Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe

Time once again for one of my favorite segments on le Blog, "Song Lyrics I Really Don't Believe" enjoy and have a happy weekend.

"Why can’t I breathe whenever I think about you?" --Liz Phair
(Two questions: 1. Are you talking to a plastic grocery bag, while wearing a plastic grocery bag? 2. Do you only think of your beau when you are underwater? If the answer is no to the two above questions, then the conclusion I can come up with is that you are a moron. You need to learn to breathe and think at the same time. J.Lo stuggled with this and staying real so you aren't alone)

"I believe the children are our future..." --Whitney Houston
(YA THINK!?)

"I wanna soak up the sun..."--Sheryl Crow
(No you don’t. Look at you, Sheryl Crow. You are 46 going on 32. If there is one thing you don’t do, it’s soak up the sun. Bronzer yes, sun no.)

"You can stand under my umbrella..." -Rihanna or however that is spelled
(Now that’s love. I wasn’t sure if Rihanna really liked him before that, but now that she has graciously offered to let him stand under her umbrella, then I totally know it’s LOVE. Rihanna, I doubt you use an umbrella. You probably have a music-label intern in a Gucci poncho that is carried above you by your body guards. And singing “you can stand under my intern...ern...ern...ern” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it).

"I remember when I lost my mind..."--Gnarls Barkely
(Dear Gnarls Barkley: If you can remember when you lost your mind, then you probably didn’t lose it. Maybe you misplaced it. Or maybe instead of singing about it you could make some little posters for “LOST MIND” or call some friends, see if you left it at their place.)

"How can we be lovers if we can’t be friends..."--Michael Bolton
(Michael I don’t want to be the one to explain this all to you in detail, but I’ll give you a hint: tequila.)

Undead Attack!

Anyone else hear the story about the hacked road signs in Austin warning drivers about Zombies?
HILARIOUS.
Watch the news clip where they make it a very serious story...loved it. Made my day.
Thank you for that, Austin.

Challengers

I finally got around to getting some new guitar music. I am sub par at transcribing songs myself so I scour the internet to find people who do it for me. To them and their musical ears I am grateful.
One of the songs that I decided to try is a personal favorite, “Challengers” by The New Pornographers. At first glance (and first listen) it isn’t a challenging tune; four or five chords in repetition. No picking patterns, no alt tunings, a song that looks straightforward on paper. Cake walk. But the first time I tried to play it was a total disaster. Turns out the strumming, timing and chord changes were more bizarre than I had considered and I stumbled around them like a drunkard in a fun house.
Frustrated and embarrassed even as I had attempted it alone, I put it up for another day.
I pulled it down again last night and decided to take another look at it, this time to consciously think about the song itself and not just the familiarity of the chords and words. To actually take the pieces that seemed so straightforward and let them work out what they are together. It sounds obvious but it isn’t what I was doing or how I often approach things.
I’ve been playing guitar since I was 15 but I plateaued about five years ago. I haven’t done much to get any better; I’ve stayed at a level of comfortable status quo. I can get by. I haven’t challenged myself to be stretched, to reach for new thoughts or progressions and so when one comes along that will challenge me, I very often put it off or dismiss it for an easier version.
So after some thought I tried to be deliberate in my strumming. I started slow. I didn’t event try to sing; I hummed. I restarted and restarted. And slowly I got all the pieces.

"Another vision of us we are the challengers of the unknown..."

I Wanna Dance Wit Somebody

Last night I ended up having an impromptu dance party with Katie, Liz B, a large exercise ball and old Whitney Houston.
Other people were there too.
Like Jay-Z and Beyonce.
And we also played Marry-Boff-Kill for easily two hours.
A fabulous game if you ask me.
I am easily entertained; this I know. But for a long time I didn't dance enough (much to the chagrin of people like Caroline, for whom my mad dance skills contain high entertainment value), didn't play enough, wasn't comfortable enough to go with being stupid like that. I was too self-conscious.
And to be honest I'm still not completely comfortable with it, but I'm trying.

Weekly Ponderosa

Haven't done a weekly ponderosa in a while so sit back, relax and enjoy the buffet.



A redneck cashier in a fabric store correctly used the words cantankerous and minutia in a conversation with me that lasted less than two minutes. That is awesome.

Monday night Katie and I really wanted ice cream but the grocery store was closed. I stopped by a quasi-sketchy BP station and found they had three kinds of Ben and Jerrys. I picked up two pints and placed them on the counter. The cashier rang up the first then looked at me and muttered, "rich lady." I don't know either.

Ani Difranco is playing at the Orange Peel in March. Anyone? She's always good...

Friday night I met Cara and Margarita at Zambras for tappas, dessert and Spanish wine. A chill girls night out was necessary. Then Margarita and I stopped by the shop and drank moonshine with Adam and Brad while we talked about travel, pranks and whistles. Quite the jump in conversations and environments.

Women talk to themselves. A lot.

This is what my high school principal looked like. Seriously.

Now that I have my Sundays back I'm relearning them. I'm rusty at Sundays.

In a world so full of gadgets and high tech stuff, I love how much bright sunshine still has the ability to change things. So simple and yet so powerful.

For some strange reason, strangers feel the need to ask me what size I wear and then scoff, mock or make a snide comment when I answer them. I've actually had people become offended. Recently I've actually thought about lying and saying I'm bigger than I am. I don't understand this. I am the way I am, leave me be.

Yesterday my IT guy was wrapped in syran wrap by my coworker and they were giggling like little girls. Thank you for that.

Sunshine Patriot

It was Thomas Paine who famously wrote,
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

After the lofty and somewhat unrealistic ideals of this election and subsequent inauguration it is time to come back down to the scorched earth that is This Country and figure out who she is under all of this. It feels like a reintroduction of sorts.

I recently made a remark about how, in the throws of this major social change, I was once again proud of my country. This is virtually the same statement that got Michelle Obama into so much trouble in the primaries and a statement I made knowing full well I’d be questioned by a few people for it (and rightly so).

I admit it: I am a sunshine Patriot.

Because I believe wholeheartedly that there is a vast chasm between love and pride, a chasm that is often bridged but a canyon that exists nonetheless, and when I don't recognize my country I am not proud of her and that canyon seems endless.

I love my country. By which I mean our relationship is not entirely neat, by which I mean I am indebted to her and our mutual forefathers for this life that I live, by which I mean there is much I would do in her name should she ask me. I love the way our government is set up; how through soaring economic prosperity and terrifying depressions it has survived, through Presidents that span from capable to corrupt to inept it has stayed intact, even through a Civil War that killed 3% of the population it didn’t falter past that core. I love the sweeping landscapes of this country: from red sand mesas in the Southwest to the rugged shore of Maine to the freedom to sit on the levies of the Mississippi and drink hurricanes from that drive-thru daiquiri stand in New Orleans to the smell of the sea and palmettos that is Charleston, SC. I love our great experiment.
Yet as much as my heart is filled with love for this Nation, most of the past twelve years I have not been proud of her and those who represented her. I have not been proud to be an American. I have looked at my passport and wondered aloud just what was my relationship with the country on its cover. I missed her. That Nation stamped in gold did not represent me; she was a stranger. She made cheap symbols of herself be all that there was to hold to, flag pins and all. That Nation in her jingoistic bravado, clandestine power plays and almost cult-like disdain for dissent was not how I knew her. She was too proud of herself, bold in her intent and selfish in her methods. She was acting like a petulant teenager.

So no, I was not proud of her.

And so when a chance came along to see someone in office who could represent me I jumped at it. I needed to see nine kinds of nerd back in the seat of power, needed to believe that the person who was the face of my nation could be the smartest one in the room, needed to know that the whole world was relieved by the outcome, because though they aren’t our country they are our family. Listening to NPR on Tuesday morning I got proud again. Seeing images of the largest gathering in DC history who turned out to simply be in the space where history was made: I was proud. Just the knowledge that my country can change made me proud. My father graduated from a segregated public high school in the shadow of the CIA headquarters and this year he cried in joy as he voted in the first African-American President. I’m proud of my country that we are resilient; that even in these times we prosper. I'm proud to see that she is slowly coming home.

Yes there is a large chasm between pride and love and this week I’m happy to note that when it comes to my country, the bridge is open again.

Calm Before The Storm (o' Change)

I'm sitting on the hours before our country swears in the President we have ordained as the next Lincoln and all I can think about is how I won't have a date for Valentines Day.

Politics are personal, I guess.

In some ways I don't want to see his presidency in actuality. I like the simple idea of hope, rather than the gritty and much less unglamorous world of the day-to-day policy. I'm afraid to get bogged down in the 24-hour news cycle and the politics of Washington and realize he is just like every other politician. I like his speeches; they stay like cologne long after their physical presence has passed. He is an orator of beauty, a man who wears simple and sparse like he invented it, a consummate gentleman who loves his wife and children and isn't shy about being the smartest man in the room. And I eat it up. He could feed me mashed potatoes with a slingshot and if he kept talkin' pretty I'd sit in the corner and take it.
What a relief from the past 8 years of jockdom, bravado, truthiness and preconceived decisions. I almost don't quite know how to respond to a Congress, Senate and President all representing (more or less) my basic civic beliefs. It hasn't been this way since before I was legally allowed to vote.

I want Obama to succeed. Badly I want him to succeed. I want the sacred names of American History to contain him. I want WashingtonJeffersonLincolnRooseveltKennedyObama to be a sentence every American school child knows. I want him to appear on the money my nieces and nephews will carry, replacing that bastard Andrew Jackson on the $20, the new face of hope smiling at you every time you withdrawal from an ATM.

But.

Oh But.

I'm steeling myself against this hope, because Gulf of Tonkin and Watergate and Iran Contra and Lewinsky and Haliburton and Blackwater tell me to do so. Because even the Emancipation Proclamation had ulterior motives than just freeing slaves (read: keeping France out of its support of its industrial partner in the South and drumming up support in the North from seriously pissed voters wondering why their kids were coming home in boxes. It essentially made Slavery the issue). Because we have a government that uses the phrase “collateral damage”. Because loving the current America requires a certain level of forgetting America, like agreeing to date a boyfriend that has time and again let you down.

I want to believe that Obama will change the Presidency but I can't help worrying that the Presidency will change Obama.

We Loved Our Generals

I don't think I can really top the hilarity of the last post of proposed ice cream flavors for The Dumbass in Chief so I won't even try, instead I'll tell a little tale about wars that never seem to die.
I was born and raised in Virgina, a fact I bring up so often my friends from Texas even tell me I'm a little nutty with state pride and that's saying something. For the entire 13 years of my public education in the Old Dominion we had a holiday that fell the third Monday of January called "Lee-Jackson-King Day". It was on all my school calendars and official school documentation and I never thought it was odd and had no idea it was called anything else in other places. I thought the whole nation celebrated Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr on the same day, like they celebrated both Lincoln and Washington on the same day in February.
It wasn't until my freshman year of college in New York that I very publicly found out the truth about other states. Since we didn't have classes that day several of my friends and I stayed together at a big house off campus and then got up early to go cross-country skiing. They were standing in the kitchen, all 12 of them, when I slid into the room in my socks and yelled "HAPPY LEE-JACKSON-KING DAY EVERYBODY!!!" to a suddenly silent room of Yankees.
"What?"they asked.
I repeated my salutation, though noticeably it was less emphatic than the first.
"What is that?" they asked.
I told them about the great holiday for Generals Lee and Jackson and Dr. King.
Their faces were all frozen in a stunned grimace.
"You mean to tell us that you celebrate two slave owning, Confederate Generals and an assassinated Civil Rights leader on the same day?"
"I never thought about it that way...but...yeah. We do. What, is that weird?"

(note: Virginia has been celebrating Lee-Jackson Day since 1904, as they are both rather revered Sons of the Commonwealth. When Reagan made MLK a national holiday in 1983, Virginia decided to tack on the existing holiday to the national one and managed to ignore the irony of it all until 2000, when they finally split the holidays again. Today is Lee-Jackson Day in Virginia; the Friday before MLK Day.)

Yes, Pecan!

So Ben and Jerry's has announced that they are doing a flavor to commerate Obama's Presidency and they, the masters of the flavorful pun, are calling it "YES, PECAN!".
Today my co-worker showed me this list on reddit that asked, "If Obama gets a flavor, what would George W. Bush's be?"
Hilarious.
These are my favorite suggestions:

Shock & Almond
Weapon of Fudge Consumption
Grape Depression
Cluster Fudge
Nut n’ Accomplished
Iraqi Road (and Iraqi Roadside bomb)
Good Riddance you Lousy MotherFucker…swirl
Wire Tapioca
Impeach Cobbler
Lime with Stupid
No Chocolate Left Behind
Mess-o-Pistachio
SNAFUdge
Housing Crunch
Credit Crunch
Housing Bubble Burst
Strategerberry
Chocolate Chip on my Shoulder
Marshmallow Accomplished
Apple De-Cider
George W. Bush Doesn’t Care About Dark Chocolate
WMDelicious
IADelicious
Guantana Mo’ Chocolate
Chocoalition of the Filling

HA! If you can think of any, I'd love to hear 'em.
Six more days!

Every Morning

“See the Beauty, Not the Blemish.”

Two years ago I lived in a basement apartment with two girls with whom I had absolutely nothing in common except that we were picked for the year-long internship at WG. We learned to love each other and love each other well, something I don't think I really knew until it was over. We had this tear-away calendar in our kitchen that gave little nuggets of “wisdom” or fuzzy sorts of thoughts for the day and most of the time I mocked it. But one day this sentence came up and it struck me as so constantly applicable that I saved it and taped it to our bathroom mirror.

Two years and a few moves later it is still on my bathroom mirror.

And I still need to be reminded about it.

My faith has faded from relevancy as of late, the way that friendships do when they are based more on proximity than personality. I don't have a specific reason why, it has slowly and seamlessly occurred. It isn't that I love less or more, rather it is that my faith simply ceased to be the main defining characteristic in my view of myself. However I have held fast to the promise of a single phrase from Lamentations: “They are new every morning.”

I love that. Hopes are new every morning; truths are as well. With waking comes newness. Each morning, as I stare at my puffy eyes and gawdawful bedhead I am reminded to see that beauty as new that day, rather than see the blemishes of the nevers, the maybes and the not quites. I am reminded that I am new.

And that is something for which I thank God.

Woven Friendship Bracelets

Back during the 2004 election the comedianne Jessi Klein did an absolutely HILARIOUS commentary on the presidential debates for CNN.com. Liz and I would watch the debates and constantly refresh the website to see her commentary. Made the debates so much more entertaining.
Example:

"Kerry is reminding us that airplane cargo is not x-rayed and our intelligence needs to be better. But again, he's not addressing the fact that Hilary Duff has a movie in theaters right now, and meanwhile, nothing is being done to protect our recording studios and record stores from her striking us again musically. Does he have any plan at all on this?"

Or my favorite:

"It's so cute that Bush refers to Putin as "Vladimir." That's adorable. They must be totally BFF. I heard that they exchanged little, woven, friendship bracelets at a pizza party that Kerry didn't even know about. Kerry's such a loser."

They are still posted on CNN. I wish she'd done them this year too, love 'em.

Anyway, now she has a blog that is quite good and recently wrote this article about hairy chests that had me cracking up. So...read it. Anytime someone can use the phrase "sexily untamed man fur" in an article it will probably be a worthwhile read.
Happy Weekending!

Shoulda Put A Ring On It

Very often I write down thoughts or ideas on little slips of paper and stick them in my pocket while I'm working. Ideas for stories or blogs, quotes or lyrics that I found relevant to wherever I am at that moment. I own too many pairs of pants and sometimes I won't wear a pair for quite some time and yet when I finally pull them out the little pieces of paper are still there and remind me in a vague way, like having someone else recall something you once dreamed.

I decided around Christmas that I really wanted to learn how to play Beyonce's “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” on guitar and make it into a folky fun-fest but alas, Erin McKeown beat me to it and her version is way better than mine ever could be. I freaking love Beyonce, I don't care what you say. And Erin. Check out her blog. It's priceless.

It was upwards of 75 earlier this week and Sunday afternoon Margarita and I went down the Parkway to Graveyard Fields and sauntered around a bit. I'd say it was a hike only because we both had day packs and I slipped in the mud. It was lovely. Monday afternoon was just as beautiful and after spending the morning on the roof cleaning the gutters I conned Doug into slacking off in the afternoon and going hiking. We drove up the parkway to were it is closed (due to that stupid rock slide near Craggy Gardens) and hiked on the Mountains to Sea trail. I'd say it was a hike because all in all we did about 7 miles and increased our elevation by about 2600 feet. Wandered through the ruins of Rattlesnake Lodge and up Wolf's Den. It was silent and remote and lovely and I was exhausted and elated in the same rapid heartbeat. I can't believe I get to live here.

Tuesday was 12^th night apparently. Asheville is full of NOLA ex-Pats and they keep those Cajun traditions alive and thus four of us decided to check out what the fuss was all about. We met up with the krewe (as they are called) at Ed Boudreaux's and we were by far the most stodgy looking in the bunch. None of us had capes, wings, giant gold and purple beads or a crown. Laaaame. We did enjoy the 12^th night pub crawl and by the end of it there was zydeco dancing, a very small man in a jester hat and Dale Ale in cans. Again, can't believe I get to live here.

Twitter. I'm getting a little addicted.

Before I drove back from VA I decided to buy Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot as an audiobook and I have to say that was a wise purchase. I've had the book for almost 7 years, have read it dozens of times but hearing her read it brings it a new dimension (and Conan O'Brien reading Lincoln and Stephen Colbert reading Al Gore does add a nice zing). I'm racking my brain as to what other audio books I should stockpile; good books make that 7 hour drive fly by.
“My ideal picture of citizenship will always be an argument, not a sing-along.”-Vowell

Dumbest joke I've heard in quite a while but still makes me laugh:
Q: What looks like red paint but smells like blue paint?
A: RED PAINT!

The other day my iPod was almost out of juice (poor me) and so I busted out some old cassettes I had in my car (CD player was stolen last year, along with my old iPod). The tape was almost 9 years old and it shocked me how familiar it was to hear songs so connected to very specific memories and moments. How those people are years distant and faded from my life yet these songs are still around. It was like my 19 year old self came to ride shotgun for a few miles, reading my sonic diary.

Send in the Robots

I can't really post the whole story behind this photo, but really it is a story you should hear and I'll email it to you if you ask but...this is what a robot mask looks like.
And a bit of what my holiday home with the fam entailed...

My god.

Daffodils

January lied to the daffodils.

They are the embodiment of hope springing eternal; those fresh green shoots bursting through the frosted terra firma of endless winter.

And January has lied to them.
Daffodils think their time has come, they think this week is March and that it is safe to emerge and announce the return of life.

But they are wrong.
Because between now and the relative safety of March lies the tempest of February.
They will freeze.
It is only a matter of time.
January has lied to all of us.
And January doesn’t care.

"Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world--it is thin." -Edna

Smudging

Somewhere between 1am and alarm o’clock there is a line. Crossing it is walking into dreams rather than sleeping there; those odd hours where the smudging of actuality and imagination is strongest. I wake not sure what transpired and what I dreamed. Some days I like that uncertainty.

All They Got Inside is Vacancy

Hotel Yorba by the White Stripes always puts me in a good mood. I bounce around with it.

Still don't get the appeal of white jeans, or any color of jeans except shades of blue. I've tried and I don't see it.

Much too late/early on New Year's Eve my friend Adam and I had quite a long conversation on creativity and kairos and several hours later I had a very similar conversation with my friend Katie and I'm beginning to think that "the now" is going to be the theme of 2009.

I spent New Years Eve at the Shop with Adam, Jonathan and a gaggle of friends, milling around the woodstove and talking til 5am. I love that place.

After the Shop I stayed at Margarita's house and we spent the day in our PJs, watching "Mythbusters" marathons and moving very little. I stayed in my PJs even when I went home and the only shoes I had with me were my cowboy boots and I looked like an idiot.

I'm really enjoying The Decemberists' "Always a Bridesmaid" series, specifically the song "Valerie Plame". Love that they'd have a song about the spy.

Had a dream about a porcupine that attacked me with its quills. Weird.

One of the most honest and sad and true songs I know is "Lover I Don't Have to Love" by Bright Eyes.

I think I'd like to get into building sets for productions and my volunteer with one of the acting troupes in the area. I understand the appeal of building without the pressure of permanence.

I would make a New Years Resolution but the only one I'd really want to make has to do with being more disciplined and if I'm not disciplined in the first place how could I even begin to keep up with my resolution? And thus the crux.