Corruption, Consistency, and Safe Mode

After an entire week of introductions and orientations, I had a pleasant Saturday planned for myself. There would be a flea market. There would be a farmers market. There would be the ever slightest reading of school work. There would be some movie watching. There would even be some socializing and drinking at the end of this well experienced day. I had plenty to do and I'm awful glad I woke up early enough to make all of it happen.

I figured I would do some work on my internet classes I'm teaching this semester, while listening to some various podcasts. It was delightful- and usually grading isn't. I listened to some of the new Okkervil River album, which I am now anxiously anticipating the release of. I thought I'd take a quick break for some breakfast and newspaper reading after printing out a few things. As I set my computer down to plug in the printer...it froze up. Oh, no problem, right? Just restart. Upon the restart- my computer gave me some crazy error message about not being able to show the "native images." What the fuck is a native image? There are tons of funny "I was about to..." going through my head right now, but I'll save you from it. The next two hours involved me doing things like crashing and restarting my computer over and over again. Then, I dabbled in starting it in safe mode. Then I had the disk checked for consistency a handful of times.

I flipped through the manual. And I came to the conclusion how utterly dependent on a machine I am that I haven't the slightest clue how to fix it. I've never been the kind of person who has a computer screw up on them. I'm the person that always thinks "Oh, computer virus...it is a culture of fear out there! It'll never happen to me." I suppose I better get some identity protection now, since that is also somethingI have thrown around as part of the culture of fear.

Regardless, 6 hours later...one phone call to Dell...and a few crying fits...I gave into the inevitable. I had to restore my computer to the factory basics. It was tragic. I was going to lose all my music on my Itunes and my photos. But, wait, what is that you ask? Did I back-up recently? Yes, I backed up some stuff. I hadn't backed up my Itunes- Who the hell has time for that? And I hadn't backed up any pictures since May. It took merely 7 minutes for my entire computer to be wiped clean. I don't think I moved an inch while I watched the bar inch further and further over indicating that more and more of my work and memories were being erased. Ha! How melodramatic, right?

I'm over it today. I've already started rebuilding my Itunes library. I'm up to C and D today. My mom yesterday tried to convince me to see the positive. And when I was in my hour of darkness and she called, I had to smile. I had my head in my hands, I was surrounded by old cds and start-up repair cds...and when she called, I felt silly. Why? My ring on my cell phone is part of the Hold Steady's song "Stay Positive." And it was just all put into perspective. In the scheme of it all, not that important.

Besides, did I tell you I'm seeing The Hold Steady on Halloween? See, there are happier days around the corner.

This traumatic Saturday did make me think about the way we capture memories though. I remember the whole situation that Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses experienced when he hollered at a fan for taking video on her cell phone. He wanted to know what ever happened to people going to an event and just experiencing it. To just keeping the memories in their head- without the pictures to prove. And the thing I was most upset about losing were my pictures. So, I tried to remind myself that I still have the memories.

And hell, after all, I've got my blog to remind me if I forget.

The Week of Rock and Sounds

I swear I'm not planning on providing you weekly with a play-by-play of my time in Nashville, but in particular- the first weeks seem important. They seem pivotal. They seem to be the experiences which I hope will repeat themselves week-in and week-out. I'm also not going to go into too much about the shows I saw, as I'll save that for the other blog, you know the one about music- www.musicismemory.com

Wait, did I just give my own other blog a shout out?

So, Friday of last week, Tim and I were to see our first real rock show since venturing to Nashville. We had tickets to see Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band at Mercy Lounge. Besides this, we also planned to stop by his in-store performance at Grimey's. The in-store was a bust, the rock show was incredible, including the moment I drunkenly stumbled my way up to the front of the stage for the encore. Sometimes, it is nice to be drunk and irresponsible.

Surprise, surprise, Saturday was a day I did not feel in tip-top shape. That being said, we had already planned a visit to East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival. We pulled ourselves together around 4pm and made a trip over. The festival was fun, except there wasn't as much to do as I hoped. We drank slushies, watched some of a fashion show, and walked up and down the blocks. Apparently, when you go to the Tomato Art Fest, you should be prepared to drink. I was not.

So, instead, we left and decided to attend Game One of a Nashville Sounds doubleheader. I was so excited to see my new local team. I already knew they were coming in last place, but hey, I love the underdog. Upon walking in, I discovered just how old this stadium is- but don't get me wrong, it isn't old in like a cool, antique, historical way....it is old in the way that they built the shit and never touched it again. We walked along creaky boards to find our seats. Some of the seats were cracked. Some were bolted in, some weren't. Essentially, if you were sitting in the aisle seat (which our lovely booking agent at the window sold us on), you have to completely get up and out of your seat to let the other folks in. This is not enjoyable if you are trying to drink your expensive ballpark beer. Don't get me wrong- I loved it. I loved every minute of it...and yes, with that one ballpark beer, I felt the Conor-Oberst-hangover quickly dissipate.

Sunday entailed rest, though with quick trips to Grimey's and the Farmer's Market.













On Monday, Tim and I were to attend our second rock show of the week. We had tickets to see AA Bondy and Bon Iver at The Exit/In. Before we made it to the show, we met up some friends at a nearby bar. We were meeting up with our new pals, Colin and Sarah...but also a couple of folks that are already in/graduated from the program at school. As you can imagine, the evening was mostly spent thinking/worrying/becoming anxious and freaked out about our first day of orientation on Saturday. Afterwards, Tim and I made our way across the street- just in time to see Bon Iver take stage. Excellent show. Beautiful.

On Tuesday, Tim and I were to attend our third rock show of the week. Are we getting exhausted? You bet. I never knew I'd feel exhausted by going to rock shows. I never thought I'd complain that I need a night at home. When I woke up on Wednesday, I knew there was absolutely no way my body was able to leave the house. Regardless, on Tuesday, we were scheduled to see Prabir and the Substitutes open for The Silver Beats. If I was collecting my top ten memories in Nashville during the 3-5 years when I finish with school, there is no doubt- this night will always find a place secured in the list. Since it was primarily a musical evening...I'm saving it for the other blog.

I've been resting since then. Week 3 is all about school. Orientation after orientation after orientation. Given the fact that most of these events start in the morning, I think our week will be far less exciting and far more anxiety producing.

Oh, Nashville...

One week into my residency at Nashville...And I finally exhaled. I finally have put away everything (almost). This past week has possibly been one of the most trying weeks of my life. I suppose that life changes always bring about this type of joy, frustration, excitement, terror, and confusion. I have never moved this far away before. Moving somewhere that was 4 hours away (Myrtle Beach) was tough, but moving somewhere 10 hours away was sheer hell. Why you may ask? One important life lesson I learned, take as little as possible when moving this distance.

For the move, Tim and I decided to rent a pod-like box for the shipping of the majority of our furniture and books. This ended up being far more complicated, stressful, and destructive than originally planned. For one, not everything fit. There were causalities. We lost our dining room chairs, due to a lack of space. We lost a couple of bookcases, due to a lack of careful planning in the packing. Note: It is not a good idea to put 30 boxes of books in the back of the pod, with cheap furniture in the front. In transit, the books came cascading down, crashing the furniture and breaking about 2 boxes of my favorite dishes and coffee mugs. Besides the obvious errors in packing, using a pod meant that we also packed the crap we own about 4 times.

After packing a pod, we drove a good bit of "stuff" with us...including the cats. Driving 10 hours with cats is not as much fun as you might imagine. Sabine apparently did not appreciate the fact that my truck is unable to run the a/c constantly. She yelped and screamed every time I turned off the air.

We arrived in Nashville on Wednesday night around 9:00pm. As we started to unpack the truck and car, it started to pour down rain. One of our friendly new neighbors informed us this was good luck. Now, how is that again? The first night here, Sabine was also so freaked out (she takes after me, apparently) that she didn't sleep at all. This also meant I didn't sleep at all.

Our first day here was spent with the fella from the cable company. Then picking up the rest of our crap from the pod people. Thursday was not a fun day. Friday was spent unpacking and jumping over boxes. Friday was not a fun day.

Finally, on Saturday, we decided to venture out into the joys of Nashville. In particular the one place we wanted to visit first was the Nashville Farmers' Market. The market is within walking distance from our new home and was incredible. The picture above shows our first purchase from the market. While living in Myrtle Beach, we often would frequent the weekly flea market, which also had a couple of folks set up with some vegetables. No comparison. The market here is overwhelming. I couldn't even fathom what type of vegetables I wanted. There were too many choices. We are actually still eating from the vegetables we purchased. The butter beans were excellent. Absolutely mind-blowing. Saturday was a good day.

Sunday was our record store day. We decided to visit one of the many record stores in town. The record store is Grimey's. Part of our reason for going to the record store was to get rid of some cds...to make some money for trade, but also to free up some space. Grimey's is excellent. Very cool. Very hip. I found a couple of albums there. Another note: I refuse to buy any more albums that do not come on vinyl with the cd/mp3 download. We also ventured down what is called Charlotte Avenue/Pike. There are a hell of a lot of thrift stores, not to mention the Target/Wal-mart/Lowe's.

Monday was one of those days spent unpacking books. Tim has an insane amount of books. Ever since we decided to move, I have been thinking about how to find a way to store all of the books. In Myrtle Beach, the books filled one of our rooms- mostly on the floor, going 3 to 4 rows out. This was not efficient. It was also hell for Tim if he ever hoped to find any particular book. So, we wanted to do something different. After researching numerous shelving options (and having been told by our real estate folks that we are not allowed to make permanent changes to the apartment), Tim mentioned the idea of the old college stand-by. Plywood and cinder blocks. And when we purchased 20 cinder blocks, the folks at the hardware store did not bat an eye. The shelves are up now. They look fantastic.

Monday night, we decided to venture out into what is often referred to as the "tourist" area of Nashville. Perhaps we missed the lights and neon and tourists of Myrtle Beach. We ventured down to Broadway. We had a few drinks at a bar called Robert's Western World and listened to a western swing band. We then crossed the street and had a beer at a bar called The Wheel. At The Wheel, there was a band playing covers...though, I think most of them were Bob Seger covers. Though Broadway seems a little "over-the-top", we are incredibly close to this area- and for the sheer excitement and people-watching, I think we'll spend a good deal of time down there.

Tuesday was the day we spent money. Anyone that has cats and blinds in their home know that cats love to break/bend/tear apart blinds. To avoid this, the cat-owners must seek out curtains to create a barrier. So, we went out spent an obnoxious amount of money on my new credit card to find the appropriate curtains, rods, and other necessities to start to decorate our new home. After the decorating is finished, I hope not to step foot in a Wal-mart or Target again for months.

Tuesday night was quite enjoyable. During the summer, I got to know some of the other incoming graduate students in my program. I always think day one of a graduate program can be pretty nerve shattering- so I thought getting to know some of the other newbies would be a good way to feel more comfortable with the program. In particular, I exchanged numerous emails with a fella named Colin. We discovered pretty early on that we had plenty in common. We both are coming in with our MA. We both love music. We both have cats. So, finally, on Tuesday night, Tim and I were scheduled to meet up with Colin and his girlfriend, Sarah. (I hope Sarah is spelled correctly.)

Meeting up with folks you have talked to over email, but have never seen in person is pretty funny. Mostly because you have no idea if the conversations you have had over email will translate to in person. You have no idea what they look like. It was sort of like a blind date for Tim and I with a couple. We met them at a place called The Gold Rush, which was pretty rad. We had a great time. And yes, the conversations and interests all translated. We all got along famously. I do believe this bodes well for our time in Nashville. After our drinks at The Gold Rush, we crossed the street to The Exit/In, which is a club where Tim and I will be seeing Bon Iver and AA Bondy next week.

Wednesday was a bit less interesting. It was another day of unpacking. We did venture down Charlotte Pike again to another used bookstore/records/dvds called McKays. We decided to take a couple of boxes of cds and books to trade. When our trade was processed, I walked up to the counter and the young lady working told me that we were given 209 in trade. I thought 2.09 sucked for all I brought in, until I realized she meant two hundred and nine dollars. Fuck yeah. So, now we have a credit that will keep us in free books and cds and dvds for at least another couple of months.

And finally today...we have officially been here one week. I have all the windows covered with curtains. I have unpacked my desk and set it up for the ultimate school experience. The last thing left to do in the house is to hang our paintings and pictures. I hope to finish this tomorrow. And it will all be completed. We will be moved in.

The week ahead brings promise. Tomorrow, we'll be visiting an in-store performance by Conor Oberst and his new Mystic Valley Band for free at Grimey's. We will also attend his performance at Mercy Lounge. Saturday, we'll be spending our time at the Tomato Art Festival in East Nashville...and hopefully, seeing my friend, Heather. Sunday, I swear I'm seeing the Nashville Sounds. When I finally make it to my first rock show and first baseball game, I think I'll feel like I really live here. In Nashville.

I ain't missing you at all....

When I thought about Myrtle Beach today, which was fairly easy considering the daily paper here in Nashville featured a story about Myrtle for their main travel piece...I thought of this song by John Waite.

Every time I think of you
I always catch my breath
And I'm still standing here
And you're miles away
And I'm wondering why you left
And there's a storm that's raging
Through my frozen heart tonight
I hear your name in certain circles
And it always makes me smile
I spend my time
Thinking about you
And its almost driving me wild
And there's a heart that's breaking
Down this long distance line tonight
I ain't missing you at all...

Here are some pictures of how we spent our last few days. One night was undoubtedly spent at Rockefellers. We had plans to meet some folks up there for our last Saturday night. When Jaime and Mikey arrived, we discovered that Mikey had visited a beach store to dress up for us. I think the idea was to laugh about tourists and to remind us of what we'd be missing. As the night wore on, there were tons of drinks, some tears, some dancing, some hot peppers, lots of photography, and some freak of nature feats. We had a great time. And it was then, while I drunkenly walked to the bathroom that it hit me how many friends we had at the beach, but also how much I would miss them. After all the outpouring of emotion, I mentioned to Tim that we should have said we were leaving much earlier. Particularly because it meant that after all the drinking- we only had a 3 dollar bar tab. A record, for sure.

We also spent our last couple of days moving. It essentially went like this...we packed a truck with our stuff, drove it to Dillon, packed a pod-like structure, drove back from Dillon, finished packing, barely cleaned the apartment, slept, woke up the next morning and packed the car. In the middle of all of this hell-like experience, we did stop to have our last supper with our neighbor Patrick. During this last supper, he managed to eat the largest plate of food I've ever seen.

The last morning, I took a few pictures. Because besides missing the folks at Rockefellers and Patrick, I realized how much I'll miss our "stray" cat, Gravy. Well, we named him Gravy. His real name is Batman. He adopted us. I considered taking him with us. I just couldn't imagine Gravy loving the urban life style. I have been worried about him. I continue to worry and think about him. If I think about it too much, I get a little choked up about it. It is tough when animals adopt you. And even harder, when you know you can't take them with you. It just wouldn't be right. So,I am sitting here in Nashville tonight- hoping that Gravy isn't sitting on my old porch waiting to be fed- but rather, I hope he has climbed a tree, caught a squirrel to eat, and then swaggered down Ocean Boulevard.

The End of the Bucket List

So, what happened with the bucket list? How did it all end up? Honestly, with packing and coordinating moving 10 hours away...some of the list fell away. I didn't play mini-golf. I didn't ride the pirate ship. And believe it or not, but I didn't perform karaoke. That doesn't mean I didn't rock out to some karaoke though.

What other items did I complete?














I had planned a trip to the Raw Barrrr. It was my amended #8. It shouldn't have been amended. I'm pretty sure that a meal at the taqueria would have been much more fulfilling. Tim and I did have one drink at the raw barrr. It was awful. See, the raw bar is located next door to a huge restaurant called the Giant Crab. The Giant Crab is one of those huge calabash type restaurants that generally allows tourists of all sizes and shapes to pay some astronomical price for "all-you-can-eat." Then you proceed to stuff yourself with various fried fish delights. The odd thing about these places is that they also have other items on the buffet, like chicken wings. Seeing as I don't partake in eating most of these delicacies from just about anywhere but the local area- the raw bar was no treat. It smelled of leftover fried food. The stench is apparent from pulling into the parking lot- or perhaps that is the smell of neighboring McDonalds. The bar itself is filthy. There are tons of tourists stuffing themselves around us. They sit eating crab leg after crab leg, while remarking how great it is to eat food from the nearby ocean. We made our way through one drink before leaving for a much more favorable bar, namely Rockefellers.













And yes, we did make our way to the lovely karaoke night with Cheryl Z at Pat and Mike's in Little River. Tim and I found ourselves at this establishment during our stint at the beach, while he was reviewing the restaurant. We were originally annoyed by sitting right in the middle of a huge karaoke fest, but after a couple of drinks- we were pleasantly surprised with the talent that was featured. So, I decided if I was to EVER perform karaoke- it would be this place. Our last Sunday in town, Tim, Patrick and I drove out to Little River with the hopes of performing. I had decided in advance that I wanted to perform Handle with Care by The Traveling Wilburys. I thought it featured plenty of parts for the three of us. Unfortunately, Cheryl Z did not have this number in her thousands and thousands of hits to pick from. So, I opted out. I wasn't prepared for anything else. And, I wasn't drunk enough for anything else. This left Patrick to perform, though Tim was still considering it up until the last moment.




















Patrick performed The Beatles' Ticket to Ride, which was awesome. The crowd loved it and he did a great job. I must say when he finished, I was a bit jealous and wished I had pulled it together for an impromptu performance. Though, I'm pretty sure that I made a pact with Patrick that we would perform karaoke in Nashville, when he visits.















Overall, the bucket list was a great idea. It made my last month in Myrtle Beach distracting. Perhaps I came up with the bucket list to avoid dealing with any emotion of loss or grief for leaving the place I wanted to leave for the last year. Not to mention, saving the option of mini-golf for another time just ensures that I'll make my way to the beach sometime in the near future.