addicted/obsessed

I have spent the last week cycling back and forth between these two songs on my iphone, I don't know what they have in common but I can't stop listening to them. Join me.
NOTE: weirdly, blogger cuts off the right side of the videos, so do go to Youtube to see them in their full awesomeness, mm?

Earworms

This week, I can't get this song out of my head. Enjoy!

Lapses, leashes and lasts

well readers, an apology first because of the light blogging. My computer, while newly resurrected from the dead, somehow the router at home doesn't recognize it. That is, the computer says it's online, but I can't get online... mixed messages. Anyone know how to fix that? Anyway, it means I can only be online when I'm tethered to the wall by the wire, which is surprisingly constricting. I used to use my laptop in the kitchen more than anywhere else, and now that's out, and that means I haven't sat down at my leashed laptop very often since its homecoming. And that means little blogging. Sorry. I hope it'll be fixed soon.
In the meantime, I've paid off my car! It's a small accomplishment but I feel extraordinarily proud. Naturally, things are starting to go, like the cd player. Now when I put a cd in (yes I still listen to cd's in the car) I am faced with the very real possibility that it may be in there forever. So I've been thinking about what cd could be the forever cd. Steely Dan? Yes? Maybe the Sundays... should I go with a "greatest hits" cd of someone, or a mix of favorites... or should I have Susan Tedeschi in just in case I need to howl on my way home from a particularly stressful day? What to do?

Too Stressed to Title This Post

I'm not prone to freak-outs. Someone once described me as "human prozac." But around this time of year I can get a little anxious. It all started several years back when I started at my last parish. I was hired mid-August, and shown my office in a giant old (disgusting) convent. Nothing had been left to me, including any list of kids/familes or volunteers. The office and the entire building were packed with garbage- my office was filled and dirty and dark. My first job would be to sort through and clean out this place and then get organized while planning a year of programming for 1000 kids and families.

I found myself having trouble sleeping- I know I've mentioned here that I always have music going in my head, but when this all hit, I heard it all even in my sleep- the same song, over and over and over and over...I had dreams of cleaning and cleaning that office and woke frustrated and exhausted. I still remember that it was a Christina Aguilera song... but blessedly I can't remember which one...

The spell was broken when I finally had a good night's sleep with the help of the help of a friend. But since then, at around this time of year, it comes back just for a while, until I give it the one-two punch of a great night's sleep. I have a sample sleeping aid that I have kept in a glass box with a little red hammer next to it. I don't want to use it until I have to.

The last couple of years, since being at my current parish, it hasn't been bad- but this year, I think, is going to be a doozy. I'm taking two classes and an internship, and this year my ministry seems to be exploding- it's all great stuff that I'm excited to do, but somehow the already-full calendar pages in my date book make my chest hurt a little. I listed all the BIG projects on my white board yesterday and stood back to behold the source of my new anxiety. I don't want to do any of them poorly. But you know, I like to be busy- I do my best work when I'm busy- and there's nothing on the board that I dread, so maybe the fluttering I feel is the wings of excited butterflies, not nervous ones. I have so much (as always) to look forward to.

I like to sing-a!

When I was interviewing for my social work job at the Department of Social Services, they asked me how I handled stress. They wanted to know if I had things that I would do to deal with high stress. Any habits, techniques, rituals? I told them that when I'm stressed, I sing really loud in my car.
That is still true- when I have a hard day, and get into my car with tense shoulders and a tight throat, I find just the right song to belt along with, full throttle. By the time I get home I am looser, more relaxed, and happier.
I love to sing when I'm happy, too- I love to use my whole voice- love the feel of it bowling out of my lungs. It is cathartic. The words of the song can help, but it's that feeling that really makes it real and good and important to me.
We finally did have our Lessons and Carols concert, just in the nick of time, the very last night of the Christmas season. The concert went well and I benefited from the extra rehearsal we got between the other two postponed dates. I had a lot of fun singing with the group, and stretching my brain again to read that alto line, and I had the BEST time with my friend Kristen, who (whom?) I dragged along with me- an absolute blast.
I like to sing-a!

I've got the beat

Have I ever mentioned that I have music stuck in my head all the time? Like, always-- constantly. Whenever I tell someone this, they inevitably ask me "oh yeeeeahhh? What song is in your head RIGHT NOW then?" So, in case that's what you're wondering, right now it is the obnoxious theme song to Radio Boston, which I just hate. (It's really only two notes, played on and on.) This is an example of songs that I really try to avoid, because it's one thing to have a good song stuck in here, and quite another to have an annoying one. The only cure I've found to having a song stuck is to listen to another song. Many times in the car I've asked Scott to turn the radio on so I can replace whatever is stuck in there (here).
Usually it is not a whole song but some fraction of one, often just one phrase, so things like radio jingles and tv ads fit that bill perfectly- even little bits of music like a doorbell ringing will lodge themselves in until I find something better (this part is tough to explain to people who ask me what is in my head RIGHT NOW because the answer sometimes is "doooo-doo!".
I heard a story on Radio Lab that in a roundabout way made connections between this state and epilepsy, believe it or not- they solicited techniques from their readers for making songs go away and one that I've played with is to just stop the song on one note and let that one note go on and on and on until it all goes away. This doesn't really work for me, but it does give my brain a bit of a break.
It is not, as you might be wondering, agonizing. Right now I have the "Magic 106.7" song-let in my head, because I have been poking at our radio's buttons trying to find a song that I won't mind having on an endless loop in here- which reminds me, thank GOD for satellite radio- no commercial jingles at ALL and there's always a good song on somewhere. Regular radio is all jingles and not much music. I've had songs in my head since I was a very little girl- I remember being outside the Cone school and realizing that I'd had something stuck in for a long time- this might have been my first realization of it.
The only time it's been a problem has been in high-stress points of my life, like when I started at my former parish (should have been a sign of the trouble to come!). I had trouble sleeping because I could NOT get a particular Mariah Carey song out of my head. I don't remember what song, and no, I am not a Mariah fan- it just came in my head at the wrong time and refused to leave. I had nasty fever-like dreams for days where I was trying to get that music to stop or was being forced to listen to it or something like that. My stress really made that song stick and stick hard. I work hard not to get that stressed now.
So, here's to a musical life. Maybe I'll put it to work for me...

Advent-ure

Every year when Advent comes around I remember that I have to carefully protect my heart. Advent and Christmas have been blue times for me in the past, times when alone-ness felt lonelier. It's easy to be frustrated by the commercialism that pervades every-every-everywhere, and the pressure of buying good gifts for the people who I want to treat, in a life of adopted less-than-richness, that does get to me every year. I want to buy great gifts, I want to be generous to my family and friends, but I'm just limited, is all. When the radio stations start playing Christmas music in early November, I start to feel a little doomy. So, I have to be careful- I don't listen to those stations, I don't generally decorate the house until the last minute, and I try not to get caught up in shoppers' frenzy.
But I don't want to deny Advent's existence- I want to live Advent the way I think it is meant to be lived- in quiet, thoughtful reflection and anticipation of Christ's return... so instead of turning my back to the world, I try to choose carefully what I'll watch and listen to.
Last night Scott and I went to Providence at the invitation of a young woman who is a senior at PC- she was a little freshman girl when I met her, so long and so many great conversations ago. We went to see her (hear her!) in their Lessons and Carols at the college chapel. Another wonderful young lady is in the choir, one I knew at my last parish, and it was so neat to see both of them, one behind the other in the choir, beautiful landmarks of my time in ministry.
The music was breathtaking. We sat near the choir and the organ and could swim in the sound, and sing along at full voice, where invited. Gorgeous, and a beautiful way to start Advent right.
I used to restrict myself to two CD's of Christmastime music, one being added last year: the CD our parish music groups put together. The other one and I go way back (you'll see how far if you watch this video... this is NOT the best song on Jon Anderson's 3 Ships,
but apparently the only video out there.


But this year, I'm adding yet another to the short list- Sixpence None the Richer's new album The Dawn Of Grace- just out last week, I think. It's beautiful, and I love their arrangements of traditional songs, like this one. Their Silent Night, with an echo by the guy from Jars Of Clay, is gorgeous, and makes me teary.

So, happy Advent to one and all- God bless us, every one.