I don’t want to give my sad pack of GOT readers the impression I am not spending many, many hours writing things on the internet. So here is a thing I wrote today:
>> Feminism has turned women into giant sluts–and we love every minute of it! on HeartlessDoll
I used to love waking up to this view from Deep Ellum.
(play) just be simple :: songs:ohia
// why put a new address
// on the same old loneliness?
A new city. A new apartment. The same angsty, whiny heart. But it was my angsty, whiny heart! That’s something, right? Remember that time when you were the first person ever to get their heart broke?
// when it’s time to get going
// when it’s really been so long
// that it starts showing
This song is on so many patios. It’s been sung to so many beers and glasses of whiskey. It’s been re-started and played (one! just one more time!) to so many new friends.
“Hold on! You missed the best line!”
// everything you hated me for
// honey, there was so much more
// I just didn’t get busted
The semester begins anew, and I haven’t done nearly as much girl-on-topping (blogging! BLOGGING, PEOPLE!) as I’d like.
Maybe I will be back soon with more of these wordy things.
I’m headed to Washington, D.C. this week, and I welcome suggestions and recommendations from my GOT readers as to what I should entertain myself with. I’m traveling with a friend who will be mainly business-oriented, so it’s up to me to fill up my days. I am a history hound and plan to spend much time at the Smithsonian museums, but as far as bars, restaurants, galleries and what-have-you, I am at the mercy of the city.
And if anyone has the lowdown on where I might catch a couple minutes at a comedy open mic, that would be appreciated, too.
Where do you like to drink, eat and play in our nation’s capital?
I should have posted about this sooner. I’m featuring at the Velveeta Room in downtown Austin tonight. Jimmie Roulette headlines. How good is Jimmie Roulette? So good that I sit and watch his entire act every single time, even though I know his jokes. He is phenomenal.
Shows at 9:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Cover’s $5. The Velv is at the corner of 6th and Red River, next to Esther’s Follies.
March, 2004. The third leg of a trans-Western Europe middle class white American kids finding themselves kind of thing.
barcelona? nice? we were three sheets most of the time, anyway.
Seven hours packed into a standing-room only entryway compartment.
Really, this many people need to get to Salzburg?
I spent my spring break on trains.
// Curse missed opportunities
A seat opens up somewhere in the Austrian Alps.
There’s plenty of snow on the ground. The window is a white blur, sometimes.
Texas has no snow. New York has slushy snow. Austria has crystal snow.
// Nothing else compares
If I lay down, all I can see out the window are sharp mountains and the occasional little red house.
Actually, it’s hard to see. I have fucking pink eye. Fucking pink eye on fun, sexytime-with-euro-boys vacation.
The piano riff matches the train’s rhythm.
And then it doesn’t.
Europe’s main attraction: we can drink legally just about anywhere.
And then it does again.
Mel hands me her iPod (the one with the fancy new wheel, maybe) from two rows up. She wants me to hear this Phoenix song.
(play) if i ever feel better :: phoenix
// Remind me to spend some good time with you
my senior photo
Ragland Road runs from Highway 360 to the outskirts of Mansfield, Texas, to the golf course neighborhood where I spent my later formative years wearing Adidas and generally regarding everyone apart from myself and two or three other fellow Jnco enthusiasts as incredibly stupid. I was a proud and passionate Christian popular kid at youth group.
I drove a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle. Bright yellow. Ragland Road had some hills.
UP! Fast, fast, fast, go four-cylinder, go!
It was the fall of 2001.
DOWN! Coast, coast, coast, little bug!
UP!
DOWN!
Windows rolled down, hot Texas air breezing through my messy, thoughtfully edgy take on Princess Leia buns.
Stu made me this mixtape. It had this, and Def Leppard, and probably some Korn.
// In a world of human wreckage
Speeding by two-story brick castles with six bedrooms and day-laborer lawns.
// When I’m lost and I’m found and I can’t touch the ground
// I’m plowed into the sound
“Andie! You take that corner too fast. You need to slow down.”
[I wrote earlier this year about my fascination with what I call "memory triggers." Artifacts/pieces of material culture/expressive culture/discourse/objects (songs, smells, photos, places, textures, what-have-you) that call up particular memories and, as a result, seem to prompt a variety of physical and/or emotional responses, real or imagined. As 2009 comes to a close, I'll be writing about memory triggers that remind me of moments from the past ten years. Have some of your own? Link me. Or send them in and I'll publish them here.]
in the barn/photo by brian harkin
I was getting in my car to take a friend to the airport this afternoon, and Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right” was fading out on the adult contemporary station. I only needed to hear it for a few seconds before my mind took me somewhere else: Dallas, 2007.
//
(play) Say It Right – Nelly Furtado
It’s the drum beat that registers first.
And then an argument. This song is great! This song is boring. Two against one, my team wins. This song is great.
We turn the boom box up.
Dallas, Texas. Off Greenville Ave. A renovated shed filled with discarded photography equipment. A bottle of J&B and a furry white cat named Gandalf.
Orange. Big, big orange. Big, orange paper backdrop. The flash of a camera.
Laughing. Drunk. New friends.
I had pink hair.
They called it the barn.
// Oh, you don’t mean nothing at all to me.
I felt like a grown-up.
// But you got what it takes to set me free.
// Oh, you could mean anything to me.
He did, and he didn’t.
Why was the cat in the barn?
A lot has happened this year. A lot I clearly haven’t written about here on Girl On Top, as I’ve been preoccupied with school and freelancing and feminism and generally trying to shut my brain down during the few available moments it hasn’t been required for use.
But maybe the best thing that happened to me this year was the discovery of this song, courtesy of my friend in American Studies, she of the theorizing about the use of space, Susan Quesal. Many a barefoot and whiskey-fuel’d dance party has been had at the insistence of Mr. Leo Sayer. Say no to this man. Try it.
And maybe the second best thing that happened to me this year was the acquisition of a Holga camera, courtesy of my friend at the Dallas Observer, she of the editing the calendar section, Merritt Martin. I’m only on my third roll of film, but someday, maybe by rolls thirty or forty, I’ll learn how to use it. For now, it is an excellent grown-up toy.
Expect to see more on Girl On Top about Austin wintertime life and cats and music and travel here in the coming weeks. I’ve got a trip planned to Washington, D.C. in January, and I’m hoping to see some snow and a ridiculous amount of old shit at the Smithsonian. And in the back of my mind, I’m already planning jaunts to Las Vegas and New York City and London. Who needs a disposable income?
Blog, I feel as though someday I will be paying for your therapy to overcome your abandonment issues.
I'm Andrea Grimes. I am a writer, a Texan, a comedian. An anthropologist in training. I'm an internet addict and cat lover, reluctant adventurer and budget traveler. Mostly, I'm a freelancer available for assignment anywhere accessible by plane, train, boat, submersible or mind-altering substance. I can be reached at andrea.grimes (AT) gmail.com.
|
