And the complications you could do without

listening: Sufjan Stevens, "Casimir Pulaski Day"

I just found out that my favorite bakery in Jackson has a job opening.

Anyway, I made it safely to Austin and K$ and I proceeded to enjoy ACL without the intense heat that plagued us in 2004. I'm still blowing dust out of my face as it's always too dry, but we had a great, relaxing time.

Here's the list of who we saw/heard, as I'm sure you're dying to know:

The Swell Season (shut it. They're sweet pop ballads and I like them.)
Alejandro Escovedo
CSS
Man Man
Erykah Badu (Lady put two tuning forks in her hair and hollered about New Amerykah in 7-in heels)
MGMT (barely as I swear there were 11 billion people crammed into a tiny space.)
Conor Oberst
Iron & Wine
Beck (Easily in the top 3 of the weekend. We sang along to "Loser" with 30K+ people.)
Gillian Welch
Stars
Neko Case (New music! It's really good! She still didn't marry me!)
Okkervil River
Heartless Bastards
Blues Traveler
Gnarls Barkley (Cee Lo has some damn pipes on him. "Gone Daddy Gone" along with the cover of Radiohead's "Reckoner" were the highlights.)
Band of Horses (They were really cute at being amazed the number of people present.)
Foo Fighters (I need a new face. They rocked mine off.)

Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life

listening: Bruce Springsteen, "Girls In Their Summer Clothes"


I've been back in Mississippi for nearly two weeks now, making hard decisions about the next eight months and desperately refraining from making plans any further than June. I leave at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning to drive the ten hours to Austin. Thank goodness I replaced my ipod before I ever left Oregon as I'll be making this drive by myself.

Once upon a time I was a 21 year old kiddo with some time to burn and a break from school, so I hopped in the car (the same one I have now) armed with cds (although I think my music taste then was still a bit questionable) and the little money I'd made from working at the coffee bar. I gladly drove those ten hours by myself just to spend a couple of days in a city that felt so warm and right to me. I wonder what happened to me that now I cringe at the thought of spending that time in the car rather than relishing the freedom to do so.

So the big news is that I'll be in Austin for the month of October (hearing a load of lovely music at ACL this weekend and Weezer on the 20th) and then returning to Jackson til my departure again in June. I went to to my grandparents' house today to have lunch and visit and my goodness, my grandfather has aged in the past 3 weeks since I saw him last. Maybe if you wonder why I'm coming back to Jackson rather than sticking up for myself in Austin, that might be a clue.

I'm still composing the entries for my two weeks on the East coast, but here's a preview of what I did with all that time: