nothing to blog about

I sat down, laptop open, earbuds in, at a few minutes before midnight, trying to decide what to write about tonight. I've got several ideas brewing, but all will take longer than a few minutes, so while Toni Braxton's "You Mean the World to Me" plays, I am thinking...

...Toni. I loved Toni Braxton in the 90s. Well, I mean, I guess I love her now too, but back in the day, she had this perfection trifecta, this trio of amazing songs that went 1-2-3... "Another Sad Love Song"... then "You Mean the World To Me"... then "Breathe Again". If you add in "Love Shoulda Brought You Home" from the "Boomerang" soundtrack to the beginning of that list, it gets even better. She was amazing.

What you have to know about me is sometimes I revel in nostalgia. More than I should, but it's true. I think I'm like most people in saying that music... more than movies, more that TV shows, more than books... but music, takes me back.

I hear Toni Braxton and one of the aforementioned songs, suddenly I'm sitting in the Adams Student Center, talking to Ginny Kochan over cold pizza during lunch, or I'm sitting on the couch by Bobby Black, playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out on my Nintendo in my dorm room...

...so back to my ideas for a blog. Heck, it's already after midnight, and I still have no idea what to blog about. I wrote a comment on my friend Writer Chris Holmes' blog, and it was a pretty good stream of thought, so maybe I'll type that out. But that's too deep for tonight. Maybe tomorrow night...

...right now, Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" is on. I mean, that song? Just cool. I don't know anything else the band has ever done, not sure I want to know, but this one song is so good. It's one of The Lovely Steph Leann's favorite songs, like, ever. It's also fun to sing too--and that's important. A song has to be fun to sing to really make it enjoyable.

Come on, sing it with me... "I am everything you want! I am everything you need! I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be! I say all the right things at exactly the right time, but I mean nothing to you and I don't know why!" ...

...back to the blog. Just read an article that a house was built on the wrong lot. A dream home for a couple, to the tune of $680,000, on a lot that cost 135K when they bought it, but now appraises for 355K in the neighborhood... and it's not on that lot, it's one lot over. Cause the builders messed it all up...

...there's this movie called "Mo Money", starring Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, a pre-Clueless but still just as fine Stacey Dash, and a few other people you may not know. Circa 1993, it's silly and stupid, but I freakin' love that movie. My friend Tonya Windham and I traveled to Panama City Beach for the day (my hometown was 1 hour and 10 minutes from the beach, so this wasn't a long trip) during my senior year of high school... it rained some during the day, so during the rain delay, we caught a flick... and yes, it was this one. We laughed quite a bit, and for whatever reason, it stuck with me.

The only reason I bring up? The soundtrack is absolutely incredible... Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross, Ralph Tresvant, Color Me Badd and the song I'm listening to now, MC Lyte's "Ice Cream Dream." Yep, I just said "MC Lyte" and "Ice Cream Dream". Now that I'm older, I listen to the lyrics, and realize it's a little racy. Or a lot racy. But I still love it...




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...oh, sorry about that. OutKast's "BOB" video just came on. It's done now. Next up on the random playlist, Extreme's "Hole Hearted", which is one of my favorite 90s tunes. That takes me back to 10th grade, hanging out with my few friends back then. Of course, I had just joined the band, so I had just become a band geek.

I wasn't a popular kid in junior and high school. I mean, I wasn't un-popular, but I think I was like, second tier. You know, you had the more popular kids on top, the cheerleaders like Stephanie Phillips and the beauties of the class like Jennifer Lambert and the athletes like Michael Creech and Daniel Stephenson and even that one guy that just everyone likes, like Chris McCall.

And one level below that, you have the... the popular runner-ups, where if the popular kids can't fulfill their duties, those of us on the 2nd tier would step right in. If we are all going to a party together, I'm the guy that would get picked over some of the lesser bottom feeders in the serf group, but I'd easily get left in favor of Rodney Hornsby or Jason Smith.

By the way, Kid Rock's "Cowboy" is on right now.

Anyway, I'm okay with where I ended up in the hierarchy. It allowed me to make more friends, because I wasn't just sticking with one single group. And I still consider my closest friends, at least in my grade, to be Tonya, Chris and my buddy Greg... I was also good friends with two different Ryans in a different grade, and Jason Howell a few grades back.

"Light My Candle" from the Rent Soundtrack. Spike Lee is shooting down the street.

Then, of course, there was Julie Wise, or as I should call her, The Clouds In My Coffee Official High School Crush Julie Wise. I would imagine there are more and more newer readers to the blog, and are seeing the name "Julie Wise" for the first time here... nearly everyone has that one person that they kinda like, or kinda love for the better part of their high school years. Julie Wise was mine. More on that later...

...since I have nothing to blog about tonight, I guess I can start talking about #40forForty... or maybe it's #Fortyfor40? No, #40for40? #40440? No, that last one is just confusing.


Anyway, as Old Crow Medicine Show strums along to "Wagon Wheel", I'll just tell you that #40forForty is coming very soon. In one month.

...and I'm sorry I have nothing to blog about tonight. I failed in my writing challenge. Off to bed, I'll try again tomorrow.