If this is true, it's absolutely one of the worst things I've read in a long time...hardly feels like 2009 when you hear about things like this happening...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/philadelphia-private-swim_b_228253.html

I knew the moment I saw this on the shelf years ago I just had to have this book and even after I discovered it was pretty sexually explicit I didn't care. I kept reading because it felt so real...so full of identity, hurt, truth and honesty...

Julia is an unhappily married woman and the last woman in the world I ever expected to relate to or feel so bad for. When I first read it broke my heart and it still does...the way her parents and husband treat her like a child. She has a mind, but because she almost once lost it, no one wants her to use it now. She had a nervous breakdown in college and immediately went home and into therapy...and four years later straight into marriage.

Now Julia wants to resume her life, her career interests and maybe because of her sexless marriage and a need to find out what's normal and what's not when it comes to desire and wanting more, she decides to research what really goes on in the world of phone sex.

_Lip Service_ turned out to be very, very (very!) good, but never really reached the climax I thought it would.

Music has always been magical for me, especially during my ups and downs of being a teen in the 80s. Most of the groups I liked then now seem like novelty acts, but not China Crisis. "What Price Paradise" had so much to offer me then with its beauty and majesty...has so much to still offer. I always thought it was sort of ironic that it was my mom of all people who got me into their "Flaunt the Imperfection" when she had always preferred 60s music and had no use for my generation's...but that's another story:)

Since I had loved "FTI" more than life itself, it seemed only logical to get "What Price Paradise" and to this day I still own it. All of the the tracks are lovely, but the four oh-so-breath-taking-I-can't-believe-I'm-not dreaming are "It's Everything" (gloriously comforting and true with its message of everlasting love), "Arizona Sky" (I can close my eyes and picture the sky worshiped here with sincere vulnerability) "Best Kept Secret" (the idea that love between two people should only be their business and their treasure seems especially fitting in today's climate) and "June Bride" (very cute and flirty and sweet.)

Whenever I hear "Arizona Sky" I always think of the cinnamon buns my mom used to make when I was studying for tests and had China Crisis on in my room. Their music, as intelligent and deeply moving as it is and was, has always been my

The album "Junior" by Royksopp is so incredibly ethereal at times (at others very poppy) that it can't help but make me feel like I'm on a whole other level of consciousness...like the wayyou feel in dreams.

Speaking of dreams...

I'm fascinated by what I think of as "opposite dreams," the ones you have where you wake up sad because the dream was so good and so beautiful and completely opposite from the real-life event it's about...and conversely>> bad dreams (that you're glad to wake up from) about good things going on in your life.

One example of an "opposite dream" is when a loved one who has died in real life is alive and happy...those dreams are very hard to wake up from. And sometimes you dream that something horrible has happened to you or someone close to you and you are so relieved to wake and discover it was all a lie...and of course sometimes you dream a bad thing and wake up and remember it really did happen...still, in a crazy surprising way, that doesn't hurt nearly as much as waking from a wonderful dream and discovering it was just that...a dream.

And speaking of dreams...I find it very odd that the content of your dreams doesn't always match the emotions...sort of like the Gary Jules song "Mad World," when he sings that the dreams he's had about dying are some of the best he's ever had. The weirdest, darkest things we dream of can sometimes thrill us in dreams....for me it's zombies and transformation and funhouse mirrors.



on a completely different note...I really like the new Black Eyed Peas album...it's great for exercising and dancing to

Any day is better with AbbA

I think it was when I saw Muriel’s Wedding that I realized there is an underlying sadness to Abba’s music, an incredible sound that Generation X takes for granted an music snobs dismiss as "disco". So many of us probably have personal memories of Dancing Queen and the first time we heard it, but if you’ve seen the incredibly funny and sad Muriel’s Wedding (a movie worthy of its own blog entry), it’s forever changed the way you listen to Abba.

Dancing Queen itself has tinges of despair and desperation. Yes, it’s a feel-good song at Karaoke and retro dance clubs (just look at how many people hit the floor when the song plays), but there’s an urgency to it, a self-conviction that everything (EVERYTHING!) will be all right at night when it’s time to go out on the town in search of love and attention. Even so, there’s no escaping that first familiar note and the way it sweeps in over you…pure pop magic decades later.

Money, Money, Money offers up a very cynical approach to romance, far from the sweetness of the love songs you’ll find in 70s hits. The vulgar honesty of the track is saved by infectious beats and that distinctive Abba harmony. It’s so appropriate that the Broadway musical (and movie) take their name from the happiest of Abba hits, Mamma Mia. This song is pure joy and hard to resist. Fernando (a song I haven’t heard in years until recently), is so sweet and beautiful it almost hurts, hardly the stuff of elevator music. And Waterloo just makes me break out into huge smiles, maybe because it reminds me of goofy moments from my childhood. It’s as happy and carefree as Mamma Mia. The Name of the Game marries lovely harmony with heartbreaking plea and vulnerability, while Take a Chance on Me is all about the plug and is full of confidence and you-won’t-be-sorries.

Thanks to the Broadway musical and the reissues of older Abba albums, there’s never been a better time to give Abba another listen. And if you’ve heard all the hits and think you know every Abba song, why not check out Arrival (Abba’s fourth album) and a recent addition to the Library)? I thought I’d heard every Abba tune, but there are several tracks on here you may not recognize that certainly deserve a listen. Tiger shows the darker, aggressive side of Abba while Why Did It Have to Be Me? is a cute, disco-meets-country type affair which you might not want to end up liking, but do anyway.