What have you done now? Silly girl, you’ve let them take your eyes.
You need glasses, but won’t go get them. Afraid of how you’ll look, or what you might lose. But you don’t realize that’s it’s too late. Everyone can see you squinting, trying to make out whether or not that’s trouble in the distance. And they can all see that it is. They can all see a boy letting go of the string on a shiny red balloon.
There was a magnet on the end of that balloon string. You let them take that too. It was holding the balloon to a pin on your lapel. It was pulling bits and pieces to you, too: screws, rings, sewing needles, guitar strings. It was holding you to the earth, and holding them to promises. No one will think they owe you anything now. And you’ll believe it.
I have mastered two awesome things today. It’s barely the afternoon and my Saturday is so productive already!
First, I managed to cut my own bangs. This is very exciting because my bangs are a giant pain in the ass because I like them long and they grow ridiculously fast. I go to the salon and get them cut and then a week later they’re stabbing me in the eyeballs again. No more! Now I can DIY them! Whee!
More importantly, I finally mastered all of the songs that I play bass on in the band. I was getting mad at myself at practice because I couldn’t wrap my head around them (to be fair, Erin writes way crazier arrangements than I do, heehee). Then, this morning, they just stuck. And I learned the proper versions too, not the “dumbed-down for people new to bass” versions I had been playing. YES. What a good day. Now maybe I will bake some cookies since I’m on such a roll. BOOM.
You know those songs that come into your life at just the right time and they’re so perfect in describing your mind or your life or your situation for the moment that you blink a couple of times and shake your head and give them another listen just to make sure they’re real? Well, one of those lovely things has come into my life recently.
One day, not long ago, I said, “I don’t know you that well. But I would like to. But that’s up to you.” And then I heard this song:
-Lisa Hannigan, “I Don’t Know”
I don’t know what you smoke or what countries you’ve been to
if you speak any other languages other than your own but I’d like to meet you
I don’t know if you drive if you love the ground beneath you
I don’t know if you write letters or panic on the phone still I’d like to call you all the same,
if you want to, I am game.
I don’t know if you can swim or if the sea has any draw for you
if you’re better in the morning or when the sun goes down I’d like to talk to you
I don’t know if you can dance if the thought ever occurred to you
if you eat what you’ve been given or push it round your plate still I’d like to cook for you all the same,
I would want to, I am game.
If you walk my way and I could keep my head we could creep away in the dark or maybe not
we could shoot it down anyway.
I don’t know if you read novels or the magazines if you love the hand that feeds you
I assume that your heart’s been bruised I know I’d like to know you
You don’t know if I can draw at all or what records I am into
if I sleep like a spoon or rarely at all or maybe you would do? maybe you would do
if I walk your way I will keep my head we will feel our way through the dark though
I don’t know you
I think that I would do
I don’t fall easy at all
There are three birds out there for you, kid – you just haven’t found them yet. They’ll make their way to you one day but in the meantime you’ve got your arm outstretched, a perch for them to land on.
The problem is that with your arm up, guard down, the rest are picking the seeds out of your pockets, taking everything you’ve got. Be careful. Save something for your three. They are your name, they are your heart, they are the ones you should be piecing yourself out to.
But instead, you turn your back to the theft – they’re stealing from you, you know – and smile at the wind on your bare skin. It will carry you away.
Hear The Smashing Pumpkins followed by the Weakerthans while out shopping in a highly appropriate location. Smile to yourself.
Go home and put on your new Reebok high tops with silver snowflakes, rhinestones and sparkles. If there’s gotta be snow, at least some of it can be flashy and on your sneakers.
Get some sweetened condensed milk. Put a little bit in your hot chocolate, but mostly just eat it out of the container. Being able to do this is one of the benefits of being an adult.
In order to break in the new sneakers, have a dance party in your living room to the new records you just bought, including “My Humps” on pink vinyl, “I’m a Slave 4 U,” and 8(!) remixes of “SexyBack.”
Pretend it’s not winter and wear the Heatherette tank top you scored for $20 at the F/X going out of business sale.
Yesterday afternoon
Blair: “I’m jealous of your life.”
Me: “You shouldn’t be. Something will go wrong soon. It always does.”
Yesterday night Me: [Feeling like I got kicked in the chest. Things have gone wrong.]
It’s funny, I thought I was being overly cynical lately. I’ve been walking around with some lyrics from a song Marc sent me in my head. They’re basically my thought process in song form.
“I’m Gonna Hate You When You Go” by SlowRunner You lie there peacefully
On the bed beside me
Your breath is soft and warm against my nose
I’m gonna hate you when you go
Your legs are twitching
I hear a ticking
The bomb in my chest is gonna blow
I’m gonna hate you when you go
I’m gonna hate you when you go
I love you now, but I’m gonna hate you
I’ll burn your pictures
I’ll build an altar
To the careless gods who let such things unfold
But that’s miles away from you and me
I love you fiercely
I lie beside you fragile and exposed
So I’m gonna hate you when you go
I’m gonna hate you when you go
I love you now, but I’m gonna hate you
This is how I think. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But why shouldn’t I be? Like I said, it always does.
Another funny thing. I started to write a song last week. It’s one of my most favourite songs I’ve written. I posted the verse in the post below. I didn’t write it with anyone in mind – it was more an general idea, a feeling, a cumulative picture of a few experiences that planted itself in my head and wouldn’t get out. Now it’s so goddamn timely it makes me want to vomit. Even though I wrote it a week ago, it’s pretty much literally about what happened yesterday. It’s a little too real for my liking now. At least I’ll have some help finishing the chorus and other verses now, I guess.
So I think this internet thing is kind of neat. OK, that is an understatement. I am an internet nerd, is more like it. If it weren’t for the internet I wouldn’t have a job.
This means that I have a lot of internet homes. Like this one. And MySpace. And iLike. And a bunch that I probably don’t remember the passwords for. And now, finally, Twitter. Why? I don’t know. So I can pour my thoughts into another URL that, like, three people will read. It’s irresistible for a compulsive Facebook status updater like me.
Oh yeah, I was supposed to write about food poisoning and politics about three posts ago. Well, here’s one of the two. Basically, I ate some food at a restaurant, felt like I was going to vomit all over the sidewalk, went home and laid down and didn’t move for two hours. Then I went to the bar! Sorry food poisoning, not even you can keep me from booze and boys.
