It's been a long silence, a long wait and, admittedly, a long stretch of doubt that said silence would be broken.

Now that it has, I find myself once again lying on my back, spread-eagled, mind reeling with the aching dissonance.

WELCOME BACK, PORTISHEAD

God bless you for not disappointing me after all these years

Come kids, smile a Nylon Smile, say please, and I might consider sharing

Done, and done. Goodbye and goodnight,- this marks coming full circle, if only to find that there are indeed tracks that lead out from the Circle Line. I am packing my fellow vagabonds, sinners and friends. We congregate in New York and set off, we'll see you there, if you know where to find us

x (marks the spot)

Read 'em (her) and weep, fools!

KILLING. Check that last one, yes, that is her with Devendra. Double whammy

HAHA K JUST HAD TO, GOODNIGHT(MORNING)

Mmmmkay, hi, 1:33 AM check in, The Second Sex is less french jargon and more (albeit stylized) sense than I expected, hooray for Francophile Alex. I mean I have to say that the uppity panache about it threw me off a little in the start, no matter how culture-vulture-ish we often proclaim ourselves to be, but I think I'm getting it, quite. Quite, quite. Going off on a tangent, do you not love the way the Brits use the word quite? Quite charming. Rather charming. Ooh. Rather. Now don't even get me started on rather.

I have this overwhelming urge to brush my teeth, tongue, and all the way down my throat right now. After ploughing through 3.5 chapters of De Beauvoir, we reverted to sampling Alex's newest stash of Djarum. Sat smacking my lips like a child who just discovered lollipops - have forgotten how good them Indonesians make Kretek taste - but then I went and over-enthusiastically OD-ed as usual and now my oesophagus feels like the dentist poured a half bottle of that wuss pseudo-anaesthesia they use, when they pull out your baby teeth, down my throat. Hence the need for Elgydium and the el cheapo Rite Aid toothbrush I bought at the airport when I was heading back for winter break. God I need a new toothbrush. Anyhoos, I'm contemplating climbing from Alex's bathroom window to mine. The effort of going down his stairs, across his porch, across mine, up my stairs, into my bathroom...you get my drift. 

So I think I'm saying goodnight to De Beauvoir for today. Alex is perving on Chan Marshall on his dilapidated Mac again. Sigh, Chan Marshall. See there's celebrities/models that are so airbrush-perfect that it's okay to obsess about them because everyone knows that they're really a whole 'nother species that are, well, not human. But the danger comes with creatures like Chan Marshall because the blunt bangs that often do part in the wrong place (like I'm sure some of yours do on windy mornings when it hits you smack in the face and you feel like Alfalfa for a minute when your fringe splits right down the center) and the lopsided, smirk-ish smile that reveals a little too much teeth and a little too little on occasion, and the slightly morning-after mascara and the freckles you're sure she has in many more places, and the stringy mismatched hemp bracelets that clash with the Karl Lagerfeld gifted clothes...that all speaks to you as if to say, "you could have me". One of those oddly accessible starlets you think you just might have a shot with if you bumped into her at a kitschy Kiva Han's somewhere and offered to let her have the last whole wheat bagel. Oh, the dangers of liminal reality/fantasy. Now I know you want to...unless you're stupid enough to never have heard Cat Powers/perved on Chan Marshall before. In which case don't even bother, she wouldn't talk to you even if you did bump into her at Kiva Han's, fools. HAHA mmmkay, this is a very long and skewed tangent.

Yeah 'kay I'm going to go wrestle with Alex for prime screen-viewing position for Chan Marshall Perving, my stupid Macbook (as aesthetically superior as it is to his) can't seem to get dibs on a decent amount of bandwidth to let me lust to my heart's delight on Google Image Search, so the prime alternative is to appropriate Alex's.

Happy pre-Spring Break, start packing, fools

xx

Big ups to Chun, he's coming to NYC x) Now we're talking.

I've watched A Strong Clear Vision another two times just to get myself in the right state of excitement in prep. for our stop-over in DC. The prospect of getting to see/touch what is arguably Maya Lin's best is...mind-blowing, to under-state things a bit. And we haven't even got 'round to talking about the trippy things under MOMA's roof this season. 

The only potential drawback of this week is missing out on Ok Go! up at Wyoming. You can't have it all, I suppose. Am thinking I should equip Matt with a couple of pairs of undies scrawled with KULASH!! in neon, to toss at opportune moments. Timi scathingly suggested today when I was (admittedly) whining about missing it that I should just put all five albums on loop and blast them on the Amtrak on Friday night to simulate the atmosphere. Okay PA-THE-TIC, Tims, that is just weeeaak. No matter. Eyes on the (VVM) prize.

Plan for tonight: Spice Island, followed by a woozy night next door ploughing through De Beauvoir. Hopefully Alex is as competent a francophile as he appears & claims to be. Because I have to make headway in this pile of shite by tomorrow morning. Have to keep Gender Theory on the back-burner while I search for my, um, ultimate direction. Speaking of that, just for those of you who are interested (note, this includes those who I force to be by virtue of forced information), Art History at Tisch is not completely ruled out yet. Kenji is going to give us an insider's preview when we're up in NYC, so...fingers crossed.

Okay bye

xx

I'm coming, Dave & Sah, I'm coming. Keep your pants on.

It's Vegan Brownie Night again at Roselawn #2. I don't think I can ever look at/consume normal brownies in the same way, ever again. These girls have to have had the single most tastebud-altering impact on me since all those years back when Mr Has-it-Easy/ZY pulled that three week long stunt of trying to shove salads down my throat on a daily basis. With friends like these, who needs nutritionists? 

Four days til Spring Break. Team Korea are driving me up the wall, all obsessed with hoarding bikinis/summer dresses/flip flops/fake tans in prep. for Cancun. What's worse is that the boys have more serious cases of Spring Fever than In Kyoung, Alice, Izzy & the girls. Saturday afternoon I spent close to four hours tromping around Shadyside, parking myself on various store benches (im)patiently giving Ron/Paul/Jay/SangHoon my two cents on which shades/shorts/wife beaters looked (I quote) "most fly". Only Korean boys would, ladies and gents, only Korean boys. In their defense, it's endlessly comforting/satisfying to see them parading around looking dishy in all their Azn Boi glory. Mad style, I say. The whole cap-backwards, boardshorts-halfway-down-ass, collegiate-tshirt look that the typical white boys sport for Spring is just so...done. Move over. Naturally, the likes of Jake/Jim/Alex etc. safely avoid the crime, so this is not a racial attack of any sort, kids. Meanwhile, while the Cancun bunch are piling up on shades and suntan lotion, we're digging out the "most fly" (hoho) winter supplies from the depths of our measly dorm closets. Will not be caught dead walking around NYC in sweatshirts and (gasp! the horror) North Face puffa jackets. Whoever said fashion is frivolous obviously knew, well, balls. Kids, make no apologies for dressing to impress. 

My subconscious is meandering and dipping on coffee, Kretek; also, my thoughts are with Kim, Shaun, Lynn, and a few others of similar importance tonight. A rather existential mosaic of their respective eclectic skies has been forming on my ceiling over the past hour or so. In particular, California Stars are hovering in the corner of my ceiling directly above my bed. Kim, I had a conversation with my World History TA Kevin from last semester (he mentioned he did Habitat for Humanity with you in your freshman year, I'm thinking) about the comparative superiority of Billy Bragg & Wilco over the latest wave of hipsters and I kept thinking: back of Jeep, California Stars. Spread a blanket and lay back, take it in for awhile for me, will you.

I finally managed to get a hold of that closing track at Chun/Jon's Saturday night that we only had a fuzzy recollection of in the last few minutes of our sobriety. Meaning, you owe me a tenner, Jon. Or should I say, beeyotch. I'm pretty sure this was it -

Eagle in the dark 

Feathers in the pages 

Monkeys in my heart 
Rattling their cages 

Found a way to blue 
And another ghost to follow;
Said, "It's only up to you" 
And that's the hardest pill to swallow. 

You never get to choose 
You live on what they send you 
And you know they're going to use 
The things you love against you 

One foot in the grave 
One foot in the shower 
There's never time to save 
You're paying by the hour 

And that's just the way it goes; falling awake 

Slipping through the bars 
Aware of the danger 
Of riding in the cars 
Taking candy from strangers 

And it's never out of hand 
Never out of pocket 
I'm Supersonic Man 
Do you want to buy a rocket? 

And that's just the way it goes - falling awake 

Eagle in the dark 
Feathers in the pages 
Monkeys in my heart 
Are rattling their cages 

I could learn to play the game 
I could learn to run the hustle 
If I only had the brains 
The money or the muscle 

xx