another one from the archives...

Somebody
Depeche Mode

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She will hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and with every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear
Of those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it

Here's another one that I love. I remember the first time I heard it -- I was standing in the middle of Rover Village at Camp Conrad Weiser and in a split second I thought "that's it -- that's exactly what I want."

Confessions of a Barry Manilow fan....

Weekend in New England

Last night I wave goodbye

Now its seems years

I'm back in the city

Where nothing is clearBut thoughts of me holding you

Bringing us near

And tell me

When will our eyes meet?

When can I touch you?

When will this strong yearning endAnd when will

I hold you again

Time in New England

Took me away

To long rocky beaches

And you by the bay

We started a story

Who's end must now wait

And tell me

When will our eyes meet?
When can I touch you?
When will this strong yearning endAnd when will
I hold you again

I feel the change comingI feel the wind blow

I feel brave and daring

I feel my blood flow

With you I could bring out

All the love that I have

With you there's a heaven

So earth ain't so bad

And tell me

When will our eyes meet?
When can I touch you?
When will this strong yearning endAnd when will
I hold you again

Ready To Take A Chance Again

You remind me

I live in a shell,

Safe from the past,and doing' okay,but not very well.

No jolts, no surprises,

No crisis arises:

My life goes along as it should,it's all very nice,but not very good.

And I'm Ready To Take A Chance Again,

Ready to put my love on the line with you.

Been living with nothing to show for it;

You get what you get when you go for it,

And I'm Ready To Take Chance Again with you.

When she left me in all my despair,

I just held on,

My hopes were all gone.

Then I found you there.

And I'm Ready To Take A Chance Again

Ready To Take A Chance Again with you,

With you.

Mandy
Oh Mandy

well,You came and you gave without taking,

But I sent you away.

Oh, Mandy

well,Kissed me and stopped me from shaking,

And I need you today.

Oh, Mandy!

I won’t lie – when I was a kid, I was a DIE HARD Barry Manilow fan – hell, I still kind of am – but only the old stuff, not the new.

I used to sit in front of my mother’s stereo and listen to the Barry Manilow Live Album OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. I used to pretend I was going to marry him and we’d live happily ever after. Certainly someone as romantic as he must have been to write the songs that he did would love me, right? Well, I believed that as a kid. Little did I know then that I didn’t really come with the right parts for him (or so I think!)

But I listened to these 3 songs this morning on my drive to work. I believed as a kid in real, honest to God romance. I believed in someone coming to sweep me off of my feet. I believed in the marriages I saw on TV – with families that while crazy, were very much in love with each other. I believed that someday, someone would love me as much as I knew that I could love back. I believed that someone would simply ache for me the way that I would ache for them.

The sad truth is that at 33, I’ve never had that. I’ve never had someone love me as much as I loved them – or as much as I am able to love. And that reality hurts. A lot.

There is a program on NPR called this I believe and I love it. I love listening to the hope (for the most part) that people believe in because I have that hope. I believe in the goodness of people and I believe in love. Real, true love. Even though I have never known it.

It is my own challenge to believe that it is just because I haven’t found it yet and not because it doesn’t exist for me – because I am somehow unworthy of it. It is that with which I struggle – to stay positive. To continue to believe in my own worth and ability to be loved.

I continue to believe.

least complicated?

Least Complicated
Indigo Girls

I sit two stories above the street
Its awful quiet here since love fell asleep
Theres life down below me though
The kids are walking home from school

Some long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in
A solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool
What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection
A kind of dodging the draft

The boy and girl are holding hands on the street
And I dont want to but I think you just wait
Its more than just eye to eye
Learn the things I could never apply

I remember the time when I came so close with you
I let everything go it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring, it seemed the thing to do

What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
So what makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Im just a mirror of a mirror myself
All the things that I do
And the next time I fall Im gonna have to recall
Its isnt love its only something new

I sit two stories above the street
Its awful quiet here since love fell asleep
Theres life down below me though
The kids are walking home from school

Im remember the time when I came so close with you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
So what makes me think I could start clean slated
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
The least complicated
The least complicated

I was thinking on my drive to work today that my life is really complicated....it seems like there are just no easy answers...I want to say anymore but I'm not entirely sure there have EVER been easy answers.

Too many of life's obvious questions, there are no easy answers for me...

• So, are you married? -- well....yes but it's complicated....
• How is work? -- well, it's going ok but it's complicated....
• Are you dating anyone? -- well...yeah but it's complicated...
• Are you happier now than you were a year ago? -- well...yeah, but it's complicated...

Do we see a theme here? I understand that life is certainly complicated and that it is always easy to look at someone else's life and go "wow, they have it EASY" but from where they sit, I am sure that things are complicated for them.

I find it very easy to focus on the negative in life. All the things that are missing. All the things that I want but aren't there -- it's easy to point and go "yup, that's it -- that's the problem" so I'm trying very hard to focus on being positive. I'm trying to see the gems and beauty that exist in the complications. Even in the complications are moments of certainty and are moments of good and happiness. Would I like for someone to say "yup, here's the plan, start down the path and life will be EASY"? HELL YEAH! Is that going to happen anytime soon? HELL NO! So I take the complications. I even try to embrace the complications. There are lessons there. There have to be. Everything in life is an opportunity to learn and to grow -- an opportunity to become a better person. To be more understanding, to be more loving, to be yourself, less complicated.

Imagine being personally uncomplicated - imagine being transparent and being exactly who you are and enjoying that. I need to learn to enjoy that part of myself more often because I'm terribly hard on myself.

I need to learn to be less complicated.

confessions of a lyric junkie

someone else's life
joshua radin
and somehow i'm leading someone else's life
i cut her star down with my knife
and right now i still see the way the moon
plays this tune though our night's died

my hands shake
my knees quake
it's every day
the same way

cause then came you
then there's you
i keep your picture
in my worn-through shoes
then there's you
then came you
when i'm lost
i look at my picture of you

and somehow i'll make tonight our own
show you every way i've grown since i met you
and right now i'll be the boy in your next song
i'll learn the parts and play along if you let me

my hands shake
my knees quake
it's every day
the same way

cause then came you
then there's you
i keep your picture
in my worn-through shoes
then there's you
then came you
when i'm lost
i look at my picture of you

if you let me i'll show the world to you
yes if you let me i'll know just what to do

cause then came you
then there's you
i keep your picture
in my worn-through shoes
when i'm lost in your eyes
i see the way for me

if you know me for more than say 30 seconds -- you'll know i'm a song lyric junkie.

i need to write -- it would be good for me to do so but i often struggle with inspiration. well, that's not true. i have inspiration but it rarely tends to be when i am sitting in front of a computer with time to write -- it usually happens in my car, listening to music...so maybe this will help?

anyway -- this song. current favourite song. it absolutely applies to how i feel about someone. actually, a few someones including myself. i am very good at looking outside of myself and understanding other people -- i get other people -- i don't really get myself as well and that is going to be the focus of the big 34 which is officially just a few weeks away.