working on not hating myself

Okay, so my initial thought was that Kelly did this to me. It HAD to have been her and those HOURS and HOURS in the car driving. Had to. Her fault.................













But, ohhh wait, what about that one obsession I had?



Shit! I forgot about them. Hmm....

I totally remember singing that Earl song in the car with my friend Kara while her mom drove AS LOUD AS WE POSSIBLY COULD.

*slaps myself* shut up shut up!




Oh or this. DAMNIT.




And her



Shitshitshit. I know where this is going... and I. Don't. Like. It.


I think I was headed this way. I should have seen it coming. But it's too late now. It's happened and I'll just have to stand up for myself.

Deep breaths, deep breaths.

OKAY

Ireallyliketaylorswift

I'm SORRY, okay??

BUT. In my defense, I don't view her as strictly country (which is something that I feel is also a strong distinction that can be made about the Dixie Chicks, Nickel Creek, and Neko Case). Yes, it's a little pop, a little rock, but what's the most important isn't the category - it's the fact that she's a crossover artist. Or has the potential to be. No, she's not as fierce (or funny) as the Chicks (and who else can sound like Natalie Maines besides Natale?), not as technical as Nickel Creek, and not as musically courageous or dark as Neko Case. But that doesn't make her songs bad, it doesn't make the emotions that she was feeling any less real. In fact, if I could say one thing about her music, I'd say that the lyrics completely make it. You can really hear her in there.

Oddly enough, I subscribe to RS and got this in the mail a few months ago. I picked it up and put it down about 10 times because I could have given a shit about a country pop star. But, I decided to read it and I was... illuminated, I guess? She seems painfully normal, which I think is what I liked about it. Her parents seem like my parents, not overly indulgent, and she seems like a normal high school kid, maybe even an unpopular one (you know how the popular kids never get subtle verbal irony? she does!). And that might actually be her biggest problem. She's 19, she graduated high school already. And most of her fans are still in middle school. If she really wants to transcend her country pop category she's going to have to appeal to people beyond her core base. I know that a lot of artists are afraid of doing that because they don't want to piss off the people who "made" them, but I really think she can do it and I hope she does!



"I love love. I love studying it and watching it. I love thinking about how we treat each other, and the crazy way that one person can feel one thing and another can feel totally different. It just doesn't take much for me to be inspired to write a song about a person, but I'm much more likely to write that song than do anything about it. You know, self-preservation." -Taylor Swift