Ok! Mix more or less complete. I couldn't get a hold of the one song from that Kurt Weill album, so we'll have to wait on that. But, if you're interested in hearing the rest, it's here, entitled provisionally, "Letters from Home."

It's interesting, when I first heard about Regina Spektor, I initially downloaded a handful of her songs, not knowing which albums they were off of, just to get a feel for her sound. And then when I got a hold of her album Begin to Hope, I heard the new version of "Samson", and was disappointed, and a little confused. It seemed so much less intimate and careful, two qualities I really loved about the one I knew and loved. I found this interview that explains the story of the changes, and also is kind of telling about her own relationship with her music. But, unlike her, I personally really prefer the slow one that was on her self-released Songs. And it just feels more right on this mix. So it's the one on there.

In other music news, Erika has gotten me into the Kate Nash fan club. So cute!

I spent my morning doing at-home spa treatments, drinking fermented barley water and oat grass and peppermint tea, and doing a facial treatment with an aromatherapy steam (lemon, lavender, and mint) and some extraction, two different kinds of masques, one with tourmaline and one for healing and soothing, a rosehip peel with brush massage, moisturizing with my super thick, rich Hungarian aloe cream moisturizer, cleansing with seaweed soap and finally topping it all off with a lighter moisturizer mixed with a bit of my Duac acne medication, and ceramide eye cream around the eyes. Needless to say, my skin feels pretty amazing.

That other playlist, the unofficial "breakup mix"

Lailah reminded me that I forgot to post the mix we can, for short-hand purposes, call the "break-up mix". I didn't make it with that in mind, but I made it while I was feeling, and being, mopey and reclusive, and the more I listened to it while I was mopey and reclusive the more I realized that it was all about loss, alienation, people disappointing you in deep and existential ways, and seeking reserves of inner strength on solitary journeys. Huh.

Well, here's the list. As I mentioned to Liles, my external hard drive AND my laptop are acting up, and I can't access my music for the time being, sadly. So you'll have to wait for the tracks themselves until I sort out my computer woes, if you're interested in them.

I'll say some more about the artists when I can actually provide, but one thing I have to mention now is that tracks 2 and 5 are from an album of Kurt Weill songs sung by various artists that Dani turned me onto. Yeah. (Those of you who heard my mix I made in my cottage in Austin several years ago may see no small irony in its title, "September Songs.")

(new extended version added above to replace this old post!)

Happy Monday to y'all.

Dancing with Myself

So, my dear friends, I have a new mix I've just finished for some friends, called Dancing with Myself, with a few requests, lots of unexpected, silly, and creative covers, some French pop and bossa nova. Maybe it's not totally perfect and seamless in its transitions, but I'm calling it done and I'm ready to burn it for them. And just for fun, I'll share it with you too. [EDIT: Having added lots of details, I'm sending you to the annotated version of the playlist!]

It's got a much more upbeat tone than the breakup mix I just made for myself when I was moping around the cottage a week or so ago. I'll share that one too, shortly.

It was a fun and productive weekend, with lots of socializing as well as plenty of quiet time at the cottage. Friday was a quiet day of work on my FLAS (Foreign language and Area Studies) application to the Center for Russian and East European Studies and a brief meeting with a professor -- since our 101 lecture was canceled due to the heavy snowfall. I went to Kelly's going away party, since she's taking off to the field tomorrow.

I had had a super long day on Wednesday that started without power and ended with a class presentation I'd stayed up most of the night to finish preparing for. So Thursday, when I realized I was going to be outrageously late to Arc if I went, I stayed home and paid all my bills from my newly arrived paycheck, and worked on personal business and schoolwork until evening, when I went into Ann Arbor and went to watch the season premiere of "Lost" with Anneeth and her roommates. Anneeth and I went together to Hilary's going away party, since she's leaving the program. I spent the night with a friend in A2 because I was there late drinking, and was also expecting the storm.

After Kelly's shindig on Friday evening, which was an early get-together at Leopold Brother's, I came back home and collapsed into bed at 10 pm. When I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday, though, I realized I just wasn't going to fall back asleep, so I got out of bed and got moving. I cleaned out my inbox (it had gotten back up into the 600 email range from being empty a week or so ago) and sent out a whole bunch of emails I had been neglecting. I cleaned my kitchen thoroughly, vacuumed all but my bedroom, and did laundry, even the shower curtain and hand washables and things I usually skip. I organized my whole life and schedule, made new lists for myself, and sorted out files that had been neglected for close to a year. I took a little nap, then started my reading for Kriszti's class. Then I took off for more partying. I went to Alice's place, where we drank her fabulous pomegranate martinis and ate her homemade biscotti, a crowd of us went off to Vinology, and then I meandered over to Anneeth's party with Erika. I made it back to the cottage finally at 3 am.

So I slept until 2:30 this afternoon. Today's been a slow, quiet day at home, with some more emailing, a little reading, and a big grocery shop at COSTCO and Busch's. I came home and made several liters of beautiful, rich stock, roasted a pound of asparagus, baked banana bread, and prepared a modified sort of tabbouli salad with tiny grape tomatoes, Italian parsley, red onion, feta cheese, a mix of whole wheat couscous and brown rice, lemon juice, and lots of salt, pepper, and olive oil. I'm getting creative and experimental to see how well I can eat on a tiny food budget. It's a good thing I really love brown rice with a little butter and soy sauce, because I think I'll be eating a fair amount of that. Today I added a Japanese topping that includes toasted sesame seeds, seaweed, and a few other ingredients. Mmmm. It inspired me then to make a simple soup of carrots, onion, garlic, broccoli, and red bean miso paste. Mmmm, again.

Well, it's going to be another busy week. I need to make some calls & emails to Budapest tomorrow and write and submit my application for summer departmental funding for pre-dissertation fieldwork in Hungary in July and August. I'm dreading writing out a budget more than anything else. And I have to plan for teaching on Tuesday and write a quiz for the students, and hold office hours. And John Creswell, Mr. Mixed Methods, is coming to give a methods workshop tomorrow, so I'll spend most of my day at Rackham doing that. Tom and I are collecting questions from the GSIs and making the Anthropology 101 exam this week. And I got a message from the head of my program asking if I'd present my work at a brown bag in Social Work on the 15th, so I need to start thinking about what aspect of my research I'm going to talk about, and get a presentation together. Never a dull moment, clearly.