A little story about why it is truly amazing that I can get anything done:
The Featureless Saint and I have been netflixing* Bones. While the murders and mysteries that surround them are meh, the character development of the ensemble and between Boreanaz and Deschanel is more than worth the price of admission. Besides, it's not like there is a lot of other stuff on.
Anyhoo.
Last night we watched the one with the Skull in the Desert. It's nice that Angela is finally getting some decent backstory as is Zack -- but that's not the important part, w/r/t this post. No, the important part is one of the songs. Their music supervisor is a genius, if only because we seem to like the same things. Everyone who shares my taste is a genius.
One of the songs that was used was one that I have loved, loved, loved since the moment I first heard it. But I could not remember who the artist was. Thanks to the wonders of the internets, I was able to track it down. It's "Rain" by Patty Griffin, btw. I was also able to find it on iTunes and thought I'd go ahead and buy that track when I realized I already have the CD, whereupon I got up from my desk and found it. There was a brief search, if only because my relationship with the actual alphabet is tenuous, at best.
And the song, it must be said, is as wonderful as it always has been. I love Patty Griffin.
But that's not what makes me amazed that I can get stuff done. Even though it required a trip from the tv to my computer to the binders with the CDs, the time elapsed might have been 5 minutes.
This morning, however, I untold amounts of time finding and watching various versions of "Rain" on YouTube. My fave: "Rain." Then I had to watch "Chief," which is my second favorite song on that disc. And then my mind went noodling off the coincidence that there is a song called "Making Pies" and that today is National Pie Day and that there is no pie in my house to be had. Then it noodled off to Hillbilly Gothic and how I wanted to include one set of lyrics from "Chief"** as a chapter hed but acquiring the rights was taking too long as was too much of a pain in the ass. Then I thought that it'd be fun to do a "Living with Music" piece for Dwight Garner's NYT blog but then remembered that I am a nobody. Then I noodled off to a story that Scott Miller told me about picking Griffin up at the airport when she was doing some background vocals on one of his albums. Which meant I had to track it down: Miller and the car. And then I realized that Miller is playing on Feb 23 at the Laurel Theatre, which is one of my favorite Knoxville venues. I couldn't find airfare for under $400 and knew that I'd want to go with the Featureless Saint, which isn't at all feasible right now.
This doesn't even begin to describe all of the connections that I started to chase down, which involved Shawn Colvin, "Four Seasons in One Day," and Steve Martin. Like I said -- it's a wonder I get anything actually accomplished.
I don't know if this is just a writer's mind thing or if everyone does this. And the fact that I can even use the phrase "writer's mind" without snickering is amazing. My mind just seems to like little shiny things that it can line up into odd little rows while wasting staggering amounts of the day doing so.
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* I predict that this will be the word of the year 2008.
** The lyrics:
I don't really know what I'm doing
I'm just watching myself in some play
And the actress looks like she wants to go home
And lie in her bed all day***
*** I also wanted to include the opening lyrics from The Old 97's "Timebomb"**** but that was an even bigger pain in the ass than getting the rights to the Griffin song. It took two months to even get someone to call me back. Bastards.
**** "I've got a timebomb
in my mind mom."