I'm listening to: Meaghan Smith - Here Comes Your Man

"I thought I'd be okay on my own."





Outside there's a box car waiting
Outside the family store
Out by the fire breathing
Outside we wait 'til face turns blue

I know the nervous walking
I know the dirty beard hangs
Out by the box car waiting
Take me away to nowhere plains

There is a wait so long (so long, so long)
You'll never wait so long

Here comes your man
Here comes your man
Here comes your man

Here comes your man

I'm listening to: Nancy Sinatra - Sugartown

You don't wanna hurt me, but see how deep the bullet lies

Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder, there is thunder in our hearts


It's a silly time to learn to swim on the way down
If I gave you my number
Would it still be the same, if I saved you from drowning?


Deadbeat sweetheartbeat

You know you can have it if you want to
I'll find you unrelated, cultivated
When you wake up incubated in me
You're free to leave, if you knew it all along

I'll make my way across the frozen sea, beyond the blank horizon
Where I can forget you and me and get a decent night's sleep
Well here I am; don't know how to say this

Only thing I know is awkward silence
Your eyelids close when you're around me, to shut me out

Oh, when your heart's on fire, 

You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

I wake, alone, 

In a woman's room I hardly know

I wake, alone, 

Pretend that I am finally home


I need you so much closer

Oh dear, can't you see? 

It's them it's not me

We're not enemies; 

We just disagree

We all disagree, I think we should disagree, yeah

Oh, so I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies,
Smoke gets in your eyes

I saw the western coast

I saw the hospital nurse the shoreline like a wound

Reports of lovers' tryst were neither clear nor descript

We kept it safe and slow

The quiet things that no one ever knows

Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there.

And if a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine

I'm the hero of this story
Don't need to be saved

Like a Saturday night I'll be gone before you knew that I was there

'Cause I'm in 

Shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo

Shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo 

Sugartown

I'm listening to: Liz Phair - Why Can't I

Isn't this the best part of breaking up?

Finding someone else you can't get enough of



"I can't believe I'm finally about to tell you this: I love you, in every sense of the word. I thought it was just a passing feeling, but it was never gone for long and I figured I wasn't kidding anyone, much less myself. I know you're not surprised, and I'm not sure if I'm sorry that you aren't."

"Why did you finally decide to tell me? (Oh goddammit it.)"

"I don't know. It's killing me. I probably just ruined everything."

"Look, ... ..."

"Well, I like you because I see who you really are, deep down inside, and I like that part of you even for the imperfections you hide from other people. I wonder if anyone else could honestly tell you that, and you deserve someone who can, because I think you're wonderful."

"I could say the same for you, but it doesn't have to mean that... ..."

"Why ruin something that's already great as it is? I know it makes no sense, and I've thought about it a million times. But emotions don't work that way. You ought to understand better than I."

"I do, but you know how... ..."

"What is it that you've been waiting for? Instead of just telling me what you think, will you tell me how you really feel?"

"I couldn't... (I can't? Maybe I don't feel anything. For all you know, I'm secretly a robot. You'd never know.) ..."

"I shouldn't never have said anything. It's clearly pointless. (Damn you, why the hell are you making things so complicated? Thanks for reminding me I get sick of you almost as often as I think I like you.)"

" I can't imagine how many other people out there you'd be happier with. I'm just not the one for you. This conversation won't change anything between us, I promise... (See? It makes sense that if I were a robot, it'll be all too easy. No sweat.) ... I'm glad we talked it through, though."

"So am I, thanks for being so understanding. (I wonder if you really know just how sick I am of being bored. Is that why you won't even humor me? But I don't know if I'll eventually thank you for that or not. It might be tortuously horrible going out with you, and not that it'd be completely unanticipated. Fuck everything, I want to die. Screw you.)"

"(Ah. Motherfucker. Am I glad that's over.)"

I'm listening to: Alphaville - Forever Young

Let's dance in style, let's dance for a while
Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies 
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not? 

I watched Napoleon Dynamite again this afternoon (they have it on HBO Demand, can you believe it??) and never having been to a school dance, I only hope I will one day get the opportunity to dance to this song with someone cool. If I left with no choice, it'll just be on my wedding playlist or something.

Pffffffftt.

I'd meant to blog about this awhile back but kept putting it off. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that there are some pivotal events that define what's to follow; perhaps for the rest of your life. On these moments center a distillation of existential lucidity - from the height of one's emotional range, perception of individual value as well as perspectives of the world at large, and God only knows what else. Unfortunately, we often feel the full effects of its significance only in retrospect, not unlike the manner in which one regards a particularly moving dream upon awakening.

When we live in anticipation of these milestones on which much of personal time converge, there's a hell lot at stake. In paving the way for their arrival, because we can hardly count on being presently aware of their occupation of time, it is inevitable that we might inadvertently ruin the 'natural course' of events by pre-empting and additionally diverting their occurrence.

It sounds like an awfully silly thing to be bothered by, but not for (I just learnt this term) an eternalist. It's a position I can't help falling back on, despite its impracticalities. I'm embarrassed saying that. When all you're getting is older, the last thing you want is to look back on the past with acute regret. It's so hard to shake off the instinctive tendency to disengage (to some degree) with the present in view of some transcendental higher order of things which is, ironically, only available on an impossibly macrocosmic scale.

Those who claim that ignorance is bliss seem to be occupied only in the moment. Then again, who's to say that realization, purely by virtue of chronological supersedence, always offers greater truth value when the context isn't everchanging? Still, like that's a comfort.



Youth is like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever 

So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams are swinging out of the blue

We let them come true

I'm listening to: Joshua Radin - I'd Rather Be With You

I could have saved so much time for us
Had I seen the way to get to where I am today
You waited on me for so long
So now, listen to me say: 
 
I need to be bold, need to jump in the cold water
Need to grow older with a girl like you
Finally see you are naturally the one to make it so easy
When you show me the truth
Yeah, I'd rather be with you
Say you want the same thing too 

Say you feel the way I do

I'm listening to: Patty Griffin - The Long Ride Home

Old but always new. I don't think you truly know the object of your contemplation; not that I do, but you don't see how it takes on different faces.

Is this a paradox? When defined by the Other, it seems neither leaves any room for its antithetic. When you capture a moment and stow it away, 'new' and 'old' are compounded as a palimpsest within its metaphysical element. You will recall how stepping into a foreign environment felt, and later contrast it with an acquired familiarity and heavily blunted sensitivity. The first experience, as if petrified in some psychic dimension, will always intrinsically retain its newness, even as it ages along another chronological dimension. In other words, equivocating these concepts (just a little) to allow them to operate under different contexts (i.e. means to various entailing consequences) can negate the apparent paradox.

The distinctions we so painstakingly draw and fight tooth and nail to maintain don't mean as much as we'd like, or at least in the way we'd expect. How this can be observed needs no elaboration whatsoever, but the constant violation and upheaval of psychological territorial lines is both painful and unnecessary. My opinion therefore favors a healthy degree of disengagement - in every sense of the word - in the face of this ambiguity.



Ain't nothing left at all in the end of being proud
With me riding in this car, and you flying through the clouds

I've had some time to think about you
And watch the sun sink like a stone

I'm listening to: The Smiths - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Babe, tomorrow's so far away
There's something I just have to say
I don't think I can hide what I'm feelin' inside
Another day, knowin' I love you
And I, I'm getting too close again
I don't want to see it end
If I tell you tonight will you turn out the light
And walk away, knowin' I love you?

I'm gonna take you by surprise
And make you realize, Amanda
I'm gonna tell you right away,
I can't wait another day, Amanda
I'm gonna say it like a man
And make you understand, Amanda
I love you

Amanda might just melt like a grilled cheese sandwich. 

OR

If they don't share a mutual understanding and acceptance (perhaps this is getting ahead of the fragile state of affairs captured and made infinite in the song) of the way they both feel about each other, Amanda will probably bolt. 

This is tautologically true as far as I know, and it's yet another reminder of how utterly meaningless statements can be, even so. It's so awful playing on a hinge when rationalizing won't do squat - technically, his chances are always even despite everything he thinks he knows, as long as she hasn't declared her position. He doesn't seem to be doing that though, or he'd be screwed quite unnecessarily, but then he might be screwed either way.

Or, assuming Amanda is reasonably representative of the entire female species although here she's just a portrait, maybe he'd find other guys less of a pain to figure out.