Poor Dog!

I came home to find the dog sitting in the middle of the driveway, smiling happily at me, “Oh, you’re home, too!” she seemed to be saying.

And I said, “What’s wrong with your eye, silly dog?”

But she was busy saying “You’re home, you’re home! Let’s go inside!”

And so I tried to look at it more closely, but of course she was all, “Well, okay, if you’re going to touch me, why don’t you rub my belly?”

So, her poor eye. It’s all swollen up. I can’t tell if she got stung by something or if she’s having an allergy attack or what. But she’s in fine spirits and so I gave her some Benadryl and we’ll see if it helps.

I told the Butcher how I had gas so bad yesterday that I almost passed out and had to instant message Rachel to check and make sure I wasn’t going to die and he said “You tell me all the time you’re going to tell me an awesome story and you never do. But today? Today that’s truly an awesome story.”

Edited to add: I think it’s unclear from the story, so one would be excused if one believed I had let a fart so toxic that it caused me to almost pass out. Sadly, no, it was nothing that exciting. I was farting like a motherfucker and having really weird, unsettled burps, and my stomach made this gurgling noise and I had this discomfort, like a burp trying to get out, and so I kind of shifted in my seat to make room for it and the whole world started to go black and I felt like I was unwillingly falling asleep, which caused me to slump over a little, which shifted back whatever had been shifted wrong and then, tada! I was completely conscious again. But no burp.

Edited again to add: My god, no wonder the Pith commenters think I suck. Ha ha ha ha ha. I’m still going to leave that part about farting like a motherfucker, though.

The End of the Sexy Zombie Story

It’s kind of sad. Not in a “someone dies” way, but just in a “but if you had a completely different life, you’d have a completely different life” way. I now have to go through and rework the beginning to give some foreshadowing. But I like it. It is cheesy and cliched. But for my first attempt at writing something that actually has some scary parts (not just creepy), I’m pleased.

Psalm 62

Growing up, Psalm 62 was my favorite. We, as a family, trotted out the 23rd on every occasion, much like we will break into “Amazing Grace” at any moment–a wedding, a funeral, Dairy Queen, whathaveyou. And I like the 23rd just fine. It has, of course, a certain poetry to it.

But I liked the 62nd because it seemed to me so honest, so human: “For God alone my soul waits in silence. Something something. The Lord is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I shall not be greatly moved.” I mean, yeah, sure, I’m going to move a little bit. Okay, maybe a lot. But I will not be greatly moved. To me, that said a lot about faith. Hell yes, when face with scary shit or even just when faced head-on with the divine, you are going to be moved. Hell, even Mary was sore afraid. You are probably going to shit your pants and head for the hills.

To say that you shall not be greatly moved? I don’t know. Even now, that just strikes me right in the heart. I will be afraid, but I’m only going to step back like three paces. Okay, maybe four.

I was thinking of that verse tonight as I worked on the sexy zombie story. And, even though I used to know that whole Psalm by heart, I still wanted to look it up and make sure my character was remembering it right.

And you know what? In newer versions, the Psalmist isn’t moved at all. The New International Reader’s version says, “He alone is my rock. He is the One who saves me.  He is like a fort to me. I will always be secure.” The NIV says, “Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” The New Living Translation? “He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.”

And this guy? Who appears to be suffering from some terrible hair affliction?

He also is not shaken.

Bah humbug. Way to take all of the interesting humanity out of the song and turn it into, instead, just a paean to how God’s love gives you superpowers.

Feh.

Get off my lawn, you young “not shaken” whippersnappers.

Hoverers, Let’s Strike a Deal

Raise the toilet seat. And I will not hunt you down and wipe my piss-drenched ass on you.

Seriously, every time I go to the bathroom at Noshville, I end up sitting in someone’s piss. And I realize those are shitty stalls and it’s hard to line up over the toilet correctly. Shoot, that’s the reason I go down to J&J’s Market. Sure, I also pick myself up a treat. But it’s to use a toilet you don’t have to be a contortionist to sit on.

But… hoverers. You’re hovering. You’re not sitting in the first place. So why can’t you hover over the bowl with the seat up?

Did You Know the Second Episode of True Blood is On Demand Right Now?!

I have two non-spoilery thoughts.

1. I am a slow and fat middle-aged woman. If I could turn into a panther, I believe I could easily, even as a slow and fat, middle-aged panther eat my neighbors’ goats and pigs (sorry Tucker). The analogous panther to me could still hunt. So, I am just not understanding why any of the werepanthers need Jason to feed them. They can’t bring down a deer or eleven?

2. The more I think about it, the more I love Bill as king. This is one of those moments where I’m just not sure if I should hope that True Blood is as smart as I’d love it to be. But, as you recall, one of my biggest moments of inability to suspend disbelief was back in the first season when Bill told Sookie he didn’t own slaves. It just wasn’t possible. It’d be like a story in which roads existed and a person told you he traveled from Memphis to Nashville in three hours and then denied he owned a car. Then how the fuck did you get here, motherfucker? Same deal when you see a wealthy antebellum white dude standing in a mansion he owned before the Civil War, especially in which he lived with his wife and children. If he didn’t have slaves, how the fuck did he get in that house, motherfucker?

And I just didn’t know if the show was smart enough to get that Bill had to be lying, since it seemed obvious, since the only black people in town all seem to be related to Tara, that that one black family in town would have to have been descended from the people Bill owned. And how do you have a light romp of a story with that bullshit? “Oh, my best friend dates a guy who owned my ancestors.” But it has now turned out that, indeed, this show is willing to go to all kinds of fucked up places. So maybe we’ll get to that place. AND it turns out that Bill is a lying liar who lies. So, that was a nice little bit of foreshadowing about him being a liar.

So, all that is to say that of course being king would suit Bill. He’s kind of stuffy and old-fashioned and he was raised in a society that saw themselves as chivalrous. This is the job he was basically born and raised to be able to perform. And the fact that he’s surrounded by humans (his guards, the witch spy, etc.) over whom he has an incredible level of power and who are available to him however he wants? And he’s thriving? All while obviously believing he believes vampires and humans should be able to live together as some kind of equals?

Of course, of course, of course.

I don’t expect a lot of subtlety from this show, so I’m sure they’ll fuck this up eventually. But so far, I really like it.

Historians! Help Streamline My Trip to Michigan

Oh, man, so I found this old map of Pontiac and I found Luke Phillips’s farm on it (warning PDF). So, since I’m going over there to try to look at his grave, I though, well, shoot, shouldn’t I try to scoot by the old farmstead? Like you do? But how do I find the approximate whereabouts of the old Phillips farm? Oh, sure, if that were my “F. Phillips” there (that’s Frank Phillips, though not the Frank Phillips who is my grandpa’s dad. I suspect that Frank Phillips is Luke’s nephew and who my Frank might be named after.), because there is a motherfucking Phillips Road. Oh, it’s cool, other Frank Phillips’s family. I’m not jealous at all.

But how do I find the approximate location of Luke’s farm in the city of Pontiac? On the one hand, that lake is still there–Galloway lake. And I’m guessing current University is Luke’s Clemons Road. And Perry/Lapeer is obviously the new route of Lapeer. But I’m having a hard time looking at Google maps and figuring out what would have been his little plot of land, since Galloway Lake is not the same shape.

Do you think it’s roughly where Joy, Commonwealth, Opdyke, and Pontiac Roads make a tiny square?

In Which I Admit My Stupid Plan

With the blockbuster that was Easter and then the less-stressful, but still not-good-place inducing fun of Father’s Day, I’m going to Michigan in a week. To see my family. I feel anxious about it and then I feel terribly guilty that I feel anxious about it. Which, you know, fun. But I am hoping to do a tour de cemeteries for dead Phillipses. I just need to talk someone into driving over to Pontiac to see Luke and Patience. But their kid, Oscar, died in Marshall, and his kid, Frank, died in Battle Creek, and Grandpa is in Battle Creek. So, that should be easy enough.

And there will be babies! Lots of fat babies. One who has taken up biting as a hobby, I hear, which, all things considered, seems like a fine hobby to have.

Edited to add: So, I called my dad to confirm that Frank is dead in Battle Creek, since it seems weird we would go to Battle Creek at least twice a year every year for my whole live and never once visit his grave and my dad told me that now that my mom can see, she’s going to be mad about how fat I am. So… yeah, this is already going to suck, I can feel it. If you’re keeping track–I will never find a man who will marry me AND apparently my mom will be grossed out by me. Man, you know, this totally feels like concern about my “health” and not at all like an attempt to make me feel insecure and off-kilter.

Ugh.

Ooo, Stormy

We had this wildly scary storm last night. Not in a “Oh my god, I need to kick the dog out of the closet so I fit in there” way, but in a “an anthropomorphized version of the storm is going to kill you in your bed” way. Which, I realize, from the outside probably looks the same. But a tornado necessitates getting up and taking shelter. A supernatural killer storm? Well, you can hide, but it will find you.

So, there was constant lightning, like sparkling sequins, but huge. And thunder. Almost continuous thunder. But the part I couldn’t sleep through was that the rain came whipping around the house from all different directions, first knocking on the bathroom window to be let in, then the front bedroom window, and then, even in the narrow space between the house and the creek, rattling the glass, wailing along the sills.

Obviously, these are metaphors that need some work. Reading back, I realize that my supernatural killer storm is wearing a dress with awkwardly large sequins that rumble against each other as he runs towards my house, menacing his intended victims by tapping on windows with his pointy killer fingers. Not actually that scary.

But you’ll have to forgive me. I didn’t sleep very well.

Oh, and the other thing? The power went out at least once, briefly, but I must have been very sound asleep because I didn’t wake up when the CPAP machine turned off. No, what woke me up was that thing coming on, sounding for all practical purposes like a monster gasping for breath after being under water for some time.

With What Gaze Do We Look at Captain Morgan?

I probably should wait to post about this until I have my thoughts organized, but I saw a shorter version, one stripped (so to speak) of any hint of girls on the ship, on TV and have just watched this one a number of times in a row and my mind is blown. I feel like this ad encourages the viewer to take sexual pleasure in watching the Captain. And I do. I think it’s the shoulders.

But it’s weird. There are really sexy ads that play off of the fact that, of course, women who are sexually attracted to men like to look at men, but it’s often played as a joke or as a way to demean the shlub of the commercial, who you’re supposed to identify with. But a commercial that just sat back and said, basically, yeah, watch this? And which demonstrated that men also could take pleasure in watching an attractive man?

I don’t know. Something about this video seemed like something I don’t see enough of. And I don’t mean shoulders like that, though those are nice.

Maybe in the morning I’ll find all the thrusting cannons of Morgan’s ship and the impotent gunfire of the other ship funny and we can all laugh about how Morgan takes his cloths off and that, for some reason, some mysterious reason, causes the other ship to applaud. Perhaps we’ll ponder his lack of chest hair. But tonight, I’m just intrigued to see a commercial in which a man walks through a crowd, taking his cloths off, and the commercial plays it like it’s something everyone would, of course, want to keep an eye on.

My Big Friend Made Small

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is going through a rough patch. I guess I hadn’t realized exactly how rough it’d been going for how long, but this friend is the kind of person who has big passions and throws him/herself into them with such gusto that, even if it’s something you’ve never heard of involving things you’d never think of as exciting, my friend’s enthusiasm is always contagious. Like, say my friend were the person who designed marbles. If you called my friend, s/he could go on for hours about how s/he’d figured out just how to make the molten glass drop and roll in such a way that his/her marbles always spun counterclockwise. And while you might not understand why anyone would want to have a marble that always spun counterclockwise, you’d feel like, wow, you’d talked to someone who really fucking loved marbles and the problems of marbles.

Tonight, s/he made apologies for his/her love of marbles. Kept diminishing their importance, making it seem like it was reasonable for a normal person to find marbles stupid and boring and a waste of time. Like it was wrong of him/her to keep up such enthusiasm for marbles. Like his/her love of marbles was this kind of gaudy unreasonableness it was wrong for him/her to impose, even slightly, on others.

I told him/her just what I’ve written here–that I’d listened to him/her go on for twenty minutes about how small and unimportant this thing s/he used to love so ridiculously and enthusiastically. And I said that it worried me because s/he was talking the same way about him/herself.

And I’m sorry to be vague, but I found it upsetting, that this gregarious vibrancy can be squashed by life. I hope it can bounce back.

Livestreaming!

I’m about halfway through it and it is lovely. Sorry no time for something more substantial, though those of you who didn’t tell me about Charlie Bob’s are in trouble.

A Geneological Breakthrough

So, it turns out that there were two Simmons families living in Novi township. One, the family of Abigail Simmons, widow of Gamaliel Simmons is from Massachusetts (some indication it was what is now Bristol) with a generation’s stopover in upper New York. The other, the family of Amy Beal Simmons, widow of Samuel Simmons, is from Newport, Rhode Island with a generation’s stopover in Upper New York. As far as I can tell, they’re no relation to each other.

I had thought that Luke Phillips’s wife, Patience Simmons was probably from the family of Gamaliel Simmons, since Luke says in census data that his family is from Connecticut (Bristol) AND that Simmons family has a whole branch of Phillipses in it. I thought maybe Luke and Patience were kissing cousins.

I hadn’t even really bothered to map out the Rhode Island Simmonses. And yet, last night I learned that Thurston Simmons paid for Patience’s grave. Even though he lived in Novi and she lived in Pontiac with her husband. And it turns out that Thurston had two sisters who were married who were already living in Michigan when he decided to settle in Michigan in earnest (he was brought to Michigan as a child, returned to New York, and then came back). Probably the kicker? Thurston (and thus Patience would have) has a sister named Almira. Patience has a daughter named Almira. Thurston (and probably Patience) has a brother named Charles. Patience has a son named Charles.

As certain as I can be, I am certain that these are Patience’s people. I’m only sad we don’t have any Thurston Phillipses. That would pretty much seal the deal.

This also fits my theory that the Phillipses struggled financially for parts (if not all) of their lives for generations. I mean, it looks like Luke Phillips had two wives after Patience and when he died? He got put next to her, in a grave paid for by her brother. When my grandpa was born in a house that had previously been used as a chicken coop, he should not have been surprised. It took a railroad job to move my branch of the family out of poverty. And we’re all still struggling to stay out of it.

But even though the other Simmonses are from the wrong Bristol, I still can’t quite let them go. Gamaliel’s grandmother was Lydia Phillips and she had a nephew named Luther. Luther doesn’t appear to have any sons named Luke, but you can bet I’m wondering if he, perchance, had a nephew by that name.

Oh True Blood, I’m Glad You’re Back

Is it possible that they’ve managed to fix many of the weaknesses from last season? Tara might be interesting! Jessica and Hoyt seem to be having actual grown-up relationship problems? Bill has something beside whining to do?  The witches aren’t as annoying as I feared? Someone finally got rid of Jason?

I admit, I squealed when Erik came on screen. I figured he bought the house, but I still was like “Oh my god,” when he said it. And I’m hoping Pam and Jessica get it on.

Gary Moore, Get a Grip on Your District!

Every once in a while, I wonder, is Tony’s Foodland really so much better than the Bordeaux Kroger for when you just need like three things? I thought that today, especially, as I drove by the Kroger four times and still went up to Joelton to Tony’s to grab my Diet Dr Pepper.

But the Kroger is huge. You can’t just run in and grab, say, milk. And I wanted coneflower seeds for the sunny part of the bed where the tall coneflowers are growing. And people of the internet, I can report that it is indeed worth it.

First, the cashier, an old lady buying cigarettes, and I had a long conversation about coneflowers and hollyhocks. We were all in agreement that hollyhocks are the most awesome flower ever and we don’t care if that makes us old-fashioned.

But most importantly is also the community bulletin board where we learn that someone is missing two goats and that Tucker the pig is missing. Eh, goats, who gives a fuck, right? But once you name something? My god, Tucker the pig being missing cannot stand. Moore better be out there investigating whether people are poor fence-builders or if someone is running off with our pigs.

Sorry so many of these pictures are fuzzy. The camera seemed freaked out by the rain.

Oh Lovely Morning

I am still soaked to the bone after running over to the neighbors’ in the middle of that downpour–thunder cracking so close overhead it sounded like I was about to be squashed by it. And who should get out of the house, right then, but Mrs. Wigglebottom, determined to go with me, wherever I was going in whatever weather, because it was better than being alone.

I find that touching. But you know, when the weather’s lovely and I’m out in the garden, she’s perfectly happy to wander back into the house.

So, I don’t think my company is actually all that awesome.

So, I had to wrangle two wet dogs in the house and leave one wet dog on the neighbors’ back porch and get everyone settled and then get Mrs. W. back home and dry and then… not twenty minutes later… it stopped raining. So I had to go back over and let the dogs out, lest Leo, who hates me, poop on the floor.

But since it was raining and all I have to do today is dishes and suffer from this immoveable headache (thank gods it’s not very strong, just unbudging), I spent the morning working on the scary part of my Halloween story.

And I think it is scary! And derivative. Lord, it’s derivative. Terrible things happen to little girls. Old women are chased across their lawns by rotten zombies. Bikers go to prison. But I’m having a complete hoot about it. Lord, I am having fun.

I don’t know if it will be all y’all’s thing, but when they make a Woolite commercial loosely based on it, I fully expect Rob Zombie will enjoy directing it.

PALIMPSEST by Catherynne Valente

I’m glad I read Deathless first, because I thought it was so amazing and yet, people, if I had read it after Palmipsest I would have been sorely disappointed. Palimpsest must be the kind of book that, if you write it, you’re afraid you’re never going to write anything as good as ever again.

It’s simply breathtaking.

I don’t really know how to tell you what it’s about. It’s kind of like a grown-up, sexed-up, non-Christian Narnia. There’s incest and weird tattoos. Rich kids have to be licked into normal existence by poor kids. There’s a train and a fortune-telling frog. And mechanical bees. And a city that exists in some other place, which you can only get to by fucking.

I am still kind of reeling from it. Ha obviously, if I’m imagining naked men in my flowerbed.

Get Them to the Church on Time!

Man, I’m getting a little misty looking at all of the pictures celebrating gay marriage in New York. What a beautiful thing, for people who love each other to have marriage open to them.

I’ve been trying to guess which southern states will be the first to fall (unless we get some kind of federal mandate). My money’s on Virginia, followed by North Carolina (who will complain the whole way, I’m sure).

But imagine if we’d passed “Don’t Say Gay.” Middle school social studies teachers would be forbidden from discussing the biggest civil rights event of the summer. Even if you think it’s reasonable to lie to kids about the range of human sexuality, do you really think it’s okay to lie to kids about what’s going on in their own country?

But anyway, who wants to focus on farts when there are weddings to plan?

Edited to add: But while we’re focusing on farts, I hope Democrats take note that Republicans helped pass this. When you have a majority and you squander it and then you come back and ask for votes because the other people will be so much worse? They’re not always going to be so much worse.

The Lingering Smell of Lavender

Let’s face it. Lavender smells soapy. Whether this is because so many people put lavender in soap or people put lavender in soap because it smelled like it belonged there, I leave for science to figure out.

But I cut some lavender this morning so I could dry it for the Professor, who claims she’s coming back someday.

And I can still smell it, very faintly on my skin, hours later. The soap smell has faded and all that’s left is this faint thick dark smell, like, if you met a man who smelled like that, you’d be unable to resist him.

I should start opening up my lavender for men who’d like to sleep curled around it on Thursday nights so that, by the time they go out on Friday, they smell irresistible.

Then I could mount a webcam and sell internet access to the livestream to appeal to people who have a fetish for men who sleep curled around lavender, which, as sure as I’ve typed it here, must be a real thing in the world. Imagine them, people of the internet, bare and sleepy in my front bed, the hairs on their chests and thighs wrapping slightly around the woody parts of the lavender, one arm curled under their heads for pillows, the other draped in the plant. They wake, wet from dew, to the buzzing of the early bees.

The most highly prized of them all would be the gentleman who slept nearest the steps. His hair would always smell like rosemary and, when you pulled his shirt off him, you’ll find the small scratches of the new rose on his back.

That Poor Author

You know, I like a good Amazon kerflufle as much as the next person, but when I read stuff like this… I mean, don’t get me wrong. I hear where that independent bookseller is coming from and I can appreciate him not wanting to give that kind of financial information or support to Amazon.

But man, does your heart not go out to that author? Finally, there’s the publishing contract. And with it, the marketing money. You are a real author! And now, a bookstore won’t carry your book, not because of something you did, but because of Amazon’s war with independent booksellers. I mean, I expected A City of Ghosts would never get into bookstores, so I didn’t think it was somehow hurt by being published by CreateSpace.

In fact, quite the opposite. I’ve had a great experience with them. Found them very easy to use and very helpful when I needed it and occasionally, I get a check.

But that’s the trade-off with self-publishing–you have a lot of control, places like CreateSpace have set things up to be super easy, but you’re never going to be in a bookstore. Fine.

But man. When you think you have a “real” publisher only to discover bookstores view you as almost worse than self-published, since you’re helping to sow their destruction?

Ouch.

This, though, is a bigger problem for Amazon. If people start to feel like they can’t trust your reviews, it starts to impact the credibility of the company in the mind of the public. A lot of Amazon’s issues most people don’t care about. They’re not paying close attention to the tax stuff and, if they live in a place that doesn’t have bookstores, they could really give a shit about the plight of bookstores.

But if they just have the uneasy feeling that a place is lying to them?

That’s not good.

I’m not sure how Amazon goes about fixing that or even if they can, but that seems to me to be a bigger Achilles’ Heel than “some bookstores won’t like you.”

My Reading at the JCC

Just popping in to say it was excellent. Everyone was so nice and liked the stories. They had great questions, too. I wanted to read to them all afternoon, shoot, all weekend.

But here’s the thing I love about Nashville. I was reading for old Jewish people and I am neither. Still, when I walked in the room, there were two people I knew! Half a million people in this city and there’s always someone to say “Oh! Hi! How are you?” to, no matter where you go, even if you’re a hermit like me.

God Damn It, Adam Ross!

This made me love you a little bit:

Its working title is The Tiger’s Wife’s Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Freedom. It’s a love story about wizards set in a war-torn Eastern European city beset by vampires and zombies. It takes place in the near future. The main character won’t go the f*%k to sleep but when he does invariably dreams of heaven. That’s all I’ll say about it.

But I still think that either David Pepin is a lying murderer or you don’t know shit about women.

(I will say this, as an aside about Mr. Peanut, for as much as I hated the book, a year later I still can’t stop thinking about it. We should all write something so memorable.)

When Your Story of How the World Works Runs Up Against How the World Works

I’m running short on time this morning, but I wanted to say that the thing that struck me about this is how familiar it seems–from the whole “he got me drunk” to the “he cheated on me” to the “we were going to get married.”

I know it’s kind of bullshit of me, but I don’t want to talk about the truthfulness of this particular claim. Instead, I want to say that I believe Palin is telling this story how she’s telling it because it fits a specific narrative–how you have to be on-guard at all times or the wrong boy will ruin you and you’ll be stuck with him. This is abstinence-only how it actually plays out (not the cute “the only safe sex is no sex” bullshit people seem to think). And this is a world-view I know like the back of my hand.

I don’t know if she realizes she’s accusing him of raping her. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming weeks, since the statute of limitations on rape in Alaska hasn’t expired yet. I do know, quite clearly, she is accusing him of ruining her and forcing her to be stuck with him, when he’s a jerk.

I think there will be a lot of girls and young women who follow this story because the “he ruined me and I got stuck with him” part resonates.

I reckon they will be surprised to learn that there’s another way of looking at what happened–that it’s a crime and that a lot of people are grossed out by the thought of a girl’s family encouraging her to stick with her rapist.

That’s going to be eye-opening for some girls.

Reading

Tomorrow at lunch I’m reading at the JCC from A City of Ghosts. I’ll admit, I’m a little nervous reading ghost stories to people who don’t believe in ghosts, but I think it will be fun anyway. I’m for sure going to read “The Nashville Tunnels” and “All the Same Old Haunts” but I’m not sure about the third. I’m leaning towards “We are Our Own Ghosts” but rereading it tonight, it made me cry, so maybe not.

I don’t want to get up in front of a bunch of people just trying to eat their lunch in peace and start crying.

I still think those are good stories, though. Shoot, I think the novel is good.

So, I don’t know…

Just Can’t Shake this Funk

I have nothing witty to say. Just that I’m ready for this gray cloud to pass.

Those Darlins–Screws Get Loose

It took me eight million years to get around to buying this album, but I finally did and so far I’m in the solid “wow” camp. If I sound hesitant, it’s only because I looooooooooved their first album when it came out, but then realized there were only three or four songs on it I could live with.

So, I think this album is brilliant and interesting and goes so far above and beyond their first album that it’s like the difference between a sunflower seed and a sunflower, but I’m worried that, after a few months, I won’t care for it.

I don’t think so. I think it’s much more sonically sturdy. But, I’ll admit, when I bought their first album, I could immediately think of ten people I thought should listen to it. This album I just want to put on and sit my headphoned self out at the edge of the world and watch the sun go down.