It’s one of those magical nights where I am in the mood to go play Frisbee in the parking lot of my high school. Or wander around the Boston Public Gardens. There are some people familiar with this mood I find myself in from time to time. It’s the mood that makes me want to paint a red bird in charcoals in my kitchen even though I’ve never been able to draw in the past but do it anyway. It is the mood I get in when I write letters to friends I haven’t talked to in years. It’s the mood when I want to write a novel and read a book and catch up on my National Geographic and listen to a new band all at the same time. Channeling this mood is hard. I usually end up doing something completely uncharacteristic and yet all to characteristic of myself. I write some poems, I take some photos, I add a page to my novel, I read the National Geographic cover story, and I stick my fingers in some paints.

Tonight, because I am too antsy to cut and paste pages of a magazine into a meaningful collage, I will instead write you a list of my favorite music artists. I feel like this information is constantly changing, and this information may be different tomorrow, but for now it is what it is.

1. As always. Forever. James Taylor and I are one and the same. His voice soothes me to sleep, gets me excited about summer, fall, winter, Christmas, and spring, and reminds me that sometimes you’re homesick, sometimes you cry because something is sad, but that everybody has the blues.

2. Third Eye Blind is a band I can never leave behind. With lyrics like this?:

And I would say that Im sorry to you
Im sorry to you but I dont want to call you
But then I want to call you cause I dont want to crush you
But I feel like crushing you and its true
I took for granted you were with me

I can’t be anything but loving. Their concert evoked in me emotions I didn’t think possible all in one night.

3. Lifehouse. It’s a band I’ve always loved without always knowing why. I have seen them multiple times in concert, and I feel like they make my soul dance and my heart shimmy around. I can cry, laugh, dance, love, and lust while listening to Lifehouse. They remind me of B, of L, and of home friends that I will never, ever, ever forget. They remind me of cottage nights on a lake somewhere far away where the sky is full of stars and hopes and dreams.

4. Better than Ezra I think holds the record for my all-time favorite song. I’ll leave you to figure out which one it is. (I got a little bit of reason to everything I’ve done…)

5. Apparently it’s cliche and juvenile to love Jason Mraz as much as I do, but his music is the base of most of my crazy moods. His voice moves and slides and melts and freezes and pauses and I feel organic as I create my own grooves around his intricate lyrics, melodies, harmonies, and key changes. Jason, I’m yours.

6. Sara Bareilles. For multiple reasons. Because “Between the Lines” is the song that describes something so real, raw, and something so close to home that I will never forget the first time I heard it, and how I felt, and where I was. And because her songs make me sing along until my voice is hoarse.

7. Sarah McLachlan. She’s Canadian. We’re on a Sarah kick. She reminds me of moving across the country. She reminds me of my mom, of my BFF L, and of all the times before and after I became the new girl again. I will remember you…

8. Train. And Pat Monahan’s single CD. Because I am a gemini-capricorn, and because if I ever find truth, I’m going to let you know. Every song that Train sings makes me giggle, smile, and stop in the mall/car/grocery store/restaurant/hallway/real awkward party living room and text my BFF. And that’s something I want to sing about.

I like lists that are not so organized, and because of that I will stop with 8.