Uplifting songs...

These past two weeks have been the most stressful, discouraging and downright frustrating of the whole summer. This week saw much improvement, but I must say that I crucial factor in modifying my mindset about my recent struggles has been uplifting songs.

Now, I'm not usually one for really, really positive music that features messages that will encourage people like they're popping Paxil or anything. Whether music is truthful or harsh or thoroughly depressing, what matters to me is if I can relate in some way. What I've been needing lately, however, has been uplifting music, especially two specific songs that I've listened to a lot.

There's something inherently beautiful, completely pure and eerily ethereal about the music Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros create. I love most of their music, but one song in particular, "Hoppipolla," truly speaks to me. The visual imagery that this song conjures for me is the sight of bright sunlight shining through throngs of tall, bushy trees atop a hill.

Even though I can't understand the song's lyrics, the piano let-in alone is enough for me to have a visceral reaction...in a good way, you know? It's like the encouragement I feel from the beautiful polyphony of the whole song hits me right in the stomach. It's undeniable. This song not only gives me hope in music, it gives me hope in myself. Maybe it's the blaring trumpets. Or the glockenspiel.

After listening to "Today Will Be Better, I Swear!" by Stars on repeat for a half hour last Saturday, I really wanted to believe what the Canadian band was preaching. The lyrics are so dead-on (at least for me) and much more original than that awful "Bad Day" song from a couple years ago, that I believe stemmed from American Idol. Why am I not surprised? American Idol might be the root of all evil.

ANYWAY, this song is perfect, even down to the exclamation point in the title, which is grammatically uplifting in and of itself, don't you think?

And everybody only wants to fight
You're up against never being right

When the worries of the world hold your feet
And there's little left to believe in

Today is going to be a better one
There's nothing more to take in
That's going wrong

-- Stars

The Nine O'Clock Hour

I can never decide whether or not I'm an early bird or a night owl. However, there is no better feeling than waking up early enough to feel as if you can seize the day. That is why the nine o'clock hour is one of my simple pleasures.

During this past quarter at school, I dubbed nine a.m. to be the perfect time to wake up. You could still stay up and watch Sex and the City re-runs on cable and feel completely refreshed. Plus it's a time where the world has already woken from their night-time reveries to make their ways in the world.

As a true simple pleasure, 9am always evokes a number of strange and pleasant memories. For instance, when I was a kid, during the summer I would always wake a 9am and I would throw on a pair of shorts and run to go play outside. We lived at this cute little house on the Licking River and I had this fun make-shift swing made from a big rope and a piece of wood. I could swing on that piece of wood for hours and hours, looking out onto the river and daydreaming.

The nine o'clock hour also reminds me of the time that my mom and I were driving to Florida. We had stopped at hotel on the border of Georgia and Florida, some run-down joint where they sold peaches and pecans next door. We woke up not too late and not too early and continued our journey into the sunshine state (I do believe we were visiting colleges). The sun sparkled of the cars as we drove down the interstate and through Jacksonville. I had my first mp3 player blasting some Beatles and I could feel the sun's warmth coming through the windshield.

This morning I welcomed my "early" rising, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down with a book, knowing that I was ready to take on today's adventure.

Mother-Daughter Movie Outings

My mom and I very rarely go out, except for our weekly voyages to Wal-Mart and occasionally the mall. But today, we went down to our movie theater (which is actually in our mall) and saw Mama Mia. Now the last time my mom and I went to an actual movie together was to see Crossroads when I was thirteen (come on, what thirteen year old didn't love Britney Spears back then?). Seven years passed and we were long over due for another cinematic adventure.
Prior to the movie, mom and I went to Penny's and chicked out, we bought dresses (for my cousin's wedding).

The movie itself was everything that you could ever want in a production that features weddings and ABBA songs. It was cute, funny, and overwhelmingly heart warming. A big thumbs up from mom and me.

Going to the movies with your the woman who gave birth to you is always a simple pleasure because it's time where you can get to that long-needed bonding, she usually splurges for popcorn and large sodas, and it's so much better to go to a chick flick with your mom rather than with your boyfriend because you won't have to watch five gun-blasting, bikini-clad women, explosive action movies to make up for it (believe me, i'm still paying for making him watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants back in 2005...).
So all you ladies out there, get down to the cinema and watch a movie with your mom, you both will love it and it will bring you closer together.

Bikes in the hallway...

Although missing my family is like, the anti-Simple Pleasure of my summer, there are moments of Simple Pleasure goodness creeping into my life like you wouldn't believe. Just a bit earlier, mi amiga Xana started riding her bike in our adjoining dorm rooms, then up and down the dorm hallway. I snapped some blurry photos whilst she did so, as I was sporting some PJs (Morrissey shirt & yoga pants, thanks) and well, I don't know how to ride a bike. She was making all sorts of goofy faces, and we were cracking up at the pictures that ensued.




Xana and I typically have all sorts of fun little adventures late at night, especially this summer. It usually starts with one of us IMing the other, despite being within earshot of one another. Aaaand then one of us will be hungry, so we'll get in the car and drive to Wendy's. Or maybe one of us needs something minor at Wal-Mart. An excuse for a trip out. Xana does junk like that all the time, and I can see why. Our late night pow-wows are definitely a Simple Pleasure, even when we don't do anything but sit around goofing off or booping (noses, of course; get your mind outta the gutter) for a few minutes. She gets excited about little things like I do, and I like that.

Also another Simple Pleasure: Living in this brand new, ultra plush dorm for free as a perk of one of my jobs. Well, I guess that's not so simple, but I still like it a lot.

A Taste of Zanesville

It is summer time which means being at home, 95% humidity, daytime television, and strange town festivals. I'm from Zanesville, Ohio which is a little pimple on the map of Ohio. It's a boring place to live, we have decent shopping and few restaurant chains, a y shaped bridge and some rivers. It's probably not a town to brag about, but it has been my home since I was a baby. When the weather begins to heat up, the council heads of Zanesville try to gather the community to take part in some sort of consumer therapy.

A Taste of Zanesville has been happening downtown for the past nine years and strangely this has been the first year I had ever heard of it/cared about it. Always eager for a change of scenery, I took my boyfriend Alex to taste Zanesville (prior to leaving he exclaimed that Zanesville would taste like drugs and I said it would probably taste like unwashed masses.. probably not a fair assumption).

Appropriately enough, A Taste of Zanesville is my first Simple Pleasure. Why? you ask. I look for any excuse to walk downtown. Any culture that is to be found in a little podunk town like Zanesville, can be found downtown. The architecture screams of yesteryear, it is grandious, ancient and beautiful. It is usually an unpopulated and not busy area of town since most businesses have moved to the metropolis that is Maple Avenue (Maple Ave. is where Wal-Mart and the Mall reside). A Taste of Zanesville also provided free samples of food and ice cream, and those are always classic Simple Pleasures in my book.


Alex enjoying frozen custard from the Whit's booth and looking at all of the fun to be had in the St. Thomas parking lot


This a pottery throwing booth. I think kids could throw bricks or something at old coffee mugs.. I don't know, I really don't understand this town.


As always, I'm more interested in the strange little alleyways that can be found all over the downtown area.

So if you find yourself in Zanesville, Ohio and you are looking for the most Simple Pleasures for your buck, try the downtown area, there are neat little things like a nice park for sitting and watch the sun set on the Muskingum River (I did that a few days ago), fun statues, antiques, and neat-o buildings.