Stoned with Difranco

I'll admit.. I didn't do my homework. But then this particular session wasn't wholly 'ordinary' by any standard.

Still, I'd have gotten around to Ani Difranco soon enough.

Every rebel without a cause needs a powerful, angry voice to sing her anthem. I've found more such singers and anthems than causes, in my life. There was a time when Alanis' violent rants would sum up my entire existence. I'd like to think that I've grown since then. Of course, I haven't.
Ani Difranco is the Alanis for your late 20's.

Tiptoe is the kind of slap across the face you need in the middle of a good day. Because however stubbornly pro-choice you are or you aren't, does anything mean anything when you're standing at the edge, whatever the view might be? Grant yourself a single moment of honesty, will you at least then accept that you don't know?

Asking too much.. is just that. This is the answer to the world's most abused question - "What do women want?" She splits the list quite neatly into the 'impossible, he'll never get around to it' and 'just very simply fucking listen!' - and it's the latter that is so often so forgotten..

if you hear me talking
listen to what i'm not saying
if you hear me playing guitar
listen to what i'm not playing
and don't ask me to put words
to all the silences i wrote
don't ask me to put words
to all the spaces between notes

And then the big one tumbles out..

in other words i want someone
who's not afraid of themself

Yeah, I'm probably asking too much.

Not a pretty girl is your typical mad feminist rant. Break through the stereotypes, destroy the preconceived image of the 'fair maiden', and question the disgusting idea of a 'damsel in distress'. But it's beyond just that. People (and not just men, mind you) who can't figure you out feel the need to first fix you and then place you in a box. A box that they know and understand, and are perhaps, not threatened by.

don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up

How bloody true.