Choking On Your Alibi

My top five favorite bands/groups/artists right now?

1. Damien Rice
2. RJD2
3. The Killers
4. Explosions in the Sky
5. Mono

Check them all out if you haven't already. Or, hit me up for a comp. We swung by Ear X-tacy on Friday the 13th and I remembered how nice and gratifying it is to actually be holding cd cases and looking at the packaging and owning the stupid thing out right. And knowing what order the tracks are supposed to go in, and not having that annoying corrupt file noise that you sometimes download along with your stolen music. Not mine, mind you. Yours. Your stolen music.

Yeah, I love music. I love that Ashleigh let us listen to nothing but Damien Rice all the way to Louisville and we both sang at the top of our lungs. I love when I go into a cd store and am just browsing and by chance I flip through a certain band's little divider and find that they have a cd out that I didn't know about. Thank you, Mono. God I'm so happy to have so much new shit to listen to.

Then yesterday Jadles realized he was extremely jealous of all my new music (especially the I Heart Ear X-tacy mug I got) so we went to Beste Buye and he got a Coheed & Cambria album (that, David Walsh, is the band you asked about at Hammerheads. I may have slurred my speech a little when I tried to tell you their name before), and a Dillinger Escape Plan one too. Nice. Oh and I cracked like a bitch and bought a Damien Rice B-Sides cd. Teehee.

I'm still missing two songs I desperately want from my Damien Rice catalogue: Eskimo, which I cannot find illicitly, and this Silent Night song that Ashleigh has on a cd that I gave her a long time ago that is awesome and I am kicking myself for giving to her. But not really, because I want her to be happy.

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I went to the midwest a couple weeks ago. Yes, it was lovely. Yes, I had a smashing time. Yes, I am madly in love with all of you all over again. No, I don't know why I'm out here doing this either. But such is life. Err, Life is pain, princess.
Whatever.

This will sound really juvenile, but I am finally developing the capacity to be empathetic. And being around all of you reminded me in a very overt way that we're only given what we can handle. Not to wax totally ghey here or anything, but it made me tear up a couple times while I was home. Those of you who are still in college, stay there as long as you can. Real life isn't what you're expecting or hoping it'll be. It's worse. Get your sense of humor out and dust it off, stat.

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So, highlights from my trip? I thought you'd be clamboring for them. You're so predictable. I can read you like a fricking book. In chronological order? Oh ho ho, you blindsided me.

1. Raedy picked me up from O'Hare. And we went to a restaurant with Mike and ate fried ravioli and an awesome sandwich. Their apartment is really neat.

2. I tried to get on a bus the next day, as per Raedy's instructions, to get to Union Station, but the bus never came. So Mike had to drive me downtown. Sorry Mike, and thanks a lot, that was awesome. There's nothing scary about the southside of Chicago. You can get your shit stolen anywhere you live.

3. I took a Metra train out to m'grandma's. And got snubbed by Doctor Auntie. Which was actually fine with me. I sat up late both nights I was there talking to my grandma about everything under the sun. We both got a little choked up at times. Like whenever we talked about my dad, or the burdens people have to shoulder, or her husband (he died when I was 3), etc. She gave me the recipe for the family tradition Irish Cake and made me watch her make it so I would know all the little tricks. She informed me that I am indeed Portugese, more so than anything else, and Irish and Welsh and Cherokee. That explains the hotness. hahahahahaha.

4. Went to see Spiderman 2 with my cousin Construction Elephant and Grandma. We all liked it exactly the same amount. And to think, I worried he wouldn't get the girl.

5. Rode back into the city on a Metra train and met Raedy at Union Station to hang out for a little while before my Amtrak train left for Ft. Wayne. Ended up sitting around for like 5 hours. Forced Raedy to eat irish cake. She almost had a seizure it was so delicious. Raedy left for Indianapolis and a friend's birthday party and I plunked myself in the Amtrak waiting area. And waited. And waited. And then the train was delayed indefinitely. And then this nun next to me starts making small talk. And then this crazy Jamaican woman on the other side of me starts shouting at the train and sneezing her head off. i offer her some sinus medication, and she tells me that it's not sinuses, it's a problem with her nose that's giving her a headache and making her sneeze. Hmmm, not sinuses? Whatever. But then she told me she would find me on the train if she needed me. And then we (me, her, the nun, and this other crazy lady) all complained about how bullshit the train delay was. And then two hours after it was supposed to leave they put us on it. Then about ten feet before my stop the train slows down and stops. We're not at a station, and I can see the conductor walking along the train with a flashlight, looking underneath for something. At this point I almost get out and walk to Waterloo.

6. I arrive in Waterloo shortly afterward and no one bothers to announce what station it is so I almost don't get off the train. Keith is still there and we go to the airport so I can pee (which I have been holding for about six hours because they forbade us to leave the waiting area in union station when they delayed the train, and there aren't bathrooms in the waiting area, plus it was so fucking crowded I never would've gotten my seat back, plus I couldn't bring myself to pee on the train. Nasssstay). At the airport I see his office and he shows me all the planes in the hangar. It was really weird to put a context with the idea of my friend being a flight instructor. Validated something about him for me.

7. Watched about a thousand movies while at K's, including Kill Bill Vol. 1, Scotland, PA (which I HIGHLY recommend), Matrix Revolutions, Bourne Supremacy, and a bunch of others. Took a lot of lazy-ass naps. Drank a lot of bomb-ass wine. No, I didn't pick it out, I don't know shit about shit when it somes to wine. I don't know shit-thing one.

8. Went flying. At night. He made me do all the things a flight student would have to do, like walk around and check shit to make sure it's not falling off. Taxied over to the runway and then he goes, "Ok, you're going to take us off." I about shit myself. But it turns out all you have to do is pull back on the throttle (?) and the plane goes up. I about shit myself. Then we flew around for awhile and he talked all professional to the air traffic people and I died laughing. Then he goes,"Ok, pull the nose up, I want to show you something." and there's this flicker of bastard-ness in his eyes as he says this, so I try to Not do it, but he makes me. When the nose goes up the engine stalls. The engine stalls. And this little alarm goes off and the plane corrects itself by nosing down really suddenly. So, I willfully put myself in a situation where the plane plummetted a couple hundred feet extremely fast because the engine had shut off. I about shit myself. I screamed like a little girl when it nosed down. It was the fucking coolest thing ever. It was fucking awesome to see K in his element, doing what he loves, being really good at it (I screamed but I was never actually scared for my life, which is an important distinction...I had total faith in his abilities as a pilot).

9. Taught K a thing or two about cooking a decent lizanga. Hahahaha.

11. Jenny and Levi came up on Wednesday to get me, in the morning. K shuffled some things so he didn't have to go to work as early as he thought, and the four of us hung out and ate at a Mexican restaurant. K and Levi immediately fell in love with each other. Silly boys and their crushes on each other.

12. Drove down to Bloomington with J and Lee. Slept in the car, zonked out on the couch upon arrival. I am a lazy girl.

13. Hung around there for a few days, J had lots of articles to work on, so I tried to help come up with ideas but mostly I sat around and watched adult swim and one time I made them dinner and I felt very domestic. I made another irish cake, with a slight dark chocolate tweak of the recipe, and it was awesome. As per my other posts while I was in Bton, I felt awfully like I should be out enjoying the Bloomington-ness of the place. Oh well. I picked J up from the education building one day and deliberately drove down the street that runs in front of Read to get there. My heart about stopped. I loved my sophomore year. Melissa, I liked living with you in the dorms a lot. I still miss meal points that allowed me to get a bagel and soup from starbucks in the dorm every fricking night. I miss bloomington a lot. I wish J had been 21 and not super busy while I was there. We did go to La Cha, though, so that was awesome. The same guys who have always worked there were there. I miss them. I miss that every time I order a Vegetarian G they write it down and then show me the notepad to make sure they wrote down a G and not a J by mistake.

14. I distracted J from work a lot by being so fun to hang out with. She eventually got about half of what she needed done, so that was ultimately ok.

15. I didn't sleep very well or very much in Bloomington. May have had to do with the accomodations. the world's most squeaky futon with the most uncomfortable mattress ever invented. I kept wanting to get up and go sit in the Arboretum in the middle of the night. In my jammies. That would have freaked out anyone walking by at 2am. I love Bloomington. It feels more like home than most places do. It feels like I left a giant chunk of me there and I am only allowed access to it if I go there. It's like I buried someone there and for the rest of my life I'll be making pilgrimages there.

16. Saturday we drove to Eville. Lee came too, and we were meeting mom and going out to dinner for mom and J's birthdays. It was a little tense, but ok. After dinner we had them open presents. Mom got Jenny about 78 individually wrapped things from Deals, which tried my usual generous patience because i had nothing to open. I suppose that's pretty childish, but I whined until J let me open a few of them. Hahahahaha. then she opened the ones from me and Levi, which we had secretly conspired about to make even more awesome, and she about shit herself. I got her an iPod, and stupid me didn't bother checking that it would work with her dinosaur of a computer. And no, of course it doesn't. So I also got her a USB 2.0 card, which I hope she installs soon so she can join the ranks of the incredibly devoted iPod fans. Levi got her a digital camera that is super fucking pimp. She about shit herself again.

17. Then Ashleigh came to get me and J and L went back to Bloomington and Ash and I went over to Toni's house where there was a swinging party in place. And I got to see everyone that I wouldn't get to see again while I was home, like Kyle and Toni and Chris and Melissa and other Chris and Dustin and Leo and Rob and Jamie. And Stacey brought Asheigh a Poison shirt to wear and A kept getting macked on by Leo, and I kept leaving the room and stranding her and pissing her off. And we played this weird boardless board game. And the bartender made a good Mai Tai but then I had to flush my margarita down the toilet because it tasted like someone had pissed in a beer and blended it with ice. I had a great time. I was glad to see everyone.

18. Then A and I left and went to her apartment, where I was staying, and it is ridiculously cute and nice. And there was a cute air mattress all made up for me in the 2nd bedroom and I love Ashleigh.

19. Sunday we hung out with my mom and I was being grilled about my impending wedding and my mom chided me again for expressing an interest in wearing a color other than black or harlot-red, and I realized 2006 is pretty soon.

20. Monday I hung out with Janet and her pseudo god-grand-children, these three-year-old twin screaming babies. She showed me this scrapbook she had made of our recent trip to Utah, with pictures Jadles' grandpa had taken, and captions she had made up. I was surprised to see a photo of me and JD with a caption that reads, "Liz and JD, engaged, July 2004!!!!!!!"

'Scuze me? We're not engaged. I told her this in a slight panic, as she intends to hand these scrapbooks out as Xmas presents to everyone she knows. She looked at me like I wasn't thinking clearly and then said firmly, "Well, you guys are engaged in my mind," to which I said, "Yeah it feels like we're married but we're NOT ENGAGED." She ignored this and patted my hand, which I'm sure was supposed to reassure me that Janet knows best, and if she says we're engaged we're engaged. then the twins started having a shrieking contest and I vowed never to have babies. Then I buckled one of the screaming monsters into the carseat successfully (those fucking things are tricky) and stood up only to find Janet hugging me and saying, "see, that's not too hard at all!" as though now I could go right ahead and give her some grandkids since I had successfully mastered the hardest part of childrearing. I about fainted.

I love Janet but I felt oddly attacked.

21. Hung out a lot with Mike and Ashleigh. Mike when Ash was at work, Ash when Mike was at work, both most of the time. had some really really really good talks. (actually, this trip was kind of defined by having really good talks with almost everyone I saw. I love you guys). Went to dinner with mom, Mike, and Ashleigh on my sister's birthday. Drew pictures of her on the tablecloth and sent them to her via camera phone. She thought we were sweet.

22. Wednesday Jenny was coming down in the evening because I twisted her arm and also she loves her sister and wanted to go out to Hammerheads, which I like the only bar I like in evansville, and the casino, which is something of a novelty until you've been there once. Or until you get to Vegas once, and then you'll never like it again. But anyway, she drove down by herself and she me and Ash proceeded to have an awesome fucking time. We ate at Los Bravos and drank a pitcher of strawberry margaritas straightaway, and then went to the boat and no one won any money and then we went to Hammerheads around midnight. And Jake Fuller was there, which made J happy, but a very bad ex-boyfriend of Ash's was there too, but she sat with her back to him and I could look over her shoulder at him and he barely took his eyes off her the whole night. Fuck that guy. he's a little trollop.

23. We werent' there very long before Mike and Dave appeared and I had run into Mike R earlier in the week and told him we'd be at hammerheads this day and time and Lo, they found us, and Dave had to work at 7am but proceeded to hang with us because it was such a special occasion. And man, I had a great time. We monopolized the jukebox and played every cool song on it, and tried to out-cool each other with our selections, and I called Chris too late and I feel like an asshole about that. And then Greg, Mike's roommate, showed up and came to say hi to Ashleigh and Jenny and I met him and he said Mike had been right behind him but M wasn't there for another half hour or so. But then he got there and everything was cool. He went to talk Greg and whoever and came back and says, "Liz, I don't want this to make you feel weird or anything, but I thought you'd want to know, that my friend Greg thinks you're gorgeous. He was like, 'THAT'S JD's girlfriend?!?' And then Brandon, that's the guy in the plaid shirt over there, agreed. So the consensus is that you're gorgeous. But don't DONT tell him I said anything, he would be so embarrassed."

And Jenny, Ashleigh, and Dave all puked all over themselves and told mike to stop inflating my already-dangerously large ego. hahahahahaha. That's the nicest compliment I've had in awhile, bitches. I can loll around in it for awhile if I feel like it.

24. Then after the bar shut down we went over to Mike's house, where we sat around on the porch with Greg, Brandon, and Greg's girlfriend Sally. Who is a 19 year old cheerleader. Greg juggled some oranges. We all did that thing where you try to crush an egg in the palm of your hand and you can't. We sat around trying to think of bands that contain the word, "head" in them because we were listening to Portishead and Greg said it was the best band that had the word "head" in the title. Ashleigh said Blonde Redhead, which was awesome. I said Motorhead and Greg about shit himself, because he had been trying to think of that one. Mike said later that when I said that it was as if Sally had just gotten up and left the room. hahahahahahahaha. Shameless. I'm fucking shameless.

25. We left after awhile and we girls went back to Ashleigh's and went to bed.

26. The next day Jenny and M went to lunch and A and I took showers (separate showers, pervs!) and discussed how we needed to go to the mall to buy me some undies since I had run out of clean ones (I checked the math on how many I would need for eleven days twice....but I was there for FIFTEEN days. I am retarded). Jenny left for Bloomington. Waaaah. I miss my sis. Hahahahaha. Mike called and wanted to come run errands with us. We were gearing up to drive to Louisville that night, the three of us, get a hotel and hang out with Stace. Unfortunately, it took us a ridiculously long time to get up and going that day. I think we woke up around 1:40. In the PM, my man.

27. Went, bought undies. verrrry cute, thanks to ash for turning me on to them. Went to Mike's so he could pack for Louisville. Called Stacey when we were about to leave (it was like 8pm) and she pointed out that she needed to go to bed about when we would get there. Felt stupid. Changed plans. Went to see The Village with M and Ash instead of driving to Louisville. M had to work on Friday, A didn't, so Ash would drive me in the morning.

28. M and A and I decided after the movie (which was very good) to go eat at Max and Erma's at the boat. We drove down the Lloyd and traffic all had to get in the far right lane and was backed up and a big mess. We get in the lane we need and we're just chilling with the windows down. Then this car drives slowly past us on the right-hand SHOULDER. The following exchange takes place:

Me (to the girl driving by us who is about two feet from my face, with her window rolled all the way down too): Are you retarded?
Her: No, we're trying to get to the gas station.
Ashleigh (yelling, from the backseat): Well, so are we!
Guy in other car (as they drive past): No, You're Retarded!

I didn't mean to say anything. I certainly didn't mean to say anything right to her face as she was looking right at me and I was most surprised by the fact that she wasn't mad or offended, just wanted me to know that they were trying to get to the gas station. We then watched them pull into the gas station and cut through it just like you're not supposed to do to avoid traffic. hahahahahah

29. Food was good. Mike came back to Ashleigh's and we sat around and then did a bunch of shots of vodka a grape juice and went to sleep. Woke up and left for Louisville. Said bye to Mike first. Listened to Damien Rice the whole way there. Ashleigh was brave on the bridge. Stace called on the way and was rightfully pissed at me. I'm not very good at time management. She'd gotten off work three hours early so she met us at Ear X-Tacy and then we ate giant burritos and ice cream from cold stone, which is my new favorite thing. And then they drove me to the airport and I said goodbye and that sucked.

30. Then I sat in Louisville's shitty airport for a long time and my plane to chicago was delayed and I honestly thought I would miss my connection and have to stay overnight in Chicago, which really wouldn't have been all that much of a tragedy. I nearly didn't get on the second plane. I don't know why, I just kind of sat there in the gate watching all the Orange County business people shoving in front of each other and the moms with their obvious plastic surgery and their stilettos and outside I could see Chicago and I felt strangely compelled to just sit there until the plane pulled away and then inform the gate attendant that I needed a different flight. Not that there would have been less of SoCal on the next plane, or the next, but I was sorely tempted. (You should have been weaker than sending me home).

31. The flight to the OC was uneventful. Freezing cold and I kept doing klutzy things that I hate when I do when I'm by myself, because people think you're insane. I dumped half of my drink on my self and almost tripped on the girl on the aisl when I got up to pee. And I think I went ahead and elbowed her in the face for her trouble anyway.

32. I'm back, and things are great. And I love this place and this apartment and my cat and my safe happy life. This was entirely too long and detailed a post. I miss you guys already. More on the day-to-day nothings in a bit. Happy early birthday Stace. Please don't hate me. I'm a shithead. I love you guys. I can't wait to see you in December. I'm counting down the days already.

I Need You So Much Closer

I feel a little better. Thanks Raedy. I'm at my mom's for a few minutes before I go hang out with JD's mom. My mom isn't here. I've had a really great time with all of you guys so far. Seriously ass-kicking. Thanks for entertaining me. The nervous shaking kind of stopped, I think that's because Eville tends to kill any kind of emotion or feelings anyone wants to have. I'm still a little rattled.

Asleigh's apartment is awesome, I am so glad I'm staying with her. Everyone's fabulous. I don't feel like posting anything worthwhile. Ash has a funny story that needs to go on her blog, though. Alright I'm gonna go. That's how I roll. Hahahaha.

Happy early birthday sis face

You And Me Are A Disease

I'm in Bloomington. Tomorrow sometime we're heading to Evansville. I feel strangely like I've wasted my time here. I love being in this town. I feel strange in general. I've been shaking and nervous and sleeping fitfully for a week. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Being here and seeing you guys is making me want to cut the shit, quit school, and get a 30 hr/week job that allows me to road trip my ass all over the state whenever I please and visit you whenever I want. This is such bullshit. Where's the lottery money? Fuck.

I do believe in fate sometimes. I believe in arbitrary things at arbitrary times, when they seem to suit my preferences. I don't want my life to be hard and make me feel this trapped. I dont' know what the fuck I want or what I'm doing. I'm losing it. This is a very inopportune time to start second-guessing my existence. I would be, honestly, just as happy if I worked making collages all day long and could read whatever I wanted in my free time. I'm losing sight of all the big pictures and I feel my throat closing up and I'm not going to sleep tonight. I didn't think I was running away from anything by going as far away as possible.

Compulsion, compulsion, compulsion.