Snow days

That's the view from my bedroom window. It's been snowing here for the past few days and everything has sort of come to a stop. I live on a rather busy street and it's been pretty silent for the past two days. No one from our office has gone into work and I've only ventured out once to buy some noodles to make vegan mac and cheese and to get this little pegasus from Kyrgyzstan from a travel bookshop that had holiday stuff on sale.

Celine cries over The Man Who

I drew this a long time ago and had it sitting in drafts.
My hair is longer (about shoulder-length) now. Just wanted to clarify.

The Man Who by Travis (1999)

I love Travis. I'm fairly certain I've seen them live more than any other group (I've even met Fran, Andy, and their keyboard player Claes after one of their shows and Fran signed his name and drew wings on the back of my shirt. Pretty awesome!) This is my favourite Travis album and I've listened to it consistently since I was in college. I love everything about this album: the production, the arrangements, the artwork (and the artwork of the singles).

Favourite tracks:

- "Writing to Reach You" - Once in a photography class we had to do a project where we had to take one photo for each word of a 7+ word phrase of our choosing and I chose "Everyday I wake up and it's Sunday". No one in the class knew the song.

- "As You Are" - Another of my desert island discs.

Christmas Time Is Here Again

I love buying gifts for people, but for some reason this year for Christmas I've been more successful at finding things for myself. I tend to call all purchase I make for myself during the month of December "Christmas presents for myself" (much like all purchases make in August are "birthday presents for myself"). I usually leave all of my Christmas shopping until the last minute anyway because I get excited and want to give the gifts right away. I basically have no self control where gifts are concerned (or in general, really).
Oh! And I also managed to get my hands on a copy of the vinyl of the Wassailing Song, which I'm super excited about! I've been listening to it non-stop!

Dinosaur days

Work has been pretty slow lately. Probably because most people have sort of checked out for the holidays. I've made a lot of paper snowflakes (some with dinosaurs on them) to decorate our office and have been drawing a lot of dinosaurs. It makes it look like I'm busy with paperwork when I'm not.

Wear Me Down

Guess who's sick again. Or possibly still, since I may not have every really gotten over pneumonia from this summer. So basically I've been feeling worn out all the time and haven't been working full days (edit: which my work has been super jerky about. So apparently it's fine for everyone to take a million years off for the holidays, but when I work from home in the afternoon because I'm sick, it's a big deal. Sorry, I just had to include that rant here, because my work is making me crazy and bitter.). It's also been super cold lately, although it might just be that I'm cold all the time because I'm sick. The last several days have involved a lot of blankets, a lot of listening to music, a lot of reading, and attempting to do Christmas shopping online.

Celine cries over Crow Sit on Blood Tree

Could it be? Is it already time for another installment of Celine cries over music? (I haven't been up to much lately and I'm home sick with a cold, so despite my earlier intention to spread these out so that people wouldn't have to deal with my gushing over music too often, I don't have anything else to post about.)


Crow Sit on Blood Tree by Graham Coxon (2001)

As difficult as it was to choose one Beatles album, it was possibly even harder to choose my favourite album from Graham's discography. If I'm honest, I could write a post for each of his albums (and who's to say I won't...). But this, if not consistently my favourite, is always a contender. I can't even properly articulate what it is about this album that makes it a favourite. On the whole it's rather melancholy and quiet, although there are some rock-ier numbers. It just feels honest and sincere, which is what I love most about Graham's music. He always seems to mean it, if you know what I mean. And the guitar playing is, of course, awesome.

My top tracks (without commentary because I've already gushed enough):

- Empty Word (This is one of my desert island discs. I love everything about this song. I love the lyrics; I love the slow build from the quiet start to the rock out at the end.)
- Big Bird
- Bonfires