The tagline under my signature says: "Graduate student taking a break from grants and manuscripts to wax poetic on music." For the last two months, I forgot to take that break. Or somewhere in the back of my head, a little thought would pop up like, "You should really blog soon," and then I'd feel guilty because I didn't think I could afford to tear myself away from my master's project/grant proposal/whatever long enough to write a good blog post. So I felt guilty for not writing and tricked myself into assuming I'd feel guilty if I did write. Not a good combination, because writing is important to me, as is keeping my sanity.

All that to say, I've now allowed blogging to become part of my regular schedule. It's under the list of "projects" I keep at my desk, which is very official. (Part of the luxury of being a graduate student is taking great liberties with deciding what counts as a project.) That Best 15 Albums of the Last 15 Years post will be up this week, and the rest of the content is going to just be whatever I feel like throwing at you. Maybe first impressions of new albums, maybe deep-dives into full discographies of bands I've never really listened to but am probably missing out on, maybe just random thoughts. The most important thing is that something gets written and published.

While I'm thinking on that, I wanted to leave you with a video from a band I literally cannot stop thinking about. I know I talk about live music a lot, and I probably let it influence my opinions on a band more than most people, but I saw Foxing play the final show of their most recent tour a few weeks ago. It was a homecoming show for them, and like, fuck, people were so goddamn into this band. I almost didn't go to the show, because as much as I liked their last album, I didn't know how it would translate to a live setting. I was totally floored, and the only thing I was disappointed about was that I had gone to the show alone and I didn't have anyone to gush with afterward.

And of places in between houses, where the redwoods could swallow you whole, swollen appendages catch in the knots of radiance collapsing inwards. It's there I replace your face with flowers, sow seed in the hem of your dress. In glowing favor, you'll bloom so I can scatter you around the room in hopes to keep love near the places we once kept warm. And of spaces between bedsores, where cherubs counts our hairs and pores... Lord, let her in, or don't let her leave.
Or find a reason not to leave.