Quizás, quizás, quizás

It's been over a month since I posted, and I probably won't write a lot even now. The semester is crashing to a halt, and I've got presentations and papers to pull together. I've really loved my User Instruction class, but I'm having a hard time investing myself in a "hypothetical" instruction, rather than trying to fill an actual information need.

Please note, before I forget, that I've added a new blog - Monitor Mix - to my sidebar. It's an NPR blog about music written by Carrie Brownstein of the band Sleater-Kinney, and it's really enjoyable.

It's consistently cold now in Boston, but in this beautiful way. You stand outside, and the trees and air are sharp and delineated, and the sunsets are vivid enough to stick to the back of your retinas. (Retinae?)

Last Christmas was surrounded by Dave Eggers, Rilo Kiley, New York City, Regina Spektor, and Strangers in Paradise. This one is shaping up to be more like Neko Case, Rochester (NY), Girlyman's album Joyful Sign, and whatever books I'm lucky enough to read during the break. (Candidates include Sherman Alexie's Ten Little Indians and Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. I'm also thinking about re-reading The Time Traveler's Wife. You know, if I feel like ripping out my insides.) Last winter this word "hope" kept popping up; this year, it seems to be "maybe."

I bought that album, Joyful Sign, when I went to see Girlyman at Club Passim a few weeks ago. I love it, and many of the songs are catchy and happy, but there are a couple of lines (below) that stuck out uncomfortably for me. It's one of those moments in a poem or song when you think - oh crap. Is that me? Is my basic nature to be cruel or uncharitable or resentful? It's hard to say.

“Maybe I’m cruel just like I seem to be…
maybe I’m mad and wild
underneath all I try to fit”
-Ty Greenstein (of Girlyman), “Easy Pearls”