i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

i bought myself a $50 blank book last weekend, leather-bound with a flap and a tie to keep the edges safe; the paper is thick and heavy, the sort that ink bleeds into, with marbled edges. it's a beautiful notebook, and i keep touching it, reaching out to stroke the edges. it was my present to myself for finishing the first draft of the novel - the next notebook i'll write in when i'm finished with the one i have now, which is a handmade in italy leather-bound notebook the boy bought me in hoboken, new jersey a couple of years ago.

i'm nowhere near finishing my current book; it's about a third full. i've talked about my notebooks before; i'm less diligent about keeping up my paper journal now than i used to be, but in the last ten days or so i've been unable to keep the pen off the paper. i've been filling pages with what seems like too many unfulfilled desires. i keep thinking of that smiths' song - "please please please let me get what i want". my journal is full of i want, i need, i want these days.

some days i wonder if i'll always be this restless, this frustrated with my life, this unfulfilled. most days i wake up happy, even when i'm cynical and bored and cranky. you can be happy and cynical all at once, you know. i want to spend my days drinking coffee and writing and watching the food network; the day job thing is a drag.

i've spent a lot of time with my headphones on lately, spinning out haughty melodic and live full-band mason shows and all four decemberists albums over and over and over again, loud enough to hide the rest of the world from my ears; i've spent more time in my own head in the last two weeks than i have in the last two years, i think. i like the way it smells after it rains. i like the early fall light through the trees on campus. i'm burning a lot of candles, spending time with nothing but the blue glow of word on the laptop screen and the flickering light of candles in the apartment. last night, waiting for the lt. col. and her roommate to drive up for the calexico show, i turned up castaways and cutouts loud enough to be heard over the pounding of the water, and sat in the bathtub with the shower pounding down on my shoulders and meditated, for the first time in literally months (meditated for the first time in months, i mean; i shower regularly).

so the axis of evil ate dinner at tyler's last night (oh, tyler's garlic fries and blue cheese bacon burgers, i looooooove you), and then the default team leader of my soul and her roommate and i went to see calexico play at the cat's cradle. i knew i liked their studio music, but i was really unprepared for exactly how much they would blow me away on stage. joey burns is a dollbaby, and, oh, my god, so frakking charismatic on stage i couldn't take my eyes off him, and the rest of the band is talented and sweet and it was amazing. blurry, overexposed photos (and several blurry, dark, underexposed photos of joey burns' ass) are here.

there's nothing like live music to make your whole body sing with happiness. and sometimes it just feels important to put all this stupid shit down somewhere public.

no top five today, i'm just worn out. i have to go do laundry and spend some more time in my head and take a nap.