i can't really sing, so

The holidays mean spending time like money depending on whether or not you like to spend money, but then it's January and you are recovering from all of this time AND money spent, so you are a hermit, mostly. I unhermitted last Saturday to see Eileen Myles & CAConrad read for the Chapter & Verse series and even though the room was small and packed and first too cold and then too warm the reading was excellent and I was glad every second I was there. It wasn't like when I go to see a movie, and I like the movie, but I want it to be over so that I can tell everyone how much I liked it. It was the opposite. It was warm, and there was a reading, and I was listening and grateful, and I wasn't sure that I'd be able to tell everyone how much I was liking it in any real way, so the inverse of that would be just wanting it not to end, except I had to pee, so I knew it had to end or it was going to end with me peeing myself. I just ordered Eileen's Book from Wave...

This week, I received at least TWO exciting things in the mail. First came a Vinyl full-length album "Songs of Praise & Scorn" by Christopher Paul Stelling , whose music is hauntingly fabulous. There were some songs on here I recognized as ones I love: " Never Been There " has given me chills live, and as I was baking strawberry banana muffins, warm in my kitchen, last evening, it did the same as a recording. In addition, there are some songs that I felt I was hearing for the first time. I've known Chris for more than a few years at this point, and I'm truly glad to have purchased his album not only to put some cash in his hypothetical gas tank but because it's something I will listen to over and over again. Something about Chris's voice is familiar to me-- I can hear other people I know in his voice, and this leads me to believe that he is someone who speaks for our generation. Check him out . Here is the nice message that came with my vinyl, ...

A lot of good things happened over the past week and a half-ish in Philadelphia, and I missed a lot of them. Barrelhouse had a reading at Temple. It apparently went well. I was napping on my couch with a headache, and I slept until about 4 (it started at 3:30.) Literary Death Match came to the World Cafe. I was at the horrific game that the Eagles played against the Chicago Bears. They lost in the fourth quarter. I shunned one death match for another: the Eagles' playoff hopes are all but dead after today's loss against the Arizona Cardinals. ...Because I watched that game at my Dad's house, I also missed a reading this evening. Asher Lewis invited me to a reading at the Walking Fish Theater that I should have gone to. Football: 0, Literature 2. Kimberly: 0, Literature: 3. Okay. Wait. I need to fix that score. I DID go to the Tirefire Reading Series at the Tattooed Mom on Thursday night, which was pretty damn great. I at least have one point. Mike Young, who I tau...