It's a Classic!

The Cygnets were doing homework for Music Appreciation, 80's Style when I overheard the following during a review of Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell":

Miss M: What is she screaming for more of at the hour of midnight?

Big C: She's probably screaming for more sleep.

Little C: She should try not screaming.

Hey, Soul Sister!

I do not know when I lost my love of Pop music. I suspect it started somewhere around when Country made that aggressive cross-over move. I didn't stop loving music, or start ignoring new releases. I just avoided Shania and Garth and Billy Ray with my fingers in my ears and some la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you's. My dislike was passionate.

When my parents moved out of my childhood home...I peeled back the carpet in my room and wrote a declaration of sorts on the subfloor. I left my autograph behind...for when I was famous. But among the things I promised was to never let my taste in music go stale. I was melodramatic at 15. Big surprise, right?

But Once Upon a Time, my swinging arms and kicking feet would have given Molly Ringwald a run for her money. There was not a song on the Pop radio station that I didn't know the lyrics to. And then...I let it all go. I went Alternative. (I still love me some Trash Can Sinatras.)

But there is a new song, out there. Rather Poppy. And the first few lines are: "Hey, hey, hey. Your lipstick stains...on the front lobe of my left-side brains." How can you not LOVE that! And it is not the only song on the album that I have found myself humming for about a week. The album itself is like the love child of my former Pop and Indy flames. But mostly, "Hey, Soul Sister" has me wanting to just play the second track from Train's Save Me, San Francisco on a continuous loop all day.

It feels a little like when I was 16 and I finally figured out what innuendo was and I recorded AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" 14.5 times in a row on a cassette to sing LOUDLY in the car on my way to and from Chapel Mass at Catholic School. Good times!

Miss M reaches another milestone!*

It is not a developmental thing. It is not a boy thing. It is not even a school thing. We had a conversation in the minivan this afternoon and she ended it with the following:

"And do NOT put this on your blog!"

*This message approved by Miss M.

Pardon me, but your chakra is showing!

Is it just me....

...or does my bright idea look more like a mushroom cloud?

Bedside Manner

A woman sits in the exam room, surrounded by plastic models of various joints. She has been waiting a very long time. So long, in fact, that she finishes her book and sets it aside. She thinks about casting it aside or maybe rending it asunder. But she is waiting alone and what's the point of protesting to no one? Damaging the book does not concern her because it was not a good book anyway. Cheaply bound. Cheaply written. It read like a synopsis of an ill-conceived screen play.

Looking around at the medical models she contemplates rearranging all of the pink ligaments. Or maybe disassembling the whole lot and chucking the pieces down the long hallway, one at a time, until someone remembers they stuck her back in this corner.

Wasn't there a light board just outside of her room for x-rays? She could flick in on and off, signaling her distress in a series of dots and dashes.

But she does none of this. Not because the door opened just then. But because that is what she does. The right thing. The patient thing. Plotting little rebellions that will never materialize. So she settles in to wait and that is when the door opens.

The tall Orthopedic Surgeon steps in. Why yes, he is charming and tall. Thanks for asking. He reaches for her hand and apologizes for the wait.

"Oh, that's ok," she says, "I had a book." She points at the small paperback on the chair next to her. The odd thing is she kind of means it. Her mild frustration already forgotten.

"You would not have believed the break I had to put back together this morning. Drunk driver. So, how's your ass?" he says casually.

"It is fantastic. Really," she replies.

"Hop up here and let's check it out," he offers while patting the exam table.

SCREEEEEECHING HALT!

I am going to skip to the end of the story here. Because the point is that the cortisone injections have really helped my pain. More than I would have thought possible in just a week. And also, I am not exactly comfortable with the fact that the beginning of my appointment today reads like the part of a porn flick that gets fast-forwarded. To maintain both of our reputations in your eyes, I really was there about my ass. You can call it by the list of muscles it contains. Or you can call it SI Dysfunction. But it all comes down to my ass in the end. (Ba Dum Ching!)

Hygienic Haiku

white field dotted with

debris. I truly love you

Biore pore strips

I am Not An Affiliate

Every year when January rolls around, I start to look at the TV hoping for the Super Bowl. Not because I care about the game. I rarely know who is playing until half-time. Then I forget it again 1.7 days later. I look forward to the end of football season with the same hopefulness Cubs fans look forward to the beginning of the next baseball season. "Next year," I think to myself. "Next year might be the year where I will not have to be reminded that the NFL exists." Realistically, this will never happen as long as Moose is alive. So I take the bad with the good.

The part that I find most fascinating, confusing, and most worthy of further Psychological study is the Fan Behavior. Did you know that many of these people feel they can influence a game? And I don't mean the ones that are at the game wearing jerseys and balancing strange craft-projects on their heads. On that one I can at least appreciate the theory of the collective cheering fueling the energy of the players on the field that can actually hear the roar. No, I mean the ones that change their facebook profile pictures each week to bring "luck" to "their" team. Or wear a team jersey out for chicken wings at the sports bar to watch the game.

It just completely escapes me. That affiliative illusion. Mostly, what is it in people that drives them to seek out a large group of people to agree with? To be part of? Because I don't have that.