One of my favorite songs during high school is the song “Never Say Never” by Romeovoid. I first heard it in the (absolutely ridiculous but I love it) movie Reckless which stars Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. I remember how cool the movie scene was (you can see it above) and I also remember thinking, “Damn, that’s got to be the coolest school ever to play this song at a dance!” The song, while having lyrics that might offend some, has an appealing, hard-driving edge that’s just catchy as hell. It was a song that got plenty of play on my favorite radio station in high school (WLRA 88.1 FM out of Lewis University — they’re what’s left on the FM dial). If you’ve never heard the song, give it a listen. You might like it — never say never!
About a month ago, I took my very first trip to Memphis. I have wanted to go to Memphis ever since I heard about the Peabody Ducks! My husband and I took a long weekend there with good friends of our who have been to Memphis before, and they were the perfect tour guides! Some highlights:
Gotta start with the Peabody Ducks at the Peabody Hotel. The ducks live at the hotel in a penthouse and every day at 9 AM, a doorman brings them down in an elevator and they walk the red carpet to the fountain in the lobby and happily swim there until 5 PM when they are paraded out of the fountain and back up to their penthouse. It is the most adorable thing you will ever see!
The adorable Peabody Ducks!
My drink at the Peabody Hotel, complete with a keepsake duck!
Beale Street is so much fun! So many cool bars and music fills the air everywhere! They close it off so you can walk right down the middle of the street. We visited the Rum Boogie Cafe twice for some great music — easily my favorite bar we visited on Beale Street!
No trip to Memphis would be complete without visiting Graceland! It is fascinating — frozen in time. It made me wonder what Lisa Marie must think to have her childhood home frozen in time like that and a tourist attraction.
Beale Street at night.
The Civil Rights Museum is a place I will definitely go back to visit because the couple hours I had there simply wasn’t enough time. The museum is built right into the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. It actually takes your breath away to stand in that parking lot and look up at the balcony, adorned with a wreath of flowers. That site is iconic and to be right there in person is humbling. The museum is a fascinating, embarrassing, and yet powerful reminder of too many shameful parts of our country’s history and the triumphs that resulted from actions taken by so many incredibly brave people.
The famous jungle room at Graceland.
I had a life-altering meal at Gus’s Fried Chicken. Just remembering that meal makes my mouth water as I’m typing this! I ate every bit of my fried chicken that night, simply gorged myself, and it was worth every morsel. If you love fried chicken, this place will simply blow you away.
The living room at Graceland — dated, but really quite breathtaking!
We also had dinner one night at Rendezvous Barbecue. Pretty good stuff there, too. If I’m being honest, their smoked sausage was some of the best I have ever had! You can’t go to Memphis without having barbecue, now can you?
I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend trip to Memphis! I am looking forward to a return trip — more Beale Street! More great music! More Civil Rights Museum! More Gus’s Fried Chicken! I can hardly wait!
Elvis’s grave at Graceland.
The sobering site where MLK was murdered.
The view MLK would have had as he stepped onto the balcony.
My post today is about a song that many probably have not heard of. It’s titled “Leaving Me Now” and it is by the band Level 42. Most people are probably familiar with Level 42’s bigger hit “Something About You”. “Leaving Me Now” is on the same album. This song is special to me because it took on special significance for me after an engagement ended in January 1986. I got engaged right out of high school to a guy who (I realize now) wanted nothing to do with marrying me or being with me since he had himself someone else. I moved from my home in Illinois to be with him and got to school in Philadelphia. By the time my first semester in college ended, so had my engagement. I had been with this guy for 5 years and he was my first love, so I took the breakup pretty hard. Adding to the stress and sadness was that I needed to uproot my life again, leave my new friends and college, and go back home to Illinois. Sometimes I look back at that time and I am so grateful that I had that breakup then instead of now. There was no social media, so the only way I could learn anything going on in his life with his new woman was if we talked on the phone or we exchanged letters. I tried to contact him plenty, but obviously he wasn’t interested.
Music plays a huge role in my life. I attach songs to so many significant moments and memories. This song was one I listened to over and over again after we broke up. It’s a song about the end of a relationship, and there were lines that just seem to echo my sentiments at that time: “Seems all I’ve known is deceit”, “I’d still die for you gladly”, “Not even love could bring you to stay”, “There’s no more love, only feelings of doubt”. The melancholy in the song was just what I needed to drown in my feelings of sadness and pain. I would listen to this song so many times a day, and slowly, over time, I would listen less and less and I would feel a little less pain. Now I can listen to the song and appreciate the beautiful way heartache is expressed and I can conjure up memories of how crushed I was at that time. But I don;t need the song to help me work through anything anymore, but it remains a favorite because it enabled me to go on with living and loving.
I know I’ve written about boxing before, but for this post I thought I’d share a little bit about the boxing gym I go to, K-Fit Boxing. The owners, Kenji and Anne, are also the instructors/trainers. I have not taken am actual class with Kenji, but he has subbed for classes I take with Anne, and what I can tell you for sure about Kenji is he is the definition of bad ass! He is incredibly knowledgeable about boxing, he’s an amazing athlete, a kettlebell master, and has self-discipline that is enviable. His wife Anne is every bit the incredible athlete he is, and she is one of the best fitness instructors I have ever worked with. She is really great about explaining how to do exercises and offering modifications, both up and down. And she really celebrates every success and accepts everyone at their level. I’ve never felt out of place being a chubby chick with other skinny women or with other more physically fit women. And that’s to me, the real strength of K-Fit — the culture and the atmosphere. It is welcoming of all — you want to improve your fitness and health and they will meet you where you are. And everyone I’ve met who takes classes there accepts everyone else who is there with them. Nobody is better or worse than anyone else because we are all there for the exact same thing: to get better, to get stronger. They offer a nice variety of classes, from personal training to women’s only classes to couple’s boxing to kettlebell classes to challenging and enjoyable boxing fitness classes. But one of their biggest programs, that I honestly don’t know a ton about, is their Rock Steady Boxing program which is designed specifically for people living with Parkinson’s. I stepped way, way out of my comfort zone a little over a year ago when I took my first boxing class at K-Fit and it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made in my whole life. The physical progress I’ve made, the people I’ve met, and the confidence I’ve gained have been life changing in the best ways possible. If you live out near me and you’ve wanted to find a physical fitness program that will be something challenging that you love, you really should check out K-Fit Boxing!
My first boxing picture — taken about a year ago.
Convinced my daughter to come to boxing class with me one Saturday morning when she was in town visiting.
An example of how I improved: when I first came to K-Fit, I couldn’t hold a plank for even 10 seconds. Then one night, Anne snapped a picture of me doing THIS — whaaaaat????
I know I mentioned in a previous post that I’m a Jimmy Buffett fan. I cut my teeth, like lots of Parrotheads, on Songs You Know by Heart. That’s got songs like “Margaritaville,” “Volcano,” “Fins,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Come Monday,” and “A Pirate Looks at Forty” on it. They really are the songs you know by heart if you’re a Jimmy Buffett fan. And he plays those songs at every concert. But if I’m being honest, those songs have grown tired for me. Instead, I’ve expanded my Buffett horizons and found other songs by him that I love. Some of them are a little obscure, but I don’t care. I love every song on Don’t Stop the Carnival — “A Thousand Steps” in particular! My favorite Buffett song is probably “Tin Cup Chalice.” And I have a secret desire for “Little Miss Magic” to be the daddy/daughter dance when my daughter gets married someday ❤
A few months ago, I stumbled on an online group called the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. It’s a site devoted to helping writers, and since I am a wannabe novelist, I decided to get involved with the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. They have all sorts of helpful information to assist writers, and once a month, they send out a writing-related question for people to write about on their blogs. It’s a lot of fun doing the “writing assignment” and seeing what other writers say in theirs. I find it easiest just to search the hashtag on Twitter and read blogs there. If you’re a writer, especially an insecure writer 🙂 — you should look into joining the group on that site!
One of my favorite movies is The Horse Whisperer. I stumbled upon it one day and watched it and was instantly taken in. I absolutely adore tortured love stories — the more tortured, the better! And this movie has plenty of tortured love: Grace and her parents, Annie and Tom, Annie and Robert, Annie and Tom. I am not always a huge fan of Kristin Scott Thomas’s but she is so good in this role, playing it with a hard edge, vulnerability, and trepidation all wrapped up in one complex character. Robert Redford’s aloofness is natural and an absolute turn on! And Scarlett Johansson plays one of the best roles in her career, in my opinion, in this movie.
I love watching the relationship between Annie and Grace grow. As a mom, I remember those difficult teenage years with my own daughter, and I didn’t have to also manage the trauma that Annie had to manage with Grace. I find the relationship between Annie and Robert to be an interesting study, trying to determine right along with them what the best path for their marriage should be. And then there’s Annie and Tom. The chemistry between the two of them is gentle yet overpowering. As a viewer, you know they really don’t belong together at all but you find yourself wanting them to be together anyway.
One of my all-time favorite movie scenes ever is from this film. It is the climax in the attraction between Annie and Tom as they dance together, surrounded by so many other people, including Robert and Grace, but becoming so completely lost in each other, they forget there is a world around them. We viewers are waiting for the big scene where they finally consummate their relationship, but this is as much as we get — their dance. I have told people it is one of the sexiest, most erotic love scenes that has absolutely no sex and no nudity. Watch it here:
I have always meant to read the book to see if it is just as tortured as the movie. Someday, I will. If you’re like me and just adore getting lost in impossible love stories, then maybe you might like to watch The Horse Whisperer.
I believe in God. It is a choice I make. My reasons for believing in God are simple.
I believe in God because it gives me comfort and strength to feel as if I am talking to someone in times of need, whether it is something big (like when my dad was in the hospital after having a sudden cardiac arrest) or something small (like when I can finally clasp the necklace I am trying to put on).
I believe in God because it gives me peace to think that some people will get a reward in heaven when they die. I think about my mom and some of the things she has endured in her life and how selfless and giving she is and I simply cannot fathom that she would leave this world someday and not be rewarded richly for her kindness and generosity.
I believe in God because it makes my heart feel calm to think that people I love whom I’ve lost are merely waiting for me when it is my time to join them. I don’t want to think that I will never see my grandmother again or that people I know who have lost children will never see them again.
Maybe I am naive or foolish to believe in God. Maybe my reasons for believing in God are petty. But I don’t care. If I am content to believe, why should it matter to anyone else? I don’t question why other people believe in God; if they do, they have their own reasons. I also don’t question why people don’t believe in God because I am sure they also have their own reasons.
Believing in God doesn’t make me morally superior. It doesn’t even make me moral. But it does make me happy, and it does make me feel at peace. And those are two pretty amazing gifts.
In this post, I am going to tell you about a song that plays a significant role in my life. It’s “Faith in Angels” by Peter Mayer.
Peter Mayer is a singer and guitar player in his own right, but he has likely gained any fame he has by being a guitarist for Jimmy Buffett. My attention was first drawn to him as a musician beyond his work with Buffett by my friend Sarah. And this song is one that is dear to her as well. She is the one who placed this song in my life and it has been a blessing. My friend Cathy calls it my “strong song” and I never realized that it indeed is my “strong song” until Cathy said that.
The lyrics and the tone of the song are incredibly gentle, it’s easy to see why it’s a song used to soothe the aches and pains of the heart. The chorus of a song is a soft call to action:
Have a little faith in angels. You never know where they might be. Have a little faith in angels and you might begin to see.
It’s funny how this song has just popped up for me at times in my life when I need to hear the message the most — everything from trying to grapple with my grandfather’s suicide to getting me through marathon training and the marathon itself. When I hear the song, it always causes me to pause a do a quick re-examination of my life and my relationships. I look for the angels. And I find them everywhere. They are always there when I need them, helping this silver bird leave the ground, rising high on their borrowed wings.
This post is late — should have published Wednesday! It is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. And here is the question for this month:
If you could use a wish to help you write just ONE scene/chapter of your book, which one would it be? (examples: fight scene / first kiss scene / death scene / chase scene / first chapter / middle chapter / end chapter, etc.)
I would use my wish to help me write the chapter that includes the climax to my novel. I have been working on a novel for a few years now and the progress is sloooooooow. I know what I want the conflict to be. I know what I want the ending to be. But I just can’t figure out the climax, the culminating event that brings all the rising action to a head so that I can have the ending I want. I know that I need a significant event, most likely a negative event, but I absolutely do NOT want a cliche (like a death) or an unrealistic surprise twist or some deus ex machina. I want it to feel authentic and real and I haven’t figured out yet how to do that.
I don’t know if this makes me unusual. Do most authors know exactly how the plot of their novel will go? Or is it perfectly normal to be missing such a big piece of the plot? Regardless, that is what I would use my wish for!
