"Are you an idiot or a stalker?" Meredith says to her inquisitive half sister Lexie sometime early during the fourth season of "Grey's Anatomy." It's a harsh question that's rather out of place for the situation (I mean, wouldn't anyone be curious about their newly discovered half sister?) but a good general question for anyone who has ever unabashedly (and sometimes quite aggressively) sought the attentions of someone she likes...usually meaning well (but maybe not always.)

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt so unless someone is waiting outside your house every night to catch a glimpse of you or calling you on the phone and hanging up, I'm not sure you can call wanting to be someone's friend or asking them personal questions "stalking." I am sure, though, that when you're very young and possibly in love (or at least thinking you are) that you can have the best intentions while doing some of the most thoughtless things ever...

I'd at least like to think that you can be forgiven for these kinds of things and that the answer to Meredith's question leans more toward "idiot."

just started reading this great YA novel...awesome cover and, so far, awesome book...(more soon!)

Last night I checked out Christopher Cross's "Greatest Hits" from my library and I shamefully listened to the whole thing with pleasure. I hadn't really thought about his music in years, but I have always been fond of "Sailing" (it's so peaceful and majestic) and "Think of Laura" (a huge sobfest of a song!).

Little did I know he had done more recent stuff (well, recent as in 1998) like the amazing "Walking in Avalon" (which is still bouncing around in my head). "Walking in Avalon" is probably the oddest sweet love song I've ever heard! Cross even suggests a very naughty 4-letter word that he doesn't sound out but makes obvious by rhyme what it would have been (he hums in the word's place...I love it!!!)

Also "new" to me was the song "Back of My Mind" which really got to me when I thought about life and how we reach that age where we can sometimes wonder if we did things wrong...and would a "do over" be a good thing? The part about not marrying and having children hits especially close to home.

The lyrics go like this:



I woke up to my world this morning
Took a long look in the looking glass
Last night I guess I had one or too many
Somebody tried to tell me I had no class

What ever happened to me
Maybe I've been living on lies
Never really had a dream come true
Then again I guess I never really tried


Now the years all slip away
And things are like they're gonna stay
All the roads I didn't take are just
One more thing in the back of my mind
Taking space and time


Wish I'd finished that book I never started
Maybe that's the story of my life
Should've learned to play that saxophone
So I could tell my song to the streetlight


Shouldn't have been so stuck on my own
Could've had a wife and a child
Should've made that house a home
I don't know why my life is so wild


Now the years all slip away
And things are like they're gonna stay
All the chances I didn't take are just
One more thing in the back of my mind
Taking space and time
One more thing in the back of my mind


So I'm thinking about a walk in the sunlight
I've got to get my shadow behind me
Try and make some sense of it all
With my feet on the ground and my heart still free


As the years will slip away
I'll let the cards fall where they may
And all the roads I didn't take will be just
One more thing in the back of my mind


As the years will slip away
And the cards fall as they may
All the chances I didn't take will be just
One more thing in the back of my mind
Taking space and time
One more thing in the back of my mind
One more thing in the back of my mind

I know I have blogged before about the Icelandic song "Svefn-g-Englar" and how powerful it is. But I just can't give it up or give it credit (there are no words to) for the amazing transformation it can have over your mood, over your psyche. NME magazine writes about the group (Sigur Ros) behind the song: "...so quiet, so shakily fragile, it feels criminal to breathe at the same time as jón þór birgisson sings."

The English words go like this:

Im Here Again
Inside You
Its So Good Staying Here
But I Stay A Short While
I Float Around In Underwater Hibernation
In A Hotel Connected To The Electricity Board And Nourishing
Tyoowoohoo
But The Wait Makes Me Uneasy I Kick The Fragility Away
And Shout I Have To Go - Help
Tyoowoohoo
I Explode Out And The Peace Is Gone
Bathed In New Light
I Cry And I Cry - Disconnected
A Ruined Brain Put On Breasts
And Fed By Sleepwalkers

No song has ever so wonderfully matched word with music to make an eerily beautiful echo of just what life feels like sometimes...and if ever a song sounded like it came straight from a dream "Svefn-g-Englar" is the one!

Talk about devastating...boy does this single live up to the name of its group. The download (free!!) is called "Previous Crimes," the group: Devastations.

The song seeps into your soul and suddenly, with no warning at all, you find yourself thinking of all kinds of things you shouldn't if you want to sleep well tonight...

...like the people (for good and bad reasons) who've permanently left their marks on you...maybe something careworn and fragile that only a lover knows how to leave behind or the kind words of a beloved friend who is no longer in your life or the whisper you swear you just heard but is only the sound of cloth brushing against skin...

and there are some devastations we'd never ever want to relive again no matter how beautiful they sound in song...some people we'd cross the widest river to never have to see again...

Okay, whoo...I better skip to the next track....this breathtaking song is playing tricks on me!:)