Five Things And 13 Surprise Songs

Some odds and ends including a final surprise song wishlist

I turned 32 this month. Or what I’ve dubbed my “last Taylor birthday” for quite some time (the next Taylor lyric we have as of current that mentions an age is “Mary’s Song” … when I’ll be 87 … and then 89). 

The days leading up to this year’s birthday felt, and looked, like the crumpled bonnet of a car post-accident. A chaotic filigree of minutes, hours, days that were crushed together in a high speed case of automobile vs tree. I’ve experienced dramatic emotional zeniths and nadirs over the course of the last six weeks. Depending on the moment, it was hard to tell if I was the car or the tree. Crashed or crushed. 

Here are five things I’m thinking about a lot, including my shot in the dark Top 13 surprise songs I’d love/hate to hear on this final run of half dozen dates we have left of this incredible tour. 

13 surprise songs. Six more shows left of this tour. The accordion fold of time and how it bends. Wasn’t Glendale just last week?! All that’s left is the second weekend of Toronto dates and then this tour careens off to sing its final swan song in my very own backyard of Vancouver, Canada. These are the songs I’d love to hear most: 

1. Tim McGraw 

2. Sad Beautiful Tragic 

3. Come In With the Rain 

4. Breathe

5. Dear Reader / The Manuscript

6. Question … ?

7. Chloe et al 

8. Fresh Out the Slammer

9. Eyes Open 

10. Dancing With Our Hands Tied

11. Come Back … Be Here 

12. New Year’s Day

I sadly had to be a (slight) realist and took some heavy hitters out. I’m talking about the likes of “Daylight”, “loml”, “Cold As You”, “evermore”, and “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”. Namely because of their recent rotations during the surprise song set. *clutches chest* 

The best travel blush. I grabbed this one in my most recent Sephora haul (in the shade Fox). The tiny packaging, colour payoff, and ease of application has been a travel slam dunk for me. Now to pick another colour … Or three. 

I understand fall now. I’ve been through a few seasons of life, recent birthday pun intended. It wasn’t so long ago that I abhorred summer (for reasons that could be their own essay) and I never really understood fall. I was also so confused when my fellow “basic” girls (may we know them, may we love them, may we be them) would tout the superiority of fall as a season. As a Pacific Northwest girl, fall always sent me into a slump. In Raincouver, but for perhaps a brief two week window in September, fall really just translates to the kickoff of our wet season. An endless onslaught of rain that doesn’t end until May or June. If then. But wow! Travelling for the Taylor Swift Style book tour through October (especially the stop in Boston, which stole a piece of my heart forever) I feel like I actually got to experience the true season of fall for the first time ever. The briskness and the very pleasing snap in the air. The leaves. The gentler light of the sun. The cozy drinks and food. Is this what I’ve been missing?! All this time?! WOW! 

📅 Book Tour: Psst … Did you know I still have four tour dates left? Details + RSVPs below!

Taylor Swift Style: The Book Tour

eBooks have helped my vocab. If you know me I was at one time a staunch anti-eBooker. “I need my books to be made from paper,” I would often gripe. But now? The ease of an eBook has changed my life. So many books in one convenient package, for one. But mostly because I typically read at bedtime and a book that has its own glow that won’t disturb my sleeping husband (yes, it still makes me smile to say) and that I can easily read while laying on my side have been paramount. But the biggest +1? Highlighting words to get their definition. Did anyone else used to just … guess … what a word you didn’t know might mean by inference from the sentence? *slowly raises hand* A recent one I came across? Vicissitudes. It means “a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant.” Apt. 

There is always good. Perception changes everything. My capacity for hope, optimism, and strength balance on a knife’s edge. A wayward breath, an incidental vibration, a minute tectonic shift of the earth can send things askew. I’ve never been known to wear such a mercurial mood ring as I do now. Lately, I’ve been making space for harrowing, bottomless grief. For unspeakable anger and disbelief. But mostly, ultimately, for an unshakeable belief in good and the fight for what is right and just. Anyone else feeling that way? I’m not typically one for poetry, but these / two poems have been immensely comforting in the last two weeks. “Her diminished size is in me -- not in her” and learning how to “praise the mutilated world” were arrows to my heart. Thinking of you all and all the good there always is. 

I suppose I really am still growing up now. Aren’t we all? 

Plus five things for you I’d love to hear about in the comments:

• Your dream surprise song mashup? 

• What are you reading right now? 

• Please rank: Waffles vs pancakes vs french toast. 

• What do you love most in the person you love most? 

• What’s a “vocab” word you’re into?