Your hair was wild, your eyes were bright, and you were in a rage.

[Image from Pitchfork]

Last night I went to see Cat Power with the Memphis Rhythm Band and ohmygod it was such a great show. I was really nervous about the show considering her notorious reputation for having mini-breakdowns not finishing songs, and walking offstage. She didn't come out until almost an hour after the show was supposed to start, so I assumed things were going to be really awkward and weird. Luckily, she performed really well. Her voice is amazing live, and she's surprisingly really alive and charismatic on stage, skipping and dancing between verses and posing for audience members with cameras. There were a few moments where she started songs over (the most noticeable was during "The Greatest" - the first song - where she sang a verse and decided that the violins had to be louder so the whole band stopped for about two minutes while the sound guys fixed the settings).

I was expecting her to play just the new stuff with the full band, which she did, but then they left and she sat on stage for a good forty-five minutes and performed a solo set, featuring mostly covers ("Wild is the Wind," "Wolf Among Wolves," "I Found a Reason," "House of the Rising Sun") and a few older tunes. She spent about fifteen minutes chatting with us, talking about her six-inch-heels that her friend gave her ("He's a small queen," she said. "He's not a big enough queen to wear heels. Don't they look good? You can't even tell I'm a man!") and Arrested Development. After someone shouted out that he had a request, she started listening to what the audience wanted to hear, responding with, "No, I don't do those any more. Too depressing!"

When the band came back ("They are getting bored back there!"), they played a song without her, and when she came back out they played this amazing version of "Cross Bones Style" combined with a verse and the chorus from "Nude as the News." When the band members started playing it she looked like she really didn't want to sing it, but she really gave it her all and it sounded amazing. After a really powerful version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," Chan did a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" (which seems to be a staple at most indie-rock shows these days). I had to leave around then, but my friend later told me that she played another twenty minutes, organizing a line dance with her bandmates and playing some new songs before The Man finally told her she had to wrap it up.

It was an amazing experience to get to see her perform live. I've seen very few concerts where the performers really put a lot of emotional effort into their performance. Chan Marshall really blew me away, and I'd recommend that if you're a Cat Power fan, it's definitely worth seeing her live.

I think it's time for a long lunch.

I have absolutely nothing to do, so my cube-neighbor and I are sitting here pretending to do work for a while. I really wish I could just read the book I need to read by Thursday but I feel that would be slightly obvious.

I wonder if I could manage to crawl under the desk and nap for a while, having everyone assume I'm taking a bathroom break. But that would be weird, too.

Instead, I'm compulsively checking the Things We Hate statistics page, which is blowing my mind. We got a mention today on Gaper's Block, and we've already had eighty visitors, a number this site rarely gets.

Holy balls.

Please ignore the previous post. Everything in my life is A-OK.

The bad is slightly outweighing the good.

Things that are not making me happy:
1. Sifting through a mountain of AP score reports.
2. The shitty weather.
3. Having to read Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty by Thursday.
4. My hair is flippy. Goddammit.
5. My birthday is on Friday. Ugh.

Things that are making me happy:
1. I'm going to see Cat Power tomorrow night.
2. New York is back on Flavor of Love. (PS. She went to Syracuse? And she's 23? That just blew my mind.)
3. The new TV on the Radio album comes out today, and I will be buying it.

"That guy from Rent" must not be in their picture file.

Thanks to one of the Bs at The New Awesome, I just wasted about ten minutes of valuable work time at this website, which tells you what famous person you look like.

I uploaded this picture of myself:

First, it said I looked like this guy:Please note that it gave me old, bloated James Spader. I could have understood - maybe - young, Pretty in Pink James Spader. But shitty television actor James Spader? Ouch.

Then, there was this one:Okay, I respect Gary Oldman. He's one of my favorite actors, and in one of my favorite, favorite movies, Sid and Nancy. I don't look like him, though.

And then this bullshit:WHAT? Okay, NO. That's not true. You're only seeing the glasses, there. Obvious mistake.

Oh, don't worry. It keeps on coming:SHUT UP.

You've got to be kidding.

So basically I look like every Jewish man with glasses. And the occasional creepy British actor. Obvs.

That's my bag.

I have a problem with patience. My problem is that I don't have very much of it.

It's funny - I'm pretty patient with people, especially those who work in customer service because, hey, I've been there. I know how difficult it is to deal with people who want something from you. So I'm not talking about that.

Here's a story to give you an idea how my problem: For New Years 2005 I had planned to go to New Jersey with Erin to stay at our friend Shannon's house on the shore. I was supposed to drive up to Erin's house in Northern Virginia from my parents' house and then we were going to drive up to the Dirty Jersey. The day before I was supposed to leave, my iPod, a Christmas present from my parents, came in the mail. I somehow convinced them to let me drive to my apartment in Harrisonburg that night because "it would be an easier drive from there to Erin's house." That is, of course, a lie; I just wanted to load my iPod. In fact, Harrisonburg is just as far from NoVA as Montross is, and the best part is that my mom totally knew what I was trying to do and made fun of me for it. I mean, she didn't care since I was the one willing to drive three hours and pay more money in gas so I could have music on my iPod a week before returning back to school.

Today is my first day of class. It starts at 5:45. I get out of work at four. I should just go straight to the Lincoln Park campus instead of going home because I'll save an extra bus ride, but instead I've decided to go back to the apartment first because there's a chance that the new messenger bag I ordered has arrived and I really, really want it. Now. I want it NOW.

I hate that I'm this aware of my neuroses and lack of virtues.

This router should not be used by idiots.

Remember how a few days ago I posted an entry complaining about how our internet was shut off because we violated the internet policy? I thought I did something when I tried to change the name of our network and put a password on it. I was certain that our "rogue server" was the result of some kind of internal fuck-up. Because really, I don't understand what that means, so it must be some kind of really complicated Internet shit.

So I called the Internet People yesterday to ask for help, and I was really confused when the guy said, "You just need to make sure to plug the box in correctly." He said this twice. Finally, I asked, "What do you MEAN? Did we plug it into the wrong wall or something?!"

Finally, he told me to look at the back of my router. This is what it looked like:

Notice the first socket that says "WAN"? Well, on my router it said, "Internet". See the socket that has the number one above it? The one that you're supposed to plug Ethernet cords into to connect your computer to the cable internet the old-fashioned way?

Well, that's where the shit was plugged in. Not the one that said "Internet". We are dumb.

After I apologized for several times (apparently they had gotten complaints from several units in the building because the internet was screwed-up all over), the guy replies, "Hey, don't worry about it. Just read the directions next time! HA HA HA!"

Sigh.

My birthday stresses me out.

My boss buys donuts for the entire office when someone has a birthday. You can imagine how everyone (including myself) goes apeshit over free donuts. Everybody loves free donuts.

So here's the thing: my birthday is next Friday. I don't think my boss knows this. In fact, my boss is going on a three-week vacation a few days before my birthday.

Should I say something about my birthday? I mean, I really don't care, personally, if no one knows about it, because I'd rather not make a big deal about my birthday or have awkward interactions with coworkers who will probably ask me how old I'm turning and then say something about me being so goddamn young.

BUT what if three months from now someone happens to ask me when my birthday is, and then they get all weird because I didn't say anything now? Should I get the awkward thing out of the way and also get a free donut, or should I just deal with being that weird guy who works here who doesn't want everyone else to have a free donut in his honor?

One of my managers added me on MySpace last week. I hope she just gets a message and fixes this issue for me.

Happy Birthday, Kristin! Oh, shit. We've got roaches.

I'm at Argo down the street from my house right now because our internet was shut off. Apparently, our wireless router was sending out other IP addresses or something. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. I found this out yesterday via the letter that was slipped under the door, which also told me that we now owe thirty-five dollars because the Internet People took a long time to find the "Rogue Server" that was screwing up the Internet for the rest of the people in the building.

So, if you live in my building: Sorry, Dudes. I may or may not have accidentally created a "rogue server" when I fiddled with the router options in order to put a password so that Hollis_Owner could not access our free wireless internet. It's very possible that any changes I made may or may not have been the cause for our stupid internet problems.

The best part! is that it's Labor Day weekend, which means everything's closed until Tuesday! Yessss! No Internet until Tuesday! Life RAWKS.

Also, when I was out last night, Christina called me to say that we had roaches. Three of them. Three roaches. Of course, the girls did not kill the roaches. They sat there with their feet up on the couches, watching TV while the little bugs scurried around. I haven't decided if that's fear or laziness.

AND OF COURSE I DIDN'T FORGET THAT YESTERDAY WAS KRISTIN'S BIRTHDAY. Poor Kristin, I'm sure she was just torn up that I couldn't post some bitchin' pictures in her honor. Lucky for Kristin, Argo has free wireless internet, AAAAND I have already organized the best of her pictures in a fancy Flickr photoset.

Also, I have access to YouTube, and a digital camera that takes shitty videos. Happy Birthday, Kristin! Hope you don't mind that the lip sync is all screwy!!!

My life is hard.

Soooo.... I think I have a fear of getting a haircut.

This might explain why I've cut my own hair three times in the last month. I impressed myself, I'll admit, with my abilities to get a pretty good cut out of the sideburns-trimmer on my electric razor. I also managed to trim the back with the razor and a big mirror. (Thankfully Nicole hadn't hung it up on the wall yet, so I was able to stand in front of my bathroom mirror and try to angle the wall mirror so that I could see the back of my head. It was kind of tricky to trim the back with one hand holding a mirror and watching the other move in reverse, but I made it work. I MADE IT WORK.) I told myself that I was really just doing that because I didn't want to pay a lot of money for a haircut. But I don't think that's the case.

Like everything else, I've got issues. About my hair.

I've always hated my hair. I remember back in middle school, I'd deliberately miss the bus so that I could stay home from school. My grandmother would end up driving me to school anyway, and I remember sitting in the parking lot, crying and begging her to let me stay home. Why? "MY HAIR IS UGLY," I'd wail. I swear. I was a sensitive child.

But honestly, this is what I had to work with:
This is me in seventh grade when I turned twelve. That's pretty much what I looked like until I turned nineteen.

Well, I will admit that I've come a long way from the butt-crack part (and the Green Day t-shirts), but my hair is just as much of a mess now as it was back then. And after years of shitty haircuts, I think I've gotten to the point where I really start to freak out when I realize that ENOUGH is ENOUGH and I HAVE to get my hair cut. It's like going to the dentist for me.

And it's hard, y'all, seriously. Do I go to the Hair Cuttery and pay thirteen dollars for something that will make me hate myself, or do I go to some salon that got its name from a physics textbook and pay thirty dollars for something that will make me hate myself slightly less than if I had the Hair Cuttery cut? Are two or three happiness points worth fifteen dollars? Are they worth the energy of making an appointment for a haircut from a salon? It seems silly for me to set aside a specific time for someone to ruin my hair and life for a few weeks.

So this is what I need (and feel free, dear reader, to volunteer your time to help me with this):

1. Someone to find a good place for me to get a haircut.
2. Someone to make an appointment for me to get a haircut.
3. Someone to accompany me to said haircut appointment.
4. Therapy.

I think that after getting those things accomplished, I might start to feel better about this mess on top of my head.