For those who haven't seen it...

This was viral about a month ago, but I can't stop thinking about how great Katie Couric sounds. Get it out, about a minute and a half in.

There are so many things I like about living in Indiana. Perhaps because Indiana is still new and somewhat novel to me (I live where? really?), or perhaps because it's unlike anywhere I've ever lived. Anyway, I enjoy soaking up as much Hoosier culture as possible.

While my family was here I got a huge kick out of going to Story, which is a town that is only an Inn with a restaurant. We had brunch, biscuits and gravy, apple butter, and moved directly into beer on the patio taking in some good roots music from Aaron Persinger and Leon Chance. Funny enough, I had been emailing Leon for a little while about persimmon pudding and was glad to have a name for the face. Plus it was perfect to sit in the shade with Molly and Kate and listen to dudes in blue jeans sing the songs of John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and the like.






She looks happy, don't she?



My dad looks slightly confused.


I also got the chance to introduce my family to two of my favorite friends, who welcomed us for dinner, wine, and music out in the country. We took a short walk to go visit the ostrich farm nearby. Secret treasures.




They look pretty happy don't they...





Of course, there is also a fair amount of ridiculousness in this town. As evidence:


$20? Seriously? Jesus Christ.

Things I have NOT posted

Summer is in full swing. Birds are out. Flowers in bloom. I just saw a girl ride by on a bike in a skirt. It's summer in Bloomington.

**

I want to go to California. As in, I want to move back to California. Last weekend I went to the going away party for two amazing women in my department who are moving to Cali for disseration research, and I started thinking that I too, will eventually leave Indiana.

**

To say I've been in a mood lately is an understatement. In the past few weeks I've had to endure some rather heady and annoyingly persistent questions about what I want in life, how to deal with life, my future, blah blah blah.

But who wants to hear about that in vague terms? Nobody, and since I have no interest in going into details, let's move on.

Tone: set.

The people I surround myself is critical, and generally I think I've done a damn fine job of getting to know amazing people.

My friends can tell I'm down. But they can't do anything about it. It's not that they're bad, uncaring people, they just can't do anything about it.

I have one friend, perhaps my greatest friend, who said to me, after hearing about all that has been making me sad, "you must feel in a pretty lonely place with all that."

His full little brain

He hasn't been going out much lately. He stokes the fire, pulls his hat down low, and settles in with the vast history of America laid behind him, the limitless possibilities before him. His dad used to sing him corridos to get him to fall asleep. Nando can remember them in his dreams, but in the morning their gone like mist off a still lake.

Nando is tired from reading, but kept warm at night by the books that surround him.

Before he falls asleep at night, he hears his father's voice begin to sing, and for a few brief moments he images all that will come in his life, as he gets taller and taller, standing on the shoulders of giants.

I say you were born up in the sky

Molly is a very respectable person.


Sometimes...



Today is my sister Molly's birthday. This has been my soundtrack all day and will serve as the soundtrack to this post. There is so much I could say about her. Those people lucky enough to have close relationships with siblings might know what I'm talking about, but it's hard to think about my sister without thinking about myself. We are very much two halves of the same coin, an explanation to the nature vs. nurture question, and in her I see so much of who am I, and distinctly who I am not.

When I last sat in on their radio show, Molly pondered aloud where my interest in black country music came from. It struck me as either a moment of tremendous humility or outright obliviousness. Nearly every good thing I've got in my personality I got from either my parents or my sister. I exhibit few (if any) positive traits that can't be traced to someone in my family - I include Kate in this scheme. But the interest in black country music seems like a perfect synthesis of the love of music Molly and I were raised with combined with the interest Molly developed of black history and culture passed down to me.

There are a million ways in which she's influenced me. But that's not what I'm thinking about today. Today I'm thinking about the way we communicate, which, even within our family, is unique. We basically talk to each other using various references to movies, TV shows, and songs. We're the ultimate post-modern siblings. Kate one wrote a song about us called "Hour from LA" that included the line "If I start a line from a show, you know how the rest of it goes..."

Yep. Pretty much. Except sometimes not.

Earlier today Molly posted something on her fb that said "if there's one thing I've learned after all this road it's that you don't know as much as you thought you knowed." And I couldn't think of what that was for the longest time. I could hear it in my head, sing it even, so I knew it was a song, but couldn't remember where it came from.

Sadly, it was a band that I know well. Rev. Peyton and Hid Big Damn Band. I mean I know them well, as in, had hot dogs and pasta salad at their cabin last week. But it was a funny reminder of how Molly and I communicate about music too.

See, Molly and Kate discovered the Big Damn Band before I did. They put a couple songs on a mix for me. I heard them and promptly forgot where. Then I saw them last fall, and ran home to call Molly and Kate to tell them about this amazing band I'd just discovered.

I must give her an ulcer sometimes.

I hope everyone has something they can communicate with the way Molly and I do. It's pretty damn impressive. I mean, there are certain movies we could perform verbatim if asked. (Please ask! Please please ask!)

Here's a taste of pop culture references that exist out in the world, that most people may know, or have passing acquittance with, but sustain me. Especially on night like this, when all I want, more than anything in the whole world, is to be sitting in my sister's back yard with her around a fire.

I know this is an often cited topic in my posts, but Maine has now legalized gay marriage. It's fucking dominoes here people! Nothing is if anymore. It's all when. I can't wait until Molly and Kate have a kid. They're going to know all the right songs to sing to it.





"It's not the thing you fling, it's the fling itself."

Ain't that the fucking truth!




This has to do with a certain Mexican ventriloquist we saw in TV in New York a long time ago.



If you don't know my sister, I hate to tell you, but your life suffers a little bit from it. I would be completely lost with out her. In fact, we really only have one pact in life, which is that she's not allowed to die before me. Of course, I think I have the same pact with her, which will prove problematic. But I guess only for one of us. Sing it with me "It sucks to be you..."

Molly has been super stressed out these past few weeks, and I hope she gets what she wants for her birthday. I hope that more than anything. But tonight I was watching the movie that hits home like no other, and was tremendously comforted by a big picture take on things.

It's all going to be okay. You know, comparatively.




I'd write more but I'm not hung up on this completion thing.

Stress case/so much to think about

It's that time of the year, which didn't hit me until today. Well, last night really. But today started terribly, waking up early due to a anxiety dream (I'm like Chris in the Morning when it comes to anxiety, rarely feel it so don't know what to do with it), and gave me an early start, which lead to the library.

Somewhere along the way things started to snowball as I started to put my incoherent thoughts together for final papers due next week. Nothing gelled. Everything alludes to all that I don't understand. Etc.

I got so nuts I ended up missing class by accident. I suddenly was late (owning a watch might help) and decided to try to keep working rather than catch the end of class.

Hunger eventually took over and I came home, made some food, and turned on the TV while I ate. Only to be confronted by a show about the very issues they were discussing in the class I skipped.



Thus, I cannot escape the mountain of thinking I have to do about that which I'm supposed to be writing about right now. I've been reading Bill Ivey's book on public arts policy, and this movies, combined with the half of Ivey's book I've read rattle my brain.

I should also write about the a-maz-ing people keeping me afloat, how much I miss other people, how grateful I am to have my friends in my life, but that kind of think deserves much too much time, and I don't have that right now.

Resume stressing out.