Well, well! How mischievous!

"[This Blue Heaven] secretly embrace Nihilism through the seductively catchy guitar keyboard combo good drumbeat sweet vocals thing they've got going... look, if you don't want to see the truth of what TBH is laying down, YOU'RE the one that's gonna suffer the consequences."

Catch the whole hilarious episode HERE and become a FB fan of Welcome To The Terrorfoam HERE!  


p.s. I LOVE our foam dopplegangers.  Foamlegangers?

Farewell banana chocolate smoothie with 2 espresso shots...

I've decided to give up Starbucks for lent.

No, I am not Catholic.  And I've never observed it before.  But there is something about a practice built so firmly into the changing of the seasons that really appeals to me.  I hope I won't offend anyone by borrowing lent.  (I'm going to meditate more, too!)

I've kind of had it with winter, in spite of my very best efforts to embrace what it offers me.  Other parts of this country are starting to thaw, people even have their jackets off - I can feel it on the edges of my consciousness, their reveling in the sun and in snowdrops starting to poke boldly out of the ground.  The smell of the ground warming up.

Here, I'm still making excellent use of my awesome, warm, waterproof Keens; but meanwhile I'm feeling stir-crazy and even a little stuck.  And my shivering muscles never seem to fully unclench.

So.  I'm starting a flavor-syrup-free journey today that ends on April 4th - a new season.  (I know.  It'll still be snowing in Boston.  But it will technically be spring.) Spring, a season of:

short sleeves
warm bicycle tires
tulips
baseball games
cherry blossoms
soft mud
lilacs
rain
earthworms
buds
skirts
picnics
magnolias
walks
bunnies
open windows
cleaning
robins
pale skies
e.e. cummings poems

and now - iced mochas!

Till then, I wish all my favorite baristas a good six and a half weeks!  (Honestly, Starbucks employees are the ONLY cheerful people in this town.  Especially on Ames St. in Cambridge and Arlington Center.  It's uncanny.)  I'll try to think of a good use for the bucks I'll be saving!

The End

So... it's not that I have nothing to say about love, creatively or otherwise.  I just realized I feel shy about posting the things I've been thinking about love, lately.  Protective might be a better word.  For now.

But I hope your Valentine's Day was full of sweetness.  Like waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.

Here is one thing I know for sure about love:  It's what I'm doing here.

I don't know about you, but I pretty often ask myself, What am I doing with my life?  It feels so short and there are so many options that I feel an urgency to always have a good answer to that question.

Well, approximately five years ago, I made a conscious decision to learn how to love.  At the time I think I used the verb "remember" in place of "learn" because I remembered being a really loving little kid, and feeling a kind of overflowing at different points in my life.  I made it my New Years Resolution for that year.  But of course, it's not a static lesson.  Like everything most worth doing, it can never really be done.  So I just keep renewing it every year.

Our new producer Paul Q. Kolderie explained production like this:  You keep asking "How can this be more awesome?" until you can't possibly make it any more awesome and then you know you're done.

I'm pretty sure love never stops getting more awesome.  So, that's what I'm doing with my life.  Learning love.  Everything else is to that end.

Intermediate between the divine and the mortal

Once upon a time, probably on a Saturday much like this one, a bunch of hungover guys sat around at one of their houses.  They'd planned to do more drinking again that evening, but through the mysterious and democratic dance of masculine decision-making, they somehow all agreed - without anyone looking lame - not to get wasted that night.  They'd just have a drop or two...for the taste.

No love can survive muteness

I have only ever truly fallen in love through (good) (honest) conversation.


I have only ever become truly heartbroken through its absence.

I think that's probably enough of an introduction to today's group of writings.

Never blame, whatever I wished it were

Oh reading these amazing words is making me want to write and write.  That's a good thing and not only because of Sunday's project.  I had the utter inexplicable honor of giving my very first reading (both poetry and a story excerpt) at the same podium in the same room on the same day for the same event as today's poet.  Marilyn Hacker.  It seems a different life, now.  It was.  I had won an award from the English department at the University of Kentucky and was invited to read; she was at the university for something Women's Studies-related and was invited to read at our awards ceremony.  She was just incredible.  She read her poems as if each word were a piece of exquisite candy in her mouth.  Afterwards, I approached her with shaking hands and she - miraculously, graciously - gifted me with the copy of her book she had read from (bookmarks and all)!  The inscription included the words "I know I'll be hearing about and reading you soon."

The one thing stronger than desire

My absolute favorite of all writers who write about love is Jeanette Winterson.

She writes so truly it's impossible to think she hasn't been in love.  And heartbroken.  And in love.

I think that's the most I can do to sum it up, so I'll just hand you over to these pearls.

The only gold

Today's love entry in preparation for Valentine's Day is going to be FULL of good words on love (and lyrics if you're ambitious enough to look them up), because last night I made VALENTINES!

I have not managed to do this since 2001, so yes it absolutely warrants all caps.

Having succeeded at last, I've decided to share with you a one-time-only very special offer of

The This Blue Singer Valentine-Making Tutorial!

That looks on tempests and is never shaken

If you were around for my Christmas blogging, you already know that I believe in holidays.  Yes, yes, they are - all of them! - blown out of all proportion by commercial greed.  And with the bombardment of commercials, candy, and plastic junk in drug stores, they become the measure by which your life is lonelier or emptier than you wish it was, much the same way that supermodels become the measure by which your body is flawed.  But at the core of any holiday is a motif of the human psyche worth celebrating.

And so, in the spirit of celebrating the epic riff of romantic love, I have decided to share some of my favorite words about love with you over the course of this week leading up to Valentine's Day.  My hope is that revisiting these favorites will inspire me to finish some piece of writing (poem? lyrics? prose essay?) on love to share with you on Sunday.

Introduction, check.  So without further ado...

Worcester Mag Interview Outtakes

In anticipation of our show in Worcester tonight, Worcester Magazine interviewed us for an write-up.  Understandably, the article was limited to the key information about us and the show.  


But for me, answering some of these questions was a good way to think through and articulate what it is like for me to be in This Blue Heaven, what it is we're doing.  


So here are some of my answers: