I realized last night that the best advice for myself right now is expressed in the lyrics of the DJ Tiesto/Kristy Harkshaw song "Just Be". Well duh... it helps that the track makes me feel like I'm flying.
( Just Be )

I also realized that not going to the gym for a month has had a detrimental effect on my moods. I'm going to go tonight. I need more sleep and more gym time, and I think that will help. The problem is that I keep having things that I do in the evening, and there is NO way I'm getting up early enough to go before work.

Holy crap it's been a long week. After my fantabulous weekend I had to do the first 40 hours of my 80 hour training for DYS. Urgh. Had to drag my ass to Grafton, which is just this side of Worcester every morning. It's an hour if I drive straight from my house, it's an hour and forty if I have to go into Boston to meet with my coworkers when my roommate needs her car.

After seeing who some of the other DYS staff are, I fear for the kids in the system. There were a couple law-enforcement types who kept asking how/when you got to touch/hold etc a kid. One was asking about cavity searches. Urgh. We don't do them ever, and he seemed to think that strip searches were OK to do whenever. He fails to understand trauma and the history that most of our kids are coming from. I was one of 5 clinicians in the training. And oy... I debate whether or not half of them should be working with kids. What ever happened to "they're kids, not criminals". The good part is that I now know the DYS restraint, so I can move kids between areas and not get yelled at for not having training. I'm at work this week, then I go back next week for another 40 hours. Eugh.

fly_molo came down last night and we went to the They Might Be Giants concert at the Berkeley Performance Center. The opening act blew goats, he was highly pretentious and had the most boring, formulaic song writing ever. If he hadn't been an overweight, balding, 40something guy, I would have said that everything was written by a 12 year old girl. Just... ick. However, TMBG rocked. In honor of the 20th anniversary of their Flood album, they played Flood, in it's entirety, in order. It was glorious. They were awesome. And we had 3rd row mezzanine seating. It ruled.

As an aside : HAPPY BIRTHDAY fly_molo!!! You're 21, don't be an idiot about it.

I've been in a food rut recently. I often get home from work starving, but not knowing what I want to eat. It sucks. I made falafel tonight because I had a ton of chickpeas that needed eating. I need a food processor. The one that I've had is busted. And making things like hummus and falafel would be so much easier with a food processor. I broke my potato masher today trying to smush the chickpeas.

I had a friend IM me out of the blue on Friday night. I haven't heard from this guy since 2000-ish I think. He went into the Navy and then promptly fell of the face of the planet. Apparently he's married, with a 3 year old. YahooMail has been automatically starting YahooMessenger when you log in. And I've had that email since high school, so he decided to IM me. So strange! Incidentally, stoner_cowboy also found me on YM. The internet is a strange and small place.

And I'm crushing hugely right now. Like to the point where I'm distracted at work. It's bad.

Stolen from redstapler


visited 23 states (46%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Like this? try: Mapped Web

Between growing up in New England, track meets and mr_mindless's penchant for road trips, I've hit more states than I thought.

Also: I have a new favorite song.

I grew up with a lot of folk music. And a lot of it was Gordon Bok and Stan Rogers. Lots of old sea-chanty type stuff. Tragically, Stan Rogers died in a plane crash years ago. The first one here is "Mary Ellen Carter"



The song itself starts around 1:40. I love this song.

And then Barrett's Privateers. Good rollicking chanty. Enjoy!



madmazula and fly_molo and I sing this together.

I should be cleaning, going grocery shopping and otherwise prepping for my party tonight. But I'm procrastinating.

Filmstrip International's video, using Jim's Big Ego's song "New Lang Syne". Safe for work.

I got sucked in by Discworld. I started with Night Watch, then moved on to Strata, am currently reading The Fifth Elephant and next is Thief of Time. I've had the latter 3 out from the library for a while, but didn't get past Strata before I had to return them because I was loaned The Graveyard Book by a friend of mine. And if a friend loans you a book, you read that one first. And it was really good! I've missed just tearing through books. I read probably 200 pages last night. It was nice to just sit on the couch with a mug of tea and my cat and read. Granted I kept exchanging texts with Trouble during it, but for the most part, I just read. Yay.

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but it's been on my mind for a while that I should read and knit more and watch TV or play video games less. I'm somewhat succeeding on that quest right now.

I was inspired partly by redstapler's post, and partly because my coffee kept tasting like ass to clean my coffee maker yesterday. Between the cleaning and switching back to whole-beans which I can measure better my cup this morning is much much better.

I was listening to Billie Holiday last night as I was reading. I need to find more old vocal jazz, because I love her stuff. And Ella Fitzgerald. Also, Antje Duvekot has a new album out. I got the email from her a few days ago, but hadn't checked out the samples she put up until this morning when I read lutraphile's squeeful post about it. And it turns out that not only did Richard Shindell produce the album, but she got Ellis Paul, John Gorka and a bunch of other awesome people to play/sing on the album. It is now a Must Buy album when it comes out in March. Incidentally, she's having 3 nights of CD release party starting on March 19. That may be an expensive week... I'm going to attempt to see Dropkick Murphys that week as well. Somehow my concert going comes in twos... odd...

I'm going to try to go dancing more. I miss dancing. The problem is that I'm perpetually broke. So I need to go to no-cover nights. Middlesex apparently has some good techno midweek, but I'm iffy on weeknight going out. We'll see.

I heard this song for the first time on my brother's radio station. And holy shit do the lyrics speak. The video is really poignant too. And as someone who deals with cases of abuse all the time, I'm going to try to use this song in my next Lyrics Analysis group with my teens. It should get a good discussion. They're coming to Boston the week of St. Patty's Day. I will scrounge tickets.
Safe for work.

This song makes me feel like I'm flying. It's the drums.

Pie for breakfast two days in a row... yay! I am now rather uncomfortably full though.

fly_molo gave me a CD full of music back in October, but I had forgotten to bring it back to my house here. He brought it down when he and madmazula came to make pie at my house on Wednesday. I just ripped it onto my computer, and I swear I've got an alternative radio station playing on my computer now. Half the songs are things that I would probably not listen to if they were not given to me, and many of them are things that I hear on WERS or WFNX on a regular basis. Apparently I now have "cool" music. This is what happens when your little brother has his own radio show.

I made pie crust all by myself on Wednesday! And I just kind of winged my apple pie recipe. Both came out marvelously. We also made a pumpkin and a maple-walnut pie. In addition, I made orange cranberry relish from cranberries from the bog on our land. It was also mighty tasty.

I should have lifted yesterday, but I had no energy. I slept until noon and was a complete lump all day. I need to find a good knitting pattern for the gloves I want to make. The pattern I have is for bulky yarn, and even though I got the gauge sort- of similar, it was not going to work at all. Bah...

WFNX played the new Killer's album in it's entirety on Friday night. I may have to go buy it, at the very least on iTunes. It's amazing. And I always forget how much I like The Killers. Youtube won't let me embed the video, but go here to watch their video for "Human". So good!