Ipod Shuffle: Till You Come Back to Me

Tagged by Janice--consider yourself tagged. This was a fun one.


IF SOMEONE ASKS YOU FOR SPARE CHANGE, WHAT DO YOU SAY?
La-La Means I Love You (Delfonics)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT DATE?
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A JOB?
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2)

WHAT IS YOUR LATEST DILEMMA?
I Wish I Was in New Orleans/In the 9th Ward(Tom Waits)

WHY DON'T YOU HAVE MORE MONEY?
You're All I Need to Get By (Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell)

WHAT IS YOUR SECRET NICKNAME?
Summer Soft (Stevie Wonder)

WHERE DO YOU GO AT NIGHT?
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan)

WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY PLAN?
Shake It Up (Cars)

WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR FRIENDS?
Cannon Ball Blues (The Carter Family)

WHAT DO YOU DO FIRST THING IN THE MORNING?
Let's Get It On (Marvin Gaye)

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE IN FIVE YEARS?
Strawberry Fields Forever (Beatles)

WHAT IS YOUR POLITICAL AFFILIATION?
Wrapped Around Your Finger (Police)

WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY?
She's Gone (John Lee Hooker)

WHAT CAN YOUR COUNTRY DO FOR YOU?
Use Me (Bill Withers)

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
Tainted Love (Soft Cell)

WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, PAL?
Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones) (It's just a kiss away...)

WHAT IS YOUR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION?
Light My Fire (Doors)

WHAT'S THE BEST SONG TO MAKE LOVE TO?
Burning Down the House (Talking Heads)

WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR A KLONDIKE BAR?
Head Over Heels (Tears for Fears)

WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE ?
La Vie en Rose (Edith Piaf)
(I thought that love was just a word they sang about in songs I heard...)

WHAT MAKES YOUR BLOOD BOIL?
Every Breath You Take (Police)

WHAT MAKES YOUR LOINS ACHE?
My Man (Billie Holiday)

WHAT'S THE SECRET OF YOUR SUCCESS?
One Way or Another (Blondie)

WHOM DO YOU ADMIRE MOST?
Across the Universe (Beatles)

WHO IS YOUR MORTAL ENEMY?
Angie (Rolling Stones)

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR LIFE?
I Ran So Far Away (Flock of Seagulls)

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
One Man's Shame (William Elliott Whitmore) (My church is the water...)

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Till You Come Back to Me (Arethra Franklin)

New Year's Resolutions

A book may stay stationary on a table, but you are a moving work. Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away

Time to:

1. Send out: The MS has been stationary (stationery, too?)on a table too long.
2. Get moving: The gym is available 6 days a week; the sidewalk, 7. Even when I have a lupus flare, I can walk in the early mornings and evenings.
2. Admit it: My mom has had cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and I am pissed off about it. My sister is still dead from cancer way too early. My best friend is still dead; my best college friend is still MIA from schizophrenic complications. Being over 50 with its attendant aches and pains is not always fun.
3. Acknowledge others: My husband and children are hilarious and inspirational. My cluttered house is wildly cute and fun to decorate--somewhere beneath the dust and cat fur and scattered shoes. I have fascinating, talented friends who put up with me. I can get a honky-tonk AM station on my brand-new-to-me Bakelite radio. I need to show a little gratitude to God and the universe for putting these people and presents in my path.
4. Write about it: My fingers should be moving from left to right across a page of lined paper, as well as scampering over a keyboard. (Because I work at a computer for my "real editing job, as well as use one for grading and assignment tracking while I teach, it's time to get back to real writing. With a pen and paper and a journal and maybe an imagination).

_________________
Readings this weekend: Linda Bierds on Saturday. Scott Russell Sanders on Sunday.

Readings this spring: Nicky Beer in March. Maurice Manning on April Fool's Day.

Entirely Biased Review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This movie was about as exciting as the children's game, Button, button, who's got the button?, where a button is passed from one child to another. BB passes from scene to scene without any purpose other than chronological, without any truly meaningful moments. Go read the Fitzgerald story (linked above)--the snide social commentary that Fitzgerland sneaks into his fiction is almost entirely absent from the film. BB's pretty, as is Mr. Pitt (about 2/3 of the way through the movie); its marvels are technical. However, with the exception of Taraji Henson, the acting is stilted. This will win an Oscar, but not for Best Movie or Best Actor.

I think Brad Pitt can be marvelous (Fight Club, Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, The Assassination of Jesse James....even the hairdryer scene in Thelma and Louise). This, however, isn't destined to join the pantheon of Pitt performances I'll rewatch.

Pamela

Ah, look at all the lonely people....

Happy Boxing Day!

Happy Christmas!

Share|

Evergreen Girl Wishes You and Yours a Merry Christmas

Begging the Question: Merry Christmas

A Song I Love

From Dr. Goodword (linked above)

• dreidel •

Pronunciation: dray-dêl
Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A dreidel is a four sided top with the Hebrew letters, nun, gimel, hey, and shin, printed one on each side. The letters stand for Nes gadol hayah sham "A great miracle happened there." (In Israel, of course, the letters are nun, gimmel, hey, and pey, for Nes gadol haya poh "A great miracle happened here.")

Notes: The dreidel is a traditional game played by children as the candles of the Hanukkah burn in the Menorah, the 9-candle candelabra of Hanukkah. Each player puts a token in the pot: a piece of candy, a raisin, nut, or chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. Then the first player spins the dreidel. When the dreidel stops, the letter that is facing up determines the play: nun indicates neither win nor loss, gimmel allows the spinner to take all the tokens in the pot, hey allows the spinner to take half of the pot, but shin forces the spinner to put one token back into the pot.

In Play: The game of dreidel was played throughout Europe in the Middle Ages under various names. The Hebrew letters are probably borrowed back from the Yiddish or directly from German: N(un) for nichts "nothing," G(immel) for ganz "all," h(ei) for halb "half" and sh(in) for stellen "put in." Legend has it that Jewish children living under the persecution of the Persians and Greeks spun the dreidel as they studied the Torah and Talmud, so that their persecutors would think them playing rather than studying forbidden holy writ.

Word History: Dreidel is a Yiddish word spun from the German verb drehen "to spin, turn". This word is related to English throw, which still means "to spin" in the sense of "throwing pots". The Latin descendant of the same original root is torquere "to spin", the root of our words torque, torture, and torment. The same ancient root came to English via a different route as queer in its original sense—another way of thinking of "twisted".

Bless the Bread and Bless the Board: Walter Crane

Family Brag Book Alert

Harvey won the mixed media award in a regional art contest.
Raleigh scored 5 out of 5 distinguished ratings on CATS testing.
Daniel earned a perfect 4.0 for this semester.
I came in first in a game of Scrabble!

This is the most astounding, if plebian, of the above achievements; I am terrible at earning points.

My best word was ensi, which also gave an "s" to toque, which hit a triple word score with the "s". I smoqued the competition with this one, and I am stoqued enough to take on mastermind Daniel when he's over here next.

I love Scrabble: Expression and Obsession, involving the perfect word. It's a lot like poetry, and one of these days I'm going to write a poem in Scrabble format. I'd also like to try to shape a silhouette onto a Scrabble board.

Mind of Winter

HEADLINE NEWS: "Bushes Unveil their Presidential Portraits"

"Coffee in the Morning and Kisses at Night"

Bono Recites Bukowski: "Roll the Dice"

As Raleigh and her friends put it, Magnifigreatastic.