My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Plasma Rifle of Truth. What’s yours?

I think it kinda has a ring to it, doesn’t it? There’s just nothing quite like a good plasma rifle, or a good truth. *large grin*

For a lot of people, music doesn’t seem to be much of an influence or motivator in their life. And for others, their lives seem to revolve around it.

How much influence do you think music has had on your life, and why? Give examples!

Music helps me realize & express my emotions, which I would have to say is a pretty important influence in life. When I can’t quite pin down something on an emotional level, going through my music library and deciding out what I want to listen to can help me realize what’s going on with my feelings…even if it takes eons to realize just what that song meant to me, in my heart & soul. Years after I last saw William, I finally figured out that I’d been in love with him when it dawned on me that I couldn’t think of him without hearing As I Lay Me Down by Sophie B. Hawkins in my head.

Apparently I’m a woman of complex tastes…or I just like a lot of variety. *big grin* Of course, my wide (or would that be weird?) musical tastes can also be seen on my Audioscrobbler profile.

My main website doesn’t often see a whole lot of updating (for example, I have some rather ancient emails waiting to be formatted into .html pages, from good people who’ve sent funnies in both the cat & pagan humor departments). But I finally got a start on organizing my book reviews.

It’s not much, and it’s not fancy, but it’s more than I had up yesterday. And, of course, I have at least a dozen books in mind for which to write reviews. (There’s my stab at proper grammar, having recently bought & read Eats, Shoots & Leaves.) Most of them are sitting in a pile on my coffee table. My goal is a minimum of one review a week…we’ll just see how that pans out.

Considering that I’m madly in love with Portland (I still think, “Damn, I live in a beautiful city!” when I see downtown and the bridges over the Willamette at night), and Honolulu was my childhood home that I loved dearly, I’d have to say they pegged me.

Except for Denver. I’ve only been there for airport layovers, but the year & some-odd months that I lived in Albuquerque taught me that I don’t seem to acclimatize to high elevations. I had altitude sickness the whole time I was in Albuquerque, and theoretically you’re supposed to adjust within a month.

Come to think of it, I can’t see living in Texas either. Ever.

When the book The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants first came into my house, I had no intention of reading it. After all, it was clearly a book for girls somewhere between the ages of “horse-crazy” and “prom-dates”, but certainly not for thirty-something moms of the afore-mentioned girls. After all, what could there be for me (or any other tired old working mom) in a book about four 15-year-olds who’ve been friends since birth?

I was so wrong. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is for girls from 10 to 110; the three females in our house who’ve read it are 12, 16, and 35 - and we’re anxiously hopeful about how the upcoming movie will turn out (because, of course, we’re going to see it as soon as it comes out!). This is the book that prompted my 16-year-old to ask, “Why don’t we have fussy, overbearing Greek relatives?” (But never fear, it’s most definitely not the junior version of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding!”)

By the time you get to the end of the book, you’ve laughed, and blinked back tears, and smiled bittersweetly, and felt your heart leap at long-forgotten memories - and altogether fallen into the Sisterhood shared by Carmen, Lena, Bridget, and Tibby. A cynical reader will note in the “About the Author” section that it’s the first book by Ann Brashares, and sigh a little at the likelihood that the second doesn’t live up to the sheer joy, pain, discovery, and honesty of the first. But luckily, the two sequels thus far - The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, and Girls in Pants - are just as exquisite.

The books speak to your heart, about what it is to be a daughter, and a mother. About what it is to be a big sister, or a stepsister, or to long to have any sibling at all. About what it is to be giddily drunk with first love, and abjectly devastated by lost love, and bravely reaching out to love again after heartbreak. About what it is to be lost, to be found, and to realize you knew where home was the whole time. About doing the wrong thing without realizing it, and doing the right thing when you hate it, and coming to terms with the right and the wrong…and the way things just are.

But most of all the books are about love…

Sometimes when she thought of Eric, and now more powerfully when she saw him, she felt some achy nostalgia for her old self. For the dauntless, daring soul she used to be. There was something vaguely enchanted about that time. There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn’t retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.

Not all of that spirit was gone. She still had it, but she had a more tempered version. That time with Eric in Baja had been both the height of that magic and its calamitous end. He had managed to inspire both.

She was a bit more fragile now. Or no. Maybe she was less fragile. Maybe she had come to terms with her injuries and she knew how to protect them. She was more self-protective, that was true. But she was a girl without a mother. She had to protect herself.

Not just about the love a girl feels for her first lover, but the love a girl has for her irksome toddler sister, her unexpected & unlikely new friend who’s dying of cancer, her quietly intense twin brother, her grandfather who doesn’t speak English, her stepsister that she used to think she hated, the wide-ranging & conflicted flavors of love for her mother, and of course the tumultuous yet solid love for her best friends.

The books are about recognizing the connections who help to make you who you are, and coming to terms with how the people in your life help shape you, while discovering yourself and appreciating just who that person is - but the stories are so compelling, and just downright enjoyable, that you’re too busy devouring each page to notice that there’s a “deeper” level while you’re reading them. It’s a rarity to find a book (or movie, or conversation, or anything in life!) that engages your feelings so intensely that you don’t realize how much it prompts you to think until later - and that’s exactly what I want in a book!

How was my weekend? There was sleep (11 hours straight on Friday night, apparently catching up on my several-nights-running sleep deficit), hanging out & more sleep (crashing on Mari’s sofa whilst the other grownups played games) on Saturday, and laundry & having Lyse over for another CSI marathon on Sunday. It was only because I had a tummy-ache today that I didn’t nap this afternoon.

Not much else of note, although there were many blog-worthy funnies from various souls (which, of course, I can’t recall just now). Oh yeah, Friday was Earth Day. Whatever. The only reason I even remembered it was that my priestess initiation was done on that date 8 years ago (not intentionally; it just happened to be a good moon phase on an evening when everyone participating was available…and yes, that is usually how these things are planned in Pagan circles).

Hopefully tomorrow won’t be too painful a Monday.

On my way to work this morning, while crossing the always-crawling (during rush hour, at least) Ross Island Bridge, I set about amusing myself by reading the bumperstickers on other people’s cars. Because I really like bumperstickers! Last night, I got one of those magnetic “ribbon” ones - you know, like the yellow or camo ones that always say “Support Our Troops” or the pink ones that say “Support a Cure For Breast Cancer”. Mine is purple and says “Support Bitching.”

But here was the one that I found so amusing on someone else’s rig (a black Toyota SUV-type thing):

U.S. Marines - Travel Agents to Allah

He must be a brave guy to have that sticker in such a liberal, politically-correct, pacifistic hippie haven like Portland. I think I want to date him. *big grin*

We’ve all been subjected to the hoodlums with thousand-dollar subwoofers driving around, who feel it’s their right to share their musical taste with the entire neighborhood. At ridiculous decibels. In a perfect world, there would be some way to direct a narrow-beam EMP at those idjits, or…

What song would you, if you could get away with it, infli—… er, share with the town at large, at full volume?

I would definitely “share” impossibly perky stuff, like Petula Clark’s Downtown. Or perhaps impossibly commercial pop schmaltz like Britney Spears Oops! I Did It Again. (The actual question this week was brought to you by my Number One Internet Fanboy. He is not, however, responsible for my taste in music, although he does keep trying to improve it. *grin*)

Normally I associate the word “rally” with either some form of souped-up auto extravaganza, or a patriotic fervor (if you tack “round the flag” on the end). But a rally for migraine awareness is cool, too.

As someone who gets these evil attacks, I heartily endorse education and awareness for both migraineurs (sufferers) and those who are lucky enough not to be afflicted. Here’s the basic answers to migraine FAQ:

No, they’re not “just” headaches; the pain & pressure is a symptom of the disease, not the problem itself. No, Tylenol or Advil won’t help one bit; medication that actually targets migraine attacks is the only consistent way to get relief. No, not only women get migraine, although it’s far more common in women (note the rally is specifically about menstrual migraine). No, migraine attacks aren’t induced by stress or other psychological factors; it’s an organic neurological disease. No, it’s not a “harmless” condition; more people died from Migrainous Stroke last year than were murdered with handguns.

Need more info? Check out this article about migraine myths.