Little Earthquakes - 20 years Later

or: I Married Tori Amos 20 years ago... and We’re Still Happy 

It was 1992. I was just a teenager who felt like an alien. She didn’t care. She watched me sitting there in my parents’ basement, saw my purity hiding behind glasses and a peach-fuzz mustache and decided she was going to take it. It was time. I was ready.

Or so I thought.

Up to that point, I had no real experience with music. I had one friend who was introducing me to The Cure and New Order, but I was still largely ignorant. 

Tweet

Little Hell & Lava Enlightenment: Part I, The Secret Life of Life

Tungurahua Volcano "Little Hell" in Banos, Ecuador

Upon first arriving in Ecuador, Aaron raised an eyebrow, assuring me, “We’ve completely missed the tail end of wet season. I really did time everything perfectly.”

After a grueling seven hour bus ride on a bus fit for elves, after mile upon mile of twisting roads up and down hillside and mountain, after children trying to sell us necklaces and iguanas on the roadside...

Tweet

Press Play! - The Soundtrack to the novel ABOVE THE UNIVERSE BELOW

There are endless amounts of music consumed and digested during the writing of a novel.  ABOVE THE UNIVERSE BELOW was no exception. Thus, I've edited the playlist below as the soundtrack to the story. The songs aren't arranged musically but chronologically to novel's scenes. While I lean towards explaining how each song relates to chapters and events, I'll just let the soundtrack should stand on its own.  All you have to do is press play!

Enjoy!                               (you can view the printed playlist after the jump.)

Tweet

The Secret Life of Life: The Animal Catalog

Do you want a lion? Everybody wants a lion.

No.

A dolphin?

Maybe—the choices rushed through my childhood mind—You know what I want?  I want to lie on the back of a whale in the middle of the ocean while I look up at the stars.  And spiders.  I want tons of spiders. Herds. I always had a thing for spiders.

My brother—who in childhood resembled a cheetah, with long skinny limbs, eyelashes that could harvest wheat and hair in perpetual decision between blonde and red—thought I was crazy. 

Tweet