mtv sometimes does indeed play videos. sometimes.

apparently between 5 am and 8 am on saturdays, hours i rarely see, mtv plays actual music videos! like their name implies. amazing!

just watched U2 "get on your boots". awful. i was warned about it the day the single came out by someone with a U2 tattoo who said they might give up on the band because of it.

december 207 i was working very late on a friday night. there was some big project no one wanted to do the overtime on during the holidays. i volunteered for fridays since i had a boyfriend who was away on tour and my commute was a whopping 15 minutes, not a trek to nj or li like my coworkers. 

somehow i get wind of the fact that bono was in our offices. i work in advertising and he was pitching his red campaign for contributions. i think. told two of the senior producers who share an office near me. we walked around the floor, hoping to catch a glimpse. no dice. then i hear that he's in a conference room near where i sit. of course i go loiter. his assistant is outside the bar, (yes, there's a bar at my work. on my floor even.), people are having very forced conversations with her about ireland. i know i could easily join in but i'm not in the mood. 

our receptionist knows i'm dying to see/meet bono and calls me when he's leaving so i can be in reception. i literally run down the hall, stopping to walk in front of our department head's office, running again. get to the executive elevator just as the door closes. typical.

back in my bedroom in 2009...

the new U2 single on mtv is followed by plain white t's. on my last trip to ireland that "hey there delilah" song followed me everywhere! couldn't escape it.

the video rotation is fitting since i'm planning a trip to ireland right now for this summer. 

you can't be red! i'm always red!

"pressure's mounting

i'm moving mountains

with my eyes closed

and both hand tied behind my back..."

awake at 5 am...

i wake up after passing out watching "bones". it was only supposed to be a nap, but my body rebelled after a really tough personal training session yesterday. (skipped last week. had to go to the dr. convinced i had pink eye after a coworker handed me a stack of paperwork, asking me minutes later: "what do you know about pink eye?" "ummmm....that's it's HIGHLY contagious and my sister got it like 10x her freshman year of college!" i didn't have it, but did have some infection that needed $45 eyedrops to cure. i digress...)

lately i've been having really vivid dreams. my dreams are always really lifelike, but as of late i've been waking up in the middle of the night having "aha!" moments. most are centered around high school, which is really rare for me. i mean, i had a good time and all, but i definitely didn't peak in high school so i don't endeavor to return. decided that it has to do with the sheer volume of people that i've reconnected with via facebook. 

last night's dream was about my high school graduation party. except i said a bunch of things that 17 year old me would never say, probably not even think, even though those thoughts were there, bubbling somewhere beneath the surface. high school me wouldn't have wanted to rock the boat when it comes to family. 

in the dream i had this sick luau party, basically an outdoor version of the 30th birthday party that i just threw for myself, but on a grander scale. got really mad that my parents left early. (at my real graduation party my mom didn't come at all. oh the joy of divorced parents!) 

got to thinking about my friends that came to my graduation party. about who i'm still friends with today. surprisingly, a majority of the guests i still talk to. despite time and geographical separation. when you grow up an only child, i think you tend to hold onto friends a bit more than people with siblings do. even when you should have "outgrown" them long ago, having little in common anymore.

"but sooner or later it comes down to fate..."

memory: "catholic girls start much too late"... it comes on while listening to my ipod on shuffle waiting for a double decker bus in stoke newington, london on my way to the tube. 

watching hasidic jewish children running around unsupervised in the unusual august heat. the night after crashing at an old friend's place, listening to foxes that sound like shrieking babies. 

that surreal feeling i get when i'm in another country, navigating around on my own. at least this time i have a pre-paid mobile and numbers to call in case i get lost. my inherent lack of internal compass always causing a slightly panicked state on vacation. 

amazing to me that i remember other sensory parts of being away, rather than the visual. guess that's what cameras are for?   

cigarette stench of my low budget hotel in paris combined with the din of yelling, in what my sister says is cambodian, coming from the apartments surrounding the building. having to ask the elderly, hard of hearing, parisian man at the desk for the room key in broken french every time i come and go. 

strange noises in the massive backyard of my cousins' house in county clare, real or imagined. scaring myself by reading ken bruen novels before bed in a too-cold-for-july spare bedroom. remembering some moz quote about not believing in ghosts until he went to ireland...

"the sinners are much more fun..."

valentine, they're dropping like flies...

a print hung on the bedroom wall that i shared for almost three years... "heartbreak's got backbeat." never listened to that record until last week.

every year my friend nicole makes a mix cd for all her friends for valentine's day. each year for the last 9 or so years, no matter what is going on in my love life, it's her present in the mail that i look forward to. 

happy belated valentine's day.

 

xoxo mjm