Jon Carroll

This morning I remembered something I had forgotten... Jon Carroll columns are a great way to start the day. I just read the whole weeks worth. All of them good. All of the them thought provoking. The one from Monday talks about comfort music.

I spend a lot of time teaching my students to listen to music differently. I want them to choose music that makes their bodies happy. This is almost always different from music that makes their brains happy, or their favorite song to listen to in the car. And it is probably different from comfort music. But I wonder where the overlap is. There are probably songs that make your body happy or have made your body happy (they do change) that also bring comfort.

As I think about it. What is comfort? Is it a feeling of safety? home? love? the combination of all of them? Okay I looked it up...

com⋅fort

-verb (used with object)
1. to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to
2. to make physically comfortable
-noun
3. relief in affliction; consolation; solace
4. a feeling of relief or consolation.
5. a person or thing that gives consolation.
6. a cause or matter of relief or satisfaction.
7. a state of ease and satisfaction of bodily wants, with freedom from pain and anxiety.
8. something that promotes such a state.

There are many songs that bring me comfort in different ways, but two that pop into my mind right away are: Beautiful by Carole King and Big Bad Leroy Brown sung by Frank Sinatra (written by Jim Croce). Both of these go back to childhood. A third, which didn't bring comfort or a feeling of well being until this week, is the song they play for the president.

What music comforts you?

(I wrote this a few weeks ago, don't know why I didn't "publish" it then)

Tales of an incompetent chef

So... yesterday I was so very proud of myself. I bought myself a hand mixer (the kind you use right in the pot) AND I made broccoli/cauliflower soup. It was pretty good. It needed a little pepper, which is easy enough to add.
Then, today, I went to go get myself some soup for lunch and put the rest in the fridge (I had left it on the stove last night).
Okay, it was not good anymore as I had put a lot of milk in it so it was creamy. Now, I know you don't leave milk out, and yet... this was soup. So due to procrastination, I wasted of a whole pot of soup. I definitely learned my lesson. Immediately put left overs away. Slowly, I am finding more and more reasons not to procrastinate.

Hair and Age

Saturday, I went to get my hair cut and colored. I don't know what it is about hair salons. Now when I go, I hate staring in the mirror. I am so present to the lines in my face and the skin on my neck. I don't look that old in the mirror at home. So, maybe it is the lighting. Maybe it is being surrounded by very young faces at the salon. I guess now I need to worry about my lighting. It may not be a cost effective to walk around with my own lighting crew all the time. I guess it is true, the older you get the more more maintenance is required. Argh...

Morning Music

Went for a walk this morning and the shuffle on my play list took my brain on a ride...
Are You Experienced - Patti Smith
Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
Amie - Damien Rice
Where Did you Sleep Last Night? (Live) - Nirvana - which during the clapping I was thinking about how much pain one might need to be in to want to end it
Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney - which in contrast to thinking about death, lifts you up and opens your heart, and I wondered if someone would feel that way about me, and I thought of my trainee that turned me on to the song and that whole class of trainees and how proud I am of them
(then sticking with the beatles theme...)
I Am the Walrus - Bono
5 String Serenade - Mazzy Star
(then making me smile as I approached home)
The Groove is On - Groove Armada

Just got home from a date and I wonder...

I wonder... It was a third date. I kissed him after he walked me to the car. and no "ooh!" no socks rolling up and down. When we talked I wondered what he was passionate about (granted I didn't think of asking that straight out until later, I had asked what he enjoys doing for fun). He seems great and caring and intelligent, but not really opinionated or excited. Maybe it is because he still seems a bit nervous around me, but I don't know. If I'd felt something during the kiss it would have helped. But nothin'. arrgh...

New Year's Day

Welcome 2009. We have been waiting for you. We have great hopes for you. We have a new president being inaugurated this month. And we have all kinds of possibilities available. It may not seem that way with the climate of lack and want. But there are always possibilities. It will be an exciting year.

My friend, Tracy, asked me last night what I wanted in 2009. My first though was to be madly in love and happily pregnant (and I added - in love with some one equally in love with me and excited that I am pregnant with his child).

This "resolution" scares the begeezers out of me in some way. I have said it before and it hasn't happened yet. Having it not happen scares me and having it happen scares me too. But being madly in love and happy sounds like fabulous way to spend my time on earth. It is definitely something to live into.