In the farmhouse things will be all right...

We made a ton of mix CD's over the years we spent at the college. Wavelet was especially prolific; her mixes always had awesome titles, too, like Drunk & Depressed (perfect for when, you know, you are), and Love & Rockets (perfect for when you're drunk and you're fucking sick of being depressed and you want to jump around and yell a lot).

My mixes always tended to be a little too obsessive and overthought. The ones that turned out the best, oddly enough, were the two sets of road trip mixes I made before the bro and I drove from L.A. to Atlanta, and then at the end of the summer from Atlanta to L.A. They were basically just thrown together from all the music I'd downloaded recently, but they held together amazingly well. They ended up being sort of themed in a weird accidental way, like one of them was A Bunch of 80's Music That's Vaguely Creepy But Hell Yeah (Talking Heads, Prince, Michael Jackson, etc), and another one was Bands From the Late 80's That Usually Played Drunk Off Their Asses (lots of Replacements and Guided by Voices on that one).

But one of the best mixes I ever made was actually one of the more thought-out ones. I put together a big ol' playlist of songs, and changed their order around about 300 times. I listened to the end of one song followed by the beginning of the next one to make sure the transition was right. I finally burned it right before nomikkh and my brother and I headed out for the desert endurance test known as Coachella, and it has forever more been known as... The Coachella Mix. I don't know that it has a theme, really; the closest uniting thing I can think of is that each one of these songs, pretty much without exception, gives me the feeling I value the most about listening to music. I don't know if I can describe the feeling in a way that makes sense...something like being so fucking happy, so overjoyed, that you're grinning with tears running down your face, and slamming yourself against people in a mosh pit until you can't breathe. Which makes it sound like a very psychotic and mixed-up feeling, but it's not--it's too joyous for words, and it's sad too, which is the best kind of joy, maybe the only kind. I don't know. "I'll be home when I'm sleepin..." "The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean." You can't argue with that shit.

Anyway, now that I've made it sound like a damn Salinger novel in musical form, the actual list is bound to be a bit underwhelming. But here it is.

The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait
Violent Femmes - I Held Her In My Arms
Pretty Girls Make Graves - All Medicated Geniuses
Flaming Lips - Buggin'
Phish - Farmhouse
Proclaimers - Over and Done With
Trio - Out In the Streets
The Supremes - Love Child
Grateful Dead - Brown-Eyed Women
The Kinks - Nothing in This World Can Stop Me Worrying 'Bout That Girl
Built to Spill - Strange
Daniel Johnston - Speeding Motorcycle
Le Tigre - Sweetie
The Band - Up On Cripple Creek
Guided by Voices - Atom Eyes
Halo Benders - Don't Touch My Bikini
Fugazi - Waiting Room
Violent Femmes - Jesus Walking on the Water
Ugly Casanova - Things I Don't Remember
Wilco - Bob Dylan's 49th Beard

So I kind of got rejected this weekend, and it was by someone that I didn't really want that bad. That almost makes it worse somehow, know what I mean? Well fuck it, on to the next boy with a cute accent. I hope. Unless of course this means that no one will ever love me again. I make it a point to look on the bright side of these situations.

The Chunder Chronicles

So Friday night some people from Prague came up, and I let this one chick sleep on my floor. Nothing new there, all perfectly normal.
BUT in the middle of the night, the girl got up and spewed all over the bathroom. And I do mean all the fuck over; her range was truly impressive. She did clean it up, but I think the wall is permanently stained. Hey, in a way it's kind of cool-looking, all Jackson Pollock Uses Recycled Goulash or something. No, ok, I'm full of shit; it's just beyond foul. Funny thing is, I could have sworn it wasn't physically possible for that bathroom to get any more ghetto than it was. It's totally poetic justice for me, too, given the number of puke-related atrocities I've committed over the course of my career. I horfed in Naměsti Republiky Metro station, y'all. No, not the bathroom, the actual station itself. And that's not even the bottom of the barrel. In my defense, I wasn't drunk on that occasion, I was just hungover. Although come to think of it, that's not really much of a defense: "Oh no, I wasn't trashed then, it was just that I'd gotten so fucked-up the night before."

If anyone is trying to eat while reading this, I sincerely apologize. But y'all know you like it when I tell you disgusting stories.

Lessons I Learned Last Night

Lesson 1:
You might think that because wine makes spaghetti sauce taste yummy, beer will do the same.

You would be wrong. Very wrong.

Lesson 2:
Adding oregano will not improve the situation. No it will not.

Oh well, at least the noodles still tasted fine.

[looks over shoulder nervously]
Hey...hey, come closer.
I think...I think they're gone.
Ssshhhh! Quiet, you fool! They'll hear you! They're listening, they're always listening...waiting to come back when I least expect it...

Yeah, the hives are, y'know, disappeared, at least for now. I still come out in spots occasionally, just their way of keeping me on my toes and making sure I don't get all complacent and think my histamine receptors are actually on my side or anything. And yes, that would be me in the first paragraph, treating a skin condition like a fully developed gothic novel villain, like Rebecca What's-her-fuck in that bloody book that everyone asks me if I've read when I tell them what my name is. I'm telling you, this skin condition had (has?? NOOOOO!!!) more personality than I do....
All right, I've got issues. Moving on.

Hey, my Czech visa came through! Health insurance at least, yee-hah! Of course, that would be after I spent about a hundred bucks on getting shot up with cortizone, but whatever. So now I have to go to Dresden and pick up the visa (because...they can't fucking mail it. It needs its little hand held on the long cold journey. Stop asking these questions.) and also pay them 79 Euros for the privilege. Hey, that's cool. But I love Dresden, so I'm thinking about doing the weekend-after-next there, culminating in a triumphant Visa Pick-Up on Monday morning. Maybe I can get that Jedno chick to come along, and we can pick up hot men with cute accents. That's our specialty.

On the other hand

I just looked out my office window, and the pelting rain has been transformed into...pelting snow!!

I'm totally excited about this, although I'm guessing my little-kid yay-snow! feelings will be somewhat muted by, say, January.

Hives 2: The Hivening

Holy sweet fuck. This is so motherfucking bad.

The thing is, I went and got a cortizone shot yesterday, and it totally helped! For twelve sweet blissful hours, my skin was pale and smooth, like it's fucking supposed to be. And then I set off for the office, thinking, hey, I can go to the doctor, get some booster meds maybe, but at least people won't be staring at me like I'm a freak.
Oh no. Not so fucking fast, honey.
During the 20 minute tram ride, I sat there and watched the tell-tale Hives of Destruction raising their ugly heads on the backs of my palms. Please Lord, no, I thought. Caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way up to my floor--yep, back to looking like a smallpox patient. Bloody fuck, it was so tantalizing. Now it looks like I'm going to spend my weekend (knock on wood that it's no longer than that) bouncing back and forth between high hopes and disaster. I don't see how I can go to the pig-slaughtering weekend*, either, which means my sweet private lesson family is going to be all hurt and sad and think I hate them. RRRRrrrrgggg. I need prayers and exorcism, people.

*The awesome Czech family that I teach is having a huge pig-slaughtering party at their weekend cottage. This is apparently trés Czech and very traditional.

The curse of the [mylastnames] has come upon me

(Hm, that title doesn't sound nearly as impressive when I'm preserving my anonymity. Alas.)

I've got hives, y'all. Actually, at this point, the hives have me. I am so fucking pissed about this I could spit. And the thing is, I'm never going to be able to pinpoint what's causing it. My family has a history of this, too; my dad came out in hives for no fucking reason several years ago. He looked like he'd been pistol-whipped, and the only reason anyone ever came up with was stress. Same thing happened to my bro last Christmas; the boy turned into one continuous hive for five straight days. We figured maybe it was sophomore exams and, y'know, drama.
But if stress and drama is the cause, why the fuck do I have them now? Lord only knows there were plenty of times at TAC when I had both drama and stress in such quantities that I thought I was going to get a fucking ulcer, or that thing where you grit your teeth compulsively. And the thing is, everything's going great out here. I don't have any stress. Well, I have stress now, but that's because of the motherfucking hives. Seriously, people, my face will make children cry at this point. I have hives on the palms of my hands, for fuck's sake. I am so irritated by this whole state of affairs that I feel like writing this entire bleeding essay in italics.
Anyways. For once I'm actually grateful that I don't have any boy prospects nearby. 'Cause if I did...well, I wouldn't have them for long.

I wanna take you to the GAY BAR!

Fucking awesome weekend. Randomly, I decided to go down to Prague and hang out with some fellow alumni of my TEFL course. Friday night we went to a gay bar called Friends, and got royally sauced. I spent all night chatting with sweet lonely boys, and commiserating with them about The Bastards That Done Us Wrong. The whole bar was full of Gay Men and The Women Who Love Them, which would be me, actually. I know it's a cliche and all, but seriously, I love homosexuals. I am such a fag hag, or I would be if I hung out there more often. I mean, yeah, their lifestyle is royally fucked up and destructive and all, but the same could be said for pretty much all the people I hang out with, and to some extent about me, too. My friends all seem kind of lost, like they know there's more to life than this shit, but they don't know where to find it, or even how to look. My mom told me that she and my dad were watching Sex and the City (I know!), and one of the characters turned to the others and said, "Well dammit, how are we supposed to know how to act? There should be a book or something that tells us what to do!" And my parents looked at each other all, well, there kind of is, honey, but you're not going to listen if we tell you....

Anyway, funny thing happened later that night (the gay bar night). I had sat down on a couch in a corner, and, taking a page out of wavelet's book, was on the verge of falling asleep. At that point, I realized I was minus one sweater. Stood up groggily, stumbled around the club looking for it. Hmm, we're in a different room of the bar now...I know where I left it, I just need to find the right room...

R: Hey, I can't find my sweater...it was on that railing in the other room, y'know?
D(a friend): The railing was at the other bar, kiddo.
R: Wait...what other bar?
D: Dude, we're at a different bar now. See, look at all the straight men.

Yeah, apparently we had totally left the gay bar, walked a long way through the cold, and entered another bar. And I missed all of this. We could have warped there on a spaceship for all the memory I have of it. Tequila is bad, kids.

Strange thing is, I went back on Sunday night to see if maybe they had my sweater at the first bar, and...there was no sign of it. It wasn't just closed, it was like it had never been there at all. Maybe it's just on weekends, or maybe...[cue dee-dee-dee-dee music] it was never really there at all! Which would suck, because I want to go back there. Probably the next time I go, assuming it's not actually in a parallel dimension, I'll see some slender young man making my sweater look a lot sexier than I ever did. Sigh.

There was snow on the mountain this morning.

It's been butt ass cold all week, drizzling off and on, so I knew it must be snowing up on Ještěd, even though I couldn't see because of the cloud cover. But this morning when I walked outside, the clouds had lifted just high enough that I could see the snow on the slopes. On the tram ride into the city, the sun was rising on the right. I was on the left side of the tram, and it was packed, so I saw the sunrise reflected on the buildings to the west. There was a haze over the valley, and it picked up the light so that everywhere you looked, you saw things through a bright red-gold mist. It was brilliant.

Everybody feels the wind blowin
In Graceland, in Graceland....