Look at me, yeah yeah yeah yeah...

The opening lines to this song are so poignant and clear, it's hard not to feel for the singer when you're frustrated yourself. Which for me, happens frequently when I'm not focused enough on God and too much focused on myself. "Misty" was originally done by Lady Day herself, and her version is by far the best, even though the version I have on my computer is by Sarah Vaughan and I've only heard the former once. But anyway, it's defnitely the best. Versions aside, it's the perfect cafe/nightclub croon, smoke wisping in and around the lazy crowds, blue stage lights, a casual ciggy in one hand, plum-red lipstick accentuating the sensual words. It's the perfect song for in-between relationships, when you're passed that crush stage and either sure or not about making that next step or leap towards that person - moving on to the next stage in your relationship. Or it's perfect when you're just confused about love or need a good background vibrato to contemplate life to. I've done both numerous times. Basically any Billie Holiday song is good for that. I have this amazing poster of her on my closet door right now, it's black and white - or almost sepia toned, I can't tell - and it's just her and her band and a few faithful followers sitting at their white-linened tables, and she's belting out some tune, her hair is swept from her face in a tight wrap as if she's going out on the town or something serious, her eyes are clenched in frustration or some other emotion and her arms are up and her fists are clenched. Basically everything about her stance exudes emotion and power and it's hard not to feel some sort of force emanating from that image every time I pass it. The thing that I love most about this poster is not just that it expresses everything Billie was as a perforer but that she was able to do it all in one spot, completely immoble, a clear foot behind the microphone. Where most performers today are all mic, you know, sometimes the mic overtakes the song, the singer practically eating it on stage to better exude personality or frustrations or whatever - Billie Holiday has no guitar or showy hair or clothes to hide behind and she definitely doesn't hide behind the mic. All of her attitude comes from her, her voice, her expressions, using what little space she did have on a typical stage to convey as much emotion as possible, and she's able to convey more emotion in one chorus than thousands of artists can do in their lifetime. Everything is a backdrop to her. She is just that amazing. Haha, basically I've been obsessed with her all throughout college and it'll probably last for the rest of my life. I hope, anyway.

I love finding new music, just surfing YouTube, asking around among my friends and cruising the Myspace selection from time to time. One of my new favorite artists is Rosie Thomas, she has this deep, sensual voice which is a complete cover for her typically mousy and high speaking voice. She's definitely with Rufus in that their singing voices are so much better than their normal voices. Funny how that works. I definitely wouldn't mind cracking out her latest album while cleaning up the dorm this weekend (even though I have absolutely no clue when I'm going to have time).

I really need to schedule out this weekend, it's just that crazy. First off, I have a huge Research and Writing project due Tuesday, all about plagiarism and practicing avoiding it amoing scientific journals. Then I have standard Chemistry due Monday except I wasn't in class Monday thanks to me forgetting to turn my alarm off the night before, Wednesday we had a test and today we simply went over it. So basically I need to read and gain mastery of the chapter to complete about 20 homework problems. Crazy! Then we just got our US Government tests from last week back and the class average was about an 80, though it's mostly because there just wasn't enough time, nobody finished. Anyway he's allowing us to rewrite whatever we didn't finish and he'll grade it again. Sweet, but still I'm already swamped with Alpha Phi Omega this weekend and finding time will be hard. And then there's Populations, our test was going to be Monday but (thank the Lord!) he moved it to Wednesday to better cover some material we couldn't get to today in class. But still I'll have to study for it and there are plenty of things I don't understand. Pheeeeeeew that's an incredibly amount but I'll get it done. Crazy week, crazy week.

ps. I'm a CRU leader! A staff member came down to High Point to tell me my requirements and I told her I accepted - and she told me I was in! I'm so psyched, so psyched. I really thought it wouldn't happen until Fall of next year and it's all kind of sudden, but that's all good. I have my first meeting next Sunday. :o)