A Cold Quiet Plea From A Girl Named Go.

Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth.

Halfway Home & Back Again.

December is one of my favorite months. The preparatory month for a long cold-bitch winter. Music can be the only source of true inner-warmth for weeks on end. Music is crucial.

Right now I've got a few songs that are hitting heavy in the December repertoire...

Cold War Kids, Audience of One
It's off their latest EP and it's phenomenal. The piano chords alone pound desperation into my chest let alone the lyrics and their dizzying beauty. So basically, this song beats the crap out of me.

Hem, Half Acre
Again with the piano, but it's softer in this track though...like the first snow, and the quiet excitement that moves you nearly to tears. Sally Ellyson's voice lays the imagery delicately with references to Michigan that cuts straight to my core. Throw in the glockenspiel and I'd call that a perfect song for the season!

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Home
Whistling! A tricky way to intro, but they pull it off only to top themselves numerous times throughout the song. It's adorable, honest, and makes me ache for a home like that someday.

Whiskeytown, My Hometown
It's like a bad accident and you can't look away. It's the raw truth of a no stoplight, barely-scraping-by town, and I am sure this reality hits close to a lot of people these days.

Pinback, AFK
This song makes me hold my breath to the very end, and with the final stanza let out a long sad sigh.

Devendra Banhart, Baby
...Mistletoe, anyone?

John Mayer, Perfectly Lonely
I contradict myself. Cheers to all the singles of the season.

Rogue Wave, Lake Michigan
Perfect track to wake up to on that long drive back home for the holidays. Roll down your windows 'til you can't feel your face and know home is only a handful of miles away.

Matt Costa, Darling Be Home Soon
A personal attachment to this song, especially during the holidays.

Great Big Sea, Home For A Rest
A Canadian handshake to the holidays. This is coming home, ragged & worn out. In need of repair, and revival.

Sufjan Stevens, To Be Alone With You
Because I would swim across that Lake for you...

Gillian Welch, One More Dollar
Another bare-boned hopeless song reminiscent of the skeleton trees that line the roads back to familiarity.

M. Ward, To Go Home

Get ready, your heart's going to break about as fast as this guy can strum his guitar. A whispered lie, guised as a promise, hidden in honesty.

Joshua Radin, The One You Knew
The Catch-22 of the Holidays in regard to torn love affairs. You go home knowing full well that,
1) You will both be in town again.
2) You are both going back to your respective new cities of residency.
3) It hurts every time.

Daisy May, Radio
May ranks high as one of my most beloved songwriters, and friends. She's got Lake Michigan in her veins and the soul that shines in her voice is unsettling. Her music is relatable, and heart wrenching.

If you haven't heard, hear.

Catching Twenty-Two,
Hb

watered down colors...December series.

sleepless sorrow

there's a spider in my window
and it's hiding from the smoke
of a distant fire burning
in a memory i now call home.

curtains hang worthless above my head
a makeshift screen from the world made from an old lovers bed
out of the sheets we laid on tangled and over-exposed
both fully knowing we'd be better off in our clothes.

and the month has shifted into the darkest shade of gray
it's harder sleeping when night starts in middle of the day.

but the drugs don't work
& the whiskey's too strong,
i can calmly say we've changed
for both good and wrong.

there's no going back
to that place i can't say
because it's easy to leave when there's no where to stay.

this is how i became: naive/heart on my sleeve/easily deceived.

home is where:

i leave my purse unattended,
sit on public toilet seats,

&

without looking

cross busied streets...

have friends that pick me up
with wilting flowers & a sign,
knowing that i can love love love,
no matter how much or little time
i have to say
i'll stay & call you mine.


michigan has taught me bad habits,
i chase dreams like
foxes chase rabbits

& leave my passport on tables,
and doors unlocked

trust strangers with my bag of mess &
know the backroads when m-22 is blocked.


home is where,
it's always warm
i'm always known
i'm always half-grown.

and with cold cheeks
& only two too short weeks


i hope we can rearrange
this county like the romans to the greeks.






(i love you leelanau.)

foul weathered foes i never needed to know.

my thoughts have become unoriginal

unfinished paint-by-number portraits

that will never move anyone.

the way my mind can

take even the brightest of colors

& make them rain-soaked gray

is suffocating.

but this body is not my own anymore.

these bones clank awkwardly against each other,

knobby knees and hips that forgot their sway

next to a pile of old letters back Home

toss & turn through the night.

& with bit tongue and split lips

i spit teeth and words out of a mouth that

does not remember what it's like to kiss

an honest person.

(of all the foul weathered foes

i never needed to know

is the one i've created

in a mirror,

made with smoke.)

it sounds like spring but feels like winter.

i just don't know

anything or myself

guess i'm drowing in dust

on this too far to reach shelf

& self-preservation

has become more like self-destruction

and no one understands

how hollow i've become...

you tell me 'don't run',

you tell me i'm fine,

but you haven't been listening

this entire time.

(it's not a lie when i say i'm falling behind.)

dangling.

i hang on your last word

like a noose,

and if this is love

i pray you'll cut me loose.

lately i've been feeling low

lower than i thought i'd ever go,

and lately i've been ten new shades of blue...

but maybe,

just maybe...

if you tell me that you'll save me

then i could finally stop myself from wanting you.

run on.

fall flavored whispers & wishes of winter kisses on foreheads of long lost lovers turned into true friends under covers forever for better and better but wonder why the silence is draining all hush hushed complaining complying all the time trying to see above the trees stop the tears and start flying start falling it's love and it's calling out names of the past just don't look back for too long 'cause all that was familiar is now simply gone.

all exits look the same.

bags still packed & eyes like lead

in a strange place in a stranger's bed.

it's not me under those sheets

she's long gone now.

southbound train & pouring rain

swore i'd never come here again.

didn't leave a note or make a call.

hell, i didn't leave a trace.

no, i didn't leave a trace.

it's a mile of burning pianos

& you've gotta play to put out the flames.

it's a sea of faceless bodies

and no one will ever know your name.

it's life when you run away

from all your beautiful mistakes.

it's big city blues,

& they can happen to you,

just when you think that you're safe.

vagabond blues

so this is the way it feels

to have a heart full of dust.

collected over miles

of highways,

goodbyes gone sideways,

& looked over lust.

i'm foreign to skin.

i only talk when i must.

honestly, i think

my entire soul has started to rust.

watercolors

two recent two not so recent works.

the golden month.

the sun is lower, gold & glorious.

illuminating all the things that remind me why this month makes every inch of my soul

sigh with relief.

promises are dipped in honey.

smiles framed with flowers, and maple leaves.

i wish i could live in september forever.

camp in the mountains.

dance with stars in my pockets.

...simply breathe in fall...

i think i may just do that.

unraveled.

all this time i've wandered
waiting for the answer
to fall out of my mouth.

cement me where
i should be,

north/west/east/south.

but life hasn't been one
to take me by the hand
& show me where to go,

it's more like a flooded river
and i'm moving opposite of the flow.


my memories are a mess of misses,
guesses & goodbyes,

and my presence is a reminder that truth
isn't as pretty as lies.


moving has me
so distant from



myself


taking all the roads less traveled,




& i'm untied from a lot of things,
but now all i feel is


u
n
r
a
v
e
l
e
d
.

kicking myself!

Yesterday our little tribe went to a big family hang out.
I LOVE Matt's family.
It's big, and there is just a love that is palpable.

We spent the day noshing on good foods, playing with the kiddos, & shooting cans with an air soft gun.

It was just a perfect Sunday.

but,
I forgot my camera
&
I am kicking myself because there were so many great photo ops..

Ahwell. The memories will suffice.

We hope you all had a lovely weekend with your loved ones as well!

xo

Oh, & if you have a moment, could you click that little box that says "Vote for the Hux"?
That'd be AWESOME!

cloud-poisoning & current events.

clouds come and go

like melodies

from guitars

held by boys that only know

how to move from town to town

and awkwardly offer there arms

for an evening,

a moment,

a chance at something bigger.

better.

shinier.

the big apple has a hook in it so don't be fooled.

my cheek has already been pierced.

that's why i stopped singing.

dancing.

clapping for the boys with their easy songs.

easy words.

easy eyes that make it hard to look away.

but it was dark in that smoky bar when i met you,

& you never would have asked me to stay.

holding your breath dizziness.

this is the awkward silence,
pregnant pause, 
waiting room nausea...

when you know what's coming,
& you asked for it. 

this is over your head
in the middle of the lake
not knowing how to swim.

self-inflicted heartache at it's finest.

this is reverse magnifying glass.
the big fucking picture.
grand finale of what never was going to be.

and there is no surprise,

but still you feel cheated.

you still argue it wasn't a fair shake.
you cling to the what if & or but....



aren't you dizzy
because Christ, kid, i am.

Barbiturates & Tinfoil Stars.

and for you I'd
suck out the sea

re-write the maps/
re-right the wrong roads
that took us too far too fast
blurring our past, and



running away from our Prince
just to kiss toads.

we were meant for more than that, you see...


like the battle between
reality vs. beauty.

indeed i'd,
remove every inch of rhyme from
million-miles-of-ribbon time

cut the Atlantic into threes
change perspectives & tides


all i am saying is
that this distance is trying.




but surely,
soon the coffee stains will
once again be left in
beds unmade.


let our unslept lighted heads
do all the talking instead.

with hair that stands for
so much more than
a freedom speech for an already won war,




& simply all it takes is two hearts
filled with gold dust covered birds and an ache for more

[...]




as slowly as honey
from a barbiturate bingeing bee-hive,

our words will combine
like pulling fishing-lined tied tinfoiled stars from the skies,


and as Truth destroys lies,

we will show them
what we mean when we say,





'but, we are Alive.'

to you & your world back home.

i'm slipping.

yea, i think this time
it's safer than ever to say
i've lost my grip,

and i am not going back
on that road...


it costs too much.
takes too long.
hurts real bad,


& just plain feels wrong.


so i pull a match out
from one book of the places
i knew in my past,

light & exhale the bitter swirls
that once intertwined the ideas
you and i had...

in a shitty bed
in an even shittier house

that i'd never consider home.


(i could never consider you home.)

(not if the world or my words depended on it.)

tasty tattoo ideas.