I keep meaning to mention to y’all that I have an AOL Instant Messenger account now… so if you’re on AOL, put me on your buddy list as "edafrost". Maybe we can yak a little! Even if you don’t have an AOL account, you can use the service by downloading the free AOL Instant Messenger software. It lets you keep a "buddy list" of other AOLers (or anyone with the IM software), and whenever you fire up the program, it tells you which of your buddies are online. And you can send them stupid little messages in real time, they can reply with their stupid little answers, and, well, it’s usually pointless chatting, but it CAN be very useful at times. I want to collect lots of names. It’s kinda neat to hear the door open and slam when people log on and off.

(NOTE: the AOL screenname no longer works! Or if it does, it ain’t mine.)

I don’t wanna bore you to death but I’ve been trying real hard to learn French ever since I got back from that vacation (I mean tour). I’m trying to immerse myself as much as possible in the language… I’m always playing the French radio stations on my computer via RealAudio, especially Skyrock, that’s my favorite! And even when I’m in the van I can pick up some staticky French radio from an AM station in Canada. I found a bunch of websites too, some of them more helpful than others… Fast and Friendly French for Fun is pretty good, and the Guide of France site is good too, with lots of audio files so you can hear pronunciations.

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Well there’s some news on my divorce thing, but it’s not very good news I’m afraid. Awhile back, my sister Lucie hooked me up with a lawyer in New York to look over the document my ex had sent me and make sure it was okay before I signed the thing. Well, she looked at it, and apparently what he wants me to sign is not "the real thing" at all, it’s just some memo saying that I’ve RECEIVED the real document and I’m saying okay to it. The actual papers, if there are any, could be saying "Edith agrees to pay me one zillion dollars" for all I know.

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I know I know I know I know, I haven’t written anything in over two weeks, I’m the laziest most suckiest diarymaker ever. But anyway better late than never. I have been messing around with my site a lot, though. I was playing with the Netscape Page Design Assistant thingy that comes with Communicator, and it cranked out a cool page template for me, with color-coordinated buttons and whatnot… and then I went a little crazy playing with this free online Banner Generator. I like the new look okay — and it’ll definitely work better for folks with low-fi browsers. But I dunno, it seems a little cold and impersonal right now… maybe I can fiddle around with the font colors, maybe get some different backgrounds happenin’. I also REALLY need to put together some sort of photo gallery for myself, that would be cool.

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It has come to my attention that fucking Surfwatch has blocked my goddamn site due to excessive swear words. Oh well. I guess it’s alright that there’s such a thing as Surfwatch — as long as it’s something that’s used voluntary by INDIVIDUALS. Hopefully nobody other than kids-with-protective-parents are being involuntarily blocked from my site.

I feel a little cold-ey today. Like I might be getting a head cold — I’m not sure it’s going to fully kick in but I am a little stuffy and sneezy. So this’ll be my excuse for barely leaving the house today. (I think of a new one practically every day. ;-)

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Well hey there, happy new year to ya!! Sorry I’ve been bad again about the diary. It’s not because anything’s wrong, just that I keep getting distracted. I’ve been doing all my diary-entries in my head and forgetting to do the typing part.

(I stole that line from Rennie of the Handsome Family, by the way. She said that about her hubby Brett one time, sort of apologizing for him about not replying to my e-mail in a timely fashion. HA! She’s talking to the queen of old unanswered e-mails.)

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A review by John Dugan that appeared in the Washington City Paper (Washington, D.C.) at some point in 1998…

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A review by Todd Pruzan that appeared in Chicago Magazine at some point in 1997…

A review by Sean Nelson that appeared in Alternative Press at some point in 1997…

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A review by David Poole of my first EP that appeared in Cover magazine at some point in 1997…

I got home this morning/afternoon and there wasn’t any letter under the door or anything. But the bedroom was a wreck… I have this wire closet-system thingy attached to the wall and for some reason it had fallen down. I guess I had too much stuff hanging on it, and blankets and sheets and towels piled on top of it, and maybe I didn’t put it in very well in the first place. It’s just weird that it would hold up all that shit for six months and then decide to fall down NOW, on the same day that I’m all paranoid about my landlady. It left some pretty good holes in the wall, too, so that’ll be one more thing for her to bitch about, if she sees it!! I’m a complainer and a namecaller and now I’m destroyin’ the walls, PERfect. I’d better find a couple of posters and put ‘em over those holes before morning.

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Well, it’s the 28th technically I guess. I just got back from seeing Ryan play with the Jive Council at the Metro, opening for Boogie Shoes. It was fun. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened today with my !@)$#*& landlady. I’ve never liked this woman, but now I’ve had it up to here with her!! I had an argument with her today over the STUPIDEST fucking thing. Over our MAIL service. It’s sort of a long story… every time I see one of our mail carriers, they’re always complaining about how they can’t access the building — it’s a multi-unit apartment building and the only way they can get in to access the mailboxes is to ask the lady at the laundromat next door to let them in. There’s supposed to be a key-box for the post-person, but for some reason the landlady thinks it’s alright for them to have to go to the laundry-lady every day and ask to be let in. The last time I talked to a post-person, she told me that the carriers had been complaining to the postmaster and that if we didn’t have a key-box out there by Jan. 1st, our mail would be refused and sent back.

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Played at Lounge Ax with Neko Case; The Sadies; The Peterbuilts

My band: Michael Krassner (guitar); Ryan Hembrey (bass); Gerald Dowd (drums)

Wow, today’s my lucky day. I got a big pile of stuff in the mail, forwarded from the downtown unit. Holiday greetings from some folks I know and some others I’ve never met… people are just so nice around the holidays. It puts me to shame because I really suck at that. Keeping in touch and doing nice things for other people… well, I try when I can, but you know, I’m kinda livin’ in my own little world here most of the time and I guess I pay a lot more attention to myself than anybody else.

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I recorded something funny today… it’s a little 30-second promo spot for a radio show called Local Anaesthetic, on WXRT. They wanted something for the holidays — I think they asked a bunch of Chicago bands to do this. Well I hope I’m not the only one anyway! What I ended up doing was, I stole a cheesy public domain carol from one of the many Christmas sites on the ‘net. I used that as a backdrop, added some la-la-la’s and said "Happy holidays from Edith Frost on blah blah blah…" It came out pretty kewl, I think Rian’s gonna like it.

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