Music--I'm greedy with it

I wish I could be the person who picks music for commercials, tv shows, movies, etc. Scoring-is that what they call it? I have been listening to a Matt & Kim song since at least early February, and now it's on some alcohol commercial. It's GREAT for them. But I felt like it was my little secret.


Music can affect me physically. I near tears. I hold back vomit. I tighten my fists and curl my toes. Certain songs provoke certain reactions...but if I really like a song, it produces at least one. A current and now over exposed song (thanks MTV Movie Awards) the Kings Of Leon rouser "Use Somebody" for example....there's this building up...a crescendo? I don't know the technical term but it's as if the drums are using all their might to climb a mountain, louder and louder the closer they get to the top. A feeling of joy wells inside my chest as the tension rises, a bubble in my throat. Will I cry, do I feel sick with accomplishment, climbing that musical mountain with the drummer? Almost, almost to everything.

Drums and horns have a special place in my ears. They just do it for me. Nearly any version of "Manteca"...forget about it. I'm mush. I want it to be just for me. "Did anyone else hear that? Maybe not, maybe it was just for my ears."



Music is good at being your dirty little secret until you hear it played in a place outside your car or earbuds and you see other people thinking they enjoy it. What!? They can't possibly understand it like me. I've had songs, nearly a whole careers of bands ruined in my head because of the way I saw other people experiencing the music.


It's a horrible, horrible way to be. But, I can't help it. I have loved the Killers and the Yeah Yeah Yeah's since their first little drops. When "All These Things That I've Done" became popular a few months ago, a little part of my musical soul died. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's got me through a shaky plane ride and while you would think the songs I listened to would bring up bad memories, they just make me feel strong like those drums and those belted out lyrics. "NO NO NO NO I'll HURRY WHEN I'M HOME, I'LL HURRY WHEN I'M HOME, NO NO NO NO!"


This is like trying to explain a dream. No one else is ever going to see it the way I have, and that's okay. But when Peter Bjorn and John's "Nothing to Worry About" BLOWS up, don't say I didn't warn you!

Movie I Must See

Into the Wild, adapted and directed by Sean Penn about Christopher McCandless and his solitary journey into the Alaskan wilderness. Bonus points for Emile Hirsche and his expressive eyebrows as McCandless.

"Into the Wild tells the tragic real-life story of Chris McCandless, a college grad from a wealthy family who set out to experience true adventure. In 1990, Chris donated his life savings to charity, abandoned his belongings and dropped out of sight. He changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, and for the next two years he backpacked through the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Along the way, he encountered people who were moved by his idealism…but Chris took his final journey alone. He ventured into the Alaskan wilderness, carrying very few supplies. For nearly four months, Chris called an abandoned bus his home and lived off of the land."
I have no doubt that it will be an emotion-provoking film and I'm excited to see it.

Introducing Mabel!

I don't want this to end!

Well gosh, put me in charge.

It shouldn't be a hard job.

Geren told employees at Walter Reed on Monday that "recent events focused on
shoddy facilities, failures of leadership," and added that the disability system
"has become a maze, overly bureaucratic, needlessly complex."
"A soldier who fights the battle shouldn't have to come home and fight the battle of bureaucracy," he said

Amen...here, I'll do the job for free: If a soldier comes home wounded, they are to be given all necessary treatments, medications, surgeries, follow-up surgeries, and therapy, physical and psychological, free of charge for the rest of their lives. Give them at least the pay they were making while active, forever, and send their children to school. And, pie a la mode, every dang night of the week. There shouldn't be any question, this is just how it should be. Put it in the budget and don't buy what you can't afford.

Countdown

I effectively used the "count backwards from 100" technique to fall (back) asleep last night, or this morning, rather. Between 100 and 99 I tell myself that it's a silly idea, that it won't work. 99 to 98 I tell myself to just concentrate on breathing deep. 98 to 97, this still isn't going to work. 95 to 94, how are you ever going to fall asleep if you're still thinking, just stop thinking you fool!?

I remember 88-87. So, it works, as hard as I try to talk myself out of it.

My grandma slept 1) with a gun underneath her pillow and 2) with her jaw unhinged. I would find times when no one was looking and play with it (the gun, not her jaw). It was a small black thing that I was enamored with. She kept the bullets in the table beside her bed, the drawer spewed out a heavy mothball smell when I opened it. I never put the gun and the bullets together, I could figure out what bad things might happen. She didn't keep the thing under her pillow to make friends.

I wonder if she could tell that I had picked it up to inspect its tight curves and solid weight? I don't think I tried to pull the trigger even once, a foreshadowing of a fearsome nature that has followed me into adulthood.

I think about her gun and the thin skin on her fingers and if she would have shot a man standing at the foot of her bed, or me as I sneaked in for solace after a nightmare.

I too, sleep with my jaw unhinged. It's something I laughed at in my mind, seeing her laid back in her recliner, mouth open for any old thing to fly in. I thought it was just a thing older people did. And so, I'm cursed with the same unpleasant fashion of slumber, plus drool, because I believe I was unsympathetic.

Martius

In March, meet me at the Farmer’s Market
It’s where nothing’s ever broken, only bruised.
You can just cut through the sore spot
and eat around it.

We’ll talk over the juice of a peach
and shuffle heavy feet through corn husks, dry and crunchy
beneath our carelessness.
You’ll get a splinter handling a box of strawberries
and I’ll get a seed caught in my tooth.

A raspberry rumbles down from a table and onto
the shiny cement. It’s so ripe.
I see the bristles as it comes to a stop.
You step on it and keep going.

Hang Me Up to Dry

Cold War Kids

High Fidelity, Yeah, It's for the Anti-V-Day Crowd

Jack Black pushing out "Let's Get It On", one of the top five reasons that High Fidelity is one of my top five favorite movies. Pun intended. If you know it and you love it, you don't have pun stun right now.

Jack Black's version of "Let's Get It On" is on the soundtrack as well.

Happy Valentine's Day. Eating lots of chocolate I bought myself? Let's get it on. Shuga!

James Morrison Gives Me Something

"You Give Me Something" by 21 year old James Morrison was a free download on iTunes recently. I forgot about it until it played on a shuffle spin and it grew on me very quickly. This brit looks like Chris Martin of Coldplay, sings like warm honey, and has melodies echoing Stevie Wonder. The video for this song is super zzzz-worthy, but this live version is wonderful. Some wildly popular artists butcher their own songs live, but he proves here that his voice is rock steady and full of soul.

Go iTunes free download of the week, lovely pick.

My American Idol Experience

No, I didn't try out for American Idol, but an incident in third grade makes me think about what it would be like if I did.

We went to Chorus class a couple of times a week. We weren't automatically "in" the actual chorus, we had to try out with our 6 year old selves. At the time, those slap bracelets were
all the rage and somehow I had gotten one! The same day of tryouts, I had my slap band taken away. That stung, and not in the slap band on your wrist sort of way. It stung inside. I didn't get many toys, and they took that one away. I was a little angry third grader by that time.

I did my tryout, and I didn't make it. I might have been the only one to not make it, I'm not sure. Somehow I was the last kid left in the room, and I started crying, more out of frustration that anything else.

The teacher asked me why I was upset. I stayed mum. "The chorus-you being tone deaf?" she asked. I shook my head. "You had your bracelet taken away?" I shook my head again. "Well I don't know what to tell you, you're tone deaf, and you're not getting the bracelet back, you aren't supposed to have toys in here all day."

I think I was most upset about having my slap band taken away. There is some deep symbolism there that I am too tired to get into right now. But,it was good to have someone say "you're not good enough." It makes you tough. And, I will be convinced for the rest of my life that I am tone deaf.

The 157 Mile High Club

This is concrete proof that really smart people can be crazy. An astronaut is accused of attempted murder through a series of strange events involving a love triangle...how sad. The most ironic part of the story is that the accused, Lisa Marie Nowak, has to wear a GPS monitor while she's free on $15,500 bond.

How many people have said that they want to be an astronaut when they grow up? A lot. How many people actually do it? Not so many. This woman was up there, out there, into the great beyond, and comes back to earth and gets loco over a man? Another astronaut? Maybe I should start watching the on-board camera feeds. Seems like there is more going on than floating space-ice cream and undulating water bubbles for zero gravity entertainment.

No Conan for me

Oh well, my Super Bowl prediction wasn't quite on target, but I think I was pretty close. I predicted Colts, 23-18, and it ended up Colts 29-17. I think. Interesting considering how strong the Bears started off. Anyway, I didn't watch the darn thing. Although, it would have been nice to have some really good buffalo wings.

Ghost Hunters Marathon on SciFi

Ghost Hunters in on all day today on the SciFi Channel. I like that these guys don't just get creepy feelings, they try to find out what could be causing things to happen. Some of my favorite episodes are the St. Augustine lighthouse, the Stanley (or the "Shining") Hotel, the Battleship North Carolina (in Wilmington!), and Eastern State Penitentiary.

My Superbowl Prediction

I'm feeling Colts, 23-18.

Why!? I don't know, but I like guessing games, so that's my guess. If I'm right, I'd like a guest appearance on Conan O'Brien to talk about my awesome predicting abilities. Then I'll be off to play the lottery, thank you very much.

You will always be the same

Always the same, from when, the day you were born? No one stays that innocent. Still, it's a beautiful sentiment.

Presidents of the United States for President, '08

And the lovable nut in the sleeping bag, for VP. Kitty on the wall and Kitty on the chair--for First Kitties.

When your elbow itches

scratch it. Don't walk up to someone and rub it against them. There's no good reason to scratch them with your itch.

A few weeks ago I saw a deer in the median on Davis Drive. It had been hit, apparently most violently in the head. As I approached it my eyes were drawn to the reddish pink flatness that was where the head used to be. It was not a mangled deer head, brains and eyes and bone scattered about. Someone had laid down a pink hearts bandana or scarf over the flattened head. It made me feel better, and it made me think about the juxtaposing art of guns with flowers exiting the barrels. Something potentially awful, with a nice afterthought.















I'm glad Incubus came out with a new album: have some lyrics for breafast, won't you?


Earth to Bella (Part I)

Earth to Bella
You think you've got it all figured in
Earth to Bella
Everything you know is wrong (Well, almost)
Earth to Bella
I see where you are not listening
I bear the burden of being the voice that let's you know
We all grow old
And before you swim you've gotta be okay to sink

Earth to Bella
The world can be an unfriendly place
So hold your head up
Do your best to save some face
It's not so hard
Just undo yourself and see your second sun
Ascend

Okay to sink
I'm okay to sink
I'm okay to sink
I'm okay to sink


Earth to Bella (Part II)

Earth to Bella,
this is a quiet emergency.
Earth to Bella,
there'’s so much more to get then wronged.
Earth to Bella,
you'’re treading water successfully.
But are you really?
Don'’t you want to see the deep?
It'’s not so hard.
Just forgive yourself & feel the water open in.


Paper Shoes

I fly/I soar/this I adore. & then like a locomotive
the sound of your sorrow comes. I'’m tired of the way it feels
I only apologized to you to make you feel better
But I think I'’ve outgrown that horsehair sweater.

I'’d rather be alone
you'’re '‘bout as reliable as paper shoes in bad weathers,
but pain will roll off like water on feather.
You'’d fly/you'd soar. But then like a locomotive
the sound of your sorrow comes. I'’m tired of the way it feels
I only apologized to you to make you feel better but I think I'’ve outgrown that horsehair sweater.

I'd rather be on my own
you'’re '‘bout as reliable as paper shoes in bad weathers,
but pain will roll off like water on feathers. I'’m tired of the way it feels
I only apologized to you to make you feel better
but I think I'’ve outgrown that horsehair sweater.

I'’d rather be alone
You'’re '‘bout as reliable as paper shoes in bad weathers
but pain will roll off like water on feathers.

Scent in a New York Minute

One of my favorite things about New York City is the smell. I can go through a lifetime of scents in a 60-second span of sidewalk. I have a sensitive emotional olfactory trigger and I highly believe in the power of pheremones. New York City is constantly secreting intoxicating pheremones from glands of steel and cement and culture. It's all of these things separately and at the same time: gasoline, three day old trash bags, cinnamon, grilled chicken, perfume that makes you want to melt, new shoes, hairspray, urine, wet dogs, old books, mopped floors that never dry, rubber, fish heads, musk, more musk, pastries, cigars, and lights.

You know, like the way a lightbulb smells if it heats up a bit of dust that has gathered on the surface . . .

ilikecitylights

A few pictures, click for bigger views. It was raining pretty much the WHOLE time, so we didn't whip the camera out much. I will write more about the trip later.
I saw a cat in a pizza shop. I heart NY.

Kryptonite

Who knew hotel elevators could be so stylish?

Our hotel

Our hotel entrance

Posing in NYC

ilikecitylights view from hotel room

When they say zero visibility at the Empire State Building, they mean it.

Practicing Knicks--they lost.

Linda after I whooped her in a racing game at ESPNZone.

Oh my gosh, we just met LeBron James!

Ahhh we just met LeBron James.

Linda in the Empire Clouds

Mad Magazine

Nanananananananana Batman!

DC Comics Characters

Mad Magazine

A view from the hotel

View of an ad for Secret on the side of the building, from the hotel.

Minibar--a soda was five dollars.

Gotham City mural at DC comics.

Heavenly Shower at the Westin

Heavenly beds and views and generally moden furniture at the Westin

Good week so far

Monday: surprise win, DVD Monster House

Tuesday: surprise win, cute "Pale is the new Tan" pink t-shirt and fancy new 55 SPF Neutrogena sunblock.

Wednesday: excited about Sunday-- going to NYC to meet Lebron James, see the Knicks vs. Cavs game, staying in an awesome hotel, all with my lovely niece Linda. I heart my hobby. Oh yes, there will be lots of pictures....and you thought San Diego was bad.

New old stray

This new old stray cat, everyone in the neighborhood calls him Hunter; he was abandoned by his owners, but I call him Sunshine (for obvious reasons-and because how can I call a cat with no front claws Hunter--I'm into irony, but that's just cruel).

I do believe he is Romeo to Marshall's Juliet. I picked him up so he could greet her in the window once and he hissed at the fleeting sight of her beauty. Oh love, how dost pain thee. Heh.

When Tumor Joe was around, Sunshine was scattered and rarely seen. I suppose Tumor Joe was the typical alpha male. Now Sunshine follows me to the mailbox and back in the evenings and sits outside for some pebbles of dry food. He's also naturally a very good boy, sometimes a bit cantankerous. Touching one spot on his side makes him nip, but in a playful mood. Hunter...hmph!

Vending Room Acct Balance : -0.24 cents

A week or two ago snack machine karma smacked me on the back of the head (it knows how I hate that) when it spit out a quarter of my change onto the rubbery floor I've mentioned before. I watched it roll away quick and steady like the escaped prisoner it was. It rolled right underneath the sink area, laying down directly below a pipe. It's a precarious spot that I didn't have any interest in crawling into. So, I left it there. I might need it later, I thought.

The next time I went for a soda, I had forgotten about it, but upon bending over to retrieve my can from the machine, my eyes wandered to that quartered spot. It was still there. And it is still there now. Sure I could have picked it out days ago, but it's a little game I play with myself to see if it's been spotted and snatched.

I went to get a soda earlier and there was a penny, heads up, on the ground. Certainly the machines wouldn't be throwing out pennies. Maybe it fell out of someone's pocket. But, I picked it up. So my score for the vending room floor is -0.24 cents.

Autumn is coming, autumn is coming!

Grey squirrel, grey squirrel Shake your bushy tail!
Grey squirrel, grey squirrel Shake your bushy tail!
Wrinkle up your nose, Stick down between your toes!
Grey squirrel, grey squirrel Shake your bushy tail!

She says Hi

Accidental Catharsis

There must have been good times. Certainly there was laughter, merriment, and smiling. At this time of night, I remember the red and black of ambulance lights flickering onto closed apartment doors that hid where other people slept and breathed and dreamed in a healthy way. They would wake up the next morning, clean themselves up and maybe go to the store, or visit a friend. I would wake up in a place that I could not remember getting to, and not understanding why my mother wasn't with me.

The last house we lived in, just the two of us, was on a woodsey plunk of land on Monroe Street. We had never lived so deep into the island, and that might be why I picked that house, that blue square house. Maybe I wanted it to feel like we were really somewhere new. And I did pick it, all by my ten year old self. My grandmother drove us. We sat at the road in front of it and looked for a while. I had never seen so many trees, it was shady and leafy and everything moved when the wind blew. There was a dried out fence to climb on, and a large brick grill to the left of the house.

Mama told me to go inside and look, she didn't think she could manage the steps that day. There were three or four steps, and no porch really. I put the key in the door and walked inside. I probably looked back at my grandmother's deep red Cutlass Supreme before going in, for a bit of reassurance. It felt like playing house in the scariest kind of way. There's no need to take much time describing the house. It was small. But, so was I then, and it seemed like the biggest and most wonderful place on earth at that moment. It wasn't an apartment, and we could make new memories.

I got back to the car and they wanted to know what I thought. Well, I just had to live there. I told them it was wonderful, and that Mama and I would love it. Mama said that it looked sort of small from the outside, was I sure? YES I said, PLEASE. She said she wasn't sure about the steps, but I told her they were shallow steps, and I could help her.

So, we moved in. Once Mama got inside, she said that it really WAS a tiny house. I didn't know it then, but thinking on it now I realize that it was a huge sacrifice for her. It was far away from the few conveniences she had, and the Bingo parlor she liked to go to, and it had those steps. I wonder now if it was a gift, that she had intended to let me pick the last place we would live together. She just gave in too easily, it didn't make sense then, but it does now. Like that old grill, the bricks have fallen apart and have hit me, just this moment. She knew.

That last year and a half she tried so hard to give me happy memories, because she knew what was about to happen. I had no idea, and she knew. The jar of change that she collected and a change sorter she gave me for my birthday, and tickets to the amusement park. The party with balloons taped to trees and the best vanilla ice cream I can ever remember. Any house I wanted, she would have tried to give me. It's taken 15 years to realize, but I get it.

I sometimes tell myself that I was only 11, that I didn't get to know my mother that well, not like I would if she were still here. But she was smart, so very smart. She knew that I would eventually understand. I'm still getting to know her. I never thought she was selfish, but now I know how giving she was. People have told me that she held on as long as she did, for me. I wasn't hearing it. In my own time now, I accept that, I believe it. Oh God, it hurts, and I'm so thankful.

This started out as memory of that house, of remembering the bad and trying to draw out the good, and it's turned into something so much more. My mother is with me. I might have begun to forget that, but now I know. It feels like it might change everything.

Grilling Blackberry Tumors

No luck on finding lost quarters near the vending machine. I haven't been searching hardcore or anything, just take a glance when I do get in there. There has been a penny in the parking lot at home, but it's heads down so I haven't touched it.

Along the walk to my car, my boss pointed out a patch of blackberries. We grabbed a handful and ate them as dessert for lunch. It brought back stained memories of childhood when my friends and I would invade a wild blackberry patch that took up a whole block. We got buckets full. They're beautiful, red ones not yet ripened look as if they will burst if you look at them too long. The black ones are so deep in color, but are very sweet, and even a little cool despite the sun beating on them.

I think I'd like to concentrate my efforts on winning a grill. . . before the summer is over.

New neighbors didn't take a liking to the way Tumor Joe peed on their tires (the car is so ghettofabulous and is the COLOR of pee anyway, who would have known?) So, luckily he was able to move to a farm with some friends of our immediate neighbors, so he won't be put down. I will miss Tumor Joe. But, I'm sure he's happy on that free open land.

Bullets

• The first time I used the vending machine nearest to me at my new place of employment and got change, it spit a quarter out onto the rubberized floor. If I hadn't been looking, I wouldn't have known. So, now everytime I go in there, I look at the floor to see if someone missed their change being hurled at them. Sometimes I go even when I don't need a snack, just for that.
• There ARE animals that get hit in Cary (reference post: About Cary for the horribly ironic backstory), I hit a deer a few weeks ago. Up there on the list as the most horrible 15 seconds of my life, right under getting an anal exam when I was five.
• Thanks to that experience, Scott helped me finally name my vehicle. The X-Terra shall forever from now be known as Frankenstein. Between the hit and run on 5-5-05 and the deer literally IN my headlights, I've had the front and rear exterior of my vehicle replaced. I might fashion some bolts and put them on either front seat door, just for the full effect...and paint it green, perhaps.
• If you like the lemonade at Chick-fil-A, but are on some crazy diet, I highly recommend the Crystal Light Lemonade packets On The Go; great tartness, excellent very cold.
• I said it was going to be a good year for sweepstakes, and I meant it. I've still got a REALLY big one to snag in the next six months...I've just got to put more effort into entering. But so far this year I've won over $300 in giftcards, and am waiting on a 4GB iPod nano and $50 iTunes CG from Bellsouth. Not bad for the crazy girl who gets excited about contests. Because, if you enter, you can win.
• Are you a baller? Or a folder? I remember reading somewhere than men are more likely to fold their toilet paper while women ball theirs up. For me, it depends on the quality of the tissue paper. If it's crappy (no pun-really) and I can't help but ball it up because I have to fight to get it, it's balled. But usually, I think I'm more of a folder.
• Do you likecitylights? Cary just might get a few, but the opposition is strong. Apparently some citizens think it would be obstructing to the views outside of their homes. A seven story building--oh no we're practically a little NYC!!!! Did the land owners and farmers think that subdivisions looked great on the untamed land decades ago? Probably not, but that's what we see now. Check it out.
• Things come in threes. Two days ago I had never heard of a cigar cutter, and why would I really? But, one was mentioned on an episode of Law and Order, and then I saw one as a prize in a sweepstakes. Where will I run into another one? Is Fidel at my doorstep?

Pictures speak quicker than words...

I spent the weekend in Charlotte with my bum-buddy Theran...am too pooped to write about it, but here are a few pictures since I haven't put any up recently. (Marshall gets cuter and cuter every time!)

Bye Scotty and Marshall!!

Jennifer and me as siamese twins at the QA picnic friday afternoon.

Charlotte

Theran's purple toes and my pink ones after my FIRST pedicure....

Our toes are drying, our toes are drying!