SO. Tori Amos totally got me through the day. I’ve had her new album on in a loop and I’m positive that without it I may have come dangerously close to sticking something sharp in my eye. Around noon I had already been staring at my computer screen for so long that the colors in the type started to peel apart so that when I looked at black type I also saw red and blue.
And then I looked her up on youtube. She is in Seattle singing “Welcome to England” and someone has taken a video on their phone. But the point is, TORI went to SEATTLE and sang about ENGLAND. It was like three pieces of me that are normally far apart suddenly came TOGETHER. And she wore shiny gold leggings. (For the first minute and a half I was convinced you could see up her skirt, but she is wearing amazing shiny gold leggings).
Check it out, and try not to yell at the people talking at the beginning or the people whose heads totally get in the way. It’s a video, they won’t listen (I totally forgot that). Plus, the person with the phone has way better seats than I could afford if I could have gone myself, and I didn’t get to go myself, so I salute you little miss phone-cam, for allowing me to watch live Tori on youtube.
She has three pianos. I have one piano that I can’t even play properly and she plays three. New incentive to practice. Anyway, after my recent trip home to Seattle, I was being a little brat about England. I was cranky and homesick. I’ve even been known to complain about the air not smelling as nice over here. (Though sometimes I stand by that one, yesterday when I took the bus it smelled of cat urine).
Anyway, one of the reasons I love Tori so much is that her songs take awhile for me to digest, and also because they often change meanings for me as time passes. So I’m not going to deconstruct this one. You have to let any song exist as it immediately falls upon you before you gain the ability to let it speak to you properly. And even then, you can’t commit yourself to one meaning, you have to be open to letting things change. Because people change, so why should songs be any different? Or books? Or paintings?
But back to England. I decided to think of things that define my in-between moments over here. Things that I can love or not love depending on my moods. Because that’s what any perspective really consists of, isn’t it? The little things that slip in and become old or new, good or bad at different times simply to prove that nothing is ever static.
Anyway, here are a few:
When we go on coastal walks, my phone thinks we are in France.
If we leave the house before 7:10, we get stuck in traffic behind the same set of cows being moved from a field on one side of the road to a field on the other.
I cannot get a double espresso at my office before 8:30, and I drink breakfast tea without milk.
BLUE VINNEY CHEESE
I cannot say the word “lolly” without sounding drunk. Try it, I bet you can’t either. Especially if you are actually drunk.
Dogs in pubs make me happy. Chickens in pubs freak me out. Even in sandwiches.
When we drive in the summer, the leaves overhead are so thick that the world becomes one big green leaf-tunnel.
Last year, when it snowed, the bus driver suddenly pulled over and ran out. We all thought he’d hit someone, but it turned out he’d seen an old woman slip and fall on the sidewalk and went to make sure she was ok.
Heels: They get stuck in cracks between cobblestones, and I wear them down to the screws in about 5 months. My mind is so used to hearing the high clicking of metal on stone that when I get shoes re-heeled, the absence of that sound makes me think I’ve got gum stuck to my heels or something.
NO DOG-FOULING SIGNS
NATIONAL TRUST VOLUNTEERS. They teach you more than history class.
There are ammonites in the walls.
People on the bus talk themselves. There are enough people on the bus who talk to themselves at one time that it is almost like they are talking to each other. This leads me to wonder if my understanding of conversation is skewed. When I talk to other people, it is likely that I talk to myself, and then they talk to themselves back. I suppose if this is true, then only truly lost people would have misunderstandings.
And then I looked her up on youtube. She is in Seattle singing “Welcome to England” and someone has taken a video on their phone. But the point is, TORI went to SEATTLE and sang about ENGLAND. It was like three pieces of me that are normally far apart suddenly came TOGETHER. And she wore shiny gold leggings. (For the first minute and a half I was convinced you could see up her skirt, but she is wearing amazing shiny gold leggings).
Check it out, and try not to yell at the people talking at the beginning or the people whose heads totally get in the way. It’s a video, they won’t listen (I totally forgot that). Plus, the person with the phone has way better seats than I could afford if I could have gone myself, and I didn’t get to go myself, so I salute you little miss phone-cam, for allowing me to watch live Tori on youtube.
She has three pianos. I have one piano that I can’t even play properly and she plays three. New incentive to practice. Anyway, after my recent trip home to Seattle, I was being a little brat about England. I was cranky and homesick. I’ve even been known to complain about the air not smelling as nice over here. (Though sometimes I stand by that one, yesterday when I took the bus it smelled of cat urine).
Anyway, one of the reasons I love Tori so much is that her songs take awhile for me to digest, and also because they often change meanings for me as time passes. So I’m not going to deconstruct this one. You have to let any song exist as it immediately falls upon you before you gain the ability to let it speak to you properly. And even then, you can’t commit yourself to one meaning, you have to be open to letting things change. Because people change, so why should songs be any different? Or books? Or paintings?
But back to England. I decided to think of things that define my in-between moments over here. Things that I can love or not love depending on my moods. Because that’s what any perspective really consists of, isn’t it? The little things that slip in and become old or new, good or bad at different times simply to prove that nothing is ever static.
Anyway, here are a few:
When we go on coastal walks, my phone thinks we are in France.
If we leave the house before 7:10, we get stuck in traffic behind the same set of cows being moved from a field on one side of the road to a field on the other.
I cannot get a double espresso at my office before 8:30, and I drink breakfast tea without milk.
BLUE VINNEY CHEESE
I cannot say the word “lolly” without sounding drunk. Try it, I bet you can’t either. Especially if you are actually drunk.
Dogs in pubs make me happy. Chickens in pubs freak me out. Even in sandwiches.
When we drive in the summer, the leaves overhead are so thick that the world becomes one big green leaf-tunnel.
Last year, when it snowed, the bus driver suddenly pulled over and ran out. We all thought he’d hit someone, but it turned out he’d seen an old woman slip and fall on the sidewalk and went to make sure she was ok.
Heels: They get stuck in cracks between cobblestones, and I wear them down to the screws in about 5 months. My mind is so used to hearing the high clicking of metal on stone that when I get shoes re-heeled, the absence of that sound makes me think I’ve got gum stuck to my heels or something.
NO DOG-FOULING SIGNS
NATIONAL TRUST VOLUNTEERS. They teach you more than history class.
There are ammonites in the walls.
People on the bus talk themselves. There are enough people on the bus who talk to themselves at one time that it is almost like they are talking to each other. This leads me to wonder if my understanding of conversation is skewed. When I talk to other people, it is likely that I talk to myself, and then they talk to themselves back. I suppose if this is true, then only truly lost people would have misunderstandings.
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