angeles.

day 86. angeles. by elliott smith.

am i the only who thinks that elliott smith fits perfectly with whatever the weather is outside? cozying up on the couch with the snow falling outside? perfect - put on some elliott smith. hopping in rain puddles on the first day of spring? elliott would be the ideal soundtrack. basking in the sunlight with wind in my hair and peppery skin. ELLIOTT. dodging blowing leaves on a windy, fall day?.... you get the point.

i'll never understand why all of my friends go into doom and gloom mode anytime i try and listen to some elliott smith. when i tried to listen to him in the car awhile back i got the following reactions:

"ugh, not this again."
"are you depressed?"
"why are you doing this to us?"
"really, why?"
my friends are whacked, basically.

angeles is a lovely song and reminds me of the first boyfriend i actually cared about. i have all of these songs that remind me of people from my past, and sometimes I wonder what songs remind people of me. it's a scary thought actually. one that i may do some digging into.

stay tuned... actually i should make the statement that this is my official comeback. new year, new me, etc. etc. 

sight of the sun.

day 85. sight of the sun. by fun.

holy freaking crap. i can't even explain to you just how much i love this song. i'm not lying to you when i say that it gives me a knot in my stomach each and every time i hear it. & i hear it a lot because i have been playing it multiple times a day.

i am not one of those people who, when they aren't in love, can't handle a love song. i am the biggest advocate of other people falling in love. & that's why i love this song, because i know that when i finally DO fall in love it's going to feel just like it does listening to this song. i also know that i'd be lying to myself if i claimed that when i hear this song, i only think of SOMEDAY and not someone RIGHT NOW.

Big surprise here (NOT), when i tell you that i am once again hopelessly falling for one of my favorite people. this happens often to me and generally ends terribly. i recently revealed this in a previous post, but i kinda hoped the issue would be resolved, squashed, kaput by now. but no. of course not. i'm putting myself out there right now by posting this because i'm sure he doesn't know i feel this way. ideally by the time i get around to posting this, he will either know and i'll have moved on or he will be my main squeeze. there is also the possibility that things will end badly and i will NEVER post this.

stay young, do dancing.

day 84. stay young, go dancing. by death cab for cutie.

happy 29th birthday to me.

today i did a lot of thinking about just HOW MUCH I LOVE the people in my life. and let me tell you, it is lots. years go by and by, and though i don't feel any older, i sure do feel luckier and luckier each day to be surrounded by the people I have in my life. I can't remember the last time that I ever felt alone, or unhappy, or unable to face a new day because I'm constantly brought up and supported by my friends and my lovely family.

I know that my "realist" attitude often gets taken to be more pessimistic or dramatic than anything, but make no mistake I love this life I lead. my birthday has just been a great day to take it all in, and realize I AM SO LUCKY and GRATEFUL for everything that surrounds me. I know it should be scary entering my last year as a 20-something, but it's not. don't get me wrong, I have no idea where the past 10 years have gone, and that is terrifying - but life just keeps getting better each day I roll out of bed. & I've decided that this will be my theme song for year 29 aka my best year yet.

just give me a reason.

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day 83. just give me a reason. by pink & nate ruess.

here’s the truth that I’m not quite ready to admit to myself, let alone you. I don’t need someone to walk me home. I am not scared to walk home alone at night or in the sunlight. I just want to spend more time with you.

it’s just not fair that lovesick feels the same whether you are falling in, falling out, worried, nervous, anxious, elated. it’s the SAME feeling. and it’s either the worst or the best depending on the situation.

I’m feeling now just like a felt a couple months ago when someone ripped my heart out and I couldn’t eat or sleep or sit still waiting for the feeling to just pass and it did pass. I knew it would. but I don’t think this will. or at least not quite so easily. because when that happened, you were the only person I wanted to talk to. and even though I didn’t admit it even then, that’s when I knew this was going to be a major problem. & of COURSE that is definitely me overreacting. this could be a GREAT thing or it will fizzle and I will be fine because i always am.

snow white.

82. snow white. by jaymay.

 

i originally was drawn to this song because it was called snow white. & i thought it would be about princess snow white and that excited me. songs about princesses. this is just one example of what goes through my mind in a typical day.

this is one of those songs that i always thought was beautiful, but could NOT relate to at all. and then one day i found that i could, and that confused me. and worried me. and frankly freaked me out for about 3 months until i admitted the way i was feeling to myself. now comes the time to admit it to the rest of the world because i've hit that breaking point where i feel like i'm about to explode. i'm ABOUT TO TURN 29. HOW AM I STILL HAVING LIFE EXPERIENCES THAT ARE SIMILAR TO 13 YEAR OLDS? HELP ME. secret crushes should end by AT LEAST your mid 20's and i'm pushing 30 here. this cannot be healthy. it just cannot. 

take your time (coming home)

day 80. take your time (coming home). by fun.

let the love fest for nate ruess continue.

there is just something about going to a concert and singing along that makes you fall in love with life. maybe because it's giving you a chance to speak those things that you want to say but never got a chance to. to declare to the world that you're happy. or in love. or angry. or broken, but getting back to normal. that has always been the reason that i love music, period. and singing along with hundreds of people just takes it to the next level. just another reason why i should have learned the violin years ago, because i could be in a band by now.

fun. is just so great in concert and i didn't want the night to end. i was beyond happy when they played my favorite fun. song which you can listen to above. the worst part of the night was when this creepy, drunk yinzer stared at me the whole time. & i'm not saying that to brag, because he was not pleasant looking and seemed to be kind of a d bag. oh well. my favorite line in the song is as follows (& i guess i could apply it to him, too):

& the truth is that i feel better because i've forgiven everyone.

life is good. :)

daughter

day 78 daughter. by loudon wainright III

happy father's day to my pops!

this is our father/daughter song. i know this because the first time i heard this song, i had to keep on playing it because it just reminded me so much of our father/daughter relationship. & then one day we were riding in the car and it came on our favorite radio station and he said "it's our song!" even though i had never mentioned it to him.

i am a daddy's girl, which is 100% obvious if you listen to this song. i am also 100% lucky to have the dad i have, because not only does he spoil me, he goes on long runs with me, gets my whacked out sense of humor, and never turns down a 2 hour roadtrip to see one of our favorite bands. the bar is set high for my future husband. i hope for my dad's sake, though, that someday i will get married and we can dance to this. i, of course, will be bawling my eyes out the entire time.

listen to the land.

day 77. listen to the land.

oh yes. this song makes me feel 7 years old again. i had this song on a record when i was younger and we would listen to it when we were packing to go to Disney World. I am in love with Disney World, if you didn't know. & EPCOT is one of my favorite places on this planet. just listening to this song now makes me wish i were there right now.

My brother and I are probably two of the luckiest kids ever because our parent's spoiled us with trips there every year. I am so thankful now because I have some of the greatest memories, and I'm certain that those trips are partially the reason why my brother and I are still so close to this day.

However, in spite of all the great memories, i have one horrible one. On one excursion, when I was probably in the 1st grade, I got really ticked off over the actions of a costumed character. I don't understand why they always have to kiss you (hello intimacy issues), but I let it slide because i just love mickey. anyway, i got extremely angry when one of Cinderella's mice, PERLA, decided to give my dad a kiss. I was so upset that I was crying and everyone thought it was hilarious. and then when we got home, my parents thought it would be a good idea to send my dad a postcard and act like it came from the freaking character. i didn't think it was funny. i was legitimately frightened that my dad was going to leave our family for a cartoon mouse.

forever and ever, amen.

day 76 forever & ever, amen. by randy travis & the avett brothers.



one of my favorite songs ever sung as a duet with my favorite band ever.

for some reason i have always loved this song. i think i heard it for the first time on one of those time life commercials when i was younger and it's always been a fave. it's such a cheesy love song and always a sign of a good day when i hear it. in fact, hearing it was the inspiration for my country themed Christmas party this year.

i stumbled upon this cover by accident, and ever since have been hoping and praying that someone will serenade me with this. i can only hope that my future boyfriend ends up going back and reading this and then acting upon my greatest wish. i would probably faint.

carried away.

day 75. carried away. by passion pit.

my new theme song & i think the girl in this video is my soul sister.

my summer goal is to have a show down with a bus. the streets in my neighborhood are narrow, but still busses mosey on down & corner cars so they have to back the whole way down the street.  Then the bus drivers don't even acknowledge with a proper thank you. it's the second part of that story that sends me over the edge. if you're going to make me back it up (in any area of my life) then i want a proper thank you. but no. it's not happened once in the 30 times I've had to do it. so.. my goal is to sit there the next time it happens and make the BUS back up. i told my mom this story and she said "sometimes I worry about you."

i get carried away easily. so easily. but i think that's why i'm so fun to be around, MOM.

flowers in your hair.

day 74. flowers in your hair. by the lumineers.

this song is short, sweet, and right to the point. it's per.fec.tion. & i am listening to it on repeat all day long.

cinema.

day 73. cinema. by benny benassi.

help. i like a techno song. it's not okay & i don't know what to do about it, but send a little wish out into the universe that this is not the first of many.

girlfriend.

day 72. girlfriend.

maybe i am just including this song so i make it perfectly clear that i am not the only person who has ever acted like a total weirdo over a boy.

st. patrick's day 2005 & unnamed friend is sitting at her computer playing this song over and over and over again and bawling her eyes out. it might have been sad if it was a sad song playing, but the rest of us, who were sitting in the living room in our festive green just could not stop laughing. it's such a ridiculous song, and i'm 99% sure said friend called up the guy with the girlfriend and played this song for him over the phone.

months later when we were sure that bringing up the song wouldn't make her upset, we reminded our friend about that day and laughed and laughed and laughed. to this day, it is one of our favorite stories & a perfect memory. how boring would life be if girls never lost their shit over a boy. there'd basically be zero fun stories to tell.

hit or miss.

day 71. hit or miss. by new found glory.

new found glory (insert smiley face with heart eyes here)!!!!!! so 00's.

once upon a time, my 18 year old brother went to the new found glory concert and took a friend instead of his 15 year old sister... (HOW DARE HE.. am I right??). To make me feel better, he brought me home a water bottle that he swore the lead singer threw into the crowd. looking back now, i'm pretty sure he found it on the ground and brought it to me just to placate me and stop me from moping around the house. at the time, though, I truly believed him. I kept that water bottle next to my bed like it was filled with holy water and showed it off anytime a friend would come over. flash forward to a few weeks in the future when I ACCIDENTALLY took a sip of the dirty, old, warm water thinking it was a different bottle.

i thought it was cool at the time that i started puking the next morning - especially because i told everyone that "Jordan from new found glory" got me sick. but really, looking back, i got sick because i drank some dirty stranger's month old water. i'd say this is a cautionary tale, but i'm pretty sure no one else out there is ridiculous enough to make this same mistake.

 

san dimas high school football rules.

day 70. san dimas high school football rules. by the ataris.

the first thing I think of when I hear this song is lovespell-scented lotion from victoria's secret. I don't know about anyone else my age, but at my school we were obsessed with that stuff for all of highschool. obsessed might not even convey just how many bottles of lotion and body spray I had. I mean i'm actually positive that I still have a stockpile of some at my parent's house that I've not even been able to use yet. I liked it because it made me smell like fruit by the foot. I guess that's weird.

the second thing I think of is my best friend thea because this was one of our high school anthems. we went through a stage where we listened to this song over and over again and replaced the whitney in "whitney, don't you understand here what I say is true, I just want you to know I have a major crush on you." with whomever we had a crush on at the moment. (sidenote: I actually just did that to myself while playing this song again for the first time in years. whoa. revelation. I didn't even KNOW I had a crush on that person. yikes.) I though I would write more about how thea and I started safety-pinning our clothing together and temporarily changed our names (I called myself Zoe), but now I think I need to go and mentally wrap my head around these feelings for my so called crush and why i'm 28 years old and still getting crushes on people like I did when I was 16. help.

old friend.

day 69. old friend. by sea wolf.

when people aren't messing with my music at work, i discover great songs. like this one. i'm sure i've said it before, but the reason i love reading and listening to music is because i always find that other people can express how i feel ten million times better than i ever could. this is a song that expresses exactly how i feel today. & exactly what i would say if i could.

i was a fool.

day 68. i was a fool. by tegan & sara.

if i sang karaoke, i would sing this song. i lived this song for 5 years & there isn't all that much i can say about it. but i would definitely sing about it. if i wasn't worried an agent would discover me. i have no more time for another job.

mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

day 67. mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. by waylon jennings & willie nelson.

happy mother's day!

i think my mom worried about me for awhile in my mid-twenties when i went through a country phase. i became a member of, and solely hung out at, the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, started playing pool, wearing more plaid than normal, and started listening to songs like this in the car.

luckily i remained mostly unscathed. if not, i'm a little more rough around the edges and it's all for the best. i'm 100% nostalgic about that time in my life, and look forward to someday in the future when I ditch the city lifestyle and live in the middle of nowhere.

can't help falling in love.

day 66. fleet foxes. can't help falling in love.

in middle school i was digging a guy in the high school marching band.  & despite being hilariously unathletic and a major advocate of hanging out indoors, i used to walk/run the track with my mom just in hopes of glancing the marching band practicing. that summer leading to eighth grade they played "can't help falling in love." and i just pathetically felt that way about my crush. & his dinkles. if you don't know what dinkles are, you just wouldn't understand. but, go ahead and google it.

i heard this version the other day, and it is honestly one of the most beautiful songs i have ever heard. every single time i hear this song, in any form, it takes me back to summer nights at age 13. which is when everything SEEMS so complicated, but is really one of the last times in life when it's EASY. if only we would realize it at the time. enjoy!

joy.

day 65. joy. by ellie goulding.

one of the reasons i love music is because sometimes a song just gets you right in the heart. or the gut. or the head. this song got me in all three the first time i heard it. since one of my personal goals in the past few months has been to let joy into my life, this song made me feel like i could take on the world. i'm always in awe of the way musicians or authors or even just my friends can word things in a way that sticks with me. in case you were wondering one of my favorite intentions during yoga is "let joy in." namaste, ellie.