Button Sunday and Song Challenge: Day 17

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Are you wearing green today? I’m not sure how much writing I’ll be doing while Jim’s here, but I’m in the final stretch of the first section of the book which is all presented through the voice of one character. The good news is that the next character up (who’s half Irish–I can stay on topic!), has already been nudging me about how to kick off his section. It’s always a relief to have a plan.

For now, I’m simply going to enjoy the few days Jim will be here. I also committed to a small project (small for me; big for him) for someone who I’ve long enjoyed interacting with online. I once wrote a short story for an anthology he was putting together (hope remains that collection will one day be published; I’d love to see that story in print). I’ve started my part of his current project and need to get it to him as soon as I can.

The song challenge for today is “a song you’d sing with someone at karaoke.” I’ve mentioned on here more than once that I’ve had a single adventure in karaoke, when I was pulled into a group of women to sing Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” I’m not sure I sang as much as I laughed, because one of the women took the lead and owned it. It was such a surprise, because she was normally a reserved person; it was great to see her cut loose and enjoy herself so immensely. I don’t think that experience could be replicated, BUT… with the right group of women friends, I might be persuaded to play air guitar and pretend to be as cool as Joan Jett in this video (I would provide BACKING VOCALS ONLY) on the Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb.”

Song Challenge: Day 16

Today’s challenge is “a song that’s a favorite from any genre.” R.E.M. is one of my top bands. I respect them for disbanding when they thought it was time, but I miss them. They have so many songs I never get tired of listening to. Though “Losing My Religion” was probably overplayed on music television, both the song and the video are classic.

Jim arrived here around noon today after Tim picked him up at the airport. We haven’t seen him since the month before the flood in 2017, so this visit is long overdue. Just as always, it’s like those years never happened. As the four of us sat at the table and talked, it was easy to remember why we started writing together. Just missing Timmy from the group!

Mood: Monday and Song Challenge: Day 11

Breathe With Me
©Preston M. Smith, USA
oil on canvas, 2017

I’m fascinated by Smith’s work that (I think) I found for the first time today. I connected with so many of his paintings and their titles. This one felt like the right match for today’s song challenge, “a song that you never get tired of.” For me, that song is Dennis Wilson’s “Forever,” from the Beach Boys’ Sunflower album in 1970. This was a lesser-known gem Beach Boys fans and followers loved for a long time. It found a new audience when it was sung by an actor on a popular TV show in the 1990s. While considered a sweet love song, there’s a sadness woven through it within the context of Dennis’s passionate, glorious, and tumultuous life and early death.

Song Challenge: Day 7

I had an appointment to go to so I turned Thursday into a day of errands: dropping off clothing donations, making a rare visit to the wonderful Texas Art Supply (it used to be so convenient in the old ‘hood, and today they gave me a bunch of help) to buy a couple of gifts and goodies, filling up the car with gas, and grabbing Starbucks along the way.

I have a car playlist called “Driving,” and since today’s song challenge is “a song to drive to,” I switched to it. Songs include Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer,” U2’s “California (There Is No End To Love),” Jackson Browne’s “Chasing You Into the Light,” One Republic’s “Come Home,” Paul Young’s “Everytime You Go Away,” Wesley Dean’s “Hello, I Love You, Goodbye,” Gladys Knight & The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and Gregg Allman’s “Midnight Rider,” “Multi Colored Lady,” and “Please Call Home.”

All excellent songs and fun to sing with as I drive, but for this challenge, I’m sharing what may be my favorite song to drive to or even think about driving to. I love to hear it, sing it, and make up stories to it and have been doing so since I first heard it in 1971. I made an entire video in my head to accompany this song before videos were a thing, and I still remember my mental video all these years later for Carole King’s “Carry Your Load” from the great album Music. Give it a listen if you haven’t heard it or want the nostalgia of remembering it.

I have two of those Barbie convertibles, one from Margret via Lynne, and one from Nurse Lisa. THANK YOU!

Tiny Tuesday! and Song Challenge: Day 5

For some reason Instagram isn’t working for me at all today. I’m taking that as a message to preserve my sanity by knowing as little as possible about how “Super” Tuesday is making people feel and behave. In honor of those who are willing to endure politics with their popcorn, here’s a wee miniature I received recently. Popcorn kernels added for scale.

Since today’s Song Challenge is “A song that needs to be played loud,” I will handle that immediately as I get back to my writing (I don’t know if this song is referenced in the Neverending Saga, but Led Zeppelin is, more than once). “Stairway To Heaven” has meaning in my life, but I feel no compulsion to elaborate. (It’s fine if you’re glad about that.)

What do you like to listen to LOUD?

I can’t write

Credit: CSA Images/CSA Images
Copyright: ©CSA Images/CSA Images

ETA: Before I woke up Sunday morning after I posted this, I dreamed. In the dream, I saw this typewriter and what was on the paper, then I saw that I had 30 comments. I was so shocked! It was like the days of yore either on LiveJournal or when I linked to my blog from Facebook and Twitter.

When I read the first comment, it said, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. It happens to me, too.” It was signed with one of my character’s names, but in my dream, I knew it wasn’t my character. Just a coincidence. I woke myself up and thought, Not your character and not a coincidence. You know who it was.

I do. ❤️

Absolutely perfect

Minna’s Next Move

I have an important chapter to focus on today. On instinct, I plucked these three CDs out of the binder. Two were burned for me by Marika many years ago when she found out I loved “Twin Peaks,” both the TV series and its music. They are joined by my official “Twin Peaks” soundtrack, with music by the late Angelo Badalamenti and lyrics by the brilliant David Lynch. The soundtrack has only three pieces with vocals by the late Julee Cruise; Marika tracked down thirteen more for her custom CD (I’ll provide the track list below).

It’s the best music I can listen to while writing today for several reasons, but one in particular. My Director is working on a film post-production, and he’d asked The Musician to compose a haunting score. There’s probably no music more haunting than these two CDs of “Twin Peaks” music, making them surreal and ideal.

Sometime during the pandemic or post-pandemic, Marika pitched me the idea of “Ghost Girl” music, and we often sent each other song titles that on the surface were light or pop songs, but if you turned the singer or the subject into Ghost Girl, they took on an entirely new mood and meaning. Wherever she travels among the stars of the Universe, I’m betting Marika still likes hearing some good Ghost Girl songs.

Julee Cruise “Twin Peaks” Music
1. Falling
2. The Nightingale
3. Floating
4. I Remember
5. Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart
6. Mysteries of Love
7. Into The Night
8. I Float Alone
9. The Swan
10. The World Spins
11. This Is Our Night
12. The Space For Love
13. Movin’ In On You
14. Friends For Life
15. Up In Flames
16. Kool Kat Walk

I don’t have a track list for Marika’s mix CD titled Julee Cruise/Big Band, and I don’t currently have the time it would take to figure out her lyrics so I could research and identify all the songs on this CD. The mood of her work is equally haunting to the “Twin Peaks” music. The CD shifts gears on the seventh song, but it still works with the overall mood of this section of my novel.

1. Needs research
2. Julee Cruise, “She Would Die For Love”
3. Julee Cruise, needs research
4. Julee Cruise, “Questions In A World of Blue Lyrics”
5. Julee Cruise, “The Voice of Love”
6. Julee Cruise, “Bei Mir Bistu Shein”
7. Frank Sinatra, “Witchcraft”
8. Frank Sinatra, “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”
9. Needs research
10. Glen Miller, “String of Pearls”
11. Needs research
12. Needs research
13. Frank Sinatra, “Summer Wind”
14. Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra, “Somethin’ Stupid”
15. Frank Sinatra, “It Happened In Monterey”
16. Alison Moyet (I think), “That Ole Devil Called Love”
17. Needs research
18. repeat of Frank Sinatra, “Summer Wind” (guess Marika really liked this one)
19. “Here’s To The Losers,” this version is more mellow than Frank Sinatra’s, could be James Darren playing “Vic Fontaine” on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 06, Episode 26, ‘Tears of the Prophets,'” which would be a clever move on Marika’s part
20. “Danke Schoen,” by a female vocalist; Brenda Lee did a version, but this doesn’t sound like her
21. “Fever,” most likely Peggy Lee’s version, doesn’t sound like Patti Page, and I can’t find Julie London’s rendition

ETA: It turned out to be a much longer writing day than I expected, partially because I updated my concordance with all the new names and places that are part of Book 7 in progress. Always good to hear music from Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Chopin. These CDs probably should have been used for writing a different character, but it’s okay to mix things up a little.

A bit of Thursday

The good stuff: Tom worked a half-day so that he and I could go into the old ‘hood to see our friend Larry and get haircuts. Spending time with Larry is always fun and full of conversations about a random range of topics. Somewhere in the middle of it, he dropped the information that his partner has for years been a collector of Barbies. I had no idea. It sounds like the collection is one I’d be likely to drool over, so I hope to see at least some of it one day and promise not to drool on anything.

Afterward, we picked up dinner-to-go from one of our favorite restaurants and were home in time to feed the very aggrieved dogs who were sure they’d been abandoned (as if Debby isn’t here for them when needed).

The eh stuff: Not a lot of writing got done, but while I thought about writing, I did some coloring. It’s unfinished, and at some point, I got very frustrated with the pens I was using and slapped on a bunch of star stickers to cover up some of the coloring that displeased me. I don’t like that either. I’ll take a couple of days away from that activity before I decide what to do to fix it.

In any case, even that ended the day on a much higher note than how I started it, dealing with the frustrations of canceling a website I’m tired of overpaying for and no longer using. Technology…. I understand exactly how this woman feels.


Photo © My Computer Works®

Midweek again

Errands and other matters to tend to today, but when I strategized about writing or actually wrote, these were the playlist. Two of my favorite lyricists and artists, spanning decades of my life. I’ve also enjoyed several books about them.


Neil Young’s Harvest and After The Gold Rush, and Warren Zevon’s Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy, and The Wind.

ETA: The Z in Zevon makes it official; I’ve gone through the CD’s in my alphabetical binders and those with hardcovers that are kept in a separate box in the same cabinet. It was poignant for the last song to be from Zevon’s last record The Wind before his death, “Keep Me In Your Heart.”

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you