I could hit myself! Back in January, you may remember, I stayed in town over an entire weekend and experienced a horrifying nothingness. Even though the alternatives, Amarillo and Lubbock, ain't that great, I vowed never to stay put again. Well, I did, and this time over a three* day weekend! I didn't even make it to church. Damn laziness. I feel bored and dissipated. My brother bet me that I couldn't last here a year and advised me to start sending out resumes. Could he be right?

Oops, I forgot that I wanted to stop complaining. Gotta think of something positive...Well, at least I made progress on Kingdom Hearts (a PlayStation2 game), saw a pretty good movie (Taste of Others), and figured out a few chords of another Sundays song ("Skin & Bone").

On Friday a CD I ordered from barnesandnoble.com came in the mail. The CD is Bossa Per Due by one Nicola Conte, an Italian acid jazz artist. I'll fess up that I got interested in it from hearing a clip on Acura's "Palm Springs" advertisement: an otherworldy female voice sings haunting nonsense over a techno Bossa Nova beat. It sounded good, and since I liked the only acid jazz album I had ever heard before, St. Germain's Tourist, I decided to give Conte a chance. But, as it turns out, music that sounds good as a backdrop to scenes of driving through southern California doesn't necessarily stand on its own. It's not terrible but it's a little shallow, and the kitschy retro-lounge stylings can get cloying (and I say this as a Stereolab fan). It's possible I'll change my mind after listening to it a few more times, but luckily Conte's career doesn't hinge on one blogster's opinion so I feel free to spout off.

I was reading Teresa of Avila's Way of Perfection, but her maxims are so narrowly tailored to the cloistered life that I'm not finding the book very useful. Not that I'm complaining or anything.

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*One of my favorite writers, C. S. Lewis, says that using italics for emphasis is the mark of a lazy writer. I'm not sure I agree; would he get rid of exclamation points too? What think ye?