tickling the late night keyboard

the new death cab for cutie album leaked. it has some highlights and some low points. the highlights: "cath...", "long division" and "i will possess your heart" "grapevine fires" are all pretty solid songs. long division sounds like it could be off of the photo album, in a good way, and cath is just a solid song overall. i like i will possess your heart because it is an attempt at something different. 

the low points. up to this point there had never been a death cab song that i really hated,   there were some that i didn't love, but never one that i found completely unbearable. "no sunlight" changed this for me. it feels immature, thrown together, and is just bad. it sounds like an attempt at radio pop gone awry. "narrow stairs" doesn't cohere as an album. there is no common thread, no common sound, it is just a collection of tracks. it's disappointing because i really like death cab, but this time around they just didn't get it together. pitchfork is going to destroy this album. 

in other news, the cut copy live show is one of the coolest things that i have seen in a while. one member was playing a tiny korg drum machine and just rocking out as these huge beats roared out the speakers. hundreds of people crowded the dancefloor of the urban lounge and exploded at every crescendo and climax, the whole place was pretty much going wild. i'm going to blog about a great opening band on tunesday, but this was a great show, one of the best i have been to since arcade fire last year. the energy as well as the proficiency were awesome. 

i've become addicted to playing tiger woods golf again. 

weekend warrior, the conclusion

we watched ratatouille on saturday night before 

on sunday we went to sacrament meeting with my dad and stepmom. it's strange only now to realize that the occasions that warrant my saying "my parents" are very few and far between. the last one was when i got home from my mission. the next and possibly last one will be when i get married. that's for another time though. we got to the chapel as the sacrament hymn was being sung by the congregation. i was glad that i wouldn't miss the sacrament after having missed it in moab by being in the foyer. it was quantitatively the most boring meeting that i have ever attended. we left after sunday school in order to get to my mom's for lunch. the food was good as well as the company, but we hit the road in order to spend as little time as possible driving in the dark. 

as we climbed into the rockies i felt frustrated at being forced to move again, for the sixth time since i got home from brazil. for the first time in my life, i felt a strong desire to just settle down. my mood improved as we drove however, the weather and the experience allowing me to lighten up. when we passed grand junction the wind started to pick up, slowing the car down as we drove into it, head on. cresting the hills that separate utah and colorado, it seems that gauze had been pulled over the landscape. dust, picked up by the high winds, made a sort of desert haze that 

thickened as we descended into the valley toward green river. 

we couldn't resist stopping in thompson springs again to take spooky pictures of the thick dust's effect on the town. i drove on, and soon we were descending the canyon once again, seeing the lights of utah valley swing into and out of view as we curved along the turns. i didn't really have a place to stay, so i called hawkins, but i knew it would all work out, and soon i would be enjoying another utah summer.

whew, glad  that is over. i am going to start a triblog( tripblog) and anyone who wants to write trip reports will be invited to contribute, otherwise i'll just post mine there, so that they don't clog up this blog. thanks for reading

weekend warrior, pt. trois

on saturday afternoon we drove to thornton, taking the tollway. i handed my cup of change to brittany and asked her to pick out change to pay the tolls through to thornton. after a few seconds she squeaked and grabbed her finger, i had forgotten to tell her that there were some razor blades that i had put into the cup for lack of a better storage locale. we both laughed and she had a little cut on her index finger that she would use later in the trip to make fun of me. it took much less time than i had thought to get to my dad's. 

my dad and gail welcomed us to the house and worried if i still liked chinese food since i had become a vegetarian. i allayed his fears and we set off for

 "united chinese restaurant 

n sushi"

just a few blocks from my dad's house in thornton, a town which doesn't really have a downtown. the food was good at the restaurant and the fortune cookies were vaguely mean spirited. brittany's read "if it seems that the fates are against you today, they probably are" which i thought was more of a misfortune cookie. after the united food, we chatted and felt the cool of the air conditioning in the back of the room. i suddenly wanted ice cream. the weather that day was so warm and pleasant that it just felt like the right thing to do. on the way to the ice cream place i remembered that i had left my windows down and my laptop sitting on top of everything that i own in the backseat. i didn't worry much, it's not as though the car was downtown. i got a large serving of sweet cream with blueberries and ate it all up, though i had already eaten a lot at the chinese place. it felt good to be out of town, good to relax, good to eat ice cream. 

no time to blog today really, but the weather was pleasant, and i saw good friends and ate good food. and there isn't much more you can ask for than that in the world. 

weekend warrior, pt. deux

my mom was surprised to see us, i had told her two nights before that i wouldn't be visiting colorado during the gap between the end of ski season and the start of classes. i hadn't been planning it then. she was happy to see me, though and had a lot to talk about and worry about. i texted mike drennan to see what he was doing, i knew he was in denver but would most likely be in bars all weekend, and with the weather how it was i didn't want to be inside more than i had to. at my mom's i soon got restless and we decided to go get ice cream and a movie to bring back to the house. we picked up ice cream on sale, i had left my wallet in the car so brittany picked up the bill for it. across the parking lot, blockbuster had posted signs advertising the release of juno, which neither of us had seen since christmas time. it seemed a good choice, light and fun, in the spirit of the trip. 

getting back to the house, i scooped ice cream into big bowls and turned on the movie. my mom laughed harder than i had expected her to, and i enjoyed the movie as much as i had the first time. afterward i went to my room, preserved with all of my things on shelves and the same furniture that i assembled eight years ago. i'm not sure why my mom always keeps a room for me. i think it may just be an external expression of her desire for me to move home and help her out. i don't think that will work out. 

saturday i woke up to the sun on my face, i had forgotten to close the blinds when i went to bed. i rolled around for a few minutes, hoping to fall asleep again but it wasn't to be. i stood up and stretched in the sun, feeling its warmth on my face and neck, happy to be alive. soon i had showered and was ready for the day, so we left the house to get breakfast in louisville before going to boulder for the morning. i had forgotten how happy pearl street is on a warm april morning. street musicians and performers abounded, a guy selling veggie hot dogs sat in the shade, and we walked, taking pictures and making jokes about hipster heaven. my mom went into one store, and britt and i continued exploring the shops that advertised themselves as "locally owned" and "free trade." 

at noon or so we all met and walked east on pearl until the walking mall ended, and kept on, looking into the same small shops selling arts and craft and bicycles. i sat on a bench in front of a pharmacy and felt like the world was a wonderful place to live, regardless of current problems. it felt good to breathe deeply and relax after stress from work and money and everything else in the world. i realized that we had only paid for two hours of parking and needed to go back to the car, about eight blocks away. we left pearl and walked up spruce to avoid dawdling. i was relieved when i saw that nothing was on the windshield, and felt a little silly for hurrying when i saw that we had forty five minutes left on the meter. mom put the top down and we headed for the lunch.

whole foods in boulder is probably the most legitimately granola store in the united states. from the employees to the customers, dreadlocks and patchouli abound. the deli has as many tofu items as meat ones, and the tofu ones seem prepared with a bit more love. we ate lunch and drank virgil's root beer, feeling slightly on display as all the customers walked past the tables. 

sunday will be a wednesday blog. oh and since it is tunesday, you really should listen to dj never forget. 

myspace.com/fingeronthepulsenyc

dedicate 40mb or so of your hard drive to this mix, you won't regret it. 

down and out at the rooftop hang

weekend warrior

this would be the second weekend in a row that i spent out of provo, but it felt right to leave. thursday night, at marni's party i invited her and brittany to come along. marni had other commitments, but britt could come, so i cajoled her into leaving town with me. i slept at dave hawkins house and slept in before going to breakfast with him at village inn. for some reason memories of mission ideas and stories kept coming to mind, so we talked about them. christian was getting married soon, dave was thinking about marriage, and it seems that i am the only one without any marriage prospects on the horizon. that's all right though, i'm more worried about losing friends than gaining a wife for the time being. all of my friends at byu were stressed about finals and final papers. it's surreal to be on vacation when everyone you know is at their most stressed. i felt happy that i wasn't worried, but excited to start school again. 

i unloaded the front seat of my car at my new apartment, but left the rest of my belongings in the back seat and the trunk. just about everything important to me in the world was in that back seat, from clothes to journals to books. i didn't worry too much about theft, most of what i hold dear has little monetary value. brittany called me at twelve forty five and said that she was ready to go, so i headed straight for her apartment and left my guitar there to make some more room in the back seat for her stuff. when she asked what our plans were for the weekend i answered honestly: i had none. the most important part of the trip for me was already happening. packing up, leaving town and knowing that there is an open road ahead bring me a relief that is hard to explain. once we got to denver we would figure it out. the weather was forecasted to be beautiful, and boulder is a great town to visit when it is beautiful out. 

i had never really spent time alone with brittany, but road trips are as good a time as any to deepen a friendship. seven hours when talking and not talking are equally comfortable. we spent some time discussing our families, and some time just being excited about nice weather and road trips. when i turned from us-6 onto i-70, i remembered thompson springs, the nearly deserted town between green river and fruita. we stopped to take pictures, examining the deserted motel and the disconnected railroad switch for a deserted train station. the weather was unbearably beautiful. i took about fifteen pictured, brittany had more film and took more. about half an hour later we were back on the road. 

when i left the highway in grand junction the sun was still high in the western sky, but i knew it wold disappear quickly as we climbed into the rockies through glenwood canyon. i put gas in the car and calculated our mileage, and old habit that is mostly for self gratification. on the road again i didn't feel much desire to speed, so we cruised along at eighty or so the rest of the way. in glenwood i told brittany stories from this same trip, not thinking that i was a part of a future story right then. soon after we passed copper mountain i was alone with my thoughts since britt sat in the passenger seat, eyes closed, taking even breaths. i thought of parents and siblings, relationship attempts, money, school, friends and more. the great appeal of a road trip for me is the chance to spend a few hours doing nothing but thinking. a few hours without internet, phone service, or talk radio, just music and thoughts. some people have therapy, i have the outdoors and a four door. 

i woke brittany up when we crested lookout mountain, and pointed out the clear air and the lights of denver. leaving the interstate, i steered the car onto ward road, cruising through dark, empty fields barren of light. as we crested hills the lights of boulder appeared and disappeared, but the stars were always visible over the dark flatirons that guard the front range of the rockies. soon we arrived and parked in my mother's driveway. sore legs, but happy hearts to have arrived with such nice weather on the way

to be concluded

blogcation