:: a.whisper.in.water ::

:: Thursday, February 02, 2006 ::

[ simplify, simplify... ]

...anyone else remember that Calvin & Hobbes strip?

To Brass Tacks: I've decided to (at least for now) temporarily cease updating this blog, given that I don't think anyone but Ram and Flora read it, and even then, with disappointment. It's been fun, naturally, and the silly thing taught me how to use low-level HTML, but given that I've designs on some manner of real music blog (suggestions on content and such welcome!), I should probably just stick to the LiveJournal and the Photoblog and save myself the trouble of redundant updates and pointless, sprawling e-territory.

If anyone actually reads this blog that I don't know about, no worries: it's just moving over to the LiveJournal. I haven't actually ever made a post friends-only or private, and have every intention of keeping the practice. Any such people, however, are MANDATED to comment on this final-for-now-post, letting me know that you exist ;).

Music: The Eels - Climbing To The Moon.

:: Aziz 6:25 AM [+] ::
...

[ before the exuberance leaves me: ]

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY DEARESTS!

All my love.

Here's to it being better than the last. Hold fast to your optimism, and demand a better future, as it were ;)

...I'm already tipsy, and I didn't start drinking 'till the stroke of midnight fell. Nice.

Music: The Breeders - New Year. C'mon people, it's all I've got.
:: Aziz 12:27 AM [+] ::
...

[ newsflash: i'm unhappy and artless! ]

For someone who’s lived in it for about two years now, it’s a disgrace that I’m so, so very unused to (and affected by) this feeling of unworthiness that accompanies the acknowledgement that I Am Fucking Up And Hurting Those Who Love me. I ought to be more accustomed to the emotional texture of living ineffectively; while the classes may have come and gone, the motivations that drive what I do remain same as they were when I spaced my way through college, emerging intact through little merit of mine own, in spite of the ostensibly-different tableau of a part-time job without homework or long-term projects.

…I set my jaw, placing what scraps of faith I have in the notion that I’m better off being (sensibly) present and open about how I am, rather than absent-yet-obvious about it…I wear far too much on my sleeve to pull that pathetic farce off with a trace of aplomb.

…I offer the usual run of sincere, useless, infinite apologies (and corresponding meta-apologies, knowing full well that infinity isn’t really anyone’s to give) to everyone, and hope that I find it in me to stop this foolishness before anyone else finds themselves alienated and disgusted.

Now, to a shower, some laundry, and two sink’s worth of dirty dishes.

Music: David Bowie – Afraid. At times like these, most anything with words in it can be matched to a personal situation, like some sort of ultimately-empty horoscope. I recall one car ride around Bethesda in high school when some early Beatles song sent a friend (a brilliant Nick I knew, for the curious) into a wince-inducing frenzied fit of role-projection and hyperextension of vague, early-Beatles romantic situations. That notwithstanding: this song is downright spooky about its lyrics.

:: Aziz 6:59 AM [+] ::
...

[ sorry darling. man-talk ]

Forgiving my months-long silence, and attempting to eschew any further qualification, which will only weaken the thrust of the w00t-post, that being:

KEITH WON VIRGINIA!!

Congratulations, dude :) May the news find you in good health and joyous spirits.

Music: The Beatles - Wild Honey Pie. In my naïveté, I find brilliance even here.
:: Aziz 3:08 AM [+] ::
...

[ before some asshole beats me to it... ]

...or, alternately, before I find the clever punk who's faster on the information/idea-dissemination trigger than I:

Ribbon Awareness Ribbons.

I haven't found them yet, but to be honest, I haven't looked nearly as hard as I should before I can lay any legitimate claim to the idea.

Music: More fucking Low. I'd call them my next Slowdive-level-obsession, save that they've actually got a decade-spanning career with numerous contributions to The Greater Body Of Worthwhile Music, as opposed to one-and-a-half on the part of Slowdive.
:: Aziz 6:12 AM [+] ::
...

[ aw skype skype ]

The obvious function-post being that I'm using it, with username phylhrmnix. Hope to hear from you soon!

Alternatively: consider a phone call, as it's very much like Skype, only portable.

...not a very good name for a program, is it. "Skype."

Music: Doves - Caught By The River. I didn't actually know this song was ON the album until Juile told me it existed. One trip to Repo Records later, I was the proud owner of an actual copy of The Last Broadcast, which you want, by the by.

:: Aziz 11:33 PM [+] ::
...

[ accusations of drama aside... ]

So, this could be a false alarm in terms of the timescale, but the need remains, whether it's as urgent as I think it is or not...

...I'm kinda in need of a place to live/crash until I can take more matters into my own hands, find a job, and move into a place of my own. Naturally, I don't want to rush these steps, but I am hugely reluctant to be a burden. I'm definitely able and willing to pay rent-fractions, and am a pretty okay dude to live with in general: I compulsively clean bathrooms and countertops, and don't mind vacuuming or cooking at all. Ask Keith! He knows! I'm thinking it's best for me to look at the Philly area, if nothing else than to be able to keep playing music. I'm flexible-like, though.

...also very, very sorry. Hopefully you understand.

So, about the timescale: I think I have four days to get the hell out of my parents' house, Or Else. I have no idea what Or Else is, and frankly, it doesn't matter. I need Out anyway, and as much as I'd like to do it right, I don't think I ever had that luxury.

Much thankslove all. Sorry about all this.

Other than This, I'm doing decently.

Music: Is it a little perverse to post this along with the above request for a short-term home? No matter, music is music. Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue.
:: Aziz 5:57 PM [+] ::
...

[ coming at you live from casually-unsafe Greenbelt, MD! ]

Quick note of apology for the Blogging/LiveJournal/AIM inactivity: the interwebs have deserted my life for the moment, as Comcast has essentially shat bricks down the high-speed pipeline in lieu of sending delicious intarwebbery. Before that, I'd been floating around the Haverford area for more than a week with broken/stupid laptops, thus preventing reliable access to a machine or w1relezz int3rnetsp4c3. I'm presently at the office, using what could very well be the fastest, potentially-sweet-ass-est computer I've ever used. Hopefully, by the time I brave the Beltway home, Comcast should have finished their nincompoopery and resumed filling my house with sweet 2.4 GHz microwaves.

Needless to say, Real Updates Are Forthcoming. Realest. Updates. Ever.

Music: Low - Laser Beam. This ranks among the most gorgeous, soothing, poignant lullabyes I might ever consider attempting to squawk at whatever unfortunate spawn I bring into this world. Seriously. It's pure, silly, and heartfelt.

:: Aziz 7:10 PM [+] ::
...

[ not as though everyone and their cousin doesn't already... ]

...but if anyone cares for a Gmail account (ANYONE. Friends, parents, pets...the most insignificant of social connections you may maintain), just ask. I've got 50, and when I give 'em away, they (eventually) give me more. It stands to reason, then, that I am in possession of an (eventually) infinite number of Gmail accounts, and can therefore spare a few.

I miss you all. Don't be strangers.

Music: Bloc Party - The Pioneers. I predicted them to be this summer's Franz Ferdinand, though I can't say with any certainty why (or why not, if you'll pardon the double-negative) this hasn't already happened. It seems like I might be wrong about it, but the important thing is that I stick to my convictions and accept my crow when the plate comes around in August. With my luck, nü-metal will have undergone a massive revival with some terrible single by some group of jerkoffs with terrible voices and a pimply-faced fanbase, or that Creed has reformed to enormous commercial success.

Or, alternately, I could be right. I can assure you that they're casually enormous across the pond, not that that's actually fucking mattered since (What's The Story?) Morning Glory.

:: Aziz 1:13 PM [+] ::
...

[ ...as long as we remember / there's something to reget... ]

One of the few useful critical concepts the English discipline handed me buried amidst the noisome, wanky, pedantic tripe that drove me away from potentially-rewarding-but-probably-fruitless grapples with impenetrable Ulysses (et cetera, et cetera) was that of overdetermination; i.e., an event with indeterminately many causes, whose ultimate origin is therefore impossible to ascertain (that's a gross oversimplification, but this is pretty fucking pedantic as it is). Regardless as to what its actual meaning might be, the term was used to refer to moments that simply meant too much for whatever reasons; they were TOO central, I suppose.

Regardless of all that, plans for today (Friday) point to my seeing Jenn today for the first time since March 20th. We've been split for over two months, and in no trivial way: I find myself staring at a pretty significant emotional separation, a consequence of a drift I'd never have commissioned, but whose worth is not neglected. This weekend is pretty much my last chance to see (Douglas Adams? Anyone?) her before she takes off for about three weeks or more; I'm a bit fuzzy on the details myself. Regardless, contact, though already pretty darn non-trivial given the forcibly-enforced Period Of Silence, gains that extra edge of desperation and necessity, whatever the fuck it may come to mean. To add to the mix, she's coming home from spending a night in Long Island, saying her goodbyes to a friend (the sort of friend that complicates matters, intrinsic worth aside), which while manageable at the moment, can only scald as emotional distance is closed (assuming it is).

The nail in the coffin of Too Fucking Much, the final push on the side of Just Leave It Be And Move On 'Cause This Is Some Heavy Shit, is that Saturday is yet another anniversary without cause for celebration, a perverse commemoration of an unrequited, abandoned love. I wasn't just fucking kidding around when I started talking about overdetermination and hypersignificance and the like. I'm aware that this meeting is necessary on any number of levels, and can only hope for the best(and to know what the best is). In any case, it's what I'm up to soon enough.

Back on the mundane side of things: anybody (and here, I specifically beseech the input of all y'all Jersey Rats) know what the fuck I should do with my car, specifically in the way of a good place I can leave it and train into The City? Odds are it's going to live on Ardmore Avenue for the weekend. Its keys will be living with me, thanks.

Music: Rachel's - Old Road 60. More stuff from Alex (who's off from this coast, at least for a while, on Saturday himself). Think vaguely like Chris Thile, only instead of a self-assured folk outfit, it's a lost indie band that started playing chamber music and things like bassoons. Or something, anyway.

:: Aziz 6:21 AM [+] ::
...