"It's times like these when the temperatures freeze/I sit alone gazing at the world through a storm window."

The Song: "Storm Windows," John Prine. Words & music by John Prine. Track 7 of Storm Windows, 1980; Track 7, disc/cassette 2 of Great Days, 1993.
How/when acquired: Purchased LP (Storm Windows), 1981; purchased cassette (Great Days), 1993.
Listen here.

So what if you're not a country music fan? If you can't find something to love in John Prine's music, I don't think we should be friends anymore. I saved my babysitting money to buy this album, which I think I still have. (My LPs are stored in a cedar chest that currently has a shameful pile of laundry on top of it. I could check, but it would mean doing something about the laundry.)

My CDs are alphabetized by artist, but I could just as easily arrange them according to my checkered romantic history. Quite a lot — maybe even most — of my music collection, especially from the early years, is a direct result of trying to impress/communicate with/understand the object of my affections at the time. I was a geeky, broke teenager who grew up to be a geeky, broke adult. I could not dazzle boys with clothes or makeup or fancy hair, and never cared enough about sports to be the Jock Girl. I could spend five bucks (later eight bucks, later 14 bucks, never mind) on their kind of music.

At the risk of embarrassing an old friend, I'll give Art Coulson credit for introducing me to John Prine. Art is a good writer and a citizen activist and a fine, upstanding family man; you should hire him for all your media needs in the Upper Midwest. Thirty years ago, though, he was a skinny kid with a guitar and a smart mouth. I thought he walked on water. If he loved John Prine, so would I, and 30 years later I still do. So thanks, Art.

The thaw over the weekend melted much (but not even most) of the snow central Maine got while I was away. Temperatures dropped again the other night, and now all of Gardiner's side streets have rivers of ice along their edges, where Dizzy and I usually walk. Dizzy's claws usually act as his own version of Yak-Trax, but even he slipped this morning. All he hurt was his pride, but I pretended I hadn't seen it. Dogs are sensitive that way.