a few weeks ago, when erin called my attention to alyssa's back to blogging challenge, i was like, nah. i don't wanna play. this right here is probably the only post i'm going to contribute, and i'm doing it because i realized one of the prompts, upon further consideration, did kind of strike a chord: three (or however many you choose) songs that define your life and why.

while in high school, my younger brother was asked to write a paper about music and how it could soothe the savage beast. he wrote about how it helped me, and though i didn't particularly like being compared to a savage beast, there are far too many times the phrase has suited.

my father was a musician in high school and college. rockin' rick played the saxophone. he also played football. on friday nights he'd play four quarters, and then he'd march on that field during halftime in his pads and uniform. he was offered a full-ride scholarship to southern methodist university to study music, but he wanted to be with my mother, and she wanted to go to lamar university... they have hundreds and hundreds of albums. there was always music in my house as a child. i'd come home from school, and my mother'd be singing along to barbra streisand, jane olivor, johnny mathis, harry belafonte...

i can remember sitting at the kitchen table listening to olivor's songs while doing homework (probably because i'd not done an assignment and she was making me finish it to turn in for partial credit so i wouldn't fail a class). i remember sitting before a phonograph in their bedroom listening to belafonte sing the rose. she'd wanted me to hear his version. i was, and still am, partial to bette midler's, which is where we'll begin...

the rose. had to be bette midler's because i can sing. well. and i wanted to sing it as well as she. (because in the early days of my youth, before i learned of just how broken my body was... before my peers shattered my self-perception, i had confidence... i knew i was good, and i could.) i sang that one a LOT. on walks around my neighborhood, on the bus ride to school... during class, i was writing the lyrics. every day. i clung to those words, to the hope in them. they were a relentless prayer for me... when the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong, just remember...

the wind beneath my wings. midler again. sue me. i love that woman's voice. it is, well... divine. i was always in the shadows. my parents', my brothers', my peers'. i never felt the sun on my face. i always walk a step behind, even now. i've heard my smile's amazing; it hides an astounding amount of pain. but my father... he's told me often of how i'm his hero. me. this man who's accomplished SO much in his life, has made such a name for himself, has established and nourished so many positive relationships with SO many people. he thinks the world of me. so i'd sing this one, too. i'd pray i could be this strong, that i could know i deserve his praise. this one, like the last, made me hope.

before you were born. toad the wet sprocket. off the fear album. this album i listened to often in the first year or two of its release. it's one of those few that i think are pretty damned solid, beginning to end. this song, though... its lyrics speak to me for several reasons. forty years ago or so, if a child was born with issues like those i had, doctors recommended that child be placed in an institution, which is exactly what was recommended to my parents. before you were born someone kicked in the door... there's no place for you here... stay back where you belong. my parents took me home. they found other doctors who did what they could to fix me... every time some issue surfaced, they'd find another... and another... so physically, i lived with reminders that i am flawed, like i'd been made of scraps. i'd go to school to face my peers... you are not wanted here... stay back where you belong... my self-image was obliterated by the time i'd entered high school. the only emotions i knew by this point were rage and despair. by the time i entered college, i was a poorly-constructed shell of a woman. the rage had fueled me in adolescence, but the fire was dying by then. at least, i thought it was. this song stirred the embers just enough to help get me through five more years of academia. goddamn the wounds that show how deep a word can cut. i'm always having to ask others how they see me now. have done so for the last two decades because in the first two decades so many sought to break me. so my reflection... there are just pieces of that shell now. fragments. i always feel guilty having to ask, pathetic. i know how it seems. how can it happen that every time you ask us this question, the answer seems like a lie. you know what we're saying, and you know what it means, and it's always sincere, god knows, but it never gets through to where you need. while some of the lyrics light a fire in me, still, the first and last verses can sometimes keep it contained.

whatever i fear. toad the wet sprocket again. there's almost nothing left, and you eat my kind for breakfast... i sicken myself so much... whatever i fear the most is whatever i see before me...

rhyme and reason. dave matthews band. i know these voices must be my soul... i've had enough, i've had enough of being alone... i got no place to go. i kept hearing people say depressed people choose depression, and for the longest time i'd thought i'd brought all this on myself, that it was caused by how i'd chosen to react to the traumatic experiences of my youth. a sort of mental self-harm over which i had complete control. so for me, the reference to needles in the song is metaphorical. and there's that part of me that just wants it over and done.

with or without you. u2. because this is how i feel about love... i can't have it, but i want it. i wait for it, even though i know i can't handle it when it's in my clumsy grasp. my hands clench things too tightly. there's too much hate in me... from all that fire and rage. i'm too open. too eager to share. too free with my stories. i give myself away too easily... and then, when it matters to be open and vulnerable... the walls i build are insurmountable. mama says i've got the go to hell look patented. see the stone set in your eyes... see the thorn twist in your side... 

i also like acrobat: you can swallow, or you can spit. you can throw it up, or choke on it... don't let the bastards grind you down... i know you'd hit out, if you only knew who to hit. and who's gonna ride your wild horses. 

closer to fine; secure yourself; kid fears; prince of darkness; blood and fire. indigo girls. darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear. i wrapped my fear around me like a blanket (closer to fine). i wrote a whole post about prince of darkness.

silent all these years; crucify; precious things; winter; hey jupiter; the doughnut song; baker baker. tori amos. every finger in the room is point at me. i wanna spit in their faces, then i get afraid of what that could bring. i got a bowling ball in my stomach, got a desert in my mouth. figures that my courage would choose to sell out now... i've been raising up my hands, drive another nail in. just what god needs. one more victim (crucify). basically the whole album little earthquakes needs to be in your collection if it's not already. that last song, though, baker baker. that one's my favorite. behind my eyes, i'm hiding... my heart's been hard to find. here... there must be something here.

place in this world; i'll lead you home; let me show you the way. michael w. smith. my crutches when i feel most defeated, when all seems lost.

the fall film challenge bonus round: my list

big stone gap

bleed for this

the book thief

bridge of spies

the choice

concussion

eighty-four charing cross road

election

evening

flags of our fathers

gleason

hacksaw ridge

jack reacher: never go back

ladies in lavender

loving

the other boleyn girl

the perfect storm

the queen

the remains of the day

remember the titans

spotlight

a street cat named bob

thirteen hours: the secret soldiers of benghazi

the thirty-three

the three musketeers

the fall film challenge: the bonus round

guess what. for the bonus? pick twenty-five films that have been based on books or actual events. when you post your list to the facebook page, you HAVE to provide links (like goodreads or wikipedia) to verify choices are legitimate ones. I WILL CHECK. I WILL TELL YOU NO IF THEY'RE NOT. same rules apply: can't use films you've already seen; has to have a page on imdb, theatrical release... no changes... yadda yadda. AND because i'm nice, this year you don't have to have finished the regular round before watching bonus selections. so that's it. have fun.

the tally, for those of you who are interested in knowing challengers' progress, is thus:

christine: twenty-five. finished original list september twenty-second. 

alyson: twenty-five. finished original list september twenty-second (second). 

andrea: twenty-five. finished original list october second. 

christina: twenty-five. finished original list october seventh. 

kathryn: nineteen 

dani: thirteen 

brianne: nine 

sabrina: nine 

lauren t.: eight 

michael: eight 

stephanie: seven 

cassie: four 

cherie: four 

erin: three 

lauren h.: one 

there's no shame in having only seen a few, by the way. ultimately, the purpose of this challenge is to get you to see things you wouldn't normally see, and if it gets someone to watch one movie, then yay. i'm glad. because i know there are some of you out there who love books, like erin, a helluva lot more than they love film--or maybe i should say it's easier for them to get through a book than a movie. you can listen to a book during a commute or while you're cooking dinner. watching a movie while you're cooking is a little more complicated. like the other day when i was trying to watch desolation of smaug and bake muffins. it took me two hours to make the muffins, yall. why? because there are hot men in that movie. i enjoyed looking at their faces a whole lot more than i enjoyed spooning batter into muffin tins. anyway... collectively, we challengers have seen about two hundred movies since september thirtieth. i say about because some of them are duplicates, and i'm too lazy to figure out an exact count. that's a lot of movies, yall, in a very short amount of time. i am impressed by these girls. this is pretty awesome.

i have seen sixteen flicks. i'm having a really hard time finding the trojan women. i understand i could buy it, but, although it appears to have a pretty fantastic cast, i'm not interested in purchasing a film i've never seen. so... if by some freak of nature one of you lovely readers happens to own that particular flick or know of someone who does and would be willing to hook a gal up, i'd appreciate the favor. you will be rewarded for your generosity.

random quarter

one. so the first thing i do when making these posts is type out the one through twenty-five bit because if i do it that way, then i don't have to do control b as much. then i go back and type the things. today, i got so caught up in typing the numbers that i was on twenty-seven when i realized i could stop.

two. this the fifty-first rq post. actually, i'm sure there've been more than that, but i went through and killed about seven hundred posts last year, and some of those were probably rq's from way back when. picky's been around for more than a decade, yall. i can't keep everything. i can guarantee you i wrote more than two posts in two thousand eight, and there's nothing from five, six or seven. so yeah. there were probably more like sixty or seventy of these. whatever. the first rq post was composed on april twenty-fourth, six years ago. the one with the most page views is this one (one thousand, two hundred sixteen); the one with the fewest is that one (thirty). in the former, all of that is still true, save for number four because i can't fix phineas. he bought it two years ago this month. i'm still sad about that.

three. i am about to make the third call today to the cable company because i can't watch my recorded shows and do netflix and all that jazz... i am unthrilled. mostly because they ask for the best phone number at which to call you should they get disconnected, but they don't call you back when the call's broken, so you have to repeat the same complaints AGAIN. the third one, though was successful, thank god. something's busted in a box. imagine that. and they may be out today to fix it. maybe.

four. i have watched sixteen of the twenty-five films i'd chosen for this year's film challenge. i can't say for sure, but i think that's the greatest number of films i've seen by midpoint. i'm kind of proud of myself. i've never finished my own damned challenge. mayhaps i'll do it this year!

five. and then there's erin's book challenge. i've read FIVE books, which IS the most i've ever read of my selections for one of her challenges. the thing's over in two weeks. i might get one more in. maybe two. but ain't no way i'm finishing that one. sorry, lady. there's always the next one...

six. the aggies have won six games. they are undefeated. they are ranked sixth. it is a beautiful thing. that said... the first half of their season's a cakewalk compared to the back half. bama's next. as in next weekend. at bama. we've beaten them there before. maybe we could do it again. that sure would be nice. then we could be eight and oh because the next team is like new mexico state or something... aggies vs. aggies. there can be only one, dammit. and ours have a ninety-nine point five percent chance of victory. the bama game, though... the chance of success there is MUCH smaller. something like twenty-nine point three percent.

seven. so something really weird happened with picky this year. i can't figure out it happened. of the posts that survived the great culling, the one that's had the fewest views is called hate hates hating. i'm kind of glad i'm doing this rq post today, that i'm checking out the page views and whatnot because it made me revisit that particular post. and in light of the one i'd written the other day... i'm really glad i looked at this one again because it reminded me that that's how i need to pray. after giving thanks and asking for help for my friends... the simple request in that post is good enough. not that i've not made the request since. not that i'd forgotten writing that post or coming to that realization... but i forget a prayer doesn't have to be fancy. it doesn't have to be specific. it can be as simple as the italicized words i'd written then.

anyway... the weird thing... i culled a few more posts a month ago, so there are a little less than five hundred picky posts now. if you break'm down into hundreds...

the last batch (june to june, two thousand eight to ten):

eight posts have fewer than ten views;

sixty-one have between ten and ninety-nine; 

eighteen have greater than one hundred

the numbers for the next three hundred posts are fairly similar. the first batch, though...

the most recent one (may of fifteen to now):

twenty three posts have fewer than one hundred views; 

sixty have between one hundred and a thousand; 

sixteen have more than a thousand

SIXTEEN. in the other four hundred, there've been only two that have amassed that many: n is for neapolitan (one thousand one hundred twenty-three) and that rq post mentioned earlier. i can't figure out what i did to incur the spike cause i'm pretty sure i'm not writing about anything differently.

of course now the numbers are settling back to normal. maybe it was just this fluke thing. it's just that i never figured any post of mine would get that much attention. and i get it. there are bloggers out there who have posts that get hundreds and hundreds of views on a regular basis. so i probably sound silly talking about this...

eight. am watching the way, way back for probably the thirtieth time. i am not a sam rockwell fan, but there is no one who could do the character owen better justice than that dude. my older brother was kind of like owen. maybe that's why i like this movie so much. i say kind of because my brother was pretty damned particular about how he dressed, but for the most part... i can see my brother doing a lot of things owen does in this film. i miss my bubba.

nine. i can't stand steve carell. nothing makes me loathe him more than his character trent. the guys i meet, they're like trent. i'd really rather find one like owen. and i know, considering i'd just said he reminds me of my brother, that sounds weird, but... the guys in my family are pretty awesome. sue me for wanting someone like them.

ten. i had all these shows and films saved to the dvr. like an episode of a football life that focuses on steve gleason's interest and effort in climbing machu picchu. it was a damned good episode. it's gone now because the cable guy had to replace all our damned boxes. so... no more shows. i had to go through and reset all the shit. bah.

eleven. my mom makes baby cupcakes out of yellow cake and cinnamon and sugar. it only took me three tries but i've managed to nail that shit. there's like a science. you have to tweak the recipe a bit, beat it differently than what it says on the box, bake'm for just the right time (NOT the eighteen minutes it says to do on the box), mix just the right amount of cinnamon with sugar and soak'm in just the right amount of butter then the cinnamon stuff. the first batch? not so good. the last batch? badass.

twelve. i've told yall before it takes me hours to write these posts. that's because sometimes i'm like... what. the. fuck. i'm only on number twelve??

thirteen. i hate job hunting. i hate how small i feel. that i try for the jobs that interest me and end up working in retail. i really don't want to work retail EVER AGAIN but it's looking like that's about to happen.

fourteen. and then i hate hating on retail because it's honest work, hard work. and who am i to belittle that? it's just that i don't want my work to be just a job. and that's how i see retail. it's just a job. and a i'm just a girl. working a just job makes me feel more like a just girl. and i really don't wanna feel like that.

fifteen. i have kept my room clean for a whole three days! i swear to god this is a record.

sixteen. my bank account's had less than twenty bucks in it for two weeks. i'm pretty sure that's a record, too.

seventeen.  i've been having trouble sleeping. it took a clonazepam, two unisoms and watching the actors' commentary of the first half of the director's cut of fellowship of the ring to get me to sleep last night. i dozed pretty much all night. i know this because at some point, i had to start the thing over.

eighteen. baseball doesn't interest me so much. until i'm sitting at republic grille (filling out a job application) and watching the cleveland indians beat the boston red sox. yeah. YEAH. the INDIANS. that team that was featured in major league beating that team that was featured in fever pitch. that got my attention. because how in the hell did that happen? and then one of the servers is saying some shit about how the series could come down to the indians and the chicago cubs. THE CHICAGO CUBS. i feel like shit's horribly off its axis.

nineteen. six more things... i'm over flo the progressive gal commercials. those need to end. so do the ones for sites like match and eharmony. and credit cards. and the goddamned lincoln ads with matthew mcconaughey.

twenty. i want to take a road trip across the low-lying lands of louisiana. i lived in that state when i was nine. for like six months. it sucked. i can only blame the interest in going back there on the fact that i watched deepwater horizon the other day, and i liked how the land is spotted along the coast in places. kind of like it is in north carolina. i've not really taken a road trip in about a year... since north carolina. maybe i'm in need of another. after i get a job, of course... and when i manage to get some time off. funny how i have the time now, but not the funds. and when i have the funds, i don't have the time.

twenty-one. that movie, by the way... of those mentioned in this post, that's one yall definitely need to see. ain't no excuse for you not to.

twenty-three. that first movie mentioned has finished. now i'm watching the reboot of macgyver. well, the fourth episode. because i lost the first three before i could watch them (because i wasn't that excited about this particular program, so i was saving them for when there was absolutely nothing else to watch), and while the cable guy could fix the cable, video on demand shit's busted. but apparently that's busted for a bunch of people. i grew up with richard whatshisface playing mac. it feels weird to me to see this other dude playing the part. it feels weird to see henry winkler listed as an executive producer, too. that's the fonz, yall. i grew up watching him slicking his hair and snapping his fingers. this shit makes me feel REALLY OLD. anyway, this show? not so impressive. i can't see it lasting a season.

twenty-four. i watched deadpool (one of the many things i had saved that is now GONE, dammit, because the more i think about that movie, the more i like it) the other day. there's some damned fine dialogue in that flick.

twenty-five. i wanna be scrawny again. i also wanna eat like three bowls of honeycomb. guess which one's more likely to happen?

i don't know what to pray for anymore

i've never been good at praying. ever. i know how it should be done: you're supposed to express gratitude for the good, which i do; you're supposed to ask for help with things that hurt and are in need of healing, so i pray for my friends. i'm good with all that... until i get to what's hurting me, to how i've hurt myself, to how i'd like it to be healed. i don't know what to pray for anymore.

every well woman exam i've had has come back normal, save for the last. i've lesions, abnormal cells that may need special attention. i go back in march for another exam, and if they're still there... well, then...

i'm trying not to think anything of it. for the past month, i've managed to roll with this well enough. apparently they're rather common. they're caused by human papillomavirus, which i got from that douchebag i dated last year. i got it because i'd lowered my standards, because i relented. because i'd thought a lot of things i didn't like to think.

it's probably nothing, this... i'll probably go back, and they'll do their thing, whatever it is, and i'll be fine. this is probably just me freaking out because that's what i do best.

i am a strong woman. i know this. i might not always act as though i've got a backbone. i might use bitchy and bluster as a defense mechanism a little too often. i'm horribly passive aggressive. but i can take a ton of shit. you can poke and prod at me until you can't find a vein anymore, like doctors did when i was a baby...

whatever this is, i'll deal with it. that's been my thought process for the past month, since i got those abnormal results. hell, for the past eighteen months since all this shit really began. whatever this is, i'll deal with it, like i've done a thousand times before.

curious, though, isn't it, that i would feel compelled to go see that movie to joey with love. i went because she was gifted with a beautiful voice and seems to have had a beautiful heart and soul, and i wanted to know that beauty a little better.

halfway through the film, though, i thought... this could be you a year from now. this struggle she endured, this battle she fought and lost... leaving behind a man who loved her and a daughter who needed her. this could be your struggle... only you don't have as many reasons to fight as she did. all because you relented, because you gave up. you who makes a point to hold her ground, even if holding it means to curl up in a ball, to dig a trench, to bury yourself. well... you're running out of trenches... you can only build so many before the ground gives way.