Evolution of a Bad relationship in 23 Songs

Meant to be a conversation.
Beyond that, the less I explain, the better.

1) Today, The Smashing Pumpkins
2) Gravel, Ani DiFranco
3) Sinkin’ Soon, Norah Jones
4) Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos
5) Little Plastic Castle, Ani DiFranco
6) Careless Love, Madeleine Peyroux
7) When Doves Cry, The Be Good Tanyas
8) We Can Work It Out, Paul McCartney acoustic
9) Straighten Up and Fly Right, Nat King Cole
10) Oh! Darling, The Beatles
11) NY, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down, LCD Sound System
12) Sweet Ride, Tanya Donelly
13) I’m Sticking with You, Velvet Underground
14) If I Only Had a Brain, MC 900 ft. Jesus
15) Othello, The Dance Hall Crashers
16) Grounds for Divorce, Elbow
17) Poems, Tricky
18) Turn on Me, The Shins
19) Big in Japan, Ane Brun
20) Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Dylan
21) Von Hier an Blind (Blind from Here on) , Wir Sind Helden
22) If Love was a Train, Michelle Shocked
23) Ecclesiastes: Free My Heart, Me’Shell Ndegeocello

Damn you, Kettle Corn

Top 5 things I cannot have in the house because I will eat myself sick:
5)Chocolate peanut butter ice cream
4)Chocolate covered almonds
3)Dutch apple pancakes
2)Creme caramel
1)Kettle corn

Summer Fruit

It’s time to answer the question on all of your minds, the one I know you’ve been dying to ask since I started this blog: What kind of fruit are you?

The answer, of course, is a cherry. We are all cherries, every one, well, except for my friend RA who is a mango, but that’s a story for another time. The rest of us, we are cherries.

Some of you may think you’re pears: gritty, juicy, and easily bruised; or apples: inoffensive, nice, liked by everyone, loved by few; or maybe plums: bitter on the outside but a sweet old softy underneath. A few of you may even think you’re bananas, but you’re not. You are cherries, just like me.

Cherries can be bright and cheerful, or deep and dark. They may be sweet, they may be sour, but we love them either way. Their season is short, so you need to stuff yourself while they’re here, take time to enjoy them, because when they’re gone, they’re gone.

Flashbacks

I spent the evening having a picnic, waiting for an outdoor fire-spinning show to start. They played music over the loudspeakers to entertain us while we ate. I don't recall filling out any special quizzes before attending, but I must have, because the song selection was a tribute to my childhood. I figure I arrived too late to hear the Sonny and Cher of my preschool years, but was in time for the Village People and some disco classics, which segued into 80's dance club standards, culminating in the 90's single Firestarter, which some say may have been related to the show, but I say was a tribute to my 20's.

Unfortunately whoever made the my playlist forgot to add the Greatful Dead, despite Jerry Garcia's status as my dead rock star persona. That's OK, though. I'm not sure I'd recognize any Dead songs anyway. They weren't so much a part of my past.

Eternal Sunshine of a Mother's Mind

For those of you who are not parents and therefore have not had the chance to experience this firsthand, it’s a well-known fact among mothers that the day you welcome your first child into the world is the day you say goodbye to your memory. I like to think that in reality my memory is as good as it always was, I’m just overburdened by the exponentially increased demands motherhood has placed on it. It’s no longer enough to remember where I’ve left things, what I have to do, where I have to be, and when. I now need to do this x3. That's my excuse, anyway.

The thing is, I used to have an exceptionally good memory. If I heard it, read it, or saw it, I remembered it, and I was insufferably proud of it too. I pitied people who couldn’t remember the plots of the books they had read, friends who had to pull all-nighters to study for exams, and most of all I pitied the list makers, those poor souls who actually had to write down the things they had to do or what they needed at the store. So sad.

Then, through the miracle of childbirth, I became one of them, and discovered the freedom of living without a long term memory: the exhilaration of finally discovering where I put those keys, the simple joy to be had from the vague familiarity of reading a book for the first time, again, and yesterday, the thrill of discovering that I’d answered the “15 Books that will Always Stick with You” question twice.

Of the 15, there were six books I chose both times. Here they are, in no particular order:
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, a must-read about the state of agriculture and eating in our society
• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith, guaranteed to cheer you up no matter how bad you’re feeling
• Rootabaga Stories, my favourite children’s book, by Carl Sandburg
• Samaki, because my father wrote it
• Suite Francaise, a must read for everyone about the beauty of humanity in the face of the ugliness of humanity, by Irene Nemirovsky
• and To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, no explanation needed

Scrabble Ninja

My inner ancient warrior is a Ninja, a deadly class of fighter trained in espionage and assassination. The life of a noble Samurai is not for me. Those who know me will tell you, I am definitely a Ninja, especially those with whom I play Scrabble.

78%

For those of you who think I’m cool, I am not. I am only 78% cool, which is the least cool result possible. A coolness factor near 100% is an obvious badge of coolness. A coolness factor near 0% is so uncool it actually makes you cool. Those in between, like me, are drifting in a netherworld of the lame. Also, in case you were wondering, I’m only 70% awesome. I am so uncool and lacking in awesomeness that if I were a 2009 song I’d be The Climb, by Miley Cyrus. That’s right. I’ve never even heard of that song, but I don’t need to. It’s mine, and it is my anthem of uncoolness.

Given my total lack of coolness, imagine my surprise when I discovered that several of my friends have now taken the ur true name quiz. We are all Gabby.