Thanks to everyone! I am finding getting out of the house to be a reasonably good way to re-energize. John and I have been doing day trip driveabouts. Last weekend we ended up down in Naples, NY which is known for its grapes - wine and eating. That's part of Finger Lakes wine country in western NY. We don't have mountains on this side of the state, but the enormous hills caused by glaciers definitely reminded me of Brokeback Mountain, so in a way, it served as a pulse check and it did determine that, yes, I am still obsessed, but in an evolving way. I did my Friday errands with country & western music coming out of the XM Radio in the car, which is also an absolute sign that BBM changed me because prior to that, C&W music to me was like garlic to a vampire.
The downside to that music is that the themes in it remain hardly uplifting. In one afternoon, I got to deal with lyrics about a mother passing away while trying to comfort her daughter (as she had done throughout her life), a young man who impregnated his girlfriend at 16 throwing away his entire life and career (and ending up driving a truck and cheated on her in a truck stop), a man who saw his own childhood that slipped away as he watched his son play, a relationship post-divorce and, papers in hand, what that meant when compared to the early days of the relationship, etc. No wonder Jack cried. In the immortal words of Shirley: "Cut that music off and put on something with some soul in it up on here."
Seriously, that is the big downside to the C&W music.
