Blogcabin

Blogcabin

Rob: 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?

clicky

Sunday, August 21, 2005

you phil up my senses.

Have you ever come across someone in an odd place who you felt an amazing amount of connection with, if only for a second? I had a kindred moment today, and in the detergent aisle, of all places.

I was looking for my usual bottle of the brilliant and critically acclaimed Liquid Ultra Tide with Downy, and noticed as I was scanning the shelves that the song playing over the PA was Phil Collins' and Phillip Baker's Easy Lover.

I am not a Phil Collins fan. I believe the man is probably a great drummer (when he was with Genesis...but Peter Gabriel is butter...) and a passable vocalist, but the whole Miami Vice-to-Depressing-Ballad-to-Disney-Soundtrack continuum really messes with my head. I suppose you could call it versatility, but I just can't get a lock on what the heck he's trying to accomplish. That, and the fact that Billy, Don't You Lose My Number and Two Hearts annoy the living hell out of me.

Well, there I was, searching for the sweet elixir that makes my laundry smell mmm mmm good, and I realize that I am bobbing my head to the beat of this tune. Like all songs I've heard more than twice, I've got the lyrics down (jealous, Greg?), and so I began to sing along very quietly as well. I mean -- I couldn't help it. It just happened.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a tanned, gangly guy in glasses doing the same thing, way down the aisle.

He caught me looking, realized that I was breaking it down to Phil too, and blushed furiously. I felt that this was about to become an awkward moment, so I decided to take it one step further.

I grabbed a bottle of Shout Stain Stick off the shelf, and fully lip-synced this part of the song, using the stick for a pseudo- (Sussudio?) microphone:

No don’t try to change her, just leave it, leave it
You’re not the only one, ooh seeing is believing
It’s the only way
You’ll ever know, oh

She’s an easy lover (she’s a easy lover)
She’ll get a hold on you believe it (get a hold on you)
(she’s) like no other
Before you know it you’ll be on your knees (you’ll be down on your knees)

He grinned a mile wide, and did an oft-coveted move on wedding dance floors: the Sprinkler.

I responded with my patented Solid Gold shimmy.

By this time, we were both audibly singing it, and fortunately, there was no one else around. But then -- it happened.

We BOTH did the drum run that leads into one of the final chorus ad-libs. I mean, literally -- this person that I don't know air-drummed at exactly the same moment I did.

I squealed in delight. He beamed.

We went our separate ways, and it was over. But what a moment.

But for now, we’ll go on living separate lives
Yes for now, we’ll go on living separate lives
Separate lives...

3:48:57 PM build me up, buttercup... []

brain dump pt. 3, 493
Oh, Radio. How hard you make it on the instant gratification poster!

Okay, all the thoughts in my tiny head:

Babies are frickin' cute. Everyone I know is having one, had one, or is planning to. This is somewhat startling, but results in many, many gorgeous small people. Their feet alone are practically nibble-worthy, but I try and resist biting children that don't belong to me. That's a life rule -- don't bite kids who don't belong to you. Wait -- don't bite them at all. Crap. I always mess up the life rules.

Lemonade on a hot day -- a really, really hot day -- is something I had not experienced yet this summer. I drank one today, lying on a blanket in the green, green grass, reading a magazine, feet in the air, and I felt like I couldn't have asked for more of anything. Until my drink was empty. Then I was back into my existential angst.

At the park today, a young woman was leading what was obviously a theme birthday party for a bunch of little girls. She was dressed up as a fairy, complete with a pink, floaty dress and gossamer wings. All the little ones were wearing wings and garlands in their hair, and they were playing various games and making crafts while their parents beamed, waiting to serve platters of pink-iced cupcakes and bowls of berries. As I looked on with a smile from my blanket, I remembered being a little girl, too, with a cake that was made to look like the ballroom skirt of a Barbie, and drinking juice out of my mother's good china cups with a bunch of my classmates, and receiving a box of coloured pencils for a gift from a girl named Janet. Back then, all I wanted was the Gund polar bear (I named him Winston, after Winston Churchill, and as a pun on Churchill, MB, where the polar bears swim in...yes, I was esoteric then, too), sour key candies, the pale blue shimmery jelly shoes, and the surgeon outfit for my Snoopy doll. Well, not to mention a Cabbage Patch Kid. But I wasn't allowed one because my parents were repulsed at people fighting over toys when children were starving across the world. So by the time I got one of those, it was from my grandma a year or so later, and it was a CPK 'Preemie'. Sigh. Trust me to get a baby doll who needed a neonatal nurse more than a 9 year old mom!

I made myself a blindingly hot curry for dinner tonight. My eyes literally watered. I was sweating. Someone once told me that drinking hot drinks and eating hot food in hot weather was a good idea, because it makes your body temperature equalize with the air around you, and then you don't feel hot anymore. It sounded like absolute bunk at the time, mostly because I was 13 and drinking a Slurpee in a bathing suit on a 40 C day. I was not in a science and reason mood. I think I get it now, despite the fact that I still haven't ever found myself in a notable science and reason mood.. But I also drink a lot of coffee and eat spicy food all the time ANYHOW, so how will I ever know what my body temperature is supposed to be??! Oh, the sheer wonder and confusion of life! When will the mysteries end??

*begin vague rant* I have a temper. Sometimes I make inappropriate comments. Sometimes I can be overzealous in trying to make a point. Sometimes I want more attention than I am due. Sometimes I want much less attention than what I am receiving. Sometimes I get over things quickly. Sometimes I hang onto them forever. Sometimes I just can't understand. Sometimes I get it immediately. I can be impractical, unreasonable, flaky, and brazenly foolish at times. Sometimes I simply do not do what I should do. But I am not comprised of my actions alone. I am not purely my history. I have always been more than my flaws. My mistakes do not define me unless I let them define me. Sometimes I feel like the most true Meg is the one that is still fresh and pink below all these layers of sun damage and scar tissue and callus. But no one can see her. She sits there, quietly, while people marvel at the evidence of past crises and traumas on the surface. Sometimes -- actually, as often as possible -- we have to really just let people be new selves. Once they've paid for their mistakes, once consequences have been wrought, once they've acknowledged what pains in the ass they are, we have to say, "Okay. So show me what you have now." I swear, there is nothing more beautiful and redeeming and transforming as a fresh start or a second chance. Or a fifteenth. But I think I am going to have to go looking for my chances from now on, instead of hoping that someone will extend them to me. *end rant*

I should really buy some shoes that aren't flip flops. Just to own some. For fun.
Whew. There. That's a few of the random things rattling around in there. Let's see if I get to post!

1:40:02 AM build me up, buttercup... []