saturday may 12 2001    |    9:17 a.m.

i am listening to a's red house painters cd, and i think i'm in love. incidentally (i've been reading the liner notes), mark kozelek is from ohio, and i hear it.

i asked a_ the other day when we were hanging out where some band was from -- maybe the red house painters, actually -- and she looked surprised and told me she didn't think she'd ever heard a girl ask that. that she and k and j had wondered about that, why boys are so interested in the geography of music. but have come up with no satisfactory conclusions i don't think. plus, what explains me?

i think it's lots of things. wanderlust. rem's out of time. gina arnold's route 666. the ubiquitous, and rightfully so, on the road. and a belief that your surroundings shape who you are. i mean, you can hear ohio in the music, if you've been here: dayton in gbv, cincinnati in the afghan whigs, columbus in bigfoot, and, i suppose, massillon (and san francisco) in rhp.

and in these miami bands i've been listening to since spring break. you hear the sabado gigante and the cumbia and the merengue and the rhythmic bumping of the highway and the everglades and the endless suburban strip of south miami and the manufactured excess of boca and aventura and that mossy green of biscayne bay.

so if you look at it another way it's also the need to find a context for the sound. to build an aural map: something almost tangible, something grounded. and the need to find a context for yourself.

and so i am officially done with school. turned in the last paper, took the last final last night. drank too much. slept too little. ran into fritz in the bathroom at 8 or so and went with her to breakfast, where i think we saw a lot of people for the last time. now she's finishing her paper and i'm sitting here relishing being able to just look out the window and listen to music and not feeling rushed or negligent.

i'm going to miss ohio, i think.