Nancy E. Dunne's Blog, page 8
November 27, 2023
Music Monday: Thanksgiving Leftovers for Birthday Dinner
The title is part of a joke that used to go around my house on my birthday, which sometimes fell on actual American Thanksgiving Day. "What do you want for your birthday meal, Nancy? Ah, well, we're having turkey." I should have made the switch to vegetarian sooner.
Also, I guess, it's my birthday. Hooray. I mean, it is my birthday, but things like baldness and chemo have stolen some of today's joy. But not my niece, Joy. She is still pretty dang awesome.
Anyway!
Last night, as I was driving back from having a late lunch/early dinner with my sister and her family to celebrate my birthday, I got stuck in traffic. I mean, GENIUS move, traveling anywhere further than the postbox on the Sunday after a holiday, but it is what it is. This was 4mph for many miles of traffic, the kind where you think you've made progress only to find it took almost an hour to go 15 miles - and you have less than a quarter of a tank of gas. But as I sat there on the highway surrounded by trucks, I heard this song and knew it was today's Music Monday.
It speaks to a current WIP that will get more attention after Nano is over. Picture two vampires, whose long lives keep intersecting due to a shared destiny, sitting in comfy chairs by a fire sharing a nice bottle of red wine and telling stories about their time apart from each other - when they suddenly realize WHY they keep finding each other. That's what kept me from losing my mind in the car...Connor and Lark, I'm coming for you soon - get ready!
Fix Youby Coldplay, Cody Fry
When you try your best, but you don't succeedWhen you get what you want, but not what you needWhen you feel so tired, but you can't sleepStuck in reverseWhen the tears come streaming down your faceWhen you lose something you can't replaceWhen you love someone, but it goes to wasteCould it be worse?Lights will guide you homeAnd ignite your bonesAnd I will try to fix youTo fix youHigh up above or down belowWhen you're too in love to let it goBut if you never try, you'll never knowJust what you're worthLights will guide you homeAnd ignite your bonesAnd I will try to fix youTears stream down your faceWhen you lose something you cannot replaceTears stream down your face, and ITears stream down your faceI promise you I will learn from my mistakesTears stream down your face, and ILights will guide you homeAnd ignite your bonesI will try to fix you
November 20, 2023
Music Monday: There's an Uprising
(Original by Muse - Cover by Damned Anthem, lyrics included in the cover are below:)
They will not force usThey will stop degrading usThey will not control usWe will be victorious
They will not force usThey will stop degrading usThey will not control usWe will be victorious
They will not control usWe will be victoriousVictorious
November 13, 2023
Music Monday: One Big Wolfhound Love
One Big Loveby Patty Griffin
Let's take a ride to the seasideWe can go out swimming in the high tideJust wear your shorts and your long hairDon't forget the lawn chairEverybody's gone to the moviesEverybody's gone and its groovyThey went to the one about the big warI didn't, I'd seen it before
I guess I'm taking my chancesGiving up the ring throwing in the glovesI guess I'm taking my chancesTrading in my thingsA couple wings on a little white doveAnd one big love, one big love
Everybody do like a MonkeyIf you want to go on and be funkyNo need to talk like a heroTalk a walk count down to zeroNo sense defending your honorJust go on and kiss him if you wannaEverything before is gone or is going somewhere
I guess I'm taking my chancesGiving up the ring throwing in the glovesI guess I'm taking my chancesTrading in my things for a couple wings on aLittle white doveAnd one big love one big loveI don't know where we areAnd I don't careAnd now we're out of gasAnd riding on airAnd one big love, one big love
November 10, 2023
Stages of Love
I'm going to talk about grief today, and not just because we just lost that gorgeous face there yesterday afternoon to a very aggressive lymphoma. It's been a wild ride, these past few years. We lost my father in 2018, my mother in 2019, the world from 2020 to 2022, and now I've lost my youngest wolfhound, my Ciaragh. So much loss. So much hurt. How do we keep going?
Grief is funny. Not funny ha-ha or funny hmmm, but funny insidious and cantankerous and never, ever satisfied. I've heard all the little adages about grief being love you have that you can't give anymore because the object has passed...love that builds up to where it spills out your eyes and down your cheeks... And while those are valid, they don't strike home as much as grief being the flip side of gratitude or maybe even just a level of gratitude.
If I wasn't grateful that I was Hoyt and Martha's daughter, I wouldn't have noticed that they passed out of my mortal life. They wouldn't still be a part of near daily conversation. I wouldn't have thought of them when I saw a cardinal in a tree looking at me as we arrived back home without our Ciaragh.
If I wasn't grateful for the friends I have, the life I had before, the interactions and bus rides to campus and all the thousands of little things that made my life my own prior to 2020, I wouldn't have grieved the loss of the same for going on three years now. I'm an introvert and the pandemic lockdowns and social distancing should have been my time to shine -- and it was, to some extent -- but it was also painfully lonely in other ways.
If I wasn't grateful that my dear friend Heather rang us to see if we could foster a 14-month-old Irish Wolfhound who needed re-homing through no fault of her own, I wouldn't be missing the wide-eyed, fuzzy head in that photo.
I've said a few times over the past 24 hours that this is just part of having a dog in your life, and it is even more so when the dog is a giant breed with a short life span. But it's more than that. It's learning to open your heart again and again, even though it is only cobbled together from past hurts. As another friend said, it is learning to "hold them with open hands" because you know what is coming.
It is tempting to close off to everything -- friends, experiences, love, laughter -- but that isn't the right choice. If you don't love, you don't grieve. It's the love and the gratitude that makes the pain worth it.
If you are in that dark place with all the grief, I am with you. When you can, turn some of the pain to gratitude. It will help, I promise.
November 6, 2023
Music Monday: Mean
October 30, 2023
Multiverse was a blast, and was so much fun that I appare...
Multiverse was a blast, and was so much fun that I apparently forgot to do a NEW Music Monday. Sorry about that. But Sister Moon is speaking to me in terms of the WIP for NaNoWriMo so you got it twice. This time I was thinking about Moonlighting because it was just released on streaming and I made sure to watch my two favorite episodes...one of which featured the song below during a dream sequence. Good, fantastic stuff.
The lyrics are below because this one doesn't have captioning but it does have Sting, so I think that's... no it isn't really a good trade, but it has Sting. Enjoy. This time next week I will be well into my 2k words a day, so I'm going to just lean in to the vibe this song creates.
Big Man on Mulberry Streetby Billy Joel
Why can't I lay low?Why can't I say what I mean?Why don't I stay home?And get myself into some boring routineWhy can't I calm down?Why is it always a fight?I can't get unwoundWhy do I throw myself into the night?
I'm on the outsideI don't fit into the grooveNow I ain't a bad guySo tell me what am I trying to proveWhy can't I cool out?Why don't I button my lip?Why do I lash out?Why is it I always shoot from the hip?
I cruise from Houston to Canal StreetA misfit and a rebelI see the winos talking to themselvesAnd I can understand
Why is it every time I go outI always seem to get in trouble?I guess I made an impression on somebodyNorth of Hester and south of Grand
And so in my small wayI'm a big man on Mulberry StreetI don't mean all dayOnly at night when I'm light on my feetWhat else have I gotThat I'd be trying to hide?Maybe a blind spotI haven't seen from the sensitive side
But you know in my own heartI'm a big man on Mulberry StreetI play the whole partI leave a big tip with every receiptI'm so romanticI'm such a passionate manSometimes I panicWhat if nobody finds out who I am?
October 23, 2023
Music Monday: Sister Moon
Sister Moonby Sting
Sister Moon, will be my guideIn your blue, blue shadows, I would hideAll good people, asleep tonightI'm all by myself, in your silver lightI would gaze at your face the whole night throughI'd go out of my mind, but for youI'd go out of my mind, but for youLying in a mother's armsThe primal root of a woman's charmsI'm a stranger to the sunMy eyes are too weakHow cold is a heartWhen it's warmth that he seeks?You watch every night, you don't care what I doI'd go out of my mind, but for youI'd go out of my mind, but for youMy mistress's eyes are nothing like the sunMy hunger for her explains everything I've doneTo howl at the moon the whole night throughAnd they really don't care if I doI'd go out of my mind, but for youSister Moon
October 16, 2023
Music Monday: Keep on, Carry on...
Before you ask, no, I have not seen the series finale of Supernatural. Much like I tried to do with Star Trek: Voyager, I am choosing to believe that the boys are still traveling around, spreading salt circles and listening to great music through Baby's speakers. I have a problem with change and endings, okay?
Anyway, this song came on my radar awhile ago, but my writing partner heard it and came up with an entire scene in his head for the WIP we are working on currently...so I am posting it today, for him and all of you that can see movies in your heads (I'm lucky if I can get a limited run series to pop into my mind's eye at one time). You are the writers I want to be when I grow up, so...carry on.
(Lyrics in the video)
October 9, 2023
Music Monday, Almost on Tuesday
My sister has done the bulk of the work concerning the last years of our parents' lives, sorting through their estates, and making sure that everything ends up where it needs to be. She said that as she was closing out the last of their estate, she heard a song on the radio that made her think of him...and I totally get it. Everything is so negative in the world these days...we need a ray of light now and then to remember who we are and why we are here.
Nanowrimo starts next month and I'm hoping to carry a spark of this light with me. The world is a dark place for so many right now, y'all. Let's all be a ray of light. Let's feel like we just got home. Onward and upward. (lyrics in the captions)
October 2, 2023
Music Monday: Sister Moon
Well, what else am I going to do for the first Monday in October? This is from my playlist for a WIP that I'm working on with a writing partner, and it is one of my long time favorites. It just speaks to me of autumn and spooky season and love that can survive anything... "I'd go out of my mind but for you..."
Sister Moonby Sting
Sister Moon, will be my guideIn your blue, blue shadows, I would hideAll good people, asleep tonightI'm all by myself, in your silver lightI would gaze at your face the whole night throughI'd go out of my mind, but for youI'd go out of my mind, but for youLying in a mother's armsThe primal root of a woman's charmsI'm a stranger to the sunMy eyes are too weakHow cold is a heartWhen it's warmth that he seeks?You watch every night, you don't care what I doI'd go out of my mind, but for youI'd go out of my mind, but for youMy mistress's eyes are nothing like the sunMy hunger for her explains everything I've doneTo howl at the moon the whole night throughAnd they really don't care if I doI'd go out of my mind, but for you
