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

i have big plans for this weekend: i'm going to take patrick the metrosexual toyota to the mechanic¹! i'm going to clear my kitchen of all the stuff that needs to be recycled! i'm going to finish the camshaft/daniel/vala threesome carporn! i'm going to sleeeeep, for hours and hours! i'm going to read trashy mystery novels and watch the food network for 14 straight hours!

i will probably also lower myself to do homework at some point, but i'm not planning for that. i am planning for cleaning my house and lying on the couch like a lazy bum and possibly wasting an entire afternoon reading jack/daniel hurt/comfort badfic. (what? we all have our wretched indulgences, and THAT'S MINE.)

anyway, thursday! thursday got here fast this week, and also took its sweet time. how is that, that a week can speed and drag past, all at once? time, i do not understand you. anyway, thursday, top five: top five songs for the first crisp, cool fall morning (whether or not fall has actually happened where you live, and my sincerest apologies to you southern hemisphere lot). for the first morning when you need a coat to stand at the bus stop. for the first morning where you don't wake up sweating. etc.

my list:

1. autumn sweater, yo la tengo. we could slip away, wouldn't that be better - me with nothing to say, and you in your autumn sweater

2. smokers in love, the lucksmiths. happy and hungover on the first day of october, struggling to remember the last night of september

3. the believer, rhett miller. had to be hard to keep hating yourself when these people are so well behaved

4. float on, modest mouse. and we'll all float on anyway

5. move, mason jennings. the cold takes your comfort and the wind takes your hat/you've got to move, move, but there ain't anywhere to go

OKAY, NOW YOU GO. everyone should talk to me about this today, because otherwise i am going to wind myself up to the breaking point over the work i have due next week in research methods and then i'm going to explode, and that would be bad. you don't want me to explode, do you?

i thought not. <3

1: my mechanic, todd - and i can't recommend the guys at the carrboro location chapel hill tire enough, if you need a mechanic on this side of the triangle area - is the most patient man in the world. i call him up and make an appointment to take the car in, and then after we've settled that and he asks what's wrong with patrick, he's treated to me on the other end of the phone going, "yeah, so, there's this plastic-y rattle in the front of the car, like maybe a piece of the bumper is loose, and i can't hear it when i'm in the car, but if the engine is running and i'm outside of the car, i can hear it," and then i attempt to make plastic-y rattle noises over the phone to him, and he still treats me like a valued customer and a completely sane adult. i ♥ my mechanic.

happy, happy, happy birthdays to resmin and estrella30, two of my most favorite people in the whole world. i am a lamer, and did not get my act together to make your stories, but i love you both to bits, to absolute bits, and i wish you the happiest, healthiest, most joyous years ahead. love love love.

i uploaded this for febrile, but i thought some of you might like it, too: courtesy revisionary originally, the old 97's, live @ the bijou theater, knoxville, tennessee; 07/09/1999. great track listing - all the classics, plus "house that used to be" and "salome" and a scorching version of "wish the worst", a couple of old school bluegrass covers, and a song called "valentine" that i'd never heard before, because i seem to have some holes in my acquisition of fight songs. zip file on sendspace; enjoy it!

hurricane ernesto's longest arms are pissing all the frak over the triangle today, to continue through the weekend, and i have been damp since i left the house this morning, even though i actually drove to campus today, trying to escape the rain. i love the rain when i am inside, wearing pajamas and napping with the window open just enough to smell the frog-smell, as the boy says, of the rain. i do not love the rain when my jeans are soaked from it, and my flip-flops go squish-squish whenever i walk. I DISAPPROVE, HURRICANE ERNESTO.

that said. thursday! i even remembered this time. top five albums for staying in bed and napping through a rainy day. or not napping. or not in bed. top five albums for a rainy, gloomy, lovely day. go.

my list:

1. birds flying away, mason jennings. this is not a quiet album, nor is it a particularly ... peaceful one. but it's somehow the album that my brain associates with staying inside and watching the rain from the porch. "train leaving grey", maybe. coming home and getting into bed/smiling in your sleep. you know.

2. rain dogs, tom waits. and not just because of the title. because it's a rain and whiskey sort of album.

3. down the river of golden dreams, okkervil river. lazy and slow, sweet and dreamy. the sort of album that you can doze to.

4. lines from old songs, which is a mix that missingm made for me during my first fall in chicago. i think this is probably, technically, cheating; i don't care. it's one of my all-time favorite rainy days discs.

5. more adventurous, rilo kiley. my favorite album to sleep to, lately.

OKAY, NOW YOU GO.

in other news, there's nothing quite like seeing an IP hit from your campus (and the LIBRARY DOMAIN) on your website, and freaking out, and going to your department's IP database to check it out, and realizing that ... it's your work computer. from when you were updating your website last week. *facepalm*

and in conclusion: OKAY, FINANCIAL AID OFFICE, YOU'VE ADJUSTED MY TUITION PAYMENTS APPROPRIATELY, COUGH UP MY SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS RIGHT FRAKKING NOW. *stages sit in for check*

i posted a story yesterday: are you sweet on your sister, sg-1/battlestar galactica, vala mal doran/kara thrace, nc-17. spoilers through sg-1 9x06 "beachhead" and bsg 2x07 "home (part two)". in case you missed it.

thursday, thursday. people, i have a confession: i'm starting to recycle top five lists from two years ago, because it is HARD to think up a new top five list every week for more than three years. i'm not recycling this week, but i am going to start, soon. i mean, how many of you remember a list you made in 2003? i'm willing to bet: not many of you. anyway, just a psa on that subject. i'm lazy, and school starts next week, so recycling is the name of the game, unless you all leave me lots of good list topics in the comments.

today, though, the name of the game is: top five greatest one-hit wonders. what is the all-time greatest one-hit wonder song out there? who recorded it? why is it so damn great, or maybe it's great because it's just that bad, and it was everywhere. i throw open the pairing of the word "greatest" with the phrase "one-hit wonders" to interpretation; is it the ones that were really good, or the ones that were really bad-yet-good, OR BOTH?

my list:

1. "baby got back", sir mix-a-lot. oh, he recorded other songs. none of them is nearly as brilliant as "baby got back", a song to which i know all the words.

2. "afternoon delight", starland vocal band. in actuality: a terrible song. also in actuality: gets this spot on the list because aaron sorkin used it for fantastic comedic effect in sports night , and that's what it makes me think of now.

3. "who let the dogs out", baha men. a truly, truly stupid song, but i always wanted to make a mix that started with baha men, centered around another awful one-hit wonder song, "it wasn't me" by shaggy and rik-rok, and finish up with dave matthews band, "i did it". (before you ask: yes, i really do pretty much require constant supervision. *sigh*)

4. "i'm gonna be (500 miles)", the proclaimers. because they were a one-hit wonder in the states, but if you dig further than this song, they're actually a pretty good band.

5. ... i'm failing to think of a sufficiently wretch-but-awes fifth entry for this list; there are so many choices, and none of them are quite tacky enough! okay, i give up, i'm going to poach something from one of you later on. i'm lazy like that.

NOW YOU GO. let's talk about crappy music, and the best and worst and the so-bad-they're-hilariously-good one-hit wonders of all time.

so far today is about 114% better than yesterday, and i plan to spend the rest of my time at job#1 hiding in my office, writing daniel/vala, thereby thwarting any chances that the most useless coworker ever will find me and ruin my day. \o/

happy birthday, eleveninches! you're the best 2IC a former accountant from the pegasus galaxy could ever want. come visit us soon, i'll buy you a drink. xoxoxoxo.

fact: my love for lt. colonel cameron mitchell cannot be textually rendered.

fact: i cleaned the bathroom yesterday. i cleaned it half-assedly, but it's clean.

thursday, thursday. thank god. despite my inexplicable unrelenting cheerfulness all week, this week has really been a misery of the 95 degrees, 110% humidity, too busy at work sort, and tomorrow the maternal unit arrives in the nc. she will take me grocery shopping and buy me gift certificates for the movies and let me run wild in barnes & noble with her credit card. we will probably also watch a lot of movies on dvd and tivoed usa detective shows, and as i said to the boy last night, having the maternal unit visit is kind of like having fangirls visit, only with less drinking and better credit limits.

anyway, thursday: top five songs to wake up to. you know. it's hard to get out of bed some mornings. (every morning.) what gets you up, what gets you going. you know.

my list:

1. "cartoon heroes", aqua. i DARE YOU to have a bad day if this is the first song you listen to in the morning. seriously. it's impossible.

2. "always keep an edge on your knife", corb lund band. when i'm waiting at the bus stop, i like to remind myself to sharpen my hair knives, or i might be unprepared when someone at work inevitably does something wretched or makes me do something wretched.

3. "3rd planet", modest mouse. i have no logic for this, but this song has been on pretty much every one of my morning playlists since onthecontrary gave me the album back in february.

4. "pop", *nsync ... wow, there goes ALL MY MUSIC CRED. um. i liked listening to this when i took the train to work in chicago? because i would do my little commuter standing-in-place dance and cute boys would look at me and smile? um. MOVING ON.

5. "manifesto no.1", shooter jennings. if this song doesn't make you want to get up and kick ass all day (or, you know, get up and have a lot of sex all day, whichever), i firmly believe that you are dead inside.

OKAY, NOW YOU GO.

dear person wot sent me the cowboy junkies & jackpot last night (who i think might have been makesmewannadie): muchas gracias. i'm enjoyed very much. love and kisses, min

on tuesday, oracleasb, quicknow and i went to see wordplay - which i'd wanted to see since asb and i saw trailers featuring jon stewart before thank you for smoking - and it was a truly fantastic little documentary. compelling, funny, and genuinely charming without being saccharine. i can't recommend it enough; it's possibly the best movie i've seen all year. A

i desperately want the old 97s live ep that's been released in the itunes music store, and i am pooooooor. sadness. stupid graduate school. stupid poverty.

THURSDAY. top five. etc. top five best songs to seduce someone to. whether it's seduction to a one night stand or seduction in a lifelong romance. whatever. interpret how you will. sexy songs.

my list [files on my webspace, right-click-save, comment if you download, kthx]:

1. "let's get it on", marvin gaye. so. there you go. that's your free pass. you can include it on your own lists if you want, or you can say, "min included it, that counts for me", and have a bonus spot! the number one with a bullet greatest seduction song ever. for when you're feeling OBVIOUS.

2. "bodies", soul miner's daughter. soul miner's daughter is a now-defunct georgia band, and they mostly played the sort of crunchy hippie folk rock you'd expect from an athens band of the late '90s, but this track. oh, this track. it's a sultry, sweaty, swingy little a cappella number from their one and only cd, and it's full of double (and single) entendre and it's great. the counterpoint on the line i know that god was with us, girl, i heard you call his name makes my knees weak every time i hear it.

3. "birds flying away", mason jennings. it's actually sort of a creepy song, but the lyrics i remember climbing up those shoulders, coming up under you like a lion, coming down like we were dying give me the shivers every time.

4. "please pass you", whit hill & the postcards. please pass the salt, please pass the sugar, please pass you.

5. "designs on you", the old 97s though i do wish you'd come over but i'm warning you if you do, i'd be lying if i said i didn't have designs on you. dear rhett: OF COURSE I WILL COME OVER. love, min.

OKAY, NOW YOU GO.

carolina runs a lot of sports camps in the summers; mostly women's soccer and basketball (for men and women), but some others, too. this week, though, it seems to be a women's basketball camp, and there are girls in basketball shorts and high tops all over campus. there are a few high school age teams, but mostly i've seen middle school teams, and all the girls are at that stage where they're still coltish, some of them grown into adult height but not yet into adults. it's that age where they're not self-conscious about their bodies, at all, really, and it's been a joy to watch these unselfconscious, strong athletes laughing and shoving at each other. not in a creepy way, i swear, just in that way where - i mostly don't hate my body, but i don't love all of it either, and it's nice to see these girls before they hit that stage. i don't remember that age much at all; i was pretty miserable for most of it, and these girls at least seem happy. it's refreshing.

it's hot here, sweltering heat that fuses to your skin as soon as you step outside, and i'm still slogging through thomas wolfe's look homeward, angel (and wolfe, ha, was an answer on jeopardy last night!), which is good but slow going. i'm feeling terribly fond of the south this week, fond of the slow pace of life and the humid air and how green everything is, and so this week's top five: top five greatest songs about place. greatest = best ever or greatest = your personal favorites or greatest = some combination of the two, and place equals however you want to interpret it.

my list (for values of "greatest" equalling "my personal favorites"):

1. "thrice all-american", neko case & her boyfriends. buildings are empty like ghettos or ghost-towns/it gives me a chill to think what was inside/i can't seem to fathom the dark of my history/i invented my own in tacoma

2. "california (part two)", mason jennings. 'cause others may know where you've been, but honey, i know where you're from/you're from california

3. "lakes of pontchartrain", the be good tanyas. and i fell in love with a creole girl, by the lakes of pontchartrain

4."every fucking city", paul kelly. now i'm in a bar in copenhagen trying hard to forget your name/and i'm staring at the label on a bottle of cerveza and every fucking city feels the same

5. "carolina in the morning", al jolson. nothing could be finer than to be in carolina in the morning

honorable mention to mike doughty's "busting up a starbucks" for namechecking piscataway, which never fails to crack me up.

OKAY, NOW YOU GO. talk amongst yourselves while i'm off installing color management software in another library.

things that make me happy right now: thinking about shawn farrell; rearranging and refining my tags in delicious; futzing with smart playlists in itunes, listening to unplayed tracks, gleefully deleting music i hate but still have in my itunes library for inexplicable reasons, and rating tracks; the entirity of mason jennings' new album; the fact that after tropical storm alberto finished pissing all over the research triangle yesterday, everything smelled like frogs. it's a short list. i'm pretty cranky lately.

but in honor of the fact that tomorrow i get to see the default singer/songwriter of my soul play at the cat's cradle, today's top five list is top five all-time recording artists. an oldie but a goodie. artists you love beyond reason. you know the drill.

my list:

1. mason jennings. far and away, above and beyond, my favorite of favorites. mason isn't for everyone, but he is for me.

2. the old 97s. quirky songwriting, blazing guitars, and rhett miller's cute, cute little hips.

3. r.e.m. the first band i ever loved; the first tape i ever bought for myself was green. i don't listen to them as much as i used to, but i love them all the same.

4. ani difranco. another old favorite who doesn't get much play these days; but out of range remains one of my all-time favorite albums.

5. counting crows. adam duritz is crazier than a shithouse rat, they haven't put a new album out in four years, but august and everything after can still break my heart into tiny pieces.

honorable mentions to tori amos (who i burned myself out on, but who i loved for many years) and mike doughty and the decemberists (who will probably crawl up the list eventually) and johnny cash (who is not necessarily a favorite but who is always a comfort).

OKAY, NOW YOU GO.

i'll just be over here in the corner downloading mason bootlegs, because clearly the fourteen thousand i already have are not enough.

yesterday i finally managed to run my dishwasher, which was a good thing because after the weekend of fangirls, every drinking glass, cup and mug in my house was dirty. except, you know, i forgot to put soap in the dishwasher before i ran it. i lose at being a grownup.

THURSDAY. today's list, courtesy of quicknow: top five favorite concert venues. (if you don't have five, that's okay. just tell me one or two or three or four!) best and/or most beloved places to see live music played. based on atmosphere or based on how many beers they have on tap or whatever. favorite concert venues. go!

my list:

1. the cave @ carleton college, northfield, minnesota. the beer is shite, the acoustics are terrible, but this is the first place i saw mason play, and it tops the list for that alone.

2. the metro, chicago, illinois. for one thing, it's a gorgeous old building, for another, the beer is always good, for a third, the bathrooms suck. okay, that's not something to recommend it, but the building and the acoustics and the beer make up for that. also, it was less than a mile from my old apartment, and everyone played there.

3. the cat's cradle, carrboro, north carolina. they don't sell hard liquor and sometimes the audiences annoy the crap out of me, but it's a hell of a venue all the same. i couldn't tell you why - i just know it is.

4. the double door, chicago, illinois. cons: attracts a seriously trixie crowd, overpriced liquor, poor acoustics. pros: there are none. result: the double door is tucked down in wicker park, practically underneath the north/damen/milwaukee blue line stop, and it has that dank, grimy feel that i think all good music venues should have, and i love it. (it was the first place i saw a show in chicago, that show was mason jennings, i love the double door, okay?)

5. i had a hard time deciding on #5 - the 9:30 club, even though i haven't been there in years? the orpheum or first ave in minneapolis? the vic, park west, schubas in chicago? it's hard. but because it's that weekend again, and because i miss febrile, i have to go with the andersonville midsommarfest. it's not even really a venue - but for the last three years, rocket and i have gone up there to wander around and listen to good music usually played by solid local bands. and this year i'm in chapel hill and the kimi hayes band isn't even playing, but i kind of felt like it needed to go on the list all the same. for rocket.

okay, now you go! talk about live music venue places! even if it's just one place that you saw a rockin' show in years ago. i want to hear about it.

i've been on a jerry jeff walker kick later, so have a couple of tracks: london homesick blues (live) and trashy women (live). [both on my webspace - right-click-save and comment if you grab them, por favor.] the latter song has been done in a variety of ways and under a variety of titles by a couple of people - i know for sure i have versions by confederate railroad and sawyer brown, too, but i like jerry jeff's version best. the line they say opposites attract, but i don't agree/i need a woman just as tacky as me KILLS ME DEAD every damn time.

god, work. i hate work. even when i like my jobs, i hate work.

somehow, thursdays are worse than fridays. i am never more tired than i am on thursday mornings. at least today, i think that people are going to leave me alone to image old hard drives and watch the end of the first season of numb3rs on my laptop, which is really all i can ask for on thursdays. well, that and being able to have dinner with cindyjade and ipso__facto, but i get that, too, so there will be no complaining over here.

okay, top five. an easy one, an old standard, best for days when i am stupidly exhausted: top five favorite songs right now (take nine). you know the drill. five songs you dig right now. bonus points for downloads.

my list:

1. i love everybody (lyle lovett). it's just. it's a waltz! it's incredibly repetitious! and yet i love it!

2. streets of baltimore (gram parsons). i have an uncle tupelo cover of this song, too, but somehow the parsons version is more plaintive and depressing. it makes me think of home.

3. if you need a reason (mason jennings). not necessarily the best but certainly my favorite track from the new album. you can thank hellziggy for an unprotected copy of that track!

4. no depression (uncle tupelo). sometimes i go months without thinking about how much i love uncle tupelo (also known as jar farrar and jeff tweedy, pre son volt and wilco respectively) and then i dig out the anthology and remember all over again how brilliant they are.

5. wartime prayers (paul simon). from the new album; i'm still not sure what i think of the album as a whole, yet, but so far this is my favorite track.

okay, now you go.

oh, thursday. over the last week, i've done so little (that involved leaving my apartment) that i've kind of lost track of things like "time" and "day of the week" and "holy shit, it's may, how did it get to be may, where did my last four months go". but it's may, and it's thursday, and i promised the top five lists would be back in may, so here we are.

lizard said that we should do a top five about cover songs, and i said, but we did that one! yeah, two years ago. so today i give you top five all-time greatest covers. you know. the ones where the cover is better than the original. you know the drill.

my list:

1. christmas card from a hooker in minneapolis, neko case. (original by tom waits) this song should never again be performed by a man, because neko's haunting, acoustic version is so much more heartbreaking.

2. mama tried, the old 97s. (original by merle haggard) the studio version of this will never hold a candle to the live version, but that's okay, i have the live memory in my head.

3. tear-stained eye, kasey chambers. (original by son volt) when i make a playlist that's all songs-written-by-men-and-bettered-covered-by-women, this will be on it.

4. you shook me all night long, arab strap (original by ac/dc) there's something about making this song acoustic and quiet that cracks me up completely.

5. honky tonk woman, the pogues (original by the rolling stones) shane mcgowan, you are an ugly, ugly, ugly man, but this cover is FANTASTIC.

right. now you go, okay?

apologies to those of you whose del.icio.us inboxes got hit with a ton of old stories from my bookmarks over the last couple of days - i was going through all my old links digests pulling out stories that i'd recced but never bookmarked. i'm done now, so no worries about any more spam (more spam than, well, usual) in the future.

asb is driving me to the airport in a couple of hours, i guess i should pack. and take a shower.