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Dear gentle reader: this blog has been operating continuously since I was a teenager. The writing below is at least a decade old. In that time every molecule of my body has been replaced, along with many foolish ideas and flighty beliefs. I want to keep some of those things public out of an honesty and humility I owe the world. I trust you to carry that context with you.

October 15, 2005 /

I lost my phone in maybe the stupidest way possible. It is not coming back. I have a new one, and I still have the same number, but I have very, very little of my old contact information. I got some numbers off Facebook, and I will get those that haven’t changed in two years off my old Sprint phone.

But that’s still not most of the people I know. So! If you have talked to me on the telephone before, or want to talk to me on the telephone now, or would like to talk to me on the telephone someday, I’d like you to call me so I can store your number. Remember, my number is the same! (If you don’t get me, leave a message so I know what name to put on it.) You can also email me your number. Put your address in there too. Maybe a couple bucks. You got some potato chips? I could go for some potato chips.

October 13, 2005 /

There’s a woman who works in my building whose name I don’t want to type exactly, for fear of Google, but which is pronounced “Ah NET tuh.” Short E. Her last name is Doss.

A few minutes ago, I heard over the building intercom: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… Anita Doss, please dial zero.”

A couple minutes later, this time in an impatient tone: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… REPEAT, Anita Doss, please dial zero.”

Five minutes pass. Then, sounding harrassed: “Anita DESS, please dial zero…”

October 13, 2005 /

When I put on Facebook that my music preference was “whatever you liked two years ago,” I wasn’t kidding. I finally bothered to count this morning and noticed that “Hey Ya” is in 22/24 time. And I’m getting really into the original Extraordinary Machine, the unreleased Fiona Apple album that leaked onto the interweb and got everybody all hot and bothered in 2003. Now the album has been retooled and actually released, and I’m just starting to listen to the stuff I ripped off Maria’s pirated CD that she got from Graham.

Expect a lot of stories that sound like Fiona Apple in a week or so, when I cycle through my current buffer. The buffer is why yesterday’s and next Wednesday’s stories are about outer space, because last week I was getting really into Firefly (on which I was a little behind–it came out in 2002).

In other stuff about music, I can’t stand Harvey Danger, so I’m upset that I have to buy their album. Values versus taste! Does anybody want a Harvey Danger album for a Christmas present?

October 11, 2005 /

Maria and I are bringing Ian home from LA for Thanksgiving, so he can eat food that is not peanut butter or jelly. It turns out that plane tickets around that time cost some money! We have the flight already reserved; he’ll leave early Wednesday morning, the 23rd, and return Sunday.

If you would like to help make Ian come home for Thanksgiving, we would really like it if you’d give us some ten or twenty bucks. Cash or checks are fine, and I can give you my mailing address if you have to mail a check. We’ll have a card for him that you can sign and I will even make you out a receipt.

He won’t be around for Tuesday Night Basketball, so maybe we can have a special-occasion Basketball on a different night instead. I think that would be fun. Imagine that it is like a charity benefit party, and you can deduct its cost from your taxes! Except you can’t, but come on, like you pay taxes anyway.

October 10, 2005 /

On Saturday night, Maria, Michael and I went out and saw Serenity.

On Sunday, we went right back out and saw it again.

October 6, 2005 /

Unstoppable David Clark has retained me to edit his longest (I think) play. It’s like Heaven, except there are some assholes in Heaven, but it’s cool, I’ve got a gun.

My family is a shotgun shell

October 3, 2005 /

My sister has landed by now, I think. Mom and Kyle and I saw her off at the airport yesterday evening, carrying her life in four bags bigger than herself. Caitlan is a packrat. She is also a genius. She’s going to have a degree from Oxford and I could not be more jealous or more proud.

Today is my brother’s birthday, and he is alone in Los Angeles, sans roommate, sans internets. Happy birthday, Ian. I’ll call you later and tell you that you should go to a bar and let drop that you’re alone on your birthday on your first week in California. If you can’t wring some makeouts out of that, you’re just not trying.