"Everything In Its Right Place."

August 2, 2007 1:42 AM

want to write something here that will be honest, touching, and incredibly obscure all at the same time. I want to write something that will make you understand exactly how I feel without making me seem pathetic and without giving anything away about myself. I want to write something true but made up. I want to write something that makes it so that only a few people know what I'm talking about but that everyone will be able to understand. But I can't do that. So fuck it.

My friend Mr. X called me up the other night. I went to his wedding last summer. His wedding. That was a total mind fuck. Today, Mr. Vice called me up and asked me if I could help him collect some of the stuff he and pH bought for their new apartment. They moved in together a few days ago--I helped them. Then I helped Bluebunny and RPM collect Bluebunny's belongings and move them into RPM's car. She's moving to Chicago today. He's moving down there pretty soon, too. And, although they're not moving in together right away, they probably will eventually. L-Dawg and X-Tina finally got the ring--they're officially engaged. Congratulations, guys! I called up Lauren tonight. I hadn't talked to her in a while. She was driving around with her boyfriend in his Xterra.

I'm fucking tired of being . . . alone.

This should be fun. I've got this playlist on my iTunes called "Depressing." I'm going to go through and pick out a few songs that, for emotional reasons, I can't listen to anymore. And I'll tell you the reason.

Dave Matthews Band--Crash Into Me
Yup, I can't really do this one, but perhaps for a novel reason. I associate this song with being in this girl's car. Mr. X was there. And the girl was saying that there's nothing overtly sexual about this song. And Mr. X and I were telling her that she was clearly and spectacularly wrong. In any event, I really liked that girl for a while, and that's one of the most vivid memories of her I've got. So I can't listen to this one, really.

Weezer--Butterfly
I went to college in Flagstaff. When I moved there, my parents decided that they were going to move there, too. So, if I ever wanted to go back to Nogales to visit friends or whatever, I had to stay with friends. On one occassion, I had to wait in my car while the friend I was staying with gave the above girl a ride home. I was tired and in the mood for something relatively mellow, so I kept playing this song over and over. Eventually, I started thinking that it was taking entirely too long for my friend to get back from giving the girl a ride. But he turned up and explained that he had gotten pulled over and apologized. Years later, I found out that what had actually happened is that they had spent a significant portion of the time making out. This song is essentially dead to me.

Sigur Ros--Untitled 8
Although I maintain that this is the group's best song ever, I can't listen to it. I saw these guys live once, and it was probably one of the best shows I've ever seen. While they were playing this song, my female friend and I sort of looked at each other. I don't know why--maybe I was getting some sort of contact high from the people around me or something--but that's the closest I've ever felt to another human being. And--perhaps most remarkably--I knew that she felt that way, too. But I was wrong, apparently.

Coldplay--Green Eyes
Yeah. I can't even really write about this one.

The Allman Brothers Band--Blue Sky
We were in her white Passatt. She had come up to visit and spent the night at my house, although not in my room. She put this on and told me that I was her blue sky and I was her sunny day.

U2--One
Her favorite band was U2. Before she left for a long trip, I recorded covers of a bunch of U2 songs, this being one of them.

Pearl Jam--Black
I let this girl get to me way more than she should have, given the fact that she was an almost completely worthless human being and I didn't even really know her for that long. Anyway, after it all exploded, I listened to this one nonstop. "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star, in somebody else's sky but why--why--can't it be--can't it be mine?" Pretty awesome stuff.

Ben Harper--Another Lonely Day
She gave me this CD. I was randomly listening to it while thinking about how much I hated the fact that she rejected me, when I found this song. And then I listened to it over and over again. And now I can't listen to it ever again.

Jack Johnson--It's All Understood
I think I saved the best--or at least the most strongly blocked--for last. I associate this song with perhaps the most objectively beautiful girl that I've ever had any chance of dating. I met her at one of the parties at The House. I have no idea how I found myself talking to her--she was way too pretty and I should have run straight the other way. But I did talk to her. And I asked her out. And she gave me her number, complete with her name in cursive with needlessly adorned letters. I called her, and we went on this sort of lunch date thing. It went really well, I thought. And then I fucked it all up. Unlike almost every other situation I've ever been in, what ended up happening with this girl--she essentially hated me and thought I was pathetic--was completely and totally my fault. I was nervous, insecure, and ridiculously uncool. It didn't help that I made a drunken ass of myself in front of her everytime I saw her for the next three years.

Anyway, maybe list some of your "dead" songs and why they're dead.

I'm sick of heartbreak and disappointment.

My neighbor is this woman that's pretty nice, but she's also kind of large. She lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment and, as far as I can tell, doesn't have any friends. No one ever visits her, at least, and she never seems to be gone at times when she's not working. She never seems to have good days.

That's the reason for the title of this post. Maybe where I am right now--alone--is where I'm supposed to be. Maybe this is how I'll always be.

The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe I should just accept my fate and move on.

4 Comments

butterflyfish said:

Songs that are dead to me... and therefore I enjoy listening to *very* occasionally, much the way I enjoy picking at scabs.
Fields of Gold by Sting.
Drive by the Cars.
Break your heart by Barenaked Ladies.
Stand by you by by Pretenders
Against all odds and/or Wish it would rain by Phil Collins

There are others.
Just because I'm not "alone" doesn't mean I'm not alone.

August 2, 2007 8:33 AM

sadielady said:

I had a great boyfriend in high school, until we went off to different colleges and the relationship went bad. We broke up - I initiated it. When we were breaking up, he quoted that passage from Black to me: "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star, in somebody else's sky but why--why--can't it be--can't it be mine?" He said what made him so sad was that he knew someday I'd be the star in someone else's life, and he just wished it could be his. Years late, cut to him married with kids and me completely alone - sometimes I wonder if it's not karma coming back around to bite me in the ass.

That boyfriend made mixed tapes for me a lot back in the day. He did one that was just of romantic songs that made him think about me. My favorite on that particular tape was U2 singing "All I Want Is You." Both of those songs, that one and Black, are bittersweet to me when I hear them, because it just seems to highlight the feelings of loneliness, knowing that there was once a person who felt that way about me but that there no longer is anyone like that in my life.

Another song I associate with a different guy is Guns N Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine." My first sexual experience was a pretty terrible and traumatic one, and that song was playing on the radio when it happened. Whenever I hera that song, I automatically think about that incident. It's not that the incident in and of itself bothers me anymore; it's that I hate that, 19 years later, I can still hear that song and can't help but have that memory pop back into my head.

August 2, 2007 8:45 AM

lily graypure said:

Sunday Morning, by Maroon 5. Luke and I got into a fight, he was going to a party at another women's college, refused to invite me, and then put this song up as his away message the next morning.

Black by Pearl Jam is also dead to me. For the inverse reasons of yours.

August 2, 2007 6:42 PM

Elise said:

Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" often makes me think of an abusive ex I had, although as time goes by it does so less and less (probably because it's a good song that I refuse to not enjoy just b/c of that asshole).

Also - you are not alone. I know this is cheesy, but go back and read this post and notice that you listed all of us, your friends, in the post. You are hardly your neighbor who, as you pointed out, has no friends that visit her. Anyway, Chicago is a MUCH bigger city than Madison - new fish in the sea as it were...;-) I can't wait til everyone moves down here, yourself included. It's gonna rock.

August 8, 2007 8:08 AM

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