Category: Maria Barnes

October 13, 2005 /

When I put on Facebook that my music preference was “whatever you liked two years ago,” I wasn’t kidding. I finally bothered to count this morning and noticed that “Hey Ya” is in 22/24 time. And I’m getting really into the original Extraordinary Machine, the unreleased Fiona Apple album that leaked onto the interweb and got everybody all hot and bothered in 2003. Now the album has been retooled and actually released, and I’m just starting to listen to the stuff I ripped off Maria’s pirated CD that she got from Graham.

Expect a lot of stories that sound like Fiona Apple in a week or so, when I cycle through my current buffer. The buffer is why yesterday’s and next Wednesday’s stories are about outer space, because last week I was getting really into Firefly (on which I was a little behind–it came out in 2002).

In other stuff about music, I can’t stand Harvey Danger, so I’m upset that I have to buy their album. Values versus taste! Does anybody want a Harvey Danger album for a Christmas present?

September 5, 2005 /

My family is crazydrunkawesome.

Mom: “Do you think Maria would have been okay today, if she had come?”

Me: “I don’t know. It was pretty dusty and hot out there… she gets sunburned easily. And I’m sure the air was full of pollen.”

Mom: “That’s not what I meant.”

Me: “I know.”

Not Katrinablogging

September 2, 2005 /

“The music on the tape loops and looped. It was going round for a second time. We sat and listened to it. We’ll be sitting and listening to it for a while longer.”

Everybody needs to buy Magic for Beginners right now and read it because I need a discussion group to figure out what she is doing with tense, dammit. Or you can borrow my copy. You can’t borrow my copy! I’m reading the title novella to Maria and I have to read all the stories in it again anyway.

At its worst (“The Cannon”) the book descends into playful postmodern nonsense, but at its best it’s glorious. It may be less glorious to people who don’t share my borderline ADD.

The story I quoted above (“Lull”) is kind of about time travel, so maybe the tense ambiguity is tied to that, but it also shows up in at least one other story (“Catskin”) which is a fairy tale and not about time travel at all. But there are two distinct stories about zombies.

I need you to read this book so we can talk about it!

Its name is Weakness. Its playlist is Fear Of The New.

August 28, 2005 /

This is the entry where I gush about my mp3 player! Pretend it’s 2002.

My messenger bag is considerably lighter now that I’m not carrying my Discman and fifty CDs in it all the time, and I never have to try to hold three things while standing up again. That’s awesome! I sneakily got a refurbished Shuffle directly from Apple, so I got the one-gig version for the 512 price, and it’s still got a year warranty. That is also awesome! I get to carry the Magic Future Perfect* Radio Mix Tape From Heaven around in my pocket and it makes me happy.

It doesn’t introduce me to new music like the radio and mix tapes are supposed to do (remember when the radio introduced you to new music? Ha ha!), but that’s what I have Lisa and Will and Maria and Ken for. Ken, move back already, dammit.

The audio quality on the Shuffle is really excellent–I’ve actually noticed instruments in the midrange I never heard before, and there are none of the audible compression artifacts I used to get with my mp3-CD player. The one thing it doesn’t have is a bass boost, which is crippling. I am a little bit addicted to my bass boost. I am addicted enough that tonight I purchased paraphernalia with which to enjoy my dependency. Having an equalizer the size of a pack of cigarettes really destroys the point of having a music player the size of a stick of gum, but man, I was getting the dee tees. I’ll probably bitch later about how it works out.

Before I knew the Koss equalizer existed, I was actually considering looking for some converters and a battery-operated guitar effects pedal that would let me change the bass, and just carrying that around instead. Then I thought “ah, but that would strip the signal to mono.” Then I thought “and would be completely insane.“

I was annoyed at first that I had to partition the areas for audio storage and file storage separately, but I fit every song I wanted in less than the 800 megs I’d reserved. There is a remedy, as it turns out, but honestly I’m only using it to listen to the second good duet in the history of pop over and over again.

(The first, and previously only, was “Under Pressure.” Bowie and Queen.)

* A grammar joke!

Because I don’t post lyrics at the end anymore

August 21, 2005 /

I wish I felt more authentic about liking Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Basically the whole interweb told me they were good, then Maria told me I’d like them, then Ian played me the CD, and everyone was right. It was like being spoonfed. I wish I’d never heard of them until I heard them. I wish I’d walked in halfway through their set opening for somebody else and they’d started “Me and Mia,” and there’d be sweat spraying off me, pain in my ears, the way I used to dance before I worried about my spine.

August 12, 2005 /

Wednesday night, in the process of moving, I applied 360 foot-pounds of torque to my upside-down foot and am now on crutches. Crutches suck. I knew something like this would happen eventually; I’m just glad it happened to me.

I’m pretty sure it’s a sprain, and it already feels a lot better. It’d be nice to get it x-rayed to make sure it’s not broken, but my health insurance doesn’t kick in for another 68 days. Thanks, guys!

Maria has been taking very good care of me, and last night, Lisa and Scott picked us up and brought us to their apartment and fed us poached salmon and showed us funny DVDs and took us home. All this when Lisa was sick herself! It is impossible to have friends as good as Lisa and Scott.

The story of Sunday night

August 9, 2005 /

Running for the shower, my hands wrapped in singed pajamas, gripping a toaster oven belching flames, I began to wonder: where did it all go wrong?

As you may have deduced, Maria and I are trying to move to a new apartment about a hundred yards from our old apartment. It was Sunday night. In less than a week it would have been the two-year anniversary of the toaster’s purchase, and it was the first time we tried to cook anything with the toaster in the new place. Maria was trying to heat up some leftover restaurant tortilla chips (restaurant tortilla chips are very good, but only hot) and asked me how I usually heated them. I foolishly told her to toast them on medium.

Maria: ACK! Brendan, our chips have burst into flames!
Toaster Oven: REVENGE

I proceeded to treat the situation with a carefully thought-out policy of not opening the toaster door, and then, after a few seconds, opening the toaster door. The flames streamed upward like a reverse baby waterfall. Maria began to express concern over the possibility of activating our fire alarms.

Toaster Oven: THROW ME OUT OF THE WINDOW NOW, HU-MANS
Brendan: No! We’re never allowed to open the windows in here, because one of us is mildly afraid of bugs.
Maria throws open the windows.
Brendan: It’s not me.
Toaster Oven: HA HA PAN-SY

But off the stage, things weren’t going so well. Toaster Oven was slowly descending into a nightmare of booze and pills.

Brendan: I guess I knew things were falling apart when, after one session, I had to wrap my hands in old pajamas, grab Toaster Oven and throw him into the shower.
Toaster Oven: MY HABITS WERE OUT OF CON-TROL
Maria: That night was kind of what brought me to my senses. If this was the condition our lead guitarist was in, how much longer could the band last?

As it turned out, not long at all. Maria and Brendan intervened with water, followed by a heavy dose of baking soda. The band’s creative spark was extinguished. Also, the fire.

Toaster Oven: YOU BAS-TARDS ARE THROWING ME IN THE DUMPSTER QUESTION MARK EXCLAMATION POINT
Brendan: This for your own good, Toaster Oven.
Maria: It’s actually not.

It took nearly two days, but Toaster Oven and the Hu-mans would eventually resurface–without Toaster Oven itself. Instead, Maria and Brendan plan to audition new toasters based on a grueling selection process that involves being both cheap and at Target.

Brendan: Aww, this one’s adorable!
Toaster Oven: ARF ARF, AND SIMILAR SOUNDS
Maria: I don’t know. Do you think you’re ready for the responsibility of a toaster oven?
Brendan: I’ll take it for a walk every day! I’ll feed and water it, and I promise I won’t get tired of it, I won’t! Plus it’s on sale.
Maria: Well… As long as you understand that–
Brendan: Hooray!
Toaster Oven: SINISTER LAUGH-TER

August 2, 2005 /

This past weekend, Maria and her family and I painted the living room of our new apartment. It’s pretty fancy! The base is two coats of navy blue, and over that we color-washed a custom purple glaze with brushes and rags. If you ask me what color it is, I will tell you that it is Maria.

July 26, 2005 /

Maria got her board scores back yesterday. She did better than she had hoped, which is better than most of the country! Maria is awesome!

July 20, 2005 /

Wheeler came to visit us. It was fun! We played a whole lot of video games and some board games and ate high-quality vegetarian foodstuffs. He stayed with Lisa and Scott three nights and me and Maria for two, and did not hold me responsible for making him trudge all over Bardstown Road in the heat. Wheeler is, to quote Sumana, a good houseguest and a friend.

Lisa, Wheeler and I constitute three fifths of our weekly instant-messenger-based Nobilis game. Normally we play from our disparate locations in Louisville, Louisville, New Mexico, Georgia and Connecticut; this time the aforementioned three of us were all in my apartment at different computers, which was a neat if odd kind of synthesis. It’s easier to Laugh Out Loud at a joke when there are other people doing the same within earshot.