It is no longer christmas

merry christmas. listless. do not miss this place. miss austin.

Yesterday was a good christmas all things considered ( 1. I'm jewish, b. I'm atheist )

I'm just happy that being around family isn't something to complain about.

I spent Christmas eve making cards for Mom & Brady, Jessica & Adam (sister and boyfriend). They were a success!





"Thank you for downloading the program called 'love'"

Arts and crafts is still the same process for me as it was 13 years ago. My step dad cried reading the card I gave him and my mother (the robot one). Which is weird because what I wrote in it was even more so meant to be funny than the outside, which itself was meant to be pretty funny. Looks like I completely missed the target on that one. Speaking of funny cards, it's pretty hilarious to receive a Hanukkah themed card on christmas from your mom. It's even more hilarious when the card starts out with "To my atheist daughter,"

I made out pretty good in the gift department considering I already got my gift (audio interface, thank you mama!) A chipotle giftcard?! Burrito and guacamole time! Speaking of guacamole, everyone was impressed with the guac I made today. Delicious! and good to know I'm good at making guacamole.

I spent a lot of time writing songs in the shower today. Should be promising.

NRH Day 1

I thought for sure I’d have lost my voice by the end of the drive home yesterday. So much Andrew Jackson Jihad, so much Good Luck, so much Spoonboy, so much screaming.

A few surprises awaiting me in the North Richland Hills:
New paved sidewalks on Smithfield (no more running on the road!)
Boredom (not really a surprise, though, I suppose)
A tuned piano (it’s been years)

I saw Peter today for the first since August. Honestly, seeing him is always the most refreshing thing ever. We spent most the afternoon crafting. And by crafting I mean looking for non-lame song lyrics to paint on a coffee mug for his ladyfriend. And by looking for non-lame song lyrics to paint on a coffee mug I mean laughing at the comments people put on songmeanings.net. I can’t take anything anybody ever has to say about music seriously when it’s on the internet.

Some examples:

“this song has direct references to a gun even though it seems like he is talking about a lover, if you listen closely you will hear at the end several sprays of a gun

"are you a female young messiah" clearly gives it away
by itself, if you didnt catch it then you were given a subtle chance to interpret it with "stowaways and dugouts"

if you still didnt catch it, then maybe you havent experienced the true aura of this type of scenario”
User Shadester on Why?’s song ‘Simeon’s Dilemma’

“shadester: either being a dick on purpose or just a jackass.”
User Rabid in response to Shadester’s previous comment.

I fucking love the internet.

When Peter and I were at Hobby Lobby buying acrylic paint for the mugs, I asked him what he was planning on painting. I snorted when his response was “Uhhh…probably some song lyrics or something” and he just laughed and said, “Alex, you have no idea how gay liking girls again has made me. It’s ridiculous.” This was a short 20 minutes after he had left reading manga at the library to come pick me up. Peter Allen O’Neal, year two of college has made you one cool kid!

I also spent a good portion of the day drooling over this look:



I also spent a good portion of the day drooling over this new mini-series.

Portland and Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein! It’s future home option #2 and my favorite chick rock band all in one! Christmas came early for this girl.

The Color of Hurt

This is a painful song
written in october, 2009. true story.

Homeward bound in the afternoon; leaving this green fortress behind for a week. So much baggage.



The day's highlights:
a wonderful run
tofu scramble twice (again!)
my new camera came in
recording another song
dinner with Lauren
$75 made at Buffalo Exchange
$50 spent on a new yellow sweater
watching Josh's sheer joy at messing with Kyle and Gautam's foozeball game

Ghost town kind of town

I got my nose pierced today. It finally happened after months of talk and putting it off for one reason or another. I summoned up all my courage and did it. The piercing part went without a hitch. No Alex-sees-needle anxiety attacks, no freak outs, no nothing. But afterward I felt a little lightheaded. And luckily Micaela decided to get her nose stud replaced before we left because about 10 minutes later I'm sitting in a chair in a piercing parlor thinking I'm going to die. I'm in a cold sweat, feeling like I'm about to pass out, the color drained completely from my face. The piercing artist and her husband run the shop, and they were completely fantastic dealing with this situation. This 200 lbs man with sleeves, gauges, every thing hardcore you name it he's got it, is unbuttoning my sweater for me and handing me tiny sips of sprite in a miniature cup as I'm lying there limp, convinced of impending death.

Hilarious.



After the crisis I felt 100% and spent a lovely afternoon with Micaela. She's leaving for Florida tomorrow. Everyone is leaving! I had dinner tonight with Brent, who is also leaving tomorrow (except he's going to Amarillo to pick up his grandfather's WWII gun). All this leaving has me thinking my decision to actually go home for a bit was in good vain.





Other than the piercing not too much happened today. Said a few goodbyes. Finished writing another song to be recorded soon. It was 75 degrees out today and that was bizarre. I ate scrambled tofu twice.

Our Half Year in Lists

A song a wrote back in April

Our Half Year in Lists

This is rough, but a taste of more to come. (Hopefully).

It was a weird day--too many periods of sleep, too many periods of sleep right after eating, nausea and sounds.

As if a synthesizer wasn't enough.

I finally invested in an audio interface. And have temporarily (permanently, probably) set up a "recording studio" in my teeny tiny room. Kyle and I spent a good chunk of the day figuring out a lot of pretty basic stuff in Pro Tools LE. Note for the future: there's an important distinction between an audio track and a instrument track. But things are up running smoothly for the time being.

Check it out.





Recording related stuff aside, it was a good day. It started out with me reading a little bit more of "Norwegian Wood," and then I slept for 9 hours (that never happens!). I went for a run today against the cries of my legs, but the 5 miles did me good and I ended up being less sore afterward than I was before. A short time later I was reminded how awful holiday shopping for my immediate family is. Judging by the results, it looks like the rest of the Cohens are going to have more Longhorn pride than I do.



Audrey and Lauren had me over for dinner. Which was appropriately garlicky. We watched a movie called "Lars and the Real Girl." It was a cute movie, but kind of unbelievable. And definitely one of those movies we provided a lot of commentary on and clever remarks about throughout. Maybe I'd suggest it, probably not though.

I should go to sleep. It's 12:25am and I am giving someone a ride to the airport at 4:00am.

I will now leave you with a picture I took outside the co-op on the way to one of my TuThurs 8AMs this past semester.

I've Been A Bad Girl.

But I deserve it, that's for sure. And here's why:



There's no way I pulled that off without some serious help from Chen Laoshi, but I'm not going to complain about it.

So how have I been a bad girl? Well. Let me tell you.
It might be the $200 I spent on clothing yesterday.
The $50 camera I ordered from Amazon also doesn't help.

But I think it's this guy that seals the deal:



A trip to guitar center couldn't have possibly ended cheaply. I knew that going in. But in my defense, I sweet talked the sales guy into a price match from an online store, and I've been playing around with it for a few hours now, and let me tell you. It's as awesome as it looks. I might not be eating for a month now, but I don't feel very hungry when sweet synth sounds are filling my ears.

Today was pretty exhausting. I ran my second 18-miler of marathon training and that pretty much has had me wanting to sleep the rest of the day, but I already agreed to obligations that kept me busy, which is probably a good thing. I just got back from seeing Tron. At the IMAX. In 3fuckingD. It was like having a rave thrown down your throat for 2 hours straight. Entertaining certainly. And I can definitely say that the soundtrack has me feeling a lot better about buying that synthesizer (I plan to cover ever track now). Mostly, I enjoyed the David Bowie-esque character (that alone made it worth the $10).