Day 13 — views on today’s music

I hate it.

Honestly, I don’t listen to it, I think most of it’s garbage. Everything on the popular music charts is auto-tuned and super contrived. This goes for country music too. I can’t pinpoint when it started, but if you look at almost any particular song, you’ll find it has a number of songwriters — sometimes the singer may be listed. It’s a machine.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but recently I realized after seeing or hearing something in the subject that there are music fans who love certain artists (like me), some fans who deep dive into albums and can’t get enough (me). Then there are people who like music — all kinds of music — they will listen to almost anything. People who don’t make playlists and their iPods seem schizophrenic to me. I’ve always thought those people had bad taste in music (and maybe they do), but they just aren’t like me and that’s fine. I don’t understand it, but now I know that’s what it is. I blame a lot of these people for a lot of the music that become “hits.”

As for me, I like singer/songwriter, adult alternative current music. You won’t find it on the Billboard Top 40. Of course — Ben Folds, Counting Crows, The Decemberists, Dawes, The Head and the Heart, etc.

Day 12 — bullet point your entire day

No one wants all that.

• 5:50, woke the girls for school, took them to the bus stop
• 7, woke the boy for school, let him walk to the bus stop because I’m heartless, took my prescription drugs, checked Facebook notifications on Facebook, went back to sleep
• 9, had coffee, watched some Today Show, fixed my hair, got dressed
• Tried to log into our CPA’s portal on and off for a few hours
• Read a bunch of articles in various things online
• Made some Spanish rice and had lunch
• Managed to log into the CPA’s portal and uploaded our files
• Watched an episode of a series on the Netflix about stolen artwork (the Mona Lisa)
• Checked Facebook
• Cleaned up after my dog who was sick
• Watched another episode on Vermeer
• Picked up prescriptions at CVS
• Picked up oldest daughter at the bus stop
• Picked up second daughter at the high school
• Made some mocha caramel iced coffee
• Got out the fryer
• Filled up the fryer with exactly half the amount of oil I needed
• Aborted Mission: make Chickie-Chickie Parm-Parm in fryer
• Got out the new pretty frying pan
• Put on the “Murmur” episode of RU Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me? because I’m re-listening to the podcast
• Sliced chicken breasts in half
• Salt and peppered said chicken breasts and set aside
• Whisked up 5 eggs with a little salt and set aside
• Poured Italian breadcrumbs in a 9 inch brownie pan
• Heated a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the new pretty pan
• Dipped each chicken breast in egg, then bread crumbs, then placed chicken breasts in the pretty pan — three at a time
• Got out the big Pyrex lasagna pan and spread roughly half a cup of marinara sauce in the bottom
• Preheated oven to 360°
• Arranged 9 lightly breaded chicken breasts in pan
• Spooned a small amount of marinara sauce on each chicken breast
• Put a good amount of mozzarella cheese on each chicken breast
• Baked the Chickie-Chickie Parm-Parm for 30 minutes
• Checked my email and chatted on Facebook and cleaned up the kitchen
• Ate dinner
• Watched two episodes of The Americans with the hubs
• Watched two episodes of Parks and Rec with the oldest daughter
• Started writing this post
• Put on the first episode of a new Botched plastic surgeries
• Took nighttime meds
• Counted how many times I wrote “breast” in this post — 8

Day 11: Places you’d like to visit/live

I’ve lived in the Atlanta area and I liked it a lot. I live in the greater Houston area and it’s ok. I loved living in Covington, LA. Shreveport will always be my hometown.

I’m not big on traveling. I’m just not. I do want to go to England, Ireland, and Scotland because that’s where my ancestors are from. According to my DNA kit, I’m 85% UK. I wouldn’t mind vacationing in Italy. I loved Disney World. I’d go back tomorrow if someone asked me. I know I’m weird. Most people love to travel. Maybe it’s from all the moving around we’ve done, but I’m a homebody. I like a good vacation, but I like home.

Day 10 — Ten interesting facts about myself.

I don’t know if they’re interesting, but ok.

1. I love refinishing furniture.
2. The 7th typewriter in my collection is arriving next week.
3. I hate walking barefoot. I only walk with slippers inside my house.
4. I hate big dogs (except basset hounds, which are big dogs on short legs) and I hate tiny dogs.
5. I have approximately 30 lipsticks.
6. My favorite words are “awkward” and “plethora.”
7. I hate Phil Collins and Richard Marx. And I’ve started to hate Billy Joel.
8. If I were a drag queen I’d be Champagne Supernova.
9. My favorite book is The Awakening by Kate Chopin.
10. I think I’ve shared most everything anyone would find interesting about me on this blog in the past hundred years. Maybe number ten would be that I was told once that I probably share too much. Maybe I do. But I share because there is someone who may need a laugh or maybe someone needs to know another person has been through something too. There has to be a reason readers come back. It’s surely not because I’m the most interesting person in the world. But I’m the most me person. I’ll be back tomorrow. Promise.

Day 9 — put your iPod on shuffle and write down the first ten songs.

Ok.

“Wait” by The Beatles

“Golden State” by Delta Spirit

“Let Go” by Frou-Frou

“Louisiana Land” by OK Go (amazing song)

“The Look” by Roxette

“Borderline” by Counting Crows

“Thieves Like Us” by New Order

“What’s the New Mary Jane” by The Beatles

“Flying” by Matthew Sweet

” If I Could Talk I’d Tell You” by The Lemonheads

That’s a pretty good representation of my musical tastes. A random soundtrack song, a two-hit wonder, and a barely known Beatles track in with some damn fine songs.

Day 8 — guilty pleasure

Guilty pleasures have become pretty much out now, right?

I don’t know. Everyone knows I love true crime/murder/serial killer/cult documentaries. I really do. Most people can’t handle that kind of stuff. I don’t know why scary movies freak me out, but not the real stuff. That’s kind of weird.

My guilty pleasures are binge-watching shows.

Shopping online, putting things in my cart and never buying them.

Watching John Mulaney’s standup a dozen times.

Superhero movies.

Taking an hour to find the perfect font on a project.

Taking pictures on the QT of random stuff/people when I’m out and about and posting them on Facebook or texting them to friends. This is a guilty pleasure I’ll still be doing when I’m 90 and the iPhone 67 is implanted into my hand.

Day 7 — dream job

Mist people who know me know I wanted to be a journalist from a pretty young age. That didn’t quite work out. Ideally, I would have been hard-hitting journalist a la Woodward and Bernstein or in the other end, a music journalist for Rolling Stone it Spin.

Like Otis Redding sang, “I’ve got dreams to remember.”

Day 6: Favorite childhood toys

That’s easy. Pretty much everything Barbie.

I was obsessed. My Aunt Mary and Uncle J.D. gave me my first Barbie. It’s was a Malibu Barbie.

It wasn’t long before I had to have as many as I could get for my birthday and holidays. The first I was super excited for was the Western Barbie with a working blinking eye! I pressed the back panel so much the poor doll got stuck as a cyclops. And don’t even think I didn’t have her Palomino horse, Dallas.

Of course I had the Barbie Townhouse.

These two Barbies were my favorites. The Rose Barbie smelled like roses and the other one was the height of 80s Dynasty-esque beauty.

For those new readers who are asking what the numbers in my titles are, this is my second year of writing every day. So, it’s the second year.number day of the year/365 days in a year.

Hope that helps.

Day 5 — earliest memory

My earliest memory is being with my great grandmother on her farm in Bryan’s Mill, TX. I remember chickens. I remember her kitchen. I was two and a half. I have an exceptional memory and it is long.

Day 4: Zodiac Sign and Fit with Personality

I don’t believe in zodiac bullshit, except for the Zodiac Killer back in the day. That dude was for real.

Anyway, I’m a Cancer, sign of the Crab. In high school I had a book called Star Signs and I was positive it was all legit. Then I noticed the daily predictions in the newspaper and started reading those. They’re all the same. You could substitute any of them for another and believe it was for you. Check it out for yourself.

Once I heard a comedian say his sign was a Cancer and that it was tough picking up women when they say “what’s your sign?” because he was a Cancer, sign of the Crab — two diseases. That’s funny.