Don't eat at Micky D's today, and donate your 5 bucks to a good cause instead. Check it out HERE.
6.20.2005
6.18.2005
Fun with collective nouns...wow, am I getting boring or what, ha.
a bale of turtles
a bevy of quail
a bouquet of pheasants
a brace of ducks
a building of rooks
a cast of hawks
a cete of badgers
a charm of finches
a clutch of eggs
a covey of partridges
a crash of rhinoceroses
a down of hares
a gam of whales
a murmuration of starlings
6.16.2005
I hate you.
I HATE YOU.
burn the pink and blue pages
and Polaroid pictures
because you made sure
I never existed.
6.14.2005
Awaken
Just bought two new books: Raising Cain, and The Courage to Heal. I want to make things as good as they can be, and I think reads like these will help.
So much is going on in my life right now. So much. I have been on this constant evolution, if you will, since the separation. But sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by the fear of what the outcome of all of this will be that I start to fall back into the negative patterns of before. Fear is a big one for me. It is what I battle the most in life. Right now I am swearing to conquer it. If not for me, but for my children.
Nite,
Ann
It rained pretty much all weekend, but look how beautiful things can look on the days labeled "dreary". 
6.09.2005
Ann in the hizzy?
Looking at the last three on page two...
http://www.greensborohistoricrentalhomes.com/cgi-bin/impress3/displayCategory.cgi?nri.Impress.Category.ID=1053374952011&nri.Impress.Category.Offset=5
rat in a cage
Cross ya fingers for me Greensboro. Tomorrow is my last custody evaluation. I haven't a clue if the mister has had his last one yet or not, but everyone think bad thoughts on him. (lol, jk) YEAH YEAH YEAH, Karma-I know. What I really meant to say was....think of him at the same time you think of fluffy bunnies. Oh, by the way, does anyone want to go to Cold Play in September? I think we should do a BIG caravan and go. TTFN.
ANNIE HOUSEBOUND
6.07.2005
Green Bean
I decided to try to get out of the house for a bit and drop by The Green Bean in downtown. Seems that this is the place to be tonight. And to top it all off internet access in only a buck. How can you beat that? I was a bit frustrated this afternoon, as if you couldn't tell, right? I just get to the point where I don't know what I'm going to do about the evil M word. You guessed it...money. Money is de debil, that's what they say you know. Who is "they" anyway? If this custody thing doesn't go in my favor, I'm screwed. It means I can't get any money from the state, and I will be getting even less from Dan. Plus you'll have to add in the cost of going back to school unless I plan on being a waitress for the rest of my natural life. And tips don't get kids into college and pay for all the extra's that we want our kids to have very well, do they? I am thoroughly convinced that Dan is trying to crush my spirit. I imagine him hard at work in his garage at night on a life size voodoo doll of yours truly.
Cheers.
Ann
I'm trying to move out. Finally. My house, which is on lockdown by Sir Snake N. Thgrass, will be sold at the end of this whole thing anyways. So I might as well start over now, right? It would be a waste of time to move back into there if I had the chance to. Well, I went down to DSS this morning to see about getting a little financial help so I can get on my feet. (You know, BEING THAT I GET A WHOPPING $700 CLAMS A MONTH in child support and all.) You just never will guess what I was told. Oh ok, maybe you will...you smartie pants reader you. Even though I care for my midgets from 7:30am until 6:00pm Monday through Friday, I am simply considered "CHILD CARE" by the state. Thus, removing me from any qualification for financial assistance of any kind. Who'd a thunk it? lol. Great. Really. Apparently Cowboy Dan did his homework, and his little dog (his lawyer) too.
6.06.2005
Michael Andrews: Mad World
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... world
Enlarge your world
Mad world
6.05.2005
These are my brothers at my wedding a few years ago. Chad is in the middle, Mikey is on the left, and Brett is on the right.
pics by Ann
6.01.2005
Ani DiFranco
One of the greatest folk music artists of all time in my opinon. As useless as it may be. Here is a cool little bio off her page. She REALLLLLY is great, I highly suggest you check out her stuff. Email me and I can send you a few MP3's to listen to before you buy, if that suites ya'...
Ani DiFranco is a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist perpetually on the move. From the raw "folk punk" of her early albums through the jazz/funk grooves she created during her years touring with a five-piece band to the twists and turns of her current work as a solo artist, Ani's restless creativity continually leads her and her listeners into ever more exciting territory.
Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco was already singing and playing guitar in public before she was old enough to drive. As a teenager, the poems she'd been writing in "long skinny columns" soon evolved into lyrics, and music became a way for the teenager to talk about the things that mattered most to her: the power dynamics of romantic entanglements, the fragmentation of her family, the choices she watched her friends making, and the state of life in her hometown and her country.
The early 1990s brought a temporary relocation to New York and classes in poetry and politics at the New School, but her real education came on weekends, as she hit the road with increasing frequency and growing confidence, developing her signature percussive finger picking and dynamic range in order to grab and hold the attention of noisy bar crowds. Even the need to fill time while re-tuning became an opportunity to improvise off-the-cuff stories about whatever had happened during the course of her day, which became yet another hallmark of her style. After just about every one of her funny, outspoken, intimate gigs, she'd leave behind a fresh batch of converts eager to spread the word to everyone they knew, via cassettes at first and then CDs. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani simply created her own record label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself. In the process, the born performer began to learn her way around the recording studio, too, gradually developing her own innovative means to convey the spontaneity, intensity and wit of her live concerts on disc.
Nearly a decade and a half of hard work, glowing word of mouth, and relentless touring later, the self-described "Little Folksinger" is packing joints like Carnegie Hall and amphitheaters around the world, though she still makes each venue she plays feel as cozy as a living room and as sweaty as a neighborhood dive. That DIY label of hers, still based in Buffalo (with a European branch based in London), has now released 16 of Ani's own CDs and about a dozen more by an eclectic hand-picked roster of artists whose music is as unclassifiable and unpredictable as hers.
But that's only part of the story. Over the years, Ani has swapped album appearances with Prince and Maceo Parker, produced recordings by Dan Bern and Janis Ian, performed orchestral versions of her compositions with the Buffalo Philharmonic, helped find wholly new fans for the songs of Woody Guthrie and the stories of Utah Phillips, had her own tunes covered by the likes of Dave Matthews, and Chuck D, recorded duets with both John Gorka and Jackie Chan, and inspired countless other musicians to rewrite the rules of the recording industry by striving for self-sufficiency and refusing to allow art to be subsumed by cold commerce. Through her Righteous Babe Foundation, she's been able to support grassroots cultural and political organizations around the country, and she has repeatedly lent her time and her voice to such diverse pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding women's reproductive rights, promoting queer visibility, and preserving historic buildings back in Buffalo (including a long-neglected church currently being transformed into the new headquarters of Righteous Babe).
Ani DiFranco's career has been full of surprises — for her, and for the rest of us — and she's no stranger to change, both sudden and slow. But some things remain unchanged, like her commitment to speaking the truth, as she sees it, without fear or concession. Bruce Cockburn recently observed in Performing Songwriter that Ani considers it part of her job description "to try and reflect real life in [her] songs. The life of the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people coping with power or its absence, looking for joy through the loneliness and pain and the complexities of relationship; the life of the spirit. All these are the stuff of human experience, and human experience is what we all share."
She does so with two basic instruments, both of which are also constants in her ever-evolving world: her trusty guitar and her unforgettable voice. Vanity Fair describes the latter as "astonishing... coolly, permanently urgent, tugging at the sleeve or close at the ear, like the murmur of a lover who knows every last secret and decides to stay."
Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco was already singing and playing guitar in public before she was old enough to drive. As a teenager, the poems she'd been writing in "long skinny columns" soon evolved into lyrics, and music became a way for the teenager to talk about the things that mattered most to her: the power dynamics of romantic entanglements, the fragmentation of her family, the choices she watched her friends making, and the state of life in her hometown and her country.
The early 1990s brought a temporary relocation to New York and classes in poetry and politics at the New School, but her real education came on weekends, as she hit the road with increasing frequency and growing confidence, developing her signature percussive finger picking and dynamic range in order to grab and hold the attention of noisy bar crowds. Even the need to fill time while re-tuning became an opportunity to improvise off-the-cuff stories about whatever had happened during the course of her day, which became yet another hallmark of her style. After just about every one of her funny, outspoken, intimate gigs, she'd leave behind a fresh batch of converts eager to spread the word to everyone they knew, via cassettes at first and then CDs. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani simply created her own record label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself. In the process, the born performer began to learn her way around the recording studio, too, gradually developing her own innovative means to convey the spontaneity, intensity and wit of her live concerts on disc.
Nearly a decade and a half of hard work, glowing word of mouth, and relentless touring later, the self-described "Little Folksinger" is packing joints like Carnegie Hall and amphitheaters around the world, though she still makes each venue she plays feel as cozy as a living room and as sweaty as a neighborhood dive. That DIY label of hers, still based in Buffalo (with a European branch based in London), has now released 16 of Ani's own CDs and about a dozen more by an eclectic hand-picked roster of artists whose music is as unclassifiable and unpredictable as hers.
But that's only part of the story. Over the years, Ani has swapped album appearances with Prince and Maceo Parker, produced recordings by Dan Bern and Janis Ian, performed orchestral versions of her compositions with the Buffalo Philharmonic, helped find wholly new fans for the songs of Woody Guthrie and the stories of Utah Phillips, had her own tunes covered by the likes of Dave Matthews, and Chuck D, recorded duets with both John Gorka and Jackie Chan, and inspired countless other musicians to rewrite the rules of the recording industry by striving for self-sufficiency and refusing to allow art to be subsumed by cold commerce. Through her Righteous Babe Foundation, she's been able to support grassroots cultural and political organizations around the country, and she has repeatedly lent her time and her voice to such diverse pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding women's reproductive rights, promoting queer visibility, and preserving historic buildings back in Buffalo (including a long-neglected church currently being transformed into the new headquarters of Righteous Babe).
Ani DiFranco's career has been full of surprises — for her, and for the rest of us — and she's no stranger to change, both sudden and slow. But some things remain unchanged, like her commitment to speaking the truth, as she sees it, without fear or concession. Bruce Cockburn recently observed in Performing Songwriter that Ani considers it part of her job description "to try and reflect real life in [her] songs. The life of the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people coping with power or its absence, looking for joy through the loneliness and pain and the complexities of relationship; the life of the spirit. All these are the stuff of human experience, and human experience is what we all share."
She does so with two basic instruments, both of which are also constants in her ever-evolving world: her trusty guitar and her unforgettable voice. Vanity Fair describes the latter as "astonishing... coolly, permanently urgent, tugging at the sleeve or close at the ear, like the murmur of a lover who knows every last secret and decides to stay."
The End =)
Doc says that I'm supposed to be on my back mostly, and I'm not allowed to bend/twist/or lift anything over 10 pounds until July 5th. I'm not supposed to be driving until next week. This really sucks because now I get all stressed out about dealing with Dan. He's going to totally flip out when I tell him this, and then expect me to hire some sitter to come help me with his $700 clams a month he gives me. Its like, part of me just wants to suck it up and go back to the normal routine because I miss the kids SO MUCH. But then I don't want to totally screw up my back in the long run. I want to be able to run and play again with the midgets. You know, if this had happened to him, I would have been by his side in a heartbeat. Everytime I ask him why he is acting a certain way about some silly thing, his answer is always the same: "We're getting divorced Ann!?". Since when is it a rule that divorce has to be this big nasty thing? I just don't get it. Just had to get that off my chest. Goodmorning my people of Greensboro...
