The only anthems I care for
Music speaks, words yap
Write until the humming heat and buzz of your decrepit laptop burns your core. Use your words to warm the disparaging chill of the rose-gold Mac’s frigid touch that makes you want to slip away beneath your mattress, falling through the concave semicircle under your pillow, until you’re plummeting to the depths of earth’s mantle, falling through the rabbit hole of your silk pillowcase, waking just before you realize it was just a dream.
I write to the same songs I’ve been typing essays away to since I was fourteen. I wrote my first high school English paper to an Aphex Twin instrumental ballad. If I close my eyes, I remember where I was: my freshman dorm room I shared with Ellery (an avid pickle jar supporter <3), my computer proudly atop that wooden desk and matching chestnut chair that had been used to procrastinate just the same by past generations of fellow hoggers, our four-inch wide mattress reused year after year since the 70s (no doubt they are still in use today), the squeaky metal frame of our bunked beds, and that musty navy (??) carpet. Our room decorated with a Pittsburgh Steelers and Rosie the Riveter poster. I procrastinated and procrastinated and procrastinated the paper long after study hall, sign-in, and even after lights out, only to finally grab my cold laptop from the desk and begin the paper in bed at 10 pm…
{I will one day devote a pickle jar (if not one a plethora of posts) to my four years of boarding school @ Northfield Mount Hermon but there’s no rush for now, my best friends hail from that place…and those memz aren’t going anywhere. <3}
Recently, my Spotify preferences have stayed pretty stagnant; Spotify Wrapped is nauseatingly soon. I fear it will be an unforgiving reflection of the homeostasis I’ve maintained, apart from sproadically playing random songs to entertain the algorithm, some of which I enjoy running to:
I walk to the subway listening to (thx Gem):
If I want to be at peace it’s one of these three:
And if I need to listen to music for a while it’s this album (obviously)…
Or one of these playlists (1st one is fav for writing pickle jars):
Do you remember the first time you heard James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful…? I do. 2005. London.
The croak of James Blunt’s pitch and words promised a romantic reality in my twenties I’m still searching for…see I’ve too “smiled on the subway [when I’m not] with another man…” so it should be simple enough…“to share a moment that will last to the end?” I’m all ears for that folks. But truly, Blunt’s tune and lyrics exude a feeling I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s like looking at photos of our parents when they were young from the 80s and 90s or watching DVRs from the early 2000s. We miss something we don’t have ownership of but yearn for. We were so eager to grow up that the passage of time cheats us of a nostalgia we wish we could have known more deeply. It feels distantly familiar and familiarly distant….“life has a funny way of sneaking up on you…”
Music is real special, and as a recovering theatre kid who filled their hs extracurricular requirements with quite the assortment, including concert choir, weekly voice lessons, joining acapella, the honors chamber ensemble (class credit), and the annual musical…it’s something I miss very deeply in my adult life. Oh, to play the Grinch or Peter Pan just one more time!
A PSA for anyone going through a breakup...pls don’t use playlist names to communicate with exes because they are not paying attention…(I would never do that cuz that would be super weird…)…Sharing the below so you don’t make the same mistake…
The Playlist lineup: <help>
when I finally found a job almost 2 years ago after graduating, I signaled the win to whomever I believed to be watching with this playlist which housed only two songs: I’m sharing now cuz I think we can all laugh, right?
Music to me more than anything synthesizes the bonds of friendship from the fabric of chatter to disco and [my very bad] dance moves. And I’m thankful I was born in an era where ABBA and Fleetwood Mac exist.
“you can dance, you can [certainly] jive, having the time of your life…see that girl…watch that scene…digging the dancing queen…Friday night and the lights are low….looking out for a place to go….”
Places to feel like a dancing queen at 24 (which no one warned us is a very hard age):
A wigs and cigs party (slay Tamara)
Union Pool taco truck
Gabriela
the afters afters at Sunset Diner
Ponyboy
the walk home with your roomies from the L
Gutters
Eating Gran Torino buffalo cauliflower wings
Radio bakery (so I’ve heard)
any Williamsburg roof loft
Lastly: if you’re in the mood, give a listen to my all-time favorite 2 songs…I know you know them…
Have a great week and find some new music to listen to in this crisp (but also scarily-alternating global warming) weather.
Love to all….<3