how many lips does it take to kill a man

today was a pretty dynamic day i suppose, after a rather erratic evening. last night, i got lost to mansfield, to a party thrown by a couple of fun TCU folks that we all realized i don't actually know very well. i drank champagne from the bottle and had my face painted like a tiger. all in all, a successful endeavor. there was a phoenix dance party? i left mansfield for the goat, intending to see some friends in town from everywhere. ran into many people i didn't expect to see. mostly pleasant surprises. there was a strange tension there. a couple of really random, dumb, macho-bullshit fights that occurred. lots of overzealous, loud drunks at the karaoke mic. but it was fun nonetheless. i was pretty toasty myself when i was finally called up to sing, so i think i performed a pretty rousing rendition of 9-5. woulda done dolly proud.

woke up this morning confused whether or not i was supposed to work, considering the agency is closed until jan. 4. but i had gotten an email from the owner, asking for some locations help. so i handled all of that mess, then got up to my dad's office to handle the "car situation". the "car situation" being that i found one on craigslist that i'm interested in the current owner/seller of which was expecting us to check it out/test drive it today. i also had to deal with finances, etc. long story short, i learned about loans today, i.e. i applied for one, with the gracious help of my father. in other words, i'm on my way to halfway purchasing my first car. so that's kind of exciting.

as much as i am determined to need as little financial help as possible from my dad, today it was really sweet how helpful he was in assisting my search for a decent, fairly priced car, even though it's my own stupid fault that i require such a thing. with not one hint of resentment or blame in his voice, he called around asking for reliable price quotes, sounding as close to proud as one could be in a conversation with a used car dealer.

i started my field recordings today. i'm not quite sure what i'll do with them or by what method i'll be able to present them. but i like the idea of collecting sounds or snippets of conversations that tell a story or create an image.

i also decided that i'm going to go for my master's degree after completing this semester at UTD, converting the credits into an MFA program here or elsewhere. i can do that. i should do that. i want to do that. i also want to finish culling through and editing the thousands of photos i took in israel, for the gazillionth fucking time.

got home after dad and i went to the bank to apply for the loan, which i'll hear back about tomorrow. hung out for a while before becca came by with her violin and viola and enthusiasm. we sat down and hammered out some beginnings for 4 songs. one was just an improv that we finished, the rest we'll continue to work on by sending the garageband files back and forth and building on them. pretty excited about that and tonight and what we got accomplished, which is really a lot of fun and the foundations for some neat song ideas. i fucking love playing with her. we have the same appreciation for spontaneity in songwriting and recording, so it was a blast.

i'm reading siddhartha, and it causes me to wonder which path i'm taking in my own life in relation to hesse's main character in his many incarnations as a human. curious...