Category: BS (beloved spouse)

high flying bird

high flying bird

Posted on by wrekehavoc

in a word, oops.

somebody apparently forgot to tell people in manhattan and jersey city that the defense department was flying some big-ass birds for a photo op yesterday.  two f-16 fighters flew the low circuit around parts of new york and new jersey and scared the bejesus out of thousands, who feared a repeat of 9/11. the birds had flown in the grand canyon for a photo-op; now, some brilliant person wanted them filmed in the famous cavern of hell.

and no, i’m not making this up.

i can identify with these terrified people. see, i live in the flight path of national airport. i also live near both the pentagon AND, for the terrifying trifecta win, arlington national cemetary (our county motto: welcome to arlington: america’s graveyard!) we lived through our own local installment of terror on 9/11; and while we didn’t experience the  twin towers’ scope of damage, ye olde pentagon certainly had seen much better days.

(by the way, i write with only a microscopic scintilla of sadly-twinged gest: a friend’s wife was on the plane that hit the pentagon. so yes, it’s real. really, r e a l l y, real.)

and now, whenever some muckety-muck dies and wants to be buried among the gazillion, the proud, the dead military people, arlington cemetary presses the big guns into service.  over my neighborhood, we get fighter planes, we get scary planes — hell, one day, a B52 bomber shook my house’s foundations as it flew over to honor some very important soldier. (i wonder sometimes whether the raccoons in the nearby woods have some sort of post traumatic stress disorder because of it.) when we’re lucky, we get notice from the county that there will be some aircraft overhead that aren’t the usual jumbo jets winging to DCA.

and then, there are days like last thursday. i was out on a run (which should probably more accurately be termed as a run-walk, now that i’m the mom with the bionic knee… if only i could get the sound effects that go along with it!) when suddenly, there, in the sky… it’s a bird… it’s a plane… its THREE FIGHTER JETS IN FORMATION OVER MY STREET!

no one sent me the memo. my email, my cell phone, all devoid of info. shit! are we under attack??? well, nothing gets my ass zipping like the thought of the impending apocalypse. (if the four horsemen are going to be riding by, you bet my last moments won’t be spent jogging for my cardio enjoyment.) i flew, speedy-quick, into my house. i didn’t see anything on the computer monitor. so i did the next best thing:

i called BS.

(because, of course, my beloved spouse is the font of all information.)

honey, i cried, sweat pouring into the tiny holes of the cordless phone, i just saw… huff puff… three fighter jets over the neighborhood… puff huff… is there anything on the net about this? :breath breath breath breath: (because, of course, BS is always online; and when the revolution comes, it will be televised, but not after it’s been Facebooked, Tweeted, and probably even Flickr’d as well.)

i was still panting when i heard my beloved spouse’s annoyed tone. you know, if we’re under attack, they won’t be flying in formation.

uh. yeah. i knew that.

but apparently, what we had here was a failure to communicate. the DoD. forgetting to get the word out.

talk about your shock and awe.

guilty pleasure monday: you don't mess around with jim (jim croce)

guilty pleasure monday: you don't mess around with jim (jim croce)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

not in this house, you don’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0MWb83ms8k

i still remember when jim croce died.  school was back in session, and i was a big third grader in a new school. my hometown was growing like topsy; and town fathers struggled to accomodate the gazillion kids flooding the current halls of education while deciding where and how to build new ones. the temporary solution? split sessions. i would go to another school — not my neighborhood school — and come home a full two hours before anyone else would.

this idea didn’t sit well with my mom, who taught at a very new school in a distant part of town. to this day, i’m not sure how she managed it, but she convinced the principal of her school to let me attend her school. and i did. of course, i knew exactly no one at this school; this part of town was nowhere near mine… so it was a slightly daunting undertaking.

but i grit my teeth and i went. i have always been one of those people you can throw into almost anywhere and i usually can end up talking to somebody. (my husband refers to that quality in me as my being friend to the friendless. thanks, hon.) so i figured sooner or later, i’d make a friend. and thanks to a wonderful teacher (who i heard quit teaching not soon after and went into business) and some pretty nice kids, it all worked out eventually.

but back to jim croce. i remember this time period pretty well; what i wore (my brothers’ hand-me-down pants, which were often p l a i d), what i ate (lots of TV dinners), what i played (almost always some dorky mischief with amy or jen-jen), and of course, the music. jim croce was all over the radio with songs like bad bad leroy brown and time in a bottle. being eight, i naturally enjoyed the former a lot more than the latter; anything sentimental made me cringe. and then, of course, just as quickly as he had hit the scene, croce’s  plane hit the ground.

the song i loved the most is a song no one else out there probably knows called rapid roy (the stock car boy). how can you quarrel with a description of a man that tells you:

He got a tattoo on his arm that say “baby”
He got another one that just say “hey”

(i dunno. it just cracks me up whenever i hear it.)

but because maybe only one of you have heard of rapid roy, i figured i’d pick number two, a sentimental favorite if only because of someone i know and love well. (we won’t mention names, BS.)

ah, my Beloved Spouse. one of the calmest people i know. if your head falls off and starts rolling down the street, all bloody and gooey? he’s the one you want to call. he’ll retrieve the head for you without blinking an eye while he’s getting you prepped for the ambulance. speaking in tongues? he’ll probably figure out how to translate the gobbledegook in 5 languages. your parachute isn’t working? call him.

but G-d help you if you’re a misbehaving computer. like our old one yesterday, f’rinstance. yes, old bessie went to the motherboard in the sky, and lord, it was not pretty.  let’s just say something melted (and not because of the heat from my cranky posts, either.) so now i’m typing on a cleaned-up old computer that was once my mother in law’s (thanks, MIL!) while i await something from Dell.

but. before you think we tripped merrily from point A to point B in computer land, step back. because before we admit defeat with a computer, BS  must throttle it to it’s last to make absolutely sure it’s truly, positively dead. he must scowl. he must growl. he must test it within an inch of it’s life. he needs to dissect it. resurrect it. and then try it again. ten times.

(and the rest of the family is trained: stay the hell out of daddy’s way until nice daddy returns.)

but then, the truth:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJQwHwP0ojI

yes, the computer is morally, ethic’lly, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.

jim.

so you don’t tug on superman’s cape. you don’t spit into the wind. you don’t pull the mask off of old lone ranger.

but if you’re a crappy POS compaq computer, you sure as hell can mess with jim.

(but you won’t live to tell the tale.)

hello

hello

Posted on by wrekehavoc

just saying a howdy to anyone who might have wandered here thanks to the magic of television. i’m your host, wreke, and i’d love to tell you a little about the place.

i’m a mom. i’m a writer. i’m a webgrrl, too. i’m also the toilet paper fairy and apparently the only person in this house who realizes that bath towels do not jump up and clean themselves. oh, and i’m from NJ; and yes, i can trace the first 24 years of my life based on exits. (for you jerseyan trivia buffs, i grew up at exit 82A (GSP), went to college at exit 9 (Tpke), and have lived off exits 105 (GSP), 8, and 10 (both Tpke) until moving to the Commonwealth. and no, i do not sport big hair but i do sport a big mouth.)

i’ve been blogging since 2002. i tend to write about my kids, daughter Beloved Child (BC) and delightful hellboy Jools (an equally beloved child; he was just born after i had been blogging about BC for awhile.) as a political animal, i often tilt at windmills, large and small, in the political arena.

and i lurve music. every monday, i feature a guilty pleasure song that would make my music snob pals cringe. i’m evil that way. one month, i featured blatantly bad 70s songs, every single day of the month. oh, the humanity!

i don’t capitalize often. i do know how, and it isn’t an e e cummings thing. i’m just l a z y that way. unabashedly opinionated, i’m sort of like a cross between erma bombeck and iggy pop, only i don’t smear food all over my chest when i’m pissed. i simply write. (well, i irritate my Beloved Spouse, aka BS, generally. but the warranty is up, so he can’t throw me back, no matter how annoying i become.)

and occasionally, i’ll talk about CVID, something i wrestle with daily. it stinks, but i intend to live to be a pain in everyone’s collective ass for a very long time.

so welcome. poke your nose around. kick the tires. applaud me. argue with me. whatever floats your boat.

just don’t mind the dust bunnies. my masters isn’t in housekeeping, you know.

mamma mia

mamma mia

Posted on by wrekehavoc

a woman on my favorite list, DC Urban Moms, had the gall to share a well-written article from The Atlantic. (kudos to you, girlfriend.)  she asked not to be flamed, which of course incited some serious flames among the well-thought-out posts. (and i don’t mean well-thought-out in the sense that i agree with all of the posters’ points; i just thought they made some interesting and useful ideas known, as opposed to the ones who think that anyone who isn’t comfortable breastfeeding requires professional help. to which i’d reply, yes: cleaning, cooking, and other domestic professional help.)

anyway, i thought i’d share my response for those of you not lucky enough to be among the group. i got a little upset, to say the least.

as always, your mileage may vary.

~wreke

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

this article resonated with me. VERY deeply. i’m not being my usual politic self. apologies in advance.

i was unable to nurse my babies; and Dog knows i tried. with baby#1, i read everything known to humankind about nursing. a week postpartum, my DD was losing more than her normal share of weight (to the point where she may have been in danger) and i was freaking out. i was determined to make nursing work, even though my pediatrician — who is incredibly supportive of nursing, btw — strongly recommended  i supplement my DD with formula for her own sake. i pumped. i tried to feed her (though we were imperfect nursing partners.) i called la leche.

the la leche representative Brought. Me. To. Tears. this woman seemed far more concerned with carrying the torch for nursing than she was for the well-being of my child and myself. hello? yelling at an engorged, wildly-hormonal, first-time mother because she is considering feeding her starving child with formula is not the way to go.this was not the case of the expected one-week weight loss. this was a crisis in the making.

no one wanted to make this work more than i did. i was in an endless cycle: nurse the baby as best as i could, then supplement with formula, then pump. (oh, and i worked full-time and had to pump *in the bathroom* during the day.) for those of you who got the hang of nursing easily, it’s quite simple to turn your noses up at people like me and think we didn’t try hard enough. that we need professional help if we’re stressed because we can’t get the hang of the balance right with work and child and feeding. you simply have no idea of the pressure you feel when you fail. (or, as the author did (after nursing her first two) when you decide that you’re done.)

the AHA! moment came from an unexpected source: my husband. he had seen me in my round-the-clock-dance of nurse-feed-pump one too many times. and there i was, in pump mode, sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor. 3 AM. crying. “honey,” my husband said, “our daughter needs a sane mom more than she needs breastmilk.”

yes. exactly.

i understand that fewer women breastfeed in the US than in other nations. i get that people want to promote nursing. i’m on board with it as being a completely natural thing to do and get equally upset when women are told to hide or leave the premises rather than to nurse babies. i will admit  — and i don’t care if people flame me, btw — that i don’t actually understand why moms still nurse kids who are in kindergarten; but at the end of the day, it is their choice — not mine — to make, and so i respect that choice and stand ready to defend it if necessary.

but what i don’t get, and what i hear in this article, is the pressure that people in the breastfeeding camp have placed upon a whole generation of women. listen, sister la leche: those first five months with my baby? they’re gone, and they’re not. coming. back. Ever. and while they weren’t completely unhappy, they consist greatly of a blur of inadequate feelings Because I Could Not Nurse. And. My. Baby. Suffered. For. It. needlessly, i’d add. the pressure was THAT intense. my baby could have been happy AND HEALTHY with formula — what’s more, her mom could have been happy and healthy *with her*. but the message i received throughout my pregnancy and thereafter was that i was somehow failing my daughter in my very first task as a mom. that message is especially crushing for a first-time mother. i wanted to do what i understood was best for her. thankfully, when i grew mom-balls and started trusting my own judgement on what is best for my child (in this case, by giving her formula), life inched its way toward the quasi-nirvana we enjoy to this very day.

sometimes, i think that breastfeeding advocates, as well as rank-and-file moms on the upper/middle class milieu, often lose sight of the forest for the trees. shouldn’t we be supportive of WOMEN? some women are uncomfortable with the idea of nursing for reasons that might be more personal than you or i can fathom. some women, like me, simply are not able to nurse (and yes, i have receipts somewhere from the lactation consultantS i saw — for both babies, btw — i tried, and failed, again with baby#2.) whatever: it’s not for me or you to decide whether they should or should not be nursing. if they want to nurse, let’s give them information and help them along. if not, let’s support them, too, and not treat them like they are amoral, child-abusing, pariahs. the best thing we can all do for each other is to give each other the courage and support to make the best decisions for our children. and not just about breastmilk, either.

after all, there is so more to being a mother than whether or not you serve up lunch from your mammaries.

guilty pleasure monday: from a whisper to a scream (elvis costello)

guilty pleasure monday: from a whisper to a scream (elvis costello)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

like a finger running down a seam…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnoykhJQwNc

faked you out again, huh? in fact, i was going to feature a completely different song today… until BC started singing this song at bedtime last night. (in the fine tradition of her dad, who usually sings the glenn tilbrook part to my elvis, girlfriend started singing bits of tilbrooks’ part on the car ride home from sunday school.)

when i was growing up, the only person i knew who loved elvis costello more than i did was my friend leifer. (add also pete townshend and the jam to that list.) i mean, the dude had an altar to pete in his room in college. (perhaps he’ll confirm in the comments so you all know i’m not a liarliarpantsonfire kind of girl who hallucinated too much in college.) his lyrics (costello’s, not leifer’s) at times are incredibly pointed and cleverly invective –anyone recall this gem, for just one example:

Some of my friends sit around every evening
And they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
And the promise of an early bed
You either shut up or get cut up, they don’t wanna hear about it
It’s only inches on the reel-to-reel
And the radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools
Tryin’ to anaesthetise the way that you feel

yep. the only thing during that period that came close, in my opinion, to costello’s brilliant songwriting was the stellar team of chris difford and glenn tilbrook of squeeze. in their early days, there was nothing finer than those two… plus i adored the hilarious keyboard player jools holland. (do any regular readers of this space know of anyone else usually referred to as jools? anyone? anyone? bueller?)

i still have fond memories of asking my mother, the original ms. malaprop, to borrow the then-latest squeeze album from my Brother The Doctor  (before he was a doc and was merely my brother) during her visit to his apartment. my brother later called me up, laughing. mom asked for georgie porgy by the crush. i figured out you wanted argybargy by squeeze.

thank Dog he could translate elaineese..

anyway, when elvis costello produced squeeze’s east side story, i nearly went over the edge. (happily, of course.) squeeeee! two, two, TWO mints in one!  i played tempted at least 50,000 times in a row on my little rinky-dink tape recorder every single day during the summer of 1981, smiling dementedly whenever i heard elvis break in singing his little bits and bobs. (later on, i’d lose it every time i heard him squawk no milk and sugar! in black coffee in bed.) and when i wasn’t listening to it on cassette, i was playing it on the damn piano, over and over until i suspect my parents considered having me committed. (don’t worry; i was still working on my old partridge family favorite… in secret, though. the patridges were tres uncool in the early 1980s in my set.)

so, to my delight, elvis and glenn did a little duet on elvis’ classic album, trust. is it either’s best work? hell, no. but their energy, along with the contrast in their voices, makes this song a firm favorite.  (i’m not a belter, but i belt elvis’s part so loud, people probably hear me in west virginia and wonder what the hell is up in them there hollers.)

i remember it coming on one time and i started singing one part… and lo and behold, BS, a man who doesn’t sing a lot, period, suddenly burst into the tilbrook part. maybe it was an early sign of the apocalypse, but hell, it charmed me!

so hell. i’ll sing it anytime, any place, anywhere. thanks to my big, sometimes off-key mouth, the torch has been passed to a new generation. today, elvis. tomorrow, nirvana? now that BC is singing it, my musical hope for her has started to bloom anew.

take that, jonas brothers.

guilty pleasure monday: dog and butterfly (heart)

guilty pleasure monday: dog and butterfly (heart)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

it’s my party, and i’ll sing what i want to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leDGMI8nnb0

we’re getting older/the world’s getting colder/ for the life of me, i don’t know why.

yes, today actually is my birthday. (i’m 19 in case you were wondering.) and actually, i celebrate my birthday for the entire month of march — i mean, why not? but today is the actual date.

sure, i could put up the beatles (for which i crank the volume up to 11 every year on this date.) i could put up the smiths unhappy birthday (which i also listen to every year on this date.) but neither one captures the guilty pleasure essence; there’s nothing to feel guilty about over either song. methinks.

and then, there’s this chestnut, which has nothing to do with birthdays but everything to do with wanting things you can’t have, keep striving for things anyway, and being happy to be as you are in the meantime. sure, it didn’t chart as well as it’s companion single, straight on, another heart song i, ehem, heart. [in fact, my dream cover band will definitely sing that one. i would kill to have ann wilson’s voice.] but i think it’s a beauty nonetheless.

(i remember a comedian once making fun of dog and butterfly, though i cannot find it anywhere on google. ah well.)

anyway, every year on this date, i try to remember all the good things that have happened to me in my life. there are waaaaay too many to list, and besides, you all didn’t come here to read pollyanna’s sweet guide to the sweetest life ever, right? and of course, people who read this regularly or who know me know that it hasn’t all been wine and roses (in spite of the fact that some spouses, unnamed of course, think i step in shit and up pops a daisy. yes, honey. i’m talking to YOU.)

i haven’t had a birthday party in years; i suspect if i ever want one, i will have to plan it myself. but i do get a lot of love from my entire family; and, if luck holds, they’ll bake me Betty Crocker’s finest cake slathered in Betty Crocker’s finest, er, cake goo (and covered in a zillion pounds of pink and green decorating sugar. my teeth hurt just thinking about it.) we’ll hit a restaurant, perhaps not my favorite one (which doesn’t exist anymore, anyway), but one where the kids will also eat and where it’ll just be fun to be out together (and not have to do dishes!)

yes, sometimes it is important to reach for those slightly-out-of-reach birthday stars; but more often than not, it’s good to appreciate the soft, green grass beneath your feet.

what a difference a day makes

what a difference a day makes

Posted on by wrekehavoc

yesterday was the anniversary of the date i first went into the hospital, three years ago. i never knew a day could change my life so radically, but then again, as the old clichee goes, what a difference a day makes.

my doctor had called me back late that afternoon with my blood test results. i think i may be the poor guy’s medical bete noir; i’ve thrown down shingles at him as well as other interesting medical predicaments. you know, he said to me, your reds and whites look fine to me. but its weird — something must be wrong with the test — we can’t get a reading on your platelets. he had already seen how i was black and blue all over (crack whore, the description my beloved pal jaxx had given me a few days later, was how i truly looked); when i told him about today’s joys, a never-ending nosebleed and the fact that i was, er, let’s just say hemorraghing, he told me that perhaps i ought to hit the ER.

my best bud murph ran home from work, stayed with my kids, and BS and i hit the ER. and waited. and waited. and waited. two men who were also waiting are forever pinned in my memory: one, walking around with his urine sample and complaining bitterly of the pain he was in, and another, whose stitches on his knee had opened and who was raining blood down on the floor two seats down from me.  i felt this eerie calm, like i was sleepwalking, as i marvelled at the men. jesus, i said to BS, one guy has a urinary tract infection and is screaming like he’s about to die. i’d expect that from a woman in labor, but if every woman with a UTI screamed like that — and it can be painful, i know — the world would be wailing. and i just watched the blood drip…drip…drip onto the floor from the other man’s knee. later, i would watch a cleaner come and mop it up. and then mop some more elsewhere.

ew.

anyway, the ER nurse, when i finally saw her after giving blood, proceeded to laugh at me as i recounted how my previous day had gone down: i had dropped one child off at school, gotten on the bus and gone downtown, walked a half mile to my office, worked, met friends about a half mile away for lunch, walked back, worked more, walked to get the metro, took it to hellboy’s preschool, picked him up, picked up the car, drove over to pick up BC and BS at BC’s school, went home.

did you not notice you were tired? she asked.

i replied, i’m a mother of two young children. i’m always tired.

apparently, not tired enough to notice that i had almost no platelets left in my system. normal levels of platelets are 150k – 400k, for you trivia buffs. below about 30k, they want you in the hospital. below 10k, you’re in danger of your brain bleeding.

when i hit the hospital’s ER, i had 2k.

(yeah, i’m an overachiever.)

no one knew why my platelets had disappeared, but they threw some platelets in me to try to get me stabilized. i ate those suckers up like wheaties; the benefit didn’t last long. idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura was the term thrown at me. which, in english, means your platelets have fallen and they can’t get up. one theory was that my son, who had been ill, gave me some regular old, garden variety childhood virus that i had never had (and which makes grownups quite a bit sicker, apparently.) so they gave me some antivirals.

they also pounded me with steroids. after a few days, my platelets went up to a respectable 36k, so they let me go home with the stipulation that i hit the hematologist the very next day.

and hit it i did.

when i visited the hematologist, my platelets were back down to 4k. whee! this gave me a free pass for a bone marrow scan. i hope none of you, NONE OF YOU, ever have to get this. i wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. you are awake. there’s a tiny bit of local, but you feel the scraping of the doctor inside a piece of your hip bone. the pain is excruciating, like childbirth, only with childbirth, you are pretty sure you’ll have a happy outcome. with a bone marrow look-see, you’re praying for the best possible outcome, an outcome that doesn’t involve a horrible illness that will shorten your days. the technician helping my doctor gave me a tiny little bear to hold. i was grateful for the kindness, but i was lacking the will to be creative that day. i named him platey. he rides in my car to this very day.

and while they scraped around inside me, i talked. i talked about jamaica. i talked about the sunblue waters in which i once swam, in which i once snorkeled and saw the most beautiful, colorgleaming fish, fish i never think i’ll see outside of an aquarium. i tried so very, very hard to be anywhere but in that little room. i wanted to think about a place where i had been so very, very happy. and i didn’t want to think about my children, as i couldn’t bear to make any mental leaps about my children and sad, sad, news that hung over me like a shroud.

when it was over, i had to wait for my doctor to get it all together. he was going to look under the microscope himself. the longest half hour of my entire life. i sat there and planned my funeral. who would be at my funeral? where would i be buried? what songs would they play? who would be looking after my children? how would my husband cope? would my parents ever recover from this or would this kill them, too? i tried so very, very hard not to cry. but i hurt, inside and out.

soon, BS joined me in my personal circle of hell. and the doctor broke out his little slide and started to look. come here, he said to BS. i want to show you something under the microscope. surely my hematologist wasn’t going to gleefully show my husband my death sentence, swimming around on a little slide. surely it would be a sick and cruel thing to do. i sat up as straight as i could.

see, these are platelets,” the doctor showed BS. “tons and tons of platelets.  she’s making them, which is a great thing. your wife has the hardest working platelets in show business. something must be killing them on their way to the spleen or at the spleen.” in other words, i was having some sort of crazy autoimmune episode where my body marked my platelets as invaders and shot them down. giving me more platelets wasn’t going to do anything but give my body more opportunity to shoot down more little platelets.

the good news: not cancer.

the bad news: back into the hospital with lots and lots of steroids. BTD (aka my brothuh the doctor, for those of you new to the place) was totally in the act now, talking with the hematologist, telling him about when he had ITP and then was discovered to have CVID. the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, although my hematologist, unaware at the time of any genetic link for CVID (or any link between ITP and CVID for that matter), was absolutely gobsmacked. when this is all through, you need to see my friend in bethesda. he needs to take a look at you and help you figure this out. this is amazing, this is. (and i do now see his friend in bethesda. every 6 months.)  in the meantime, have you tried giving her IVig? my brother asked.

IViG was very difficult to come by then; i had heard that they were saving it and sending it out to the troops in Iraq, though i’m not sure how accurate that is. but i knew my brother couldn’t get any for me at his hospital. my hematologist probably gave away his first born child for me; he somehow finagled three treatments for me from other hospitals. too bad for me, no one knew i would have a hideous reaction to it my first time. once i premedicated with benadryl, though, things were looking up.

after nearly two weeks in and out and in the hospital again, i was set free. my count was improving, though i had to stay on massive doses of prednisone for months afterwards, which made me a little teeny eentsy weentsy bit psycho..heheheheh. (and waaaaay fat. but better to be fat than be dead, i always say.) but over time, i improved and improved. i was so grateful for all the support my family and i received from friends and coworkers. my boss — hell, the entire organization — could not have been more wonderful in my absence.

but that day completely changed the course of my entire mental state, my entire perspective on my life, my family, my work, my very existence. today, i am relatively healthy — my platelets were clocking in at 215 when they were checked in january — but i know now that every day being well, being on my feet, being here — is a day that i wouldn’t trade for anything.

month of 70’s gpms: instant karma (john lennon)

month of 70’s gpms: instant karma (john lennon)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

…just add water and stir. voila!

yes, the obvious john lennon choice would be imagine, one of the most beautiful songs i think i’ve ever heard in my life. blah blah blah. i just like to meander down the path least taken, do things slightly off-kilter. speaking of off-kilter, see yoko knit throughout this entire experience. knit, yoko, knit.

(oh, and to my beloved spouse, who probably would pick #9 dream… or maybe that’s revolution#9, only because he wishes to realize that dream of his: to pick #9 at a deli counter and then walk away, leaving the poor counter guy saying number 9? number 9? number 9? not picking it, hon.)

anyway, instant karma. what the hell was lennon thinking about here? he was thinking about creating a song and releasing it as instantly as possible. he wrote and recorded it the same day, and then he released the single 10 days later – a miracle for anyone who has ever known anything about the recording industry. there’s not much to the song, really;  it’s a simple song that can turn into an endless loop of an earworm if you’re not careful.

crazy trivia point for you crazy trivia people out there: stephen king apparently used part of the chorus of this song to name his novel. how he went from we all shine on to that cheerful, upbeat, happy tome we all know and love as the shining is anyone’s guess.

phil spector produced the song, which is apparent to me as it sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom. he ended up doing a lot of production work for the beatles that year, 1970. i believe this was his first work with them. considering the beatles were not exactly pals at that point in time, i suspect lennon’s speedy work spoiled spector for the rest of the time, which dragged and dragged on immeasureably, i bet. spector’s karma couldn’t possibly have been too instant.

expectations management, people. it’s all about expectations management.

anyway, instant karma. instant guilty pleasure. of course you know who’ll be on the hook for tomorrow, don’t you?

month of 70's GPM: american pie (don mclean)

month of 70's GPM: american pie (don mclean)

Posted on by wrekehavoc

stifler’s mom never enters this discussion.

oh, i know. i hear you all groaning.  and in truth, i’m not as fond of this one as i was when i was a pre-teen; when i discovered the real meaning of american pie.

::insert melodramatic music here::

but i still think it’s worthy of my guilty-fied love. see, my oldest brother, aka BTD, had done a report in high school on the what the song was all about. i think it was the first time in my life i had ever actually figured out that words could have more than one meaning.

::insert melodramatic music here again::

in short, it freaked me out. (but in a good way, i would add.) i remember the frustration: you had to turn the 45 over to hear the rest of the damn song.  i also wasn’t thrilled that mclean trashed MY beatles and MY stones in favor of some bug-eyed dude from texas (who i have since grown to appreciate over the years, thank–you-very-much.) but i was enthralled by the idea of allegory (even if my fifth or sixth grade self was not yet acquainted with the term). i couldn’t wait to write some epic poem using this sort of subterfuge.

of course, i never did, though i did help that older brother decipher  sweet baby james for another paper, scouring out the meaning from a few heroin-soaked lines of nostalgia. (or did i write the paper for my class? not entirely sure all these years later, and i’m quite certain BTD has blotted out most memories prior to 1985. so i guess we’ll never know, fair reader. ah, these deep and impenetrable mysteries of life.)

anyway, i’m not a huge fan of mclean’s career (though vincent is a gorgeous, somber song), but i can acknowledge that american pie is a sort of landmark experience on the pop chart. and what happens when you write a landmark-type song?

parodies.

too many to list, of course, but a song like this is clearly inspirational to many.

there’s bye, bye french canadian guy.

there’s kelso’s version.

and of course, where’s there’s a parody, there’s always weird al.

[note to readers: bear in mind that BS will now be walking around the house singing about one day becoming a jedi, or however the hell that last song goes. in short, i have just punished myself for the entire month of really awful music from back in november. you’re welcome.]

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