I Will Always Love 'Em

I'm a country girl. I love Garth, Clint, Alan, and more recently, Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban.

Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood and Sara Evans are more realistic role models than Madonna or Janet could ever be. And since I got into bluegrass, I felt Alison Krauss is evidence that God exists.

So even without the hype, I would have bought the new Dixie Chicks album. I'm always surprised by their albums; I'll listen to it, like it okay and then come back to it in six months and fall in love with it. So I just went ahead and bought it on Itunes.

I'm two songs in, and its damn good. Their mix of bluegrass, rock and country influences is only surpassed by my other favorite band, Nickel Creek, which is at the very lowest a good bluegrass ensemble and at best a great mesh of alternative and fiddle. All the hype of this album will rest on "Not Ready to Make Nice" --- but as the TIME article puts it, real DC fans will listen to the song once and move on. I like the song but I'll pull it out only when I'm that angry.

To be honest, I'm feeling what the song expresses; I have a close friend who's just NOT LISTENING TO ME. Nothing I ever say is correct; my opinions are always shit. And honey, I'm not ready to make nice. There's no point to arguing (because I can never be right, get the jist of my dilemna) but there's no point of saying, yes, you are right about everything. So I hang out in my room, being frustrated but not being able to really do anything about it. I can really only take pleasure in that she's probably a) wondering why I'm doing that all the time, thinking I'm depressed or b) as clueless as I am, just attempting to defend herself.

Lots of news today, I guess. . . a friend mentioned that the blog has been boring lately, and its because I don't feel like anyone's reading anymore. So if you are, mention something or at least post a comment. I'm not savvy enough to get a counter.

Good Day, Sunshine

Berger's out of my life.... for two weeks anyway. While he's in Amsterdam, I'll be very busy making sure that my new man, the ComediMan, is behaving himself.

I'm ashamed to admit that after Saturday night in Hudson with Wifey, Michael and Michael's friends (Drunk Bill, Token Lenny, Angry John, Joey and Khaki Killer), I was feeling pretty confident. We went to hang out with Joey before the bar and sat on their porch drinking Coors. In that time, Token Lenny hit on me (5 minutes), Khaki Killer was looking sideways at me but never in the eye, Angry John seemed indifferent (but was not that way at the bar, unexpectedly paying for my cover and later suggesting naughty things in the bathroom which I did not do) and Drunk Bill thought I was cool because I said he could be "stealth like the janitor in the Breakfast Club"---he's a janitor at the high school.

So in other words, I rocked. So, why on Monday morning, when ComediMan called me at 7am-FOR A BOOTY CALL- did I go?

ComediMan has a weird schedule, of course, starting his stand up in the Village at around 8pm, ending at about 1am and calling me at 4am. Of course, I call him back during the day but never answer straightaway when he calls in the middle of the night. Because our schedules conflict (and the boy lives on fucking York on the East Side) I only see him on the weekend. And that's only for sex. Unless I go to the standup club and talk to him in between shows..... and I'm starting to get a bit tired of our "routine" (its happened twice).

So, you ask, why did I go? I was getting up anyway to go tanning (I got burned), he is really good in bed (deliciously so) and I do like him. And because he was insistent on not letting "his princess" sleep - and said that he couldn't stop thinking about me. He could just be thinking of my pussy, but I'm in denial.

And if giving him the pussy is going to get him addicted to the meggers, that's great. If not, at least I got laid and can watch Vh1 and say, "I slept with that guy" and shrug.

Always a good Christmas morning icebreaker..... too bad my parents got rid of the satellite TV.

Don't Talk to her on a straight Vinyl night

A line from one of my favorite country songs:

She's friendly, and fun-lovin' most of the time.

But don't ask her on a straight tequila night.

She'll start thinkin' about him, then she's ready to fight.

Blames her broken heart on every man in sight,

On a straight tequila night.

Tonight, for me, is a James Taylor night. Convenient, really, since I just went upstate and bought a JT record. Tonight, the Eagles are too depressing, John Mayer's simply too new, and Billy will just remind me of everything I used to be.

I had a great time this weekend outside the city. I wondered, like I've been wondering for a while, if what I really want is a country life. But then, I always think that I love NYC. I love cities and especially this one. It infuses my soul. I've got lots of time to sit on a porch swing when I won't be able to walk from Spring Street to Bklyn in one fell swoop.

Don't tell anybody, but I've been hating my life recently. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I think I'm just expecting too much. And its a slight thorn in my side that I don't have anyone to share it with. All the guys I've gone out with have largely been jokes, and with the exception of Jason and Chris, nobody since Todd has gotten to my heart. But that's okay - I'm willing to wait for the kind of looks I saw exchanged between both my friend Michelle and her husband and Michelle' s in-laws at the breakfast table this morning.

And I'm getting a bit farther in my career too, so no worries. I just tend to forget the good things, I guess.

Speaking of good things, I'll have funny stories from Upstate in Hudson tomorrow.

I am a blog nobody.... but I really don't care.

Here's my soapbox, for anyone that's still listening. Mind you I wrote this yesterday, before the final three showdown on Idol (and Elliott totally still deserved to go):
I haven’t blogged lately and there’s a good reason why. I’ve been living my life—cooking four pounds of beef for ten of my friends, dining at Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay’s restaurant), riding the train between 59th and 181st Streets in Manhattan more times than I can count—but I felt the need to get political for a second.

One of my friends was over when I was listening to NPR and President Bush delivered his speech about immigration last night. She said she wasn’t going to listen because she never liked anything he had to say. I’m not sure where I was taught this, but I’m of the mind that everyone deserves a right to their opinion, and the only way we learn as people is to listen to others and understand their point of view. We may not agree with everything they have to say, but we have to respect their freedom to say it.

So I listened to Bush. He had some valid points. There were definitely some things I disagreed with, of course, but even though I don’t like the guy and think he’s bad for the country, I don’t see him as a bad person. Call me a bad liberal, if you will, but I’ve been finding myself identifying and agreeing with some Republicans some of the time. To me, this either signifies that everyone really DOES become Republican as they age, or that I’m really just politically moderate.

I don’t think Pres. G.W. is a bad person, or an evil person, or bound and determined to destroy America by invading one country at a time. I think he’s doing what he thinks is right. And that’s all we can ever ask for. What I do hold in disgrace, though, is that the American public isn’t thinking very intelligently.

From American Idol (seriously, why didn’t we vote for Paris), to craziness over the Bird Flu Epidemic, combined that we're in some massive group denial when it comes to real issues with AIDS, education, and most recently, immigration, the American public isn’t doing a very good job representing itself.

I’m not innocent in all of this; I often flip past the articles in Time and Newsweek that discuss international politics to the Anna Quindlen essays in the back, or the latest commentary on bloggers. I certainly don’t volunteer, or contribute to society in any greater way than by working in publishing and helping to publish books I think are important.

But when I vote, I do so in an informed way. I learn about what’s important to me (education, health care, general foreign policy and a candidate’s voting history in political elections and things like vocal range, personal history and marketability for Idol) and make my decision. I try every day not to close my ears to what I don’t want to hear, except when its celebrity gossip. Maybe that makes me the exception.

I don’t mind, except there will never be another Kelly Clarkson unless we get the Taylor Branches of the world voted out sooner rather than later. (Postnote: Taylor totally was awesome on Tuesday's show, but you get my point. I couldn't think of anyone else truly atrocious, unlike last year's Scott debacle, or Ruben WINNING the goddamn thing back in the day). By the same token, we should also know, as a country, what our president says (other than his gross grammatical errors that exemplify how our education system isn’t truly effective) so that we can know whether or not we agree to disagree.

And if you think I'm just a white middle class girl from the Midwest being privledged and pompous, well- fuck you. Cuz you're probably right.

What Do You Exude?

My roommate and I were talking about the vibes we give off. She said, "You ooze sex. You speak sex, you walk sex." And I said, "Really? Even when I'm not trying?"

She said, "Yes. I'd hate to see you when you're actually TRYING."

I was on FIRE last night. My friend MA and I went out for the first time one on one and had a blast. We went to Fiddlesticks in the village, got hit on by 3 DOCTORS and then proceeded to follow these crazy Maryland girls to the Olive Tree Cafe, a restaurant/bar above the Comedy Cellar on MacDougal Street.

MA left shortly thereafter, but I was flirting with this white comedian. Before he went downstairs to do his shtick, he somehow brought up Wanda Sykes, who was sitting at a table adjacent to the bar. I was blissfully unawares of this, of course. She was rocking a short blonde afro, and since I was drunk, I insisted on being introduced. We chatted for a bit and I'm pretty sure she thought I was a tourist, but who the hell cares because its WANDA. I ADORE her and will watch any movie she's in regardless of how bad it is. I was sooooo happy. And then the comedian guy brought up Dave Atell and how Dave & I should drink together. Yeah, I could go for that.

When THAT comedian went down for his shtick, I began talking to another comedian, this one being a cute black guy.... who everyone would recognize from commercials, etc. We chatted for awhile and then he took my phone, put his number in it and told me to leave his message giving him my number. I left a sexy message while he was standing right in front of me.

After he left, I was looking for my white guy and they said he had gone around the corner to the Pussycat. He wasn't there but I started talking to some gals at the bar and he came to find me. We proceeded to make out on the vintage furniture in the room next door and then I left to go home because at this point, I had been drinking for HOURS and was fully loaded. I got home via the A train and the black guy had called, leaving me messages to come to his apartment on the East Side.

By this time, it was 3:30 and I declined, saying I'd call him today (will I? Who knows?) and then I went home to find my roomie and her friend who's visiting still partying. I declined on that as well and went to bed.

When I woke up this morning fully hungover, I was happy - because I had FUCKING MET WANDA SYKES! And got lots of numbers. Not bad for a girl who had two hideous previous days, including one where the honeymoon period officially ended (amicably) with Berger, leaving me to make out with comedians.