One More Time

There's an element of the cleverness of having "Begin Again" be the final track on Red to calling my very last post "One More Time."  At least, that's how it seems to me.

Of course, once I announced that I would be taking my leave from this blog in the postscript to the previous entry, it's been like the floodgates have opened inside my mind, and my pen-wielding hand could barely keep up.  So typical.  In any case, the possible candidates to be featured in this last post were (in no particular order): "Touch You (Electricity)," which is about that insane, overwhelming, inexplicable physical attraction to someone* - written as a duet; "One Moment at a Time," a really cool retrospective look at a relationship, from the beginning through the various stages of development, and then to "coffee, old times' sake / go our separate ways"; "How it Feels (A Stone, Personified)," a really intense breakup song that includes one of my very favourite lines that I've ever written, "but I go off in my car, just to park somewhere and cry"; "Last Minute of My Life," written on Election Day for a boy to whom I gave my heart on that day four years ago, and who last summer said he owed me something and I was a fool for believing him; and "Picking Daisies," in a pseudo-tribute to the victims of the Newtown, CT/Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

I think maybe I'm best at eloquence when it comes to sadness.

"Last Minute of My Life" would probably have been a more fitting end to this blog, seeing as it's basically been a chronicle of the farce that was our whole relationship that wasn't, our friendship that couldn't, no matter how either one of us tried.  But I'm over it.  The whole point of that song is that I am not wasting another fraction of my time on dwelling (maybe the things-that-might've-been really are the ones that are the hardest to escape) so that's what I'll do.  I'm rising above, and going out with this song instead.  Which, you know, is really cheerful and all.

Except not.  I was writing it during my Intro to Accounting class (gripping), after having it sort of germinate in my mind night and day for a few weeks, and I actually started crying right there in the middle of it, at my desk.  Had anyone noticed, I'm sure it would have been awkward.  It's not the first time I've cried while writing a song (also, not the first time I've cried during class) - and I don't know if it's the saddest song I've ever written - but it affected me more than any other before.

This post was typed a few weeks ago, but I was waiting to put it up.  But I have to say, even reading the song back now reaffirms to me that it's a good one.  Heart-wrenching, I think, but good.

One More Time

all the places where you once stood
still have a certain magic
I only have to look around a room,
to see you there inside it
because the truth is, I miss you dearly,
with every breath I take
so pretending that you're here with me
is my favourite part of the day

CHORUS:
I close my eyes, and there we are,
together again
I'm breathing you, feeling your heart,
and holding your hand
and you're not just a shadow, floating across my mind
and I get to say, "I love you," one more time

I have a hard time believing
you'd want me to find someone else,
but I find myself not leaving
when he asks me about myself
and as much as he must hate it,
I can't deny it's true
that when I'm lying next to him,
I make believe it's you

CHORUS:
I close my eyes, and there we are,
together again
I'm breathing you, feeling your heart,
and holding your hand
and you're not just a memory, living on in my mind
and I get to say, "I love you," one more time

BRIDGE:
I've wished a million times it had been me,
that day in that car
then you would have lived and the last thing I'd have known
was being in your arms
and it wouldn't be me, missing you this much,
wishing I, wishing I could just give up

2nd CHORUS:
you'd close your eyes, and there we'd be,
together again
you'd breathe me in, feel my heart beat,
and you would hold my hand
I wouldn't be just a memory, living on in your mind
and we'd get to say, "I love you," one more time
you get to say, "I love you," one more time

but I close my eyes, and there we are,
together again
I'm breathing you, feeling your heart,
and holding your hand
and you're not just a memory, living on in my mind
and I get to say, "I love you," one more time, one more time

the truth is, I miss you dearly,
with every breath I take,
and pretending that you're here with me,
is my favourite part of the day,
because you get to hear "I love you," one more time...

Raise your hands: how many thought it was just about a break-up?  That bridge got me.  And continues to get me, every time.  Also, remember when I said that someone had suggested I try shifting choruses, just changing it a little bit, so that by the end it comes to mean something else?  Again, this isn't entirely that, I think, but the second chorus there is also powerful, changing the perspective and pronouns - it seemed to me like a punch in the stomach.  I don't know.  Maybe you won't have that same reaction, and that's okay, too, of course.

And with that, this experiment is over.  The first post, aptly titled "First Post (I know, how original)," was 15 July 2008, and the last is this, on 29 December 2012, travelling from a black-background-pink-text layout - which I much, much preferred - to this blue-and-grey colour scheme.  Thank you for reading, if you have been - whether you're a serial visitor, or just merely stumbled upon it once.  I shake you warmly by the hand.  Bonus points if you know from what book that is.

So.  For the last time:

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

*such as I have to the occupant of the #2 spot on my (very international) list of the most attractive men in the world.  The things I would do to him, things of which I've always been terrified...

We ride, side by side - a cloud of dust, a ray of light.

Oh, why do I reach for the stars, when I don't have wings to carry me that far?

And, finally, I leave you with the inspiring, immortal words of ABBA,

I'm nothing special, in fact, I'm a bit of a bore / if I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before....and I've often wondered how did it all start / who found out that nothing can capture a heart, like a melody can? / well, whoever it was, I'm a fan / so I say thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing / thanks for all the joy they're bringing / who can live without it, I ask in all honesty / what would life be? / without a song or a dance, what are we? / so I say thank you for the music - for giving it to me...

Red

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time again.  That time when a Taylor Swift album comes out, and I weigh in.  It's become somewhat of a tradition, hasn't it?

Except this time it was different.  Not that I wasn't excited about it, but I was significantly less excited than I was for Speak Now.  Because the latter was so magnificent, I was trepidatious and scared that Red would not be.  So, on the drive to Target on Monday at half-past eight in the morning, as I was listening to "Last Kiss" and the rest of Speak Now, I prepared myself (I had to - I can't lose two of my idols in the same week).  I told myself that it would still be Taylor's music, if it didn't exactly follow in the footsteps of the triumphant third album.  It would still be good, even if it wasn't like her previous work.  Even if it wasn't country.

And let me tell you, there is very little country here.  But there is also more country than others would have you believe.  She's branching out into all sorts of genres, but her roots are planted in Nashville.

(Speaking of, is anyone watching the ABC new drama, "Nashville"?  I was mesmerised by the performance of "No One Will Ever Love You" in the closing minutes of the second episode, and now I know I want to keep watching.)

So, as it's been two years, this time I was able to sit before an actual fireplace while listening to the new CD - and I was reminded how, five years ago, I had picked up the blue-covered Taylor Swift album and, in a fit of inspiration, turned on the fireplace in order to escalate the listening experience.  Then the strands of "Tim McGraw" filled my ears, and a new era of my life began.  Sometimes memories do come back so strong it hurts.

I unwrapped the CD - I started with the non-bonus version, even though I had purchased both while at Target - and, as my habit dictates, read through the prologue before I pressed "play" on the CD player I had used for all of the Taylor albums (and most recently for a debut album from my latest celebrity crush, Shane Harper - which creeps me out scares me because he is younger than I am and I don't feel old enough for that to be true).  I'm not thrilled by the pictures she chose to feature in the pages of the booklet; I think she's prettier than the red lipstick and frumpy old-fashioned clothes she is wearing allow her to be.

The prologue introduces her definition of red and explains her love for a Pablo Neruda quote, "love is so short, forgetting is so long."  She continues, "And when we're trying to move on, the moments we always go back to aren't the mundane ones.  They are the moments you saw sparks that weren't really there, felt stars aligning without having any proof, saw your future before it happened, and then saw it slip away without any warning."  And in case you needed to know more, "...this album is about the other kinds of love that I've recently fallen in and out of.  Love that was treacherous, sad, beautiful, and tragic.  But most of all, this record is about love that was red."

And then we press play, and discover what that means musically.

"State of Grace" - In the interest of full disclosure, I will divulge that I have already listened to every song on the album nineteen times.  At least.  And let me tell you, of all sixteen, this is the first of two of which I cannot recall the melody.  It's almost boring, which is not something I've ever wanted to say about a Taylor song.  I've only recently learned what a 'state of grace' is, but still, this song is unremarkable.  Granted, that's how I felt about "Sparks Fly" on the previous album, and it grew on me.  I do like what she does with her voice here, how she augments the melody with amazing high notes, so there's that.  And I never saw you coming, and I'll never be the same.

"Red" - Losing him was blue, like I've never known / missing him was dark grey, all alone.  I love the association of feelings with colours.  It's magical.  I also love the image of love being like driving a new Maserati down a dead-end street / faster than the wind, passionate as sin / ending so suddenly.  I mentioned once before that the lyrics of this song are tremendulant, and it's true.  The tapestries she paints are magnificent (memorising him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favourite song), and the banjo playing in the background is the perfect accent.

"Treacherous" - I can't decide if it's a choice, getting swept away.  I was convinced that this would be the last song I'd listen to twelve times, because it starts of low and quiet and unexciting.  But then it kicks in, and the build-up of the chorus after the second verse is amazing.  Definitely benefits from multiple listens, because it creeps into your mind like the most welcome unexpected guest.  Two headlights shine through the sleepless night.  And the dynamic triplets in the last part of the chorus (get you, get you alone; think you should, think you should know; and follow you, follow you home) absolutely make the song for me.

"I Knew You Were Trouble." - Everywhere I've looked, people have been describing this song as a 'dubstep-pop' kind of thing.  And I have no idea what that means; I've long since deleted the text message from someone I knew that explained it, and I don't care enough to look it up.  That notwithstanding, this track is exciting and dramatic and intense.  I like the phrase saddest fear.  So yes, it's not country, but it's good music.  No apologies, he'll never see you cry / pretends he doesn't know that he's the reason why.  Plus I appreciate the period in the title, though I don't know why she broke precedent to include it.

"All Too Well" - This was the moment when the album changed for me.  Right here.  And I almost wish I had heard the other songs after this before I had the experience of this song, because I'm guessing my perception of them would have been a little different, all because of this track.  I've never felt the way I did listening to this song.  Never in my life.  I've never before felt like an interloper, an intruder in a most precious and private memory, but I did with this song.  And it was transcendent.  And painful.  And achingly, tragically beautiful.  And unforgettable.  It sounds like fall, it sounds like autumn* from the very first second of the acoustic guitar.  And then the electric guitar kicks in, accompanied by the occasional striking of the piano chord, and it's a powerful way to be transported to the time of changing leaves and maple lattes and chills in the air.  But the magnificence of the song lies in the lyrics, to the point where I can't even begin to pull out a single line or two to highlight here in this paragraph (even though I really want to).  Each sentence is its own exquisite one-liner of nostalgia, wonder, despair, longing, and recollection, and, all together, they make a detailed, shining, lyrical photo album.  Speaking of: Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turning red / you used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed / your mother's telling stories about you on the T-ball team / you tell me about your past thinking your future was me.  This is honestly the most beautiful song she's put out since "Enchanted" on the previous record.  Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much / but maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'till you tore it all up.

{*I have this thing where I love couples in the autumn.  Autumn leaves falling like pieces into place.  Something about that just feels like home to me.  I don't know if it's because it's after the summer, and the legend of summer flings that are flung sooner rather than later, so that relationships in the fall seem more serious, or because of some other reason.  But whenever I daydream and picture being coupled, it's usually in the autumn, and we're wearing jackets or coats and it's careless but grounded, light but serious and lovely at the same time (I daydream too much).  After plaid shirt days, and nights when you made me your own / now you mail back my things and I walk home alone.  So that's another reason why my heart completely aches during this song, because it's the fall thing.  It breaks me apart, knowing how much she hurt over this.  And you call me up again, just to break me like a promise / so casually cruel, in the name of being honest.  Somehow it being the autumn makes it all that much worse.}

"22" - Having this come after "All Too Well" is a little too jarring in contrast.  This track is heavily Katy Perry-inspired (particularly the noticeably flat pitch of her voice throughout - although it could be flat in an ironic sort of way, since they're dressing up as hipsters), and is absolutely Glee-ready.  Really only a matter of time before it appears on that show - especially since part of the hidden notes which make her lyrics so fun to read is DIANNA, namely Dianna Agron.  That said, it's still the perfect song for twentysomethings (I should know, being one of them): we're happy, free, confused, and lonely, at the same time / it's miserable and magical...  And I like to jump around to it, so that's fun - and end up dreaming, instead of sleeping.

"I Almost Do" - I bet you think I either moved on or hate you, 'cause each time you reach out, there's no reply.  This is basically the quintessential 'missing you' song.  And it radiates all of the things outlined above in "All Too Well," only with a more wholesale feel.  It's great, though, with the wonderful melodic surprises and the way she uses her voice here.  We made quite a mess, baby.

"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" - Yeah.  So there's this song.  I don't hate it, I really don't.  It's just that annoying earworm that you love to hate.  You don't hate it, you just pretend you do, because that's fun, too.  Dancing around to this one in the bathroom while singing into your toothbrush is also fun.  I've been there.  I'm really gonna miss you picking fights / and me falling for it, screaming that I'm right.

"Stay Stay Stay" -  Ooh, fun.  But you carry my groceries and now I'm always laughing...  It's catchy, light-hearted, and sweet.  Up until the final second when she creepily giggles into the mic and says, "That's so fun!" in a way that makes me a little unnerved.  But otherwise, this song is SO unbelievably cute.  This morning I said we should talk about it, cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved / that's when you came in wearing a football helmet, and said "Okay, let's talk."

"The Last Time" - The melody here, in the first of two duets (this one with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol) is absolutely mesmerising.  And intriguing - just when you think you've got it figured out, it changes on you; when you think it'll go sharp, it goes flat, and when you think the voices will go down, they go up instead.  Right before your eyes, I'm breaking.   The drums in the background build up to the dramatic climaxes excellently, and it's a really lovely song.  I also love the way she says the word "wrong" in this is the last time you tell me I've got it wrong.

"Holy Ground" - So this is the second of the two songs I think are unremarkable, and a bit bland.  The melody is so fast, she almost seems to be struggling to keep up, and that's why she slows it down a little for the chorus.  Spinning like a girl in a brand-new dress.  But her voice here sounds really good - I don't know what's different about this song, but her voice comes across mature and clear here, in a way it doesn't on any other track.  Back when you fit in my poems like a perfect rhyme.

"Sad Beautiful Tragic" - Good girls: hopeful they'll be, long they will wait.  It's remarkable the way she can conjure up visual images with auditory sensations: "All Too Well" sounds like autumn, is about an autumnal relationship; "Sad Beautiful Tragic" really sounds like a train, mentions a train (silence, this train runs off its tracks), and has as its secret code WHILE YOU WERE ON A TRAIN.  This is one of those bittersweet and beautiful, poignant and powerful songs that she does so well.  It's kind of like the "Last Kiss" of this album, and it carries that mantle very well.  Kiss me, try to fix it / could you just try to listen?

"The Lucky One" - I have wracked my brains trying to figure out about whom this song is.  And it's funny, because the secret message is, WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW.  There's a maturity in this song that is really intense, and the melody is, too.  Another name goes up in lights, like diamonds in the sky.  It's a great song, and I love the drums in the back.  She's smart, too, for writing this song, because it shows how much she doesn't play with the rules of the Hollywood game.  They say you bought a bunch of land somewhere / chose the rose garden over Madison Square.  I'm not a fan of the building Madison Square (three guesses why) but the image is fantastic.

"Everything Has Changed" - This is the second duet on the album, this time with Ed Sheeran.  And it's playful and expectant and cheerful.  I'm a sucker for syncopation, and this song is loaded with it, so I love that.  Both of the duets on the record were successfully executed, because they rank up there as some of the best tracks.  And all I feel in my stomach is butterflies / the beautiful kind, making up for lost time / taking flight.

"Starlight" -  You know, I was recently remarking to somebody that the word 'marvellous' is possibly the most rarely-used adjective in the English language.  When lo and behold, it's the seventh word in this song, repeated often.  I said, oh, my, what a marvellous tune.  And I am very appreciative.  And I do like this song, I do.  But I think it's a little too drum-heavy to be as delicate as suggested in the title, a bit too in-your-face to be ethereal.  And she has become incredibly ethereal.  He was trying to skip rocks on the ocean, saying to me / don't you see the starlight, starlight? don't you dream impossible things?

"Begin Again" - This is the magnificent end to an album.  Of course you end a record with a song called "Begin Again," seriously.  It shimmers and glitters and sparkles and glimmers with hope and cautious excitement and promise.  I think it's strange that you think I'm funny, 'cause he never did.  She does such a wonderful job painting the picture with her words, and the melody invites the listener in, and allows for him to dwell on it.  It's pensive and slow, but also joyous and exalted.  All at the same time.  And it's the fitting end to an album where she obviously redefines herself as a musician, an artist, and a songwriter.  So it all begins again.

Just a few final collective thoughts on the album as a whole, before I sign off and maybe include a few postscripts that have nothing to do with Red.  A friend of mine posted the comment on Facebook that the record is "sexy."  And the more I think about that, the more I kind of have to agree with her.  I didn't want to at first, my chaste naivete holding me back from seeing it, but I see it now (and, perhaps more importantly, hear it now).  Also, finally, every Taylor Swift album takes me back to a place and time, and the sounds of one always conjure up images.  Taylor Swift was the soundtrack to my disastrous junior prom, to chemistry homework as a hailstorm pounded on the roof, to my loneliest Valentine's Day, to the beginning of two simultaneous, non-romantic love affairs that have lasted these many years.  Fearless reminds me back of being ruinously in love with David, of the hopes and fears and dreams of graduation, of the time I said things to someone who didn't want to hear them, of eating lunch alone, of nights I spent babysitting.  Speak Now instantly takes me back to all those evenings during my starving undergrad days when I walked home, slowly, in the pouring rain with a defective umbrella, to a dorm where a pot-smoking roommate was waiting; to the week Harry Potter 7.1 came out and Pat Burns died; to French homework and the flu; to both my first kiss and my first all-nighter.  And I guess it kind of makes me a little sad that now, with the release of Red, all of those stories (hers and mine) are now definitely in the past - well-worn and cared-for.  Those records are catalog, history, memory.  And I can only wonder what sort of recollections I will have with Red, when even it becomes history.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

p.s.  The next post, my nineteenth of the year, will be my last.  Not just for this year, but ever on this blog.  Two of the last three song posts have been about daydreams, and the next one will be, too.  That's not enough.  I can't do this anymore, and I'm tired of feeling as though I've poured too much of myself into an anonymous blog read by too few people.  My real life is lonely and boring, and for the first time ever, I am frightened to death of the future.  I need to figure that out - why, for example, when I strive to keep the rest of the house organised and neat, my personal bedroom is a chaotic mess.  I don't even write good songs anymore - if I ever did.  What is it that Dumbledore said in the first Harry Potter?  Oh, right.  It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.

Wasted Summers

This is not going to be the usual post, if there is such a thing.  It probably will be more of a rant, probably irrational and definitely emotional, followed by what could be not a good song.  But in the end, it will be cathartic, and maybe (hopefully) help me figure out what exactly has been going on, and how I should feel about it.  Not, of course, that there's any "right" answer.  Forgive the length of the post, because I do imagine it will get fairly long.

Okay.  And so we begin.

I've certainly not kept it a secret that I like sports.  Yes, my number one favourite, as presented to you in the "p.s." sections of various posts, as well as in some of the songs themselves, is hockey.  New Jersey Devils hockey, to be precise.  But I like, and watch, others - you know, football, the other football, tennis, Formula 1.  All those have been mentioned also in the course of my posting on this blog, too.  But for years and years, barely predating my thorough knowledge of hockey, my favourite sport in all the world was cycling.

Oh, yes.  You're probably beginning to see where exactly I am headed with this.

For my entire childhood, I was a cycling fiend.  I'm not even kidding: after age two or three, when I learned to ride myself, I lived for every July, when that exalted race the Tour de France would again occur; and in the meantime, I gorged myself on anything I could get.  Pre-Internet, I scoured the newspapers my dad would bring home (we subscribe to the New York Times, and George Vecsey, whose name I still remember well, was particularly adept at reporting about that sport) for any article, however small, about cycling in the sports section.  I was glued to the TV to the channel that was, at the time, OLN (then Versus, and now goes by NBC Sports Network) whenever there was any cycling coverage.  Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen were gods to me (they still are, and forever will be).  I couldn't wait for the beginning months of the year, when the Tour Down Under would signal the start of a new season, and then the Belgian one-day races would start up; the Hell of the North (Paris-Roubaix) and the Tour of Flanders were especial favourites.  I can still remember when the Tour of California was in February, and not in May conflicting with the Giro D'Italia as it is now; I remember a time the Tour de Georgia was an event.  I can remember when the victor of the Vuelta a Espana received the golden-coloured jersey (or, as one of my favourite cycling sites used to call it, the "golden fleece") rather than the reddish coloured jersey he gets now.  In my fifth grade yearbook, I listed as one of my dreams to be able to ride in the Tour myself one day.  In high school, before class started, I used to read articles and interviews my dad printed out from online.  Every time someone I loved retired, I cried (I will never forget English class sophomore year when I wrote an ode - it was really almost a eulogy - to my favourite cyclist, Jan Ullrich, my inexplicable first crush, when he retired that February; he still makes my speakers go boom-boom, even just for nostalgia's sake).  I can recite statistics and general classifications (GCs) from back when my age was still in the single digits, and to this day, I keep detailed notes of each stage of the Tour de France every year - in a yellow composition notebook, naturally.

By now, you should realise just how much I love this sport.  I loved it when I was young(er), and I still do love it, if only out of long-term loyalty.  I loved it so much that, in 2005, I wanted to write a book (go ahead, try and keep pen and paper away from me) about how much I love the sport, because I thought that maybe one day, people would want to read my autobiography (I used to be very ambitious, apparently) and I wanted to capture that Tour, and my life and emotions as it unfolded, faithfully.  Here's an excerpt from it, from the beginning of Chapter 5:

I don't know why I'm drawn to the Tour de France, or even to cycling.  It could have something to do with the unexpected ending, or the spontaneity of it.  Or maybe the thrill of the sprints at the end, or the brilliance of teamwork, or even the suspense of time trials.  Or it might be a combination.  Truth be told, my favorite parts are the time trials, the mountain stages, and the podium in Paris.  I also like the joy on the faces of the jersey holders and the winners of the stages.

I'm not going to lie, I really had to bite my tongue hold my fingers from writing some snarky, sarcastic comment.  Keep in mind: I was, what, fourteen at the time?  But the point is, I was so in love with and passionate about cycling I was willing to write a book about it.  A twenty-five-chapter book.  I grew up, shaping my life around this sport which gave me goosebumps and brought me to tears and to my knees in awe at the accomplishments of "mere mortals."  I learned who to be, what values to hold dear, because of these athletes.  But, really, mostly because of one.

Three guesses who.  And your first two don't count.

If you guessed Lance Armstrong, you were right.  This was a man I would have, quite literally, died for.  There was not a battle I would not have fought for him, not a shred of his honour I would not have defended.  To illustrate the nature of my relationship with my heroic idol, I turn again to my book (at one point, I called him "the most important person to me"; at another, "my hero"; at yet another, "the champion of my heart"), to Chapter 1:

One day in sixth grade, I was pretending I was riding [my bike] with Lance Armstrong, and could keep up with him (ha! yeah right! [sic]).  I "showed" him my scars from third grade [when I fell off and skinned my knee and ankle] when, all of a sudden, he "suggested" we ride a little more.  I, of course, agreed.  Our house is the highest point on a hill, so each way from our house is downhill.  I was riding beside him, faster, faster, faster, feeling the wind in my hair, feeling just like Lance, racing my own self and no one else...boom.  I hit a hole in the sidewalk and, in my speed, went down hard.  I lay sprawled on the pavement, the bike on top of me, and, once more, Lance's face appeared in front of me.  "Get up," he told me, "get up, and go home."

The result of that crash, by the way, is a big-ass scar that is still on my left knee (pardon the language).  My very own experience with road rash, if you will.  (By the way, I really like commas and punctuation.  Not much has changed there.)  Based on that, I guess you can consider my love affair innocent, and every shade of naive.  And this was, ultimately, my tragic mistake.

You see, everything emotional I do, I do to a fault.  When I fall in love, I do it to a fault.  When I trust, I do it to a fault.  When I believe in something and/or someone, I, again, do it to a fault.  When I hate, I do even that to a fault.  It can be a person, but it doesn't have to be.  I become blinded and immerse myself in it.  I'm not, by default, a fool - but this makes me one.  Because it sets me up for nothing but extreme disappointment, inevitably.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

And so, yes, I was flawlessly in admiration of the star of my favourite sport, who seemed to radiate authority and authenticity from every pore.  From him, I imbibed every good quality I wanted to have, and wanted to learn to have.  I learned to hope, how to dream, from watching him.  I thought he personified things like character, integrity, honour, chivalry, respect and respectability, trustworthiness, and just plain hard work.  And I wanted all of those things (again, to a fault), so I believed in him and started to believe in myself.  I started to hold myself to a higher standard, because he so obviously held himself to one.  So yes, my parents were formative role models in my childhood, and for my entire life, and so was my sister, but Lance was equally - if not more - involved with me becoming who I am.  And who I want to be.

We came to the sport basically at the same time, he in his post-cancer-comeback and I for the first time, in 1999.  That was the first of seven Tours de France dominated by Lance and Johan Bruyneel (whom I affectionately called "Jo-Jo," despite the fact that my dad did not like him and I've since inherited that distaste) and the Blue Train.  Also known as Team US Postal.  Which hurts to write now, but at the time was, for lack of a better word, awesome.  And so I found everything I could about him. During the course of the next seven years, I became a teenager but also very nearly an expert on all things Lance.  I read his book, and then the next one, which we own in autographed form and which used to be one of my most prized possessions.  I read his mother's biography.  I read so many other biographies about him until I could answer 99.9% of questions on the subject.  I went back and watched the tapes my dad has so meticulously kept of previous Tours - 1996 being the most incredible to watch, with the stage where poor Fabio Casartelli passed away and then Lance went away and won the next stage (also, then the stage with Bruyneel and the great Miguel Indurain which the latter should absolutely have won).  On his behalf, I hated Greg Lemond (still do, even though it turns out the guy with the unnaturally blue eyes was right).  Year after year, I kept detailed binders chock-full of articles about him and his Tour victories clipped from newspapers and magazines and, later, printed from the Internet.  When there was a cycling race in New York City  - somewhere around South Street Seaport, I believe, because I remember there being cobblestones - we went, and met Paul Sherwen (!!!!!!) and even got to meet Lance himself.  I later wrote a poem about the experience for my Creative Writing class freshman year in high school.  I even began listening to Sheryl Crow music when the pair started dating, if you'll believe that my adoration went that far.

And when he retired in 2005, on the podium before the Arc de Triomphe, facing the Champs Elysees, flanked by his two biggest competitors at the time (Ivan Basso, who was second, and my Jan Ullrich in third), after his seventh Tour victory, I memorised the speech he gave.  I also cried for about a week.  But there are parts of the speech I will never forget; I performed it for my Speech and Drama class freshman year.  The final sentences went something like, "The last thing I'll say to the people who don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics: I'm sorry for you.  I'm sorry that you can't dream big, that you don't believe in miracles.  But this is one hell of a race.  And you should stand around and believe it.  You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people.  I'll be a fan of the Tour de France forever.  Because there are no secrets, this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it.  Vive le Tour - forever."

Something about that still gives me chills.  Even though time has proved how ironic those very words were.

Afterwards, I still followed him, going to see the NY Marathon when he participated, both times, and seeing him again.  Which always made me exquisitely happy.  But, thankfully, thus didn't end my love affair with the sport, which has only become more embattled as the years have gone on.  2006 was the Operation Puerto-Floyd Landis fiasco, holy mackerel, and 2007/2009 was Michael Rasmussen and Alberto Contador, among many others.  These things only made me hold up the US Postal/Discovery Channel example of the preceding era higher, and be grateful that, despite the fact that the Tours during those seven years were boring in comparison, there was no doping on the top step of the podium.

Thinking about that makes me sick and disgusted.

Eventually, I became disenchanted with Lance as a person, and found him to be merely a man of flimsy character, for all of his superhuman athletic ability.  He simply ceased to be someone I admired as a person.  Hockey replaced cycling at the top of the list of my favourite sports.  I took down my Lance posters, and put away the binders and books and magazines on the lowest bookshelf in my room, out of sight.  Andy Schleck became (and has remained) my cycling crush.  I wrote an editorial for my school newspaper senior year, calling his decision to come out of retirement at age 38 for the 2009 "harmful" to his reputation and "inconsiderate" of the younger generation of cyclists; the last sentences included the judgment that "the sport was not left wanting in his three years of retirement, and it doesn't need him anymore - the prodigal son can go back to Texas now."  Ouch.

But none of this changed the fact that I believed in him as a cyclist, and would not hear criticism of his Tour victories.  "He has never failed a drug test!" was my mantra, perhaps to convince even myself that (how did I put it?) a man of flimsy character could not possibly be an athlete of flimsy character.  And so it happened that this year, when Phil and Paul and their broadcast partners, the incomparable Bob Roll and the way-better-than-Craig-Hummer-and-Al-Trautwig-ever-were Liam McHugh, talked about new reports surfacing about Jonathan Vaughters (he of the sideburns which must be seen to be believed) and David Zabriskie (one of my very, very favourites - I call him "Friskie") and George Hincapie (the Finn Hudson of the peloton, the most venerable and dependable person, let alone athlete) and Tommy Danielson ("the Great White Hope") and others testified to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) about US Postal/Disco and Lance, I realised that if anything were to happen based on those testimonies, that I would have the most insane mental breakdown and personal crisis.

After all, these are people we're supposed to trust.  And so we do.  We're supposed to believe that they honour the sport they uphold, the sport we love, and are, because of perseverance and a dream and public scrutiny, trustworthy people.  So we do believe it.  These are people from whom we learn life lessons.  Lance and Co. are people I turned to, on a daily basis, when I didn't have friends.  They were my childhood.  As mentioned above, these are men who taught me how to put into practice every good quality humans have the ability to possess.  And I was terrified that if they were found not to have these qualities, only to have pretended to have them, I would not know who to be.

Well, fast-forward a few months, and here I am, and I don't know who to be.  I guess, at some point, when you internalise the qualities you see in your heroes, and you find them within yourself, you become your own hero.  You become, as the expression goes, the good you see in the world.  But I'm not at that point, because I was so violently misled, so viciously had, that I don't even know if I have those qualities.  What do they mean?  What are they?  Is it possible to possess them without abusing them, like Lance and Co. did?

I guess we all lose our childhood idols at some point.  I guess they do become human, after a while, and our eyes behold them differently than they've done.  But I highly doubt that it's supposed to happen in this crash-and-burn spectacular, horrifying fashion.

This past Wednesday, USADA began printing articles and releasing reports about the US Postal Cycling Team.  Remember from a gazillion paragraphs ago, Blue Train?  And each one is worse than the last.  It appears that, under the direction and careful meticulousness of Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong, it was a team which led the greatest organised doping ring the sport has ever seen.  Athletes were forced to take EPO, or other performance-enhancing drugs, including their own enhanced blood, or else were sacked from the team.  It wasn't just that they were afraid of not being good enough to compete with everyone else (who, by the way, were in all likelihood also doping).  Oh, no.  They were literally afraid for their jobs.

I mean, on the one hand, it makes tragic, logical sense.  Everyone who eventually left US Postal tested positive for one thing or another - Roberto Heras, Tyler Hamilton (who came up with one of the most brilliant, and pathetic excuses ever), Floyd Landis...the list goes on.

What strikes me with painful, paralysing enormity is the complexity of it all, how deep this thing goes.  I mean, when you have a man like George Hincapie doing something so morally wrong, it really makes you wonder.

The news of this broke, I think, Thursday.  And I've been in a state of mental and emotional turmoil ever since.  I pulled out the binders and things I had collected and fell into a teary mess over them.  Then I put them in the attic, because I can't stand to look at them and I can't bear to throw them out.  Later, I went on an angered rampage (in which I actually used the f-word once, shockhorror), because fundamentally, I think I'm just so profoundly pissed off about it.  These people thoroughly and irreparably disrespected something I hold dear - how dare they?!  That's one thing I can't get out of my mind - how dare they, how dare they, how dare they.  And then, to hold their heads up high the way they did and accept all of the accolades (for YEARS!!) that came their way shows such goddamn arrogance and self-righteousness and feeling of unconquerability that it just ultimately makes me nauseous.

And then, of course, I dissolve into this insane puddle of nostalgia, when everything was easier because everything was black and white and lovely.  I think of a time when I believed people and they didn't defraud me, disappoint me, betray me, cheat me, make me doubt myself.  One of the only things about myself I like my favourite things about myself is how much I trust, because I believe in human greatness and I believe people are good and I believe that everyone is beautiful, unless proven otherwise - and I only ever judge beauty on inner substance and character (except in a one single case).  Therefore, as in the words of Mr. Darcy, my good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.  I will be on your side until I absolutely can no longer remain there.  But this situation is making me rethink everything, considering that everything I've ever believed in was just a smokescreen and a lie (which, incidentally, was a working title for the song you'll get to read, eventually).

I mean, they fooled everyone.  And they took away our ability to wonder - now, instead of marvelling at someone's climbing ability, or something, in the back of our minds, we'll always be thinking, "is this real?" It's disheartening for the sport of cycling, it makes Americans look horrible in the eyes of international sport, and it just plain breaks my heart.  I guess I do consider the fact that I am not (and hopefully never will be) a cancer patient or fighter, so I'm not one of those Lance inspired in a life-or-death scenario.  Small comfort, but a silver lining nonetheless.

Now that I've taken up so much of your time talking about myself, I'll bring you to the song.  I hope it isn't but this post could be the longest blog post in the history of the Internet.

It starts of a little universal, using "we" as the primary pronoun in the first verse, and then somehow, it went in a much more personal direction and I couldn't stop using "I."  I guess I'm hoping you understand, through it or through the above epic, just how devastating these revelations and years of betrayal are to me.  I realise it's not the end of the world, of course, but my childhood imploded and I'm distraught about it.  Part of it is the futility of all those hours taken up by breathless fandom, probably.  Well, here goes.

Wasted Summers

this is a fine way, to pay back, all those who believed in you
you must be so proud, you created, the things we bought into
year in and year out, new triumphs, oh how you must have laughed
and all the while, all you were was, the master of another craft
in the end, you've made us all the fools

CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, and it's a beautiful July
and then it's October, and it's turned cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, seven years of never stop believing
and you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight dark, and the summers wasted away

I have spent too much, of my time, being on your side
you misused that trust, you broke it, and took it for a ride
you just made your way, to the top, stacking lie upon lie
it is astounding, that you can, look yourself in the eye
how can you say you ever really tried?

CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, and it's a beautiful July
and then it's October, and it's turned cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, fourteen years of never stop believing
and you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight dark, and the summers wasted away

BRIDGE:
how dare you, I'm disappointed, disenchanted
how dare you disrespect something I love
how dare, I'm disgusted...

CHORUS:
one moment we're riding high, while the sun shines, it was a beautiful July
but now it's October, and it's turning cold, and we are standing on our own
it was just fleeting, seventeen years of never stop believing
still you kept on cheating, misleading, and never stopped deceiving
the sunset was brief, the twilight is dark, and the summers all wasted away
the sunset was brief, the twilight was dark, and the summers wasted away

Oh, oh, wasted away...

Based on the chart that is about halfway down on this page, the last thing I will say on the subject is: Thank goodness for Miguel Indurain.  A great champion, and an undisputed one.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

I can't understand the way it goes, so I don't wanna know, I don't wanna know - 'cause everything I know makes me feel so low.  I don't wanna know....

p.s.  Look for another post by the end of next week.  Because Red comes out on Monday!

p.p.s.  The song by Tim McGraw, "Only Human," from his latest album has been amazing to me lately.  The line, "I am fool enough to believe there's hope among the ruins," applies brilliantly to my attitude towards cycling at the moment.  Everyone thought the US Postal era was a new dawn after the horrid Festina affair, but it seems we're right back there again.  Maybe these are the complete ruins, nothing left of the doping empires of years prior, and now there's hope again.  I'm just hoping beyond hope that Bruyneel didn't poison the Schlecks before he was fired from RadioSchleck (disclaimer: not the actual name of the team), because for me they are the future.  Andy is the one in whom I am vesting my love for the sport (it's hard to do so with Frank, at the moment, even though it's sort of a package deal), and if that fails, I'm done.

Lucky Ones

This isn't the song I teased in the previous post, so if you were looking forward to that, I am sorry to disappoint you.  That one is forthcoming, I promise.  But the one in this post is already fully-formed, and so chronology dictates that I present this one first.

And tradition dictates I begin with the backstory.  But first, a little something I missed in the last post.

Taylor!  Taylor Swift has begun releasing singles from Red, one a week, just as she did with Speak Now.  And it's ever so exciting, because each one reassures me that "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is not indicative of the rest of the album.  Yay!  The second single, "Begin Again," is absolutely stunning.  It glitters and sparkles and pulses, like the most ethereal and beautiful of waves.  The lyrics are breathtakingly wonderful: "I've been spending the last eight months, thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end, but on a Wednesday in a cafe, I watched it begin again..."  Oh, just classic Taylor stuff.  I love her.  As for the next one, "Red," the title track, I can't say that I've listened to it enough to have an opinion, really.  But I know the lyrics are so poetic.  So well-written.  But don't worry, come the week of the 22nd of October, I'll have another post up, where as with Fearless and Speak Now, I will provide a run-down of the album.  It's going to be terrific.  (I'll get to 19 posts yet.)

And now I can proceed with the backstory.

Okay, so I met this guy.  To be honest, that's pretty much where the story ends.  I met this guy.  And then we each walked away, separately.  But something happened as we were talking (and honestly, "I do have a girlfriend, but I find you very interesting and would like to get a drink with you sometime to get to be friends with you," ranks somewhere between "I am gay" and "I have that effect on a lot of people" on my list of things I don't want to hear from guys but that have been said to me anyway), and I came away with all of these wonderful daydreams - because that's all I'll ever have, I've resigned myself to that fact - of how my life would be if my absolute number 1 life's dream came true for me.  My number 1 life's dream is, by the way, to be a mother.  So I fell asleep amidst these daydreams, and slept thinking about it.  By the next morning, the first parts of this song were already forming.  All I had to do was to set them down on paper.

I have this absolutely breathtakingly-paralysing fear that my dream isn't going to happen, at all or the way it should.  But if and/or when it does, I desperately want my children to know how much I love them already, how much they were wanted, how much I was looking forward to having them.  This is one way of letting them know that.  So of course, the song is make-believe.  But it's a beautiful make-believe I can't wait to experience for real.  Even if it's not this way in real life.

Lucky Ones

baby, this is my first memory of you,
I'm smiling down at that little plus sign
trembling, and laughing, and crying, too
and this room feels motionless in time
the cat comes in, you'll meet her soon enough
and you'll tug her tail like I've been afraid to do
your daddy says, "we're more than two of us"
he's holding me, so he's holding you
and it's like I'm seeing him for the first time,
because suddenly, he's more than just mine

CHORUS:
oh, baby, we are the lucky ones
and, baby, we are yours, from now on
you were loved before you even came to be
and you were wanted, desperately
so please know, you made us the lucky ones

today is the first whole day of fall
and already the leaves are changing
I'm looking with child's eyes at it all
and I see magic in everything
for no reason, the power went out last night
but there are no monsters in the dark
we ate cookies by the candlelight
and I swear I could almost feel your heart
everything old is new again
you were a part of everything we said

CHORUS:
oh, baby, we are the lucky ones
and, baby, we are yours, from now on
you were loved before you even came to be
and you were wanted, desperately
so please know, you made us the lucky ones

BRIDGE:
you should see us, talking about our lives this time next year
how many nights have I stayed up, thinking about these moments?
so, baby, won't you hurry up and get here?

you are the first dream I ever had,
but I never dreamed it alone
this man, who you will call your dad
and this house, that you have made a home...

So it's a little detail-oriented and -specific.  I was kind of writing it as though it were happening the day I was writing it.  So that's where the image of the power outage comes in, and the fall, and stuff.  You're probably going to judge me very much for this song, but it has made me happy.  And I don't want to hide.  Which is an ironic thing to say, given the anonymous nature of this blog.

Anyway, much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

She ain't even thinking 'bout what's really going on right now, but I guarantee this memory's a big 'un.  And she thinks we're just fishing.

The Mirror Lies

Remember when I mentioned that I had once embarked upon writing a screenplay and failed miserably so I threw it out?  Well, that was only the first one.  I've written, or at least thought out with such detail that I can recite to you, a few more.  There's one in particular, that stands out, for a film I've invented and which I've named, The Mirror Lied.  Basically, in my imagination, it's a pseudo-documentary, in-depth look at a girl who develops anorexia and has her life spiral out of control as her weight gets lower and lower and her being becomes more and more focused solely on this one aspect of her life.  It's harrowing.  I've got it cast and everything, which probably makes me sound weird.  The title comes from one conversation she has with her boyfriend, in the scene where they break up (spoiler alert!), and it's actually my favourite scene.  He's the one who actually drops the line, when he's trying, desperately, to get her out of her ana fixation (uh, good luck with that, buddy), and I thought it was brilliant.  Sometimes things just come out of the blue.

Anyway.

I've hesitated about posting this song, and this post, because it paints me kind of crazy (the post more than the song, perhaps).  But also, I think, speaks to the fundamental truth that our brain, and our thoughts, has some wicked power over us.  Because it has the power to change our perception of fact, and skew our own ideas, and twist our own self-presentation.  One's mind is not unassailable or infallible, which is scary in itself, especially because it feels as though it is, most of the time (which is as it should be - let's not start doubting our own reality just yet).

Take the mirror, for example.  I don't know about you, but I hate the mirror.  To me, it's an actual living, breathing thing with a life of its own, but really, the reflection one sees is a figment of self-perception.  You don't see the truth, because you see what your own mind is projecting upon you.  Your mind applies to the reflection blinking back at you what it wants to believe: you see what you want to see, what you want to perceive, whether or not it is actually what the mirror is showing you.  Like, you're finding excuses to not find anything good in what you see, because it's easier not to believe the mirror, because accepting yourself is hard.  Therefore, it's not the mirror that lies - it's you.  I'm just using it as a useful metonym, a poetic and functional use of metonymy in the lyrical sphere.

In many ways, as I was writing this song I became completely paranoid about my reflection felt as though I was writing the single most important song of my catalog.  It became crucial for me to phrase things in a way that would not be judgmental, or unkind, or unsympathetic.  I had to dwell on the fact that the word "I" would only appear once, in the second line, to convey understanding and sympathy (as in, "I've been there, I understand, don't worry"), but so as not to make the song about me.  There's that continual, underlying sense of comprehension on the part of the narrator, but it's not overpowering (I hope), and it's more to engender confidence than to presumptuously overlook anyone who might be affected by the song.

Because, let me tell you, I primarily embarked upon the writing of this song because I was both pissed off by (forgive the language) and disenchanted with the current trend in country music to make songs that are supposed to be, I can only presume, self-empowering to girls.  Take, for example, "Don't You Know You're Beautiful," by Kellie Pickler.  The song is cute, and catchy, and it was a huge hit back in 2009, or whenever it was released.  But to me, I hate the title, and the presentation of the idea - it almost seems to me as though there's a bit of an accusatory tone (you don't know you're beautiful? well, that's your fault, then.).  I bristle under the idea that people would do things to themselves even if they thought they were beautiful.  I can't stress enough that sometimes they just can't see it.  So, I wanted to write a song that would help someone see it, not force someone to acknowledge it when s/he doesn't believe it.  You know, you give in just because someone is so insistent and you feel like a fool when you still don't understand, but you say yes just to get that person off your back.  (I really hope I'm making sense.)  But the song that really got me was "Nobody Ever Told You," on Carrie Underwood's new album.  I think we can all acknowledge that she is gorgeous.  And I reckon people tell her that all the time.  I also reckon she believe it many times over, the way she carries on.  So, that's no problem for her.  But the song is steeped in condescension, and that really annoyed me.  Lines like, "wish you could see yourself the way I do," more often than not hear me arguing back.  You don't know me, Carrie.  How do you know what I look like?  How do you know how I see myself?  Also, just because you're so pretty doesn't mean that people haven't told other people that they're pretty, too.  It's not a one-person thing.

So, I hate that song.  It's damn catchy, but the lyrics are not particularly helpful.  Not empowering.

And thus I set out to write my own song, one that if I were to listen to it, would help me.  But don't worry, five and a half years ago, I was told I'm beautiful via disinterested text message, so I'm good.  But you know, for others who doesn't have that to carry with them for eternity (btw, I don't know how well bitterness translates into the blog format), I wanted to write a song that would give someone to understand that what s/he is feeling is not something which alienates him or her.  Something that someone can take with him or her, and use to come around and gradually do away with the barriers and the unwillingness to accept the mirror, and accept oneself.

I have no idea if I succeeded.  But somewhere around the third verse, I got goosebumps because I felt the song change into something greater than it was originally meant to be.  Granted, I was also really cold at the time, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

This is also the song I would use, if my film were ever produced, as the original song.  In my mind, it'll win an Academy Award.

The Mirror Lies

a reflection is in the eye of the beholder
trust me, I know this a little too well
lately, your eye has grown much colder
you looked in the mirror, and your face fell

when is the last time you saw yourself smile?
hesitation inside has built up your fears
an uncertain mind holds its own desperate trial,
and a fragile heart believes what it hears

CHORUS:
but don't listen to that voice inside you, calling you names
you don't have to be so good at losing mind games
if you can't see anything nice, no matter how hard you try
you don't have to feel bad, 'cause the mirror lies

the looking-glass is its own grand deception,
you're at the mercy of your disbelief
and you can't trust your own reflection
because it's both a seducer, and a thief

so you protect yourself by trying to hide
but it's your own thoughts you're fleeing
you can't turn away from an unforgiving mind
'cause it's your own thoughts you're seeing

CHORUS:
but don't listen to that voice inside you, calling you names
you don't have to be so good at losing mind games
if you can't see anything nice, no matter how hard you try
you don't have to feel bad, 'cause the mirror lies

BRIDGE:
you're finding excuses to avert your eyes
what are you afraid of,
what do you think you'll see?
it's not your fault the mirror lies

you get less disillusioned as you get older
and what you see changes with every blink
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
so what does it matter what others may think?

CHORUS:
so don't listen to that voice inside you, calling you names
you don't have to be so good at losing mind games
if you can't see anything nice, no matter how hard you try,
you don't have to feel bad, 'cause the mirror lies

there's a part of you, that knows it's just not true,
because the mirror lies...

For a while, I contemplated not putting the chorus after the final verse, but then I think it kind of ties it all nicely back in.  What do you think?

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

The truth about a mirror is that a damned old mirror don't really tell the whole truth: it don't show what's deep inside, or read between the lines, and it's really no reflection of my youth.

p.s.  I really, really, really wish it were Thursday instead of Wednesday.  I need it to be tomorrow.  That could be the start of the end of the mirror's falsehoods.  But I'm also really good at making a fool of myself, so hooray.  New song on that topic coming soon.  I've already got the chorus, and the rest of it fairly writes itself.

Your Hand (Not How It's Supposed to Be)

I'm really trying very hard to get to 19 posts this year, as with all of the previous years of this blog's existence (of course, last year does not count).  And if you consider the fact that I thought I was done writing songs in late April, it's kind of a big achievement that I'm still going.  You don't need to be impressed, but I guess I sort of am.  However, that being said, who knows how many more I've got left in me.  It's hard to write when only the same subject keeps presenting itself to me.  Over and over.

In terms of new music: as promised, I've listened to Hard 2 Love, and I really like(d) it.  I prefer when Lee Brice sings slower, more ballad-y type songs ("Seven Days a Thousand Times" vs. "Parking Lot Party"), and he does a really good job with those.  As expected, "I Drive Your Truck" is, for me, an absolutely stunning highlight.  I could listen to that song forever.  I've also since picked up Carrie Underwood's new album, Blown Away, and it's taken me a long time (like, twelve listens) to find something nice to say about it.  The title track, "Blown Away," is amazing.  That's for sure.  (Even if the opening scene of that music video makes me cringe.)  Everything else confuses me.  It's like she's trying way too hard to be some sort of fusion of Miranda Lambert and Shania Twain - and she's neither as bad-ass as Miranda, nor as substantive as Shania.    I'm primarily confused, I think, because I agree with what one reviewer said about it (I read the review on my phone sometime in April, and it pains me that I can't find it now!), that it doesn't show anything personal, which is strange from a woman who got married between her last album and this one.  Certainly songs like "Cupid's Got a Shotgun" and "Leave Love Alone" do nothing to convince one that she likes love.  "Two Black Cadillacs" is also scary in the sense that it's sung with such unconcerned gravity, like she believes it and believes the actions are correct.  I mean, I think there are ways of dealing with adultery, sure, but I don't ever think killing your husband is the answer.  (Unless we're talking "Goodbye Earl," and your husband is murderously abusive and Natalie Maines is singing the song as a satire.)  Pity the fool who falls in love with her, then.  Oh, wait...  But like I said, "Blown Away" is amazing, and "Forever Changed" isn't bad either.  And did I mention she sings like an angel?  I just think she's wasting her voice on really terrible undeserving songs like "Good Girl," which presents the exact same subject as "Cowboy Casanova" from her previous album and neither song is very good; and "One Way Ticket" - sample lyric, "say 'adios' to the minimum wage....life is so good, it's sticky sweet / it's a carnival cotton candy treat / all wrapped up in a lollipop, lick it..."

Hmm.

On another note, I also have to admit that "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" has kind of begun to grow on me.  It came on the radio (my favourite station, of course, being WYNK 101.5 Baton Rouge!) one morning on my way to the gym, and I spent the entire ride home singing along.  Still not nearly as good as "Love Story" or "Mine," the first singles off of Fearless and Speak Now, respectively, but not as obnoxious as it seemed at first listen.

Now.  Song time.  I mean, you know, my song.  Time to strike rather a sombre chord (sorry about that).

While we were on our vacation, we received word that someone we knew had died.  This was someone whose daughter's wedding I had attended barely two years ago - and my heart breaks for the family she left behind.  It was kind of an unexpected death, primarily because no one had told me that she was sick at all.  I spent the entire night after we got the news in the throes of my now-familiar insomnia, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how coincidental it was that I had already begun to write this song (below) when it happened.  I also began to compose this blog post, or at least the introduction to the song-part of the post, that night - quite eloquently, I might add - and ended musing philosophically on the nature of life (and when that happens at two in the morning, might as well kiss sleep goodbye).  None of what I came up with at the time I remember now, sadly.  Well, not too sadly, let's keep things in perspective: when ideas die, it's not so sad because they can always come to life again and be reshaped and re-purposed and put together more elegantly than before; but when people die, that's sad.  But because I don't remember the things I was going to say, I'll just proceed with this part and stop boring you.

I've probably been thinking about this song for a little over a month.  The melody that popped into my head is something that I've had a hard time getting out of it, like with "Driving With An Automatic."  Not that you can hear the melody, of course.  Sorry about that.  But that happened, and when it does, however rarely, I tend to just think of words that go along with it and if they rhyme, they rhyme (and all the better), but if not, at least I have a subject for the melody and a vague idea of the song, and can work from there.  With this song, the bridge part came up first, and I immediately knew exactly what the song was about.  It's like it was always there, and all that was needed was for my heart to hurt just enough with longing for me to find it.

Also, as a last thing: the rhyme scheme, I hasten to add, is very similar to that in "Running in High Heels."  The someone who wrote that comment on that post, by the way, got it wrong.  Maybe not entirely, but he left out much of it.  I should've told him, maybe.  Taken him down a peg or two.

Anyway, that's not the issue.  On to the song.

Your Hand (Not How It's Supposed to Be)

if I offered you my hand,

would you reach back 'cross time again to take it?

if my eyes were full of tears,

would your smile be sincere, or would you fake it?

and if the spring were never-changing,

would we get too used to saying that we'll make it?

oh-oh-oh, oh

take my hand with your hand, your hand, your hand

oh-oh-oh, oh

and I'll hold it 'til the end, the end, the bitter end

if I gave you my last breath,

would you outlive your regrets, and would you shine?

if I thought of final words,

would they only go unheard, or would you send a sign?
and if we had the same sweet dreams,
would we feel the need to make them yours and mine?

oh-oh-oh, oh

take my hand with your hand, your hand, your hand

oh-oh-oh, oh

and I'll hold it 'til the end, the end, the bitter end

BRIDGE:

every so often,

I get so caught up in you laughing

and it feels so real to me

then I realise it's just a daydream

and I'm really holding you until you fall asleep
and I know:
this is not how it's supposed to be

if you weren't a memory,

would you know how to be?

and would you say to me,

oh-oh-oh, oh

I'll take your hand with my hand, my hand, my old hand

oh-oh-oh, oh

and I'll hold you 'til the end, the end, the cold end

oh-oh-oh, oh

take my hand with your hand, your hand, your hand

oh-oh-oh, oh

and I'll hold it 'til the end, the end, the bitter end

until the end, the end, that cold, bitter end

oh-oh-oh, oh

oh-oh-oh, oh

oh-oh-oh, oh...

I know it's not entirely the shifting chorus thing that has been suggested I try, but there's something poignant (I think, excuse the conceit) about the changing of the meaning the third time the "chorus" part rolls around (the quotes are because it's not expressly marked as such above - it didn't present itself to me that way, so I didn't).  Just some questions I wonder about.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

It was killing me to see the strongest man I ever knew wasting away to nothing in that hospital room...

P.S.  I'm very proud of Tomas Berdych for winning his quarterfinal match vs. Federer the Great last night at the US Open!  It was hard to root against someone like Roger Federer, whom I admire so much, but how can you not love Berdych?  Matches his shirts to his eyes?  Very humble and sweet and talented?  Can't help but root for him (plus he's Czech, and that's beautiful to me).  I hope he gets into the final.

P.P.S.  Nominations for the CMAs came out earlier this week.  And as I write that, I suddenly realise that I haven't yet actually looked them up.  Whoops.  But I do know that Taylor is nominated for three (only because I follow her on Twitter).  Yay!  Should be a good show, as always.

P.P.P.S.  You probably don't watch the calendar with the same dates in mind as I do, but tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash.  It will be hard to get through it without a heavy, pained heart.  My thoughts go out to every single person who died, and to their families, and I know that this day will never again be the same.

Goodbye to Dakota

I'm writing this post sort of in between two very long car trips.  Or, really, if I'm aiming to be entirely specific here, I'll say I'm writing it a few days after the conclusion of the longest car trip, or series of car trips, in recorded history (hey, I said specific, not un-hyperbolic), and prior to the start of another, different, but definitely much shorter car trip.

See?  It probably would have sounded better not to be tediously specific.  Oh, well.

But let me tell you a little about the vacation-trip my family and I just went on.  It was exhausting tremendous.  Seriously, if we had started at the westernmost point of Portugal - just to give a sense of the total distance we travelled - and driven due east, we would have ended up in Moscow.  Or, had we driven northeast from thence instead, Helsinki.  But of course, as I've mentioned, it was not all in one go.  At first, we drove from the East Coast to Missouri, where our taste for the city in which we were to stay was thoroughly soured, immediately and irreparably (because, after a pleasant trip of 1150 miles, and having made good time, who - I ask you - wants to spend 45 minutes in the exact same place, staring at and memorising every feature of the abandoned gas station on the left and the Ozark Visitors Center on the right, because of a Saturday night traffic jam??, only to then discover that the convenience the hotel bragged about on the website was nothing short of a vicious lie??).  We got into the hotel at around midnight, central time, having arrived within city limits at half-past 9.  But the next day, of course, by morning- daylight, it was a fairly different story: there was a charm about the historical district of the city that was not lost on us, jaded though we perhaps may be.  In one of the thrift store/flea market-type stores into which we popped during our stroll around the city, I bought a book called, "Country Music Changed My Life," and I'm very excited to begin to read it.  At a Bass Pro Shop down by the lake, I bought a stuffed bear, whom I later named Cobbler.  (I am not a woman easily defined.)  But I think my favourite thing that day was drinking sweet tea spiked with Seagram's Sweet Tea Vodka - from a mason jar.  I don't think I can fully explain how long, and how much, I have wanted to drink something from a freakin' mason jar.  Seriously, water would have sufficed.  I know that it sounds weird, trust me, I get it (I do hear the thoughts running through my head, incidentally), but I really have wanted to experience that.

Anyway, the next day after that, a day earlier than originally planned, we started on our trip north to South Dakota (I can see you glance at the title of the post, and think to yourselves, "Hmm, now we're getting somewhere with this narrative."  Indeed.  You are very wise.).  And this was probably my favourite part of the trip.  There's something magical about driving and seeing the unadulterated beauty of the varied countryside unfolding before you.  And then something happens: you begin to fall in love with the country, in ways that you never could when you were gathering your knowledge of it from history books and maps and stories and second- or third-hand pictures.  And even though you see signs like this one (that's actually a picture someone posted online of the exact sign we saw; I feel obligated to post the disclaimer that I do not know that man) and every fibre in your being disagrees with it and maybe you realise you might never like the people, you love the country a little more deeply with every rolling mile.  We travel by car with frequency - we used to drive to Florida annually, as previously mentioned, and we have driven, on separate occasions, to New Orleans and to Kentucky/Tennessee.  But I'd never previously understood that satisfaction and, dare I say it, pride in knowing that this is my country.  And maybe my own daily experience with this nation is more one of city blocks and suburban streets and large, comprehensive supermarkets, and maybe the only farms I see are when we go to pick blueberries in July or pumpkins in October, but maybe that's what makes this country something to fall in love with.  I don't know, perhaps now I am rhapsodising about this a bit too much, or am seeing it with the rose-tinted glasses one dons when looking back on a particularly pleasant memory.  But the point is that, as we were passing through Missouri, and Iowa, and South Dakota, and seeing Nebraska to the left of us across the Missouri River, it seemed to me both charming and beautiful.  As we travelled more north, the sky got larger and more expansive, until it spanned from one horizon to the other, open and unsecretive.  I could have written thirty-seven haiku just about the vast expanse of sky above us.  But of course, I did something else instead.

Of course, that last sentence would have served very well as a segway into the song.  But I have a few more things to say before we get there, so please hold that thought.

First.  I remember two years ago, the summer before Speak Now came out, studying abroad in Barcelona, and staying up (very) late to watch the web chat where Taylor Swift announced its release date, and cover art, and first single, and first single release date (on a side note: I also remember being in Prague when the first single - "Mine" - came out, and watching the music video on Youtube on repeat when I got back from class; what lovely memories - I will always love that song for that reason, among others).  The reason I bring this up now is because when we were away on holiday, she held another web chat of this nature.  And of course, everyone knew what it meant, but of course, I couldn't watch it live this time - although I did, after we came home, again stay up late to watch it in full on Youtube.  So, surprise, she's got a new album coming out!  October 22nd.  It's called, Red.  This is the cover art.  It's really no secret that I love Taylor Swift.  I've loved her and her music (especially the latter) since November 2007, when I first heard her play "Our Song" at the CMAs that year, and she won the Horizon Award (it's now called  Best New Artist).  But...but.  I am not overwhelmed by the cover art.  The first single, which she released that day and is called, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," is similarly underwhelming (to me).  For me, it continues on in the same vein as "Better Than Revenge," from Speak Now, arguably the most petty and, well, ordinary, of the songs on that glowing album.  This new one is too vindictive, too spiteful, and it borders on undignified.  It seems to me that she's trying too hard to be mainstream, when, in fact, the majesty of her music is due, in part, to it being undiluted by outside influence, by pressure to be anyone other than herself.  She mentioned that, on this album, she worked with other artists and writers she's admired ever since she can remember, unlike with Speak Now, which she wrote entirely by herself (and was her best album to date).  We fans will love her no matter what she comes out with, but I hope she doesn't become complacent and take that for granted and put out forgettable, though catchy!, pop ditties that go to Number 1 just because her name is on the record.

Okay, wow, sorry.  I have many more thoughts about it, but I will move on.  Actually, one more thing: don't get me wrong, it's a good song.  It's just not a Taylor Swift-caliber song, or so it seems to me.  Again, this is all purely academic, purely my own opinion as a media consumer and music aficionado.

Now I'm really moving on.  Gotta screw my head back on.  Introduction to the song, okay.  There are a few tenets (or what I would call tenets) of country music with which I do not agree -  or, at the very least, with which I do not - and cannot - identify.  I've never said that I am a prototypical country music fan.  In fact, quite the opposite.  If you were to set down the basic elements of "country," and then set down, on paper, everything which makes me, well, me, I think you and I would both be shocked that this is my thing.  But here, in this song, I happen to embrace especially one, if not more, of those potentially-alienating elements.  I guess, as I was falling in love with the country, I was falling in love with country (again) as well.

I finished with about 92% of it before we had even driven out of Iowa on our way back to Missouri.

Goodbye to Dakota

I stayed up all that last night

just to watch the endless sky grow dark, then get light

forever wouldn't be enough to get my fill

I've never felt so much at peace

as when the quiet silence kept on washing over me

and the sight of all those stars stays with me still

CHORUS:

I won't say goodbye to Dakota,

even though I'm driving away

because I already know for sure

I'll be back again someday

this time tomorrow, I'll be in Missouri,

but my thoughts won't be

so I won't say goodbye to Dakota,

'cause it won't say goodbye to me

I fell in love with every cornfield

and every single sunflower that grew from a planted seed

it's all a part of that picture

and even the Badlands seem like good ones

when you can count all the colours of the setting sun:

rose and gold and purple above the dirt

CHORUS:

I won't say goodbye to Dakota,

even though I'm driving away

because I already know for sure

I'll be back again someday

next week, I'll be in New Jersey,

but my thoughts won't be

so I won't say goodbye to Dakota,

'cause it won't say goodbye to me

so...
stay beautiful, stay breath-taking, stay wild and free
and my mind'll be here, until you say goodbye to me

CHORUS:
I won't say goodbye to Dakota,
even though I'm driving away
because I already know for sure
I'll be back again someday
next week, I'll be in New Jersey,
but my thoughts won't be
so I won't say goodbye to Dakota,
'cause it won't say goodbye to me

I can't say goodbye to Dakota,
'cause it won't say goodbye to me...

I hope you like it.  It's not much, but it's true.  Well, except for that staying up all night part.  I did stay up (my insomnia will kill me one day), but I wasn't able to see the sky.  We were able to see Mount Rushmore from our hotel there, though, which was pretty supermegafoxyawesomehot.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

Man, that sounds like a first-class seat on the plains of Oklahoma: with a windshield sunset in your eyes, like a watercoloured-painted sky...

Never Easy

Today, I picked up Lee Brice's album, Hard 2 Love.  Will report when I've had a chance to listen to it the requisite twelve times.  (I am also at 0.11 GB left on my iPod.  Holy smokes.)

Also today, I stumbled upon something truly relevant to this blog: the very first song I've ever written.  And I can tell you that for certain.  It's a few years (two, maybe?) older even than "Zach," so you can trust me on this.  I was in the middle of organising everything I have ever placed in my room - doesn't everyone when on 'vacation'? - and I had finally gotten to the filing cabinet in my closet.  Oh, yes.  I have a filing cabinet in my closet.  That was what I wanted more than anything for my thirteenth or fourteenth birthday, and I still remember the joy of going to Staples to pick it out.  But anyway, enough about my bizarre idiosyncrasies.  I was going through everything in there, because I really didn't need most of the stuff I had filed in my blithesome adolescence.  Among other things, I had separate files each for "Cycling," "Giro d'Italia," "Tour de France," and "Vuelta a Espana," in addition, of course, to my multiple binders about the Tour.  I also had a separate file for every single awards ceremony under the sun, which was actually kind of fun.  I'm such a girl.  But anyway - I will not fall into the trap of self-importance under which I wrote the previous (deleted) post.  I will return to the point.  The largest file was a bulging one labelled, "Miscellaneous," and in there, I found all sorts of stuff.  But smack-dab in the middle were two pages torn out of a notebook and covered in colourful ink and disastrously large and terrible cursive, and I immediately knew what that was about.  You see, I'd always written creatively outside of the structure of a classroom. It was my thing.  Like Matilda, only much more ordinary, and way less heroic.  But that year, 2004/2005, was the time when I first began to be more ambitious with my work.  That was the year when I disliked my teachers, all but one, and so I decided to stave off my boredom in class (because when I didn't like my teachers, or the way they taught the subject, I tended to think I didn't need to pay attention) by branching out.  That was the year I began writing an ill-fated play/screenplay about an indentured servant falling in love with her employer.  In the same notebook, when I had abandoned that attempt (and left my poor heroine, Julia, walking the streets of Philadelphia in exhaustion), and between pages upon pages with lists of songs I had heard on the radio and wanted to have, I set down this very first song of mine.

I remember extremely well the circumstances and the subject of this...interesting...work.  They have nearly everything to do my imagined life and very little to do with actual reality.  It was the year I was "in love" with Mike R, the guy who sat behind me in Social Studies - the only class in which I actually liked, nay adored, my teacher - and "stole" the answers to my homework (I never really made it difficult for him) and had me make his sewing project in Home Ec.  Oh, yes...  But it was also the year I discovered that I could be doing anything inside my mind, as long as I looked normal on the outside, because no one would be able to tell what lives I was living within my mind (a useful discovery: it has served me well in the ensuing years), and put it to great use.  Every time Mike spoke to me during class and thus got me in trouble - but oh, how beautiful he was and how kind when telling me to blame it all on him because he could deal with it but holy mackerel how gorgeous he was is he just getting better-looking for the memory or was he always that way? - my mind would curl up and get away.  I'm probably coming across as nuts right now.  But it's 1:14 in the morning, and I have no desire to hide.  I may delete this, or at least edit it, tomorrow.  Right now, though, I'm just trying to explain that my mind has lived stories I've personally never experienced, and that is what birthed this song. (Side note: this sort of translation of imagined experience into song is not unusual for me; it's how all of the most beautiful of my love songs - and of course, the "beautiful" is surrounded by an air of misguided conceit - came about. Even if I never have something like love in my real life and have to turn to artificial insemination or whatever, I will at least have lived the Greatest Love Story Ever in my head.)


It's really more like a poem, really, considering it doesn't rhyme.  Except in a few random places that I suspect were just accidental.  I've transcribed it in the way it's set down on the pages I'd ripped out of that notebook; the line breaks could be just because my tentative and rather large cursive (now, condensed to a sweeping, minuscule elegance of which I am beyond proud) accommodated them so, or because that was the intent.  Not sure on that one.  And one last note: the verses were originally set down in a different order, but then there were numerals written into the margins labelling them differently, so that's the order in which I wrote it down for you.  Interesting, though, that the verses could be in any old order.  I'm impressed, eighth-grade self.

Never Easy

Sometimes when I think of you
I hear you in a different language
sometimes, when I think of you,
I dream about forever
Sometimes, when I think of you,
I know I must be going crazy, since
you and me, we so obviously cannot be

CHORUS:
it's never easy, I know,
it's never easy
never easy to understand
that your life falls apart in the end
I know that I can never
love you again
it's never easy, I know,
it's never easy

we grew up listening to stories of broken hearts
as children we scorned them
and dared life to try it on us
saying what we would do differently
and taunting the authors for not asking us
so I never expected you to turn on me

why do we always seem to
hurt the ones we love the most?
and dance with those who don't matter?
why do things never happen
the way we plan?
I used to think you held the world in your hands
and all the answers in your heart.

CHORUS:
it's never easy, I know,
it's never easy
never easy to understand
that your life falls apart in the end
I know that I can never
love you again
it's never easy, I know,
it's never easy

I wish I could make you understand
how strange my life is now
without you, everything seems different
but I know how things would be
if I held on
so I let you go
but it killed me to see you leave...

(it's never easy, I know,)
(it's never easy)
(never easy to understand)
(that your life falls apart in the end)
(I know that I can never)
(love you again)
(it's never easy, I know,)
(it's never easy)

There are parts of it that I had forgotten, some parts which make me cringe, but other parts that I love.  You can pick and choose for yourself whether you like or not, but I'm so proud of myself for not having thrown it away.  I've just finished my third song notebook, but I only have two left to me, because in a fit of masochism and self-hatred, I threw away the first notebook I'd ever filled, only stopping long enough to rip out the aforementioned "Zach," so I don't have that progression anymore.  At least I have this, though.  I'm curious to hear what you think, still.

Much love, and thank you for the musik,

Just Another Ordinary Girl

And bad mistakes, I've made a few.  I've had my share of sand kicked in my face...

p.s.  I sure hope y'all are watching the Olympics.  Some really great stories are coming out of London.

p.p.s.  I cannot believe that, after all these years, the memory of Mike's face and his STUN-ning smile is still taking my breath away.  Aren't middle school crushes supposed to go away???

p.p.p.s.  And...I just tried to find Mike on Facebook.  It's getting kind of creepy at this point; I've bumped into several people's profiles, all of whom I had never wanted to see again.  All sorts of unpleasant memories are back.  I'd tell some here, but then I'd feel like an idiot (okay, there's this one prevailing memory coming to mind of when this jock hit me in the head with a volleyball "accidentally" during gym and my ear hurt so much I cried).  Thankfully, I think, I can't find him.  So then I googled myself instead.  I'm much more high-profile than he is, and than I wish I were.

p.p.p.p.s.  I'm heading back to Nashville for a few days at the end of this month.  My friend is moving back there, because the reason she moved away is gone, so we're making a road trip of it.  Should be great.  Also, because she's going to be living there, it'll be easier for me to go now!  We have some other tentative dates planned for me to come visit her: one in October (I'm actually trepidatious about this, because it would happen on the same weekend as the Devils' season/home opener - and this, ladies and gentlemen, is probably why I don't have, and have never had, friends), and one for New Year's.  It's my favourite city in the US, and I myself intend to move there, after I get my Master's.

p.p.p.p.p.s.  Because, I'm going back to school (grad school, this time, joy) for a Music Business degree.  Sure, you say, that's the usual trajectory after a Bachelor's degree in History.  So what if it's not "usual"?  It's me.  This, right here, is me.  I'd like to work for ASCAP - because I am not stupid enough or foolish enough to believe I can make it, talent-wise, in songwriting.  I may have had my eyes on the stars when I was younger, but I'm older now.  My dreams are smaller, if not more reasonable.  I'm content to be ordinary, forgettable.  It's what I have always been, I'd just never realised it before.