I admit it. I'm a definite fangirl where Josh Ritter is concerned. I can thank Adam for turning me on to his music. There's something in his manner of storytelling -- literate, thoughtful, playful, emotional -- that delights me every time a new album comes out.

His songs aren't immediate, ferocious loves. They're albums you play several times as you absorb the melody, waiting for the full import to sink in, and then eventually there's a moment when the sense of what I'm hearing seeps in, and I hit 'repeat.' A few months later I realize the songs have slowly, gradually, seeped into the soundtrack of my life.

Thirteen years later, I keep waiting for a world in which Kevin Gilbert's lyrics don't apply.

Look at them now, drawing little lines with their speeches
Each daring the other to cross
It won't be long now cause one will make a stand he believes in
Believing it's well worth the cost
Then the other gets angry, refuses to budge
Fueled by some understandable grudge
And now we wait quietly till the missile arrives
There's no need to shout about the end of our lives

Sure, it's about nuclear war, but...

So turn the radio up and pass the bottle round
And then we'll have one more drink before we all fall down
I'll wear my favorite tie, you can wear your wedding gown
And then we'll both look real sharp when we all fall down

I've had Talking Heads in, well, my head for most of the week. I started the trip with "Once In A Lifetime" and sang along until I had most of it.

"And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?"
— Talking Heads

South and east, I think, past the sprawl and congestion of Atlanta to the sprawl and congestion of yet another place, but one that has something I haven't seen in quite some time. Ocean.

Into the blue again, indeed.

"Well, I think about friends in the back of my mind
Are they still just kids frozen in time
The mirror won't lie as the days fly by
Are they all no better off than I?"

The incantation remains the same:

Memory, leave me something - I lose so much on a daily basis; give me this, on days when I was happy, for the days that will inevitably come when I am not, so that I may remember the taste of these moments that, inevitably, go…
— 'Rockies on my right,' 10 October 2004

Play me a groove
one for my radio
one for my love that came and went
So many stories -
hey man i'm sorry, Joe -
this is just a song to pay the rent
- Angie Aparo, "Spaceship"

Three weeks away made my home a stranger to myself. I walked back in and there was everything, exactly where I left it, my life exactly where I left it, and it took me a day or so to realize that I was what had changed. I was the unfitting piece in the mostly-complete puzzle.

I'd love to tell you where it began, but the truth is that I don't remember. Instead, I have to choose a beginning point, arbitrary though it is, and begin from there.

The speed limit on the Cutoff was 40, but anyone with half a brain knew that the cops never policed that section of road, because there was no place for them to park, and even if there was, Bauxite didn't have cops anyway. The descent to the paved-over area where the railroad track used to be was one such that if you hit it at just the right speed, your car wouldn't go airborne, but you would.

Just for a moment, you would fly.

Storm season is back amongst us again, blowing through in a succession of muggy afternoons and dark-grey clouds. It's later than usual this year, having decided to wander in and get revved up only towards the end of spring. Several nights this week, Jeff has had to shut off the weather radio multiple times.

Okay, for those of you using Netscape 4.7x to read this site, the Easter Bunny has a present for you: you can now read all pages on domesticat.net again. After weeks of pondering what I could do to make the site both HTML 4.0 compliant and have workarounds that would make the page readable in Netscape 4.7x….

I had a momentary flash of brilliance.