Riding the Bike with One Pedal.

Category: OverShare (Page 3 of 3)

Bodhisattva, Baby.

I’m not saying a whole lot about the years I spent listening to Steely Dan on a regular basis. Let’s just say, they were good times. I was in college. I didn’t really worry too much about my 40’s back in those days.

And I know they were good, because I’ve had another really stressful day? And after rebooting my *(&^&%$%)__(^&^%%^$$ computer after it precariously froze in Excel once again (with a huge table of numbers teetering in the balance), I scrolled through my iTunes, looking for just the right music to play while I continued to fiddle and work with all this data. Then I found it. Ah. A Decade of Steely Dan.

I just sailed through the rest of the calculations & am quite excited to start on the next phase. So relaxed.

And kinda hungry. Good thing hubs is grilling chicken for chef salads tonight.

Music of our Lives

We’re putting together a mix CD at work, and every employee needed to submit three songs for consideration; it’s something we’ll play during an upcoming event.

Three songs. It’s a lot of pressure. Kind of like those mythical genie wishes – you sure as shit don’t want to waste one, even though Justin Timberlake is kinda cute and he makes all those catchy tunes with Timbaland, because the next thing you know, your street cred is in the sewers.

Here are the three I picked:

Weezer – “Heart Songs”. What makes this one FABulous is that it references a jillion other songs IN it.

Cake – “No Phone”. One of my oldies-but-goodies, was my ring tone for a long time. I hate the phone. I love Cake.

Snow Patrol – “Set Fire to the Third Bar”. I am 99% positive this won’t make it onto the compilation. It was a tough decision, this #3, because I really, really, really wanted to use a Pete Yorn song, except all my favorites sort of convey the notion I’m going to put a plastic bag over my head & take a bath. Doesn’t really say “Party”. Unless you’re Jerzy Kosinski, of course.

Anyway. All this reminded me I hadn’t finished my playlist, over on -wait for it- playlist.com. You can make a 100-song playlist, using social networking. God I love the internets. Unfortunately, some of my songs aren’t the actual songs they purport to be, so I paste this player in here with a cautionary warning – some of the quality levels suck, and I need to wade back through it all and scrub it and buff it and maybe change the order a little bit. But I did, way-back-when, also start writing WHY I chose each song – I moved through my memories and what songs really resonated for different times in my life, and so, even if the tunes don’t naturally flow from one to the next, they all carry a thread for me. I’ll start sharing those descriptions below, to be continued….


* Hey Nineteen — Steely Dan – first song I ever heard on pop radio. I wasn’t supposed to listen to THOSE stations. I snuck into my parents’ bedroom and knelt by my dad’s clock radio, carefully noting the NPR station’s dial position so I could return it. I soaked up all the words and sounds, and then, out of fear, re-set the radio and crept back to my room. My rebellious years of subterfuge and disobedience had begun.

* The Pretender — Jackson Browne – I remember my father bringing home “Running on Empty”, on vinyl, after a trip to Madison, WI. He bought every album Jackson Browne made, and we memorized the lyrics. This was one of the songs that blew my dad away, and I remember his face, listening to it.
* You Can’t Always Get What You Want — The Rolling Stones – I also grew up with the Stones, and pored over their album covers, because they were so cool. My father also reminded me of the message in this song repeatedly, something I can’t claim to have fully accepted yet in life.
* Love Is Alright Tonight — Rick Springfield – What can I say? My first heartthrob. Once I was finally allowed to listen to Devil Radio (not out of any religious concerns, Dad just found most pop music to be “junk”), I became enamored with Rick Springfield. Loved the movie “Hard to Hold.” That soundtrack was one of the first cassette tapes I bought.
* Romeo And Juliet — Dire Straits — Another staple in our household, Dad loved Dire Straits, and I loved the lyrics to their songs. I thought this was such a romantic song when I was a tween.
* Little Red Corvette — Prince — First time I heard this, I remember being in my room, alone, waiting for my parents to come home from a wine tasting. As I listened to the words, I realized, “This is DIRTY!” and I loved it.
* Caught Up In You — .38 Special — Reminds me of High School. At the advent of music videos, we made our own to this song. I still remember my outfit for the video.
* Photograph — Def Leppard — High School again. We did a lip-sync performance to “Pyromania” and I went nuts on my wooden painted guitar. I still remember the shock on the teacher judges’ faces.
* Idiot Wind — Bob Dylan — Probably one of my father’s favorite artists, and a large chunk of mental real estate in my brain is devoted to Dylan.
* China Girl — David Bowie — I didn’t even know what David Bowie looked like or who he was, but I loved this song.
* WANNA GO BACK — Eddie Money — Another HS crush.
* Turn Me Loose — Loverboy — Oh god, pass the red leather pants. And keep on workin’ for the weekend.
* Billie Jean — Michael Jackson — Back when Michael was himself, utterly fascinating, talented and the biggest thing to hit the universe.
* True Colors — Cyndi Lauper — This song would one day define how I would feel about my husband, and she would be one of the best concerts I’d ever see. At the time, I loved the ballad and all of her fun music.
* Private Eyes — Hall & Oates – Which one from this duo could you spend the rest of your life with? I loved them both, with a slight edge to Oates. Must’ve been the clapping.
* The Reflex — Duran Duran – Which one WASN’T I going to marry? I don’t think I had a lot of discernment at this point in my life. While Simon was the obvious choice, there was nothing wrong with swapping eyeliner pencils with Nick, either.
* The Glamorous Life — Sheila E — My theme song for graduation. I so wanted out, out, out. And to live…the glamorous life.

Holy Filezilla, Batman!

I have long-professed my desire to be more nerdy. Probably from the beautiful actors in “Hackers“. In any event, I still have to do my blog roll, BUT, BUT, I upgraded to the current WordPress – Mike (of Monday’s comments, and speaking of Monday, boy howdy, we sure proved that we aren’t a political blog here, though I’m going to get around to more politics in a minute) – Mike was kind enough to send me some technical links, which I completely botched installing. Mainly the WP auto-updater. I put it in and Poof! Bye-bye website. Couldn’t for the life of me straighten it out. So. I went old-school. Line-by-line, read the instructions on how to install the upgrade, followed them diligently, and then – I do believe successfully – also installed the “Subscribe to comments” plug-in Mike had sent my way as well. I am a little rat-a-tat-tat machine-gun style with all of this, notably the part where I just DELETED entire folders and files. I was pretty sure I had a backup. Heh.  I attribute some of my shoot-em-up approach to the fact I lost most of last Saturday creating a CNAME re-direct for the Wants & Kneeds storefront, which apparently negated my hosting services at directNIC, and once they figured out what I had done, POOF! No worky, nothin’. I am now also adept at opening and appending numerous trouble tickets in their customer service section! And I’m just going to have to live with the absence of a redirect.  Maybe. I’m still waggling my eyebrows at that one.  However, I’ve become quite handy with the ol’ Filezilla, a free FTP program.

SO! I have a lot of Random Orts building up, with pictures even, so I will save that for another day, BUT, I will have a small triumphant dance on Phill Kline’s loss over in Kansas yesterday. God, that man makes me crazy. I firmly believe he is the Right to Life’s version of Joseph McCarthy, and he abused his position of power mightily to further his own political beliefs and agenda, all on the taxpayers’ dime.  Phill? I don’t care if you don’t agree with Roe v. Wade. IT’S THE LAW. As a public official, it is your duty to uphold the law, not squirrel away confidential medical records from your last job as Attorney General, and attempt to wield your limited scope of power like a bludgeon on the law.  Now there’s talk he’ll go into politics, and I’m sure he’ll have the support of his fervent followers (as I heard this morning on KCUR, pledging to support him in his “good fight”).  Well, good riddance is what I say, and I will point out that it was you, YOU in the first place, who motivated me to donate to NARAL, and I’ve continued to do so every year. Perhaps your skill set is needed in Topeka.

Harrumph and Triumph.

Smells Like a Shark, but It’s Made Fer an A$$hole….

Yep. That’s the kind of blog title you get when I dream it up at night, waiting to fall asleep – and ACTUALLY REMEMBER IT. Good times, Charlie Brown.

Wonder why? Well, yesterday, before we left the lake, we paddled about in the lake with the dogs. Most of the time we were in a shaded part, but I kept swimming out to the dock and looking around like a prairie dog surfacing. Perhaps I mean an otter. In any event, I put myself in the sun, and paid for it. My shoulders are a raging tender red, and the line where my suit was only adds to the shock value. I’m at least grateful we’re past the age in life where boys find it funny to slap you really hard on the back/shoulders to get a reaction out of you. (Or worse, snap your bra… oof.) The thing is, there is one thing that works really, really well on sunburns, and even though it’s not attractive, or particularly fantastic-smelling, the bottom line (heh) is that it does ease a LOT of the sting.

Preparation H. Yes. Exactly. I was incredibly skeptical, lo-so-many years ago, when James’ grandparents suggested I slather myself in hemorrhoid cream after another ding-a-ling afternoon in the sun. But I woke the next morning to drastically diminished symptoms, and I have to say, I’m a believer.

Think about it – it’s designed to reduce inflammation and painful BURNING – which is exactly what you have goin’ on with a sunburn. And if you’re going to put it – cough – there, well, it’s certainly safe for your shoulders. The only thing I really dislike about it is the smell. Because of the shark liver oil. There’s a definite whiff of something fish/oil-ish but when your epidermis is a-throbbin’, I can tell you, olfactory nerves be damned, the other ones are screaming way louder.

Of course, the really smart thing to do is to slather with SPF 50, to prevent sunburn in the first place. But if you lose your brain, or you get so caught up in the joy of swimming with your labs and watching their faces in the water as they oh-so-avidly swim and retrieve, well, there are some stinky, helpful solutions ointments!

ETA: HAH! I just got this in my nightly email news.  Check out THIS article in Adweek, about consumers using products as they see fit, vs. their original intent. First product mention? Preparation H. For ….muscle definition….? Huh. Well, the folks at PrepH want nothing to do with us, but I’m sure they’re content to take our money!

Newer posts »

© 2024 PlazaJen: The Blog

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑