In Laramie

I'm in my apt. in Laramie, and missing the fuck out of my friends. After two days of lugging shit up four flights of stairs over and over, I did absolutely nothing today, aside from see my parents off, which was fucking difficult, I don't mind saying.

So now I'm just reading the AV Club's review of Lollapalooza, drinking a Busch, and listening to some music I haven't taken the time to hear before. Up now is Wowee Zowee by Pavement, by far the album of theirs I've listened to the least. I don't actually have a favorite, the songs tend to bleed over in my mind and the highlights are just as sharp from any album. Though I do think the one-two punch that begins Brighten the Corners - Shady Lane and Stereo - is my favorite Pavement moment. It's got that pent-up Malkmus scream and the bombast the band could bring when they were properly motivated.

I tried listening to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out by Yo La Tengo, but it's so tied to the Illinois summer for me, I can't listen to it without getting teary-eyed right now. And that title, which I never really contemplated before, actually deals with something I've written about in some short stories - negative space transformed into something, where nothing has as much presence as the night sky. In a story I wrote, I have a character watching the horizon, where nothing dances. But it's something dancing - in his mind- nothing, to him, is not a vacuum, but an invisible force that might be mendicant, like some feral animal trailing you as you walk.

And so I'm intimidated by the thought of starting writing again, though I have no excuse. It's what I do all the time, but I risk being self-conscious. Oh well, I'll do it anyway.

Oh, and listen to "Grave Architecture" by Pavement. It's the sort of curveball they can throw, something of a departure, driven more by rhythm than controlled noise.