Since I last updated I’ve been a) needing a haircut b) failing to do enough shopping c)… well, that’s basically it. Although the council did finally respond to my complaints, saying they’d talked to the contractor responsible for the roads. They also patched up the gaping holes in the sidewalk on my street so no more grannies will be tripped over. Civic duty done!

I’ve also been furiously downloading mp3s from Alwaysontherun.net. Well, ‘furiously’ in a 56k kinda way. They have lots of inde girly stuff like Cocorosie and Laura Veirs. I’ve got a whole bunch of early Marissa Nadler music now, and I’m not sure whether it’s wonderful or just really, really, really bad. It may take a while to figure it out. You see, she’s a folk singer who spends a lot of time telling stories about characters who have bad things happen to them and then want to kill themselves. Her voice is somehow both ethereal and bovine at the same time, and she is often accompanied by a banjo. So you would probably want to hurt her. I try to like things though, so I’m going to give it a week or two. At least she’s not as cool and intelligent and clinical as Laura Veirs, or as beautifully tragic as Cat Power. They both kind of irritate me.

Something you would probably like though is Neko Case. She sings crooning country songs. Some are about how she’s in love with the devil, some are just normal songs.