Stay up all night with me.

Some song lyrics that are sort of blowing my mind right now:

"Summer leaves you like the girl that gets away."
"See, I miss you most days in kaleidoscope ways./Calling you up keeps me normal."
"She don't have her momma's hips yet so she stole her momma's lipstick."
[The Alternate Routes]

"In a town where you could sum up every girl with just one sentence/Give or take the subject or the verb,/She shows up like the devil said penance --/Won't nothing ever be clear no more?"
"My love put the deep in the ocean/My love talked the sky into going with the blue."
"Lilly, I guess the best trick is to see the magic/Once you've seen the wires."
[Cory Branan]

"You left some stars in my belly."
[Jeff Buckley]

"As I recall, your eyes were bluer than robins' eggs./My poetry was lousy, you said./Where are you calling from?"
[Joan Baez]

"How many times have you heard someone say,/'If I had money, I would do things my way'?/But little they know, that it's so hard to find/One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind."
[This one is a bit sketchy -- The Band? Bob Dylan? Who was it, Mom?)

Today [being Tuesday] I woke up at 9:30. Slogged my way out of bed and into a shower, more like. Practically passed out when the steam took over. Anyway, smiled at some cute construction workers in yellow vests on my way to the library, where I failed to discover that Emma was not coming to our creative writing workshop, but did become a follower of my mother's blog. I kept checking my email, hoping she'd sent her story so I could work on it over hot chocolate. I gave up after, er, fifteen minutes, and went for hot chocolate.

"I need to leave by quarter of twelve," I told myself, thinking I could do some of the writing for my project in the time between noon and 2 PM, when I was heading to the fabric shop with Robert. (I needed a second opinion on some swatches.)

That's funny. You'd think that an hour at the coffee shop would be enough time to drink all the hot chocolate I could want. But then you'd be neglecting that fact that Paddy O'Furniture says to me, almost as soon as I walk in, "Any music requests? Or is too much to ask you to make a decision today?" I pulled Cory Branan from somewhere beneath my ribcage, in the vicinity of my liver, I would say, but that music was, surprise, unavailable to him.

"JACKSON BROWNE!" I exclaimed.

And there you have it. I stayed for an hour and a half. 12:30. Only forty-five minutes off schedule. I contemplated leaving after my second hot chocolate, but "The Road" came on, and I hadn't heard it in, like, a month, which in Jackson-days is practically a lifetime. "A whole month?" he teased. Then "You Love The Thunder'' played and it was just a big mess of Ashley-geek everywhere. Oh, and "Late For The Sky" led to a discussion of how my all-time favorite song is actually "Jewel Box" by Jeff Buckley. Off Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk, of course, but second to last on the second disc. He hadn't heard it because he never ventured too deeply into that particular disc. Can't say I blame him. In fact, I think I jealousy said, "Lucky!" (I'd give back "Satisfied Mind" if you'd take back "Your Flesh Is So Nice.")

But I saw him digging "Doctor, My Eyes." Everyone enjoys that song. (By the way, "digging" is directly lifted from Erich, my ping-pong buddy.) Then I apologized for making him listen to music from the 1970s, as something off Running on Empty played. And he said, "It's okay; this album came out the year I was born." Touche, sir.

Anyway, Edinburgh Fabrics is sort of... I don't want to say unhelpful because he did help me, and he bent the rules, but they're not gracious about anything, really. Beautiful fabrics, but they don't sell any pieces of fabric under 25 centimeters, which is legit, I think. Unless your idea of a swatch is less than a square inch off the corner. But I explained I needed about ten unique samples and I needed two of each -- and that it was for a school project -- at which point, he was like, "I can sell you ten centimeter pieces." So that was lucky, I guess. I think he just wanted to get rid of me. So, helpful, yes, but not gracious. Oh, Fabric Place, you will be sorely miss.

Swatches, people. Swatches.


Sometimes, when I'm walking through Edinburgh and I'm just minding my own business, with my iPod on my "Adventuring Shuffle," I am taken by surprise. For instance, the other day, I was feeling sort of dreary. Not miserable, just a bit lost and confused and "Why do I have to make life decisions NOW?" And then, ohohoh, you hear that intro?

It stopped me in my tracks, those snares and that bass. You can't be unhappy when you're working on a steak and run into Waddy at the Rattlesnake Cafe.

Sometimes, John Hiatt does it, too. "She has the wind as a witness; she has feelings that fly by night./She believes in forgiveness, but it's not love if it holds too tight./You can fly beside her, but you gotta go where your heart says go./She lets the bright lights guide her, through the wind and the driving snow./Where it comes from, she don't know."

Speaking of snow, I hear the folks back in my fair city got absolutely dumped on. Who's jealous? Ashley's jealous. I don't WANT to be done with snow for the winter. Flowers are pretty, but petals don't fall in quite the same way. It's like how pine burns steady and all that, but nothing burns with quite the passion of birch bark.

Oh, and I also had my workshop for my ten-pager for creative writing. There is something deeply wrong and unsettling about it and I can't touch on what, precisely, it is. Will and Beth thought it was fantastic; Will was especially fond of the first two pages and the ending. I like to think that the first two pages constitute some of my most lyrical writing to date, but who knows. Will actually said he got choked up at one part, but I think that was hyperbole, Big W style.

Either way, there's something off -- I'm counting on either Sara or Stace to identify it for me so I can fix it before submission.


So when did "equal" begin meaning "the exact same"? Forgive me for not being totally enlightened, and Sara would kill me if she was reading this but I know lots of girls who would do secret fist pumps and "Hell yeah"s. "Equal" does not actually mean "the exact same." I guess, yeah, technically, that would fall under the jurisdiction of "equal," but what about this: evenly proportioned or balanced? There needs to be balance, not sameness.

There are rules and roles.

And if I have to be the one who gives birth, I think you can muster the strength to be the one to do the asking. And facebook-asking does not count. Especially not when you see me multiple times a week, anyway. I'll cook your dinner, but you have to buy me dinner first.

Long day tomorrow. (Today by the time this gets posted.)

10:30 - meeting with Professor Wormald to discuss an independent project, those damn Hampshire students
11:10-1 - Class
1-whenever: SPARTACUS SPARTACUS SPARTACUS SPARTACUS

Then finishing my project in a likely all-nighter, Michael Lesy style. I think the night I completed work on my first Lesy final remains the single greatest night of my college career. I can't even tell you how in love with that project I was, how much it meant to me.

Maybe, maybe, maybe hot chocolate in between Spartacus and my project.




More lyrics? Yes, I think you want them. You think so, too.

"Yes, you're sensitive, quite expensive your life's become./Yes, you're beautiful, indisputable, in place of fun."
"Isabel, she treads so lightly/Floating in her gypsy dresses./Even as her words cut deep/I can't deny the truth in them./On the phone, she talks a lot/And me, I listen hopelessly/So directionless, I head into oblivion."
[Ben Jelen]

"Feeling better since I surrendered;/You can't climb until you're ready to fall./You're not a land mine/You're not a gold mine./No, you're not mine at all."
"I remember all the little things you said/Quesadillas made with cheese/And a rock band who were Japanese./So for once, in my life/I saw what I wanted/And took a bite."
[Ben Lee]

"Can you love me like crosses love the nape of the neck?"
"He's stolen hearts like they're horses and horses when hearts can't be found."
"Sometimes I've been corrupted, but I've never been in love."
[Josh Ritter]

"People will tell you what to do/Where your head should be./They don't tell me anything/I haven't already heard before, only better said./We all want focus/We crave company/But we're cross-eyed and punch-drunk from too much scenery."
"You know, I learned how to kiss you/Watching a movie starring James Dean."
[The Judybats]