I remember the first time I listened to Tidal by Fiona Apple (which was years after it had originally been released) all the way through. It was amazing. So raw. I instantly loved her and have bought each album she has since released (all four in total). Her newest album just came out a couple of weeks ago and is just as wonderful as I expect out of her.
Being surrounded by professional musicians, there is no doubt of my musical ignorance. But still, every now and then I do come across some artist that does affect me, and Ms. Apple is one of them.
The other day I had my iPod shuffling through all songs whilst I cleaned and her “Extraordinary Machine” song came on. I had forgotten how great it was and thought I’d share it. It’s from the album of the same title that was released in 2005:
Did I mention that we were busy? I hope so. I hope the complete and utter lack of posting also showed that.
Let’s recap:
*On December 31st, 2010 we moved into a new rental house with a one year lease.
*In mid-April 2011, the owners of the house [heretoforthwith knows as Dickheads] (who had put it up for rent after
it wouldn’t sell when the husband’s job had him transfer out of state TWICE) called our agent to tell her that,
“Hey. The job is moving me back to [local city] and we want our house back.” Period. End of story. So begins
rental hell. With that came several months of neighbours-who-were-previously-sweet-and-super-friendly-and-who
we-later-found-out-were-friends-with-Dickheads [now to be known as Fatties or Assholes Next Door] constantly
calling and complaining about noise from guitars and band practice (they had been totally fine with it for four
months!), sometimes IN TEARS, and traffic from Ben’s students and grass being unmowed (for more than five days,
if it wasn’t mowed, they called our agent complaining about snakes–in a goddamned subdivision!!!). It was awful.
Truly truly horrendously awful. Our sweet sweet agent, who technically worked for The Dickheads, was constantly
apologizing for their retched behavior. Keep in mind, this awfulness lasted NON-FUCKING-STOP from mid-April thru
mid-September. (Including a story from September about me walking out of the shower to find The Dickheads
circling the house with open blinds.)
*On May 7th, 2011, our ten-year anniversary, we got married. It was a semi-elopement that we didn’t tell anyone
about (grandparents got 10 days notice to attend) and was more stress/work than anticipated. Because our
anniversary fell on a Saturday, that meant the courthouse was closed; which meant we had to hire someone; which
meant more money; which also meant we had to have a location in which we could be married; which meant more
money; we wanted to write out our own ceremony; which meant a fuckload of time and even more money…you see
where this is going? All along with the news that The Dickheads wanted to push us out. But you know, it was still
a whole hell of a lot of fun. Plus we had a badass four-day honeymoon of fun.
Sister made the most lovely star garland in our favourite colours for our location.
*Mid-May 2011–Very-Early-August 2011: When we got back from the honeymoon we started looking for houses to
buy…well, first we started talking about buying a house A LOT more seriously than we had planned on doing
(original buy date would be sometime in 2012) and then we started looking to buy. And we looked and looked and
looked and looked and said no to a shitload on the internet and viewed a few houses before rejecting them and our
sweet agent (that same dear hippie lady who kept apologizing for The Dickheads continuing harassment) was about to
give up on us when she e-mailed me one morning with a link to a newly-listed house and the subject line, “LOOK!
LOOK! LOOK!” and inside all it said was, “This one came up in my search this morning and it seems perfect for
you!!!” and it was ADORABLE! And looked so good!! And so very Us. We made an appointment for two days later to
view it and when we pulled up, Dear Agent walked out of the house and told us in no uncertain terms that if we
didn’t buy this house, she will fire us as her clients. Of course we loved it and of course we put in an offer and
of course we ended up buying it. And of course we are absolutely completely and totally head-over-heels-in-love
with our house. OUR HOUSE. It’s beautiful.
Hastily taken photo of front door seconds before we moved in.
I plan on writing a huge post about buying/moving with pictures of the house…but please, be patient for I will
scream if pushed to do too much too fast. My poor Rock Star nearly had a meltdown at the signing of the contract
for the bid for the house. Near. Catastrophic. Meltdown. My wonderful man does not accept change easily. But he
did. And we did. And at the first of August so we began the house-buying process. (Details to come, I hope.)
*Within days of putting in a bid, having the bid countered, signing the contract, having an official house
inspection, etc. etc. etc. we went on our already-planned 10-day vacation to see wonderful people we knew in
Virginia and to tour D.C. (I’d been twice, but my museum-loving Rock Star had never visited). After the incredible
stress of the first part of August, seeing my sister, my lovely and amazing friend, and Ben’s very best friend was
just what we needed to calm the ever-living-fuck down. We first saw Sister and her fabulous dog, Lizzy, then we
stopped at the ever-wonderful Erin’s house, then we trucked up to see Josh in DC. It was fantastic seeing my
sister as it always is when she lives too far away from me; and spending time with Erin is about as happy and
peaceful as any time I’ve ever spent. Josh was an amazing sport about letting us crash at his place and showed us
some wonderful sites (sights?) in the downtown area. With him as our guide we had some of the most amazing food we
had ever eaten. I’m so glad we know wonderful people who enjoy food and history as much as we do. We really do
have fantastic friends.
Happy Lizzy looking for a bellyrub
Me standing inside an Alexander Calder sculpture at the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden
Comet Ping Pong's The Smokey & The Yaley--HOLY SHIT! You have to try this pizza!! It's too good to be true!!
Ben in awe of ancient mummy in Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Josh and Ben about to enjoy the hell out of their Dogfish Sampler of various beers
*We came back mid-August (nearly bypassing my birthday entirely [cue: guilt and extreme sadface] and began to
finalize the closing and go through the entirely stressful closing process as well as the extremely stressful
packing-cleaning-moving-cleaning-unpacking process and let me tell you, we have a lot of shit. No. Really. I don’t
think anyone understands just how much shit two childless twenty-somethings can acquire when they live in a house
together for several years. It’s way too much. It’s embarrassing. But on September 17th, 2011 we moved in to what
(if we so choose) could be the last house in which we ever live. [cue: angelic voices singing heavenly tune]
*Since then we have cleaned, unpacked, painted, rearranged, cleaned, unpacked, painted, painted painted,
rearranged, unpacked, cleaned, painted, rearranged, painted, painted, unpacked, painted, tiled, painted,
rearranged and back to tiling and painting some more. That’s house stuff. And [re: hopefully/skeptically] soon I
plan on posting more detail on house stuff if only for my own records.
*October 22nd was the Homecoming Day for my five-year college reunion. Not only did the beautiful Erin come to town
to visit, but I got to catch up with some of my favourite old art alums (how fuckin’ snooty does that sound?!?)
and that was a metric ton of fun–plus we came home with a beautiful piece of art by the always wonderful Robin
Grace Venable who provided the alumni exhibit this year.
*BUT Halloween is our favourite holiday and last year we were in the process of looking for a new place and had
previously thought we would be moving in October and didn’t decorate at all and just threw a meager little
Halloween party. This year we knew we’d be only five weeks in our new house, but we couldn’t forgo the annual
Petler Inn Halloween Bash, so we invited costumed close friends to our transitioning house for an awful good time.
And the week prior, we participated in something we had always dreamed of doing…sort of: It has been a life goal
of mine (and now the Rock Star’s too) to die some gruesome grisly death in a B-horror zombie movie. Our super
talented friend, Ben (affectionately called Other Ben), participated in a local grindhouse-style horror trailer
contest to go along with a local Horror Fest our town throws each year, and we got to be the zombies!! We had way
too much fun making it, and even though Other Ben’s didn’t win on account of it being “too pretty” and “not
grindhouse enough” (although we counter that the genre he drew, “Knoxploitation” is AWFUL) it was still one of the
best ones entered and we LOVED it.
As for our costumes this year, we went all out for the zombies for the movie and were so focused on cleaning
up/painting/tiling the house before the party, that we didn’t even start to think of anything until seven-ish
hours before the party was supposed to start (with us having to work in between that time-frame). Ben went as
Rorschach from The Watchmen graphic novel and I went as a clean basket of laundry–I was particularly proud of the
crumpled dollar bill and wad of thread I hot-glued to my tshirt along with socks and a sock on my headband. Not
too shabby for last minute; my costume problem also had to account for being able to literally throw it on when I
got home from work in less time than it takes to pee (also accounts for the utter lack of makeup as I drove home
like a maniac and ran upstairs to don Halloween garb). Even though it was small and not-that decorated, it was
still an super fun time with awesome people. And we’ve already started planning out next year and the full on
epicness that will occur.
in zombie garb for pseudo-movie
That damn basket bruised my thighs, I was so sore the next day.
Funnily enough, to answer nerd questions everywhere, he wasn't wearing anything underneath that coat.
And with that, I have skimmed my life forward to present day. There is so much left out and so much more to add. And [WITH GREAT HOPE] I will get back into my regular blogging schedule; which is to say, two or three times a month.
Yeah, sorry I’ve not really been present at all. I’ve been super-duper busy. Fighting with my landlords (they want their house back WAY before our lease is due); sooner-than-expected talks of buying a house with each other, with our real estate agent; going on a quick vacation to Tybee Island/Savannah, GA that wasn’t really a vacation…
it was a honeymoon.
Because we got married. (eep!)
But we like to keep things complicated, so of course it was a secret marriage.
And I learned some things:
1. It’s reallyreallyreallyREALLY hard for me to keep my own secrets as I typically do not have any secrets and I’m used to just walking around and gabbing to anyone who is in range about what’s going through my head.
2. I do NOT handle stress well. Back in high-school/college era, I was a stress-managing machine–a good German through and through, I could itemize, list, and conquer with the very best of them. I have since turned to a life of mostly leisure and am now quite unaccustomed to a stressful way of living. This means that I turn into a little ball of bitchiness. It’s not fun. And it’s real fucking ugly.
3. I have no idea how women (or men) who plan full weddings do it. NO FUCKING CLUE. We had us plus nine people and a minister at a park on a Saturday morning and guys, it was just too much for me to handle. We didn’t even have invitations–just stopped by to visit grandparents and parents and let them know about it. Seriously, it was ridiculous.
4. Honeymoons are awesome. I mean, for real. In all our years, we’d never taken a vacation that was just the two of us. We’d always go along with our families or we’d plan trips with our friends, never had we traveled long-distance over several days just the two of us. And it rocked! We did nothing but sit on a beach and stare at the ocean for three days (fourth day we walked around Savannah), stuff our bellies with the most amazing seafood we could find, and have lots and lots of sex (sorry, mom). It was a blast.
So, hopefully, I’ll get back into regular blogging that I’m sure will be all about how awful it is trying to find a house. We’ll see.
I’ll leave you with our wedding announcement we posted after we got back. Made pretty much entirely by the lovely Rock Star:
So I came across this marvelous mash-up of the Billboard Top Ten Singles for 2010 (not all of them) and it has reminded me yet again why I have lost all faith in popular music. Watch it and be appalled:
Alrighty, even though we are totally NOT fucking hipsters. And even though we typically don’t dive in for the latest new gadget, and even though I’m a huge apple fan (although I do not own A SINGLE apple product). We both really really really really REALLY want the new iPhone 4. Really. Really really. So very badly. Want.
With the Rock Star at band practice, I typically watch two movies I’ve never seen before that dear ol Ben has no desire to watch. Tonight instead of a second new (to me) movie, I decided to watch an old favourite. And it’s beautifully ’90s and horribly cheesy, but I love Luhrmann (the director) so much. The movie, of course is William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
***Did you see how young they were?!?! ***
Although, I’ve got to say this: Romeo has always fucking irritated me. He’s so whiny. Does anybody else think so? He’s constantly moping about and crying over something. Romeo is the first emo.
There. Admitted I absolutely love a cheesy ’90s movie and somehow managed sacrilege on “one of the greatest love stories of all time.” Not bad for a Tuesday night.
–Although, honestly, I think the whole “love” aspect of the story of Romeo and Juliet is overplayed. But that’s a much longer story.
So, I should have been cleaning the house or folding the laundry or something equally productive and instead I find myself wandering all about the giant interweb and finding some neat/cool/random/bizarre stuff to share:
We love some Electric Six round these parts, but somehow, I’ve missed the amazing video to “Gay Bar”:
Although equally impressive and extremely bizarre this is the same band’s video for “Danger! High Voltage.”
I’m a die-hard fan of the not-so-motivational funny pictures that abound all over the internet, such as:
More can be found here and here.
The strangest things can make me sentimental, this video about the night the Berlin Wall fell, is one of them:
Here is a short clip about how a few people reacted to the fall of the Berlin Wall; even after 20 years, the voice hope and happiness is still in their voices.
(And a small political note: I’m quite disappointed in our President, who had enough time to go and fight for the Winter Olympics, however when Germany asked him last week to come and commemorate with them the 20th anniversary of the fall, he said, “Sorry, I’m too busy.”)
I am in love with the (hand-drawn, OMG!!!) animation in this video:
I L-O-V-E local commercials, especially so wonderfully well done and full of badassery:
