dear friend,

how very very different this year is from last. i don't know why i feel the need to compare. maybe because these two years come in a pair: two years in school, for example. well most recently it was sxsw.

voxtrot at factory people, saturday march 18 // © brooklyn vegan

[i am in the bottom left-hand corner.]

anyway, this is last year's summation:

the good:
+ getting drunk before noon
+ seeing voxtrot play (five times)
+ seeing saturday looks good to me play, and talking to fred
+ M.I.A. and crazy dancing
+ the go! team and crazy dancing
+ the vice party
+ impromptu dance parties
+ SPARX
+ the church of the friendly ghost
+ sharing a room with courtney (well, mooching a room)
+ i love you but i've chosen mattress
+ pirates booty and trail mix -- and room service!
+ hanging out with mitch
+ hanging out with most of the (other) voxtrot boys
+ $3.50 for cigarettes
+ free wristband!
+ staying up for 36 hours straight and being drunk for most of them

the bad:
- being abandoned in a bar
- the sound getting fucked up for slgtm
- the endless line for the three port-a-potties at the vice party
- not getting to hang out with shirley very much (which i expected, because she was being paid by the nyc taxpayers to cover the festival)

and oddly, this was this year:

the good:
+ getting drunk every day
+ seeing voxtrot play (four times)
+ seeing camera obscura play, and talking to carey
+ princess superstar
+ the diesel, nylon, ny2lon, & other factory people parties
+ dancing with all the ladies at the last voxtrot show
+ starting a dance party to the dj afterwards
+ courtney's (different courtney) apartment
+ i love you but i've chosen lotsofotherthings
+ hanging out with most of the voxtrot boys & other assorted sundry austin folk
+ $2.89 for cigarettes
+ whitney & confessing my finnish crush
+ stephen a.k.a. bambi & ensuing trip to spiderhouse & wandering around austin all night
+ staying up til 8am with danica & ivan & nick & other nice austin peeps
+ shopping & dinner & coffee with andi
+ running into phil the first night & almost every night
+ kimmy!!!!!

the bad:
- feeling abandoned by my roommate
- not having a wristband and being denied at emo's while 17 year olds behind us on line wearing strokes t-shirts talked about missing voxtrot
- not having a wristband and being denied at emo's and therefore missing saturday looks good to me
- the endless line for the two port-a-potties at factory people
- sort of wanting to die the entire time and therefore smoking like it was my job
- kimmy perhaps sensing this and maybe not having such a great time

funnily enough, it would seem i had more fun this year. when at first i was worried i would not. perhaps the difference this year is the company, and that there was more of it, or that it was more varied. and full more of ladies than boys.

today i am drinking coffee and really feeling the cruellest month and having the realization that i will be in new york this summer and thinking about how the month of april last year was absolute torture and may kind of was too. and maybe 28 is old enough to get over myself and decide who/what is worth my time and what i want and what i don't want.

the coffee right now tastes amazing and i am reading the perks of being a wallflower finally after hearing about it for like 8 years. and i find myself constantly saying, "that is so 1998 for me" or "i've known so-&-so for 8 years" and was 1998 such a great year? that was when i met kimmy and also first listened to belle & sebastian. thus far those two things have been very influential and sources of much happiness.

friday helen & i followed the advice (loosely) in the "spring cleaning for dirty girls" article in this month's bust and wore our flowered sleeping skirts & headscarves and cleaned the heck out of the apartment. there are still dishes to do and clothes piled up on my rocking chair but the floors are clean and the windows are open and it feels like spring.

friday night we stopped in astoria for 15 minutes of marissa's going-away party & she was the first page i met at the library and i'm so sad to see her go but so happy that she is driving across the country and going to study to be a librarian in seattle. then we went on to danica's birthday party where i ran into a friend of alexis's who is now dating a girl from austin. also i may have inadvertently hit on a boy who happens to be dating a girl from austin who helen knows but who does not know me and who may now think i'm a boyfriend-stealing bitch which would be hilarious because i couldn't steal anyone's boyfriend if i tried and i wasn't trying but i don't like competition between girls for boys.

helen was talking to lots of friends and didn't have to get up the next day but i did so i bowed out and it only took me a little over an hour to get home from williamsburg at 3 in the morning which is crazy! but then my mom called at 10:30am to say that she and my dad and my aunt were on their way and i had to get up and shower and every thing before they got there. ugh. i'll spare you the details of my tourist day. just know that my mom has finally given in to using a wheelchair and that the city is so un-friendly to that, and that my aunt really wanted to see "ground zero" and was disappointed and like, "there's nothing there" and i wanted to say, "yeah that's because the buildings? they got blown up." blah.

oh and last weekend alexis & i met up with andi to see love is all at the warsaw and drank polish beer and it was awesome. and even awesomer was running into laurel who had shown up randomly by herself on her shiny blue bike so we all four ladies got to hang out and it was just lovely.

see so many things to tell you because it's been so long.

i have 4 months now to save up money and get full-time work (in the reverse order) so i can move to brooklyn in august. i also need to write poems and make it through thesis readings somehow. and school will be over. and was it worth it? if i had to do it all again, would i? it is not a good position i am in.

so many many things.
i miss you.

xo.