Rob at 30, Part 5 (21-25)

 

A picture within a picture.  A life within a life.

21.  I haven't written since my mother was diagnosed with cancer.  Writing in general about anything of substance has been hard because the usual cloud of thoughts of random life have been grinding to a halt in my head.  I was afraid to write for a long time because I didn't want to say anything or put anything in to words until I was more sure of how things were going to go.  Of course, one is never truly sure anyway.  But things appear to be on the upswing.  It's just that that swing swings slow slow sometimes.

22.  This blog is being written in the confines of my childhood home.  In my childhood room.  This is where I live for as long as it takes.  I'm surrounded by pictures, including the one above.  I took a picture of a picture, yeah.  There are a ton of pictures from my youth.  Mom, dad, brother, grandparents, sisters.  The first night I came home while she was in the hospital, I came to this room under the impression from the vascular surgeon that my mother was most likely going to die.  This room was the most haunting, horrible, sad place in the world then.  Two days later, we found out that the initial beliefs of the doctors were wrong and that she had a highly treatable and curable form of cancer. I can never fully convey the hell of those two days, nor do I think I want to.  Now, this room is an unexpected source of hope.  The ghosts were gone with just a few key words.

23.  I left home to return home.  The suburbs are quiet and pristine and a touch lifeless to me.  I don't have many friends down here, so I do the best I can to keep my sanity intact.  I listen to music, I read books, I now have a Barnes & Noble membership and the girl at the coffee counter knows my "usual" without me having to say a word just like my bartender back in Oklahoma does.  I take out the trash, do laundry, take out my stepfather's empty oxygen tanks, I bring the full tanks in, I run errands for the family, I clean the kitchen, I do the dishes, I work, I travel when I have to.  And yet I don't consider any of it "hard work".  I don't consider it a "sacrifice".  It's just what has to be done and nothing more.  I only resent it all when I miss my bed, my records, my friends, my city.  But it'll all be there when I get back.  Until then, I'll just do what I can with what's in front of me.  

24.  I finally finished "The Count of Monte Cristo".  Without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever, ever read.  And for those of you who told me that the movie was great?  I mean, it was the exact same except for the fact that they completely rearranged the story, the relationships between major characters, left out other major characters, and had a completely different ending than the book.  Otherwise, it was pretty awesome.  I'm really digging reading the classics.  Next up?  Dumas' other masterwork, The Three Musketeers.  Any chance the book is slightly different than the Charlie Sheen/Kiefer Sutherland/Chris O'Donnell/Tim Curry version I watched as a kid?  Can't wait to find out.

25.  In the next couple weeks, I'll be in San Antonio, Little Rock, and Cleveland living that Up in the Air dream.  Gotta keep that elite flight status.  On a recent trip home from a business appointment, I was bumped to first class and drank single malt scotch all while dressed in a fine suit.  I watched "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on my portable DVD player and looked at the tool across the aisle in his Versace glasses and knew somehow that I truly was a man amongst men at that moment because he had paid for his seat and I had earned mine.  I know it's not "important", but it is.  Trust me.

The Manos Paradigm Shift: The Year in Music 2009

For some, the epitome of professional success is having a comic book sea creature villain version of yourself going after a hot, scantily clad girl used as the premise for the cover art to your new rock 'n' roll record.  For others, it's attaining frequent flier elite status.  This is why music rules.

So after health delays, writers block, holiday blues, a few stints in rehab, and general consternation of the concept of rankings, I am here to announce that your day has finally come.  A great deal of the reason for the delay was because of the immense difficulty I was having in "ranking" my best albums of the year.  I mean, it's important, the reason many of you get up each day, the reason I have a music blog that at least 3 people read--in other words, it's not something to be taken lightly.  But recently, I had a revelation that I shall call the "Manos Paradigm Shift".  The concept's origin can be traced to one of my best friends who initially bonded with me years ago over our love of music, our love of discussing music, trading music, and even occasionally singing modern American classics in unison like "Regulator" by Nate Dogg and Warren G.  However in the last year through a combination of circumstances, this dynamic of our friendship changed drastically.  Suddenly, she didn't want to talk about music, new albums, anything with me.  One day I asked what had happened to "us" with ideas of Platonic couples therapy in my head.  She told me that the way that I and many of my other friends now discussed music had made her sour on the whole thing.  The idea of ranking albums, bashing certain bands in that oh so High Fidelity sort of way, and generally kicking each other in the nuts over music had really turned her off to all of it.  Being confronted with all of these things and generally being forced to confront the ways in which I had taken some of the fun and greatness of music out of it by essentially trying to "quantify" my favorite art form was sobering.

Thus, the advent of the Manos Paradigm Shift.  While I could not and would not want to ever completely eliminate my freedom to bash certain bands (I mean, Owl City exists for a reason, right?) or to metaphorically kick some friends in the nuts about their taste, I do think it's important that I cut back on certain activities that rob the joy of music from both myself and friends like Ms. Manos (I spoke of this philosophical shift before if you'll remember.).  The most important change I've made is attempts to extensively "rank" my year end list.  Instead, I've taken a slightly different approach.  And it goes a little like this:

Honorable Mentioningz

My Favorite 10 Albums That Weren't My Favorite Album (in no particular order)

The Rob Album of the Year

All killer, no filler.  Same number of albums you're accustomed to without all the headache of figuring out what the real difference is between number 6 and number 5.  We understand each other?  Good.  Good.  Let's go, punks.

Honorable Mentioningz

Speech Therapy by Speech Debelle (Big Dada)

The Quick Take: In a musical landscape where so much of rap and R&B has become a cliche and a joke that isn't funny anymore, British rapper Speech Debelle's debut kinda blew me away.  With a tone similar to the brilliant Original Pirate Material by The Streets, Debelle tells hypnotic stories of finding paths through troublesome relationships, finding salvation in just "finishing this album", and accepting the inevitability of being let down by all those who aren't yourself.  There's an anger and desperation tempered by a vulnerability that transforms the listener into someone rooting hard for Speech Debelle to overcome.  A rap album that uses almost exclusively true instrumentation as opposed to excessive sampling, there's a gorgeous jazz foundation that makes it a compelling, stylish listen that easily distinguishes itself from the genre's status quo.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Alice and Friends by The Box Elders (Goner)

The Quick Take: A truly fun, lo-fidelity/high quality, at times ridiculously lyrically clever album.  The Nebraska 3-piece isn't re-inventing garage rock, but the harmonies, hooks, and humor in this album make it worth the listen and ultimately a purchase.  And this album contains one of my favorite tracks of 2009, "Necro"--the greatest song about being in love with a dead girl you've ever heard--sweet, earnest, catchy, and funny as fuck.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Noble Beast by Andrew Bird (Fat Possum)

The Quick Take: Listening to Andrew Bird, I'm sometimes convinced that he and The Decemberists' Colin Meloy are conducting some sort of SAT word/obscure historical reference staring contest when it comes to writing lyrics.  Andrew Bird is a wordsmith in the class of a Nick Cave or Stephen Malkmus.  He may also be simply the most talented musician working today.  With a beautiful voice and an instrumental prowess to behold (the guy makes great pop records with a violin and the ability to whistle a la Axl Rose circa "Patience").  Noble Beast is a beautiful, sweeping album whose quality shines through in its poetry, its production, and Bird's challenging lyrics and melodies.  If you're a great musician, Andrew Bird's probably greater--but he never makes you feel bad about it.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

My Favorite 10 Albums That Weren't My Favorite Album (in no particular order!)

Primary Colours by The Horrors (XL)

The Quick Take: In all the years I've listened to music, I'm not sure I can recall a band who shifted so dramatically from their first album to their second album in such a positive way.  The Horrors first album, Strange House was a campy, zombie-themed album that seemed much more concerned about pandering to the sensationalistic British music press than it did about being good.  But Primary Colours is a focused, dark, powerful, passionate album that evokes inevitable, yet somewhat accurate comparisons to the tone of Joy Division.  Gone is the spastic joke of their first album and in its place is a serious, artful collection of songs.  It is dark, to be sure.  But it's epic and British and cloudy and cold and hard to turn away from and a reminder that bands can still surprise you when you least expect it.

The Non-Rob Review: Here 

Embryonic by The Flaming Lips (Warner Bros.)

The Quick Take: Speaking of paradigm shifts...After the sonic sugar sheen of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and At War With the Mystics came a Flaming Lips I neither expected nor was sure I wanted in the form of Embryonic.  After hearing "Convinced of the Hex" performed live on The Colbert Report, I feared that this would be album full of distortion and noise lazily labeled as brilliant art.  But I could not have been more wrong.  What Embryonic evolved into with a complete listen and repeated listens was the sonic sketch pad of a band that simply has no peers--there is no band that sounds, thinks, or creates like this band and this album was in many ways a view into their psyche in the same way that Kid A was for Radiohead.  There may be "better" albums by this band, but this album may be the best representation of the unique musical arsenal that they and only they possess; they paint with colors unavailable at any store and that's just how it is.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Winchester Mystery House by The Hex Dispensers (Douchemaster)


The Quick Take: Love is violent.  And bloody.  And messy.  But that doesn't mean it ain't romantic!  Austin/Denton, Texas' the Hex Dispensers get that.  And have turned it into punk rock music theatre--the sound of the Ramones only with lyrics and titles so audacious you're already kind of impressed just reading the liner notes alone.  "My love is a bat.  And your heart is a hemophiliac.  And I'm a glutton for your sugar, no I can't get enough," from "My Love is a Bat".  "Doomsday Romantic".  "I've Got My Doppelganger On".  Yeah, just trust me.  Get this album.  Fun like Ramones.  Written like a 19th century poet who will walk to hell and back and bleed for love  Sorta.

The Non-Rob Review: Here  

Years of Refusal by Morrissey (Lost Highway)


The Quick Take: "I was driving my car.  I crashed and broke my spine.  So yes there are things worse in life than never being someone's sweetie."  Lines like that are why Morrissey is Morrissey and why he has the unique ability to take the dark, dour themes of life and somehow make them inspiring in a perspective-bending manner.  Years of Refusal is a fine edition to his classic catalog and is characterized by quality from beginning to end.  With heavier guitars that harken back to the days of Your Arsenal (Damn, he knows how to title an album!), this is a Morrissey album you can really, really rock out to.  So if you need the thoughtful lyrics while still breaking shit in your apartment all by yourself because it just had to be broken because love ain't ever gonna find it's way to your doorstep and that's fine and people need to stop asking you about it because it's fine.  Fine.  Well here lies your soundtrack.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Real Estate by Real Estate (Woodsist)

The Quick Take: Much like last year's Primary Colours by Eddy Current Suppression Ring was an album that was about primal guts, tone, and rock 'n' roll feeling, Real Estate's self-titled debut is the exact same.  Except in a completely different way.  The story here is the music, the instrumentation, the tone, more than the lyrics.  Real Estate is a band that creates hazy, dreamy little songs that evoke sunny days at the beach and just a touch of the sadness that comes with the realization that they don't last forever.  A little Shins-y, a little Walkmen-y in their janglier moments, there's just something about this album.  It was the latest addition to this list, but I listen and have as much trouble describing why I am so drawn to it as I do turning it off.  A small gem.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors (Domino)

The Quick Take:  This album was my introduction to the unique grooves of Dirty Projectors and quite possibly my introduction to an entire sound.  With variable and seemingly ill-fitting and variable time signatures, classical instruments mixed with sampling, male and female lead vocalists, and a mixture of styles that range from pop to R&B to an almost tribal aesthetic, Bitte Orca is a myriad, beautiful house of cards that feels like it could collapse at any moment under the weight of its ingredients but yet never does.  Simply one of the most unique, melodic, brilliant albums I've heard in years.  I'm not sure Dirty Projectors can ever do this again, but I look forward to them trying.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Creaturesque by Throw Me the Statue (Secretly Canadian)

The Quick Take: In a crowded "indie-pop" field seemingly dominated by talk surrounding Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear, Throw Me the Statue's second full-length quietly shined for me.  Where Merriweather Post Pavilion is high art and Veckatimest is beautiful with moments of genius (though painfully slow and boring in parts), Creaturesque is simpler, more direct, and as hooky as indie pop gets.  Yet its layers of synth, drum machine beats, and the addictive vocals of front man Scott Reitherman never alienate the listener or fall flat.  Creaturesque is one of the sleepers of the year and more and more rewarding with each listen.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Invisible Girl by The King Khan & BBQ Show (In the Red)

The Quick Take:  Everytime I see these two in a music video or hear them perform, I think of the greatness of The Lonely Island's "Just 2 Guyz" (We're just two guys who are having a good time, having a good time, having a good time).  Full of inside jokes, perverse references, and a complete disregard for much that's serious, Invisible Girl feels like the long overdue reunion of two buddies who happen to also be gifted performers in their own right (King Khan and the Shrines and BBQ's--aka, Mark Sultan--emerging solo career).  But past all the bits and the often sophomoric wordplay are two men who make highly entertaining rock 'n' roll music in a way that almost no one does anymore.  Sultan's voice alone has always been straight out of a time capsule and is one of the best in all of music today.  King Khan has a charm and mischievous style that often belies his passion for every note he sings or shreds on his wicked guitar.  These men want to rock you, freak you, blow your mind to smithereens.  But this is fun for them and is therefore fun for you.  It's rock 'n' roll science.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Watch Me Fall by Jay Reatard (Matador)

The Quick Take: All that I can say about the recent passing of Jay Reatard was said in this post.  His final full-length from 2009 was a tremendous display of how far he'd come in terms of adding musical depth and how far he appeared to be going.  All the super-channeled anger, anguish, and passion are still there.  But the musical layers continue to grow and grow and you just get the feeling that Jay Reatard was on to something and figuring some other things out.  As I've stated several times, he is not for everyone.  But there's something there worth hearing and Jay Reatard would do anything to put it on tape.  If there truly is "a light that never goes out", his is an inferno that may burn quickly--but will almost certainly leave noticeable damage behind.  But probably in a good way.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World by Spider Bags (Birdman)

The Quick Take: A lyrical sampling: "Anything that starts fucked up is bound to end up that way." Yeah, the title almost says it all and there's no way of getting around it and Spider Bags aren't suggesting you can or should try to.  But as humans and consumers of music we've always found ourselves inexplicably drawn to downer records when we're sad.  Why do we do it?  Who knows?  But this is the soundtrack of your world falling apart with a foundation of country distortion haze, angry acoustic guitars and equally drunken electric ones.  Some songs are bar-friendly stompers, others are evening-only, lights out quiet little masterpieces of despair begging for hope.  But beneath all this is a beauty that forces us to pay attention and ask the tough questions we only ask of ourselves when we're by ourselves.  A cruel, gorgeous, raw, unclean mess of an album.  And one I can't shake.

The Non-Rob Review: Here

The Rob Album of the Year

Tonight by Franz Ferdinand (Domino)

The Quick Take:  Why Tonight?  Why Franz Ferdinand?  I would never have predicted an album by Franz Ferdinand could ever be my favorite for a year (though I've always really liked them), yet here we are, children.  But this album represents everything I truly love and value about music.  You can rock (rawk) to it, you can dance to it.  You can laugh to it, you can cry to it.  It is artistically stylish while accessible and fun at nearly every turn.  It is recorded by talented musicians unafraid to experiment but not foolish enough to muddy the waters with unnecessary pretense.  There are added sonic layers found in this work that suggest touches of New Order, but this is undoubtedly a Franz Ferdinand record.  Based around the loose concept of the story of a single night out, it brilliantly captures the restlessness, the desperation, the hunger, the thirst of finding something in youth--anything that makes getting dressed and going out worth something already.  Front man Alex Kapranos is tired of her shit but he has got to fuck her.  He is stir crazy and needs to find the next drug, the next club, the next thing that can help him avoid having to think about whatever it is anymore.  He's tired of being told he shouldn't be alone.  He is at once fine alone, but can't help but crave those moments where love or some related magic is a possibility (note the gorgeous album closer, "Katherine Kiss Me").  The album is full of themes of regret, defiance, hedonism, anger, humor, sex, sex, and a little bit of hope that something can validate why we repeat the same practices centering around socializing at night.

The Non-Rob Review: Here


And so the lesson is concluded, Kids.  As always, I encourage and crave feedback (mostly). And if you're interested in getting any of this music or have questions about any artists and the internet alone is not enough--well I'll be here.  Loving you.  Rooting for you.  Open up those ear holes and keep fighting the good fight for good strong hard great music.

The End of Christmas

I googled "end of Christmas" and this was one of the first pictures that came up.

Currently listening to: "Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers" by The National

Christmas night has always been my least favorite half day of the year.  And tonight is no different.

When I was a kid, I was sad because all the excitement of the month which had culminated in Christmas morning had suddenly disappeared.  And I could just feel it.  I could feel the inevitability of lights being taken down, of things getting back to normal, of magic going away for another eleven months or so.

And though I'm now thirty, I'm spending tonight in the same place I have for decades--my house in Highland Village, Texas.  We went to see a movie tonight and now we're home.  Everything is dark save for the Christmas lights.  Nothing is open.  The Facebook and Twitter posts have slowed down to a crawl.  No one is on IM.  I am left with me, my headphones, and this computer.  And thoughts of another new year.  And time off to not work and how great and terrible that is.  I have plenty of time to not think about work and plenty of time to think about my life in that "year end review" sort of way that feels like an HR annual evaluation.  Just left with too many damned thoughts on nights like these.  Everyone's in and somehow away.

Things are good.  And things are bad.  I want things to stay the same in a  lot of ways.  But I pray for some changes to come because I'm in need.  Christmas night, you suck.  Benadryl's crawling around in there.  I feel it.  Work.  Just start to work.

A Major Announcement

This picture is the official image of major announcements.  On this blog.

Thank you for joining me. There's no need to be alarmed. At least not yet. Anyway...I've started a new music blog for all my specifically music-related ramblings. I know, I know. You're thinking that with as prolific as I am on this blog that I definitely need a second one! I know, right? But seriously, this blog won't be neglected any more than it already is. That blog (Music Jerk Rob's Music Blog which you can get to by clicking the top link on the left) is just for music. Oh and the next chapter of "Rob at 30" continues this week. Please try to focus at work this week while you wait. I'm gonna get it all up in you real soon. Swear. For now, here's my most recent post in the new blog (and I swear I won't make a habit of this kind of shameless cross-promotion):



Love you. Happy Thanksgiving. Eat that pie. Yeah.

Rob at 30, Part 4 (16-20)

It's fun to pretend sometimes.

16. Everything is so gay now. Which for the most part is awesome. Let's all be who we want and do it to whoever and stick it wherever and express this and legally bind that and whatever. All that gay is cool. And awesome. And contributes to the diversity that makes our world so great and colorful and amazing and so rad and super gay. To that I say "yay" to "gay". So what "gay" can I do without? This. Thanks a lot, America.

17. An update on the July 4th makeshift slip 'n' slide drunken eyes shut soapy water in the face steel spike to the neck and chest incident scar. It's still there. And still awesome.

18. A few moments to discuss the concepts of "single" versus "alone". "Single" is a categorization. Please check the appropriate box. Single. Check. "Alone" is more of a feeling. I am single and just fine with that about 95% of the time. I have my moments or periods of dissatisfaction with the current state of my life just as I'm sure my married and "coupled" friends do--usually when I arrive back home at the Oklahoma City airport, for some reason. I am alone sometimes. But I know some of you people who check the other box who feel alone, too sometimes. Some of you, more often than me. I am happy, I am sad, I am amused, bemused, bewildered, annoyed, perplexed, frustrated, thrilled, etc. And I would be all those same human things even if I was "with" someone. I'd just have less money.

19. "The Count of Monte Cristo" is just the tits! It's been quite a while since I've invested my time in a "classic", but I'm really enjoying it. Dumas, unlike so many of his counterparts, knows how to be descriptive while still getting around to the damned point. Still waiting to find out if seeking revenge against those who’ve wronged you is a good thing or not. I’ll let you know.

20. A new Weezer album came out this week called "Raditude". Yep. Raditude. Sometimes the difference between rock immortality based on a short but brilliant body of work and becoming the kind of band that puts out a record called "Raditude" is a doomed plane flight that you didn't get on about eight years ago.

In Memory of Mildred

I'm sure you thought the day I contacted you all to ask for money would be the day I had finally been forced to pay for protection against some angry husband or to pay off gambling debts. But alas, I'm coming to you with a serious plea for monetary support. On the 24th of this month, I will be walking in the 2009 Memory Walk sponsored by the Oklahoma Alzheimer's Association. This AMAZING organization and effort was brought to my attention by my dear friend Keili Hicks McEwen who works for the association. This particular charity is of such great interest to me because as many of you know, my dearly departed grandmother--the great Mildred Warren--died three years ago (this October the 15th) of this terrible illness. She was a woman of tremendous dignity, intelligence, integrity, and character who was robbed of the quality of her final remaining years by the debilitating effects of this disease. I wrote about her and my experience attending her funeral extensively in a post at that time in 2006.

A few years back, I think I told the story of what I consider our "final moment" together when she had one last shred of memory where I was concerned. Visiting her at her retirement community in Texas, she looked at me one last time the way she had when I was a child and had spent every summer with her and my late grandfather in Beebe, Arkansas. She took my hand, looked down at our joined hands, then looked back at me and said, "This is us."

Even writing this now, I find it hard not be overcome by emotion. My grandmother was an educated woman with a Master's degree in an era of our history when married women from the South "didn't need to bother with such things". She established one of the first special education programs in the state of Arkansas for young children and never failed to give her time to the youth of her hometown. She was an accomplished piano player whose love of music has been passed on to her entire family. Any of you who know me or my brother can attest to this. She loved God and her family unconditionally and was as tough as any person I've ever known. She always carried herself with dignity and pride and to see a disease take so much of that from her--to rob her of the comfort of her memories of family and friends and a lifetime of education and accomplishment was the most unfair of fates. In particular, my mother--the other strongest person I know--dealt with my grandmother's final years as closely as anyone could. The pain it caused her to watch her mother pass this way was nearly unbearable and I never want to see that sort of pain in my mother's eyes again.

In that light, I'd like you to consider either making a donation to my fundraising effort for the Memory Walk which you can do by clicking here or by visiting the Oklahoma/Arkansas chapter of the Alzheimer's Association at www.alz.org/alzokar. Anything that we can do to spare other individuals and their families of this pain in the future is a worthy cause in my book. Thanks for your time and consideration. Hope I didn't get too heavy for you today. I love you guys real hard.

Rob at 30, Part 3 (11-15)

I exist everywhere and nowhere all at once. And it's blurry. And I like to stick my tongue out at you. It's just my way.

11. I recently returned from Los Angeles and it was overall a great experience. I think my host was less excited once I actually arrived in relative comparison to the pre-trip excitement. Like most things in life, the actual event rarely matches up with the hype and God knows I am probably more hype than substance at times. Having said that, it was quietly one of the best trips I've ever taken. I stayed so far outside the stereotypical version of Los Angeles that had stapled itself to my brain. And I found a peace I hadn't felt in ages--to the point that any anxiety I felt was generated by the mere fact that I was clearly a visitor and almost felt unworthy of the "coolness" I had found. And I don't mean in any way to suggest that the city or its people were snobbish or off-putting--in fact, it was quite the opposite. For a weekend, I watched very little television (a few DVD episodes of "The West Wing" were the lone exception), I walked almost everywhere, I ate great food, I cooked, I spent time on the beach, a great book store, a Dodger game, drank a little, went to an observatory, and just listened--to my friend, to the different languages people spoke, to the sounds of the beach and the city. It was beautiful and thought-provoking and I was in the unique circumstance of knowing I didn't belong but yet feeling a welcome guest by the entirety of the city. I would have liked more time but am somehow glad I didn't get more. When I arrived at the airport, a tangible sadness fell over me and I contemplated how my life could have taken so many directions while wondering if I was too fearful of change and whatever and all that shit. Who knows? I was probably just frustrated from being hard up. For me, the complexities of my consternation are typically rooted in the simplicity of needing to get laid more than I do.

12. So I'm thinking about moving for the first time in years. This is not the same thing as saying that I'm "considering moving" which implies that I've got a decision in front of me and an alternative choice of residence in mind. However, all this travel in the last year has confirmed that I still love Oklahoma City, but that I could be fine in some other place as well. So I think and fantasize and daydream of Chicago or Austin or LA and in all these scenarios the issue outlined at the end of #11 is of course magically solved and I have a kickass place and instantly make new, intellectual and witty friends and we hang out at my place and drink wine and discuss important issues and marvel at how choice my record collection is all while musing over liberal politics and the latest independent film that's only in limited release in like four cities (including the one I'm in) and I cook more and start jogging and reading UTNE and non-fiction accounts of war-torn countries thousands of miles away and blah blah fucking blah. And then I come right back to my old adage about not wanting to move unless I have a compelling reason to. Of course, I don't have a ton of compelling reasons to stay outside of my friends who are all starting to get into serious relationships and get married and all that shit and don't worry Rob, we'll still hang out and it won't be different but it always is and I get it even if I sorta resent it and--you know. All that. The moral of the story? I need more compelling reasons regarding my existence that have nothing to do with geography.

13. On a much happier note, I'm pretty sure I've fallen for the girl of my dreams. Many of you who read this know who I'm talking about. You also know that she's currently with some other guy, but don't worry about that. I don't think it's that serious and I feel like I'm winning her over slowly. A couple weeks ago, she came to my place for the first time. At the end of the night, she told me that I had the softest toilet paper and thought that that was SO cool. Baby steps. Baby steps.

14. From September 21st to October 6th, a span of fifteen days, I will have stayed in every mainland US time zone. As I type this, I am in San Francisco, California (ok, Oakland for tonight but San Francisco starting tomorrow). Somehow, I feel I get younger every time I travel west. It's just science.

15. Thursday will mark one year since I started this job. I have traveled approximately 40,000+ miles--not including car miles--since I started this job. I have really grown to love my job, but that's not really what is on my mind at this moment. The REAL question has to do with where I should travel to using all my frequent flier miles. The two choices at the top of the list? England and Argentina. Discuss real hard.

I am a sleepy little robot. In the real world, it's late. In California, it's kinda late but not as late. It's really more math than I care to do right now. Besides, being cool is a full-time job and takes all my Latino magical powers. I'm supposed to be doing expense reports right now. Here's an expense report for ya: Damn I'm money.