These are apparently the days of miracle and wonder.

Though maybe only from a certain point of view.

There are few things I would like to have re-engineered in my life.

Here are some of them:

I would like to erase all memories of the surprising parts about the Star Wars movies from the seventies/eighties era.

I would like to have been there watching The Wizard of Oz when it went Technicolor for the first time with no previous assumption that color in movies was even possible.

I would have liked to have been a person sitting in on the unveiled recording of Rolling in the Deep.

I would have liked to have been present at Beethoven's fifth symphony.. and others.

I would have like to have seen Santana's Soul Sacrifice live at Woodstock.

..or been present for certain parts of Stop Making Sense.. or any number of live encounters of certain songs.. the first performance of Twist and Shout for example..

The important part would be not having the socio/psychological baggage which tells me that these things are good. I would want to be surprised. I would want to be told by some deep well of intuition that these noises are truly able to wind their fingers around my heart and squeeze gently.

I guess there are only a few places in a lifetime that create enough openness and respect for complete awe.

I've been in the presence of greatness. I've shaken hands with it, told jokes to it, grown up with some of it, may never meet other parts of it. So many things are great. So many people.

I've wept in the presence of greatness. I'm not going to tell you what it was. You will poke fun at me when next we meet. It was nothing so noble as falling to my knees in tears at the feet of the David, no, no.

I thought the thing was great at the time. I do not think the thing is great anymore. See how cool I am now?

I had a milder experience at A Silver Mt. Zion show. I'll never forget it. (See??)

I have a friend (I probably have a few with this quality, but I am thinking of one in particular now) who sees these wonderful things maybe more frequently than others.

There is a scene in Wall-E involving a fire extinguisher which is particularly beautiful. I saw the movie in the theater with him and I recall seeing him wipe tears from his eyes during this event. I think of him whenever I watch that clip, and sometimes I feel like I see what he saw. I live this idea through him though, it isn't mine.

Similarly, these ideas that are mine aren't yours.

Duh.

You may not actually catch your breath during some piece of music, or find it necessary to breath very slowly, deeply and carefully at "the scars of your love, they leave me breathless."

But you could, and that's the important part.

The warm surprise of wonder comes to everyone at some point. I refuse to believe there are people who don't experience this sort of thing. This mainly because I think the reason these things happen is because everyone experiences them. Does that make sense?

Fine.

A friend asked me if I'd found myself to be more sensitive lately, in regards to things you feel rather than see or hear. I told her I probably haven't been paying attention. I also havn't been listening to much good music lately on the level I would like.

This whole line of thinking is all probably coming from the fact that I just got a pair of good headphones and a (free!!) mp3 player to replace KaZaK. When I first plugged the puppy in, did I listen to the 5th? The 7th? Other "great" things? Bolero?

Nope. No cigar.

The first song I played?

Rhythm Nation.

Yup.

and we all shine on.

There will always be this: it will be the middle of the night when I can't sleep- and for some reason I MUST find out why Marilyn Manson gained so much weight in 2009.

I'm fairly optimistic sometimes. It's foolish.

I've been thinking a lot about John Lennon lately. Sensitive.

J visits and tells me I'm distant- it usually takes me a good 20-24 hours to get used to having him around when it's been so long between visits. Work, meeting, work. We get a few hours together anyway.. toss the baseball back and forth. Talk. Sit. Lean. Sigh.

I've been thinking a lot about knees lately.

Memory:

Bolero.

.

I'm an excellent driver.

Doctor says "Take a week off." I says "Okay."

Went to visit my father in Cape Cod while he was there with his family-- who are my family as well, incidentally. I shared a few margaritas with his wife who I completely enjoy.. had a few conversations with her daughter about what she wants to be when she grows up. Looks like she's considering singing or theater of some kind- she likes Adele and Florence + The Machine. I don't blame her.

She asked me what I wanted to be when I was her age.

"A Jedi" I told her.

Never give up on a dream.

I stopped running cause it started to hurt my joints (I think) and I don't really miss it, but I did enjoy it when I was doing it. I liked the process.. the incorporation of the music.. I listened to a lot of Underworld- specifically King of Snake, Dinosaur Adventure 3D, Pearls Girl.. and some Flo + The Mo.

There are over 9000 songs on my iPod. I listen to it now almost exclusively on shuffle. I've beat the shuffle a few times- got all the way to the end.. nothing fun happens. I really only listen to a few songs on it, almost always stopping to listen to any Michale Jackson or Madonna.. or R.E.M. Other than that I skipskipskipskip until I find something bearable.

There are rules.

For example:

I have managed to acquire a tremendous amount of 90s radio hits in the form of the Billboard Top 100 of each year from 90 to 99. As a result of this some songs are in the shuffle more than once. My rules involving this are that every time the Macarena comes on I listen to it. Not because I enjoy it a whole lot, but because those are the rules. Here is a link to the version which was all the rage in 1996 incase you have been fortunate enough to forget it. I believe that the two guys in the suits are supposed to be in the same room as many of the half naked women. Can you believe that I actually find this video more tasteful than a lot of other similarly bent videos? Cause I do!?!?

I just watched -to refresh my memory and check the accuracy of the above statement- a video that was quite popular while I was living in New Zealand in 2006. It's called "Push the Button" and it's by a "group" called the "Sugar Babes". You will notice I have not included a link to the video.

Nope.

Sure didn't.

It's kind of a riot. The lyrics of the song are all about liking the way a man respects a woman, and wondering how obvious said woman needs to be in pursuit of said dude. Should you choose to youtube the video, you will notice that it features three half naked women prancing around in an elevator encountering three unsuspecting gentleman attempting to "push the button." The three are not in any danger of being too subtle. The number one guy is unconvincing.. the number two dude with the skinny tie is kind of dreamy.. the number three guy attempts to win her over by pulling out some random pirouette and later decides to shift over to the robot. The guys try hard too, sometimes.

Fantastically popular in New Zealand.

Back to the Macarena.

Also while I was living in New Zealand, I worked with a couple who taught Argentinian Tango, Camilla (who I will refer to by name, because if she ever stumbles across this I would love to get back in touch with her) and Davide (same). Camilla is probably one of the most attractive women I have ever had the pleasure to know personally, in addition to being a really awesome person. She and I would occasionally go out in Wellington, the capitol, to wonder around and see the sites. The drinking age in NZed is 18 so whenever a particularly sloppy gaggle of trashed hussies would stumble by us she would turn to me, lower her wonderful Argentinian eyelashes, sneer her lovely Argentinian lip, and mutter in her throaty Argentinian voice: "Desastre."

Camilla, Davide and I had a lovely time waiting tables together at a local Italian trattoria. I used to make Davide sing the Macarena.. and La Cucaracha. He would get me back by singing "Shake That Ass For Me" on repeat.

There was one magical night, after hours when the two of them danced a tango together through the tables, holding one another very close. It was quite special. I miss them.

Thanks to Eminem I have, just now had the pleasure of saying "Shake That Ass For Me" on the internets to strangers. Yup.

Also:

I watched, over the course of about five or six days, the following movies:

Awakenings, Rain Man, Lorenzo's Oil.

My friend High Kick and I used to play a game we called "Awakenings" at work when it was slow. Either he or I would sit, inert, in a chair in the center of the back servers station. The other person would then huck an object at the sitter who would then.. catch it!

These three movies have aspects in them which could potentially be hard to watch. Awakenings features a man suffering from the after effects of encephalitis who is briefly rehabilitated and then relapses via a downward spiral of loosing all bodily control. Lorenzo's Oil is about a young boy diagnosed with Adrenolukadistrophy which is a disease which destroys the myelin which surrounds the nerves in the brain, essentially turning the brain to mush. The story documents his decline and his parents drive to find a cure for the disease. Rain Man is about an autistic man who is kidnapped by his recently discovered brother to drive across country in order to negotiate their inheritance.

In Awakenings it was really uncomfortable to watch the main character decline into an angry twitchy state, unable to control any of his bodily functions.

Lorenzo's Oil is a brutal, miserable film, I'd watched it when I was much younger. It still bothers me, all of the screaming, the choking on spittle, the relentless cooing of the mother..

Finally, Rain Man, which has moments of high tension when the Autistic brother gets alarmed or upset or you believe he will die in some way.. but still.. even considering all of that.. the most difficult part to watch of the whole thing was Tom Cruise.

there is a town with a little motel and an old movie house..

I just recently watched "The Bodyguard" with Ms. Whitney Huston and Kevin Costner. I never saw it when it came out way back when I was in fifth grade, so I figured I'd catch up on the pop culture. Turns out the actual bodyguard in the movie isn't a very good one- though I suppose we are to view his distraction and incompetence as the drowsy and frantic effects of love. It wasn't a very good movie- but it stirred me up a bit, kinda tense at a few points. I got involved. I wanted more from it though-- the best example of this is at the very end, which, if you haven't seen, I will spoil for you now: they kiss.

No big deal - they, like, 'do it' earlier in the flick.. but the final kiss is supposed to be a big deal. I was surprised to find myself making laughing noises at my computer (where I was watching the video). What was supposed to be a passionate embrace, one fitting of an energetic, talented vocalist and stage presence uniting finally with an unwavering being of honor, skill and integrity, actually made me laugh.

The two muckled onto each other and wagged their heads back and forth for a while, wrinkled brows and white knuckled fingers on shoulders (please) abound. It was like watching two aliens who had been told to demonstrate on each other how they thought humans were supposed to make out. Fie.

I wanted fireworks! I wanted goosebumps and heart issues! I wanted the kind of thing you would expect to see emanating from two romantically involved nuclear power plants! Disruption! Explosions! Chaos at it's affectionate finest!

.. nothing!!

The face Mr. C is making at the very end of the film basically says it all-- there were a couple places where I started to understand why he's even involved in movie production from the point of view of aesthetics.. but this face he's got at the end of the movie.. isn't doing him any favors.

I did enjoy watching W.H. sing though, at the risk of sounding Batemanish. She has a great voice and does appear to really enjoy singing, which is a lot of fun to watch. Her version of Partons song is really nice-- if one were to rework the background music to get away from the cheesy Michael Boltonish/Kenny G.ish/Celine Dionish bullcrap and steer it more towards something a little more timeless it would actually be a really great song. Dolly doesn't have the pipes kids, sorry- but of course she wrote it.. and delivers it with sincerity which is not to be ignored.. and.. so on.

I was wondering this evening if it s a crime that we can hear the sincere delivery of a song like the one mentioned above and eventually stop liking it because it is "overplayed". Is that a bad thing? Is it a bad thing that I can never hear Beethovens 5th without thinking of all the lame commercials it's been featured in? Or perhaps that my sisters grammar school chorus did a chicken clucking version of the damned thing? Is this a bad thing? Or is it a really amazing thing that I even have access to such a piece (and others) in such variety and volume?

It's getting easier to see around the crap. I'm more able to listen to the 5th and hear it.. like it's a song and not a gimmick or a tag line. When it climbs I consider a universal and intangible outward expansion instead of mounting stress that some yuck wont get his cheeseburger on time. When I hear Huston sing about bittersweet memories in this big wonderful voice I just enjoy it.. instead of thinking of her as this shrieking overplayed pop-radio banshee-- which I certainly did for a while. These songs are energy and vibration and they are lovely, mostly.

I am not saying that these two songs are anything alike- that would be like saying that a sea cucumber is very similar to a riotous flock of flamingoes. However..

It is my feeling that overabundance of something is irrelevant if the quality of the item remains undiluted. The true things will remain true- the honest resonation will stand firm while everything else goes away. Same with art. Same with love. Same with relationships of any kind, on a grand or a fine scale.

I was asked earlier today what I believe in.

I guess I believe in that.

upside: love you, down side: miss you.

I just woke up from one of those devastating naps. To be completely honest I was moving around a few hours ago-- but I feel just now, that I just woke up. One of those ones where you wake up stuck to the pillow and can't walk in a straight line. Way to spend a rainy day off..

I've started running.. and who knew that I'd like it so much. I only do a mile.. my goal is two at about 6 or 7mph-- it's a good warm up to other things I've been working on. I have discovered, and I don't know if this is normal or not, that if I grab the heart-rate-things on the treadmill once I've hit the mile marker and begin to walk, that I can slow my heart rate down from 170 to 115 within the span of a minute. Fun game. It's probably normal.

I'm not built like a runner.. more like a gymnast, but I do love sprinting. I remember vividly the first time I ever put on a pair of cleats.. it was like flying.. gripping the ground like an animal.. turning on a dime.. causing the opposing team no end of stress..

I used to play softball and I miss it every now and then. I was short stop, and third base. Left field if there were a bunch of older girls on the team who got infield favor. I was always told it was best to be tall if you wanted to play short.. tall or fast as hell with an arm that wouldn't quit. Which was me when I was twelve.. so shortstop it was. Third base used to terrify me, especially when I started playing in a high school summer league, and the third baseman was stationed about three feet away from the batter. I pitched for one game.. the one game where we were in need of an umpire.. and my father volunteered. The only decent pitch I threw he called a ball.. and apologized under his breath from behind me (the ump would stand behind the pitcher for little league games.. far away from where a wild bat could be thrown). As far as batting went, I spent a fair amount of time hitting ground balls directly to the pitcher or the first baseman and making valiant attempts to outrun their efforts to get me out. Never really worked.. beyond that there were a few years where I managed to sit comfortably in the clean-up hitter spot. I think this was more for shock value than anything else. I'm a small person, and when I was twelve I was probably smaller, so watching me go up to bat clean-up must have seemed fairly ridiculous. The opposing team would inevitably signal to their team mates to "move in" ten feet or so.. later in the game, four runs behind, their educated method would be to back up. I also used to LOVE to attempt to steal bases. If you get any two twelve year old girls to enthusiastically huck a ball back and forth to each other under the stress of trying to manipulate a troublesome runner they will eventually miss, and this I would use to my advantage-- much to my coaches dismay. Yes, softball was fun. I enjoyed it and had a knack for the skills required to play it. I stopped playing in high school because the coaches started to adopt this "win or die" attitude that I didn't agree with. Also, I wasn't good friends with the coaches daughter so I would get benched while her buddies enjoyed field time. Lame.

J is far away at some army officer training thing-- I wont be able to speak to him until sometime next month - they've taken his phone away, like fat-camp. This amuses me, pretending that he's at fat-camp- he being more or less built like the David.. perhaps broader in shoulder and smaller of head..

Ten year high school reunion in a few days. I get to go up to Maine which will be nice- do some hiking and swimming in the MDI area. I miss Maine.. been thinking about it a lot lately. I'll probably end up back there.. some day.

Had a thought the other day, and it was this: Abacus was probably the best job I've ever had.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how ~ Nietzche

you can act real rude and totally removed and I can act like an imbecile..

Our conversation.. about condoms.

"I mean, you know what I'm talking about, right? The whole thing becomes very self aware.. you lose enthusiasm.. you know."

"Well it's like trying to open a childproof container in the middle of a candle lit dinner!"

"So gets some packets of ramen and practice!!"

Mutual crack-up.

.. we get along.

And it occurs to me, this weekend, when I cannot speak to him, just how miserable I would be if I was still alone. 'Alone' as in without romance. Without one person who openly thinks of me as I think of him. He is so sweet, and I am so lucky.

Memory:

I wake up in the night, an unplanned interlude, and he is awake too. "I really, really love you." he says, groggy. I wrap his arm tighter around me, pressing my back into his front and say quietly that I love him, too.

Come with me to the book store for a second- let me show you what happened:

I have these plans, you see, to buy a book for someone who just doesn't like the books that I like. I'm pretty dumb sometimes.

So I go to the store and look in the V section because that's where this book lives. Below the book is a copy of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I'd watched the movie version of this on a whim, because Netflix said I would like it based on my enjoyment of a small film called Good Dick. Good Dick is a great flick, by the way. Really cute.

So here we have shelf one, V section, with BIWHM directly underneath book in V section I am looking for. My sister, a week or so ago started talking to me about Biwhm which I had watched not two nights prior-- this is notable because we are not usually on the same wave length. IN Biwhm is a pretty intense reference to Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl which is exactly where I open the book to when I pick it up. I flip the book once again and get to the exact conversation she (sister) and I talked about during our fleeting conversation.

I amble around the place and drool over a few things, The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin as well as his book about art which I can't remember the name of, a few books by Haruki Murakami. I am now in the M section.

I mosey some more, having moved now to the lower portion of the book store where all bets are off and nothing is alphabetized. I pick up What I Talk About When I Talk About Runningwhich is also by Murakami, though I am no longer in the M section, and read the first few pages.

I desire this book.

I put it down and directly to my right is a stack of Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.

I stare for a moment. People walk by me. The world slows down.

I walk by a book whose title I can't remember and flip directly to a chapter break. Right there in bold it says "This Is True." I close the book and open it back, believing I saw something familiar in the first few lines of the new chapter, looking for that page I'd lost. "This Is True" yells out at me from the exact page I had flipped to initially.

On the other side of the first floor I find myself before another stack of Murakami books, one called After the Quake which I really enjoyed. I love it for this reason, and I will quote it below-- there is a conversation in it about polar bears.

Here:

"He once told me about polar bears - what solitary animals they are. They mate just once a year. One time in a whole year. There is no such thing as a lasting male-female bond in their world. One male polar bear and one female polar bear meet by sheer chance somewhere in the frozen vastness, and they mate. It doesn't take long. And once they are finished, the male runs away from the female as if he is frightened to death: he runs from the place where they have mated. He never looks back - literally. The rest of the year he lives in deep solitude. Mutual communications - the touching of two hearts - do not exist for them. So, that is the story of polar bears - or at least it is what my employer told me about them.'

'How very strange.'

Yes, it is strange. I remember asking my employer, ' Then what do polar bears exist for?' ' Yes, exactly,' he said with a big smile. 'Then what do we exist for?"

Anyway.

There is another story in there called Super-Frog Saves

Tokyo, which was the story I was perusing before I set the book down to see, again to my direct right, a stack of the book that I had initially come here to purchase which was also sitting, one floor up, in the V section.

I am now at home.

I have decided to re-teach myself how to walk on my hands.

yeah. yeah yeah. yeah yeah.

This morning I told myself, while standing at a crosswalk in the rain, that if you play the Mission: Impossible theme in your head while looking into a crowd you can always find someone having an epic, desperate adventure. Attention must be switched from one person to another in order for this to work properly. I was convinced of this for a few seconds before I proved myself wrong, my field of vision filled only with people walking in the rain and sitting in cars. Not even walking fast or sitting intently. I will try it again and report back.

There is a satellite radio at work. I believe it is to blame for Nickelbacks appearance in my dream last night/early this morning. It may also have something to do with my mildly rekindled interest in pop radio.

When I was five my mother used to tell me that if I started singing and dancing at my age I could grow up to be like Michael Jackson, who began his career at five. You must understand that her encouragement didn't come from my skill level in either field so much as it being a potentially lucrative family endeavor. Irony doesn't mean much to a five year old, and though I didn't exactly take her seriously, I took this as a green light to go ahead and sing along to the radio during car rides. Also at five I didn't have a great hold on the language, so I can only imagine the kind of mush that came out of my mouth during these enthusiastic backseat serenades- usually verse filler.. I knew a lot of choruses but all the details in between were subject to brutal improvisation. My sister took issue with this pretty much immediately and didn't have any problems telling me to knock it off. Ah.. sisterly love..

Presently I probably don't have a much better singing voice, but my brain does tend to hang on to song lyrics for whatever reason, so I've made progress there, at least. In fact I think it's fun sometimes to unravel tough-to-figure-out sentences or mumbledslurredtogetherwhateverisms. Though sometimes without the aid of a cd or tape insert, and now the internet, it is possible to err in this practice.

The most recent of misinterpretations happened yesterday during a satellite rampage which included a popular Usher song called "The DJ's Got Us Falling In Love Again." Had I known the name of the song I probably would have been less likely to superimpose "The Ninja God is falling in love again!" over the chorus. I enjoy the absurd quite a bit and this had me cracking up enough to be nearly unable to communicate my glee to my manager. Hoo.

There was a CD, before the addition of the satellite radio we used to listen to at work by Ingrid Something Or Other. Michaelson? She has a few good songs, one of which I do truly enjoy called The Chain. The CD was called "Be Okay" and had a song by the same title as the opening track. "I just want to relocate, relocate, relocate" is what I believed she was saying for a short time.

"'Cause, baby, you're a firewood!"

The song is called "Firework" by Katy Perry (so says the internet), and this was a slip of the ear made by my manager who was kind enough to share it with me a few days ago. I thought of it during one of those showering-after-midnight evenings and actually laughed out loud about it. Roommate was.. asleep I hope. It's really funny in the context of the song. ("Make them go 'oh!' as you shoot across the sky!")

Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick and Titch wrote a song popularized by Death Proof called "Hold Tight." It's second line is "shut your eyes.." not "ass." By the way. In case you were wondering. Hee hee.

My sister supplied me a with a pop song I really like called "Maneater" and it lives in the Pop Radio Guilt section of my iPod. The correct lyrics are "make you want all of her love," not "Maneater, make you work hard, make you spend hard, make you want more buffalo."

Naturally there are some willing misinterpretations to make life more interesting. I used to do this a lot at The Abacus to try to get Dennis to laugh, though it often wasn't necessary as many of the songs had some foolish lyrics to begin with. I used to substitute "what this guy looks like, what his car looks like.." for "what the sky looks like, what the stars look like.." for a particular tune. You know, when I wasn't running with my rain face on.

My other manager shared with me "hold me closer, Tony Danza" which was a misfire from a friend of hers. Count the headlights on the highway.

Speaking of Sir. Elton John..

I remember an evening years ago during an unexpected visit and welcome melding of two separate groups of friends. There was a point at which some six of us were packed in a car on our way to wherever, all of us singing Crocodile Rock at volume with reckless abandon. Crocodile Rock wasn't what was playing on the radio in the car, you see.

So as you may have guessed I didn't go with the singing and dancing career at the age of five. I don't really sing much anymore. I will sing when alone and executing domestic tasks. I will also sing in the car if the music is loud. Sometimes if the music is not loud and I have a willing car singing companion I will sing with them. DanTarr makes a good car singing companion. I do so miss car singing with DanTarr.."say it ain't so" down that dirt road before the Curran wedding.. sigh..

As far as dancing goes I enjoy it quite a bit though there aren't as many occasions for it as I would like. Ms. Moonshine is coming here in a few weeks and there are plans to attack the phoenix in the evening of the 25th. Having a good dance parter is as important as having a good car singing partner, says I.

Chances are, Reader, you've been invited.

So dance.