Magic Jewball

I am having a stressful week. There, I said it. My part-time job blows and is more demanding than I have energy for, teaching is HARD (and time-consuming), and oh yeah, classes and thesis deadlines. Also, see the previous many posts about being ill, because none of these things is made easier by not being able to breathe through my nose plus having my throat feel like I swallowed glass. I even missed a show last night about which I had been dreaming for twenty years. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. But it was the live performance of an album that has meant something to me for nearly twenty years. Yeah.

Oh hey, and did you hear? They’re eliminating the jobs of 6,000 teachers here. That ought to make it easy to find a job at the end of all this.

You may wonder if at times like these I wish I could go back to my old life. When you see this video, you’ll understand why I don’t. Even if it’s scored with an Interpol song.

Wow, the sound of the Windows start-up chime whilst* drinking take-out coffee and that exact keyboard, LCD, and stand… if only I’d had one of those dipping birds, that would have been my desk. Look out, I’m going to hug a third-grader tomorrow.

*I had to say whilst; the bear is British.

Title story: When I graduated college and moved away from campus, living alone in Baltimore, breaking up with College Boyfriend, and figuring out what to do with my life, Priest=Aura was one of three or four albums that kept me company. It is an album, like bands don’t seem to make anymore, and I first heard it back then as I did most records: on the sound system at Sam Goody’s where I worked. As my pal Ned Raggett points out, the album is sequenced like a journey. This is how it starts.
The Church – Aura