Endless Love

On Thursday night I made my mom's breadsticks which are my absolute most favorite breadsticks in the world. I can seriously eat the whole pan. This is not authentic/rustic Italian bread-making. In fact, sadly, it's more Sandra Lee and less Giada De Laurentiis, but I'm convinced that nothing Sandra Lee makes is edible. Anyway, they are SO easy, and this is how you do it. You take a frozen loaf of bread (like Rhodes) and set it out and cover with a cloth to thaw and raise. This will take a few hours, so some planning ahead is required. Once it's thawed, roll it out on a pan like a cookie sheet--or stoneware if you're full-time fancy. Now here's the topping! It's 2 tbsp softened butter, 2 tbsp mayo, and 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese--this is one of the few times that using that Kraft crap is fine, but real cheese is good too. Then add Italian seasoning and garlic powder to taste. Mix it all up, and spoon it over the dough. Let it raise again for like 15 minutes or so. Then you bake it at 400 degrees for 10 minutes until golden brown. Take it out of the oven and cut it into sticks with a pizza cutter, and, voila!, you have the perfect accompaniment for pizza, pasta, soups, or anything really. So easy. The hard part is exercising self-control.

On the topic of endless love, I was thinking about my most favoritest songs that I could listen to over and over again forever. Now a lot of us will listen to new songs and music incessantly for day, weeks, or even months. But it turns out it was just a fling, and eventually it's that song on your iPod that you always scroll past and never actually listen to anymore. Currently, I'm having a fling with Who Killed Amanda Palmer? especially "Ampersand." These are not the songs, I'm going to talk about. I'm talking about the ones that inspire hopeless devotion. The songs whose play counts number in the hundreds (if your library hasn't been reset several times, like mine) and they're still fresh. The desert island songs. The ones that you have loved for years and cannot imagine that you'll ever stop loving. So there are a lot of songs that I love and still listen to regularly, but only a handful have really earned my endless love. Many of the songs are also regulars on my summer playlist which is appropriate as summer is only like a month or so away in Seattle. And while love may be blind (or deaf as the case may be), I will attempt to explain here why I love these songs so much anyway.

"Tear In Your Hand" by Tori Amos. Every time I hear the first five seconds of this song, joy washes over me, and I say, "Oh my god, I love this song." Every. Time. It is probably my most listened to song ever. "If you need me, me and Neil'll be / Hangin' out with the Dream King / Neil says hi by the way." I had Neil Gaiman write "Hi by the way" in my Sandman book. It makes me incredibly happy.

"Cooling" by Tori Amos. This may be the most beautiful song I've ever heard and possibly her best B-side. It is currently the most played song in my library. It's about a relationship cooling faster than she can. "So then I thought I'd make some plans / But fire thought she'd really rather be water instead." I saw Tori play it live last year and it was magical.

"All I Really Want" by Alanis Morissette. Jagged Little Pill was the first (real) CD I bought. And every time I drove home from Cedar City, "All I Really Want" was the first song I played once I got on the interstate. With the right mix of angst and bounce it's perfect for summer, road trips, and manic cleaning sessions.

"White Houses" by Vanessa Carlton. I had a fling with "A Thousand Miles" a thousand years ago, but "White Houses" is the real deal--the painful transition of adolescence, burgeoning sexuality, and that summer when everything changes.

"Mr. Brightside" by The Killers. It may be their most famous song, but it's still my favorite. What else can I say? Have you seen the music video?

"Samson" by Regina Spektor. The first time I listened to Begin to Hope (thanks Val!), "Samson" was hands down my favorite song. It's so beautiful, and I love this alternate take on Samson. "Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth."

"Bouncing Off Clouds" by Tori Amos. I listened to this song constantly the summer of '07, and with its driving drums and 4/4 beat, it's one of her more rocking songs. It's a pretty simple song about a relationship that is no longer simple. "Make it easy, make this easy . . . paint it in mint ice cream."

"Space Dog" by Tori Amos. I still have no idea what this song is about, but part of my love is due to its surreal imagery. I also love the constant shifting from drums and electric guitars to melodic piano--but the real reason I love this song is when it goes andromeda combining all the elements after these lyrics: "Deck the halls, I'm young again, I'm you again / Racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning / Seems I keep getting this story twisted / So where's Neil when you need him? / Deck the halls, it's you again, it's you again." It gets me every time.

Of course there are many more songs that I love, and I left musical numbers out cause that's a whole different ballgame, but these all have a special place in my heart. "Quelqu'un m'a dit" by Carla Bruni almost made the list, but it's a pretty new song for me, and so I'm not sure if it's a fling or not. What are your all-time favorite songs?

Well, that was fun. This next week is not. Even though there are TEN weeks in a quarter, AND a finals week which apparently is just-for-fun in the iSchool, my professors decided EVERYTHING should be due in week nine this quarter. Week Nine! For fuck's sake, who gave these people PhDs? Well, after this week, it'll basically be over. or I'll be dead. Either way works for me at this point. Why am I even writing this blog? Well, I gotta go. My cousin's coming into town, and later tonight, Lillian and I are going to see Hey Marseilles. Homework can wait. I hope...

Oh, and if you still have questions send them to the ilp2. I still need to answer three more questions. By effing Thursday. FML.