MY TOP 40 SONGS IN 2007

I’ve hurriedly and haphazardly (how else do I do anything?) compiled my list of favorite music for the year. The songs are in no particular order and are not all current. Some are older songs that I’ve only just discovered this year. I’m constantly digging around for music and sometimes find it in weird, obscure places. Consequently, I’m either listening to old, older or oldest music and sometimes (freakishly often, as a matter of fact) even find things before the rest of the world even hears it or falls in love with it and makes it famous. So there is a bit of a mix here but it’s most of my favorites that I’ve been listening to over the past twelve months.

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• Dashboard ~ Modest Mouse
• Feist ~ I Feel It All
• Llorando (Crying) ~ Rebekah Del Rio
• Living in Poverty ~ Raggy
• Roscoe ~ Midlake (Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve version)
• No Key, No Plan ~ Okkervil River
• A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger ~ Of Montreal
• Cooler Then ~ Slim Dunlap
• Our Lady in Havanna ~ The Essex Green
• Heartbeats ~ The Knife
• The Leaver’s Dance ~ The Veils
• Hoodlum Jacket ~ Van Go
• Bridge and Tunnel ~ The Honorary Title
• Fidelity ~ Regina Spektor
• Bouncing Off Clouds ~ Tori Amos
• That Flying Feeling ~ Crash Test Dummies
• Song for a Winter’s Night ~ Sarah McLachlan
• I Wanna Be Adored ~ Stone Roses
• Staring at the Sun~ TV on the Radio
• Home ~ Lou Barlow
• Banquet ~ Bloc Party
• Feeling of Falling ~ Bonnie Raitt
• Not Just Words ~ The Black Heart Procession
• Black Horse and the Cherry Tree ~ KT Tunstall
• Silver Lining ~ Rilo Kiley
• A Favor House Atlantic ~ Coheed and Cambria
• Smokin’ the Edge ~ Dabrye
• If You Live ~ Matt Pond PA
• Strokin’ ~ Clarence Carter
• Nothing But Green Lights ~ Tom Vek
• Fire ~ SN
• Closer ~ Matt Pond PA
• Are You Alright? ~ Lucinda Williams
• Grand National ~ John Butler Trio
• Better Part of Me ~ House of Fools
• The Storm ~ Stevie Nicks
• The Shining ~ Badly Drawn Boy
• White Trash Beautiful ~ Everlast
• *The Good, the Bad and the Queen ~ Album of the Same Name
• *Eyes Open ~Snow Patrol
• *Neon Bible ~ Arcade Fire
• *Boxer ~The National
• *Ga Ga Ga ~ Spoon
• *Under the Blacklight ~ Rilo Kiley
• *Musicforthemorningafter ~ Pete Yorn
• I Can’t Think Anymore ~ Linda and the Dead Brain Cells

*Entire Album
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REALLY. I’M FINE.

Didn’t mean to alarm anyone or seem overly dramatic.   This is something I experience every now and then. And not by choice, obviously. I attribute it to several factors. These days (meaning the past couple of years) a very big part of it is age and hormones. Which is something I just have to work through, not being willing to lean on over-prescribed drugs with lots of nifty-swifty side effects. Another factor is that being a Pisces brings with it a whole big complicated bag of tricks, not the least of which has endowed me with a dual nature (the two fish simultaneously swimming in opposite directions). Which brings us to the other thing that I like to blame, which is one of the more annoying and frustrating thing about being me… And that is what I’m going to try and explain in the coming days. I may have touched on these subjects in the past to one degree or another. Bear with me, I’m basically using this page as a place to sort out my thoughts and work through this. I’m not what you would call an organized thinker and I’ve always had better luck emptying out my head in the form of writing. Keeps things from getting so jumbled up in my head. Forgive me if I end up sounding like a broken record. I have to keep doing this until I get it right. Please don’t feel the need to comment. Unless you know me better than I know myself, there really isn’t a lot you could say that I haven’t already thought of or don’t already know. My brain and emotions have a mind of their own and don’t usually pay much attention to me (their best friend) let alone anyone else. Yeah, I realize that this is part the problem. So read along if you like or come back when you think I’ve had enough recovery time.

Tomorrow I think I’ll post my favorite music of 2007.

On the upside, the JuJu Clan is here and I’m lovin’ it. What a delightful bunch they are

DEJA VU, ALL OVER AGAIN

Oh, man. Here we go again. I was afraid of this. (you probly should be too, now that I think of it…) I got that feeling again. What feeling is that, Miss Linda (or whatever you call me)? I hear you saying.

It’s that nagging feeling that lurks around in the background for months on end and when I get tired ignoring it and let my guard down, it jumps up and bites me in the a** grabs me and pulls me under. It’s a combination thing. Part restlessness, part discontent, part wanderlust and about ten other things all rolled into one. Each individual feeling is manageable and no cause for concern normally. Or in a normal person. But when it’s in me, all these feelings together, under the surface… when they commerge, (yeah, I know that’s not a word) it’s just too much for me to handle and I get crazy.

When I say crazy, I don’t mean insane. I mean like a circuit board on overload. Or a pressure cooker just before it blows. To say the feeling is disconcerting would be a gross understatement. To say it’s time for the men in the white jackets would be a gross overstatement. It’s more of a limbo kind of thing but the thought of just one more day or hour or minute in the state I find myself is just more than I think I can stand.

I rilly rilly hate to leave you hanging like this, but I had to get this out of my head or I would never get to sleep tonight. And if I don’t go to sleep right now, I won’t be worth a pint of anything tomorrow. So I’ll write more later.

(oh,btw, my header is the view through my kitchen window. i was messing with it and didn’t find time to change it… )

LOST IN SPACE…

… was one of my favorite TV shows when I was 10 or 11 years old.  It was on Wednesday nights which was my parents’ bowling night.  My five brothers and sister and I would be home with a sitter. I don’t recall what all of them would be doing, but I would be glued to the TV watching Mr. Smith perform all sorts of dastardly deeds and Robot, flailing arms, announcing various (albeit obvious) things such as “Alien approaching!  Warning, warning!”  I was torn between two crushes, one on the fully grown, adult and handsome character Don (who had the hots for the Smith’s eldest blonde shapely daughter, Judy) and Will, the adolescent red-haired and freckled son.  Weird combination, I know.  I must have been at some sort of cross-roads in my developing taste for the opposite sex.  Oddly enough, neither of those “types” won over…

I had no intention of sharing that, and have, only because I had started another post having to do with the Christmas I enjoyed so much.  I saved it in my drafts and now it is lost in space.

PD and I enjoyed a particularly lovely day with both of our families.  Lots of huggin’ and kissin’ and laughin’ and eatin’.  In a couple of days we’re gonna do it all over again when my brother from South Carolina arrives with his family AND Juju and her family will be here too.  I’m counting the minutes until I can get my hands on the grandkids. We’ve been having daily phone conversations about their visit and it has added to the excitement.

K, I’m outta here.  I got lots of cooking to do.  I also need to find the angel that I normally put on top of the tree.  Yes, I know its late to be topping off the tree, get off my back!  There is one there now, it’s just not the one I want there.  It’s the grandson’s Spiderman mask. (don’t ask…)  And it looks kind of trippy on an otherwise Victorian-ly decorated tree.

MY WISH FOR YOU

A MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS to you from the bottom of my heart.  May your day be filled with lots of love, big hugs and good food as you celebrate the wondrous birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Keep that bright star burning in your heart and imagine the joy and wonder the Three Wise Men must have felt to lay their eyes upon the little babe in the manger. 

May God Bless You and keep you in His gentle care, today and always. 

SHAWPIN’ WIT DA KID

Today my son Michael and I are braving the stores for some last-minute shawpin’. I’m totally lookin’ forward to this since he and I get to spend so little time together. He’s a rilly fun kinda’ guy and it promises to be a rilly good time.

‘Til then, if you’re out and about today, best of luck to you

GIMME THE MOON

Sit down here on my knee.

I’m not flirting with you.  I don’t have time for that.  And I’m also not fishing to find out what I can buy you for Christmas.  I just want to know what you might like to find under your tree on Christmas morning.  You needn’t be philosophical or idealistic or all humble-like.  Just tell us what would make you happy.

Me? Besides a big ol’ stack of iTunes gift cards, you mean?  I can’t think of anything.  But I’ll come back and post if I do.  Poor PD, shopping for me must be a treat, huh.

Oh, by the way, Santa reads here.

I DON’T GET IT

Dear Somebody,

Evidently you have admired the beautiful Christmas tree that we proudly display this time of year in our front yard for passersby to enjoy. It’s a lovely white tree, about six feet tall adorned with tiny twinkle lights in the most beautiful shade of blue. It’s not a vivid blue but a soft Caribbean blue. It was so out-of-the ordinary, that several years ago when PD and I spied it, we decided we had to have the thing. That same year we bought a bunch of blue outside decorations hoping that our house would look extra special pretty for Christmas. That tree was the focal point of our outside decorations. I can’t tell you how many people have approached me and expressed how beautiful they thought our tree was. Or, upon finding out where I live, would say, “Oh, you have that beautiful blue tree in your yard!”

This year when we unpacked the tree, arranged the branches and placed it near our front porch steps, we were disappointed to see that all the lights on several branches had burned out. PD painstakingly tested all the unlit lights one by one until he found a broken receptacle and repaired it. We fixed a couple of branches that were saggy and it looked like new and we only had a few sore and frozen fingers to deal with.

Now today we find that sometime during the night you tromped across our front yard, cut the tether ropes, pulled the stakes out of the frozen ground (not sure why you felt the need to do both) and cut through the tape that PD wound carefully around the plug into the extension cord to keep the connection dry and safe. And you took the tree. Our beautiful blue Christmas tree. Oh, yeah, and a great big chunk of our faith in humanity. I still can’t get my head wrapped around what might be wrong with a person who would steal a Christmas tree from someone’s front yard.

I guess you needed it more than we did.

Of course I know you’re not reading this and I’m not sure why I’m even taking the time to write this. I guess I was hoping for some kind of revelation or something to help me understand this. I’m not getting it still… If by some freak chance you were reading this, I’d just ask you to return it. PD and I would appreciate it.

Linda & PD

CAN I GET A HAND?*

Why am I giving myself a French Manicure today?  It’s called Avoidance, people!  I am the Master Mistress of it.  Oh yeah, and it looks so pretty.

*May be translated as Help or Applause.  I’ll take either

THE LIST IS GROWING

I found my card box.  What a relief that was.  We’d been doing some insulating in the attic last Spring and some things got moved around.  I have a Christmas corner in the attic.  I’m guessing the box got moved because it was labeled “GLASS-Fragile” and not “Christmas Cards.”  So it was in a different corner, perched on the old rocking chair that needs repaired that belonged to my Grandmother.  It’s a miracle that I even opened it.  Note to self: Relabel that blasted box before returning it to the attic.

So I’ve been writing out cards the past two nights and MUST finish them this weekend so I can mail them on Monday.  No pressure.  I’m finding that my address book is getting filled up with names and lists of cards sent and that is going to need to be replaced.  ‘Nother note to self:  Transfer list into a new address book. 

Progress in the kitchen is slow but steady.  PD is busting his butt to make it possible to at least move some things out of the dining room to make room for the pre-Holiday mess (gifts, wrapping paper, boxes, etc) that’s in the living room so we can put the tree up.  One little snag came up (or down, depending on your point of view) yesterday when a pipe in the ceiling (or floor if you happen to be in the upstairs bathroom) developed a small leak.  He did whatever it is that men do to leaking pipes and we’re hoping it seals itself.  One more note to self:  Say small prayer (so’s not to bother the Lord with insignificant crap ~no pun intended)  for leak to seal. 

So today I’m writing cards, hoping the impending snow/ice forecast holds off to afford me a quick shopping trip and maybe wrapping some presents and lending PD a hand here and there as needed.  Final (hahahaha) and most important note to self:  Stop now and then to remember why we’re celebrating this awesome Holiday.