I almost forgot

Since I was all mushy in the last post, time to get superficial. This is one of the favorite things in my room:

The painting is from Home Goods and I added the U2 lyrics using scrapbook letter stickers painted black. I wanted some sort of artwork using a U2 lyric but could find nothing. After narrowing down my favorite lyrics from 20ish to 5ish, I knew it had to be this line from "Mysterious Ways." Then I found the painting and it worked perfectly. Now my days are lifted and my nights lighted up every time I walk in my room. 

Friday Soapbox: U2 Edition

Time for another happy soapbox post. For the past two weeks I've been listening to U2 pretty much non-stop. I've been making note of my favorite lines, because that's just what I do. Thus I present a non-exhaustive selection of some of my favorites. No promises that all the lyrics are correct as it's practically a guarantee with me that there will be a misheard lyric or two. Or ten.

After the flood all the colors came out
Beautiful Day

Love left a window in the skies, and to love I rhapsodize
Window in the Skies

If your way should falter, along this stormy pass
It's just a moment, this time will pass
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

Lift my days, light up my nights
Mysterious Ways

If you want to kiss the sky better learn how to kneel
Mysterious Ways

I found grace inside a sound, I found grace it's all I found
Breathe

Free at last
They took your life
They could not take your pride
Pride (In the Name of Love)

Where you live should not decide, whether you live, or whether you die
Crumbs from Your Table

Can you see the beauty I had inside of me?
What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?
City of Blinding Lights

Baby slow down, the end is not as far as the start
Please stay a child somewhere in your heart
Original of the Species

I believe in the kingdom come, when all the colors will bleed into one
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

You've got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
Running to Stand Still

I was speeding on the subway, through the stations of the cross
Moment of Surrender

I know it aches and your heart it breaks and you can only take so much
Walk On

And if your glass heart should crack and for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk On

How long must we sing this song?
Sunday Bloody Sunday

Every generation gets a chance to change the world
I Know I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

Can you hear me when I sing
You're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me
Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own

The worst of us are a long drawn-out confession
The best of us are geniuses of compression
Cedars of Lebanon

And many, many more...

"If people are interested in magic, then we're up for it...the spell that can occur when a band and audience really connect." (Bono)

Last weekend I went home to North Carolina for the U2 concert at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh. I bought the tickets in April and can't believe how fast it got here, and that it's already gone.

I've said it before, that I think for the most part I've grown more tolerant of other views, except for when it comes to U2. I think this is because I connect to their songs on such a deeply personal level. The best word to describe it is visceral, which is how my friend Jan described it after we saw them in concert in 2005. There are certain lines, notes, guitar riffs, and Bono solos that just inspire and pull at me unlike anything else. I very rarely let my guard down or let something sweep me away, but when I listen to their music, I barely notice anything or anyone around me. Which when you're in a stadium with 60,000 other people, is a big deal. It was a practically-perfect show and I hope to repeat the experience many times in the future.

The spaceship stage. (Amid the regrettable sea of Wolfpack red. Ugh.)
Mom and me.
Opening - Breathe.
Video screen expanding.
Close-up.Bono.
A blurry Edge and Bono, acoustic Stuck in a Moment...
Ultraviolet (Light my Way) and an attempt to capture the coolest mirror/disco ball ever.
Sunday Bloody Sunday - green for Iran.Thanks, boys.

Highlights:

• Improvised Amazing Grace and Lean on Me
• Acoustic Stuck in a Moment...
• The point where Bono took an audience member's political banner and began singing a hymn, before tossing his microphone to the guy and letting him sing, which he did very well, before tossing it back.
• Anytime any of the band members moved around on the bridges and around the stage.
• Mom really excited the first time she saw The Edge

Lowlights:

• Drunk guy beside me who fell on the row in front of ours, then stomped on my foot, kicked over our drinks, and kept trying to sit in my seat.
• Drunk couples in front of us, one of whom kept rubbing on her friend's husband, before later also falling on the row in front of her.
• Seriously, too much Wolfpack red.

How could I forget...

The most happiness-inducing thing right now...new U2 album on Monday/Tuesday! (Press is saying Monday, but Amazon, where I pre-ordered it, is saying Tuesday.)

I like to think, that for the most part, I've grown more tolerant and respectful of other people's views. Except for those who don't like U2. Seriously, if you don't like them, fine, but I have no interest in hearing about it. Same goes for those who like Eminem and Duke. And milk, I will just never understand the appeal of milk. (The beverage, not the man or the movie.)

Anyway...so so very happy about that. Even though I'm less than impressed with their first single, I don't think my boys would let me down.

One man come in the name of love

Given my last post, how I spent my Sunday is going to seem a bit hypocritical. For starters, my wardrobe consisted of: 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 3 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of gloves, and 1 floppy ear hat.

So did I partake in ice fishing? Skiing? Dogsled racing? Not hardly. Especially as participation isn't exactly my thing, but being a spectator is. Which is why I spent the afternoon on the National Mall watching the We Are One concert.


As much I've been complaining about the people and hassle of this inauguration, I would be a liar and a tool if I tried to deny how amazing it is to be in the midst of it. The whole town is consumed, somewhat begrudgingly at times, but there is an irrepressible energy that is impossible to ignore.

Even more so when you have the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, James Taylor, Garth Brooks, and, of course U2, performing just for you and several hundred thousand of your closest friends.

It started with the walk down 17th from the metro, where the presidential-elect motorcade sped by us, and I could see Michelle Obama in one of the limos! The people ahead of us identified the Bidens in another limo, but all I saw was Michelle. (Not her limo in the picture, though.)


We made our way through the throngs of people, and merchandise hockers by the dozen, to the security lines, flanked by porta potties and protestors. One protestor had a very Pit Preacher-esque placard describing different types of sinners. I, sadly, fell into several of the categories, including "sports watcher" and "drinker." To be fair, though, it is basketball season so I'm doing a lot more sports watching than usual, and thus there is a bit more drinking than I might usually do on a Wednesday night or Saturday afternoon.


Moving on, the roommate and I arrived about two hours before it started, and after walking beside the frozen reflecting pool for a bit searching for the perfect spot, we found one on enough of an incline that we could see over people's heads...to the jumbotron partially obscured by a tree limb. By the time it started, the cold had made its way through about 3/4 of my layers, but it's hard to care when you have a military band drumming and choirs singing and amazing act after amazing act performing for the crowd.


And by the time I couldn't feel my nose and my sore back was causing me to stoop like an old lady, the president-elect came out, and I finally, finally, got to hear him speak in person. And for a few minutes I forgot all the rest. And then I stopped being cheesy and he stopped talking, Beyonce came out and we started the long walk back to the apartment, made all the more difficult when you can't feel your toes.


Yep, just another Sunday.

Oh, U2

U2 Confirms Appearance at Inaugural Concert

This is going to make it really, really hard to maintain my plan of avoiding Tourists by not leaving my apartment this weekend. How do I balance my supreme love and utter devotion for all things U2, with my intense hatred of people? Which is of course amplified times ten when they are en masse. Yet another prime example of why I need to get my hands on a giant hamster ball.