february. flowers. i still love you.

so i wrote this huge rambling spiel yesterday about california, flowers in february, winter, the midwest and music, among other things, and as fate would have it, the whole thing went up in a puff of smoke as i tried to post it. so instead y'all got lots of lyrics.

(speaking of which... 8 million cool points if you can name the artist and/or song referenced in the title!)

and i have discovered that i'm living in the bermuda triangle. or something like it. the comedy of errors and string of coincidences that somehow are my life are more than i can comprehend. allow me not to explain at all. grin.

so, notes from yesterday...
i've been missing california a lot lately. it's strange but true. although i'm a midwestern girl at heart, every now and then i get these funny california cravings. i miss the warmth and the ocean and flowers in february and green and sunshine and rows of pastel stuccoed houses with fake lawns and miles of conrete strip malls punctuated with strategically placed palm trees and more neon that your neurons can handle all at once.

it doesn't help that i've been listening to lots of trespassers william. they're from orange county, but don't hold it against them. to listen to them, you'd think they were from some bleak winterlorn corner of northern ontario. (yes, i know "winterlorn" isn't a real word. but don't you think it should be??) which brings me to my next point: midwesterners write the best winter music. period. (insert ponderous look.) well, "midwesterners" including those who hail from the Great Lakes Region--and we'll include Canada in that category. (hmm, how many canadians did i just piss off!?!?=)) but anyways. sufjan stevens, great lake swimmers, the innocence mission, linford detweiler, the cowboy junkies... their music is rooted in place in a way that betrays their midwestern-ness. it's steeped in something that can only be understood against the subtle landscape of the silence and stillness that fill the spaces and days of a melancholy midwestern winter, waiting--still and still moving--with steadfast resolution, for the spring.

anyways. looks like i got my flowers in february after all =)
(nelsen, what was that about my "power color"?!?!!?)