It's all James Taylors' fault. Not the singer, though I could blame him for a few things, like how listening to his music over the years can bring my spirits down, because his music is just so sad sounding to me. I would have to concede that it is good music though, since I rate music on how much I 'feel' while listening to it, and his songs always illicit strong emotions, just not the ones I want to 'feel' all the time. Then there is Dan Fogelberg, he had some doozies of feel-good songs. But his 'Same Old Lang Syne', and 'Leader of the Band', evoke such sad feelings in me, I just want to curl up on the couch with some melodrama on the tube and veg out on feeling blue. Not my favorite way to spend the afternoon, but you know, that's what happens when I listen to him.

Anyway I'm really talking about James Taylor the Las Vegas Fan who is at fault right now. He's an easy-going guy, so he can be an convenient target for blame and he'll probably just shrug it off, or ply me with some wine and song (he introduced me to Tom Smith's Debasement Tapes CD, who can't get in a good mood singing along to 'Five years' or 'Seven Drunken Nights in Space'?). But actually, he didn't do anything to me directly, he just wrote about his driving experience during a recent road trip to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, and hearing about his driving adventure set me off reminiscing about the differences in driving quality here in Las Vegas compared to the years I lived in Indiana.

I think everyone who knows James will have to admire him, he certainly has chutzpah, he knew the road was under construction, and he would be driving at night (he has trouble with night vision), but still he drove out there anyways.

As much as I like driving, I intensely dislike navigating through work zones, or any long stretches of road that are receiving (or require) a lot of repair, and therefore my attention. I have been known to go the long way 'round Las Vegas just to avoid sitting in traffic, and I guess part of my affinity to the long way 'round is that I have a lead foot, and the more I sit in traffic, the itchier my foot becomes. I ache for an hour of uninterrupted highway driving so that I can cruise at top speed with the radio blaring rock-n-roll at it's best. An hour of driving without a huge, jacked up, gas guzzling, Dodge Ram Dually pickup truck, two feet from my rear bumper trying to intimidate me by it's sheer size and proximity to drive more than 10 MPH over the posted speed limit of 65. Or, an hour of driving on a highway that doesn't seem like a race track. Oh! I long for the quiet lonely open roads of Indiana at times. It's easy to forget the fact that my daily trek to work took me an hour uphill (both ways!), and that I was always impatient to arrive. I spent a lot of time in those days driving along, wondering what it would be like to live within minutes of work or shopping. I now know: it's frustrating, waiting behind other cars at stop lights, maneuvering my car around other drivers who don't actually follow the rules of the road or have common sense, or courtesy.

These are the official rules:

1. Take this list and post it into your own LJ, and mark the movies you've seen (in bold).

2. Add five more movies to the end of the list.

3. Count how many you have seen. If you've seen more than 70 movies, you are a Movie Whore. Post the score of how many movies you've seen in the subject line.

4. Use a LJ-cut since you've got at least one LJ-friend who doesn't really want to see an ungodly number of movies snaking its way down the computer monitor (now at 336).

5. (optional) Question your friend's taste in movies.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen WAY to many movies and looking at the list, there are plenty that I wish I hadn't watched. I probably saw 40 of these while dating and for the most part I remember the movie better than the dates.

I am such a copy cat, I also did not bold the movies I have seen but listed them separately.

Here is my list:
( Read more... )

I am off and writing! Or for you pedantic souls, I am off and typing. I have joined thousands of other wannabe writers and commited myself to writing 50,000 words in one month, yes it is possible and if you are interested in hearing more or joining me, check out the details of National Novel Writing Month at http://www.nanowrimo.org/.