text awards 08.

my favorite texts i’ve received in the past year. funny, tender… creepy? there’s a little something for everyone. most of them are inside jokes or taken out of context, but hopefully there’s still some humor and/or value for you in these random tidbits.

+ “hmm… pot brownies? i accept. normal brownies? just as good.”
+ “hey do you want to go to coffeeland later tonight? you know, pine and analyze poetry and talk about the twenties.”
+ “got you a hamby.”
+ “i have that stupid racist dragon song stuck in my head! arg!”
+ “i just walked into my room and ashley was sitting naked at her computer! ahh! my eyes!”
+ “mmm. sucking some balls again today. blueberry. they are pie balls.”
+ “i just had a very engaging conversation with a transient about dostoevsky.”
+ “three marriage proposals? i want a side of elaboration with that dish.”
+ “m. ward is pretty much giving me a blow j.”
+ “ur welcome to come out any time! there should be parties all weekend! my roomies might throw a ‘oh shit it’s a hurricane’ party.”
+ “well someone told me the best way to get over someone was to get under someone… so i did. twice.”
+ “i just got towed and i yelled ‘fuck shoes’ and no one understood. i also said ‘balls in my mouth.’”
+ “thanks to you i’ve been singing street jizz all afternoon.”
+ “nooo poor sad baby kendall. i hug when i see.”
+ “i cried for like ten minutes and then got drunk.”
+ “ohhh wait til you watch the hills. one word –clandestine.” (my favorite text i have ever received from my mother)
+ “oh no kendall, your best friend and the love o yo life are dating and you just found out your dad is missing on the high seas!”
+ “um this guy who was outside smoking asked me for my number and i definitely don’t even remember what his name is. he is smoking guy in my contact list.”
+ “i’m sending you a mental hug right now.”
+ “omg i hate the gyno… all these old women are staring at me and i’m like STOP LOOKING AT ME! THIS IS NOT ABNORMAL!”
+ “i don’t know if coffee will work. i had a freak neck accident in my sleep and have an appointment at Swedish in a while. if they can fix me up, we’re still on.”
+ “hey. tonight you and jennie and i guess whoever like other roommates and shit… dress to impress.”
+ “my bed smells like you.”
+ “screw hw. you should be drinking wine.”
+ “would you be uncomfortable watching a movie in my bed? it’s not a ploy, just jake is playing video games.”
+ “wanna come over and watch office and entourage tonight? with the bros.”
+ “you coming tonight??? i want a halloween bop.”
+ “kendall, i am eating a hot dog wrapped in a pretzel right now. i have never seen anything more horrifying in my life, but it tastes AMAZING.”
+ “i did not have my thigh caressed for an hour for nothing! i NEED some lovin!”
+ “i was thinking we should have a breakfast for dinner party friday. white chocolate chip blueberry buttermilk pancakes? eggs? bacon? glory? yes.”
+ “you mean you wish you could be bopped right now. if only you had the energy and strength.”
+ “i just want to share my bed with you.”
+ “wendall, our state is covered in snow. i personally have about 7 in. everything is closed and no one can get anywhere! and people who tried became bumpercars…”
+ “my fam has no idea how to act around non-white people.”

bekah gets her own separate subsection of excellent texts, because hers are always the ones i save simply because they are so hilarious.

+ “hey i got a new phone who is this young specimen”
+ “kendallistophenes! that would be your name if you lived in ancient greece.”
+ “totes forevs. which means totally. forever.”
+ “kendall friendall! yes i’m running up to safeway for wine and hummus – there will probs be humans coming in about 15 minutes.”
+ “kendall! critical mass tonite at 5:30! 200 person bike ride! alex park! love! sex! marriage!”
+ “hey hey! ah! sorry you guys got lost.com to the fourth power last nite. i just got back from a serious trek through the cascades all day so i think i am hittin the sack. but we have infinite number of minutes to hang ten in this lifetime and for that i am well pleased.”
+ “greetings! tonite: my radio show. 9 pm. kspu.org – seattle slam poet greg brisendine live in studio. tune in or be chased by a street evangelist stampede!”
+ “we have gone to war with clutter today—and won. twas a magical Saturday.”
+ “put the wind back in your windpipes! listen to dj con queso at 9pm tonite on kspu.org—interview with of montreal! & learn how to lose that pesky head lice!”
+ “be my date to seattle’s most important event—the english dept christmas party tomorrow?
+ “we had some technologic troubles, but me and my sisters wish you a merry birthday!! 21 21 21! deck the malls! wooo!”

omg!

zooey and ben gibbard?!

favorite albums of 2008.

the ones i liked best.

 

 

10. lykke li, youth novels
can’t go wrong with a swede. beautiful, eclectic songs with heart.
favorite songs: ‘dance dance dance’; ‘hanging high’; ‘breaking it up’

 

9. she & him, volume one
twangy alt-country sung by an actress named after one of my favorite fictional characters. zooey deschanel + m. ward = gold.
favorite songs: ’sentimental heart’; ‘this is not a test’; ‘you really got a hold on me’

 

8. the raveonettes, lust lust lust
moody and reverb-y, with haunting boy-girl harmonies. and they’re from denmark! 
favorite songs: ‘aly walk with me’; ‘lust’; ‘dead sound’

 

7. tilly & the wall, o
diversified tilly, made of shout-out-loud anthems. as always, jamie presnall’s tap dancing is impeccable.
favorite songs: ‘cacophany’; ‘alligator skin’; ‘poor man’s ice cream’

 

6. cansei de ser sexy, donkey
brazilian electro-pop at its finest. the best for drunk dancing.
favorite songs: ‘jager yoda’; ‘left behind’; ‘move’

 

5. ryan adams & the cardinals, cardinology
a [maybe] more mature ryan plays more sophisticated and adult songs, which seems a genuine progression instead of a contrived projection. the cardinals are perhaps the most talented and underrated back-up band i know of.
favorite songs: ‘fix it’; ‘crossed out name’; ‘evergreen’

 

4. vampire weekend, vampire weekend
strange, kooky ivy league indie kids sing about the romantics and proper grammar. instant love affair.
favorite songs: ‘oxford comma’; ‘one’; ‘walcott’

 

3. ssion, fool’s gold
wholly gay- and dance-friendly, with wildly uproarious and inappropriate lyrics. bonus points for the lead singer’s fu-man-chu.
favorite songs: ‘bullshit’; ’street jizz’; ‘the woman’; ‘warm glove’

 

2. jenny lewis, acid tongues
i will probably always love anything that jenny lewis does, but i think this album shows jenny’s musical evolution from her first album with the watson twins, and that she can hold her own without them. m. ward plays guitar, zooey sings back-up, chris robinson and elvis costello contribute vocal duets… it’s like heaven in my ears.
favorite songs: ‘the next messiah’; ‘acid tongues’; ‘godspeed’; ‘jack killed mom’

 

1. bon iver, for emma, forever ago/ 1. mgmt, oracular spectacular
maybe it’s a cop-out to have a tie, but despite being completely musically opposite, these two albums defined what the past year has meant to me, in distinct but equal ways. mgmt was roadtrip music, and i haven’t instigated/participated in a single instance of dancing where at least one mgmt song was not played. bon iver is my memories of south africa, of death, of heartbreak; it’s the music i listen to when tears are inevitable. and really, in the simplest terms possible, that’s what my past year has been: dancing and crying.
favorite mgmt songs: ‘time to pretend’; ‘electric feel’; ‘kids’; ‘the handshake’
favorite bon iver songs: ‘flume’; ’skinny love’; ‘blindsided’; ‘for emma’

honorable mentions:
cat power, jukebox
britney spears, circus (no one does good dance songs, or the comeback, like britney does)
jaguar love, take me to the sea (the furious and beautiful phoenix risen from the ashes of blood brothers)
lil wayne, tha carter III
beck, modern guilt
kanye west, 808’s and heartbreak
tv on the radio, dear science

on turning 21.

today was the best birthday i’ve had in a long time.

not simply because it was my 21st-big-deal birthday, or because anything especially exciting happened; this was the best birthday because i wasn’t depressed all day, and i didn’t cry. for the past three years, since i turned eighteen, i get inexplicably morose and depressed on my birthday, and i usually spend the first part of my day in seclusion and in tears, until one of my friends comes and gets me and takes me out and cheers me up (usually this is achieved with expensive food and casinos). and because i’m in georgia, with no friends in sight that aren’t of blood relation to me, i had valid concerns that i may become suicidal. not so!

my day began with one of the most drastic haircuts i’ve ever had. behold:

when i got my hairs cut six months ago, i cried for hours afterward… and that was a pretty haircut. as joel (the most fabulous hairdresser ever) was cutting all of my hair off, i had a moment where i thought “this is too short and i’m going to look like a dude… and i could definitely cry about it if i tried,” but really, i couldn’t bring myself to cry over hair again. for one, my hair grows incredibly fast and could be easily be a bob by spring break; two, i am never entirely happy with my hair, no matter what it looks like; three (and maybe most importantly), i know that my hair doesn’t change who i am, and that i don’t need to have super-long-super-feminine hair for people (and namely the gentlemen) to like me. there’s a lot more to me than my good hair (that joel said was “competition hair”…!). i’m not sure if i love this haircut yet, but i am able to shrug my shoulders and say “meh,” which is nice.

later in the day, i went out to a bar with judson and my parents. (sidenote: on the drive over, i got teary-eyed listening to a dashboard confessional song… seriously. which is ironic, because the song, “hands down,” was one of my favorite songs in eighth grade; strange that something i valued when i was so much younger still had an emotional impact on me seven years later as an “adult.” anyway, i hadn’t heard the song in forever and had kind of forgotten what it was about, so as i was listening very closely to the lyrics and remembering that it was about one perfect day in the lives of two young people in love, it came to a part where he sang “and you stood at your door with your hands on my waist / and you kissed me like you meant it / and i knew that you meant it.” it was such a tender and beautiful line, and it made me realize that no one has kissed me like they meant it in a long time, and i miss having that kind of assurance. but i blocked my tear ducts with my index finger and moved on.) such a good time: all of us but judson had two drinks each, and we took turns tasting each others’, because none of us are mixed drink connoisseurs. dean had a beer and a 7 and 7 (which didn’t taste too bad), my mom had a lemon drop (which was nearly all vodka) and a vodka tonic with peach schnapps, and i had a g&t and a long island iced tea, which was a killer. by the time i finished these two drinks, i was mostly wasted, but the four of us had great conversations about traffic violations, karaoke and dressing in drag. i even drew a diagram of my new apartment for my parents, so that they could see how little space i actually have to live in, and why i need another bookshelf. it was infinitely more fun than i thought it would be… my parents are some of the best and most fun people in the world, and they’re very good to me. shame on me for ever thinking otherwise.

then i came home, skyped with my favorite bro, and ended my evening by watching keith olbermann’s ‘favorite people of 2008′ special. i was #1. no, seriously.

happy birthday to me.

let me complain for a second.

this is my winter break!
this is my time to relax and catch up on all the sleep i didn’t get during the quarter!
and it’s not happening!

i pulled an all-nighter before flying to georgia, thinking that would wear my body out enough that i would go into hibernation for a couple days, and this wasn’t entirely false; i slept 14 hours the night i arrived. but since then, trying to sleep has been like pulling teeth. i decided to go off coffee for a while to see if that was the problem: i didn’t drink coffee for four straight days (and got some nasty headaches because of it) and then lessened my coffee intake from four cups to one cup a day. and i still can’t sleep. i’ve probably slept 8 hours total in the past five days, and i don’t think i’ve fallen asleep before 4am in those five days either. and it doesn’t make sense, because i am so physically exhausted from this intense sleep deprivation and am on the verge of falling asleep all day, but when i lay my head down at night to slumber, something refuses to let me. it’s very frustrating.

also: i wrote the scathing course evaluation for my hideous contemporary fiction class that i’ve been promising to write all quarter. it went a little something like this:

in my two plus years of college, i have never felt more like my time and my parents’ money was being utterly wasted than i did in this class. of the seven books we read throughout the quarter, we looked at the text as a class exactly one time. the rest of the time, dr. w—— gave us powerpoint presentations that were sometimes interesting, but rarely relevant to what we were reading; the powerpoints always seemed to venture into randomness, like who the author’s sister-in-law’s famous cousin is, or famous landmarks from the city they lived in as a child. further, dr. w—— split us into discussion groups in the second half of the class, which were generally fruitless, and he went back to his office so that there would be no temptation to teach us. i think that is my biggest qualm with the format of this class: dr. w—— did not teach us anything. we examined all of the books briefly from a distance, and then moved on, without having really taken anything away from besides the basic plot. we didn’t write papers or take tests; we only wrote book reviews, which also didn’t help us learn anything. he never told us how he wanted us to write book reviews, he just told us to do it; and though a book review is supposed to mainly consist of opinion, his comments on my graded review would try to impose his own personal opinion onto MY criticism and interpretation, and dock points when the two didn’t align. he would also split us into groups to workshop our book reviews, which would be great if this were a writing class, but its clearly a literature class, and the emphasis always landed in the wrong place. i was really excited to take this class and i think it could have been really good if the format were different, but taking this class ruined literature for me for the ten weeks this class lasted.

i’m torn between feeling satisfied at having called him out on being a terrible teacher, and feeling guilty, because when i emailed him my final book review he responded and said he had enjoyed reading my reviews all quarter. hrmph. flattery will get you nowhere, sir! well, it might get you a little grace, but not enough to make up for the ten weeks of hell you put me through.

unreal.

i was at the bookstore today, and of the six gossip magazines at the checkstand, all six had on the cover (or at least made mention of) angelina jolie, brad pitt and jennifer aniston. ridiculous.

i’m twenty-one in two days. ugh.

instead of doing anything remotely productive tonight, i watched elf. such a delightful movie any time of year, but especially during the christmas season. i was gushing to my mom about how much i loved zooey deschanel, and my mom was asking me a bunch of questions about her, since she’s not really on my mom’s radar. i told her that zooey is one of my faves and she’s super classy, and she sings with m. ward and has a gorgeous voice. my mom asked if she dated anyone famous, and i said no, but i wished she dated m. ward because they would be the cutest couple ever. proof:

so precious! /
seeing m. ward play in march = exciiiiiiiiited.

my parents probably hate me.

judson and i went to the dentist today for one of those routine check-ups, and came away with 11 cavities between the two of us (i only had three, thank you very much). the dentist also recommended that we each get 8 sealants on some potentially-troublesome teeth. what this means is that tomorrow we will be spending the entire day in the dentist’s office, having our teeth fixed under the influence of nitrous oxide. my mom didn’t verbally call us an unbearable financial burden, but as it is often said, actions speak louder than words. good thing i didn’t ask for anything for christmas.

also, my parents keep making me watch these iconic movies from their generation that they find hilarious, but that translate to a big snooze fest when i watch them. in the summer, they made me watch ‘trading places’ and some other ridiculous bill murray movie from the 80’s, and tonight they made me watch ‘animal house.’ ‘animal house’ was the most entertaining of the three by far, but still not something i would voluntarily watch ever again, probably. my mom even paused the movie halfway to talk about how this movie influenced the youth culture, and how for several years after this movie came out, toga parties were terribly hip and everyone would always play “shout” at parties and dance to it the same way they did in the movie. i think i can appreciate it for what it was in its time, but it’s not one of those timeless classics that remain relevant through generational cultural changes, i guess.

although, it does make me want to have a toga party.

oh boy.

the last three days have been wild.

friday was maybe the worst day of this quarter, if not my life. long story in a nutshell: my car battery died on on campus, i got a jump from campus security, drove to my new house where my car battery promptly died again, called about ten people to see if they could come give me a jump and paige (who lives in issaquah, 20 minutes away) was the only one willing and capable, we tried to get a jump in the pouring rain and it didn’t work, paige called aaa to come to tow my car to her dad’s shop (luckily, he’s a mechanic), tow truck took two hours to get from my house to bellevue, drove around bellevue with paige for about three hours until my car got fixed, paid $164 for a new battery, fiiiiiiinally got on the road to go home and was in traffic for 2 hours, whilst snow was falling. and all of this took place during the time that i had planned to write a book review, the last thing i had to turn in for finals.

i got home at 8pm (and i left my house at 8:30am, mind you), boo-hooed on the phone to grant until he came over and inspired me to write with my eyes closed and fingers flying, so we could go out and celebrate the end of the worst quarter of our lives. i finished my book review in 15 minutes and, without looking over it, just emailed to my professor and was done with it. grant, josh, calin and i went to bonesaw’s “do all the things you wanted to do while you were doing finals” party, and the vibe wasn’t quite working for us: everyone there was either playing math video games or smoking weed. bekah (after drunkenly spilling wine all over josh) suggested we go to capitol hill and try to catch some music… i asked if it was all ages, since everyone going was 21 but me. bekah handed me her expired id from when she was sixteen and had platinum, and told me that it would surely get me into wherever i wanted to go. so i drove a carload of people up to capitol hill, which nearly gave me a panic attack, and we started searching for a bar. the first one we arrived at wouldn’t let bekah in because she was too drunk. so as we’re walking, looking for another place to go, i’m memorizing bekah’s home address in wisconsin and her date of birth and her height and weight (which is definitely 6 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than me, just fyi). i recited it back to bekah and she ran the other direction, screaming, before i could even get to her zip code. we find a bar and go inside, and i’m nervous and not sure if bekah’s id will work, but the bouncer was very unassuming and i made it in. my first time in a bar, ten days before my 21st birthday, and i was with five of my favorite people: heaven. grant bought me a drink for my success, and we just stayed long enough to finish our drinks. we hit one more bar before we decide to go to r place, a superfabulous gay club. we get up to the door, and i hand the lady bekah’s id, and she looks really hard at both it and me, and i’m trying to look nonchalant. apparently it didn’t work. she asked if she could see my id, and when i told her that was my id, she shook her head and said “no, that’s her id (tossing her head in bekah’s direction). when you show me your id, i’ll give this one back to you.” that was the end of that. i just walked away. everyone else followed and broke into uproarious laughter at my misfortune. we decided to go back to grant and josh’s, since we always have more fun there anyway. we danced, we drank, i ate micah’s food and he got very upset about it, grant and i walked bekah home, and aside from the time that i was passed out, i probably slept about 45 minutes total that night.

it was the best evening to bring balance to my hideous day.

saturday, i singlehandedly moved all of my stuff to my new place, received my brother, and went to dinner at pf changs with him, grant and calin. it was 1.5 hour wait, so we bopped around westlake center for several hours, surveying the hideous ed hardy shop, the wsu paraphernalia haven, and the candy shop, among other things. by the time we sat down to eat we were starving, which made the meal seem like the best we’d ever had. judson was sleepy, so he went to my old home and went to bed, and i went to grant’s and watched ‘28 days later’ with the bros and algerae. so good.

sunday, judson and i went to visit our aunt and uncle in bonney lake. they were super excited to see us, as they haven’t seen judson for almost a year, and they made us a huge meal and their kids made judson play wii with them until his limbs were sore. the whole crew played catchphrase, and hilarity ensued: my uncle was trying to describe ‘jet set,’ so he said it was two words and it was a certain group of people who fly, and judson blurted out ‘mile high’ without thinking. my aunt and uncle are uber-conservative super-christians, so my aunt leaned over and hit judson on the arm and said “i can’t believe you said that! you go to a christian school!” i’m laughing hysterically and shaking my head at judson in mock disappointment, and she looks at me and says “you knew what he was talking about!” probably the best interaction of my day. i spent the rest of the day unpacking all of my shit in the new place, and putting art up on my walls. grant came over and helped, and a couple hours later calin came over. we drove grant home eventually and bopped at his house for a while with he and josh, who’s going home today. we were just sitting in the living room, listening to music and not saying anything, and i looked at all of them and thought about how much it was going to physically hurt to be away from them for three weeks, and a little tear came to my eye. tragedy. ever since then, i’ve been in a constant battle with my sleepy brain to stay awake.

it is 6:38am, and i am sitting in the seattle airport next to judson, who is reading the third harry potter book, and waiting for our flight to board. we fly to albuquerque, and then to jacksonville, which is two hours away from savannah. i’ve been awake for almost 21 hours, and will probably be awake for another 6 hours at least. glorious.

i am hardly looking forward to the next three weeks, including my should-be monumental birthday, christmas, and new year’s, all of which will be spent with family, but emotionally alone. i will read, i will sleep, i will bake pies, i will make the time go as fast as it possibly can.

i can do this.

3 days away.

winter break reading list:
everything is illuminated by jonathan safran foer
how to be alone: essays by jonathan franzen
autograph man by zadie smith
satori in paris and pic by jack kerouac
what we talk about when we talk about love: stories by raymond carver
diving into the wreck by adrienne rich
selected poems by ezra pound
selected poems by edna st. vincent millay

love.

tonight i met grant’s parents. it was so amazing to see the mother and father of a gay son who don’t want to try to fix him, but who want him to be who he is, and who love him for exactly who he is, without precondition. they were talking about when grant first came out to them, and they both said that the first thing they thought when he told them was that they wished he had told them sooner, so that he didn’t have to carry such a heavy weight on his own and keep a part of himself secret. i wish everyone thought more like they do.

it’s moments like tonight when i am certain that i believe in god. i don’t understand very much about god, but i really believe that god is love. i felt so much love pour out of them that i felt damp with the presence of god. i always get this feeling when i’m in contact with someone gay, or with a group of people who are gay, and i rarely experience it otherwise. how can it be that i see/hear/feel god in these people, and they are called an abomination by god’s followers? it’s an enigma to me.

thank you, mr. and mrs. rehnberg, for your beautiful son and your unconditional love for him.