Thursday, March 20, 2008

Never thought I'd say it and another reason I like my name

I never thought I'd say it, but here goes, satellite radio is freakin' cool. I always thought of it sort of like Tivo -- I don't have Tivo and I'm still totally high and mighty about that:)
I felt the same way about satellite radio until today. Why would I pay to listen to the radio? The only thing on the radio that I pay for is NPR and that is about the only thing I've been listening to lately -- aside from kid music.
Today I found it necessary to rent a car, so I hauled myself, two kids and two booster seats down to the rental place. They had a Hyundai Santa Fe (which, god help me, I love!). The car came equipped with satellite radio, which was programmed to an '80s station. Okay, I was diggin it. The songs weren't the ones you hear over and over on some local radio stations. This evening I was driving to the library to return some books and I turned on the "Heart" station. Holy shit, it was like Kost without the corny djs and letters from lonely hearts. First they played a Chicago tune that immediately transported me to 10th grade. Then I was treated to Barry Manilow's "Mandy", which has a new place in my heart because of my daughter's name. There were a couple more goodies and I found myself sitting in the library parking lot listening to many songs from my teens. Total goodness. On the drive home I flipped to the comedy channel and even that was pretty cool. I don't spend very much time in the car, so I don't think I could justify $12/mo. If I did drive more often, I would totally get this in my car.

Speaking of cars, we should have one sometime next week. I am torn about the whole thing. When I rented the car today and was driving around for errands I felt very free -- but I don't want to feel that way. It's like wanting to give away all of your material goods for the good of others, but still finding yourself coveting someone's pretty earrings or new sofa. It is so damn hard to be less materialistic, especially when you have kids and you want to see them dressed in cute little outfits. They don't give a shit, but I do. I can't resist. Is it important? No -- I know this deep down, but I've been programmed and I can't seem to delete that file from my brain.

Ah, yes, my name. I've always rather liked my name. It is a bit old-timey, and not at all "cute", but for some reason I've always been proud of it -- perhaps too proud.
When we named Amanda, I thought it was cool that she had a bunch of songs with her name in them. My son Lucas isn't quite as lucky -- there are a few songs out there, but some are a bit explicit. There are a bunch of songs with my husband's name, Phil, but they are mostly instrumental, blues or jazz, and he does not like Blues or Jazz (damn him, because I do).
My name, surprisingly, was flush with songs. I didn't even expect one. Eddie Money sang a song called Maureen, as did Sade (love her) and Fountains of Wayne. There are some others, but those are my favs. Cool.

So, who sang a song about you?

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