9 Songs: Mix Tape for a Rainy Ass Morning

Here's what I've learned.

I remember the exact moment it was concretized, too. It was the end of this past February, I was snowed-in at Choptank, my phone fell in a cup of tea and short-circuited so I was fully isolated, my heart was slithered and sliced which is a bitter and hideous thing worse than just being broken, and I was coming off five days of a terrible fever and ear/sinus infection that literally had me delirious on and off.

It was a dark, dark time. And then I had a moment, when I was literally laying on the floor in the living room thinking there was no lower I could go, when I realized. Well, I could just get up, and go pay bills.

And damn it if that's not what I did. I got out of my dragged down ludicrously depressed hopeless and numbed out nebulous swirl of funk place and got my bills and all this paperwork that had stacked and felt gnarly consuming and slowly, one by one, centered myself on getting through each piece of it.

Then I got a shovel and started to dig my way out of the driveway, which is when Life met me halfway and the neighbor plowed me out.

So, that's me. how I'm wired, Shit piles up and I feel victimized and bitter about the whole damn mess. Till I remember: just get your miserable pathetic ass up. And go pay the bills. Or, as this morning: and go do your dishes, then go to work and finish your damn LWIS and get your new students registered. This attitude, to Just show up, and be willing for life to meet me half-way, is my interpretation of the old Irish axiom that, especially through the winter, is my motto:
IS THIS A CLOSED FIGHT< OR CAN ANYBODY JOIN?

I'm saying, so long as I'm breathing, I got a fighting shot for the joy and the beauty, the heartaches and the pain...

Which, more or less, is what this morning's special little mix fired-up in me...

1. Cygnet Committee, David Bowie
2. Complimentary Me, Elizabeth & The Catapult
3. The Cool, Cool River, Paul Simon
4. Sonic Teenager, The Took
5. Last Dance, The Cure
6. Slow Down Gandhi, Sage Francis
7. Ball & Bisquit, The White Stripes
8. The Story, Brandi Carlile
9. Take It In, The Waifs

Listen to those three links for some wailen, fighten theme music