Music Mondays: Haunted Edition

Over this long weekend, I was revisiting some of the favorites in my horror movie collection. (I've mentioned before that I'm a big horror movie fan - weaned on things like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.)

These days, the horror movies that make it into my "favorites" category are the ones that are less about gore and gross-out frights and more about story-telling, character building, visual spectacle and an atmosphere that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention.

The music I'm sharing is the music that I find striking for its simple beauty or the nostalgic, haunted quality it holds. It's the music that stays stuck in my head long after the movie is over. The music that I occasionally hear in the back of my mind when I'm at home by myself, or driving a lonely stretch of road, or even crafting my own horror scenes.

Do you have a favorite horror movie soundtrack? A particular piece of music that haunts the back of your mind or gives you goose flesh when you hear it?

1. Alessa's Harmony (Silent Hill)
2. Epilogue (Silent Hill)
3. Music Box Theme (Candyman)
4. Dream Baby - Elizabeth Fraser (In Dreams)
5. In Dreams - Roy Orbison (In Dreams)

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I'm hopping today:

One of these days I'll get back to making some more content oriented posts. But until then, we'll have music.

Now, to answer the Not Mommy Hop question of the week - What is your all-time favorite song? - I have to say....I'm honestly not sure.

I'm a music fiend. It's painful to narrow down a favorite. Though John Cale's version of "Hallelujah" just might make it to that top slot.

My current-favorite song is Emilie Autumn's "Fight Like A Girl."

100 Words: Sighting on I-24

The driver of the 84 Honda that’s caused the crack-up on the east bound lane of I-24 is middle aged, sporting black framed “Birth Control glasses,” a Green Peace t-shirt, and has graying hair tied up in a messy braid halfway down his back. The air around him reeks of patchouli.

But, Vicky thinks as she takes his statement, he’s the least weird person she’s encountered this week.

“And that, officer,” the man leans close, “is when I saw the unicorn.”

Vicky’s pen pauses mid scratch. She blinks, shrugs, and goes back to writing.

Still not the weirdest this week.

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I'm dipping my toes back into Velvet Verbosity's 100 word challenge. (And it's a good thing because I've been terribly lazy lately and haven't been writing anything. Well, I've been writing in my head... But I don't count that.)

This week's word was "Spectacle."

Music Mondays: Feels Like Home Edition

Some books are so familiar, reading them feels like being home again.

- Jo March, Little Women (1994 film)

On my bookshelves, you'll find books in all manner of states: those that look as if they've just come out of the shipping box, those with decent lines on the binding, those with pages that look well turned. And then you'll find the ones that fall flat when you open them, the ones that have many-times-dog-eared pages, that bear stains – water spots from a bath or tears, the ghost of coffee or soda – and sometimes underlined passages or notes written carefully in the margin.

Those are the books I turn to when I need comfort. When I'm missing a particular time in my life or a particular person. When I'm sick. When I'm lonely. Or when I'm just feeling out of sorts with the world. Sometimes, just reading a few pages will be enough to soothe me, to make me comfortable in my own skin. To give me the peace I need to keep moving through the world.

Of course, books aren't my only refuge. There are songs (and even whole albums) that give me those feelings of surety, safety, and comfort.

Jane Siberry's "It Can't Rain All the Time" is possibly my most favorite comfort song. Back in high school, I started a tradition of watching The Crow every fall. (I still hold to that tradition. It's one of my favorite movies and my favorite love stories.) And whenever I hear it can't rain all the time, the sky won't fall forever... I'm immediately transported to my old bedroom, on a warm desert evening in October, the smell of incense (Angel Dreams or China Moon) heavy in the air, deceased lovers reunited on my television, and the feeling that even in the most desperate, darkest moments of life, light will find a way to break through.


Here are a few of my safe and familiar songs. The ones that put me at ease, give me comfort, give me hope, make me dream of beautiful, impossible things.

What are some of yours?


1. It Can't Rain All the Time - Jane Siberry
2. Hallelujah - John Cale
3. Wild Child - Enya
4. Lullaby - Arcady
5. Seven - David Bowie
6. Into the West - Annie Lennox

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Music Mondays: Recovery Edition

This is the first Music Monday since March. (I just couldn't keep it going while I blogged through the alphabet.)

I've been recovering a lot in the last three weeks: from the travel and vacation that happened the second to last week in April. From the A to Z Challenge. And then I caught the cold my husband brought home from someone at work. (It's unusual for him to pick up a cold. But this one managed to slip past his defenses. I've had the thought to send him back to work with a box full of vitamin c, zinc, and tea tree oil to help shore up everyone's immune system. I hate being sick and it's a fact of life that I cannot be around someone with the least amount of sniffle without catching a full blown cold.)

Needless to say, all this recovering has left me feeling as flat and (mentally) stale as an overused washcloth. Creativity/creating anything has been the last thing on my mind.


My recovery music isn't special in any particular way. It just needs to be pretty. And maybe a little uplifting.

What do you listen to when you're feeling under the weather? Or crawling your way back out of the brain fog?


1. Sparkling Angel - Within Temptation
2. Under the Milky Way - The Church
3. Nessun Dorma - Sarah Brightman
4. 4 0'Clock - Emilie Autumn
5. Un Bel Di - Maria Callas

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It's a Catnip Party

At home with the furry family on a Saturday night.

From top to bottom: Slinky, Silver, Mithril, Chirp.