If you sent me mail during the downtime, then I probably didn't get it, so if you can then send it again. Thanks.

Everything appears to be OK again here. Tell your friends that we're back.

Jess is right, I wrote a lot more in the old days.

I hate papers.

Because I want to write differently about them this time around, it's been a while since I wrote on any of the 69 Love Songs. And I've only done Abigail and Absolutely Cuckoo, and when I can I want to write something new for the latter because I'm not happy with it. But anyway. I can't write about the songs in alphabetical order, be happy with everything I write, and finish before I receive my Ph.D. So I'm scrapping the alphabetical part.

Well, I sort of fixed my problem by running across a hardcover dual-language edition of the Investigations that was cheaper than the paperback version, so that I could not feel chumped paying the price I paid for it. I still would've preferred to have the English-only paperback though - it's much smaller.

Most striking thing in my life today, on the anniversary: the unexpectedness and brevity of my confusion, crossing I-94 on the bus and seeing the sky not charred black or horror-movie red, but plain old late summer midmorning bright.

Most emotional thing in my life today: later on the bus, the lyrics in the middle of the Magnetic Fields' "Meaningless": "and if you feel like keeping on kicking feel free". This was not an unusual reaction; there was no connection to the anniversary.

Yo La Tengo, "We're an American Band"

There's something characteristic about a number of guitar solos that go on for a while, but I never hear that here. Maybe because it mesmerizes me, so that once it turns into a squall, I'm surprised. And the squall sounds unpredictable (still), otherworldly (still). There are so many beautiful things that make me cry now that it's probably not worth my time to enumerate them. But this is still one of the worst (best).

(I told myself I should write more about this album, since I hardly ever do for how much I like it. But this is all I came up with, at least that I'll show you now.)

I had still never really gotten any Wire albums to sit totally well with me, even if I liked spots, until today when I put on Chairs Missing because Geeta mentioned it. I haven't really been putting any work into the album, so the change surprised me a little. I was captivated, amazed, enthralled, excited, others for the entire time. I have to listen more now so that I can say something about it.