A dozen really good songs that might explain how I feel lately if you could somehow combine them all into one feeling, despite their disprate messages and questionable applicability to my situation, if you're thinking literally. A list by Summer.
Baby, Go Away - Mascott
Good Woman - Cat Power
Poison Oak - Bright Eyes
Person Person - Mirah
Rest Of My Life - Rilo Kiley
I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - The White Stripes
Taking Pills - Bitter, Bitter Weeks
Every Little Thing About You - Raul Malo
While I'm Still Young - Azure Ray
Back In Your Arms - Grand Champeen
Sunken Treasure - Wilco
I'm So Tired - The Beatles*

* = this song is actually perfect and singular, so if you can listen to it, you'll understand me.

Some things that cheer me up when I'm sad
My new label maker, which has me labeling things like the water faucet in the bathroom ("water")
Lots of pictures in an email from Rebekah
Lemonade
The Goldfrapp and Mirah CDs Albo burned for me
Michelle's Livejournal
Richard Bausch's short stories
Working
Sharpies
Hot Hot Heat
Thinking about Rilo Kiley being in a couple weeks, and Bright Eyes being in a couple months
Thinking about Dave Eggers' posture when he read
Ridiculous google image searches (always and forever)
Billy Boyd
Daniel Radcliffe getting older every day
VH1's Top 200 Pop Culture Icons of all time
Finding random Charades suggestions around my apartment
My bowl of hershey's kisses
My typewriter
Amelie

I finished "White Teeth" (by: Zadie Smith) last night and found it to be filling, surpringly mature, thoughtful, and rather sad at it's core. She is coming to BookPeople with Dave HOLYSHIT Eggers on Thursday and I really couldn't be more excited about it, especially now that I've read Ms. Smith's work too.

Then I stayed up reading the entirety of Adrian Tomine's collection of comic-shorts "Sleepwalk". I can't recommend his work enough. It's just so heartbreakingly real. I really can't think of many artists of any medium -- film, novels, television, music -- who capture the aching silences and akwardness of everyday emotion.

THEN I stayed up even later starting on my (probably brief) respite from modern literary fiction, a current events book (!!), "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning."

All this stuff I'm reading is sad and I have a playlist of hundreds of song to shuffle around while I'm here in my apartment alone, and really they're all pretty sad too. I started a sad letter to Josh last night and, sadly, left it unfinished.

But I'm not sad : I swear! Tonight I am going to listen to my friend Brad narrate the exploits of Daniel HITTINGPUBERTYOHSHIT Radcliffe as Harry Potter in "Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone." Brad made a two CD "audio book" to play while watching the mute movie and gave it to me for my birthday. It promises to be hilarious.

Plus I love my job (IlovemyjobIlovemyjobIlovemyjob) and I bought fresh flowers and rode the bus today (both fantastic ways to improve one's mood).

Plus The White Stripes as skeletons are adorning my front door, even though I missed the show, because a friend of my dad's bought stickers for me at the show in Houston. And this! This is what even really amazing things like "White Teeth" might be missing - this nice and pure SWEETNESS that keeps showing up in my life even though it's hardly recognized in anything I consume.

(save the way Holden Caulfield talks about Phoebe, the song "First Day of My Life" by those Bright Eyes losers, most of my favorite children's picture books, e.e. cummings' poetry, about half of Chagall's paintings, "Naive Super" by Erlend Loe, Rilo Kiley, Lloyd Dobler in "Say Anything", and Mo Tucker's voice on Velvet Underground tracks)

Sorry for the seriousness, humormongers (yes, I'm talking to you).

Remember when I turned 21?
Remember when Pirates of the Caribbean was the best movie ever, and Johnny Depp the best pirate ever, and Orlando Bloom the hottest ever?
Remember when I made sprinkle top cookies and chocolate covered strawberries?
Remember when I walked home with too many groceries and cut up my shoulders?
Remember when I turned down tickets to the Spy Kids 3-D premier which features a big carnival AND Antonio Banderas.
Remember when we played charades and one of Laurie's phrases was "Thug, Gangsta, Ho" and Michelle had to act it out and it was awesome?


I do.

Luke Wilson came in again today. He was wearing a mint green shirt. When I walked past him sitting in the coffeeshop with two men, one of whom might or might not have been Owen Wilson behind his beard and sunglasses, he looked up and I smiled and he smiled. It was a precious moment, and one I'm sure he'll never forget. Soon after, he left. I don't think he could handle the tension between us.

I went home sick at lunch. My chest feels like someone filled it with lava. Yuckso suckso.

But I am enjoying such things as:
my new Ghostface Killah CD
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
Cleaning
DOLPHIN and BEAR and STAR and DINOSAUR cake sprinkles from my mom
My typewriter (!!!!)
Anticipating shaking hands with Dave Eggers in 10 days
Playing games with the songs on my computer
The Clean
My mom's company
My soft Nirvana t-shirt
Adrian Tomine
Strawberry-Peach-Blackberry-Banana smoothie with Orange and Watermelon juice.

I will be 21 in a couple hours.

Things I've said in the last couple days:
1. I just remembered, I vomited on Michelle.
2. The ocean is dark. I killed a fish. It was a large fish.
3. Sweet home Alabama.

Things that people I know pretty well have said in the last couple days:
1. Summer likes to pick at herself.
2. Well, would you rather have bigger boobs?
3. Oh, you'll finally be old enough to drive.

Things complete strangers have said to me in the last couple days:
1. Don't scratch your leg.
2. I just woke up after three days of drinking
3. Book People are good people!

Things I Miss When Face-Face Is Sleeping
1. The Hulk
2. Putting photobooth pictures on Danny Dunlap's car
3. Frank & Angies
4. His talking face
5. Or, his reading face

Things I Get To Enjoy While Face-Face Is Sleeping
1. His sleeping face
2. Guilt free email/LJ
3. My new promos for the magazine I write music reviews for

Promos For The Magazine I Write For
1. Crazy Daniel-Johnston ripoff guy who sings songs called "Phospherescent Things" and "I Knead You" (not as promising as it may sound).
2. The new Cat Power, which I already had. Oops. (Who wants it?)
3. A new single from those crazy canadians, The Lucksmiths, who stand as Nick Rider and I's first connection as friends.
4. Some guy's "solo project" (no, you haven't heard of his group project either), whose album includes a song that makes me want to cry because it reminds me of Josh Gauthreaux. Also, he's pretty and Matt Pond sings backup on one track.
5. Royal City, a band with a cute logo and some creepy songs about blood and stuff. One of them is called "My Brother Is The Meatman"
6. A CD I haven't listened to, described thusly by The New York Times "Flare's haunting ballads possess a kind of stately, regal grace, sounding like The Velvet Underground's 'Heroin' heard through the dark New Wave visors of Morrissey." (Lou Reed via Morrissey -- YES)

A Small Sampling Of Acts I'll Be Seeing At This Year's Austin City Limits Music Festival
1. Spoon
2. Al Green
3. The Shins
4. Lucinda Williams
5. REM
6. Yo La Tengo
7. G Love & Special Sauce
8. Spearhead
9. The Beta Band
10. Ben Harper
11. The Dandy Warhols
12. Bob Schneider
13. Ben Kweller
14. Liz Phair
15. Hank Williams III
16. oh yeah, BRIGHT EYES

Things I'm Looking Forward To In The Next Week
1. Okkervil River / Explosions In The Sky
2. Sarah and Michelle
3. Seeing Brad and Susan and Albo and crew on the 5th
4. Plowing through all the great food I bought today
5. Turning 21

Also, Life of Pi is really good so far,
and 28 Days Later is scary as shit. Seriously. Plus just good. Really good.

I saw Okkervil River and Grand Champeen play a bunch of Neil Young songs last night.
Pretty awesome.
I'm a Mercury groupie because I am seeing Okkervil and Explosions In The Sky next week, and probably seeing Shearwater open for The American Analog Set in mid-July. I resisted the strong temptation to see The Pernice Brothers by myself there tonight because I didn't want to have to walk or bike home so late. And because I really can't afford any of this.


What I DID NOT SEE Was the White Stripes at Stubbs. That is because of a combination of tragedies involving having my keys in my pocket when I ride my bike, forgetting to lock the door and thereby forgetting them for the first time ever on Wednesday morning, and Cory and Logan leaving town accidentally still carrying my spare key. Said tragedy also involved the most annoying and incompotent locksmith ever, and my crappy apartment emergancy number being jerk-faced.
Sarah and Michelle went, and Sarah fainted.
Fate hates us all.


Books I've finished in the last month:
Notable American Women by Ben Marcus (Which wasn't that long, but which took me forever to read. Which was incredibly creative and, dare I say it, original, but which probably held my attention the least of all of these.)
Naive. Super. by Erlend Loe (Recommended to all, especially Nick Rider. Sweet, great. Salinger-esque to the point of rip-off sometimes, but still amazingly fun to read and smile-inducing)
The Effect Of Living Backwards by Heidi Julavits (This book hasn't come out yet, but when it does you should buy it. In a perfect world, everyone would read books this thought-provoking, well-written, and entertaining. About siblings, terrorism, sex, philosophy, manipulation, and pretending.)
Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (I love. Pure love.)


I'm now finally reading Life of Pi and I expect it to be every bit as good as the people say.


My birthday is soon and I have no plans and no ideas for plans. Oops.
But it is it's reward for once, because I'll never have to miss a show for lack of age again.

Foods That I Think Might Make Me Throw Up
(either because they have before or because of a premonition)
Blue jellybeans
Cooked carrots
Sausage
Old cucumbers that have become kind of clear
Too many flour tortillas
Beans, most of them, generally
Exotic cheeses

Well guys, today I alphabetized the "poetry anthology" and "literary criticism" sections, made an "endcap" with a TX poetry theme, saw Sarah and her mom, wrote some more about Josh Gauthreaux in my tiny journal, ate Frank & Angies spaghetti by myself, DISCOVERED THE BEST LITTLE BAND EVER*, bought "Lipstick Traces" and the new Believer magazine, heard Rebekah's voice, and rubber stamped my name onto some blank staff selection cards I'd taken home.

* = Bishop Allen -- bishopallen.com -- you won't regret it.



Tonight: More Godfather.
Tomorrow: Bright Eyes on Letterman.
Thursday: Um.
Friday: Houston. My dad's loft. Hamlet and his buddies. Mike Mogis & Conor Oberst. All in one day!
There's a lot going for me at the end of this week, guys, so you better WATCH OUT FOR MS. BIGSTUFF.



Mm, bye.

I saw Luke Wilson today.

Also, I SAW LUKE WILSON TODAY. HE WAS WITHIN FEET OF ME.

DEAR HARRY POTTER,
I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT. THANKS FOR BEING YOU.
LOVE, -SUMMER

Dear LJ Friends,
Were you expecting this :

	

	

	

		
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How compatible with me are YOU?

Last night the mini-gang and I went to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark : The Adaptation at Alamo Drafthouse.
Alamo Drafthouse, for those of you not in the Austin area, is one of the things I love most about Austin. The quick version is that it's a theater (used to just be one downtown, now there's three in Austin and one in Houston) that serves food. Like, real food. There's a bar running in front of everyrow of seats, and there's a waiter-flag system that allows you to order without interrupting the movie much. They have really good queso, salsa, pizzas, veggie burgers, ice cream, everything. Yum.
But even more exciting than the food thing is the special events and showings they have. I just have so much affection for their style. Here are some examples:

* Open Screen Night -- where they will show any tape under 10 minutes that the audience members bring in, but if the rest of the house doesn't like it they start booing and it's gonged. The stuff that plays all the way through is judged and the winner takes home a prize. Has included everything from animated shorts to funny-home-movies to improvised music video dance routines.

* Stag Night -- where vintage porn is shown without the sound and with live music and/or dubbing from local comedians.

* Mr. Sinus Theatre 3000 -- A Mystery Science Theater ripoff featuring three local comedians making fun of Terminator, Crossroads, Xanadu, Footloose, etc....

* Spaghetti Westerns with All-You-Can-Eat Spaghetti -- self explanatory.

* Weird Wednesdays. A *free* midnight movie, always something incredibly obscure, insane, and usually wonderfully bad.

* Rolling Roadshow -- Deliverance after a canoe trip, The Goonies in a cave, Jaws on Lake Travis with everyone floating on inner tubes, The Big Lebowski in a bowling alley...

The list goes on. They've shown Cool Hand Luke with all you can eat eggs, tons of obscure japanese action flicks, old 80s hits with trivia contests, they hold Harry Knowles' ButtNumbAThon, a 24 hour movie marathon... Alamo rules.

So last night we took in Raiders, which is (brace yourself) this shot-by-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark done by kids in the 80s. These three started when they were 9, 10, and 11 and finished seven years later. They paid painstakingly attention to detail, learning how to recreate all the special effects. It was really really amazing. Seriously. If you're in Austin, see it tonight or tomorrow at midnight. It won't be released widely for obvious copyright protection reasons. The filmmakers were in attendance last night and they told stories about their moms cooking spaghetti for 20 neighborhood kids in Nazi uniforms, of the director being taken to the hospital with a plaster mold all over his face (for the melting face part) that they couldn't get off his eyelashes and eyebrows, and of digging the special army truck out of a marsh behind the director's house (it didn't have an engine so they pushed it or towed it depending on the angle of the shot.

One of the most amazing things about it was that they didn't have videos or laserdiscs of Raiders for most of the production, so they just saw it a bunch of times in the theater and basically memorized it. The director kid spent the first two summers or production hand-drawing a storyboard for all 700-something shots in the movie, from memory.

Kids are so much cooler than everyone else.

Summer in Austin is imcomparable. I mean, I hate the hot weather -- sometimes I really feel like I don't belong here because my heart doesn't absorb the heat at all, it all just collects on my skin and burns. But Austin fucking comes alive during this season. Its like the hotter it is the more people there are on the street, smiling in flip-flops and tank-tops, eating a variety of frozen drinks. There's Amy's Ice Cream, Flip's Frappes, shaved ice from the stand at Barton Springs and Lamar, or a chocolate milkshake from Sandy's. Everyone is walking or biking with sweat dropping off them, or driving with all their windows down and local folkies blaring from inside. Everyone is walking and driving and biking, and seemingly all of them are going to or coming from Barton Springs, the guts of the summer culture here.

The energy is kicking me into gear.

I haven't written about Greenie (key adjectives : sweet, funny, great, missed, easygoing, beautiful)
I haven't written about Cory and Logan (whose fresh faces and photos and cooking and talking pleases me more than most other things, ever.)
I haven't really written about the mini-Bright-Eyes-trip.
I haven't written much about Sam.
I haven't written about meeting Jonathan Safran Foer.
I haven't written much about my new apartment.
I haven't mentioned my second letter being up on the McSweeneys website.
I haven't told Josh and Nick Rider how much I miss them both (which is : more than I've ever missed anyone)
I haven't written to Rachel or sent my mix CDs or told enough people I love that I love them
I haven't cleaned yet.
I haven't made decorations for my Cuban revolution endcap.
I haven't written all my staff selections.
I haven't made anyone really great CDs in a long time.
I haven't worked on crafts for my sale.
I haven't written my novel.
I haven't tested all my newer toy cameras, or really taken any pictures in months.
I haven't finished boingyboingy.com
I haven't returned my library books.
I haven't been very positive in this post.

A. Lots of stuff has changed all quick like a panther. But some things stay the same -- superheroes are cool and superhero movies make me happy, sloths are still spectacular and superior beings, and everyone's got a skeleton.

B. There's a movie called "All The Real Girls" that is fantastic. It's the best movie I've seen so far this year because it's funny, heartbreaking, pretty, and most of all because it is really startlingly real. Real, real, real. X2 was really good too. Um, yeah.

C. My top ten favorite (on more of a personal level than a critical level) albums of all time are
10. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco
9. Pink Moon - Nick Drake
8. Graceland - Paul Simon
7. Moon Pix - Cat Power
6. Fevers & Mirrors - Bright Eyes
5. Abbey Road - The Beatles
4. Blood On The Tracks - Bob Dylan
3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
2. Lifted or The Story's In The Soil. Keep Your Ears To The Ground - Bright Eyes
1. Blue - Joni Mitchell

D. All my lies are only wishes too, Jeff Tweedy.

E. I have new user pictures.

F. Sometimes I'm quite a crying mess. At least I know now that I'm still human.