But fire thought she'd really rather be water, instead.

[butterflydreaming]

Don't flirt with the server, even if you don't mean anything by it.


This is a Tori-philic post.


One of my favorite Tori Amos songs is "Cooling", but I've never understood it as well as, say, "Bliss" or "Silent All These Years" or even "i i e e e". There has always been something that I just wasn't quite getting.

Well, the last few weeks, Tori's voice has been the second whisper in my mind, as soothing as the hug of a well-worn stuffed animal. She's been singing me the live version of "Cornflake Girl", and she's been singing me "Hotel". And this morning, at just after 6am -- as I was combing my hair -- she cooed "Cooling" to me. And I had a sudden, total burst of understanding.


Maybe I didn’t like to hear
But I still can’t believe speed racer is dead
So then I thought I’d make some plans
But fire thought she’d really rather be water instead


This is not the venue to go into detail of what I understood, but it was such an odd thing. As if this song, this "girl" as Tori calls her songs, had been waiting years for me.


And peggy got a message for me
From jesus
And I’ve heard every word that you have said
And I know I have been driven like the snow

This is cooling
Faster than I can
This is cooling
Faster than I can


Like Dido's "Hunter", I can see the story of it. It's like a copy on a trasparency, shifted just off from my life and my own experiences. I want to write it. I'm afraid to write it. Because it would hurt.


So then love walked up to like
And said I know that you don’t like me much
Let’s go for a ride
This ocean is wrapped around that pineapple tree

And is your place in heaven
Worth giving up these kisses
These, these kisses


I've said before that Tori owns me. She does. I will buy any of her music that I can find, even if it's a choice between paying for something that I need (like lunch) or the CD. Yet I don't read interviews, and I've only been to two of her concerts. I didn't even know that she was expecting (big news) until after Scarlet's Walk came out, and she had been a mom for a while. Because it's Tori, the artist, that owns me -- not Tori, the person. So maybe, it's the girls who truly own me.

"Silent All These Years" was the first song that I heard. I bought Little Earthquakes, and then I took it back (and exchanged it for Annie Lennox's first solo album). And then I went back a while later and bought it again. (And have bought three or four more copies since, to give.) I used to weep every time that I heard "Winter".

My relationship to the songs has changed over time. I don't tire of them, but one or another becomes more prominant, or less sharp. I don't cry at "Winter" anymore -- I feel brave and strong. "Icicle" used to make me feel wicked; now I just laugh. I've heard all the songs so many times, but I don't know the lyrics by heart; it's as if, for me, they are constantly changing.

I don't believe in soulmates. But my soul moves to her frequency, as if... my origin is in the same soil, and something in me thirsts for home.


And peggy got a message for me
From jesus
And I’ve heard every word that you have said
And I know I have been driven like the snow

This is cooling
Faster than I can
This is cooling
Faster than I...

This is cooling
This is cooling
This is cooling
Hey, yes
This is cooling