music revival, day 14

the replacements - all for nothing and nothing for all

all for nothing

1. "Left of the Dial"
2. "Kiss Me on the Bus"
3. "Bastards of Young"
4. "Here Comes a Regular"
5. "Skyway"
6. "Alex Chilton"
7. "The Ledge"
8. "Can't Hardly Wait"
9. "I'll Be You"
10. "Achin' to Be"
11. "Talent Show"
12. "Anywhere's Better Than Here"
13. "Merry Go Round"
14. "Sadly Beautiful"
15. "Nobody"
16. "Someone Take the Wheel"

• favorite tracks: left of the dial, bastards of young, alex chilton, achin to be, anywhere's better than here
  
• comments: this dual album was given to me by a fellow dj at WRHO, dr. mike woost. he was the only professor i had for anthropology, and i took 2 of his classes and loved both of them. i digress. at some point he got involved in radio and either i had a show before or after him and i was playing the goo goo dolls and he said something to the effect that it reminded him of the replacements. i replied with, "who are the replacements?" next time we saw each other he had this 2 disc set in hand. i now wonder if i was supposed to give it back to him. i never asked. and i haven't seen him for years.
  
  this album took a bit of getting used to. it has a definite indie feel, not polished, not finished, not popular with anyone, including radio stations. the first 2 times through the disc i was not sure about it. by the third time i started to like it, and was taken back to all those people that didn't like 'popular' music, but liked other stuff i just couldn't get into. maybe i can, after all.
  
  'kiss me on the bus' reminded me of a high school band trip where it was late and we were all coming home on a school bus and some people were playing truth or dare. i tried to stay out of it but someone was dared to kiss me. i can't remember if we did or didn't, but i remember feeling weird about it. we got along OK though he was younger than me. *shrug* 'skyway' definitely had to be written about minneapolis, because there was just so much ringing true to it. then i looked and these guys are from there, so it makes perfect sense.
  

music revival, days 12-13

neil finn and friends - 7 worlds collide

1. anytime
2. take a walk
3. the climber
4. loose tongue
5. down on the corner
6. there is a light that never goes out
7. paper doll
8. turn and run
9. angels heap
10. edible flowers
11. stuff and nonsense
12. i see red
13. she will have her way
14. weather with you
15. paradise (wherever you are)
    
16. don't dream it's over

• favorite tracks: anytime, the climber, down on the corner, turn and run, stuff and nonsense, she will have her way, weather with you, don't dream it's over
  
• comments: 'take a walk' had a familiar voice singing, wasn't quite sure, but when i heard 'stuff and nonsense' i was certain - eddie vedder! had no idea he participated in this project. 'there is a light...' was certainly familiar, but upon listening closer it was a little bit morbid. and yet it's still kind of stuck in my head. 'turn and run' reminded me of hanging out with kevin f. in CA. 'i see red' was a HUGE change in pace on this album; a rock and roll song stuck in with a bunch of more melodic tunes...good but seemed a little out of place. 'don't dream it's over' - i had no idea this was by crowded house/neil finn. a little musical education for me!
  

switchfoot - the beautiful letdown

• favorite tracks: meant to live, this is your life, dare you to move, the beautiful letdown, gone, adding to the noise
  
• comments: i have been hesitant to listen to this one for awhile, because after reviewing the liner notes i realized a lot of the songs on this album are about God, jesus, etc. and i thought, "oh no, a christian rock band! how could i have picked this?" of course, the concept of christian rock bands had been lost on me until someone in CA pointed out that a song i liked talked about God or something, and i started thinking. but i am not sure these guys are a purely christian rock band. i am certain i heard meant to live on an alternative rock station, and for some reason i'm envisioning hearing it in iowa, but that might not be right, since it was released in 2003. must have heard it on the radio driving somewhere. anyway, after all my hesitations to listen to this album, turns out, it's really great. not too heavy, not too light. it was perfect for long day thursday / short day monday listening.
  

music revival, days 10-11

driving up and back to portland and a little time spent at work...

collective soul - collective soul

• favorite tracks: almost the whole album
  
• comments: i got this in the wake of their hints, allegations, and things left unsaid album; actually, i never got that one, i had just heard a few songs off it and liked them so figured i'd give this one a shot. a great driving cd, i listened to it often while driving back and forth to iowa in the summer of 2000. and for many other long distance driving adventures.
  

dave matthews band - crash

• favorite tracks: so much to say, too much, say goodbye, lie in our graves, tripping billies, proudest monkey
  
• comments: this album has more sexual allusions than many albums i know or like. this is not my favorite of dmb's albums, but it does have some fun tracks on it. i love the concept of being the 'proudest monkey'.
  

coldplay - a rush of blood to the head

• favorite tracks: whole album
  
• comments: i bought this album either before or at the same time as parachutes because several people in the rizzo lab were into it. once i got it, i was hooked. i often can't guess the names of the tracks from the lyrics, but i love these guys.
  

man vs. shed, roommates and the internet

a few things from last week:

a few weeks ago, my roommates and i spoke about getting firewood for the winter (since we don't turn on the heat to save money, we just use the wood stove while we're home).

scratch that.

*I* brought up that we should start looking for firewood. maybe look on craigslist. maybe look around for something cheap. maybe look for something free, though not crappy wood. everyone agreed and cheered, "yay! free firewood!"

a few weeks went by. i looked on craigslist and found a few places giving away free firewood. some even very close to home. i emailed the guys, since i knew i'd be working late and they're great about checking their email, and said, "hey, can someone go check this out?" no one did.

after a couple weeks, i realized i was going to have to spearhead this effort if we were going to get wood. so i got on craigslist and started really looking for free firewood. emailed several people. got in touch with one. we arranged a pickup. this was on a tuesday. my roommates were conveniently not home that night when i left. i went over there with my station wagon and filled the backseat and trunk, about 1.5 layers thick - some doug fir and maybe hemlock. not much, but hey, it was free.

on the drive home, i HAPPENED to see a sign that said "free firewood!" just down the street from our house. i couldn't believe it! so close! i pulled over and picked though it. this time it was a rotten birch that someone had cut down, probably last year and just had sitting there. it was quite dry and in the proper size logs. some were very light; i left those. the trouble with this location was that the wood was located on the side of the house where the street is a steep hill with a stop sign. no place to pull over. so i had to walk each armful of logs back to my car, around the yard. by now it was dark so it might have looked a little weird with a woman walking around carrying logs from someone's house and putting them into her car. i probably took 5 armloads of semi-rotten wood and then drove home.

jason was home when i got back, and he happily helped me unload it into the backyard.

the next day i heard back from a guy who was selling around a cord of firewood for $90. cherry. been cut and seasoning all summer. probably the best we were going to get, and most of it was split. after talking with the man, i realized it was going to be a do-it-yourself operation, as he wasn't going to be able to help me. this night, again, no one was home when i went to go get the wood.

i drove over, assessed the pile, and started loading. i filled my car, to the brim, backseat all the way to the trunk, floor to ceiling, full of wood. i got home. the roommates were now home, and were glad to help out with the unloading of wood, though dinnertime was approaching and they were getting ready to eat dinner (where was my dinner?). this time, 3 of the 4 of them helped, with one not wanting to get dirty or something, i guess.

i asked if anyone wanted to come help me load up with a second load. "we're about to eat dinner," they replied, so i dutifully went back and loaded my car, again, filled to the brim. i got back, and again 3 people came out and helped me unload. we even used a wheelbarrow and zach led us in a rousing round of "the wonders of mechanical invention" or something like that. by then i'd spent 3 hours loading and unloading and driving back and forth, and working all day. i was pretty tired. but as a group, we did share the first/only pepper the garden produced this year, after all the wood was unloaded.

the next day was thursday, and i decided i better go and get the rest of the wood. thankfully, my boss brought in his pickup so i could use that instead of my car. what i didn't know was that the pickup had a topper on it, so i couldn't just go load crazy, but i was bound by the constraints of the topper. went home to see if anyone wanted to help. people were surfing the internet / playing on their computers / watching youtube / making dinner / hanging out with each other, and that apparently made them *too* busy to help me out (are we detecting a pattern?)

i went back, and loaded the truck filled as full as i could. some of the pieces are extremely heavy, it turned out, so i had to have some strategy as to how to get them into the truck. the thing of it was, this wood was in a big pile, but it wasn't a place i could put the truck easily. so i had to sort the wood into smaller pieces, toss those over to the tailgate, then toss them into the truck, then crawl into the truck to stack them all neatly and as tightly as possible. this was a big procedure. i knew i couldn't just casually toss the bigger pieces, so i rolled them end over end, over to the truck, and ended up putting them in last in order to save my back.

i took the first load, got the 2 guys to help me unload, then of course, dinner was ready, so i left and reloaded and was able to perfectly fit all the rest of the wood into the second load (insuring i wouldn't have to go back again)(i was VERY proud of my packing/conceptualizing skills in this moment). for though this wood was in town, it was almost as far away as it could be, since i live in the northwest and it was in the southeast, and there is NO good or direct way to get there. i don't drive around town on a regular basis, so by now i was pretty tired of driving. this set took me 3.5 hours, and still i had not eaten dinner. the guys helped me unload the second load, and we called it a day. i had kind of hoped to cover up the wood in case it rained, but it was all sprawled out and unruly so i kind of covered it with the tarps from the loading. luckily it did keep the wood covered and it did rain. sigh.

one thing that bothers me about my current living situation is the fact that i live with 2 guys, who both have their girlfriends living in the house with us right now. it's not permanent; one girl just got a place this week after having moved into town from colorado a couple weeks ago, the other girl has been around all summer after returning from the peace corps in africa and will be leaving to go to grad school in a couple of weeks. the issue is, with all the other girls around to draw their attention, my roommates are useless. it's like i don't exist in the house at all. like a ghost just around to be spooky and translucent.

before the internet, jason or girls arrived, zach and i would actually talk after work. he'd shoot hoops in the living room and we'd debrief each other about our day's work and experiences. it was like having a real friend in the house. i enjoyed getting to know zach and learn a little about what his experience was like as a first year teacher.

jason moved in sometime in may, and he made it known that "because he was going to be a student, he was going to need internet at the house." this didn't make a ton of sense to me, since he could do internet stuff at school, but zach decided he didn't want to go to the library for internet anymore, so they got it installed. i stayed out of it. i like my home time to be my own, where i can do home things and not be distracted by the vacuum that is the computer / internet world. i don't think they get that quite yet.

right after that, serena moved back from africa, and now she and zach were hanging out all the time. which, i probably would too if my boyfriend had been in africa for 2 years. i started working really wacky crazy hours at work, and/or was away because of dance camps and visiting my parents, so this didn't bother me too much. others vacationed or went off to do field work, and it was like a real summer vacation.

then, about 3-4 weeks ago, claire moved here from colorado. she is perhaps one of the sweetest people i've ever met in my life. she's just so nice. i'm pretty sure at the same time, zach and serena had some people come over as well. it was a VERY full house for a little while there, and people actually had to use the shower with the curtain that attacks you. of course, they didn't put down a bathmat, nor did they take my towel off the curtain rod while showering, so i woke to find that my towel was soaked and there was water all over the floor of my bathroom. thanks, visitors!

anyway, since all these people were around, i thought for sure at some point i'd have some people to talk to after long days at work by myself. but no. they are busy either talking with each other or, get this, surfing the internet individually on their own laptops, while sitting in the same room. there are 4 people and 4 laptops going sometimes in the living room/dining room area. it's nuts. you don't even need to converse with people anymore. as long as you have the internet.

back to my original point about firewood. one thing the guys said to me very clearly and with a lot of excitement was that they LOVED splitting firewood and were very eager to do so for the exercise effect.

on tuesday of last week, about 5 days after the firewood unloading bonanza, not one piece of firewood had been split.

scratch that.

jason had split the rotten birch logs into pieces. none of the NEW CHERRY firewood had been split. i wanted it split so it could fit in the stove and also so it could dry out. i also wanted to stack it in the shed so that it could stay dry. winter is coming and i'm not blind to that fact. i think they are.

i realized i had to take matters into my own hands. on wednesday, i took the day off work and after i finished at the soup kitchen, i went home, did several loads of laundry, got my firewooding clothes on, and went outside to attempt to make some sense of the wood pile.

first thing was to get the dry wood that was in there, out, so that it could be burned first while the other stuff dried out more thoroughly. (jon made a good point later that maybe i should mix it up, have some old and some new mixed in so that if we needed it, we'd have some later. what a smart man.) i tossed all of last year's stuff out. started sorting through the pile of new stuff, seeing what was manageable and what was too big. tossed the reasonably sized stuff to the woodshed, bigger stuff was set up around the yard for ease of splitting. i figured if it was sitting there looking at them, they'd be more likely to split it, vs in a big pile which looks way too daunting. then i started stacking.

after about an hour, jason got home / came outside and said, "what's going on out here?" i said, "well, i'm setting up logs that are too big so they can get split. or else, we can have a big pow wow." because it kind of looked like camp with a bunch of logs all around in a horseshoe shape. he seemed genuinely interested in helping out, so he got the wedge and sledgehammer and started splitting. it was fun to have 2 of us out there doing the work, vs just me. he lasted about an hour or less at this task, then went back inside to hang out with the girlfriend. maybe i would have done the same thing. but maybe my boyfriend would have come out to help with the firewood.

i continued tossing and sorting and stacking until it got dark. i went through the pile in the front yard and got it all piled up into pieces that need splitting and covered it with a tarp. i even put on my headlamp. i even smashed my face into the side of the roof of the shed, at which point i decided it was time to quit for the day. i had about 2 rows of wood under the shed, and i'd put some plastic along the back to keep rain water from getting in there since it's open. i was very proud of my efforts. i definitely feel a huge sense of accomplishment after moving wood around and getting it arranged like i want it. there's still more to do, but i had done what i could in the free time that i had. the internet can wait for winter in my opinion, when there's nothing left to do and we can sit around inside. in a way, it feels a little like that story about the grasshopper who just frolicked about and was having a grand old time in the summer, while the ants were busily storing food for the winter. my grasshoppers won't even realize what a service i've done them when it's cold and rainy and we have dry wood to keep us warm.

i went in to ice my face.

music revival, day 9

familiar felt right today. i wasn't visiting albums for the first time, but rather, i had a small collection of cds i'd put together for jon to listen to at some point. some were best for driving, some were picked because i knew he'd like them, some were oldies, some were new, some were just favorites for nostalgic reasons. here's what i ended up listening to today:

carbon leaf - indian summer

• favorite tracks: what about everything?, life less ordinary, grey sky eyes, one prairie outpost, let your troubles roll by
• comments: this album was recommended to me by frank, from my days back in california. it's just a great album for leisurely driving, with both ballady type stuff and more pop/indie rock sounds. i just love it.
  

counting crows - this desert life

• favorite tracks: hanging around, mrs potters lullaby, st robinson and his cadillac dream
  
• comments: this is an album from the end of college. i remember justin from the radio station was way into counting crows, and i remembered enjoying 'mr jones', and hearing 'a long december', but knew not much else about them. it was this album that caught my attention - most likely we got a promo at the station and i was a converted counting crows fan, right then and there.
  

dave matthews band - under the table and dreaming

• favorite tracks: best of what's around, what would you say, satellite, typical situation, dancing nancies, ants marching, jimi thing, warehouse
  
• comments: this album is a classic. it was one of the first 3 cds i ever bought in my life, and i'm SO glad that i did (others were blues traveler four and sheryl crow tuesday night music club). it's upbeat, it's catchy, he doesn't do too much of that angry/scary voice that turns me off of some of the band's other tracks...overall, one i could listen to any day and it would make the day better, instantly.
  

collective soul - dosage

• favorite tracks: tremble for my beloved, no more no less, dandy life, generate
  
• comments: almost all of the tracks on here are favorites of one sort or another. i went to see collective soul the year after my senior year of college, while i was still living in oneonta. kevin and i roadtripped to rochester with james h., and i'm pretty sure i must have slept the whole way home because i have no recollection of staying there overnight. anyway, the band was promoting this album at the time, and i can still see ed roland, front and center stage, moving his head back and forth in a rhythmic way to 'generate'. awesome.
  

creedence clearwater revival - chronicle

• favorite tracks: proud mary, bad moon rising, down on the corner, fortunate son, traveling band, looking out my back door, who'll stop the rain?, heard it through the grapevine
  
• comments: oldies / classic rock. i love it.
  

coldplay - parachutes

• favorite tracks: the whole album
  
• comments: i didn't know this album actually existed until their second album a rush of blood to the head came out and became wildly successful. i had heard the song 'yellow' before, but didn't know that it came from them, or from what album. once i went shopping for the second one, which happened to be while in was in california (among people who were listening to it often at work), i just bought this one at the same time. a wise decision! :)
  

music revival, day 8

as the week winds down, i've got another long day of lab work ahead of me, so i figured i'd listen to some tunes to get back into my music revival.


queen - classic queen

• favorite known tracks: bohemian rhapsody, under pressure
  
• surprise favorite unknown tracks: a kind of magic, hammer to fall, stone cold crazy, radio ga ga, slightly mad, i want it all, tie your mother down, the miracle, one vision
• comments: i found this one while putting some other cds away, and realized i'd never listened to the cd; just put it away without a second thought. i knew i liked bohemian rhapsody, and even though EVERYONE always says, "under pressure! that's by david bowie!" they would be surprised to find out that the MUSIC is by queen and it was queen's first joint venture in music with alternate artists. i was quite surprised by how much i disliked this album the first 2 times i listened to it, but by the third/fourth/fifth time, i found myself quite enjoying it. the first 2 times i thought it was too hard rock, too ballady, and too wimpy and thin sounding. however, today i had quite a different outlook on the album (the first 2 times through were on tuesday afternoon after already being kind of tired from a long day that just kept getting longer). 'hammer to fall' i'm sure relates to the cold war and the soviet union, 'stone cold crazy' is apparently done by other heavy metal artists and is, in my opinion, better during the times when there are lyrics. 'radio ga ga' reminds me a bit of dire straits, 'money for nothing' though i don't know why. 'slightly mad' brought up memories of dr. demento 'they're coming to take me away'. certainly the most poignant song for me of the album is 'i want it all' - it hits home so much for me the current generation - 'i want it all, and i want it NOW!' i'm pretty sure that's what they were getting at, though maybe it has been like that for all time. and 'tie your mother down' reminds me of billy joel's 'only the good die young' - come on out and hang out with us already! it'll be fun! and, at the end, the track 'who wants to live forever?' has a sequence in it that reminds me of led zeppelin's 'live and let die' if that's even the name of that tune, which it probably isn't. i heard the phrase, and kept waiting for the finish, but, well, this was queen's song...

i was very impressed with this album, even with it's greatest hits type status, and in the shadow of it's predecessor killer queen hogging the spotlight with the big hits, it still delivered. thursday was delightful with this album in my lab coat. :)

music revival, day 7

not a super great music day. luckily i'm feeling really good otherwise, so it doesn't really matter! my experiment has been working miraculously, so music is definitely second to my happiness today...


steve's 2008 pop! volume 2

florence and the machine - dog days are over
fleet foxes - ragged wood
the moondoggies - changing
be your own pet - zombie graveyard party
bon iver - skinny love
audrey - big ships
ida maria - i like you so much better when you're naked
m83 - kim and jessie
los campesinos! - you! me! dancing!
catfish haven - set in stone
fleet foxes - blue ridge mountains
blitzen trapper - black river killer
white hinterland - dreaming of the plum trees
benji hughes - why do these parties always end the same way?
icy demons - crittin down to babas
black exotics - theme of blackbyrds
the dodos - jodi
health//disco - triceratops (acid girls remix A)

• favorite tracks: possibly none.
  
• comments: this was another of my boss steve's favorite mixes from 2008. it might just be that i listened to this one third in the sequence of 3 new albums of totally new music and was starting to get a little burnt out. i didn't have the patience to get through it more than once. this one just didn't do it for me. see reviews of the previous 2 albums.
  

kelly clarkson - my december

• favorite tracks: possibly none
  
• comments: what happened to the american idol with the amazing voice? her thankful album made us all thankful she had won. with tracks like, 'the trouble with love is', 'miss independent', 'low', 'beautiful disaster', 'a moment like this', as well as her other soulful songs, she proved herself worth, in my eyes, as the american idol we'd all been waiting for (the rest, since, have been much of a letdown in my opinion - save, daughtry, who didn't even win). even the breakaway album had some merit to it, with 'breakaway', 'since u been gone', 'behind these hazel eyes', and 'because of you'. the my december album lets us know, she's pissed for losing love, but still longing for it in such a strong way, she loses her artistic talent and just falls...falls...falls...so far that there's nothing left really except a whiny, boring album. bring back the old kelly.
• further comments: i've read a little bit about why kelly wrote such a dark album. i'm sure her life was difficult and everything was tearing her down. i can respect that. perhaps i'm not in a place right now where i feel so torn down. perhaps i'm just not in the right mood to listen and really "get" what she's doing/saying with this album. i, however, didn't feel like it was her best work, especially voice wise. and i'm allowed to have my opinion.
  

the excitement of everyday life

yesterday i took a well deserved day off. i'd been working myself too much lately, and thought it would be refreshing to take a day and just do whatever i wanted.

slept in and woke up late. yes!

invited claire to come to the soup kitchen with me. she said yes!

had a great time at the soup kitchen. was told i looked gorgeous! and smelled good! only had to break up one small fight. sometimes men are so obnoxious. i wish they would learn to hold their tongue! that's what my mom and dad taught me. it's not worth it to get in the last word. they wouldn't stop even when a cute girl asked them to just drop it. sigh.

i spent some time with my cd collection. it'd been a year or so since i updated my music list, and i thought i was finding cds that weren't where they belonged, and others seemed to be missing from the list.

while doing that project, i found *3* cds that had been put into other cases for travel purposes, i'm sure...but those 3 cds had been lost for 9 months and i was SUPER EXCITED to have them back! i had actually started to worry that i'd lost/left them somewhere. hooray!

later in the evening, i got a call from someone who had some firewood to sell. cherry, split, and big pieces, about a cord. did i want it? absolutely! made 2 runs in my car, well into the night, and the roommates helped me unload it into the yard. warmth in the winter, i can't wait! well, yes, i can wait. i want to wait. i'm not ready to build fires yet, but i look forward to being ready with dry wood! during the unloading, zach sang us a rousing rendition of "the wonders of mechanical invention" since we were using a wheelbarrow.

[this was my second night of firewooding - the previous night i made a run to someone's house where i got some rounds of fir and some bigger pieces, and then i happened upon a house that had a sign out front that said 'free firewood' so i got some. it was kind of rotten birch, but some of the pieces were solid. score! i feel like a midnight firewood raider, however...]

after all the unloading was complete, we went inside, at which point zach realized we were all in the house together at one time, and he decided it was time for us to share the ONE lone pepper that had been growing in the garden. it was pretty feeble; small and leathery. but it was red and we were determined to share it since we all helped with it's growth and development. for a little red pepper, i found it to be quite tasty, even though we each only got a sliver.

to top off my wonderful day, i decided to sleep outside under the stars. a few things i learned from this:

1. lights on in the house can really light up the deck
2. chocolate before bed is a bad idea
3. every noise makes you think something big is coming for you
4. not using a tent makes a person feel very vulnerable!
5. the stars at night are amazing, along with the cool breeze, lack of biting bugs, and crickets chirping. thank you oregon!
   
6. the full moon is very bright!
   

i didn't sleep very soundly, but i did dream, and the last few hours of my sleep were very restful. i'd probably do it again, while i still can.

happy thursday!

music revival, day 6

steve's day of mixes
my boss steve gave me some mixes of some of his favorite tunes from 2008. he gave them to me in 2009, january. it's taken awhile, but i was finally ready to dig in and see what he had in store for me.

2008 dance! mix
sam sparro - black and gold
estelle (feat k west) vs the ting tings - shut up american boy
cut copy - lights and music
chromeo - fancy footwork
snowden - black eyes
cut copy - hearts on fire
crystal castles - courtship dating
dizzee rascal (feat calvin harris) - dance wiv me
lil mama - lip gloss
treasure fingers - cross the dancefloor
flo rida vs hot chip - hold on to that low
chromeo - tenderoni
thunderheist - jerk it
crime mob vs the dodos - stilletos in the park
le castle vania - tigertron
chromeo - bonafied lovin
dizzee rascal - flex

• favorite tracks: black and gold, *shut up american boy, lights and music, hearts on fire, *dance wiv me, lip gloss, jerk it, flex
  
• comments: this album had me grooving and shaking through tuesday! yeah! and, i learned about a couple of tunes that i'd heard before but knew nothing about. until now!
  

2008 pop! volume 1
hacienda - she's got a hold on me
vetiver - see you tonight
dept of eagles - no one does it like you
chad van gaalen - willow tree
tv on the radio - golden age
port o'brien - i woke up today
tapes n' tapes - hang them all
vivian girls - where do you run to
florence and the machine - kiss with a fist
peasant - the wind
delta spirit - trashcan song
benji hughes - i went with some friends to see the flaming lips
the felice brothers - frankie's gun
the walkmen - in the new year
of montreal - for our elegant caste
jim noir - ships and clouds
hercules and love affair - blind
jensen sportag - power sergio
ida maria - oh my god

• favorite tracks: she's got a hold on me, see you tonight, i woke up today, blind
  
• comments: my listening to this album was a big fragmented, but there were many tracks that made the listening very pleasurable. great to get through tues/thurs.
  

music revival, day 5

[ok so i listened to aaron's mix again 2x this morning, because it was just so fitting. and i counted it as friday, because i started it friday. anyway.]

dave matthews band - stand up

• favorite tracks: dreamgirl, stand up, american baby,
  
• comments: dave matthews first full length album came out in 1994. i went to college shortly thereafter, and realized just how big and great this band was. would they last or be a one hit wonder? under the table and dreaming was a masterpiece for those of us in college in the mid 90's. a moving, wonderful album that made us groove and chill out all at the same time. next came crash which had it's own set of hits. after that was before these crowded streets and we all thought, "wow, these guys have got the stuff to keep on going!" and then, everyday came out and knocked us all backwards. how long could dmb keep producing amazing albums? even busted stuff had some worth. but this, their 6th studio album, shows that the band is running out of new stuff. i was not impressed.

new radicals - maybe you've been brainwashed too

• favorite tracks: mother we just can't get enough, you get what you give, someday we'll know
  
• comments: got this album from my radio station giveaway box. the hit "you get what you give" is catchy, and was popular at the time and i thought, why not? turns out, the album isn't worth much. probably i got what i gave for this one. which was nothing.
  

music revival, day 4

new music friday!

a dancing friend of mine from the east coast made me a mix of music. i got it sometime around christmas, and have yet to spend any time listening to it. it was just a cd, blank, no writing, and no glitz or glitter to draw me in. i decided the way to get motivated about listening to it would be to figure out what tracks are on it, and maybe to give it a name. though it is still yet unnamed, here are the tracks:

music from aaron
1. josh ritter – monster ballads
2. sun kil moon – ocean breathes salty
3. beck – lost cause
4. contra dance tune
5. neko case – star witness
6. belle and sebastian – dog on wheels
7. the books – it never changes to stop
8. interpol – leif erikson
9. the dresden dolls – the jeep song
10. cliff edwards – that’s my weakness now
11. interesting dreamy techno tune
12. david sedaris – lesson 4: with a pal like this, you don’t need an enemy
13. modest mouse – people as places as people
14. throwing muses – backroad

a few of them are completely instrumental and i haven't figure out a way to search for tunes online other than by lyrics.

various artists - music from aaron, christmas 2009

• favorite tracks: monster ballads, contra tune, star witness, that's my weakness now, dreamy techno tune, people as places as people
• comments: this is the first completely indie album i've listened to [another friend gave me an album with guster, sarah harmer, and jonatha brooke, but i'd heard of all the artists]. in this case, i'd heard music by beck and modest mouse before, and heard david sedaris read before. i'd heard OF interpol and throwing muses, but never heard their music. so this was a real, TRULY new music friday.
• more comments: this is a PERFECT album for a monday morning. none of the songs are loud, thrashy, squealing, or annoying in any way. thanks aaron!
  

music revival, day 3

second round of cd listening. a shorter day, due to less familiarity with the albums. and a marginally successful day at work. aside from one sample taking 4 hours to filter through. sigh.

kenny wayne shepherd band - trouble is

• favorite tracks: blue on black, everything is broken, nothing to do with love, chase the rainbow
• comments: i got this album solely for blue on black, not knowing much about the artist or any of his work. he's a great guitar rocker, and sometimes i can get into it, and sometimes the crazy high-pitched reeling/screeching guitar work really bothers my ears.

david digiuseppe - welcome to heaven...

• favorite tracks: flying home to shelley, shenandoah falls
• comments: this is a contra dance type disc, with other styles of music tossed in for good measure. excellent listening for when you don't have time to worry about the words. feel good music, played by a professional accordionist, who i had the pleasure of meeting and showing around oregon last february before our dance camp weekend.
  

music revival, day 1-2

since i spend hours and hours and hours at work lately, and the radio is just about as good as used toilet paper, i decided it's time to dig out the cds that either:

a. i bought awhile back at garage sales
b. my dad bought for me when he was a member of columbia house
or
c. i borrowed from my dad within the past several years.

i haven't listened to these and picked them out, ostensibly, because i thought i would like them for one reason or another, i decided to do my usual tactic of listening to each one 2-3 times through (depending on my attention level, what else i'm doing, and my tolerance/like/dislike for the album) and then assimilating it into my (borg) collective.

so, here's where i may start my daily/weekly cd reports.

suzanne vega - retrospective

• favorite tracks: pretty much the whole album, in retrospect.
• comments: i never knew much about suzanne vega, but i'm glad i got this album. she's pleasing to the ear.

stone temple pilots - purple

• favorite tracks: vasoline, interstate love song, still remains, pretty penny, big empty, unglued
• comments: i remember when this album came out, i was in washington dc, summer of 1994 with a group of young republicans (hey, what did i know?). anyway we were staying in a dorm (trinity college, maybe) and some of the people i befriended had this and we listened to it. i couldn't remember all the tracks, but vasoline was the big hit at the time. since i didn't have any bad memories of it, i figured i should get it since it was now part of my musical formation and heritage. grunge rock. yeaaaaah.

prince - the hits 2

• favorite tracks: most of the tunes are either enjoyable memories from my past, or newfound grooves to bop along to
• comments: prince is a lot more sexual than i'm interested in listening to most of the time, but when i look past that, the music/beat is quite good. pretty sure that the hits 1 was a more complete album of his hits, though. and some of the tunes on this one, i had never heard of before. songs like 'raspberry beret', 'little red corvette', 'i would die 4 u', 'kiss', and 'purple rain' made the album memorably worth it. new tunes to me that were gems included 'controversy', 'delirious', 'dirty mind', and 'if i was your girlfriend'.

the who - tommy

• favorite tracks: overture, 1921, pinball wizard
• comments: didn't know much about this album going into it, other than it was the rock opera about tommy, the pinball wizard. i spent a good amount of time pouring over the liner notes for this one, trying to learn more about tommy and the who and the opera itself. after listening and reading and following along, i appreciate the album for what it is, though, there aren't a lot of stand out tracks. the whole thing comes together to tell the story of tommy, which has only a fraction to do with pinball.

jason mraz - mr. a-z

• favorite tracks: wordplay, geek in the pink
• comments: let's face it, it was his sophomore slump. i hoped to be wowed like i was with his first album. that did not happen. there are few tracks that reflect his previous work.

it's about...time!

i am ready to start a new beginning, and i finally have time for it. it has already begun.

i started writing in my blog again. this in and of itself is a step forward for me. i'm happy to be back and to be thinking and cataloging and wondering about things.

michael and i have parted ways. this was agony and a blessing. i'm living in a new place. the room is extremely small but overall i love having a place to call my own.

i have begun unpacking / reorganizing my things. in the past few years i've lost track of some things that i thought were important, like keeping things simple, not accumulating too much, and staying organized. so i'm about to write the books on how to keep my stuff together in an orderly fashion. this is a quest of self discovery and finding out what i think i can really live with or without.

each category of stuff has some kind of optimal limit of "amount". how many flannel shirts do i really need? this goes on for socks, t-shirts, and other assorted "dress" clothes that i just don't think i'll wear again. i started the process of sorting clothes before i left michael's house - a sort of spring cleaning. i didn't finish, however, because i moved out. so now i'm unpacking all the sorted piles and dealing with them. again, trying to set an optimal limit on how many of each thing i need. how many long sleeve shirts do i need? how many work shirts? how many pairs of pants? shorts?

so far the limit has been loosely based on what fits right now and what doesn't. i find myself in one of those in between sizes that is not really one size (the size i've been for 13 years) and not quite the next size up (though, those clothes are looser and more comfy sometimes). my issue with that is purely pride. i don't WANT to wear the next size up, and i don't WANT to have to go out and buy new clothes.

the solution may be to lose some weight. i would not say i consider myself overweight. but i have just enough little bit extra to make some pants tight in the legs / waist. i am certain this is a quandry all women face. however, most other women are fine with going shopping and getting new clothes. in this way i'm stubborn. no new clothes! i already have enough old ones that are still in good shape! people have suggested goodwill. this way i don't have to spend much money on new clothes. it's the principle, however, of going and buying bigger clothes, that is the real issue for me.

in order to accomplish this "lose a few pounds to get my pants to fit" idea, i decided to buckle down and join the gym. seeing as i hate running outside by myself, and i don't really care for trail running (i always seem to twist my ankle...and i dislike hills though i like the view from the top), i thought i would try going to the gym and seeing what happens.

in general i dislike the gym because the sweat feels fake. it feels slimy. maybe the air circulation in all previous gyms was just bad and didn't allow for proper drying of sweat like being outside in the sun does. (maybe i will start bringing a towel.) in any event, i joined for the whole summer. till october 2nd, actually, which is EXACTLY the weekend of homecoming at hartwick, which i plan to attend. if i can find someone to play tennis with me on a regular basis over the summer, i can really see this going somewhere.

back to the gym. i have been testing out "fit" classes this week, since it is free week and you can go to as many as you want for free (pass for the rest of the summer is $29. why this isn't included in the gym cost, i have no idea.)

here's what i've done so far:

monday - cardio kick
tuesday - step sculpting, strength without boundaries, dance scene

the cardio kick was intense, and i envisioned severe butt pain on tuesday. but i didn't have hardly any pain. did i not do it hard enough? maybe i need to punch harder and push myself harder. i'm sure the teacher will do that for us. she seems good like that. she's very enthusiastic!

the step sculpting was maybe my favorite, but it was only 45 minutes. still good. it takes some coordination of practicing which foot to step with at any given time, but i liked it. this teacher has the least personality of all the teachers so far.

the strength class was all about how many implements you can use to work out without having a home gym. we used a yoga ball, a step, a mat, a leg band, a longer leg band with handles, dumbells, and a bench-press type pole with weights on either side. i get her methodology, and for sure she's working on weight and resistance training, which is something new for me. she is also very perky and always saying, "here we go! you can do it! nice work!"

the dance class was somewhat of a let down. i had taken funky street style dancing at ucdavis, and the teacher there was very into a warm up and isolations and really getting us ready before we started any kind of routine - that is where i perfected my running man, my terminator, my michael jackson thriller move, and my c-walk. the girl yesterday was very nice and seemed to be a good dancer, but we did like, a few warm up stretches and immediately started into the routine she wants to work on. and for one day, we were at my maximum amount of new moves learned that i was sure i wouldn't remember them all (but i did). one new thing we learned was happy feet, which i guess i've done before but it didn't come back as easily as i'd hoped. still, not sure i'll go back to that one.

tonight i will try cycle fit class, and pop hop fusion dance class.

i have yet to try the yoga class or the core conditioning class, but there just wasn't time and a lot of them overlap. i think i will buy the unlimited all summer pass, and just go as often as i can.

what surprises me the most is how NOT sore i am. i figured, with all the movement and the weights and dips and kicking, i would be in severe pain. tuesday i was feeling a little tightness in my back and shoulders, but nothing unmanageable. after the 3 classes yesterday, i have a little soreness in my shoulders and a little stiffness in my legs. but really? i worked out for 3 solid hours yesterday and this is all i have to show for it? my arms aren't even sore and i was sure they would be after doing all these arm exercises with weights. maybe i need to use heavier weights! lord! i'm going to be so buff!

wait, i don't get buff. this i learned in college. well at least i'll have muscles, even if no one can see them but me.

ok i just did an arms over the head and lean back in the computer chair stretch. i can feel some soreness in my abs. which i expected.

another thing i want to start working on is having a routine. of course this is all shot to heck this week (and probably for the next 3 weeks...and then past that cause i'll be on vacation), because work is eating, eating, eating up my days. running an experiment where i need to have solutions running for 30 hours over 2 days. i don't have to be with them all the time, but i don't like to leave them for too long either in case something happens and there's a fire or explosion or whatever. so the last few days i've been getting up at 530am and going to bed around 130am.

for anyone who knows me, this is definitely not enough sleep for me. i need more like 7-8 or more hours on a daily basis. right now i feel a little bit like a zombie, and i'm certainly not being productive. but being here counts as work so i'm getting a bunch of hours. and in the middle of all that, i take breaks to go to work out. however i haven't been eating regularly.

back to routines. perhaps once these next 2-3 crazy weeks are over, i can start normalizing myself again. get up at given time. do some regular morning type activities, like eat, shower, get dressed, pack lunch, take vitamins (i did take a vitamin today!) then bike to work - which is amazing because it is downhill and SO FAST! work for some normal amount of hours. like 8-10/day. go to the gym sometime during the day or play tennis if that works out. go home at a regular hour by bike, which is a workout in and of itself. make dinner. have my evenings to do home type things which i have been neglecting this past week, like sorting things, organizing things, work on photo albums or scrap books.

one thing i've been able to keep up with even through splitting up and moving is dancing. and then i wonder partially if the reason i've been not very sore from the working out is because my core is strong from dancing. could this be the reason for all my strength? who would have thought? anyway i'm doing that and having fun with it. and now i get to dance with lots of partners in a given night, which is even more fun!

well, i think i'll go get back to work. i've got more to write, but probably should get something productive done before the day is completely over.

peace and turtles!