your girl vs. gravity

A particularly clumsy day deserves recognition. In the course of the past 24 or so hours I have:

1. Knocked my head into the medicine cabinet.
2. Knocked my right elbow (think funny bone) into Historic Rhodes Hall. The stony, hurtful, exterior part. Don't worry, it's fine.
3. Slipped on my apartment's staircase and onto my right hip.
4. Scraped my right shin (circumstances still unclear).
5. Stubbed my left big toe on the coffee table.
6. Burned my right forearm with an an iron.

In conclusion, I am very lucky to have survived this long, and I am sure that, if current levels of exposure persist, I will be some kind of a superhero by the end of the week. Impervious to Minor Accidents Girl.

So what if I like pretty things.

I am not impressed by most photography. In my personal opinion, popular portrait photographers- Annie Leibowitz is an obvious target for critique, but I would also argue that Seydou Keita and even Milton Rogovin- are less artists than they are panderers to the cult of celebrity or black and white high gloss. However, when there's an installation or creativity or cleverness, I can get into a photograph. Yessirree, I can.

These are from Rune Guneriussen, and they are beautiful.


I love the snow. The sort of lamp post from Narnia feeling.


And how about some phones marching into the sea. Lovely.

Cymbals Eat Guitars

Do you know what day of the week it is? It's Tuesday. You've won a music post. Today I'm listening to Why There Are Mountains the debut effort from Cymbals Eat Guitars.


I picked this record for four reasons.
1. I have never heard of this band.
2. They were favorably reviewed on Pitchfork.
3. One track is titled, "Indiana."
4. I woke up wanting to read Moby Dick, and according to Ian Cohen, this might just satisfy my desire for something epic and dense. Otherwise, I will have to get my harpoon out.

I'm off to have my first listen. I'll tell you how it goes. Louis says I am overlooking my motherland by not listening to Fever Ray, but I'm not going to apologize. I'm only half Swedish, after all.

After a few listenings, I can relate the following: this record has that alternately dancey/creepy quality of the best Modest Mouse albums. There are enough catchy parts and enough slow parts, there's plenty of complicated instrumentation. There's enough guitar over orchestra to sound triumphant- I am that girl who wonders why everyone else is so over guitars. At nine songs, two over seven minutes long, it's an untidy little love letter to summer feelings. In conclusion, I can do my usual indie girl dance to it, and I plan on blasting it in my tiny parkside apartment with the windows open and the Atlanta breeze carrying it out over Elmwood Drive. I'll drop my desire to chase the white whale for now.

If you're going to listen to one song, I'd suggest "Wind Phoenix" with its horn reveille and xylophone calling you to frolic.

Your Girl in the Field

I started looking at houses on a whim, on a Sunday. It was just after Warren Buffet told me to, and just after Georgia springtime made me question why I would ever live anywhere else.

It was about two weeks ago? It's hard to say, but with my usual vigor I got caught up in the hunting part and managed to allow it to consume my free time. I do not know how this happens. I will state, for the record, that I am an enthusiast. I love devoting myself to a project. I also crave change and excitement, and I like to hoard my money and then dole it out on big purchases. Major purchases.

Is there a purchase more major than a house? I guess I could theoretically wait and buy an island. But in truth, in my head, home ownership is a kind of adult accomplishment Everest, and I want to climb it. I want to buy a house, paint it in shades of blue and white. I want to stick a weather vane on top of it. I want to sit, next to a fireplace, in a comfortable chair, and read.

This is a vivid imagining- I've had it since I was six. I know that mine is a generation of casual relationships, intense friendships, and nomadic lifestyle. But I've lived in Europe and Asia, and I've slept on air mattresses and the ground. The desire for permanence, and ownership, for something that is specifically mine, is maybe the most powerful of my midtwenties impulses. Don't judge me too harshly- I am a little old lady inside.

With all that enthusiasm for first time home ownership came a corollary fear- what if the housing crisis was the only time I would be able to buy a great house in a good neighborhood? Given my nonprofit career path, for all my hoarding, this might be the only time in my entire life I could afford a really great house.

Having just recovered from that delusion, I am taking a two week break from house hunting. I'm going to lay off the hard stuff- the craftsman style bungalows and the little brick numbers with awnings above their front doors.

My advice to you, if you start shopping now is:
1. You're a buyer, so you're in charge in this market. Don't let yourself get whipped into a tizzy by realtors.
2. Don't get worried that you are going to miss the perfect house- constant vigilance breeds incessant crankiness.
3. Take enough time to figure out what you want. Take the time to figure out neighborhoods and know where your nearest grocery store would be.

That's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow to listen to some music.

My domestic experiment, let me show you it.

My landlady is the sort who loves white walls. Her space in the house we share is alternating shades of novajo low and high gloss. She loves white walls so much she can't understand why anyone would want them a color. When I asked if I could paint, she requested a sort of paragraph report, explaining my plans, my reasons, and how I would revert the walls to white when I move out. After that, the review committee would convene to discuss the merits of my pitch. I felt the odds were stacked against me, and I was disinclined to write a grant proposal outside of the workplace.

Screw. That.

So a few months ago, inspired by examples on craftster and those cute, but pricey, Blik decals, I bought some contact paper at Home Depot for about $6. For my first project, I put tiny robots on a few of the cabinets in my kitchen. Check it:


I found a roll of silver contact paper, and I cut a stencil from some thin cardboard (think shoebox). I love the way they appear different shades of gray in different lights. It's a really subtle color against the white cabinets too, and I love when the robots surprise guests. Of course, as you probably know, I just like robots.

The great thing about contact paper is that it is designed to peel off without damaging the surface behind it. It is easy to cut, and comes in a variety of colors and patterns.

Emboldened by that success, I thought I'd increase the scale of my next project, and I decided to take on my terrifyingly long, blank hallway. I made an elephant.


It's huge! It took some time and effort, but it really was fun working out the kinks of things like shading with contact paper. I sipped tea, cut shapes and then stuck them to the wall. The sticking is really satisfying, as is watching a big picture appear on your wall, one line at a time.

Anyway, contact paper- it's amazing stuff.

This summer, I'm going to take some sewing classes. My mom gave me her old Singer, and I'm going to get the beast cleaned and tuned up and see if I remember how to adjust thread tension. It will be a noble pursuit- and I'll show you my seamstress skills as they progress. I can tell you're riveted.

I don't care if forever never comes because I'm holding out for that teenage feeling.

Yes, it's Tuesday, so you get another vainglorious music post, because Neko Case just released her new record, Middle Cyclone, and I can't resist the temptation.



First impressions- Look at her, amazon poised to strike from the hood of that muscle car. I'll admit I'm biased, but it's a great cover, half Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and half Joan of Arc.

Listening #1- I would love to hear a mash-up of Neko Case's "People Got a Lotta Nerve," which refrains with "I'm a man-man-man/ man-man-man-eater,/ but still you're suprised-prised-prised/when I eat ya," with Nelly Furtado's, "Maneater."

Subsequent listenings- The thing you have to understand is, I appreciate Neko Case's gruesome imagery at least as much as I love her voice. On this record, there is no holding back. The aforementioned song, "People Got a Lotta Nerve" is sung from the perspectives of dangerous animals, a kind of sequel to her song, "The Tigers Have Spoken." In both these songs, the narrators are misunderstood for being a big, scary predators- eventually they are destroyed for being just what they have always been (read: man eaters). Gratifyingly, their captors get mauled first. Neko Case, one can conclude, feels and sings like a caged animal, howling for freedom in her gorgeous voice.

The opening track, "This Tornado Loves You" is what it sounds like, a love song from a tornado, ripping up countryside to prove its ardor. "Prison Girls," achieves a sense of looming danger, and lets Case play with a Mata Hari sound. In "Polar Nettles" she sings of a wish that the Sistine Chapel be repainted with gatling gun fire. A melodramatic line, certainly, but ear-catching just the same.*

A personal favorite is definitely the self-chastising, bitter, "The Pharoahs." That country standard of the exceptional woman stranded with a cheating, unworthy man is reborn as Case opines, "I want the pharoahs but there's only men," and the tremulous harp in the background gives way to carnival sounds.

On the other hand, you do have an unimaginative and preachy cover of "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth." There is also a 30 minute final track of marsh noises, but both fit with Middle Cyclone's themes of wildness and nature beyond our control. In short, it's a great album, worth attention and time, and it would make any Tuesday better.

* Understatement is for lo-fi loving twee suckers.