Retail Therapy

Christa calls: "How's the ankle? Do you need anything? Do you need a trip to the store? Do you need any groceries?"

"Well, I am low on chocolate and champagne. Oh, and I need some outsider art."

"Do you need anything else?"

"Yeah, could you help me hang some pictures in my living room?"

"Sure."

Best Saturday ever.

Less Pain More Gain

The pain in my ankle is finally finally subsiding. It's still fairly swollen and bruised, but I no longer have shooting pains up my leg when I lower my leg from the ottoman. With my newly found freedom from excrutiating pain, I have been more social and have invited friends over and even ventured out on brief excursions.

Last night, Christa came over bearing dinner and her laptop. We popped open a bottle of champagne, chowed on a salad (my body was in shock), powered up the laptops and geeked for hours. We traded some music, drank lots of champagne, gossiped and installed instant messenger on my machine. I still don't really know how it works, but I now have the ability to send requests to WXYC.

Today was an absolutely amazing day, but I'll blog it tomorrow, as I just stumbled across Welcome Back, Kotter on TV. In 1995, as I was recovering from surgery in a hospital bed at Duke, I discovered a week-long Welcome Back, Kotter marathon on hospital TV. I lived for it every day. 8 episodes every night. I didn't need morphine... only Epstein, Barbarino, Kotter, and Freddy "Boom Boom" Washington from 8pm to midnight. I am convinced that it played a major role in my recovery. But given the state I was in, WBK was the only thing that was easy to watch that took my mind off of being laid up in a hospital bed and hooked up to lots of tubes. I think that Horshak might have special healing powers. And John Travolta is just cute!


Is that Boom Boom djing? Although I don't see the turntables, I definitely see the records and is that a cart machine in the background? Ahhhh... the days of djing with LPs and carts.

My Musical Horrorscope

It's 1 in the morning and I still have a 1/3 of a bottle of Pierre Moncuit left to finish. So, it's time for my horrorscope:

Maxine Sullivan - Massachusetts
Tom Lehrer - In Old Mexico
Sun Kil Moon - Grey Ice Water
The Eels - Dusk: A Peach In the Orchard
The Swallows - It Ain't The Meat
Luna - Slash Your Tires

I could write oodles and oodles about these songs and why I love each of them so much. But instead, I am going to shake my butt and bounce up and down in my polka-dotted chair to this Luna song at full blast. This is the best musical horrorscope. This weekend is going to be great!!!

I Am A Musical Whore

The past few months have provided lots of musical excitement. I've got CDs coming from folks all over and it's absolutely wonderful. I joke with my friends about my many musical affairs. I am such a whore... I'll trade mix CDs with anyone who's willing!

I once met a musical partner in Mt. Airy by accident. I overheard a conversation this old-time banjo player was having about a mix CD that a friend gave him. As he was describing the songs, I realized that it was one of my mine! I introduced myself and we instantly connected musically. We had an amazing ongoing musical affair for a couple years. He would send me multiple mini discs of these crazy old ska 45's that he very roughly recorded and collections of dirty blues songs. I'd send him mixes of food songs, dirty R&B, silly old country songs and indie pop. I haven't heard from him in years, but I still send him a mix CD every now and then.

Christa and I started our affair in the late 90s, when she cohosted a few Thursday Night Features on WXYC with me. We'd do these three-hour shows on dreamy vocalists from the 40s and 50s and we's share tapes or CDs of our favorites. And then there were the tapes of our annual Bettyfest on Divaville at WXDU. Our musical affair continues to this day. She is the only person around who I can geek with on the best decade of Bobby Darin's career, the slur in Sarah Vaughan's voice, or the best version of "The Way You Look Tonight."

Back then, WXYC led me to another musical partner. A listener in Brazil had loved one of my shows and emailed the station to find out who I was. I can't remember his name. He was obsessed with Superchunk and I was obsessed with Latin psychedelic music and Carmen Miranda. Our musical affair was beautiful. He would go absolutely nuts when he received a stack of autographed Superchunk CDs in the mail.

There was also Jason. Over the course of many years, I'd get a phone call every few months: "Dude, whatcha doin' tonight? Well, ya see, I need your help, Charlotte. Can I come over?" We'd pull out the bourbon and cigarettes and I'd listen to his sometimes dire stories of his romantic relationships. His stories would end with "What should I do, Charlotte?!? I really like her!"

My response: "We have to make her a mix tape!" Concocting a mix tape on cassette would usually take us all night since we were recording in real time and we never managed to hit the stop button at the right moment. And then there was the discussion of the lyrics... everything had to be perfect. We couldn't give off the wrong impression!!! Our mix tapes of woo always seemed to work for Jason. I know what girls want. A couple years ago, the night before Jason moved across the country, we made our last mix tape together. We made a pact that twice a year, we'd make mix CDs for each other. It worked for a little while, but alas that musical relationship has fizzled, too. (Jason, come back!!! I need your mix!)

I have been having an ongoing musical affair for the past couple years with my friend, Lightnin'. I saw him about a month ago and found out that when I was going through my Donovan obsession, he was on a Donovan kick at the same time. How cool is that!? He's sent me some great ukulele music, some crazy calypso, yodeling, and we even swapped comfort CDs.

Every now and I then I am invited to be in a musical orgy, more politely called Mix Tape Club. I am currently having musical relations with a bunch of folks in Manhattan, some of whom I will never meet. There's 12 of us and each month one person mails out a CD to the rest of the group. It's thrilling!! My month is July which is National Hotdog Month... heh heh heh.

What's Your Horrorscope?

I used to have a mild fascination with astrology, horoscopes, and numerology in the back of fashion magazines, which I loved to read in the beauty parlor. (Does anyone call it the beauty parlor anymore?) These astrologists were certain that all Capricorns were going to meet the love of our lives and amass large amounts of money through significant career changes that very month!!! I knew it was all a load of crap, but I read it anyway. I was usually reading old magazines with outdated fortunes and I would think to myself... well, I don't remember stumbling across a huge lump of cash on March 5th or having a cosmic encounter on March 27th. But I read them anyway.

Nowadays, I seek my daily horrorscope from my Ipod or Itunes. The way it works is put your Ipod on random. The first ten to twelve songs become your daily fortune. Or if you just need a quickie, just let it choose one song for you. Right now, my quickie is "Letter From Belgium" by the Mountain Goats.

Last night, I had a great fortune... maybe not lyrically, but musically, it flowed extremely well which I interpret to mean that life is great!!!! Hearing a great segue created randomly by your Ipod is the best fortune you can get, in my opinion.

Either Way - Wilco
Where Is My Love - Cat Power
With Whom To Dance? - The Magnetic Fields
Don't This Road Look Rough And Rocky - The Blue Sky Boys
Waking Up Baby - Roy Milton
Brown Eyes - Red House Painters
Homebrew Rag - Roanoke Jug Band
Bright As Yellow - The Innocence Mission
Some People Ride The Wave - Devendra Banhart
Man Who Died Of Nothing At All - Crooked Fingers
Martha - Tom Waits
Air -Talking Heads

That's half of it. I liked it so much, I let Itunes continue to spell out my fortune and it formed itself into a mix CD. And I love it. This one is for Lightnin'.

Ew, You Write Like A Boy

I've been interested in what various Durham bloggers have to say about our downtown revitalization and the role that Greenfire Development is playing in this. Today, there was a grand opening ceremony for TROSA's Furniture & Frame Shop downtown on Foster Street (close to Piedmont). The City Manager was there along with members of Durham's Chamber of Commerce as well as folks from Greenfire who lease the building to TROSA. It was a very nice event all around and I was very impressed. (AND I MADE IT OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!)

As I was reading the various Durham blogs about downtown and demolition and revitalization and that Oprah sign, I stumbled across the Gender Genie (via). Cut and paste some text into the box and the Gender Genie will run some algorithm on it and determine whether the author is masculine or feminine.

I ran about a dozen of my blog entries through and all of them came back that I was more masculine than feminine. Some by alot. And I am trying so hard to be girly these days!! Hmmm.. Maybe it's because I still have Ross McElwee stuck in my head narrating my life. Maybe it would be different if Charleen was in there instead.

Female Score: 184
Male Score: 350

I Miss Cooking

As I've been sitting here confined to my polka-dotted chair, I've been watching the magazines pile up. I don't know how I accumulated so many magazine subscriptions. I don't even read all of them. For instance, I receive the Duke alumni magazine which I only sometimes open. Boo Duke!! The New Yorker is so chock full of information that I feel overwhelmed and usually end up reading one article a month if I am lucky. Then there is the local Sun magazine of which I usually just browse the Readers Write section. I have two music magazine subscriptions, which is too much, but I think that one was a gift.

Today, Saveur came in the mail. This and Cooks Illustrated are my favorite magazines which is somewhat ironic since I have never cooked until very recently. And and it's going to be awhile before I return to my culinary explorations. On Saveur's cover is the tastiest looking salad ever. It's a spinach salad with shallots and bacon, much like the one that I made for Elizabeth & Noah a couple months ago. It looks so tasty. My diet of the past couple weeks has been lacking adequate leafy foods. I am dying for some greens. Especially greens with bacon. My diet is extremely limited these days.

As I was flipping through Saveur this evening, I saw various articles about elaborate kitchens and places that I cannot afford to visit. But then, I came across this one photograph and my jaw dropped and I immediately started salivating. It was a picture of chocolate. It was porn. Chocolate porn. Handmade corn tortilla filled with melted chocolate. Delicious. The recipe looks easy enough, but it calls for four cups of masa harina. There are enough Latino groceries in Lakewood that I am sure that I can find it around here.

The more recipes I read, the more I realize I have no clue what goes into the food I eat or how it is prepared. Maybe once I am better I'll try to continue teaching myself how to cook and learning where to find certain ingredients in the grocery. Until then, I think I'll set the goal of getting well enough to go out to eat supper at Lantern one night in the next couple weeks. Rossi still owes me dinner.