chris

There's something about the album Chris

Where his beats and synths and voice and words feel so expansive

That just specifically remind me of Olympia

The moss and the marble

first real-feeling day of spring

Blossom petals of trees I wish I could identify on sight, drifting on the 55-degree breeze

"Start a War" and "Guest Room" making more sense to me now than ever, more as talking to myself about the last days of us than talking directly at you

The piano interlude in "Ada" sounding the closest a musical instrument has to capturing your high-pitched laugh

Wanting to stay outside all day, but not knowing what to do 

ex's lament

I hope she makes you happy

But I didn't tell you that

Because I don't want to know.

time and space, timespace

Friday afternoon, March 6th, 2026.  Theia takes me to lunch in my neighborhood so we can both get out of our apartments and feel "more human." I think she also feels bad that I got laid off the day before. We go to the tamales place that's also a brewery, where we have mostly good conversation. In the middle of it, she does tell me that the person she's been hanging out with a lot--who she's told me about before--that they're seeing each other. I immediately, nonchalantly, wave it off and say it doesn't bother me. Later during lunch, I notice the spot between her neck and her collarbone--not a very hidden spot. She also puts her finger to her ear canal and mentions Ellie "really got in there." I start to realize that the things Theia used to do with me behind closed doors, she's now doing with another person. Hands. Mouth. Probably grabbing thighs and stomach fat. My face gets hot. We end up walking around the nieghborhood after lunch and then she goes home to meet her grocery delivery. I go home to a sad realization and to cry. When I go downtown later to have drinksw with Danielle, I tell her my ex is seeing someone else. She hums sympathies.

Somewhere around 7:15pm, Saturday, March 7th. I go see Monica's show at Theatre Off Jackson. I know Theia will be there, and she's bringing her new...flame. Sure enough, she finds where I'm sitting and comes over to say hi. She introduces me to Ellie, who smiles politely with a drink in hand and says "It's nice to meet you." She's beautiful, of course. She's shorter than me, with dark full hair, no visible dandruff, a dark red lip, and a fuller figure with a better hips. She's meant to have them, I think, thinking of my skinny chicken legs that don't fit my bulbous torso. It's awkward. They go back to their seats on the other side of the center section. Thank god for Avril, who shows up a minute later. We end up sitting next to a former classmate from undergrad, Sierra, whom neither of us have seen in some time. We catch up. I am grateful for the honest distraction.

The show is very moving. About grief and loneliness and letting go of someone you love. Monica is brilliant, of course, and moves me to tears for the second time I've seen a show of theirs. A now-former co-worker co-stars alongside Monica, Mariah. I feel the tiniest pinch of an actor's crush after watching their performances.

Later that night. Avril graciously gives me a ride homea fter dropping Monica off at their place. Avril asks me to tell them what's going on, because they could tell from how I acted in the theater that I didn't want to be around Theia and her date. I tell them that I said to Theia that I was okay with her dating someone new, but that I realized later that I wasn't. That I had thought all those sad, one-sided conversations about how lonely she felt--even after she'd broken up with me, sitting in our--no, her--bed, me biting back the "you made that particular choice, it doesn't have to be that way"--all of those times she said she needed more time and space to herself to figure out her own shit, that she'd meant that. But I guess not. "I think I need more time, and more space, before I can come back to her as a friend." Avril wholeheartedly agreed, "You need to do that for yourself, if not for yourself, then for the future of your friendship with her. But you should do it for yourself." They're right. In the middle of this conversation, we miss my exit and spend the re-routing singing very loudly to the first Phantogram song I ever heard with the windows down. I remember every word and feel fifteen years younger.

10:23pm, same night. I call Theia as soon as I walk in the door, she's doing dishes. I tell her I need more time and space. I don't want her to avoid events that I'm also at, and vice versa, but I tried being the cool ex-turned-friend, and it's not working. I can't follow the lesbian trope of immediately being friends with one's ex. She says she thinks that trope is bullshit anyway. I tell her it wouldn't be good for me, or fair to her. I have a jealous ball of iron in my gut that I need to remove, and that will take time (I wish had been that poetic when I talked to her). She said she understood. I said when I was ready to start a new chapter of our friendship, I would let her know. We said goodbye.

day after i got laid off from The 5th

Lala Lala's "Does This Go Faster?" is stuck in my head, has been since leaving the building yesterday. Particularly these phrases:

I don't live here / I don't live anywhere

Nothing on Earth is free / Even in ecstasy / Hell is the day after the party

on my way to therapy

Air smells like when I first visited and knew I would live here

Warm fog

The overcast on the horizon betrays the rising light on the mirror side,

almost white hot gray

while the rest of the clouds cling to February

Seems all too similar to September 2013 in Troutdale

To February 2019 here

i need to keep writing.

I want to start a substack/blog where I write about music. I want to write about music sort of in the way a reviewer writes about music, but also not in the way a reviewer or music journalist writes about music.

I'm not sure how to write like a music journalist. Music journalists and reviewers all seem to have experience playing several instruments, or audio tech degrees, or work for a record label, or know music theory, at least. I played violin for the better part of 8 years, from 4th to 12th grade, and I don't think I actually learned what music theory was--I just learned how to play by ear and then how to read sheet music, and after all that, I stopped. After that, I just became a music savant, of sorts.

I've always felt like an explorer, and a student, of music. I've discovered my favorite bands and albums by way of my friend Karma shunting a whole copy of her music library onto my 2007 white plastic MacBook, by way of hooking up with my first guy-who-was-a-big-Radiohead-fan my junior year of college, by befriending other fans of The National and paying attention to the other music they posted about on Facebook or Instagram, and eventually I learned to directly ask people I was interested in knowing (in any capacity) what they liked to listen to. Even in my days as a born-again Christian youth who didn't listen to bands not associated with the church in some way, I still found a way to follow the CD-shaped breadcrumbs down several subgenre paths of contemporary Christian rock before I discovered hardcore straightedge rock as a curious teen.

I guess where I'm going with this is: I don't know if anyone wants to read stuff about albums and artists and songs written by someone who will have to internet-search references mentioned in Pitchfork or Stereogum reviews just to understand them but I talk aobut music all the fucking livelong day to the people in my non-screen life, and I have an iTunes-turned-Apple Music library teeming with playlists, so I'm gonna try to write about it anyway.

I'm especially inspired by Christopher Hooton and David Rapson's work on the first (hopefully not only??) season of the podcast "Coffee & Flowers", not just because it's a deep-dive into my favorite album of all time (Boxer) by my favorite band of all time (The National), but because right off the bat, they said they weren't necessarily going to try to analyze each song on the album as fact, but talk through how it made them feel. It's expertly spliced with segments of interviews with Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Carin Besser, and Peter Katis; it's a love letter to why people write and talk about the music they love, and a love letter to the fans that connect with and are inspired by music as well.

So while I don't have Carin or Matt to text to set up a phone call, or an invitation to visit Long Pond Studio (I wish!), I am going to be taking a leaf out of Chris and David's book and focus on what I know and what I feel, and how I express that, when I hear something I like.

I dunno, man, I've just gotta keep writing. It's 40 minutes past when I told the cat we would go to bed and I'm still writing.

If I can still hear it in my head, I am singing it out loud, as many times over until it leaves my system. This is that but I'm writing about it instead, I guess.

heritage

I think I'm turning out to be just like my dad.

All the qualities that my mom admonished and hated about him

All the traits that she made seem lesser-than, and that I silently judged him for.

Fuck.

Lake Superior

There is a gulf in the middle of this house

It started with a drop and got wider and wider

There is a graveyard of freighters at the bottom of this well

wish for some navy blue

It’s one of those windy nights that belongs to a place with more open skies

Where there’s a trick of a hint of warmth

Where each gust makes you wonder why you even bothered with your hair today

Where it feels like the earth is turning faster than it should and your town seems to be the axis point

Where you wanna wander

Where it steals your breath if you walk right into it