A Friendly Musical Visit Every Day

My partner is playing records in the basement, and this song just came on. We were talking about it weeks ago, when I was telling him about my friend in high school making a music video for "Would You Like to Buy an O?" from Sesame Street. He was saying it reminded of this song, with its lyric of "Would you like to buy a watch real cheap?" At the time, I thought I'd never heard the song he was talking about. Now I realize I had always heard those lyrics as, "Would you like to buy a washing machine?" If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to

I was perusing my partner's bookshelf last night when he asked me what I was looking for. "A book," I said. I wasn't looking for any book in particular, just something to read. Most of his collection is literary fiction, but I wasn't in the market for anything too heavy. He said, "What about Lorna Doone?" Lorna Doone is a book he mentions often. He and his brother loved it when they were children, so I thought it might be a suitable palate cleanser. I said sure, now was the perfect time to read it. He handed me the book. It was 600 pages. The font size was probably... I don't know... 4? Even with my reading glasses, I'm not sure I could make out what it said. And 600 pages is a lot of pages! I'm a slow reader. I was like, "You and your brother read this book when you were children?" "Well," he admitted, "we read the abridged edition." Find me an abridged edition and maybe I'll read that. In the mea

I bet there are people who create blogs because they want to show the world how smart they are. Not me! Every day I discover I'm even stupider than I thought I was. It's a wild adventure. So, today, for example, I learned that this song is called Nights in White Satin.  My entire life, I thought it was Knights in White Satin.  I thought it was a song about knights... in white satin. They're knights. They wear satin instead of armour. This is a song about them. I am not joking. I've held that belief since childhood, and I never thought to challenge it until today, when my parter and I were discussing the song. Still an evocative track, even if it's not about jousting. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also

I'm just about done proofreading my book "Sharing the Nanny." There's a character in this series ( The Boss and the Nanny ) named Mira, so, naturally, this song is stuck in my head. Not complaining, because I have such a nostalgic love of the piece. When I was a kid, I sang in a choir. Our accompanist was a Cape Bretoner, and she was the one who pushed for us to perform Song for the Mira. I'm pretty sure she knew the composer, Allister MacGillivray. It was practically written for her, as someone who'd moved away from home and experienced that deepseated longing to return to the place she'd grown up. Our choir actually did record this lovely piece, but that was long before the days of the internet, so it's not available anywhere online (trust me--I've checked!). If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from you

Yesterday I mentioned that an old friend of mine actually lived out my dream of becoming a professional animator. This is a collaboration he created with Kid Koala. (I'm so proud of my cool friend.) If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.com/R4b11 See you soon! Giselle

My partner was just telling me a friend of his wanted to go to Istanbul, then he opened the newspaper and there was a full-page advertisement: Visit Istanbul! So obviously I started singing this song. I mean, how could a person NOT sing this song? The first time I remember hearing it was on Tiny Toons, which I flippin' LOVED, despite possibly being a little old for it...? I mean, are you ever really too old for cartoons? Really? My excuse for watching children's cartoons well into my teens (okay, and into adulthood...) is that I wanted to be an animator for a good part of my childhood. I've probably mentioned this before, but I loved drawing, I loved animation, and I wanted to make a career out of it. I changed gears a bunch of times before beginning my career as a writer in 2006, but I never came anywhere close to becoming an animator. A friend of mine did, though. I'll share one of his animations with you tomorrow. If you're wondering how you can support me

I'm currently proofreading my book Sharing the Nanny, which is third in my "The Boss and the Nanny" series. (If you want to prepare for its release and you haven't read the first two, they're called In Deep with the Nanny and Married to the Nanny .)  In this newest installment, three adults get a baby to stop crying by singing this song to her. It's one of the cutest family fun scenes in the entire book, because the whole cast joins in and it turns into an adorable little dance party. We've already listened to the  Martha and the Vandellas  version here on the blog, so today we're listening to... these guys! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a li

Yesterday I told you a story about hearing a tin flute playing Celtic music in my living room but my partner not being able to hear it in the bedroom (with only a thin wall between the two). When I told him I could hear this Irish flute music, he was teasing me, like, "Uh-huh, flute music, whatever you say..." I could hear the music. He couldn't. We decided we probably had pixies. He said he'd call Orkin in the morning. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to hav

We're back in the city for more medical appointments. As I write this post, I'm sitting in the living room of my apartment. I can hear all sorts of noise from outside. People are cheering on softball players across the street. Other people are drunkenly scream-laughing. And then there's the tin flute. I don't know for sure that it's a tin flute. That's just a guess. I'm no expert, but it seems to be playing Irish music? I figured the Celtic flute music was coming from outdoors, so I went into the bedroom, where my partner's got the window open. In the bedroom, I couldn't hear the flute music at all. I came back into the living room. There it was again. My partner doesn't believe me that there's Celtic flute music happening in here, and he's not willing to come and check. His loss, because it sounds pretty amazing. This video features an ocarina, not a tin flute, but you get the drift. If you're wondering how you can sup

One thing I love about both music and books is that a song is always new to someone who's never heard it. A story is always new to someone who hasn't read it. Our art can be new forever, because there's always going to be someone who hasn't listened to this album or read that book. This is on my mind today because I'm listening to Vivek Shraya's album 1:1, which was released ten years ago. It's new to me, because I'm listening to it for the first time. https://vivekshraya.bandcamp.com/album/1-1 If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my news

My partner and I walked past an umbrella tree today and it brought to mind this children's TV show. I tried describing it to him, but my description was, "There was a lady and she was a human, then there were was a blue jay puppet and another puppet that was... I don't know... a chipmunk or a gopher, maybe? And I think something else. And that's all I remember."  I tried to sing the theme song, but I didn't get too far. I looked it up as soon as I got home, and here we are. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail su

My partner and I were supposed to do the Terry Fox Run this weekend. My partner has only missed 3 years since the run started and, despite the fatigue that hits him particularly hard every morning, he wanted to keep up his tradition. I think it was particularly important to him this year, since it's a run to support cancer research and, as you know, he has cancer. Well, as it happens, my partner decided this weekend was the perfect time to set up a bunch of tents he had in the basement just to make sure they weren't full of holes, etc. Once we'd set up tents in the backyard, I decided I wanted to sleep in one. My partner told me I was on my own, but that's fine. I'm not afraid of the backyard, even though we do get skunks and coyotes around here. So I slept in the yard. I enjoyed it. Except that I slept on top of the cushions from the outdoor couch and they kept sliding apart from each other, leaving my already troublesome neck unsupported. I thought that would

My partner took me to another Dwayne Gretzky concert, and it was so much fun, just what we needed. It's amazing to spend 24 hours a day with a person for months and be so focused on illness, and then to go on this date and it feels like a DATE. It feels like getting-to-know-you when we've actually known each other for decades. It feels romantic and wonderful. At every Dwayne Gretzky concert we've been to together, the band has performed their excellent cover of this song. I'm featuring it today because my partner loves Paul Simon, and he loves this cover. Hugs and kisses to my lil sweetheart. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy s

I actually do own a pair of blue suede shoes. I am reminded of them today because I'm wearing the socks they accidentally tie-dyed. Now, don't be thinkin I'm fancy, or that I'm a hardcore Elvis fan or anything. The reason I have blue suede shoes is that they were $15 at the shoe outlet where I shop. ( Check it out if you're ever driving aimlessly around Whitby, Ontario.) I make clothing purchases based almost solely on price. Although, when it comes to shoes, I also take fit and comfort into account. I'm big-time into Clarks, these days. They take good care of my feet. But my blue suede shoes are not Clarks. They're the shoes I wore outside when the lawn was wet. And my socks? They're the baby pink ones my sister gave me that say "Wake" on one foot and "Up" on the other. They're very cute. However, after wearing my very cute socks with my blue suede shoes on the wet lawn, my very cute socks are now covered in blue suede splo

My partner's fatigue is getting worse by the day. I've written about this before, but it just keeps happening. Somehow, we expect him to feel better, even though his oncology team assured us the side effects of radiation would get worse after treatment. It really is amazing how much we didn't listen, or didn't believe them, even though they've seen thousands of cancer patients. One thing the medical professionals all say is that everybody's experience with cancer and treatment and recovery is different. They can give us an overview, but they can't give us exact dates when my partner will get his tastebuds back, or stop sleeping so much, or when his radiation burns will heal completely, or when his mouth sores will go away, or when his throat will stop hurting. I'm so glad one of the professionals on his oncology team told us not to be surprised if one day feels a little brighter, then the next day he's back in hell. That has definitely been happe

I could have sworn this was already a song of the day, but my research shows it was not. I don't think it's relevant to anything; the song just popped into my head a couple minutes ago. I was about to call my partner "my pet monster," but I didn't think he'd get the reference, and I figured he'd probably find it insulting, being called a monster. Or my pet. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so hopefully I can make a little pocket change when you buy stuff by clicking through  my affiliate links . I also recommend subscribing to my newsletter. I generally e-mail subscribers with a weekly update, and I would LOVE to have you on the list.  Click here to sign up:  http://eepurl.

I've had a couple of horrible migraine days lately. My migraines are triggered largely by changes in the weather, but I don't think staying up half the night to clean the house and get some work done helped. The funny (not actually funny) thing is that I stayed up so late to work because I knew my partner would be driving into the nearest city to do a big grocery shop. He said he could do it himself because he didn't want to take me away from all the work I'm catching up on. He lives in the tiniest town. There's only one food store here and it is miniscule.  Because of his cancer treatments and us spending so much time at my place this summer, we haven't stocked up on food at his place in months. So I wanted to come. I wanted to buy tart shells.  Last weekend I bought local fruit from a farmer here in town (so, yes, there are alternatives to the tiny food store) and I'd prepared tart fillings with these beautiful fruits. I'd even gone so far as to mak

Until today, I'd only ever heard this song on the radio. Listening to it with headphones, okay, I'll admit: they are definitely singing "Pour some sugar on me."  But without headphones? Hearing this song through the speakers of the circa 1992 clock radio I keep in the kitchen?  They are definitely singing, "Welcome to my face." In fact, all my life (well, okay, starting in 1987, when this song was released), I have always heard those lyrics as "Welcome to my face," knowing full well those couldn't possibly be the words. Until shamefully recently, I knew there was a tremendously popular song called Pour Some Sugar On Me, but I did not know it was this song. Welcome to my face, everybody! If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  wo

I guess it's almost midnight as I'm writing this. My intention was to stay up and work after my partner went to bed. Instead, I've been cleaning the kitchen. We pretty much spent the entire summer in the city, since that's where my partner had to go for cancer treatments. When we were able to come home (to his home--to his house), we didn't have the energy to clean. So we didn't. So we spent this week cleaning, as much as our energy levels allowed. It really did take the entire week to clean the house, and that's pretty much all we did. Here's the thing: the spiders have taken over. When we got home, there was a spider living under every stair. There's a spider that lives beside the microwave. That's his home. I don't dare kick him out. There are spiders pretty much everywhere in the bathroom.  This is their house now. I have a friend who said she had a pet spider. It was just a normal spider that came to live in her bathroom, and

There was a full moon recently--a blue moon, in fact--but I didn't see it. We were still in the city that night, but you can't see the moon from my apartment and we didn't have the energy to leave my building.  A stark contrast to the previous full moon, which we went out in search of.  We learned, at that time of night, that we had to walk down the street behind my building until we got to the first cross road.  From there, if we stood at the corner of the sidewalk, we could just see the moon over another apartment building. There was a satellite dish somewhat in the way, but we could see it. A stark contrast, also, to the night my partner woke me at 2:30 in the morning and brought me into the backyard to watch the shooting stars.  If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour o

My partner's oncologist warned us that recovery from radiation therapy wouldn't be straightforward. "You might have a good day, and then the next day might not be so good." I'm glad we got that warning, because that's certainly how it's played out. A couple days ago, my partner got a phone call from a friend. He told the guy, "I think I've turned a corner today." He had more energy. We rode our bikes to the post office! Sure, it's only a six-minute ride, but that's the most exercise either of us had gotten in weeks. The next day, he was tired again. And today he's very tired. He got up early to put out the garbage, but he was back in bed not long after. It's almost eleven in the morning as I write this, and he's still asleep. I go in and check on him every so often. He's sleeping sweetly. He looks like a child, all wrapped up in himself and hugging a teddy bear. The cuteness is an improvement, I have to say. Dur

I just had this random memory of a time when my partner and I were first going out (well, staying in, more like).  I was actually working a job outside the home at the time. It was only a two-week gig, but I'm used to the freedom of a writer's life.  My partner was always on my mind. I thought about him obsessively, like a teenager. I felt young again.  It was amazing. The job I had was out by the airport.  Since I have a terrible phone plan with no data, I would run over to the hotel across the street and use their wifi to send naughty emails to this man I was so wrapped up in. I always wanted to be in his arms, but the best I could do during those daytime shifts was think about him and email him and crave him like candy. Now I sleep beside him every night. Often I feel lucky to have this incredible person by my side, but sometimes I miss that spark of the beginning stages of a relationship. I wish I knew how to maintain that through cancer, caregiving, and life in general.

This little music blog of mine was on hiatus for nearly two years. I brought it back to life just as my partner was about to start cancer treatment. The doctors kept warning us that it would be hard. Every aspect of his treatment and its side effects and recovery would be extremely challenging. And they have been. It seems pretty stupid to start up a lost blog when I've got all this stuff (in addition to my own chronic health issues) to deal with. Why heap the responsibility of daily blog posts onto the stress of cancer caregiving? Because I knew it would help me to write to you every day.  Writing helps me, generally. I've been a professional writer for the past 17 years, and most of that time I've funnelled my own personal experiences into my fiction and non-fiction. But I haven't been doing much of that, recently. I've written books, but they haven't been very personal. The last book I wrote that was intensely intimate to my own lived experience was Delta

I found a pair of theatre tickets when I was shuffling through a drawer today. We go at the end of the month, if nothing medical comes up.  My partner and I had forgotten about these tickets. His siblings bought them for him as a birthday gift. Feels like centuries ago. We were supposed to see this play in May. As it happens, an exploratory surgical biopsy was booked for precisely that day. Back when his siblings bought those tickets, we didn't even know he had cancer. Luckily, the theatre company had no trouble rebooking our tickets for a date months in the future. We thought we'd have breezed through treatments by now. And, while we are done with radiation for the moment, I wouldn't say the process was a breeze. My partner is in the recovery phase now. He needs to do a lot of healing before his oncologist can even check to see if his treatments were successful. So, while it's entirely possible (even probable) that we'll be able to use those theatre tickets

I'm lying on a bed with my head propped up on a couple pillows. My knees are my highest point. My legs make triangles with the mattress. My laptop is on wedged between my belly and my thighs. This is how I work, because I'm constantly dizzy. The dizziness is a result of my migraines, which are never far from shore. They leave me with the dizziness, even when they cast off. I can't sit up for long. The dizziness brings me down to earth. So lying on a bed is my accomodation. It's how I spend my days. Sometimes life feels futile, but often I'm grateful that I'm able to connect with you, even from this low point where I spend so much of my time. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help me hugely. I'm also an  Amazon Influencer,  so

Okay, so I finally went to the emergency room. My partner took me there. We arrived at 9 at night. We left at 3 in the morning. It was exhausting and at the end of it, all I know is that I'm not likely to die right this second. There actually weren't too many patients waiting to be seen, and because it was the middle of the night there were a fair number of young children and babies. I have warm feelings toward parents who can't wait until the doctor's office opens to find out if their child's fever is life-threatening. We shared a waiting room with a mom and her toddler, who looked to be about my granddaughter's age (did I mention that I have a granddaughter now?) and who was very nearly as cute as my granddaughter--which is really saying something, because my granddaughter is officially the most adorable kid on the planet. Around two in the morning, the child in the ER waiting room said to his mother, "Wan go home." I was thinking, "I'

When you get to a certain point of illness, there's nothing else you can focus on. That's where I'm at today. I can barely string these sentences together. It's taking all my energy to type these words, and I'm typo-ing a lot. My health is atrocious. I'm in terrible pain. I'm still taking care of my partner. I still haven't gone to the ER. I'm scared to go. I don't want to leave my partner alone. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. I don't know why I chose Singin' in the Rain as our song of the day. I do feel rained on, but I'm definitely not happy about it. I did enjoy watching the dancing in this video, though. It gave me four minutes of distraction. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (most are for adults only!) or check them out from your local library.  Supporting my  AudioErotica  endeavour on  Patreon  would also help

My health has been terrible this week. Truly and genuinely terrible and awful. Every night, as I go to bed, I think to myself: I should be in a hospital right now. Why am I not in a hospital right now? The pills my doctor put me on had terrible side effects. I've felt like I was going to die for five days straight. I haven't died yet, and hopefully I won't. We'll see how this all plays out. My partner has this theory that life is irony. I never used to take care of my health. I never used to see a doctor when I was sick. Now I finally start being a responsible adult human, and the cures are going to kill me. Caregiving when you feel like you're about to drop dead is a lot of fun. You should try it some time.  Actually, wait, I got that backwards... What I meant to say is that I wish someone would airlift me out of my life right now. If you're wondering how you can support me in bringing you songs and anecdotes, the easiest thing you can do is buy my books (mos

It feels like ages ago, though it's only been a matter of months: my partner drove to his hometown to attend a high school reunion. I was at my apartment, and I was sitting on my bed with the window open, just like I'm doing right now. I could hear music wafting in from outside, and I went to the window to investigate. Turns out there was a mommy-and-me concert going on in the park across the street. The one-man-band (okay, just a guy with a guitar) sang a few kiddie songs like "The Wheels on the Bus," and then he sang Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard. Seemed like a funny choice for a kids' concert, but my partner is a huge fan of Paul Simon, so I texted him about the guitar guy playing this song. He texted me back to inform me that he'd just walked into his former high school's auditorium and there was a husband-and-wife musical duo performing for the reunion crowd.  They were currently singing "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." I

There are so many things the doctors warned us about, but we didn't understand until we did understand. Radiation burns. We were warned this would happen. My partner's oncologist told us to treat his skin as though it were badly sunburnt right from the beginning. Even before it got red, we were treating it with lotion three times a day. Well, the thrice-daily treatments are a little more intensive now. One of the nurses at the hospital taught me how to treat my partner's burns. Another nurse informed us that, at this stage, he probably has second- or third-degree burns, and they will get worse over time.  Before my partner started radiation, I didn't really know much about it. You hear about chemo more than you hear about radiation. I was surprised when I learned that your hair all falls out at the radiation site. I was even more surprised when I watched it happen--all in one day, pretty much. His hair fell out in my hands as I was treating his skin. Radiation is no jok