Cherry

[ratatat - cherry]

I am going through an "instrumental"ish phase. This song is amazing. I would highly recommend listening to this album (self-titled) with the volume turned up.

(via)

Greenland is Projected As A Giant Land Mass But In Reality It Is Not

Laurrrrita Wooley Mammoth showed this to me when she was in Montreal.

This is a map of the world. Did you know there are more than one different projections of maps? I did not, which was probably naive of me. Forgive me for thinking that map making might be objective/accurate.

The photo above is a mercator map. You might recognize this type of map as seen in all your classrooms, my bedroom which probably never been in, textbooks, etc. It has its uses. It's good for navigating the seas. It shows the shapes of countries accurately. But it also distorts the size of countries the farther away from the equator they are. For example, in this map, Greenland is almost as big as Africa, when in reality Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland. The problem with the mercator projection is that it tends to make the West seem a lot larger than it is. Does this sound like some sort of familiar colonialist rhetoric?

This is the Gall-Peters projection.

If you notice in this map, Greenland is tiny, and Africa is HUGE. China is HUGE. Brazil is HUGEish. And Europe, and Canada, and the United States got a little smaller.

This is apparently what the actual size of countries are. I don't know. (I'm finding it a lot harder to trust map-makers now). It's likely that I'll never know unless I find a way to go into space and position my rocket in a way so I can compare the size of different countries. The problem is that you can't show both shape and size accurately. You have to pick one.

Now this is a site you want to read. I'm serious. It's well worth your time.

Okay so the picture I wanted to show you doesn't work because my background is black. But here it is.

Greenland is 0.8 million square miles. China is 3.7 million square miles.

Go. Go read this right now. Have your world view changed.

absence poems #2&3

absence poem #2 (heavy blanket)

in the morning

in the cracks

between my blinds:

snowflakes.

+

absence poem #3 (surrounded)

snow in the suburbs:

the heavy sound

of silence.

i am all alone.

Things That A Computer Is Without Internet

+ an expensive notepad

+ an expensive stereo

+ an expensive chess board

+ a small DVD player

+ an expensive post-it

+ an expensive calendar

"i hate it when i lose internet and my facebook machines just becomes a typewriter that plays dvds" - kcdanger

(i was just without internet in my apartment for about a week and it was very strange but very refreshing. these were basically the only things i used my laptop for during that time.)

Some Albums You Should Be Listening To From Beginning To End

Some albums are just meant to be listened to from start to finish. I wrote a post once with my top 10 concept albums and this is kind of like that, except they might not have concepts or stories. I mean, even some of the ones I picked back then didn't have full stories so I suppose you could say this is just an update.

There are so many bands and artists in the world now and a lot of the time all we hear are singles and then a few other songs we downloaded from limewire (which died) because we just don't need to buy full length CDs anymore. Also a lot of full length albums suck and the best song is the single you heard on the radio. But there are some records that are just completely worth listening to from beginning to end.

[Basically this is just what I'm listening to at the moment, consider this an extensive music monday. I happen to be listening to a lot of albums and not just random songs].

++

The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

This is a concept album, and it is really, really good. I don't think there's a single weak song on it. I spent a good 3-4 years denying The Arcade Fire's talent but it's safe to say I'm a convert.

Listen to: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

M. Ward - Post-War, and Hold Time

I couldn't choose between Post-War and Hold Time so I chose both. You should listen to both in a row. I always feel really satisfied with the world after listening to M. Ward.

Listen to (from Post-War): Post-War

Listen to (from Hold Time): Epistemology

The National - High Violet

The National have really outdone themselves this time. Boxer is still an album I love to listen to and High Violet has been on high rotation since I got it in [August?].

Listen to: Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

Counting Crows - Recovering The Satellites

My uncle moved in October and got rid of some of his old CDs, so I picked this one up. I've never really listened to Counting Crows before but this album is dece and perfect for when you feel like hearing music but not listening to it.

Listen to: Recovering the Satellites

Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War

Will we wake in the morning and know what it was for, up in our bedrooms, after the war?

Listen to: Take Me To The Riot

Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

"Everyone likes Belle and Sebastian" - my cousin. Belle and Sebastian can make your whole day better.

Listen to: Another Sunny Day

++

YOU'RE WELCOME

A Story With Two Morals

I went to bed last night around 11:30 and woke up at 1am with some serious stomach pain. I thought that if I rubbed my stomach it would go away, but it didn't. It stayed. It stayed for hours. It hurt to move. I sweated and moaned and rubbed my stomach and I'm pretty sure my roommate would have thought I was masturbating if he had been awake, but I wasn't masturbating, just dying. I think I died over one hundred times last night.

I tried desperately to think of what was causing the pain. It can't have been the cereal I ate. I ate it all the time and never had such a terrible stomach ache. It must've been the carrots I had at dinner. They were kind of old. They had smelled okay and looked okay and tasted okay, but thinking about it now they were probably rotten and eating me from the inside.

As the pain continued to exist, I began to panic a little bit. I considered calling 911 but I didn't want to wake my roommates. I've been watching Grey's Anatomy a lot and I imagined Dr. Arizona Robbins feeling my stomach and saying "abdomen is hard, order a CT" even though she's a pediatric surgeon and I'm not a child anymore.

She can operate on me anytime. Then maybe after we can do this -

Erm.

Anyways, I was basically delirious last night. Even though I've been working on a few different blog posts about how much I like my room in my apartment ("my space"), I really wished I was at my parent's house. If I had been at my parent's house I would have knocked on their door and made them take care of me. Living by yourself means you have to be responsible and take care of yourself, I understood that, but last night I really understood it. I didn't want to throw up, not because throwing up is gross (it totally is), but because I didn't want to clean it up. If I had been with my parents, they would have cleaned it up. THE JOYS OF PARENTING.

I have no idea what was wrong with me. I thought briefly about googling "how to fix serious stomach pain" but I couldn't do anything but lie in my bed uselessly. I thought about eating some chalk (in the 9th grade I learned that eating some chalk is essentially equivalent to taking some pebto bismol). I'm not sure how much that would have helped. I fell asleep for real around 4:30am after spending most of the past 3 hours clutching my stomach in the fetal position, convinced I was dying of twisted insides.

The moral of the story is: even though being independent, and responsible, and taking care of yourself like a motherfucking adult is a good thing, sometimes it's nice to let other people take control. Sometimes all you want is someone to spoon you and squeeze out all the pain. There are people out there who want to do that for you, so you have to let them. Even though in this case there wasn't really anyone to help me. Also the other moral of the story is: don't eat rotten carrots.

How To Cook Everything

Every day we wake up we promise to be better. We promise ourselves to make changes. We want to love more, love better, try harder. We can do anything we want to.

I will stop worrying about money. I will live better. Maybe not tomorrow, but today at least. That's all I can give. That's all I can promise. For today to be better, at least.

I am not growing in a straight line. I want to learn to love you more.

By now you're probably wondering why this is titled "How To Cook Everything" when there is clearly nothing about cooking here. The answer is that "How To Cook Everything" is a cookbook that is right next to me and I'm avant garde like that. JK.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

[the beach boys - wouldn't it be nice]

wouldn't it be nice to live together

in the kind of world where we belong?

"The Year In Review": A Few Things I Remember

1. [f a l l i n g in and out and in and o u t of love]

With everything, and everyone, constantly. I just can't do the highs and lows. Well, sometimes I don't understand me and sometimes I don't understand you. I don't know you or me. I don't understand the happiness or lightness of love; I don't understand the sadness and excessive weight of love. I've given you all and now I'm nothing.

2. ["Christmas is S O D U M B."]

I am Scrooge/The Grinch. Whatever. Christmas is stupid. I'm only partially sorry if that offends you. What is Christmas about anyway? Is it the birth of Jesus? I honestly don't even know. I don't even really care. All I want for Christmas, really, is some new socks. Because the majority of my socks have holes in them. I am happy that I am escaping this Christmas obsessed world and going to a tiny bubble in the middle of nowhere with people who also don't care about Christmas.

(Alright, so Christmas hasn't happened yet, but today on the metro I saw a man with a Christmas tree and I thought "oh yeah, I guess it's about that time to throw out Christmas trees" and then I realized that December 25th hasn't actually happened yet. That's how much I care about Christmas.)

3. [g r a dua t ing]

I did it.

4. [s u m m e r in America]

It was hot. There were fireworks and a parade and everyone I love in Riese's living room. I feel sad and nostalgic because it will probably never happen again, I mean, not like that. You and I are not the same people anymore. But we are still beautiful.

5. [moving i n and o u t and in and out of h o m e]

Frequently I ask myself "why do I live here" and fail to produce a decent answer. Then one night I slept in my old bedroom and felt annoyed at all the space. My room was too big. It doesn't matter. Nothing is ever clean in my apartment. But my small room feels at least a little more like home. It's warm and the bed is comfortable. It's safe.

I still feel like I don't know where I live, or where home is. I guess that's normal.

6. [the year in r e v i e w]

I remember parts of the year. I remember February, vividly. I remember March and feeling high and happy and perfect. Things made sense in March. I think I went on a camping trip in April. I remember my legs sticking to the seat of the bus in May. June and July are stuck together in a gooey mess of sweat and kisses and tears. August is one long train ride to nowhere. September - November is 10,000 feelings I'd like to erase. I am drained and pulled apart.

I am tired and I'd like to stop counting. I'd like to stop counting backwards and forwards. Sometimes all I know is that I'm a mirror of other people's feelings and opinions, a composition of people who came before me. Sometimes I'm amazed at the love I feel, and the strangeness of how I can love people I don't know, so much so that I turn the people I claim to love into strangers. Sometimes I'm surprised at how angry I am, when I don't know where that anger comes from. But mostly I'm surprised/unsurprised at the way the world heals itself, and how when everything feels upside down, the world will turn you over again.

"I love the number of people

you can love at the same time,

one deep, erotic love,

radiating even to strangers,

cynics, making a temporary sense

of the senseless, choreful day."

- Stephen Dunn "Loves"

Is this year over yet.

that secret that we know, that we don't know how to tell

can i tell you a secret.

'teenage dream' by katy perry plays at work and more than once it has almost made me cry. now i am listening to it on repeat but i don't know why.

last year -- december 2009 -- i was wandering up and down a street i knew too well. i was always looking for this one person without trying to make it look like i was looking for her; i was smoking cigarettes outside leaning on trees; i was stumbling down mountains and listening to bon iver and crying and desperate all the time. my money was gone and i was drunk as hell.

sometimes my secret is this: the ground is wet with snow but it is not snowing. the air is damp like it was just raining and the glow of lights reflect on the pavement. car lights. street lamps. i want to chain smoke. i am surrounded by people and all at once i am happy and sad and alone and hopeful. the night is just beginning and there are still places we haven't been.

sometimes my secret is this: i do not know the difference between being in love and wanting a mother. i am sorry. i do not know the difference.

one year ago -- december 2009 -- i was standing in the fitting room at my job. a song was making me cry. in my mind the street i seemed to always be standing on was upside down; my feet were on the sky. that's the way i walked around.

sometimes i have no secrets and it makes me feel bare but no one asks. a secret is hidden; if there is nothing to hide but no one is looking then what is there. am i secret if i don't exist. whose secret am i. what is the point of a secret if not to reveal it one day.

lately my secret has been that grey's anatomy makes me cry. i just let myself sink into this hand crafted world where people live and die with the stroke of a pen. and when parents hear that their children are dead and they break down in each other's arms, i break down too. i let myself cry over this tv show because it's easier than crying over real life.

tell me a secret if you so desire.

++

I am in love
with the way I see the world.
But I am all alone there.
- Matthew Rohrer "Hone Quarry"

i don't feel this way, but it's a beautiful line.