1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.
do handmade gifts (I was thinking of making marble magnets with my families faces), finish unpacking (all that's mostly left is stuff to put on walls), take more photos (I got a digital camera for my birthday this summer and it spends way too much time on the shelf)

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.
I'm curious about what some college friends are up to but am not really inspired to track them down

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.
speak Spanish (yet wish someone could pass a magic wand over me so I could just know it, language skills don't come easy to me), improve my meagre sewing skills, xeriscape my yard

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).
quit my job, take up different photo projects and spend time on those, buy an island, share the wealth

5. List five things you do that help you relax.
yoga, long walks in my neighborhood, drinking red wine, smelling lavender

Dawn Chorus/Des Ark Winter Mini-tour 2004 two-thirds booked.

January 2nd - Philadelpha, PA (tbd)
January 3rd - Pete's Candy Store, New York City, NY (with the Marlarkies)
January 4th - Washington, DC area (tbd)

Lake Effect Northeastern corridor residents should consider coming to one of these shows.

1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.

Get laid. Kick it with Santa Claus. Fight a ninja and win. Win the lottery. Lose 50 pounds. (All of which is possible, except for getting laid.)

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.

Meagan Jolliffe. I could probably find her if I wanted to. Jesse B. Actually, I don't really want to talk to him. I just want him to know that my band is better than any of his ever were. Kelly Cunningham. I never talk to her, but I wish I did. Shannon Ellis. I haven't seen Shannon in years.

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.

Play piano (better). Exercise. Speak a foreign language. Maybe Persian or French, both of which are really pretty. I'd like to know how to fix and car. And I'd like to be able to fly.

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).

Buy a smallish house some place out of the way. Rent an apartment on Central Park West. Give a million bucks each to my parents, my brother and his wife, and my niece. Buy a stage piano and sweet vintage Fender Reverb combo, a black Ric, with an Orange head and cabinet. Buy an airplane with a glass bottom.

5. List five things you do that help you relax.

Watch TV. Go for a walk. Listen to comfort music (like Kiss and the Smiths). Take off my pants and jacket. Read a magazine at Barnes and Noble.

Does anyone else listen to BBC Radio 1 on the internet? This morning there's some contest involving describing rugby in 30 seconds.

exciting events on the horizon:

kickball birthday party to attend
won tickets to Puccini's Turandot
our heater being fixed hopefully tomorrow

My new computer is going to cost me an extra hundred bucks because the nerd guy told me that it probably wouldn't run right without an upgrade to Windows XP. The expense of this new machine is now 2.5 times what I had budgeted to spend on it. I hope it blows my ass out of my ear, because its putting a hurt on my finances.

With the fast over I'm supposed to be drinking nothing but OJ for two days. I cheated a little yesterday and ate a handful of cashews. Blake has some sort of sushi dinner planned for Andrew and I. Sounds awesome.

The band is working on three new songs. One, (the best of the three) sounds like Karate, with me playing the Geoff Farina style guitar leads. Me handling the guitar solo is rare enough, but over weird jazz chords its rarer still. Another sounds like The Flaming Lips meets Sigur Ros. If we had an Ebow to make the strings hum, it would be easier to get the sound we want. I think I'm developing a reputation as someone who's impossible to please. I drove Amy crazy last night about her bass line on this song. I wanted it to have a kind of Jackson 5 sort of forward bounce and she wasn't getting it. I should just trust her instincts though, because she's really the most talented of all of us. She's never let us down thus far. The last song is almost a adult contemporary country thing, like Tift Merritt or John Hyatt would sing. We're a long ways off on this one. It still sounds a little empty.

I don't have any work to do until one of my flaky coworkers gets in and sends me an email with the info. So, I wait.

The heat in out house is scheduled to be fixed this morning. It will be good to have heat. It feels like a Russian prison in there.

This is my last week at Carson-Dellosa. There's a chance I could get a full time job here at some point in the future. I've got my fingers crossed. I really like this place very much.

The fast ended yesterday, but I've got two days on
nothing but liquids. Orange juice, water mostly.
Some miso soup tonight.

I bought a new computer on Friday. Hopefully, I'll be
able to go pick it up today. I'm confident these
upgrades well open all new vistas of porn consumption.
My old computer (RIP) started making an air raid
siren noise. Literally. I nearly shit on myself.

I dicked around on Saturday. Our heater is broken
(being fixed today), so being in the house was not
such a great option. I watched Master and Commander
(good) and played Uno with some kids at a coffeeshop
downtown (fun). Not much else.

Angie - Burps come off a little gross, I guess. But, I think it's less attractive to be totally intolerant of burps (and farts), than to let em rip every once in a while. Burps and farts are fun. They're our bodies way of reminding us, "Hey, things ain't so bad."

1. Using one adjective, describe your current living space.

unamusing

2. Using two adjectives, describe your current employer.

friendly, fleeting

3. Using three adjectives, describe your favorite hobby/pasttime.

frustrating, sporatic, rewarding

4. Using four adjectives, describe your typical day.

fuzzy, distracting, disappointed, resigned

5. Using five adjectives, describe your ideal life.

satisfied, loved, challenged, tumescent, long

I saw Elf last night. See this movie or be a cotton-headed ninnymuggins.

I haven't done the saltwater baths, but I have been drinking Smooth Move, which provides quite enough ass-blowouts for the working day, thank you. I might try the saltwater tonight at home, just to see what happens.

---

The show went good last night. Me, being the harder on us than anyone, thought we could have done better, but we got a lot of really nice comments. Russell, a local studio guy and soundman at the club really wanted a copy of our record. Paul from Merge said he thought we were great, although he's too nice to not say something like that. Andrew and I talked about our wierd bowel movements from stage the whole time.

Zach - one of my friends did the lemonade fast and as a side effect, it cured his seasonal allergies.

One of my weird food things - at times I crave chicken broth. Like some people would crave chocolate.

I began the Master Cleanse on Friday, making this day four without eating. The whole thing is going well. I'm a little replused by the lemonade, so its been a struggle to get down. Something about it just makes me gag. I do feel slightly better than I did before I started. I'm still have low energy troubles but that's because I drink the minimum amount of the lemonade possible. I'm looking forward to the second half of the cleanse. They say that its all downhill after day five. I've no doubt that it is. Andrew agreed to do this thing with me. His girlfriend, Blake, is preparing us a sushi dinner for when we're done (and safely back on solid foods).

The experience is a little strange. Kainui, have you ever done a fast? Any of you? My mind told me I was hungry on days one and two, but I really wasn't. I'm sitting here right now without the least twinge of hunger. I've even got my subconscious on board with the idea. I don't even feel like I have to eat.

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The band has a show in Chapel Hill tonight with Disband and +/-. Last time we played we were accused of not doing "the hits." It's going to be a hits show tonight.

---

Today's work playlist:

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
No Doubt - Singles
David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name
Kudzu Wish - Reverse Hurricane
Sundays - Reading, Writing, and Arthematic
Skull collection featuring Bobby Womack, Pavement, REM, Curtis Mayfield, and others
Boobs collection featuring Donna Summer, Outkast, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Johnnie Taylor, Talk Talk, and others

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1. What food do you like that most people hate?
I used to love livermush. And I can drink two gallons of V8 in a sitting.

2. What food do you hate that most people love?
I despise onions.

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you?
I think Juliette Lewis is wicked gross.

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find attractive?
Boy, I don't even know. I'm generally hot for all women.

5. What popular trend baffles you?
Sleeve-less shirts for men. Actually, the whole metrosexual trend baffles me.

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Boy, I sure ain't working.

http://www.killoggs.com/log/post/2591800/ lists the killoggs kids suggestions on sticker printing. i have no personal experience with it, but they're the ones i would ask.

the big dipper is an awesome costume. i demand photos!

the weather here has been brilliantly clear and freezing cold. like 20 degrees below normal for this time of year. plus my heater is teh suck. fortunately it has gotten nice and gray again. no sun to hurty my eyes, and a nice cloud cover to hold in the moist heat. i love seattle.

finally i will see upma's movie! yay!
i'm still searching for a computer functional enough to listen to the mp3s, zach. since as a non-scientist i get stuck on the shittiest computers at work, i might need to think about upgrading at home.

neither of my parents have ever used an ATM. my dad is fairly computer literate. my mom is most decidedly not.

1. What food do you like that most people hate? i recently discovered that kim chee is not awful. i like the way tiny orange roe on sushi explode and pop in your mouth.

2. What food do you hate that most people love? i can't make myself in cauliflower without gagging, though i don't know if most people ~love~ cauliflower

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you? i can't even think of a famous person right now.

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find
attractive? uhhh

5. What popular trend baffles you? shirts with one sleeve

1. What was your first Halloween costume? i think it was a bunny or clown, but i remember the inflatable spider head which still survives and was documented in the mystery camera self portraits (around age 5 - my sister had the inflatable pumpkin head)


2. What was your best costume and why? "the cola wars" was a stellar costume moment as was "apathy." "witch with a b" and "leela from futurama" were less sucessful. leela was questioned if she was a penis since her head was purple and she had only one eye. hardy har.


3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat? i am terrible at pranks because i'm bad at surprises and lying


4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? as a kid we'd go to mrs. gerrys house to compare loot. i dressed as some variation of a vampire every year from age 9 till about 21. as an adult, no traditions yet, traditions tend to make things feel like HOLIDAYS. HOLIDAYS make me depressed. halloween is still fun for me so no traditions. although this year i had a neck blow out and missed halloween altogether lying flat on the floor medicating.

5. Share your favorite scary story...real or legend! i've been working the same jobs since age 16. aaaaaah.

i rode (drove) a motorcycle for the first time ever this weekend. still in one piece. sold a painting this weekend to a woman from new york.

Did I tell you guys I dressed as the Big Dipper for Halloween - though I really had to lean to the side for people to be able to tell.
The cold weather (50 degrees) here has made me bust out the knitting needles. I'm hoping to give more scarves as gifts this year.
We're having a housewarming party this weekend, and you're all invited. I got around to hanging up my Christmas light collection (I like buying the kinds in wacky shapes - cactus, fish, hearts, etc.) in the back sunroom and in the backyard. Such a flattering source of party light.
The friday five...not sure about those. I'm a pretty picky eater and tend to the norm - though I guess the norm is subjective.

80+ temperature + 100% humidity + no wind + November (meaning all fans and ACs are store away for the winter) = Shitty fucking weather.

Weather in Greensboro is bad. Really bad. It's overcast and wet, and yet still somehow 80 degrees in November. The air feels like a warm burp. Last night I woke up four times. I put away my fans and things because, you know, its fucking November, so there was nothing to do but sweat.

So, now I'm at work, with air conditioning. I'm going to fall asleep all day long. I'm proofreading a Christian activities book. I know its for private schools and church classes and stuff, but its really strange to proof something that has such a rigid viewpoint. I'm used to doing public school books, where you try to be more general. The Christian books are so different. They're written using declarative statements that I wouldn't let slide in another book. They tend to say, "Remember that blah blah IS blah blah." Whereas, another book would probably read, "Think about the ways in which blah blah is blah blah. Discuss why." Its not easier or harder to proof a book like like this, but it is a little less interesting, because I have to apply only grammer and style rules and not the logical rules I apply to everything else.

I should probably get to it.

Two songs from the Dawn Chorus album. Both are unmastered, so judge not the volume and lack of overall EQ.

I sing the first. Andrew sings the second.

The Ocean is Wide

Blue