Captain Jack Harkness...These Songs Remind Me of You EVERY Time I Hear Them

Britney Spears - Till the World Ends

Bon Jovi - Who Says You Can't Go Home

Katy Perry - E.T.

The Black Keys - Strange Times

Johnny Rivers - Secret Agent Man

Dr. Dre - I Need a Doctor

Big & Rich - Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy

Britney Spears - Seal it with a Kiss 

Chokebore - Speed of Sound

Roughhausen- I Know You

Voyeur - High

Placebo - Post Blue

Britney Spears - Hold It Against Me

Plasmacrash - Apocalypse Chime

Hinder - Lips of an Angel

Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom

Hecuba - Humanize

Rihanna - S&M

Let's Focus on Reality, Shall We?

Actually....let's not. Reality kind of bites the big one right now...how about some entertaining things I'll likely never buy and never own but that I think are cool enough for a small space in this insignificant blog?

Dr. Who Time Traveling T-Shirts:

Nintendo Reversible Messenger Bag:

Dr. Who Sonic Screwdriver Pen:

Boldly Going Nowhere Pin:

Harry Potter Quidditch Goggles:

USB Mixtape:

New Retro NES Gaming System:

Nerdity T-shirt (wouldn't a babydoll or hoodie be cool?):

Hello Kitty Talk Nerdy to me Babydoll:

Some Encouraging Words I Hope I Can Use Today (from Genoa Coffee & Wine's Newsletter)

Have you ever wished you could go back to some 'restore' point in your life? Or wished you could reset it to 'factory settings' like you can with a phone or other electronic gadget that gets too full of faults or incompatible parameters that it just doesn't work like you want it to anymore? The thing is, you can. There is no connection to the past unless you make one ... every day, every moment is all there is in the 'now' of life. You can choose to do and be whatever you want, right now. Is that scary or uplifting and exciting? Again, you choose which ... but the possibilities are always there ... you decide how you want to live this new moment ... and the next ... and the next. That isn't some 'new age woo-woo' or anything other than the fact of the way it is ... You want to learn a new language? Start playing a musical instrument for the first time? Change your career? Change your hair, clothes, entire way of being? Go ahead ... be ... YOU!

As much as I hate crying...

It seems pretty necessary. I don't know if I'm the only person that does this (sincerely doubt it, with so many people on the planet I can't be weird enough to share each of my quirks with  at least a few people, right?), but when I get angry and raise my voice, my stomach curls up and I eventually start coughing (sometimes resulting in upchucking). It feels awful. Lately, I've been trying to let the frustration not come out so much, but allow my sadness to come out so that I cry and it's hard to do. I think maybe I'm afraid to cry, even when there's no one else around.

I'm under what I'd consider an uncomfortable and damn unreasonable amount of stress right now. (Yes, I know that's the point, if stress was reasonable, it likely would not be stress.)

With the ages of the kids, work projects, the final processes of my divorce, juggling reporting and all kinds of financial silliness, making sure to have enough time spent with the kids, and finding things to do so that I don't completely lose touch with reality, the positives have been harder to focus on. I feel like the things that I do are never balanced and never enough.

I will say that my body is doing better, I've been slightly more responsible with sleep and eating patterns, and I'm slowly digging myself out of both self-created and life-imposed holes, but I really wish I could make the processes faster and stop hitting times I let myself feel overwhelmed.

You've Already Lost, Pick a New Game

An extremely hard lesson to learn...

I never know what to make of April 20th

I still remember being stuck in my eighth grade classroom. A shooting was all we knew at first, followed by a school shooting, a high school shooting, Columbine High School. There was panic, everyone wondering if we knew anyone, my mother's coworker wanting to find out if her daughter, a friend of the family who was later one of my bridesmaids, was all right.

I heard so much about it. Every year on this day, the interviews, the memories, the outright panic of it all and how it should affect us now, what can we do better, how can we prevent it?

And it's still happening. There were actually shootings before Columbine, but the number of deaths at a high school was shocking and with shootings happening more and more, I think there's almost a desensitizing effect the media has had. We commemorate this violence with names in the paper and pictures of the event happening. What about the positive?

April 20th is a strange day...there's the marijuana codename that's given today the gather and celebrate counterculture cannabis events, but there's a lot of other things people tend to mention.

Obviously, I already mentioned one, but also Hitler's birthday, the Deepwater Horizon oil well explosion, the Johnson Space Center shooting, the Bay of Pigs failure, the Ludlow massacre, you get the idea. However, not everything that should be commemorated gets mentioned on April 20th, we get so caught up in the death and negativity that we forget:

- Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard completed their first set of pasteurization tests in 1862, a major breakthrough furthering germ theory of disease and awareness of safer food consumption
-The Civil Rights Act of 1871 came into law, a small but vital step toward later advances in equality
-Pierre and Marie Curie separated one-tenth gram of radium chloride using differential crystallization in 1902 to further scientific exploration and later medical uses.
-Apollo 16 landed on the moon in 1972
-Danica Patrick was the first women to win an Indy car race at the Indy Japan 300 in 2008

Sometimes I think we lose focus and allow one day to determine how we're going to feel or what we're going to do. The truth is, the date does not define the day, it's our willingness to open our eyes and improve the world that defines our day. Let you light shine and make today great, just like every other day.

Shruggish

Today is a beautiful day, everything went right this morning, and I'm making progress at work, but I just feel kind of mediocre, one blob of general things that I shrug off. I'm not sure why either...I should feel elated that things are starting without incident, but it just doesn't feel significant. Oh well, maybe later on today I'll find it more promising.

Me-ow

I would like to submit my thought about the following etymological definition:

meow

1873, earlier miaow, also miau, meaw (both 1630s). Of imitative origin, cf. Fr. miaou, Ger. miauen, Pers. maw, Japanese nya nya, Arabic nau-nau. In Chinese, miau means "cat."

 

 

Dictionary definitions:

me-refers to the speaker or writer

ow-interjection used especially in response to sudden pain.

 

They tried to warn us, but we keep around these furry little creatures whose sound creation patterns should alert us to their uninhibited ability to cause us pain. They're not at fault, they're just made that way ;)

Really...WTF?

I'm generally in awe right now. I've gotten over the April Fool's thing (although I secretly hope that karma eventually catches up with that guy), but is there something in the water or do I just trigger some brain pattern in men that turns them into loathsome, rude, or angry creatures?

One example, one of the guys was early to the D&D game last night. Usually this isn't a problem, they can sit down and wait. If you show up 25 minutes early, I'm obviously not ready yet. I was finishing up dinner, getting the kids to bed, the normal routine, which is usually over by the time people arrive. Does he sit? Does he apologize for being early? Does he ask any questions whatsoever? No. This guy proceeds, while I'm in the other room working on the kitchen, moving things around in my family room, mixing together and pitching organized piles of papers on the floor, pushing toys wherever, sitting down on something I had the kids toys on (which he shoved to the floor), picks up my Wii remote and proceeds to play cartoons like spiderman and iron man on Netflix. Really?

Let it sink in a minute. You barely know someone outside of playing a game and this is what you do? WTF?

Another example, I'm hanging out with a semi-acquaintance friend and a group of my friends, and we're talking about the overarching radiation awareness issue in that a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about are causing panic where there need to be more clear heads and general problem solving going on. Instead of making one comment to join the discussion or anything, this guy acquaintance starts yelling that if anyone eats sushi in Japan they'll more or less die of radiation poison no matter where they are in Japan. When he was questioned about why he thought that (we were trying to be polite), he basically said we didn't know anything and he knows it and everyone in his family has an IQ over 180. Really?

Sadly, the conversation only got worse after this...but I'll spare you those details.WTF?

 Less irritating but still Really...WTF category behaviors:
-Guys that complain about not having girlfriends/being alone when they never leave their house and do nothing but make misogynistic comments and whine.
-Guys that posture, acting like the "cool guy" and think that means people will want to get to know them.
-Guys that focus on trying to find romance when they don't have anything figured out for themselves (job, family problems, not having a place to live, car to drive, anything) You really think a girl wants a lazy guy that refuses to get his shit together?

I don't get it. I feel like everyday people find new ways of being rude and taking advantage of people that are genuinely either being generous or kind. They say you need to be the change you want to see in the world. We all know it, so why is it that laziness and complaining override good behavior and general common sense?

Why Music is Important to Me

I think it's important to examine the things that we care about. Along with my family and my writing, music is one of the most important things in my life. I never feel like I have a good answer when someone asks, "Why is it so important?" It's easy to describe why my family is important and my writing because I'm involved in both. My family gives me strength, I never have to worry about not having someone to talk to, and in the case of the kids, someone to play with. My writing is an outlet, an experiment, something I'm good with.

I'm fairly certain most of my friends don't see me as a particularly musical (and certainly not musically talented) individual. I know maybe a novice or a dabbler, but what they don't see is that the reason I love the music of others so much is because I've never had the guts to share my own. I make excuses a lot--I only have a choral voice, I only sing karaoke because I don't have time, and I'm into only country and older stuff when I'm singing and I don't think my friends would like it. They aren't lies necessarily, but I don't think that the things I tell others and the things I tell myself are completely authentic and genuine.

Like much of my writing, my interest in music is raw and passionate, albeit sometimes inappropriate for mixed company and certainly children. I am not comfortable sharing that part of myself publicly. It's not even that I criticize people who do--I'm just not a publicly emotional person. I get upset and I laugh and I'm genuine with my friends, but there's a layer I don't think many people have ever seen and I honestly doubt they will.

Music is so different across a vast landscape and hearing and feeling and being a part of that kind of energy is amazing. You may teach a monkey to speak and to write, a dog to type, a cat to yowl, but the raw creativity of our environment, I believe gives humans this amazing ability to create and share on such a level that awakens the worst and best parts of our memories, thoughts, and ideas. If I had half the balls a lot of my friends do, maybe I'd come out of the shell. I'm not there yet. Maybe someday...





(I love xkcd...)

Taking the Shortcut

The idea that taking less time now to take care of something with the intent of doing it properly "later" has probably been the leading cause of lapses in self care. How many times have I thought:

-I don't have time right now. I'll eat properly and I'll start exercising when I have time later.
-Well I can pick this up, but I'll vacuum later.

You get the idea. Really I think that not enough time is put aside for things like going to the doctor/dentist/therapist/etc. ("I'll make that appointment later"), taking the time to keep a body healthy ("I'll join the gym later, it's nice outside, I'll exercise later."), and getting cleaning and deep cleaning done enough to live in a good environment (Oh, I'll do it tomorrow...and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow).

I don't think it's odd to do things like that. I get overwhelmed at the number of things that need doing without setting small goals, scheduling the time to complete those goals, and not letting myself out of a contract to do something. (Granted there are emergencies, but if it's not moved to somewhere close on the schedule for which I'm held accountable by a consequence to myself, I don't think it's as effective.)

I generally believe that all people have it more together than I do. They can clean and get their jobs done and spend time with family and be involved at church and work on their car and exercise, but I think it's fairly delusional of me to think that. I think that finding a balance in life is the single hardest thing for people to do. No one ever has it together in all areas unless they've completely cut out some of the areas (like work and home are great but family time is non-existent), or they have enough help that tey don't have to worry about some of the things a person on their own might have to.

I'm going through another purge because my priorities got a little one-sided and mixed up. I have come to the conclusion that I have too much useless stuff, too little exercise time, and too little playtime with the kids. I'm revamping the schedules and it's all going to change. I think with the pressures of work and deadlines and crazy problems, I sometimes lose sight of what really matters. It's good to check in with oneself every once in awhile.

I need a little inspiration...

 

I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed with the list of endless tasks on my to-do list, so I decided to do a little reading and came across a list of inspirational quotes. (In other words, this is my feel-good blog for myself, and I don't have a lot to add, but it feels good to write it down.) 

“An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.”
- Pope John Paul I

And the seasons, they go round and round,
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return, we can only look
Behind from where we came,
And go round and round and round in the circle game.
- - - Tom Rush, "The Circle Game"

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
– Hellen Keller

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free.
- - - Kris Kristofferson, "Me and Bobby McGee"

  

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there”
- Will Rogers

If you said good-bye to me tonight,
There would still be music left to write.
- - - Billy Joel, "The Longest Time"

“To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.”
- St Catherine of Siena

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue.
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view.
- - - Carole King "Tapestry"

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
- Thomas A Edison 

She's got a way about her,
And everywhere she goes,
a million dreams of love surround her,
everywhere.
- - - Billy Joel "She's Got a Way" 

 

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

- Dale Carnegie

 

There are many here among us
who think life is but a joke
but you and I, we've been through that;
this is not our fate.
Let us not speak falsely now, the hour's getting late.
- - - Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"

 

“Hard work spotlights the character of people. Some turn up their sleeves. Some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.”
- Sam Ewing

 

“Many of life’s failures are people who had not realized how close they were to success when they gave up.”
- Thomas A Edison

 

  

Play?

I'm observing something rather odd in the mass behavior of hysteria and random obsession. Where we aren't overly concerned with safety and following laws, we're equally rushed around with no time to be bothered with anything for anyone else. On top of that, there's the complaining, the woe-is-me attitude of stagnant anti-activity and wishful thinking for change.

To this, I ask a simple, not-so-eloquent question, WTF?

I feel like many of the things that ought to be taken seriously are not and things that need to be downplayed and gotten over become the center of attention.

Here's a conversation I overheard leaving my daughter's school (it was a half-day):
Boy: Excuse me, Mom?
Mom: What? (said quickly/sharply)
Boy: Do you think we could go by the park today?
Mom: Oh, I don't have time for this, just play your game. (She handed him a game which I assumed was a DS or PSP or something along those lines.)
He didn't respond, only climbed in the car slowly, shutting his door.
The mother rushed and sat down, nearly slamming her car door.

 

I can't help but wonder...what has the woman so wound? I mean, my parents never would have said, forget the park, dear, play your video game. Have we really gotten so hateful of our lives that we don't even want our children to play? I know the world would be a better place if we all played more.

When I was in high school, the ticket booth for theater was a place we all colored during our shifts to sell tickets. I adored it--just the act of taking pigment to paper allowed so much stress relief. So why is it the simple things we give up? Do the big goals, more money, more cars, more vacations, more designer jeans, more bragging rights--do they make people happy?

I couldn't tell you, but I do know that spending an hour at a park with two gorgeous children will wear me out, giving a surefire good night's sleep. I can tell you that the pain in my thighs from bending and hiding behind rocks hurts just as much as my laughing muscles, and my mind feels clearer. It's hard to care about the arbitrary demands of life when there is so much beauty in every small moment.

I'll continue chasing and swinging and playing and doing arts and crafts. I don't want to be that video game angry mother. I don't want to let my life just gloss over and conform to angry chaos...what would be the point of that?

What is a Bike Lane?

A bike lane is...

• A portion of a roadway that is marked off for use by bicyclists.
• If you see these signs:

 Cars and vehicles have to share the road which means that in some cases, bikes will be merged with traffic. Respect and consideration should exist at all times between the cyclist riding and vehicle driving on the road.

• Symbols traditionally used to signify a bike lane look like this:

A bike lane is not...

• An extra turn lane
• A place to drive
• A partition of the road in which to park 
• Any random part of the side of the road that a cyclist decides to use

A car's position relative to the bike lane, even in a larger vehicle should look like this:

 

If this is in any way confusing, please consider the following regulations regarding cyclists/drivers in Fort Collins. You can be ticketed for being stupid, so read a bit and follow the rules and we'll all get along a bit better :)

Bicycle and Driving Rules & Regulations in Fort Collins, CO

Bike Safety Resources

Safe Cycling from the Fort Collins Bike Library

Bike Maps of Fort Collins, CO

Trails in Fort Collins, CO

What prompted my posting? There are two cars, without fail, that seem to think they can and should go around all of the cars in the lane on the right at the stop light in the bike lane at Timberline & Harmony. Today, as I often have to, I had to lay on my horn as a car went by because they came inches away from running down a cyclist. I have issues when people use the bike lane as it is not intended. I also have issues with cyclists that endanger themselves and vehicles by not following the rules. If you enjoy a free life where you haven't been a cold-blooded murderer, hapless buffoon, or menace to society, please take a few minutes and learn the rules of the road. I'm sick of the us versus them debate. We all live here, we all share the roads, let's stop acting like three year olds fighting over a toy and treat each other with respect and show a bit of dignity.

Pranks Don't Make Fools

Ok, so it's April 1st, April Fool's Day...people have fun. Like other crazy, stupid holidays, I find it enjoyable and comical as long as no one is harmed.

Today, however, I'm fixated on an entirely different kind of fool so I'm going to tell you a story.

Two weeks ago, a boy and girl, friends though a friend started talking about the possibility of getting to know one another better.

He talked about riding horses, going to dinner, dancing...having a good time, getting to know one another the right way. He kissed her on the cheek and then said he'd call her soon.

He did call her, he asked her to a concert that she was dying to see. She was excited about it. She bragged about it, got all warm and fuzzy about it, and they talked. They talked about music and movies, family and fun times. For once, things seemed to be going in a good direction in the right way and nothing seemed wrong. He said he had a job, owned property, owned horses, and he made her feel like she was the only girl he was interested in.

Two days later? Not a word. In fact, she didn't hear from him until the day of the concert and all she received was a picture of a red-headed girl that was much...bigger-boned than she was, smiling with a caption stating: This is the girl I've decided to take. Nothing else.

So as the girl that's sitting here, feeling like an idiot, I'm on pause. How can people decide to treat each other like this? Granted, I'm lucky that I'm not seeing such a horrible person, but really...what could make someone so cold that they'd set up something like this?

To anyone that has ever been the brunt of another person's hatred, insecurity, or prank of possibility stripped away, you're not alone, people are not all bad, and things do get better. I promise. Even if I don't know you, I love you and I hope you're having a lovely evening.