So I Turned Myself to Face Me

Here is a photo of a red door with a fun address.

I'm still deleting D songs from my iTunes. Tonight I made it through all the David Bowie I have - which is a lot. I like David Bowie. When my girls were little, they liked him too, but they called him David Bowdie. They must have felt that he needed a harder consonant to break up the vowel sounds in his last name.

When I first went away to college, I had no idea what to expect. It never occurred to me in all the years after my mom died that I would be free of my aunt and uncle's control. I think I assumed I would just drop dead the minute I turned 18, but I didn't and I hadn't planned for that. So, I went to college, because that's what everyone I knew did.

My roommate didn't show up until the next day, so I spent my first night in my dorm room alone. It was hard to imagine a life where I wouldn't be constantly yelled at, threatened and belittled. What would I do with the hours of free time I would have now that I didn't have to cook and clean for six people all day long? It was weird to think I could leave my room anytime I chose and do whatever I wanted. The possibilities scared the shit out of me.

It was all so unfamiliar to me, this freedom and a room where people had to have permission to enter. It was hard to sleep. I lay in bed listening to all the strange voices out in the hallway, trying to imagine what the people who were speaking out there would be like? Then from the other side of my room, I heard music coming from the courtyard through my open window. It was echoing off the other walls, so it was hard to make out at first. Then I realized it was David Bowie's "Space Oddity", followed by "John, I'm Only Dancing" and "Changes". I found out later they were playing the ChangesOneBowie album. I had never heard it before, but it was exactly what I needed that night. It was finally something familiar and good. Lying in bed, and being calmed into sleeping by music was something I had done since I was a little kid. I went out and bought the greatest hits album as soon as I found a record store in Cedar Falls. It was my first music purchase as a free woman.

On a Wire Between Will and What Will Be

First off tonight, I want to share a YouTube video with you that JWilliam from The Baby Seal Club added to my comments. If you're not a big Motorhead fan, (or even if you are) it might be too loud and creepy for you. Fortunately or unfortunately, it takes a lot for something to be too loud and creepy for me. Anyway, if you're interested, here it is.

Today was Friday and it was okay. We got through the afternoon, like we too often do, by talking about our favorite episodes of The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock. Once we ran that into the ground, we all made fun of the one viagra commercial where they use that Elvis song to sing, "Viva Viagra". My main boss was talking about the list of side effects and was trying to imagine how uncomfortable it would be to have an erection lasting longer than four hours. Then my co-worker John said, "If I had a four hour erection, I'd go downtown with it." Then we all had to carry that wonderful image of him walking around downtown showing off.

After work, I dropped the girls off at the high school football game and gave them money for pizza and pop, which is exactly how Donna Reed always fed her kids on TV, I'm sure. Then I went running. The weather was perfect, and just as I was getting to Scott Boulevard, and all full of runner's high, The Breeder's "Cannonball" came on my Mp3 player. My neighbor was running the opposite direction and we very clumsily gave each other a high five as we passed. I felt compelled to add an obnoxious "Whoooo!" to it. I'm always good for that. Later in my run, as I was heading down Dodge Street and getting a little sluggish, "Maniac", by Michael Sembello, came on and quite literally ended my run on a positive note. It could only have been better if there had been someone to spray me with a hose while I ran in place...Maybe next time.

Okay, so here's where I reach out to you, my kind readers, for help. I'm still trying to get my XBox live going. Not so much because I'm ready to play people, (although I'm totally up for playing Uno with Q. and Fringes too, if she plays) but I really, really want to download old school arcade games. Alas, I can't get it going. I hooked it all into my router like it said in the instructions and my computer is working just fine through it, but I'm getting nothing from the XBox. I would be ever so grateful if anyone could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

After I got too frustrated trying to work my XBox, I gave up and watched the first four episodes of this season's Weeds. I had a year of free Showtime and it ends tomorrow, (or today) so I won't get to see the rest of the season until it comes out on DVD. Wah.

Now I gotta crash.

I Can Feel the Devil Walking Next to Me

I can't remember the last time I posted a photo of a barn, and you know how much I like to look at barns.

I think Mr. Dateman is getting a little cocky about his ability to get REALLY bad songs stuck in my head for long periods of time. I have to give it to him, he does seem to have a special gift for that, and there's probably no one else who would be quite as impressed by those kinds of mad skillz as I am.

This weekend, he apparently had a devious scheme to expose me to some exquisite cheesiness and then hope it would ooze into that soft, impressionable part of my brain that would house it for days, until it finally loosed itself from the goo or was replaced by something else even worse. His plot was foiled, however, because he couldn't find the song he wanted to torture me with.

"So, are you at least going to tell me what it was?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"That's so mean of you." He said the mean was good, because it helped balance things out a little.

"That's true," I conceded. "When a guy is as nice you are, it makes a girl wonder if there aren't bodies buried in the basement somewhere."

I hate to say it, because I have a feeling it will make him that much more smug, but even without finding the song he wanted, he still managed to get "One Night in Bangkok" stuck in my head for two full days now. Damn it!