Category Archives: Life

The New York Public Library’s Most Active Patron*

By Lu Posted in Books, Life Tagged , , , , , , , 7 Replies

currently readingMy co-worker dubbed me so, this past week, when I walked to the library in the pouring rain because I had books due and books to pick up. Looking back at all of the books I’ve read this year, this has been one of my best reading years in a long time and it’s only April. I think it is because I’m getting rid of some old bad habits, namely buying books and letting them sit on my shelf for years and years.

What has been happening is I will buy a book and then want to treasure it. You see, I paid money for that book, so I have to make it worthwhile. So I put off reading it. Because if I buy a book and read it right away… somewhere in my mind that’s akin to buying a bag of chips and eating it all in one sitting. Logically that doesn’t even really make sense, but there it is. I’ve realized that the books sit and languish on the shelf and then I don’t read them and I forget why I ever wanted to in the first place.

So I’ve been reading books as soon as I buy them. Or I’ve been getting from the library instead and reading those right away. The longer I have a book out from the library, the less likely it is that I’ll read it. I obviously do want to read the books on my shelves, but only when I want to. I’m not going to force myself to read them, but I’m also going to be more careful about the books I buy. Is this a book I want to read right now? If not, then I’ll wait and put it on my wish list. It’s living in the moment when it comes to what I want to read.

It’s admittedly not a reading style that lends itself to tours or review copies, so I imagine those will be even fewer and farther between, though I don’t really accept many review copies now, it will truly only be the ones that are screaming: READ ME NOW.

Sometimes, though, there are too many books at once that are screaming the same thing. I’ve been feeling almost overwhelmed by the amount of books that just sound too good to pass up. I’m currently listening to The Great Gatsby, which I got from Audible, read by Tim Robbins. It has just gotten very intense and I will probably finish it tomorrow on my subway ride. I do really love it, even though I didn’t think I would at first. I started Indiscretion by Charles Dubow, a book I received to review, but that is also what my co-worker and I are reading for our book club-of-two. From the library I have The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord, which Iris reviewed and sounds so thought-provoking and interesting. Though the US cover is hideous compared to the UK cover! Also A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, which I do need to read soon, because I’m sure someone else has requested it. Thank you to Vasilly for making that one sound irresistible. If I could get most of those read this week so I can start reading A Clash of Kings by the pool this weekend in Florida, I’ll be a happy camper. Nothing screams pool-side reading like a battle for Westeros.

*Not a statistically accurate fact.

This week in…

By Lu Posted in Blogging, Books, comic, Life Tagged , , 2 Replies
reading.

You know what I needed after finally finishing Game of Thrones? Graphic Novels/Comics February! There is nothing like reading comics to boost your numbers self-esteem. It’s also just nice to give into the medium. I’ve two very long, involved fantasy novels the last two months and comics are the perfect change of pace. It’s also hard not to devour them. I try to savor each panel and make sure that I’m really paying attention. So far, my favorite comic has been Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks and Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

Fair warning: don’t read Saga on a crowded subway train. People always read over your shoulder when you read comics, and occasionally remark on said comics, and that would have been an interesting conversation. I am going to do a full review of Saga, but I really loved it. I can’t wait until July for the next full installment. Anyone know where I can buy the monthly installments?

television. 


Starting sometime in the middle of 2012, I decided to start watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I didn’t really get into it, but would watch an episode here and there. Then something happened about halfway through season one (just like you said it would) and suddenly I was head-over-heels in love. Now I am halfway through season four and still so happy with the show. I just watched one of the best episodes, and possibly one of my favorite hours of television, ”Hush” (S4, E10). The episode is almost completely silent, except for some excellent, atmospheric music, because the monster of the week has taken everyone’s voices. It’s perfect and funny and genuinely creepy. It’s an episode that I can see myself rewatching.

food.

It’s the superbowl! But not I’m not even sure I could tell you who is playing. (The Ravens? Right? But I couldn’t tell you who the other team is. I looked it up on Wikipedia and promptly forgot.) Superbowl Sunday is, for me, an eating holiday. I don’t watch the game and right now don’t host or attend any parties, but Michael and I cook yummy finger foods to snack on all day. On the menu for tomorrow? Homemade chex mix, which made our apartment smell like Christmas all day, How Sweet Eats blue cheese potato skins, and spinach artichoke dip.

family.

My sister is in town for the Fun. concert. I’m pretty jealous! We are getting lunch today before she heads home and I’m pretty excited about that! We’re trying a new restaurant near my office, which will hopefully be a possible new lunch place.

misc.

I feel like this week was really busy, but I can’t remember what I did. I worked for 6 days straight, but other than that, I can’t really remember what I did in the evenings. I guess it wasn’t very memorable! I have had a bad flair up of migraines lately, so I think I did a lot of going to bed early and relaxing, waiting for them to pass. I get aura migraines, which make it hard to see much of anything. They’re very inconvenient.

I’m excited to get home this afternoon and relax with a comic, a beer, and some delicious Superbowl food. It’s going to be a perfect afternoon, I can feel it. Enjoy your Sunday!

January 26 – Oh, my God! It’s January 26!

By Lu Posted in Blogging, Books, Life Tagged , , , 12 Replies

I’m not exactly sure how six days passed between my bookshelf post and this post, but do know that I was working on blog posts, just not ones that I wanted to publish immediately. I wanted them to sit. And that feels in the spirit of this project, so I am moving on. And I promise to never ever promise to write every day, because all I do is apologize a lot.

Until next month when I promise to write a review of a comic a day!

So, I thought I’d catch you up on what I’ve been doing this week.

1) I went to the Macy’s on 34th St. Holy crap that place is big. I asked a friend to go with me and she said, “No, that place is huge and people walk slow.” And I pffed a little bit and said suuuuuure, but yes, it is huge and people walk really slow. It’s bright and overwhelming, but also kind of pretty to look at. I don’t know that I would want to spend more than an hour there, which is what I did, but I looked for some shoes, picked something up for Michael, and went on home. If you’re ever at the Macy’s on 34th St and you need something to eat, Koreatown is literally right around the corner and there are some great, cheap Korean places that you should check out.

2) I want flat black slouchy ankle boots, but they aren’t in style anymore. I have looked everywhere. It used to be that you couldn’t go into a shoe store without seeing a dozen pairs of the same black slouchy flat boot, but apparently they aren’t in style anymore. If I had known this would happen, I would have bought a dozen pair. I had a pair and wore them out, then I bought another, but they are pretty much unwearable at this point too. I found a pair from Target that are somewhat similar, but they have a heel and they are fake leather. So, hopefully they work. I have to walk a mile to work (in the snow! uphill both ways!) and about half the time I have to stand on the subway for 40 minutes. So my shoes have to be comfortable and work appropriate, because I am the laziest and I don’t like walking to work in one pair of shoes and wearing another pair once I get there. This is why I wore my snow boots around the office every day this week. It was cold.

3) I read Game of Thrones. I have been slowly plugging through this. I like reading long books, but I have to take breaks and read other books, which makes it go even slower. I just like to feel accomplished. I really like Game of Thrones and I am excited to start watching the show. I think I’ll be done before January is over at which point I’ll start reading comics!

4) I picked up a lot of comics at the library and I have more coming in on Monday! Ah! I’m so excited about this. I don’t know if I am going to be able to wait until February to start reading. I’ve started picking my way through Hark! A Vagrant, which is much larger than I thought it would be. I’m also ridiculously excited about Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

5) I discovered that I’m really interested in neo-noir as a genre. I’ve always known that I enjoyed it, but while I was writing up my review for The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters (coming on Monday!), I realized just how much I want to go deeper into the genre. Anything that even has the tiniest of noir sensibilities is something that I am immediately drawn to. I mean, I grew up watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit – the genre has been part of my cultural landscape since I was a kid. This idea of a hardboiled detective, with his femme fatale, his cynicism and shady city streets has been familiar to me all along. An idea for a project is forming. I want to know more about the genre, I want to know more about the origins of the genre. I have to come up with a more detailed plan, but I want to be a noir expert.

6) I have one audiobook credit before I cancel my Audible membership. Suggestions??? I am horribly indecisive when it comes to this thing.

January 20 – Organize my bookshelves

By Lu Posted in Books, Life Tagged , , , , , 11 Replies

There’s something about a long weekend Sunday that just makes you want to to get things done. You don’t feel like you’re “wasting” a weekend day on cleaning because there are three of them! So, I finally got around to doing a much-needed organization of my bookshelves and general sprucing up of the apartment. I decided to organize the books by category, starting with my unread non-fiction:

20130120_172609

 

Yes, those are two copies of The Wordy Shipmates you see. And, yes, I did buy both of them. Then I added in my poetry:

20130120_173023

 

Obviously I need a little bit more poetry to fill up that empty space.

Then, I got tired of taking pictures of each stage. I’m sorry I don’t have photographs to document it, but I organized the rest into unread BEA/nonrequested galleys, unread requested galleys, and unread fiction. Unread fiction was organized into want to read in the next few months, want to read sometime in the next few years, and unsure if I ever want to read.

20130120_182324

 

Here’s the finished unread shelf. The books I’ve read are stored in the shelves that are underneath the desk. As you can see, I stack my shelves back pretty deep, so if I don’t know where everything is, it’s easy to forget about books. (Hence the double copies of The Wordy Shipmates.) I’d really like to have the review copy quadrant (upper right) cleared out by BEA this year, so I’m going to try and plug away at that slowly but surely. Other than that, though, I’m just going to enjoy a bookshelf that is actually organized in some way and read what I want, when I want.

I’ve been thinking about doing a rotating library book, review copy, purchased copy, ebook, just to get through everything I have. It won’t be firm or anything, and pretty lenient since I read multiple books at once, but I tend to ignore certain parts of my shelves in favor of others. So, that’s something to think about. Maybe I’ll give it a try and see how it goes!

How did you spend your Sunday?

January 16 – Things I did today

By Lu Posted in Life Tagged , , 6 Replies
  • Cupcakes and sangria part two
  • Read most of Just One Day by Gayle Forman. Went from liking it to feeling so-so about it to loving it.
  • I went to Elmhurst to get dinner at a dumpling place and then stopped by a banh mi place to get sandwiches. Half a sandwich & half a dumpling order for dinner and the rest for lunch tomorrow.
  • Everyone in Elmhurst (read: there was a group at each restaurant) was playing board games! I am jealous. I want to play board games at a dumpling restaurant. Will someone invite me to play board games at a dumpling restaurant?
  • FUNNY STORY. One time, Michael, two of our friends, and I went to play Settlers of Catan at a bar in our hometown, because it was a weeknight and that’s what we do. It also happened to be the bar’s Irish night and there was a woman singing traditional Irish bar songs and also a group of people from Ireland. My last name is the Irish-est and when they came over to introduce themselves, they asked me if I wanted to join their society. “Because,” pointed glance at Michael, “we chaperone dates.”
  • Anyway, I also watched last week’s Once Upon A Time, which ugh. I hate watching this every week. I want to watch it all at once because I can’t handle the cliffhangers and there was a very good one this week.
  • I read the extremely bizarre Manti Te’o story. It’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read and it’s happening in real life, not a novel I’m reading. What a strange world we live in.
  • I put way too many comics on reserve at the library for Debi’s month of comic reading: Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks, Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton, Saga by Brian K. Vaughn, and Building Stories by Chris Ware.
  • Looking back at that list, it’s really not way too many. So I put on a lot more: Sailor Twain: Or The Mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel, Everything We Miss by Luke Pearson, Blue by Pat Grant, Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales, The Secret of the Stone Frog by David Nytra.
  • That’s going to be a long subway ride home when all those books come in.
  • How is it midnight? I’m going to bed now.

January 15 – Blog about someone else’s blog

By Lu Posted in Blogging, Books, Life Tagged , , 11 Replies

There are a lot of things running through my head lately, but one of them recently was how much I miss being in school. I miss a lot of things about school and learning (NOT homework), but the thing I miss most is taking a topic and becoming something of an “expert” on it. Obviously not a real expert, but more knowledgeable than your average person because you’ve read dozens of articles and several books on the topic.

College made me this type of expert on the beat generation, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and environmental poetry in Latin America. I learned about psycholinguistics and the History of the Spanish Language and phonology. And I miss it.

So when Debi blogged about her year of themed reading, it immediately reminded me of this hyper focus that you get when you take a class in something. I absolutely love the idea of focusing all your reading energy into one goal for a short amount of time. The possibilities are endless! You can focus on an author and read their entire oeuvre. You could focus on a topic and get a lot of different opinions about it. You could focus on a genre or a theme or a time period. Endless.

I don’t know if I’m ready for a year of themed reading, but I’d like to take at least two months this year to focus on something that I want to know more about, whether it’s a time period in literature (I’m thinking 1920s-30s) or a specific author or linguistics. I’m going to think about this for a bit, but for now I’m going to cheer Debi on. Thank you for the wonderful idea!

(The more I think about it, though, the more I think I might have to join in Graphic Novels Month in February. Yes, Debi it does sound absolutely heavenly!)

January 14 – Reflect

By Lu Posted in Blogging, Life Tagged , , , 1 Reply

We’re almost to the mid point of the month and I’ve realized that I’m running out of “new” things to do and post about. Today is Monday, for example, and I’ve gone to Masala Bhangra like I promised, but I already posted about that. I cooked some dinner. I read a little bit. I watched TV. I talked to a friend. There’s not much time left in the day after dance, dinner, and writing to add something else and I don’t want to this month to get overwhelming, right?

For today, I thought I would reflect on how this month has gone so far. You see, I started this project as a way to fight the post-holiday-blues. January, February and March are long, cold months when I often find myself frustrated and sad for reasons that seem to be purely seasonal. Spring helps and summer is wonderful and fall is my favorite and then it’s the holidays and afterward we do it all again.

So far, though, I haven’t felt those blues. I’ve had rough days, sure, but not that constant feeling of blah. I think it is at least partially because I have been doing things and I refuse to slow down, but I also think it is because I’ve been writing about my day at the end of it. I’m not even doing too many things that are different. They are mostly things that I did inconsistently, but making a commitment to be consistent. I went to the gym before this month, but I’m determined to make a schedule of it and keep it. I wrote before this month, but not regularly. So I can’t even really point to the addition of these things as the source.

Reflecting on what I’ve done during the day is helping me feel calm about it all. It’s helping me remember that I am making an effort to make each day matter. Even on the days I am lazy and don’t do much other than watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or catch up on Downton Abbey, I do it because it’s what I need to recharge. Writing each day helps me figure out what exactly I did that day that was meaningful, what helped me stay on this road, and for that I’m grateful. Sometimes it also helps me figure out what didn’t work.

I used to journal quite regularly, but stopped after a while. I just lived through the day, why did I need to hash out the details again? Once I started blogging, I didn’t feel the need for that journal. My early days of blogging, though, read more like a personal journal for a public space. It’s clear that I should incorporate more of that into my blogging once I’m not blogging every day, but I don’t think this will become a purely personal blog. It’s still about the words: books, poems, stories, writing. But I want there to be a place for this in my life, whether it is a handwritten journal or a digital one.

The motto for this month has really been do anything, but do it meaningfully. Writing it down at the end of the day puts it into perspective. For that, I’m happy.

January 11 – Have a perfect night out

By Lu Posted in Life Tagged , , 6 Replies

It’s raining and miserable, but my friend and his boyfriend are in town, so we went out to meet them for dinner. After some hemming and hawing about where we would go, I finally thought of a perfect idea. They’re both vegetarians and Michael and I are not, so we needed something that would be good for all four of us. There’s this little place by my office that serves gluten free Italian food, mostly risotto, and it’s delicious.

One of my goals this month is to try a lot of new restaurants, but another one is to re-experience great meals I’ve had before. I’ve always enjoyed this risotto restaurant, but this time, my risotto was perfect. I had a shrimp risotto, with spicy peppers and arugula. It was so good: creamy and delicious, just a little bit spicy, and the shrimp was cooked perfectly. Other risottos that were had: pork shoulder and parsley, goat cheese and parsley, and feta, red peppers, and spinach. Everyone was satisfied with their risottos and we left content, but with a bit of a sweet tooth. Some more thinking about where to go in the rain, when Michael suggested that we go to the cupcake and wine bar around the corner.

That’s right, I said cupcakes and wine. They do specific alcohol and cupcake pairings, but we didn’t have one of their pairings. Instead, we shared a carafe of sangria (yum!) and each got a different cupcake. I can’t speak for how any of the other cupcakes tasted, because we hoarded all our cupcakes close. No bites were shared. I had an almond cupcake with strawberry frosting and it was delicious.

We made plans to meet up again tomorrow to go to a museum and maybe see a show (two more things on my happy-list), but tonight, despite the rain and the cold, was perfect. The food was great and the company was wonderful. Tomorrow is sure to be even better, because there, hopefully, won’t be any rain. It was a perfect start to the weekend!

January 10 – Eat something I have never had before & adapt a recipe to my fridge

By Lu Posted in Life Tagged , , 6 Replies

Friends! I didn’t post last night.

And I know, it’s the month of posting every day, but a) I didn’t do anything yesterday and b) I knew going into this project that I was going to have to give myself at least one day off. I planned to post “This is my day off!” but, um, then I fell asleep. So, at least I did what I set out to do?

Just for that, though, I’m doing two things tonight. That’s right! TWO. The first one is that I’m trying a food I’ve never had before. The second is that I’m taking a recipe that I found online and adapting it to fit my fridge. I feel like I waste too much food, buying things that I only use half of or never getting around to making the recipe. I’m always trying to be better about this. At the grocery store this weekend, Michael and I bought swiss chard, something neither of us have eaten or cooked with. Experiments! We did make collards earlier in the week, so we thought, how much harder could this be?

The answer? Much easier! Collards cook for forever, which is why they taste so good, but swiss chard only has to cook about 10 minutes. I’m all about easy. The goal was to make this recipe fit my leftovers. So, I cooked up the leftover salt pork I had from the collards and let the fat render. I cooked the stems of the swiss chard and the onions in the rendered fat. Swiss chard has a very earthy smell, kind of like fennel, but without the licoricey smell or taste. Does that make sense?

Then I added some sliced mushrooms. I had some leftover from a failed attempt at cooking caramelized onion and mushroom pizza. I let those cook down and I added the garlic, tomato paste, and siracha, instead of harissa. Next up, the chicken broth, water, and a squeeze of a lime (I didn’t have lemons) and to let this bad boy simmer for 10 minutes. While it’s simmering, I soft boiled an egg and some soba noodles.

It was good! Swiss chard has an earthy flavor and the soup was flavorful and spicy. It’s not something that I really see myself craving, though. Maybe after I’ve eaten it a few times? I’m sad I didn’t get any good pictures, but mine wasn’t very pretty. Anyway, I’m glad I tried something new and it’s always good to get some leafy greens in!

January 8 – See people I love

By Lu Posted in Life Tagged , , , 3 Replies

I am determined to post every day! DETERMINED.

I am practically falling asleep at my keyboard here, but I wanted to do a quick post to talk about something that happened today that’s very much at the heart of this project. You see, I was scheduled to go to book club and I was going to post about it. I love my book club. We are a weird, funny group. But then I got a text from my aunt. She had a surprise layover tonight at the airport, she’s a flight attendant, and she wanted to know if I wanted to grab dinner.

Um, yes.

This month is all about doing things, and planning things, but also throwing that plan out the window when something happens. Whether it’s because something is not working or because something better comes up, it’s all about just doing what will make me happy and fulfilled.

Tonight, that meant skipping book club and hanging out with my aunt and Michael. And we had a great time chatting and eating mediocre hotel burgers and having an adventure trying to get to the hotel. One bus, one 20 minute walk, and one car service later, we finally made it there and back.

It’s going to be a busy month for hanging out with people and I love that. A good friend is coming to the city this weekend, another already stayed with me a couple of days, and I’m seeing someone in a few weeks that I haven’t seen in a long time. Seeing people I love? High on my list of happy-making things this month.

January 7 – Go to Masala Bhangra on Mondays

By Lu Posted in Life Tagged , , , 1 Reply

Ah! I almost forgot to write up my post today, but I didn’t forget to do something today! Right before Christmas, my friend and I went to a Masala Bhangra class that my pilates teacher teaches not far from work and it was a lot of fun. Sure, I looked totally ridiculous, but it didn’t feel like working out, which is, actually, my favorite kind of work out. We decided that after the holiday we would try to go every week.

According to the Masala Bhangra website, Masala is Hindi for “spicy” and Bhangra is a traditional dance from Punjab, India. Masala Bhangra dance classes combine traditional dance moves with a contemporary twist. In a 45 minute class, you learn some basics and a full dance routine. You learn each move and then put the dance together move by move, so by the end, you’ve pretty much got the whole dance down.

Masala Bhangra is a really great workout and a lot of fun. The dance moves were slightly different this time around, so I don’t think there’s too much of a danger of getting bored. Plus, everyone in the class is in the same boat. None of us are professional dancers or anything like that, so we were all making mistakes left and right. There was one move that I’m pretty sure I’ll never get down! The class is really for any skill level, because you can usually tailor each move to your skill set.

If you can find a class in your area, take it! I have had a blast both times that I’ve gone.

January 5 – Listen to new music

By Lu Posted in Life, music Tagged , , , , 5 Replies

Over my trip home to my mom’s, my mom started going through my closet. My mom is turning my old room into an office, but it hasn’t really looked like my college room since I moved. I took my futon with me to my apartment and most of my stuff, but I do still have a closet of, well, mostly books. Come on, you know me. Anyway, she was organizing the room to be her office and she pulled out my huge sleeve of CDs. I mean huge. Michael and I decided to go through them and take a quick walk down memory lane.

We came out of it with one conclusion: we were way cooler in high school. I guess it was mostly that I didn’t know what I liked, so I bought CDs without ever hearing a word and later I combed music blogs for songs and new bands. I would listen to them over and over again before I made up my mind. It was a mishmash of popular music and middle of the road indie stuff and some way obscure bands that I listened to for one of two reasons: I genuinely liked them or I wanted to be cool. But that’s what being in high school and college is. Some stuff you do just for appearances sake and then find out that you really like it. Or the other way around.

Now, I have more of an idea of what I like. I don’t spend time, and don’t have time, to pour through hours of music and pages of music blogs to find the music I like because I made a choice: I decided to do that with books instead. And that’s okay. I’m still totally happy with that decision.

Unfortunately, that also means that my music player is a little boring at the moment. It’s a lot of Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, The XX, and Alabama Shakes on repeat. And that’s totally fine because I love those bands, but today Michael and I decided to do the opposite of going through my old CDs. We went through best of music lists, got a free trial of xBox music (which is kind of like Spotify) and we started listening.

I know what I like, sure. I’m also missing a lot of good music because I’m boxed in. I listen to what’s easy. What’s playing on my favorite satellite radio or my Pandora station. Today I was a little bit more proactive and happier for it. All these thoughts are based off of one or two listens this afternoon, so my opinions are certainly subject to change, but I have a feeling I’m going to be listening these albums a lot in 2013. You know, just a year behind everyone else. Here’s what I listened to:

Macklemore & Ryan LewisThe Heist by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – You might have heard Macklemore’s song “Same Love” when it was making the rounds on Tumblr and Twitter a few months ago. I listened to this album in its entirety today and I really enjoyed it. It’s socially conscious hip hop that blends in all sorts of different music styles and guest artists.

Favorite songs: “Can’t Hold Us” featuring Ray Dalton, “Thin Line” featuring Buffalo Madonna, and “Same Love” featuring Mary Lambert

 

purity ring shrinesShrines by Purity Ring – Synthy goodness: two words that perfectly sum up how I feel about Purity Ring and their debut album Shrines. I’m a little bit obsessed with the song “Fineshrine.” I love  the lyrics, the music, and the title. I wonder how well this one will hold up, because all the songs are somewhat similar, but it’s a sound that I really like, so I’m not horribly worried about it. If nothing else, “Fineshrine” and possibly “Ungirthed” will get heavy rotation. Then again, I felt a similar way about The XX when I first started listening to them and they’re one of my favorite bands now.

Favorite songs: “Fineshrine,” “Ungirthed” and “Belispeak”

now now threads

Threads by Now, Now - When I first started listening to Threads by Now, Now, I wasn’t in love. I liked the first song just fine, but it wasn’t something I could really see myself listening to over and over again. But then the next song came on and it was different. And then next song was a little bit different from that one. Each song was a surprise in a way and really just excellent songs. In some ways, I wonder how many people will turn away from Now, Now because of the album’s slow burn beginning, but then again, that transition to the second song is just great.

Favorite song: “Oh. Hi.”

cat power sunSun by Cat Power - I wasn’t planning on including any albums on this list by artists I had listened to before tonight and Cat Power had a place in that collection of high school CDs. I won’t say that I was in love with Cat Power, but I like her well enough. So I clicked on her new album just to see and I really loved the first song. A listen or two to a few others and I was hooked. Sun is definitely going to be in the  rotation this year. And since I haven’t listened to Cat Power since a Bush was president, let’s just say she belongs on this list as a rediscovered favorite.

Favorites: “Cherokee” and “Manhattan”

Have a sufficiently rebelled against the guitar-driven folk-rock I’ve been listening to nonstop for the past year or so? I’m not leaving that behind, but it’s good to have a little variety. There’s a lot more that I listened to that I’m not quite sure about yet. I’m going to be giving them all a few more listens, especially A Different Ship by Here We Go Magic and Milk Famous by White Rabbits.

I feel good about all the new and new-old music I discovered today. It feels good to listen to something new and to do something I don’t really give myself the chance to do. That’s what the whole goal of this month is!

What about you? What was your 2012 music bandwagon that I should have hopped on a long time ago?