About a month ago, a posting came through my program general discussion list about GSA positions that were going to became available at the P/K Graduate library and the undergraduate library, respectively. GSA (graduate student assistant) positions are paid positions where ones tuition is also paid (almost literally until you graduate from the program) and offers bennies. Thus, you get hourly wage plus free tuition. Being the broke-ass student that I am, I applied for the position and was notified less then two days before the interview that I had said interview. Thankfully my schedule was clear enough for me to pull it off and I did some creative re-arranging with ThePugKids to get them settled while I was gone.

The interview was — interesting.

A week goes by and another email goes out to the general discussion list about library internship availability at the P/K Graduate library. Literally the same position, minus the paid tuition and bennies. I email the HR rep and ask her about applying for this position as I had not heard back from the selection committee yet and she says that’s fine that I can also apply for that position. A few days later, I write my cover letter, attach my resume and reference information and email it to the HR rep and ask her about the status of the GSA position. She returns my email that night (Sunday) within an hour and tells me that unfortunately the positions were filled and that my resume was forwarded to the selection committee for the library internship position.

Clearly, I am beyond disappointed. I was counting on getting the GSA to help me out financially — there were four spots and dammit, I should have gotten one of those! The extra FinAid money that I would have received would have helped me out tremendously in setting up my digs in Detroit and not stress about job worries so much. With the “economic crisis” coupled with the fact that I live in the most financially depressed state in the nation, the probabilities of transferring to $corporate_bookstore across state were looking pretty slim. While I’m sure they would take me on, losing bennies, hours and a pay cut would fucking suck — but I’d do it if it guaranteed me a job until I found another job, preferably one in a library.

The application for the library intern position was due Monday before Thanksgiving. I didn’t have any exceptions on getting the job, the weather has been sucky since we’ve received nearly 12″ of snow in the last week and the stress about trying to get across state for another interview, etc was driving me batshit. I clearly did not have high hopes of even being called in for another interview, the semester is closing in fast and well, I had to come up with another plan.

I was doing homework today when my phone rings and it’s a 313 area code, so I figured it was — someone I did not know. (I’m terribly witty at nearly midnight, can’t you tell?)

It happened to be one of the selection people from my first round of interviews a few weeks back. Turns out that there were only three GSA positions available, not four, and that I was to have been slotted in the fourth spot. They were highly pleased to see my resume for the library intern position and hey, since they already interviewed me and liked me, would I want the library intern position?

I think my “YES!!!!!!!!!” was heard for a six-block radius.

I chit-chat with the librarian coordinator for a bit and she tells me that I have to contact HR to get the paperwork pushed through. No sooner had I hung up the phone with the coordinator, another 313 call comes through, this one from the HR. Could I come onto campus tomorrow to fill in paperwork? The position pays 2x a month but apparently the deadline for new hires to get paid for the first pay period in January is tomorrow. Um, shit. I can make it on Monday when I am on campus for class, but, possibly not tomorrow. She says that’s fine, but that this means my first check won’t deposit until February 4, which I’m totally okay with.

So while we’re on the phone, the HR rep says, “Hey! Great news! They’ve upped your pay by $3 more an hour to be more competitive.” Jesus, I haven’t even been hired for more than an hour and I’ve already got a raise!

The scary part? I’ll be working 20/hrs a week and making the _same_ amount of money as I was making full time at $corporate_bookstore. I’ll still be holding on to the $corporate_bookstore job for 10-15 hours a week until I can find another part-time library position or what have you — but man, while the first few weeks of January are going to be rough, this is so going to be totally worth it!

Be suspicious of Women. They are given to the Reading of frivolous Romances, and at all events, their presence in a Library adds little to (if it does not, indeed, detract from) that aspect of gravity, Seriousness and Learning which is its greatest Glory. You will make no error in excluding them altogether, even though by that Act it befall that you should prohibit from entering some one of those Excellent Females who are distinguished by their Wit and Learning. There is little Chance that You or I, Sir, will ever see such an One.

Taken from The Old Librarian’s Almanack. A real update coming soon, I promise.

But joking aside, I was on Wikipedia today when I saw this advertised at the top of their donation page:

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. - — Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

Yes motherfucker, it’s called a L.I.B.R.A.R.Y. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? You may have, gasp, been to one as a child? The arrogance kills me with that statement — Wikipedia, you did not infact, create the context of indexing human information for easy perusal — print encyclopaedias predate this by over a hundred years - AT LEAST. And the idea of indexing all the information of human kind AND having it available to all of human kind presumes that EVERY living human being has access to the Internet. According to this site, currently only 21% of the world’s population has access to the Internet. I’m betting and it’s just a hunch here, that there are more libraries available than Internet kiosks. Just a hunch.

I’m dropping this topic out there to be picked up later by myself — I’m also currently listening to The Google Story on my commutes, so I’m sure I”ll have more to say on this in a bit.

For now, I slumber (wearing one of my Google t-shirt, of course).

As I was reading the this weeks homework for that class tonight, the assigned article is about indexing as a cottage industry, I found myself surprised by the author discussing the “probability of indexing the Internet” which made me go back to the beginning of the article and look at the date — 1996. My notes in the margin? “Google? Yahoo?”

While I’ve been woefully behind in keeping the day to day (or week to week) stuff of my first semester of lib school documented as well as I would have liked, one thing that has struck me since the beginning of the program is that some of the information that is parsed to us as teaching tools is woefully out of date. I don’t mean in age, per se, but in content of the information being given. In the computer competencies class that I’m taken, the book (current, dated 2008) is incorrect about various technologies as well as gives too much information on things that for the lay person, may seem to be over wrought. I’m trying to figure out why a librarian will need to know what EEPROM is, but apparently this information is necessary for dissemination.

Referring back to the article from 1996, yes it does give a good overview of what indexing is and is not but on the flip side, how much are we to take away from this over what has changed in the last 12 years? By this I mean that clearly there has been much advancement in the field of librarianship that would warrant more current and perhaps more timely piece then something that is so aged?

I find this to be a circular argument within myself in that as someone coming into the program with such a heavy technical background, perhaps I’m jumping the gun on these topics but on the other hand, it is not like my professors are not technically savvy or incompetent — they are, in fact, neither. It just seems irksome that so many of my professors seem stuck in older information while new information arrives daily. THIS is what I do not get.

For now, I am going to go mull this over a bit more and will return with a more complete update soon, I promise.

When my twitter updated with this entry, pandora_radio on Twitter caught it and broadcast it to the masses. I was talking with Lucia, the CM and she told me that a lot of people seemingly liked the station I created. I also found out that she, too, is a librarian!

Not only has this podcast introduced me to a plethora of new music I may never have gotten my teeth into, but, it’s also allowed me to expand my musical taste. Who knew I was totally into neo-soul as of late?

I also follow Song of the Day, but that sometimes is seemingly overwhelming.

I decided to harness the power of ASC and Pandora to create the NPR’s All Songs Considered Mix. I cherry picked nearly three dozen different bands I’ve heard over the last six months, interested to see what Pandora would come up with but at least this way, I can listen to old favorites and fall in love with new favorites.

Enjoy.

This entry is going to be fairly short, my eyes are watering from how tired I am, but I did want to update on what is going on. I still have to get into writing the “So, You Want To Be A Librarian?” series because it helps me refocus on what I’m doing now and what my plans are.

Today I met with my adviser for the first time and started working on my plan of work. The p.o.w. is what Wayne State uses to help guide students through their years while at lib school and helps with the student to make a better use of their time. It’s mandatory for all lib students to complete this by the time they have enrolled in nine credit hours (which I’m currently doing). Failure to do so means that their account is put on hold until the p.o.w is completed and turned in and it also means that until it is completed, the student cannot register for classes.

Wayne offers a general MLIS degree as well as several concentrations, certifications, of which I am doing two. Yes, two certifications: Archives and Information Systems. I choose archives for my love of research, history and general nosiness. Information Systems was chosen because of my technology background (a decade in real world tech experience, mostly high end) and it would be extremely foolish of me to not capitalize on that learned history. There is also a possibility of doing a thesis option, or I can simply do a directed study (create my own class), which I think that I would rather do than a full-on thesis option. My original thesis proposal at Central Mich was never completed due to time and energy and feeling a totally, “What the hell am I doing?” but it can be transferred (subject matter is the global village with social networking and pop culture) to Wayne, if I want, to get actually started on it and completed. Right now, I’m leaning towards more of the directed study approach over a full-on thesis, but, who knows what will happen. Instead of 36 credit hours needed to complete the degree, I’m up to 51 credit hours. My projected graduation date is Fall, 2010.

I also discovered that there is a little utilized graduate scholarship that essentially gives a full ride that I can apply for — and I could have applied for this year and had no idea about. I am going to be submitting for 2009/10 year because if I can get monies that I don’t have to pay back — yay for me!

As par usual, more concise updates will be provided later.

So the first question you must ask yourself is, Why? Why do you want to become a librarian? What is it about librarianship that you feel would make you an ideal candidate? Do you dream of working with kids? Working in a corporate setting? Working in a special library or archive? Teaching aspect? Collections? Fondling rare books?

If you don’t know off hand, that’s totally okay — a lot of students in my first year program have various ideas of what they want to do but are being persuaded by new interests and technologies that they did not think were available to them or were not feasible with a MLIS degree and even more have no clue. But that is what the beauty of the MLIS degree — unlike many other graduate programs — is that it is entirely flexible based up your desires and wants. And the other great thing about getting into a MLIS program now? Jobs are booming. The next decade or so is going to see more jobs and opportunities open for those in MLIS degrees not just in traditional settings but every where. The skills learned as a librarian are so completely flexible with the ever changing needs of current and emerging trends and technologies, what company wouldn’t want to hire someone who has this skill set? And oh yeah, most of the jobs that are coming open are not necessarily new jobs but the Boomers are finally beginning to retire, which means a mass exodus of people (who will begin to suck up Social Security, but that is another rant) are opening up existing job markets for new grads.

So in short, a MLIS degree can be whatever you want it to be.

Now that you have an idea that becoming a librarian isn’t just slinging books to snotty patrons who demand absolvence of 50 cent fines, the next decision is where do you go to school.

Like any other graduate program, where you opt to go to school makes a difference on how you want to jump start your career. BUT, and this is a big but, you could go to the right school and get the right degree and still not end up in your chosen career path or perhaps have difficulty finding a job. Grad school really boils down to what you put into it. While yes, some snobbery is looked upon in certain fields by where you choose to go to school, what really matters at the end of the day is how you choose to use the tools given to you.

There are two types of library schools: theory based and practical based. Theory based programs are ones that will train you to work more in the research and academic fields of librarianship. These programs are geared more to the whys and hows over the actually working in the field. In U.S. News and World Reports rankings, a good portion (if not all) of the top 5 lib schools are theory based. Clearly, not everyone who accepts and attends these schools will all go into academic research or want tenure track jobs in the academic field, but it is something to think about.

If you’re not sure what approach to take, that is still totally okay. All of the schools do offer traditional teachings along with the rigorous work needed for the academic track.

At this point, if you’re pretty sure you want to go to lib school, but you’re not sure what field yet and you’re even more confused on where to apply. Again, totally okay. Take deep breaths and lets look at some factors that one has to consider.

I knew I wanted to go to lib school for a number of years but wanted to test out the waters in other areas first. While working on my first Masters, I realized that I should have just applied and gone to school. But I don’t regret getting my first Masters because it gave me the self-confidence I needed to realize I could compete successfully in such a rigorous area.

When TheEx and I started dating, this was a big topic of discussion between us. TheEx is one of those hyper-intelligent men that knew everything about anything and had started but never finished a grad program when he graduated from undergrad ages ago. At the time we were dating, he was working in the insurance industry and was his talents (and passions) were not being fully utilized. Our plan of attack then was for us to apply to graduate programs in our respective fields but at the same universities. As he was terribly close with his family, we choose programs that were mainly Big 10 and in and around Michigan.
In no particular order:

• Kent State (The program is on OSU’s campus, where TheEx applied directly to OSU.)
• University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• University of Wisconsin, Madison
• University of Michigan
• San Jose State (Now, mainly all online.)
• Wayne State (Where I am now currently enrolled.)

I did not finish my application to UofI nor my application to SJSU. SJSU was picked AFTER the break-up between TheEx and I because California is a gazillion miles away from Michigan. Also, SJSU is moving to online-only program, which seemed to negate the whole point of moving away from Michigan. UofM and UofW both rejected me and I was accepted to Kent State and Wayne State. I know why I was rejected from UofM and UofW: I got overly quirky in my SOP’s (Statements of Purpose) and my GRE scores were not the best. I take responsibility for that, wholeheartedly. To be fair, I was working full time AND doing another Masters program when I started working on my applications, so my attention was diverted towards other things.

My choices then were based upon locality and where TheEx was applying for his graduate program, not based on what I wanted to do. This is not to lay blame on him or my choices, to be fair, I probably would have picked nearly all the same schools but I was not armed with more information at the time I picked the schools so that is the one regret I DO have. Also, three of my schools (UofI, UofM and UofW) are mainly theory based, not practical based.

Here are things one needs to consider when applying to lib school (again, in no particular order):

• 1. Location. Most people tend to choose schools either close to where they live OR in the area where they eventually want to work. This is a huge factor when considering schools for any program, so first make a list of areas you want to possibly be in when you graduate.
• 2. Cost. If you choose an out-of-state school, your first years tuition is going to be significantly higher than if you are an in-state student. This is a given for any program in any discipline. Wayne State will cost me about $10k a year in tuition. UofM would run me about $18k a year in tuition (though both are state schools). If I would have gone out of state, the cost is even higher. More money spent means more loans or other methods of funding your education have to be considered.
• 3. Type of programs available. Do you want to go to a theory based school or a practical school? Do you plan to specialize? Is there a school that is general enough that you can get what you need without having to transfer? Do you want to enroll full time or part? Do you plan on working while going to school?
• 4. Lecture delivery. A lot of programs now offer online only or mostly online programs. There has been a lot of discussion whether or not such programs are actually viable and worth the time and energy. There are a lot of pros and cons with this issue and not just in the librarian community. This also comes down to your own learning style: Are you a visual or a lecture type person? Are you self-motivated enough to keep up with the demands of a online only program OR do you prefer to be in a classroom environment? Do you want a mixture of both?
• 5. Internships/Practicums. Some schools require them, some do not. Some schools will help you find them, others require that you find them yourself. Let me add that in my current experience, if you do NOT have any library experience in any field or setting, internships and practicums are fantastic for gaining the experience.
• 6. Job Placement. Some schools, like Wayne, have a general discussion list that every lib student is subscribed to and everyday I receive dozens of emails of available jobs ranging from director positions in major library systems to internship and volunteer work. Wayne has career advising appointments available, a career center and they work with you from your first day in the program to making sure you are successful. Wayne is not alone in this, but it is telling to me that they want their students to succeed in every way possible. Just because a college or university boasts a high job placement rate does not necessarily mean they have the tools to do so. I’ve heard from many a librarian via interviews and message boards that have felt their school could have done a better job in preparing them for “real world” and given them more “real world” experience. This may be true (and some of the schools that were rebuffed for this include UofIllinois and UofMichigan), but it all comes down to you. How much are you going to hustle when you’re competing for jobs with dozens of candidates?
• 7. Application process. A minor yet important part of the search process, the application process. A lot of schools have rolling admissions, some do not. Others only accept applications in the fall/winter while others allow you to enroll for either the fall or spring programs. Some applications may be due as early as December and others as late as March. What this boils down to is how much time (and money) do you have to spare and how prepared can you be to get it all done in time?
• 8. ALA accreditation. This is the MOST important part of the process — is the school ALA accredited? Nearly every job posting I’ve seen, regardless of where, will require that the applicant either be near completion or have finished their program from an ALA accredited school. The number of ALA accredited schools is seemingly shrinking (there are less than 50 in the U.S.) and many are currently in review or have lost accreditation. Even IF you have a MLIS degree from a university/college, if the school is not ALA accredited, your chances of finding a position will be extremely slim. On many message boards I’ve read, schools that are in ALA review are not worthy of consideration for application. Why? Because if the school loses ALA accreditations, you will NOT have an accredited degree from the university. My understanding is even IF you started the program before the review, the school MUST maintain its accreditation for you to have an accredited degree.

This information should give you a good foundation when searching for library schools. Also keep in mind that you will hear wildly disparging advice from current and post MLIS students on the application process, especially when concerning if the school is “good” or not. What I’ve presented are basics that should help any navigate the world a bit more easily than I did.

Next in the series: The application process and the dreaded GRE test.

First up, the image is from the wonderful site indexed, which I’ve fallen in love with recently. That card is one of my favorites and also available on a t-shirt. Size men’s M if you want to get me something for the holidays.

Secondly, I’ve created another blog that will be a group collaborative thing for one of my classes. We are working on a group presentation on intellectual freedom, with my sub-topic being book censorship. This should prove to be awesome if we can get it off the ground.

Thirdly, I’ve got a wonderful set of things I want to discuss about lib school, including writing a “so you want to be a librarian” series discussing topics that I wish that I had found when I was researching lib schools. If by judging from some of the communities I read on wanna be’s and current grad school participants, there seems to be an overwhelming amount of running around with the head cut off scenerio — of which I’m gleefully one. I’m also planning out more observations on some of the work I’ve been doing along with commentary on current attitudes towards the practice. I also have some minor research I have to do to solidify some of my opinions or to figure out some of the theory behind, for example, why librarians seem to hate people who work in bookstores. I’m not the only one who has felt this, which is interesting because we should work together in a parallel manner but we seemingly are not.

My eyes are currently glazing over, so it’s time to hit the hay.

For me, and I will assume for a lot of people, music is a very personal thing. This is not to say that I do not enjoy my fluffy pop or my occasional foray into old school gangsta rap, I do. But this is to say, that when I love a band, I really take the band to heart. For those who know me, you know how constantly I refer to High Fidelity as a bible to my life — I AM the female Rob Gordon. (Complete with relationship problems, neuroses and other high jinks. But that is for another post.) And like Rob, who arranges his music automusicgraphically, I too also do the same. I can get from one band to another by telling you where I was, when I first heard it and what I was doing (or who I was doing). And if my choices seem a little chaotic at times, that is totally okay. Straight and narrow never won any interesting awards.

But this is not really about me, per se, but more about Bloc Party and the release of their third album, Intimacy, a mere 18 months after A Weekend In The City. The album was released digitally at the end of August, with the physical release set for, in the U.K. and U.S., at the end of October. WOrd on the street is that the title tracks available on the physical release will differ from the digital download, but like the good little fan girl I am, I will have procured both.

Silent Alarm, their first album with the stunning single Helicopters, came out kicking and squalling to the world in 2005. A Weekend In The City was their “falling in love” album in 2007 and I wasn’t too terribly surprised to find out that Intimacy is their “break-up” album of 2008. When the title track is entitled, “Ares,” and the song begins with “War! War! War!,” I got the feeling that Kele Okereke was stalking my life.

So, then, I must step back and do a bit of back story before I continue.

Bloc Party, like a multitude of other bands over the years, is a band I heard of but never really got “in to,” until I met TheEx. TheEx and I have an interesting back story in that musically, we were perfect. We could, and often did, spend hours talking about music from producers to labels to motifs, sound, lyrics and design. Our joint collection neared nearly 2000 compact discs (60% his), dozens of vinyls (his) and over 100 gigs of digital music (mostly mine). We were concert whores who would travel hours for a good show, only to turn around and come back home that very night. With him, I found my perfect music man, someone who could discuss with me the nuances of music on a variety of different levels and not have to explain to him why I was found of the production values of X album over Y album or why I loved A band over B band.

TheEx was crazy about Silent Alarm and was eagerly waiting for A Weekend in the CIty, which came out in the very beginning of our relationship. And I’m not quite sure what it was about A Weekend in the City, but that became “my” album while Silent Alarm became his. To me, A Weekend in the City became the anthem of our relationship. Every song, every melody, every lyric no matter how distant somehow spoke to me, about us. I could see him in every song and certain songs became “our” songs. Every time I heard “Sunday,” with or without him near me, my heart would swell with love for him, because he would love me in the morning when I was hung over and strung out. And even though I knew that On was about doing coke, to me the lines, You make my tongue loose/I am hopeful and stutter free, was about how I felt around him. He made me feel hopeful and stutter free — I could (and did) tell him everything and anything, anytime and any place. At the time, I felt that he made me an honest woman and with him, I was so much better off than without him.

I like Silent Alarm, but A Weekend in the City had this energy that I responded to, a hunger if you will for living and for life. I liked the simplicity of Kele’s lyrics and the fact that he was able to lyrically say what he meant without going overboard with metaphor and unnecessary imagery. (I’m looking at you Radiohead and Coldplay — fucking wankers.) I adored the fact that every single time I heard the album, I heard something different and that everything about A Weekend in the City resonated with me emotionally and intellectually.

And like most intimate of relationships, TheEx and I did not end with a quiet whimper but with a huge, ferocious fuck-off bang.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to reclaim my musical tastes but have found that in reality, I was hiding from it. I forewent listening to Pandora, XM and my CD collection on general to podcasts and NPR. I did not want to put myself through musical depression - even with bands that I claimed as mine were also his and by listening to said bands would conjure up all the feelings, the good with the bad.

When I found out Bloc Party had released a new album digitally, with the physical release forthcoming, I was surprised. I was, apparently, not the only one. Bloc Party has been touring almost non-stop since the release of A Weekend in the City, which was released in February 2007. Other than a single released last summer, the synth dance song “Flux,” there has been no talk or announcement of a new album. Shortly after the digital release at the end of August, reviews started showing up by the beginning of September, with a split vote on Intimacy. People fell into several camps:
1. That Intimacy was an attempt to return to the area that Silent Alarm began, failed with A Weekend in the City and was struggling to fill and was a mixed-bag.
2. That Intimacy not only returned to the horizon of Silent Alarm but surpassed it. A Weekend in the City? A blip and could be written off as their sophomoric disc (which it is).
3. That Intimacy failed on many levels, was absolute drek and that Bloc Party, as a whole, are a bunch of pretentious wankers.

For me, I’m apparently in the minority. I love A Weekend in the City more so over Silent Alarm (and thought it was one of the best albums of 2007) but Intimacy is growing on me. I was looking for, excuse the obvious, but the intimacy and the slowness of A Weekend in the City only to be greeted by dance pop and synth experiments hold over from their single, Flux, which at first annoyed me. But it is the lyrics, oh $deity, I love you Kele, the lyrics more than make up for the choppiness of the disc, the messiness that is “Zephyrus” and the overwhelming urge they have to experiment TOO much.

But it is with their weaknesses that they also have their biggest strengths — Bloc Party has no problem selling out arenas, have gained a fairly successful following in the U.S. and tour almost constantly. They have hit almost every major festival abroad and in the U.S. The fact that they have, somehow, managed to get into the studio to record a third album and not only record it but have the production completed in a relatively short time is almost mind boggling. And according to the interview with bassist Gordon Moakes on pitchfork, the band is just as surprised as their fans at the quick turnaround.

But I don’t view the turnaround as a negative thing, rather again, I look to the lyrics for the answers. If A Weekend in the City was about falling in love, relationships and living life, Intimacy is about breaking-up and the obvious, almost debilitating aspects of separating from the one you love. From “Ares,” declaring war on the person who wronged you, to “Halo” about questioning the love, to “One Month Off,” at the anger of one’s partner after a long term relationship ends, to that remembrance of the good times in “Better Than Heaven,” to the pitiful, desperate plea of return to that love in “Ion Square.”

Every relationship counselor (and Cosmo issue) will tell you that separation after a break-up tends to follow the same rules of grief that the death of a loved one follows:
1. Denial. - “Mercury.” “Halo.” “Better Than Heaven.”
2. Anger. - “Ares.” “One Month Off.”
3. Bargining. “Signs.” “Halo.” “Bilko.” “Trojan Horse.”
4. Depression. “Signs.” “Halo.”
5. Acceptance. “Zephyrus.” “Ion Square.”

Some songs resonate with better topics than others, but the point is still there. This is Kele’s exorcism against the end of a love that obviously broke his heart. And it is with this, with Kele’s lyrics and the buffing of the depressing themes with synth tunes and dubbeats that most will find to be a turn-off and thusly, a shite album. Some will claim that this is a desperate attempt to grab the glory they had with Silent Alarm and failing while others will claim they are attempting to parody their influences and are bilking too much of their popularity by riding on the coattails of Coldplay and Radiohead.

I don’t think Intimacy is a great album, but I do think it is a good one. I do agree that there is, at times, too much going on at one time while at others, it seems almost perfect. While I would recommend it, I would recommend it after listening to the first two albums — like most great bands, you need to get the scope of the band’s lineage before diving in several albums in. With several months between the digital and physical release, who is to say what the physical album will sound like?

And as for me, I unfortunately saw too much of TheEx inside the lyrics after my first spin with the disc a few weeks ago. The beginning of Trojan Horse chilling reminds me of the rituals that TheEx performed before we too made love. Signs, also eerily like the lasting days of our relationship. And Ares and One Month Off remind me of me, in those “OHNOESHEDIDNOT” moods I would would sometimes (occasionally) cycle through.

Despite my initial reservation, Intimacy is the tip of the catharsis to push me over the edge. It is not the time for a new love or to sign a new lease, but at least now, I know that one day there will be.