Date: June 29th, 2007

June 29, 2007

Let's talk about me

A few years ago I was in Sevilla on a trip and my friend Mike brought his guitar. After several drinks and a round of sing-a-long in the hotel’s restaurant, Mike decided to play his favorite song. As a former musician, it’s the opening chords that get me. Those first few bars of music that can at times, impale my heart and suck me into the music. Mike’s favorite song was ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. When began to strum, I could feel every single fiber of my being revert back to the seventh grade. I wore baggy jeans and flannel and backwards hats. I had big boots and did I mention the flannel? I had a crush and was teased mercilessly and at the age of 12, I thought that Oasis and Greenday, spoke to me and my life as a troubled youth growing up in upper middle class suburbia. So when he started to play that particular song, all I could do was catch my breath and then heave a sigh of relief for not being ‘that’ person anymore. I wasn’t 12 anymore (I had just turned 21) and I wasn’t trapped in a middle school with people who looked at me with disdain and I found equally abhorrent. Nevertheless it was the way in which the chords literally struck a chord in me. I downloaded it when I got back to the states and every now and then, it will pop in a random iTunes shuffle – along with a myriad of songs – and I can practically feel myself headed right back to a former time and place.

Given how arbitrary this process is, I often segue through posts in my particular and patented brand of complete randomness. I use a very scientific method of closing my eyes and clicking the mouse around, if you ever wondered how posts are chosen. I can digress quite easily and am often caught saying “wait, what was I telling you about again?” So imagine my surprise and sheer joy when discovering three posts about music:

When it comes out of nowhere and the memories that it can invoke:

Misplaced music is the one you are not expecting to hear; maybe it’s that song you can’t hear ever again because it was too tightly associated with one particular person – and it suddenly attacks you in the form of bad elevator music when you least expect it, drawing the breath out of you as though you’d been punched…

How re-hearing a song will force you to fall in love again (SEE: My love with Peter and Art)

I put the CD in my car and just fell in love again with Kenny, and now I am going to proudly proclaim that you may add Kenny Rodgers to my cheesy-but-good list, along with Tom (Jones), Barry (Manilow), Neil (Diamond) and anyone else I may have forgotten but am undoubtedly on a first-name basis with.

Or how it reminds us of someone or something (SEE: I call my dad every time I hear Ton Loc’s ‘Wild Thing’ or anything by Rick James)

I hear a song and want to call my dad to play it for him. Or, I'll be listening to a band I know he knew, and I want to ask his opinion. After all, he was the major influence on my indie music tastes.

And while we’re on the subject of me (because I’m a blogger therefore inherently narcissistic) and my very arbitrary way of picking out things; imagine even more surprise when I found out that I’m not the only person who, in the past, has become so anxious and upset over work that it’s cause full on panic (!!!):

I'm an anxious person to begin with, but this job is really messing with my sanity. I go to bed worrying about the next day, I wake up very early in the morning with a pit in my stomach thinking about it and now I have a nervous muscle twitch in my stomach from it. I know I sound like a drama queen, but I would hate to feel this way for the next few years.

I’m also not the only person who has grown to loathe airports and TSA and the FAA and the guy in line in front of me who take 14 hours to count out change for a pack of gum. Though unlike Lisa, I’m probably far more likely to use my patented brand of violence and vitriol after enduring a hellish time in an airport.

I let this go because what’s the point but then tell this guy my story, including the “and your website was broken” bit and he gives me the “Ma’am”, telling me he can refund me my ticket and I can go fly with somebody else if I want. Look, bud, believe me, I would. But I can’t get anywhere. I’m in fucking New Jersey, if you didn’t notice.

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