Take a breath...pause. Clear my mind; I could use a little Zen brainkeeping these days. Some yoga, some more sleep, some something. There's this moment of pleasurable emptiness when you're totally engrossed in knitting, as if your hands have completely detached from your body and are working independently from your mind. The way I am right now, I feel like I'll never be able to reach that mini-nirvana again. No sir, Samsara Central over here. Part of the trick, I think, is being able to believe that you can achieve it. How very self-help that sounds, but it's true. Call it faith, call it whatever you want. I know I'll emerge on the other side of all this eventually. Phoenix, meet flame. Flame, meet phoenix. Sinead O'Connor Lion and the Cobra songburst, get out of my head. Damn. So much for serious thought tonight, I'm back to my inner late-80s songbook. Not that I've much time for either, given current responsibilities.

If it's any consolation, I've been working through alternate endings to my novel. (No, not a choose your own adventure...really, now! Child of the 80s, yes; slave to the 80s, no.) I'll be ready to commit to "paper" soon. I do all my best writing after a period of extended thought -- then everything purges itself from my brain in one fell swoop.

How indie rock college radio shows get named. (edited for brevity's sake, click link for the whole thing)

joannavaught: stefan needs a name for his radio show.
le elly: howabout "stefan's radio show"
joannavaught: he's currently leaning towards "czech for rabbits," which i think is lame
le elly: everyone will think it's "check for rabbits"
joannavaught: right.
le elly: what is the content?
joannavaught: of the show? oh you know. indie rock of the stefan variety.
joannavaught: more whiny boys than usual
joannavaught: more punk rock girls than usual
joannavaught: but standard indie rock for the most part.
le elly: INDIE HEAVEN
joannavaught: oh i think he'd die before having indie in the title.
le elly: SZAJICS WORLD OF WHINY BOYS
le elly: "welcome back to szajic's whiny boy hour"

Tara of Plain Mabel pointed out this happy link while we were discussing whinyboy indie rock once upon a time...and the fact that my high school boyfriend was emo before emo existed. Before my now- darling one knew the current definition of "emo", he thought perhaps it referred to a subculture of people who dressed up like Emo Philips. Then he found out what it really meant and decided he liked his definition better. So do I.

A Conversation About Emo From My Saved IM Logs:

me: emo is just like the straightedge stuff we listened to in high school, but mucho wussier
Tara: waaay wussier. boys cry at emo shows.
me: no!
Tara: yeah, totally. and they do cry -- i saw it happen when Texas Is the Reason opened up for Jawbox in Philly
me: oh no
me: no no no no no

Sorry for the lack of updates; personal crisis hath intervened. Meanwhile, you may gaze in wonderment at the best website in the whole entire world, recently relaunched. (Not that I'm biased or anything...)

This latest version even has a blog. Will wonders ever cease?

When the site you are now reading was a mere slip of a girl, its colophon thanked dear Rednever Art & Design for a "steady supply of Vitamin 3-C these past 10+ years (coffee, cigarettes & crankiness)". It's now been 14+ years. He still supplies all of the above, plus much more, and I'm fortunate to have him around. Besides, he named this website, didn't he? Or rather, he re-named me...

Spring sprang today, but unfortunately it's supposed to snow tomorrow. To cheer myself in the face of surely-arriving frigid doom, I ordered this year's garden seeds, some of which are pictured here...their end products, anyway.

While we're on the topic of freshly sprouted, gorgeous living things:

aka Jonah, my friend Hiromi's 5-week-old. You don't even want to hear the robbing-the-cradle jokes my mother made when she heard I had "brunch plans with a newborn." If ever anyone accused me of being a perv, it just goes to show they haven't met my mum. Jonah was exceedingly well behaved, and appears to have a long and profitable career ahead of him as a contortionist, perhaps in the Cirque du Soleil. I thought I was flexible! He'd have his neck twisted far to the side like something out of the Exorcist, one hand behind his back, an arm on me in the opposite direction and his legs akimbo -- this is how he was SLEEPING. Funny. Anezka gave him the sniff of approval test, too. (she loves babies) I think she was pleased to finally find a human smaller than her. Also, Johnny D's had the perfect asparagus / swiss cheese omelet, as well as cranberry pancakes with walnut butter. A lovely day all around. Now, if only my other site was complete and I had a million dollars and a pony.

(My housemate wrote me a check for a million dollars and a pony last month, by the way. Think his bank would honor the latter? Would it be a pony of my choice, or of theirs?)

My favorite new online toy: a dress-up doll by Kathleen of Intershadows...who, incidentally, is doing some work for my other site. She rocks, her comic rocks, but the dress-up doll? It's the absolute greatest.

Next favorite new software toy: Export Artwork, an AppleScript application used with iTunes to extract album art from ID3 tags. Better still, it can fetch album covers from Amazon using their webservices, then embed them to the tags. Now I can see all the covers in the lower corner of my iTunes as they play...

More fabulous music news: a Magnetic Fields show in Boston this May! I bought my ticket today -- thanks to Sooz for the heads up.

One more tidbit: Martha Stewart's attorney closed with the cheesiest thing I have ever heard.

I ask you to acquit Martha Stewart. I ask you to let her return to her life of improving the quality of life for all of us. If you do that, it's a good thing.

I'd convict her just because I can't believe he'd pull out that line. What a weirdo. I bet she'll be rethinking paying those legal bills when she'd behind bars. (Imagine angry Martha face, like in the TV movie version: "It's a good thing? IT'S A GOOD THING?!")

Mark my words. This is a sure sign those bastards (and by that, well, you know who I mean) have bin Laden in custody and will be trotting him out just before the election.

Now, all we can do is form a betting pool. Any takers?

Places I must be, even if I have to sell valuable internal organs to do so: the Coachella festival. Ok, yes, the Pixies, Pixies, Pixies, but also the Cure (ohmyGod, the CURE!), Belle & Sebastian, Kraftwerk, Le Tigre, Stereolab, Future Sound of London...just for a start.

Mrrrow.

Spam of the day!

Dear user of Bitter-girl.com,

Your e-mail account will be disabled because of improper using in next three days, if you are still wishing to use it, please, resign your account information. For further details see the attach.

Best wishes,
The Bitter-girl.com team

Wow, did I drink last night or something? How did I miss sending myself this email? After all, I'm the only user AND the staff -- the alpha and omega of bitter-girl! As my mother would say (taken from an old SNL Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey sketch): "And then...you're drunk!"

Sometimes it's just too easy to find things to giggle about. Like this, for example...

Upcoming events which promise to be even more fun, but with a less strict dress code:

• Choo Choo La Rouge at TT The Bear's on Friday 5 March
• Harvard v. UVM hockey playoffs, Saturday 6 March. My entire house will be there, getting booze-soaked, to support my maple-syrup-blooded housemate's college team. (Suck it, Harvard!) I miss college hockey games. My housemate was OU's rink DJ back in the day, and after every goal: Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll, Part 2." Those were the days...except now I can drink legally.
• Freezepop record release party at the Middle East Saturday 27 March

In other news, I nearly burned my thumb off last night -- ouch -- and my friend Marisa was on Jeopardy! today. It aired here before I got home from work, though. You can see her contestant bio on the This Week On Jeopardy! section of the site.