carnelian stars like the bars down below / serve only vodka and gin

[raven]

So, I was going to make a cranky LDR post, but, on second thoughts, perhaps not. I am cranky. At some level I always am. Long-distance relationships suck monkey balls. Don't do them, they're awful and sad.

But. Once again, Shim and I have been together for an integer number of years. During that time we have, inter alia: gone on long walks in the countryside; bought a lot of books; started a small kitchen fire; danced to no music under the moon; eaten pancakes in Amsterdam; run drunkenly down the steps of Sacre Coeur; spent hours looking for a stranger's missing keys in the snow; had screaming rows about nothing in particular; drunk wine on the roof of Lincoln at three in the morning; climbed Arthur's Seat in rain so bad the dye ran from my shoes; spent seven months apart; done a lot of dishes; written letters and emails and instant messages; made faces over Skype; been together.

And here we are. Still keeping on and carrying on.


edit fuck it, I am working out my cranky by listening to the Weepies' entire discography on repeat (I pity my next door neighbour) so now you can too.

The Weepies - Gotta Have You
no amount of coffee / no amount of crying / no amount of whisky / no amount of wine

The Weepies - Can't Go Back Now
you know there will be days when you're so tired you can't take another step

The Weepies - Same Changes
and everyone says this love will change you / well I asked does anything ever stay the same

The Weepies - Painting by Chagall
we live so high above the ground / satellites surround us

The Weepies - Hope Tomorrow
a windy fitful day in winter / charging towards the ides of May

Comments

[falena]

Thanks for the Weepies tracks. I don't know why but they were missing from my iPod, I honestly thought I had them.

And the paragraph about your relationship is just so...moving and real. You have such a way with words. Even when you're cranky. I would enjoy read you writing about...anything really.

[raven]

You're welcome, and thank you, that is such a nice thing to hear. :)

[livrelibre]

*sends you hugs*

[raven]

Thank you, sweetie! Hope dinner was fun.

[forthwritten]

<3

Your writing is, as always, lovely.

It's no comfort I know, but this too shall pass.

[raven]

Thank you, my dear.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

<3

Good for you guys.

I'm assuming by "entire discography" you mean that you do in fact have a lot more of their songs--but if not, I've got a few other really lovely ones I could send.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear. :) They did an EP once, I think, which I don't have, otherwise I actually have been listening to all their studio albums one after the other. It's getting a little ridiculous.

Which ones are your favourites? I seem to vary...

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I do, too; it really depends on what I'm in the mood for. Like, I think "The World Spins Madly On" is beautiful, but it's so depressing a lot of the time. And "Not Your Year," I just can't listen to, y'know, this year. :) I guess two of the constants, though, are two of the first ones I heard-- "Gotta Have You" and "All That I Want."

An odd thing about the Weepies, for me, is that I have very, very specific place-and-time memories connected to a lot of their songs, which isn't something I get with all music. So "Takes So Long" in my mind is associated with this one sunny intersection that I used to cross every afternoon on my walk to work. "Gotta Have You" is a series of winter nights near the end of my senior year of college, drinking tea with a housemate and writing my thesis. "The World Spins Madly On" is writing that long crazy-Geoffrey story with a glass of red wine in the evening after work, in the SF apartment I had that first summer--the one that you saw.

Basically, SOMETIMES ART IS TOO GOOD AT WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO.

What are some of yours?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! This is part of why I love live music: I love fiction and I like poetry and I am reasonably fond of drama, but give me music any time for hit-you-where-it-hurts artistic response.

At the moment I love "Antarctica" (such clean, perfect use of imagery!) and "Same Changes" is probably my most favourite (mostly for being right), and the melody in "Painting by Chagall" is fabulous, and oh, well, yeah. I should have listened to them years ago. And apparently they don't tour, like, ever! What's with that.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me that I LOVE The Weepies. *loads stuff onto her iPod finally*

I am sorry about the cranky. :(

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks, dear. :) I am surprised no one recommended them to me before, they're wonderful.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

They ARE. I don't have their new album yet, didn't know they HAD it, but i do have the others, let me know if you've got gaps.

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise you liked the Weepies. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ0b6z1XFNY). (link is to video).

I would like to read your cranky LDR post, if you ever feel like making it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Neither did I until two weeks ago! Thank you for that, I didn't realise she'd done solo work. :)

My cranky LDR post is just cranky. I dunno if I will ever make it, because it will not be more profound than "LDRs you guys they SUCK", and everyone already knows that!

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of the the Weepies. I just discovered, in the last 5 minutes that I have missed out. Thank you!!

They will be resting comfortably on my ipod by sunup.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yaaay! I have just discovered them, and I love them so much already.

[proskynesis]

The second paragraph is beautiful, just so you know. *hugs*

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

This.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweetie. :)

[minttown1.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the music.

I hope you feel better tomorrow. Sounds trite, maybe, but it's true.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome, and thank you. :)

[ladyfalcon.livejournal.com]

You and Shim are my favorite fictional couple (fictional in the sense that I know neither of you IRL). You just sound so charming and lovely together. And King Arthur's Seat is possibly my favorite spot that I've been to in the UK.

Also I had to check but there actually are Ides in May according to the Roman calendar, which I had to be sure of before I could download the song.

ETA: And apparently I was misremembering the fact that ides fell on different DAYS some months than in others with as only some months HAVING ides at all. Whatever. Song is mine now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I am charmed by the thought of Shim and me as a fictional couple. He grew up in Edinburgh, so we've wandered that part of the world often. :)

The fact that months other than March had ides was new to me. :)

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

♥ I know how tough that can be. Courage! One day you will bin the LD part of it.

So I'm reading Charmed Life and wow, the offhand racial comments are just ridiculous. Where is Millie supposed to be from? She and the children are quite pale, it says, but I thought in another book they weren't.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweet. :)

I can tell you, but I would spoil a bit of The Lives of Christopher Chant - yea/nay?

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

Rough while it lasts, though.

I think I've read that one anyway - I've picked them up just as I found them, so the mythology's all tangled in my brain. So yea!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Okay, so Millie was the deemed incarnation of the Goddess Ashteth, this vengeful goddess type in Series Ten. It's unclear what sort of a place Series Ten really is - but there are details, like bazaars, and some things about the Asteth religion, that are reeeeally suggestive of a kind of caricatured Middle Eastern or South Asian setting. Then she comes to Christopher's world, adopts the name of a girl in an English book of school stories and the whole thing is never mentioned again.

[leiascully.livejournal.com]

Interesting. And she's so pale that her children are pasty - charming, Diana.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, particularly for having got through a long-distance relationship for so long; it is horrible, I know, but you're almost there. I'm glad you and Shim have had such lovely experiences together (eating pancakes in Amsterdam = awesome. Rob and I have done this, and I want to repeat the experience), and I hope you have many more.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear. It is a mere three months more, which is something.

[tau_sigma]

I meant to comment on this at the time, and I kind of failed; I'm sorry. You are so amazingly good at condensing something so wonderful into a few sentences full of joy, and passing time. I am glad you are together. :) It is nice to hear you so happy.