in step, but behind.
I’m the girl who is always in step, but on the wrong beat. You know. I was in band. Maybe you were, too. Maybe you weren’t, it doesn’t matter, the metaphor isn’t that hard to get. Everyone else seems to be on 4 and I’m still on 2. I take two more steps, but they do, too. In step, but if we were playing any music at all, it would be horribly obvious that I’m behind.
For example. I didn’t buy Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes until I was a sophomore in college. My friends all had it when they were 14. The only thing I knew about Tori Amos in high school was that there was a picture of pig sucking her breast in the liner notes of Boys for Pele. I was friends with the A/V guys, who always managed to have stacks of CD’s that belonged to basically the entire senior class. (Minus me, of course.) So when I saw the Tori pig picture while hanging out with them, namely the-one-I-thought-was-hot, I pretended it didn’t completely gross me out. It did. I was only vaguely aware that those very A/V boys wanted to touch my own nipples. Like I said, I’m still on 2.
I got super excited last week when I “discovered” Beth Orton. I went to the mall to buy her CD simply because I wanted to have it in my possession while I told my friends (scratch that, my husband and a friend) about her. I would be on 4. Totally. Screw that, I’d be up to 6. (Which makes me feel like a geek, even more, since whatever band I’m in seems to be playing in 6/8 time. Jeez.) So I’m in the mall and I stop by to see my husband’s friend’s girlfriend, who works in Godiva. I mention I’m looking for (with the intent to buy) a Beth Orton CD.
“Don’t bother going to FYE,” she says, “They have a really bad selection and their CD’s are, like, $20.”
I reply. Whatever I said was obviously meaningless, as it has now totally left me.
“I actually found a rare CD at BestBuy,” she tells me, “It was Erin McKeown, this girl me and Jim listen to.”
And then, wham, I’m back at 2. I’m married. John and I do not have people we listen to together. We occasionally have music going while we’re together, but we don’t have anyone, not one person, that I can say is someone we listen to. He likes rap, for one. And this person, who I thought was a band, called mcchris, who produces what may be the most annoying music I’ve ever heard. Ever. And I listen to. What the hell do I listen to, anyway? Well, obviously I climbed onto the Tori Amos bandwagon somewhere along the way, even though I’m starting to think that out of the five CD’s of hers I own, Little Earthquakes was the only one I really needed. (And I think I left it at my sister’s house.) There’s John Mayer. And Sheila Nicholls. And Gordon Lightfoot, because he makes me think of my dad. That’s music that shakes me up. And the Mamas and the Papas. My CD collection is tiny because I can never come up with anything else I want. Because I don’t know where people hear about musicians.
Which brings me to the show. My friend and her brother, who live in Nashville and who are really into some local Nashville bands and go to local shows quite frequently, came to visit us while they had spring break earlier this week. They had found a show here in Atlanta. A band called Broken Social Scene. We go to Echo Lounge, which is much dirtier than I’d ever imagined, and I notice that I don’t feel incredibly out of place, like I do at Nashville shows, which all seem to be full of high school goth kids. And she says to me, “This crowd is a lot more interesting than the one in Nashville.” And suddenly I feel. Cool. Me. And then John comes back from parking the car, almost immediately telling me that the place weirds him out because he feels like he’s back in high school. Crap. I’m back at 2. I didn’t go to those shows with him, even though, by the way, he was “the-one-I-thought-was-hot” and am now married to. In fact, it is probably because of those things that I didn’t go with him.
So here I am, this college graduate with no job, hanging out in our apartment all day playing free games online instead of being intelligent and/or productive, getting fatter by the second, and still wishing I’d had more friends in high school. Perhaps I’m now totally out of step. Now, to be fair, I graduated college a semester early. With honors. Summa Cum Laude. And I did have at least eight friends in college. But isn’t there a saying somewhere about how you shouldn’t judge yourself on what you used to be? There should be. At any rate, I needed a break, I know, but this is ridiculous.
So why don’t John and I have music we listen to? Let’s think about this. We’re married. That’s a pretty big thing to have in common, I’d say. We’re both artistic, depressed, and overweight. We really don’t need to share that much more. We’re enough alike without sharing a playlist. That’s not to say that I don’t like his music, of course. I usually like everything he plays. And I think he likes my music. I really don’t know. At any rate, I think I’m just supposed to be at 2. I looked like the people at that show because I was like them. No one my age has it together. The past doesn’t matter anymore. I’m the graduate. Plastics and all that. I’m not planning on sleeping with an older woman, but I did get married. I’m hanging out at the pool. And yes, I like Simon and Garfunkel.
For example. I didn’t buy Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes until I was a sophomore in college. My friends all had it when they were 14. The only thing I knew about Tori Amos in high school was that there was a picture of pig sucking her breast in the liner notes of Boys for Pele. I was friends with the A/V guys, who always managed to have stacks of CD’s that belonged to basically the entire senior class. (Minus me, of course.) So when I saw the Tori pig picture while hanging out with them, namely the-one-I-thought-was-hot, I pretended it didn’t completely gross me out. It did. I was only vaguely aware that those very A/V boys wanted to touch my own nipples. Like I said, I’m still on 2.
I got super excited last week when I “discovered” Beth Orton. I went to the mall to buy her CD simply because I wanted to have it in my possession while I told my friends (scratch that, my husband and a friend) about her. I would be on 4. Totally. Screw that, I’d be up to 6. (Which makes me feel like a geek, even more, since whatever band I’m in seems to be playing in 6/8 time. Jeez.) So I’m in the mall and I stop by to see my husband’s friend’s girlfriend, who works in Godiva. I mention I’m looking for (with the intent to buy) a Beth Orton CD.
“Don’t bother going to FYE,” she says, “They have a really bad selection and their CD’s are, like, $20.”
I reply. Whatever I said was obviously meaningless, as it has now totally left me.
“I actually found a rare CD at BestBuy,” she tells me, “It was Erin McKeown, this girl me and Jim listen to.”
And then, wham, I’m back at 2. I’m married. John and I do not have people we listen to together. We occasionally have music going while we’re together, but we don’t have anyone, not one person, that I can say is someone we listen to. He likes rap, for one. And this person, who I thought was a band, called mcchris, who produces what may be the most annoying music I’ve ever heard. Ever. And I listen to. What the hell do I listen to, anyway? Well, obviously I climbed onto the Tori Amos bandwagon somewhere along the way, even though I’m starting to think that out of the five CD’s of hers I own, Little Earthquakes was the only one I really needed. (And I think I left it at my sister’s house.) There’s John Mayer. And Sheila Nicholls. And Gordon Lightfoot, because he makes me think of my dad. That’s music that shakes me up. And the Mamas and the Papas. My CD collection is tiny because I can never come up with anything else I want. Because I don’t know where people hear about musicians.
Which brings me to the show. My friend and her brother, who live in Nashville and who are really into some local Nashville bands and go to local shows quite frequently, came to visit us while they had spring break earlier this week. They had found a show here in Atlanta. A band called Broken Social Scene. We go to Echo Lounge, which is much dirtier than I’d ever imagined, and I notice that I don’t feel incredibly out of place, like I do at Nashville shows, which all seem to be full of high school goth kids. And she says to me, “This crowd is a lot more interesting than the one in Nashville.” And suddenly I feel. Cool. Me. And then John comes back from parking the car, almost immediately telling me that the place weirds him out because he feels like he’s back in high school. Crap. I’m back at 2. I didn’t go to those shows with him, even though, by the way, he was “the-one-I-thought-was-hot” and am now married to. In fact, it is probably because of those things that I didn’t go with him.
So here I am, this college graduate with no job, hanging out in our apartment all day playing free games online instead of being intelligent and/or productive, getting fatter by the second, and still wishing I’d had more friends in high school. Perhaps I’m now totally out of step. Now, to be fair, I graduated college a semester early. With honors. Summa Cum Laude. And I did have at least eight friends in college. But isn’t there a saying somewhere about how you shouldn’t judge yourself on what you used to be? There should be. At any rate, I needed a break, I know, but this is ridiculous.
So why don’t John and I have music we listen to? Let’s think about this. We’re married. That’s a pretty big thing to have in common, I’d say. We’re both artistic, depressed, and overweight. We really don’t need to share that much more. We’re enough alike without sharing a playlist. That’s not to say that I don’t like his music, of course. I usually like everything he plays. And I think he likes my music. I really don’t know. At any rate, I think I’m just supposed to be at 2. I looked like the people at that show because I was like them. No one my age has it together. The past doesn’t matter anymore. I’m the graduate. Plastics and all that. I’m not planning on sleeping with an older woman, but I did get married. I’m hanging out at the pool. And yes, I like Simon and Garfunkel.
Labels: music.
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