Dorms

I haven't written in this in a year and a half. Lately I've been wanting to again, but haven't been sure what to write. Well here goes:

I'm in the middle of reading Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone, a collection of essays about his life. In one he said his brother went to the University of Kansas and lived in Ellsworth Hall, which is exactly where I lived. I remember the single greatest thing about our room that impressed the very few visitors we had was our bathroom. Other rooms had bathrooms too, but for some reason my roommate Vince and I got a room with a handicapped-accessible bathroom, despite neither of us being handicapped in anyway. So, our bathroom was huge. I sometimes studied in there, using the sink as a desk, and also wrote songs in there, strumming an acoustic guitar and writing down chord progressions.

Lately I've written a few articles about dorms for a website I write stuff for. When I lived in the dorms, I hated it. Outside of my roommate, I just didn't really fit in with the other people there, the people who would run up and down the halls at 4:00 a.m., yelling and slamming into doors. But now, as I look back on that year living in Ellsworth, I do look back with some fondness almost, or at least I'm able to enjoy the fun things from that time. I also wish I would've done it better, that I had left our room more and made friends with the other people on the floor, instead of just staying in our room so much of the time.

But maybe that all shows how I've changed since then, how I used to be a guy sometimes hiding behind doors, and now I want to be outside, be in "it" and be a part of what's going on.


What I've Been Listening To Lately:
*Au Revoir Simone
*Fourth of July
*The National
*Lana Del Ray
*Twin Sister
*WTF w/ Marc Maron Podcast

Watching Lately:
*Childrens' Hospital
*I Confess
*Beginners
*The Future

Reading Lately:
*A Visit From The Goon Squad
*Breakfast At Tiffany's
*The Motel Life
*Juno: The Shooting Script

Some Pictures:

Things have been going fairly well recently. I just finished re-reading one of my favorite books, The Easter Parade by Richard Yates and have seen some awesome friends lately. Some other stuff:

*Visited Lincoln, Nebraska, which is a fun town.
*Reading the latest issue of Zoetrope: All-Story, which was designed by Jason Schwartzman.
*Seeing Camera Obscura in a couple weeks.
*Saw two sneak previews for free: She's Out of My League and Hot Tub Time Machine. Neither were all that good, but whatever, it was free!
*Met St. Vincent a month ago. She was really nice. I don't make as much of an effort to meet bands as I used to, due to them often being kind of unfriendly, but she was really nice. That's awesome.


Some pictures:

Mid 20s

It seems like most people I know are now are getting into their mid 20s, or maybe even older. That's just weird to think about. My sister turns 29 in a few days. A friend of mine turned 25 last week. Another turned 24 a couple days ago. We're gettin' old.

Some cool things in the last couple weeks:
*Ordered salmon for the first time at a restaurant (not the first time I've had it, but I've never voluntarily asked for it at a restaurant before)
*Shout Out Louds have a new CD coming out in a month. The new songs I've heard sound good.
*Camera Obscura is coming to Lawrence.
*Went to Manhattan (Kansas, not New York).
*Went to Columbia (Missouri).
*Am reading some good books.

Some pictures:

Since June...

Here's what I've been up to since I last updated in June:

*Took a road trip to California and back, making stops in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, and more. 4400 miles. Plus I met Zach Galifianakis! I manage to squeeze that into every conversation. You can read about the trip here: http://vinceandchris.blogspot.com/
*Told everyone I was moving to Chicago and then changed my mind and moved back to Lawrence.
*Still visited Chicago and had a swell time with Brian
*Played lots of shows with a couple bands
*Working on a novel. It's getting there slowly. Up to page 76 or so.

New Year's Eve was pretty great. I am reminded everyday that I know some really great people, and I continue to meet more. I did last night in fact. It's such a lucky thing.

Here are some of these people:

Traveling?

Traveling is something, like a lot of people, that I want to do more of. Vince and I have been making some vague plans to take a road trip to California in August. I think there's actually a good chance it'll happen. That'd be awesome. I guess part of me wants to have that Jack Kerouac lifestyle of traveling, very little responsibility, and being my own boss. That sounds pretty good.

Oh and I get to see two of my friends get married this week! I think it'll be a good time. I can't wait.

Omaha

First off, I want to thank Ashley for the being (at this moment) the only person to ever comment on this blog. Thank you.

Last Saturday I went to Omaha with the band. I brought along my Holga camera I got for Christmas 2007 that I had never used. I'm excited to see how the pictures turn out.

We walked around the downtown area, which was beautiful. We wasted time in a record store where we got some free posters, and Brook bought a record based on how cool the cover was (that's not a bad idea). We ate at a cafe that I can't remember the name of, but it was nice.

At our show, one of my new friends, Kalee, came out. I met her exactly a year before when we played in Lincoln, Nebraska at Box Awesome. That's one of the best parts of playing these out of town shows: meeting new people and hopefully getting to see them again sometime. That was only the second time I've seen her, April 11th, 2008 and April 11th, 2009. I think we should try to keep that up. Meet on April 11 every year.

Pot Lucks

It's weird that in the last entry I mentioned imagining my life full of pot luck dinners, because the day after I wrote that, as I was coming home from recording, Aaron called and told me Kush was having a pot luck at his place, so I went to that. It was a great time. So good seeing all those people: Leah, Dustin, Sheena, Lindsay, Kush, BJ, and more. I've noticed at parties I tend to stand in corners and this was no exception. A couple times I nearly got crushed when someone would open the side door and I had to shrink into the corner to avoid getting hit.

After this some of us went to Chateau. I drank a whiskey and Sprite and sat on a wobbly chair that made me feel like I had drank too much, even though I knew that wasn't true. In the bathroom as I reluctantly listened to the conversations, I was reminded that a lot of guys aren't very smart. And then some of us danced to the pretty bad music selection, but it didn't matter - we had fun. And it was Beau's birthday and he showed up later to celebrate some after plowing snow on Kansas roads for 12 hours.

That was a good day.