Alleviating The Stress

My car broke down yesterday. So while, yes, I'm aware that this isn't the best of timing to be throwing more music at you and less of my exciting life, you'll have to suffice for now. Because I'm currently knee-deep in laundry and tears trying to figure out how something as miniscule as a catalytic converter could ruin my entire day.



So Jason Myles Goss is singing just to me in my own desperate imagination.

Fair Is Fair

I wasn't really paying attention earlier this week when I recommended some Barcelona to ya'll, and for that I sincerely apologize. The fact is that I found the new Black Keys Album, Brothers, and I have had a hard time peeling it from my grasps. What to do, I said to myself this evening as I sat at my computer and had to decide between recommendations for tune-age? WHO DO I CHOOSE?

Clearly, it was a little like Sophie's Choice, if you can imagine the heartache and dilemma I was going through.

Finally, I decided thus: This is my blog, I can recommend how many damn songs as I want. Therefore, please behold The Black Keys singing Tighten Up with a puppet dinosaur:




AND Barcelona singing Come Back When You Can:



and you can send as many Thank You baskets of chocolate and gold as you wish.

Places To Visit, Take 5

I don't know what it is about this song or the Kurushio Aquarium in Japan. Of course it's depressing in a way and maybe that's why it appeals to me, because this is my blog and why wouldn't it be? But really, I had it playing on my computer, made it a full screen play and just sat back and watched.

Because it's beautiful. And I suggest you do the same.



Oh, the band is Barcelona. I think. I don't even know anymore.

Existence

Do you think the internet will last forever?

I mean, relatively speaking. Obviously there will come a point where we all have little chips in our heads that is able to access the nearby McDonald's to place our order and then a robot will come rocketing to our door right as we're internally Googling how to brew our own beer at home. Clearly, I'm aware of where technology is going to take us.

I guess I should back up a little bit. I found myself wondering the other day as I mulled over blog post after blog post...who really cares? I mean, I have my friends. I have my family and they read me, but if I were to up and run away tomorrow to become a member of a bike league in Vienna, would anyone sit at their computer daily at work and say outloud "Something is missing. Something is wrong. Something is incomplete."

This reminds me, somewhat nostalgically and unnecessarily, of the fact that I don't really know my grandparents. I have the occasional story from my own parents and pictures but no real journals. No tapes where they speak into the camera about the day they fell in love or what they think of their tremendous children or what their greatest part of existing had been. I don't have a lock of hair or a book with an inscription.

This is not Debbie Downer intentional. Really, this is just where my head was as I sat down last weekend, ready to ramble about nothing important and realized that, perhaps, I was rambling to no one. That as often as I check to make sure I'm being read, in the grand scheme - it doesn't matter. And if I don't matter...if nothing is missing from the day of my reader without my existence, is it really worth writing?

Which ties back to my internet question. And my grandparent conundrum. The thing is, I plan on being an active member of my family for a long time. Forever, hopefully. I want someone to carry my picture around someday and talk about their crazy grandma who became a hoarder in her late seventies, but only with her book collection and they found her taking her last breath with her nose buried deep in her signed copy of her favorite Judy Blume novel. I want someone to say "my grandma used to paint my toenails...but she was blind, so it was really like feet painting. And then I would have to take it off without telling her. But she usually fell asleep by then, screaming at her cat, so it was cool. She was cool."

I guess really, I need to remind myself that I hope the internet exists forever. Because maybe I'm not writing for you...you, who don't really care if I write daily or weekly or monthly or ever. I'm writing for the next me...for the next kid who can't remember or didn't know their grandparent. Their great-grandparent. Maybe this blog will exist in a place where the greatest collection of archives exist and instead of a crochety old lady at a library, you ask some newager on the planet Venus for their old blogspot editions from 2010 and the guy working there is all "SNORESNORE" but hands them over.

And you discover me. Who I used to be. Where you came from. And that I wrote just for you.

Hiatus

This week, I'm going on vacation. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to listen to your whining...I just want you to know that this week is well deserved. Much needed. Demanded on my soul, if you will.

I'll miss you greatly. Not that you'll really miss me, or even notice that I'm not part of your daily internet loop while pretending to work at your job...but still. I felt like you deserved a fair warning. No, I have not forgotten about Wine Tasting Part 2. But if I'm going to be able to finish it and the many, many, MANY other things I'd also like to articulate to you, my faithful readers, I'm going to need this week. Before this blog ceases to exist altogether.

Before I go out of my mind.

Before I lose all faith in humanity.

That's right. Blog Vacation can restore ALL THOSE THINGS. You know the one other thing in the world as powerful as Blog Vacation? Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips. And trust me...they go hand in hand.

See you in a week kittens.

You Are Forcing Me To Remember

I swear when I saw Rachel Yamagata on a particularly heated episode of One Tree Hill years and years ago, she didn't look like this. Perhaps I'm wrong but I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that in that episode, Nathan wasn't the only one in that car who ended up with physical deformities as a result of a drunken Rachel and a runaway limo on a bridge drive into the local lake. Because YEESH Rachel Yamagata. Yeesh.

However, this song is so TTRRRAAAGGIIICCC. So slow and deliberate and SAD. The poor elephants. That's all I can think the entire time I listen to it. POOR, POOR, ELEPHANTS. And now, I have to look into adopting one which is going to be rough considering the cat and I are already having bed-space-sharing issues. I can only imagine what an animal who's poop can be weighed into the double digit pounds is going to do to the equation.

Wine Tasting Part 1

Here at Ash in Pitt, I've realized I talk a lot. And yes, yes, you enjoy the CRAP out of it, but really, I should be utilizing these skills to create more productivity on the factory line of writing.

I.e. when I start a post, why make so many so lengthy? Why not break my long stories into several short stories so that I work less and you enjoy more?! I'M A GENIUS. On the teacher front, unemployed, yes, but GENIUS ALL THE SAME!

Thus the tale of how eleven kids went to Traverse City for 36 hours for a wine tasting they'll never forget.

Ahem.

One of my best friends in the entire world, Beth, and her sister Kelly attended a silent auction last year where they apparently bogarted the one item they bid on by pretending to debate about HOW MUCH to bid on it until the auction was over and SURPRISE, won a wine tasting at the lovely Brys Estate in Traverse City for 12 people. Almost a year later they frantically threw together the people that might be available for such endeavors when they realized it was about to expire any second and all their hard (conniving) work was about to be deleted forever.

Thus I found myself early this past Saturday morning in my mother's Trail Blazer with Beth, Sarah and Matt on our way to meet Rob, Kelly and five of her closest friends for good wines and good foods.

Have I mentioned that Traverse City is four hours from my home? And that I drove there during what can only be described as El Nino Dos (YEAH Spanish lessons) just for some free cheese and twenty four hours of friend-fun?

I should also totally mention, for the record, that it was fantastic.

By the time we got to the estate, the skies and totally opened up and we were left with scenic views of the bays on both sides of the Peninsula such as this:



LOVELY.
We felt so grown up! We dressed for the occasion. Here are three of us looking dapper and adult. We also acted like we did stuff like this all the time. As one of the actual members of the Brys family gave our tour and talked to us about growing the grapes, harvesting the grapes, what yeast does and the fact that Wine School for Wine Makers is a REAL THING (fact checked!) we asked intriguing questions and paused our fingers to chins. Yes, the same kids that did this while driving on said beautiful peninsula:


Do not judge. When the Gaga comes on, even things like traffic laws go right out the window.

Moving on. FINALLY it was time for boozing after exhausting education and unauthorized machine touching when the tour guide wasn't looking and ludicrous inquisitions such as "Do you think I could fit inside that wine barrel?" that we sat down to a lovely setting like this one. Our server, Erick, was fantastic to say the least. Our tasting was supposed to include 5 different bottles. He opted for 10. He gave everyone quirky nicknames like "The Professor" and "Cali" and was kind and gracious to all of us, even the kid who wore a tuxedo t-shirt.
After a wonderful while of fine dining, we put the icing on the proverbial cake by having a taste of Iced Wine with cheesecake. Iced Wine, if you did not know, is taken from grapes during the winter months because they must stay at 18 degrees for three days in a row. This allows the machine to separate the juice of the grapes from the water (which is now in ice form) so you are left with something so truly sweet and alcohol filled it should be illegal. It was the greatest thing we've ever tasted. It was like drinking liquid gold. Rob bought some and, turns out, it costs the same as gold actually might. But who's looking at prices while drunk? Certainly not us. Really, after taste number 8 from our new friend, Erick, I wasn't paying attention to a whole lot anymore. Good thing I captured the rest on camera.

To be continued....

I Think This Is Called A Crush!

I cannot get ENOUGH of this Matt Wertz kid. Seriously, I stalked both my local Target, Meijer AND Walmart and cannot, for the life of me, find his album. Pandora mocks me frequently with how awesome he is by getting all "Oh, you want someone a little like John Mayer? How about my new friend, Mr. Wertz? Have ya heard of him? Look at how dreamy he is. You like that white jacket? Isn't he a dream boat??! New song, you say? WHY NOT MORE MATT??" until I'm humming his stuff in my sleep or to my coworkers who are all "What IS that noise?" and I'm all "The copy machine, obviously, singing Over You by Matt Wertz. Weird, eh?"

While I finally found his album on Amazon, here, I hate to admit that I've been so anti-everyone else this week. Like, I refuse to see another artist on my Pandora Playlist because I just can't bear to cheat on this poor boy so early into our relationship. Really, I blame this all on my hormones. I'm clearly out of control with the crushing and the pms and the screaming and crying over music at the drop of a hat.

So because it has been such a rough week, I've just been looping this kid's musical nonsense over and over again when I came across a radio show he did for Live 100 for a Haiti benefit with his pal Dave Barnes who is equally delicious. Crap, I mean talented.

I came across this song, by Dave Barnes, in one of my lowest points this week. Probably right around the peanut butter, chocolate chip ice cream midnight snack fest, but just after the unprovoked crying from watching a tender moment during The Little Chocolatiers.

Christ, I'm a mess. You will honestly listen to this song and say to yourself "OH BARF gag, blah blah blah, guitar and sappy lovey-slow songs, is this from a Disney movie?!" and to that I would say, yes. Yes it is. From the continual Disney classic playing in my heart about a young girl in a land far, far away who was so in love with a musician that she was almost inappropriate about it.
Alright, fine.
She was inappropriate about it.

AND EMBRACED IT.

What I Used To Want To Be

It's funny to think back today about what I used to want to be so many years ago. Actually, not even that many years ago in the grand scheme of life timelines.

It was only two years ago that I thought I was going to be an audiologist...two years before that I was obsessed with a kid in the majority of my classes with a great set of curly hair and a terrible smoking habit.

Two years before that I didn't even have my current best friends as close as they currently are today, no matter how many miles between us that, when I think about living without them, I find it hard to breathe.

And two years before that I was a young girl who just got her braces off, heading off to college with a monkey alarm clock in tow, because it reminded me so much of my childhood and I wasn't ready to leave that behind yet.
One thing that I have to admit has stayed constant is my taste in music. I guess what I mean is that songs I loved ten years ago are still songs that make me smile in the car today and that I look for similar artists, new artists...artists that remind me of who I used to be and who I still am.

And knowing that, I refuse to judge this poor boy named Matt Wertz who, according to his bio, wanted to be a shoe designer before he got to college and began strumming this beautiful, beautiful guitar. .

Denial

Earlier this morning my sister and I had a knock down, drag out fight against my brother. Something essentially about him being insensitive and us being over sensitive and it isn't a great mix in my household. The conversation, to top it off and really ADD to the super sensitive portion was my mother reaffirming in me, 'you're just upset because you're premenstrual' and she said the world "premenstrual" all covertly. Secret like. Like old ladies do when they ask for the feminine products at Target. Hushed voices and shame.

WOMAN I AM NOT PREMENSTRUAL.

I've always hated when women were characterized by their potentiality of menstruation. Like, yes, I might be going through that or near that or have breached into that realm of possibility but that doesn't actually make you any less of an asshole. You're still an asshole. Tomorrow or the next day or the next day when I am NOT premenstrual I will look at what you did and say "Yup. Confirmed. Ass-holish." Menstruation does not impair my ability to determine if you suck.

In a fit of rage after said "premenstrual" comment I left the house to rent a movie and hit Walmart for flashcards (for my Spanish lessons. More on that later. Or...manana? Crap. Spanish lessons are not going well) when I had the sudden urge for Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips.

Mind you, I am not a chip person. I've never bought them while grocery shopping. I don't look for them at lunch, I don't buy them at gas stations for movies and I always opt for the apple at Panera instead of the chips. I am not a chip-chick. But today, I wanted some. No, needed some. And lo and behold, I could not find the chip aisle to save my life. Why must Walmart suddenly start selling pickles in bulk but hide their chips like covert ops to stalk Obama?

So, picture me if you will, with my post-workout clothes on and a bag of Weed 'N Feed in one arm for my mother, angrily chomping at the bit into the phone with Scott over the missing chip aisle. Where did they PUT it? Why would they HIDE it? Doesn't anyone care about me and my OVERLY SENSITIVE FEELINGS AND NEEDS, YOU BUNCH OF ASSHOLES?? when I suddenly stumble upon it. In fact, I stumble upon MULTIPLE chip aisles and while Lays has recently come out with a brand of "Garden Tomato and Basil" chip as well as "Carolina Barbeque" they don't have a single Salt and Vinegar. ANYWHERE. AT ALL.

Fuming, I go home, Spanish Flashcards in hand, slam the Weed 'N Feed on the table and scoop the mail awaiting me. A letter from one of the many schools I applied at that says AND I QUOTE:

Dear Ashley,

Thank-you for applying for our high school English position. We hired a qualified teacher. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Sally M. Crowser


FIRST OF ALL, Sally M. Crowser: Thank you is not hyphenated. Secondly, thank God you conned your way into a Principal position at some podunk school in Wyoming where you obviously had to sleep your way to the top because obviously you didn't get there with your WRITING SKILLS. "We hired a qualified teacher"??? Fantastic! I needed to know that about as much as I needed to know if you scratched your ass on Tuesday, which I say to my mother all through pursed lips and a handful of the Hot Wing flavored Pretzels I had to settle for instead of my blessed chips.

That's right. Picture me now tearing through a bag of equally awful for you junk food, letter o'hate clenched in my fist.

Was it me just an hour ago trying to convince her I wasn't overly sensitive?
Because I'm not. Sally M. Crowser, Walmart and Lays are just a bunch of assholes.

They Call Her Hostile, Hostile, Hostile, Hostile, Hooossstttiiillleeee.....

Does anybody else sit back and say out loud, to no one in particular, "When is someone gonna write a love song about ME?"

Every love song was about some person at some point and if you haven't listened to the radio recently, there are a lot of f'ing love songs out there. Songs of breaking up and getting back together...slow and fast love songs, about her booty and his eyes and her golden hair and COME ON ALREADY. Where all my musician friends at? Where is the love song about how nerdy I am, it's almost too cute to deny? About how every Friday I shave my legs, but only on Fridays? Isn't that kind of shit endearing? Isn't that the kind of crap guys fall over themselves for?

I've been listening to Parachute the past few days with my friend Mark. I think "She Is Love" has been on the radio recently but I really like this acoustic version found here:


and if you're looking for something a little more upbeat, I like them here too:


Coincidentally called: She (For Liz).

Of COURSE it's for Liz. CONGRATU-FREAKIN-LATIONS LIZ.

Addictions of the Weakest Kind

I got a new bookshelf! It's so beautiful. Beautiful in the sense that I am methodically going through each and every book that I own so that I can alphabetize my books by both author and title. It's a tedious process that will occur over the next several days. I'll just be laying in bed when from across the room I'll see on my old shelf my copy of The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne and OBVIOUSLY if I don't move it next to my copy of The Scarlet Letter immediately,also by Hawthorne, Nate will start rolling around in his grave with all his disappointment in my lack of book organizational skills.



The things we bookworms do for the sake of the dead and our own sanity.

Can I just say that the bookshelf was necessary because I've gotten out of control? Spilling onto the floor, out of control? So out of control that I picked up a used copy of "German Romantic Stories" and thought to myself, "Hoorah for love stories!" all while forgetting that SMALL SMALL detail "Boo for not knowing German." It's on my shelf next to "Hiking through Europe" (also on my to-do list after learning German) and Gone With The Wind (have you SEEN Gone With The Wind in book form? It's like a eight and a half pound weight but square. With no handles and lot's of Southern aggression).

Finally my mother comes into my room one night, late before bed and stops to stare at the shelf. I look up just in time for her face to reflexively change from slight grimace to awkward smile and she says:

"We should probably talk about that shelf."
"What about the shelf?" I grumbled. I don't appreciate being interrupted during The Little Chocolatiers on TLC.
"The shelf...it doesn't look good, Ash" and she said it in such a way that I felt like she was talking about my cat. Like, the same tone of voice you might use if you were telling your young child that Fluffy is on his way out. You crashed your best friend's car. Brad Pitt has passed on.


It was hesitant and nervous and rightfully so. I take my books very seriously. I can't stand discovering that a book is missing. I don't like when people don't return items they never bothered to read in the first place and if you fold down the corner pages well then may heaven have MERCY ON YOUR SOUL.
So I answered, "It's FINE mom" because, like a good little addict, I was in denial.

"Honey...the shelves are all...buckling" and as she ran her hands over the edges of it, it suddenly stood out to me. My bookshelf...made of WOOD or at least something like it, had rows upon rows of shelves that were so concave in the middle they were smiling at me. My bookshelf. The bravest little soldier of them all, marching on under the weight of my obsession with a smile upon its face.

I got a new bookshelf last weekend and I have to admit, everything looks much better round these parts. My shelf has corrected it's weight straining smile. My Jodi Picoult books are standing straight and tall next to one another, instead of being jammed into any available space I might be able to find.

And me? I now feel free to buy as many books as I wish in German. HOORAH!