The Reverend Horton Heat - In Your Wildest Dreams

Earlier drafts and planning stages of this blog was a sort of retelling of the many loves in my life via “our songs”… while that is certainly something that has seemed to occur many times through my posting, I also felt it was really important to include stories about my family and childhood as well. So I did. But the awkward fact remains that the majority of these posts are about men from my past whom I have had unresolved crushes on or dated or whatnot. I’m trying to break them up, but I wonder/worry if it’s not becoming entirely too Oedipal that I post one blog about some guy I used to date and then a post right after about my dad.

I was a freshman at ECU. Around this time, I had discovered the internet. This was back when you paid by the minute for AOL and dad would flip when he got $200 or $300 bills. I would chat with complete strangers about Jane Eyre and U2 and fart noises, who knows what 17 year old kids did back then. (Who knows what they do now?) I would chit chat for a minute or two about nothing, write down screen names and when I got back to ECU, I would open up email/pen pal correspondences. It was a lot of fun! I kept up with a lot of these kids for years because of it. One such person was a boy named Mike from Huntington Beach, California; a shaggy blonde photographer/skateboarder.

I had this great idea once, or twice, Or twelve different ideas including novels, essays or even screenplays based on this one most profoundly important statement of my whole life... (Maybe after all these years and all these unfinished ideas and poems and songs and stories can just be summarized in one stupid little blog post and it can be put away for good?) This is the thing that I feel defines so much of who I am and what I believe in this world: I never met the first boy I ever loved.

Back then (1995/1996) you had very limited options for web access. AOL and maybe Prodigy? It was such an abstract and exciting concept for me, (well for everyone when it first started happening.) I used AOL at home, (when home,) and some freaky ancient DOS based chat program in the labs at school (when at school). I can’t really remember talking to him on AOL, but I remember and still have the first email I sent him from school. And I have every email that happened after, of which there are hundreds. (One of my ideas was to simply collect all these emails and just stick them in a notebook and give it to a publisher. Who knows, maybe one day I will.) The emails were silly getting to know you “this is my life” emails for a week or so, then suddenly they were novellas. Straight Novels. Hundreds of pages several times a day. Filled with craving for each other’s brains. We were ridiculous. We were smitten. We told each other about our whole days and our whole hearts. I would skip class to write him. He would skip work to email me. The most romantic and beautiful thing of my life happened because of this boy. (I say boy, I was 17 at the time, and he was 18.)

This sterile email conversation plowed along full steam for weeks; months. Valentine’s Day was coming up and I don’t remember if I asked outright if anything would be coming my way, or if I just kept my wishes secret and hoped for the best. But what happened turned into something much more magical than anything I could have ever expected. It was the first day in weeks we hadn’t “spoken”. We had not communicated in any way other than the very first brief chat and the emails that followed, yet we called each other boyfriend/girlfriend. It was my first full day or not speaking to my first real boyfriend. As the day trudged on and after my 5th trip to the computer lab to check emails as well as checking the mailbox outside our dorm room and seeing nothing, I resigned myself to lying around on my bed feeling pathetic and weepy and eating pudding cups, resisting the urge to cry.

Sometime around 7pm, as my roommate and I were lying around watching something like PCU for the 8,000th time the phone rings. I jump and grab it. I called out a “hello” and heard nothing. My heart flipped. I knew it was him. I walked out the door and sat on the ground in front of our door. “Hello? Mike?” and suddenly the music. He played this song, start to finish, saying nothing. And when it was over, he just... hung up. I sat splayed on the ground, panting, my heart beating so fast it was like a hum. I whispered his name over and over again, wishing he hadn’t hung up; praying he hadn’t. I sat there for quite a while with the beeping receiver in my hand, shell shocked. The best part of it all was the emails we sent to each other the next day. He told me all about how nervous and excited he was all day because he knew what he was going to do. I told him about how much I tortured myself with anticipation and expectation. He told me how his heart raged when he heard my voice for the first time. I told him about how there was no more exceptionally perfect gift he could give me other than music.

It was only a few weeks later that we spoke to each other on the phone for the first time. I sang Alanis Morrissette to him. He sang The Cure to me (note: both of these songs are obviously ruined for me). I read him my poetry, he described his photography. We stayed on the phone together until 6am and I let him hear the bird chirping outside my window before I fell asleep. That was one of the most glorious nights of my life. Thinking about it now, my face burns. It was so long ago, but I still think about the gifts he gave me, the birth of the hopeless romantic. The girl who believes in love beyond reason was born from his words. I mailed him pictures I drew; he mailed me photographs he took. We talked about where we would live when we got married. We named our children. I had one picture of his face. It is the only picture of his face I’ve ever seen. Probably the only one I'll ever see.

Then the distance, the stress, the cost of the phone calls, the expectations, the hope... It got to be too much. We imploded. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and make anything and everything happen. He had a much clearer grip on the fact that we were just dumb kids with zero cash. It ended and I was devastated. Correction: I was Devastated with a capital D. He would still write me once in a while, but his messages got shorter and less sparse. I was so confused and hurt. We eventually stopped speaking. I would try for years to email him, although I haven’t in a very long time. 10 years or more, maybe. It amazes me that in this time of information overload where you can find so much information about anyone, anywhere, anytime; this guy is practically non-existent. I only wonder if he still thinks about me the way I still think about him. Even if he is married with 2 kids (which he probably is). Even though logic and real life says in every way he shouldn't... I still hope he does. Just every once in a while I hope he thinks about us and he smiles.

There is more to say. Maybe one day; not now. I just wonder is all. This song brings it all back. Like a fucking hurricane.

I honestly haven’t listened to it all the way through in years; can’t even do it now.

The Beatles - Yellow Submarine

I promise you this; you will never ride in a car with me and let a Beatles song come on the radio where I don’t explain their significance in my musical education. I will nearly always explain the same things: The Beatles taught me to sing. I am completely incapable of hearing or singing along with any Beatles song and not singing the harmony. The Beatles explained the execution of harmony before I even understood what it meant. Then, if you’re really lucky and I’m feeling chatty, I may go into the story of my childhood Saturday mornings with you.

My dad is a total Technophile. Or, he mostly was, now he’s just a slow-paced retiree with a golf addiction (we still love him) but he still has that 80s-esque yuppie compulsion to have the newest gadgets. I can remember when the first VCR came into our house. It was one of those gigantic ancient bad boys that was the size of a small coffee table. This was also back in the day before the production companies had released the licensing on cassettes, so very few places actually *sold* VCR tapes, only rented them. Of which, until I was older there was only one place that actually rented them; it was called Video1 in South Hills Mall; I think its part of a bridal shop now. But the point is, back when tapes were still scarce, they were purchasable, but viciously expensive; $80? $75? … a lot. Dad bought a few. I remember kinda feeling like hot shit because not only did my family have a VCR but we actually had TAPES. Dad bought the most random things… Patton, first of all (his favorite movie), Teen Wolf (what? Why?) And Yellow Submarine. Also Tommy got in there somehow at some point. Of course. (Reminder to self to write a post about Tommy.)

I was raised on the musical. My dad, in addition to being a Motown junky and a classic rock aficionado, was also inexplicably very into musicals… this is one of those million reasons why I always joke that my dad is gay. (Ps my dad is actually the antithesis of gay; he just has very funny things like this about him that I love to pick on him for.) (Ps again – I don’t know how I just made this connection, but this fact about my dad is most likely the predominate reason why I went to college for Musical Theater Performance. Durr.) So there was a big portion of the record collection I gleaned from my dad that was Rogers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber stocked. I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy more than just about any other records in that collection. I’m not even sure if you would consider Yellow Submarine a musical (I would) or just a really long music video.

Of the vinyl I inadvertently hoarded away from my dad, there are 2 albums I am most emotionally connected to. The red and blue albums. The “best of”s I suppose. I used to sit in the floor turning those albums over and over again, watching the boys age before my eyes. Dad had sat down and recorded most of his vinyl, these albums included, onto cassette tape, and these tapes were probably played more on those Saturday mornings that any other one thing. My brother and I would ride around with Pop on these Saturdays singing our hearts out and I felt in my soul that harmonizing was the right thing to do; no one explained to me how or why to do it. (This was my Mozart playing thirds moment, I suppose?) It is impossible for me to listen to any Beatles song without singing the harmony. I joke that the Beatles taught me to sing.

I went today to see the new biopic about John Lennon, Nowhere Boy, in the theater. It was pretty spot on and was shot in all the right places. It was basically the telling of John’s childhood/early teens up until Hamburg. (Digression: it really amused me that there were so many people in the audience who didn’t know his story? Growing up with Aunt Mimi and that his mom died after being hit with a car? The gasping horror emitted by the majority of the audience made me kinda roll my eyes a bit… I wanted to be like, “people. Why are you here? Did you not know this shit already? Spoiler alert. Duh.”) As I stated in my facebook status update, I really only got weepy at the end, as the credit rolled there was a slideshow of childhood pictures, leading up the Quarrymen, which included babyfaced pictures of Paul and George. (I will have no hesitation telling you George is my favorite Beatle. Inside and out, I love that man on an atmospheric level. Missed forever… xoxo) so yeah, I forget that people don’t get as ‘involved’ with their favorite artists; needing to know entire biographies and meanings to certain songs. Also, having spent such a significant amount of time in Liverpool (story for later?) It was really cool to relive these places that I saw in the film again.

I have struggled off and on with my dedication/admiration of John Lennon. Yes, there are a bazillion reasons to love him, but there are those 2 or 3 little things that he did in his life that make me snarl a little. This movie helped humanize a little more of those things that bugged the crap of me about him, so that’s good. Also the boy playing him in the movie was so balistically hot, especially towards the end with those big ole black frame glasses and pea coat (so much how I like my men. [Plus beard. Obvs.])

This blog post has inadvertently become every discussion about the Beatles my brother and I have ever had. Of which there have been infinite. If my brother was guest blogging he would then have a terrible opinion about his favorite album/song and then I would force him for the bajillionth time to listen to the b-side of Abbey Road (you cannot deny it. None of you. Don’t make me make you listen.) Brother would then tell me for 200th time that he can never really tell which Beatle is singing and he would have to be dead to me for a while.

There is a new multimedia experience I am trying to add to this whole blog situation. I made a terrible quality video of me singing. Mostly this is to give you insight to my all day/everyday. Yeah, I know it’s dumb to drive around with headphones, but I just can’t get it loud enough without. I cannot listen to a song I know without singing alone. Especially in the car. I am a car singer extraordinaire.

My favorite part of this video at the end is when I am talking to another driver who is making poor decisions. Lol at the constant turn signal noise. I crack myself up. Enjoy.

Wreckless Eric - Whole Wide World

There is only one thing in the world I think about more than music, which should be baffling to some people, but when I confess what that thing is it should come as no surprise: Love. I think about love a lot. A LOT, a lot. What it is, what it means, what it could be, what it should be… What I want, what I have, what I need, what I feel. What I deserve, why do I deserve it? Is “deserve” even the right thing to say? Does anyone DESERVE love? Is it a human right or is it a privilege? What is the ratio to human suffering and the retribution in the form of someone worshiping the crap out of you? Have I suffered enough? Is there such thing as karma? Am I repaying some karmic debt from some terrible thing I did in the past in the form of being forever alone? Why? Isn’t my faith enough to combat this self-imposed solitary confinement? Am I doing it to myself? Am I just too stupid to know how to love correctly? Why am I my favorite person on earth and yet I am no one else’s favorite person on earth?

There are a thousand other questions… I won’t burden them with you for now.

I will admit I never heard this song until Will Farrell’s movie “Stranger Than Fiction”; a movie I loved so much I bought instantly on DVD. I find myself watching it over and over again, as I do with certain low budget-ish indie-esque quirky love stories (i.e. Dream for an Insomniac, The Pillow Book, Garden State, etc… these are my very favorite kinds of movies) If you knew this song before this movie, you win this cool-points battle, cool kid. I didn’t. I will not be ashamed to admit that. But that scene, when Harold just randomly starts playing it and Ana comes out and just falls all over herself for him; yeah that. I want that. I remember watching that scene for the first time and literally saying out loud; “Oh god! I want that!!!” (I want that, by the way.) This song personifies everything I want a man to feel about me.

So I was walking in to work this morning and this song randomly popped into my head, so I was walking along, whistling the tune, when I realize. Damn, I’ve really never had that. How have I never had the kind of love I deserve, to this point? How do I keep missing the mark? I have such a good, clear vision of what it is, what it feels like, I know exactly how to love someone else, but why has no one ever figured out how to love me? Why hasn’t anyone bothered? I’m so …. Loveable? How is it even possible that no man has written a love song about me? How have I never gotten a love letter, like a hand written “you are perfect” love letter? How has no one ever written me a poem? How have I never gotten a mix cd from a man? How is this even possible? ME? Of all people? Me, the girl who has made more mix cds than friends, the girl who makes such perfect mix cds I should practically put this skill on my resume. Never has it happened; it blows my mind.

I should clarify. Yes, men have loved me. Men have loved me well; socially acceptably, restrainedly, technically correctly, cautiously… but I don’t want that. I want the right man to love me the right way. I want someone to go the whole wide world just to find me… so then I say this, (I type this,) and I hear the voice of my conscience and my father and certain friends saying things like “you should be reasonable and you should accept that men are the way they are.” I hear every ex of mine say, "You live in a fantasy land." Or something like that. I would rather live in a 'fantasy land' than on a planet where that kind of love doesn't happen. I don’t want a sane, rational, calm love. I know it exists! I know it as well as I know that *I* exist, or god exists; I can feel it. Look at this song, for Christ’s sake. There are men that feel like this. Look at every incredible love song written by a man. Look at Ian Curtis or Shane MacGowan. Look at Lord Byron or Nicholas Sparks, even. Listen to Explosions in the Sky, dammit. There are men that are capable of great loves and very capable of expressing that love without hesitation or fear. I want this man. I have a habit of saying that I need a man to have bigger balls than I have. And for someone to have literally no physical testes, I have certainly dated my fair share of weak men.

About a year ago, actually a year ago this month, my ex, Gigi, and I split. We had a good run, but there was about a million things wrong with our relationship, which I really don’t feel like going into right now… after a month or two of going wild and being free I started having that “oh god, why did I dump my boyfriend, I might have screwed up” feeling. I ran into a good friend who had me make a list. I made this list. This is part of the “story” as I related it on my private journal at the time, 3 days before my last birthday:


I’ve been in love before. Lots. I have loved more in my little lifetime than most people do in five lifetimes. There is nothing on earth I have pursued or fought harder for than true love. I have loved men who pulled my pigtails, men who didn’t know I existed, men who knew I existed and exploited me, men who abused me, men who tried to hold me while I wriggled free, men who loved me some but not enough… I almost got married once, but we were kids. I can look back on that and see how we both dodged a hellacious bullet, but I mostly think I missed my only chance there. I was with Gigi for almost 3 years. We ended things at mostly my insistence because I thought we were going nowhere and at the secondary insistence of my friends who KNEW we were going nowhere and that someone who would love me how I needed was out there. I knew it too. I got single, I got laid. I met some guys, I dated one young guy and had a really good time and dumped all my emotional garbage on him that I never dealt with after Gigi. I got really close to losing my mind for a minute there. I kept talking to a good friend of mine who kept insisting I meet this one guy because he was my ‘soul mate.’ I knew who he was talking about but I let old ugly me take over and insist that I had no chance with this guy. Through some impossibly coincidental circumstances that I, at the time, took as fate (which was the prognostication of my entire spiritual downfall let me tell you,) we wound up dating. I literally did everything by the unspoken girl rule book, aka ‘He’s Just Not That into You,’ every Cosmo mag EVER, everything your mama ever told you about how to get a man and every bit of bad bar bathroom advice from your girlfriends all in one. I played it cool, I acted indifferent, I stayed calm, I didn’t run my mouth, I didn’t get carried away, I let things happen, I was a cool customer. But somewhere lurking in the shadows, as always, was the ‘OMG MAGIC! TRUE LOVE! TAKE A CHANCE, THIS COLD BE IT!”

We had a few really amazing nights together, then one REALLY amazing night together and I realized that I was falling stupid head over heels for this guy. So what did I do? Got drunk and told him, of course. And what did he do? Run for the hills, of course. There are some really stupid circumstances surrounding this situation. One of which is this: either right after or soon before Gigi and I split I was hanging out with one of my hippie mama outcast weirdo’s at the coffee shop and she told me to make a list of everything I could ever possibly want in a man, as if I created him in a lab, make it as outlandishly impossible as I wanted, just dream out loud…. I made the list. This man was the list. NO ONE SHOULD BE THAT LIST. IT DOES NOT EXIST. IT IS ME WITH A DICK… …I am so pissed that I am getting pissed about it. He was so different; I don’t want to get over him. I want the phone to ring. I want magic. I had the opportunity to see him again last weekend and I was a fucking coward and I drank myself into blackout status. Don’t remember the majority of the night, just that I finally told him that I loved him and he pretty much patted me on the head and said “Aww, you’re just drunk!” and then proceeded to let me drive home…? In what universe is the logic that I am too drunk to understand what love is, mean that I am in any way capable of driving? This thought fucks me up too much to continue right now.



Part of the first, which is not explained in the journal entry above, no one ever saw that list except me and my best friend until him, now you. As me and this guy were dating, I started feeling brand new about it all, about life in general, it was off the charts exceptional. Not just him, but the way I *felt* about him, the way my body and my heart my very being reacted to his existence and presence. The calm and confidence I felt when I was near him or thought about him. I asked my best friend about it, and she simply said “well yeah, because he’s ‘the list’.” I thought about it for a minute and pulled the list out of my wallet, where I had toted it around like a good luck charm for almost a year and read through the list. By the time I got to the bottom I was crying because I knew I had found him. It is an amazing yet almost horrifying feeling when you realize you’ve met the love of your life. Maybe it’s what parachuting feels like? … The best and worst feeling ever. It was all within the same week that I realized I had found him and I loved him that he broke up with me. I was a wreck for a long, long time. (I had a really shitty summer this year. Lost my faith, my coping abilities, too much weight, etc...) Sometimes I still backtrack; mostly now-a-days I propel myself recklessly forward, taking whatever chance life throws at me to prove me wrong about him. So far, no luck, but it doesn’t mean I won’t give up giving up on him. I’m trying, still. One day it’ll stop being him I compare every man to forever. I’m really ready for that to happen. But the point of this is… the list.

When he ended things, we sat on my couch and cried like idiots and I decided to show him the list. I can’t say what he felt when he read it; I just know we were both emotional wrecks that day. I did my best to stay strong and make the hurting me hurt him less. I loved him that much. So I kept my head up and waited until he left to lose it. but after he read the list, he either that day or in a later email said something to the effect that I needed to add one more to that list… a final bullet point that says more or less that the man of my dreams has to be “ready and willing to accept the kind of love that I have to offer.” So yes, that. I have thought about that a lot. It’s something my best friend and I have discussed many times. So the thought that this guy was "everything but" has helped talk me down off that “but he was THE ONE” ledge many times… but the right word or song or thought or memory triggers him like a leg cramp; I am paralyzed with the loss. I’ve stopped talking about him and reconnecting him to everything and everywhere I go (much to the relief of my friends, I’m sure) I’ve stopped crying myself to sleep and finding myself driving in circles on the beltline listening to horribly heartbreaking love songs. I stopped hurting and started dating. I’m moving ahead slowly, doubting every step in the opposite direction from him, but I have no choice, so I keep walking. Some days are terrible, some days are awesome. Most days are just another day without him, but what are you going to do, right?


So what I NEED is the right person feeling that much for me. And I could have any guy being in love with me, but I want THE guy to be in love with me. The one I love back… The perfect one, the man from before plus one - how can something so seemingly simple be so hard? I still fervently believe the man of my dreams will be that list; he will be gratefully excited and ready to accept my intense level of love, he will write me unprompted love letters and show up with red tulips because it’s a Tuesday and he loves to make me smile, he will push through a crowd of strangers to get to me across the room because he is so excited to see me, he will sing acoustic version of glam rock pop songs to me on a barely tuned guitar in a dimly lit living room; he will love me so much it leaves me shell shocked and drunk without the drink.


on second thought, I think I might actually hate this song.

Major Lance - Um Um Um Um Um Um

I have several families. My nuclear; my mom, dad, brother, niece and I. (we are the only ones of us around for hours in any direction.) My extended; the ones sprinkled through Mount Airy and Galax - my aunts, uncles, cousins and remaining grandparents. The hyper-extended; the few floaters in Detroit, Virginia, SC and even Germany. Then the surrogate families… since my brother and I grew up so “far away” from our other kin, we were adopted into a few other groups, we were raised by villages… 1) Our church and 2) my dad’s coworker world. This song makes me think of #2 (although my church family is a huge part of who I am, even though I no longer associate myself with this church – a post for another time, I’m already mentally preparing for it).

The 80s in Raleigh was a much different place than it is now. I grew up off Lake Wheeler road, (an area eaten alive with subdivisions and strip malls now,) but the house my father built, at the end of the cul-de-sac still remains. I find myself sometimes driving by, it’s not too far from my home now… about halfway between where I live inside the beltline and my parents’ home in Apex. Driving down that little unlined back road beneath the loblolly pines and puttering past the split level ranch homes of that neighborhood really does something to me. I time travel every time. I am kissing a boy for the first time, (Chris) after he pops a wheelie off a plank of plywood propped on a cinderblock in his back yard. I am learning to ride my bike, albeit pathetically, while the whole neighborhood watches me crash. I hear pine needles crunching beneath my Zips. I smell dogwoods and lumber while my dad builds the freestanding garage... But one of the strongest memories I have of that house are the block parties.

Does anyone even have block parties anymore? Does penny candy still exist? I can understand that my niece may never know what a VHS tape or a rotary phone is; I got that. But trick or treating without fear? Banana seat bicycles and realistic toy guns without the orange cap in them? (My God, did you ever think they would stop selling Jell-o Pudding Pops? They did! They are gone! You will never eat another REAL Jell-o Pudding Pop!) Wandering off deep into the woods to explore for hours with the promise to be home by dark and never explaining where you’ve been… can kids even do that now? That was the majority of me and my brother’s “play time” as kids… just… walking off into the woods... Exploring. We would walk for miles up into strangers’ back yards and then just… wander back. Stick fighting; jumping creeks… are there even any creeks left in the 27606? Lake Wheeler is 1/3 the size it was when I was a kid. We didn’t have shows the glorified teen pregnancy much less even understand the concept of reality TV… we watched The Dukes of Hazzard and the Muppet Show and we went to bed.

My dad began working for this company almost 40 years ago. Rather than go into his entire history of employment, I will tell you he worked his way up through college, starting as a surveyor and ending up in upper management when he finally retired a few months ago. My dad got me my current job, where I worked 2 stories below him for the past 6 years, with him and the extended family I grew up with. I loved working with my dad and these guys. I wish he was still here. Dad basically created the department he later became responsible for. The men who created this section with him worked with him (some are still here) from day one. These men (and women) became my dad’s best friends and one of my surrogate families. They would always throw Christmas parties together, we kids all graduated kind-of around the same time (I was younger than most,) and we all played together. One of the best parties the group would throw, and the ones that stick out the most are the annual pig-pickins.

Please remember, this is going back a lot of years for me, so while my details may not be 100% accurate, the feelings of these memories are flawless. The smell of the pig cooking, the crispness of the fall air as they day would come to a close… Chocolate Chess Pie, my mother’s laughter, vinegar, my dad in flannel with a big full red beard, my second dads; Jim and Scotty teasing me and encouraging my shenanigans, showoffs and general attention seeking behaviour; and the music. Always the music. Dad would pull out his full Kenwood stereo and set up the vinyl. Mostly Carolina Beach music, Motown and a little classic rock thrown in. I sometimes wonder who has listened to my dad’s vinyl more now… me or him. How many times can a child listen to Steppenwolf’s ‘68 self titled first album and be normal? Is it ‘normal’ for an 8 year old girl to know all the words to The Pusher? (ps - in case it is not blazingly apparent... i was perhaps the coolest kid ever.) Dad would test me, play “name that tune” to entertain his friends. I’ve mentioned it before, when my parents would punish me, they wouldn’t send me to my room or ground me, they would take away my music… Hell. On. Earth.

There is very little Shag music I can hear now-a-days and not think of these pig pickins. Where I don’t think of that little ranch house and the smell of the pig cooking and the taste of the sweet iced tea. I hope I can give my own non-existent children experiences like this one day. Or, at least my niece. These songs, Major Lance, the Temptations, Wilson Pickett, the Drifters, the Coasters, the Platters, and the Four Tops – these songs are the ones that bring me back with the strongest intensity to the innocence and childhood euphoria of Swiftbrook Circle. Much like Hank Williams, Sr and roy are the strongest connection to my mom for me; This music, the deep swinging soul of the Southern black man, this will always bring me back to my daddy.



FYI – my dad is the whitest man on earth. My family feeds on irony, whether they recognize it or not.

Antony and the Johnsons - Another World

goodbye, jeremy.




see you in the next world, angel... xoxox

Katy Perry - Teenage Dream

I am the self-professed Music-Nazi. However there is a softer, more accommodating side to my ear. I will be the first to admit that I am a sucker for a well crafted, super catchy pop song. I listen to top 40 radio, I am not ashamed. I usually justify this by telling myself and others that I’m “just really well rounded.” This doesn’t go for just overplayed pop music, there are literally millions of songs in any genre that one wouldn’t expect me to appreciate that I adore. A good song is a good song, regardless. (I still cannot justify my ke$ha fandom that last a few weeks this past summer, let’s just let that one slide.)

Par for the course with any music snob that spent any time working at a music store, there is a reverent obsession with Nick Horby’s novel “High Fidelity.” I often reference it. I own a copy so outlined, creased and reread it’s practically in three pieces. I relate to that book on such a personal, professional and artistic level it baffles me.

"I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains."

The reason I digress so fully from the point that I am writing about a Katy Perry song is that is still being played every 13 minutes on every station at the moment by trying to reference a novel (and make myself look smarter, I suppose,) a song I shouldn’t necessarily have a strong memory associated with already, is because not only is it a technically well written and fun song, but when it first started getting regular airplay, I met a boy. ...Sigh... I always meet a boy.

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

I had fully convinced myself I was in love with a man that was only more than eager to not love me back. This happened earlier this year. (ps – This has been a recurring theme in my life. I think I just like a challenge?) Rather than let myself deal with the rejection in a mature manner, my ego backfired and my pride rebelled. I convinced myself this man was the love of my life and that I would rather die alone than live without him. And I was only so happy to make this public knowledge, to him and anyone who would listen. It turned into some sort of public performance art project via my facebook and drunken tirades on the patios of local bars. Now that I am on the other side of this situation, looking back, I can honestly only let myself laugh. (Note: I dated this guy like… a month?) *facepalm*

“Then I lost it. Kinda lost it all, you know. Faith, dignity, about fifteen pounds.”

Things like this are the most …awe inspiring… thing about me. Not only to myself, my family and closest friends, but mostly to the men I leave open mouthed and confused when I say/do shit like this. My best friend keeps telling me that she told this man something along the lines of “One day you’re going to ‘get her’ [with regards to my intensity, capacity for love, and my sense of humor, whatever,] and when you do, you’ll be the luckiest man in the world.” A) I truly believe this about any man who attempts to be with me. B) I wish my best friend was a man. Why no man can understand me and love me the way she does keeps me up at night sometimes. (Note: He never got it. It’s totally fine, he’s a great guy, I’m still totally looking forward to being his friend when I can restore some trust I lost over the course of the past few months.) I do, however, fully believe with my whole heart and soul one day there will be a man who gets it. This post is about the man who came after who ALMOST did and restored a little faith for me.

"Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as mere consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship."

I took a chance on a dating site again. (This is how I originally met the first guy. Why not?) The dating pool in my home town, especially since I have lived here my whole life, is incestuous. I can’t go to the bar and meet a single person who hasn’t slept with, kissed or attempted to date someone else I know. I do somehow seem to meet men in other random places that are outside my circle, like coffee shops or bars or Harris Teeter, but these random encounters don’t give me the kind of information I feel like I really need to make an assessment. Not that I need a resume before I date a guy, but without the most basal of information upfront I feel like I am just being superficial. Just because a guy looks like my type, doesn’t necessarily mean he is, so I get resentful. So for me, right now, with my air tight schedule and skittishness, online dating is okay.

"Have you got any soul?" a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I've got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can't seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn't be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues."

So I randomly start talking with this new fellow. He is almost so perfect for me on paper that I start to feel like he is a plant; Like my friends are fucking with me. While the man from earlier in the year appealed strongly to the musically obsessed side of me, this man was tugging at my inner-lit-nerd. He was a literature and film grad student on his way to becoming a professor. His apartment was like a library full of every book I’ve ever loved and slept with under my pillow. (I could just as easily write a blog about my associated memories and bonds with certain books. Or films.) This guy hit that part of the puzzle on the head. (yay! mixed metaphors!) From the first bit of an exchange, it was like we had been talking for years. What followed were a few weeks of novella-type emails full of confessions, adorations, secrets, seductions, and dare I say… love? He lived a little bit further away than a nightly hangout session would warrant (about 25 minutes on the highway as he worked at a local university.) so it was a week of gigantic emails and incessant text messaging before we finally met. I got swept up in the magic and created a beautiful fairy tale meeting scenario. It was literally one of the most surreal and magical experiences of my life and I still can’t decide if I’m irritated that I had to create it for myself or really proud that I am capable of a love like that. It involved a treasure map, a secret trail, a camera obscura, a first kiss in the middle of the day by moonlight. I’ll never forget it.

"What did I think I was doing? What did she think she was doing? When I want to kiss people in that way now, with mouths and tongues and all that, it's because I want other things too: sex, Friday nights at the cinema, company and conversation, fused networks of family and friends, Lemsips brought to me in bed when I am ill, a new pair of ears for my records and CDs, maybe a little boy called Jack and a little girl called Holly or Maisie, I haven't decided yet...”

So part and parcel of this whole brief experience with the professor is that this silly song started getting played all over. I randomly sent it to him in an email, saying something to the effect of “don’t judge me, but this song exemplifies how ridiculous I am feeling about you.” he concurred, of course, admitting he had already memorized the lyrics, because we were idiots over each other for a minute. (That's always nice; to know someone has made themselves just as stupid over you as you have over them. That's my favorite part about falling in love; the irrationality and absurdity of it all...) And also because it’s a pretty decent love song. Things, of course, went south. You can’t keep the spotlight on all the time; you have to get some sleep, you have to take out the trash and do some laundry. It’s not rational to keep that level of devotion and blind passion going for any longer than we seemed to do. I was crushed for a minute, but then I thought it over and I worked it out and I’m ok. This fact alone, that I didn’t pull a (man’s-name-from-earlier-this-year)-type reaction, reaffirms the fact that I am growing up a little, that maybe my self-esteem is stable and fine. We have since stopped speaking, but I have a feeling he will come back into my life again at some point, even if it’s just to say hay over the bananas at the grocery store. That much of one thing doesn’t happen for no reason. Or maybe it does. I am learning to accept the fact that I might be wrong about things. Most things. Love, first and foremost.

"It would be nice to think that as I've got older times have changed, relationships have become more sophisticated, females less cruel, skins thicker, reactions sharper, instincts more developed. But there still seems to be an element of that evening in everything that happened to me since; all my other romantic stories seem to be a scrambled version of that first one. Of course, I have never had to take that long walk again, and my ears have not burned with quite the same fury, and I have never had to count the packs of cheap cigarettes in order to avoid mocking eyes and floods of tears... not really, not actually, not as such. It just feels that way, sometimes."

BUT – the real point of all this… this whole experience… in any previous experience in my life, any other strongly associated love song attached to someone who broke my heart would become like holy water or a cross in Dracula’s face. Instant channel change, grumpy face, mumbling under the breath. (There are a few songs like this for me associated with long ago exes that I am still working on disassociating.) But this song, when I hear it, I smile. I still sing along. I think back on my time with the professor with gratitude and respect. He came along in my life and gave me the exact combination of attention, affection and words that I needed to reassure myself that I am loved, loveable, loving. And piggy backing off my last post about accountability, I’ve learned a big, beautiful lesson that feels like a “missing puzzle piece” throughout this experience. And it’s something I’ve heard myself thinking about over and over again the past few weeks… Not every broken heart has to be a tragedy; sometimes there is grace and a delicate lesson learned. The ego doesn’t always have to get involved. Sometimes things happen because they were supposed to happen and that’s that.

Sometimes a broken heart is simply a mile marker. I know I am closer to my destination that I have ever been; I'm learning to enjoy the journey.

"Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time."

(note all quotes are from the novel, not film, version of High Fidelity)

Justice - D.A.N.C.E

For most people, there is a truly significant ‘most memorable experience’ that guides and influences their entire lives. This is more typically an interpersonal experience shared with others; a wedding or subsequent divorce. A birth or a death… For me, as I have been alone the majority of my adult life, The most memorable experience for me was something I have spoke of often in these memoirs; the weeks I spent alone in Paris for my 30th birthday.

There is something inside of me, at the very core of my DNA that truly knows and understands that I am not meant to be an American. From the very onset of my age of reason, (decidedly much sooner than most, as my parents can attest,) I began plotting ways to get out of this place. I spent the majority of my high school years planning a way to become a foreign exchange student. When it came time for college, I applied to a handful of schools in the UK and France. When I dropped out of college (the first time) I spent countless hours researching (pre-internet) ways to get the hell out of the southeastern United States via work studies or volunteering (a route I still am pursuing, always!) Unfortunately, as my anxiety and later diagnosed panic disorder was dictating my limitations, no plans ever solidified or came to fruition. It wasn’t until a very patient and incredibly insightful therapist spent an entire year with me teaching me new ways to think, that I was able to make any headway. It just so happened that the month I “graduated” from therapy, my 30th birthday approached and as a reward to myself, I planned the trip to Paris. My last two ever sessions with her were guided meditations focusing on negating my absurdly overwhelming fear of flying. (I do alright now, Valium helps.)

There are several major reasons I’ve hit upon in the past why I chose Paris, (Oscar, Henri, le Moulin, etc…) but as for the timing of why I went; that’s another story. When I went to the UK (to stay with an ex,) I very specifically chose a time around a concert (Morrissey in Dublin). When I had made the decision on where to go, the only thing to decide was when. This basically meant I scoured the internets, straining my floundering French language skills, looking for the best shows to attend. The right show would dictate when I would go. (In case you can’t tell by the painfully obvious nature of this blog’s existence, my entire reason for being is music and going to live shows. Always has been, always will be. It’s my rainman-ish idiot savant-itude skill, I suppose.) I found a couple decent shows I wouldn’t mind seeing, but I was mainly scouring for bands that never came stateside, which are the majority of the bands I listen to anyway. I was just sure I would find a random Daft Punk or Fischerspooner show somewhere… I held out on booking tickets until a Queen Adreena or maybe a randomass Blur show would pop up… It didn’t happen, but I stumbled across this calendar of events page, that made mention of this a festival… The Techno Parade…. Oh my. What’s this?! I perked up and got to googlin’.

Not unlike its sister shows in Germany, the Love Parade or the FuckParade, the Techno Parade takes place every year September and takes over the whole city with music. Major Euro-djs and a few from this side of the sea get together and set up in gigantic semi trucks, starting at the Bastille, under direction of Joachim Garraud, grand marshal. The Parade makes a huge loop through the city, ending back at the Bastille, where all the djs take over the grounds and dancing ensues - all night long.

Paris was the first time in my life several things happened for me… It wasn’t my first solo flight or trip to a foreign city, but it was the first time I wasn’t afraid or skeptical. It was the first time I was really confident in myself. It was the first time I was really grateful to be alone. And in a testament to the city itself, Paris is the first place in my whole life where I felt like I was home. The concept of “home”, the existential understanding of it, the place where I feel the most relaxed, understood, inspired, calm, the best version of me, and the most like myself; it’s almost been like an el dorado for me. A place I always thought existed, but never truly believed I would find. And then suddenly, there it was. Paris was home. I knew it within moments of walking out into that street alone that first sunny morning. My feet connected with the streets and sidewalks in a way they never seemed to fit here in NC. I wasn’t overwhelmed, I wasn’t a tourist, I was in the place I was always meant to be. I still believe that. Leaving Paris was one of the saddest and most painful experiences for me, so much so that it was almost like an amputation. Every day and every moment of my life, I am always keeping my peripheral on a way to get back to stay. If I had just a skoosh more gumption and a surplus of cash, I would be gone today; no hesitation.

The Techno Parade took place 15 Sept. I got up early and got my hair in the buns and threw on those same red chucks I’ve been wearing since high school and I hit the metro. I rode the Ligne 1 to the Bastille and from the second I stepped out of the station, It Was On:



I was thrilled, I was happy, I was home. I wanted every day of my life to be thumping bass and dancing and crazy haircuts and strange new people and glorious, glorious house music; throbbing electro bass lines taking over the cadence of my heartbeat. Yes, I am a music snob, I can rattle band names and talk shop with the best of them, but I have the side of me that cannot and will not be repressed: I am a house music junky. Specifically, dirty European electrohouse. Scratchy filthy bass. Swingy Italio disco. Five minutes of the same junky bass line running at 120bpm, I cannot resist. Throw in a screechy diva, I am in heaven. It all started when Veronique, my high school best friends’ exchange student showed up in 1992 with all her crappy happy hardcore with tales of the discothèque. I was smitten; it was love at first thump. People get so confused when they pick up my iPod and see only one or two songs by major bands; only to hit the subfolders and realize they are all remixes. I love a damn remix. Especially when it’s good. Especially when it’s rude. Throw the words “dark dub” on anything and you can almost guarantee I’m going to deafen myself with it.


(i get chills @2:09every time i watch this)

Justice’s D.A.N.C.E came out in early 2007. I’d heard it maybe once before I hit France. I heard it, or variations thereof, no less than 10 times during the parade. When I hear it now, I am there. I am knee deep in androgynous teenage boys flipping their arms in circles doing the Tecktonik, I am guiding Australian tourists back to the metro, and I am crouching under bus stops, taking pictures. I am following David Guetta down the street, hooting like a madwoman. I am flipping out when I realize I am standing around watching Carl Cox, Martin Solveig, Laidback Luke, Oliver Huntemann and Benny Benassi roll past.


(this one kills me, as i know i was right there and nearabouts where i was standing/jumping... indulge me and spare 45 seconds for this video! I followed Huntemann like a lusting zombie through his whole set!)


------------
I have gotten into this mindset of Accountability lately. (This may be a digression, but in my mind, it is all connected, bear with me.) It’s more or less a final acceptance of my place in the world. A gradual and solemn acceptance that I may never be married or may never have that elusive “soul mate” I always assumed I would find. I made the choices that got me here, I am the one who let my body get to the point that it did and I am the one who made the decision to irrevocably change it. I accept the repercussions either way. I am the one who dated the wrong men and maybe let the right ones go. I am the one who went to Paris alone and came back to meet my ex, who I care for greatly but spent the next 3 years repressing myself to the point of crippling depression to please him. It took three years of being the submissive in a relationship to realize the varying levels of co-dependence that I am unwilling to accept. And I see the patterns of men in my life that I have found myself drawn to, simply because they needed me in some way. I accept that I have dated men who are weaker than me or broken or addicted, because I am so strong I need to dominate someone. I have never dated anyone with the strength to love me back the way I know I deserve. I have never dated anyone with my level of perseverance, hope, intensity or tenacity. It’s time to change all that.

This translates into other, more tangible areas of my life; I accept that if I don’t pay my bills, they won’t get paid. If I don’t take out the trash, it won’t get taken out. I have finally, FINALLY, gotten to this place where I don’t need a man in my life. It would just be nice to have one. That’s a concept I never even realized I needed to clarify or … feel. And when I think back on it, when I start to understand what it all means, I see the butterfly effect of the moment I stepped out into the crowd at the Bastille spinning me into the tornado of the past few years and placing me gently on the ground in front of the amazing person I know I am today. I am proud of myself, I am in love with myself, and now I know I’m finally ready for the right person to see what I see. And if that never happens, I accept it. I know I can do it alone.

It started in Paris. God willing, it will end there.

Björk - Jóga

There are certain artists that I hold such respect for, that their music is almost a happy coincidence. These would be musicians that have longstanding and strong careers; a few miss albums here and there but mostly hits. With these artists, I have certain ‘rituals’ that I perform with new albums involving solitude and deep introspection. I have high expectations of new releases and assume the best until I hear otherwise. Certain artists require specific first-time listening sacraments. Some of these special artists include: U2 (obviously), Oasis, Elbow, Alanis Morissette, Erasure, Daft Punk, Björk… you know, the essentials... ;)

When Björk’s album Homogenic was released in 1997, I literally took the day off work, dragged a sketchbook and box of colored pencils off with me and spent several hours in the abandoned courtyard of a practically deserted strip mall and bonded on a deeply ethereal level with this album. From the first song, I knew I had found a special place to hide in my headphones with this one. I love Björk not only a musician, but as an artist on every possible level. My respect for her is through the roof, she is living art. So much I can’t hardly talk about it because it seems like I should say more than what I could ever possibly say about how much she inspires and enraptures me as a human being.


Some Björk albums, as I alluded to above, are more art for art’s sake with me (i.e. – Medúlla… yowza. What was that?!) But I own them all and I love them all, because it is her. It’s like if you were dating someone and they were in a band and you didn’t really like that band but you loved the guy and you went to every show regardless because you support him and love him… it’s like that with Medúlla for me. I own it, but I've barely listened to it… Homogenic, that was a special occasion. There isn’t a single song on that album, much like Post, to which I don’t have some deeply romantically/idyllic attachment. (And I mean romantic in the idealist sense, not the flowers and candy sense here.)

At the time of the first listening, I was working at the Courtyard in Cary. Spending most of my days with my best friend Summer, making thrift store runs, drinking coffee and making big plans for ‘zines that never happened. This was the era of all the paper journals that now line the shelves of my office at home. I could put my hands very easily on the journal and the few pages that came into creation as a direct result of homogenic, specifically from the simplistic beauty of Jóga.

From line one, (all the accidents that happen / follow the dot / coincidence makes sense only with you…) I got it, man. I knew what that feeling was. The chorus of this song is one of my top 5 most perfect love song lyrics. I have tried to explain the empathy I feel from this song to others when they are with me and it happens to come on the stereo. I always ask, "haven’t you ever felt that way? That 'state of emergency'? Have you ever loved someone so much that it sets you into a full scale panic? Didn’t you feel the most alive you’ve ever felt? Like your entire life rested on the precipice of this one simple little human being’s heart? The next words out of their mouth could change your whole life? Isn’t it terrifying? Isn’t it amazing?" I feel emotional landscapes. I really fucking understand this song on a level most people don’t let themselves feel. It can really be too much for the human heart sometimes to love like that.

There isn’t anyone in particular attached to me for this song. It mostly makes me think about the *idea* of love, as a lifestyle, as a choice, as a system of belief... Honestly it also really makes me think about Summer more than anyone else, no boys really, because it came out around the time we were hanging out the most. It was a really awesome and inspiring time in my life. I just think about being young and figuring out how to fall in love without dying, writing writing writing, notebook journals, prismacolor pencils, Waverly Place shopping center, mesh wire patio chairs, my Discman covered with Keroppi stickers, not ever seeing but fully believing in a love like that. Always. Once you figure it out, it never goes away. Once you know a love like that, in any capacity, for another person, for yourself, in theory or in practice… it never leaves you and you spend the rest of your life looking for it and defending it's honor like family.

Roxy Music - Remake/Remodel

When I think about Roxy Music, there is always this hesitation. It’s like, I really like them, but it took me a while to like them because I was prejudiced against them for some reason. I can remember a time when I knew the reason, but now I don’t. I do know it has a lot (everything) to do with some sort of jealousies involving my ex, Rob Roy. Whatever our relationship was, forever how long it lasted, for whatever aftermath remained, and whatever damage was done, one thing remains: Rob Roy was my musical soul mate. We spent the majority of our time playing, speaking of and buying/trading music. We both had a deep and abiding love for Britpop. I met him once briefly at a friend’s house, but then truly remember falling all over myself for him at my first Morrissey show here in Raleigh, Nov 16, 1997 at the Ritz. I then spent the next 3 or 4 years laying my soul to waste for him.

We were so off and on for so long, it’s hard to say when it all started, but we both know when it ended. We lived together so many different times and attempts, but it was the second to last time, in Cary, that we had our last big stand. It was the longest time we made it, but it was the hardest. The most damage was done then. However, I do remember one special occasion we had decided to drive all the way out to Carrboro to the Visart video store to rent music videos, because there was nowhere in Raleigh to find the kinds of concerts we wanted to see. On one occasion we rented Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Live and Roxy Music’s Musikladen, live from Bremen, Germany.

By this point, I had overcome my unfounded prejudice against Roxy Music, (save one song, to this day I can barely tolerate to hear, “Virginia Plain”. This song is so awkwardly uncomfortably bad to me. The vibrato of his voice, the tempo, I don’t know what it is, but I just straight up dislike it as a song in general.) We made a special trip to my parents’ house, who had 2 VCR’s at the time and made our own copies of these two videos before returning them to Carrboro. We spent many times of the next few weeks and months watching Musikladen. This song always sticks out.

I cannot accurately tell you the myriad of things about this song and video that please me, but i can name a few. It may be the saxophonic hijinx and acrobatism of Andy MacKay, but then again, it may be his pants of extreme excitement, with codpiece of proportionate mystery. It might be the overall bewildering Riff-Raff-itude of Brian Eno. My god. How can you love someone so much but yet be so terrified of them? It seems weird to me that I didn’t like Roxy Music for a while there, when I have such a deep Eno connection with the whole U2 thing, and all.

But i think what does it for me, what REALLY does it for me is not so much the fact that i want to do Brian Ferry six ways to sunday, (i always have, and always will, no matter how old and crusty he gets,) it just has to be the reign of fire he lashes upon us with his Rockin' Piano Hands at about 5:00. Few things in life have truly seemed as cool to me. In fact, that became a kind of private joke between Rob and I, if you misbehaved, Bryan Ferry would shoot you would his ‘Rockin’ piano hands’. We would often replay this part and pretend to fall over dead from being shot.

We had some good times.



Side note, in more recent times, this song also makes me think of the first time i met Frank Black after a show (incidentally) also in Carrboro at the Cat's Cradle which, as my livejournal confirms, was Jan 30, 2001. He covered this song that night, and I remember being super-psyched to hear it. Forever coincidentally between us, this was the first time i officially met you, although neither of us can remember and it wasn't the first time we were 'together'!

(ps - did you piece together that at this show the pixies opened for U2 and the next time we were 'together' was when you opened for Frank Black? THEN we met again because of U2... how's that for fate, sucker?)

Stevie Wonder - Jungle Fever

The Great Jungle Fever Conundrum

I’m not sure when this phenomenon took place in my brain. I know the movie, which incidentally I have never seen, came out in 1991. Oddly enough, googling the song will turn up more Carlton Banks references than movie or song references.

Here is the mystery: using the right syntax and timing, you can turn any occurrence in the known universe that you wish to tell anyone about into the chorus of the song Jungle Fever. I have been singing this to myself for years. At least once a day something will happen in my universe and it turns into Jungle Fever. I finally let this musically fortuitous happenstance known to a few friends and I have been torturing them ever since with its usage. I am impervious to it's annoyance and steadfastness. Most are not. It's a total mindfuck. Like one of those "cannot be unseen" memes.

For example:

I am using blogger.
I am using blogger.
I am using blogger.
It. Is. Great.

See? Try it for yourself.

I know you can do it.
I know you can do it.
I know you can do it.
Try. It. Now.


I don’t know why this works or why once it happens even once in your brain, it sticks forever. It just does.
Cat’s out of the bag, fever’s out of the jungle, welcome to hell.