3 things about NM

1) as N and i are walking on a random street in downtown ottawa, on our way to find wedding clothes for the ceremony later in the afternoon, we come across a car with a NM license (and a kirtland AFB sticker as well!). in the back seat are a few old window panes. coming across a car from the southwest is rare enough in the northern states, but in deep ontario? on a rare weekend that we were in town? on the street we happened to choose to walk down on our way to the rideau centre?

2) a fuss is made at work about a patient whose chart was on the 4th floor and has to be delivered to us and registered. her last name? ALBUQUERQUE. just like my hometown.

3) while wasting time on pitchfork.tv's video page, i come across this song. keep an eye on the screen about halfway through the video.

You blow my mind!

While reheating coffee in the microwave (I know, gross), I think of Toni Basil and her reincarnation as a celebrity judge. This leads me to think of "Mickey", which may be the only reason people know her name (as unfair as that may be).

I think, you know, that really is a great interpretation of a song.

I finish my coffee and it's raining, pouring, so I head to reception to observe through larger windows. And what song starts playing? You guessed it.

Exit music (for a conspiracy theorist)

NK's email reaches me shortly before I leave the office. She tells me that there are three songs on one album to which she likes to listen when she is sad. I expect one of them to be "Street Spirit", but it isn't.

I reply that of the three songs it is "High and Dry" that touches me the most. Two minutes later I am in the lobby waiting for the elevator, stunned to hear "High and Dry" playing on the reception radio like a highly orchestrated farewell.

No pounds on The Deer Hunter!

On Saturday night at Rob and Brendan's house I am up late. I am flipping between Poehler & Meyers and Graham Norton. It's going really well!

But the next time the station interrupts Norton with a commercial and I switch back to Saturday Night Live, the news is over and we're on to a sketch that is ALL CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, ALL THE TIME. It's the Walken Family Reunion! Besides featuring episode host Walken (obviously), each cast member is given the opportunity to show off his or her best Walken impression. Who doesn't have a Christopher Walken impression? That's right: no one!

Wiig is wearing a spiky wig, of course, and possibly playing Walken's mother. Maybe his aunt. She tells him that she just saw The Deer Hunter and that she thought it was "HILARIOUS."

When the sketch is over I am back with Graham Norton. He's sent cameras to a dog track and is asking Orlando Bloom, Samantha Morton and the audience to bet £1 on their favourites. The audience decides on Sloppy Duchess, the sixth dog in the race and certainly the one with the most hilarious name. But holy shit! THE NAME OF THE FIFTH DOG IN THE RACE IS THE DEER HUNTER!

What's more, the race is taking place on my birthday (which wasn’t this past Saturday, by the way, but almost five months ago)!

Also, five is my favourite number, but The Deer Hunter didn’t win.

barsoom or bust

only a few people who know me in meatspace will truly appreciate how bizarre this tidbit is to me.

not only that, but the news was confirmed in toronto!

seriously, if i hadn't gone back and purchased that john carter comic from e-bay, and brought back the one i had when i was five from our last trip to nm, would pixar be making a movie about it? the universe is fucking with my head in a major way on this one.

was (not) was

at work, the chart for patient AF is shown to me and then taken to a nurse.

shortly after, AF's name appears on the caller id screen. it is not AF, however, but someone else, calling about their own problems. if it had been AF, i would have chalked it up to someone getting back to us about some ongoing problem. but it wasn't, which made me distrust my eyes for seeing the name that was clearly displayed during the entirety of the phone conversation with some other person.

Emma Emmaline

I've never heard this song before. This channel usually plays the hits of the Seventies and only said hits. What is this song?

Radio listing tells me: "It's 'Emma' by Hot Chocolate, silly!"

What is it doing on here? I have never heard it before!

I guess it was a hit; it reached N^o 3 on the charts. I guess I don't know enough about Hot Chocolate.

Anyway, today is co-worker Emma's birthday. And she can tell everybody / This is her song! She's on the phone right now, though.

Dance! Dance!

The thing below happened on Thursday. After listening to "Against All Odds" I went back to work.

An hour later, I resumed reading the same article (I know, I am indirectly contributing to the problem). The next name on the list was Pete Wentz, so of course a song by Fall Out Boy began to play on the radio.

[What kind of crappy station does she listen to, I ask you?]

Against all odds?

At work the radio is always on. It's our business.

Anyway, while various songs were playing and I was not really working, I was reading something about Taylor Hackford being married to Helen Mirren. This honestly surprised me, though I am not sure why. While verifying this fact on the ultra-reliable Wikipedia, I noticed that Hackford directed Against All Odds, and I am not sure why this credit stood out among the others as I haven't seen that film though I do love the title track.

Immediately, the title track began playing on the radio. I thought, I should start noting these weird coincidences that occur on an almost-daily basis, so I can look back at them over time and possibly discern spooky patterns. Also, I love this song.

bad radio

discovered this while looking at the other list (linked yesterday), which mirrors an almost exact mix i've been cooking up for the past few weeks (although most of the songs are completely different).

how close are the two things, you ask? well, i made the mix to honor the one-hit wonders i would hear while working in file rooms during the mid-90's on a radio that could only get the edge, one of those alterna-mainstream behemoths emerging at the time. i wanted to use songs from bands that had one hit and then were never heard from again (and that i didn't mind hearing over and over again when the song was a hit, of course).

a minor thing, i know, but it's still early here and i haven't gone outside yet.

the first of many

at work, two co-workers talking about music. one says "remember that roberta flack song?" the conversation went somewhere else from there.

later, while scouring yet another archive of albums listed by year (for that particular project that has been consuming the household), roberta flack's name leaps out at me.

maybe that's part of the problem: clearly there was no connection, but hearing the name and seeing the same name later resonated more than they should have done.

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[also, and this is quite literally for thee practicing paranoiac files:

today, a patient from the upstairs clinic comes to the front desk and asks about the green identification card he was given to take to the lab. he tells me that the identification card had both his first and last name, and he would like just the initial of his first name printed rather than the whole name.

when i told him that it was our policy to have the entire first name on those cards, he said, "so what am i supposed to do when i hear all of these voices calling out to me by my first name? just tune them out?" he was asking sincerely, because he was hearing people calling him by his name.

i said, "hm, let me find out about that" and then notified the guy manning the mental health desk that one of his patients was needing some help.]