Eleven. Eleven. Eleven.

I couldn’t resist the elevens.  I make wishes on clocks when the numbers are the same so I feel like today I just earned myself one big ass wish!  After all it is 11/11/11.  So cool.  (I’m such a nerd about these things.)

And sidebar, here's another Eleven I just can't resist.  Me likey!

But so far, it’s been a good day.  For one, I managed to get the day off.  First time since I started the new job (woohoo!).  I slept until I woke up (what a novelty!) and got to do some leisurely writing this morning on my NaNoWriMo entry.

And the official stats stand at:

Day #11

Words Written: 21,402

Words to Go: 28,598

At this rate I’ll be done by November 25^th.

I’m almost at the halfway point and I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of impressed with myself.  I’ve written at least *something* every day since the event started and there is actually some kind of a story taking shape.  You see, I’m a pantser on a regular day, so to have a story keep pouring is the reason I can keep going.  For those not in the writing world, there are two kinds of writers – the plotter and the pantser.  Now I’m an obsessive plotter (a.k.a. a planner) in so many realms of my everyday life.  I make lists and I check them twice. I cross things off my to-do.  I need details. I need advanced notice.  I make my lunch the night before.  I like to have control. 

Yet in the place where it seems like planning ahead really matters, I kind of make it up as I go along. Hence, I’m a panster.  That means I don’t outline, I don’t plot ahead, I don’t have it all figured out. I fly a bit by the seat of my pants.  Though usually I at least know who I want the killer to be before I start writing.  Or how I want the story to end.  But when I leaped into this project, well not so much.

This time I had a title and an opening line that, no joke, came to me in the middle of the night.  It was maybe two years ago and I was staring at the ceiling in yet another early morning awakening insomnia nightmare night.  Scribbled it down in the notebook I keep in my nightstand, which is full of one-liners, late night ideas and dream recaps.  And I knew I had to use it.  That I could build a story around it.  (But I’m too superstitious to write it here just yet.)

I also knew my hero would be helping solve a murder because her boyfriend (or maybe her ex or maybe the one that got away or maybe the one she pushed away…I wasn’t quite sure of who he was yet) stood accused.  And 20,000 words later I’ve got characters and a murderer in mind and am coming up with suspects.  The clues aren’t quite planted because on page 80 I still don’t have it all figured out.  And I still haven’t settled on a name for my leading lady or much of the supporting cast.  But the beauty of the first draft is that it’s a total information dump.  I’m getting it all out there and I’m actually getting excited to see this story take shape.  And I’m committed to seeing NaNoWriMo through this time. 

It’s been sacrifice.  I’ve skimped on the gym and my life in the past two plus weeks has pretty much been eat and sleep and work and write.  Not much story to be telling there.  But since I’ve been doing so well I decided to work in some reward this week (hello Bliss massage and an overdue trip to the hair salon!).   

Ah yes, I’m all about the reward.  And no where was this more evident than when I got my mail last night.  Well this isn’t good:

The only reason I get the black card or the Luxe or whatever the store is calling it these days is because I’VE SPENT WAY TOO MUCH MONEY THERE.  (See the black Bloomies card for further evidence.) 

The Jules is calling to me....

But this???  Damn you J. Crew and your sales and your 25% offs and your reward cards.  I have a closet full of your stuff and I’m even trying to sell some of it on ebay since your newish store policy won’t even let me return things for even a store credit after 30 days.  That one kills me.  I did resist the urge to take advantage of this week’s sale. And trust me when I write, it wasn’t easy.  I can always find the need for some tees or sweaters or maybe even a second pair of wedges.  But there are also new arrivals and there’s this dress I’m eyeing, which I think would be great for days when I want to be comfy but still look nice at work. I’m having a late in life appreciation for the dress as the way to go and have been stocking my closet with them over the past few years. (So much easier!)  So we’ll see.  Knowing me I’ll crack. Knowing J.Crew this dress will be half off by Thanksgiving,  I’ll feel better getting it on a deal, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold out. 

And now Bloomies has Friends & Family going on.  Free shipping.  Oh and it’s also a hope, skip and a jump from my apartment.  I do need some new towels.  Too many Veteran’s Day sales knocking on my door.  Crap!

Trying to keep myself busy here - writing and cleaning to steer clear of the online shopping. I’m not really sure what happened to me but my willpower has been low, across the board for the past month or so.  Very off my game so trying to find a way to get it back and resist temptation. 

I’ve also reignited my Castle addiction.  Something about writing a mystery that makes me want to play the show about the mystery writer as my background noise.  I also picked up some songs from it today, which are going in my novel writing playlist. 

So the song of the day is “Pack Up Your Troubles” by Minnutes.  I read that it was originally a World War I marching song, but they revised the lyrics and that works for me:

I haven’t really been in a music mood lately, which is odd for me.  I’ve also let my DVR to get to 71% full yet I’m watching DVDs instead of the latest shows (or shows from two or three weeks ago because I’m that far behind).  Maybe when I hit 30,000 I’ll give my mind and my typing fingers a break and just lie on the couch for a few hours and watch TV. 

Until then, back to NaNo.  And to Beckett and Castle.  Inspiration all around!

50,000 Words In 30 Days? No problem!

Central Park in a different storm!

Happy to report that I am back in the land of the living and the land of electricity. I was a victim of this weekend’s snowstorm that came out of no where. (Way to downplay the storm in my parent’s part of the work EVER WEATHERPERSON IN NEW YORK.)  The “1 to 3” inches that were supposed to start after 9 p.m on Saturday night were about 3” before noon.

And it just kept snowing.

So I was stranded in the suburbs sans power, heat, trains and all the rest.  Now I could deal without the power, if it was a bit warmer in the house.  One of the many great things about visiting my parents and one of my favorite reasons for going is that I can essentially drop off the map and get the time out from life that I’m usually looking for.  So I’m fine without the internet and the a few days without TV, but the inability to cook sucked.  Ditto on the shower.  And wearing a winter hat, five shirts and two pairs of socks was not exactly fun.  Oh and the whole “I hope that tree doesn’t fall on the house” fear wasn’t exactly a walk in the park (more of a trudge in the snow…ba-dum-DUM!)

Maybe it was the brain freeze, but I found myself suddenly missing all the things I COULD have been doing if I was warm and there was light.  Like writing.  Trying to convince myself that if I had all the perks of home that I would actually be sitting down writing and not useless on the couch watching another episode of Housewives.  That I wouldn’t be just napping my weekend away. No.  No.  No. I’d be writing of course.  (Even though I haven’t in the weekend’s past.)

But I swore to myself that I would hit the ground running when the power came on.  IF the power came on.  Making deals with Mother Nature (and the powers that be at Con Ed) if they would just flip the switch and let there be light.  Now why Mother N. or a bunch of electricians would even care if I wrote again, I don’t know, but that’s beside the point.  And then the power came back.  And eventually the train. And life went back to normal (ish).  The good news is that I didn’t totally go back on my work and I wrote for the full 45-minute train ride home.  It may have just been free writing.  But writing it was.  I kept saying I’d get back to it, waiting for the time to be write…the mood to strike…the stars to align…my head to be in a better place.

And then I don’t.  And then I do it all over again the next day.  Or rather don’t do it.  Shortest path to staying unpublished?  Don’t write.  Not exactly rocket science.  And not exactly going to help me realize the dream.

In all fairness, I can pretty much find an excuse for anything.  Why I didn’t write today.  Why I didn’t read the book on how to edit my book to make it submission ready.  Why I skipped the gym.  Why I blew off my laundry for another day.  Why I don’t want to go to work.  Why I can put off today what I can also put off tomorrow.  I fully own the excuses for not doing these things (tired, lazy, world-class procrastinator).  But how lame is that?  I don’t want to be the all-talk girl.  There’s plenty of those kind of people in the world and honestly, they all kind of bug the crap out of me.  And then I realized I was becoming one of them. I had all these goals of things I’d accomplish by my birthday (I am more of resolutions on my birthday vs. at New Year’s kind of gal). But my birthday was three weeks again and I totally didn’t accomplish those goals.  Sigh. Boo.  Another year older and none the wiser.

There was some time to mull and sulk over what could’ve been.

And then it was time to pick myself up and try again. 

What I was in need of was a giant kick in the ass to get myself going.  I’m very deadline driven.  But one of the hardest things about being an I-am-dreaming-of-getting-the-call-that-an-agent-wants-to-represent-my-novel writer is that there isn’t an official deadline at the end of my road.  Just the self-imposed ones.  And I said it before, and I’ll say it again, you will often find me cleaning the bathroom instead of writing.  I think I can rationalize it in the sense that I may not be writing, but I’m still doing something active and accomplishing something legit.  I don’t know.  Makes sense up in my head. 

Doesn’t put any words on the page.

And then the universe gave me the ass kick.  It’s November 1^st which means it’s National Novel Writing Month.  For those of you who don’t know anything about NaNoWriMo, it’s simple (well not really):

1. You join a free online community of writers who took the pledge to spend the month writing their way to a new novel.
2. You write at your own pace.  Share the writing if you want.  Or keep it to yourself.  But definitely share your word count.  And write you ass off.
3. You have to start a new novel.  Not a work in progress. No back editing an old book.  New.  New.  New.  From scratch.
4. Oh and the goal is to write at least 50,000 words.  In 30 days.

Amaze-balls!

Yeah, so it’s not as easy as it sounds.  (When you break it down it’s less than 2,000 words a day but even that’s hard since even the best of the best don’t always write every day.)  But it’s up to the writer to do what they want with it.  The goal is to provide something workable and not 50,000 works of crap.  But what’s important is that you write. 

I’ll confess, I signed up a few years ago and I quit part way though.  I honestly don’t remember the details but am sure I just got off track, didn’t have my head in the game, made up some excuses, got frustrated when it got hard.  Welcome to the game!  If it was easy then everyone with a dream of writing would have written something. 

Fast forward to today and I’m not the same woman.

So I decided to do NaNoWriMo around 1:00 p.m. today and so far all I’ve written is this blog.  Part of my snowstorm pact with nature was that I would post at least two blogs a week, but now I’ve just road-blocked myself, so the next month is going to be interesting.  Factor in Thanksgiving and that’s going to be tricky.  Plus all that turkey can make a girl sleepy.

But here’s the what – towards the end of writing my last novel – a.k.a the one in desperate need of re-editing (the rejection forced me to see that the idea needed to be fresher, the stakes needed to be raised, and the whole thing just needed to be B-E-T-T-E-R) I kept having ideas for another mystery.  Someone getting murdered at work.  (That probably says more about where I was mentally at the time with my last job.)  Snippets of ideas and dialogue kept pushing through and I have little scribbles in a hundred different places.  So I decided that there’s no time like the present to get this baby out into the world.  Or at least out onto my computer.

So without any further ado, I’m off to Day 1 of NaNoWriMo.  I’ll be tracking my progress here and with a lot of focus and a lot of discipline I hope to be at 50,000 words in 30 days.  But for now, I’m going to worry about tonight, tonight and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.  (To paraphrase Terry Francona while talking to his 2004 Red Sox before Game 4 of the ALCS.)  Words I keep repeating.

I will cue the endless episodes of Castle and Bones and Murder, She Wrote (which often are the best background noise I can find).  And will also cue some music.  I must confess Kelly Clarkson came through again.  There’s just something about this girl and her anthems:

Anyone have any crazy goals for the next 30 days?  If not, why not do something to focus on your passions?  Consider this a challenge!

It's Not Difficult, But It's Hard

The Old Apartment
(cue BareNaked Ladies)

I’m a self-professed couch potato.  I won’t even pretend I’m not.  I can eat, sleep, read, watch endless TV and write all from the comfort of my I-die-for-my-red-L-shaped-sectional.  It’s from my former life in Boston where I had an actual one-bedroom apartment, which I do desperately miss some days (exposed bricks and soaring ceilings on Beacon Street….sigh).  But when I moved to NYC and it was time to buy, my pool of options was studios, and amongst my Top 5 must-haves: I wouldn’t even give a second thought to a place where my couch wouldn’t fit. 

So all these years later and the couch is here and so am I.  But it’s not that I’m a total sloth.  I will walk anywhere, any day, over taking subways or taxis, assuming time, weather and distance (or lack thereof) is on my side.  I walked home from my old job across town and love just spending my weekend walking the park or the neighborhoods or whatever.  On top of that I genuinely enjoy my yoga DVDs.  And I go to the gym. For my health.  For my psyche.  For my vanity. Do I love physically running every time?  Not so much. I don’t consider myself a “runner”.  I was a kid with asthma. (No inhaler jokes, please.)  I feel like a bit of a fraud when I go to a running store for new tees or a sports bra.  I’m not training for a marathon. I’m just a girl, who runs on a treadmill some days, because that’s what works for me.

But what I do love about the gym is that it’s total me time.  Music on.  World shut out.  I’m not dodging cars and buses and bike messengers on the street.  I’m in the semi-climate-controlled gym with a bunch of people who, as far as I can tell, are also mostly really interested in having their alone time.  (Minus the co-dependent gym couple who do synchronized workouts and make me want to scream CUT THE CORD!)  And for me, being at the gym runs a close second to being in the shower when it comes to the time I conjure up ideas, write stories in my head or work out my writing roadblocks.  

So while I was running in place I got to thinking about the many chats I’ve had with friends over the years, lamenting about our weight.  Wanting thinner thighs.  Tighter butts.  Whatever.  And we’re smart women and we know that losing weight and getting healthy is basically exercise + eating healthier (and maybe eating a bit less) = weight loss.  That formula isn’t so difficult.  But it’s hard. 

It’s hard to drag your ass to the gym sometimes. Work, sleep, life, family all seem to get in the way.  And even when you do have a successful workout, it can be hard to get your ass back to the gym the next time.  And the time after that.  It can be hard to resist the cookies or the pizza or the chocolate mousse.  It’s not so much difficult.  You just don’t order it.  Don’t buy it.  Don’t give in.  See, not so difficult. But on some days it’s so damn hard.

And in the grand tradition of one thing leading to another, I got to thinking about all those other things that aren’t necessarily difficult – we often know what the right decisions are, what we want, what we need.  But sometimes actually doing those things, making the not-so-difficult choices is hard.

Untangling yourself from the bad relationship.  You know it’s not working.  Or that you’re not into it anymore.  Or that you deserve more.  Or that you’re making excuses for someone else’s behavior.  Or, ugh! maybe ever for you own.  Whatever it is, you know it’s time to walk away and move on.  That even though there you were in love and there was a lot of good, these days it doesn’t outweigh the bad.  Not difficult to know what to do.  But sometimes it’s hard to get up and go. 

Ditto on the toxic friendship.  Or the friend you’ve just grown away from. It’s sad – sometimes downright heartbreaking when a person who was once so critical in your life is now someone you know so little about.  Or they are no longer that first person you want to call when something great or something horrible happens.  Or maybe it’s become the one-way friendship where you are always making the effort.  Or maybe you’re the friend who stopped returning the calls and emails because you don’t have anything to say.  You know you should just end the friendship, but it’s not that easy.  And it can be even more devastating that a romantic break-up.  But sometimes you just have to admit it’s over and close the door on that chapter. 

Reading that pile of magazines.  Now in all fairness I *may* have a slight giant problem when it comes to buying magazines.  I’m smart enough to subscribe to them so they are way cheaper (rationalization #1) and I’m supporting the struggling print industry (rationalization #2) and it’s one of the last vices I have left (rationalization #3).  They’re inspirations and I love looking at the fashion and I won’t lie, totally love the gossipy crap and will full on go out and buy a specific hair product because In Style told me that’s what Eva Mendes uses and who doesn’t want hair like Eva Mendes?  But I just can’t seem to keep up with this raging addiction.  Too many magazines, so little time….

Cleaning out my closet.  When I’m not being a sloth, or a poseur runner, I might be off doing some pack-ratting and hoarding.  I love clothes.  I love to shop.  That addiction is a blog post all in and of itself, but I also know that I have too much and I need to purge. I need to get rid of the things that are past their expiration date, that are not worth fixing and that may still fit and be in good condition but were bad purchases/are no longer my style/I never ever wear/I have duplicates of it.  Multiples of black pants are one thing, but coming home with a fabulous new cozy grey cashmere boyfriend sweater only to realize I already have a fabulous cozy grey cashmere boyfriend sweater from last fall that I totally forgot existed is not a good thing.  (I’m sure a shrink could have a field day with my shopping habits.)  I know, I know, I KNOW that I need to get rid of stuff. I even know what pieces I should start with, but it’s so hard for me to let go of things.  Partially because I have regrets of past giveaways (the Luckys, the leopard print coat, so many sweaters…) and partially because I know how much money I spent on these clothes and to give them away kind of just hurts.

   

And while typing this I had a full-on flashback that I’d read some version of this somewhere before.  A bazillion years ago (or rather in the 90s) Glamour magazine used to publish those fun lists at the end of the magazine.  I feel like I’ve already waxed sentimental on them (please, please, please bring them back).  But as everyone who read my Richard Grieco post knows, I have my archive binders upon binders filled with magazine tear-outs, including all of these wonderful lists.  Rachel Zoe has archives that include Chanel and Oscar and YSL.  Mine have pages from Glamour, Sassy and Mademoiselle to name just a few.  I’m good with that.  (I’m lying.  I’d like a little Chanel in my archives too!)

But for now, the best I can do (and I think it’s pretty damn good) is give you this:

Originally from Glamour magazine circa 1995 - this page is from my archives.

   

So yes, I agree, not everything is hard.  Sometimes the difficult things can be not-so-difficult.  And I wouldn’t be me without giving some of the easy things a little airtime.  What can I say?  I’m a Libra.  I need balance.  So I give you some things that are flat out easy: 

• Procrastinating.
• Losing all track of time while surfing the internet.
• Accumulating more bottles of nail polish than a local salon.  (However maintaining a chip-free manicure is definitely harder than it looks.)
• Turning off the computer and picking up a book.
• Cleaning the bathroom.
• Forgiving someone.  It may take time, but it's necessary and for me, has become easier in some cases.  Holding onto grudges and ugly feelings will only make you grudgy and ugly.  Rid yourself of the burden and forgive the person.  Doesn’t mean you have to forget what they did or welcome them back into your world.  Just don’t carry it around and let it weigh you down.
• Calling mom back and then having very long chats.
• Spending money on things I don't need (see the cozy grey cashmere boyfriend sweater from above).
• Being more stubborn than the other person.
• Getting sucked into a TV show marathon.  Yesterday I had Psych on as the backdrop to my day.  In and out of naps and while I was cleaning.  I started today with The Rachel Zoe Project.  Will watch these eps a hundred times over.  There was also a Dawson’s Creek Netflix DVD in there and in addition to giving me endless entertainment it also gave me wisdom, like this gem: “Life is chances that you never get back.” 
• Cutting my hair.
• Spending at least $25 every time I walk into a Duane Reade or a CVS.  
• Sunday morning.  (Sunday night.  Now that's hard.)
• And finally, a shout out to other people…saying “please”, “thank you”, and perhaps a “good morning” to your neighbors when you’re riding the elevator together...not so hard.  Just saying….

Also easy?  Coming up with a song to end a post.  It has nothing to do with anything except I saw it on VH1 Classic while I was getting ready for work on Friday morning and has been in my head ever since.  Epic. 

I Never Met a Countdown I Didn't Like....

I’m kind of a sucker for video countdowns.  I get drawn in like a moth to a flame. (Yeah, I’m channeling a little Janet.)  Whether it’s year-enders, "best of" a decade, Justin Timberlake’s Sexiest, One Hit Wonders…..I could go on.  But the point is, without fail, I come across a countdown and about eight hours later I’m sidelined on the couch wondering where my day went. 

And while I love the color commentary of random comedians and “celebrities” (Audrina Patridge and some Jersey Shore-ers were on this last one) why must it always take 30 minutes to show the last five songs???  And it’s just a tease that they only show about 25 seconds of the actual song.  Color me perturbed.

Anyway…countdown watching isn’t just a procrastination method for me (that’s what cleaning the bathroom is for).  I fall into the countdown vortex and wind up having some sort of magical trip down memory lane. I’ve made multiple mentions of how music inspires my writing so there’s always the chance of song triggering an idea, or a sentence or a piece of dialogue.  Or it may help me set a scene.  Sometimes I rediscover songs that I totally forgot that I loved.  Or maybe, just maybe, a song I used to loathe gets a second chance.  I pretty much walk with a soundtrack playing in my head so it’s so very conceivable that I song I hated back in the day could totally resonate now.  And even though I can’t sing to save my life, music is pretty much everything to me.

So it’s no surprise that VH1 totally got me with their Top 100.  Now I’m used to all the 80s and 90s countdowns, which pretty much let me re-live my youth and, ahem, my high school and college days.  So imagine my surprise when the latest countdown was for the 00’s.  I’m speechless.  Not only is it a countdown I haven’t seen before but it’s also for a whole new decade of my life.  Possibilities?  Meet endless.

(Bee-tee-dubs, the whole “00’s” does not look as cool at the “80s” or “90s” did.  I mean a countdown for the double zeros?  Sounds like anorexic chicks.  Zero is not a size.  Don’t even get me started on the double z.  I digress.) 

So…it was me.  VH1.  And 100 songs from the double-oh’s.  Now I should be ashamed to admit that I don’t even know all the songs on the countdown.  Though I’m not sure if it makes me horribly uncool or just proves I am someone with fabulously good taste (I vote the latter) because I don’t know who the eff Chamillionare featuring Krayzie Bone is.  (And I have to say it absolutely annoys the hell out of me to deal with these stupid spellings for words that, um, already have a way to be spelled.  Krayzie = Crazy.  Just saying.)

Now if you want to jump ahead and read the whole list, I don’t blame you one bit.  I would do the exact same thing, so for those of you who are like me go nuts.

And now that you’re back (I hope!), while I won’t dissect the entire list and tell every little story I have, I will highlight my faves that I am SO happy to see made the cut.  In the order they appear on the list, but not necessarily the order they are in my heart (lol…that was very cheesy 80s, huh?), here goes:

#85 – “I Try” by Macy Gray:  I definitely cried with this song playing in the background.  A lot.  Break-ups require a soundtrack.  The timing of this song couldn’t have been better. (Unfortunately.)  The song is one, giant, amazing lyric.  I can’t even pretend to pick a favorite line.  Also reminds me of a scene in “Picture Perfect”, a very fun "vintage" Jennifer Aniston movie.  And a good dark horse for Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

#78 – “Hey There Delilah” by Plain White T’s:  This song fully reminds me of a weekend I spent with a boy when we were still in the friend zone, but teetering on the edge of maybe more.  It seemed to come on the radio every time we were in the car.  I lived in NYC and he didn’t and I hoped, dreamed, that he felt the same and would someday sing this to me – “I've got so much left to say.  If every simple song I wrote to you would take your breath away, I'd write it all.  Even more in love with me you'd fall.  We'd have it all.  Oh it's what you do to me.”  Ah, that could have been a movie moment if he showed up on my doorstep singing.  He didn’t.  We had lots of great moments though and this song still reminds me of that weekend when there was the possibility of possibility. 

#75 – “I Don’t Want To Be” by Gavin DeGraw:  The theme to “One Tree Hill”.  If you need a bigger explanation, then you probably don’t know me at all and should just stop now.

#64 – “I’m Real (Murder Remix) by J. Lo with Ja Rule:  I rocked out to this song like only a white girl from Westchester can.  Can vividly remember buying this CD at Newbury Comics.  What can I say?  I like J. Lo the singer.  This song reminds me of driving around New Hampshire with one of my best friends, who pointed out the genius of “My life I live it to the limit and I love it.  Now I can breathe again, baby, now I can breathe again.”

#53 – “All the Small Things” by Blink-182:  So happy they made the list and while I think they have done more major (“Stay Together For the Kids” or “I Miss You” would have been my list choice) I so just love them and am happy to see they were invited to the party.

#49 – “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga:  Definitely epic.  She could have dominated the countdown.  Brilliant choice.  (Though why isn’t it higher on the countdown?)

#32 – “This Love” by Maroon 5:  I capital L LOVE this one.  An introduction to a series of great songs.  Some double entrondras.  Broken hearts.  Walking away because you have to. 

#29 – “Best of You” by Foo Fighters:  I’d be hard pressed to pick just one for the list and would absolutely lose Shaggy in exchange for “Times Like These”.  But this song is exactly what makes me love Dave Grohl.  I have blasted this song and run to it at the gym, rocked out on my commute and sang it at the top of my lungs in my apartment.  “Has someone taken your faith?”  Amazing lyrics.  This song gets better every time I listen to it.

#18 – “Beautiful” by Christina Aguliera:  Maybe I should be embarrassed, but I’m not.  I remember getting this CD (yes, actually buying the physical CD) when I was still living in Boston.  Fully blasted it.  The girl can sing. And I proudly sang along with her.  “Every day is so wonderful.  And suddenly it’s hard to breathe.”  “To all your friends, you’re delirious.  So consumed, in all your doom.” I hear you Xtina.

#17 – “Clocks” by Coldplay:  Agree it’s amazing.  Actually, oddly enough, reminds me of the trailer for that Peter Pan movie which I watched on a horrible turbulent plane ride (both literally and emotionally) from Arizona. The song itself is a fan favorite, but I’m not going to lie, where is “Fix You” and “The Scientist” and “Warning Sign”?  Maybe the countdown is about popularity and not just musical genius.  But kudos to “Clocks” for “cursed missed opportunities”.  Great line.

#16 – “Single Ladies” by Beyonce:  I love the video.  And have done the drunken, singing girl dance to this song many a times.  Weeeeeeeeee!  Hands in the air!  JT and Andy Samberg dancing on SNL in a bodysuit made it legendary.  Then I liked it less when every headline and Facebook post about some chick getting engaged had some version of “he put a ring on it”.  Retch.  Then I loved it again when “Glee” opened an episode in black and white with the dance by Kurt, Tina and Britney.

#15 – “Beautiful Day” by U2:  They can do no wrong.  Not enough time or words.

#13 – “American Idiot” by Green Day:  If you’ve been reading this blog at all you know Billie Joe Armstrong can do no wrong in my eyes.  This song is the gateway to a whole new era of Green Day and I think it was an amazing new world for them.  The guitar intro alone gives me the chills.  Their “Storytellers”, as I’ve gushed about already, is beyond.  Billie Joe as St. Jimmy on Broadway was one of the best nights of my life.  This song is very 2004.  It reminds me of my last few months in Boston and was absolutely a song and a CD I played on repeat while I was packing up my apartment.  This entire album is a win to me.  It’s like Sophie’s Choice having to pick just one song.

#8 – “Empire State of Mind” – Jay Z featuring Alicia Keyes:  New York City.  A fabulous anthem to my town.  The Yankees 2009 World Series.  Singing and dancing on a beach in Portugal.  “There’s nothing you can’t do.”  I take inspiration anywhere I find it.

#7 – “SexyBack” – Justin Timberlake:  Now, I was not an N*SYNC fan.  Partially because I was too old for that and being a fan would have been beyond shameful.  (Though I do love “Girlfriend”.  And know all the words to “Bye, Bye, Bye”.  And maybe to “Dirty Pop”.)  But beyond that confession, “SexyBack” is literally ah-may-zing.  (Do I need a new word for amazing?)  Good beat. New sound.  Risk taking.  Pushing the boundaries of what people expected from JT.  Absolutely makes me want to dance.  And when I do, I kind of feel like I *can* dance.  Justin makes triple threats looks lazy.   Deserves all the fan-fare in my opinion and this song just raised the bar.

#5 – “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson:  Love the Prince-ish “U” in the title.  Couldn’t care less about “American Idol” but as one of the commentaries in the VH1 countdown said, “every drunk white girl in the world knows this song”.  I SOOOOO eviscerated exes in my mind to this song.  It was the 2005 version of “You Oughta Know”.  Thank you, Kelly!

#4 – “Lose Yourself” by Eminem:  This is one of those songs that I shouldn’t like but I totally do.  I used to listen to this on my commute to Cambridge circa 2002.  Yet I listened to it while running on the treadmill last week.  The slow build up of the song is exquisitely done.  I’m so not a rap girl, but I do love this song.

#1 – “Crazy In Love” – Beyonce featuring Jay Z:  It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.  Tremendous dance gone.  Start of something great from Bee.  I tried to sing along but still can’t keep up.  (Or understand half of what Jay Z is saying).  But what can I say?  I’ve been crazy in love.  And this song was everywhere.  Including my apartment!  Number 1?  Not so sure.  Top 10.  Absolutely. 

  

Now I would be remiss to not throw out a few digs, which pretty much means, I hate these songs and have no idea how they earned a spot on this list.  (Insert a growling, groaning, sneering, fist-shaking me.)

#69 – Evanescence – “Bring Me to Life”:  In all fairness I don’t even know what this song is. But Evanescence?  On a “best of” countdown?  Seriously?  We just broke up for a moment VH1.

#43 – Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”:  I have to say that I outright despise this song.  I’m not really a KP fan at all.  I’m still pissed about her whole slutting up Sesame Street.  A bustier?  Really?  It’s PBS and it’s for kids.  Regardless of the Elmo-offense, this song is so annoying to me.  Jill Sobule did a remarkable job in her song “I Kissed a Girl” in 1995 and I’d venture to guess few people in the 00’s era even knows it.  This song also reminds me of this loser guy an old friend of mine was in love with.  He couldn’t stop talking about how great it was to have a song about lesbians (such a chach) and when he wasn’t calling me “babe” he was calling me “a tall drink of water”.  Um, ew.  I need to shower his greasiness off of me all over again.

#41 – R. Kelly – Trapped in the Closet:  OMG.  No words.  Not even really a song.  The videos for this (I think there are like 10 of them) are so horribly awful they of course have a level of entertainment to them.  But this “song”.  Beyond terrible.  Where is Guster?  Vampire Weekend?  Snow Patrol?  The Fray?  I vehemently protest.  This does not deserve a place on the countdown.  "Ignition" I could have dealt with, but not this.  "Give me that toot-toot."

#9 – Mariah – We Belong Together:  Top 10?  For real?  Yes, she has a great voice. But I can’t stand the ballady crap.  Give me some “It’s Like That”.  Even “Heartbreaker” is tolerable.  The only thing redeeming about this song is that she made a video for it and Wentworth Miller is in it.  And he looks hot.  But I can’t see him while I’m listening to the song.

So there you have it.  I scratched the surface on the songs I love (sorry for leaving you out Gwen, Avril, and Brit), but there’s only so much time and space.  And there are a lot of songs that I LOVE that are so missing.  Which just means I’m going to have to make my own “missing from the best of” list.  But that’s another blog for another day. 

Since I always have to end on a song, I’ll give you just a taste of a song that was missing in action:

What songs would make your “best of” list?   Do tell!

An Apple a Day

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

I would be remiss not to write something about Steve Jobs.  As I type on my MacBook Pro.  Listening to iTunes.  Texting on my iPhone.  Tossing my iPod in my bag to listen to at work tomorrow.  Charging my Shuffle for the gym in the morning.  While streaming new episodes of Psych on my Apple TV.  So I guess that’s a little more than an Apple a day.  It’s my whole world.

And to digress for a moment  - new episodes of Psych start on Wednesday, which I am beyond excited about.  Capital L LOVE that show.  That’s a post all in and of itself.  I was trying to find a clip from the "Dual Spires" episode but couldn't find the one I wanted (Season 5 - stream it from Netflix). So for now there’s this video clip.  The endless tributes to the 80s is one of a zillion reasons I LOVE it. 

But back to Steve Jobs. Our first computer was an Apple and has been all my parents ever bought.  (These days, they are out-technologying me with their iPad.) When other people were getting IBMs or Commodores or whatever was hot in the 80s we had the IIc.  And honestly it was probably the only one in town.  By which I mean village because it was less than 10,000 people so we didn’t actually qualify for the “town” title.  Ah, suburbia.  At least NYC was only thirty minutes away. Alas, we were also the family with the Betamax and Colecovision. (VHS and Atari, what?)

“Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

My dad always did a lot of research and was all about the better product, even if it wasn’t the most popular product.  A rebel in his own time.  (Though really it was more about quality versus rebellion.  He’s really very much a creature of habit, which I’m sure is partly where I get it from.) 

Mousetrap  = Genius.  When the cat changes
into a dog and can eat the kitties.  Brilliant!

So what if we couldn’t rent movies and we only had about six video games?  We had Star Wars and Annie, which I beyond committed to memory.  AND I was amazing at Mousetrap and Donkey Kong and pretty good at Venture.  And was obsessed with Donkey Kong Jr.  Hello!  How freaking fun was it to leap from vine to vine?  I think being the different kid in town had long lasting effects in the sense that I don’t mind doing my own thing.  I fully admit that I followed the pack for a long time. (Who didn’t want to fit in?)  But eventually I figured out being different is better than okay.  I’m just saying.

And hello, years later EVERYONE is about Apple, so there you go.  I was a cutting edge kid.  And not gonna lie, I think Coleco was uber cool.

And while Steve Jobs absolutely was a game changer and world changer and revolutionized essentially how talk, listen, look and access information (and each other) he also said some pretty amazing things.  His Stanford Commencement speech is filled with pearls of wisdom and as I read it, I can’t help but stop and think about what I’m doing with my life.  What I want to do with my life.  What my dreams are.  What I wish I was doing. (Instead of just *talking* about what I wish I was doing.)  Thinking about the past.  About the mistakes.  (“Don’t forget.  No regrets.”)  About not repeating them.  And about trying to stay hopeful about my future.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them 

looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect 

in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, 

karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has 

made all the difference in my life.”

I have a lot to be grateful for and to be happy about.  The past month has been such a huge shift for the better that I’m almost waiting for the other shoe to drop.  (Glass half empty?  Me?  No!  Never!)  But there is a lot of good.  And there’s a lot I want to do.  And sometimes, sadly, it takes something tragic to make you stop and realize what you should be doing.  Should say.  Should let go of.  Should embrace.  Should be grateful for.  Should forgive. 

With much respect to a true innovator and inspiration, I hope I can channel even an ounce of the courage and imagination and drive that Steve Jobs had.  And to commit his words into how I live my life from this moment forward. 

“Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”