Mellow Warmup
(Getting going, waking up)
Electric Twist – A Fine Frenzy
Love of Our Lives – Indigo Girls
Beautiful Day – U2
O… Saya – Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack
Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas
Driver Education – Indigo Girls
Gold Digger – Glee Cast Version

Silly Euphoric Music
(You know, for right around the point when running feels amazing)
Hot N Cold – Katy Perry
Sometimes – Michael Franti & Spearhead
Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting – Elton John
Waking Up in Vegas – Katy Perry
Don’t Rain On My Parade – Glee Cast Version
Bust a Move – Glee Cast Version

Just… Keep… Running…
(When stopping isn’t an option.)
I Do Not Hook Up – Kelly Clarkson
SexyBack – Justin Timberlake
Sound of Water / Change Your Mind – Sarah Slean
Battlefield – Jordin Sparks
Are You Gonna Be My Girl – Jet
No Sleep Tonight – The Faders
Die Another Day – Madonna

To the End…
(When you need one or two more tunes to get you there.)
Run – Amy MacDonald
First Train Home – Imogen Heap
Forca – Nelly Furtado
Chickenman – Indigo Girls

I don’t know. I tend to listen to a lot of wacky stuff when I run. First rule? It has to be something I want to sing along to. When I run outside, and no one’s around, sometimes I do sing little bits and pieces as a way of checking my breath and exertion level.

I have three running-related playlists. One is the one I put together for the half marathon last fall, but I use it on any run over an hour. It’s got 70 or so songs, and contains everything from classic rock to Bollywood. My smaller playlist has 40 tried-and-true favorites, including all of the above. But I tend to use the On-the-go playlist more often right now, with 10 or 20 absolute current favorites so I don’t find myself needing to hit skip too often. (Tough on the iPod touch with sweaty fingers).

I’m having a tough time transitioning towards more indoor workouts for the winter. After getting shin splints pretty bad in November from running too much too soon in too cold weather, I’ve had little luck getting outside without pain. Today will be my second treadmill workout ever, and while I can’t say I like it, it lets me run, and so far, I’m pain free.

I can’t seem to escape the musical references lately. Maybe it’s because I seem to constantly have my iPod on these days. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve always used music as a reflection of how I view the world at the time.

Joni Mitchell.

I tried to love you back in high school when I discovered folk music. The Indigo Girls version of “River” made me weep with that sentimental and bittersweet holiday-ness.

Now it feels like I get your music all the more so for the time I’ve spent thinking about it. In university, getting talked into “Hejira” by my writing professor. On a trip once, with “California”, “Carey” and “Raised on Robbery” taking up 3 slots out of 192 on my Shuffle. Finally getting “Both Sides” by watching Love, Actually, still and always my favorite movie, the one I can watch a million times, never quite memorize, and no matter how many times I watch, I learn a little something new. (Sandra’s probably quite sick of it after nearly six years of me babbling about it.)

What I love about Joni Mitchell is how her songs feel when you hear them. A few chords, her lonely and substantial voice, can instantly make me understand a little about the emotions she’s singing. The lyrics are strange at times, like obscure poetry. But when you hear her sing them, it’s so easy to understand.

The lyrics without the music would be so less than enough.

I’m into this idea of diptychs lately; pairs of images or imagery that together tell a little bit more of a story than either could alone. When studying art history, I found a special interest in Early Christian and Byzantine art. Maybe it was the diptych/triptych concept… needing more than a single frame to tell the whole story.

So too, with my photography these days. Maybe I’m not skilled enough to get the shot I want in one image. Or maybe the storyteller in me relates to the idea of painting a more resonant scene by the ability to document two points in time.

I’m starting to collect these pairs, these fraternal twins, at some point hoping that I know what to do with them. I have this need to collect these little fragments of my life, to store them, and sort them, and categorize them. Maybe in hopes of looking back and seeing this full and vibrant beauty that, at least for right now, I’m too close to see.

…something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day…

No doubt, my family’s been going through a lot of changes over the past 12 months. From running a business together, to working apart, to living in separate cities, albeit temporarily. Lots of changes, and in a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve changed the most of all.

There’s a huge part of me now that’s not as optimistic as I’ve always found it easy to be. There’s a huge void of disappointment inside me, that this dream we had didn’t work out the way we’d hoped. And on top of that, the utter and complete guilt of needing to take these steps that are going to end up with us living pretty far from so many people we love.

Sometimes, if I think about it too hard, I get sucked into a bit of an endless loop of thought; how I’ve managed to live in four completely separate parts of North America. How I started out in tech, left, and then ended up back there again. How I’ve poured myself into my hobby, creating a whole world out of it, but have now pulled back a little, have now spent some time looking at other things – like writing – that I desperately need to carve time to do.

One of the biggest – and hardest – long-time changes has been losing the anonymity that came with blogging a long time ago. I’ve been blogging on indigirl since, well, some time in 1998 when I created that first html “journal” shortly after starting my summer internship at Cray Research in Eagan, MN.

1998.

That means I passed a decade of putting words into the web without really marking it, without celebrating. Sometimes I think that I’m so far from who I was back then. Sometimes, I can totally relate to my 20-year-old self, struggling to find the right definition for herself, wondering about the next steps ahead.

But then, maybe it’s not surprising I missed my blog-i-versary. 2008 was a challenging year for me, for many reasons that you all are completely (painfully?) familiar with.

For 2009, I’m going to try to write more, to write HERE more, to be brave about putting my feelings out there, even knowing that plenty of people read this who wish me (and Sandra) anything but well. I’m sorry if you’re coming here purely for yarnie things. My life has a lot more than yarn in it these days, and at least for a little while, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t have a lot to say about what I’m not currently knitting.

(That said, I’ll probably pick up the needles again tomorrow and be posting loads of photos of pretty soft things!)

These days, since I’m essentially on my own here, despite so many good friends, I seem to spend a lot of time walking. If I don’t want to go straight home after work, I walk there. It takes me about an hour and a half. If I don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday, I walk to someplace for brunch, to someplace for taking photos, to someplace for window shopping.

The walking is probably the key to the 30 pounds gone, but more than that, it feels so good for my head and my heart and my soul. My iPod is always on, and I’m drawn to music at the pace of my steps; “Love of our Lives” from the new Indigo Girls album, Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida”, “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, even “My Life Would Suck Without You” by someone I’m not going to name but secretly love. And so many others, too.

Some of these are are songs I miss from driving. Some, I miss from belting out and singing at the top of my lungs while flying down a highway cutting through the Alberta prairies. “Love Song” is one of them. It carried us to and from Montana last summer for the great, albeit short and filled with the worst flu I’ve ever suffered, road-trip.

Others remind me of commuting in Calgary. “Viva la Vida”, in particular, reminds me so much of taking the C-Train to the Glenbow all summer long. The rich orchestral arrangement, so lush, so warm. It reminds me entirely of last summer’s surrealism, of looking out the train windows into neighborhood after neighborhood, of getting off and walking a few blocks too early, just to have a chance to feel a little of the sunshine on my skin before going into that windowless closet of an office that everyone always apologized to me for. (“Madly” by Tristan Prettyman also reminds me so much of this time.)

And some have been with me as long as this blog has; for what feels like forever. “Least Complicated”, off Swamp Ophelia, for example. I remember it took me a long time to buy this album after I’d found Rites of Passage. And when I did, this wasn’t the first song I loved. (That would be “The Wood Song”, for anyone keeping track.) I was at the University of Illinois, probably second year. I used to put this album on and lay in my upper bunk, just daydreaming. I didn’t fall in love with this song until 1998, living in Eagan, learning to run, learning to stretch my wings a little.

Back then, it reminded me entirely of growing up; of realizing that childhood is long past, of realizing that whatever comes next will happen whether you’re ready or not. I used to listen to it and remember what it felt like to have that first awkward crush on Robb E. back in junior high. (How I loved his soccer-player hair! How mortified I was when that popular girl TOLD him! How I couldn’t even get up the nerve to say more than two words to him for years!)

Unlike how my thirteen-year-old self couldn’t have predicted what 20 would bring, now at 31, I feel a little more prepared to just let life be.

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to this song. It’s catchy, yes, and really great to walk to. I love the melody and the harmony, of course. But it’s also something in the lyrics, something about never really doing the cool thing, never really fitting in or understanding the negotiations of other people, of living with a sort of quiet distance between you and the rest of the world.

I certainly feel that distance, being apart from all but one (Boo) of my family. I feel like, now that I’m not longer at the shop, I’m looking down at the street from a story or two up. I can see it, I can watch it, but I’m not really there. If you think that doesn’t hurt, then you don’t know me one bit.

In addition to all that, I need to remember this as life certainly gets more challenging; the hardest to learn really is the least complicated; how to enjoy the walk home, how to find peace within yourself, how to be kind to the people around you, how to find a little bit of joy when everything feels so terrifyingly out of control.

I’m working on it. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I think it begins with me putting my feet to the pavement, walking with my head as high as I can hold it, and getting lost in a few good tunes.

I’m not sure when I started doing these little posts. I like looking back on some of my past posts and realizing which songs are still with me, which ones I’ve moved on from.

So, on the eve of the new Indigo Girls album, I thought it would be fitting to record what I’m listening to today.

See How I Run by Jessie Baylin
Woah, how did I find this one? I love her scratchy voice, I love the drum beat. I love the gentle rise and fall of the verse.

I’m not standing still on this mountain
I’m chasing down whats been haunting me
I’m staring up and into the great heights
I won’t look down
Its not where i want to be…

Oh, it’s so good, this song. It reminds me right now of walking down quiet streets, of getting to know this new city a little bit better, of moving forward from all that crud in our history, of believing that it is possible to get a second (and third and fourth) chance at life.

After All – Dar Williams
I went to one of her concerts here a few weeks back. I stood four feet from the stage and sang along under my breath. Dar’s music is lyric-rich and full of those poignant, heart-breaking, and sometimes hilarious moments of life.

This song breaks my heart a little every time I hear it, for how much I relate to the lyrics, the idea of floating somewhere separate from the rest of the world, of making a conscious choice to even exist. I’ve had moments of my life like that, where it was like turning a corner and going back to life. I desperately never want to feel like that again.

You, Me and the Bourgeoisie – The Submarines
I suspect they’re using this song in an iTunes commercial, but don’t hold it against The Submarines. It’s proving to be one of the best Spring-like melodies I’ve found so far. I have absolutely no idea what they’re singing about, but I think it’s got something to do with the environment. Or modern society. Or something.

House On Fire – Melissa Ferrick
Oh, Melissa. So full of angst. The few times I’ve seen you in concert have been like spending a few hours with that high school friend who hasn’t quite gotten it fully together again. It’s endearing, and charming, and I can’t help but root for you.

The Minnow and the Trout – A Fine Frenzy
Actually, everything from this album is really resonating with me right now. I fell in love with it through this song, though. Solo piano, a wandering voice, a bit of a fable-like quality to the lyrics. Her stuff is so dream-like but accessible. Like one of those dreams you have that is so vivid, so life-like, that on waking, you’re convinced it actually happened.

Also, see:
Quiet Times – Dido
Blue Sky – Patty Griffin
Forca – Nelly Furtado
Goodnight and Go – Imogen Heap
Have you seen me lately? – Counting Crows
Such Great Heights – Postal Service

Anyhow. This is kind of rambly and not that great of a post.

Clearly, as many of these are recycled, I also need some new music suggestions, pronto!

Help a girl out… what should I add to my current playlist?

“It’s Alright” by Dar Williams, from her new album “Promised Land”. I’d copy the lyrics here, but you just have to listen to it anyway. Go. Listen. Even the preview on iTunes is great. The song is about change, being resistant to it, and embracing it. But she uses the phrases “sovereign nation”  and “irridescant butterfly”. I’m such a sucker for big words in pop songs.

My shawl design for the Year of Lace. I’m so happy how it turned out, from the name (“Silver Birches”) to the photos to the layout of the pattern. The first kits are going out today and tomorrow and I’m trying to not be nervous. This is the biggest design I’ve ever done. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but spending 3-4 months perfecting a single pattern is a new thing for me, and I want it to be well received. 

That said, it’s driving me absolutely batty to not post photos or a description of it, but I’m respective of the spoilers. Before we go away this weekend, I’ll create a guest pass for my album of photos of the project on Flickr, so those who want to look can without ruining the surprise for anyone who wants to keep it secret. Phew.

I’m wearing my boots and some cropped jeans and my Norah sweater today. I’m pretty happy it’s sweater weather again, to be honest. Fall is my favorite season, hands down. Not as damp and dreary as spring. Filled with great colours and that crisp air. I love it. 

I’m moving ahead with plans to start selling some of my knitting patterns as downloadable pdfs. I’ve collected now three great and original sweater patterns that are more or less ready to go. Once I finish off the retreat planning, I’ll have time to get back to it, but I’m excited to be having a new outlet for my work. 

Other things on my “love list” today:

• “The Beat that my Heart Skipped” by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, and yes I’m sure I’m spelling that wrong.
• Diet Coke. Diet Coke rocks.
• Scharffen Berger 62% Dark Chocolate individual squares. Several make up just one ww point. Not that I’m counting that well this week.
• Finally being finished with “Breaking Dawn”. If I have a chance, I’ll be writing a blog post on the Twilight Saga and where (for me) it went wrong.
• Having an idea, an outline, and a great idea of where to start writing my first novel. For reals people. This is big. And I’m very excited. 
• “True Blood”, “Fringe” and “Gossip Girl”. I thought the premier of “Heroes” was hard to follow and harder to get into. Will it improve or slink into the similar problems of last season? We’ll see…
• Las Vegas this weekend! BBQ Pork Baked Potatoes! The best waffles in the world! Amazing window shopping! The Goldfish slot machine, with the best music in the world! Blackjack! 39 degree weather! A chance to sleep in!
• The “Vampire Weekend” album. It’s fun. And fluffy. And makes me smile.
• My dogs. They’re the greatest dogs ever. Jackson ended up falling asleep on my feet last night so we let him stay on the bed. I know that’s not good, but it was just oh so cute. 
• “Fire Door” by Ani DiFranco, version from “Living in Clip”. This song makes me want to do a little dance around my office. 
• Knowing that since today is Wednesday, it’s effectively my Thursday, and being really thrilled that I’m actually at a good point in all of my work projects for work and the store. I might actually get everything done before we go. Might.
• The growth that comes out of finding the good in as many moments as possible. Or of trying for that, in any case. It’s not always easy or possible to be positive, to be hopeful. Hope has a way of crushing your soul from time to time. But I really enjoy those brief moments in life when everything feels pretty good. 

But I never really understood jealousy in the context of a relationship. I’d watch my friends go through this, being so consumed by jealousy that they actually turned things bad, making mountains out of molehills. I’ve been on the other side, of course. (Haven’t we all?) My first boyfriend went through a phase during which he was absolutely convinced I had a thing for a guy we worked on yearbook with, a guy 2 years younger, and can I say “ick”? We ended up breaking up not long after, with a lot of stupid fights in the meantime.

Maybe because I’ve generally been the one with a lot of platonic friendships, it’s easy for me to see why you need different people in your life, different friends, and how that adds to your relationship rather than takes away. The overly-romantic thought of just being two people alone in the world… that’s nice for a bit, but it can’t last.

Beauty in Walking Away - Marie Digby
This is one of those gorgeous songs that you can just see as background for the movie’s heroine talking an angst-ridden walk through a fogged-in city. Those moments of heart-breaking beauty, after which you know your life will change forever.

Kiss that Counted – Catie Curtis
Sandra and I had a couple of chances to see her last year on the Olivia cruises, and she was brilliant live. When I listen to this song now, I can hear the audience echoing along during the chorus, and that makes me smile.

I actually have a longer and older history with this song. I think I’d found it shortly before I met Jenn, so, back in 2000 or 2001.  I have vivid memories of listening to this while taking the train to work. Back when I had a Rio mp3 player. Before iPod, if you can believe that.

And then it came back into my life when I met Sandra. Because that first kiss was the kiss that counted. It was big, and we knew it.

No Such Thing as Goodbye – The Waifs
Chrystie, you just have to get their newest album. It’s fabulous. I’ve been listening to this song in particular for the last day or so. It’s upbeat. Kind of southern-rocky. The sort of song you want to walk fast to, to wake up to, to sing along to.

baby there’s no such thing as goodbye
just an interlude on a long wild ride
if you’re in my heart, then you’re by my side
and baby there’s no such thing as goodbye

This speaks a lot to me, how the people you love are always there.

And it’s catchy. Catchy is good.