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A version of me has been here before. Not this version. |
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This is my......bazillionth blog. Maybe it will last... Wish in one hand...  
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"The Soundtrack of Your Life"  It has gotten less easy and it is only February 7th. However, I look at the list of the songs I played most last year and I am less than inspired. I don’t have a list of songs I wish were on there or think should be, but I look at the list and think - really? This is the list? But it is what it is and the nitty gritty truth applies across the board. These are the songs on the list. I went drinking with my sister this evening. She has not lived here in more than a decade. Her husband was in the navy and she’s been everywhere. We did NOT get along for the majority of our lives but her life isn’t as great as she used to think it was and so she has lowered her pedestal a bit. Plus - I have that good ole’ shit moms pound into their first daughter’s heads incessantly - I am the big sister. So no matter how much I have disliked her in the past I will still always do sisterly shit for the brat. Drinking on her dime is not exactly a hardship. It is a good way to get away from Husband A for a little bit, and honestly being with my sister makes me do things that are more like me, but generally kept under wraps around the people in my town. On the way home one of the songs from my list played. An old one too so….fate has dictated that I choose it. Remember the fucking Fugees?! I don’t like Lauryn Hill that much but I do dig some Wyclef. And while it is a good damn song, the best part of this whole thing is that fool in the background going, “One time.” “Two times.” I like the tempo changes, Wyclef, and the fact that we all know at least one person who fucking strums our pain. And since it was written in response to hearing a song and the reaction that it invoked - I think it definitely tracks with the theme. I would use the Roberta Flack version because it is good -but it is less funky and has no “One time.” |
| "The Soundtrack of Your Life" I resisted for a very long time. I tried. But I DID in fact join the You Should Probably Leave bandwagon there toward the end of its recent radio run. It’s a sexy one. The sound of it makes me happy in a…someone makes me feel desirable kind of way. And that is literally all there is to it. It is country which I don’t normally enjoy - though I know, I know it's a bluesy country. And country songs of any type are not ones I generally describe as sexy. But that is the case here. The year of nitty-gritty honesty would demand some clarification though. Because if the only thing about this song was that it was sexy then I’d have been on its ass right from go. I’d have driven the bandwagon. I imagine that I started to listen to it when I actually listened to it. I'm sure the state of my failing marriage made it feel emotional to me. Some days probably sad and some days probably …wistful. A lot of days probably pissed off. Regardless, it is a good, sexy song - and here it is |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" I have had the longest day in Earth’s history, so I am going with an easy one. A light one. One that represents fun. When Kid A was about five years old she saw an episode of Carpool Karaoke, in which James pulls up to a stop light and the car full of people next to him get excited and sing along as well. From that moment on she wanted that to happen to her. She wanted to pull up to a light and the people beside us be overtaken by the vibe and start singing with her. As the type of parent that indulges their weird quirky desires at any cost - I too wanted this for her. We tried and tried and tried. We pulled up to countless lights bumpin' like a Snoop Dogg video. We would do any song we liked or liked singing but we had some that we felt might entice our car neighbors. Things like, Hold On by Wilson Phillips, Rebel Yell or White Wedding by Billy Idol. Some Heart. Songs that make you wanna sing loud and emotionally. We tried for over a decade. We had ZERO takers. Once we had a dude in his twenties appreciate our performance but he did not join in. Though I will say - I certainly didn’t just name any songs a 22-year-old would necessarily know…and I am not about to either. Last year what had grown into one of our heart’s deepest desires was finally fulfilled. After eleven years. I will never forget it or how my daughter was suddenly five years old again, and it couldn’t have been a better song. And it was just some middle-aged man who we assumed was not even going to look in our direction. It was amazing - but it was also a stop light so it was pretty fucking short. |
| "The Soundtrack of Your Life" I decided to get pseudoserious and I used one of those playlist analyzer things to see what songs I actually listened to the most last year. Now I am all excited. This one? No, that one. No….this one? Ohhhh yeah, that one. You know when you discover a song and something about it touches something about you in a way that demands you repeat it an unnerving number of times, without tiring? It doesn’t even matter why. But I suppose I could try to articulate it. It took me a full dozen years to hear this song, but when I bring it up it isn’t like people know it well enough to be shocked. But I am sure that is due to the caliber of the people I surround myself with. It puts me in a place of nighttime campfires in an old western. Like a by-the-book standard western. Perhaps there is someone lying on the other side of the fire, feet crossed, cowboy hat tipped over his face as he sleeps. That kind of western. Some parts of it feel like saloon music from that same movie. Then he starts singing. The voice combined with that lazy feeling of dusty noon showdowns just soothes my soul in a way that is hard to describe. It isn’t that I love cowboys, though I do. It isn’t because I love the Old West, though I do. It certainly isn’t that I love country music, because I do not. But it is more that pieces of my soul that are so innate to my own being that were I to be reincarnated a thousand times, they would be there every single time - those pieces see something recognizable in the feeling of that time. The aura of the era. |
| "The Soundtrack of Your Life" I said I was going to work backward through the year but I lied. At some point last year Kid A and I had a…spirited debate…with someone regarding Axl Rose. A debate easily summed up by saying two things - I raise kick-ass children who appreciate things beyond their own little generations. And that I apparently hulk out when someone thinks the current Axl Rose is the right Axl Rose. Cuz lets be real - if someone says Axl Rose and you picture anything from any era other than the glorious hairband era that produced Appetite for Destruction then you have missed a class in the school of life. THAT is Axl Rose. When you are wondering if you will see the red bandana or if he used a can of Aqua Net. When his V lines and treasure trail were….there. When he could do the often imitated but never duplicated neck move because…he had a neck. What goes out on stage now needs a desiccant. Do not speak to me as if you understand anything about Guns N’ Roses if you only know them now. Slash went solo, Axl turned into a puffer fish….Welcome to the Jungle, We’ve got Rascal Scooters and denture cream. Flashback to this choice’s origin story….. This debate spurred on the very first sorting ever of my Spotify playlist which consists of 791 songs. This is a whole other issue since it had cemented itself in my mind and once I sorted it, even sorting it back….it isn’t in the same ass fucking order and my regret is palpable every time I open that shit. But - once sorted I had extreme focus on all things GNR for quite some time. I was in my teens when Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion were released. I am a hair band fan for sure, but a lot of them…presented rebellion. Back then, Guns N’ Roses seemed like they perpetrated rebellion. And even today when I look back at all of them, I still wonder why the rest of them didn’t use better conditioner. If Axl Rose was the hair in your hair band it sets a really fucking high bar. Listen - I got perms with the rest of the world - it didn’t have to look like a horse might wander up to munch on it. (And no - Slash was not the hair. C’mon, Slash was the hat, maybe even the silence.) They have tons of great songs … and I even like November Rain. But my very favorite is from Use Your Illusion II. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. I mean shit - I am listening to it right now while I type this and it is such prime Axl. Every stereotypical Axl Rose noise that you can think of he does in this song. And it kicks ass. If 3:54 to 4:15 doesn’t make you wanna tease your bangs then there just may be a glass ceiling to our friendship. As I was previewing my entry to make sure I embedded the shit right - I am a double-double checker with that stuff….Kid A walked by and asked if I was writing something about Guns N’ Roses. I said yes that it was about the music of my life and she said it was not a good example. That if anything it was the exception that proved the rule of my musical tastes. She isn’t wrong… So, let it be said that I am a straight from the ghetto hip hop rap girl. Late 80’s hair bands indeed are the only music I can tolerate that even comes close to metal. I would be a fucking amazing metal head though. The music literally makes me mad. Raises my anger level exponentially - instantly. Actually works up the desire to explode rage, which I already love to do. Considering I idle at “you wouldn’t like me if I’m angry”.... constantly being in any elevated state isn’t fun for anyone. P.S. Kid A was on the right side of the debate of course - she too wants people who don’t understand that they don’t understand - to know that they don’t. |
| Today is my birthday. Less young, less happy, less fulfilled, less of all the things. More years, less shit. On the plus side - I got tacos, cinnamon rolls, copped a buzz, and was even able to sit gently in the satisfaction of getting shit done. I also got out of a celebration with my parents and sister which is all I ever want…to not do that. Celebrating things with my mother is a blog post on its own - that I am certain isn’t too far off. My house is sitting under a cloud of dysentery or a 13th-century plague. Something terrible - something straight out of every single mother and wife everywhere’s worst nightmares. And I am not even good at that. Mothering sick people, be they children or husbands, is not my jam. I find myself unable to not ask them how they don’t see me powering through. Telling them that life goes on, that sometimes we do shit even when we don’t feel well. That shit might fly when they have runny noses but it feels extra mean when they are actually sick. In Husband A’s case, I suspect it more than feels extra mean. "The Soundtrack of Your Life" I am gonna work backward here and in December (who am I kidding, starting in November) Kid B and I listened to this on repeat. There is no musical list of my life - no matter the theme - that would not include a Crooner. What is it about some Rat Pack that is so transportative? The world feels black and white with martini dripping off its edges. You can love you a little Harry Connick Jr or Michael Buble (and I do) but the truth is always going to be that they are facsimiles of something a little bit sharper, clearer, easier, and better. “Sounds like Frank,” “Reminds me of Sammy,” ….that kinda says it. And what it says is that you should be listening to Frank and Sammy. (Admittedly there are three more Rat Pack members, however soundtrack of MY life means I am going to reference my two favorites.) We love this song. We love it. We love the one single stutter lyric, it is our favorite part. We love the variation at the end of the chorus that trips up everyone except for us. And man do we fucking get down on spelling out the merriment. We switch from like….private dicks who frequently end sentences with…”see?” but have broken out into song…to chorus line ladies whose jazz hands cannot be contained and have spread to our shoulders (we are generally in the car.) I know the forum instructions are all.. Don’t just say things like, “It's a great song, I love it.” But I have to say that if there was going to be an entry on the soundtrack of my life that could have been summed up in such a way, to me - it is this one because…. Man I fucking love this song. Totally linking the version with the cartoon Frank and singing elves. Why the H-E-double L not? |
| Duuuuude. Someone somewhere has cast a Shakespearean style plague upon my house. I am finally better but it only serves to highlight my terrible, terrible bedside manner. But I live in one of those many houses where only husbands and kids are allowed to be sick. I wrote this Soundtrackers entry yesterday and then literally fell asleep on the couch with my fingers on the keyboard. However, the Soundtracker challenges are usually my very favorites so I am gonna post this shit anyway. "The Soundtrack of Your Life" I started thinking yesterday about what actually makes up the soundtrack of my life, with a theme of what I have been listening to over the past year, and in a haze of fever dreams and the ebbs and flows of that especially surreal semi-sleep, the answer was revealed to me. As I lay there and Husband A watched television rather than...oh, I dunno...parent or take care of their sick mother...what he was watching would permeate my sickness like a thick heavy fog. It would soak in after a few seconds of delay and cover my thoughts. For ....ever...Husband A and I have watched and rewatched and rewatched and rewatched Top Gear. And I mean ....it can play for 48 hours straight at this house before a couple of hours break for something dumb like an Ohio State game. (Husband A would hate it if I didn’t go….O-H…..) We can quote it, we can laugh at the same ass shit as last time, and we can even see tiny shit we haven't seen in the previous thousand viewings. Am I a car girl? HAHAHA. Not even remotely. I don't give a single fuck about cars. Just don't care. Have I learned many many things from Top Gear? Without question. Do they make me care about cars? Nope. But is there something about it as a whole, including the car parts? Fuck yes there is. WAIT! If anyone is reading this and thinking I mean that shoddy wannabe American version then shame on you. A plague upon your house this time. If there is no Jeremy, James, and Richard...that shit isn't fucking Top Gear. So, a clear entry on the soundtrack to my life is the opening music to Top Gear. I couldn't even fathom a guess how many times I have heard it in the last year. Whatever outrageous number I guessed would be found lacking. I am gonna link to the coolest version first. I heard the nasty shit on the radio once and realized it was a real song. I didn't even know it had words and went on past the 17 seconds or whatever. But here is that too. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 3730 January 25, 2025 Snow can change the way light, shadows, and contrast appear. For example, snow can create a beautiful contrast between golden ornamental grasses and a blue sky. Your thoughts on snow... I love the snow. Currently, in my area of the world we are emerging from a blanket of snow. We even got snowed in the house for two days. Love the kind of snowed in where you open a door and are confronted with eight inches of packed snow at your feet. Glorious. To me snow represents everything my mind is not but strives to be. An all-encompassing quiet, stillness, brightness, softness, slowing…and yet able to build. Plus – the visual aesthetic of snowflakes in the air is so pleasing to me. Last week Kid B turned 11. Eighteen days before that Kid A turned 17. In six days, I will turn 46. This time of year is often a season of change at my house. Or at least it has been for the past 11 years. All three of us are at life stages where we can become a new thing and hopefully this year we can do it. Hopefully it is finally time. I think many people would be spending this time of year floating in that state of emotion that is both sad and warm, thinking fondly of when their children were young and realizing how long ago that really was. I have some of that. But I have more of a different thing. A quiet introspection that is less pleasant. How much of my life I now file as a waste of time, of energy, of love. How little may be left to construct what I have wanted all along and how different that would be forced to look. How dissatisfied I am with what I turned out to be, what I ended up dong with my life. I am also under no illusions that I have been a great mother. I used to hate when my mom would say “I did my best” and I still kind of hate it but, but I reserve a small percentage for surface understanding. I get why one would say that, I get that feeling of knowing you didn’t do the best but that you tried. I can say that as well. I feel like most people who say that they did their best know that is not true. I know it. Did I try? Yes. Did I try hard? Yes. Were there countless times I chose something selfish or lazy or lied to avoid something? Yes. Were there countless times that I knew right then in the moment that I wasn’t doing my best? Absolutely. Rewriting my parenting history is insulting to my children, even though they don’t understand that yet. No idea what words I will use when it is time, but they won’t be “I did my best” So then if I can’t help but get all whiny about no one blowing up balloons for my pity party, then let’s see if some worldly spirituality might turn it the fuck around. 46 can instead mean for me…. It represents the dream of the believer in the Koran. The Jewish people were constructing the sanctuary for 46 years in the Bible. And numerically the value equals Adam. Combining the meanings of 4 and 6 would make a person who can create a secure family base. In guardian angel world they’d be telling me to keep focusing on my life and soul’s purpose. ….so, most of that is about new beginnings…identifying them, building them, having them, maintaining them. And that fits right in with what I want to happen this year. (If I am being brutally honest – that is not what I expected to type. I was totally ready for something that did not align with my current state of mind. I am pleasantly surprised and…. surprisingly motivated.) But alas…I am still going to end this on the worst note possible – I have again run out of corn dogs. Not for the first time since I last spoke of corn dogs. |
| Time for some accountability talk. And part of that would definitely be recognizing that I have to break out of the thinking rut I have laid down and gotten comfortable in. So, instead of just acknowledging shit I am going to frame it as what I wish I were. Slip some positive affirmation The Secret type manifestation up in there. It is only 9 am and it has been a fucking day already. Some mornings the first thing out of my mouth is something super duper cunty to Husband A. And while this will sound bad - that is not what I am saying needs to change. I fully believe that he is not in a position to “deserve” not to hear shit. Plus I definitely have some….oh you won’t go, let’s see what I can do about that…..built in there. And I still think that is true - if someone won’t leave then I don’t know why I should continue making it comfortable for them to stay. However….. there is a much pettier, lazy, selfish part that I want to be changed. I want to stop smoking so I can avoid the garage and therefore not interact with the man. There never has to be that moment of environmental reset that seems to reset to shitty. There won’t be any unearned repercussions on Kid A and Kid B, and he (we) won’t have turned the remains of my day into an apocalypse story. Duuuuuude. I totally did NOT frame that in the positive way I said I would. I even forgot in the span of a double space and time check that I was going to do that and only know upon a reread. Ugh, and now I don’t want to. But I guess that’s the problem isn’t it. I want to be a non-smoker who wakes up and both unemotionally recognizes and limits my exposure to things that negatively alter my entire day. That really didn’t go the way I planned. Note - to everyone truly bothered by the title of my contest entry…..sleep easy, I did what you wanted.  . This time. Blog Harbor Prompt# 2 The World Economic Forum has found the average adult will outlive their savings by approximately a decade. What are your best tips for spending and saving? Not exactly the spirit in which the prompt was issued but all that jibber jabber everywhere about making blog posts your own…. If I died right now halfway through this word I would have outlived my savings. So I don’t have tips. And if I did - they, clearly, would not be tips you would want to follow. Cash burns a hole in my pocket and honestly - my bank card gets pretty fucking hot in there. But it isn’t….foolish shit. Extra money never makes it all the way down the list to me to be extra and even if it did - I go crazy and get like…the more expensive, larger pack of razor blades. Big dreams and all that. Kid A and Kid B clearly get needs met first. I would need to have tons of money to meet a large list of longtime unmet needs before I would have any to save. |
| I got corn dogs. There is no corn dog nor hot dog emoticon. |
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