Twins baseball makes for late night blogging.

You see the pattern here, do you not? Sports are interfering with blogging.

I'm hitting some sort of wall here. I have nothing to write. I feel like this blog is starting to take a toll on me. I realized this when I started this entry at 10 and, while staring at a blank screen, began to hallucinate for almost half an hour.

A day devoid of any remarkable events should find me blogging about something awesome and deep, like what professions I will arrange for my girls to have when they come of age, or the best 18 rock albums that I will require them to listen to in their entirety after they begin to appreciate music.

Although I'm a little short on time tonight, I do like the second idea. Music played such a profound, fundamental part of my life back in high school. I have an unrealistically romantic plan of sitting the girls down to set them straight as to what constitutes quality listening. For there will come a time when Abby and Lily will probably ask me about music from "when I was a kid", and I will begrudgingly have to tell them about what was popular during the time: Wilson Phillips, Ace of Base, Roxette, Bell Biv Devoe, Bon Jovi, Poison, etc. I'll tell them that even I succumbed to the "Top nine at 9" list on KZIO every night for an ugly stretch during 9th grade. It would be unfair for me not to try and capture for them the musical zeitgeist that preyed upon my ears during that time. But these things will get glossed over.

Then I'll seque nicely into a list of influences that I held dear, and still do. I'll explain the albums that I spent hours listening to in my room, headphones clamped to my skull, extra long coiled cord stringing back to the stereo. (This last item was vital for letting me roam freely so I could do my calculus homework in a variety of positions and places.)

Warmly and tenderly will I explain to them that absurd, ridiculous feeling that came from listening to the first few lines of Blur's "Leisure" for the first time. I'll beg them to understand the genius of Teenage Fanclub's "Bandwagonesque", the Stone Roses eponymous debut - a tape of which I practically wore into dust - the goofball glee of They Might Be Giants, dizzying harmonies of Trip Shakespeare, and the Scottish goodness from the Trashcan Sinatras. And the Smiths. And David Bowie. Sugar! The Pixies, of course. Smashing Pumpkins, Matthew Sweet. My Wonder Stuff phase. The Cure. Cracker. Flaming Lips. The La's. This list could go on for a long time; let's sum up by saying that these bands provided the soundtrack for me back in the formative years. Obviously, they've stuck with me.

I spent so much time listening to these bands, how could they not be something that I desperately want to pass down to my kids? At the time, these bands would garner suspicious looks from my friends, who largely skewed to the other, more hip-hoppy end of the dial. I spent, then, most of these formative years with nobody to share them with. Is it wrong that I am looking forward to sharing them with my kids? Is this just nostalgia for its own sake?

Maybe.

We'll see who wins when it all comes down to High School Musical (or whatever my kids are listening to at the time) vs. The Pixies. The Pixies wrote insane lyrics like, "drive my car into the ocean; you'll think i'm dead, but I sail away on a wave of mutilation", whereas High School Musical has been known to use lines like, "We’re soarin’, flyin’; there’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach."

Time will tell.

(ed. - I forgot to add this little question to you, the readers, last night: What albums from your youth do you feel are absolutely vital to share with your kids? Please comment or share if you like, it'd be interesting to hear other people's input...)

Day two hundred and forty two.

I'm slacking on photos. Here are completely random pictures from the files.

Me! Looking....um...pensive?

This is a salt shaker.

Cat on Elmo chair. Note the proximity to warm register.

Older one of the Girls at the Gate.