review #1: caged melodies

Battle Studies. Gripping title. The first two songs ("Heartbreak Warfare" and "All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye") anticipate the likewise gripping slew of songs, increasing in heartwrenching beauty and innovation in theme and musicality, that we've come to expect of John Mayer. But, while the album does bring the warm familiarity of John's vocal texture, it lacks the vitality, brilliance, and boyish exuberance, even curiosity, so playful in his earlier work. Battle Studies misses the melodic punch of "My Stupid Mouth," the personality of "Comfortable," the sexiness of "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room." Ditch the subdued, bring back the colorful!

lady

i know somebody beautiful. today is her birthday. she changes the world every day with her way of making everything around her magical.

going, going, gray.

i found my first white hair today. three inches long, a little piece of skin still clinging to the root where i yanked it from my head.

i wanted YOU to be there, mr. knightley-aragorn-joebradleyblack, so I could scream, "HONEY!" and you'd come running in, thinking i needed saving from curling-iron-electrocution or a spider with seven legs. we'd stand there, side by side, in front of the mirror, staring at it mocking me from the tile countertop, in all its white resplendent self-importance. and after a moment of contemplating our aging bodies and growing up & growing old, you'd grab my arms, turn me to you, tell me i'm just as beautiful as ever.

then we'd go have dinner because i cooked it for you, so grateful that that was one rite of passage i didn't have to make alone.

confession:

sometimes i come on my blog and just look at it. i feel comfortable here. isn't writing the most beautiful form of narcissism?

LOVE connection

is it bad if i want my future husband to sing this song to me everyday? and possibly definitely have hair like train? but better dance moves. he must have better dance moves.

"what a joy for a boy to behold!"

i think we'd all agree there is something magic about the first snowfall of the year (besides the fact that karen carpenter sings about it). the reasons for the magic are different for all of us. for me it's a combination of the christmas lights at my grandma's house that i'd stare at out the bedroom window, upsidedown, until sleeping. it's the book "white snow bright snow"

and my mom reading it to nate and i when we'd run in from sledding, our noses red and drippdrippdripp, our hands and toes in pots of water she'd heated for us. maybe in the mix, there's also s p r i n k l i n g of memories of the anticipation of falling in love right before the holidays. for whatever reason your heart surges with laughter when you wake up to a white sky and a white world, here's wishing you and yours all the magic of the season.