last night was the mat kearney shane& shane show in williamsburg. when i got there i ran into joy and stephanie who i hadnt seen in forever b/c i never really go home that often. but yea so mat came on and i had been tellin everyone about him but most ppl there didnt know who he was so they were all talking like the whole freakin time! i was really annoyed and me and daniel could tell mat was too. but he still did an awesome job ending w/ an amazing freestyle about williamsburg.

after he was done and went off stage, me and daniel walked around to the back hall to try and find him b/c christa told me to tell him hi for her so i figured why not now. so we ended up findin him and talkin to him for awhile then i asked if he wanted to go to starbucks and he said he would love to. so me him and daniel took my car over to target fist b/c mat had to get some deoderant and daniel wanted to try on some dorothy shoes (ha). on the way there mat called christa and they talked for awhile and i got to say hey too. then we went to starbucks, chilled, got some coffee (i got my favorite drink of the season, the pumpkin spice frap)

mat figured we should be gettin back so we drove right back and he showed us the tour bus, mat got stopped to sign stuff for some kiddies and then we three went to the back room where they have food for the bands and mat and daniel hooked up the keyboard so i could play it. after the shanes were done daniel left and i went w/ mat over to the merch room and found a grand piano that i played while he was signin stuff. after all that and everyone had cleared out, me and mat played the grand piano for awhile. i played some of my stuff and he played some of his stuff. so yea it was awesome hangin w/ him. he is a really great, fun guy. i got this picture before i left... and off i went..home to my precious yorkie, bella, who i love and she even greeted me at the door.

the past three days have been sweet. thursday night i went out to my friend's house in oregon hill with a bunch of ppl b/c they did a 'vortex of doom' haunted basement. and it was amazing.
last night was a good night too. after work there was a world full of fun and wish that i had my camera . the freakin batteries are dead. im gonna get a new one soon though

so anyways..this guy all that i work with just started a band called 'Alexander the great and the empire' and he was telling me about them and how they are jazzy like but he raps. and i was a bit skeptical about about if this could be pulled off and last night was the show at nancy raygun and the band was freakin awesome! and all is so cute up there singin on his toes. man wish i could show you.
after the show me and chris went over to laney, emily, and allysah's and they were carving pumpkins and cooking pumpkin seeds and chilling. i got some hot apple cider and ate some good cookie dough and then elmer came over and told me about this other local band maybe playin
so me and elmer ended up goin to this other party and watched ppl for a while and counted how many people tripped up or down these two stairs outside. ha. b/c everyone was drunk except us.
when we left there we ran into my sister and her roomate and her roomates boyf (lauren and greg) and i was so excited to see my chubbis. she said picture time and took pictures of me and elmer so here is the only documentaring of the night.

today i had to work until 4 and then drove to the bizaare market. its where all the local richmonder college age kids sell their stuff like art or cool stuff they want to get rid of.. i bought so pillows to match my bed, a vegetarian screen printed shirt and some raggedy cut cords all for one buck each. and now im on my way to see
shane and shane and mat kearney live! in williamsburg (and man all the hype the lovely's put up on that is not in vain! that cd is amazing and ive been stuck on it since last sunday, definately get it if you have yet)

i am in this christian performing arts group at my college [VCU] called 'the fingerpainters' and today was our first group improv street theater piece. it went really well. i dont act so i didnt know exactly how it was going to go and i was a bit nervous but the fact that it was improv made it easier i think b/c we all had to trust and work off of what the others did to stay fluid. the theme was plastic surgery, dieting, boob jobs, etc. things having to do with trying to improve your image. so while zach played guitar, me, angelina and brandon used plastic wrap to symbolize the masking and transparent cover up of what so many think will bring satisfaction. and anna and katie read an amazing brainstorm one of my roomates,anne, thought up and wrote:

"appeal. be noticed. plastic surgery gone bad. beautiful quirks and 'flaws' and individuality. violent treatment of body. humorous huge boobs! take your butt and re-situate elsewhere! nonsensical implants: sexier earlobes! elbows! avoiding natural aging. artificial. airbrushed. unhappy models. back problems from rack. meat. objectivication and depersonalization and dehumanization and abuse and idolatry of women. men and muscle. messing with a fragile masterpiece of God. break it. only He can fix. unconditional love. quick fix. patience. fear. sin. lies! truth. perspective. priorities. imbalance. expectations. pride. bad habits. paradigm. comfort food."

after about 20 minutes we ended by all sitting together in a circle, taking the plastic off of eachother and gathering it up in the middle into a ball while we all said 'everyday we pray for a mircle' in unison and anna wrote it out in chalk on the ground, said 'its time' and we walked back to our house in character. when we got back we prayed and talked about what we thought. i loved it. it really showed me how God can call us out of our comfort zone but when we do it you see His grace and ability come through.

funny incounter ( not shocking for richmond): you might have noticed the scene change in the pictures. about 5 minutes into the piece a lady comes up and gets in our face pretty much asking us what we are doing. and us being that we are acting stay in character and pretend like she wasnt there and she keeps asking us and eventually gets in the middle of us and says 'you are going to have to move!' so we apologize, dont create a scene and walk down the street to the next block on campus. [later we found out that she was homeless and that was her stoop]

mix

when pianos fall 3:52 aireline
Fred Jones, Part 2 3:45 Ben Folds
Picture of Jesus 3:45 Ben Harper & The Blind Boys of Alabama
when you're gone 3:54 Christa black
Safe 4:47 Coldplay
Lovesong 3:28 The Cure
Ohio 3:41 Damien Jurado
Hold On 1:55 David Gray
Wedding Dress 5:22 Derek Webb
hatchet 2:47 The Great White Jenkins
Jambalaya 2:55 Hank williams sr.
Slow Hands 3:03 Interpol
Snowed Under 3:51 Keane
Renaissance 4:47 Mat Kearney
Everything Is Everything 3:01 Phoenix
In the Shadows 4:07 The Rasmus
have you forgotten 6:13 Red house painters
Hallelujah 4:11 Rufus Wainwright

[you can get this from me on AIM [dauriala]. if you have a
PC:right click my name and click 'get files';
apple: highlight my name, go to 'people' on the menu then click 'get files...'

ill have a new one every week hopefully
sorry if some of the songs dont work b/c i bought them on itunes

i had to read this amazing book for my intro to world music class called the listening book and these were my conclusions:


The back of the book says it the best, The Listening Book has definitely been ‘about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation.’
Right away in the introduction of the book W.A. Mathieu says while referring to Jim who is supposed to be loving a symphony concert, “He feels like a dope. He doesn’t know what to listen for. There is a veil in front of the music. He gets tangled up in what he thinks music is supposed to be, and there is no room for listening. Listening can be a way of life, and life can become musical to the awakened ear.” This explanation is completely relatable to anyone and everyone in one situation or another in life. I feel like our generation is so caught up in the technology of the age that they miss the natural wonders of sound that have yet to be tampered by computer simulation. American’s in general were not raised to appreciate the simple things of life. But the more that I personally get into this book and do the exercises mentioned I feel the longing within for the ability to be still and listen.
Mathieu is really in tune with his immediate surroundings and has a seemingly rare ability to embrace the ‘now.’ Every story from beginning to end Mathieus trys to lead us into a place of being able to focus on the one thing that we are doing, getting our minds off of our worries or things of distraction. Page 10 of the book his exercise tells us to get a pencil and paper and to become aware of all the sounds I am hearing now, this moment, as I read and to make a list. This was a bit of a hard task because I, like Jim from the introduction, don’t really know what I am listening for and don’t notice the things that I hear so very often. I caught myself disregarding things. Like Mathieu says on page 29, “The energy of non-listening-of ignoring something- becomes part of you.” But the longer I did it the longer I wanted to keep doing it because I was enjoying doing absolutely nothing more than I thought possible. Like he says on page 26, “the more you listen the more you hear, the delight in registering sounds that had always been present but I had never heard, the ecstasy of knowing this is a lifelong experience, infinitely expandable, basically musical.”
The further I read into the book and when I got to the practicing chapters is when I remembered the book was directed towards musicians. So much of the book is so relatable and at the same time eye opening for anyone, not only musicians. I very much recommend this book. There are few books that have touched and really changed my mindset and outlook on life and this is one of them. I am going to carry this book along with me on my journey through life continually referring back to it as I feel need to retune my listening ear.

this weekend was my fall break and friday i went home to go to busch gardens with my family for howl-o-scream. we went to haunted manors, graveyards, train rides and 4-d rides. me and my sister jenna werent scared but my mom was nervous. her and my dad liked wearing their 4-d glasses but i didnt. when we were on our way out me and jenna got caught off gaurd by skeletons. one got me. when i got out of his grip we called carmen san diego. and we were happy we got out safely . phew

this is a poem i wrote for my poetry class where we had to be someone else and speak from their perspective. i decided to use one of the pictures i found in the trash to base it off of

frank's lee
by lauren d'auria

when i was young i always wondered
what married life would be like
and how the father heart would feel
if my children created of me
would have such a power over me
tomorrow proves the anniversary of this truth
the test came as my son boarded that plane
he is in vietnam
the thought of it is frequent
tears and silence in my house even more
my wife shares my sadness and fear
for our son is the only thing we share
his letters are not enough
my resemblence in his face is all i want to see

anthropology essay#3

From observing my peers and I, I have definitely realized that the word “like” is often misused and hardly actually ever used correctly. There are two ways it is misused the most. ‘Like’ is a preposition and sometimes people will use it as a conjunction. For example, someone would say, “Rachel sings like I do,” making it sound as if you were intending a simile. The correct way would be to say, “Rachel sings as I do.”
The most common use of ‘like’ next to the verb form of it meaning enjoyment or to find pleasant, is when people use it to fill in a blank in a sentence. This making the word completely worthless in the sentence and often making the person saying sound ditzy and unsophisticated. For example, “She is like so cool.” It is used to put extra expression to a sentence in the wrong way. For example, “He like went like this when he kicked the ball.” This use of like in the beginning is making it seem as if the person is comparing something to another thing when in fact the person is simply describing what actually happened. Or when the person cannot think of what they are going to say they will use it as a filler. Others might use ‘um’ or ‘uh.’ I catch myself saying the word ‘like’ even when I was describing this paper to someone and had to laugh about it. I and most others that have been using the word ‘like’ for so long have to consciously think about not saying it and still we find ourselves filling in that gap with what seems like the unavoidable word.
I have always wondered if there is a word similar to ‘like’ that other languages have. There probably is, knowing that there is an incorrect grammar form of every language when it comes to slang.

vote for bush

tv is after all the modern day roman coliseum.
human devastation as mass entertainment.

"Our journey begins with longing. And before longing is the longing to long. It is the yearning to desire Him. We find in our hearts an awakening that beckons longing and paves the way for desire. It begins with the Lord Himself placing His divine drawing upon the heart of the one who loves Him. We find ourselves desiring to desire Him and pained by the present shallowness of our hearts. He awakens us to the great obsession of Himself, and we find this new ache within our hearts: our lack of love and absence of tenderness. We begin to hunger for the capacity to hunger. We begin to thirst for the ability to thirst. The longing to long is the escort into longing itself. It is the God-ordained gateway into the true gift of God to crave Him with all of our beings. With hearts empowered by a divine ache, we cry out for more of God. We search for any sign of Him. This is the precise position that He wants us to be in. It is the hungry that He fills. It is the desirous that He satisfies. All divine longing is a gift. The longing prior to the felt-experience is just as much a part of loving Him as the experience itself. They go hand in hand and cannot be separated. The initial longing is an irreplaceable part of the eternal intimacy. Both the craving and the satisfaction are equal parts of the gift of intimacy. He is cultivating longing in your heart. He desires more than a recognition of His greatness; He wants a desperation and lovesick yearning to come to maturity within you. And so for a time you remain in this breach between the reach for and the fulfillment of superior pleasures. He is enlarging the capacity of our hearts to experience the pleasure of His presence by withholding it." -dana candler

It takes God to love God, and He Himself must place within us the love with which we love Him. "...For it is God who works in you both to will [desire] and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

"lovers bloom in the arid desert wind. we are traveling across a vast desert. we didnt choose the desert. it chose us. it is in our bones. we are the children of abraham, of isaac, of jacob. we are a nomadic people called to pilgrimage. at times, we may deny the desert. with enough music and singing and dancing and laughter, we might just drown out the pangs deep within our soul. yet sometimes, the deep longing throbs loud enough to wake us up and remind us of our soul-parching thirst for the fountain of divine love. in these moments of absolute weakness, of absolute dependence, we can do nothing but simply ache for the presence of God. this helplessness, this longing, this desire, is a sign that love has already reached out to use and is drawing us ever closer, ever upward into His heart. but the desert has so drained us that we are too weak to try to impress Him. we cannot perform amazing feats of prayer and fasting. we cannot muster the strength to stand tall and go charging forth as valiant warriors. instead, like a mumbling drunk or dying Savior, we simply cry out, "i thirst." and He comes and satisfies our thirst with a spring of love that knows no bounds." -doug floyd

silence preferred
by lauren d'auria

stepped out of reality
when i rang out my phone
only to miss my right now
to get caught in the space age
of being two places at once.
my focus was lead
to the receiving end
murmur talking head.
once again caught in that web
two places at once
all my focus leading
to a pile of redundence.
not in front of me i spoke
the absurdity of it all
to the midair with a name.
disconnected i looked forward
to what is to come
but missed its intimacy.
i draw my friendships
out in pencil
will erase if need be.
always caught up
stuck up flip up emulation
in the potential of the moment
that i dont find myself in it
upon the recollection.

the weather is becoming more and more amazing. autumn is definately my favorite time of the year. the warmness still lingers but the breeze blows cool. my heart waits for my apartment to turn off the a/c and have my windows open to the city. secretly i already have one open.

announcement: no longer a vegan. origionally me and laney were just talkin and were like, 'we should be vegans for a month' and so i held my word even though she didnt. but i feel like God is saying that it shouldnt be based on that but should be based on conviction. and so he is not givin me the grace to do it at all and my pride was keepin me from givin up. when people ask me why i am a vegetarian i have reasoning but when ppl ask me why im a vegan i am left speechless with an i duno answer. and it shouldnt be that way.

"there is little pleasure in having nothing to do, the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it." -mary little

today my inconvenience turned into a blessing. i was excited i had time in between classes to sit in the park and realized i forgot something and had to walk back home. but when i was on my way back to the park i found something that excited me so much. i found a splendid record of picture treasures. seven pages of an old strangers photo album. i wonder if they lived in 108 harrison- the deserted house that is just now being renovated. i am so excited about finding them. why were they forgotten about and thrown away by another? were they owned by the guy who died, talked about in the article on one of the pages? were those memories captured, sad reminders of nostalgia? i want to make up stories about each one. turn that trash into art. ones trash is anothers treasure

saw mewithoutYou tonight. wow they are my favorite band live, when it comes to stage presence, for sure no doubt about it. they came to our local plan 9 record store and did a free in store show. they got there late b/c of a flat tire and only got to play about 5 songs but its ok b/c they are so so good. cant say it enough. if ya ever get the chance to see them please do. they are kinda hardcore and i dont like hardcore but this band is my only exception. so yes i bought the new cd and it is pretty good. i think i like the first one better though. after the show they stayed around and signed and gave away free posters and stickers. all the guys seem so nice. they are a christian band too. one of those bands that i feel is worthy to be "invited to join in the larger discussion of the mainstream."

Caedmon's Call
The Truth

I've been putting on and putting off too many people
And I'm getting old to live
like an injured man, ailments and unfilled prescriptions,
like the nose on my face
Like a broken boat, a safety raft, and a love for the water
Well I just can't decide
To sink or swim, it's me or them, Should I save myself
or go back for the others

Because maybe there's no gray and I was wrong to tell 'em so
And then maybe all that I've to do was done a long time ago

Because there was life before my life
There was provision before my need
There was redemption before my sin
For the sake of the world I thank the Lord
That the truth's not contingent on me

Because I've been dressing up and dressing down for too many people
And I'm a little young to live
Like a troubled boy, a troubled soul, a fish out of water
Because we're all just the same
We're all just as good, and just as bad, and just as distracted
By the corners of our eyes
As our fathers were, and theirs before and all those before them,
And still I glance around

And with the way I stare you'd think I'd seen through a two-by-four
And with the way I walk you'd think I'd never seen grace before

Because there was life before my life
There was provision before my need
There was redemption before my sin
For the sake of the world I thank the Lord
That the truth's not contingent on me

But I've been putting up, putting down too many things
That I know nothing about,
but I'm jealous of, holding pride as tight as I can
like she was my only daughter

Because there was life before my life
There was provision before my need
There was redemption before my sin
For the sake of the world I thank the Lord
That the truth's not contingent on me

'Cause the truth's not contingent on me.