The main problem with re-discovering Ani Difranco on a Tuesday morning is that she brings you to a place that doesn’t necessarily represent the shining, capable, hopeful you. In fact, she might even bring you to a place that you like to think of as your highly depressed, angry self. And that’s not great when you are a professional marketing manager at work. It’s ok when you are an undergrad student who spends 80% of the day drunk, writing poetry, smoking Marlboro ultra light menthols in your room. But fuck. Man. She is just so good at telling it like I see it. Right now, I’m listening to her newest studio album online. Turn it up. Listen to the lyrics like you’re studying Hamlet. It’s important to really digest what she’s saying.

My brother borrowed all my CDs to make mixes and I realized that I hadn’t listened to some of that stuff in years. Some of it is fine to go to the trash heap – Hello, Michael Jackson’s Invincible. Some of it though… Wow. It’s amazing how we related music to times in our lives. Particularly, Ani was a huge part of my philosophic metamorphosis from straight A anal retentive high school student to straight A poet in love with a guy in Wyoming.

Today’s Buy It: Little Plastic Castle.

“You tell me what’s real.”

Did you ever stop and think about that, what it really means? Because lately, I’ve been thinking that maybe these people who travel all over the world and join the Peace Corps and delay having families and buy boats… well. Maybe they’re onto something. Why does it feel like you have to be on schedule for everything? What’s so real about that?

And why does it feel so hard to change something in your life that you want to change. You want to change and yet… you don’t.

Fuck. I don’t know.

Maybe I should just swear in this entry for approx for the next 5 minutes.

K: Remember when I used to smoke butts and listen to Macy Gray over and over again. And then I’d add Aimee Man to the mix – that depressing soundtrack to Magnolia? I used to actually have a balcony off my bedroom, people. And I complained about my life daily.

Everest (lyrics by AD)

from the depth of the pacific

to the height of everest

and still the world is smoother

than a shiny ball-bearing

so i take a few steps back

and put on a wider lens

and it changes your skin,

your sex, and what your wearing

distance shows your *silhouette*

to be a lot like mine

like a sphere is a sphere

and all of us here

have been here all the time

yeah, we've been here all the time*

you brought me to church

cinder blocks, fluorescent light

you brought me to church

at seven o'clock on a sunday night

and the band was rockin'

and the floors were scrubbed clean

and everybody had a tambourine

so i took a deep breath and became

the white girl with the hair

and you sat right beside me

while everybody stared

and through the open window

i think the singing went outside

and floated up to tell

all the stars not to hide

'cuz by the time church let out

the sky was much clearer

and the moon was so beautiful

that the ocean held up a mirror

as we walked home we spoke slowly

we spoke slow

and we spoke lowly

like it was taking more time

than usual to choose

the words to go

with your squeaky sandal shoes

like time is not a thing

thats ours to lose

from the height of the pacific

to the depths of the everest...