My friend ChrisTiana asked me to make her a folk c.d. for Thanksgiving. Folk, you know, is a pretty broad genre, but I stuck with modern folk and though not intentionally, I ended up using all male singer-song writers. I’m pretty happy with what I have so far. It’s limited by what I have on my shelves right now and by what I know she already has. I’m going to add a few from the Dark Was The Night album. But if you haven’t listened to any of these songs, I HIGHLY recommend them.
Christiana’s Thanksgiving Bliss Mix
1. All My Days: Alexi Murdoch
2. Sarah: Ray LaMontagne
3. Come Pick Me Up: Ryan Adams
4. American Hearts: A.A. Bondy
5. Something True: Band Of Annuals
6. Dead Mans Will: Calexico / Iron And Wine
7. Oh My Sweet Carolina: Ryan Adams
8. Part III: Band Of Annuals
9. Skinny Love: Bon Iver
10. World Without End: A.A. Bondy
11. In My Time Of Need: Ryan Adams
12. Mercy: Band Of Annuals
13. Re: Stacks: Bon Iver
14. Orange Sky: Alexi Murdoch
15. Flightless Bird, American Mouth: Iron & Wine
Ok, Songs Added were:
M.Ward: Here Comes the Sun
Bowerbirds: The Ticonderoga
Bowerbirds: Northern Lights
Didn’t end up adding anything from Dark Was The Night. No room. I take the task of making mix albums really serious. It comes from back in the day when my parents would ground me a lot. I’d use that time to make mix tapes for my pals at school. I also did a lot of interviews with myself. I was a really good reporter.
I hope you all haven’t forgotten about Grooveshark and how you can listen for free over there. listen.grooveshark.com 
This, I love.
Which reminded me of Lisa Hannigan, that little Irish bird.
Venn Diagram:
I have lost you to sleep again. sleeping as we do on opposite sides of a venn diagram I read the time in shadows on the wall – the shards of light through the slats on your window
ah ha ha ha!
I ease myself from under your languid arm, fumble on my boots and hear you breathe through your alarm I disarm it for you, you rarely heed it anyway I wouldn’t want it to intrude upon your dream, school bell ring messing up the play
ah ha ha ha!
A note, penned clumsily in this century’s type-ruined hand saying gone down the shops for a walk I’ll bring back some sandwiches and then I kiss your face, the black and the blue tie it into my laces, I don’t want the wander blocking up the view
ah ha ha ha!
I stumble out into the afternoon. still salty from drink and the late night pool I’ll be gone an hour at most, you will be more diagonal I’ve a head on me in the post, I know, a castle swallowed in the swell.
Me and Pam’s new sleeping arrangment.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bpc-architecture/2506376836/
Pam: Look at these beds.
Me: Cute. For kids?
Pam: No, for us!
(Note: Pam and I are not roommates, not romantically involved, not related, and we’re not seven).
Me: YES!
I have this friend who has a problem, let’s call her Franklin. So, Franklin has a newish house and lately she’s been finding an influx of lizards IN HER HOUSE!! Including last night – while I was on the phone with her – she found one on her bed and she screamed like someone was trying to murder her and also yelled, “Why do they hate me???” These are the facts: She has screens on all her windows and there’s no major or minor cracks in the walls. And sometimes the lizard is big and sometimes the lizard is small. So people, what do you think, where are these lizards coming from? Some theories:
1) Shower Drains
2) Chimney
3) They use their little lizard hands to unlock doors and open them.
4) They’re representatives of Geico working to seduce Franklin into changing her car insurance and so they’re breaking into the house using lizard spy technology.
I’d like to change this caption to, “Friends don’t hide around the corner from other friends because it’s totally scary and not cool.”
Being scared makes me say mean things like, “I don’t like you!” I used to think it was funny to scare people – so I’d hide under blankets and in closets- but then I realized it made me kind of a bad person, so I stopped. This one time, my roommmates and I were hosting a birthday slumber party for some high school girls and a few of their boyfriends snuck over and turned our power off. Mass hysteria ensued – screaming, running, falling. When the lights came back on, there were girls standing on tables and couches and I was perched by the door, holding a baseball bat. I didn’t even know we had a bat in the house. Julie, my roommate, was pointing at me and crying from laughter, saying, “You have a bat!” and I’m yelling, “Why do we have a bat in the house? Whose is this?” None of us played baseball or softball.
This other time, Julie and Connie (same house), hid a doll in my room. It was a talking elmo doll that had old batteries in it. It was motion sensitive, but instead of having the high-pitched, harmless Elmo voice, it had this scary, slow, murderer voice. And guess what it said? Peek-a-boo. I know, right? So I come in from work, open my door, and am greeted, in the dark, by a deep male robotic voice saying, “Peek-a-boo!” Scared me half to death. They got such a kick out of my responses that it became their passion in life to freak me out. Once they hooked up an old, salon heat lamp to my light switch(see photo). 
I came in from work, house pitch dark. I walk in my room and flip the light switch, but instead of my overhead light, I am met by these three blaring red lights, omitting heat rays. There was also this frightening noise they were making, like a deep man hum. And I swear to you I immediatly thought I was being abducted by aliens. I screamed so loud.
So, friends don’t scare friends. I am just as guilty. I have hidden under beds, under stairwells, in closets, in the backseats of cars. But then one day I woke up and thought, “I’m either gonna get murdered, or scare someone so bad they die.” Neither of those options seem like a fun result. So, friends don’t scare friends.
Hi.
How are you?
Here’s a pretty song for you. It’s sad, yes. But Jose Gonzalez – there’s something about him – something right and good and just for you.
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Heartbeats/585265
And then this song by Andrew Bird, yes, yes, yes. Do it!
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/The_Giant_Of_Illinois/22019033
And then this too? Ok, I love you.
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Do_You_Think_Theres_A_Heaven/10681631
Today Pam said, and I quote: “I don’t like liking people that arn’t good people.”
I decided to use this quote as Pam’s epitaph when she is no longer little and kicking.
Pam- She didn’t like liking people that weren’t good people.
Speaking of dying, the other day my mother and I were in my favorite thrift store – Thrift Town- in the Bay Area. It’s the one I’ve been going to since I was a teenager and I told her that Thrift Town feels really homey to me. She agreed. Then I told her that I wanted my ashes poured out on the floors of Thrift Town.
Too morbid? I’m sorry. Back to Pam dying….
Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. (Henri Nouwen)
