Leigh M. Johnson

I really dislike the designation “best friend.”  I can’t entirely explain why but I’ve always felt like it’s an impossible-to-determine category.  What makes a good friend the “best”?  The time you’ve known each other?  The experiences you’ve shared?  What you’ve given or sacrificed or provided for one another?  Is it about quality or quantity?  Is…

I have a whole complex theory about breakups, the first and most important axiom of which is that breakups hardly ever “take” on the first time.  As a rule, if you’ve been in a real relationship with someone– meaning, first, that you’ve invested a significant amount of time and emotion into the relationship and, second,…

First things first, if you don’t know the story of that Vancouver Kissing Couple to the left, one of the greatest stories and images of the last decade, read about them here. Love and Revolution are two of my favorite things. Picking my favorite “make-out song” violates more than a few of the Don’t-Get-Too-Personal rules…

I’m really glad I was born at a time that allowed my life to span two millennia.  I sometimes think about my historical counterpart 1000 years ago.  She would have been born in the latter part of the 10th century, when the world was dim and dark and governed entirely by authoritarian power.  She would…

Let me just begin with the plot-spoiler for today’s post: I do not love 80s music. In fact, there is very little about the 80s in general that I even like, much less love.  And I have almost no nostalgic feelings for that decade at all.  I don’t like big-banged, hair-sprayed hair.  I don’t like…

Ahhhhh, the 70s.  Among many other things, it was a great decade for babies.  Including and especially yours truly.  I was born the same year as the Roe v. Wade decision, so that just goes to show you… errr, umm, well … I don’t know how to finish this sentence. That’s me in the picture…

Perhaps the only thing more difficult than picking out a single “favorite” song from an entire decade of music is trying to broadly summarize that decade for these accompanying posts.  The tumultuous 60s, sometimes reactionary and sometimes revolutionary, marked one of the most dramatic periods in American culture, not only musically but socially and politically,…

As I said back on Day Four of this challenge, my picks for the last three days can pretty much be taken as mix-and-matchable.  All three suffice for all three of this week’s categories so far: a “song for a sunny day,” a “song to drive around town with your top down” and a “song…