midnight

so this is what happens when soviet montage cinema papers don't get written.



who knew that so much talent could come from norway? for those who don't know, btw, this guy(sondre lerche) puts on one of the best shows i've ever seen. i paid 40 bucks to hear him play a half hour opener for elvis costello last year, and i'm not that big of a costello fan. this song was part of a chet baker-esque album he put out a while back. his other albums sound more like the beatles.

so go buy all his albums.

the day of giving thanks(giving)

so being the cheesy person that i am, i thought i'd take a moment while answering phones at my job to reflect on some of the little things in life that keep me going. for me, these are all means of grace and they don't ever fail to lift me up during the day.

walker's coffee before my first class(caffeine is indeed a means of grace)

a good conversation with whomever i see at walker's at any point during the day.

taking little breaks from work to walk around downtown in the amazing cold weather.

my roommate and i yelling at each other in the morning when each of our alarms go off and neither of us will turn them off(this isn't fun when it happens, but i can't help but laugh later).

people coming over to play music late at night

good beer and conversation over a fire late at night.

regina spektor(the sound of fall)

running in the botanical gardens

"chasing cars" by snow patrol

Aromas(new favorite place to hang out)

not getting pulled over by the cop who definitely saw you push that yellow light

wafflehouse breakfast and coffee

playing guitar by yourself when no one's home and can hear you break into coughs every 2 minutes

the roommate that laughs hysterically from another room when he hears you start coughing in the middle of a song. you thought you were alone in the house. you were wrong.

and the list goes on. of course there are the givens: family, friends, all the other bigger means of grace that give you that sense of peace throughout your day and humble you and remind you that you're not as much of a badass as you thought you were and that you need the gospel.

hope everyone's thanksgiving is great

Sting, you've stolen our hearts once again

I want a lute.

the phantom glance

There's nothing like a beautiful girl who can make you lose every ounce of confidence you thought you had with a single glance. That glance does it. Every trite joke, every impersonation intended to make her laugh dies slowly with the glance. She may be giving good vibes with the glance, but you wouldn't know it. She may be giving you the "go ahead and say what you wanted to say, and then leave me alone" vibe. You wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know it because the glance is ambiguous. The glance could mean many things. If ever your heart could have a seizure, it would be brought on by the ever nebulous nature of the glance. Sometimes you don't even recognize it. That's because the glance is crafty. It likes to slip into innocuous conversation briefly before fading into non-existence like a phantom. That's why they call it the phantom glance. Or at least I do.

the boy who desperately wanted success

"Middle aged adults must feel that they are producing something that will outlive them, either as parents or as workers, otherwise they will become stagnant and self-centered."

"Would he know that success, with her hard-to-get smile and her 'I have a boyfriend named Ben, but I still think you're cute' catch phrases held little much in the way of happiness when he was all alone?"

The first quote was directly from Erikson's Psychosocial theory, the second one is part of a short story I'm working on. Erikson's theory basically breaks us all down into different age groups by the development of our specific motivations-fears, anxieties, etc... When we're in our 20's, we're motivated by the fear of not finding someone-we long to share the rest of our life with someone else. I was most struck by the profile of the age 60 or over-that their contentment and happiness rests fully on what they produced during the first 60 years. What a depressing thought. Of course, I have the comfort(if you can call it comfort) that I'm already self-centered, stagnant, and hopelessly driven by ego. It's by God's grace that I see any change whatsoever.

And as to the second quote in relation to the first one: I'm fascinated by our ideas of success and human achievement. We have books and books on tape and seminars where we spend thousands of dollars trying to reinvent ourselves and become the "successful person you deserve to be." Joel Osteen blinks and tells us to learn to love ourselves, that we can have our "best life now," if we just try a little harder.

In other news, I'm 21 now and I still feel like I'm 17 sometimes.