Life is grand and wondrous. Full of opportunity. Full of glitz, glam and fortune. For some.
For others it is dull, grey, and vacuous. It is horrid that we live in a world carrying the burden of unjust deaths and murders.
But this post is to thank this world. Thank you for my wonderful fiance, who makes everyday a dream. Thank you for my acceptance into Columbia grad school for genetics. I may not have done what I set out to do with this blog but somehow adventure and love found me either way. I've been able to settle the confusions of my past and maintain the lifestyle so vital to me now. Since my last post I've been to Argentina, which I didn't like and Costa Rica, which I did. We all toot our horns to different tunes but if you listen closely, you'll see it doesn't matter unless you let it.

While this blog was initially made to discuss the songs I've been living it has often led me to think of those songs I am not living, of those I cannot live. I've been having many doubts lately. Doubts about religion. If its truly as beautiful as I want to believe then why must I interpret it in my favor? Why is pursuit of intelligence and creativity shunted? I am not a penguin, can't be one.

Religion is like smoking cigarettes. Smokers know it gives them cancer but they've put so much of themselves into the tobacco they need something back, even if it's a metastasizing tumor.

Romance with Torah:

Waited but not long enough
To slough the scent
Of a supplement so rough.
Like a cigar to a vent
A bent inhalation-
One ration in and then sent
Out for preparation.
Cannot swirl you in deeper
With a reaper to gather
And lather for keeper
For a tongue to slather.
You’re like a cigarette
A threat to inhale just one time
So climb into depth
Can’t withhold the grime.
So coughing and choking
A stroking for measure
This pleasure of smoking
Is the package’s treasure.
Though you’re not fire
To admire your heat
Is for too sweet a liar
And here’s just a cheat.
Burned going down
And around till back up
To sup worth from a clown
Whose runneth over the cup.
When you leave, the taste
Of haste on the tongue stays
With strays of tar waste
Thick there for days.
You’re a habit I’m used to
Not new to using
Though bruising is true
For those musing
But the smell on the clothes
It goes to the heart,
to chart how it grows
as it breathes every part.
Expensive to buy
But to deny you is worse
So the purse will reply
paid in full by reverse.

copyright Y.Z.

The idea of missing a place, a time, or a moment is foreign to none. We share these confused emotions across the game board that determine our land boundaries. Yet the emotions are met with showers of disdain. While we may change as individuals the influences in our surroundings do not change in our absence. Therein lies the confusion, since the feeling of loss is both for the changes acquired and the habits forsaken. Often we forget what we miss, as different moments coalesce. The hard truth about missing someone/thing is because the emotion that underlies all the nostalgia and confusion is fear. Fear for the stagnant that our lives once yearned to engulf themselves in.


The song for today was 'Starlight' by Muse:

Our journeys, emotions, and memories all bring us back to a place of struggle; be it against our physical or psychological mortality. I have so much to miss.

I know I haven't posted all the music I have been living and the excuse is... I have been to busy living the songs.

I just returned from India yesterday. The songs I have heard, sang, thought, and lived were so flavored with adrak and achar my mouth still burns and waters after it. Although this blog has taken a different form all together because of my negligence I have never faltered from the mission I set out with it. Unfortunately I cannot begin again where I left off, somehow in life this track is always doomed for failure. As such I cannot merely make a bulk post of all the songs I have lived (it has been far more than 100 and far different from the list I had originally compiled). Plans are to be broken, however.

Life shouldn't go only according to plan. That is cheating yourself.

So I spent the past week looking for some songs to live. I need to make this somewhat organized. After all, some days I'll be too busy to live a song and I'll have to just live (nothing wrong with that). So below are some songs I've picked out so far. Any suggestions (try to keep them a tad realistic) are appreciated. Happy New Year everyone.

With the new year comes the first song to be lived:
It's Just Another New Year's Eve -Barry Manilow


My New Years Eve was exactly this, distant and nostalgic. Movies always make it seem as though New Years is a magical time but the truth is it's just another New Years eve. As a kid New Years Eve meant so much more to me, or maybe that is the selective memory talking. It's 2010 and a year from now it will be 2011 and a year from then it will be 2012, etc. etc. etc. (Who knows after 2012, though eh?) The media makes it seem as though that one minute makes the greatest difference but for me nothing has changed. I'm still Yelena and you're you. New years is just that, a new year... nothing else and there is nothing wrong with that. For some reason I'm so inclined to think there's a problem that my life is not following the road of some New Years movie but that's really the best part. I don't need midnight on Dec 31st to mark a change, any midnight, any minute, will do. Let me tell you a secret about New Years, (something all those movies and songs don't want to tell you) it is special for mainly one reason: it's another excuse to party.



The Judds- Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days”)
(Sittin on) the Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding
Frank Sinatra - New York
Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer
Lean On Me, Bill Withers
Do You Believe in Magic, The Lovin' Spoonful
Heart of Glass, Blondie
With a Little Help From My Friends, The Beatles
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), Eurythmics
Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan
What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
Respect, Aretha Franklin
A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke
Yesterday, The Beatles
Ramble On, Led Zeppelin
Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix
Let It Be, The Beatles
Living for the City, Stevie Wonder
Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash
Smoke on the Water, Deep Purple
Judy Garland - "Over the Rainbow"
Don't stop believin- journey
John Lennon - Imagine
Johnny Nash- I can see clearly now
Men at Work- Down under
Doors- People are strange
Frank Zappa- Dog breath
America Horse with no name
Petula Clark- Downtown
Cindy Lauper- Girls just wanna have fun
Bruce Springsteen- Dancing in the dark
Jethro Tull- Aqualung
Tom Petty - Free Fallin
Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City

Today started off without alarm-- literally. My phone malfunctioned, deleted all my media files and did not ring at 8am. Somehow I managed to get up and going at 2pm.

Later today at the gym I witnessed a blatant disregard for unspoken gym rules for the first time. If there is ever a line for machinery or in this case, the sit up station, always look at the order of people who went before you and then make a place for yourself in the line. Well today I witnessed someone who either didn't know about this or didn't care. I stepped off to let the 2nd person (whose turn it was) go, he finished, the 1st guy came back, then it was my turn again but the 2nd person went and skipped me. Etiquette please!

Either way that was no different than any other day. The real change is I have 364 days to live the lyrics of a 100 songs. Today is day 2 of my 365 day goal of changing my life around in the midst of obtaining both my degrees, work, volunteering, and maintaining a fitness regiment. I'm not going to give any of that up, you shouldn't have to in order to get some adventure in life. Adventure is not about waiting for some major change in your life that will redefine every moment, it's not about sacrifice of reality. Adventure is an experience and that I (as do we all) have plenty of.

Not everyone is born with special gifts. Heck, some who are don't even know or worse fail regardless. I'll make it brief, this blog is about us, the forgettables. We have no superhuman strength, dexterity, or intelligence; and no refined taste in art, music, or cuisine. I'm just like you and I'm sick of it too. I want a special gift and if I couldn't be born with one, I'll darn well make sure to die with one.

This is the inception of my special gift. No worries, I like to share.
I won't discuss the disappointments of college and stress over the future in a bitter economy. That was another blog I wrote once many years ago. I was probably 15 then and an avid listener of Nirvana.
I won't discuss my efforts to find the one man in the world untarnished by mass media that has me feeling more lonely.

This will not be about perfections or imperfections. It will be about doing something we can all do. I don't live in a movie and most of you don't either. We can't all just up and go on a jungle excursion.

So to the apathetic, sympathetic, and pathetic stay in your couch and read on. This is an adventure that fits your schedule.