all praises due to love...

A very quick Valentine's Day note to say, well, Happy Valentine's Day to you all. I'll have more to say about love, but for now, I'm feeling very lucky. So many people and things are filling me with love, and things seem to be working out in ways they didn't seem to be earlier in the week. I'm calmer and less anxious, the people I care about are happy and healthy, and have reached out to me in truly extroardinary ways. I have such beautiful friends and family, who I truly love with all my heart. I have so much to be grateful for, and I am, truly. I forget sometimes, but it's true. So to everyone who helps keep my heart open, sometimes despite myself, thank you. And to my friend Jon who helped me fall in love with comedy again tonight, and everyone who provided some much-needed laughs (see The Rejection Show). Today involved hijiki, cupcake delivery (thank you Sweet-N-Sassy Cupcakes, good friends, and funniness. And for now, that is all I have to say on the subject.

If you want a soundtrack to love, please give Ida's Lovers Prayers a listen. I want to do it justice, because it's taught me a lot in the past few weeks I've been listening to it. About love, loss, and beauty. Liz and Dan and co. are truly inspiration. The whole album is simply gorgeous. The more you listen, the more you get out of it, the more layers of voices and lyrics. They manage to sing “You punched Ronald Reagan right in the face…” and make it sound like a lullaby (in a song called The Killers, 1964, about the movie by the same name). But my absolute favorite, though I have many, but if I had to pick, it’s their cover of Richard Thompson’s “Shame of Doing Wrong.” There’s this line that goes “I wish I was a fool for you again…” and that line, more than any of the other beauties here, speaks to me, so much. Anyway, this is the album I want to give to the next person I fall in love with. And where the subject line come from, from "The Love Below."