I think I finally understand why people are reluctant to connect with past ghosts. I’ve always been one of those saps who thrives on those type of connections — I like the idea that this person knew me when I was 15 or 19, and can remember when I got my belly button pierced or when I moved into my first college dorm or when I learned to light a match. As someone who writes, I’ve always been attracted to these details, the way memories and people tend to glow in retrospect. How exciting is the idea of first love? Mine seemed thrilling, but in between the love, it was sometimes boring, sometimes ugly, sometimes nothing. It’s never occurred to me not to be moved by these visions — my recollections have always been my personal little novel, my boy-meets-girl super mystery.
Lately, I’ve been contacted by several former ghosts and while some were welcome, others were surprisingly not. My stomach stiffened when I read their e-mails and I procrastinated on writing back. Who are these people? What do they knew about me? What do I know about them? It’s not a stale feeling, but more one of, “Oh, not now.” Instead of remembering sweetness, I kept remembering the hurt times, the times I felt left out or awkward or angry, and the things I said in arguments I didn’t mean or how I jealous I might’ve been or how overbearing they were. I wanted to say — I like the memories I have. Let’s not make new ones.
I remember on New Year’s many years ago, several hours after midnight, lying next to one of the ghosts. We had a casual romance, nothing overly passionate — we could never really hold one of those great conversations — but we had a deep mutual respect and a fantastic sexual attraction. We were in his childhood bedroom, side-by-side on the floor, surrounding by a room-full of passed-out people, whispering quietly, and I was so happy at the moment. It had been after several months of unhappiness, and it was like a flood, a lifted weight. I squeezed his arm and was warm from toes to hair. I like that memory. I don’t want to ruin it.
That’s just one example and not even included in the main people I’m referencing in this turn-away-past theme. But if ghosts are going to find me, it can either be in Christmas card form or standing on my doorstep. I don’t have energy for the in-between, the rekindling. I want them ever-present and full-bodied, no rehashing old days. They need to fit right in the life I have now. I’m through with time travel, for now.
Being 24 and prone to several die-cast decrees a day, this will, of course, change in the morning.
On the highway
above the tallest building
a ribbon of eight black birds
go home for winter
It’s as if one turned to the other
gave the slow staccato nod
and off they went
a rippling whip of common sense
People below
climb on car roofs
and latch on
cradled by competent claws
But not everyone can go
The rest of us are left behind
shielding our eyes
in a rusted hubcap sunset
We wait for the next round
just like we did
last year
Hey, I added a thingy to my pictures. It’s animated. I think this was done with a Blink tag?
Yesterday, I called Chris from my car before work because I had the great idea of starting up a ’40s jazzy cover band. He didn’t pick up, so the idea quickly died. But then during the night, I ended up at a rowdy bar, the type where the men and women come and go like moths among the $2 beer specials and the drunks and the guy yelling, “Nice jugs!” A guy with Bif hair and Elvis knees played boogie-woogie piano while people yelled and drank hard things and then the jug band played, and then I smoked a cigarette that got wet in the rain and then! And then I ordered another whiskey and I said it before anyone else could: “I’m going to regret this in the morning.” But I really didn’t. The only thing I regretted was forgetting my camera.
Also, there were tornados here yesterday. The way I plan for storms is by removing the dishwashing soap from the window sill and practicing lighting candles. I also sit on the loveseat directly in front of the window and wait for things to break.
I’m having explosion of the head, but, hey, Great Big Dreams is #1 or #3, depending on what hour you look, in Plano, Texas, so maybe it’s going to be all okay?
Sometimes I get irrationally angry at bands who are doing nothing original, but have somehow gained a certain amount of acclaim. I have an issue with the Midwest rock sound, the bland, wheaty, warm sound of a song that has no dips or changes, and glides sweetly on the same plateau. I want to run up to the band and take them by their shirt collars, screaming, “Why! Why are you doing this! Don’t you want to be different!”
Because, really, I think we live in a time where music needs to be a revolution. We’ve had enough time to be lulled and comforted. I want music that’s going to captivate me to the point where I’m frozen, drink in hand, staring. I want the goosebumps, the smiles, the raised hair, the feeling of being inspired. And when I say “original,” I don’t mean crazy or experimental. There’s just got to be something there, even if it’s familiar — something that shouts confidence and innovation. Don’t give me the same old lines with the same old riffs. Make me leave the place immediately wanting to take drum lessons. Make me want to know you. Make me buy your CD, even though I don’t buy CDs anymore.
But I do understand there’s a place for the Midwest rock. After all, historically, musicians are just people standing on a stage, wanting approval and wanting to entertain. I think there’s something to be said for even the most mediocre band climbing the stage at all. Sometimes I want to be comforted, too. Not everyone can be or has the skills to be the revolutionary. But, damn it, we live in a world of sleepers. I want the sweaty adrenaline, not the warm blanket.
My friends’ music is some kind of magic. Everyone knows someone in a band and I feel like I’m overly critical about a lot of music, but I just love all the projects my friends are involved in. You know? Any time I can sit in the front row with a beer and have a constant stupid smile on my face means something in the galaxy is clicking into the right notch.
So, I’m sitting in the coffee shop across the street and I have no idea what the hell story I was planning to tell you tonight. I barely remember writing the previous entry, which shows you how absolutely not awake I was. I remember sitting at the computer this morning, checking the time every few minutes, but not being able to comprehend what the numbers meant. I can’t tell you what was going on there. I fell asleep on the couch last night at 1:30 and then woke to Chris shaking me, but, really, in my head, it was a giant lizard with sunglasses crawling on my back.
The reason I wanted a laptop was so I could compute outside my home, but this is maybe the third time I’ve ever taken it outside. This is mostly because on any given day, I can be really sensitive to the LCD and start to develop minor vertigo, which is not so good for being in public. Today it seems under control, and, so, I present you, 100 Things About Me. I haven’t done one of these in years, and it shall be so. (EDIT: There are about sixteen hundred little kids screaming around me right now, so I think we’ll just do 50 for now.)
For reference, here’s an old page with a broken image, detailing the last time I wrote 100 things about myself (at age 22). That particular page is actually a critique of the 100 things I wrote about myself when I was 16.
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This is one of those mornings where I woke up feeling like I was in another dimension. Can that actually happen in real life? I was having some horror dream about cruiseboats, and then, alarm. I think this has to do with the still-going of my week, as in, no downtime yet, and none in the forseeable future. But I’m not complaining too much because there always could be another element added in like a kid or natural disaster or a sudden OCD fear of doorknobs.
In more interesting news, I’m writing some things here now. It’s not the best yet as I’m still learning the music writing business, but it’s a start. Tonight, I have a story for you, but first, I need to do that thing where I get in my car and then go to work.
This week has been nuts for me, and I’ve always been one of those people who claims to need a certain amount of alone time each day, lest there be brain explosion. There’s been relatively no downtime since Monday, though I did spend a good part of yesterday morning zoning out in the dining room, slowly eating a granola bar. This was after I returned from a taxidermy garage sale. Chris came home from work and found me like that, and I still couldn’t move for another eight minutes or so. My auto-pilot is so engaged that the switch is stuck and my eyes are glassy.
In reverse order, today I ate pancakes and a jar of olives at a lovely brunch-type thing at the house of someone I don’t know very well, but we have all the same friends, and it seemed only natural for me to eventually eat a jar of olives in her house. Mary drove me home, and we listened to really loud music with really loud bass with the windows down and I almost died two or three times from various car and booming bass related injuries. The night before was the Halloween, Alaska show at First Ave and, simultaneously, Matt’s birthday party which took place in several corners around the club and then later at Pizza Luce. I drank too much and woke up with the type of whiskey throat that lowers the voice six or seven octaves. And earlier in that day! Going away party at a trendy Chinese restaurant for Chris’s sister, who is studying abroad in Greece starting, well, today.
Before that! Rob Skoro and Vicious Vicious at the Varsity, and I ran around that place in a networking vertigo. It was a mixture of hiding out in the sound booth for a long time, having rock-paper-scissors tournaments with Erik and him describing his upcoming wedding and then people ushering me from group to group saying, “Have you met him? And have you met her?” and then scribbling on copy paper and a pile of green and orange glow sticks thrown on the beds and then, “But you must meet her,” and, “Why am I getting married? Well, the natural progression of things,” and then me, falling in love with Erik Appelwick (but who hasn’t in this city?) and a weak whiskey drink and then suddenly into the evening and coming home to Rick and Andrew, drunk on the lawn. What? What, indeed. And before that, school and work and cat and loving partner, and the apartment is a mess, and there are things to be written and homework to be done, and my eyes feel glued on backwards.
But it’s been fun. If I had a decent camera, there would be pictures. Soon.
I can already provide you with how my first day of school went! I shall do so in an inner monologue:
Well, here’s my bus stop. Wow, I’m 20 minutes early. I’ll just read this biography here on Harry Potter’s best friend and lifelong companion, J. Edgar Hoover.
::30 minutes later::
Where the hell is the bus?
::I call Metro Transit to confirm I’m at the right stop::
This is the place. Maybe it’s late.
::10 minutes later::
Okay, well. I must’ve missed it. The sun is really bright and I can barely see anything. I’ll just wait for the next one.
::20 minutes later::
Maybe it’s late.
::5 minutes later::
What’s that bus across the street? The one that says ‘To University of Minnesota’? Why is it across the street? Wait. WHY AM I NOT ACROSS THE STREET?!?
::much running, near misses by cars, exhaust in face as bus peels away from me::
FUCKING DAMN IT.
::punches nearest tree::
The end. I e-mailed my professor and basically said, “Hi, I’m 24 years old and I need a fucking bus buddy. Can I still be in your class even though I’ve lived in Minneapolis for 2.5 years and still don’t know where Hennepin Ave is? Love, Anonymous Moron.”
Tonight’s my first class at a new school, leg four in my epic higher education journey, which has now spanned six years. For an undergrad degree. Let’s review previous first days of school, shall we?
VCU; Richmond, VA; Fall 1999: See, I didn’t want to go to VCU. I had been accepted at this theatre school in New York and was two seconds away from moving up there when my high school boyfriend, Nick, who was also attending the school, decided he didn’t want to go there anymore. VCU was his back-up plan and, having NO SPINE OR LIFE, I decided to give up the New York dream and go to VCU instead, 20 minutes away from my hometown.
But then! A week before school started, Nick and I broke up, and this was my first heartbreak ever, so I was a horrible crazy mess. It was bad, people. My parents wanted me to defer a semester to get my head together, but no, I decided I needed to go right that minute, and I moved into my very tiny dorm room with the fervor and determination of a person whose mind has been smashed by the pain of Young Love. I’m pretty sure I showed up drunk to my first class or, if not the first day, then definitely sometime during the first week.
UMD; Duluth, MN; January 2000: So, after my first chaotic semester at VCU (surprisingly, my grades were fine, but my nervous system was somewhere near Venus), I decided I needed to get out of there and quick. Abbey, a long-time friend, was going to school in Duluth, MN, so I yelled, “Sign me up!” and left on a jetplane. There was about 300 inches of snow on the ground and my roommate was very tall and skinny and told all the girls on the floor they were fat. My computer broke the day I got there and it being basically my only connection to my friends and family at home, I freaked.
So, I spent the first day of school, carrying my huge, 20 pound tower all over the campus, searching for the tech store, completely lost. I went up elevators and through tunnels and courtyards and eventually, I started bawling and no one helped me and I thought, “DEAR GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE.” I eventually found the store, dropped off the computer and then went to class all tear-faced and exhausted. I eventually made the best friends of my life and remained at UMD until 2003, when I had a break-up fall-out similar to the Young Love of ‘99, but padded in with a true nervous system blow-out where my anxiety disorder spiraled and nearly killed my soul. But here I am! Not soul-dead!
Normandale; Fall 2004; Bloomington, MN: This was my triumphant return to school, after having failing a year at UMD and then taking off a year to rebuild my head. I went to Normandale to revive my GPA and with an attitude of, “I am here to LEARN. No one better talk to me.” My first class was a poetry class and before it, I went in the lobby and an old man was playing piano and smiley women were passing out free pizza, and I relaxed in a big chair and felt completely at ease. My two semesters at Normandale were fabulous and I did make friends, despite my declaration of independence, and I have many many stories from my time there that can’t be told now because they’re the type of stories you tell ten years later when they can be funny and insightful. Which they wouldn’t be now. Trust me.
University of Minnesota; Fall 2005; Minneapolis, MN: ?!?!? Considering I have to navigate the bus system (though I’ve had so many patient, helpful people aiding me with this) and hold a job and do my other extracurricular things I’m doing right now, I might completely collapse into a pile of “I CAN’T DO THIS.” But I have a feeling I’ll be just fine. A little mixture of growing up and realizing everything else turned out just fine, too.
I’ll keep you posted.
Back from Virginia. Like most interneters, I feel like the hurricane makes everything else seem stupid and so, I’m reluctant to write anything indulgent. I came back from visiting my family feeling focused and sharpened to things, ready to the cut the fat and stop wasting time with all these side worries and conquests. But what are those? Since the age of 20 or so, that’s been my problem — I’d like my life to be taut and efficient, but I don’t know what’s essential or what’s dragging me down. You can only clean house so many times before you feel compulsive.
. . .
AIRPORT SECURITY GUY: What are you readin’?
ME: Uh, a biography on J. Edgar Hoover, I guess.
ASG: Is he one of those Harry Potter people?
. . .
This week: the job hunt continues (I’m still employed at my old job, but I need to go full-time and there’s not money in the budget at the current place to bump me up), school begins for my 12th semester and the Minneapolis music scene will continue to seduce, baffle and madden me. I think all of this will make a good story one day, but not now.
