Another top 5 list. I was faffing around the house today and listening to music, and got to thinking about those songs that you listen to when you’re having A DAY and you want to clear your head. Usually it involves turning the music on REALLY LOUD and flopping down on the couch and playing a song over and over and over… and just getting outside whatever’s going on in your head for a little while.
I know, this is a VERY subjective list. Everyone has their own. These are some of mine.
1. The Weight — The Band
When I was at school in Indiana, and Coach was shitting all over me at practice, I’d go back to my room and put this on and just get away from it all for awhile. It was one of those songs that did that for me, all through university. When school was too stressful or men were asses or money was tight, I’d put this on the stereo and just vacate the premises mentally. Nowadays, it still has a calming effect on me.
2. The First Day of Spring — The Gandharvas
This is THE ONLY song to put on when the first warm weather comes at the end of winter. Open up all the windows, turn it up loud, and thank God the winter is over. Not that you can’t listen to it any time, but that is when I discovered this song. It was the first warm, spring-like day of the year, and I was listening to the All Request Breakfast back in the glory days of CFNY/The Edge. And this song came on, and I cranked it up, and sat at the window and soaked it all in. And it’s one of those songs that starts slowly, builds to this amazing crash of noise in the middle, and then chills back out again. I LOVE those.
3. Cubically Contained — The Headstones
Completely different mood to this one. This is a sitting-in-the-pitch-dark, exorcising-some- demons kind of a song. I love to listen to this song in the dark. It is a DARK song, there’s no two ways about it. But sometimes that is good. After a really bad day with the shitheads at Agfa, this became a ritual. Decompressing in the dark.
4. Uncertain Smile — The The
I love The The. I love the whole upbeat “Oh death, and grief, and sorrow, and murder” silly dance music thing they had going on. Smiling while the shit rains down. And I AM SORRY, but nowhere in the WORLD are you gonna find another piano solo like that, smack in the middle of an alternative dance tune about a bad day. This is one big, loud, lying-on-your-back-in-the-middle-of-the-floor fuck you to a bad day.
5. Caravan — Van Morrison
Okay, ending on a happy note. Maybe it’s the whole Johnny Fever, spinning around in your chair, pounding on your chest kind of happy, but this song, and the voice of the immortal Van Morrison, takes me to a better, sunnier place. Dancing around the room, singing at the top of your lungs happy. It takes you, for 5 minutes and 2 seconds, to a more peaceful, joyous place.
January 31st, 2006
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How do you come to the decision that it’s time to end the life of your best friend? My beloved Opus is 16 1/2 years old, and has been a good and faithful companion for all that time. She has been my best friend, knowing when to come and cuddle when I am upset, playful and ready for fun on good days. She’s been there through some of the toughest days of my life, and some of the best. She’s loved by friends and family alike. She’s such a character, people say I should write children’s books about her. Next to my husband, I love her more than anyone on this earth. And now I have to decide whether to follow through on the decision to have her put to sleep.
A few years back, unbeknownst to myself and the Big Damn Hero, she got really sick. Kidney stones, 2 distinct bladder infections, crystals in her urine. We had no idea, until one day we noticed a rust-coloured stain on some boxes in the basement. And then we found more, and more, and more. And then, the smell. The overwhelming ammonia smell of cat pee. We took her to the vet. We tried FIVE YEARS of medications, homeopathic medicin, psychology, behaviour modification… and still, every day we would come in and find a new puddle of pee somewhere.
Then we bought a cage. A giant 4×4x3 cage of joy. We made it into the Opus Pleasure Dome. When she was unsupervised, she was in the cage. She was getting older, and she slept most of the day anyway, so she was content in her little palace. AND it stopped the peeing. We were so happy.
But then, she started to go downhill. She started to get very sick. A few days before I had my miscarriage, we took her in to the vet. Kidney failure was the diagnosis. We thought that it was the end. She was not herself — lethargic, quiet, unresponsive. We were ready at that time to let her go. “Hang on for a bit yet,” said our wonderful vet. “I am not convinced it is time.” Well we waited and watched for a week. No change.
Then my horrible, awful miscarriage. We didn’t get to the vet for a day or two, and then I went into hospital. My poor husband sat there all night with me, and then in the morning stopped in to see Opus at the vet. “Funny thing,” said our vet. “She’s doing very well. She seems to have made a remarkable recovery.” From seriously ill, to healthy and ready to go, in a matter of days. She knew I needed her, and she could not leave me yet. She had to come home and take care of me.
We both came home. There was no more peeing. We were all really happy. Opus was healthy, and could live for years yet. She had her best checkup in years a few weeks back. She’s putting on weight and looks much younger than her age. We thought we had the problem licked, finally.
And then she came into the room one evening and peed on the armchair, right in front of me.
Maybe it was a fluke, we thought. Maybe a senior’s moment. But then we noticed stains elsewhere. And she’s getting senile, so when I am not in the room with her, she yells and howls at the top of her lungs. She yells as she goes off to get something to eat. She yells when she wanders down to get a drink. She yells as she roams around the house. She yells ALL NIGHT LONG. And then she peed again tonight on the furniture.
So we have to make the toughest decision either of us has ever made. Do we turn our back on taking care of a loyal and faithful friend when she needs us most? Or do we pack it in after years and years of cleaning and smell and tears and frustration, and say we can’t take any more?
I am selfish. I want to have nice things, instead of things we don’t care about because we know she will ruin them. I want nice furniture, furniture that is fitting a middle aged couple and not looks like it would be suited to a college dorm. I want to leave the doors open to all the rooms that have been closed off from Opus so the house is bright and inviting again. I want hardwood floors. I want to not be embarassed to have people over and see our mismatched, stained furniture and smell cat pee and think we don’t mind living like this. I want to have nice things.
I want my Opus back, the way she used to be. My best friend.
January 28th, 2006
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Okay, so I was watching High Fidelity last night, hence the “Top 5″ theme of this post. I love that movie. I have to admit I have not read the book and I probably should. I am sure it’s very good, but I love the movie so, with the hangdog, sloppy John Cusack’s Rob, and the brilliant Marvin Gaye turn by Jack Black, and even the uber-creepy Ian of Tim Robbins. I like it set in Chicago. I like Joannie coming in and shrieking “Asshole!” at her brother (which I am sure was like growing up, even though it is part of the script between Liz and Rob, it just seems like a fight in the Cusack household would be.) So I kinda don’t want it, well not SPOILED exactly, but certainly coloured differently by the novelist’s pen.
I also need to go seek out other versions of this movie. This one I got for Christmas from the Big Damn Hero, who nurtures my eternal love of Johnny Cu because, hey, he’s a guy’s guy who makes cool movies, and b) you gotta respect a guy who can kick your as soon as look at you. (Big Damn Hero LIKES that Cusack is a kickboxer. He thinks that is VERY cool. ) This version of the movie has some interviews with John Cusack and with Stephen Frears, the director, which are pretty good. But I want the version that has a bunch of — outtakes, maybe? — that have John Cusack and Jack Black and Todd Louiso sitting around doing top 5 lists. It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty funny.
I am a music fanatic. I admit it. Partly this comes from my father, and partly from a lifetime (well, 25 years) of watching John Cusack films. BDH laughed during the movie that I was NOT sitting around writing down every stinking song they mentioned to go and download.
So, yeah. The top 5 list. Okay, so in keeping with the High Fidelity theme, I decided to post a top five list. The movie’s full of them. And I have spent most of my life making top 5 lists of things so why the hell not? Also, because this is favourite songs, it is subject to change at any moment. There’s not some immutable criteria that these are judged by or anything. It’s subject to whim. Deal.
Top 5 Favourite Songs EVER, in no particular order
1. Roxanne – The Police
My love affair with The Police goes back to the very first notes I heard off Outlandos D’Amour. Brilliance. I was surprised my father could tolerate the endless playings of each and every song off each and every album throughout my teenage years. He also let me go to the Police Picnic, the original music festival road show, predating Lollapalooza and the others, in 1983. I begged to go to the first two, and finally when I was 15 he let me go. It was the closest I have ever come to screaming like the Beatles were coming. It was one of my Best. Days. Ever.
2. Rush — Big Audio Dynamite
What, choosing a song by a post-Clash band and not one of the originals, you say? Blashphemy. Well, I was a teenager when the Clash was big, and teenagers love to dance. It’s not that I did not have a deep and abiding love for the Clash. I did. I cried when Joe Strummer died. But this was something fun, something we could dance to, and it was everywhere during our bar-hopping days. It makes me grin to this day, makes me feel like saying “screw you all” and bolting for greener pastures. Situation no win, rush for a change of atmosphere….
3. Into Temptation — Crowded House
Sexy, sultry song of forbidden lust. Who knew the boys who brought us Six Months in a Leaky Boat (well, give or take a few years and members) would come up with something so gorgeous and hot? Neil Finn listed this song as his favourite among all he has written in an interview he did a few years back. I can see why.
4. Sometimes (Lester Piggott) — James
I don’t know what it is about this song — the jangly guitars, the fabulous imagery, Tim Booth’s voice of an angel — that appeals to me so much. Maybe it’s a combination of the three. I grow to love James more and more with each song I discover. This one is full of good memories for me — it was playing as I was driving to see my first niece on the day she was born. I just never fail to be buoyed by this song, every time I hear it.
5. Friday I’m in Love — The Cure
Oh, YEAH, like there wasn’t going to be a Cure song in this list. RIIIIIGHT. My love for Robert Smith’s turns of phrase, his catchy, beautiful melodies, the visual poetry created in my mind’s eye every time I hear a Cure song — it was tough to choose just one. And which one. Lovesong is gorgeous. The various, interesting remixes of Close to Me pulse with sex and danger. But this one, this one for me is one of the greatest pure “pop” songs ever written (and not “pop” as in the bastardization of modern music currently in the top forty — “pop” as in the brilliant combinations of melody and lyric that were practiced by the likes of Lennon and McCartney, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello…) This is an upbeat, jangly, sunny piece of pop music at it’s finest.
Man. I love Top 5 lists. There are so many. Top 5 Best Love Songs. Top 5 Best Breeding Music. Top 5 Songs to Exorcise a Bad Day. Top 5 Most Danceable Tracks.
But those are for another day.
January 7th, 2006
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“An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Isn’t that how the law of inertia goes? I have been the victim of inertia a great deal over the last little while. I ran myself ragged for work until I was acted upon by the supremely unbalanced force of my freakshow former manager and I (thankfully) got laid off 2 months ago.
And since then, well really since December, the body at rest has remained at rest. It has been lovely. It has been 12 years since I have had this kind of time to unwind. I have puttered around my house, relaxed over Christmas, done lots of baking, and generally devoted my time and energies to my infertility treatment. But recently, over the last week or so, I have begun to feel it’s time to break out of my current inertia, just a little bit.
I have had insomnia for 3 or 4 nights in a row. It is an exquisite sort of hell, being as how my onlyrecognized superpower is my capability to sleep anywhere, anytime, and for ridiculously long periods of time. I’m so good at sleeping, I am considering going pro after the next Olympics. I once fell asleep on the baggage carousel at LA International Airport. I am a good sleeper. But it’s like someone’s been hanging around my house with sleep kryptonite the last few nights. I have been wide awake, tired as hell and yawning and unable to sleep, at 2 am, 2:30 am, 3:00 am… I just don’t get it.
Now part of me thinks to myself, “Self, you got all those packages of Starbuck’s coffee over the holidays. And you’ve been eating chocolate like mad. After spending a month (during the first IUI drug cycle) caffeine free. What did you THINK was going to happen?” And maybe, I have a point. But part of me thinks there’s more to it than that.
I have had nothing really to do over the last 2 months that has engaged my brain or my muscles. These are the things that have been running full tilt for years, and now I have asked them to just sit down and shuddup. I am just guessing, but I am thinking that they’re not happy about this situation. They’re bored. They’re keeping themselves busy by worrying about every. fricking. thing. They’re packing on a layer of fat for the winter hibernation. They are anything but relaxed.
So to appease them, today I took them out for a walk in the crappy, rainy southern Ontario winter. I figured maybe they just needed to get out for awhile. And honest to dog, it was great. My muscles got a good hour’s workout, after sitting on my ass for the better part of two months. My brain listened to the 80s music in my headphones and read the street signs and looked at the houses decorated for Christmas. I spent an hour in the rain and cold and felt fabulous. I need to take them out more often.
January 3rd, 2006
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Everyday Life Stuff |
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