Three Words Back...

There Are No Good Titles Tonight

If this constant feeling of being punched in the stomach would stop being so damn stubborn and start working its way up and out through my fingertips, then maybe I could find a way to write about the past few days.  But this one isn't really for any of y'all, anyways.  It's mostly for me (and maybe even my family) to start to work through an immeasurable grief.  Some like to throw tears, questions, and anger at what they do not understand.  I'm open to try each of those in their own time, but for now I'll settle for throwing all the words and phrases I can at a sorrow that will never completely go away.  So for tonight I'm writing, if for no other reason than the Kleenex is out of reach and my brain needs something to work on.

Tammy died on Friday, January 25th.  My cousin - as well as one of my very favorite persons in the world - and she is no longer a phone call away.  A text message away.  A plane ride away.  Outside of my memory, I don't get to hear her laugh again.  This doesn't make any real sense, and it should be impossible to cry about things that don't make sense.  But it is possible, and I am wringing out my heart here...because this internet isn't big enough for me to hint at - much less spell out - how awesome a person she was.  She was off the charts.

I have always been so incredibly proud of her.  Proud to have her in my family.  Proud to consider her more of a wise older sister than a cousin.  Tammy always helped me make sense of the world at large, not to mention all the crazy people we share blood with.  I loved hanging out and talking with her so, so much.  And by extension, I absolutely include Stacey and the kids.  To watch her around her family...I always wanted my home to feel like hers did (if not quite as cold...you had better pack a sweater if you were going to her house).  If the right girl for me ever came along, the plan was that all four of them would have to sign off on her.  And I always just assumed I would have Tammy to go to for advice on being married, and having kids, and all that kind of stuff.  She was so good at life, she made it all look so easy. 

I...miss my cousin.  If anyone else in our family had died on Friday, she would be so much of the glue holding people together.  What continues to floor me is how much more I will continue to miss her in the days and weeks to come.  This ache isn't going away.  And I'm not even going to talk about how badly Forrest and Reagan got robbed of a normal childhood, or else I'll completely lose my shit.  Plus that part of the story just feels off limits for this forum. 

I'm tired now.  Of course, there is much more I could say, more I could write.  There always will be...but for now I need to stop.  Tomorrow we will have services - and a large church will be overflowing with people and flowers that will attest to how well and how fully one of my favorite people lived her 39 years.  My hope is that the sorrow will somehow be balanced out with celebration of so many shared memories. 

Track Five Is A Wilco Song

Does anyone have a great mixed cd story (or, if you're of my generation or older, perhaps a mixed tape story) that they would like to share with the class?  If there's sufficient interest (and that's no given, considering the lackluster TWB history of responses whenever I ask you folks questions), I could pick a winner and your postman/woman could wonder why you're getting mail from Ohio.  It would be fun and give me something to do in the five hours of downtown I have between now and the second week of February.

Oddly enough, I don't think that I have any good mixed tape stories.  I don't remember ever making one for a girl I liked. 

Oh, wait, now I do.  Oops.  Sorry about that. 

Anyway, I have an abundance of mixed cds from my more musically-inclined friends.  Alicia's Chicago-themed mix has been in heavy rotation in my car for two weeks now.  The first week I almost exclusively listened to Baby, I'm A Big Star Now.  It's a Counting Crows b-side that never made an album, though it plays over the credits of Rounders.

All these seasons, all this time
Spinning past until they leave you
far behind
Lay me down in the circle
where the spotlight shines
(all this pleasure gets me high)
Turn your back on the people
who draw the line
Put your faith in the answers
that you can find
Hit the ground hard 
Running down that highway line
Say a prayer for the ones
you have left behind
All this pleasure gets them high...

And once I finally tore myself away from that song, I found some previously-undiscovered gems like Joseph Arthur's Chicago live from the Austin City Limits Festival

And if they don't play you in Chicago,
oh no, no, no
And if they don't save you when you're lonely
Only you
could see your light, see your light, see your light... 

the wonderfully cacophonous sound of Via Chicago from Wilco

But the wind blew me back via Chicago
in the middle of the night
and not without a fight
at the crush of veils and starlight

the grey morning wistful sounds of David Berkeley's own Chicago

Oh I gotta get away
how about Chicago?
I could be there in a day
What's in Chicago
that the wind won't blow away?
What's in Chicago after all?

the requisite Ryan Adams tune in Dear Chicago

Dear Chicago,
You'll never guess.
You know the girl you said I'd meet someday?
Well, I've got something to confess.

and Song For the Road from the criminally unknown David Ford

Well the day cast down
lengthy shadows on unfamiliar towns
and I drove 300 miles from the place I call home
and I tipped my hat to the angel of the north
and the sun, it set fire to the heavens
on the hills over Sheffield tonight
and I will sail over this countryside with new friends and old
we are nowhere but man, we're alright...

Somewhere inside the complete and exhaustive definition of a good day is a line or two about driving across a highway at dusk with momentarily perfect songs on the radio.

And It Is True What You Say

And it is true what you say
I live like a hermit in my own head
But when the sun shines again
I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in...

Days like today I struggle to keep this blog alive.  Because honestly, sometimes I think about throwing a Going Out Of Business, Everything Must Go clearance sale and then locking the doors one last time.  There are days when I feel out of opinions, completely void of things to say or jokes to make, and Lord knows there are other places on the internet for you folks to read song lyrics.  Three Words Back could be six feet under and the sun would still be moving around in circles, you know?

And it's not that today was really all that interesting.  I skipped every part of breakfast but the coffee, I went to work, and then I ran some errands.  Or at least I tried to run some errands.  The dry cleaners here in Town Number Seven (is it Seven?  I forget, so Seven it is for now) need a full week to get three shirts dry-cleaned.  Seven. Days.  People, Genesis 1 didn't take that long to unfold.  Stop and think about that for a second.

Ok, moving on.

...

...

And for the last thirty minutes I've alternated between trying to remember what made me want to log on in the first place and reading dumb articles from around the internet.  So for now I'm signing off and popping in a dvd.

Staring At A Clean White Page

Oh writerly impulse, why must you visit me at the most inopportune of times?  When I am harried with first week activities at a new branch, and a little unsure if I'm coming or going?  When temperatures are flirting with negative numbers and the wind threatens to carry me off to Pennsylvania?  When I should be concentrating more on a shower and a shave instead of a subject and a verb......

Is It April 1st Already?

There's a Jean Claude van Damme movie on AMC right now.  As in, there's a Jean Claude van Damme movie on American Movie Classics right now.

My head is spinning.  I need to lie down for a while.

SJLV ABBK P9YK 9F89

Remember when the underside of a bottle cap told you right away if you were a winner or a loser?  These days you look under a bottlecap and it's like reading an eye chart or a barcode.  If ever there were any "good ol' days" in our past, then surely such a time included messages like "You Are A Winner" for the lucky ones or "Please Try Again" for the rest of us.  At any rate, I plan on spending the foreseeable chunk of the afternoon sipping an otherwise delicious Dr. Pepper, popping Peanut M&Ms by the handful, and flipping channels in my brand new hotel room.

I really do live the life of a rock star, minus the concerts at the end of the day.

So yeah, channel-flipping and I see VH-1 is airing Ghostbusters for the second day in a row.  Around here, we love Bill Murray and we're coming up on one of my favorite scenes where Murray as "Dr." Peter Vankman delivers his "human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...MASS HYSTERIA" speech in the mayor's office.  I consider sticking around long enough to see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but VH-1 has a pop-up heart graphic with a ticking clock in the corner of the screen and it's distracting me.  Apparently the premiere of Rock of Love 2 is THAT big a deal to the people of America.

Ok, I know that railing against "reality" tv is in no way a new concept.  There's a market for it and it's a money maker for the networks when they do it right............but.......still.....in the words of Dennis Miller, "I don't mean to go on a rant, but..."  So in the interest of time and my own sanity, I'll limit my remarks to the "celebreality" shows on VH-1 and the attention-hungry stars who gladly trade what little scraps of dignity and self-respect they might have left in order to keep a few rays of fame's limelight shining their way.  Flavor Flav, Bret Michaels, that Tequila chick, "New York", the list goes on.  Oh, and don't get me started on Scott Baio's new show: Scott Baio is 46...and Pregnant.  I spend 15 minutes watching one of these shows, and I feel dumber for the time I've wasted.  Well, a mixture of "dumb" and wonderment at why anyone who wasn't compulsively addicted to the public attention would willingly put themselves in such contrived situations, all in the name of vapid, lowest common denominator entertainment.  Is anyone able to watch this schlock and not feel humiliated for all participants involved, not to mention a desperate need for a long, hot shower?

Ahem, moving on..

(it was at this point in the afternoon that I had to put the laptop aside and answer several phone calls.  Then there was a mixup at the front desk with my traveling partner's reservation.  So now it's an hour and a half later, dinner plans are being made, and I need to wrap this up.)

Someone remind me later to look online and see if I won anything with that Dr. Pepper.

Did You Think That You Were Dreaming?

She says it's only in my head.
I said, "I know, I know this is only in my head."
She said, "Did you think that you were dreaming?"
I said, "No."
She said, "Did you think that you were dreaming?"
I said, "No."
She said, "Did you think that you were dreaming?"
I said, "Sometimes...I don't know."
Because, because I was out on the radio just starting to change.
Somewhere out in America it's starting to rain.
Could you just tell me one thing that you will remember about me?

Tomorrow is moving out day.  Today is packing day.  Today I'm supposed to drive to Columbus for a birthday party.  Today I'm supposed to drive to Dayton to hang out.  Right now it's early afternoon and I've got newly clean laundry sitting at my feet.  I don't feel much like doing anything but gazing out my second floor window at the pond behind this small town hotel.  And listening to music, hoping to figure out exactly what kind of day I've gotten myself into.

I may have already seen my favorite movie of 2008.  Have you folks seen Juno yet?  I highly recommend it.  Pajiba is my favorite movie review site, and their review sums it up pretty well.

I’m almost at a loss for words to describe just how good — how deeply and honestly good — Juno made me feel, and how its big bright beating heart is capable of delivering moments of genuine love and heartache and confusion and the general feeling of being left to the cold mercy of the universe in the hell that is growing up. Best of all, it’s great in the way the story plays out differently than you think it would.

There's so much more and so little left that I've had fleeting thoughts of writing about in the last few weeks.  Mostly the typical music and entertainment commentary.  And as for me, well, life is good and there's stuff going on...but not much worth the time to type it out (for me) or read it through to conclusion (for you).

The branch opening circus starts up again on Monday in Town Number Seven.  Wish me luck.

Lyrical Spotlight - Jason Reeves

This Jason Reeves cd (The Magnificent Adventures of Heartache) slides perfectly into my pop music wheelhouse, and this song in particular has been in my head for a week or so.  It felt like the perfect song to bat leadoff for 2008.  As one calendar hands the baton over to the next, as one ending folds into a new beginning, here's to "one more chance to get it right." 

The End
by Jason Reeves

The end is such a scary place to start
everything is torn apart
and I don't know where to go from here
in the end, there's no reason to pretend
I know you won't be back again
I gotta find a way from here..

I don't know where I'll fall down
but I'm sure to hit the ground..

cause it's not over till it's over
every ending's a new beginning
one more chance to get it right
one more chance to get it wrong
its not over till it's over
sometime's nowhere leads to somewhere
and it all starts again
in the end

and it's such a scary place to be
everything is in between
and I don't know where to go from here
in the end I see it's all up to me
to figure out where I should be
I'm gonna find a way from here

I dont know where i'll fall down
but I'm sure to hit the ground...