Rockin' the Suburbs

This was an epic weekend.

First, after a brief jaunt over to Nate Kartchner's birthday bash (in the company of Stacia, who was visiting,) Friday night was our girls' night of truly heroic proportions.
Evidence:



Yes, we went out in public like this...




I think it was originally Lili's idea - she drew us all as super heroes in church one day and we decided that it needed to happen for real. Which is sad, because she had her wisdom teeth out on Friday and couldn't come with us! But we had fun dressing up and more fun going to Classic Skating, and then after visiting Lili and Drew we called up some boys and went to Denny's. It was all quite hysterical.

Saturday was equally eventful. First, let me just say that the Hare Krishnas are awesome. They burn things in effigy and then throw chalk at each other. What could be better? So I have more pictures:






Yes. Even the llama was epic.

On top of all of this, I saw that modern version of Hamlet that stars Ethan Hawke at IC last night, and it was fantastic! I really loved the part where he did the "To be or not to be" speech in the action aisle at Blockbuster. Amazing.

On a not so cool front, I am sick, and I hope my voice comes back a little for tomorrow or it's going to be a LONG day at school. I'm not sure that inhaling 2 pounds of chalk dust helped my cause much. But I refuse to miss out on amazingness like this for a mere cold. (dies.)

All-time Favorites

So I was thinking the other day that this would be a fun post, and since I don't want to do the other things I should be doing and feel guilty watching another episode of Lost right now, I thought now would be the time. At least I'll be thinking and writing instead of just vegging, right? (Right. Of course.)
I was driving back to Provo from home last night, and I was thinking that it would be fun to create a list of all-time favorite songs. I figure that needs a little bit of clarification though, because there are a lot of songs that I really love right now, but who's to say that I'll still like them in a year? I was thinking I'd make it a one year requirement (I have to have known and loved the song for a whole year) but then I remembered that it was only a year ago that I started listening to The Fray, Muse, Rogue Wave, Feist . . . that wasn't that long ago. You can't judge endurance by one year - artists are still practically new to you then. I mean, it's been almost a year since I started listening to Glen Hansard! So I made the requirement a two-year minumum of adoration of the song, and I also decided that I have to have some kind of reason for why I love it, even if that reason is just the feeling I have consistently got every time I listen to it. So here goes.
In no particular order, the songs that are the most meaningful to me:

• "American Tune" by Paul Simon - I don't know why I have loved this song so much for so long, but I can't even tell you how many times I've been doodling in class and I've written, "Many's the time I've been mistaken, and many times confused; yes, and I've often felt forsaken, and certainly misused. Oh, but I'm all right, I'm all right - I'm just weary to my bone. Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant so far away from home . . ." I think the lyrics to this song are so beautiful and ring so true when things are hard are confusing ("I don't know a dream that's not been shattered, or driven to its knees . . .") and it has meant a lot to me for years - junior high at least.
  
• "The Longest Time" by Billy Joel - My first memory of this song is of Spence and Ty singing it in the car on the way to the MTC (I was 6) and of my mom crying when it came on the radio for the next two years. After that I began to love it for itself - it's happy and catchy and poetic and the kind of thing I would like have said to me. My favorite part is that bit at the end - "I want you so bad, I think you ought to know that I intend to hold you for the longest time." Sigh.
• "Matthew" by John Denver - Yeah, some of you may be shocked that I include John Denver, but what may surprise you the most is that I had a hard time picking just one. I also considered "Wild Montana Skies" and "High Calypso." I think the reason I stuck with this one has something to do with the chorus - "Joy was just a thing that he was raised on, love was just a way to live and die . . ." Yeah. Lovely. I always tell people that my first musical love was Paul Simon, but it was probably John Denver. We listened to the Wildlife Concert on every road trip ever when I was little, and we always sang along, even Clark, who was a cool teenager at the time. We even yodeled to "High Calypso."
• "The Way I Am" by Martin Sexton - I distinctly remember the first time I heard this song. I was in 7th grade and we were in Clark's room - Ty was playing it because he was trying to talk my parents into going to the concert. We all fell in love with it because of the pseudo-yodel in the chorus, and I didn't get to go to the concert because I was going to my very first 7th grade birthday party that night, but I have listened to Martin ever since and loved him ever since. My other favorites are "Caught in the Rain" and "Freedom of the Road."
• "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2 - I'm not sure why this is the actual pick from U2, but I do adore this one. I very distinctly remember sitting in Spence and Ty's room listening to them when I was little (just as I remember watching Ty's Talking Heads video - big suits), and when I went to the U2 concert a few years ago the songs were all incredibly familiar - I knew every word to songs I hadn't listened to in years.
• "Lady Be Good" as sung by Ella Fitzgerald - I remember stealing Treb's Ella Fitzgerald Best of the Songbooks CD when I was probably 5 or 6. This one has stuck with me because my freshman year the words seemed especially poignant: "Listen to my tale of woe, it's terribly sad but true; all dressed up, no place to go - each evening I'm awfully blue. I must win some handsome man - can't go on like this. I could blossom out I know with somebody just like you." Laugh it up, but then think about what you were like as a freshman, and remember that I had 5 roommates get married that year. Besides the BYU freshman appropriateness, it's a lovely song and brings back memories of being a young jazz efficiando (efficianda?) because of my oldest brother.
  
• "Paper Doll" by The Mills Brothers - This song makes me think of my dad almost as much as "Side by Side" (which we always used to sing together) because it always seemed like he sang it all the time. I'm not sure why he liked it so much, or why I do, but he did and so do I.
  
• "Your Smiling Face" by James Taylor - This song makes me think of cleaning the house with my mom on summer Saturdays. I think it was the first one on one of her many James Taylor CDs, so I remember waking up to it on more than one occasion. I swear that I can always smell lemon Pledge when I hear it. It's also a lovely song. :)
• "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" sung by The Limeliters - every road trip ever - I loved the harmonies on this song so much it made me want to run somewhere.
• "Whistling in the Dark" by They Might Be Giants - This song makes me think of Clark, especially one day when he was in college and we'd gone to a funeral or something. I don't remember where my parents went, but they left me with Clark and we listened to They Might Be Giants and drove up to Aspen Grove in the snow and then drove back down. I'm honestly not sure why I remember that day, but They Might Be Giants has had a special place in my heart for years because of Clark. Also, "There's only one thing that I know how to do well, and I've often been told that you only can do what you know how to do well, and that's be you, be what you're like, be like yourself." Magic.
• "Delicate" by Damien Rice - Note that I say this one rather than "Grey Room" because I've only known the latter for a few months. Ty played me this song in the kitchen on a holiday - Thanksgiving or Christmas or something - and I stood in the middle or the hustle and bustle and proceeded to have my mind blown with "Why'd you sing hallelujah, if it means nothing to you?" and so a couple of months later when I listened to the whole CD on a choir trip to San Diego, it entered my consciousness forever. Really.
  
• "Blue" by The Jayhawks - I don't even remember a time when I didn't know this song although Ty takes credit for bringing the Jayhawks to the family, but it has gradually morphed from a pretty song that my brothers all seem to like into something that really speaks to me at this point in my life. "Where have all my friends gone? They've all disappeared. Turn around maybe one day - you're all that was there." It's lovely and I turn it up every time I hear it start.
  
• "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkle - Need I say more? When I was in 5th grade I listened to our S&G cassette every night while I "fell asleep." I'm not sure I ever actually fell asleep to that tape, and I almost always turned it over. I love all of the songs, but wow. That one . . . yes. I also have an intense love of "America" because of the line, "'Kathy I'm lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping. 'I'm empty and aching, and I don't know why.'" I don't know why either, but I love that line. And I love "Bridge Over Troubled Water" too. :)
  
• "I Am Ready, I Am" - by The Format - What can I say? A line from this song is the description of my blog. This song is me once you get past the line about "I'm nicotine." "I need a reason to let go, an intervention, a lullabye, something to cure me . . ." "I'm not bitter, no, it's just I've passed that point in my life . . ." It's wonderful.
• "Moon Over Bourbon Street" - by Sting - Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles was my first "real" CD. (Read: not the soundtrack to Annie or Kenny Loggins.) I got it on Treb's recommendation, and I love people's reactions (at least real music people's) when I tell them I got this CD in about 7th grade. It's not exactly Hannah Montana. The reason I love this particular song so much is that I thought it was so cool that it was a song about a vampire! It had never occurred to me that normal artists could write about such cool things in such poetic and beautiful ways. My favorite part was toward the end: "How could I be this way when I pray to God above? I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love." So cool.
• "Testimony" by The Actual Tigers - Love this song. I think it was Ty who introduced me to this still not well-known band, but all of the Winegar children latched on pretty quickly. This song reminds me a little of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," but it's fantastic in its own right as well. "I was standing on the corner - you use a public phone you gotta pay. Yeah, the day I find someone who's worth my quarter, I was thinking, "That'll be the day."
• "Raining in Baltimore" by The Counting Crows - Despite Treb's assertions that the lead singer sounds constipated, I have always loved Counting Crows. I especially love this song, and I think I truly fell for it during my junior or senior year of high school. I know because I put it on a CD for my boyfriend and he didn't like it. I should have known right then that it wouldn't last. This song is so achingly beautiful - and really, what would you change if you could? (That's a lyric in case you aren't familiar with the song.)
  

That's all for now because I need sleep. Today was crappy and I am tired, but I imagine that I'll be adding to it later.

Winding Down

This is my, "I need to go to bed but I'm not quite there yet so I'll wind down with a post" post.
The teacher fair was interesting. I interviewed with one really crazy school and talked to the HR people from Alpine, and then I got a bunch of pamphlets and applications from lots of other places. It's a really weird feeling, thinking about possibly getting a job that would pay $30,000+ after years of making virtually nothing. What will I do with that kind of money? It's such a real job! I just can't decide if I'm ready to jump into teaching full time, and it's crazy trying to figure out where to go if I do. I like the idea of Alpine because I could be down here and still socialize with friends and roommates without living here per se. But didn't I want to get out of Provo? I'm putting in an application for Davis and maybe Salt Lake districts too, but really . . . hmm.
In other news, I finally found a book to read. I've been having a hard time getting into anything (not to mention my experience with Milkweed - I was reading it and the book VANISHED! I have NO IDEA where it went) and I have started about 10 books with no success. I have a huge stack on my shelf, all books that I very much want to read, but I've been having a hard time committing to any of them because I'm so scatterbrained right now anyway (too much to think about, no additional brainpower to devote to postmodernism). Hopefully this will be the spring of Tender is the Night and The Road and Their Eyes Were Watching God, and East of Eden. And actually, I am really thinking about reading Don Quixote this spring/summer, because I have this beautifully appealing new translation on my shelf and it's lovely. Anyway. All of this makes the book I finally settled into very funny, because it's much longer than all but the last two books that I just read, and probably more complicated and more depressing. I don't know why, but the other day I had the weirdest desire to read Ken Kesey. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last year, and I can't even tell you how much I loved it, and I guess it was just time for another. So I went to the Provo library the other night (aren't you proud of my for not buying it?) and checked out Sometimes A Great Notion. And it's about 700 pages. And so far I am loving it. I remember my dad telling me about the movie once upon a time, so I actually know one of the major plot twists, and it's sad. Not surprising - so was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. But I really hope I can cruise on through it, because I want to finish a book. And I want it to be this one.
And now I'm going to bed.

Update

I can't believe how long it's been since I updated my blog! I've had plenty to write about, but life has been crazy and I haven't had time. (Or haven't made time, because when I've had time I've been watching Lost. Yes, really.)
So exciting things in the last little while: My roommates and I went to Jonathan's 80s revival party (photo evidence appears here) and it was hilarious. Whitney and I went to the Hunger Banquet on campus and were seated in the top 15% upper class section, which we felt a little awkward about,but the whole experience was amazing, especially Valerie Hudson's keynote speech and the Hari Krishnas telling us that it was okay if we didn't want to chant Shanti - only the people who wanted peace needed to. I'm going today to the teacher fair on campus in the hopes of making some contact with prospective employers, and I'm mad that I left my jump drive on campus because I didn't save my revised resume to my computer so I have to revise again. Lame. And Drew comes home this Friday!

Don't worry. You are still the bread and the knife.

OK. I'm tired of seeing Barack and Hilary every time I look at my blog, so it's time for a new post. Plus, I'm putting off the 7th grade paper that I'm about to write so that I can show my class how to write a 7th grade paper. Hurrah.
First, I haven't told you about some amazing things from last week. Thursday was the Joshua Radin/ Ingrid Michaelson concert, and it was FABULOUS. Alexa Wilkinson opened and was actually pretty good - I bought her CD and it's decent. I must say that although Josh was good, Ingrid outshone him, especially in the personality department. She had tons of funny stories and sarcastic comments about how everybody poops and it was wonderful. The highlights for me were definitely her covers though - first an amazing cover of "Creep," by Radiohead, which she played on the ukulele of all things. It was truly a fantastic performance, and I'm actually pretty sure you can find a crappy video of it on youtube. At the end of the concert she also started playing this nice little song that started, "This is a story all about how my life got turned upside down . . ." and we all gasped when we realized that she was singing "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It was hysterical. My other favorite song was "Keep Breathing," which I'd never heard before. What a beautiful little number. I am in love. It's in the same vein as "Grey Room" and I've been listening to it several times a day ever since.
For me, the highlight of Joshua's part (besides his fedora and his performances with Ingrid) was his explanation of the song "Closer," which for a long time was the only Radin song I knew. I've never understood the song, but he explained that it was about a girlfriend from about 6 years ago with whom he wanted to break up but couldn't because she was always sad and he was trying to help her through things. He said it was a song about how he always falls for sad girls. Now read the lyrics:

"Closer"
So we're alone again
I wish it were over
We seem to never end
Only get closer to the point
Where I can't take no more

The clouds in your eyes
Down your face they pour
Won't you be the new one burn to shine
I take the blue ones every time
Walk me down your broken line
All you have to do is cry
Yes all you have to do is cry

Hush my baby now
Your talking is just noise and won't lay me down
Amongst your toys in a room where I can take no more

The clouds in your eyes
Down your face they pour
Won't you be the new one burn to shine
I take the blue ones every time
Walk me down your broken line
All you have to do is cry
Yes all you have to do is cry

Photographs and brightly colored paper
Are your mask you wear in this caper
That is our life
We walk right into the strife
And a tear from your eye brings me home

Won't you be the new one burned to shine
I take the blue ones every time
Walk me down your broken line
All you have to do is cry.

It all makes sense now! It's amazing!

Next, I must tell you about Friday. I got special permission from Mr. Buck to skip two periods and go to the BYU reading series to see Billy Collins. I love him. He was every bit as wonderful as I hoped he'd be, very deadpan and funny. Some of my favorite poems were "Litany," "Tension," "Bathtub Families," and "The Lanyard," but I was in stitches the whole time. The title of this post comes from "Litany," a poem built on a couple of lines from a poem by a poet who evidently believed that what women want more than respect or communication is similes. She wants to be compared to as many things as possible. It was a great poem. Also, I learned from Billy that when Paul Simon wrote "Mother and Child Reunion," he was inspired by a dish at a Chinese restaurant by the same name. The dish was chicken and eggs. Hahaha.

Last, but certainly not least, is the good news that BEN FOLDS IS COMING TO UTAH! And also, I've talked two of my roommates into going with me to see him! I am seriously excited about this. And it's on the last day of finals! Not that I have any, but either way it's a nice thought.


Now I have to write that 7th grade research paper. Here I come, Abe Lincoln!