a-thinkin' & a-wondrin'

new roommates Zac & Matt


the back porch

the front

swag bookcase

so I live in Bend now.

yeah it's crazy like that. I didn't expect to be here this soon, but the planets aligned and here I am. well if you want to know, my best friends Zac and Lindsay Bascom are the real reason why I'm here. I don't think I'd be down here otherwise and I'm happy about that fact.

they moved, they wanted me to be their roommate, so the logical conclusion was that I should do it. another motivator was me moving out of my parents house. that was a big one for me. it's so odd right now, being on my own essentially, paying for groceries myself, and living like I should have years ago. this came about at the most opportune time in my life. I was hoping for an adventure and this is an adventure.

I've been here two weeks now and things are goin fantastic. I HAVE A JOB NOW! it's with a call center for iPhone customers. even though I don't own an iPhone, nor do I know how to use one, I'm gonna be helping people who do own one. after three weeks of training I'll know them back to front.

so I've been blessed with a job, a house, good friends and an amazing new home: Bend. I want all my friends to come and visit me all this summer! this year is lookin pretty good thus far.

all manner of malady come to be seen

I found a version of this online and thought it looked astounding, so naturally I decided to give it a whirl. First, you open your iTunes and put it on shuffle. Then you write a poem using the first audible line of each song. Mine shall go like this:

I am thinking it's a sign
I am born to hang
sweet talkin' Johnny push a john quicker than he spit
you may be an ambassador to England or France
however hard I try, I crawl when I should fly

Many men have battled,
I see thy love in the distance
Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face
take leave the conscious mind
when you're back in your old neighborhood

You took it back
another year has gone by
let's take a ride to the easy plateau
the first time I saw you
here we go.

I'd like to drop my trousers to the world
feels like you're miles from here,
I thought about my life
born a poor young country boy

Stickshifts and safetybelts
I think that it's time to get out
throw my ticket out the window
Cain said to Abel

Closer away from the boundaries
she says "wake up, it's no use pretending"
soon ends our stay here and it's been fun.
I don't want to be your friend
today’s been a career day

I shoulda known better with a girl like you
on it's on, I declare my room a scene
something in the way she eases my mind
the final phase
golly Sandra

and I heard a voice through the dischord
white moon, white moon breaks open the tomb
all manner of malady come to be seen

This Is My [A-->B] Life

As promised, here is an alternate version of an itunes survey that I'm going to take using my playlist on shuffle. I can't get enough of these. They're so fun and eerie depending on what your responses are. To mix it up, each song represents a track to the soundtrack of my life. I'm playing the first 18 songs that come up on my itunes, no matter how embarrassing. You can do this too if you feel like it. This is how she goes:

Track no. 1: Opening Credits
Bob Dylan - "Ballad in Plain D" (Cool, that'd make a sweet opener)

Track no. 2: Waking Up
Beirut - "The Penalty" (I can picture it well. Great ukulele song, even better than that ukulele version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow)

Track no. 3: First Day of School
Coldplay - "How You See The World No. 2" (Yes indeedy)

Track no. 4: Falling In Love
Pinback - "Messenger" (I'm with a girl who's stationed far from here...)

Track no. 5: Fight Song
Clinic - "Family" (We will fight psychedelically!)

Track no. 6: Breaking Up
Jenoah - "Man In Me (Bob Dylan cover)" ('It ain't me babe, it ain't me you're looking for babe.' Wow, that's insanely accurate)

Track no. 7: Prom Night
Thrice - "Digital Sea" (Sorta techno-y style. I can dance to it like nobody's business)

Track no. 8: Life's Okay
Pete Yorn - "Black" ('I’m just a lonely guy in my youth, waiting for you is all I wanna do.' That's me to a tee)

Track no. 9: Nervous Breakdown
The Frames - "True" (What a soothing breakdown it'd be)

Track no. 10: Road Trip
Wilco - "Sunken Treasure" (Seriously good driving tunes)

Track no. 11: Flashback Montage
Grandaddy - "Under the Western Freeway" (It certainly lends itself to a trippy flashback sequence, doesn't it?)

Track no. 12: Making Up
The Beautiful Mistake - "Walking Wounded" (I had to cheat and shuffle two more times because Wilco and Coldplay came up again and I wanted a more diverse group of artists to contribute to this list. I apologize for the inconsistency, but this song suits it much better anyway)

Track no. 13: Wedding
Cake - "Race Car Ya-Yas" ('...the land where large fuzzy dice still hang proudly like testicles from rear-view mirrors...' Hahaha only at my wedding)

Track no. 14: First Baby
Project 86 - "Rebuttal" (Strange, I think my cheating messed this up. Or maybe it didn't? My first baby is really gonna dig some macabre rock n' roll)

Track no. 15: Final Battle
Eddie Vedder - "Long Nights" (Picturing this in my head it looks so EPIC!)

Track no. 16: Death Scene
My Morning Jacket - "Heartbreakin Man" (I do in fact want to die listening to this one song)

Track no. 17: Funeral Song
The Clash - "White Riot" (Haha, what does that tell you about me? I'm white and there's gonna be a riot at my funeral apparently. Nice)

Track no. 18: Closing Credits
As I Lay Dying - "Collision" / City and Colour - "Hello, I'm In Delaware" (This is interesting. I know As I Lay Dying is still on my itunes, but I think I kinda hate them now. I've lost a taste for the harder, metal music and developed into a folk/acoustic sensibility. City and Colour is a reflection of this new taste in music style. It was on random and I didn't pick it personally, but it fits me so well)

So as you can see, a few times I had to cheat and skip to the next song, partly to add more variety, partly because I keep forgetting that I still have some metal bands on my itunes that I never listen to anymore. I think it went well. It was fun and a lot of the songs were relevant to each aspect of my life soundtrack. As for the later half of my life that I know nothing about, that remains to be seen. Now I need to find a cooler survey to take next month. Cheers!