So I went to take a short nap last night at 8 o'clock before I tackled some things on my to-do list like send out p_p invites, answer some comments/email and do some RPing. Um. I woke up from said short nap at 7:30 this morning. I've been...a little tired lately. Sadly I could still take a nap right now.

I currently have no furniture in my apartment (unless you count an air mattress furniture, which I don't.) Two-pronged moving is a pain in the butt seriously. (Six days left! Six! \0/)

You know you've officially become a Massachusetts resident when you're rewatching Men In Black for the thousandth time as ze_dragon and I were recently and when they zoom in on Truro, MA on a satellite map you suddenly turn to one another at the same time and say, dude, that's so very much the wrong end of the Cape, duh.

Anyway, to sum up, life lately = pretty much working and moving accompanied by a lot of Old 97's interspersed with some Van Morrison to help with the staying sane part.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Old 97s the past few days because when I say I've been listening a lot I mean probably 20 hours a day worth of listening. (That's really not all that much of an overexaggeration, sadly. *g*)

I always feel so weird when I talk about bands meaning a lot to me for one reason or another, and then there's the whole emo-kid "OMG this band saved my life" thing that just makes me kind of wince a bit even though I do understand that emotion. I've never had a band save my life, but I've had three artists so far in my life whose music has made things tolerable for me at difficult times--for which I will love them forever. Dwight Yoakam got me through college and grad school without committing homicide, Van Morrison helped me endure turning 30, and the Old 97's? Well, they got me through my dad's death. I spent most of the summer after he died listening to Satellite Rides on repeat. I wasn't letting myself fall apart very much those months because I felt like I had to keep it together for a number of reasons, the least of which was that my mother just wasn't capable of coping. So I'd curl up in bed or on the couch at night with that album playing and ... it helped. A lot. I could get out of my head listening to Rhett and Murry and Ken and Phillip and I really, really needed to get out of my head right then.

Part of it, I think was taking something that was my dad's (country music) and making it something of my own (adding a rock/alternative twist). Part of it was that the music just took my mind off things I couldn't change or fix. And part of it was that I associated Rhett (and still do to be frank) with something else that helped me escape during those months: by that time he was my icon for Harry in the RPG I play in.

There are moments when I think it's a bit strange that a band that I associate so clearly in my head with losing my father is so important to me now. But it's not quite the same. I can't ever listen to the CD I had in my car of Rosemary Clooney songs that was playing the day I drove to the hospital only to find out my dad had died. I pulled all of those songs off my iPod because I just can't go there even now. But the Old 97's and Rhett in particular...I don't know. They were comfort. They still are. They remind me of my dad and what I loved about him and how much I miss him...and that's oddly comforting.

(It's also curious, I've found, that my life can be split into before Daddy's death and after. My whole headspace shifted in that one moment and that day's become the reference point for my adulthood. Honestly I think it was the turning point for me becoming an actual grown-up. Which would amuse my dad immensely, let me tell you.)

Anyway. Long story short, they're very much my favorites. And I'm about to get choked up, so I'm just going to shut up now and go back to work.