somewhere in my wanderings tonight I saw Chesus, a cheese mold in the shape of you-know-who, standing in the middle of a platter with crackers all around... all I remember about the site (it was a diary or journal) was that the Beatles were singing Michelle in the background of my mind... and that reminded me of someone I knew and loved in New Jersey once...

it was a wonderful year... we lived in the same barracks room for a while at Ft. Ord, California, while she was an ORT and I was an ERT... and an EMT, actually... that's not misnomered Myer-Briggs or anything, that's Operating Room Technician, Emergency Room Technician, and Emergency Medical Technician, respectively... did I mention I was a Paramedic in a previous life?... well, it seems like a previous life... long long time ago, I can still remember how the music used to... what?... make me cry?... get me high?... kiss the sky?... all and then some, naturally... and sometimes with chemical additives too, but now we surely must be digressing... she had a place off post, but preferred to hang close to work on those long mad wild nights...

few people shared the intensity of passion for life and sensuality (not to mention sex drive) as my dear Ri... we got together a few times after I returned to NYC and she returned to southern NJ and I remember her beautiful Christopher and it's wonderful to have such memories fresh in my mind after all this time... and I am hearing another phrase, mix tapes and memories... ah, now I remember (shhhh, I looked into the browser history), it was this diary that set off the memories of mixing songs on to cassettes for pleasure and communication and meditative experiences (not to mention seductions of the spirit and heart and mind and)... yeah... sweet memories...

I miss my music...

but the Michelle reference will need further history exploring I think... it was not LDS (who I somehow remembered as LSD, but that's another story from the time of Ri, though I don't think Ri was into it much at the time... will times like those ever come again?), though the picture at the moment is sweet... and it wasn't her either, even though we seem to share the same birth date and a love of music...

speaking of music, I am bopping to The Donnas at the moment... somewhere out there someone mentioned them and got me thinking about the liveliness of their music (and now I want to find Cindy Bullens... help?) and suddenly there they were on the library shelf and here they are dancing in my head...

finally, I found the diary that played the Beatles in my head and reminded me of Ri and hippier times... yes, I meant hippier... not that the diary just mentioned gave me any sense of hippiness, but you know my mind, ever wandering and connecting disparate thoughts as if they have some reason to follow each other... like I think anyone who has not been a hippie for at least a weekend has missed an essential part of life... but then, that's just my opinion and some people would tell you that anyone who hasn't put a pointy white hood over their heads and stood around a big cross burning has missed something too...

to each their own...

meanwhile, that was also where I saw Chesus...

so now I want to find (Cindy Bullens first... hey, wanna go on a cruise?) all these musical people I never heard of before (or at least do not know well): Devendra, Josephine Foster, Sir Richard Bishop, and Six Organs of Admittance (that almost sounds kinky), at least, and Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs come to mind... and Currituck Co., Apothecary Hymns, Coco Rosie, Faun Fables, Joanna Newson, Jennifer Gentle, Alisdair Roberts, Kathryn Williams, Adem, and for no other reason than she's from Iceland, Emiliana Torrini... I found Derk and hope to hear more from him... and suddenly I miss San Francisco (wouldn't you know it was just south of there that Ri and I played that wonderful year... there were so many good heads around there... a happy, enlightened atmosphere... wonder how it is now)...

all these thoughts come together from the web inspirations that lead to Ri and Melanie Safka (see previous entry) now has me wondering what Donovan is up to recently... and on that note I reach for the next CD in the pile and get set to bee-bop with Cyndi Lauper and find myself surprised to find her wailing an old song... a look at the CD has me pondering whether I want to take the mood that far back, but when I see Unchained Melody on the CD, I let the tears well up in my eyes and let it play... she always struck me as the girl perfectly suited to sing It's My Party and other Leslie Gore songs and maybe even more, the white-girl blues... the girl who always looked on the verge of crying but who knew how to laugh through her tears...

so going back to the pre-hippie era now... or maybe not pre-, but the anti-hippie pop stuff that was played by all the acceptible people in the suburbs who's kids did not run away from home to join a commune (or a circus)... anyway, I like Cyndi... and I like what she's done with the songs on this CD...

and I lost myself in that CD for a bit (some songs can do that to me, especially songs that inspire tears because they inspire emotions too intense to stay dry and the top twenty or fifty songs I love to sing deep within my heart/soul/anima, and Unchained Melody is one of those), but now I am back... it would be so right to share music again... and along comes the Phantom of the Opera (my mind loves to play with me)...

ok, back to the web for distraction and inspiration that does not necessarily require intensive care or spiritual healing... and into the ears come Jars of Clay... I still love the picture in this design (for as long as it stays up)... and considering my attraction to this whole diary life (that is, writing in communities of people who are writing about their lives, real or not), I realize that besides the fact that writing has been my best friend throughout this life (not to mention therapy and creative release and so many other things for me) and more than anything I am still searching for my place in this world (thank you Michael Smith... I always forget if it's a C. or a W.) and for the pieces that complete the puzzle that is the image of my dreams... which leads me to remember a Harry Chapin song, She is Always Seventeen, about dreams and how some of us relate to life (yeah, imagine... I'm not the only one)...

I can hardly believe that Bobbie Burgess, one of the grand-daddies of DLand, is still chugging out his perceptions (and now more pictures as he explores his other creative talents)... I wonder who has the most people linking him or her since he's been out on his own domain... you'd have to get well up over three thousand to be in his league... it would be interesting to see how many of those thousands of linkers still have diaries here... not interesting enough to actually spend the time clicking (if his Dland site is even still there), but an interesting thought, at least...

am I getting dull?...

ok, here, try this...

or this...

alright, so maybe you've already done this one, but can you tell me how/why it works?... it's not like a test or anything...

are you back?... well, while you've been doing that, I've been roaming the web for more interesting inpirations... as some old (1973) Bonnie Raitt flows through my ears now and you're probably sleeping soundly in your beds, I continue to endeavor to provide you with thought-provoking nonsense to keep you from being too bored when you are awake...

holy crap (for want of another exclamation, that's what came to mind... suffice to say a surprising detail shall follow), it was just a few entries ago that I fell in love with lastyearsgirl and in my wanderings I finally reached for my notes to check out the pages of the people who love me there (and I do love notes) and I plotz (that's another exclamation of surprise, by the way) to read her entry... obviously we were meant for each other... or else we've been reading the same Derk... but go look and see... she's mentioning relatively obscure music that I just mentioned above... and as I explore her more intimately (oh, I didn't mean that to sound forward or anything), did I mention that I picked up a Ryan Adams CD from the library in my last batch of CDs (not the current batch, but the batch from a month ago, long before I stumbled across the mind-reading librarian... ok, so maybe she's not a librarian, excuse my literary fantasies, but she's mind-reading, sure enough)... how'd she know?...

laughing now I exclaim... of course it's coincidence, but it's one of those fun mind-reading coincidences that friends can laugh about and strangers ponder about while the paranoid reach for the phone, dial 911, and scream stalker!...

now I don't know if I have the energy to roll over and fall in love all over again like I did the other day, but heck if I am not more apt to check in on the fiery stated beauty who might actually love music (and movies?... can I scream now?, please?) as much as I once did (and when I wake up, for those who've followed, all the more) and while I'm at it, I just might fall for Lily too... and wait, somebody there loves Stevie Nicks (would it be impolite to drool now?)... she'll always be Stevi to me... take my love, take it down, I still remember the first time I heard BuckinghamNicks...

ah, the sweet fantasies I used to write to her (yes, I actually mailed them... alas, most of the letters were returned unopened by her correspondence coordinator {I think her name was Gina} because of her policy not to accept lyrics... lawyers and the music business, but I forgave her... somewhere in storage there are hundreds expressions of my undying love for the girl)...

and so in closing I leave you with this thought...

it is infinitely better to imagine falling in love than to be depressed or to be lost in heartbreak (and I know, cuz I've got years of experience in both of those dark forests)... I will keep hope alive, somehow, no matter how torn up I get... it's not an easy job, but somebody's gotta do it...

and thank you, my friends (and my hope-to-be-your-friend-friends), for the inspiration to ramble on to sunrise... I'm gonna go sing here Comes the Sun to the morning now... I may be crazy, but at least I'm not normal...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)