Complaining is the easiest thing in the world. Every complaint lands on someone, another person takes that responsibility and places it in their pocket. Or on their back.

It isn't so much the complaining that gets to me. It's that when it shows up it highlights the absence of thanks. I'm not even sure what I'm getting at here. I realise that I'm sensitive to this kind of thing, and I know that I don't want to lose that. Just have to learn how to cope more effectively and keep the pulse on the level.

My email address is generally available, they know my face, they know how to get to my office, why do people feel the need to make things public? Why do people need to let things get out of hand before they talk it out with the persons involved?

posted by paul @ 10:00 PM

Jeff Tweedy
2007-01-26
House of Blues
New Orleans, LA

1. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
2. Remember The Mountain Bed
3. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
4. Airline To Heaven
5. The Ruling Class
6. New Madrid
7. Radio King
8. Someone Else's Song (without PA)
9. Theologians
10. California Stars
11. Hesitating Beauty
12. Heavy Metal Drummer
13. The Late Greats
14. ELT
15. Jesus, Etc.

Encore 1:
16. A Shot In The Arm
17. I'm The Man Who Loves You

Encore 2:
18. Passenger Side
19. Gun
20. Pecan Pie
21. Dreamer In My Dreams (without PA)
22. Acuff-Rose (without PA)

posted by paul @ 2:26 PM

In a cold house in an new old jacket listening to new old music from new old friends. She believes I'm not crazy, she says that it happens the way I've always hoped, she says it's rare for a reason. I want to believe her.

It's going to be good for a while, then, who knows.

posted by paul @ 8:38 PM

Dressing well on test days is one of the best-kept secrets in college.

If the whole product designer thing falls through, I'd like to be a shoe-shiner.

Tom Waits and I are sitting on the love seat waiting for something to happen. The tables have turned and I have no idea how to play this hand. Feet are cold.

The best text messages are the phrases that require inflection for definition. Recently it's been "Tell me something I don't know," and "Who do you think you are?" Hopefully people will think that that is thoughtful or clever.

Tonight is a good night for a letter or two.

posted by paul @ 10:00 PM

All a fellah knows is to be a stone.

I've spent the last little while listening the few surviving Shortbread recordings. The quality is terrible. The recordings are rough. The playing is rough. The timing is rough. There are a few things I like about them, though.

As the song ends, the applause of the twenty people is broken by two of our friends yelling like idiots, supporting us when we sucked, being there when we needed them. It's rare that love is so perfectly captured, but I'm thankful for it.

I'd give just about anything for a chance to record these songs in a studio and have something legit to hand to the world. Maybe someday we'll get it together.

posted by paul @ 11:55 PM

I don't know why I feel so strung out all of a sudden. The fever is slowly fading, the mood is still mixing, though. Let's call it frustration. I'm frustrated about things I can't say, things I didn't initiate, and things I can't control.

Good looking people never took the time to cultivate skills or viewpoints. Life is an action. Just like love and friendship. Nobody cares about promises or resolutions, talk is still cheap.

posted by paul @ 9:43 PM

My self-image weighs about 45 pounds less than I do. That's insane, I need to learn how to draw meaty me.

posted by paul @ 2:20 AM

Every introduction is another underline to emphasive that so many of the things I held on to are changing, leaving, or already gone. It's a crazy time, but it's a good time to be observant and continue to learn who I want to be and who I want to be around. I find myself wishing I could do the last few years over again as I get to know the people I missed out on. Also, as I get to know the ones I was hung up on.

The life and times, they are changing, and they are getting better.

posted by paul @ 5:40 PM

Instead of studying, why not look up the drop date? My name is Paul, and I'm immune to urgency. But also, trying to be a better person.

posted by paul @ 9:15 AM

I don't know why I love that quote so much, except that the best social studies project ever would be titled "The Necessity of Religion." I only wish I had spent as much time on that topic as I did discussing how Bush, Blair, Jong Il, and Hussein exhibited Machiavellian traits in their leadership styles. There were over fifty citations on that paper, it was incredible, mostly because Scates is queen of the current events.

There is a great danger in seeing Ruston as the end of the road. Tech is a stepping stone, it's a dangerous place for dreamers and wishers and magic bean buyers.

I started drinking coffee at the very tail end of 2006. Someone said that learning how to like things is a major part of being an adult. I'm going to be twenty-two soon.

It's good to be able to get things out, especially when the people around you aren't afraid to tell you that you're wrong and need to go back and think it over again.

posted by paul @ 12:29 AM

"If I were able to take the time, I believe that I could prove the continuation of life beyond the grave, reasoning from the necessity, philosophically speaking, of a belief in an absolute and universal power."

- Daniel Burnham

posted by paul @ 6:53 PM