Benny & Bjorn, take me away from all this

The ultimate comfort food is actually music. This may sound like blasphemy coming from one of the original members of the fatty club, but I proved it true last night on the drive up to Denver. After feeling yicky all week, I ended up leaving class early because I just needed to get out. I actually felt like I was having a nervous breakdown at school, and Shelly looked at me and said, "You're depressed, aren't you?" and it confirmed it for me. I was/am. But as soon as I got in the car, ABBA Gold went in, and I was thumping along with "Waterloo", "S.O.S", and "Knowing Me, Knowing You." I forgot how magical their powerhouse vocals are. How driving, almost Broadway-esque the melodies can be. And how for just a moment, I was in the small house in Anderson I lived in when I was six, wearing corduroy overalls, a matching striped shirt, and yarn holding my hair into two ponytails.

When I was a kid, I wanted to marry Cat Stevens, but I wanted to be Frida. The dark haired one with the honey voice, with the big bear of a husband, Benny. I always thought Bjorn was too skinny, and Agnetha was unnattainable- soprano and blonde. Things would have worked out perfectly if I had been the dark-haired Swede, married to the swarthy, curly haired British Muslim. We could have made beautiful music together. My soft Scandanavian accent brushing lightly against the grainy texture of his voice, singing together on "If I Laugh" or "Bitterblue." Dang it.

In other news, I'm hanging out in Common Grounds, a coffeeshop on west 32nd Ave in Denver, just killing some time on a sunny Friday morning. About an hour ago, a guy walked through the front door, and seemed to be mildly familiar to me. I kind of stared at him, until I saw he was staring at me in exactly the same manner, and then broke off my gaze. However, he approached me after setting his stuff down at a nearby table, and asked me if he knew me from somewhere. Turns out, his name is Wes and he regularly came in my Starbucks in Speedway, and even saw Kate and I perform at the Broadripple Starbucks in Indy last fall. I'm here in town today because she is performing at the Common Grounds downtown tonight. Talk about a small world. It got even smaller when he sat down and told me he is now living two blocks from where she is, and then we talked about how disillusioned we both are with the church these days. Another Brother! They're frickin' all over the place. And they're all fed up. What are we all going to do? Shelly and I may join a cult.

Well, I'm gonna take off. I think I may go check out some guitars and some people.

Peace in the middle east.