Nealmeister

Yael Naim

Thanks to the latest Apple commercial, I have Yael Naim's single New Soul stuck in my head [related link: Yael Naim: Keep Listening].

Now, I'll get this song stuck in your head, too, courtesy of Imeem.com

Grey's, Skipping on the Gym, Skipping on Football

Well, my roomie isn't even home from winter break yet, and yet... I've reverted into the typical semester routine: skip out of work at about 8:25pm; take the Orange Line home and quickly exit at Community College; pick up a half-gallon of Breyer's ice cream at Foodmaster; contemplate going to BSC (and thinking: "nah... legs days are meant to be skipped!"); and then slog home and quickly strip off all of the lawyer clothes, plunk on the DePaul sweatshirt, and turn on Grey's Anatomy. 

I know what's coming my way.  The ritual perpetuates a whole number of long running jokes, among them: (i) since when did you become a woman? (ii) since when did you grow a flappy v ____jay (iii) since when did you become a lesbian? (iv) since when did you come out?  It resounds wholeheartedly of Captain Marino.  Personally, I prefer to proclaim that I'm pregnant.  But that whole discussion is for another day.

Reality for today: it was wicked wicked freezing out in Boston today.  I was supposed to meet up with some folks at the Pub99 after work to watch the Orange Bowl and grab some beers, but I was wicked wicked freezing when I got out of the O-line at Community College and my body literally shuddered at the thought of alcohol.  Yes, shuddered.  Once I got home, I thought the gym would be an option... that is, until my blackberry started buzzing (you know I had to answer; I can't disconnect from work). Next, I quickly realized, once I got to my parking spot, that the door to my Corolla was literally frozen shut.  Shuddered, Buzzed, Frozen Shut.  That left me with one option: watch Greys.

Now, I haven't been as die-hard of a Grey's fan as last year this time.  Between the writers' strike, a newfound love for Brothers and Sisters, and certain longing for Dr. Burke and Addison Montgomery-Shepherd, I just have been missing Grey's more.  But tonight, I shed a couple of tears for Dr. O'Malley (dude--I would give my heart to save my dad too) and found a nice new song for the "Shitty Day" playlist [Get Well Soon/by the Perishers].

Anyway, my apartment is a mess.  I need to devise a way to clean it up before Jess comes home on Sunday and Kevin lands in Boston later that day.  My Christmas Tree is still up (pictures coming soon--"December Vacation Album" style on Facebook), the floor really needs to be vacuumed, and I have a whole pile of bills that need to be filed.

Plus, I need to email back the realtor dude from Otis & Ahearn who was reading all of my house-hunting obsessed emails and has since tracked me down.

Gosh, that was quite the devigation.  What I really wanted to say was... I came home to watch Grey's Anatomy tonight.

Interest in the "Shitty Day" Playlist

It's weird.  I start blogging again, and along comes a trickle of emails, like I have a fanbase or something.  Well, people have been asking about the Shitty Day playlist that I somewhat reference in a previous post.  I just uploaded it into the iTunes store and I'll figure out the typepad widget that will let me share the list.  In the meantime, here's the music:

1. Falling In Love At a Coffee Shop (Landon Pigg)
2. All I Need (Mat Kearney)
3. Keep Breathing (Ingrid Michaelson)
4. The Great Escape (Patrick Watson)
5. Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)
6. Say It Right (Nelly Furtado)
7. Breathe (2AM) (Anna Nalick)
8. Everything (FeFe Dobson)
9. More Than Words (Extreme)
10. Trouble (Coldplay)
11. Ode to My Family (The Cranberries)
12. Dying Inside (The Cranberries)
13. Babylon (David Gray)
14. Cowboy Take Me Away (Dixie Chicks)
15. Goodbye To You (Michelle Branch)
16. The Rose (Bette Midler)
17. Torn (Natalie Imbruglia)
18. Seven Years (Norah Jones)
19. Sweet Surrender (Sarah McLachlan)
20. Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of (U2)
21. Nicole's Song (Virginia Coalition)
22. Lover Lay Down (Dave Matthews Band)
23. Brick (Ben Folds Five)
24. There She Goes (The LaLa's)
25. 1234 (Feist)
26. Life in Mono (Mono)

6AM, Day after Christmas

I woke up this morning, for the second time, literally feeling like I was in the band Ben Folds Five's song "Brick."  The song placates me after I've been wound up too tight for a while, and for some reason, between the plague and Christmas and a final push to the end of the 2007 at work, I was feeling just a little bit shitty.  Nothing that poses caution to mental health or anything, just a funk resting in between 'getting up on the wrong side of the bed' on one hand, and 'please, Gawd, why do I need to get out of bed today' on the other hand.  Of course, I did a good job putting up good face all day long today.  After my nice, long, run on the treadmill, though, I realized that I couldn't do any more work.  I just needed to chill.... at least for a little while.

While I was assembling a playlist on iTunes, I realized that there's some "moments" of undergraduate school that I particularly miss.  Let's place aside all of the nostalgia for Notre Dame for a moment and focus on a few life functions, like down time and finding new, awesome music, or heading to the Huddle just to hang out, get a diet mountain dew and some BK chicken tenders, and talk to whomever happened to be there (which, many a time, happened to be my roommate and the PE girls).  I feel like I'm missing that a little bit back in Charlestown.  I'll call it the Cheers effect, if you will, minus the alcohol.  Like, I'd go to the Huddle or make playlists and the like not so much to drink or to find caffeine, but to just hang out and be.  Exist.  And associate.  Without the expectation of generating business on the return side.

Anyway, this is totally turning into a bitch and rave.  I'll just stop now.

Currently on the playlist: Life in Mono, by Mono, from the Great Expectations Soundtrack [1998].

Yankee Grab Christmas Mix 2007

Here it is...

1. Do They Know It's Christmas? (Band Aid)   
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings (Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan)
3. Little Saint Nick (The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson & Mike E. Love)   
4. White Christmas    Bing Crosby (Irving Berlin)   
5. Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth (Bing Crosby & David Bowie)   
6. Jingle Bell Rock (Bobby Helms)
7. Holly Jolly Christmas (Burl Ives)
8. Merry Christmas Darling (The Carpenters)
9. The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) (The Chipmunks)   
10. Baby, It's Cold Outside    (Dean Martin)   
11. The Little Drummer Boy    (Harry Simeone Chorale)   
12. Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming (Es Ist Ein' Ros' Estperungen) (Harvard Glee Club)       
13. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (Jackson 5)   
14. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (John Lennon & Yoko Ono with The Plastic Ono Band and The Harlem Community Choir)   
15. O Holy Night (John Williams)
16. All I Want For Christmas (Mariah Carey)
17. The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) (Nat "King" Cole)
18. Wonderful Christmas Time (Paul McCartney)
19. (There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays (Perry Como)
20. We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Francis De Sales Boychoir (Philadelphia) & The Temple University Concert Choir)

Moving, Lonergan, and Seventy-Five Days

An agent through which vital powers are exercised.

Fall is finally becoming fall in Boston, in November.  Crisp and cool, just the way November should be.  I always thought that this type of fall weather lends itself to the nostalgia that replays inside my mind and supports the frustrated writer that lingers inside of me.  That's what I thought about when I was walking up Walker Street after I got off the bus this evening.  I was thinking about how much I really love my street, and how cool but strikingly red the fireball glowed from the utility pole at the top of my street, and how much I really loved what I do--even though I bitch and complain about it at times.  It's that new slug of a slog that I have to fight out and figure out.  I could quit.  But I love the playing field.

Beneath that fireball, though, I bumped upon Todd and Meg's U-Haul.  Todd and Dan were in it, amid all of the Todd and Meg's life that was getting squeezed into a 17-foot U-Haul.  Now, I always get really funny with change, especially moving.  I play things off like I'll see someone tomorrow.  I try to keep things "normal."  I laugh a bit and [/MESSAGE CLIPPED/]

The iPhone Commercial [ORD/SBN/MRY]

This is going to sound really weird.  But every time I hear/see the iPhone commercial, that little nostalgia button inside of me gets triggered.  It's like the music and the iPhone voiceover voice are really soothing.  At the same time, the shots -- I don't think I can call it cinematography -- have this flow that puts me into the Rudy/Skipping class for the BrewCo with Hill/Doors of Notre Dame/"walking across South Quad at dawn after pulling an all-nighter" kind of feel.  Everything's in soft, clean, incandescent-boosted hues.

And it all begs another question that I'll just answer.  I really miss Notre Dame.

I guess that's why I'm wicked excited to be making the trek on the third week of vacation.  Instead of celebrating a year on the job, I'll be celebrating the ND Perpetual Keggers, ND Football, ND Wedding.  And I really can't wait to go to the Grotto.  It's my favorite spot on campus, especially late in the summer when the Indiana humidity, 1000 chirping crickets, and faint sounds of the lake culminate in just one really surreal experience.  Just thinking about it makes me sigh.  And when I close my eyes and just think about it, the feeling of being relaxed pours over me.

Perhaps this is a little bit of hyperbole.  Perhaps it is.  But I think it answer's Erin's question from a few weeks ago.  I still think about that place.  And it still matters.  It matters to me.

Thank you, iPhone.

Re: emails from friends

The email message:

It's weird how reading your reply to George made me realize how I never hear you talk about Notre Dame that much anymore. Either corporate indentured servitude is stifling your nostalgia or I'm just not around you in a social setting that much anymore!

Nealmeister's response:

Oh, I do think about it a lot. I think about Notre Dame, and the ocean, and the woods in Maine, my parents and Sunday morning bruch, and that four of swords card from the tarrot card deck four years ago (or five summers ago). I think I'm just not around many people in a social setting anymore (unfortunately), and as such, all of the nostalgia gets kept to myself. The things that make me laugh with my friends, the things that I really love discussing, the things that I really love spending my time doing, there's really just not that time anymore. It's somewhat sad; those were all the things that made up my personality. But it's amazing how once you get to the real world, your "personality" no longer becomes relevant. Well, at least in the corporate world. It's all about cash. Nobody really much cares about what I think (or the brilliant things in life, for that matter, like the ways clouds form on the eve of a thunderstorm in the middle of the summer; or how beautiful the congregation sounds at church when they try to sing, even though they're somewhat out of key and sound somewhat shrill; or the sound of the tires to my corolla when I'm driving through the less congested roads around the Middlesex Fells), unless it has to do with a transaction. Which is hard. I'm sounding like a frustrated writer...

The reply back:

Damn, that was intense! Brilliant! I just had to check and see if you still had it in you. But I hope I didn't open a can of worms on you.

Thoughts from the blackberry

music: anna nalick/breathe

location: 93 bus stop, sullivan & bunker hill streets. 
weather: steady rain
previous discussion: w/Dave p*rkins, re: essex, rain, england and new englanders

The asian woman collecting empties out of trash.  No one thought about what happens to her when you fail to sort your deposit bottles out of the trash and into the recycling bins.  Random thought, yes.  And I know people get really annoyed with them digging through their trash.  But, think about it.  It is really as much about their livelihod as it is ours. 

That was the gross juxtaposition at the bus stop -- socially, culturally, socioeconomically. And I could not help but think: "dear God, neal, in light of doing this whole attorney thing, in doing this whole yuppie thing, in accomplishing something that I clealy am not completely cognizant of but yet let sweep me away, please, please don't let me become so jaded that I forget my roots.  And lose passion -- or is it compassion -- for people like the asian lady collecting cans."

music: john mayer/slow dancing in a burning room

End of Vacation... oh!

I don't have my pictures off of my camera yet, so I can't share with you all the graphic evidence of Neal & Sarah's escapades in Austin, Texas.  For the time being, I'm sure that if you check out DirectTV, you'd see me in the crowd at the Bowling for Soup concert (yes, while in Austin, we saw Bowling for Soup!). 

I'll tell you, though, earplugs are a marvelous thing.  I'm so happy I could use them at South by Southwest.  Otherwise, I'd be deaf now, or at least near deaf.  And I've need a new liver... but that has nothing to do with my hearing; I already knew that the liver transplant would be inevitable. 

I was just kidding about the liver transplant thing.  Humor, of course...

So Austin...

Among others, I've got to thank Johnny for being the awesome hook up.  I felt like a superstar when we saw Sandra Jones & the Dap Kings, side of stage, VIP Treatment and all, at Emo's Annex.  And wait, there's one other shout out, to the waitress that I was flirting with at B.D. Riley's--that episode of Grey's Anatomy turned out to be wicked awesome.  Could Izzy and George really sleep with each other?  And if so, does that mean there's hope for us?

Anyway...

SXSW

You know how when you were in middle school, and you'd list all of the things that were awesome and great about your vacation, saying something like "We are Ohio" and then list all of the things?  Well, here's my "here's to you Austin," with some of the Bands seen, heard, and yes, felt...

Imperial Teen, Andrew Winston Duo, Drew Smith and His Band, Peter Bjorn and John, Rocky Votolato, Special Guests, Apollo Sunshine, Dirty Projectors, Play-N-Skillz, Chingo Bling, The Redwalls, Clem Snide, Robyn Hitchcock, Yuppie Pricks, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Lesbians on Ecstacy, Bic Runga, Brett Dennen, Alexi Murdoch, Bowling for Soup, Prototypes and Junior Senior!!

And we're off...

I realize that this post is substandard.  But let me placehold a couple of conversations that I need to have on here over the next few days:

• Neal's trip to Mass. General, with particular attention paid to the green slip and emergency radiology
• Grey's, Grey's and Grey's
• The Purple Pill