& it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November Rain

"when i look into your eyes,
i can see a love restrained.
but darlin' when i hold you,
don't you know i feel the same?"

since the song last night mentioned this song i thought i'd listen to it, and put it up today. guns n' roses are very much a part of a certain time in my life in such a way that their songs almost carry along with them a snapshot album of memories, of car rides, of a certain brand of cigarette, a scent of perfume, a drug of choice, and the feel of the summer sun hot through the windshield window.

a love restrained? a shared feeling of restrained love? not much of a love song, is it?

and the cheesy-quotient is turned up high with holding a candle (keeping the fire going) in the cold november rain (the pre-winter of our discontent). but as regina says, "that solo's awful long, but it's a pretty song."

this is how it works

"this is how it works,
you're young until you're not,
you love until you don't,
you try until you can't,
you laugh until you cry,
you cry until you laugh,
and everyone must breathe,
until their dying breath.

no, this is how it works,
You peer inside yourself,
you take the things you like,
and try to love the things you took,
and then you take that love you made,
and stick it into some someone else's heart,
pumping someone else's blood,
and walking arm in arm,
you hope it don't get harmed.

but even if it does,
you'll just do it all again.

and on the radio,
you hear november rain,
that solo's awful long,
but it's a good refrain,
you listen to it twice,
'cause the dj is asleep."

i think i've posted this song before, but some days i re-discover lyrics, take them in and they are re-defined. this song is today, tonight really. i played in the park tonight with the kids, got caught in the sprinklers, and got so wet we had to ring out our clothes. it was in that moment - when the choice was to get upset to have gotten wet, or to laugh and find the bliss in it at all that a lightbulb went on. you know those kinds of moments - the ones where you realize what it is you need in this life, and what matters to you in another person.

it is not something i would call a deal-breaker, but it is something i take notice of, and in a way it is something so important to me. people who can dance in the rain, who can get drenched and laugh about it, who can find the bliss in the mundane, in the accidental, in the could be catastrophe. and i like people who like getting wet.

that might sound silly, or it might sound dirty actually, but i know how i mean it and what it means to me.

I'm spinning on a dime

"on your third broken window,
with your hair full of glass,
saw your clothes in the hallway,
just a curtain on your back.
i laugh.

are there heart strings connected,
to the wings you've got slapped on your back?
better climb in the window cause,
i'm closing the door."

happy birthday, bree.

i'm wishing and hoping this is the best year in your life, so far.
wish i was there to celebrate with you.

black holes and revelations

"my life,
you electrify my life,
let's conspire to re-ignite,
all the souls that would die just to feel alive."

still lost in the pages of breaking dawn, and wrestling with the urge to race through it so i can talk to a few people about it (who have all already finished it), or to savor it, letting myself linger in the story just a little longer. though i feel lit up and inspired to write myself, and to get out and see more of the world - and to devour more words and feelings and life in the process. it is hard to explain, and as i mentioned before i am not sure i want to explain, just that i feel more alive and more full of love.

i remember hearing this song for the first time, and being mistaken on who the artist was. i was attracted to the song at first, but i never felt the song as much as i do now. i suppose there is the connection to the books, and the stories - and the way the band's songs seem to just capture the emotions and feelings of it all. and maybe it is where my life and feelings are at right now, as well. not just this song, others by muse, but today it is this one specifically.

if you're a thought you will want me to think you, and i do, and i did

"what do you plan to do with all your stories"

spent the last night late night awaiting the last book in the twilight series (well, the supposed last, i am still hoping for midnight sun). i am influenced so heavily by music, by the vivid play of sound and vision that plays between the blinking of my lashes as i read a book that takes me - and yes, these books have taken me.

i suppose they have more than taken me, they have actually returned me to myself, connected me closer to my daughter, and woken me up. it is hard to explain, and i am not sure i wish to bother explaining, how a set of young adult books gave me back pieces of myself - all i know is that they have.

typical me, i have been building playlists and mixes to accompany the books, jules and i both have, and this is one that seems to be nudging at me to include in the yet to be finished breaking dawn soundtrack. and now i return to reading - excuse me while i let myself get a little lost in pages this weekend.

i put my hands where your wings should be

maybe an angel (live) ~ heather nova (video)

"something i feel,
you are an angel,
or maybe you couldve been.
something out here,
you are an angel,
or maybe you couldve been."

the cd came out of a bin of dropped off promotions from one of the record labels i worked with. this was back when i was still a buyer at tower records. i played it over the stereo speakers, on the sales floor, early one morning before the store opened. we were stocking for a new release tuesday and the in-store artist was hanging up some of his work in one of the windows. i was unpacking cardboard long boxes of cd-singles. this song came on and we both stopped what we were doing - and listened.

it was the live version we played that morning - the best version, if you ask me. he came over, and pressed repeat and smiled at me.

"i think we need to hear that again."

singing eyes and fingers

song of the siren ~ this mortal coil

"on the floating, shapeless oceans,
i did all my best to smile,
'til your singing eyes and fingers,
drew me loving into your eyes.

and you sang 'sail to me, sail to me;
let me enfold you.'

here i am,
here i am waiting to hold you.
did i dream you dreamed about me?
were you here when i was full sail?

now my foolish boat is leaning,
broken love lost on your rocks.

for you sang,

'touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow.'

oh my heart,
oh my heart shies from the sorrow.
i'm as puzzled as a newborn child.
i'm as riddled as the tide.

should i stand amid the breakers?
or shall i lie with death my bride?

hear me sing: 'swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you.'
'here i am.
here i am,
waiting to hold you.'"

little things

my cup of tea ~ eisley

"those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others."

the book of tea ~ okakura kakuzo

the geography of it all

keep art alive; art found at ffffound!

spiders ~ say hi (to your mom)

"and i haven’t asked for much since i met her,
some courage and maybe some heart.
but jupiter, please, will you raise your fists and mend all that keeps us apart?

there’s the thing with her father,
the thing with me broken,
her new jealous ex and the press.

and each of them not much worse than the other,
but still pretty bad nonetheless.

because there are spiders,
under my skin when she’s not next to me."

thank you, musicisart, for a new musical introduction. lyrics that creep, just below the surface of my skin, and become the pieces of stories i might someday write. truths that were most likely not intended by the writer, but still they persist. it may be terribly self-indulgent, but when i enjoy things i cannot help but devour them, turn them on their sides (or sometimes inside out and upside down), and make them my own.

and you kissed me like you meant it

hands down (live) ~ dashboard confessional w/michael stipe

"my hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me,
so won't you kill me?
so i die happy.
my heart is yours to fill or burst,
to break or bury,
or wear as jewelry.
whichever you prefer."

this song reminds me of the past, of july, of unrequited things, of youthful hopes and insecurities. it also reminds me of the book i'm reading, but really, pretty much everything does.