You know, for all the complaining I do, my life is pretty good these days. Or maybe it's that I'm finally beginning to accept the depression, anxiety, and irritability as immutable parts of my chemical makeup, constantly gurgling away but easy enough to ignore under the right circumstances.

I think this is why I allowed myself to have such a great time at the Kentucky Derby this weekend -- even towards the end, when I got a throat infection (me in the van: "*wheeze wheeze dry heave* GRRRR FUCKIN FIGURES"), I tried not to become as meta about it as I usually do (i.e. "waah, I can never just enjoy myself for any stretch of time; it's like there's an evil god outside the door gleefully WAITING to hand my plan a monkeywrench, saying 'hey, thwart is a rilly cool word, isn't it?'").

Anyway, Matos blogged the road trip in better detail than I can muster right now, but in case you were wondering, the Gaines book was ATROCIOUS, and the "weirdo disco on cheapo vinyl" Matos alludes to is a FANTASTIC assortment of LPs I found while thrifting/scavenging in Louisville (Bohannon, Cerrone, Teena Marie, France Joli, Eartha Kitt, the Andrea True Connection, the Ritchie Family, Freeez, Ebn-Ozn, some 12" singles, and some rockish stuff like Karla DeVito and Nazareth).

Music played a major role in this trip. In the minivan we rented, we all took turns playing CDs, tapes, mp3s, and the radio, and among the six of us we had quite a playlist going: psych-rock, psych-folk, trad-folk, postpunk, hip-hop, garridge, filthy acid techno, Night Moves, "Steal My Sunshine," the New Pornographers, Rocket From the Tombs. When we staggered into the house the first night I put on the copy of Sticky Fingers I'd brought along, but I headed to bed before "Dead Flowers" ("making bets on Kentucky Derby day") came on. Another plan thwarted, but it's the thought that counts.