Gonna Show Me Where The Light Is

Today, sitting down at the computer table, I knocked my leg so painfully against the table-leg that I felt sick to my stomach. Incredible. But all gone away, now. What is it about painful things that I can't ever remember them as they truly were? And not just physical pain, either, but doing really embarrassing things over and over again, like, oh, for instance, skipping so many classes that asking the prof for a deadline extension is like begging a favour off of a stranger, money from a random passer-by. Over and over again, I've discovered that I am the biggest obstacle I have to overcome. And that's the problem, isn't it? I shouldn't be discovering this, I know it already. So, from now on, when I want to lie in bed those extra five minutes, I'm going to do my damndest to get up RIGHT THEN. When I see that the clock says ten to the hour, I'm not going to sit around a table at school for another forty-five minutes. When I have an essay due in an hour, I'm not going to hare off to the grey marshes and ditches of the blog world. These are life-time habits I'm talking about, though, and, of course, they're going to happen again. But when they do, I'm going to try to grab them by their collars, turn their pockets out, give them a good shaking and boot them out the door. And when they come back, appearing without effort in my thoughts and ways, I'll boot them out again. This could take years to get rid of them, but I don't care. I'm divorcing myself from these lacklustre cheaply-clothed kids, I'm renouncing their slack mouths and twisted hands, I'm giving up on the whole giving-up scene. No more putting off. No more.

"Skullcrusher Mountain" + Jonathan Coulton The new Streets single is leaving me cold. Whatevs. I can't stop playing the Diplo or the acoustic version or even that pagan-style video of the new YYY model, so good, so very very good. Also, Jenny Lewis is a god. But whatevs, whatevs, what to post for the after-Valentine's party? So much good music out there, so much new music, too, and nothing pour amour. Godsake, Johnathan Coulton, yes! Because the guy is crazy good, like Great Big Sea mixed in with Jonathan Richman and smothered with low-key Weird Al (and, where, exactly, IS Weird Al these days?). This single is from last spring, solid gold. Coulton describes the most romantic lover of them all in this tune, a man who asks, "Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?" Apparently not, and so we get a great song. The music is for real, the talent is incredibly obvious, and the songs appear farcial (they are). But a second listen, and a seventh, and a seventy-seventh will probably pass before you appreciate just how good this song really is, music, words, everything coming together for four minutes and sixteen seconds of perfect pure pop.

You know it isn't easy living here on Skullcrusher Mountain.
Maybe you could cut me just a little slack.
Would it kill you to be civil?
I've been patient, I've been gracious,
And this mountain is covered with wolves.
Hear them howling, my hungry children.
Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you.