A whole new world of music is opening up for me. I wrote earlier about finding Sirius on our tv satellite dish. Now with satellite internet, I'm really going to town. Last night I found radioio.com. What I really like is that you can find out right away what song is being played by what artist, then when you click on the search button, you find a Google search regarding that artist/song. You can then read the lyrics, look up information about the artist on Amazon.com, and visit the artist's web site. You also have the option of purchasing a download of the song.

Last night I was trying to play some spider solitaire while listening and for each song I had to check out all the background info. I loved every song. My solitaire games were taking a long time to complete.

This morning the selection isn't as remarkable as it was last night. I mean it's still good, but I haven't loved every song. So I actually have time to write a little without interruption.

It's a wonderful way to learn about new artists and to learn more about music. After reading Jim Walsh's City Pages column, http://blogs.citypages.com/jwalsh/, I started thinking how the love of music is similar in it's unification as is the love of sports.

One of the visiting Evergreen Philharmonic players had said to me he loved that his family could share the talk of sports over the breakfast table. I've not been into sports that much, I think because I was dragged to so many pro football and basketball and hockey games as a kid who was more interested in the concession stand and watching people.

But nowadays besides the sports lovers, there is a generation of music lovers who share their faves with each other and really get along because they have a mutual appreciation in common.

A couple of years ago, I worked as a waitress and one of my favorite activities was playing name that song or artist with a much younger waiter while listening to the kitchen help's radio. The music bridged a 30 year generation gap quite well. Now when I visit the same restaurant the bartender and a regular customer keep up the same routine.

One website I've read for a long time is iwilldare.com. Jodi, whose site it is, used to lament way too often about being lonely. I suggested a recreation volley ball team to her. That's how I met my husband, a group of pretty intellectual, relatively dorky friends would meet and play, drink beer if they wanted, most didn't, and then go out to dinner afterwards.

Jodi hasn't started playing volley ball, but she's met a wonderful group of people who share her love of The Replacements and Paul Westerberg. In fact she calls them the Westernerds. That coupled with her writing classes have turned her into a very socially active young woman. I'm glad she found people to share with. Even someone like me who really likes living in the boonies and treasures the peace and silence here, realizes that we need companionship to help develop our humanity. I guess that's why the Buddhists say that the sangha, or spiritual community, is so essential in spiritual growth. Music like sunrises and sunsets and the love of our children bridges geographic, age and cultural boundaries. I love that it, like any art, also involves human creativity. In that way we share a touch of divinity.