Tag Archives: hanson

Running on Empty

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Dark clouds March 26

There is not much lately that does not overwhelm me.

Housework? Check. Oh me oh my, check.

Parenting? At one point in the past week I determined I don’t deserve another child. I am not doing a good enough job with the one I have.

Marriage? I feel sorry for my husband for having to deal with me like this.

TV commercials? Books? Thinking about how I don’t have enough pictures of Libbie hanging on the wall? Enough to turn me into a blubbering mess.

The concoction of early pregnancy, early toddlerhood, and quitting an antidepressant without weaning (due to sickness) has made my emotions more violent than I have ever known them to be.

I never knew I was a very angry person until recently. Perhaps I’m more aware of it with Libbie watching every move I make. I flip out at people who drive, in my opinion, like morons from the Planet Zergoff. I can’t seem to muster any calm when Libbie insists on hitting me in the face. (Would happily take any advice on how to make this stop, as we have tried many forms of discipline with no success.) I throw clothes across the room when they come out of the dryer with grease spots still clinging to their fabrics.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
       do not fret—it leads only to evil. –Psalm 37:8, NIV

Be still, my soul.

I know that I am not the most emotionally stable person in the world, but right now I feel like Satan’s taken a grip on all my fears about this baby, about parenthood, about our current situation and I cannot seem to shake him.

See, this post started as something cute and completely different. But I will confess this is the post I’ve been wanting and yet dreading to write for weeks.

I need your prayers. I need time to bury myself in Scriptures and inspiration and kisses from Libbie. I need your forgiveness if I am not blogging because really, there are other important things. I have felt so half-empty that I barely have any words to put together.

Be still, my soul.

I love you, dear ones. Thank you.

And I have to leave you with these old-school Hanson lyrics. Because I know you love me enough to tolerate them.

Dark clouds all around, lightning, rain pouring down
Waiting for the bright light to break through
Face down on the ground
Pick us up at the lost and found
We’ve got to change our point of view, if we want the sky blue

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The Hanson Chronicles: On the Road

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I really, really wish I had pictures to accompany this post. I know they exist somewhere, but of course in nondigital format and I honestly have no clue where they might be hiding.

So you’ll have to settle for this hideous picture of me and Cynthia, doing who-knows-what in her room, in 2000 (we were high-school seniors). I spent a WHOLE lot of time in that room.

In the summer of 1997, Cynthia introduced me to a little band called Hanson. A severe obsession formed that lasted years. I’ve written a little about it here.

Hanson had the nerve to wait an ENTIRE YEAR from that time to go on tour. At the time it seemed like forever. When it finally came around, Cynthia, my sister, my sister’s friend, my DAD, and I trekked it to Manassas, Virginia and actually got to sit in seats, for which we were very proud. I am pretty sure my dad read the newspaper during the concert, surrounded by a gazillion screaming teenyboppers.

I have a document in my scrapbook entitled “The Life and Times of Jessie and Cynthia at the Hanson Concert.” Yes, I was 16.

Later that summer, we stumbled on the fact that Hanson was coming to the great Commonwealth of Virginia again, and there would be an online presale–THE NEXT MORNING. Cynthia and I rushed along, securing a credit card from my dad, permission from parents, money from our best friend Elise; and we nearly dropped dead when we also secured seats in the FIFTH ROW at the Virginia Beach venue.

Elise and me, circa 2001

We stayed up the entire night before and made gifts for Hanson, and delivered them to the stage at the concert along with a giant card we were sure would get their attention. And cause them to propose on the spot, perhaps.

The concert, though the same set, was quite different from the fifth row, where we could see what was going on. Eschewing our Hanson shirts for sexier attire, we tried to seem mature while screaming our lungs out and panting like dogs–at the “hotness” of the vocalists as well as a result of the swarm of young women surrounding us.

It’s a very happy memory.

I went on to see Hanson in concert once more, in Richmond, in 2000. While fun, it was never the same. I just don’t love the music they do now, as much as I want to. And the fact that Taylor has four kids kinda freaks me out as he is younger than I am.

By the way, I’ve also seen The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, LFO, and Joey McIntyre in concert. There’s your laugh for the day! :)

So, what was your favorite band in high school? What’s your favorite concert memory?

______
This post inspired by a prompt from Plinky, which asked, “How far have you traveled to see your favorite performer?” While this isn’t the farthest I’ve gone for a concert (I took my then-boyfriend/aka Mr. V to see his favorite band in North Carolina one year), it’s definitely a more entertaining and involved tale. Thanks, Mary, for the link to Plinky!

A Minute Without You

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This post is definitely going to scream “I was a major dork.” Was? Hmm, debatable. I no longer care about being a dork, so that makes it a little better.


Mr. V and I were in the car on the way to St. Louis this weekend. I had just been talking to my sister, Ashley, on the phone. I’ve been having major homesickness lately. Not for any particular place, really, because going “home” to Richmond isn’t exactly an option now that Mom and Dad aren’t there. But for my family. I told Ashley I was thinking about our Hanson days. Yes, the band Hanson, the ones who sang Mmmbop (and yes, that is one of the worst songs ever–however, they DID have other songs! Which were good!).

Some of my best memories are of being in the car with Cynthia, going to pick up Ashley and her best friend Deborah, and them sitting in the backseat of my 86 Plymouth Reliant singing and doing hand motions to “Sure About It.”

In the years before Hanson, Ashley and I were not friends. She was in middle school, depressed and angry, and I was in high school and therefore infinitely cooler than she was. When we both got into Hanson, however, we had something to share. We spent tons of time with my best friend Cynthia being ridiculously silly, watching MTV and taping every single time the “Where’s the Love?” video was on MTV or VH1. Why? Beats me!!! But it was fun.

After I had talked to Ashley on the phone, Adam and I were talking about radio singles and how the best singles are usually around #3 or 4 on the CD. I told him that Hanson’s best single on the CD that I remembered all the tracks was #5 (“Where’s the Love”). I was positive I could remember all of the tracks on Middle of Nowhere in order.

You would not believe how much I listened to that CD. I think for about 2 1/2 years it was the only Hanson CD out and I wore that sucker out. For a long time I listened to it every night as I went to sleep. I remember at one point Ashley and I were in the back of our parents’ van coming back from King’s Dominion and we tried to sing the entire album in order. Needless to say, at the time, it would have taken me ten seconds to list of the 13 tracks. I came up with 11 of them pretty easily. The twelfth came much slower but did come later that night (“Look at You”). But I could not for the life of me come up with the last track. I could not believe it! It wasn’t until tonight when we got home that I discovered it was “Yearbook.” Who would have thought?

I have to say I miss the Hanson years. It was fun and it kept me out of trouble. Yes, I am probably storing an unusually large amount of lyrics in my head where I could be putting useful things, like the style manual for work and any bit of American history. You probably are too–just a different band.

Love to my Hanson girls–Cynthia, Elise, Ashley, Alena, and Deborah.

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