March 2010 Archives

I have about six weeks until the end of my first year of grad school. 

I'm firmly standing on the line between relieved and petrified. Relieved because one of the most roller-coaster experiences I've had well, probably since senior year of Wes, will soon be behind me. Petrified because I've got 3 projects, 4 papers, and what I'm sure will be a shitton of stress until the end. Especially since getting accepted to the Paris program was the easy part. Now I've got to figure out exactly how long I'll be in Europe (gotta buffer time to visit Alex and maybe other friends scattered all about plus hopefully hit up a festival or two), buy a ticket (all hovering around $900 which makes me sad), do all the school paper work, line up a summer job to save enough money that the euro-dollar exchange rate doesn't make me cry, figure out what to do with my apartment for 2 months, and then go! My mind is reeling with every logistics thought that pops in.

It was really just one of those weeks though. My SF trip high faded fast once I realized my desktop got fucked up somehow while I was gone. The system recovery disks I ordered still aren't doing the trick a week later and I'm dreading having to take it to get repaired and get a $500 bill. I didn't even pay that much for the damned tower! But, unless I find some miracle fix online, I'm basically shit out of luck. And the weather was especially crappy this week. My old lady bones needed tons of drugs to base level function and the never-ending throb just made me really stressed and irritable. It thankfully cleared up as the week went on and I felt sorta like normal by last night. 

All I really want to do is listen to some music and ride around on my bike on some nice spring days in the park. I have to keep reminding myself to breathe at this point and not feel like everything needs to be handled all at once. But I do need to hack away at this stuff bit by bit. After all, they sleep, we grind.

Now that things feel infinitely more settled at school, I've been on a concert binge lately. My initial show buddy was The Director and we marveled that we still rolled like we met yesterday instead of six (!) years ago. (An aside of a hilarious SF trip moment: driving to the East Bay from the airport, Fizzie says: "what ever happened to that dude we used to hang out with who seemed young, but was really old, partied like crazy, and took us to weird parties with his friends?" And I drew a serious blank for a long time until he added "and joked that Trendvickster was a heroin addict to his friends." I laughed and said "The Director! We just hung out last week and he asked about you!" And we laughed some more. My friends are amazingly awesome and weird.)

The shows we caught together were Anti-Pop Consortium (epic!)/Rain Machine (eh...with the worst caterwauling backup singer); French Horn Rebellion (joke)/Hot Chip (okay but kinda boring...I think the first disastrous two times I saw them years ago still inspires some bitterness in me); and Golden Triangle (sounds like every other Siouxsie electro influenced group out nowadays, but they did a really inspired cover of Hardest Button To Button). 

The other week was 3 shows in 6 days. I started off on Thursday, using my student discount to check out Man Man (and some other bands who were total crap). That was completely strange since I haven't seen them play in a very long time. After going on 7.5 years of being a fan, it still takes them 10 years to setup, the energy is still infectious, and I still love their shows. The difference now is that there's just a lot more other kids who love them with their youthful energy and dress up in facepaint and act crazy. I'm just the old lady hanging out on the sidelines. But we're all still plugging away. I talked to Ryan after the show and he said "I'm the same as I always was...a little older and more tired" and I replied "aren't we all?"

Saturday's show was RJD2/Break Science/Happy Chichester at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The venue always trips me out a bit because it's the all metal bizarro of my fave venue, The Bowery Ballroom, without half the character. Top notch show all around. I'd never heard of Break Science before, but I'm all about them at the moment. They killed it and then RJD2 came out in a robot suit, very reminscent of a Daft Punk show, so those were some fun moments before he got behind the decks and later did a band thing. Videos I unearthed below:

Then the night after my birthday, I went to the Bowery to see Dam-Funk with a live band and Peanut Butter Wolf doing a VJ set. Definitely my favorite show of the year so far. If only initially because it exposed me to what is the song I plan to play this spring until I make everyone else sick:

As for Dam-Funk himself? Ripped it. Seriously, the second someone comes out with a keytar, you know only epic things are going to happen. It's just a fact. 

Life has been way better than my next to last post might indicate. School has emerged as fun once I was able to clear the past six and a half years of working insanely out of my brain a bit. I'm even going to Paris this summer to study video, walk around, and pinch myself because I'll have finally made it to Europe. 

I've taken two great trips so far this year: the first was a long-needed vacation to Miami and then a cruise to the Bahamas with my buddies PrincessNella and Banana. I just hung out looking at beautiful water, feeling the sand on my feet, and having few cares in the world. I came back to New York so clear-headed and refreshed. Everything has been (mostly) awesome since. 

Then I just came back Tuesday, half kicking and screaming from San Francisco/the Bay area. I visited the long-departed Fizzie and kicked it with him in the East Bay, making new friends out there. And also hung out in the city with my friend S (who just moved back there), wandering around town and marveling at the similarities (The Mission = Williamsburg) and differences (I felt way more unsafe in the Tenderloin than I've ever anywhere in NYC. Including the South Bronx). The highlight was definitely hanging out with B, as always too briefly. Chatting with him about the blog made me promise to be more active if only because he's more stoked about it than anyone else ever. Except for maybe me, circa 2003. My biggest regret about the trip was only staying for 4 days -- half of which I spent working on a paper (ended up with a B+). I was looking for cheap later flights up until I had to go to the airport. I'm definitely going to end up back there soon, especially if the fare specials keep going,

I'm on spring break at the moment, trying to motivate myself to work on projects for class and maybe something that can make the end of the semester show that my program puts on. It's more than a little scary that I've got about six weeks until my first year of grad school is over and then 2 months before I'm jetting off to France. Time flies.