the chommo chronicles

.heavenly gift.

I seriously believe that one day God was thinking of me, thinking “Hmmmm….I want to send Chommo a little present to show her I care. I’ve already sent her french fries, Louise Erdrich books, Prevacid, and the movie French Kiss.  What other gifts can I send her?”

Et voilà! The Lifetime Movie Network was born.

.confounded.

I an confounded by a lot of things and spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about them. If you ever see me walking around with a completely blank look on my face (which I do 99% of the time, much to my husband’s irritated dismay), it’s probably because I am contemplating fielder’s choice plays in baseball, black holes, and why middle-aged women get tattoos right on their upper titty area. (That, or I’m fantasizing about eating a big plate of french fries.)

Thanks to the wonder that is Pandora, I’ve spent most of the day contemplating that sub-genre of R&B songs where two people in love with each other, but they can’t be together, even though they love each other so much that they're singing about their love for all the world to hear?

Do you know what I’m talking about?

.new york state of mind.

In the past six years, I’ve had at least four emotional breakdowns which were all directly related to ipod malfunctions. I’m talking about the throwing of the broken ipod across the room, the stomping of feet and the sucking of teeth, the wailing about how my life/week/month was totally ruined and the hows am I expected to function normally? All of which is to say, I love my music. And because I love it so much, have extremely poor impulse control when it comes to acquiring music that strikes my fancy. Whenever/wherever I hear a song I like, I stop what I’m doing and comment, covet, make plans to get my hands on it as soon as I can. Listening to Pandora Radio all day at work doesn’t help; neither does have friends with interesting, wide-ranging tastes in music.  

My friend The Blogsmaid is one such friend. She always has the best soundtrack to whatever may be going on in her or your life at the moment, and gets to be in charge of radio whenever there’s a car trip involved.  Last Thursday, I was over at her apartment, talking – as usual – about our plans to take over the world, when a Billy Joel song suddenly came on. My ears perked.  For some reason, maybe the heat in The Blogsmaid’s un-air conditioned apartment (we’re sisters in sufferance) or the bottle of wine we drank to pre-celebrate our world takeover, I couldn’t get his song – his voice – out of my mind.   So Friday morning found me purchasing The Essential Billy Joel  from the iTunes store, a 35-song compilation of his best work.  

It’s now Monday morning, and I’ve yet to stop listening to it.  

Man, that googly-eyed drunk could sing. And write. How had I not consciously acknowledged this before now? 

.don't need no candles and cake.

Haps and The Baby are two of my very best friends in the world, my spiritual sisters even though they hail from the verdant fields of California's Central Valley and I from the concrete paradise of the New York City housing projects. (We met in college.) If ever I need someone to lovingly question my sartorial choices, they're up to the task. When I get arrested and need someone to bail me out of jail at 5AM, they'll be on the top of my list of people to call. And if ever I need partners for a debate on the state of the modern world, they're always willing participants.

Witness this recent exchange on the deep meaning behind current radio smash "Birthday Sex," crooned by a one Mr. Jeremih. Why the unnecessary replacement of the "y" with an "ih"? You'll have to take that question to his mother.