word about the scenery...

the christmas blog is coming, for sure. remember, i officially have 12 days to get it done, and i'm pacing well. in between trying to remember what all has happened over the last 12 months (and good Lord, has it been full!) i've been to the rio grande valley, done all my shopping and wrapping in less than 8 hours, planned a visit to the zoo, eaten some sub-par chinese food, bought milk at the grocery store, planned a small (but VERY fun) pajama party for NYE, cleaned the house, done laundry, and sort of showed up to work. one day, i will learn to rest on my time off. this is not that day, my peeps...this is not that day.

i have a picture of michelangelo's lybian sybil on the top of this blog. it's not just some arbitrary piece of classic art, although it is a classic. no, the lybian sybil is my absolute favorite painting of all time. suprising, huh? bet you thought it would be van gogh's "iris" or "starry night", or the chagall piece with the bride and the goat...maybe even da vinci's "madonna of the rocks"...or something by kandinsky, like the color study with the squares and the circles, which i do love, because somehow all my water colors end up looking like a cheap knock-off of that one painting. but no...it's the lady in the toga, high up on the ceiling of the sistine chapel that is my favorite of favorites. she is a master painting...but that's not why i love her.

i love that painting. i love that painting because i want to be that lady, minus the over-developed calves and weird hair-do. she looks so strong and confindent. ultimately capable, utterly composed, still and yet in motion, the epitome of multi-tasking, the definition of grace under pressure. i keep her on the screen saver of my computer, so that when i begin my work day, i am thinking about projecting that kind of calm and action. the lybian sybil and the baby jesus keep me focused and grounded during the day...they remind me of who i want to be, and what i need to do to get there.

mil besos,
rmg

oh geeze...

oh internets...it's been a bumpy couple of weeks inside my head.

long story short-- i am fine. the universe gave me a huge pass, all things considered, and for that, i am one very grateful, adamantly NOT dating a total butthole (two words: press shots...), cookie-avoiding, Christmas-shopping-procrastinating, ironed and starched, thirty year old on her way to a greater understanding of a lot of things.

i can't believe it's the third week in advent. holy smokes...

mil besos,
rmg

cold weather...free association...stream of thought...speed of light

it's just cold enough...you can smell the winter on the wind, if it blows just right. makes me think about going hunting with my poppy. i know hunting with me wasn't nearly as much fun as with my brother or my dad or his friends, but i was always excited to go with him. looking was so much fun when i knew what i was looking for...turkey, deer, whatever. i wish i knew what i was looking for or looking at right now. the sides of the picture are clear, but the foreground and the middle is blurry and so out of focus, i can hardly stand to look right at it.



we used to ride out to deer camp in the old blue bronco. that car was magic and smelled like adventure. all i can smell right now is adrinaline, and i have to will myself not to get into the car and just start driving, with the top down and the heater blasting, trying to find the right perspective from which to view what's going on in a real way. it's totally different, and totally the same. i'd read tea leaves, but i'm too tired to go make the tea. water seems like it takes hours to boil, and i swear i have a million thoughts a minute, so maybe it's not hours, after all. maybe the blur isn't really all that bad, and i'm just being a drama queen about it.

i vacillate between total certainty that i am right and the knowledge that i am absolutely wrong. if i thought it would do any good, i would bang my head against the brick wall downstairs, just to knock something or anything loose. and then i remind myself that i am a grownup. this is what i bargained for. yes, this is what i bargained for, running myself ragged, dragging myself along on the ground, knees bloodied and eyes red, all these years...

things, whether they change now, or change later, or are even in the process of changing, are going to have to change, at some point. all this independence i've been socking away, being so proud of, all the time by myself with nothing to be louder than my thoughts and the purring of the cat, all the things i demanded i could and would do by myself...all of it...i am willing and ready to open it up and share it, and along some lines, even radically change it. and that is scary. the scariest part is that it doesn't bother me in the least. i'm even ready for it, at least in theory. giving up all nighters to ironing, or cooking bizarre dinners, doing laundry whenever i choose to do it, grocery shopping twice a month, spending hours on the phone, going when and where i please when and where i please, watching the same movie three times in a row, or leaving a whole album on repeat for a solid week...the little things that remind me that i live alone and am single...i am slowly packing them up into boxes, and putting them into a closet. slowly.

lord, have mercy.

mil besos,
rmg

what dreams may come

"the only difference between empty hands and open hands is attitude"

--paraphrased from G-d Calling

do you ever have those dreams where someone asks you the hardest, most bizarre question you've ever been asked, and the minute you try to blurt out the answer, it gets caught in your throat, and even though you are screaming at the top of your lungs, you just kind of make this really pathetic "mmmmmphhhhhblarglemmmmmph" sound? just me... whatever, you people are full of it...you've totally had that dream, and you know it. and if not, i hope you have it tonight, so you can sympathize.

i haven't had that dream in months. no, lately, that's what waking life has felt like. and not in a bad way...really, not at all. actually, things are going quite well. i feel like i am using my real voice, saying true things, making good on my answers. my yes means yes, and my no means no. this is a good place to be. and looking back on it, i have been here a lot longer than i thought. i spent hours the other night going over old journals, seeing the progress, the regressions, the slow climb out of austin, and everything after. i am profoundly grateful...for all of it. it's like the song "no ceiling" is playing on a continuous loop in my head. eddie vedder said it best, "this love has no ceiling". and despite my penchant for waiting on shoes to drop, i am findng myself relaxing back into this...and i am utterly unafraid.

that's the thougth i keep coming back around to...this profound gratitude. i feel like an exclamation point, all the way down to my toes, which today are firmly housed in my favorite steve madden high heels. i know that's what you're supposed to do before thanksgiving...make your list, focus your intentions, put gas in the car, etc. but i found myself feeling all these feelings weeks ago, totally unbidden. like i woke up one day, and this veil had been lifted from my eyes...nothing had changed, but everything was different. no new people...no new routine...nothing out of the ordinary had spurred this. it simply was, or is, i suppose. and again, i am just profoundly grateful for everything, everyone, all of it, even if tomorrow, everything is different. these moments, this time and space, have been immense and amazing, like my own little central park in the middle of the madness of the manhattan that is my brain.

mil besos,

rmg

nostaligia: she's a beast.

i remember standing there, in the coldest rain i can remember, singing with pete seeger at the top of my lungs. my roommate mike had come home three days before, and with not too much arm-twisting, convinced me to take a bus ride to someplace in georgia i'd never even heard of. considering that i worked for a bunch of hippie liberals, getting friday and monday off was a snap. explaining to my family that i was leaving dc for the weekend, in the company of total strangers, except for mike, who was a stranger to them, was kind of hard sell. telling your conservative momma and grandparents that you are going to attend a protest at a high profile military installation is a ticklish kind of thing to do. i suppose they just shook their heads, said a prayer, and figured it was something i needed to get out of my system.

what i didn't know about geopolitics, even after graduating from college with a minor in political science, could have filled the grand canyon. i spent my time in college reading about the rise of empire, the devine right of kings, and aristotelian political theory. i spent very little time in the modern era...and the time i did spend there, i spent reading about the palestinian/israeli conflict. i was guilty, according ts eliot, of neglecting and belittling the desert that lay in my own back yard. and i was coming into my adulthood at a time when that desert was filled with voices crying in the wilderness, begging for someone to listen. i was 21 when the big protests at the imf and world bank happened, happily ensconced in my little life in san marcos, trying to finish my degree, and swealtering through another texas summer. i remember seeing the protests on tv, and changing the channel to "behind the music"...sometimes you just can't stand to see the reality that is staring you back in the face.

by the time i got to dc, in the summer of 2000, 12 days after i graduated from college, the tenor of the conversation, the realization that things were happening that i had no idea about, knocked me for a loop. as a person, i was just really coming into my own...moving away from home was just the tip of the ice berg. i think most people come to a point in their young adult lives when they realize that they are no longer simply their parents' child, they have become something beyond that. i was, and still am, profoundly proud to be my parents' child. but my identity isn't nearly as wrapped up in that persona as it was when i was 21. things have happened, i have seen things, done things, been a part of things that have happened far from the reach of their hands, physical and metaphorical. those things have shaped me as much as the time i spent in their house. and i am equally grateful for both. that being said, i think most people go through a time in their lives when they stand everything they thought they knew and believed on its head...and you see what sticks.

what stuck for me was remembering that i grew up in a house that believed in God. i grew up in a house that believed in the goodness of people, that believe how you treated people mattered, that even nasty people deserved to be treated well. i never believed that the world was a fair place, but i learned that i could deal fairly with people, and that made all the difference. i learned that standing up for the right, true, and good things is hard, but necessary, and that the licks you take for doing that are always worth it, no matter the cost. i learned that the measure of a person isn't about what's in your bank account, but what's in your heart and what comes out of your mouth. and so, as i felt myself thinking all these big thoughts, wrestling with issues i'd never contemplated, i had a good foundation to build upon.

and so i went to georgia...to find out what i did not know. i wasn't silly enough to believe that the story i heard in georgia was the gospel truth about what was happening in latin america. history is rarely unbiased, regardless of whether it is written by the victors or the victims. but i knew i wanted to know a different part of the story. to be honest, i felt like a charlatan, a voyeur, an interloper. here i was, a middle class kid with a middle class education, who didn't even know if she was a republican or a democrat, who didn't know anything about the sandinistas, or the contras, or nicaragua, or archbishop romero, and i was smack in the middle of a discussion of all those things. i remember being silent for so much of the time i was there...just taking it all in, reading pamphlet after pamphlet, trying to make sense of what i was reading. and i felt like so...unfaithful. both my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers had been in the military. my uncle was in the navy. my greatgrandfather fought in wwi, and i had been taught my whole life to be patriotic, to support the troops, to be reverent almost. and here i was, standing in the middle of a cold fall rain, in protest at a military base. to say that i was conflicted would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. and i still feel conflicted.

what i do know is this...i have a profound and deep sense of respect and admiration and gratitude for the men and women in the armed forces. they keep us safe. they are volunteers. they leave me breathless with their selflessness in the face of incredibly difficult circumstances. they don't get to vote about where they go or what they do. they are so incredibly brave. and they deserve to have policies that reflect that bravery and honor. and i believe to this day that the policy i was protesting deserved that protest, on their behalf, because they could not do it themselves.

i'm not going to write a diatribe about how awful the school of the americas is. i'm not going to go off on some rant about how crappy governmental subterfuge is, or why i think the geneva accords are subverted in the name of national security or global stabilization. those things are a matter of public record, and the proof of the pudding is written in miles of newsprint. and i'm sure the school of the americas has graduated some upstanding and decent people, and that the instructors there are not all cyborgs with lumps of coal where their hearts should be. what i am going to say is that america deserves better. our men and women in the field, sleeping cold and hungry in the name of freedom and peace, deserve better. i pray that we are coming to a time when we can say that, demand that, and achieve that.

as i stood in the rain, chain smoking camel cigarettes and listening to speaker after speaker talking about mid-night raids in el salvador, nuns and priests murdered for standing up to political juntas, men and women who had been kidnapped and tortured for disagreeing with their own governments, i found myself marveling at the wonder of my own government. we have come so far...we still have so far to go.

so, as i sit on my little balcony, on a mild november night, i remember. and i hope.

mil besos,
rmg

a real barn-burner...

What you are, the world is.

And without your transformation,

there can be no transformation of the world.

--j. krishnamurti

you know, turning 30 was pretty major, grey hair aside. the weight of the experience isn't lost on me. i hate to say it, but part of me really, really, really embraces this new era in my life. and i say that without a trace of irony. and another part of me just hopes i am up to the challenge.

i guess i imagined that turning 30 would provide me with some automatic wisdom that i wouldn't have to try so hard to attain, or that things that bothered me would suddenly seem so trivial that i would never think about them, ever again. that's not the case at all. things have been so bizarre in my head lately, i'm feeling kinship with my 15 year old self again, and that is more disconcerting than i'm willing to admit at the moment.

i realize i'm sounding cryptic. and i don't intend to sound that way. i'm just finding myself incredibly frustrated lately. the real kicker is that i'm actually NOT the problem. and i am dealing with my absolute powerlessness in the face of a lot of things, at the moment. YAY. i love those lessons.

shit. someone pass me the asprin. and that bottle of vodka from the freezer.

mil besos,

rmg

godless heathen...table for one?

this is me. this is me trying to explain that i'm just one girl, with one vote. this is me trying to break out of molds, have discourse, and be an active participant in conversations with people i love. this is me being catergorized, polled, ingested, and spit out into raw data, polished numbers, and focus groups. this is me being told what i think, what i don't think, what i like, what i don't like by millions of people every day. this is me.

i have to be honest with you. i am, for all intents and purposes, a liberal. it took me years to own that. i still say it with fear and trembling, because i know the judgement that title brings with it. i know what people say about liberals. and i'll tell you, for me, almost none of it is true. but people, even people close to me, insist on sending me emails, news articles, clips, etc. that tell me what and how i am, as a liberal. i hate that. i really, really hate it. i hate it so much that i've spent the last thirty minutes trying not to cry over an article that ended up in my inbox less than two hours ago. i feel a constant need to explain and explain and explain that while i do support liberal causes, and tend to vote in a liberal fashion, i am my own person. and i feel like i have been mostly very circumspect and quiet about my feelings in this last election, to the point that i am in all out avoidance of all things political with about half the people i know. this isn't because i don't want to have the conversations. it's because every time the conversation is broached, i end up feeling like i'm not only defending my political convictions, i'm defending my right to have any feelings and convictions at all, because, as a liberal, i'm not supposed to have any thoughts or feelings of my own outside the party line, right?

wrong.

let me be clear about this...i am tired...sick, tired, and really overwhelmed with being told "what i am" because of the way i choose to vote. that is not the measure of me as a person. that is not what i think G-d sees when G-d looks at me. i know it's certainly not what i see. not by a long shot.

i am not a godless heathen. i actually really love Jesus...to the point that i work for Him, as my primary job. i don't think that all republicans hate poor people, or believe that GWB is the root of all evil, or in every conspiracy theory that comes down the pipe. i don't think that you have to live in new york or los angeles or washington, dc to have a decent idea. i don't buy into the liberal elite idea that if you didn't go to college, you aren't worth talking to. i don't want to keep the poor uneducated, and stupid, and strung out on welfare.

i don't want a huge government. i do want more personal responsibility. i do think that truth and values are important--i think that truth and values are so important that i wish we had a constitutional ammendment allowing for a vote of no confidence, because we deserve the right to call "no joy" in the middle of the game, just as much as any european country does. i think that it's ridiculous to talk about a culture of life and still support the death penalty, meanwhile ignoring the health crisis that looms for american children, who bear no responsibility for the financial or political choices of their parents. i support faith-based initiatives to act on behalf of communities, rather than creating governmental agencies to do the same jobs. i think that a fair day's work deserves a fair day's wage, and that the market determines what is fair. i think that we have to be innovative, creative, and reconciling in our attempts to make new discoveries and continue to explore technologies we already have in hand. i think that most people agree on most things, they just can't shut up long enough to come to that point.

in this last week of campaigning, before this historic election, please remember to vote! please remember to say thank you to our men and women in uniform who make it possible for us to live in a country where we have the right to vote. and be nice to the g-dless heathens...we sometimes are halfway decent people, who aren't bent on total world domination.

mil besos,

rmg

contemplative wednesday

In our life there is a single color as on an artist palette, which provides the meaning of life and art...
It is the color of love.

—marc chagall

one of my little old guys died last week, on thursday. he had moved to sonoma to live with his niece last february. he had big blue eyes, always wore a turquoise ring, smoked like a fiend, and had a little pug dog named "doc". he woke up on wednesday to see if his social security check had cleared. he told his niece to tell me thank you for the card i'd sent him the week before (the picture and quote are at the top of this post), and to tell me he was sorry he'd missed my birthday. and then, he died. i cried like a little kid when my boss told me that story. i still kind of want to cry, thinking about it. alan was a wonderful person, a dear man, someone with a lot of love in his heart, and so many stories to tell. i am so glad i got to know him.

i'm listening to a lot of music lately, even for me, and i listen all the time, to a pretty big variety of stuff. here's what's on the mix today... it is definately as random as it looks. but it's good, oddly enough, kind of shockingly good. and my mind is going in about 80 different directions today...so, this is kind of a sound salve, i guess.

Syrup & Honey 3:20 Duffy Rockferry

Drown 8:20 Smashing Pumpkins

Nebraska 4:34 Bruce Springsteen

Call It A Day 3:37 The Raconteurs

Ashokan Farewell 5:11 Nashville Chamber Orchestra

Evangeline 3:13 The Band with Emmylou Harris

Lady Margret 3:02 Cassie Franklin

Storms Are On The Ocean 3:24 June Carter Cash

The Dreaming Tree 8:48 Dave Matthews Band

Everyday 2:25 Don McLean

Red Dirt Girl 4:18 Emmylou Harris

I'm Yours 4:03 Jason Mraz

Myriad Harbour 4:00 The New Pornographers

Atlantic City 4:03 Bruce Springsteen

Travelling 3:34 Joni Mitchell

Mack The Knife 3:24 Louis Armstrong

Autumn 2:50 Paolo Nutini

Florida 5:01 Patty Griffin

Desire 3:41 Ryan Adams

Fly Me To The Moon 4:01 Tony Bennett

With Or Without You 4:56 U2

mil besos,

rmg

big three oh...wow.

turning 30 kind of went like this...without the me turning into tiger woods part. seriously, i am not making this up. this has got to be, without a doubt, one of the top five largest let downs of my entire life. thank the sweet baby Jesus i get a do-over this weekend. i am going back to bed, now.

mil besos,
rmg

about that...yeah.

**this photo was taken in some random bar in san franciso, easter sunday 2008. this is patio grafitti, not bathroom grafitti, for all you sticklers**

The line between want and need is not a line most of us are fond of walking. Or living, for that matter. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what each of us really needs to make it in the world is a fairly short list. I-pods and cell phones and disposable incomes have become things that we need, just plain need to get through our day to day. I’m consistently amazed at the amount of “first world” conversations I have with people I know and love…conversations about needing to cut fat out of our diets, or to spend more time on the treadmill, or losing five dollars on a stupid sports bet, or spending fifteen hundred dollars on a lost weekend in Las Vegas. They are conversations that the great majority of people in the world wouldn’t even begin to understand. Isn’t it ironic that the things we convince ourselves we want the most are the things that allude us?

Sometimes the things we want are the very things we most don’t need. Case in point: if I had driven off to Louisiana in the middle of a summer night when I was 19 to get married, my life would likely be a ruin of epic proportions, right along with his. And that’s not because I don’t want to get married. I do. And it’s not that I didn’t want to get married to him, because at the time, I did want to. It’s hard for me to comprehend what that might have meant. The ripples that stone would have scattered over the pool I could see at my feet, down the river that I was just beginning to glimpse, and all the way down to the ocean that was beyond my reckoning, they might have been more than anyone could have imagined. And they might have been more than anyone could have bourne. The long and short of the story is that I didn’t do what I wanted to do, right at that minute, and like Mr. Frost says, that has made a great deal of difference.

My friend Patrick says that the hallmark of adulthood is to delay gratification. I’m not totally sure I agree with him on that point. But I do agree that delaying gratification is sometimes a good thing. Surely, it was a good idea not to run to Louisiana in the middle of the night in the middle of finals week. But, I also have to ask myself the questions about the other gratifications I deny myself, sometimes to my detriment. I mean, you can be cautious to the point of serious phobias.

After my dad died, for about the first six months or so, I would catch myself being happy, and kind of feel guilty about it. I mean, my dad died. My dad. Died. And he died five days before I graduated high school. He spent my whole entire freaking senior year in high school dying. Dying. And every day I went to school and tried just to get to the end of the day. I remember being terrified of hearing my name on the loud speaker, of him dying while I was at school. Up until that point in my life, I hadn’t really minded every knowing every thing about my little boring life. After he got sick, and people started flooding us with attention, and pressing us for details, I realized how much I craved privacy. I didn’t want my weakest moments, our weakest moments, exploited like some live-version of an after-school special. It felt like rape, to be perfectly frank. All these people, my age and older, all my father’s collegues, people from our church, marching into our lives, demanding the intimacy that only terminal illness in a small town can bring. This was our family. This was our experience. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t a scholarship, or a wedding, or a birth. This was a death. And it was a longtime coming.

I got to a point in that year of spending a lot of time in my room, or in my car. God knows how many miles I drove in loops around Brady…from my house to the park, up memory lane, west to the San Angelo highway, a quick right at the John Deer dealership, down the road past Nicky’s house, past the house on White Street that Mamaw and Papaw Sellman lived in when Momma was born, across the low water bridge, around the square, up to Sonic for a coke, and out the lake road, all the way to the lake, which used to feel like such a long way to drive, crying and praying and chain smoking the whole way, sort of caring and not caring if anyone saw me. What were they going to do? Go home and tell my parents that I was out driving the speed limit, crying and smoking? Right…even I was allowed an indiscretion in seeking my solitude, I suppose.

I’m sure my family wondered what I was doing, although I did have a lot of extra-curricular activities that made for good alibis. As for the staying in my room…as long as I made at least one appearance every hour or so, I pretty much was left alone. I can’t tell you what I thought about in my room. I know I thought about my family, about my dad being sick, tried to come to terms with what it was going to mean not to have him in all the places I expected him to be. Even with all that headwork done ahead of time, I was still so surprised when he died. Shocked, even. I mean, really, he had been dying for a long time. We all knew it was time. I said all of that. I meant all of that. But still, in the back of that little girl mind, I still expected a miracle.

I can clearly remember a handful of days out of that whole year. Very few of them are memorable in a good way. All of which is to say, once that fog of pain and anger finally started to lift, I felt like some part of me had been taken away, some part that I would never get back. Some of that I think was a faith that was not my own. Some of that was coming into my own, becoming the adult he’d always dreamt I would be. Some of that was realizing that I had to tuck my chin into my chest, steer a shoulder into the wind, and just keep walking. When you have been in that set of footprints, coming to the realization that you can feel something new and good can kind of mess your head up.

Going to college three months after my dad died was one of the greatest decisions of my life. I had to summon up a lot of courage to do it. That sounds strange, because I was only going to be two hours from home. I was living with my best friend, in an on-campus dorm. I had already been to orientation, bought my books, signed up for my classes, everything was ready. I was afraid to go to college without my dad. All four years in high school, we had whittled and worked our way down to an acceptable number of colleges to apply to. We never made a big deal about it. This was between the two of us…like our bets on the NCAA tournament every March, or the NBA finals in June. After my Waterloo in chemistry, Daddy and I set our sights on Law, instead of Medicine. And we started looking at more in-state schools, too. We would sometimes talk about going to law school together, since by the time I got ready to go, he would be about ready to retire.

After he died, I didn’t know what I wanted to be anymore. I changed majors five times in the three years I was in college. I finally settled on a BA in History, with a minor in Political Science. A homage to Daddy, for sure, but I also got out of having to take college algebra or statistics. Mom never said anything, but I think she knew that I was really at loose ends, but wanted me to have the space to come to some kind of resolution on my own. And the truth is, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. How to do explain to anyone that you don’t want to do what you thought you wanted to do, because the one person who was going to stand beside you in the show wasn’t there anymore? So, I went to college. Even though what I really wanted to do was crawl in a hole, and die right along with him. Seriously. But I knew that he would have hated that. And the last thing I wanted to do was to let him down. Law school, I could leave behind. But I had to get out and make a life, and this was at least a step in a new direction. And part of me really wanted to go.

I don’t write or talk much about my father. It’s not because I don’t love him, or miss him. I just don’t want people to feel sorry for me. And it’s a private kind of pain for me. I don’t really even talk about it to my family. I don’t want to talk about a lot of it. There were things I saw and heard that I would pay obscene amounts of money to unsee and unhear, things no one should ever have to see or hear, no matter how old they are, no matter how brave or smart they are. Some things like that cannot be explained. They can never be forgotten, no matter how hard you try. I will always have seen what I saw. I will always have heard what I heard. I will always have the memories of doing things for my father that no child should ever have to do for a parent. I do a good job of putting those things in a room in my head that is reserved just for the kind of things you’d rather not remember. That room may be a little fuller than I would like for it to be, but such is life. I try to keep that room tidy and sterile. Things in that room threaten to come crawling out like a line of cockroaches marching across a white rug at those moments when you most need to keep your composure, you have to do your best to nudge and smile, and get the fuck out of Dodge before you lose your nuts, and maybe your lunch.

Time doesn’t make it feel better…it makes it feel less frequent. But the pain still comes on like a charley horse in your heart…untreatable until it’s full-length on you. And you just do what you have to do to get through it. And no body is allowed to judge what measures you take. Maybe not even God.

Happiness can be like that, too. I love to see people in the throes of happiness. They are oblivious to the fact that anyone in the world is sad at that moment. I’ve always kind of admired the guys who propose to their girlfriends in restaurants, or at ballgames, or on billboards. There’s something admirable about that kind of devil-may-care happiness. I remember seeing my brother’s face after my nephew was born. He was literally the happiest person in the world. This child was his Willy Wonka golden ticket. This was his best thing, ever. He was punch-drunk in love with his child, his wife, his family, and with the whole world. The whole thing was sweet enough to give you a cavity. He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He was utterly absorbed into the being of happy. Utterly consumed.

My friend Celeste asked me to be in her wedding when we were 23. Even at that relatively tender age, I was an old pro at being a wedding attendant. So I do what you always do when one of your best friends asks to you be in her wedding…I said yes, and asked when she needed my dress size, and where I needed to look for shoes. I have to say, Celeste is one of the easiest brides I’ve ever attended. She was just so excited about getting married and seeing all her friends, she forgot to be totally awful. Normally, even if I know the person or people, I treat all engaged couples with a shot or two of suspicion.

And jealousy. There….I said it.

Not so with this couple. Tim and Celeste were for real. They were butt-crazy in love with each other. It made me giddy to be with them. Being with them was like getting a B-12 shot. They were so sweet, and I wanted to be grossed out and think they were being goofy and stupid. I just couldn’t. Seven years on, they are still butt-crazy in love. I still want to be grossed out. They are so happy, and so grown-up, but still so goofy and sweet about it. I look at them, and I want what they have.

About two minutes before we walked down the aisle, with the bride behind us, and about 30 seconds after one of the worst bouron hang-overs in history slammed it’s way into my central nervous system, Celeste looks up at me, with big happy puppy dog tears in her eyes, and says, “Rachel, I just hope one day you can feel like this, too.” And then, I started crying. And I cried all the way through the service, off and on all the way through the reception, and then all 126 miles back to my house in Austin. Cried all the way. Cried like my guts were going to bust loose and spatter on the windshield. But I wasn’t sad. I was happy. So, so, so happy. Happy for Celeste, happy at the bittersweetness of weddings of childhood friends, happy at the prospect of being happy like Celeste, just happy. She put my eyes out with her happiness, and she still does, sometimes. It was so nice to cry my eyes out over something good, and sweet, and true, and beautiful.

mil besos,

rmg

something to say

for my thoughts on 9-11, i'd ask you to look up a post i wrote in April, titled "visual learner". you can find it in the navigation bar to your right...

and may the souls of the departed rest in the mercy of God, who is bigger than we can ask or imagine.

mil besos--rmg

all things considered...

so, i'm back in my office after ten days of vacation. it's culture shock, to say the least. the time off was wonderful, and spending time with my alabama family was very refreshing. and maybe all those miles between here and there gave me some perspective i've been needing. i will say this...that was the one trip/event of the entire summer that almost went entirely to plan, my driving reroute re: gustav notwithstanding.

i kept having this strange feeling on vacation...something more than the post-nasal drip induced by different tree pollen...i came to this, somewhere on my trip home, just outside of vicksburg...

so many of my friends and cousins my age have children. i've been watching them, the grown-ups and the parents, with increased curiosity. How quickly we seemed to move from doll-babies to real babies, faster than we moved from playing house to moving into houses. the line from playing the bride to pushing the baby carriage seems to be shorter than we thought. when we get together now, 11pm is a late night. we know there are things that must be done tomorrow, and we must have a clear head to do them. we don't throw up fuzzy pink drinks at 3am, or do shots in the basement. we have margaritas at dinner, and stop drinking after one or two. a glass of wine almost never turns into the whole bottle, anymore...almost never. we have departed, forever and always, that vast and tameless section of our lives. it is bittersweet in the tasting, to know that. to know that our carefree days are behind us, for the most part. to know that small hands hold our hearts forever, and that we have ceased to be creatures of our very own, those are large lessons. in the final analysis, i know all those changes and chances are worth the losses you take on the freedom front. and it's not really sad that the wild days are over, or at least come less frequently. this is life. and life moves. vacation is not forever...and neither are the salad days.

i have started marking my maturity based on things i purchase from the home depot--the caulking gun was definately a big step, i think.

we do not like ike.

mil besos,
rmg

episode 265, in which rachiepoo attempts to leave town on vacation...

down this road

after a cup of coffee and a treat,

with the top down, so i can smell pulp wood and magnolias,












i will see this face

and this face...













and this face...

and faces that remind me of this face...

and then see this face,

and then, i will come home. i'll have the phone fully charged...be ready.

mil besos,

rmg

me and the Lord...we have an understanding...

"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. "

--norman maclean











when i was in middle school, i went to camp every summer. my camp was at the beach, and we did all sorts of field trips, outings, and sleep-overs away from camp. that place changed my life. those experiences crafted a whole life for me, and i am still applying all those lessons, all these years later. i still go to the beach expecting to see amazing things. i sit on the waterline, and i hear the song the waves sing, watch them clap their hands in the foamy crests, and marvel at the life that teems under and over all that water. the rhthym of the waves, the sets they make, the pull of them, as they follow what's on the bottom, the way you can read them after you've watched them every summer of your life, and how after a day in the water, when you lay down on your bed to sleep, you can still feel their pull and push, that rhthym that beats a four-count measure in my head in the pool, and a four-count measure in my heart, sometimes that's all that gets me to sleep at night.

i remember being in the water off key west, marveling through my snorkle mask at the beauty of the reef. i remember the overwhelming compulsion to close my eyes. and i did close them. i relaxed into the water, warm as a bath, and soft as silk. i have no idea how long i floated there, above the fish, and below the sky, bathed in salt water, rocked by the gentle waves, with the sounds of the boat and people around me muffled by the sea. and i remember this overwhelming feeling of being home. i was so taken aback with that thought...i had never been here before. and then i remember that i certainly had been someplace awfully similar. in that flash, i remembered my mother's womb, and the waters of my birth. this was a profound and cataclysmic realization, and just as soon as i grasped it, it slipped away, again. i understood why i had been pulled to the water, why we are all pulled toward it, why it must be the sign of our birth and re-birth. and all those days of camp, all the family trips to the beach, the pools, the rivers, the tanks, the lakes, all the drops of all the water coalesced into an ocean of such size and depth and width that i was left speechless, crying into my mask, overwhelmed at the scope of such love.

at camp, we used to go to the aquarium every summer...we went to two aquariums, one in port a and the other in corpus. the one in corpus was my favorite. it was brand new the first time i went, and to this day, i still associate the smell of new carpet with that building and those tanks full of such strange and wonderful creatures. i remember standing in front of one of the big amphibian tanks, and seeing this massive kemp's ridley turtle swim by me. the counselor standing next to me said that she loved turtles best of all, because they looked so wise and gentle, and that they reminded her of God. that comment has never really left me, and i have rolled it over and over in my mind, sometimes looking at turtles, sometimes looking at other things, and sometimes looking at nothing but the back of my eyelids.

my first pet was a turtle. his name was jeremiah, and i think i was about three when my dad brought him home to me. i remember that he lived in my room, in a big bowl. and i liked him. at some point, mom and dad convinced me that jeremiah needed to go live at the park, by the creek. i don't know if this is because they were tired of taking care of their three year old's pet, or if jeremiah died and they didn't want to traumatize me by burying him in the box my miss piggy tennis shoes came in. at any rate, what i remember of jeremiah is good. he was green. he was my friend. he was familiar to me. i always think of him whenever i see a turtle, big or little.

i started reading the "dark tower" series of books when i was in junior high. i know, stephen king novels in junior high...what can i say, i was advanced. a turtle plays a large part in the stephen king cannon of stories, and until i tried to read stephen hawkings "a brief history of time", i never put that into perspective, thinking that the turtle was just a nice, comfortable, familiar writer's device. hawking relates this story: " A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"


being the curious person that i am, i did a little research about this quote, because when i read this story, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. (it was a similar experience to the one i had when i was putting a four-year old suzy jones to bed, when she whispered in my ear, "sometimes i dream about God's wife...she wears red." but that's another story...) come to find out, the second avatar of vishnu was a turtle, who carried the elephant who carried the world on his back. under him was nothing but the sea of primordial milk, which contains the fourteen most beautiful and spectaular gifts ever given. that's a pretty interesting story, no matter how you slice it, i think.

do i believe that God is a turtle? ...no. am i converting to hinduism?...certainly not. all i'm saying is that sometimes, i think we forget things that should not be forgotten. we burn books that should not be burned. we declare heresy where there is none. we forget that God is much bigger than we can ask or imagine. and that God is everywhere, and in everything, calling us into communion, into community, into wholeness and holiness, just like the ocean calls us to come and swim and be made clean, and remember what it means to be home.




that's what i think, anyway.


mil besos,
rmg

midnight ramble

the girl sat on her porch early in the morning, seeing the streetlights and the palm tress...hearing the little wind that snakes its way through the neighborhood, blown by the traffic on the loop...believing that there really is something more to this than meets the eye.



she's tall. sort of. sometimes, she adds an inch, because it seems to make her feel above average. she's funny. she's mostly pretty smart. she works too much. she sometimes doesn't sleep well. and when she does sleep, she has strange and vivid dreams. sometimes, she thinks she puts off sleep, because lately the strange and vivid dreams have taken a familiar not-especially happy turn. she remembers. yes, she remembers. she remembers things that she would rather not. she sees new things that blend into the old. she fights to keep the center, because this is not hers. not any of it is, really, when she takes the long view. and when she remembers that, she takes a deep breath, and walks away, feeling a little empty and a little tired, and if she's honest, maybe a little lonlier than she would like to admit.



oh, she'll admit that some of the lonliness is her fault. probably the great majority. she has real trouble telling people what she's thinking. she feels like her venting is sometimes too much, or that people listen out of obligation instead of "want to". she's not always good at saying whether she's simply giving you information, or asking for help. she says she's working on that...but it's hard. she's also apparently trying new things like actually telling people how she feels, of trying not to be suzy sunshine with the good news hose plugged in the pooper. she's supposedly learning that it's ok for her to have a bad day, send out the s.o.s., and learning not to over-inflate what the response should reasonably be. she's also working on those nasty little inarticulated expectations...they sometimes make her cry, and she's kind of over crying these days. she's finally figuring out that putting your cards on the table isn't such a bad thing...people seem to treat folks who are honest with a much gentler hand. even though it's hard for her to be honest about what she likes, or wants, or even freaking needs, she's trying to get better. she's trying to kill cinderella, but still finds herself watching silly romantic comedies that have nothing to do with real life, and everything to do with cinderella. she is frustrated by that. and while she's reasonably sure she's not one of the ugly step-sisters, she sometimes wonders if she's not the second-cousin who gave up to become a nun in a children's home up to her eyeballs in babies. she tries to remember that age is nothing but a number, and that wisdom has nothing to do with age.



she is trying. she is praying more, again. she knows she's going to make it. she's learning that frustration isn't always such a bad feeling. she's remembering that hope is a sweet and wild thing, and one which almost never makes any sense. she's trying.



the cars keep zooming by the little faux tudor style condo on the side street, just up from the hospital. it's sunday morning, already...she needs to sleep, to be ready for work. she's trying to remember that sometimes work is worship. she's noting the need to be fully present, most especially present. she's pacing, but has no real idea of the duration of this epoch. she is trying to get ready...for whatever she needs to be ready for...prepared. her therapist tells her this is called "situational anxiety". she at least likes that the phrase is poetic. her therapist also told her to lay low...that she could be kate winslett, clinging to the floating door. funny bit of synchronicity...one of her thursday ladies is the child of a man who almost sailed on the titanic. she thinks how she would have missed hearing that thursday lady tell her stories and show her photos and tell her to stay off the streets every time she left her house. but then she wonders how she could ever have missed something she never would have known about. she thinks about parallell universes. she thinks she may have the beginning of a tension headache when she thinks those thoughts, so she rations them out, just like how her therapist told her to ration out her anger. only 15 minutes a day...she thinks this is ample, until she starts to write things down, or talk on the phone. she is thinking she should start setting a timer for that, but it feels to much like the "2 minutes hate" from "1984".



she wants to be an idealist, but pragmatism just suits her better. and she's learning to realize that's ok, too. she knows it's time for bed, for what dreams may come, and that if she listens hard enough, maybe she'll figure it out, this time.



the girl on the porch looks sleepy, in her green and white baseball jersey that she never wears in public and the boxer shorts she stole from her grandfather's clean laundry (wierd, yes...endearing, absolutely), with her wet hair pulled back, even though she's painfully afraid of split ends. she is going to bed.

she says to tell you that she loves you. expect a phone call...

mil besos--rmg

sometimes...

i am grateful that i can feel much of anything.

i am glad that people worry, even if it's worry over me.

i am glad for latenight/early morning phone calls.

i am glad that i live alone.

i still want to bite my nails.

i wish my hair was short.

i stay up all night and work on projects.

i wish my cat could talk back to me.

i wish the book i'm reading now were 500 pages longer.

i want to grow up and be a doctor, so i can make people better.

i want to grow up and be a hospice nurse so i can help people have a good death.

i want to be a midwife so i can help bring healthy babies into the world.

i want to make cds all day long.

i regret eating a salad for lunch.

i wish people didn't tell me so many secrets. they are sometimes hard to carry.

i wish i could sleep for a week.

mil besos--rmg

morning grind

"almond blossoms" -vincent van gogh

i have at last vanquished the remnants of wallpaper in my kitchen. my kitchen is a pristine (ok, except for the little tiny slivers that i couldn't pry off the corner between the wall and the ceiling), wallpaper free zone. thank you, Jesus. now, all that's left to do is paint the countertop, and i'm done with the kitchen. that little chore will have to wait til i get back from mexico on the 26th. but, i think the last of the all-nighters was pulled last night. i know, i know, it's bad to do that. however, i just could not stop. and i didn't feel sleepy until about 15 minutes ago. it's going to be a long day, kids. wowza.

1. hands--the raconteurs
i am reasonably sure that if a man ever wrote a song like this, and wrote it about me, i would marry that man. plus, the bass line is amazing. i think i am one of the last 50 people in the free world to have bought their first album. thank goodness i finally did.

2. yellow--cold play
you have no idea how much i hate that i actually LIKE cold play. this song, although chronically over-played on every radio station in the free world, is pretty great. the acoustic version is equally good, if more mellow.

3. what's the story, morning glory--oasis
nothing reminds me of the summer before my senior year in high school as much as this song, and this album. good memories...sad memories...lots of growing up. and to think, i owned the TAPE of this! i can see the interior of my white ford contour, and feel every bump driving down bonnie's street to pick her up. and i vividly remember that summer as the one in which i learned to pee outside.

4. ophelia--the band (from the last waltz)
the band, like so many other bands that i inheirited from my parents, is one of my all-time favorite groups. and yes, i love "the last waltz". i think it might even be martin scorses's finest work. yeah, i said it. and one day, before i hang up my traveling shoes, i will go to woodstock, and attend a midnight ramble at levon helm's house.

5. anchorage, alaska--michelle shocked
another song from a mix that ryan made me a couple of years ago, a mix he entitled "autumn will kill us all", from an onion news bulletin. that kid makes a good mix. such a good song, such great lyrics. a nice way to start the day. alaska is kind of magical, in my mind. it's on the list of places to see before i bite the big one. the northern lights are such a mystery to me, and (nightowl that i am) i want to see them in real life, real bad.

6. the distance--cake
1995-1996, i had a tv in my bedroom for the first time,ever. in between watching sports center, and trying to find something to wear, and fighting with my brother over the bathroom, i listened to this song almost every morning. even when we couldn't talk about anything in a civil tone, we could both agree that this was a great song.

7. somewhere beyond the sea--bobby darin
my nephew is crazy about "finding nemo". we can almost sing this one together. and when he's fussy, i can slow this down, and sing him back into a rational state. it's kind of awesome.

8. use me--bill withers
i know, the morning seems like an odd time to listen to bill withers, and this song isn't one you'd normally associate with, uh, daytime activities. however, if you are looking to put a little funk into your day, and maybe dance a little in the car, this is the money horse.

9. in me--casting crownsthis is a great song. period. it's a good song to put your head on right for the day. love it. love it. love it.

10. three little birds--bob marley and the wailers
for me, bob marley will always conjure up good memories. and summertime. there is nothing better than putting the top down, finding a back road, sliding in a copy of "legend", and getting lost on your way to nowhere.

11. what's up--four non-blondes
another trip down memory lane...all the way back to 1992. it conjours up memories of band trips, actually finding out that real people DID drink scope and jack daniels, at the same time, and major crushes on boys way the hell out of my league. holy crap. if i knew then what i know now, i would have been seriously dangerous.

12. mysterious ways--u2
while "zooropa" is a nice album, it still is pale in comparison to "joshua tree", in my book. i remember hanging out in my bedroom, in my old house, and talking about boys with my friend cindy. some things never change. i think celeste actually bought the cd, and i remember dancing around my bedroom for hours like wild banshees. and i remember going to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get celeste real cheese. seriously.

13. here comes the sun--(beatles cover) richie havens
such a good way to start the day...and such a great cover. the drums are amazing, and the vocal track is delivered with wild abandon. so nice for a traffic jam. i listened to this non-stop my freshman year in college. i will always associate it with feeling a) a little homesick, b) that surging sense of freedom you only have when you are 19 and away from home for the first time, and c) knowing that a whole new part of my life was beginning, and that it was good.

14. anyone else but you--the moldy peaches
juno is one of my favorite semi-new movies, and this is, by far, my favorite song on the soundtrack. simple and sweet.

15. maggie mae--rod stewart
the mandolin solo on this song makes me want to run around in circles. rod stewart's voice is so melancholy and upbeat, at the same time. and that raspy scotsman can still wail with the best of them. it's so good. SO good. and i am a sucker for a story song.

16. 30,000 pounds of bananas--harry chapin
speaking of story songs, this song is one of the best and brightest in that genre, if you ask me. harry chapin, like james taylor, plays heavy on the soundtrack of my childhood, as does the entire libretto to "jesus christ, superstar." thank God my parents loved good music!

and that's it, for today, my darlings. enjoy the day!

mil besos,
rmg

you'll never guess...

**still life with mandolin**--pablo picasso



"when the going gets weird,

the weird go pro."
--dr. hunter s. thompson




and that is for damn skippy, friends and neighbors. and the going has definately gotten weird, lately. i kind of feel like my insides, like the part where "you" really live, has been invaded by some outside force. said outside force seems to have wrapped me up in a bedsheet and beat the living sh*t out of me with a baseball bat, kind of like willie nelson's ex-wife did to him one night when he came home really really drunk. i haven't been really really drunk in AGES, so i'm not sure exactly what i've done to merit such a beating. nevertheless, a beating has occured/is still occuring. the upshot is this...i am in no way, shape, or form bored, at all. in fact, i could be a study in over-stimulation, at this point. and if let myself look at things from the outside, it's damn near funny.

take today, for instance. i spent like 900 hours last night talking to some friends last night about their summer job, which was once my summer job, so i get the frustrations, etc. i was a little tired this morning when i got to work...a little later than normal...but still in good fighting form. until one of my nosy (and when i say "nosy" what i secretly mean is mrs. kravitz from bewitched) little old ladies tried to come into my office with one of my other little old ladies (the thursday morning "receptionist", who can't hear anyone on the phone, and always sends all the calls to me, and who is moving to the coast to live with her son...) so that mrs. kravitz could measure mrs. talks a lot for "some new panties, since she's moving, and all."

yeah. that's right. "some new panties, since she's moving, and all."

WAIT. WHAT? EXCUSE ME...WHAT? i'm sorry...i thought you said you were going to measure someone for NEW PANTIES...IN MY OFFICE. i must have had an acid flashback, because who would say something like that in A CHURCH OFFICE? not to mention, i hate Hate HATE the word panties with the white hot intensity of ten thousand suns.

for real and for serious and for super-duper true, mrs. kravitz was all set to measure mrs. talks a lot IN MY OFFICE. can you imagine what would have happened if i hadn't been here??? if i hadn't been sitting at my desk, minding my own business, i could have avoided even knowing about the discussion of fittings for...underpants..., much less have had any idea that my My MY office was being targeted for such a...delicate...undertaking. and i feel bad that my office might have been subjected to that. i know nothing about measuring for...underpants...bras, sure. but...underpants? REALLY? wouldn't you just match up sizes with whatever you wear in a pant or skirt? do you really have to measure...and do you have to do it IN PUBLIC...AT CHURCH...WHERE PEOPLE TALK TO JESUS?? is nothing sacred?

this happened at 11:30 this morning. i haven't really been able to concentrate on anything since then. i think i may have some post-traumatic stress disorder over this. i definately wish i had gone psychosomatically deaf at the first indication that my office might be used for something like this--you know, like how if a person sees something really traumatic, their brain just shuts off their optic nerve for a little bit... i can hear the reverberating echo of mrs. kravitz in the back of my brain, like the hateful mother on "carrie", only instead of "their all going to laugh at you!", all i can hear is "paaaaanties...aaaaaanties....aaaaanties...neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanties...aaaaaanties...aaaaaaanties...for the moooooooooooove..."

a lady need a stiff drink, ya'll.

i think, after today, i may have officially heard everything, and may potentially be unshockable. however, i still have the capacity to be extremly grossed out. yay!

mil besos--rmg

3.7 hours...a car-trip play list...

i know i promised you guilty pleasures this week. i will do my best to make good on that one, and give you two (yes, that's right...two) installments this week, if the Good Lord is willing. and now, for a story before the tunes...

i spent a huge chunk of the weekend in the car...with my mom, my grandmother, and my great aunt sue, on the way to a family reunion in greater metropolitan texarkana.

let me state for the record that while i bear arkansas no ill will, inbreeding and the rise of hillary clinton notwithstanding, it is not my favorite state in the union. and texarkana seems to be the worst of two possible worlds, all smushed into one slightly urban reality: the absolute pit of east texas redneckery and intolerance mixed with the overwhelming idiocy and assbackwarness of arkansas. i had a hunch that the weekend was going to get a little weird. and it did. if you want the unabriged version, i'll be happy to fill you in on the down-low.

for now, let's just get to the part that made me happiest...three cds full of some of my favorite driving music. even mom and grammy and aunt sue liked the selection...or at least most of it!

appalacian spring--aaron copeland
this is the quintessential american road trip starter, at least in my book. i love the swelling french horns in the middle section of this arrangement. the last half of this tune is so majestic, so lovely and soaring. i still tear up when i listen to it, sometimes. cheesy? yes. timeless? you bet your sweet bippy.

tatoo--aimee mann
i love kevin smith movies. always have, always will. from "clerks" to "clerks ii", i just think the man is a genius. he used this song on the soundtrack to "jersey girl", which was panned during the whole bennifer craze. that's a shame, because the movie was really good. at least, i thought so. and this song is fantastic. agonizing, but fantastic.

pavement cracks--annie lennox
annie lennox is one of the greatest soul singers alive today. period. "bare" is one of the best albums i've ever listened to. this song says so much that i wish i had words to say. it's spare, and beautiful.

lewis boogie--jerry lee lewis
the killer, oh the killer. this is rock and roll at the very beginning. listening to jerry lee lewis, elvis presley, and johnny cash at this stage of their development, and the development of a genere is equivalent to catching the big bang on film, and watching evolution from the very begining of everything.

vincent--don mclean
this song makes me want to throw myself under a bus. and i love it. vincent van gogh is one of my favorite artists, ever. and i know everyone says that, because his work is so recognizable, and so timeless. this song is so sweet...and sad.

lucy in the sky with diamonds--the beatles
i don't care what the underlying message is behind this song...i just like it. and the ben harper cover of it isn't bad, either. but for my money, the old original makes excellent music by which to drive.

tiny dancer--(elton john cover) ben folds
one of the top five covers of all time, hands down. i love this song..."almost famous" and cameron crowe have changed my life in multiple ways. no kidding. for real. and ben fold's voice is so nice and smooth.

vienna waits for you--billy joel
i have this friend-in-law who claims that billy joel and elton john are secretly the same person. while i refuse to buy that theory, right along with lee harvey oswald acting alone, i agree that both men have added something irreplaceable in the mix of music, especially my own personal library. this is one of those songs that i continually find myself putting on repeat. one: the song is a good song...nice melody, nice structure, excellent lyrics, and two: i keep finding myself inside of it. i like that.

don't think twice, it's alright--bob dylan
this is my mom's favorite dylan tune. we saw him together two years ago, and he sang this song. that was a good night.

cannonball--brandi carlisle
again, i can't say enough about brandi carlise. i just think she's a genius, and this song is a shining example of that. backing vocals by amy ray don't hurt a bit, either.

you're so vain--carly simon
irony is a real s.o.b, you know? i love that mick jagger sings uncredited background vocals on this song.

mrs. potter's lullaby--counting crows
laura jane and k.sluder and i went on a wild adventure to the davis mountains three summers ago. we got lost. we got found. we had some nasty rat-tail man try to sell us contraband. we peed by mailboxes on the way to big bend. we saw the marfa lights. it was awesome. i want to go back.

heart of gold--neil young
i would be hard pressed to overstate the depth of my affection for neil young, and particularly this song. all my favorites...harmonica solo, slide guitar, intense feeling. love it. love it. love it. seriously love it. this song makes me feel like my hair is on fire, and i just don't care.

babylon II--david gray
good friday 2001. ryan came to dc to see me, and we proceeded to work our way through the zoo, right over to adams morgan, and the loriol plaza, which claims to serve mexican food. the mexican food was somewhat lacking, but the margaritas were excellent. at least i think they were. things started to get hazy after the second pitcher. we almost got kicked off the subway. we sobered up on my backporch by singing church and camp songs and smoking turkish cigarettes for four hours. and then we listened to this cd and the rain for hours. HOURS. and then next day,we took our hungover selves to mass, and i recieved my very first plenary indulgence. YEAH!

levon--elton john
jon bon jovi says that this is one of those songs you hear and wish you had written. i would have to agree.

waiting in vain--(bob marley cover) annie lennox
again, with the annie lennox...and such a great song to cover. bob marley IS summertime.

ruby with the eyes that sparkle--dirk powell and stuart duncan
from the "cold mountain" soundtrack. i am somewhat obsessed with the book and the movie, and i think this is such a great bluegrass tune. it immediately conjures up the blueridge, and watching the sun come up in the spring time.

babylon--don mclean
don mclean is getting a lot of airplay from me. this is a round, with a live audience. i remember singing this round at camp, my very first time as a camper, on the slab. the concrete was still hot from the heat of the day, even though it was full dark when we were having chapel. i remember laying on the slab, and looking up at the stars, and realizing how much God really did love me. that was a big day...

killing me softly--(roberta flack cover) the fugees
picture it: b-tex, 1996. i am 18. i am head over heels for a complete tool who is not worth my time. i can't stop listening to this song on my way to marching band practice. yes, i was THAT girl. and i still have anxiety dreams about not being able to remember the routine or find my uniform. wow.

sugaree--the grateful dead
my nephew loves this song, and will actually "shake it". don't act like that's not cool...

danceband on the titanic--harry chapin
i love harry chapin. psychotically love him. this probably stems from the fact that between the ages of birth to 17, harry chapin was played in our house at least once a day, and usually at length. i can name every song on the "greatest stories" live album. this is on one of the anthologies that i have...reminds me of a bad day at some places i have worked...

mona lisas and mad hatters--(elton john cover) the indigo girls
ugh. love it.

say hallelujah--tracy chapman
tracy chapman is one of my heros. she's so great, and totally uncompromising. i have been in the t-stop in boston where she was discovered. that was a major moment.

mad mission--patty griffin
this song says how i feel, right now, at this very moment. seriously.

goodnight, irene--jerry lee lewis
my aunt sue's former husband, uncle leo, loved this song. he loved this song so much he had it played at his funeral. we love it.

time is on my side--irma thomas
this is a great song, no matter who sings it. for my money, i prefer this version. just enough funk to make you wiggle around in your chair...

solsbury hill--peter gabrielone of those songs to which many memories are attached.

wagon wheel--old crow medicine show
i could seriously listen to this song on repeat for about a year. in college, i had this group of friends who introduced me to bluegrass. and i never quite got over how much i loved the music, or them. still do.

one less set of footsteps--jim croce
this is the ultimate "oh no, it's not me...it's definately you" kind of song. empowering in a very kick-ass kind of way, i think. "if that's the way you want it, that's the way i want it more..." nice. very nice.

my sweet lady--john denver
an excellent apology, "let's make up, and let me buy you a new pair of shoes for making you cry all day long, and then i'll empty the dishwasher and do all the laundry and let you have the remote" kind of song.

church in the wildwood--june carter cash
we all sang along to this song: me, momma, grammy, and aunt sue. at the top of our lungs. that's one of those memories i will hold in my heart for a long time.

cinnamon girl--neil young
neil young...again. this one rocks a little harder than the other neil young selection. i'd be hard pressed to say which i like better, neil young with crosby, stills, and nash, or neil young and crazy horse. give the option, i would probably always pick neil young and pearl jam.

thrice all american--neko case
i want to be neko case when i grow up. i feel like she's my generation's version of patsy cline. and that girl can freaking sing a torch song.

feeling good--nina simone
totally wierds me out that i like this song, because it's kind of creepy. for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it sounds like one of those new orleans jazz funeral songs.

and i love you so--don mclean
this song is the aural equivalent of a can of squeeze cheese. so melodramatic. so overblown. so co-dependent and in need of some therapy. and it's awesome.

you belong to me--patsy cline
you belong to me is one of those standards that pretty much everyone has covered, including that jason what's his butt from lifehouse. this is my favorite version, ever. i will dance to this song at my theoretical wedding.

new shoes--paolo nutini
this song makes me want to dance. and go shoe shopping. paolo really gets what it's like to have a new pair of shoes...it's like a new haircut...you feel all-powerful and ready to throw a party.

take me home, country roads--john denver
i learned how to pick out harmonies listening to this song when i was in junior high.

chief--patty griffin
i would give patty griffin both my kidneys. at the same time. i am reasonably sure that she helped me maintain my sanity my senior year in college... you know the one when i took 21 hours one semester because i was in such a hurry to move to dc and take over the world?

red rain--peter gabrieldid you catch the redsox game last night? it was a doozy. man, i love baseball.

angel of the morning--(cover) the pretenders
this is a timeless classic. my mom likes the original, but i like this one. which is weird, because chrissy's voice isn't one of my favorites. this is another dc song that caro and melissa got sick of hearing in the mornings. at least i didn't play it non-stop for six weeks like i did with "hook".

like a songbird that has fallen--reel time travelers
another track from the "cold mountain" soundtrack. if i close my eyes, i can see the train trestle across the shenendoah, as it's bleeding into the potomac. and smell old woodsmoke from fires that haven't burned in a hundred years. this song stings like moonshine.

myriad harbour--the new pornographers
such a good driving song. thank God for cruise control. reminds me of new york, right after a good rain, and before the city starts to reek again.

your long journey--robert plant and allison krause
my grandmother loves this song. the older i get, the more music she and i have in common. i can remember listening to hank williams and old willie nelson on her record player, while we would be in the kitchen making cookies.

i'm going home--sacred harp singers
you have to hear this song to understand the depth of musicianship it brings to bear. it's one of the most unusual and beautiful songs i think i have ever heard.

good is good--sheryl crow
i did promise you a guilty pleasure...this is such a track. really, really guilty. i feel like i hemorage cool points every time i sing along with this one.

the promise--tracy chapman
great song. just really great. reminds me to keep the close ones close, and not to worry about the rest.

all that i want--the weepies
i can't say that this is my absolute favorite song ever...but it's up there. and yes, i know it's a christmas song and this is the middle of summer. sometimes, you just need a little christmas.

nobody knows you when you're down and out--eric clapton i will always remember p. hall playing this OVER AND OVER on the junior high retreat from hell. i had a cover of this by janis joplin, but can't find it for the life of me. my mother has an unhealthy obsession with all things eric, so this one is for momma.

happy listening!

mil besos--rmg

all these songs kind of have reverb...sort of...

i'm trying to spend more time listening to music. it's good medicine. and on facebook, i've been putting up themed lists. but, i realize not all of you are on facebook, so i'm blogging it here, as well. forgive the repetion, if it applies to you.



also...check out the new look!! do you like it? i'm still trying to decide. thankfully, changing the template is lots easier that painting a room. and by room, i mean kitchen. and by kitchen, i mean that i have been painting mine. i think i should take a look at my coffee intake...wow.



at any rate, this is kind of a long list...and not nearly exhaustive. pretty much none of these songs have anything to with each other, except that i find a consistant sound that runs through each of them--at least they sound that way to me. they aren't ranked in any specific order. and they fit on two cds...if you want one, let me know...



1. everyone gets a star--albert hammond, jr.
the drummer from the strokes makes a pretty good front man, himself. this song caught me the first time i listened to the album, and i think i had this song on repeat for a week.


2. dreams--the cranberries
the summer i learned to drive, my grandfather bought a p.o.s. vw rabbitt convertible, that took a quart of oil a week. i learned to drive on the lot next to our house, and i played this cd, bob marley and the wailers, and neil young over and over. it was the greatest summer of my life.


3. just like heaven--the cure
the cure was emo before emo was real. i love this song. LOVE IT.

4. we're not right--david gray
i discovered david gray the year i lived/worked in dc. his first american album always reminds me of the smell of snow, and being on my own for the first time, ever.


5. ordinary world--duran duran
this song is in a class by itself.


6. in my room--(beach boys cover) grant lee buffalo
great song, great treatment. i like the super distortion on the guitar track.


7. goodnight and go--imogene heap
summer 2006, i worked at my old summer camp. all summer long...it was hot, and hard, and i cried a lot in my room at night. this song made me want to dance. still kind of does...


8. choctaw bingo--james mcmurtry and the heartless bastards
james mcmurtry is unapologetically monotone. and that drives some people crazy. i just love the story he tells.


9. you are trying to break my heart--jonatha brooke
ryan and i discovered her at almost the exact same time. this is a great song, because it's simple. and her voice is great. and i know just how she feels on this one. just.


10. van lear rose--loretta lynn
this song woke up an entire generation to the genius of the coal miner's daughter. she's always been a favorite of mine. and the fact that jack white is on this one makes it extra super good. LOVE jack white...


11. no need to cry--neko case
one of the best voices out there, i think, neko case reminds me of patsy cline, and her lyrics are outstanding. furnace room lullabye is one of the best albums i've ever purchased...not a bad track on it.


12. go places--the new pornographers
favorite. song. ever.


13. failsafe--the new pornographers
i cannot listen to this car on the way to work, because i should never drive that fast on 410.


14. sunshine (cover) paul westerberg
GREAT song, and paul westerberg has such a distinctive voice, and does a great job on this cover. and yes, i know it was on the "friends" soundtrack. how do you think i heard it...i hate that i own that cd...


15. prince caspian--phish
senior year in college...there are a lot of stories. this song is featured in two or three of them. it's definately on the soundtrack of the movie of my life.


16. here comes the flood--peter gabriel
this song...wow. peter gabriel is one of my favorite artists, because he's musically literate, and he writes some incredible lyrics. this song reminds me of a line from thomas merton, about the voilence that's inherent in the lives of activists. it's really amazing.


17. what's the frequency, kenneth?--rem
this song and "go places" would definately make my desert island album, hands down. it's old vintage rem at their college radio finest. and i can't understand 80% of what's being said.


18. killing the blues--robert plant/allison krause
i kind of hate that this song is now a clothing store jingle, but am stoked that more people are being exposed to this great single. such a sweet harmony...makes me want to snuggle up in my down comforter and take a nap.


19. dear chicago--ryan adams
another song that kind of makes you hurt so good. like someone is pulling your guts out of your nose, but in that good way. i know...bizarre.


20. always on your side--sheryl crow
i always feel like i need to apologize for liking sheryl crow...but i really do like her, and i really do love this song. it's kind of like how i felt about my ten year high school reunion.


21. day too soon--sia
hopeful, happy, and one of those songs that i needed to hear 7 or 8 times before i really liked it. i really like it.


22. last day of our aquaintance--sinead o'connor
i can't overstate my emotional attachment to o'connor's music. seriously. it's not something i'm terribly proud of, because she's kind of a freak. but man...wow. and the last quarter of this song blows my mind.


23. smoke and ashes--tracy chapman
this song makes me want to cry everytime i hear it. it's so good. and i get it.


24. running to stand still--u2
the joshua tree is one of those albums that i can listen to and never skip a single track. and every song reminds me of something. this song reminds me of driving through mississippi and hatching out a plan to restart my life.


25. you are my face--wilco
i heard this song for the first time at austin city limits festival last summer. i thought it was one of the greatest songs i'd ever heard performed live. the studio track is a shade less good, but still wonderful. i secretly want to have jeff tweedie's hippy granola babies.


26. shotgun willie--willie nelson
this, oddly enough, is my favorite willie nelson song. no, really. it is. i remember hearing this song at floore's country store with my mom the night before my nephew was born. it was a good show made better because the tickets were free.


27. new slang--the shins
yeah, yeah, i know, freaking garden state changed my life, too...whatever. i hate that i like this song. but i do like it. a lot.


28. jane says--jane's addiction
another college track with stories of it's own...and a marimba!




next week...a whole list of songs that are firmly in the "guilty pleasures" column. get ready to lose what respect you have for me...there are some doozies...




mil besos, amigos--
rmg