For whom it may concern, my music library is finally shaping up to its prior shape and size and, in fact, is probably better than it was before. My top 25 is also beginning to reflect my true tastes and isn’t as heavily influenced on the flood of recently released music. If you haven’t given it a spin already, be sure to listen to the new Beck, Bon Iver, and maybe Judi Chicago.

Returning to my list making, there are a few more things I have learned about Atlanta, including:

1. There is no such thing as a liquor store here. Alright, that is kind of a lie. The truth is, for a long time, I was under the impression that Atlanta had an unusual need for packaging supplies as the busy streets are sprinkled with “Package Stores”. Apparently though, booze in a paper bag is the only package you’re going to find at these innumerable package stores.

2. Atlanta heavily guards it’s cemeteries. I happen to consider roaming graveyards and reading headstones at night amongst my favorite past times and Atlanta has rained on my late night zombie hunting parade. On multiple occasions, entrance into cemeteries in the wee night hours has been problematic with guards and police swarming the premises, a problem I have yet to seriously encounter in my previous graveyard roaming experiences.

3. Club Motion is not where it’s at. Exploring the Atlanta underground was fun and all, but Club Motion didn’t, and likely won’t, make my list of things I’m all about.

4. Ducks puts crack into their doughnuts. I’ve been trying to figure out what makes Duck’s doughnuts so incredibly scrumptious, crumbly and addictive and this seems to be the only logical explanation.

5. 88.5 knows how to do the 80’s and French pop. I haven’t been listening to the radio all that much, but I stumbled across this gem recently and couldn’t have been more pleased with the result.

And, for the record, I now understand why brunch is such a big deal. It is positively wonderful.

I have an obsession with graffiti and tattoos. I intend to keep my tattoos fairly limited; no sleeves in my future, that is to say, but I am fascinated by the images and symbols people place on their body as well as the feeling that accompanies the ink. It’s an ethereal high to say the least.

I get asked a lot about my tattoo and it’s an odd thing because I feel as though I never really know what to say about it. My ship in a bottle is, perhaps, my favorite part of my body. I find it beautiful and simple and full of significance to me; part optimism for the future and part memory of a shaky past. It also marks a period of self-discovery, understanding and letting go. It’s wonderful to me to have that memory etched on my skin, almost as a reminder of what I have been through to get to where I am.

Eventually I’ll get a picture of it on here.
As for graffiti, I bring this up mostly because I love this picture….
…and I love all of the incredible art that marks the streets of Atlanta.

Soooooo…I’m listening to Sigur Ros a lot lately and with their Hopelandic thoughts streaming through my ears I wrote this little something to show and tell.
Mostly tell.

There is a heart in danger. Crumbling. Hoping. Aching.

A woman’s voice gone, crashing into silence. One reverberating octave ringing. The sound of her fist slamming the kitchen counter.

There is a heart in danger. Dreaming. Believing. Breaking.

One man clings to the feeling. A flood of familiar confusion. Objects beaten, subjects battered. His existence hanging crooked on the wall.

There is a heart in danger. Forgetting. Taking. Perforating.

Remembering yesterday’s tomorrow gone. The silence cuts fragments in his eardrums.

There is a heart in danger. Breathing. Beating. Broken.

The things that make me tick this week:

1. Music videos from Islandrecords artists Sam Sparro and Cut Copy. I’ve been in desperate need of some music to dance to and since my finger and toe tapping Girl Talk days are in need of a break, I feel that I’ve found a decent replacement.

2. The Wire. This show is badass. McNulty is perhaps one of the best alcoholic, hard headed, cops television has seen in a long while. Everything you hear about this show is true, it is addictive and awesome.

3. Missed connections. Craigslist has been a source of sheer amusement for me as of late with the multitude of “missed connections” posted daily. There’s a guy crushing on a girl in the red tube top driving a Mazda down I-20, a teen that frequently shops at Best Buy because of the cashier that rang him up on check-stand 3 and then, of course, the Marta train encounters. Endless entertainment.

4. Trivia Night Okay, so I can’t really count this since I only went once, but I’m all about winning free food and drinks for my varied pop-culture and worldly knowledge.

5. Frederico Erra’s photostream on Flickr, particularly “violet place”.

6. GOOD Magazine. It’s tag line “GOOD is for people who give a damn. It’s an entertaining magazine about things that matter.” With it’s stimulating commentary on important environmental, economic, and cultural issues as well as it’s unique coverage on unknown objects and quirky travel spots, this magazine is what it says.

7. The Black Keys and Sea Wolf. I already went through a Black Keys stage where they were all that was buzzing on my iPod for weeks, but now I’ve revisited Magic Potion and I can’t get enough of it. Leaves in the River is also some really swell stuff.

I’m in the process of writing another short story as well as expanding and editing a story I wrote for my short stories course. Expect something of the child’s tale type genre involving oranges someday soon. Farethewell.

Short thoughts on the things I (could) love

He envisioned the world in multiples of 4×6. Every moment, every image, captured. His memory, scrawled throughout photographs. His heart, as red as a dark room.

The path carved of destruction and damnation held him tight. God watched him fall. I watched him wither. She stood by hope. A November resurrection.

She was beautiful and cruel, tattered and resilient.

And in its mourning the soil, the pavement, the dying grass was drenched with its prayers for mercy. If god exists, I saw him in the rain.

She died from a routine. It could have been you.

As an architect of beauty, with limbs outstretched, she was dangerous.

It was something in the curve of his glasses and his tendency of being made uncomfortable that told me he would make it.

I consider myself a fairly lucky person 3/4 of the time. It’s that other fourth that jabs me, stabs me every few months and when it attacks it tends to get me pretty good. Last week my luck ran out. My hard drive crashed causing me to miss two deadlines for writing contests, I fell up the stairs twice, ripped a hole in the only pair of jeans I brought with me, and the supermarket ran out of the banana cream pie ice cream I was craving to make it all better. For the majority of the population I’m sure this is a minor fatality in the “grand scheme of things”, but, in a period of 48 hours, shit went down and flew my direction.

Now, with the universe back in motion, working in my favor, I have a few more words to say about Atlanta, the dirty south*, and Georgia in list format, of course.

1. Fireflies do, in fact, exist. You know those magical bugs that glow and fly and are all over the place in childhood films? Well, this goes out specifically to all the kids in the Northwest that waste far too many nights searching for these little critters and instead murder slugs with table salt. Apparently, fireflies live in the South, among other places, but not the Northwest.

2. Georgia doesn’t play around with the rain. Yeah, scattered showers, mist, sprinkling…Georgia doesn’t quite roll like that. When it rains it is short and torrential, slightly terrifying, mostly incredible. I’m not entirely certain if this is the usual pattern with southern rain, but from the few instances I’ve been involved in, there is no messing with it.

3. Athens is relatively close to utopia. You do the math: thriving music scene+a wealth of friendly folk+mild to moderate drinking problem with their 70 bars in a three block radius+super cheap+michael stipe+thriving music scene= Athens. Talk to anyone who has been there, lived there, still living there and I’m fairly certain they will all agree with this one. Even Esquire digs Athens–they named The Globe bar one of the best in the nation.

4.Braves fans are not very loyal. I’ve been told this on multiple occasions so I feel relatively safe rooting for the Red Sox while residing in their territory.

5.Skinterns are hilarious. This has absolutely nothing to do with the city, but, for the record, my co-workers and myself– aka skinterns– are really quite funny people especially when we’re together. Also for the record, the skinterns should NEVER be allowed to have a blog. It would just be bad, bad news.

Like Jerry Springer I have some final thoughts: Lil’ Wayne’s new album is gold. I vow to ghost ride before peace-ing out of this place. Feed the Animals is a work of genius. As a result of my hard drive crash and current album releases, my top five most played on iTunes are all by Lil’ Wayne or Girl Talk.

I decided to write a short-short for this “first time” writing contest, mostly for shits and giggles because I liked the topic, but I felt the need to paste it to my blog in an attempt to encourage people to a) read it and rate it on the dublit site and b) give me some midget feedback as to any last minute thoughts before I post it. This story is true, if words could blush they would right about now, and if Charlie S. does read this, I’m sorry. Both for the false “I love you” and for writing this overly honest story.

What Are You So Afraid Of?
The first time I said “I love you” I didn’t mean it. I was dating the first of three Charlies that would stick to my life like the mold ring growing around a bathtub. Even when you clean the mess up, something worse develops to murk up the bathwater. At fifteen, I thought my life story was meant to have a Charlie S. as the first of many loves. We had been dating for nearly two weeks, a period of sexual experimentation involving various sofas, an unreasonable amount of hand to body grazing, and R-rated films we paid little attention to. Night thirteen, curled on my mothers mauve, rose patterned love seat, we groped each other in a well mimicked game of Twister while Family Guy laughed at us on the television. Or maybe it was The Simpsons. I’m not sure.
Charlie S. was a miracle worker with his hands. To this day, no one can make me as hot with a simple touch-push of the buttons as Charlie S. could. It was his magical fingers and the fact that he made me chocolate covered strawberries for Valentines Day that made me fall in love with him. I imagine now that he probably isn’t nearly as successful with his member as he was with his fingers. Supposedly he went to school to become a psychologist, or biologist, or some other kind of –ist, when he really should have done something with his hands. A pianist perhaps.
That night, he kissed me. Too much tongue. I kissed back, colliding teeth with teeth. As his saliva sunk in, fully moisturizing my lips, I took a cue from The Partridge Family and announced “I think I love you”. He responded thoughtfully with the “I only want to say it when I really mean it” lie we tell ourselves. Had this happened to me today I would be mortified, but at fifteen I accepted his response as just another example of how perfect my boyfriend was. Already mature. The episode ended and Overboard starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell came on. Five minutes and one hand job later, he said “I think I love you too”.

Alright, I’m spending my summer in Atlanta, HOTlanta, the dirty south, etc. and to capture a meager portion of my experience thus far I have a list to share, appropriately titled…

The Things I Have Learned About Atlanta

1. Brunch is a big deal. Everybody loves brunch and if you’re in Atlanta, everyone goes to brunch. It is said to be the very best way to cure ones Sunday morning hangover. I have yet to test this claim, but I won’t leave you hanging for long.

2. McDonald’s stole the McChicken from Chick-fil-A. This, apparently, is a touchy subject and leads to cursing McD’s, something I tend to enjoy throughly. What else do I enjoy you may be wondering? The two, yes, always TWO, pickle slices on a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. (And yes, I have been eating meat as of late, including this Chick-fil-A sandwich, which is quite scrumptious and cheap! Insert comments from the Fur about my flippant vegetarian diet)

3. Don’t talk about Pepsi. Ever. Coca Cola is king in its hometown and it seems that in order to fit in, one must drink Coke. I can’t stress this enough.

4. Bicyclists should fear for their lives because Atlanta drivers hate them, vehemently. I’ve been riding my bike for a week here and have already had a few too many close calls involving cars following dangerously close. Bike lanes are also a rare luxury on city streets.

5. Not enough people who live here know about Paste Magazine, which is a crying shame. However, Paste can be used as a great conversation starter to test if people are cool. Yes, I’m biased.

6. Ninety degrees is not hot. My entire Oregonian life I have been mislead to believe that anything above eighty is scorching. One week in Atlanta has shown me that, actually, ninety is just the beginning. Oh dear.

7. Working a 9-5 is tiring, like, really tiring. I’ve been in bed by 11:30pm this entire week and if you ask anybody that has lived with me that is simply unheard of!

8. Neighborhoods go from good to sketchy to sketchier to you really shouldn’t be here. This isn’t entirely true, but this is what I have been told from various sources and I am working on disproving this by the safest means possible.

9. Food is expensive. This doesn’t particularly pertain to Atlanta, but now that I’m buying my own groceries I’ve come to appreciate the fridge at my parent’s house and all the free goodness enclosed within it.

10. Southern accents are adorable. I’m talking pinch the cheek, hug worthy, puppy dog adorable. Seriously, talk to anyone with a southern accent and they are instantly likable.

The grandma inside of me is begging for sleep so until next time, more lists to come, y’all!

A bird flew into the left engine of my plane. While we rose higher into the night sky, the cabin circulated an air saturated with a scent of smoke. Nobody panicked as the noise escalated. We glanced over at our neighbor, eyeing them to verify that yes, the plane is having an unusual take off and no, this is not normal. Within ten minutes, the noise, the shaking, it is all still there when the pilot buzzes in, “well, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me, but it appears that the left engine has gone out and we’re going to have to turn back around and land back in Dallas. We expect to be back on the ground in about 15 minutes and we will determine then if we need to evacuate. We will be looking for an extra plane, but we may have to stay the night in Dallas tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience. We will know more soon.” Don’t fly American Airlines, apparently birds frequent their engines and engine failure isn’t much of a rarity. Happy flying.

Here’s a story that came to me while I ate a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie and black coffee in the Sea-Tac airport. Tully’s was out of plain old chocolate chip and O’Hare just seemed like a more predictable/busy airport for an old lady wearing paisley…

Never Trust Paisley

The shriveled elderly woman seemed out of place in her paisley patterned sun dress meandering through O’Hare in the wintertime. She didn’t march like the other ants who followed invisible arrows directing and controlling their formation. She didn’t weave in and out of this bodied traffic jam, she just stood there, solid still, forcing the anxious travelers to move around her flesh and bone traffic divide. With the sight of her my book grew significantly less interesting than real life and this was, of course, a serious rarity. There I was, just sitting there, staring through the window of a crammed airport lounge mesmerized by this spectacle. I couldn’t tell if she was lost, confused or if maybe she even had a purpose in her stance. For a brief moment I released myself from this view, peered back into the crevice of A Long Way Down and, once I looked up again, she had vanished into the swarm of hustled bodies, marching one by one. She had no idea that if she would have stood still for but only a moment longer she could have been free. Free to roam wild, from the constraining pressure hovering over us all. If only she didn’t fall into the trap of humanity, the one that guides your spirit along the designated identical path of 5.9 billion. I thought just maybe she was one of us, the unlucky million that saw through it all. Greed. Power. Status. Freedom. Slavery. All the ants go marching, one by one.

You find it outside of the Thrift and Save hidden underneath a pile of crumpled newspaper used to wrap fragile used vases and picture frames. It is poking out of the garbage can, sprinkled with petals of ashes from dead cigarettes and stained with a splash of RC Cola that was flung in, just barely missing the rim. You don’t quite understand what the painting is doing there, in the trash. Sure, it isn’t pretty or inspiring, but it could have sold for at least .89 cents, if not more. You decide to steal it. No, not steal because it’s not in the store. You decide to rescue it and think about placing it in your bedroom. You have been meaning to find something to talk about after sex and this piece would be a worthy conversation starter. Men will either find it creepy or sexy, you aren’t sure which. You know this doesn’t actually mean anything because you haven’t gotten any since Doug. After you fuck a Doug it’s going to take a while until you get a Nick, James, or Adam. Henry’s are like that too. Never fuck a Henry unless you are prepared for the consequences.
Your bedroom is the shade of a bland beige. You picked the color out yourself because you liked to think of your room as a sandstorm. It didn’t strike you until later that no matter the crafty name, beige is beige. You hate to admit it, but everything in your life is a messy sandstorm, right down to your breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar. The painting stands out against your barren walls. You tilt your head slightly to the right as if this movement helps you to recognize any hanging errors.
“Perfect,” you breathe softly to yourself.
From a distance, you admire the desert landscape depicted within the canvas, a blaze of blood-bathed sands, orange fiery freckles, and a daring midnight sky of obsidian verging dangerously close to the flames of the desert below. It was chaos and calm contained in a 20” x 12”.  You find it disturbing because it reminds you of the innumerable contrasts in life and other things you don’t like to think about, heaven and hell, success and failure, warmth and chill, faith and betrayal. Still, you wake up every single morning to that image penetrating your eyelids. You think about throwing it away, but you are afraid of what image would take its place. Even disaster is better than emptiness. You know this from experience.
Doug has left you with a three-month dry spell and you realize that if you do sleep with anyone they won’t find your wall hanging sexually arousing unless they are a sexual predator. You start to check the locks on your windows frequently and consider buying a gun or a pit bull. They both deliver the same result, but a gun is less maintenance.
You get lonely and desperate so you place a personal ad in The Daily Gazette. You claim to be 5’ 8” when you are really only 5’ 6”. The most attractive male you ever dated told you tall women were beautiful and you believed him. Your hobbies include reading The New Yorker, watching Woody Allen films, and rock climbing. You have never been rock climbing, but are fond of the idea of being a woman that would like rock climbing. You have dirty blonde hair that is getting far too close to becoming red and blue eyes. You make certain not to mention your natural transitioning hair color because you are terrified of becoming a red head. You think they all look the same.
For months, you get no response and you blame the painting in your room for every aspect of your life that has failed since you took it. Rescued it. Salvaged it. Whatever it is you did to it, you thoroughly regret it. Sometimes.
You receive an email from John, a response to your personal ad that has been running for three months, exactly. This date will have cost you $30.00 before you even sit down for dinner. John is a financial analyst and a huge fan of John Grisham. He has read everything by John Grisham and this bothers you, but you think to yourself “at least he reads something”. You can tell a lot about a person by what they read and this should have been a sign of a defect in your date, but you only thought about the fettuccine. You wanted to look skinny so you fasted all day and now the acid in your stomach was burning a hole through the lining. You were slightly worried, more than your should have been at least.
“You know, a lot of people underestimate just how fascinating financing can be. I love numbers. I mean I really love numbers.”
You were never this overly enthusiastic about your job. Of course, you loved listening to woes of troubled teens and depressed single women, but you weren’t going to go on about it through an entire plate of pasta. He paid for dinner, but only left a 10% tip. For a financial analyst he was stingy and you didn’t like him already. Despite everything, you wanted to sleep with John so you invited him inside.
“Wow, this is a really great place you’ve got here. I used to own a little one floor place like this back in the day. It was a real fixer upper, but….”
He went on about his old place, his new place, his hybrid car, he probably talked about his watch, and maybe some more about numbers, but you stopped listening a while ago. Your ears typically go numb after anyone says “back in the day”. Anything following that statement never bodes well and you’ve known this your entire life thanks to your father.
You take him to your bedroom and he begins to kiss your neck. He pulls you onto your bed and before things get heated you excuse yourself to the bathroom. You wanted one last look in the mirror before you screwed a John, a financial analyst, a 10% tipper. You weren’t certain, but you thought afterwards you might look different and wanted to keep a mental picture of your prior self.
As you reenter your room, you notice John standing across from your bed, examining the chaos and calm.
“You must have a natural ability in picking out the good ones. This is a beautiful piece of art.”
—–

He called you three times to see if you felt better and if you wanted to “pick up from where we left off”. You never returned any of his calls and you took down your personal ad. It was mostly a lie anyways. Despite your better judgment, you kept the painting hanging across from your bed. If nothing else, it would at least identify the sexual predators. Eventually, you decided to paint your bedroom red because the most attractive man you ever dated told you he thought red was sexy and you agreed.

The scene I’m about to post was derived in my reading and writing short stories class during one of my professors crazy activities. She thoroughly enjoys tossing us into these creative writing fits and this is another one of her “I’ve been sniffing glue” activities.

This is how it goes: two characters taken from different stories written for the class- a random setting in Des Moines-two random desires fitted for each character.

Setting: Des Moines airport security check-in the weekend before thanksgiving in 2001

Character/Desire: Clay-to go to sleep and Anonymous psycho killer- to meet jesus

Of course, the security check-in attendant choose me to randomly search. He groped the seams of my Wrangler jeans; I stared straight ahead vacantly at his name tag: Hello my name is Clay. In the aftermath of September 11th the number of Clays swarming around the airport terminal had doubled. He glanced suspiciously at the image displayed on the x-ray screen. It was probably ill-advised to be toting around a bag of human hair, but I wanted to take them with me wherever I go. Lucky for me Clay just raised his eyebrow, confiscated my citrus fruit, and waved me along unenthusiastically.

“Sir, can you please put your bag in the overhead compartment and place your tray in the upright and locked…”

At this point the stewardess noticed the French braids growing in my lap with my shirt collar up over my nose. The petite black woman in the aisle seat stared at me woozily and stumbled to the bathroom. The stewardess opened her mouth to admonish me for my craft project and I shoved the chloroform soaked braid  in her mouth like a horse bit. Battling through the throng of fainting passengers I thrust open  the cockpit door and  shouted “take me to  jesus.”

“Sir, you’re already on your way to Las Vegas.”