It's been a while. Long enough to pass through two months of holidays, days of sweltering, pavement-warping heat, two stacks of CD-R's and arrive firmly in the new year. My resolutions are overwhelming so instead, a list of compulsions/obsessions:

Raymond Carver's short stories - he doesn't waste words or douse them in metaphorical perfume; and the characters in his stories...you've met these people, you know how they talk - reading him leaves you in awe of how affecting each individual snapshot is.

The Fleet Foxes and their baroque, harmonic, surf jams.

"Regarding the Pain of Others" by Susan Sontag. I wish I could fit her brain inside my brain. I tried. It's too big.

I have developed an acute fear of checking my voicemail...what if it's bad news?

Happy 2009.