Tag: music

I’m Crying Here

My friend told me she never cries. She simply didn’t feel sadness much and never had any real reason to cry.

Either she is lying or she is painfully un-self-aware. You can’t say, “boo,” to her without making her break-down. I’ve never seen someone cry so much as she does.

Except for me.

I cry all the time. Ten things that made me cry last week:

  1. Simone Biles
  2. Ruth 1:16
  3. A new book on home decorating
  4. Joe Strummer’s rendition of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song
  5. My husband and I got into an argument one morning and he came home from work early to be the first to apologize.
  6. A dear friend sent me a very sweet text
  7. A scene I wrote
  8. A Facebook Memory of a video of my son at a swim lesson when he was three
  9. A video about overcoming feelings of insignificance
  10. I felt lonely

Those are very specific examples that I can remember. There are also some general stuff that turns on the waterworks for me anytime, all the time. A note: to me crying is a spectrum, ranging from tearing up to total meltdown. Not everything reduces me to a shaking, leaking shell of a woman, but the following can be a challenge…

The Star Spangled Banner

I can’t sing it. When the world gasped and pointed at Gabby Douglas during her team’s medal ceremony because she didn’t belt out the words or place her hand over her heart, I almost cried for her. It would take everything I had not to ugly-cry while receiving an Olympic medal. I don’t know if I could even stand. Would it be un-patriotic for me to collapse in a snotty puddle while the national anthem played and men and women in military service saluted?

I always have to pretend the sun is in my eyes at the start of baseball games. I know, pathetic.

Whenever Anyone Else Cries

Please don’t cry in my presence. If you cry, I have to cry. I carry little packets of tissues wherever I go. If you start to cry, I’ll hand you a Kleenex and we will have a good cry together. I have cried with friends and strangers. Once, with a WWII POW when he told me how many of his buddies have passed during and since that war and how hard they fought and how proud they were to do it.

Books

Not many books make me cry, but when they do, roll up your pants legs. Here comes the flood. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague and The Border of Paradise: A Novel both made me cry buckets, but there were others. My new decorating book, The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful made me cry. My home doesn’t have to perfect to be beautiful?? Pass a tissue.

Music

This is a weird thing for even me to handle. Music makes me cry. It tickles my brain. Any kind of music will do it. I have to try not to cry. This can make me look a little looney in public. If I’m at home and the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s Fever To Tell makes me cry, then I’ll let it all out. Maybe my eyeballs need washing.

YouTube

So there’re a lot of social experiments where people are filmed doing the right thing. Like this one of an African man who receives a racist message on social media and asks strangers if they would interpret it for him. Or this one, where young people are asked to interview for a thankless job (the one their moms do). CRYING.

Yoga

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s all the breathing. I just pretend I put too much downward in my dog.

Movies

Of course. What am I? A monster?

 

Now, to be sure, all this boo-hoo-ing takes place between my normal emotions, like crying at normal things, general well-being and happiness, feelings of gratitude (when I remember I’m not homeless and, dear God, what they must cry about), love for my family and friends and laughing at funny things.

Humans are the only animals that can cry from feelings. Crying makes us feel better and it may help us to connect with others. I think that’s good, don’t you? Tears make us human.

Courtesy of Flickr, Machiel van Zanten
Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons, Machiel van Zanten

Which makes me cry.

 

 

Guns and Roses: A Gracious Guide To Southern Lifestyles

Are you on vacation? I hope so. I hope your current (or future) vacation is full of sun, fun, water, wine, interesting culture and new food.

I, myself, am in Texas helping out my mom as she recovers from surgery. It is July. It is hot. Incidentally, July is pronounced JU-ly in Texan…as in we don’t go up to the high school in JU-ly. We say, “the high school,” because normally there is only one in town. It may have 50,000 students with five satellite campuses and a football stadium that inspired Jerry Jones to build his own, but normally one high school.

I love it here. I’m proud to call myself a Texan. When I was younger, I poo-pooed all over being a Texan. Couldn’t wait to get out of this backwards dry spot and live somewhere, “cool.”

I mean, I got over myself and made a pretty good, “adult life,” in Texas. I even convinced my heat-hating Midwestern boyfriend (now husband) to move here and life here for us was good and sweaty.

Source: http://www.quickmeme.com
Source: http://www.quickmeme.com

Then we moved to the Northeast.

I like it there too.

But there’s no place like home.

Mother’s asleep (Vicodin) and I’m out on the porch. It’s windy, in that oven-hot, whoosh-y way it blows out of the south. Roofers are taking a well-deserved siesta under a neighbor’s shade tree across the street, feet propped up on a big red cooler, straw hats over their eyes. An anole lizard puffs out his rosy throat, looking for love from the back of the wicker chair closest to mine. Maybe he’s telling me this is his porch and I’m trespassing.

Who knows. I don’t speak lizard. Not very well, anyway.

Thanks to a rainy spring and early summer, the crackling, brown cover of this part of the world has yet to take over. We have soft, green grass in the yard and bright, pretty flowers in the beds and the pots. The Africanized bees and the wasps are not as angry as they could be and the fire ants can still find what they need underground. Watch for mosquitos carrying Zika and West Nile and you can sit outside quite a while before finding yourself devoured.

Outside of the cities, the life is quieter, the speech is slower, the BBQ tastes better and the radio sounds fantastic.

By bdunnette - http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdunnette/4760750460/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14167909
By bdunnette – http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdunnette/4760750460/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14167909

 

I’m not sure I ever remember actually seeing a gun rack in the back of a pick-up, but most people have a few guns. It’s not scary. They also grow roses and tomatoes, make wine and put up peppers.

When I was a little girl and visiting my grandmother in the country, we’d sit on the back stairs and hull peas and shuck corn. I took that time for granted. I’d give anything to only have to worry about getting through all those paper sacks of peas and corn before I could run off and play with my summer friends. You don’t have to travel to India to find your Zen. Just hull a bazillion peas on a sultry East Texas morning. You’ll find your center sure enough.

In spite of the caricature of the dumb, redneck Texan, education is highly valued, as well as having fine manners and loving your neighbor.

This explains a lot.
This explains a lot.

Just like the rest of America.

Now, I’m proud in Pennsylvania. We have Tastykake! Among other wonderful delicacies (oh, the french fries), sights and sounds.

What’s in your state?

Milk, Milk, Lemonade

All I wanted to do was laundry. Mountains of it, because of a weekend getaway. A getaway with not much time for internetting or emailing or streaming. I was out of the loop, for like, two days.

My energy level lagged a little. I  had a vacation hangover, so I thought I would find some upbeat music to make the unpacking pass. Beyonce popped in my head. I think because she trended on Twitter and Facebook as I checked them after hours in the wilds of Southern Ohio. I also received several emails about her (not from her, so I deleted them). I wouldn’t say I was in the Beyhive, but I like her music and have been known to sing along to, “Survivor,” once or twice. Loudly.

So Spotify apologized for not having Lemonade yet but assured me they were working on it. I’d never seen a message like this before on Spotify. Usually, they are trying to get me to upgrade to a paid subscription (they don’t know how cheap I am). But considering I didn’t even know Lemonade existed, I wasn’t too disappointed.

 

Beyonce Is Dirty And Needs A Bath

Shuffle the Beyonce playlist? Don’t mind if I do.

I’m thinking, “Best Thing I Never Had,” or “Irreplaceable.” “Single Ladies,” would be nice.

I got, “Drunk In Love.”

Explicit version.

The Spotify explicit version.

Which sounds like the normal explicit version, except for a bonus Jay Z rap.

Did he just say he impregnated his bride’s mouth?? Why, yes he did.

He said a bunch of other things too, but I can’t put them in this post because my mother will read it. She may be the only one too, so I need to hold onto her.

After I picked myself up off the floor, I actually listened to the song.

It was dirty. No two ways about it. I mean, I already knew what it was about, but I didn’t know WHAT IT WAS ABOUT. Mostly, because I can’t understand it.

Surfboarding – Thought that was a coastal recreational pastime.

Cigar’s on ice? Use this ashtray, otherwise, the paper will get soggy and won’t stay lit properly.

Drinking watermelon…I love fruit based smoothies! Pass one here 🙂

A young friend of mine explained. Surfboarding and grinding on wood. Well, that’s about the actual act of lovemaking, Jen. Grow up.

Cigar’s on ice is a term for a sexually frustrated male human being. Obvs.

Drinking watermelon. Watermelon has seeds. THINK ABOUT IT. Semen??

 

I’m A Mayon

I’m no prude. Remember the Berlin song from the 80s? “Sex (I’m A)?

Please, please, please watch the video, and then come back.

That was dirty, but they spelled it out for us in the song lyrics. Then they provided some weird visual cues for us, in case we were still unclear.

We start, in the video, with entering a woman’s red lipsticked mouth and then we travel through a tunnel. There is a dude with make-up pawing a mannequin. Some hot kissing and hugging action reflected in a shattered mirror, 80s style.

Um, a big buffet? Lots of food and cutting of big roasts and that sort of thing. Oysters and grapes.

We end with Terri Nunn and the dude with the Revlon blush-on, bumping into each other at a party, both of them with their cigars on the ice. They clutch each other with delight because they are about to go SURFBOARDING.

Ah, THAT was music, kids! All dirty and filthy. A clearly stated message.

Frankly, Beyonce and Jay Z just confuse me.

UPDATE: Rumor is Jay Z may be getting his wood ground somewheres else. I hope they work it out because he does like to look at her fatty.