Seymour

I get oddly attached to some inanimate objects. It's a problem, really. I can't help but personify the items I use daily, attributing them with traits until they seem to possess feelings as real as my own. This makes it strangely emotional when the inevitable happens and they are lost, replaced, or outdated.

Changing computers is one of the most difficult of these object transitions. Affectionately dubbed Seymour, my now six-year old Dell desktop computer has been both loved and cursed throughout his well-utilized life.

His arrival in my life was a complete surprise. I was in seventh grade and the technological age was dawning. Teenagers growing up in the early 2000s were rapidly joining the digital age and everything, academic and social, was going digital. I was spending more and more time on the family's old computer, even in the now unthinkable dial-up days.

Mom had just begun a new career and was making some money of her own. Even though she's always had her only child tendencies towards selfishness, she loves surprising people with big gifts. She definitely doesn't mind spending money.

I woke up that Christmas morning to find Seymour sitting in the living room in all his brand new computer glory. At the time, he was pretty up to date with his flat, sleek screen replacing the mammoth monitors common at the time. Of course, I was totally surprised and overjoyed.

During the next six years, a lot would happen to me as I sat in front of Seymour. It was there I typed all the papers and did all the research and created all the school newspapers that came to define me in a certain way. I sent all the IMs that kept me in touch with old friends and brought me closer to new ones. I discovered new books and music, troubleshooted all of life's problems, read the news, connected to the world.

I grieved when he crashed and paid copious amounts for his repair and restoration unto me. The computer, in earning his human pronoun, became an integral part of my life. It's amazing how computers become so precious, preserving the carefully typed thoughts and work, captured memories in 'My Pictures,' painstakingly composed playlists.

Perhaps Seymour's most important role was keeper of my college and scholarship applications. On his screen, I first saw my Carolina acceptance letter, the magic words defining the rest of my life.

So I can't help but feel a little bad sitting here typing this on my sleek and shiny new university-provided laptop. Seymour's blank screen across the room looks neglected, archaic. Though he's pretty much useless now--virus ridden, memory full, impossibly slow, something about putting my fingers on his home keys feels like home.

Okay, okay. I'm being incredibly silly. I know it's just a computer, circuits and wires incapable of feeling lonely or anything else. But maybe, sometimes I will fire him up. Just to feel better.

Goodbye Seymour. I'm sure I'll grow just as attached to this computer in good time.

Lipstick Feminism

A cupcake dress can be misleading. A candy-cotton scented auditorium filled with girls wearing cherry printed short shorts, bright red lipstick, blue wigs and bare mid-drifts can give you the wrong impression. Sugary sweet pink decorations, trimmed in lollipops and gummy bears and poofy-skirted back-up dancers might make you think Katy Perry is just another air-headed poptart of a musician.

But she isn't. Underneath the Willy Wonka aesthetic and shimmery sequin wardrobe, there's a message. Katy's kinda political.

Some parents might be outraged as their children sing "Are you brave enough to let me see your peacock?/Don't be a chicken, boy, stop acting like a beeotch/I'ma peace out if you don't give me the payoff/Come on baby, let me see/what you're hiding underneath." But hundreds of male musicians produce entire albums about coaxing the clothes off "shorty" and leaving if they don't get the "pay off." Katy's one of the few women who are singing about getting guys to drop their pants instead of the other way around. Why shouldn't women be allowed to embrace sexuality like the men? While she prances around on the stage in a purple leotard and peacock feathers, Katy's not-so-subtly telling women they can play the boys' game. Maybe ten year old girls shouldn't be saying "beeotch," but they are empowered, allowed to embrace what the men have always been allowed to express.

A lot of Katy's songs have feminist undertones. "Pearl" is pretty blatant; it tells the story of a girl repressed by a commandeering man who eventually learns to break free. "Circle the Drain" tells off a deadbeat boyfriend more interested in drugs than his girlfriend.

I like Katy Perry because she can sing about being your own strong woman while wearing a shiny tight catsuit. And pull it off. You don't have to choose between being a pin-up "teenage dream" and a feminist. Katy Perry is both without even really trying.

She may have kissed a girl just cause she loves them so much.

This Is Country Music...And We Do

I'm not a redneck by any stretch of the imagination. I wouldn't be caught dead in a cowboy hat or boots. I don't drink, smoke, or drive a pick-up truck. I don't hunt or ride horses or live in a trailer park or any other stereotypical redneck thing.

Really, there's only one country thing (except maybe Cracker Barrels) I really like: country music. My ipod contains twangy country tunes with banjos and steel guitars amongst "cooler" music ranging from 80's rock, today's pop, and singer songwriters.

I never really could explain why I like musical genre that so enthusiastically sings about many things I hate like Hicktowns and illiteracy until I attended the Country Music Association's Annual Music Festival.

The fact the festival even exists is a testament to the uniqueness of the country music community. All of the artists play for free, and it's the big multi-platinum selling ones offering their services out of sheer appreciation for the fans who bought all of those millions of albums. All of the proceeds go to a charity that puts instruments and musical programs in inner city schools. Even though I'm not a huge fan, Taylor Swift summed up the cool thing about CMA Musicfest. As she closed the show on the final day, from the stage at the center of the big football stadium, she pointed at a moderately priced seat to the right of the stage: "when I was 15, I sat right there and watched this show, and now I'm up here thanks to all of you."

No other genres come together so cohesively like country music. No matter what song any of the performers sang, every single person (80,000 or so strong) knew all the words and shouted them with complete conviction. Country music fans are simply country music fans, not just following one or two artists.

But really, the greatest thing about country music is that there are real gems hidden among all the redneck anthems. If you dig past the mudflaps and boondocks and Daisy Dukes, you find songs that speak to the collective human experience. I came to that realization while James Otto talked about his writing of "In Color," a song about reflecting on life through photographs. He explained how he reflected on his grandfather's stories as he turned the creaky pages in his black and white photo album while writing the song: "A picture's worth a thousand words but you can't see what those shades of grey keep covered; you should've seen it in color."

I couldn't help but think of the photo albums we took from her house after my grandma died. They chronicled her life, in black and white. They told stories we'd never get to hear from her now and reminded us of the ones she did share with us. We truly couldn't see what was behind that grey smile as she perched on the hood of some car one summer in her youth. James Otto and Jamey Johnson captured all those feelings deep down in me that I didn't even know I had.

Isn't that what good music is supposed to do? I've never felt that way about a Lady Gaga song, no matter how much her fans think I'm silly for watching a devastatingly unattractive (seriously, look at a picture of Jamey Johnson) man pick guitar strings and sing his life story to a very drunk crowd, but I'll defend it to the day I die.

Tim McGraw sings "Some say it's too country, some say it's too rock-n-roll, but it's just good music if you can feel it in your soul." I think a good song is one that makes the listener feel something, the emotion oozing out of every syllable, every note. A song that transmits the experience of the writers and performers straight to all the open ears taking it in. I think Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" is one of the greatest songs every written because it can make a person feel so utterly lonely even when surrounded by loved ones. It's just that powerful to me.

So maybe I'm not a redneck, but country music isn't just for rednecks. It's for anyone who has found peace in their childhood homes, left home or missed their adult children, or just learned from life's mistakes or simply living.