i spent 1600 dollars yesterday

i wrote one check for 1,042 dollars. i've only written checks bigger than that twice: once when buying my old computer back in 2001 or so for 1,400 dollars and then in 2005 when buying my car for something like 2,800 dollars.

i had to pay my last month's rent here, as well as my first two months' rent at my new place, then i had to pay to mail a bunch of stuff home (which is slightly, though not terribly cheaper than paying to take an extra suitcase on the plane) because i'm taking my guitar on the plane as my second "bag". then almost 40 dollars to fill my gas tank, though that's only the second time i've had to fill it this year, so i guess that's good. and the other time was to go to the selway, and that doesn't even count because that trip was so fucking awesome. oh, and then on the way home of course i had to buy food to feed myself.

i had this plan last night to go see "prince caspian" and then eat at taco del mar (because once you've spent 1600 dollars in a day on necessities, you might as well spent 14 dollars on something that actually makes you happier), but that plan fell apart when i realized i had three nights until i leave and there are three lord of the rings movies. so i stayed up all night watching the extended edition of "fellowship of the ring". and of course i sniffled like a huge pansy at the end because, well, i'm a huge pansy. it's all good. also, my second DVD has a scratch on it, and i had to skip one of the chapters, which wouldn't be a huge deal if it wasn't my favorite movie of all time. so now i'll probably have to buy a new copy at some point. fortunately; though they were 40 bucks apiece when each of the sets came out, amazon has them now for 20, so it won't cost that much to replace it. but still, it's disappointing.

even more disappointing, perhaps, is that i a) am totally behind on writing for this week's blog over at "in today's society..." b) still haven't written that letter of recommendation, even though it's like an hour of work at the most c) something something eat burritos d) can't find a hubcap replacement for my car. i am willing to tolerate a reasonable amount of hobo-baggery in my life, but i want my fucking car to have four hubcaps. i drove a dodge intrepid for five years without all four hubcaps, and i haven't paid my dues in american society for years to have a car without hubcaps! get off my lawn!

i totally typed "paid my dudes" first by mistake. i like that better. i'm going to start telling high school kids "you've just gotta buckle down and pay your dudes" whenever they get disillusioned about life. in my made-up weekly high-school-kid-morale-boosting meetings.

it's thunderstorming today; only the second or third time i can remember such a thing happening in pullman. it's always too dry here; whereas in ohio it storms almost on the clock daily for three months in the summer. it's exciting. it's not a real storm, per se, but it's the closest pullman gets. so i'm sitting here with the window open listening to the rumbling.

i had a nightmare last night that i was in my office, ready to head somewhere when i realized i had class in five minutes and didn't have a lesson plan. i've never had this nightmare before and it always seemed like i should. so in a way, this is completing a circle i should have perhaps completed some time ago. on the other hand, having nightmares about something i just agreed to do for pretty much the rest of my life (or at least four years) is a little daunting. the good side is that maybe this dream will replace the naked-at-school dream and the missing-the-bus dream and the forgot-my-locker-combo dream. then it will be worth it.

i also had a dream that cat power was singing to me and i liked it (seriously). this is odd because cat power usually doesn't interest me at all, or provoke any response but boredom.

i finally listened to the whole scarlett record...not so good, really. it was sonically interesting, the arrangements were really engaging; almost more like an art piece than a piece of popular music, but scarlett's vocals themselves were the weakest part of the package, not to mention the fact that they were mixed way the hell back in the mix to the point that they became just another instrument. maybe that was the idea, but when someone's voice is that low, you just can't mix them back that far. they get stuck in the mud and never get to actually stand out. i still don't agree that her voice is objectively "bad"; i like it in some of the things i've heard, and she obviously knows how to sing. she just needs to bring it across in a different way. it's not the type of voice that you can just throw into any situation and it'll sound good. it's unique enough that there are good applications for it and bad applications. and i think this was a bad one, unfortunately. but everybody who worked on the record seems happy with it. i suppose that's the important thing. nobody else has to buy it or listen if they don't want to.

i've got to watch the two towers tonight. i'd better get my real obligations out of the way. oddly, i feel like working today. there are a few things that i'd rather be doing than grading papers and typing up lesson plans, but not many. hmm.