It's that time of year

My BSG viewing has come to an end – finished the series last night. (I DID get the middle-aged romance I wanted, too. And it was better than I even expected! You can see many, many clips on YouTube set to music. People's music choices crack me up.)

Anyway, the wrap-up itself brought decent closure, although it didn’t end the way I would’ve ended it. I’ll be rewriting the ending in my head for a few days, I think.

The good thing about being single/watching BSG alone is that I didn’t have to wait for another person to be around before I watched. I know a couple who is also watching right now, but the wife is out of town, so the husband has to wait until she’s home before he can move on to the next episode. This seems so restrictive to me. I do what I want. I’m a loner. A rebel.

However, the very negative side of my solo-watching is that there’s no one to discuss things with, especially in real-time. I want someone to look at and say “holy frak” when things start getting crazy. And I want long discussions about people and places and things that are happening. I find myself searching out year-old discussion boards and reading through comments, just to get my fix. It’s a dilemma.

I’m always sad to finish a good TV series, even though finishing it means I can get back to actually focusing on things other than making time to watch TV.

*

Couple of song-related observations: have you listened to the lyrics of “Here Comes Santa Clause”? It mixes God and Santa all up in an interesting way.

Last night we were doing our yoga poses to Silent Night and then saying Namaste. Mixing East and West like this is jarring to me, although the teacher is more about feel-good mystical Oprah-esque type affirmations, I think, than concern about what fits. Take whatever makes you feel good and mix it all together to find your path. Blech.

One of my favorite lyrics from a Christmas song: “from Pennsylvania folks are traveling down to Dixie’s sunny shores”—mostly because this line perfectly describes what I do every year.

(Do you know what the next line is without looking?)

Open the Wells

So, remember what you were doing last year at this time?

I was sitting at work (old job) trying not to freak out about the election that was happening. I had already voted, but was nervously reading what I could on the internet and thinking about my nighttime plans. I went home in the dark and looked at exit polls until it was time to go watch the returns with my friends.

I also nearly got into a loud argument with my friend’s boyfriend’s sister about whether the Iraq war was the cause of the economic collapse (which it SO wasn’t, I’m sorry. I hate the war, but I also can’t put up with biased stupidity, be it liberal or conservative). I did back off, because I realized it wasn't going anywhere good. Plus we were both guests in someone else's home. But I was right.

*

Speaking of biased stupidity, I had to hide a Facebook friend the other day because she was posting crap. I don’t like hiding Facebook friends, but I do it for the sake of my blood pressure. I do hate political arguments on Facebook, but I also hate misinformation, so I want to go on there and correct it – and that LEADS to political arguments. Vicious cycle.

I intend to send a letter to Facebook requesting the ability to hide status updates based on words contained therein.

For example: Hide all posts from [Name of friend] containing the word [Palin] or [Obama]

*

I think I should write a novel this month, since it’s National Novel Writing Month. If I start tomorrow, I only have to write 2000 words a day, which should be too hard, right? I have an idea, but fleshing it out is the hard part.

*

I’m listening to hymns as I type this and enjoying it immensely. My birth plan, should I ever have a child, is to go into a dark room and be completely alone. I used to say this as a joke, but now I take it more seriously because a) I realized that’s a legitimate response and birth plan, and b) I really, really like being left alone when I am in pain. But I would listen to hymns.

*

Last night I put on The Biggest Loser and saw them doing their weigh-in on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Congrats, Lincoln, you saved the Union at the cost of 620,000 lives . . . so the morbidly obese could weigh themselves in Washington, D.C. The people who produce that show must take themselves awfully seriously, is all I’m saying.

*

If the Yankees are going to win this World Series, they need to do it tonight. There’s no reason to have a Game 7 and mess up my Thursday evening TV plans if the Phillies are going to lose.

Yoga wedding birthdays

I take yoga a few times a week, and I like it, even though one of my teachers bugs me just a little bit. She reads “inspirational” quotes that are cheesy and a bit clichéd and her voice has weird inflections, like she doesn’t quite understand what she’s saying.

Anyway, if you’ve ever done yoga you know that there is usually eastern-ish new age music playing in the background as you breathe and move through your poses. But last night my teacher threw on the old school stuff – and I really do mean old school. We were doing our poses to Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and Pachebel’s Canon in D, which do nothing but make me feel that I’m at a wedding, watching bridesmaids come slowly down the aisle. (And a very specific wedding – it’s outdoors, and there’s a string quartet or harp playing – a movie kind of wedding.) Even if you don’t recognize the names of these songs, if you listen to them, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll think “wedding!”*

So I wonder what Bach or Pachebel would thing if they saw us doing these ancient Eastern poses to their very Western Civ. type music. I kind of like the juxtaposition, but somehow it doesn’t feel quite right.

----

And even though summer is only officially over as of 9/21, things have definitely changed around here. There’s always something that happens at the end of August that makes everything feel different. 8 PM suddenly feels like the middle of the night instead of the end of the evening. You can almost feel things roll over.

----

This is probably my last post until my birthday! The last post while I’m 30. It’s been a good year, a relaxing year in a lot of ways. I’ve stopped thinking about how old I am, and about expectations. There are no expectations for 30-somethings, really. Everyone just figures out their own life as they go along.

Last year the economy collapsed right before my birthday—the week OF my birthday, as a matter of fact. This year things are much quieter - and that's good. Worldwide economic destruction is NOT the kind of birthday excitement I'm looking for. This year I'm going to a wedding on my birthday, which is much more palatable: drinks and dancing, whoo-hoo!

----

*And even though they’re so overused, I can’t help but love them anyway. I think I’d use them in my own wedding—they're just really beautiful pieces of music. My musicians would probably want to kill themselves though. Canon in D? Seriously. Talk about hacky clichés.

Indiana Wants Me

I’m in Indiana this week to reconnect with the co-workers, attend some planning meetings, and just generally remind everybody that yes, I still work here. It’s fun to be here for a week, unlike my last six week stint, which just got really LONG. It’s nice to be able to go home on Saturday.

Tonight is the first night the sun’s really been shining since I arrived, and it’s freaking amazing . . . light until after 9 PM. I think the official sunset time is 9:12 or so these days, and my boss said in late June there will be light in the sky at 10:30. The state just started observing Daylight Savings Time, and my boss, a lifelong resident of Indiana, believes that’s just TOO much light time. Or at least, too much in the evening.

Speaking of my boss, tonight I had dinner with her and her husband, who are just a couple of hilarious nerds. They didn’t get married until they were in their late 30s, and they don’t have any kids, and they crack each other up with cynicism and goofiness. Since I am also a cynical and goofy nerd, I like hanging out with them. I made some jokes tonight that genuinely made them laugh, too, which always makes me pleased. My lifelong goal is to be the kind of person who cracks other people up—both fun AND funny—but I’m so not there yet.

However, today was a good day for my joke-to-flop ratio.

My boss also told me about sporcle.com, which is a trivia site full of categories, and all you do is type answers that fit within those. It’s so addicting. Can you name all the people, places, and things in the song We Didn’t Start the Fire? I would’ve said I could get most of them, but HA! Sporcle proved me wrong.

I’m done blogging! Off to play more Sporcle . . . .

Bloggy

Wha?!

Yes, I'm updating my blog. Does anyone even check this thing anymore?

Honestly, I don't know what happened. I turned 30 and I quit blogging. I felt like I didn't have anything to say anymore, but then I found out I do and I've just been suppressing it.

So I'm back, baby!

And here's what's happened . . .
--New president! Super exciting. Although less exciting now that we're in the thick of it than it was when it actually happened. Election day (and night) were so great, though. I can go back and watch footage whenever I'm feeling down and it makes me feel better.

--New job! Stuff started going to hell at my old job, my homegirls were both laid off, and I decided to get out before they forced me out. I'm lucky I found a job, quite frankly, and I'm surprised I've made still employed through the Great Recession (so far). So I'm still writing, and I'm writing things that are COMPLETELY OPPOSITE of what I was writing before. This writing is better for my conscious, but the old writing was fun, I must admit. (I've explained this to several people, and they always ask if I wrote porn at my old job. I don't know why saying it this way makes people think porn, but there was no porn involved.)

--Bad knee! I had to go to Indiana for job training and ended up dislocating my kneecap, which I like to tell people about because it skeeves them out. My kneecap was on the SIDE OF MY LEG, people! But it's all mostly recovered and I can almost bend it back as far as it used to go.

--New glasses! You turn 30 and your body falls apart. My eyes seem to be progressively getting worse; I'm fighting back.

Other than that, well, things remain the same. And I'm in local coffee shop that plays mostly songs I have on my iPod, which is weird and disconcerting. Also, every time I turn into the parking lot at the gym, I hear the new song by Plain White T's (not Delilah). This has happened THREE times and I never hear it at any other time . . . and I go to the gym at different times.

Strange.

Pop

There are two songs that always put me a good mood. 1) Katrina and the Waves “Walkin’ on Sunshine” –my favorite sing-along song and 2) Follow Through, by Gavin DeGraw. It’s actually playing right now, from a co-workers desk, and I just felt a burst of can-do-it spirit and creativity while sitting here at my desk . . . it’s totally because of that song. I think because I associate that song with walking home from my old job, on a day when I was feeling optimistic and everything was just great. It was probably September or October, and I don’t think it was sunny—in fact, I think it was starting to rain. But for whatever reason, life was good. Or maybe I am bipolar.

One thing I never mentioned here was seeing “Vantage Point” at the theater while in Florida. I’ve never seen a movie that I just FORGOT about faster than that thing. (That’s the movie that keeps showing “the President” getting shot from various vantage points of people in the crowd). Thing is, they keep rewinding it to show the same scene more than once—people in the theater began to audibly groan when they realized we’d have to see it again. And it’s just blah. Boring, ridiculous, tons of plot holes. I didn't care about any of the characters—and actively disliked ones that I was "supposed to" care about. I couldn’t stand Forrest Whitaker or that little girl he kept chasing around. She was eight years old and she couldn’t stay out of the middle of the busy, traffic-filled streets?

Anyway, don’t waste your time or money. We discussed the movie for about 2 minutes in the car headed home and then I completely forgot I’d even seen it. Most movies I see I at least think about a few times the next day. This one? Not once. It’s earns my award for “most forgettable movie ever.”

Bits and Pieces

Mel Comes Through (again)

Today one of my co-workers came into the area where I sit with two of my homegirls and asked if any of us could think of a really cheesy friendship song. And of course I had one ready immediately. The homegirls laughed at me, because I was all over it. It was like I’d just been waiting for someone to ask that question. I'm always waiting for stuff like that.

The song? Friends are Friends Forever, of course. Cheesiest song EVAH. You can see Michael W. Smith singing it here. And yet, even though I laugh at its cheesiness, it still reminds me of 8^th grade graduations and last nights at camp and people moving away while I was in middle school. Those first few notes take me back there, and there's a poignant element that even the cheese can't completely erase.

"Patronizing Men" Episode #256
I despise being patronized more than anything in life. Tonight at the gym I was on the elliptical, doing my thing, and this big guy (muscled, I mean) carrying around his gallon of water and energy drink, climbed on the one right next to me. There were others, not next to me, that were available, but that didn’t matter to him. I finished my workout—3 miles, 40 minutes, 500 calories (standard fare for me)--and climbed off. He gestured at me to remove my headphones since he was going to say something.

“Were you seeing your heart rate on here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. I never really care about that.

“Well, that was actually my heart rate you were seeing, so you if you’re counting your calories you probably want to deduct about 20%.”

I just looked at him. Why would HIS heart rate be showing up on MY elliptical? Unless there was some kind of censor?

He noticed my confusion. “Were you watching your calories?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they were based on my heart rate.”

By this point I was just annoyed. “Yes, but they were about right for me.”

“Did you see your heart rate on there?”

“Yes, but I never pay attention to that. My calories were about the same as they always are.”

“Are you sure?” This killed me. Am I sure? Are you kidding me? I’ve been doing this for over a year. It’s always the same—I know what I’m doing. Why does this guy think he has to advise me? Is this some kind of ill-advised pickup line? Cause the one way to completely turn me off forever is to be a patronizing douche.

“Yep.” I gave him a fake smile and went to the locker room.

Weather Elements
It’s snowing and sleeting and generally being difficult weather-wise. The MINI is actually okay in the snow, I’ve decided, because even if the back end slides around, well, there isn’t really a back end. It’s just like a big block, and that makes it harder to lose control. So I should be good. I managed to get around town today just fine.

it's never easy and it's never clear

RIP, Dan Fogelberg.

Catching up

I got an iPod this weekend. A 4G Nano, the new kind with the little screen. I decided it was time, since I had a $50 Circuit City gift card, a lot of songs on iTunes that I'm fond of, and just because. I'm far from an early adopter, but I always get around to new technology SOMETIME.

Here is a photo. The 4G only comes in silver:

Blah, blah, blah

I'm running through my iTunes looking for songs for a CD for my dad. I have some that he will like because he knows them, and a few that he'll like because I'm good at selecting songs for people (I think).

But the most fun is to sit and look at all the songs I have that just wouldn't work. Trying to imagine my dad's reaction if I gave him a CD with Arcade Fire, Imogen Heap, that song Laid, some James Blunt, and most of the rest of my collection. Which I am in love with, because I've been careful to choose only songs I really like for my iTunes. (Should I be embarrassed that I just admitted to having James Blunt on my iTunes--when I only have songs I really like?)

Anyway, I like to think that if my kids present me with a CD (or playlist, or whatever the kids are listening to) when I'm fifty, that I'll be ready to listen. But probably not. I'm guessing it's going to seem like a bunch of electronic noise. Or Top 40 nonsense. I mean, currently I hear "Buy you a Drink" and that lip gloss song way more than I need to.

People seem really desperate to find subjects for their songs--so desperate that they're narrating their night out at the bar or elaborating on their cosmetics in order to find lyrics. And I was about to get all condemning about that, and then I realized that kind of stuff makes up most of my blog posts.

However, no one's paying me to write this thing. And very few people read it*.

And that's good, because this post makes absolutely no sense.

*(although I'm thrilled with the ones that do! Hi, everyone!)

Took a Long Time to Come

It's so nice out I can't even believe it's July. So cool, so breezy, so pleasant. I went for a walk tonight and WORE PANTS. This is why I live in PA and not Florida.

Today I mailed off my old passport so I can get my new passport. It made me sad, because the old one's got all kinds of awesome stamps (england, australia, etc) and I worry that in the next ten years I'm not going to be able to get equally awesome stamps. Anyone want to take a trip with me?

Annie Lennox's "Walkin' on Broken Glass" really makes heartbreak sound fun.

My parents found some old Savings Bonds today with my name on them--and they total about $1500. Score! Random money NEVER comes my way.

New old song I'm loving? The Zombies "This Will Be Our Year." Watch a cool home movie montage featuring this song here. (I have no idea whose home movies these are, but it all fits).

What's that again?

Everybody's got their misheard song lyrics. All the cliches, about "bathrooms on the right," and "'scuse me while I kiss this guy," but I never had trouble with those. Still, there are songs it took me years to get the right words to.

Elton John is a continual problem--accurin tablets instead of "vodka and tonics" in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Who knows what an accurin tablet is; I made it up in my brain. Granted EJ pronounces it "vodker," so it really is hard to understand.

Also, it took me years to figure out that EJ was laying the Tiny Dancer down on "sheets of linen."

Lately there've been a few others. I've been enjoying the Christina Aguilera song Ain't No Other Man since November, and I always thought the line was "tie me down to every bed" which is a little kinky, but whatever you're into, right? Curious one day, though, I googled the lyrics and discovered it's "talk me down from every ledge," which lends a whole other drama/suicide vibe to the song. I prefer the kink.

And most recently, Rihanna's latest song. I heard her singing it on TV and I kept thinking she was talking about an operetta. Which is really kind of intellectual, and I was impressed. Who sings about operettas these days? Way to educate today's youth, Rihanna.

But somewhere along the line I realized she was singing "under my umbrella." I like the way she says "um-ba-rella. " But I can't be blamed for thinking operetta. Seriously.

Maybe I could hug the fog, too

Today on the way home I heard Kiss the Rain, (live performance here), which is a weird song that enjoyed a brief period of popularity in late 1997. I remember driving around during Christmas Break my freshman year of college and hearing that song. I liked it better than My Heart Will Go On, which was much more popular and got more airplay. I still kind of like Kiss the Rain, even though its lyrics seem to suggest that the cure for loneliness is indeed to "kiss the rain." Which makes no sense at all.

(And when I searched for a link, I discovered that the singer is a chick! Who knew! I always thought it was a guy.)

So much time to make up

All day long I have had Wasted on the Way stuck in my head--this song by Crosby, Stills, & Nash.

When I was a kid, my mom played CSN and listened to their greatest hits a lot, and as a result I associate those songs with cleaning the house on Saturday morning and the smell of lemon Pledge. So I don't really feel all that fond of them. But Wasted on the Way is a new one for me, just like Southern Cross was a new one a few years ago, and I love them both.

Anyway, two years ago around this time I was having a lovely and exciting conversation with someone that later resulted in a not-so-happy ending. I blame myself for most of this--my own naivete and ridiculousness--but I was pretty depressed for awhile. That summer was not a good time--I was the most miserable I'd been in a very long time.

Which is so annoying to think about now. Why? Why did I waste all that time? I couldn't HELP it . . . had I been able to change my feelings I would've, but I cried and blogged almost every day (THAT blog has been long since deleted) and just generally spent most of my time moping.

That seems like so long ago. Two years, but really I can't imagine it anymore. I can't reconnect with those feelings, or even understand where they came from or what I was thinking. I only know that it sucked, and I'm really glad I'm not there anymore and probably never will be again. That particular heartbreak isn't the kind that can be repeated. (New kinds will always be popping up, though! Cheerful thought.)

I suppose that I shouldn't think of that time as wasted. I learned things and moved on and things are better now. I don't really regret it. But I can't help thinking that I could've been doing something better. Where were my friends? Why was I just lying around the house being miserable?

Oh, well. It's all just water underneath the bridge at this point. Which is what Wasted on the Way talks about . . . and now I've come back to the reason I brought that song up in the first place. You should go find it. It's good.

All the Vampires

Last Friday, while trying on a pair of jeans, I stepped on a piece of a broken security tag laying on the dressing room floor. I don't know if you've seen how those things are put together, but one side is essentially a needle. And that's the side I stepped on. And it went up into my foot. Like an inch.

This didn't hurt as badly as you'd imagine. It hardly bled at all, and I just put some peroxide and a bandaid on it. The needle wasn't rusty. But now I'm convinced I'm getting tetanus. I feel a little achy--is that a symptom? I haven't looked the symptoms up on WebMD, because I'll definitely start thinking I have them.

I'm such a hypochondriac.

A couple of weeks ago at work, one of my coworkers was telling me about his leg pain. "Maybe you have a blood clot," I said. Which is something I totally would've said to Mike back in the day, and the kind of thing I think about all the time. But I forgot who I was talking to, and he just looked at me like I was insane. Later I heard him muttering about it. "A blood clot," he said, looking at me and shaking his head. "Who says that?"

And that reminds me of another work story, which has nothing to do with illness, but in which I looked like an idiot. One of the design girls had a small figure of Patrick, from SpongeBob, which expanded in water. She had expanded it, and then removed it from the water, and it hardened and shrunk.

Someone had written "I Love Horses" across Patrick's chest, and when Design Girl was showing it to me, she touched his chest. "He loves horses," she said.

"And his boyfriend, too." I added.

The girl holding Patrick and the other design girl in the cube just looked at me blankly.

I knew at that point that I just looked lame, but now I had to explain. "Like that song," I said. "Loves horses, and her boyfriend, too."

They got it then, but there was no point.

I hate when I try to be funny (or at least slightly amusing) and no one catches on.

Settle This, Please

Cast your votes now!

Most iconic:
1. President: Washington or Lincoln
2. Car Brand: Ford or Chevy
3. Song: "Yesterday" by the Beatles or "I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)" by the Rolling Stones
4. 20th Century Event: Pearl Harbor or the assasination of JFK

Tell me why.

Three things I don’t understand.

1) There is a giant billboard on my way home from the gym. On the billboard: a giant spoonful of corn. Corn kernels on a spoon. Along with a Cracker Barrel logo, and underneath, the name of the shopping center where this particular Cracker Barrel is located.

My question: why?

I spent too much time thinking about this tonight. Is there any significance to a giant spoonful of corn? Any other possible meaning than what is there? And if there isn’t, I don’t get it.

Is a giant spoonful of corn supposed to intrigue me? Supposed to draw me to Cracker Barrel? I like corn. Most people do. But I’m not going to drive across town to eat corn at Cracker Barrel.

What is the deal with the corn? Why corn? Why?

2) The lyrics to John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change.”

I’ve never thought too much about this song . . . it’s just one of those things you hear on the radio, but lately the lyrics have been bugging me. At first I thought it was meant as a rebuke to “my generation.” Like we’re just sitting around, waiting for the world to change, when we should be doing something. But I don’t think it is. It could be a rebuke to the people in power now, for not doing things right. But I’m thinking it’s just a statement about the way things are. And if that’s all it is, then I think it’s pretty dumb. I mean, saying we’re not doing anything because we don’t have power? What a cop-out. Does John Mayer really think that things will be different when people our age are running the government? Because really, I don’t think anything is going to change. If we are too lazy to do anything now, we’re not going to do anything later.

Stupid John Mayer.

3) Why According to Jim is still on the air.

Randomness IV

1. The fact that it’s 2007 continues to boggle me. I wrote ’07 today and just blinked at it for a minute. ’07? Really? I’m always this way about the sevens, though. It just seems so much later/older than 6. Seventeen is way older than 16. 27 is way older than 26. And 2007 is much later than 2006.

2. This stupid head cold continues to hang on. It’s been like two weeks. Today I was singing that song A Heart Full of Love from Les Mis, only I changed the lyrics to “A Head full of Mucus” which doesn’t really have the same effect (or rhythm). And is much more disgusting. But good grief, this is stupid.

3. Speaking of songs from Les Mis, I was looking up above lyrics for this post, and I started reading On My Own lyrics . . . a ridiculously sad song about unrequited love. As an example, here’s the last line:
I love him
I love him
I love him
But only on my own.
And then, on this particular site, under that, a note: “Thanks to feeling_horney@xxxxxxx.com for the corrections."

Frankly, I’m kind of surprised that anyone with this email address would a) use it to send song correction lyrics, and b) would care what the lyrics to On My Own really are.

4. Since the blog contest ended, my blog’s average daily visits have dropped off considerably. Sad.

Mel has the answers

Since I made my post about “baked a toast to innocence” I can’t believe how many people have found my blog that way. Seriously, every day or so someone is googling this phrase, and my blog is at the top of the first Google page. I never realized this was such a common misinterpretation of these lyrics. I guess you could mistake “drank” for “baked,” but that makes no sense at all. We baked a toast to innocence? Although . . . toast is a food. So you could technically “bake” it.

If you want the real lyrics to this song, click here.

People have also found my blog many times by searching for “lovers in triangle not on square” which is a fortune I got last summer in a fortune cookie and posted about. That’s died down a bit, but that fortune must’ve spread across the country, because I kept getting hits from it. I didn’t know what it meant, and neither did many other people, apparently. So I looked it up.
From what I understand, basically “on the square” is kind of like “being on the level” or the “up and up.” Honest and aboveboard. So a triangle of lovers, unless they’re in some kind of open relationship (and I have a post about THAT here), are not really being honest with each other.

But this is not a fortune. It’s a statement and an attempt at wittiness.

Anyone have any other questions about bits of random trivia and/or song lyrics? I’ll try to find the answers.