not nearly as good as i'd hoped.

radio show #4. my fingers are dried apricots and i keep eating them so i can't do my homework.

if it wasn't before, i'm going to use my hour long radio show as a personal journal. it's going to be the musical equivalent of my week or of an event of that week. this week's radios show takes me back to last saturday/sunday, which was one of the best weekends of my life. easily. i went to manhattan and walked to brooklyn to see no age play. and they were awesome. today in the shower i noticed that the bruise on my thigh from the show is still dark purple. after the show i walked around brooklyn, having a great time, with a friend and some of his friends and we slept at one kid's house and in the morning (which was really the afternoon, when we woke up) we walked around brooklyn some more and i really really like it, it's a little like uptown and pilsen and i could maybe live there someday, hopefully.

teen creeps - no age (no age started their set with this song)

island ave. - jacuzzi boys

rise above - black flag

to where - grass widow

born under punches (the heat goes on) - talking heads ("to where" and "born under punches" were both played as like space fillers, when the stage changed bands)

everybody's down - no age

boy void - no age ("boy void" was the last song played and i totally freaked out, i love that song.)

be my baby - the ronnettes

beg waves - ponytail (after we'd had late breakfast on sunday afternoon, we sat around listening to music (notably, "be my baby" and "beg waves" and more no age) while deciding where to go that day.)

tally ho! - the clean

throw aggi off the bridge - black tambourine

lola - the raincoats

move to california - times new viking

ever fallen in love - buzzcocks (dedication:)

thirteen - big star (i heard this song playing out an open window on the nyc streets and had to sing it through in my head before i could figure out hat it was. also today is my little brother's last day of being thirteen.)

twilight at carbon lake - deerhunter

that weekend was like all of the teenage weekends i never had in chicago.

it was great.

the greatest.

i just want to live and work in brooklyn and go to shows.

i don't want to be at school.

my favorite part of college is

not living at home

and that might be the wrong reason to be in college.

oh, yeah,

listen to the radio show,

pleeeeeeaaaaaassssssssssseeeeeeeeeeee.

6 p.m. est, 5 p.m. cst, etc.

i promise it'll be good.

loneliness, home, friends, family.

i knew what i was getting myself into. i knew i was

going to let myself have a day of nostalgia and minor moping.

i knew that when i walked away from the train station: alone, for the first time in

days. fine. i knew what i was in for when i sat outside of my apartment building smoking to feel dizzy, early in the morning (for a saturday),

wanting to hear only beat happening songs, and

finally deciding to take my bike out.

i ended up riding to bronxville and going to the y.a. section of the quaint new-books-only bookstore where i picked up looking for alaska and sat in a corner and (spoiler alert) read the part where she dies and i

wanted to cry

and i

almost did

my nose got all sniffly and my eyes got heavy.

and i left that bookstore and walked the at least one-point-five miles back to the apartment in the rain.

and i sort of knew what i was in for when i asked erin repeatedly if she would go see

where the wild things are

at the nearby cinema at 5:10 p.m. with me

and she said yes.

i needed that movie today.

we sat in the theatre at the end weeping, quietly sobbing, next to each other, as the ushers began to clean and the credits rolled and lights came up and turned our faces a ghostly grayish yellow.

i wanted to cry a little harder.

head in my knees....that would have felt just right yes.

when i described the movie later to another girl, i said it dealt with "loneliness, home, friends, and family." and she responded, "oh. so basically everything we're going through right now."

yes. an unexpected answer from this girl, so maybe erin and i aren't the only ones who feel like we do about here about college. maybe lots of kids do.

yes.

loneliness? check. plenty. though it's not always a bad thing.

home? don't got one. the "city of chicago" is the closest thing, but maybe that doesn't count for some reason.

friends? maybe. very few, if any.

family? got one, at least in the blood sense. they're eight hundred miles away and i like it like that.

so everything we're going through right now,

only more so for me today,

because he just said i was his home.

and i just sent him away.

and because we really are friends, for sure, i think.

we could end the loneliness.

maybe.

if i wanted to.

i cannot wait for the sunrise!

i'm staying up all night!

i'm drinking lipton black tea like my life depends upon it!

i'm writing a paper

(which i will not be proud of)

on antigone's performance history!

it's a lot of work!

it's due in four hours!

i had two weeks and two days to write a well researched paper and i decided to write it in about 10 hours instead!

college.

you know, i don't believe i've ever "pulled an all-nighter."

this week has been full of firsts, i'll give it that.

like listening to fucking animal collective on some chick's shared itunes library as background music. that's a first.

here is a backwards photo of the world's greatest mug! it is from sacramento by way of my aunt biddy. i like it because it is huge and aunt biddy is nice memories.

good night, morning, i need to work! i'm nowhere near finished!

we are elves. luminous.

we walked across the brooklyn bridge

holding hands and smoking cigarettes

and smiling all the way.

ee cummings.

a high compliment from erin.

"i think you seem like a good person to get arrested with."

or

"(i think) you would be a good person to get arrested with."

thank you.

you touched my lips.

"i can't see in the dark."

or

"it's too dark to see."

that whistle that says,

"hey girl, i like how those jeans are fitting."

or maybe because, it's me,

"i like how that hat looks pulled over your

dirty hair casting shadows on your eyes."

i know that was fucking weird.

i know it's sports team.

and boys in groups, the likes of which are rare on campus.

and athletes in acting class, where i get to touch people's face,

and have my face touched, which was a kind of a new and wonderful thing.

i know that was fucking weird.

my disbelief wasn't suspended,

but i don't know if yrs was.

week in review: radio show #3!!!

this week's radio show will go something like this:

forming - the germs

boy void - no age

business cats - mika miko

give him a great big kiss - the shangri-las

i can't explain - the who

titus andronicus - titus andronicus

the glam goddess - the smith westerns

can't explain - the spells

let's kiss - beat happening

jealous again - black flag

never see me again - vivian girls

we're desperate - x

the dress - mika miko

typical girls - the slits

more than a feeling - sleater-kinney

shadow of a doubt - sonic youth

the moon - the microphones

the wait - time new viking

that is more or less my week in music.

(well, i would add in brilliant colors and grass widow, but i don't have any recordings by them, and inside the radio station i can't get wireless internet, so i can't play songs from their myspaces which bums me out a little bit.)

i've really been mental for mika miko's album c.y.s.l.a.b.f. this week.

listen to it!

tomorrow (sunday) night at 6 p.m eastern, 5 p.m. central.

get excited!

get excited!

they're playing in brooklyn in a week. "excited" doesn't even begin to cover it.

she has an "active imagination."

as part of my "conference work" on the subject of evil i got assigned to watch the blair witch project. i told my don that henry james' the turn of the screw (which he'd previously assigned me to read) freaked my out a little when i was reading it late at night and would catch my reflection in the black of the windows, or when i would lean on the kitchen table which sits wobbly atop one of the world's worst flooring jobs. his response was, "have you seen the blair witch project?"

"uh...no..."

"do you want to watch it?"

"uh...sure..."

"could you? would you do it?"

"yeah, sure, i'll watch it if you want me to. sure"

so i did. alone (a medical situation took my viewing-buddy from me). in broad daylight. with my cell phone and ratty homemade cat and copies of our town and weetzie bat sitting next to my computer. and it wasn't so bad. yet.

things change for me in the dark.

like with the turn of the screw.

like how i took my fastest showers ever for a time after watching psycho.

but i think i watched it in the right circumstances:

daylight (which is fast lessening as i type).

and then tonight i'm going into the city with a group for a girl's birthday.

we're gonna laugh.

we're gonna go to a restaurant.

we're gonna watch the new york neo-futurists perform too much light makes the baby go blind.

we're gonna come back to bronxville and i'll probably have to walk/bike half mile back to my allegedly haunted apartment, past woods (well, sort of woods, more woods than we've fucking got in chicago!), and into my apartment where two of my three roommates won't be, because they're out of town this weekend. and the third roommate is the one i don't really talk to much and we aren't friends or anything, so i can't really talk to her). and i'll have to fall asleep in my room alone, for the second night alone. and i can't decide if leaving the bedroom door open or closed is wiser.

neither is wiser!

because there is nothing to be wise about!

because at the end of the movie it said "WRITTEN BY:_______!

because it's all fake!

and i won't even be thinking about anything.

i'll be thinking about writing.

writing short plays!

and planning tomorrow's radio show!

fashionpostihavenoshameidon'tthinkthecollegelibrarysubscribestovogue.

dear miuccia prada,

regarding your spring 2010 miu miu collection:

it pleases me very much.

i want it.

not all of it.

you can keep those nude fabric dresses with the sparkles,

but the pantsuits and some of the mini dresses,

i want them.

cat fabric pantsuit! yes!

with matching cat fabric shoes!

huh? how does that vest even work? little triangles, scalene and isosceles all cut out.

i really love those collars.

more cat fabric pants with cat fabric cummerbund/vest thing.

and bird fabric! and human-nude fabric!

my personal favorite look in the whole collection.

i would wear all of these in a heartbeat. gosh they're so well made, so well tailored.

i want that cat fabric.

i also want to sew something really, really badly.

i haven't sewn anything in over a month.

miss it.

happy sketching, ms. prada,

emma.

oh man,

i feel shallow.

o skinny scary models,

i promise i'm looking only at the clothing.

not the culture.

the craftsmanship, the tailoring, the amazing, funny fabric.

i feel okay walking into a designer clothing store only because i feel that i can look at the clothing from a different angle: that of a seamstress.

i don't want to buy those clothes - not in a million years (i couldn't even if i wanted to).

i want to learn from them.

i want to tear them apart and make them myself.

that's all.

radio show #2: dance music cures the sick days.

on saturday night/in the wee hours of sunday

i was very giddy happy. then i remembered that i had to plan a radio show. i wanted dance music. loosely defined, dance music.

sunday i felt sick i went into the station with my pre-made itunes playlist and let it play, sipping lentil soup while it went and talking/contaminating-the-microphone every so often between songs. i felt a little better as the show went on. the radio link worked. my apartmentmate, erin, listened to the show. i babbled. i felt alone in the studio so i talked in my bizarre rambling way (how i talk to myself) in between songs. erin said she laughed out loud.

it was kind of fun.

here are the songs i played.

it occurs to me that it would make more sense to post the list before hand and then you can tune in and know what i'm playing, or know if you want to tune in at all.

midnight-a-go-go - beat happening

can't dance - black lips

do you wanna dance - the beach boys

i'm gonna love you too - buddy holly

i'm happy just to dance with you - the beatles

pull shapes - the pipettes

into the groove - madonna

heart of glass - blondie

cool for cats - squeeze

let's dance - david bowie

genius of love - tom tom club

train in vain - the clash

mysteries - yeah yeah yeahs

step aside - sleater-kinney

uptight (everything's alright) - stevie wonder

tonight - smith westerns

tune in next week.

six p.m. EST.

(five p.m. CST.)

wslc radio.

"it is so hard to leave - until you leave. and then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world."

dear corey,

thanks for the paper towns recommendation.

i devoured it when i should have been reading books about labor law.

which gives it the distinction of being the first book read for pleasure in a month.

love,

emma.