Tibet.
From Precious Metal: -
Meme ahoy!
Last Year’s Girl popped my blog meme cherry and tagged me. I feel so proud.
What to do: take the book you are currently reading, turn to page 123, skip the first five sentences and quote the next three.
“He sits there drinking into oblivion and watching TV. He falls asleep there. One night he almost burned the house down - his cigarette burned a big hole in the cushion, that’s why I have it slipcovered, but I smelled something burning and came down.”
“The Women’s Room”, Marilyn French
I tag whoever reads this.
And one more for luck -
Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don’t blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don’t blog about, but you’d like to hear about, and I’ll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.
Adoration (the first in an occasional series).
((A post in which the girl lists a few songs and explains her love for them. In absolutely no particular order - all are completely equal.))
I’m not completely sure when I heard this song for the first time. Somewhere back in my childhood I know, but I can’t pinpoint the moment. Like another of the songs in this list it seems to have followed me through the years, being one of the few songs that whenever I hear it I have to listen to it all the way through - no skipping halfway for me. Talking Heads are one of those very 80’s, artistic, (dare I say it) cool bands that many poseurs profess a love of - I’m not one of them. I’m not a huge fan, I don’t study their back catalogue or hunt out rarities on Ebay, however the songs of theirs that I’ve heard, I love (cf. “Road to Nowhere” - as the youtube comment says, “truer words have never been spoken before, about life”). My Dad always instilled a great love of words, lyrics, the intention behind a song, so maybe that is the thing that attracts me to this song? I’m not going to over-analyse it - the song is damn good, no further explanation needed.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, right?! Shut up. Regardless of your stance on soft rock/college rock/AOR tripe/whatever pigeonhole you label the Goo Goo Dolls in (and believe me, there are many little bird holes that they could fit in), this song is also sublime. It swings along like butter melting in sunshine with the kind of chorus that everyone knows word for word after just a couple of listens. Isn’t that the sign of a good, no, great song? Rather than linking the promo video, I chose the version from their 2004 free concert in Buffalo - a show as infamous for the torrential downpour that almost cancelled the whole thing due to safety issues (electric instruments + water = badness) as it is for just being damn good.
Oh Mr Zimmerman, how I love you. Now I’ll admit, this probably isn’t my out-and-out favourite Dylan song (I don’t think I could pick just one), however this one has a whole heap of amazing memories for me. As a child, all long car journeys were soundtracked by either the greatest hits of The Drifters or “Bringing It All Back Home” by Bob, and my sister and I (my brother was a mere twinkle in my parents’ eyes at this point) would scream “I AIN’T GONNA WORK ON MAGGIE’S FARM NO MOOOOOORE!” in the backseat like deranged little banshees, filling the lyrics we didn’t know with our own versions of the song. It always brings a smile. I chose the Newport Festival performance because it’s a prime example of Bob wtfpwning the world, particularly the old folk community whose Arran knit sweaters had got a little too tight and cut off the blood to their heads… or something.
A perfect little slice of dreampop, this one. Hope Sandoval has the kind of voice I could only ever dream of, and this song is exquisite. Nothing more to say.
My other “stalking” song (see number 1 above)! Honestly, I must hear this at least once a week - over shopping centre piped music, in lifts, hearing someone on my street practicing it on their saxophone, all over the place. With most songs this kind of frequency would make me sick and tired of the song in the same way that hearing “Chasing Pavements” every time I turn the radio on has made me hate Adele with such a passion it almost shocks me. “Baker Street” is different, because “Baker Street” is good.
Urgh.
I feel like a pie.
Bloated, lethargic, slow and with a sweet pastry crust with an astonishingly bad headache. This is because I have spent the last week at my parents’ house, and we all know what happens when a girl on a mega-diet visits the homestead don’t we? She eats like a ravenous goat! Not just that, no no (it gets better) - yesterday I baked chocolate brownies. Chocolate brownies in the sense that it is just one huge gooey, sticky chocolate brownie and I’ve eaten far too much of it. It sits on a plate in the kitchen under a shroud of cling film, tormenting me in what I imagine to be a seductive French accent (think Olivier Martinez and you’re almost there) until I give in and have yet another slice. I’m paying for this by feeling like a pie. A horrible huge chocolate-filled pie. All is not lost though, because tomorrow BeepBeep and I return south to the big city where I will leap willingly back onto the Dax Moy Elimination Diet bandwagon, be chastised by Mr Fox for my sugary weakness and exercise within an inch of my life before seeing my lovely doctor for a weigh-in in two/three weeks. I haven’t lost thirty-three pounds only to put it all back on, you know, no matter how alluring another slice of chocolate brownie may be.
Hair stylist are bloody rude, aren’t they? Armed with a pair of scissors and a range of dirty looks that would make Stacey Branning (née Slater) green with envy, one took a look at my hair last weekend and asked “when was the last time you had your hair cut? Three years ago?”. I kid you not, I almost walked out there and then (I would have, had my hair not been soaked after the pre-cut wash at the time. It was a very cold day after all). After I’d wished for the ground to open and swallow me, I presented to her my magazine clipping with a nice, wispy long-at-the-front-and-short-at-the-back-but-not-like-a-boy’s style that I wanted for myself, only for it to be folded (folded!) and placed on the shelf below the mirror in front of me and the hairdresser to describe how she had “a few ideas”. She ummed and aahed and held up lengths of hair in front of my face and tied a ponytail before finally deciding on a chin length bob. I’ll admit the haircut is nice, but to be honest anything would have been better than the shoulder-length mess I started with. Whilst cutting, the woman couldn’t have appeared more disinterested if she’d tried, occassionally yawning and then disappearing into the back room for ten minutes at a time, before coming back and looking a bit puzzled before continuing with the cut. I’m not a conversationalist when I get my hair done, I prefer to sit with a magazine and let the scissor-bearer get on with it, but since there were no magazines (or at least none being offered to me that particular day, not even when I asked for one) I made up shopping lists in my head and watched the other stylists behind me through the mirror whilst the woman snipped at my locks. It won’t take a rocket scientist to realise I wasn’t impressed, and definitely won’t be going there again. I would mention the name of the salon, but I don’t want to end up with their other explosion-in-Topshop-clothed stylists sending me comments saying “zomg we r teh best, ur hair was lyke a BUSHPIGS btw!1!!!”.
I have the joys of a three hour train journey with a toddler to look forward to tomorrow afternoon. My bags are filled with snacks, juice, crayons, toys and my mobile phone is fully charged should I need to phone my mother and scream for advice. My plan is to feed him up just before we need to catch the train, so he’s all dozy and sleepy… He’s a sneaky one though, probably lining up caffeine pills as I type and hiding them in his toys so he can be wide awake and in full torment mode. Alright, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly. Toddlers are terrifying creatures, though.
The Past Recedes.
Thanks to an unexpected windfall, I now no longer need to worry about not being able to afford driving lessons. This is a good thing, because after last night’s shameful effort at a turn in the road (aka a three point turn for all you seasoned drivers out there), I need all the lessons I can get. Seriously, I read up about the difference manouvers, I master the reverse park in one attempt (even remembering my observations and turning the wheel one revolution etc) but the second the turn in the road is mentioned, I freeze. In my head, I know what I need to do, I know all the steps I need to take to get from one side to the other, but there’s some part of my brain that isn’t clicking into gear (haha, see what I did there?) and I end up either overshooting the kerb or almost zooming away onto the pavement. Needless to say, I’ve pushed doing my test back - the original plan had been to do it in April, but to be honest I don’t think there’s much chance of me being ready then. Bah.
I haven’t blogged in a while - I’ve been trying to save up posts so I could write one good one, but now I’m here I’ve pretty much forgotten anything important that I had wanted to write. What is the point? My memory is like a sieve since having Beepbeep; my pockets are filled with notes and reminders, the kitchen table strewn with little leaflets, scribbles and scraps yet still even the simplest of things (such as my neighbour’s name) escapes me. I can usually get away with the traditional “oh, that’s so-and-so’s Mum/Dad”, but still there are occassions when I’m stood infront of someone with a vacant expression, mouth agape and a flock of question marks hovering above my head. Add to that the creak in my knee, the cocktail (well, two) of tablets I take each day and the fact that I cannot stay up past eleven o’clock without dozing off on the sofa and I think I should just give up now. It would be more humane to take me outside and shoot me now, put me out of my misery.
I jest, I jest…
I half-watched the Brit Awards last night after my driving nightmare, and was again utterly unimpressed by the proceedings. Honestly, if Mika duetting with Beth effing Ditto on a two year old track is the best we can muster up to open the supposedly biggest and best music show of the year, we really should give up now. Rihanna and Klaxons… *sigh* Rihanna has a face I’d never tire of punching and Klaxons are really far better in a sweaty club somewhere, so that was a bit blah. I missed Kylie, but after watching half of her “performance” on Youtube I switched off and realised I hadn’t missed much at all. I shouldn’t be surprised that the ceremony has turned into a nasty little industry backslapping event (when was it not such a thing, really?), but I suppose a little more originality wouldn’t go amiss. Ah bugger it, what do I know, I’m just a humble viewer!
In other news, my obsession with John Frusciante’s music gets deeper by the day. I intend on hunting round some record shops at the weekend to try and get some more of his albums, it has been ages (months, if not a year or so) since I bought a CD (as opposed to downloading from itunes).
