2008 was an interesting year, but I find myself over a year after my last post living in the same apartment in the same town with the same job. Things feel very different, while on the surface nothing fundamental has changed.

I am working on certain elements of my life and have become pretty happy with the changes that have resulted thus far, but I feel that even though I think New Year's resolutions are bull and it isn't January I am going to set some resolutions down here and revisit them later to see how I have done.

So here goes:
-Maintain a very low level of alcohol consumption (I drank for the first time in several months last night and I am not enjoying my reduced energy level today)

-Run more (I have started running semi-regularly but I need to make it a fixture in my life)

-Make my new house the best living situation I have every had, this means that I want to be a tidy, respectful housemate with a clean, nicely laid-out room.

-Keep reading (I am doing pretty well right now but I need to keep it up)

-Start thinking longer term (Save more, think about what I really want down the road)

Well it has been about two weeks since my last post. Not a lot has happened, mostly just reading and watching Netflix. As it gets closer to the end of the month I have been taking on more of the responsibilities at the shop including hiring new employees to fill our open shifts. I now realize that job interviews are a pain in the ass for both the interviewer and the interviewee. I wish I was more excited about the upcoming promotion, but I am going to be really bummed when Dylan leaves the store and it is hard for me to get excited about something that is entirely motivated by money, or lack thereof.

I wish money was not such a big issue, but it is really hard to get by on only one paycheck a month. I try to be really good about managing my money but something always seems to come up to get rid of any savings that I have accumulated. It makes it really hard for me to try and plan anything for the future when I can't save any money for that future now.

New Year's was a complete and total bust. Mind you, that was to be expected but it is still annoying.

Lucero - "My Best Girl"
I just finished reading Parable of the Sower while listening to this song and I felt for a moment that both my ears and mind were completely satisfied. It was a moment of simple brilliance; a book filled with the kind of sadness that comes equally riddled with hope absorbing into my mind and a song that is mournfully romantic and ultimately sobering filling my ears.

Here's to 2008. listen more, learn more.

I think everyone should have to work retail at least once during the holiday season.

Listen to: Jason Isbell "Sirens of the Ditch", Teddy Thompson "Upfront & Down Low", Deadstring Brothers "Silver Mountain" and Cherryholmes "Black & White" a real best of 2007 will be forthcoming.

Listing those albums makes me sorta a hypocrite since I own only one of them and usually just listen to Matt Bauer's Nandina whenever I am at home.

I have to decide what album is going to be my Christmas present to myself. What do you think internet?

It seems like this blog only really works in spurts.

Summer was as usual uneventful, moved way too many times, but am finally settled in a little apartment with Jesse. I walk to work every day and usually stop by the Co-Op on my way home. I have realized that I thrive on routine and that is part of the reason why I am still in Davis and still working at Armadillo.

Primary Concepts opened at its new location and looks amazing, now if only more downtown shops provided the same kind of atmosphere. Every time I go in there is someone there that I want to see and interact with. Kai is turning out better and better tattoos, and they are holding art openings and some small shows.

I am finding very few compelling reasons for leaving my house these days, my netflix subscription and library card have become my default activities after work. I seem to go through reading spurts much like I do with writing in this blog, I will read 3 or 4 books a week for a couple months, then I will get sidetracked and not use my card for half the year.

I am going to try to write about one song/album/movie/or other that has caught my interest recently.

Currently my default album at work is the Earlimart record Mentor Tormentor which came out sometime this summer. Part of that is the fact that by virtue of their name Earlimart are located behind the counter and so are easily at hand. But the other part is that I feel bands like Earlimart, Autolux and a few others are groups who music is especially conducive to cold weather. The record has bits of Elliott Smith, the aforementioned Autolux and the Shins interspersed with beautiful vocals and mellow but complicated song arrangements. Plus they have a song called "We Drink on the Job" on an earlier album, a statement that I can certainly get behind even if I do not currently indulge in that behavior.

Reading: Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Listening: Jim Lauderdale - Bluegrass
Watching: Weeds, Smallville, How I Met Your Mother

lipstick again last night, this time with just my sis and her crew, it was really awesome to see pete and mykle dancing (which they did towards the end of the night). i am amazed that lipstick has been fun the last two times that i have gone, which just reinforces the idea that the people you are with are way more important than anything else. i have been trying to utilize this idea as much as possible, i feel sometimes that i can be too solitary. i am very content sitting in my very comfortable house reading a book or watching a movie when i could be out and about socializing with people who i feel are my friends and yet i see most of them so infrequently. my goal for this spring is to spend much more time out doing things, of course that will cut into my netflix obsession, but i think that i can deal.

jesse returns from tour today, it has been kinda a weird separation because we have been in contact but he has been travelling and playing shows and doing really amazingly from what i can tell, while i have remained here doing what i normally do. it has made me want to travel, i need to move around, i want to see the places that i saw as a little kid and hope that they are just as amazing now.

i watched a david gordon green movie last night called Undertow. i think that his films capture all that i love about the south, the scenery is so languid, yet so vibrant and all the characters are very human, prone to mistakes and yet very endearing. i have never gotten into a director so completely that i wanted to see all of his films, and i think i like green even more because at least from what i can tell he is fairly unheralded. i think he has found some acclaim on the critical level, but i brought him up last night in a car of fairly astute movie goers and no one knew the name.

i was told last night that when i talk about music that i like, i do it in a way that makes people want to listen to it. i really like hearing things like that because so much of my life in the past couple of years has revolved around music and getting people to hear music that i think is amazing. i really hope that this ability to talk about music translates into being able to write well about it. my piece in theLegend should be coming out soon, and i am kinda aching for the editor to give me another assignment. i really feel like i could do the writing thing, and my first submission wasn't anything special so i want to write more to prove that i can develop the chops necessary to do this on a bigger level.

i can't believe that after so little time here, kai is leaving again for like another three weeks. hopefully that will be the end to her and mykle's travels for a bit because i really love having them here in davis.

time to go prep for my radio show and hope that this week unlike last week i actually get to do a show. i have been told by erik that next quarter my show is moving from wednesday to tuesday, but i get to go back into the old hour and a half spot that i really like. i want to step up the content of my show a bit, i really need to work on discovering new stuff, so much of the stuff that i play week-to-week is stuff that i am already familiar with and it is chosen simply because i do not have a lot of time to prep. so that is going to hopefully end, i want to play more traditional songs, whether it was recorded recently or not, i love it when music sounds old.

Well after a pretty hectic week, I have kinda taken a couple of days off from the general craziness. And it has really been pretty good, watched Amores Perros with my sis, Mykle, and the folks tonight and then picked Kristen up from F and 6th. Everyone I know had apparently been celebrating that fact that it was spring-ish while I was at work. It is strange to live on a schedule that is completely different from everyone else, pretty much everyone I know lives on a Mon. through Fri. schedule I live on a Wed. through Sun. So while I am relaxing, everyone else is either in school or in class and sorta vice versa, except for the fact that because I work mid-shifts so I can go out at night but I do miss out on things like this afternoon. Either way, being mellow has been nice, especially since I think I am going to try to pack the fun in over the next couple of days because Jesse leaves for SXSW on Wed. I think he will be back for like a couple of days and then Kai is going to leave for Italy, everyone is getting to take these little trips here and there, and yet I haven't gone anywhere since the last time I went on a mini-tour with BRL. I really need to get out of Davis and go some where cool, with ample distractions. I realized now how much I loved having Kai live in SF (except that I love her living in Davis more) because I could always take a day or two and visit her and forget about Davis and everything that goes along with it. Don't get me wrong, I love davis, but it is such a small town that every now and then you need to get away with everything that it entails for a little bit.