Dresden Dolls: Mein Herr.

So Guy, my favorite person in the world aka the guy (ha ha) handling this whole recruitment nonsense, sent me an email today demanding to know where my visa is and when I'm leaving for Korea, which was funny because I was just about to send him an email with basically the same content. This was then followed almost immediately by a bizarrely chummy email stating that he was leaving the agency to go back to school and get his masters and that it had been really great working with me, but not to contact him anymore.

Red flags? Anyone?

So now I'm back to the original guy who was totally inefficient at answering any of my questions but could call at 8 am on a Saturday just to check if I was still alive, named... well I don't remember and that's not important anyway. What this means is that a significant portion of my day tomorrow will probably be spent explaining things people should already know. And as for what the hell happened to Scott Kim in Korea, well that's anyone's guess.

Mike and I probably need to speak on the actual telephone soon. Just to confirm that we both have the exact same non-information and absolutely no idea what's going on.

I want to leave. I do not want another month here. I'm sorry. I love everyone and home is where the heart is. But I want to leave. Now.

I need to watch Obama's speech, but I can't concentrate on anything right now. I can't even hold conversations because there's this big distracting question mark looming over everything.

Things I do know about the immediate future:

1. Steph and I are eating donuts and watching Degrassi tomorrow night.

"It's never the right time for donuts," is what I said to her.

I can't eat them in the mornings because that much sugar so early makes me ill. We never make it out of our pajamas before lunch, and we eat too much for dinner to follow it with anything at all, especially donuts. But she's standing firm on this one, I think.

Shame, though. The whole idea originally was to get donuts early in the morning so we could throw them from the car window at passing joggers. Because healthy people are annoying.

2. Heath is coming up on Saturday. I don't know if we are going to Fry Street or not, but I sort of hope not. The Denton bar scene leaves something(s) to be desired, and I'm not usually pleased with bar scenes as it is. I'd be happier sitting in just the three of us splitting a bottle of red and catching up. I'm getting old, what can I say?

3. Cheesecake is supposed to factor into all of this somehow. The basic outline I'm getting is that we're going to replace all our normal meals with horrible desserts this weekend. I'll let you know how that turns out.


Going through old photos messes with my head. I think I've had six lives already. And here I go, getting mixed up in a new one.

That's the way Aristophanes and Homer wrote the Illiad and Lysistrata.

(Edited to include the original, in case the references aren't obvious enough. Ha.)

I'm really blessed, is mostly what I've been thinking tonight.

I've got a family who let me crash on their couch because I'm broke, and actually fight over who gets to give me money for coffee and cigarettes.

I've got a friend back in New York who doesn't get mad at me even though I always miss her calls.

And another who always makes me laugh, even when he's pissed off with life.

And another one in Liverpool who sticks out all the tough shit with me.

And one here at home who doesn't mind that I never have anything to say and has excellent taste in baked goods.

And one in Vienna with gorgeous tattoos who seems to know my soul, even if it's been five years.

Oh, fuck off everybody. Changing addresses always makes me sentimental.

They're either foreigners or they're against us.

My dear friend Gary, in response to my last post, has posted this article, which I thinks makes several excellent points that I'm far too lazy to make myself, or in the case of actual face-to-face debate, am usually too busy turning red in the face, sputtering and trying to contain vicious name-calling to make, most basic of all that it's downright slow to feel entitled to anything just because of where you were born, whether you're doing the work for it or not.

Thanks to Gary for the reference.

We're up to our neck in foreign soil.

One of the most glorious things about this move so far has been having yet another way to make people immensely uncomfortable during political debates.

Something I often hear during these sorts of conversations is that I'm not fair because I use myself as an example and make everything personal. I guess they've never heard that old chestnut about the personal being political? A common example thus far would be:

"Blah blah blah people on welfare blah blah blah."

Me: "I was on welfare growing up."

Everyone else: "..... Oh. Well I didn't mean.... ahem."

Now the new version is:

"Blah blah blah immigrants, don't speak the language, taking our jobs, blah blah blah."

Well, you can imagine. And it's fucking great. Of course, as in the first case, the most common response is, "Well, that's different."

No. It's not.

The only difference is that I'm going to be paid immensely well -- better than my Korean counterparts -- for coming in and blundering around their country, not speaking the language and sending all of my money back home.

I think immigration is fantastic. In my version of a perfect world, you would be fucking required to live outside of your home country for a year. Especially the Americans.

Well, the kid's back out in Denton which means you all get to be graced with my textual presence once again. What things are there?

Uh. My grams informed me this morning that even though my brother's still not speaking to me, he did find her at work the the other day to ask, "Is that boy still going with her?" In italics and bold I think. So you know, Mags, you better watch out. I didn't even know he knew Mike was supposed to be going. Also, I think that was my grams's passive aggressive way of once again pointing out the fact that I'm more than likely definitely living in sin because I have boy (space) friends.

Yet, when I spend the night with Steph or Kat, I'm a big huge lesbian. I guess I just get around.

I do sort of live in sin. But not with Mike. Unless whiskey counts. And it probably does.

At the moment, I'm sort of dying because I've read all of the books I brought back from Brooklyn, but I don't have the dough or the excuse to buy more before I go.

Since I've started wearing my glasses, I've started to look more or less exactly like a barista we used to know who Steph was obsessed with me marrying. No one else will probably find that funny, but me and the kid definitely do.

Oh, enough nonsense for now.

Starsailor: Silence Is Easy

"If we woke up one morning in bed together, face to face and naked, and you said three words to me, what would they be?"

"Just three words?"

"Yeah."

"This never happened."

Absolutely ruined. I have no idea how a day of mostly nothing could possibly be so exhausting. It's just got to be the 107 degrees. Me and the kid went to dawdle around Target tonight and see what we could pick up for our prospective moves. I got that sensible belt I mentioned earlier and a set of XL twin sheets, pure dorm room style. As we strolled through the housewares section, I said, "My life is on repeat."

Later we went for dinner at a restaurant we've been going to for seven years.

"It's kinda depressing," she said, picking at the chips and salsa in front of her. "Always coming back home again."

We talked about her plans for grad school and I outlined the Korean holidays for her, to the best of my ability. I told her that if we aren't able to take a trip when I finish my contract, for whatever reason, I'm going to re-sign. Re-signing means not having to move, not having to start all over again, a pay rise and more vacation time. It also means only two weeks home.

Life falls funny sometimes, but you have to trust that there's something to it. The more I think about it, the more I am starting to see that it's time for me to really be away from home for a while. Not four hour flight, six months at a time away. Really away. I think part of the reason I could never really get my feet dug into Brooklyn soil was because I was back and forth so often. The night before I left New York I would say, I'm going home tomorrow. And the night before I left Dallas I would say, I'm going home tomorrow.

Not that I expect that to ever really go away. But I think breaking the sort of New York/Dallas shared custody situation will go a long way in helping me sort out where exactly it is I should put myself. It helps that most of my nearest and dearest are scattered across the four corners already, so I don't really have to choose.

When I came home for Christmas, it was the hardest thing ever to get back on the plane to New York. I even extended my ticket, which is something I'd never done before. Now, I have been here for long enough. Not too long -- just long enough. Long enough to feel comfortable leaving for a very long time. And trusting that things here will go on without me. And I will go on without them.

Let it never be said that BRMC are a band who don't go out of their way for their fans.

There was something extremely fishy about there being tickets available the night before to a BRMC gig, even if it was acoustic, especially when the band have a large fan base in Dallas, and especially when the venue was such a tiny club. The reason very quickly became apparent when Steph and I rolled up to the club at thirty minutes past doors and an unmoving line of people stretched five wide for several blocks down the sidewalk. It became even more apparent when we returned from Cafe Brazil down the street, where we had leisurely sat in the cool air drinking iced coffee and tea for nearly an hour, and the line was still there. Only twice as long.

We stood across the street and grumbled while I rolled a cigarette. An old guy in a security guard uniform walked passed and paused to comment on what in the sam hill was going on down there. Something about the fire code.

They oversold the show. In 100 degree nighttime weather, they oversold the show.

Not only did the band agree to play for an exhausting three and a half hours until 2 am, when legally, they have to stop, but Robert Levon Been let Peter Hayes play the first few songs of the first set by himself, and came out to play a couple of songs on the sidewalk, leather jacket and all, for those of us locked outside.

Doors were supposed to open at 8. We didn't get in until 12:30.

It was a decent show, perhaps a little overshadowed by the four hour sweat-fest on the sidewalk outside, but worth the wait in that stubborn dug in heels kind of way. Mostly they were willing to stay for us, so it was almost a matter of honor to stay for them. Found Robert sitting in a little crumpled pile on the sidewalk outside after and crouched down to thank him. He peeked out from under his fedora and offered his hand.

"Why does it seem like these kinds of things always happen to us?" I asked Steph.

"Because they do. They don't seem to, they do."