Thursday, February 18, 2010
You can't stop wishin' if you don't let go...
I'm known to be a practical and rather cynical person. But there is an element of daydreamer in me. I think it comes out most when I'm feeling lost or not anchored. Drifting, maybe.
The last 2 months have been difficult. Reason doesn't matter... because honestly there is no real reason. Or at least in my mind there is no real reason. No acts of God, no death or destruction. Its work. Its life. Its all the little things that add up. Its the fact that 2009 worked its way up to a soul crushing crescendo and 2010 has provided no respite.... frankly, I'm just exhausted.
Anyway, my drifty flakiness manifests itself in silly ways... like imaging everyday moments are set to music. You know... the soundtrack of my life. The song that keeps playing over and over right now is Breakdown by Handsome Boys Modelling School (feat. Jack Johnson). Its melancholy but hopeful I guess? I listen to it almost everyday on my ride to and from work. Some days it brings comfort... sort of that feeling where you have worked really hard and you're mentally and physically tired and it feels so good to just sit down... but other days it makes me really sad.
I guess I imagine myself standing all alone while the whole world speeds past me. Feeling a little dizzy, a little sick. Unable to catch my breath. Not exhilerated but fearful and panicky. Unable to hold on. Getting ready to fall.
I've been searching for something for a really long time and maybe 2010 is the year to get down to brass tacks. I'm not quite sure that "it" is but lack of it leaves a ragged hole in me. I'm weary of living without it, whatever it is. Maybe I'm meant to improve something... whether its me... our circumstances... whatever. Or maybe I'm just on the verge of going crazy. Not hearing voices. Yet. So who knows.
♫ I hope this old train breaks down
So I can take a walk around and
See there’s no time you see 'cause
Time is just a melody
But the people in the streets
Walkin’ fast as their feet can take ‘em
I just rode through town
And though this window’s got a view
But the frame I’m lookin’ through
Seems to have no concern for now so for now
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Well this engine screams out loud
Centipede gonna crawl westbound and
I don't even make a sound 'cause
It’s gonna sting me to leave this town
And the people in the streets
That I’ll never get to meet
If these tracks don't bend somehow
And I got no time
that I got to get to where I don’t need to be
Said...
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Let me please break down
You know you can't stop nothin’
If you got no control
Over the thoughts in your mind
That you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothin’
But you don’t need to know’
Cause all the wisdom’s in the trees
Not the glass windows
You can't stop wishin’ if you don’t let go / I need this here
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know / Old train to breakdown
But you keep on rolling put the moment on hold / Oh please just
But the frames too bright with the blinds down low / Let me please breakdown
You know you can't stop nothin’ / I need this here
If you got no control
Over the thoughts in your mind / Old train to breakdown
That you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothin’ / Oh please just
But you don’t need to know’
Cause all the wisdom’s in the trees / Let me please breakdown
Not the glass windows
You can't stop wishin’ if you don’t let go / I need this here
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know / Old train to breakdown
But you keep on rolling put the moment on hold / Oh please just
But the frames too bright with the blinds down low / Let me please breakdown ♫
The last 2 months have been difficult. Reason doesn't matter... because honestly there is no real reason. Or at least in my mind there is no real reason. No acts of God, no death or destruction. Its work. Its life. Its all the little things that add up. Its the fact that 2009 worked its way up to a soul crushing crescendo and 2010 has provided no respite.... frankly, I'm just exhausted.
Anyway, my drifty flakiness manifests itself in silly ways... like imaging everyday moments are set to music. You know... the soundtrack of my life. The song that keeps playing over and over right now is Breakdown by Handsome Boys Modelling School (feat. Jack Johnson). Its melancholy but hopeful I guess? I listen to it almost everyday on my ride to and from work. Some days it brings comfort... sort of that feeling where you have worked really hard and you're mentally and physically tired and it feels so good to just sit down... but other days it makes me really sad.
I guess I imagine myself standing all alone while the whole world speeds past me. Feeling a little dizzy, a little sick. Unable to catch my breath. Not exhilerated but fearful and panicky. Unable to hold on. Getting ready to fall.
I've been searching for something for a really long time and maybe 2010 is the year to get down to brass tacks. I'm not quite sure that "it" is but lack of it leaves a ragged hole in me. I'm weary of living without it, whatever it is. Maybe I'm meant to improve something... whether its me... our circumstances... whatever. Or maybe I'm just on the verge of going crazy. Not hearing voices. Yet. So who knows.
♫ I hope this old train breaks down
So I can take a walk around and
See there’s no time you see 'cause
Time is just a melody
But the people in the streets
Walkin’ fast as their feet can take ‘em
I just rode through town
And though this window’s got a view
But the frame I’m lookin’ through
Seems to have no concern for now so for now
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Well this engine screams out loud
Centipede gonna crawl westbound and
I don't even make a sound 'cause
It’s gonna sting me to leave this town
And the people in the streets
That I’ll never get to meet
If these tracks don't bend somehow
And I got no time
that I got to get to where I don’t need to be
Said...
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Oh please just
Let me please breakdown
I need this here
Old train to breakdown
Let me please break down
You know you can't stop nothin’
If you got no control
Over the thoughts in your mind
That you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothin’
But you don’t need to know’
Cause all the wisdom’s in the trees
Not the glass windows
You can't stop wishin’ if you don’t let go / I need this here
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know / Old train to breakdown
But you keep on rolling put the moment on hold / Oh please just
But the frames too bright with the blinds down low / Let me please breakdown
You know you can't stop nothin’ / I need this here
If you got no control
Over the thoughts in your mind / Old train to breakdown
That you kept and you know
That you don’t know nothin’ / Oh please just
But you don’t need to know’
Cause all the wisdom’s in the trees / Let me please breakdown
Not the glass windows
You can't stop wishin’ if you don’t let go / I need this here
Of the things that you find and you lose and you know / Old train to breakdown
But you keep on rolling put the moment on hold / Oh please just
But the frames too bright with the blinds down low / Let me please breakdown ♫
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Dear Blogger and Google...
This is just a test. You've made me miserable with your decision to longer support FTP/SMTP. I always thought since I owned my own domain I was in the clear for changes like this. I pay people in CA to keep a giant network of servers plugged in so I don't have to deal with anything more technical or complicated than pouring my heart out right here everytime I'm consumed w/ emotion... or angry... or drunk.
I had to fidget with my Domain Names and do something complicated like create a CNAME... you might as well have asked me to re-build a carburetor or make duck confit. My web host sports a giant message in RED on the page where I had to take care of this CNAME nonsense that, in so many words or less, says something to this effect: "Hey retard... if you don't know what you're doing on this page, please back away slowly. A subatomic meltdown will be easier to fix than any mistakes you will make if you change stuff on this page. Scroll further and face sudden peril. Change and click at your own risk. Don't say you weren't warned."
If this works, I'll cut you a break. If it doesn't, I'll just cut you.
I had to fidget with my Domain Names and do something complicated like create a CNAME... you might as well have asked me to re-build a carburetor or make duck confit. My web host sports a giant message in RED on the page where I had to take care of this CNAME nonsense that, in so many words or less, says something to this effect: "Hey retard... if you don't know what you're doing on this page, please back away slowly. A subatomic meltdown will be easier to fix than any mistakes you will make if you change stuff on this page. Scroll further and face sudden peril. Change and click at your own risk. Don't say you weren't warned."
If this works, I'll cut you a break. If it doesn't, I'll just cut you.
Snow Madness
The snow won't stop. Its relentless. Singleminded. If I could stick to a diet and exercise program with the same nefarious plan as this snowstorm, I would be a size 4. I have such a bittersweet relationship with snow and winter. And it seems like its mostly bitter.
Winter starts out all merry. Falls hustles into the holidays with crisp frosty nights. Warms sweaters come out. There are opportunities to snuggle and blaze up the fireplace. There's cocoa and comfort food. And then... And then there's January and February. Holiday letdown. The 10 lbs I inveriably gain from all the holiday comfort food. And the weather. The bleak, nasty weather. Not to mention Valentine's Day. But that's a whole 'nother thing to rant and moan about.
I can vaguely remember legendary snowstorms when I was about 5... and again when I was about 8. Although the details are hazy. I can see my five year old self cranky and near frostbite with my flimsy red rubber boot stuck in an icy snowdrift. Igloos and tunnels dug through the drifts sound so FUN. Until you actually wear yourself out building and digging. Sledding with my neighbors in their backyard was so much fun (straight for the trees! brilliant!). Or, when you find the neighbor boy's Stretch Armstrong buried in the backyard and his weird goo limbs can now be snapped like twigs. Grody!
Oh! And my mom allowing me to cook a hotdog in the fireplace (not sure if it was for the novelty or was our electricity out?). That was really cool! Hotdogs are generally nasty but dangling one at the end of a coathanger until it is black and charred and eating it with a piece of Wonder Bread wrapped around it? Magical! Just like Little House on the Prairie!
I do clearly remember a bad snowstorm when I was about 12. It was great. We were out of school forever. And I lay on my bed for hours talking on the phone with my friends, reading Tiger Beat and Spin and daydreaming about boys. There might have been some extended cocoa drinking sessions. And if I remember correctly my mother - in her own fit of boredom - helped me cook some ridiculous delicacy like fried cheese. Or maybe it was taffy. Glorious. This is when I realized winter weather could be great if you didn't actually go outside. And school closures resulted in the horrors of Valentine's Day being missed. Its far easier to romanticize the love notes you might have gotten if the weather hadn't been so cruel... fiddle-dee-dee... than to face up to the fact you were only destined for candygrams from your girlfriends.
When I was in college, a random snowstorm cancelled classes and resulted in late night snowball fights and perhaps more than one trip to the bar across the street for some underaged drinking. It was great living downtown where as long as you had some waterproof shoes, you could get to anything and everything you really needed. And frankly? If enough beer and cute boys were involved, waterproof anything was just gravy.
It was an ice/snow combo that trapped me and Mr. Cake in my "Near West End" (read: not close enough to be Carytown but too ghetto to be the west end... and maybe or maybe not actually in Henrico Co.) townhouse the winter we were crushing on each other and led to our eventual relationship. He stopped by and couldn't leave for 3 days (but in retrospect I guess he just didn't want to, hah!). It was great. Until we made the ill advised decision to walk to the 7-11 (I was not one for keeping food on hand) and get nachos.
You'd think common sense might have kicked in and suggested that I refrain from spooning up cheese sauce and chili that had no doubt been sitting for 3 days. But you'd be terribly wrong. The ensuing bout of food poisoning was a miserable end to being snowed in with a cute guy. But it was the beginning of love - I figured I either had the choice to eventually marry this man or have him killed since he'd seen me puking in technicolor and writhing in the throes of sweaty stomach cramps on my bathroom floor. Most likely it was the post-traumatic stress that caused him to just give in and propose a year later.
Our honeymoon took place during the blizzard of '96. An obvious precursor to global warming, the east coast was blanketed with 12 or 13 feet of snow while we were in New Orleans. Louisiana just got freezing rain and record low temps. So much for my warm bayou vacation. We made the most of it and got lucky getting home when RVA allowed 3 planes - one of which was ours - to land after 6 days of blizzard closure. It was all poops and giggles until we got to our apartment. And the nightmare began.
I couldn't find my car (it was white and also buried under a glacier of snow thanks to the plows that had been assaulting it daily in our absence). When I did find it - I don't remember how we dug it out but I'm sure there lots of tears and frenzied clawing - the fear set in... parking was at a premium in our cruddy little section of the Fan on a sunny day. It was IMPOSSIBLE when there were mountains of precip taking up valuable space.
Trips to work (I HAD to go... I had just burned all my vacation time getting married and had dumb priorities like paying the electric bill to worry about) turned into 8 hours of fretting and anxiety terminating in a hour of circling the icy streets looking for a spot to squeeze my car into. People were guarding shoveled parking spots with lawn chairs, construction cones... and yes, because we lived in VA... firearms. Clearly the psychological damage of snow finally took hold in my early adult years.
I guess because I tend to be a glass-half-empty sort of person, when I think of snow it conjures up bad memories. But I can dig up some good ones too. No matter how much I hate winter, there is nothing more majestic than standing with a co-worker in a cold, silent parking lot as fat flakes flutter down around me (4 days ago, walking out of work) or peeking out the window to witness a sea of blinding white in the early dawn hours before snuggling back into bed (this morning). Or waking up one Saturday morning in late November to a suprise 12 inches (a couple of years ago - we ran outside in our pj's and coats and took a great Xmas card picture). I have to admit snow can be awe-inspiring at times.
And now we have our own driveway. Which has to be shoveled. But we also have our own fireplace. Hotdogs anyone?
Winter starts out all merry. Falls hustles into the holidays with crisp frosty nights. Warms sweaters come out. There are opportunities to snuggle and blaze up the fireplace. There's cocoa and comfort food. And then... And then there's January and February. Holiday letdown. The 10 lbs I inveriably gain from all the holiday comfort food. And the weather. The bleak, nasty weather. Not to mention Valentine's Day. But that's a whole 'nother thing to rant and moan about.
I can vaguely remember legendary snowstorms when I was about 5... and again when I was about 8. Although the details are hazy. I can see my five year old self cranky and near frostbite with my flimsy red rubber boot stuck in an icy snowdrift. Igloos and tunnels dug through the drifts sound so FUN. Until you actually wear yourself out building and digging. Sledding with my neighbors in their backyard was so much fun (straight for the trees! brilliant!). Or, when you find the neighbor boy's Stretch Armstrong buried in the backyard and his weird goo limbs can now be snapped like twigs. Grody!
Oh! And my mom allowing me to cook a hotdog in the fireplace (not sure if it was for the novelty or was our electricity out?). That was really cool! Hotdogs are generally nasty but dangling one at the end of a coathanger until it is black and charred and eating it with a piece of Wonder Bread wrapped around it? Magical! Just like Little House on the Prairie!
I do clearly remember a bad snowstorm when I was about 12. It was great. We were out of school forever. And I lay on my bed for hours talking on the phone with my friends, reading Tiger Beat and Spin and daydreaming about boys. There might have been some extended cocoa drinking sessions. And if I remember correctly my mother - in her own fit of boredom - helped me cook some ridiculous delicacy like fried cheese. Or maybe it was taffy. Glorious. This is when I realized winter weather could be great if you didn't actually go outside. And school closures resulted in the horrors of Valentine's Day being missed. Its far easier to romanticize the love notes you might have gotten if the weather hadn't been so cruel... fiddle-dee-dee... than to face up to the fact you were only destined for candygrams from your girlfriends.
When I was in college, a random snowstorm cancelled classes and resulted in late night snowball fights and perhaps more than one trip to the bar across the street for some underaged drinking. It was great living downtown where as long as you had some waterproof shoes, you could get to anything and everything you really needed. And frankly? If enough beer and cute boys were involved, waterproof anything was just gravy.
It was an ice/snow combo that trapped me and Mr. Cake in my "Near West End" (read: not close enough to be Carytown but too ghetto to be the west end... and maybe or maybe not actually in Henrico Co.) townhouse the winter we were crushing on each other and led to our eventual relationship. He stopped by and couldn't leave for 3 days (but in retrospect I guess he just didn't want to, hah!). It was great. Until we made the ill advised decision to walk to the 7-11 (I was not one for keeping food on hand) and get nachos.
You'd think common sense might have kicked in and suggested that I refrain from spooning up cheese sauce and chili that had no doubt been sitting for 3 days. But you'd be terribly wrong. The ensuing bout of food poisoning was a miserable end to being snowed in with a cute guy. But it was the beginning of love - I figured I either had the choice to eventually marry this man or have him killed since he'd seen me puking in technicolor and writhing in the throes of sweaty stomach cramps on my bathroom floor. Most likely it was the post-traumatic stress that caused him to just give in and propose a year later.
Our honeymoon took place during the blizzard of '96. An obvious precursor to global warming, the east coast was blanketed with 12 or 13 feet of snow while we were in New Orleans. Louisiana just got freezing rain and record low temps. So much for my warm bayou vacation. We made the most of it and got lucky getting home when RVA allowed 3 planes - one of which was ours - to land after 6 days of blizzard closure. It was all poops and giggles until we got to our apartment. And the nightmare began.
I couldn't find my car (it was white and also buried under a glacier of snow thanks to the plows that had been assaulting it daily in our absence). When I did find it - I don't remember how we dug it out but I'm sure there lots of tears and frenzied clawing - the fear set in... parking was at a premium in our cruddy little section of the Fan on a sunny day. It was IMPOSSIBLE when there were mountains of precip taking up valuable space.
Trips to work (I HAD to go... I had just burned all my vacation time getting married and had dumb priorities like paying the electric bill to worry about) turned into 8 hours of fretting and anxiety terminating in a hour of circling the icy streets looking for a spot to squeeze my car into. People were guarding shoveled parking spots with lawn chairs, construction cones... and yes, because we lived in VA... firearms. Clearly the psychological damage of snow finally took hold in my early adult years.
I guess because I tend to be a glass-half-empty sort of person, when I think of snow it conjures up bad memories. But I can dig up some good ones too. No matter how much I hate winter, there is nothing more majestic than standing with a co-worker in a cold, silent parking lot as fat flakes flutter down around me (4 days ago, walking out of work) or peeking out the window to witness a sea of blinding white in the early dawn hours before snuggling back into bed (this morning). Or waking up one Saturday morning in late November to a suprise 12 inches (a couple of years ago - we ran outside in our pj's and coats and took a great Xmas card picture). I have to admit snow can be awe-inspiring at times.
And now we have our own driveway. Which has to be shoveled. But we also have our own fireplace. Hotdogs anyone?
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