From the land of bears

Music is my friend, but also, not my friend. It's very good at bringing me out of my many funks, especially when combined with dancing or walking, but it also will periodically create bad moods. This is due to my inability to listen to a song without believing it to be 100% true. For example, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. I listen to it and think "How poignant, it is true, I shouldn't always expect to get what I want." Wrong. It's not a matter of not getting what I want, it's about being vague in exactly what that is. You can't say, "I want 8.7 monkey butlers and I want them to all answer to the name Floyd" and expect to get what you want. What you need to say is, "I want some sort of something to serve me delicious Pina Coladas at some point in my future." There is every chance that this second choice will probably happen, but it does not eliminate the possibility that that something is a monkey butler named Floyd. By following this simple strategy, you can guarantee that you will always get what you want, especially if what you want is to prove Mick Jagger wrong.

"Don't Stop Believing" is one of my favorite songs, but it's also a little ridiculous. I mean, why tell me to not stop believing and yet never define what I'm supposed to believe in? It also gives me no clue as to what the feeling I'm supposed to hold onto is. I assume it's some sort of positive feeling, like "happy" or "exuberant", but it very well could be "anger" or "apathy", in which case, it's not actually a very good song at all. Although, to be honest, I've found both anger and apathy to be very useful emotions at times. Regardless, I think that this already awesome song could be far more awesome if it gave clearer instructions. Example: Don't Stop Believing (that leprechauns are going to give you delicious chocolate gold), Hold on to that (somewhat nauseous from delicious chocolate) feeling. Sometimes I wonder if Journey might have been aware of this, but concerned about unleashing a song that awesome on the world.

I've been listening to a lot of Dixie Chicks lately. It started with the song, "Not Ready to Make Nice" because I wasn't. Then, I moved onto "Top of the World", which I like for it's dramatic strings, but sometimes I allow it to convince me that I'm a songbird with a broken wing that's never going to fly to the top of the world because of some jerk. Then I feel sad and weak and imagine that someone has somehow broken me. Then I have to remind myself exactly how false that is. If anything, I'm something that eats the little song bird, like a hawk (I just Googled "What eat songbirds" and had a disturbing number of hits). Actually, a hawk is not quite awesome enough. I'm more like a dragon. Want to try to break my wings? Go for it, because now you're on fire.

Today I tried to bike to a river. It went well, by which I mean, I'm still alive and found my way back to the computer to write this. But I couldn't find a river, mainly because, as I learned later, it was to the South, and I was heading due West. Sometimes, when you want to go somewhere, it's helpful if you know where it is first, instead of just hoping that your bike might act as some sort of divining rod and find water. That is what I learned today.

We're visiting Lilliput's family's home, where apparently bears run rampant and eat many apples, then pass out on the lawn in a drunken apple stupor. Sometimes they have bear fights. So, I fear this may be my last post. It's been nice. If I survive the maulings, I'll post again tomorrow.