Today I have locked myself in my apartment Rapunzel style to write, my hair hanging and gleaming out the window should someone wish to climb up it and rescue me, but unfortunately my main accomplishments thus far seem to be watching a few episodes of my favorite show LAW AND ORDER: SVU and listening to Devotchka, which might possibly be the best band in the world, excluding those that are better. I think I have listened to them every day since Lana played the CD whilst styling my tumbling tresses last May. When I got the "How It Ends" album, I think I played the hearrrtt-wrenching song "Dearly Departed" about 500000 times in a row, crying in Garbo-esque manner. And the Devotchka show I saw this summer in the Spiegeltent was amazing--like a Lorca poem, but one that walks around and plays the accordion and tuba! The lead singer wore ruffled shirt and full suit and held a bottle of red wine in one hand and a tambourine in the other. Everyone was stomping on the wooden floors and I kept thinking we were going to fall through, but that it would be worth it.. I have also been listening a lot to Domenico Scarlatti sonatas; I think I read many moons ago that he spent years teaching a Spanish princess to play the harpsichord, I think Paul West talked about it and made the word "Scarlatti" sound so enticing that I bought a CD and used to listen to it all the time, then forgot about it until last week. The music is so delicate and melancholic, sort of dizzying.

Just now, while I was writing this, my friend Mark called from Philly to say he and his wife Jen cannot come up today as they'd planned because he has to finish sheetrocking his hallway. Now, have you ever heard a lamer excuse? I told him I was going to mention it here, and he asked if I was going to begin using this blog for passive aggressive purposes.

Of course!, I said. What other ones are there?