The Day I Got My Visa and Got All Existential

My visa came in the mail today. My first reaction was to jump on my brother, hug my father, and run into my mom's bedroom to let her know my visa came--just in case she couldn't hear my screaming from the kitchen.

My second reaction was panic. This is pretty typical of me: unfettered excitement followed by an immediate sense of existential anxiety. Basically, "Oh shit, I'm really going to Africa." Right now, I feel totally incapable of offering any further insight on the topic.

Then the brother and I made some cinnamon-banana pancakes the size of my face. AC coined the term "mantastic" to describe the "mancakes."

Tonight, on my way home from a group viewing of "Sunshine," the moon was trapped between two peaks behind my house. You could only see one-quarter of the moon and the rest was hidden behind a single peak, throwing it into sharp relief against the sky. It was the strangest visual trickery, as though the moon was literally sinking into the mountains and draining the sky of light as it fell.

Because of this, and because of my last two weeks of sleep, my song of the day is "Dreaming of You" by War Tapes. I'd never heard of this band before this week; I wish I'd heard it when it was more appropriate to my life.

I saw you in a dream, a dream that always seems to be real. The truth is nowhere near and I don't care. I'll just sleep my life away while dreaming of you.

It's funny because it's the sort of song with the sort of lyrics that I wish were sung by someone else. I wish Matt Pond PA had written this song with a string section and a piano, you know? Consider this my open letter to Matt Pond and Co. to include an acoustic cover of this song on their next album/EP.

The only reason it's my song of the day is because a) it's been playing all week on XM's Alternative Nation b) It reminds me of the Cure and sometimes I can like things based on their similarity to Robert Smith alone and c) I think it's pretty damn astute: I'll just sleep my life away...

Continuing with the dreaming theme (and because I haven't posted a new song in a couple of days) is a track by Tiny Vipers, "Dreamer." It's just kind of a mesmerizing song. The singer, Jesy Fortino, vaguely reminds me of Joanna Newsom with a normal human voice instead of an elvish one. At any rate, it just sends me into this stupor, a rare body-stillness

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot
The world
forgetting, by the world
forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each pray'r accepted, and
each wish resign'd