Hallelujah

A light, flickering in the darkness.

I Wanna Love Somebody Like You

Sometimes it's hard for me to understand
But you're teaching me to be a better man

- "Somebody Like You," Keith Urban

Baby, now I know how you feel
What I don't know is how you do it

- "Mister Mom," Lonestar

You're not just time that I'm killing
I'm no longer one of those guys

"Forever and Ever, Amen," Randy Travis


I started listening to country music awhile back, totally by accident. The day the music died on WHFS (a local alt-rock station that went Spanish language), I started hitting seek on the radio as I drove down the road. I came across a great 80s station - glam rock guitar riffs, pulsating bass lines, and lyrics bordering on the unbelievably stupid and yet capable of mashing all the emotional buttons. I was really rocking out, until the DJ came on and drawled, "Y'all are listenin' to double yew emm zee kyew!"

After I recovered from the shock, well, I just left it on. What the hell. The trauma of losing WHFS had reminded me of my first aural loss, WAVA. Sweet, sweet WAVA, home of top 40 in the 1980s. It was not quite as cool as DC 101 top 40, because 101 had Howard Stern. But it was still cool, and when it went CHRISTIAN LITE ROCK I thought I'd die.

So when I found essentially my lost 80s station, playing, well, pretty much what WAVA had been playing when it went off the air, I decided to give it a try. I've become a bit of a fan.

The one thing country does very differently from pop is the ballad. It took me awhile to figure out what it was. Both have overwrought lyrics, singers about to pop a vein from All That Passion, and minor keys when someone dies in the end.

But I think I've got it now. Pop romance is a man singing about love, as he feels it. Country romance is a man singing about love... as a woman wants to hear it.

Really. Look at any love song from Lonestar. Those guys have cornered the market on what women want to hear. "Oh, honey, you look nice dressed up and all, but I love you best in sweatpants with baby spit up on you, because by golly that's our baby. I've seen Paris, but nothing beats our toy-strewn living room with Nascar collectible plates. Boy, my job seems hard, but being a mommy is a million times harder and you're my hero. Gosh, I was a real mess before you met me, and you've just cleaned me right up. I don't know WHAT I was thinking back before you changed me into the man I am today. Lord, honey, if it weren't for you I'd just about be a bum on the street, probably choking to death on my own vomit."

Maybe not that last part, but the rest I think I've nailed for you.

And NO guy actually feels that way. Oh, sure, they get waves of affection for wives and babies and their homes, but given a choice between sweats and a merry widow, I have never met a man that wouldn't go for the lacy wired thing. Guys are more comfortable in their homes, because they are creatures of habit, but preferring a rut doesn't mean they actually think that rut is the best life gets. As for being grateful that a woman has wrought a great change... snort. I can't even get Guy #1 to stop wearing tightie whities, let alone change his nature. And if I did change his nature, I promise you, he would not be grateful, he'd dump me on my ass for someone that likes him the way he really is. That in fact would be why we got married - we liked the other person AS IS, NO WARRANTY.

Show me a man that says a mom's job is harder than being a cubicle jockey, and I'll show you a man writing a country love song.

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 16

Guy #1: "Hey, the only thing I have extras of is goat. We have goat, horses, and an excess of boredom! BUZKASHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

"By the way, my name is Jihad. I work part time as a bartender."

(This was the final straw in a lunch conversation that went from HOI2 to religion to zoophiles to the Rat Terrier of Love in a gimp mask and bungee cord restraints to fascism to the Patriot Act to why certain countries are never invaded.)

Email Drama

My laptop died a sad death today. I'm doing the happy dance because the tech team at work fished out the hard drive with all the data intact, but it'll be a few days before I see email again. I also lost all the stuff I was going to reply to today.

Thank Santa it's not all gone for good. I did much of my shopping online this year, and there are CRAPLOADS of registration numbers, tracking numbers, and purchase confirmation orders on that machine.

Is it just me, or are modern computers more prone to failure, overheating, and general instability than my piece of shit E-Machine ever was? That thing is STILL ticking, even if it smells like dogass and cigarettes whenever I turn it on thanks to the rich coat of nicotine and fur the fan developed in the four years it was on a basement floor. A basement occupied by die hard Everquest players.

Alaska - M's address is the one we had back in 1999 in Alexandria.

M - call Alaska and give him your address just in case he doesn't see this.

Ninja - use my Yahoo address. You should anyway, less chance of my spaminator crushing you and your Hotmail addy.

New Leaves

How many times can you turn over a new leaf before you just turn into a tree?

Musing

I was born in 1974. I played with gender neutral toys (with the exception of an extensive My Little Pony collection). I joined the first computer club my junior high school ever formed. I won a blue ribbon at the science fair. I smoked Marlboros in high school. Even with my generally girly college major, I chose a masculine, leadership emphasis. In the frat I was a champion belcher. I've always had the right to vote, been free to sue for sexual harassment, and only very rarely been made to feel that the world was not, indeed, my oyster. For that matter, I've spent what is nearly the last five years enjoying every natural advantage my gender brings to my job. In short, I am the product as well as the beneficiary of the feminist revolution.

So there I sat tonight, watching TV, cussing at Maureen Dowd for her anecdotal pile of crap masquerading as original political thought. Uh, I mean, her book. I was really working up a good head of steam when I had one of those head shaking moments.

My freshly baked apple cobbler was still warm enough to scent the room where I was sitting with my embroidery. Yeah, I'm really setting the world on fucking FIRE.