"So I will find my fears and face them,Or I will cower like a dog.
I will kick and scream or kneel and plead.
I fight like hell
To hide that I've given up."
~Bright Eyes, "Another Travelling Song"

The first post of a new year. 2007. A little nervous, a little unprepared, maybe, but I'm pretty fucking happy to be out of 2006.

2006 was a year of great music. If I had to pick one artist to sum it up, I'd say Bright Eyes. Songs like "Waste of Paint" and "Take is Easy (Love Nothing)" brought me into a closer understanding of my weaknesses, and the weaknesses of those around me, and I reacted with venom that might have poisoned more than it was supposed to. Songs like "Going for the Gold" and "No Lies, Just Love" reacquainted me with the kind of hopeless pain that only a shaky voice can iterate. And I let the album "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning", with it's sentimental push towards a brighter dawn wrap up my year. Here is an album everyone should run out and buy. Here is a song that haunts you, a rhythym that drives you, a question that haunts you: "Why are you scared to dream of god// When it's salvation that you want?"

The last couple of months have slowed with the melody of "Lua", marched with the beat of "Road to Joy", and come to the realization, "We are nowhere, and it's Now."

Bright Eyes can do the music of mourning better than anyone. Bright Eyes remembers the rhythym of regret. There's poetry in pain, singing strains of sadness and sorrow. Bright Eyes is the kind of music you need, if you're about to have a year like I just had.

It was a year of great music. But it wasn't a great year.


I am making a conscious switch this year. This year, I will rise from the minor chords. I'm coming up, scratching out, fighting back. This year, I will overcome. Or it will be my last.


I am waiting for this song to come to an end. Then I will press "stop."


The music of 2007 will be provided Ani DiFranco, with maybe a little Etheridge or some classic Joni. The music of this year will be all about energy and determination, strength that only women can understand, the kind that resides, often latent, within long, lean, unassuming muscles. This is the kind of restrained power that only springs forth when cornered; a woman is a fighter of nessecity where a man is a fighter of pride.

I haven't always owned up to being a woman, but that is what I am. And that is how I will overcome.


I stumbled upon an old Ani CD that I hadn't listened to in ages the other day, put it in, and I remembered what it feels like to listen to her-- not just the slow stuff that has been in my stock of MP3's the whole time, but her spunky stuff, the gumption, the moxie; the politics and the anger, the love and the indignation. I had forgotten.

This is the year I will end my own personal battle with Vaginismus. And when that's done, or concurrently, I will fight on the front of every other woman's battle with it. This year, I will not take "no" for answer. This year, I will not let myself give it.

"My thigh have been involved in many accidents,
And now I can't get insured,
And I don't need to be lured by you.
My cunt is built like a wound that won't heal,
And now you don't have to ask,
'Cause you know how I feel."
~Out of Habit

There's a lot to say about things lately, more than I have time for. People and places. Resolutions and reservation. Music and memories; a moment, a week ago, in the cab of a truck with someone that I cared about in 2006, and the things between us that pushed us apart, us so like magnets forced to either repel or attract. The dichotomy of roles between us; two people who see the best in each other, want the best for each other, are their best when with each other, on one end. On the other, two people who can't seem to help but act in such a way that totally undermines their mutual respect. I suppose this could mean a lot of things, but for me, the only thing that resonates is a moment alone with him, listening to a song in the dark, leaning on him; his earnest request that I not avoid-- abandon, more accurately-- him in the future, and the way it looked as a I watched a single tear fall from my eye and soak into the fabric of his shirt as I apologized, promised him that I wouldn't do it again.


The way it felt, several hours later, when, with a quiet acknowledgement of the hours in between, we both knew I couldn't keep that promise.

Loving people, it's a bitch.


It was a male singer, the song we were listening to in the truck. You ever notice how women will listen to, and love, music by artists of either gender, but men almost never listen to female artists? Kudos to the Chicago Jew for loving Ani.

So, now to dive, headlong into 2007. Wish me luck.


On with it.


"Everything I do is judged,
And they mostly get it wrong, but oh well.
'Cause the bathroom mirror has not budged,
And the woman who lives there can tell
The truth from the stuff that they say.
She looks me in the eye
And says 'Would you prefer the easy way?
No? Well, okay then. Don't cry.'"
~Joyful Girl