of course, and this sunday there is a music-related paraphrenalia-type show going on at the edgewood club. i will be at both places making friends and influencing people. more details later in the week!
friday, 20 february 2004
breaking my arm patting myself on the back
i am very, very, very happy today cause i paid off the car! no more car payments! how cool is that! i'm slowly but surely getting my financial life together and it feels real good. if i don't watch out, one of these days i'm gonna wake up and be a real live grownup.
so on this sunny friday, i have been listening to the beatles in their heavy drug use phase (anthology 3, disc 1). there's a song on here where john is obviously totally out of his mind on an unidentified consciousness-altering substance, singing about some girl who wants to marry a yeti and really likes spaghetti or something. he's making me giggle in my cube, which is good, cause then everyone at work gets to wonder what i'm up to over here ...
got a mellow weekend planned, just how i like it. rene's going out of town so i probably will not be going out on the town. martin's gonna help me shop for a guitar tomorrow, which i'm real excited about. i still haven't decided whether i want a hollow body electric or another acoustic electric. i guess i'll have to play a bunch and see which one works.
you know, when i got frank, it was easy -- he picked me and put his little paw on my face and it was all decided. but guitars being inanimate and all, i will have to work a little harder to find the right match.
anyway i hope you all have a loverly weekend. i'll be listening to little house on the prairie and making purses.
wednesday, 18 february 2004
madge is dead. long live madge!
yes, madge of palmolive's "you're soaking in it" fame has passed on to that big beauty shop in the sky. may her hands stay forever soft, and her dishes forever clean. as far as i know, i'm the only madge left. (madonna totally doesn't count. whoever started calling her madge obviously has no idea what a real madge is.)
so sorry i haven't posted in a few days. yesterday i woke up with half my head stuffed and the other half completely clear, and when that happens, i'm so annoyed that i'm no good for anything except whining and drinking tea. so i stayed home and whined and drank tea, and now i feel a lot better, all except for the fact that the work i didn't do yesterday still has to be done today.
it was a good weekend, though. i got to watch lost in translation again and boy do i enjoy that movie. bill murray just makes me swoon and wish i was a cute little chickie in tokyo with nothing to do but follow him around and laugh at his jokes for a week. i think bill singing karaoke is the single sweetest, most heartbreakingly hilarious moment i've ever seen in any movie ever, and that includes the dead-orc-counting jokes from lord of the rings.
open mike was good as always -- i dunno where all the talented people are coming from but i hope they keep showing up and buying me drinks.
one final note to my new york homies -- i'm coming to your fair city for a week in may. so lock up your sons!
friday, 13 february 2004
no school on monday woo hoo!
can you tell that i'm a little bit psyched to have a 3 day weekend? and there is a law & order president's day marathon to boot. i plan to sit on my fine butt, watch as many episodes as i can stand, and eat some cake. after all, valentine's day ain't valentine's day without sugar and self-pity.
wednesday night was a good time on the town with marty, matty, and rennie. sorry i didn't write about it yesterday but i was too beat. there was a rock-n-roll open stage at the rex which was fun (especially thinking up monikers for all the participants, including one senor pleather). then we headed down to the smiling moose to see a band called burgundy something or other. i got a free CD from them and will put their correct name in later, i promise. (edited to add: BURGUNDY JURK is their name.) they were a lot of fun and one of them was even wearing a bathrobe in a very bill murrayish, i-care-so-much-about-you-liking-me-that-i-can't-possibly-let-on kind of way.
i've been doing my best to stay away from the train wreck which is the intellectual whores forum mentioned in my last entry. it's so fascinating though. i think everyone on it must be about 17 or so. their underlying assumptions about the point of life (basically, to git you some) are so adorably caveman-like. it's kind of cute, if you, like me, sometimes think that dumb dangerous animals are cute.
have yerself a fun weekend my friends.
wednesday, 11 february 2004
it's funny cause it's true
like the rules written from a man's perspective, the ladder theory is brilliant and horrifying. are all male/female relationships simply way stations on the road to figuring out whether or not you're going to have sex? and are you a patsy if, as a man, you wait around more than say 10 minutes? according to this site, yes.
amusing, sure, but my feelings on the ladder theory are mixed. on one hand, it confirms most of what i always thought about the bizarre, inscrutable male gender, but was afraid to believe. on the other hand, i still don't believe it, cause if i did i'd have to jump off a bridge.
the forums are entertaining as hell, though. ladies, if you feel powerless and vulnerable with respect to boys and what one is meant to do with them, check them out. don't post anything though unless you want to be called some variation of "evil bitch."
more relevant (from my point of view anyway) is this site. it's also a little bit depressing, but only if you venture into the forums.
tuesday, 10 february 2004
i just can't stop staring ...
at my own butt! TMI? sorry! but i have been cursed with a wide, flat butt my whole life. i used to jag that if i wore a white skirt you could show movies on it and everyone would laugh cause it was true. but no more! thanks to the miracle of free weight squats, i now know the joy of a rounded derriere and people, i'm never going back. i'm no j.lo yet, but next time i wear a white skirt people are not going to talk about watching movies on me -- they're gonna be like "damn! who is that fine hoochie in the white skirt?" mark my words.
in other news, open mike was a blast last night. i can't remember everything that was fun and funny about last night, but i know there was a lot of it. between john bucket's re-enactment of his near-brawl experience at the staind show, a kid named duo doing a song by eddie vedder's pre-pearl jam band bad radio, and more than kick-butt performance from louie and the humans (if i do say so myself), last night was one of the best open mikes on record. we even made it down to see mark pippas at club cafe where i got to sing "sweet caroline" with him. (pippas claims to hate that song, but he seems to know it real well anyway. hmmmm...)
anyway yeah so that was a good time. today i had lunch with jolene, which is always lovely, but it was a very bad lunch day at deluca's, which has never happened before. the coke was flat, the chicken soup tasted funny, and we got unordered and unwanted cole slaw instead of applesauce. does anyone even eat cole slaw? ick! at least the company was good. and the french fries too.
tonight we get to go play bunco with all the girls from the office, and some who used to work here but don't anymore. have you ever played bunco? it's completely mindless and very conducive to hurling affectionate insults at your fellow players -- basically a good excuse to eat food and drink cosmopolitans and act like fools. you can also win cash money depending on how the dice turn up. i can't wait!
for now, i'm looking over some email notifications out of our print procurement system, which i gotta tell you is super riveting. get outside today and make yourself some vitamin D while the sun shines.
monday, 9 february 2004
attack of the pretty woman soundtrack!!!
i woke up this morning with roxette's "it must have been love, but it's over now" in my head. i successfully drove it out in the shower, but then natalie cole's classic "wild women do (and don't regret it)" took its place. aaaack!!
once i got in the car i thought i was in the clear but then go west's "king of wishful thinking" bubbled up from the mysterious folds of my brain and did not relent until i got to work and fired up my itunes. now, i'm happy to say that i'm rocking out to pj harvey and johnny cash. all's right with the world.
but what is with that, brain? how am i supposed to write any good songs when you are tuned to such a crap station? and how do you even know all the lyrics to those songs? holy cannoli. i better not watch any more seminal-in-my-life-but-horrible-overall movies for a little while or else kenny loggins's "danger zone" will be next.
it was a good weekend. i finally saw big fish, which i enjoyed, but not as much as i expected to. i think there was something about the pacing and the overabundance of voice-overs that made me not totally fall in love with it. the pearl jam song at the end was awesome, though, and ewan mcgregor makes me want to eat way too much candy.
i've been feeling like a bit of a lazy bum lately, madgeworld-wise. i haven't been making a lot of purses or working on the website or anything. but i guess these little breaks are necessary fallow times in the creative cycle and blah blah blah. no doubt i'll be back in major overachiever mode before too long.
see you at the rex tonight, i hope. xxoo
thursday, 5 february 2004
i say who, i say when, i say how much
last night rennie and marty and kathy jo and i all ate some yummy chicken tetrazzini that kjo made, then watched the life of david gale and pretty woman, which were both very bizarre.
there was so much violence and weirdness in the first movie that marty kept looking at julia roberts in the second and being like 'yeah this is where he kills her, right?' he and rennie couldn't take it for long and split just before julia cries on rodeo drive cause no one would sell her any awful 80s clothes. i didn't last much longer myself, cause what fun is it to watch pretty woman and not have anyone to make snide comments with?
just got back from lunch at people's injun restaurant with 7 lovely friends and i must've eaten a little too much cause now i'm nodding out at my desk, desperately in need of a nap. it's nice and cozy in my cube -- i have a space heater and a furry fluffy scarf and everything, so i could conceivably curl up under the desk and take a little snooze. i wonder if anyone would notice. with my luck, though, today would be the day that all heck would break loose and i'd have to put it back together.
wednesday, 4 february 2004
frodo's doing fine
yeah, went to see ROTK last night and it was every bit as good as the first four times, although i wish i hadn't been so sleepy. rennie and i were almost the only ones there and i was real psyched -- we got to sit in my favorite chairs, right up front, so the movie screen filled my entire field of vision. it was nice and loud, too, which was cool cause usually the sound at the waterfront pales compared to kathy jo's home theater system. i swear, there's so much wild stuff going on in that movie that even after 5 viewings i keep noticing things i never saw before. if it doesn't win like 500 oscars, i can't even say what i'll do.
this week i'm getting my application together for the 3 rivers arts festival -- hope i get in again, though i'm not eligible for the emerging artist scholarship anymore, so i'll have to invest in one of those white tents. that breaks my little tightwad heart, but i suspect it'll end up being a good long-term expenditure. maybe eventually i'll be one of those people who travels around all summer selling stuff at festivals and sits on her butt all winter. a girl can dream, can't she?
in the meantime, i got some mockups to update and some squats to do at the gym tonight. then, bubble bath, law & order, and bed. in that order. it's a thrilling life, yes, but someone's gotta lead it.
tuesday, 3 february 2004
lushly lushing with the lushes
i got a HUGE lush box today -- 20 pounds of bubble bath, ballistics, soap, shower gel, shampoo, and vanilla-scented lotions -- and i couldn't be happier about it! the best thing in the box is this solid bubble bath thing called a hot toddy which smells exactly like gingerbread. i'm trying really hard not to eat it.
so yeah, open mike was fun last night. it was good to see you there. (?!?) we had a lot of new faces and they were all pretty rockin. since rosebud is closing, the rex has picked up a lot of national shows coming through town in the next few months, which is very exciting, not only for the boys who run the place, but for all the kids who show up on mondays and wednesdays -- all those shows mean lots of opening spots to be filled from the open mike ranks.
ok i just decided: tonight i'm really truly going to go see frodo. it's been more than a month and i can't believe i lasted so long. there's no excuse for my not having seen the return of the king at least 7 or 8 times by now. i've been slacking. besides, between my various adventures with unworthy suitors and my friend's trouble with work, i think we could all stand a good meal, a strong cup of coffee, and a nice cathartic cry.
frodo and bubble baths and lattes and gingerbread. woo hoo, it's good to be alive.
monday, 2 february 2004
endorphins
are beautiful things. rene and i have been walking up and down 7 flights of steps twice every day and each time we do it, i feel so good. beats the heck out of a half an hour of boring cardio on a bike at the gym anyway, and it's a nice reason to get my head out of the computer and back into the world where it belongs.
so we're having a heat wave here in pittsburgh today, and icicles are dropping like crazy so be careful out there, k? it was so great to walk outside today and not have to put my mittens on. i went home for lunch and cooked up my whole foods bacon and soaked up the sunshine in my kitchen with frank. although, i gotta say, that whole foods bacon ain't all it's cracked up to be. it's just too darn thick and it don't get crispy. but any bacon, i guess, is better than no bacon, eh?
the weekend was fun. RIP salena catalina, for my money the best band in pittsburgh. they put on a fantastic show at club cafe saturday and i was glad to see lots of people out and about to pay their respects. i can't wait to see what those crazy kids do in the next couple of years. no doubt each of them will continue to make beautiful music.
tonight is the open mike so come say hi to me. i'm so happy it's skirt weather again, i can't even decide which one i'll wear!
friday, 30 january 2004
tee hee
what am i giggling about? this and this. ah, the glorious potential of the world wide web! back in the days of text-only email and usenet, it seemed the only thing the internet was good for was facilitating international arguments about whether or not nirvana could be considered alternative (a never-ending debate on alt.music.alternative in the early '90s). nowadays, any noble purpose can be fulfilled if only you know how to edit animated gifs. snoopy getting his swerve on! strider making out with boromir! this is what we call evolution, my friends.
so yeah, it's another bitter freakin cold day in the burgh. rene and i went to whole foods at lunch and i splurged on a really beautiful hunk o'wild salmon for dinner tonight. it was ten bucks, but i'd spend more than that if i went out, so whatever. to tell you the truth, i just like being at whole foods. the food is sexy as hell, the people are friendly, and you can stand at the seafood bar and do shots of smoked salmon chowder all day if you want. yummm.
last night i had to skip band practice cause when i headed out to drive to marty's, i ended up sliding all over the road and almost smashing into a telephone pole. that was fun. instead i went home and watched the apprentice which is fascinating in that usual mark burnett/train wreck kind of way. and donald trump's hair is like the 8th wonder of the unnatural world. doesn't he have any gay friends to sit him down and set him straight?
i was sort of bummed to not get to practice, but frank was happy i stayed home. there's nothing he likes better than a warm lap and i guess i'd have to concur with him on that.
thursday, 29 january 2004
whew
thankfully, my emotional crisis of the last few days seems to have cleared up like a giant hormone-related zit. i figure, since i don't know anything anyway, i may as well assume the best and run with it. so that's what i'm doing. also, after a good session at the gym last night, i came home and watched margaret cho's i'm the one that i want and felt all warm and happy after. you gotta love a woman who can weave gross jokes into a narrative as uplifting as an afterschool special.
so yeah, today has been good. i cleared a lot of items off my list at work and had lunch with jolene, which is like taking soul-xanax. now i'm listening to jerry reed and contemplating what it might be like to be retired, to wake up in the morning and not have to go anywhere unless you want to. at 31, i might be a little young to daydream about my golden years, but it's fun. what crazy stuff will i be into when i'm 60? 80? maybe it hasn't even been invented yet. i honestly can't wait to see.
tonight i have band practice which means a little beer and a lot of fun. tomorrow more work and gym and purse-making. i'm slowly but surely tackling my giant pile of orders and already feeling a little stressed that i don't have more!
wednesday, 28 january 2004
it's like you're unravelling a cable-knit sweater, and someone keeps knitting, and knitting, and knitting ...
i'm a little mixed up today, people. apparently, i'm so used to staying up all night and howling at the moon that a perfectly normal day of going to work, getting a bagel, and shipping out purse orders is making me feel insane, like i'm in some sort of trap i need to chew my way out of. melodramatic much, madge?
seriously, though. as content as i normally am with my day to day routine, as good as it feels to get things accomplished and cross items off my severely-neglected-of-late to do list, i'm feeling a little sedated today. i miss the craziness that has been my life over the last several days. i LIKED the craziness. i'd like it to come back and stay awhile.
in the meantime, though, all i can do with the crushing numbness of my skull is take it. and, i spose, try to appreciate what i can in the present tense, and wait for either my contentment or the excitement fairy to visit me again.
tuesday, 27 january 2004
lost in space
one of these days, like maybe tonight, i'm going to get to sleep for like 10 hours, all in a row, and i'm going to wake up and feel bright and full of energy again. until that day, though, i'm slogging through as best i can. the world outside being sloppy and slushy and gray doesn't help with my energy level, either. i just want to close my door and pull the covers over my head and see you in april, kids. i think i have enough tea and milk and sugar to last till then.
open mike was pretty fun last night -- we didn't get a whole lot of people, due to the nasty weather, but the ones we did get were goofy and rockin. i never heard an acoustic version of "tom sawyer" before. the rex also started serving wrap sandwiches and they get a big thumbs up. as does rene's mini cooper for valiantly making it up the giant hill that is south 18th street as it heads toward my house.
someone please bring me some coffee!
monday, 26 january 2004
man of the hour
so rene's birthday was wicked fun, but i didn't get to see big fish. the snow is out of control and no one wanted to drive in it last night. i SO didn't want to come to work today but after last week's come to jesus talk with my boss, i figured i should. and good thing i did, too, cause the changes are flying fast and furious around here and someone's gotta write 'em down before we all forget what we decided.
yeah saturday at the rex there was a great DJ there spinning all this old rockin 60s stuff (like freda payne's "band of gold") and a band called camera who did a really fun cover of petula clark's "don't sleep in the subway, darlin" and i was dancing around so much i threw my ass out. seriously, i dunno if i squatted too much weight last week or just shook it too hard dancing but my right hip still ain't right. maybe i can jump around at open mike tonight and throw it back in.
life is so crazy busy right now. it seems like i was just writing about open mike like yesterday or something, but it's been a full 7 days. i guess i've made some progress on the mountain of purses i have to make, but there's another 20 or so on order and i just don't know when i'm going to be able to catch up. anyone know how to use grommet pliers and need some part time labor?
in the meantime, these software specifications aren't going to write themselves, so off i go. stop in at the rex tonight and say hi and have a whiskey to warm up, why don't you?
friday, 23 january 2004
i wish i was the full moon shining off your camaro's hood
sigh.
ok, i try to keep this sort of thing to a minimum, but i have been listening to a lot of pearl jam over the last few days and i am in a full-on swoon over eddie vedder -- his oaky voice, his inevitable melodies, the lyrics which strike straight and true to the core of whatever he's talking about. last time they were in pittsburgh, they played the civic arena, and during "wishlist" a giant mirror ball came down. it was made of shattered mirror pieces, not squares, and it threw what seemed like millions of jagged blue and green shards of light across our 20,000 faces and it was a beautiful thing. honestly, if church could make me feel like pearl jam does, i'd gladly go.
so, back on this planet, development of our new website release is in full swing and i have a million things to do, things no one thought of doing in the last few months before the site was actually being built. it's ok though -- it's better to be busy than not, and although tempers are starting to flare a bit, it doesn't bother me. it's good when people care enough to get pissed.
sunday is rene's birthday, and tonight is dinner with my buds jami and todd, so that leaves tomorrow only for purse making. if i'm able to pull myself out of bed before 2 pm tomorrow, i shouldn't have any problems getting everything done.
frank says hi!
thursday, 22 january 2004
deep entry alert! making friends with the evil voices inside my head
... is a lot easier said than done. but i was just thinking in my journal at lunch, and i realized that half of my problems come from being ashamed of the fact that i have problems. which is really quite ridiculous when you think about it.
i mean, the truth is, we are all freaks. we all do things that make us look and feel stupid, and there's really no use getting all worked up about it. who cares if i do something dumb? why should i always hold myself to some impossible standard of ultimate super-cool-madge-ness? i love when other people are brave enough to be unabashedly sincere and even dorky. so i'm going to try to extend that same kindness to myself.
now those of you who know me are probably chuckling, going "wow, i never knew madge had such a problem with allowing herself to be a dork. damn, i see her acting dumb all the time." and it's true. i do appreciate many of my weird aspects, things that others might freak about seeing in themselves. but i also spend an inordinate amount of time cringing over matters little and big. i should've seen this coming, i think, when i get myself into a tough situation. what is wrong with me that i allowed myself to think this, say that, get in so deep to this crazy thing?
but why should i have seen anything coming? am i freakin miss cleo or something? no. i'm just a girl who gets tripped up from time to time, and needs to learn how to make nice-nice with unsolved mysteries instead of jumping to ugly, inaccurate conclusions and driving myself crazy.
(back to frankenkitty stories and purse business discussion tomorrow, i promise!)
wednesday, 21 january 2004
cottage pie
mmm i just got back from lunch with jolene at the harp & fiddle where i had something called a cottage pie, which is basically a shepherd's pie but made with chicken instead of beef. and it's damn good too. i probably didn't need to eat the whole thing, but i did anyway. jolene is doing OK and is as cute as the last time i saw her. possibly even cuter. it's hard to say. i just love spending time with her -- i usually feel about 200% more adorable after being in her presence.
last night i chilled, read some books, talked to matty on the phone, and napped while george w.'s speech was on. then rene rustled me up and out and down to the rex for jazz night. it was a good time -- the players they get on tuesday nights are excellent, and i got to spend some quality time with my buddies. plus on the way home rene and i blasted styx's masterpiece "don't let it end" and screamed along roaring up the hill to our pink christmas lights house. and no one bit me on the head, which i also appreciated.
one of the books i've been reading is the complete tightwad gazette cause i am an aspiring tightwad (tho i spend way too much on lush stuff to be a blackbelt). last night i read a really good passage about creative deprivation -- the idea is that if you have treats less often, they will be more special to you and you'll appreciate them more. the idea appeals to me, although so does the whole eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die thing. but it's been 3 weeks since i saw the return of the king, so i'm in training. if the creative deprivation theory holds up, next time i see it should be a doozy!
i'm gonna go make a nice hot cuppa tea now and get back to work. you do the same!
tuesday, 20 january 2004
no you don't know me
so i walked into my meeting with my boss yesterday and pointed out that i'd worn special "i heart nerds" socks for them. no one laughed. at that point i was a little concerned about how the meeting might go, and that i'd finally violated protocol waaay too much by describing my current work attitude as "bored out of my mind," and that the slack i've been given here for so many years was about to be choked up on. but all in all it went surprisingly well. i finally know what the heck i'm supposed to be doing, at least, which is comforting.
open mike last night was a good time as always, and if i'm not mistaken, i was looking especially cute in a gina lollobrigida-esque sweater, black and pink checkered skirt, turquoise and pink argyle knee socks, and tall suede boots. (i apologize to any boys who may be reading, but i believe that a well-placed outfit description can help immeasurably in conveying what my evening was like.) we did "sweet caroline," and i was carrying a ray charles purse, so we ended up playing "you don't know me" as well, which is such a beautiful song it brings little tears to my wind-ravaged eyes.
oh yeah, and i got bit on the head. i'm not sure what for, but one moment i was laughing and the next moment there were teeth digging into my scalp. someone, i think, needs to lay off the whiskey (and it ain't me).
so in between the bitter cold and my warm flannel sheets, it's been a typical tuesday in madge world. i went home at lunch and spent a long time just petting frank. amazing the amount of fur and fun that animal produces.
anyhow, back to the grind with me. hasta manana.
monday, 19 january 2004
i said we'd learn it and we did
ok so "sweet caroline" is easily one of the funnest songs i've ever had the pleasure of learning. martin and rene and i must've played it around 15 times last night, and although i thrashed my voice hitting the high notes every time (what's the fun of dropping it down an octave?), i haven't had such a rip-roaring good time playing music since, i dunno, last monday at least. i'm excited to bust it out tonight at the open stage and see how it goes.
my lifting-related soreness is pretty much all gone at this point, thankfully. friday night i went out on the town, though, walking around like a 100 year old lady in the freezing cold, and everyone laughed at me. we went to see adam evil and the outside royalty at rosebud, and i dunno, maybe i'm getting old, but the sound seemed WAY too loud and bass-y. i'm not super picky about sound quality (at least, as long as it ain't me playing), but i don't like having to yell "JACK AND COKE" to the waitress -- it makes me feel like a giant drunk.
also, the crowd left a little something to be desired. i tried my best rowdiness-seeding technique (holl |
