Mike and I are huge fans of satellite radio: I've really fallen in love with listening to the radio all over again. It's been like a rediscovered a first love. Back when I was a teenager, I'd listen to the radio for hours on end. I'd flip between stations, eager to hear something new, something different. I don't remember ever being disappointed. This was back before the days of rigid playlists and what I like to call repetitious radio: hearing the same song every two hours like clockwork. Radio back then had a more renegade feeling, I think, an exciting, you-never-knew-what-song-you'd-hear-next sort of freewheeling sensibility. Maybe I just didn't know any better at the time, but I felt like I was getting new music I wanted to hear on a regular basis.

Before we got satellite radio (and we've had it for years now), I had gotten to the point where I didn't really enjoy turning the radio on any longer. Sure, I listened sometimes because I felt like I had to keep tabs on who was doing what, to keep an idea of trends in my mind for my job, but I can't say I found it fun. Rather, it was an exercise to be done for work. For someone who has been a major music fan for as long as I can remember, that was downright depressing to me. But satellite radio changed all of that.

I find it has filled a void in my music-loving soul. I love to put on my favorite CDs or turn on iTunes on shuffle on my computer as much as the next person, but there is something wonderful about having someone else doing the programming for you. Currently, there are two companies offering satellite radio services -- XM and Sirius -- and both have many, many channels as part of their service -- and they'll be merging eventually. There are multiple channels that appeal to me, and I love the sense of freedom in the programming, so vastly different from the too-tight playlists found on commercial stations. I hear several songs back to back that I'd never imagine I would, yet they work perfectly well to my ears.

Since it's a paid service, I don't have to be bothered that much commercials on the stations I love. I can flip among them and just hear music -- as much new music as I could possibly want, old favorites, things I'd never in a million years hear on current commercial radio stations. And, as a publicist who works with many developing artists, I find that the opportunity to hear music that wouldn't be heard otherwise to be one of the best parts of satellite radio. It is giving many hugely talented artists a place to be played, as they should be. It gives people a chance to hear them and to fall in love with their music, which is perhaps the best part of all.

Remember those shiny plastic balls we used to play with when we were little? You know the ones – they’re about the size of a basketball, they cost a few dollars, and the grocery store always seemed to have a big display of them in the summertime. You bounce them and they make that wonderful “poing” sort of sound. There would be all different colors available, but one year I got one that was multi-colored – yellow, blue, green, purple. I’d play with it in the driveway for hours.

Well, recently, I was listening to a CD, and in the midst of one of the songs, I remembered that plastic ball. I know, the two seem completely unrelated. But the music was giving me this wonderful “buzz” that comes from discovering something really great, and it took me back to being a kid in the driveway again. I’d bounce that ball, and, in the moment when it was highest in the sky, the colors would swirl and shift and almost seem to come alive as the sun caught it. This many years later, sitting in my office, I realized why I like what I do so much.

Music, when it clicks for me, brings me the same unfettered joy that the best toys do when you’re little. When music moves me, it shifts and swirls, higher and higher, sparkling in the sky. As music fans first and foremost, we all get that moment of magic when we hear something we really love. Not many things in this world can duplicate that childlike buzz of discovery great new music can bring.

Do you ever lose track of how much room you take up? Your body, I mean. Being so tall, it's not like I walk around, day in and day out, thinking to myself, "Wow, I am so tall." I forget. I forget that my inseam is a good 8 inches longer than average. I forget that my torso is longer than most people's until I try on clothes and things which are not supposed to be belly shirts are too short on me. I forget how long my arms and legs really are until I hit them on something (I am a complete klutz).

Yes, I lose track of how much space I take up. This concept relates to both things I wanted to mention today.

The first happened Wednesday night. Mike and I went to see Joe Jackson at a theater in the city. AMAZING show -- it was the third time I'd seen Joe live and he does not disappoint. And he didn't even play my fave song of his ("Real Men") but that was okay because the rest of it was SO GOOD! So I was minding my own business. Waiting for Joe to go on. And I felt a tap tap tap on my shoulder. I turned around and this extremely short woman behind me asked me to not sit on my coat because she couldn't see over me.

I was like, "What?" I said to her I wasn't sitting on my coat and that I was very tall. I scrunched down as far as I could, but that quickly became uncomfortable during the show, so I sat normally for the second half of it. Frankly, it was her bad luck ending up behind me and I tried not to feel too badly about it. I often end up with one of the five people taller than me at a show directly in front of me, so I know what that is like. But my jeans were in direct contact with the upholstery on the chair, so there was no added height from a bunched-up coat under my butt. I walk around usually pretty much oblivious to my height, until someone reminds me about how tall I actually am. Do you ever lose track of your size too?

The other thing related to losing track of my size is part of the healthy eating kick I've been on since last summer. I realized when I looked at myself in the mirror earlier this week that the jeans I'd been able to finally squeeze into earlier this year were really baggy on me. So I tried on a size down and they are even a little bit big on me! Oh my gosh... how did this happen? I've just been going about my business and not paying any attention to weight loss AT ALL the past few months.

Yesterday, I was feeling especially brave and I tried on the size smaller than that, and, while I could get them buttoned and zipped without having to lie down on the bed, they were tight enough that I probably wouldn't walk out of the house with them like that. But just the fact that I could put on pants that I came nowhere near fitting into not that long ago was an amazing discovery for me. I'm not sure what the point is here, other than I'm pretty darn proud of myself and my progress, even as unmonitored as it has been of late. I should be able to get into those skinniest jeans (and they are indeed the smallest size I own and we're talking SINGLE DIGIT SIZE) in the very not-too-distant future. That's a big difference from where I was last July.

Apparently not only do I forget how tall I am, I also wasn't realizing how skinny I'd become until I tried those jeans on.

Just a quick update on me...

My studio at ScrapbookGraphics closed yesterday. I haven't designed anything new in a while, and it made the most sense for it to close since I'm not sure how quickly I'll get back into a design groove again. I'll really miss it... being there and working with that stellar array of designers and Maya was a dream come true for me.

I will continue to have my designs available for purchase at Altered Art Chicks, so you can always get your Krista design fix there.

I know that is the burning question on everybody's mind today... the one everyone is pondering as they have lunch, take a break from work, or drive to the store. Well, I'm here to fill you in and keep you informed. All two of you who even stop in to find out (my own fault for not writing more, I know).

Two weeks ago, I was sick sick sick as a dog (however sick dogs may be... never quite understood that saying, but it's apropos so I use it). Last week, I was away for work for two days and swamped the other three. Friday night, we went to see REO Speedwagon, Styx and Def Leppard in Atlantic City (saw the sets by the first two and heard half of the last one while we were standing backstage talking to Tommy from Styx). I spent the weekend cleaning my house top to bottom, and a friend of mine from my school days was in town to visit last night with her family. Tomorrow, my parents come to visit for a long weekend.

So it's been a bit topsy-turvy here -- lots going on, lots to get done, not much time to do anything other than work, clean, sleep, or get better (when I was sick).

Lots of shows and events coming up... it's going to be a busy rest-of-April. We're going to see Asia next week, a show for work on Friday night by a band called Miggs, and then on the following Sunday we're going to see Kids In The Hall, which will rock my funny bone.

Then, the last week in April we're going to three (count 'em - THREE) Crowded House shows. Ah yeah! Ok, I'm sure that seems excessive. But I have to get my Neil Finn fix, plus they are planning to roll out some new music and "try it out" live on those of us lucky enough to be there, so who am I to say no? I truly believe the set lists will vary quite a bit from night to night, so I expect to be dazzled by the volume of tunes I'll bear witness to in a live setting over those three nights. It had to be done. I was only going to go to one night, but then my computer bought tickets for us to the other two nights of its own accord. Yeah, I'll blame my computer for it. That'll be my story.